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“A Whole Habit of Mind”: Revelation and Understanding in the Christology of St. Cyril of Alexandria

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The Enigma of Divine Revelation

Part of the book series: Contributions to Hermeneutics ((CONT HERMEN,volume 7))

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Abstract

The most proper intellectual relation to God is personal address, yet theology is required to think and speak God in the third person. How to span that gap between the first person order of revelation and the third person order of hermeneutics? St. Cyril of Alexandria’s path of negotiating this difficulty involves discerning the implications for human rationality of faith’s encounter with Christ, the “Image of the invisible God,” in Scripture and liturgy. Through an examination of his “kenotic” Christology, this article endeavours to understand St. Cyril’s exemplary path of negotiation between hermeneutics and revelation in order to recommend it to contemporary theology.

[T]here is much more in [Patristic theology] than a mere question of the meaning of words. It brings us close to a whole habit of mind and thought about the relation of this world and things in this world to the ‘world to come’.

–Dom Gregory Dix

For Robert Louis Wilken

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Rudolph Bultmann, “Welchen Sinn hat es, von Gott zu reden? (1925) in Glauben und Verstehen 1: Gesammelte Aufsätze. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1933, 26–37.

  2. 2.

    In the following I make consistent use of two scholarly anthologies with commentary, which form the touchstones of contemporary theological study Cyril’s thought in the English-speaking world: N. Russell, Cyril of Alexandria. London: Routledge, 2000 and J. A. McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2010.

  3. 3.

    Commentary on John 11.11, Patrologia Graeca (PG) 73, 556D-557D. See M.-O. Boulnois, “L’Eucharistie, mystère d’union chez Cyrille d’Alexandrie”, Revue des Sciences Religieuses 74 (2000), 148.

  4. 4.

    PG 75, 1273B, 1325C-1328B. See also On the Unity of Christ, trans. John McGuckin. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 64, 105–6.

  5. 5.

    L. Welch, Christology and Eucharist in the Early Thought of Cyril of Alexandria. NY: International Scholars Press, 1993, 18.

  6. 6.

    See Bernard Meunier, Le Christ de Cyrille d’Alexandrie: L’humanité, le salut et la question monophysite. Paris: Beauchesne, 1997, part 1 (“Les deux Adam”), 27–100.

  7. 7.

    Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, PG 77, 113D (McGuckin, 270).

  8. 8.

    PG 77, 113B (Ibid. 36).

  9. 9.

    Emphasis mine. This slogan, ultimately originated in the writings of Apollinaris. Cyril, in his day, wrongly understood it to be from Athanasius.

  10. 10.

    N. Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, 41. Cf. Jo 1.14 and Phil 2.6-11, respectively.

  11. 11.

    Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis 8.2 (PL 2, 852).

  12. 12.

    The Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, PG 77, 121D (McGuckin, 275). Emphasis mine.

  13. 13.

    McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy, 187.

  14. 14.

    On the True Faith, to the Princesses Pulcheria and Eudokia, 28, PG 76, 1369 B-C(see also E. Pusey, Works of S. Cyril, 7 vols. Oxford: 1868, 7.313). See Brian E. Daley, S.J. “‘One Thing and Another’: The Persons in God and the Person of Christ in Patristic Theology” Pro Ecclesia 15.1, 41 and Boulnois, “L’Eucharistie, mystère d’union chez Cyrille d’Alexandrie,” 160.

  15. 15.

    McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy, 39.

  16. 16.

    See Ezra Gebremedhin, Life-Giving Blessing: Inquiry into the Eucharistic Doctrine of Cyril of Alexandria. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1977; Meunier, Le Christ de Cyrille d’Alexandrie, 179–94.

  17. 17.

    Cf. his third letter to Nestorius, paragraph 7, PG 77, 121A, quoted in McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy, 270.

  18. 18.

    See André de Halleux, “La distinction des natures du Christ ‘par la seule pensée’ au cinquième concile œcuménique”, Mélanges D. Staniloae, Sibiu, 1993, 311–319, and “Le dyophysisme christologique de Cyrille d’Alexandrie”, Logos. Festschrift für Luise Abramowski, Berlin 1993, 411–428.

  19. 19.

    Sources Chrétiennes vol. 392 (PG 77, 568-72); St. Cyril of Alexandria, Festal Letters 1-12, ed. John J. O’Keefe. Washington, D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2009, 137–53. St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, 2 vols., ed. Joel Elowsky. Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013, vol. 1, 1.9, 96a, 4-74, Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, 106, and Boulnois, “L’Eucharistie, mystère d’union chez Cyrille d’Alexandrie,” 166–7.

  20. 20.

    The same phenomenological distinction is made again in the First and Second Letters to Succensus, bishop of Dioceasarea, written after the Formula of Reunion, as well as in the Letter to Eulogius.

  21. 21.

    De Carne Christi V.4.

  22. 22.

    This may be considered a principle in the Pseudo-Dionysius as well. See Daniel Cohen, Formes théologique et symbolisme sacré chez (Pseudo-)Denys l’Aréopagite. Brussels: Ousia, 2010.

  23. 23.

    Both his third letter to Nestorius, 7-9 and his Scholia on the Incarnation, 8 draw the Eucharistic unity and the incarnational unity together vis-à-vis this image. See M.-O. Boulnois, “Le modèle de l’union de l’âme et du corps dans les débats christologiques: les débuts de la controverse nestorienne,” Annuaire. Résumé des conférences et travaux, École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, tome 117 (2008–2009), EPHE 2010, 205–215; and “Le modèle de l’union de l’âme et du corps dans la controverse nestorienne sur l’union des deux natures dans le Christ,” Annuaire. Résumé des conférences et travaux, École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, tome 118 (2009–2010), EPHE 2011, 157–175.

  24. 24.

    Plotinus, Enneads 3.6.1-4.

  25. 25.

    Canon 10 of Constantinople II (553).

  26. 26.

    See Steven McKinion, Words, Imagery and the Mystery of Christ: A Reconstruction of Cyril of Alexandria’s Christology, Brill, Boston, 2000.

  27. 27.

    For Apollinaris’ use, cf. fr. 128 (H. Leitzmann, ed. Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule. Texte und Untersuchungen, 1904); for Cyril’s cf. his Commentary on Luke, 22 (PG 72, 909 B), 130-1.

  28. 28.

    On the Unity of Christ, 130-1 (PG 75, 1357C). Emphasis added.

  29. 29.

    Against Nestorius, II.33, PG 76, 61B (Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, p. 143). For a discussion see McKinion, Words, Imagery and the Mystery of Christ, p. 207.

  30. 30.

    Commentary on Isaiah, 1.4, PG 70181 C (Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, p. 77). Commentary on Isaiah vol. 1, trans. Robert Charles Hill. Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2008, 25–6.

  31. 31.

    Commentary on Isaiah, 1.4 (PG 70181 D); Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, p. 77. Cf. the Commentary on the Gospel of John, I. 14 (PG 73, 160 C).

  32. 32.

    Cyril develops this image further in his Scholia on the Incarnation (McGuckin, 301-2) and in On the Unity of Christ, pp. 130–1, 132–3; Sources Chrétiennes 97, ed. M. Durand. Paris: 1964.

  33. 33.

    Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I 71b33-72a5.

  34. 34.

    Boulnois, La Paradoxe Trinitaire, 114.

  35. 35.

    2.5-7, NRSV.

  36. 36.

    On the term “theology” to name the new Pauline priority granted intellectual reflection on the disclosure (apocalypsis) of divine wisdom in the Cross in service to the ekklesia, see the argument undergirding N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (2 vols.). NY: Fortress Press, 2013.

  37. 37.

    See H. Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, vol. 1, 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.

  38. 38.

    On the Trinity XIV.4.15, PG 76, 61B.

  39. 39.

    On Divine Names 640A, PG 73, 576D.

  40. 40.

    Commentary on John, 4.2, 360d (Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, 114).

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  1. Belmont University, Nashville, TN, USA

    William C. Hackett

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Correspondence to William C. Hackett .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jean-Luc Marion

  2. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, East Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Christiaan Jacobs-Vandegeer

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Hackett, W.C. (2020). “A Whole Habit of Mind”: Revelation and Understanding in the Christology of St. Cyril of Alexandria. In: Marion, JL., Jacobs-Vandegeer, C. (eds) The Enigma of Divine Revelation. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28132-8_6

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