Uncreated

(Quotations from Cyril of Alexandria)

The divine transcendence

... the difference between Creator and created is incomparable...
(Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters", p. 103, quoting Cyril's "On the Creed" 10)

{God is} incorporeal, immaterial, impalpable, beyond quantity and circumscription, beyond form and figure.
(The Image of God in Man according to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 22, quoting "Responsiones ad Teberium" 14)

Men of good sense who focus their minds' eyes sharply on the attributes of the ineffable Godhead, see it as existing beyond every created thing, transcending all acuity of intellect, being wholly outside bodily appearance and, as all-wise Paul says, "dwelling in light unapproachable" (1 Tim 6:16). But if the light surrounding it is unapproachable, how can one gaze on it? We see "in a glass darkly and know in part" (1 Cor 13:12). Deity, then, is wholly incorporeal, without dimensions or size and not bounded by shape.
(Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters, p. 185, quoting "Doctrinal Questions and Answers" 1)

The incarnation of the Uncreated One

In Christ, our flesh achieved what was beyond the ability of our condition

... for the Only Begotten Word of God has saved us by putting on our likeness. Suffering in the flesh, and rising from the dead, he revealed our nature as greater than death or corruption. What he achieved was beyond the ability of our condition, and what seemed to have been worked out in human weakness and by suffering was really stronger than men and a demonstration of the power that pertains to God.
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 130)

The Only Begotten did not become man only to remain in the limits of the emptying. The point was that he who was God by nature should, in the act of self-emptying, assume everything that went along with it. This was how he would be revealed as ennobling the nature of man in himself by making {human nature} participate in his own sacred and divine honors.
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 101)

Christ accepted human limitations

{Christ did not} regard the economy as unacceptable by disdaining the limitations involved in the self-emptying.
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 76 )

{Christ was wearied (Jn 4:6), hungry (Mt 4:2) and required sleep (Mt 8:24).} Just as we say that the flesh {assumed in the incarnation} became his very own, in the same way the weakness of the flesh became his very own in an economic appropriation to the terms of the unification. So he is "made like his brethren in all things except sin alone" (Heb. 2:17).
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 107)

The paradox of Word's self-emptying

Indeed the mystery of Christ runs the risk of being disbelieved precisely because it is so incredibly wonderful. For God was in humanity. He who was above all creation was in our human condition; the invisible one was made visible in the flesh; he who is from the heavens and from on high was in the likeness of earthly things; the immaterial one could be touched; he who is free in his own nature came in the form of a slave; he who blesses all creation became accursed; he who is all righteousness was numbered among transgressors; life itself came in the appearance of death. All this followed because the body which tasted death belonged to no other but to him who is the Son by nature.
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 61)

{For the salvation of the whole world Christ} wished to suffer, even though he was beyond the power of suffering in his nature as God, then he wrapped himself in flesh that was capable of suffering, and revealed it as his very own, so that even the suffering might be said to be his because it was his own body which suffered... Since the manner of the economy allows him blamelessly to choose both to suffer in the flesh, and not to suffer in the Godhead (for the selfsame was at once God and man)...(cf. 1 Pet. 4:1).
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 118)

The divinity of the Word is undiminished

{Christ} did not cease to be God when he became man...
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 76 )

We must not think that he who descended into the limitation of manhood for our sake lost his inherent radiance and that transcendence that comes from his nature. No, he had this divine fullness even in the emptiness of our condition, and he enjoyed the highest eminence in humility, and held what belongs to him by nature (that is, to be worshipped by all) as a gift because of his humanity.
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 123)

The Word was alive even when his holy flesh was tasting death... The body which lay under corruption became a body of life so as to become beyond death and corruption.
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 115)

©1999 by Deb Platt

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