An Orthodox Christological Examination of Cyril's Letters: Letter 45

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Examination of Letter 45

To Succensus, Cyril writes.

For a bit of background, Succensus and his colleagues were being accused of

being followers of Apollinaris, as they had been stating there was one nature in Christ,

the only begotten. Succensus writes to Cyril asking whether or not it is proper to say

two natures in Christ, considering how they know that it is proper to say two natures

of Christ. Succensus wrote to Cyril these words:

“I and all our clerics who love Christ have judged that an examination of these

statements should be sought from your holiness… If you profess one nature like Apollinaris

about Christ and not two, that is divine and human, perhaps you teach this using the formula

‘after the union’, and affirm one nature because the mixture and confusion of the two natures

of Christ have occurred and you now consider him to be one of the two..”

Cyril, not wanting to be also accused of confessing the same heresy as

Apollinaris, who confuses the natures, writes back to them. Here St. Cyril of

Alexandria writes in Par. 2:

“But since your excellency is inquiring whether it is proper to speak of two natures in

Christ or not, I thought I ought to speak on this matter.”

Cyril had continued later in Par. 6 wanting to make his beliefs clear, and not

like those of Heretic Apollinaris, writes once more:

“Considering, therefore as I said, the manner of his Incarnation we see that his two

natures came together with each other in an indissoluble union, without blending, without

change, for his flesh is flesh and not divinity, even though his flesh became the flesh of God,

and likewise the Word also is God and not flesh, even though he made the flesh his own

according to dispensation. Therefore, whenever we have these thoughts in no way do we

harm the joining into a unity by saying that he was of two natures, but after the union we do

not separate the natures from one another, nor do we cut the one and indivisible Son into two

sons, but we say that there is one Son, and as the holy Fathers have said, that there is one

physis of the Word [of God] made flesh.”