Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/260

him when he had signed it. But Cyril considered Maximian also languid in the cause, and he wrote many letters to persons connected with the imperial court, including the "Augusta" Pulcheria, to bring their influence to bear upon John and separate him definitely and finally from Nestorius (Mansi, v. 988). These letters were backed up by presents euphemistically called "blessings" (eulogiae), which were employed by Cyril as a matter of course, for he knew but little of delicacy and scrupulosity as to the means to be used in gaining a court to the church's interests. Cyril also assured Theognostus, Charmosynus, and Leontius, his "apocrisiarii" or church agents at Constantinople (Ep. p. 152) that this peace with John implied no retractation of his old principles. In the spring of 433 John of Antioch wrote to Cyril, reciting the formulary of reunion, abandoning Nestorius, and condemning Nestorianism (Mansi, v. 290). In another letter John entreated Cyril in a tone of warm friendship to believe that he was "the same that he had known in former days" (Ep. p. 154) On Apr. 23 (Pharmuthi 8) Cyril announced this reconciliation in a sermon (Mansi, v. 310, 289), and began his reply to John, "Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad" (Ep. p. 104; Mansi, v. 301). In this letter (afterwards approved by the council of Chalcedon) he cited the text, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism," as expressing the happiness of the restored peace; and added his usual disclaimers of all opinions inconsistent with the reality of Christ's manhood. He commented on John iii. 13; I. Cor. xv. 47, I. Pet. iv. 1. He also sent to John a copy of the genuine text of Athanasius's letter to Epictetus. John himself became an object of suspicion and animosity to the thoroughgoing Nestorians; and even Theodoret, though he admitted that Cyril's recent language was orthodox, would not abandon Nestorius's cause. In another direction doubts and anxieties were excited by the language now sanctioned by Cyril. Isidore, to whom Cyril had always allowed great freedom of admonitory speech, and who had blamed him for unyieldingness, now expressed a fear that he had made too great concessions (Ep. i. 324) Other friends of his were scandalized by his acceptance of the phrase "two natures." Was not this, they began to ask, equivalent to a sanction of Nestorianism? To vindicate his orthodoxy herein, Cyril wrote a long letter to Acacius of Melitene (Ep. p. 109; Mansi, v. 309), who had signified to him that some disquietude was felt. He narrated the recent transactions; and after insisting that the formulary was not (as some had represented it) a new creed, but simply a statement called forth by a special emergency (as those who signed it had been accused of rejecting the Nicene faith, and were therefore constrained to clear themselves), he proceeded to exhibit the essential difference between the formulary and the Nestorian error. Nestorius, in fact, asserted two Christs: the formulary confessed one, both divine and human. Then Cyril added that the two natures spoken of in the formulary, were indeed separate in mental conception, i.e. considered apart from Christ, but that "after their union" in Christ "the nature of the Son was but one, as belonging to one, but to One as made man and incarnate." Again, "The nature of the Word is confessedly one, but has become incarnate," for "the Word took the form of a servant," and "in this sense only could a diversity of natures be recognized, for Godhead and Manhood are not the same in natural quality." Thus, in regard to the Incarnation, "the mind sees two things united without confusion, and nowise regards them, when thus united, as separable, but confesses Him Who is from both, God, Son, and Christ, to be one." "Two natures," in Nestorius's mouth, meant two natures existing separately, in One Who was God and in One Who was Man; John of Antioch and his brethren, while admitting that Godhead and Manhood in Christ might be regarded as intrinsically different, yet unequivocally acknowledged His Person to be one. The phrase "one incarnate nature of God the Word, or "one nature, but that incarnate," had been already (ad Regin. i. 9) quoted by Cyril as Athanasian: although it is very doubtful whether the short tract On the Incarnation of God the Word, in which it is found, was really written by Athanasius. But, as now used by Cyril in his vindication of the formulary from Nestorianism, it became in after-days a stumbling-block, and was quoted in support of Monophysitism (Hooker, v. 52, 4). Did, then, Cyril in fact hold what was condemned in 451 by the council of Chalcedon? Would he have denied the distinct co-existence of Godhead and Manhood in the one incarnate Saviour? Were the Fathers of Chalcedon wrong when they proclaimed Cyril and Leo to be essentially one in faith? What has been already quoted from the letter to Acacius of Melitene seems to warrant a negative answer to these questions. What Cyril meant by "one nature incarnate" was simply, "Christ is one." He was referring to "nature" as existing in Christ's single Divine Personality (cf. adv. Nest. ii.; cf. note in Athan. Treatises, Lib. Fath. i. 155). When he denounced the idea of the separation of the natures after the union, he was in fact denouncing the idea of a mere connexion or association between a human individual Jesus and the Divine Word. Therefore, when he maintained the nature to be one, he was speaking in a sense quite distinct from the Eutychian heresy, and quite consistent with the theology of Chalcedon. Other letters, written by Cyril under the same circumstances, throw light on his true meaning. Successus, an Isaurian bishop, had asked him whether the phrase "two natures" were admissible (Ep. p. 135; Mansi, v. 999). Cyril wrote two letters to him in reply. In the first, after strongly asserting the unity of the Son both before and since the Incarnation, he quoted the "one nature incarnate" as a phrase of the Fathers, and employed the illustration from soul and body, "two natures" being united in one man in order to set forth the combination of Godhead and Manhood in one Christ (cf. his Scholia de Inc. 8). There was, he added, neither a conversion of Godhead into flesh nor a change of flesh into Godhead. In other words, Christ's body, though glorified, and existing as God's body, was not deprived of its human reality. In the