Letters (first part: Migne letters 1-55) 53–54

From the letter of Cyril to Xystus, bishop of Rome.

For I am neither convicted of having ever thought anything other than what seems right to the truth, nor have I ever said that the divine nature of the Word is passible. And a little later: I know that the nature of God is impassible, unchangeable, and unalterable, even in the nature of the manhood; and that Christ is one in both and from both.

I have read your Reverence's letter; and finding it grieved, as though the peace of the churches had been concluded unreasonably, I judged that your Goodness has been moved out of love, yet does not seem to know exactly what was decided. For, as I learn, some are circulating letters supposedly written to me by the most reverent and God-fearing bishop John. It is likely that they are either forged or contain additions to the liking of those who hold the views of Nestorius. For I, as the holy synod at the metropolis of Ephesus decided, did not give him back communion until he had anathematized the doctrines of Nestorius in writing, confessed that he holds him deposed, and agreed to the ordination of the most reverent and God-fearing bishop Maximian.

When the most God-fearing bishop of Emesa, Paul, had taken endless pains over the deposed, I mean Helladius, Eutherius, Dorotheus, and Himerius, and pleaded that, together with the peace of the churches, their case too should be settled, I answered decisively that I take no account of any of the deposed, but that they must remain in the condition in which they are, together. I forgave the insult they had done to me. For it was not fitting to cut the churches into discord for this reason alone, when the more necessary thing was being brought to completion, I mean that those who long refused to do so should anathematize the views of Nestorius and confess his deposition. And they confessed in writing that the holy Virgin is Mother of God; that the very only-begotten Son, begotten of the Father before every age, was born in the last times of the age according to the flesh of a woman; that the person of the Son is one; and that the theologians apply the apostolic and evangelical sayings, some to his Godhead and others to his manhood. For Nestorius, dividing the one Son and Christ and Lord into two, set a man by himself and alone as Son, and the Word from God by himself and alone as another son; and he said that some of the sayings are the man's and others God the Word's. But the right knowledge about Christ is not so. For we know one Son and Christ and Lord, the same God and man; and we say that the Godhead is his, and likewise the manhood is his. For at one time he speaks as God in a manner befitting God, and at another the same speaks as man in a manner befitting man. Since they confessed these things, how was it not superfluous to go on contending, for those who did not wish a schism to prevail and the churches of the East to incline into heresy? May all the others too be so disposed! For Helladius of Tarsus and certain others, even if they do not think rightly, this is nothing to those who have chosen to think rightly. Let them go, if they wish, two or three of them, while the churches everywhere hold one and the same faith.

Let your Reverence not be unaware of this either. When the bishop of Emesa, Paul, mentioned above, came to Alexandria, he said that some had falsely accused your Reverence of saying that the nature of the Godhead is passible, that the Word brought down his flesh from heaven, and that after this he underwent a change into the nature of flesh. It was necessary, then, that the deceits of the liars be made plain to the more reasonable, so that they might not be scandalized when those men spread such reports. For this reason, writing to the most God-fearing bishop of Antioch, John, I laughed at their slanders. For I have neither come to think so through a change of mind, nor am I found ever to have said any such thing in a treatise, a letter, or a book. As for the term “consubstantiation,” we do not even know at all what it is. It is likely that those who write such things there, defending themselves for the rashness committed against us at Ephesus, invent such things so as not to seem to have been stirred up in vain; for their conscience convicts them. Let your Reverence, then, answer those there who say one thing in place of another; for everything has been done securely. The beloved deacon Cassius is one of those who went to Antioch, and he can tell how many days he spent there without giving John the letters of communion until he had first signed with his own hand concerning all these things.