In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
My beloved, welcome now to the second part of the third lecture of our deep dive into the understanding of the Eucharist through the mind of our father among the saints, St. Cyril of Alexandria. If you paid attention to the beginning of lecture... the first part of lecture 3, we spoke about St. Cyril's Christology and the reason why we had to ask the question Who does St. Cyril believe Jesus Christ is? is because he ties in intimately who the Lord Jesus Christ is in the flesh, so his Christological theology directly ties in to his Eucharistic theology.
So now that we understood who Jesus Christ is in the mindset of St. Cyril, today we'll be able to understand how it is that he believes that the body of the Lord Jesus is the very body of the Word incarnate. And so, every attribute of the Word incarnate is also found in His body. Let's go ahead and see how this ties in to our conversation.
We continue to see St. Cyril arguing and saying what? You have to believe that this is truly the body of the Word of God incarnate that He chose for Himself and made it His. So, in believing this, he says: Of course, you're going to call the Θεοτόκος (Theotokos) the Mother of God; you don't have to call her just the Mother of Christ. And you have to remember: the heresy of Nestorius is argued at the level of him saying: We cannot call St. Mary the Mother of God, because she did not give birth to divinity. We can call her the Χριστοτόκος (Christotokos), not the Theotokos. The Christotokos here meaning what? That she is the Mother of Christ, the one who was chosen, the anointed one, but you cannot call her the Mother of God. And Nestorius says: because it is foolish to think that, you know, God could be limited to a small womb of a teenage woman, that God could not be in the form of a helpless little child, that the divinity needed to be nursed at the level of a mother who wanted to feed her child. He couldn't understand the mystery and the beauty of the incarnation, so he said: No, she gave birth to this man, Jesus, and then later on the divinity did the work within that man. But St. Cyril argues and says this is not the case. So he says the following. He says:
''The Holy Virgin alone in contrast with them... [and here he's comparing her to all other mothers, all other mothers who gave birth to regular human beings] - [says:] ''The Holy Virgin alone in contrast with them is considered and called both Mother of Christ and Mother of God. For she has borne, not a mere man as we are, but rather [she has borne] the Word of God the Father made flesh, and become man.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
When the Holy Spirit came down upon the Holy Virgin Mary, the conception within her womb was that of the person of the Word of God who condescended and was willing to dwell within her womb for our sakes. And so it really was the Word of God the Father made flesh who became a human being for our sakes that she gave birth to. She did not give birth to a mere man and then later He became Jesus Christ. No! This was truly the Word of God who was found in her womb. And why does St. Cyril argue this and why is it important for our conversation? Because it is important to understand to what extent the Lord made His incarnational body; this body became His; He united it with Himself and so it participates in all that He is. And so, because now, it is His, it has all the attributes of Him who is the Word of God the Father.
St. Cyril, he continues to have this conversation and he says: You have to understand: we cannot speak of the Lord as separate; we cannot speak of Him as divided; He is one. And when he speaks of the unity that is found within the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, he has no problem saying that truly, He is divine and He is human. We see both of those natures. But in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the person of the Lord Jesus is one. This is extremely important. He says:
''And if someone wished to say that the mother of someone is the mother of a body but not the one who brought a soul into the world, he is thinking extremely foolishly.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
He is arguing here and saying what? He is saying that the argument that some people were making with the heresy of Nestorius is that she only gave birth to the body; the divinity came later. So St. Cyril is saying: Do we say that about mothers today? Do we say that mothers only give birth to flesh and bone, but God adds the soul later? No! Because that soul and that being within the body of the mother is one at the moment of conception. The soul is granted at the moment of conception. Mothers today are not mothers of just cells and flesh and blood, no! They are the mothers of persons and that person is psychosomatic, soul and body: υστή (psyhí), which is soul, and σώμα (sóma), which is body. And the human being is the union of both of those things. And so, it would be foolish for us to think like the Nestorians did, who believed that, somehow, she was only the mother of the body but later the divinity kicked in afterwards. No! And so St. Cyril is saying here what?
''For a living being is born, as I said, skilfully composed of unlike principles, from two, in deed, but one man results [from two: the soul and the body, and in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, from two: the divine and the human], each principle remaining that which it is, both brought together as if into one natural unity and so joined with each other that each communicates to the other what is proper to itself.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
Within the Lord Jesus Christ, we have divinity, we have humanity, but they cannot be separated; they cannot be separated. And so this is what we say in the confession, every
liturgy, don't we? Without mingling, without confusion, without alteration, that is our belief. We also say that His divinity parted not from His humanity for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye. His divinity and His humanity were always one. This is the teachings of St. Cyril of Alexandria. This is the teachings of his Christology against the heresy of Nestorius. And you're going to see how important it is to understand the Christology so we can understand the Eucharistic theology.
So St. Cyril continues to say that there is one Christ and Lord Jesus. He says:
''But rather, bringing together into unity the Word begotten of God and the man perfectly born of the Holy Virgin, we will adore one Christ and Lord, Jesus,...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
We don't adore only His divinity and we neglect His humanity and say that belonged to someone else that He just used. His humanity wasn't just a tool that He borrowed from another human being. No! We adore the one Lord Jesus Christ who was begotten of the Father, who was incarnate for our salvation. He became a human being and He made that body His in a mystical unity.
''...neither placing him outside the bounds of divinity because of his flesh, nor bringing him down into mere humanity because of his likeness to us.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
He is consubstantial with the Father and consubstantial with humanity. So the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to you and me through this mystical union of His humanity and His divinity. So St. Cyril says the following:
''Accordingly, the Word of God assumed descent from Abraham and ''has blood and flesh in common'' by having made his own the body born from a woman, in order that, being only God but having become man as well, he might be known among us by [his] union...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
By uniting Himself to this flesh that was ours, by taking on what was ours, He reveals himself to us. Through the mystery of the incarnation, He is capable of revealing Himself to us by reconciling us back to God.
''[And] accordingly, the Emmanuel [he says] is admittedly of two entities [He is of two natures], of divinity and humanity. There is, however, one Lord Jesus Christ and one Son truly, God and man at the same time.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
We will never disagree that the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect human; that within Him, there are two natures: divinity and humanity. But there is one Lord Jesus Christ, inseparable at all times, which means that when we behold the body of the Lord Jesus Christ
prepared before us at the Eucharistic altar, we are not only looking at a body that is empty; we are not only looking at a vessel; we're not only looking at what He took on as if it were something just like a coat that He put on and then He took it off. No! What we are seeing is the very body that was united to His divinity; it is the body of the one Lord Jesus Christ and Son of God.
So, my beloved, what we are seeing here... what we are seeing here is that St. Cyril is arguing that His body is the very body of the Word of God. And so, if we believe that that is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, then we will understand that the powers that we see within the person of the Lord Jesus Christ are also found within His body. St. Cyril continues and says what?
''Now this is already evident, since the fact of the union, necessarily admitted, proves that the very Son of God is Emmanuel who was born of the Holy Virgin. For his body was not that of someone else like us, but rather the body born from her is the very body of the Word himself who is from the Father.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1)
Now, I want us to understand what this means. What this means is that we should be teaching our children that when they participate in the body and the blood, that Eucharistic offering, that mystery of mysteries, who is it that they are receiving? They are receiving the Word of God Eternal from the Father. The Word of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, is present on that altar. Truly, is it Emmanuel, God with us. And so it is the very Lord, the Creator of the universe, the wisdom of the Father, the Word of God incarnate; it is Him who is present and is given to us. That same Lord Jesus Christ who raised Lazarus from the dead is present. That same Lord Jesus Christ who gave sight to the blind man is present. That same Lord Jesus Christ who rose from the dead and conquered death by His death is present. It is very much Him. It is not theatre; it is not symbolism; it is Him who is present. This is the mystery of the Eucharist in the mind of St. Cyril.
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