(Following is the confession of faith by venerable Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria as recorded in the Acts of Second Council of Ephesus held in 449 AD convoked by Emperor Theodosius II under the presidency of Pope Dioscorus I of Alexandria (died ca 454 AD) which was later nullified and termed "Robber Synod" by Pope Leo I of Rome and Chalcedonian faction)
We confess our Lord Jesus is perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and body subsisting: Who, as to His divinity, was begotten of the Father before the worlds; but, in the latter times, the same was, as regards His humanity, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin Mary, consubstantial with the Father as to His divinity, and consubstantial with us as to His humanity. For, a union took place of the two natures. For this reason we acknowledge one Christ, One Son, One Lord; for, we do not dissolve the union, but we believe the union was made without confusion, being assured by the Lord, Who said to the Jews: "destroy this temple and the third day I will raise it up again." But, if commixture had taken place, and confusion, and one nature formed out of those two, then it had been fitting and proper for him to have said: "dissolve Me, and the third day I will rise again."
But now, in order to show that the one is God by nature and that the other is the temple, and that the two constitute one Christ, He said: "dissolve this temple, and the third day I will raise it up again; clearly indicating that it is not God, but the temple that was subject to dissolution, and that the nature of the one was compatible with dissolution; but, as to the other, His power that raised up what was dissoluble. So, we confess Christ to be God and man, following the divine scriptures. For, that our Lord Jesus Christ is God, the blessed evangelist St. John proclaims: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All was made by Him, and without Him was not anything made." (John 1:1-3) And again: "He is the true light, enlightening every man that cometh into the world.” (John 1:9) But the Lord Himself manifestly teaches this, when He says: "Whosoever sees Me, sees My Father" (John 14:9) and: "I and My Father are one;" (John 10:30) and "I am in the Father and the Father is in Me." (John 14:11) And the blessed Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews, said: "Who is the brightness of His glory and the image of His being, and Who upholds all things by the power of His Word." (Hebrews 1:3) And in that to the Philippians: "Let this mind be in you which was, also, that of Jesus Christ Who, although He was the form of God, yet He did not think it robbery to be the count part of God ; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant." (Philippians 2:5-7) And, in that to the Romans, he said: "Whose are the fathers, of whom according to the flesh, is Christ, Who is over all, the blessed God." (Romans 9:5) Also, in that to Titus: "Hoping for the announcement of the blessed revelation of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." (Titus 2:13) Isaiah, too, exclaims: "A child is born to us and a son is given to us, He Whose power is upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called the messenger of the great covenant, the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the powerful one, the prince of peace, the Father of the future world." (Isaiah 9:6) And elsewhere he said: "After Thee shall they walk they who are bound with chains: and unto Thee shall they pray, because God is in Thee and there is no God beside Thee; for, Thou art truly God and we knew it not, God the Redeemer of Israel." (Isaiah 45:14) But the name of Immanuel signifies God and man; for, it is explained, according to the doctrine of the gospel, as "God with us" that is, God in man, God in our nature.
Also, Jeremiah, the divine prophet, proclaims it, when he says: "He is our God, and no others are to be regarded in comparison with Him. He hath discovered all the way of knowledge and hath delivered it to Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterwards was He seen upon the earth and held converse with the sons of men." (Baruch 3:35-37)
And thousands of other expressions any one may cull from the divine evangelists, and from the writings of the apostles, arid from the prophecies of the prophets, proving that our Lord Jesus is very God. But that He is, also, named man after the incarnation, the Lord Himself teaches, when discoursing with the Jews, and exclaiming " why do ye want to kill me a man who hath spoken to you true things?" (John 7:19) And the blessed Paul, in the first letter to the Corinthians, teaches it, when he says: "Since through man came death, through man also came the resurrection of the dead." (1 Corinthians 15:21) And, in showing concerning whom he is speaking, he explains what has been spoken, after this manner: "As in Adam all men are dead, so in Christ all of them live." (1 Corinthians 15:22) In writing to Timothy, also, he said: "There is only one God, one mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 2:5) In the Acts of the Apostles, also, when he is addressing the Athenians, Paul says: "God, then, having overlooked the times of ignorance, now commands us all, in every quarter, to repent, since He has appointed a time when He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath appointed, affording good faith thereof to all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead." (Acts 17:30-31) The blessed Peter, too, in preaching to the Jews, said: "Men of Israel! Hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man that appeared from GOD among you by signs, 'and wonders, and powers which GOD wrought by Him." (Acts 2:22)
And the Prophet Isaiah, predicting the sufferings of Christ, Whom a little before he had named God Him he calls a man, thus speaking: "A man who is one of stripe and knows how to bear sickness, who bears our sins and hath suffered for our sakes." (Isaiah 53)
But many other similar expressions to these testimonies I should continue to cull from the divine writings, and insert in this letter, were I not persuaded of your piety, that your mode of life in this world consists in meditation on the divine scriptures, like the man who, by the Psalmist, is designated blessed.
Leaving, then, to your industry the collecting of the proofs, I pass on to my subject.
We confess our Lord Jesus Christ to be very God and very man, not dividing the one Christ into two persons, but we believe that the two natures are united without confusion.
By that means are we easily able to refute the many vain blasphemies of the heretics; for, manifold and varied is the error of those who have opposed the Truth, as we, also, forthwith show. For, Marcion, and Valentinus, and Manes deny that God the Word took the nature of manhood; nor do they believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin, but that God the Word was born in the manner of the semblance of man and appeared as man in fantasy rather than in reality. But Sabellius, the Libyan, and Photinus, and Marcellus of Galatia, and Paul of Samosata, affirm that a mere man was born of the virgin, since they evidently deny that Christ is, also, God before the worlds. Arius and Eunomius, likewise, contend that God the Word took body only from the virgin, but Apollinarius, also, adds to the body an irrational soul, just as if the Incarnation of God the Word took place for beings destitute, rather than for those possessed, of reason; but the doctrine of the Apostle teaches us that perfect man was assumed by perfect God. For, this sentence reveals it "He who is the form of God assumed the form of a servant," because form is here substituted for nature and essence. That sentence indicates, then, that, whilst he had the nature of God, He took the nature of a servant. Therefore, when speaking of the prime inventors of impiety Marcion, and Manes, and Valentinus we are anxious to prove, from the divine scriptures, that our Lord Jesus Christ is not only God, but man also. On the other hand, when we would refute the impiety of Sabellius, and Marcellus, and Photinus, and of Paul, should we not have recourse to the testimony of the scriptures to show that our Lord Christ is not man only, but God before the worlds and consubstantial with the Father.
As regards, again, the doctrine of Arius, and Eunomius, and Apollinarius on the subject of the Incarnation, we prove it to the uninitiated to be imperfect, by showing, by the words of the Holy Ghost, that a perfect nature was assumed by the Word. For, that He took a reasonable soul our Lord Himself teaches, where He says: "Now is my soul troubled!" (John 12:27) and in what He said:" O, my Father! Deliver me from this hour, but to this hour have I come for this.” (John 12:27) And in another, “My soul is sorrowful, even unto death" (Matthew 26:38) and in another place: "I have the power of laying down my soul, and I have the power of taking it again. No man taketh it away from me." (John 10:18) The angel, too, said to Joseph: "Take the lad and his mother and go into the land of Israel; for, they are dead who sought the soul of the lad." (Matthew 2:13) And the evangelist, likewise, said: "And Jesus continued to increase in stature and wisdom and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52) Now, that did not increase in stature and wisdom which is perfect at all times, but that human nature which took being in time, and increased, and came to perfection. And, therefore, all those properties of humanity in reality appertain to our Lord Jesus Christ I mean hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and sleep, and sweating, and prayer, and want of knowledge, and fear, and all similar things, things such as we speak of as specially pertaining to ourselves, to which, on God the Word accepting them, He appropriated to Himself, when purchasing our redemption; but the giving ability to the lame to walk again, the raising of the dead, and the multiplication of bread, and the changing water into wine, and all those other wonderful works we believe to be works proper to the power of God, so that this same Christ our Lord could, I affirm, suffer and dissolve sufferings: He could, in truth, suffer, and in that which was visible to us: and He could in truth dissolve these sufferings by that divinity, Which, in a manner ineffable, dwelt in Him.
Now, this, also, the narrative of the Holy Evangelists distinctly declares: for, we learn from them that, when He was laid in the crib, whilst confined in swaddling clothes, by the star He was announced, by the magi worshipped, and glorified by the angels. It is with reason that we make a distinction: His being the Infant, and the swaddling clothes, and the meanness of the bed, and all the poverty these we have as things proper to His humanity: whilst the journeying of the magi, and the guidance of the star, and the choir of the angels proclaim the divinity of Him, "who hideth Himself."
In the same way He flees into Egypt, and, by the flight, escapes the wrath of Herod; for, He was man. But it was as God that He shakes the idols of Egypt; for, He was God.
Being circumcised he observes the Law, and offers the sacrifices of purification; for, from the root of Jesse did He spring, and He was under the Law as man; but, afterwards dissolved the Law and gave the new covenant: for, He was the law-maker, and, by His prophets, had promised to give the Law.
He was baptized by John, and that argues His being one of us. But He was testified to, from above, by the Father, and was manifested by the Holy Spirit and that proclaims Him to be before the worlds. He hungered, but He also satisfied many thousands with five loaves of bread this is a property of divinity and that of humanity. He thirsted and asked for water, but He was the fountain of life. The one, indeed, appertained to human infirmity, but the other to divine power. He slept in the ship, but He also quelled the storm of the sea that belonged to a suffering nature, but this to a creative and formative power that bestowed upon every man his existence. He was wearied with exertion in walking, but He, also, caused the lame to be swift of foot, and He raised the dead from the grave; this is, indeed, a power above the worlds, but that is proper to our infirmity. He feared death, but he abolished death, the one was an indication of mortality; the other of immortality, besides being an indication that He gives life. "He was crucified," but according to the doctrine of the blessed Paul, "through weakness, but He lives by the power of God." (2 Corinthians 13:4) That term "weakness" should teach us that not He, Who is Omnipotent, and Incomprehensible, and Invariable, and Immutable, was affixed to the cross by nails, but that nature which, by the power of God, took being in life, according to the doctrine of His apostle. He died and was buried, two characteristics these of the form of a servant. "The gates of brass He crushed into pieces, and broke the bars of iron," and overthrew the empire of death, and, on the third day, caused the temple to rise again, these are proofs of the form of God, according to the teaching of our Lord when He said: "destroy this temple, and the third day I will raise it up again." (John 2:19) Thus in Christ, by means of the passion, we perceive, indeed, humanity; but, by means of his wonderful works, we descry His divinity, not that we divide the two natures into two Christs; but we discern the two natures to exist in one Christ, and are persuaded, as well, that God the Word was begotten of the Father, as that He, who is our beginning, is derived from Abraham and David. For this reason, also, it is that the blessed Paul said, in discoursing about Abraham: "He said not of Thy seeds, as of many, but as of one, and of Thy seed which is Christ." (Galatians 3:16) And, in writing to Timothy, he said: "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, rose from the dead, according to my gospel." (2 Timothy 2:8) And, in writing to the Romans, he said: "concerning His Son, Who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh." (Romans 1:3) And again: "whose are the fathers, of whom is the Christ according to the flesh." (Romans 9:5) And the evangelist says: "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham." (Matthew 1:1) And the blessed Peter, in the Acts: "A prophet truly was David; and, knowing that God had sworn to him with oaths that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ and cause Him to sit upon His throne, he foresaw and spoke concerning His resurrection." (Acts 2:30-31)
And God spoke to Abraham: "In thy seed, indeed, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 22:18) And Isaiah says: "There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a stump shall grow up out of his root, and the spirit of God shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. The spirit of godly fear shall fill him." (Isaiah 11:1-2) And a little after: "There shall arise a root of Jesse, and He that shall stand for a head to the Gentiles and in Him shall the Gentiles hope; and His rest shall be glorious." (Isaiah 11:10)
It is, therefore, evident from what has now been said that Christ, according to the flesh, is the son of Adam and David, and that He is clothed with their nature; but that, by reason of His divinity, He existed before the worlds, as the Son of God and the Word, Who was, in a manner ineffable and beyond human ken, born of the Father, and is coeternal with Him, as His brightness, as His image, and as His Word. For, as word is united with mind and brightness with light, from which it cannot be separated, so is the only-begotten Son, also, united with His Father.
We, therefore, affirm of our Lord Jesus Christ that He is the only-begotten of God, and the first begotten, the only-begotten, assuredly, before the incarnation and after the incarnation; but the first begotten after being born of the virgin. For, to the only-begotten the first-born seems to be the contradistinction, because the only-begotten is so named who alone is born of any substance, and the first-born is He who is the first of many brethren. Now, as regards God the Word, who alone was born of the Father, the holy scriptures teach that the only-begotten became, also, the first-born when He took our nature of the virgin and deemed them worthy of being called His brethren who believed in Him, so that the same person could be in reality the only-begotten in that He was God, and the firstborn in that He was man.
It is thus, that we, confessing the two natures, worship the one Christ and offer up the one worship to Him; for, we believe that the union of the two natures was effected, by the conception Itself, in the womb of the blessed virgin: and, therefore, we speak of the holy virgin, as being both mother of God and mother of man; for which reason, also, our Lord Jesus Christ is called, by the divine scriptures, God and man: but does not Immanuel, in this way, proclaim the union of the two natures?
If, then, we designate Christ God and man, who is so stupid as to cry out against the term "mother of man" when put in juxtaposition with that of "mother of God?" For, if we assign two names to our Lord Jesus Christ, on whose account the virgin is honored and is called blessed among women, what person is there, of a proper state of mind: who would refuse to call the virgin by the appellatives of our redeemer, seeing that it is on His account that she is honored by believers? For, not He, Who was born of her, is, for her sake, worshipped; but she, on account of Him Who is of her, is exalted by most lofty appellations.
If, however, Christ is God only and received from the virgin a beginning of His essence, from that circumstance the virgin should be named and called the mother of God only, since in that case she brought forth God only. But, if Christ is both God and man and He was indeed ever that; for, He had no beginning, since He is coeternal with His Father, whilst the other (man), in the last days, He took from human nature - a person, who would teach from these two, must weave appellatives for the virgin, indicating which is proper and appropriate to the Nature, and which to the union of the two natures. If, however, any person is desirous of giving utterance to panegyrics, and of spinning out encomial sentences, and pronouncing orations of praise, and wants only to make use of magniloquent terms, not in disputation, as we said, but in panegyrizing, let him, astonished, as is possible, at the magnitude of the Mystery, call her whatever he likes, let him use the very highest, let him praise, let him wonder. For, many expressions, similar to these, have I found in orthodox doctors. Everywhere, however, let moderation be preferred; for, I highly regard the man who asserts moderation to be best, and that, although he may not be of our flock.
This is the confession of the church's faith. This is the doctrine of the faith of the gospel and apostles. For this we refuse not three times and many times, by the aid of the grace of God, to die. These things we have been ready to teach even to those who are now in error and frequently have we challenged them to discussion, being anxious to show them the truth, but they have not consented; for, fearing their evident refutation, they have refused the contest. For, truly weak is error, and it is conjoined with darkness, as it is said that: "Everyone that doeth evil cometh not to the light, lest his deeds should be made manifest by the light." (John 3:20)
