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
He came as a witness to testify about the Light, so that through him everyone might believe.
“And since (according to what was said by God through Moses), At the mouth of two and three witnesses shall every word be established, wisely does he bring in addition to himself the blessed Baptist, and introduces him along with himself a most noteworthy witness.”
He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
“The Evangelist pursues his plea that the world knew not its Illuminer, that is the Only-Begotten, and from the worse sin of the children of Israel, he hastens to clench the charges against the Gentiles and shews the disease of ignorance alike and unbelief which…”
John testified concerning Him. He cried out, saying, “This is He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’”
“This was He of Whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred [has become] before me, for He was before me.”
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet: “I am a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
“He accuses them sharply as knowing nothing, and accredits the design or purpose entrusted to him by Prophetic testimony.”
“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands One you do not know.
“Much enduringly does the blessed Baptist bear with the fault finders: and very seasonably does he make the declaration regarding himself a basis of saving preaching: and teaches those who were sent from the Pharisees now even against their will that Christ was within the…”
I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.”
“And I knew Him not, but that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.”
Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and resting on Him.
“CHAPTER I. That the Holy Ghost is in the Son not by participation, not from without, but Essentially and by Nature.”
I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
“Sure is the witness; who, what he hath actually seen, that he also speaketh. For haply he was not ignorant of that which is written, That which thine eyes have seen, tell.”
Jesus turned and saw them following. “What do you want?” He asked. They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are You staying?”
“They said unto Him, Rabbi, where dwellest Thou? Like people well instructed do they that are asked reply. For already do they call Him, Master, thereby clearly signifying their readiness to learn.”
He first found his brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated as Christ).
“They who even now received the talent, straightway make traffic of their talent, and bring it to the Lord.”
Andrew brought him to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which is translated as Peter).
“He after a Divine sort looketh upon him, Who seeth the hearts and reins; and seeth to how great piety the disciple will attain, of how great virtue he will be possessed, and at what consummation he will leave off.”
The next day Jesus decided to set out for Galilee. Finding Philip, He told him, “Follow Me.”
“Likeminded with those preceding was Philip, and very ready to follow Christ. For Christ knew that he would be good.”
Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law, the One the prophets foretold—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
“Exceeding swift was the disciple unto the bearing fruit, that hereby he might shew himself akin in disposition to them that had preceded. For he findeth Nathanael, not simply meeting him coming along, but making diligent search for him.”
“Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip.
“Nathanael readily agrees that something great and most fair is that which is expected to appear out of Nazareth.”
Then He declared, “Truly, truly, I tell you, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
“Common now to all is the word which seals the faith of Nathanael. But in saying that angels shall be seen speeding up and down upon the Son of Man, that is, ministering and serving His commands, for the salvation of such as shall believe…”
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there,
“Galilee. Let him that loves learning again note well: for not in Jerusalem is the gathering, but without Judaea is the feast celebrated, as it were in the country of the Gentiles. For it is Galilee of the gentiles, as the prophet saith.”
and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
“For it was fitting that He, Who was renewing the very nature of man, and refashioning it all for the better, should not only impart His blessing to those already called into being, but also prepare before grace for those soon to be born, and…”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”
“The woman having great influence to the performing of the miracle, prevailed, persuading the Lord, on account of what was fitting, as her Son. She begins the work by preparing the servants of the assembly to obey the things that should be enjoined.”
Jesus performed this, the first of His signs, at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.
“Many most excellent things were accomplished at once through the one first miracle. For honourable marriage was sanctified, the curse on women put away (for no more in sorrow shall they bring forth children, now Christ has blessed the very beginning of our birth), and…”
In the temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers seated at their tables.
“The Jews are again hereby too convicted of despising the laws given them, and making of no account the Mosaic writings, looking only to their own love of gain.”
On account of this, the Jews demanded, “What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do these things?”
“The multitude of the Jews are startled at the unwonted authority, and they who are over the temple are extremely vexed, deprived of their not easily counted gains.”
But Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, for He knew them all.
“Not firmly established is the judgment of new believers, nor is the mind firmly built upon fresh miracles. And how should they whose course of instruction was yet so to say green, be already rooted in piety?”
He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God.
“More ready is Nicodemus to believe, but overcome by no good fear, and not despising the opinion of men, he refuses boldness, and is divided in opinion into two, and halts in purpose, feeble upon both his knee joints, as it is written, forced by…”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
“Faith consisteth not, O Nicodemus, in what thou thinkest. Speech sufficeth not unto thee for righteousness, neither wilt thou achieve piety by mere words.”
Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.
“By another argument again He persuades him to mount up to a higher understanding, and on hearing of spiritual birth, not to think of the properties of bodies.”