Seeing the light

Hearts full of light

• {Those who would be partakers of eternal life} must further possess a vigilant and wakeful mind, distinguished by the knowledge of the truth, and richly endowed with the radiance of the vision of God; so as for them, rejoicing therein, to say Thou, O Lord, will light my lamp: Thou, my God, wilt lighten my darkness (Ps. 18:28)

  Quite unbefitting is an expression like this for heretics, whether they be the sectarians or the teachers. For as Christ Himself said, Darkness has blinded their eyes (Jn 12:40). And this Paul explains to us, saying, that the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ may not shine upon them (2 Cor. 4:4)

  ... It is our duty, therefore..., to draw near to the true light, even Christ, praising Him in psalms and saying, Lighten mine eye, that I sleep not for death (Ps. 13:3)... Let, therefore, our loins be girt, and our lamps burning, according to what has been spoken unto us (cf. Lk 12:35).

  By their loins being girt, He means the readiness of the mind for every good work; and by their lights burning, that their heart be filled with divine light.
  (Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, pp. 370-371, 210)

• {The Son} Himself shed the divine and spiritual light on those whose heart was darkened; for which reason He said, I am come a light into this world (Jn. 12:46)...
  (Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, p. 95)

Christ makes Himself visible to the righteous (cf. Jn. 14:21-23)

• It is written There is a light always for the righteous; but the light of the wicked shall be put out (Prov. 13:9). For God the Father imparts the inextinguishable light of the true knowledge of the true vision of God to those who embrace the righteousness that is in Christ. He revealeth unto them the Son...
  (Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, p. 522)

The formation of Christ within the faithful (cf. Gal 4:19)

• But if Christ's form is being created in us in a different way (cf. Gal. 4:19), perceptible to the mind and spiritually, the appearance of the divine nature cannot be like our visible appearance. For it does not consist of parts and limbs as we do but as incorporeal without quantitative and limiting shape... {For God} is, indeed, viewed intellectually by the reality of the heart as one possessing supra-mundane glory...
  (Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters, pp. 138-139, quoting "Answers to Tiberius" 1)

• For {Christ} is formed in us (Gal 4:19) through the sanctification which comes through the Spirit, through the calling which consists in faith in Him. Now, in those who sin against this faith the distinctive features {of the image of God in man} do not shine forth clearly; that is why they need another spiritual travail and suprasensuous regeneration, in order that they may be formed once more to Christ, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit makes the divine image gleam in them through sanctification.
  (The Image of God in Man according to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 65, quoting from Cyril's text, "Responsiones ad Tiberium" 10)

• When we keep ourselves loyal and holy Christ is seen to be being formed in us (Gal. 4:19), as he irradiates our minds spiritually with his own special marks.
  (Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters, p. 197, quoting "Doctrinal Questions and Answers" 3)

  Alternative translation of the above passage: It is when we keep ourselves believing and holy that Christ is obviously formed in us (Gal. 4:19), and His own features flash intelligibly in our minds.
  (The Image of God in Man according to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 75, quoting from Cyril's text, "De dogmatum solutione" 3)

Re-made in the image of God (cf. Gen. 1:26-27)

• {The Son of God, who is Light, } has been stamped upon us in making us conformed to Him and in engraving, like a divine image, on those who believe in Him the illumination that comes through His own Spirit, that they may be called, like Him, gods and sons of God (cf. Psalms 82:6, John 10:34).
  (The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 161, quoting Cyril's "In Ioannem" 1,8)

• Of those who have been made partakers of His divine nature through participation in the Holy Spirit, there is somehow stamped the suprasensuous likeness to Christ, and the beauty of the inexpressible divinity gleams in the souls of the saints.
  (The Image of God in Man according to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 66, quoting from Cyril's text, "Adversus Nestorii blasphemias" 3,2)

• {The light from the Son is } the grace which passes through the Spirit to the creature, the grace through which we are refashioned to God by faith, recovering conformity to the Son as by some seal through Him who is the Father's Image, in order that our creation to the likeness and image of the Creator may be nicely preserved in us.
  (The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria, pp. 161-162, quoting Cyril's "In Ioannem" 3,5)

• For He shall change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the body of His glory (Phili. 3:21); and as He Himself says, They shall shine like the sun in the glory of their Father (Mt. 13:43). What garments, therefore, are not surpassed in splendor by the magnificence that is in Christ? (cf. Lk. 12:27-28; Gal. 3:27)
  (Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, p. 365)

• The Word of God "enlightens every man who comes into the world" (Jn 1:9) not by way of instruction, as angels do and men; but rather as God, in creative fashion, He stores in each of those who are called into existence a seed of wisdom or of the knowledge of God, and implants the root of intelligence, and thus renders the animal rational, making it partaker of His own nature, and instilling in the mind as it were, some luminous vapors of the inexpressible Splendor, in the manner and proportion known to Him... The Son enlightens, therefore, in creative fashion, inasmuch as He is Himself the true Light, while the creature is illumined by participation in the Light, and consequently is called and becomes light (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18), mounting to the supernatural through the grace of God who glorifies him and crowns him with various honors...
  (The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 35, quoting Cyril's "In Ioannem" 1,9)

  Burghardt's commentary on Cyril's passage above: Specifically, the gift of rationality is communicated by the Logos. What does He communicate? Not ideas, but something... a "seed", a "root", "vapors". Whatever it is, through it man participates in the nature of the Logos; it involves, incoatively at least, supernatural life, life above the human.
  (The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria, pp. 35-36)

The light and salvation

• {In the parable of the woman who lost one of her coins} a search then was made for that which had fallen, for which purpose the woman lighted a lamp (Lk. 15:8-10). For we were found, as I said, by the wisdom of God the Father, Which is the Son, when the divine and intellectual light shone upon us, and the sun arose, and the day star ascended and the day dawned (2 Pet. 1:19), according to the Scripture. For God also has somewhere said by one of the holy prophets of Christ the Savior of us all, ... My salvation shall burn as a lamp (Isaiah 62:1). And He saith of Himself, at one time, I am the light of the world (Jn. 8:12); and again at another, I am come a light into this world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall possess the light of life (Jn. 12:46). By the light, therefore, that which was lost is saved...
  (Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, pp. 429-430)

A contemporary interpretation of Cyril

• Essential properties, {Cyril} notes, are not lost by negligence; neglect can result in the loss of those possessions alone which have been acquired by the will, by free choice, or which can be added or taken away without corruption of the substance... If then, a creature can be true light by his nature, how can he possible lose the light (as Scripture says he does) by refusing to believe? Or how can he become a son of light by believing? Cyril's conclusion: the light in us is a result of deliberate choice; it is a question of will, not of essence. It is love that wins for creatures the light which they do not have.
  (The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria, pp. 35-36, Walter J. Burghardt's summary of Cyril's text: "In Ioannem" 1, 7-8)

• In Cyril's theology, faith, the perfection of knowledge, is at once a principle and a facet of human resemblance to the divine. Divine light effects likeness to God and it is itself participation in divinity.
  (The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 162, Walter J. Burghardt speaking)

©1999 by Deb Platt