Cyril of Alexandria

Studies of Christian literature of the first seven centuries have shown that the ecumenical councils, although they did not allow distortion of the Christian message, nevertheless did not consider the essence of the problems that were created by the Chalcedonian definition and became the subject of Christological disputes of the VI-VII centuries. As a result, these problems, which in traditional (classical) theology were considered solved long ago, appeared again in all their complexity. In addition, in the last 150 years, Christian theology has faced new difficulties that have arisen in the course of scholarly study of the New Testament texts. The article lists these problems and shows that the modification of the Chalcedonian definition proposed by Karl Barth makes it possible to solve them.

La courte prière du Notre Père est un merveilleux moyen de découvrir la présence aimante du Père. Les sept demandes qu’elle contient méritent une attention toute particulière. Il nous faut aussi répondre au fait que dans un certain nombre de manuscrits grecs, le Notre Père de l’évangile de Luc n’a que cinq demandes. L’exégèse d’oralité, à partir de l'araméen, offre à cet égard des outils nouveaux de compréhension.

L’évangile de Luc est un « pendentif », avec un collier compteur introduisant des fils d’oralité, formant chacun un ensemble cohérent en lien avec la perle qui l’introduit.
Ce collier compteur comporte huit perles allant de l’Annonciation aux tentations du Christ au désert (Lc 1, 26 à 4, 15). Ainsi, l’Annonciation à Marie introduit un fil d’oralité où l’on trouve le Oui de Pierre, le Oui de Lévi, et le Oui des Douze. La Visitation introduit un fil où, devant la résurrection du fils de la veuve de Naïn, le peuple s’exclame : Dieu a visité son peuple ! Et l’on continue ainsi jusqu’à la perle des tentations de Jésus au désert, qui introduit la Passion du Christ, durant laquelle les invectives lancées à Jésus font écho à Satan tentant Jésus au désert. Quant aux récits de la Résurrection, ils forment le « sceau final ».
Le Notre Père se situe au centre (5e perle du 4e fil d’oralité), qui est lui-même au centre des 8 fils du « pendentif » de l’évangile de Luc. L’ensemble de l’évangile apparaît ainsi comme un vaste commentaire du Notre Père. C’est particulièrement opportun étant donné que nous avons montré que Luc a repris dans son évangile une formation dédiée aux diacres, et que ce sont les diacres qui font entonner à l’assemblée la prière du Notre Père.
En outre, l’étude de l’original araméen révèle qu’il n’y a pas de différence entre le « Notre Père » de l’évangile de Luc comporte sept demandes comme dans l’évangile de Matthieu. (L’annexe donne de nombreuses preuve de la primauté de l’araméen).

Tamar Aptsiauri, Teona Gelashvili (Tbilisi) Lexicographical Studies Based on Euthymius the Athonite's Translations of Gregory of Nazianzus's 30 th and 31 st Orations and Gregory of Nyssa's The Life of Moses Examining original philosophical and theological works as well as their relevant early translations in the context of contemporary humanities is a subject of complex research. A comprehensive study of a particular translation involves an assessment of the original version in terms of the concepts and world-view it conveys, on the one hand, and a textual and philological analysis of the translated version, on the other, lexicological studies constituting one of the most important aspects of the latter. Development of a scientific terminology that can function as a specialpurpose language is, in general, preconditioned by several factors and entails a rather long-term work. The history of the making of the Georgian theological terminology extends back over centuries. This process started in the oldest (5 th c.) translated and original monuments of different genres and reached perfection in the translations of the Gelati Hellenophile theological school. Succeeding the old tradition, the translators from the Iviron Monastery at Mount Athos, including Euthymius the Athonite, a prominent 11 th c. translator and founder of the Iviron school, had undoubtedly played a significant role in unfolding large scale translation activities. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the development of the Georgian theological terminology at its early-stage based on Euthymius the Athonite's translations of two works pertaining to two different genres. Notably, our research will focus on the analysis of the interrelation between Greek Gnoseological terms and Euthymius's corres

This paper seeks to explore the paradox of God's suffering in the Person of Jesus Christ and God's essential nature of not being subjected to change by exploring the concept of divine  impassibility as articulated by select theologians in the history
of the Church. This study will argue that a re-examination of divine impassibility
in light of the doctrine of divine self-limitation does provide a better framework to
comprehend the paradox of God’s suffering, albeit certain cautions are warranted
in this process.

Orthodox beliefs in the universal Christian Church have been heavily influenced and protected by historical creeds. A creed is a statement of faith designed to summarise the main points of what Christians believe.  Four Creeds that will be analysed in this paper include: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Symbol of Chalcedon and the Athanasian Creed. Each Creed reflects a theological development that was required at the time in response to heresies threatening orthodox belief. These four Creeds provided valuable protection for the Christian faith as it was established throughout the world.

There is a long-standing polemic that the ‘moment’ of eucharistic consecration for the West is the words of institution and for the East is the epiclesis. Zheltov and Mckenna have previously analysed this issue with respect to the Byzantine rite; however, there is still a need for analysis of the Coptic rite. This paper examines the liturgical, patristic, and medieval sources to provide a survey of understandings of the epiclesis and consecration within the Egyptian liturgical heritage. The liturgical sources utilized include the early Egyptian anaphoras, as well as those utilized in the Coptic rite today—Egyptian Liturgy of St Basil the Great, Anaphora of St Gregory the Theologian, and Anaphora of St Cyril of Alexandria. The paper will show that there is diversity of thought regarding eucharistic consecration within the Egyptian tradition; yet, while accents on moment and process are both present, consecration as a process appears to be the dominant understanding.

Origen employs the words μετοχῇ θεότητος in Contra Celsum 3.37, which could be translated as "participating in divine nature." There are two academic perspectives on this phrase. One sees this phrase to be a deification reference to 2 Peter 1.4, and Origen is said to be the first author to use the verse's wording to refer to followers of Christ as "partakers of the divine nature." The other view considers this phrase a simple comment on the divine realm, reflecting the understanding of Origen regarding the divinity of angels. The paper at hand provides clarification for the phrase μετοχῇ θεότητος, positioning it in Origen's overall understanding of deification, and challenging the two scholarly stances on this phrase. First, this paper shows that Contra Celsum 3.37 does not intend to reference 2 Peter 1.4, but likely signals completely different biblical references. Second, the paper examines the language and context of Origen's statement to show that this phrase is not only a comment on the divinity of angels, but also reflects Origen's thoughts on human deification. In doing so, this paper analyzes Origen's terminology and his philosophical approach towards human theosis in order to propose an answer to the questions of who is deified, who is not deified, and what it means to share in divinity. Overall, it becomes clear that in addition to commenting on angels, the phrase μετοχῇ θεότητος summarizes Origen's understanding of human deification, even if not as a reference to 2 Peter 1.4. It reflects a human-angel continuum and posits a direct human participation in God.

The notion of a crucified deity has long sparked intense theological debate, with critics arguing it contradicts the idea of an all-powerful God. This essay builds on the previous work titled “The Deity of Jesus: Hermeneutical view of “The Son of Man” in Daniel 7:13-14 and Jesus’ application of the phrase.” providing further evidence for Jesus’ divinity. It addresses criticisms by exploring the theological, historical, and philosophical foundations of the Logos, explaining the crucifixion's significance in Christian doctrine, and demonstrating the profound coherence of these concepts. The last essay concluded by proving Jesus’ divinity through his deeds, his claims, and people’s testimony. This essay aims to clarify misconceptions leading to several critics against the crucified God and the divinity of Logos. For clarity, this essay segments the criticism into three parts: historical and cultural context, philosophical, and theological.

The broader context of this study is formed by the discussion about the way biblical interpretation functioned for pro-Nicene theologians and about its relevance for a modern audience (p. 3). Matthew Crawford wants to uncover assumptions that underlie the exegesis of these theologians, and he has chosen to focus on Cyril of Alexandria, because in his view the archbishop, as an exegete and a dogmatic theologian, has made a valuable, but not well-known, contribution to this aspect of pro-Nicene theology (p. 5)-a claim he demonstrates to be true in the course of his book. His investigation consists of two complementary parts: in the first part, he explores Cyril's theology of revelation (chapters 2-4), in the second, Cyril's theology of exegesis (chapters 5-6), and he argues that both are "Trinitarian in structure and Christological in focus" (p. 7). In revelation there is a movement from the Father, through the Son, towards the Spirit, while in exegesis the movement is reversed: from the Spirit, through the Son, towards the Father. Throughout the book, Crawford compares Cyril's views with those of earlier patristic theologians, with special attention to the Alexandrians Origen and Didymus the Blind, and he suggests a number of times that Cyril was indebted to the latter. Chapter 2 discusses a conundrum. On the one hand, Cyril stands in a long tradition of Logos Christologies that regard the Word of God as the primary agent in revelation. On the other hand, the archbishop is firmly committed to the pro-Nicene doctrine of inseparable operations, according to which, in every divine act, all three hypostases are involved, not as separate persons working together, but-with Cyril's own words-because of their "natural unity" there is "one motion (κίνησις)" (p. 39).1 This seeming contradiction is resolved by the fact that Cyril understands the principle of inseparable operations in such a way that the distinction and order of the three divine hypostases are retained (p. 42). This is expressed by the phrase "from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit" (cf. p. 42) which recurs a number of times in Cyril's works, and which he also applies to revelation. Although the Son may be said to reveal the Father, the Father is

The publication presents a Russian translation of the surviving part of the Greek Catens «Interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans» St. Cyril of Alexandria. The Preface indicates the initial form of interpretation is determined and with the help of additional sources it is concluded that it was an exegetic comment divided into «volumes». On the basis of the con- tent of the treatise, the question of its dating is solved and it is indicated that the absence of the Nestorian dispute means that it was written before 429, and the features of the triadological terminology allow to date it not earlier than the beginning of writing «Dialogues about the Holy Trinity» (412 or 423). Examines the hermeneutical principles of the Saint and an overview of the content of the interpretation. It is noted that it is devoted almost exclusively to the issues of so- teriology: the spread and action of sin in the descendants of Adam, the powerlessness of the law of Moses in the fight against sin and the meaning of the law, the house-building of the incarnate Word, God's Providence towards the Jewish people and pagans, human freedom, which does not negate the foreknowledge of God.

Les grands ancêtres de la libre pensée moderne jusqu’au grand barde gaélique irlandais  Sean Eoghain ui Tuathallain (30 11 1670 / 11 03 1722); plus connu sous le nom anglicisé de John Toland, mais qui  signait Janus Junius Eoganesius Cosmopoli.

there remains a very real sense in which ulimate perfection is an eschatological reality that can only be obtained eschatologically. In the meantime, we all live in the flesh, and even the best among us are beset with the weaknesses, passions, and temptations related to that situation. This means, first of all, that there is a real difference between experiencing temptations and desires, and acting them out in deeds. And, then, while "errors" and "failures" are not morally neutral, or insignificant and unimportant, there is a real difference between occassional lapses (e.g., a loss of temper), as symbolized, for example, in a non-leprous white spot, and a habitual and chronic sickness that excludes one from God's presence and from the ecclesial body, as symbolized in leprosy-the "sin unto death" mentioned by St. John. Conversely, it is also true that a little leprosy is still leprosy: to break the law in one part is to become a lawbreaker as such. The consequence for leprosy, great or small, is expulsion from the camp for some defined period of time. This same kind of scaled approach is seen in Cyril's discussion of the exlusion of "honey" (pleasure) and "leaven" (craftiness) from voluntary sacrifices. While marital intimacy is honorable, it is not something that can be sacrifically offered to God, and in this respect, virginity is the preferred state (as living the eschatological life now, as it were). So also with craftiness: it can be necessary to use craftiness unto good ends, yet it itself is not intrinsically virtuous, thus cannot be mixed with a sacrifical offering. In all these ways, the Law, now spiritually interpreted, serves as a kind of diagnostic tool for Christian spiritual self-examination. How are the internal movements of our soul and our concrete actions moving toward or away from the goal of conformity to Christ? The sin offering legislation and the Levitical purity code give the New Covenant believer tools and categories to explore that question, honestly and vividly. Finally, we must note the intriguing commentary on Leviticus 12 that, in turn, implicitly comments on Luke 2 and the Presentation/Meeting of the Lord in the Temple. 2 The Virgin Mary alone is exempted from the accusation of the Law because she conceived, not by polluting insemination, but by the ineffable operation of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the holy Virgin's offering of a "sin offering" in Luke 2.22-24, for "their purification," while certainly done to fulfill the law, cannot mean that the Theotokos herself had actually contracted ritual impurity. A Brief Word about the Translation This is the fourth complete Book of De adoratione that I have labored to translate. And again my primary interest has been to render St. Cyril with sufficient clarity so as to make his exegesis available to a contemporary audience. My process of translation was to first work through the text more or less independently, of course with reference to LSJ and PGL for lexical domains, and other searches for various idioms. Then, I worked back through my draft translation in consultation with both the Latin translation in PG and with Thomas INDEX OF THIS BOOK Book 1 Concerning the turning aside of mankind to worthlessness, and its captivity to sin. And also concerning the calling and conversion in accordance with repentance, and of the return back to the better state. Book 2 That it is impossible to escape the death that comes from sin and the abusive treatment of the devil, except through the sanctification that is in accordance with Christ. And that justification is not in the law, but in Christ.

Among the earliest testimonies to a reception of the Council of Ephesus in 431, Vincent of Lérins plays a significant role in fifth-century Latin Christology after Augustine. It is true that Vincent is remembered on a theological level above all for his thinking concerning the ecclesiastical tradition and the development of dogma; and it is true that Hipponate's own fame risks overshadowing other fifth-century Latin authors. However, the specific contribution of the monk of Lérins in the field of Christology deserves to be investigated, having as a key to understanding precisely his reception of the Council of Ephesus, not only as a confirmation of his own principle of ecclesiastical tradition, but also as a source of his theological thought, in dialogue with previous Latin Christological authors. At least three focal points at the Christological level are identified in this contribution, through the recurrence of specific key expressions. We will start from the unity of Christ, expressed by Vincent through the Augustinian expression una persona-or unitas personae-and his own more typical locution unus idemque Christus, which takes up the Greek unitive tradition that comes to Ephesus thanks to Cyril, but also Gregory of Nazianzus, arriving at a clear anti-Nestorian option. We will then move on to the consideration of the duplicity of substances, in which the monk of Lérins confirms the fundamentally diphysite approach of previous Latin tradition through the two phrases consubstantialis Patri consubstantialis matri and perfectus Deus perfectus homo, both of which also have roots that connect with an anti-Apollinarian Greek substratum. Finally, we will conclude with the theme of communicatio idiomatum, declined in the context of Theopaschism and especially of Mary's divine motherhood, which leads to the affirmation of the Marian title of Theotocos and to an original Christological proposal by Vincent.

Commenting on n° 22 of Gaudium et spes, the Christological and soteriological gem of the Council, the author shows how the text develops from the descending mediation of the Incarnation to its divinizing end via the ascending mediation of the paschal mystery. Christology and theological anthropology are expressed in a «theology of divine filiation», where «physical theory» and «pneumatological perspective» harmoniously meet at the salvific crossroads of grace and freedom. In this way, the conciliar text not only espouses the trajectory of salvation history and
evangelical narrative, but also follows the sequence of the liturgical year, the stages of dogmatic Tradition and instances of spiritual experience. So it offers to its reader a model of unified theology, where biblical foundations, the depth of Tradition, conceptual rigor and pastoral sensitivity meet in the extraordinary concert of the theandrical mystery (1Co 2,9).

Десятый том серии «Полное собрание творений святых отцов Церкви и церковных писателей в русском переводе» посвящен богословскому и полемическому наследию свт. Афанасия Великого, архиепископа Александрийского (297-373). Он содержит творения, которые сохранились под именем святителя, однако авторство их вызывает у исследователей сомнения или даже они признаны неподлинными.

Although Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (Q 112) is one of the shortest sūrahs of the Qurʾān, it has led to an extensive commentary on its structure and content in Muslim exegetical literature and in Western scholarship. This article takes the recent attempt to contextualize the sūrah in Western scholarship as a starting point and proposes new evidence for the nature of the religious milieu that shaped its form and content. It posits several "intertexts" of creedal expressions, which shed light on the discursive nature of the sūrah.

Many modern theologians advocate the claim that God suffers and are convinced that divine impassibility is untenable on philosophical, exegetical, and broadly religious grounds. As a result, the scholars often interpret the patristic notion of divine apatheia as a Greek philosophical axiom the acceptance of which led to a distortion of the biblical image of the (allegedly) suffering God. This dominant interpretation is awed. The problems with the unrestricted divine passibility are equally serious. Passibility and impassibility are correlative concepts, both of which must have their place in any sound account of divine agency. The introduction also provides a summary of the book.

In his anti-Christian treatise Against the Galileans, the emperor Julian objected to the Hebrew Bible’s claim that Israel was God’s special possession and, in response, elaborated a sophisticated philosophy of ethnicity that explained all aspects of diversity in the human species as resulting from a complex causal network in which patron deities operated in concert with natural forces to produce distinct 'natures' for each people group, which in turn influenced their laws, culture, and intellectual achievements. In Julian’s view, only if such divine causes can be identified for all aspects of one’s identity and nature could the universal Craftsman be said to have providentially cared for all nations of the earth. This pairing of the Hippocratic tradition of geographic determinism with Neoplatonic theology in Julian’s theory resulted in the most robustly deterministic account of ethnic hierarchy in antiquity. When he came to write his rebuttal of Julian’s treatise several decades later, Cyril of Alexandria formulated a moral critique of the emperor’s philosophical proposal, arguing that, if humans have different natures that constrain their behavior, this can only mean that some have been endowed with a natural defect. In place of Julian’s philosophy of ethnicity, Cyril therefore proposed a theology of human equality according to which all humanity had a common nature, deriving from a single Creator, and therefore an equivalent capacity for pursuing virtue. Contingent aspects of human identity such as one’s upbringing, as well as ethnic traits like skin color and language, thus had no bearing upon a person’s moral capabilities. The present article maps the contours of this debate between Julian and Cyril and traces its origins in the account of human diversity set forth in Origen’s Against Celsus.

This volume offers for the first time the complete (for the time being printed) critical edition and a (for the time being German) translation of the Greek and Slavonic text of 'De lepra', one of the dialogues of Methodius of Olympus. The Christian allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament book of Leviticus (Lev 13) has survived as an epitome within the Florilegium Coislinianum; in the much more extensive 10th century Slavonic translation it is preserved in various contexts in 17 copies from the 16th-19th centuries.

Les Homélies cathédrales de Sévère d’Antioche constituent un moment original dans la carrière du théologien, qui semble délaisser la démonstration argumentée, pour recourir principalement à l’amalgame hérésiologique et à l’assimilation polémique. Il s’agit d’abord d’associer le peuple d’Antioche au parti christologique de son évêque et donc aux anathèmes portés contre ses adversaires. Ainsi se construit la communion doctrinale qui rassemble les fidèles autour de leur pasteur et garantit l’accomplissement de l’économie du salut.

Recent research has addressed the problem of the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Synod of Ancyra, but has not dealt directly with the theology of similarity, which is not identical to the theology of the image, although it is close to it. The Synod focused on the similarity of the Son in God's inner Trinitarian life, claiming that the Son is similar to the Father κατ' οὐσίαν. It also mentioned the Son's similarity to us. However, it did not take up the subject of the similarity between man and God or between man and man. The article shows the biblical basis of the synodal theology of similarity and its basic propositions. The difficult expression κατ' οὐσίαν, defining the similarity of the Son to the Father, is the key to the understanding of the synodal theology. It means the similarity of a person to a person and the unity of persons on the level of substance.

This article aims to examine the different ways in which the content of the Bible used to be transmitted in the Middle Ages and to provide an overview of the most common biblical topoi used in the medieval culture. We also aim to analyse the books of the Old and New Testaments from which the best-known medieval biblical topoi come and to cite some concrete examples from the medieval Romanian literature.

This work explores Eusebius of Caesarea's Christological teaching, situating him in the complex web of interlocking religious and political issues that characterized the fourth-century Trinitarian discourse. It argues that the traditional groupings of bishops into different ecclesiastical alliances around this period did not entail that the personalities grouped therein necessarily held the same doctrinal confession. Such is demonstrated in the case of Eusebius of Caesarea who allied himself with the assembly of the Eusebian bishops-the group that sustained the claim of Arius leading to the 325 Council of Nicea and persecuted the defenders of the Nicene theology, most notably Athanasius, the years following the great council. It expostulates that, notwithstanding his association with the Eusebian party, the theology of the bishop of Caesarea, as specified in his works, both preand post-Nicene, is consistent with the view that the Son is fully divine, thus is reconcilable with the theology of Nicea.

The first part of the paper offers an analysis of “fulfilment” statements in John 13–17, based on a rhetorical and narrative study. The second part compares the interpretations of these Johannine statements by some Alexandrian and Antiochan patristic authors. The paper concludes by showing the elements of continuity between ancient and contemporary studies regarding the study of personal and collective memory, narrative memory and the memory of the Scriptures of Israel within the Fourth Gospel.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar a polêmica teológica que emergiu com o advento da piedade a Maria, cujo cerne do debate se resumiu à adoção, ou não, do título de Theotókos, e provocou sérios conflitos político-culturais na ekklesia, culminando com o Concílio de Éfeso (431), no qual os bispos Nestório de Constantinopla e Cirilo de Alexandria foram os protagonistas. Entretanto, nesse caso faremos especificamente um exame dos textos eclesiásticos de Nestório e a defesa de Cristótokos, além das concepções de Cirilo e a contraproposta de Theotókos para apreender a doutrina mariana vigente com o objetivo de interpretar os escritos levando em consideração as escolas teológicas às quais estavam filiados.