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The unity of Christ in Cyril of Alexandria's Festal Letters
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2023
Abstract
Cyril of Alexandria's Festal Letters are an underutilised source of his theology. Through them one can trace the development of his thought throughout the tumultuous years of his episcopacy. In this article, I draw attention to Cyril's ‘unitive’ Christology and the way he explains the incarnation to those under his pastoral care. Cyril employs key strategies informed by strong theological convictions to describe Christ as one subject who is fully divine and human.
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1 Christopher Beeley observes the widespread belief that ‘the construction of the post-Chalcedonian Christology from the fifth to the eighth centuries consists largely in the reinterpretation of Chalcedon in light of Cyril's mature thought’. See his ‘Cyril of Alexandria and Gregory Nazianzen: Tradition and Complexity in Patristic Christology’, in Journal of Early Christian Studies 17/3 (2009), pp. 381–2.
2 Some of the more recent studies include Meunier, Bernard, Le Christ de Cyrille D'Alexandrie L'humanité, le salut et la question monophysite (Paris: Beauchesne, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McKinion, Steve, Words, Imagery, and the Mystery of Christ: A Reconstruction of Cyril of Alexandria's Christology (Leiden: Brill, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McGuckin, John, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Wessel, Susan, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and a Heretic (Oxford: OUP, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loon, Hans Van, The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria (Leiden: Brill, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gray, Patrick, Claiming the Mantle of Cyril: Cyril of Alexandria and the Road to Chalcedon (Leuven: Peeters, 2021)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Some of the more influential works written after 428 include Adversus Nestorii blasphemias (430), De recta fide (430), Twelve Anathemas Against Nestorius (430–431), Scholia de incarnatione Unigeniti (431), Contra Diodorum et Teodorum (438), Quod unus sit Christus (438 or later).
4 On Cyril's biblical exegesis, see especially two recent monographs: Crawford, Matthew, Cyril of Alexandria's Trinitarian Theology of Scripture (Oxford: OUP, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ondrey, Hauna, The Minor Prophets as Christian Scripture in the Commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria (Oxford: OUP, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 This is not to suggest a complete dearth of scholarship on the Festal Letters. See the two recent studies by Loon, Hans van, Living in the Light of Christ: Mystagogy in Cyril of Alexandria's Festal Letters (Leuven: Peeters, 2017)Google Scholar; and Loon, Hans van, ‘Prayer and Fasting in Cyril of Alexandria's Festal Letters’, in van Loon, H., de Nie, G., de Coul, Op, van Egmond, P. (eds), Prayer and the Transformation of the Self in Early Christian Mystagogy (Leuven: Peeters, 2018), pp. 209–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Morgan, Jonathan, ‘The Role of Asceticism in Deification in Cyril of Alexandria's Festal Letters’, in Downside Review 135/3 (2017), pp. 144–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Vinzent, M., ‘Halbe Heiden – Doppelte Christen: Die Festbriefe Kyrills von Alexandrien und die Datierung seines Werkes Contra Iulianum’, in Dörfler-Dierken, Angelika, Kinzig, Wolfram, und Vinzent, Markus (eds), Christen und Nichtchristen in Spätantike: Beginn und Ende des Konstantinischen Zeitalters: internationales Kolloquium aus Anlass des 65. Geburtstags von Professor Dr. Adolf Martin Ritter (Mandelbachtal: Edition Cicero, 2001), pp. 41–60Google Scholar. The general neglect of Cyril's Festal Letters seems to correlate with a general lack of interest in Cyril's role as a pastor, bishop and administrator. An exception is the important study by McGuckin, John, ‘Cyril of Alexandria: Bishop and Pastor’, in Weinandy, Thomas and Keating, Daniel (eds), The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria (London: T&T Clark, 2003), pp. 205–36Google Scholar.
6 See the introduction by Pierre Évieux where he provides a history of the Alexandrian bishops who composed festal letters, the basic contents of the letters, and extant fragments in Cyrille d'Alexandrie: Lettres Festales I–VI, vol. 372 of Sources Chrétiennes [hereafter SC], trans. Louis Arragon, Marie-Odile Boulnois, Pierre Évieux, Marguerite Forrat, and Bernard Meunier (Paris: Cerf, 1991), pp. 94–112. All references to the Festal Letters are to the critical edition found in Cyrille d'Alexandrie: Lettres Festales VII–XI, trans. Louis Arragon, Pierre Évieux, and Robert Monier, SC 392 (Paris: Cert, 1993), and Cyrille d'Alexandrie: Lettres Festales XII–XVII, trans. Marie-Odile Boulnois and Bernard Meunier, SC 434 (Paris: Cerf, 1998). While no critical edition of letters 18–30 currently exists, the Greek text is found in Migne's Patrologia Graeca [hereafter PG] 77.809–981. The English translation of the entire collection of the letters is found in St. Cyril of Alexandria: Festal Letters 1–12, vol. 118 of The Fathers of the Church [hereafter FC], ed. John O'Keefe, trans. Philip Amidon, S.J. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009); and St. Cyril of Alexandria: Festal Letters 13–30, ed. John O'Keefe, trans. Philip Amidon, S.J., FC 127 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013). These English translations will hereafter be abbreviated FL.
7 The festal letters of Athanasius exemplify the scope and purpose of the letters by the fourth century.
8 Unfortunately, on some occasions in these letters Cyril's penchant for fierce polemics and harsh invectives come to the fore, especially against the Jews. His sixth festal letter is a particularly stark example.
9 Though the word hypostasis is generally understood to mean ‘person’ in trinitarian theology, throughout the Festal Letters Cyril only employs it when quoting or alluding to Heb 1:3. He does not use it in reference to the Son's personhood. I use the word ‘person’ in this paper because it communicates to a contemporary reader something along the lines of what Cyril meant, even though he, like all ancient authors, did not use the term to indicate a modern notion of person. McGuckin observes that Cyril often uses hypostasis to ‘describe the manner of the union in Christ’. See his excellent analysis of the meaning and use of hypostasis and similar Greek terms used by Cyril and other fifth century thinkers in Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pp. 138–45.
10 FL 1.2 (SC 372.152). Cyril is quoting Gen 18:27 and Isa 53:8, respectively.
11 FL 12.3 (SC 434.52). Cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Orations 23.
12 FL 10 (SC 392.192). Cf. 8.5 (SC 392.100).
13 FL 18.4 (PG 77.813).
14 Cyril was not aware of the distinct nuances of Antiochene Christology until 433. See Gray, Claiming the Mantle of Cyril, pp. 37, 125–44.
15 FL 8.4–5 (SC 392.92–6).
16 Ibid., 96.
17 FL 8.6, (trans. FC 112.151; SC 392.104).
18 FL 8.5. (SC 392.98).
19 Cf. FL 17.3 where Cyril observes that we recognise ‘with good reason that divinity and humanity are incomparable with one another in unity’ (SC 434.282). On the ways Cyril addresses the distinction and unity of Christ's divine and human natures in his Christology, see Ruth Siddals, ‘Oneness and Difference in the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria’, in Elizabeth Livingstone (ed), Studia Patristica (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1985), pp. 207–11; Thomas Weinandy, ‘Cyril and the Mystery of the Incarnation’, in Thomas Weinandy and Daniel Keating (eds), The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003), pp. 23–54; Edwards, Mark, ‘One Nature of the Word Enfleshed’, in Harvard Theological Review 108/2 (2015), pp. 289–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 FL 8.6 (SC 392.100).
21 FL 17.3 (SC 434.282).
22 FL 17.2 (SC 434.264–6).
23 SC 434.266.
24 FL 17.2 (SC 434.266–8).
25 SC 434.268.
26 Ibid.
27 Cyril uses the imagery of a shining pearl and a fragrant lily in his Second Book Against Nestorius. See the helpful analysis of Cyril's illustrations in Siddals, ‘Oneness and Difference’, pp. 208–9.
28 FL 17.2 (SC 434.268). The word Cyril uses is ἀκαλλὲς.
29 Ibid.
30 On the use of these passages in Cyril, see Lars Koen, The Saving Passion: Incarnational and Soteriological Thought in Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on the Gospel according to John (Stokholm: Uppsala, 1991). Koen acknowledges John 1:14 and Phil 2:5–11 as ‘the two favourite loci in Cyril's theology’. Of the Philippians passage, Koen observes that no eastern father previous to Cyril quoted it as often as he did. See pp. 90 and 95, respectively.
31 On Cyril's interpretation of John 1:14 in his other christological writings, see R. M. Siddals, ‘Logic and Christology in Cyril of Alexandria’, in Journal of Theological Studies 38 (1987), pp. 353–8.
32 FL 17.2 (SC 434.270). Cf. FL 11.8 (SC 392.302)
33 FL 8.4 (SC 392.92). Cf. FL 13.4 (SC 434.114).
34 FL 13.4 (SC 434.112).
35 FL 27.4 (PG 77.937).
36 FL 27.4 (PG 77.940). Siddals (‘Logic and Christology’, p. 357) observes that according to Cyril, John 1:14 indicates that ‘something profoundly mysterious has happened which almost defies analysis and stretches human categories to the limits: humanity has become the property of the Word’.
37 FL 8.6 (SC 392.100).
38 Ibid. The word can also mean ‘blending’.
39 SC 392.104–6.
40 FL 10.1 (SC 192).
41 FL 17.2 (SC 434.266). Cyril uses the word ἀναπλέκοντες later in this section (SC 434.272).
42 Ibid.
43 Both terms occur, respectively, in SC 434.268, 270.
44 FL 18.5 (PG 77.817).
45 FL 20.1 (PG 77.841).
46 This seems to be the case with the word συγκράσιν. Cyril used it in Festal Letter 17 in his illustration of the ‘blending’ of jewel and light, but in his On the Unity of Christ he rejects the term as it had come to be synonymous with a ‘confusion’ (φύρμον) that rendered the being of Christ unintelligible.
47 Cyril uses this term to describe the ‘blending’ of jewel and light as a single entity as an illustration for the unity of divine and human natures in Christ. In his later treatise On the Unity of Christ he disavows that the incarnation should be understood as a συγκράσιν. Evidentially, the latter term had become synonymous with ‘confusion’ (φυρμόν).
48 For example, see Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Oration 37 and Epistle 101 (‘To Cledonius’). For Gregory of Nyssa, see his Ad Theophilum. See the discussion on ‘mingling and inversion’ in both Gregories and within the development of the church's Christology in Aaron Riches, Ecce Homo: On the Divine Unity of Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2016), pp. 91–106. Cf. Coakley, Sarah, ‘“Mingling” in Gregory of Nyssa's Christology: A Reconsideration’, in Schuele, A. and Thomas, G. (eds), Who is Jesus Christ for Us Today: Pathways to Contemporary Christology (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009), pp. 72–84Google Scholar; and Briggman, Anthony, ‘Irenaeus’ Christology of Mixture’, in Journal of Theological Studies 64/2 (October 2013), pp. 516–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Riches, Ecce Homo, p. 92.
50 Beeley, ‘Cyril of Alexandria and Gregory Nazianzen’, pp. 396–8.
51 See Gray's discussion, in Claiming the Mantle of Cyril, pp. 36–41. John O'Keefe makes a similar observation about Cyril's ‘imprecise’ christological language in a footnote discussion of Cyril's first letter (FC 118.50, fn. 79).
52 On Cyril's general attitude towards philosophy, see Grant, R.M., ‘Greek Literature in the Treatise De Trinitate and Cyril's Contra Julianum’, in Journal of Theological Studies 15 (1964), pp. 265–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jean-Marie Labelle, ‘Saint Cyrille D'Alexandrie: Témoin de la langue et de la pensée philosophiques au Ve siècle’, in Recherches de Sciences Religieuses 52 (1978), pp. 135–58; Luc Brisson, ‘Clement and Cyril of Alexandria: Confronting Platonism with Christianity’, in Studia Patristica 57 (2013), pp. 19–43.
53 Gray, Claiming the Mantle of Cyril, p. 39.
54 Ibid., p. 38.
55 Ibid., p. 39, where Gray remarks, ‘Conceptual clarity, or to use Nestorius’ favourite word, “precision,” when talking about such things, was to him [Cyril] neither desirable nor appropriate in the face of God's ineffability and omnipotence’.
56 Cf. FL 5.7; 7; 8.4; 10.4; 11.8; 13.4; 14.2; 15.3–4; 17.2; 18.4; 19.4; 20.1; 24.3; 25.1, 3; 27.4; 30.4
57 FL 1.6 (SC 372.182).
58 De Incarnatione 54. See Athanasius, Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, trans. Robert Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 268.
59 FL 2.8 (SC 372.230); 15.3 (SC 434.190).
60 FL 2.8 (SC 372.230).
61 FL 4.6 (SC 372.272).
62 FL 7.2 (SC 392.50).
63 FL 10.2 (SC, 392.208).
64 FL 10.4 (SC 392.228–30).
65 FL 13.1 (SC 434.88–90).
66 FL 15.3 (SC 434.190–2).
67 FL 18.4 (PG 77.813); 20.1 (PG 77.840).
68 FL 19.2 (PG 77.829).
69 FL 22.3 (PG 77.868).
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid., 868–9 (trans. FC 127.122–3).
72 For example, he begins using the term Theotokos more frequently after the letter of 429 and decreases his use of the word ‘temple’ to indicate Christ's human nature. To some ears, ‘temple’ language sounded remarkably consistent with Apollinarian Christology, a charge Cyril's critics sought to pin on him.