THE ONE INCARNATE NATURE OF THE WORD

Since your Perfection enquires whether or not one ought to admit that there
are two natures in Christ, I thought it necessary to address this point.

Thus does Saint Cyril define the reason of writing his First Letter to Succensus, bishop of
Diocaesarea in Asia Minor (Turkey). Succensus was an orthodox and a good theologian,
friendly to Saint Cyril, who alerted him to the views of the “Eastern bishops”, mostly
sympathizers of Nestorius, and asked him to write refutations to what they propagated.
Here is how this letter starts:

I read the memorandum sent by your Holiness and was most delighted that
even though you are quite capable of bringing advantage both to us and to
others from your own considerable learning, you saw fit to ask us to set down
in writing what is in our mind, what we stand by. Well, we think the same
things about the economy of our Saviour as the holy Fathers did before us.
We regulate our own minds by reading their works so as to follow in their
footsteps and introduce nothing that is new into the orthodox teachings.1

Here Saint Cyril assures his friend that what he will commit to writing is not his personal
view, but rather what he had received from the fathers. Saint Cyril was very faithful to what
he had received from Saint Athanasius, Saint Didymus and Saint Theophilus. He then
proceeds to explain the Catholic faith:

We have learned from the divine scriptures and the holy Fathers to confess
One Son, and Christ, and Lord. This is the Word of God the Father born
from him in an ineffable and divine manner before the ages, and the same
one is born from the holy virgin according to the flesh, for our sake, in the
last times of this age. Since she gave birth to God made flesh and made man,
for this reason we also call her the Mother of God. There is, therefore, One
Son, One Lord Jesus Christ, both before the incarnation and after the
incarnation. The Word of God the Father is not one distinct son, with the
one born of the holy virgin being another and different son. No, it is our faith
that the very one who was before the ages is the one who was born from a
woman according to the flesh; not as if his Godhead took the beginnings of
its existence or was called into being for the first time through the holy virgin,
but rather, as I have said, that the eternal Word is said to have been born

Saint Cyril of Alexandria: First Letter to Succensus, in John McGuckin: Saint Cyril of
1

Alexandria and the Christological Controversy p 352.

1
 from her according to the flesh. For his flesh was his very own in just the
same way as each one of us has his own body.2

St. Cyril further explains:

And so, we unite the Word of God the Father to the holy flesh endowed with
a rational soul, in an ineffable way that transcends understanding, without
confusion, without change, and without alteration, and we thereby confess
One Son, and Christ, and Lord; the same one God and man, not someone
alongside someone different, but one and the same who is and is known to be
both things. For this reason he sometimes speaks economically as man, in
human fashion; and at other times, as God, he makes statements with divine
authority. It is our contention that if we carefully examine the manner of the
economy in the flesh and attentively investigate the mystery, we shall see that
the Word of God the Father was made man and made flesh but did not
fashion that sacred body from his own divine nature, but rather took it from
the virgin. How else could he become man except by putting on the human
body? As I have said, if we understand the manner of the incarnation we
shall see that two natures come together with one another, without confusion
or change, in an indivisible union. The flesh is flesh and not Godhead, even
though it became the flesh of God; and similarly the Word is God and not
flesh even if he made the flesh his very own in the economy. Given that we
understand this, we do no harm to that concurrence into union when we say
that it took place out of two natures. After the union has occurred, however,
we do not divide the natures from one another, nor do we sever the one and
indivisible into two sons, but we say that there is One Son, and as the holy
Fathers have stated: One Incarnate Nature of The Word.
As to the manner of the incarnation of the Only Begotten, then theoretically
speaking (but only in so far as it appears to the eyes of the soul) we would
admit that there are two united natures but only One Christ and Son and
Lord, the Word of God made man and made flesh. If you like we can take as
our example that very composition which makes us men. For we are
composed of body and soul and we perceive two natures; there is one nature
of the body, and a different nature of the soul, and yet one man from both of
them in terms of the union. This composition from two natures does not turn
the one man into two, but as I have said there is one man by the composition
of body and soul. If we deny that there is one single Christ from two different
natures, being indivisible after the union, then the enemies of orthodoxy will

Saint Cyril of Alexandria: First Letter to Succensus, in John McGuckin: Saint Cyril of
2

Alexandria and the Christological Controversy p. 353

2
 ask: “If the entirety amounts to one nature then how was he incarnated or
what kind of flesh did he make his own?”3

The points Saint Cyril is making here are: first, the two natures are united in an indivisible
union, and second, that after the union, we do not divide the natures from one another,
third, we can only theoretically speak about Christ being out of two natures (not in two
natures), and fourth, that as we have received from the fathers we should speak of the One
Incarnate Nature of The Word. In a letter to another bishop he adds:

We speak of two natures which came into union, (but) after the union,
inasmuch as that which divides them into two is eradicated, we confess that
there is one nature of the Son as being one, Who, however, became man and
was incarnate. ... We do not at any time eradicate the difference between the
expressions, although we have rejected dividing them out separately ... For,
as we are persuaded, the nature of God the Word is one, God the Word who
was both incarnate and made man.3
So when the manner of the incarnation is investigated, the human mind
observes those things mutually joined in an ineffable union without alteration
or intermingling. After they have become one, the mind does not divide them
at all, but believes and truly accepts, that there is one God, Son, Christ and
Lord who is from both of them. But the wickedness of Nestorius’s belief is
different from this. For he pretends to acknowledge that God the Word was
incarnate and made man. (But) because he does not know the import of the
incarnation, he names “two natures”, separating them from one another.4
Saint Cyril insisted on using the formula One Incarnate Nature of The Word in view of
Nestorius using the two nature terminology to defend his opinions. Nestorians accused
Saint Cyril that he teaches that the body of Christ is changed into the Godhead. He
responded to these objections:

It would be just as foolish an idea to talk of the body being transformed into
the nature of Godhead as it would to say the Word was transformed into the
nature of flesh. For just as the latter is impossible (for he is unchangeable
and unalterable) so too is the former. It is not possible that any creature
could be converted into the essence or nature of Godhead, and the flesh is a

3
Saint Cyril of Alexandria: The Letter to Acacius of Mitelene in Ebeid and Wickham: A
collection of unpublished Syriac letters of Cyril of Alexandria, p 26

4
Ibid p 27

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 created thing. We maintain, therefore, that Christ's body is divine in so far as
it is the body of God, adorned with unspeakable glory, incorruptible, holy,
and life-giving; but none of the holy Fathers has ever thought or said that it
was transformed into the nature of Godhead, and we have no intention of
doing so either.5
“If Emmanuel is composed out of two natures, but after the union there is One Incarnate
Nature of the Word, it then follows that we must assert he suffered in His own nature.” To
this saint Cyril responds:

Were it the case that within the conditions of the providential dispensation
there was nothing capable of suffering, suffering must occur to the Word’s
nature. But if through our calling His nature “incarnate” the whole concept
of the incarnate dispensation is brought up, ... how can they jabber about it
being necessary for Him to suffer in His nature, when it is His body which
incurs the suffering whilst the Word is impassible? Yet we do not dissociate
Him from suffering. For just as His body became his own, so all things
pertaining to the body except sin are by providential appropriation,
predicated of Him.6
Later on he adds:

They do not understand the dispensation but are artfully transferring the
suffering to the man on his own and are foolishly engaging in an injurious
piety, so that God the Word shall not be acknowledged as Saviour, as the one
who gave His blood for our sake ... but this view entirely uproots the
incarnate dispensation and substitutes Man-worship for our glorious
mystery. They do not perceive that it is He who is “descended from the Jews
in the flesh” i.e. “Who is Christ of the seed of Jesse and David” whom
blessed Paul called “Lord of Glory” (and) “God blessed forever.”7
“If there is One Incarnate Nature of the Word, it is absolutely necessary to speak of
mixture as having occurred inasmuch as the human nature has been reduced and filched
(stolen) away.” To this saint Cyril responds:

Saint Cyril of Alexandria: First Letter to Succensus, in John McGuckin: Saint Cyril of
5

Alexandria and the Christological Controversy p 357

6
Saint Cyril of Alexandria: Second Letter to Succensus, in Ebeid and Wickham: A
collection of unpublished Syriac letters of Cyril of Alexandria, p 40

7
Ibid, p 42

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 The ineffable and unspeakable union has revealed to us the Son’s Single, but
as I have said, Incarnate nature. For singleness is not predicated truly only of
beings simple by nature, but also of beings brought together in composition,
such as Man, who is compounded of body and soul. For these elements are
heterogeneous and are in nature mutually dissimilar; but united they make the
single nature of Man ... Those then who assert that “If there is One
Incarnate Nature of the Word, it is absolutely necessary to speak of mixture
as having occurred inasmuch as the human nature has been reduced and
filched away”, are talking rubbish. For it is neither “reduced” nor, as they say,
“filched away”. For it suffices for a complete indication of the fact that He
became man that we should say that He was Incarnate. Were this not avowed
by us, there would be room for their cavilling. But since “Incarnate” must be
added to “One Nature”’where is there any sort of reduction or filching
away?8
“If anyone says that Christ suffered for our sakes in the flesh, he is affirming none other
than this: that Christ suffered for our sake in our nature (the human nature)”. To this
Saint Cyril replies:

Let Man be our illustration again. For we think of him as two natures, one of
the soul and one of the body. But distinguishing them and accepting their
differentiation in thought only, we do not put their natures side by side nor,
again, conceive of them as two separate natures ... Now when divine
Scripture declared that “He suffered in the flesh” (1Pe 4:1) it is better that
we speak thus and not of His “suffering in the nature of manhood”. ... we say
that our Lord suffered in the flesh. So by the trick of the problem they say
that He suffered in the nature of the humanity, distinguishing it from the
Word and setting it on its own and apart , so that two are conceived of and
not a single God the Word Who was incarnate and became Man.9
Saint Cyril was dealing with very tricky people and he had to be very cautious in the
terminology he accepts. He always spoke of the "Flesh of Christ" rather than the "human
nature of Christ", since the "flesh" does not imply duality while "human nature" implies
separation of the natures after the union, which Nestorians advocated. Saint Cyril was not
the first father who used the term One Nature for Christ:

8
Saint Cyril of Alexandria: Second Letter to Succensus, in Ebeid and Wickham: A
collection of unpublished Syriac letters of Cyril of Alexandria, p 401
9
Ibid, p 43

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 For both natures are one by the combination, the Deity being made Man,
and the Manhood deified.10
To maintain two natures in the one Christ, makes a Tetrad of the Trinity, .....
it is the true God, the unincarnate, that was manifested in the flesh, perfect
with the true and divine perfection, not with two natures; nor do we speak of
worshipping four (persons), viz., God, and the Son of God, and man, and the
Holy Spirit.11
Recently, dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox churches produced a joint statement in 1990:

1. Both families agree in condemning the Eutychian heresy. Both families confess that the
Logos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, only begotten of the Father before the ages
and consubstantial with Him, was incarnate and was born from the Virgin Mary Theotokos;
fully consubstantial with us, perfect man with soul, body and mind (nouj); He was crucified,
died, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day, ascended to the Heavenly
Father, where He sits on the right hand of the Father as Lord of all Creation. At Pentecost,
by the coming of the Holy Spirit He manifested the Church as His Body. We look forward
to His coming again in the fullness of His glory, according to the Scriptures.

2. Both families condemn the Nestorian heresy and the crypto-Nestorianism of Theodoret
of Cyrus. They agree that it is not sufficient merely to say that Christ is consubstantial both
with His Father and with us, by nature God and by nature man; it is necessary to affirm also
that the Logos, Who is by nature God, became by nature Man, by His Incarnation in the
fullness of time.

3. Both families agree that the Hypostasis of the Logos became composite (sunqetoj) by
uniting to His divine uncreated nature with its natural will and energy, which He has in
common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, created human nature, which He assumed at
the Incarnation and made His own, with its natural will and energy.

10
St. Gregory Nazianzen: Letter to Cledonius, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers,
Series II, Volume 5
11
Gregory the Wonder worker: Sectional Confession of Faith, Ante Nicene Fathers, Volume
VI.

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4. Both families agree that the natures with their proper energies and wills are united
hypostatically and naturally without confusion, without change, without division and
without separation, and that they are distinguished in thought alone

5. Both families agree that He Who wills and acts is always the one Hypostasis of the Logos
incarnate.

6. Both families agree in rejecting interpretations of Councils which do not fully agree with
the Horos of the Third Ecumenical Council and the letter (433) of Cyril of Alexandria to
John of Antioch.

7. The Orthodox agree that the Oriental Orthodox will continue to maintain their
traditional Cyrillian terminology of “one nature of the incarnate Logos”, since they
acknowledge the double consubstantiality of the Logos which Eutyches denied. The
Orthodox also use this terminology. The Oriental Orthodox agree that the Orthodox are
justified in their use of the two-natures formula, since they acknowledge that the distinction
is “in thought alone”. Cyril interpreted correctly this use in his letter to John of Antioch
and his letters to Acacius of Melitene (PG 77, 184-201), to Eulogius (PG 77, 224-228) and
to Succensus (PG 77, 228-245).

8. Both families accept the first three Ecumenical Councils, which form our common
heritage. In relation to the four later Councils of the Orthodox Church, the Orthodox state
that for them the above points 1-7 are the teachings also of the four later Councils of the
Orthodox Church, while the Oriental Orthodox consider this statement of the Orthodox as
their interpretation. With this understanding, the Oriental Orthodox respond to it
positively.

So, finally, after 15 centuries the Eastern Orthodox agreed with us essentially on the faith
that Cyril and Dioscorus and Timothy and Severus taught.
Someone may ask: why then the anathemas have not been lifted, 28 years after the
agreement? It is because the Eastern Orthodox cannot convince their own people
to accept it!
The Eastern Orthodox have a Sunday called the Sunday of Orthodoxy, in which,
during the liturgy they curse Dioscorus, Timothy and Severus. If you do that for 15
centuries, how can you tell your people: “It was a mistake, they are not heretics”?