The XII. Anathematisms of St. Cyril Against Nestorius.
(
Found in St. Cyril’s
Opera.
Migne
, Pat. Græc, Tom. LXXVII.,
Col. 119
;
and the
Concilia.)
I.
If
anyone will not confess that
the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the
Mother of God (
Θεοτόκος
),
inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is
written, “The Word was made flesh”] let him be
anathema.
Notes.
The Anathematisms of the Heretic
Nestorius Against Cyril.
(
Found best in Migne’s edition of Marius
Mercator
.)
I.
If anyone says that the Emmanuel is true God, and not
rather God with us, that is, that he has united himself to a like
nature with ours, which he assumed from the Virgin Mary, and dwelt in
it; and if anyone calls Mary the mother of God the Word, and not rather
mother of him who is Emmanuel; and if he maintains that God the Word
has changed himself into the flesh, which he only assumed in order to
make his Godhead visible, and to be found in form as a man, let him be
anathema.
Petavius.
245
(
De Incarnatione
, Lib. vj. cap.
xvij.)
In this anathematism certain words are found in the
Greek copy of Dionysius which are lacking in the ordinary copies, viz.
“according as it is written, ‘And the Word was made
flesh’;” unless forsooth Dionysius supplied them of his own
authority. For in the Lateran Synod in the time of Martin I. this
anathematism was quoted without the appended words.
This anathematism breaks to pieces the chief strength of
the Nestorian impiety. For it sets forth two facts. The one
that the Emmanuel, that is he who was born of a woman and dwelt with
us, is God: the other, that Mary who bare such an one is Mother
of God. That Christ is God is clearly proved from the Nicene
Creed, and he shews that the same that was in the beginning the Son of
God, afterwards took flesh and was born of Mary, without any change or
confusion of natures.
St. Cyril explains that by
σαρκικῶς
,
carnaliter
, he meant nothing else than
κατα
σάρκα
,
secundum carnem
,
“according to the flesh.” And it was necessary to use
this expression to overthrow the perfidy of Nestorius; so that we may
understand that the most holy Virgin was the parent not of a simple and
bare man, but of God the Word, not in that he was God, but in that he
had taken flesh. For God the Father was the parent of the same
Son
θεϊκῶς
246
(divinely) as his mother was
σαρκικῶς
(after
the flesh). And the word (
σαρκικῶς
) in no
degree lessens the dignity of his begetting and bringing forth; for it
shews that his flesh was not simulated or shadowed forth; but true and
like to ours. Amphilochius distinctly uses the word, saying
“Except he had been born carnally (
σαρκικῶς
),
never wouldest thou have been born spiritually (
πνευματικῶς
).” Cf. St. Gregory Nazianzen (
Orat.
51).
Theodoret misunderstood St. Cyril to teach in this first
anathematism that the Word was changed into the flesh he assumed.
But Cyril rightly treated this whole accusation as a foolish
calumny.
245
Petavius gives a
scholion on every anathematism and a résumé of the
Orientals’ objections and of Theodoret’s criticisms, with
answers.
246
This is a late form
of
θείως
, but used only in its
secondary sense.