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…
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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
and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
“As Christ was predestined to be the Son of God in power, so we too have been predestined to be sons of God, not however in power but by grace, having been made worthy of such a calling and having received it only by the…”
Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Certainly not! Instead, we uphold the law.
“On account of his humanity Emmanuel is called a prophet, who following Moses is the mediator between God and humanity. The law was a shadow, but even so it presented an image of the truth.”
If Abraham was indeed justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God.
“What can we say to those who insist that Abraham was justified by works because he was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar?”
For sin was in the world before the law was given; but sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
“The law of Moses was the power constraining the weakness of sinners. It proved to be not the answer to sin but rather a provocation to wrath.”
For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.
“Emmanuel gave up his soul for us; he died in the flesh. We also were buried together with him when we were baptized. Does this mean that our flesh died in the same way as his did? Hardly.”
What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law.
“Paul did not say that he had no sin apart from the law but rather that he was unaware of it.”
So this is the principle I have discovered: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
“If sin inheres in my flesh and corrupts it, it may well be that the law offers help and gives advice, but even so it does not set me free from sin.”
It is just as the Scripture says: “Anyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”
“Israel ought not to suppose that salvation by faith is a blessing peculiar to it. For Scripture says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, whether Jew or Gentile, whether slave or free.”
I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
“Wisely, Paul does not make the plight of Israel appear worse than it is. Even though he says that the nation is struggling in its blindness, he manages to say something positive at this point.”
What then? What Israel was seeking, it failed to obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened,
“Israel tried to find righteousness in the type which was the law but did not obtain it. However, those who were sealed were elected and did obtain it on account of their belief, being justified by their faith.”
Just as you who formerly disobeyed God have now received mercy through their disobedience,
“Paul shows that both Jews and Gentiles were guilty of the same thing and that they were likewise cleansed by one and the same grace.”