Voices and influences
Cyril of Alexandria
A patriarch whose early years in office were genuinely violent, and whose defense of the one Christ shaped every council that came after him.
Summary
This site quotes Cyril of Alexandria 632 times across 25 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 444.
- Quoted here most in John: 328 of 632.
Cyril of Alexandria
- Lived
- died 444
- Tradition
- Patristic
5 of 632 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Cyril of Alexandria died in 444 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
The fact that the world should have been offended because of Christ, after the increase in the flocks of believers, and that it, excited by its anger, would have reacted, does not need to be confirmed with a long speech.
GLAPHYRA ON Genesis, 5.5, 444
The rest of the quotation
Just see how Laban, together with his sons, pursued Jacob, who was running away, and recalled him. Christ himself, in a sense, departed from the world with his brides, that is, the churches, and moved out with the entire household by spiritually addressing his companions with these words: "Arise, let us go from here."
Genesis 31:21 So he fled with all his possessions, crossed the Euphrates, and headed for the hill country of Gilead. BSB
This forecasts the coming of the Savior and our redemption by his coming. It also foretells the granting of riches to those who believe in him.… Concerning that which is new, that is, the church, it may be fittingly said that it is the daughter…
The rest of the quotation
of Zion.… For whom does he order to proclaim good news to Zion? Those holy spiritual guides, of course, who took on the leadership role in the church and whose job it was to open the gates and to remove the stones from their midst. And what were they to announce?
Isaiah 62:11 Behold, the LORD has proclaimed to the ends of the earth, “Say to Daughter Zion: See, your Savior comes! Look, His reward is with Him, and His recompense goes before Him.” BSB
But perhaps you say that the outcome of these matters grieves you not moderately. Will there then be an affliction in a city, perchance, which the Lord has not done?
The rest of the quotation
It is like as if one should say: Will there then be anyone among men able to afflict a city either with diseases or sieges or destructions of crops or even in some other such way? But if no one of men could do such things, and it lies rather in the authority and power of God, why are you angry with those who announce it beforehand?
Amos 3:6 If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? BSB
The divine nature of the only begotten Son was already scorching the demons in unspeakable flames. Christ was shutting up the fiercest demons in blocked roads. He was undoing the devil's tyranny. "You have come before the time," they cried out.
FRAGMENT 101, 444
The rest of the quotation
For they knew from the Scriptures that Christ was going to come and would judge them. Treating the incarnation as if it had happened at the wrong time, they pled that he had come in an untimely way. This misrepresentation is not surprising. In their deceptiveness, they did not hesitate to say even this.
Matthew 8:28–29 When Jesus arrived on the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, He was met by two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do You want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have You come here to torture us before the appointed time?” BSB
Peter did not say "you are a Christ" or "a son of God" but "the Christ, the Son of God." For there are many christs by grace, who have attained the rank of adoption [as sons], but [there is] only one who is by nature…
FRAGMENT 190, 444
The rest of the quotation
the Son of God. Thus, using the definite article, he said, the Christ, the Son of God. And in calling him Son of the living God, Peter indicates that Christ himself is life and that death has no authority over him.
Matthew 16:16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Cyril of Alexandria 632 times across 25 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Cyril was born in Egypt about 376 and raised for the church by his uncle Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria. When Theophilus died in 412, Cyril succeeded him after three days of street fighting between rival factions. He held the see for thirty-two years. His early years in office were violent, and the record should be stated plainly. He closed the churches of the Novatianists and seized their goods. After a riot, the Jewish community of Alexandria — ancient, large, and long established — was driven out of the city. He quarreled bitterly with Orestes, the imperial prefect. In 415 the philosopher Hypatia, a friend of Orestes, was dragged from her carriage by a mob and murdered in a church. Socrates Scholasticus, a contemporary historian hostile to Cyril, lays the atmosphere at his door; no source proves he ordered it. Both facts belong in the account. The work he is honored for began in 428, when Nestorius became bishop of Constantinople and objected to calling Mary Theotokos, the God-bearer. Nestorius preferred Christ-bearer, holding that the title as used made God the subject of birth. Cyril saw what was underneath the word: if the one born of Mary is not God the Son himself, then the one who died on the cross is not God the Son himself, and the incarnation dissolves into a partnership between a divine person and a human one. He wrote to Nestorius, to the monks of Egypt, to Rome, to the emperor and empresses. He drew up Twelve Anathemas that even his allies found hard. At the Council of Ephesus in 431 he presided, opened the council before the Syrian bishops arrived, and had Nestorius deposed. The Antiochenes arrived and deposed Cyril in return. It took the emperor, imprisonment, enormous bribes to the court, and two years of negotiation before Cyril and John of Antioch signed the Formula of Reunion in 433 — Cyril accepting language about two natures he had resisted, and John accepting Theotokos. Underneath the politics is a vast body of exegesis. Cyril wrote commentaries on John, Luke, Isaiah, the Twelve Prophets and the Pentateuch, an enormous refutation of the emperor Julian's attack on Christianity, and On the Unity of Christ. His single sentence — that in Christ God the Word made a human life his own — is the foundation Chalcedon built on twenty years after his death. He died in 444. Rome named him a Doctor of the Church in 1882; the Coptic and Orthodox churches have honored him as the Pillar of the Faith without interruption. Sources: The Acts of the Council of Ephesus; Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, book VII; Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. III.
632 quotations across 25 books
Where this voice is quoted
Whether they are born in your household or purchased, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh will be an everlasting covenant.
“God's covenant is "in the flesh" of the person who "does not fight on the terms of the flesh" and who "always carries about in his body the death of Jesus."”
But Lot replied, “No, my lords, please!
“It seems that now, after the exodus from Sodom, the conversation is no longer with angels but with the Lord.”
Hurry! Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you reach it.” That is why the town was called Zoar.
“Great is the loving kindness of God. He who is all-powerful says, "I can do nothing until you arrive there." He accommodates even the weakness of his servant and tolerates his delay.”
May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. May you be the master of your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you.
“Afterward the power of blessing is transferred again to the Immanuel himself. "And let nations serve you, and princes bow down to you, and be lord of your brother."”
Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone that he had placed under his head, and he set it up as a pillar. He poured oil on top of it,
“On the other hand the stone also had been erected and honored as a symbol of Christ and had been sprinkled with oil. The Immanuel was anointed by God the Father "with the oil of gladness above his fellows."”
Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud.
“In addition Rachel is interpreted as a "sheep of God." And some consider her to be with good reason a symbol of the church among the nations.”
Then he set the peeled branches in the watering troughs in front of the flocks coming in to drink. So when the flocks were in heat and came to drink,
“But where did Jacob place his rods? In the troughs of water. And these troughs, in which the reasonable herd, that is we, go to water, must be interpreted as the writings of Moses and the prophetical predictions that nearly burst forth for us like…”
Jacob set apart the young, but made the rest face the streaked dark-colored sheep in Laban’s flocks.
“There is no association between the holy and the profane, between the pure and the impure. Those who belong to Christ are separated and refuse to mix with those who are in the world; they are free from carnal desires.”
So he fled with all his possessions, crossed the Euphrates, and headed for the hill country of Gilead.
“The fact that the world should have been offended because of Christ, after the increase in the flocks of believers, and that it, excited by its anger, would have reacted, does not need to be confirmed with a long speech.”
Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
“You see how he does not continue fighting at daybreak. In fact, there is no fight for those who already live in the light.”
Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble upon me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people of this land.
“Those who are brothers according to faith to the injured one, if they are in the priestly order, like Levi, are among the subjects (Simon, in fact, is interpreted as "obedience").”
So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your garments.
“After he was called by God, Jacob ascends to Bethel, that is, to the house of God (this is how the name Bethel is interpreted), offers sacrifices to God and is declared chief and master of the holy rites.”
So Jacob set up a pillar in the place where God had spoken with him—a stone marker—and he poured out a drink offering on it and anointed it with oil.
“When we ascend to Bethel, that is, to the house of God, we will know the stone, I mean, the elected stone, which was made into a cornerstone, that is, Christ.”
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
“And Joseph was loved by his father a great deal. And he gave him a multicolored garment as an excellent gift and a proof of the love with which he accompanied him.”