Cyril of Jerusalem’s Doctrine of God [part II]

“First then let there be laid as a foundation in your soul the doctrine concerning God; that God is One, alone unbegotten, without beginning, change, or variation; neither begotten of another, nor having another to succeed Him in His life; who neither began to live in time, nor ends ever: and that He is both good and just; that if ever thou hear a heretic say, that there is one God who is just, and another who is good, you may immediately remember, and discern the poisoned arrow of heresy. For some have impiously dared to divide the One God in their teaching: and some have said that one is the Creator and Lord of the soul, and another of the body; a doctrine at once absurd and impious. For how can a man become the one servant of two masters, when our Lord says in the Gospels, No man can serve two masters? There is then One Only God, the Maker both of souls and bodies: One the Creator of heaven and earth, the Maker of Angels and Archangels: of many the Creator, but of One only the Father before all ages — of One only, His Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom He made all things visible and invisible. This Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not circumscribed in any place, nor is He less than the heaven; but the heavens are the works of His fingers, and the whole earth is held in His grasp, He is in all things and around all. Think not that the sun is brighter than He, or equal to Him: for He who at first formed the sun must need to be incomparably greater and brighter. He foreknows the things that shall be, and is mightier than all, knowing all things and doing as He will; not being subject to any necessary sequence of events, nor to nativity, nor chance, nor fate; in all things perfect, and equally possessing every absolute form of virtue, neither diminishing nor increasing, but in mode and conditions ever the same; who has prepared punishment for sinners, and a crown for the righteous.”- Lecture 4:4-5 

In Cyril's view, God is One, Eternal, Unbegotten, Immutable, Good, Just, Almighty, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Perfect, Omnipotent, the Creator of all things- souls, bodies, things visible and invisible. There are not multiple Creators, nor multiple gods, but only one Creator and God. Greater than all creation, God is also immaterial and does not occupy space that would entail a limitation in His Being. He equates the “One God'' with the person of the Father, rather than with the whole Trinity, as it was common among many Eastern Fathers and remains today in the Eastern churches. However, in imploying God the Father as the one true God in identity, He doesn't teach a subordination in nature between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us see how he expresses the equality between the Father and the Son, as deserving equal glory and honor: 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed also be His Only-begotten Son. For with the thought of God let the thought of Father at once be joined, that the ascription of glory to the Father and the Son may be made indivisible. For the Father has not one glory, and the Son another, but one and the same, since He is the Father's Only-begotten Son; and when the Father is glorified, the Son also shares the glory with Him, because the glory of the Son flows from His Father's honour: and again, when the Son is glorified, the Father of so great a blessing is highly honoured.”- Lecture 6:1 

“As indeed the Only-begotten Son also, with the Holy Ghost, knows the Father fully: For neither, says He, knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him. For He fully beholds, and, according as each can bear, reveals God through the Spirit: since the Only-begotten Son together with the Holy Ghost is a partaker of the Father's Godhead.”- Lecture 6:6 

This statement is very powerful against arianism, for two reasons: 1) the “knowing of God” meant in the patristic era to comprehend God's essence perfectly, which no creature could ever do, therefore if you were a creature you could not know God's essence, but if you were Uncreated you had to know God's essence. The Arians believed that Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot comprehend the essence of the Father, since the Father is their Creator and infinitely greater than them. The statement “Christ and the Spirit know the Father fully” would have been understood at the time to be a clear-cut denial of arianism; 2) the Son and the Spirit partaking of the Father's Godhead, meant that they would have the same nature as the Father, therefore in no way subordinate to Him. The arians believed no one can partake of the nature of the Father, since Christ and the Spirit have different natures than Him. In lecture 6, Cyril proceeds to outline the errors of the gnostics, and refutes and condemns the errors of Manichaens, Valentinians, Marcionites, the Ebionites and the heresies of Manes, the one who claimed to be the Holy Ghost and his disciples: Thomas, Baddas and Hermas. He gives a warning so that no one read the Gospel of Thomas “for it comes not from one of the Twelve apostles, but from one of the three wicked disciples of Manes”. This lecture is in a way similar to Irenaeus's Against Heresies and gives a brief explanation of the origin and history of such heresies, and proceeds to refute their claims afterwards. 

The fact that the Father is the Creator of all things- material and spiritual (against the gnostics) we do not mean this to the exclusion of the Son. In Cyril's words: 

“One He is, everywhere present, beholding all things, perceiving all things, creating all things through Christ: For all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made.”- Lecture 6:9 

The Father is the Creator of all things, but in and through the Son are all brought into being. 

We shall examine his christological views more in our next post.