Something to meditate for Christmas

The Incarnation (part I): the christology of Cyril of Jerusalem

This article does not attempt to give a comprehensive interpretation of patristic literature, rather it is intended more as a devotional, to better understand the purpose and reason of the Incarnation, why the Lord and God of all sojourned amongst us:


"Nurslings of purity and disciples of chastity, raise we our hymn to the Virgin-born God with lips full of purity. Deemed worthy to partake of the flesh of the Spiritual Lamb, let us take the head together with the feet, the Deity being understood as the head, and the Manhood taken as the feet. Hearers of the Holy Gospels, let us listen to John the Divine. For he who said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, went on to say, and the Word was made flesh. For neither is it holy to worship the mere man, nor religious to say that He is God only without the Manhood. For if Christ is God, as indeed He is, but took not human nature upon Him, we are strangers to salvation. Let us then worship Him as God, but believe that He also was made Man. For neither is there any profit in calling Him man without Godhead nor any salvation in refusing to confess the Manhood together with the Godhead. Let us confess the presence of Him who is both King and Physician. For Jesus the King when about to become our Physician, girded Himself with the linen of humanity, and healed that which was sick. The perfect Teacher of babes became a babe among babes, that He might give wisdom to the foolish. The Bread of heaven came down on earth that He might feed the hungry.”- Lecture 12:1

“Believe then that this Only-begotten Son of God for our sins came down from heaven upon earth, and took upon Him this human nature of like passions with us, and was begotten of the Holy Virgin and of the Holy Ghost, and was made Man, not in seeming and mere show, but in truth; nor yet by passing through the Virgin as through a channel; but was of her made truly flesh, [and truly nourished with milk ], and did truly eat as we do, and truly drink as we do. For if the Incarnation was a phantom, salvation is a phantom also. The Christ was of two natures, Man in what was seen, but God in what was not seen; as Man truly eating like us, for He had the like feeling of the flesh with us; but as God feeding the five thousand from five loaves; as Man truly dying, but as God raising him that had been dead four days; truly sleeping in the ship as Man, and walking upon the waters as God.”- Lecture 4:9

Christ has two natures- a fully human nature, and a fully divine nature as we saw. The fact that Cyril believed that after the Incarnation Christ was God feeding the five thousand and in what was not seen shows us that he did not subscribe to the modern kenosis theories. 

He also proceeds to outline Old Testament prophecies about Jesus and prove that He indeed is the promised Messiah. Space doesn't let us to examine all these- however we shall examine Cyril's view of the necessity and purpose of the Incarnation. 

The answer Cyril gives to the question “Why did God become man?” will be very similar to Irenaeus's answer. We find a hint at this in the first part of lecture 12: The bread of heaven came down to feed the hungry, the Physician healed that which was sick. These analogies carry with them this main theme of regeneration (imparting new life to humanity) which is very present in Cyril's writing. The reason Christ came is grounded in the Creation and the Fall of mankind. In Cyril's view, all things have been good created by God, human nature being in one way different from everything else in creation: human nature alone was created as the rational image of God. 

“All the works of creation were good, but none of these was an image of God, save man only. The sun was formed by a mere command, but man by God's hands: Let us make man after our image, and after our likeness. A wooden image of an earthly king is held in honour; how much more a rational image of God?”- Lecture 12:5 

Now the problem of sin: 
“Very great was the wound of man's nature; from the feet to the head there was no soundness in it; none could apply mollifying ointment, neither oil, nor bandages.”- Lecture 12:7 

This sin was the result of Adam’s original disobedience to God's commandment and as a result human nature is infected with the plague of sin, which affected all faculties of our nature. Now, the solution of God: 

“The Lord heard the prayer of the Prophets. The Father disregarded not the perishing of our race; He sent forth His Son, the Lord from heaven, as healer”- Lecture 12:8

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