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?
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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
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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
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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
“I told you that I am He,” Jesus replied. “So if you are looking for Me, let these men go.”
“He asks them again a second time, of set purpose, that He might show the extent of the blindness He had put in their minds.”
This was to fulfill the word He had spoken: “I have not lost one of those You have given Me.”
“The wise Evangelist turns to a clear proof of the general and universal mercy, which will be shown to all who come to Him through faith, this partial and special care here manifested to those who were with Him.”
“Put your sword back in its sheath!” Jesus said to Peter. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?”
“Christ's bidding is fraught with the enactment of life according to the Gospel, and the spirit, not of the Mosaic Law revealed to the men of old time, but of the dispensation of Christ; which so dissuades us from using the sword, or offering resistance…”
But Peter stood outside at the door. Then the disciple who was known to the high priest went out and spoke to the doorkeeper, and brought Peter in.
“But Peter was standing at the door without. So the other disciple, which was known unto the high priest, went out, and spake unto her that kept the door, and brought in Peter.”
At this, the servant girl watching the door said to Peter, “Aren’t you also one of this man’s disciples?” “I am not,” he answered.
“The maid, therefore, that kept the door, saith unto Peter, Art thou also one of this Man's disciples? He saith, I am not.”
Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about His disciples and His teaching.
“The high priest therefore asked Jesus of His disciples, and of His teaching. A teacher of the people, learned in the Law, one of those on whom the Divine bidding lays the duty, "Judge ye righteous judgment," after having taken the Lord, as though He…”
Why are you asking Me? Ask those who heard My message. Surely they know what I said.”
“Why askest thou Me? Ask them that have heard Me, what I spake unto them: behold, these know the things which I said. He rebukes those learned in the Law, for that they themselves sinned against the Law in which they took pride.”
When Jesus had said this, one of the officers standing nearby slapped Him in the face and said, “Is this how You answer the high priest?”
“And when He had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying unto Him, Answerest Thou the high priest so?”
Jesus replied, “If I said something wrong, testify as to what was wrong. But if I spoke correctly, why did you strike Me?”
“Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou Me? He proves the officer guilty of a gross wrong, even if He That was on His trial had been a man of obscure position.”
One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Didn’t I see you with Him in the garden?”
“For it was the bounden duty of the wise Evangelist to make mention of such things, that his hearers might know what even the teachers of the world were in themselves before Christ's Resurrection, and before the Holy Spirit descended upon them; and what they…”
Then they led Jesus away from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. By now it was early morning, and the Jews did not enter the Praetorium, to avoid being defiled and unable…
“They lead Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the palace: and it was early; and they themselves entered not into the palace, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the passover.”
“If He were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed Him over to you.”
“They answered and said unto him, If this Man were not an evil-doer, we should not have delivered Him up unto thee.”
“Are you saying this on your own,” Jesus asked, “or did others tell you about Me?”
“As no one, He says, has openly brought this charge against Me, whence proceeds your question? There can be no doubt that this trick proceeds from the malice of the Jews, and that they devised this cruel stratagem; for else you would not be, He…”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed You over to me. What have You done?”
“He now exposes the villainy of the Jews, and almost publishes the multitude of His accusers. It is as though he said: "It does not concern me to know about Thee, for I am not a Jew; but rather befits Thine own nation and kindred…”
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world; if it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews.
“He dispelled the fear Pilate felt as the appointed guardian of Caesar's kingdom, for he supposed that Christ was meditating insurrection against temporal rule, as the Jews had vainly talked.”
“Then You are a king!” Pilate said. “You say that I am a king,” Jesus answered.
“He makes use of Christ's truth-speaking to charge Him withal. When he heard Him say: My Kingdom is not from hence, he was indeed quit of his fear of an insurrection; but he still compels Him to openly profess this thing, and defines as a…”
“What is truth?” Pilate asked. And having said this, he went out again to the Jews and told them, “I find no basis for a charge against Him.
“He does not deny the glory of His Kingdom, nor leave it to the voice of Pilate only to affirm it, for as God He is King, whether man so will, or no; but He once more showed the power of the truth which impelled…”
“Not this man,” they shouted, “but Barabbas!” (Now Barabbas was an insurrectionist.)
“Herein also the Jews show themselves indeed lawbreakers, and more inclined to give way to their own inclinations than to honour their ancient commandments; for though the Mosaic Law ordered that a man who had committed involuntary homicide should be released, and not a man…”
The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns, set it on His head, and dressed Him in a purple robe.
“He scourges Him unjustly, and suffers the crowd of soldiers to insult Him, and put a crown of thorns about His Head, and throw a purple robe upon Him, and buffet Him with the palms of their hands, and otherwise dishonour Him.”
Once again Pilate came out and said to the Jews, “Look, I am bringing Him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge…
“He confesses the wrong he had done, and is not ashamed. For he admitted that he had scourged Him without a cause, and declares that he will show Him unto them, supposing that he would glut their savage passion by so pitiable a spectacle, and…”
As soon as the chief priests and officers saw Him, they shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
“Pilate is in consternation, that the people of the Jews and the inhuman crowd of the chief priests should attain to such a pitch of presumption, as not even to shrink from subjecting Christ to so frightful a death, though no fault was found in…”
“We have a law,” answered the Jews, “and according to that law He must die, because He declared Himself to be the Son of God.”
“When their false accusation that they had at first contrived proved fruitless, and they established against Him no attempt at revolution or revolt against Caesar's rule (for the Lord parried these charges, saying: My Kingdom is not of this world; if my Kingdom were of…”
When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid,
“The malicious design of the Jews had a result they little expected. For they wished to pile up the indictment against Christ, by saying that He had ventured to sin against the Person of God Himself.”
So Pilate said to Him, “Do You refuse to speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You and authority to crucify You?”
“Pilate thought this silence the silence of a madman. Therefore, he stretches over Him, as it were, the wand of his official power, and thought that he could induce Him by fear, against His Will, to return a fruitless answer.”
From then on, Pilate tried to release Him, but the Jews kept shouting, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar.
“The exclamation of the Jews afflicts Pilate with panic, and sharpens the keenness of his caution, and makes him pause before putting Him to death.”