CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, Saint. - Father and doctor of the Church of the 5th century; b. around 370, d. June 27, 444; celebrated by the Byzantine Church on June 9 and by the Latin Church on Feb. 9; proclaimed doctor of the universal Church by Leo XIII on July 28, 1882.
I. LIFE
Cyril's life before his episcopate is almost totally unknown to us; it is known only that he was a nephew of Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, and that he accompanied him in 403 to the "robber council of the oak" near Chalcedon, where St. John Chrysostom was deposed. When he succeeded his uncle in the see of Alexandria, on 18 Oct. 412, the schism between East and West, provoked by this deposition, was still lasting. Cyril at first refused to put an end to it, despite the insistences of Atticus of Constantinople, by fulfilling the condition imposed by Rome of restoring the name of John to the diptychs. But from as early as 418 the union was re-established, and everything suggests that Cyril acquiesced despite his repugnance. In one of his discourses, Nestorius clearly alludes to this reconciliation when he says that Cyril "now venerates against his will the ashes of John" (cf. F. Loofs, Nestoriana, Halle 1905, p. 300).
If Socrates is to be believed, the beginnings of his episcopate were marked by continual revolts and violence, in which the bishop himself was indirectly compromised, since his partisans, monks and parabolani, had acted as true fanatics. The principal cause of these agitations was the discord with the prefect Orestes. In 415, during a brawl, the celebrated Hypatia, highly versed in Neoplatonic philosophy, was killed by a parabolanus because of her presumed influence with the prefect. This murder cannot be imputed to Cyril, despite the insinuations of Socrates, who is not impartial (Hist. eccl., VII, 13 and 14. Cf. F. Schafer, Cyril of Alexandria and the Murder of Hypatia, in The Cath. Univers. Bulletin, 8 [1902], pp. 441-53).
However, it is not to be denied that the nephew of Theophilus resembled his uncle somewhat; that he was of an authoritarian and almost harsh character, and that his orthodoxy knew no tolerance, as he proved by proceeding against the Novatians and the Jews, from whom he confiscated goods and buildings of worship.
With the same impetuosity he hurled himself against the Nestorian error from its very appearance. Indeed, in 428, Nestorius, scarcely installed at Constantinople, began to impugn the legitimacy of the title Theotokos, Mother of God, which the Church had for a long time given to the Virgin Mary. Cyril, having informed himself well through the representatives he had in the capital, did not delay in unmasking the new heresy, at first keeping its author silent, then addressing himself directly to him. The first letter he wrote to him at the end of the summer of 429 did nothing but irritate the recipient. An even worse outcome had the second, sent in Feb. 430, in which the divine maternity is masterfully set forth. Then Cyril replied to Pope Celestine I (422-32), who already in 429 had asked him for information about the new controversy that had arisen at Constantinople. He sent to Rome a great dossier of his own writings together with those of Nestorius, both translated into Latin. With much dexterity he greeted the Pope as "Father most beloved of God" and recalled the immemorial custom of the Churches of consulting him in all important affairs.
At the same time he proclaimed him arbiter and regulator of ecclesiastical communion; something he seemed to have forgotten at the beginning of his episcopate. "Deign to tell us," he wrote, "whether we must remain in communion with Nestorius, or cease all relation" (Epist., 11: PG 77, 80 and 84). Celestine had already been informed about the doctrine of Nestorius both by the African Marius Mercator, resident at Constantinople, and by Nestorius himself, who had sent him the text of his most disputed homilies. He could now settle the controversy with full knowledge of the case. In the Roman Council of 11 Aug. 430, the doctrine of Nestorius was declared heterodox and he was ordered to retract, under penalty of excommunication and deposition, within the ten days following the notification, which was to be made to him, of the Roman decision. This notification was to be made by Cyril himself in the name of the Pope: "The authority of our See," the latter said, "is communicated to you, and you will go forth in our place to execute our decree" (PG 77, 93).
Cyril did not hasten to fulfill this delicate mission. Since the Pope had declared that Nestorius must abandon his errors and profess the same doctrine as Cyril, the latter thought it opportune to condense it into 12 anathematisms which the innovator was to have subscribed. The anathematisms were approved by a synod of the bishops of Egypt, together with a long dogmatic letter, the third to Nestorius, written in terms not very pleasant (3 Nov. 430: PG 77, 105-21). As soon as they became known, the anathematisms raised a veritable storm among the theologians of the school of Antioch, violently offending their terminology. In order to give greater prominence to the personal unity of Christ and to refute the hypostatic dualism of Nestorius, Cyril used expressions hitherto unheard of and spoke even of a physical union, of a union according to the hypostasis of the Word with the flesh, σαρκὶ καθ' ὑπόστασιν ἠνώσθαι, καθ' ἕνωσιν φυσικὴν.
At first sight such formulas smacked of Apollinarianism and even of Arianism. The Antiochenes did not let slip the occasion to call the bishop of Alexandria heterodox. Cyril had to defend himself against the attacks of Andrew of Samosata and of Theodoret, explaining his anathematisms at length. Thus the accuser of Nestorius himself passed into the dock of the accused. Moreover, the affair of Nestorius had become complicated. The innovator, foreseeing the blow that threatened him despite all the explanations addressed to Pope Celestine, had obtained from the emperor Theodosius II the convocation of a Council
Ecumenical to examine his case. When Cyril's legates arrived at Constantinople, on 7 Dec. 430, to deliver to Nestorius the Pope's ultimatum and the letter of the anathematisms, the Council had already been convoked at Ephesus for the Pentecost of 431 by imperial decree dated 19 Nov. Thus one of the most confused situations was reached. Pope Celestine was able to resolve it by accepting the Council under certain conditions. The activity carried on by Cyril in the Council of Ephesus (v. EFESO, CONCILIO di), was preponderant but did not have a good outcome. In hastening the opening of the assembly, on 22 June 431, before the arrival of the bishops of the dioceses of the East, and above all before the arrival of the Pope's legates, Cyril provoked a schism among the bishops. In a short time there were two Councils that anathematized each other. These anathemas were approved neither by the Emperor nor by the Pope. In order to reach an understanding, the two parties were invited to send legates to Chalcedon. The attempt having failed, the Emperor proclaimed the dissolution of the Council. Cyril, who had remained at Ephesus, set out again on the road to Alexandria. The rescript of Theodosius II ordering him to remain at Ephesus arrived after his departure.
The negotiations for union continued after the council between Cyril and John of Antioch, through the work of Acacius of Beroea, the doyen of the episcopate. Cyril loyally seconded these efforts. Without sacrificing orthodoxy in any way, he nonetheless made concessions regarding terminology. In 433 they finally agreed on a text subscribed by both parties: the so-called "symbol of union," extracted, except for one phrase, from a profession of faith sent by the Orientals to the emperor Theodosius as early as the month of August 431. This compromise did not please everyone. Among the Orientals there were some intransigents who refused to enter into communion with Cyril. On the Cyrillian side itself there were some malcontents. To these Cyril had to explain at length the orthodoxy of the symbol of union. He did the impossible to maintain the union and moderated the zeal of Proclus of Constantinople, who wanted from all the Eastern bishops the subscription of his Letter or Tome to the Armenians. He also refused to consider Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, the true fathers of Nestorianism, as heretics, because they had died in the peace of the Church. He did not, however, conceal the harm caused by the translation of their works into Syriac and Armenian; he refuted them in two writings of which only a few fragments remain to us.
In conclusion, in the course of the Nestorian controversy, Cyril had committed several mistakes and had been in the wrong in various ways; but he sincerely strove to set everything right. We cannot be grateful enough to him for having sacrificed, for the union of the Church, some of his formulas, for not having stubbornly persisted over words as the Monophysites would soon do, who would wish to appeal to him. For this reason the Church has always considered him one of its greatest doctors, and Pope Pius XII paid homage to his memory with an encyclical (Orientalis Ecclesiae, May 20, 1944) on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of his death.
II. WORKS
After St. John Chrysostom, St. C. is the Greek Church Father who left the greatest literary legacy. His writings, which occupy no fewer than 10 volumes of the Greek Patrologia (68-77), can be divided into exegetical, dogmatic and apologetic writings, homilies, and letters. This division is, moreover, superficial, since many letters form true little dogmatic treatises. Many of these works have come down to us incomplete, at least as regards the original text; others, on the other hand, have been lost.
1. Exegetical writings
These surpass in extent all his other works. The majority are earlier than the Nestorian controversy, and many are fragmentary. C. is, among the Greek Fathers, the principal representative of theological exegesis. This tendency, moreover, was in the spirit of the Alexandrian school. He is indeed a part of this school, and is its last great figure. But just as Theodoret abstained from the excesses of Antiochene literalism, so he knew how to avoid the exaggerations of Alexandrian allegorism. Far from despising the literal and historical sense, he more than once proclaims its excellence and considers it the necessary basis of a higher sense. On the other hand, he was not the sort to stop at grammatical minutiae. His commentaries have as their object the Old and New Testaments and assume various forms. First of all, a kind of biblical introduction comprising two works of great bulk, the De adoratione in spiritu et veritate (PG 68, 133-1125) and a dialogue between C. and his friend Palladius, in which the author attempts to explain "what Our Lord meant by this word: I have not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, and what is meant by the worship in spirit and in truth of which he spoke to the Samaritan woman." The two texts illuminate each other; in fact, the Jewish observances were the shadow and figure of the new worship established by Jesus. The work is divided into 17 books, whose subject is indicated at the beginning by C. himself in the form of an index. In it, above all, the superiority of the new law over the old is demonstrated. A complement to this work are the two Glaphyra (Γλαφυρά), that is, selected passages from the books of Moses in which the mystery of Christ is figured (PG 69, 9-679). He then studies the principal types of Christ and of his work that occur in the Pentateuch. The majority is devoted to Genesis. All the patriarchs, from Adam down to Jacob and his sons, are considered figures of Our Lord.
The commentaries properly so called on the Old Testament, all earlier than the Nestorian controversy, illustrate with continuous explanation of the entire text the prophet Isaiah (PG 70, 10-1449), the twelve minor prophets (PG 71, and 72, 9-364, and better Ph. E. Pusey, 2 vols., Oxford 1868) and the Psalms; but of these only fragments remain (PG 69, 717-1274) of doubtful authenticity (cf. R. Devreese, Chaines éxégétiques, in DBs, I, col. 134). But nothing proves that C. dealt with other books of the Old Testament, such as the four books of Kings, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Jeremiah and Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, of which the Catena give us some fragments, collected in PG 69, 679-698, 1277-94; 70, 1451-62 (cf. R. Devreese, loc. cit., passim). It is known that very often the "catenists" draw their citations from writings that have no relation to exegesis properly so called, and that these citations must be subjected to criticism.
Of the New Testament C. commented on: a) the Gospel of St. John, in 12 books, of which only the seventh has remained to us in fragments (PG 73 and 74, 9-756; better edition by Ph. E. Pusey, 3 vols., Oxford 1872). J. Mahé demonstrated by means of internal criticism that this commentary was earlier than the Nestorian controversy (La date du comment. de s. Cyrille d'Alex. sur l'évan. de st Jean, in Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, 1907, pp. 41-45). C. dwells in long theological developments on the divinity of the Word, on the relations of the divine Persons among themselves, on the Eucharist. He refutes above all Arianism; sometimes he takes aim at the Christology of the Antiochenes, but does not name Nestorius; b) the Gospel of St. Matthew, of which only insignificant fragments remain (PG 72, 365-74, 471-74); c) the Gospel of St. Luke, in the form of homilies, of which we possess, in the original text, long passages and three complete homilies (PG 72, 475-950; 77, 1009-16 and 1039-50). But a Syriac translation, from the 6th-7th century, fairly faithful, is almost complete (ed. R. Payne Smith, with English translation, 2 vols., Oxford 1858-59; new edition begun in the Corpus script. christ. or. of J.-B. Chabot: Scriptores Syri, 4th series, I [the first 80 homilies], Paris 1912). It is an oratorical commentary that aims above all at the edification of the people, and does not explain the entire text. Entire passages, especially the whole first chapter, are omitted. Nestorius and his partisans are, more than once, rebuked in it.
The Catena also give us fragments of commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans, the two to the Corinthians and that to the Hebrews (PG 74, 733-1006), which, however, must be seriously checked (R. Devreese, loc. cit., passim).
2. Dogmatic-apologetic or polemical writings
This is the most important and most celebrated part of the works of our doctor, who is first of all a theologian. Before the Nestorian controversy (428), he refuted the Arians in two works, the Thesaurus and the De consubstantiali Trinitate (PG 75, 9-1124). The first, divided into 35 chapters or λόγοι, summarizes in didactic form all the traditional teaching on the Trinity, making use of the three Cappadocian Fathers and especially St. Athanasius. The second, in the form of a dialogue, often cited with the title De Trinitate ad Hermiam (Hermias is C.'s interlocutor), treats in 7 dialogues the same subject of the consubstantiality of the divine persons.
Of a writing Adversus Synosias (extremist Apollinarists) only fragments remain in Greek and in Syriac. Migne reproduces almost all of them in the Latin version of Mai (PG 76, 1427-35).
C. treats of apologetics properly so called in the Contra Iulianum imperatorem, a voluminous work in 30 books, of which we have only the first ten, composed in 433 and dedicated to Theodosius II (PG 76, 503-1064). But his activity as a theologian and polemicist was above all carried on against the Nestorian heresy. In a series of small treatises, sometimes written in the form of letters, he developed the dogma of the personal unity of Christ and that of the divine maternity of Mary, the corollary of the first. Here is the list of these treatises in chronological order:
1. Scholia de incarnatione Unigeniti; 2. De recta fide ad Theodosium imperatorem; 3. De recta fide ad principissas (the two sisters of Theodosius, Arcadia and Marina); 4. De recta fide ad Augustus (Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius, and Eudoxia, his wife); 5. Adversus Nestorii blasphemias; 6-9. XII capitum explanatio; XII capitum defensio utraque, Apologeticus pro XII capitibus contra Orientales (against Andrew of Samosata); Apologeticus contra Theodoricum; Explicatio XII capitum; 10. Apologeticus ad Theodosium, written at the end of 431 or the beginning of 432, a personal apology against the accusations directed against him; 11. Adversus nolentes confiteri sanctam Virginem esse Deiparam; 12. Quod unus sit Christus, in the form of a dialogue; 13. Libri adversus Diodorum Tarsensem et Theodorum Mopsuestenum (around 438), of which only fragments remain. To these treatises must be added many dogmatic letters such as the one Ad monachos Aegypti (429) on the legitimacy of the term θεοτόκος, The Second to Nestorius (Feb. 430), approved by the Council of Ephesus and of Chalcedon, a true dogmatic document, the synodal one of 3 Nov. 430 (third to Nestorius), which ends with the twelve anathematisms, the one to John of Antioch, which contains the symbol of union and the famous formula: "One is the incarnate nature of the Word of God" (μία φύσις τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη), and finally the two To Successus, bishop of Diocaesarea, on the same theme. All of these are found gathered in vols. 75-77 of the PG.
Under the name of C. there also goes the treatise Adversus anthropomorphitas, of contested authenticity (PG 76, 1065-1132). According to Pusey's edition (Oxford 1872), it has come to be believed that the work, as we have it today, is a fusion made, by an unknown hand, of the two opuscules of C. De dogmatum solutione and Responsiones ad Tiberium. On the other hand, the two opuscules De incarnatione Domini and De Trinitate, printed among the works of C. (PG 75, 1419-78, and 1148-80), must be restored to Theodoret.
3. Homilies
Besides those on St. Luke, already mentioned, C. has left us two other series. Twenty-nine paschal Homilies, festal letters for the years 414-42. A large part are of an ascetic and paraenetic character. Some, however, are of a dogmatic character, such as those of 420 and 429, which already refute the hypostatic dualism of Theodore of Mopsuestia and of Nestorius. The other homilies (Migne has 17, plus five fragments [77, 981-1116]) are not all authentic. Thus the Homilia in mysticam caenam must be restored to the patriarch Theophilus (cf. M. Richard, Une homélie de Théophile d'Alexandrie sur l'institution de l'Eucharistie, in Revue d'hist. ecclés., 33 [1937], pp. 46-56), the 11th, Eucomium in sanctam Mariam Deiparam, is an elaboration of the 7th-9th century in imitation of the fourth (cf. A. Ehrhard, Eine unechte Marienhomilie des hl. Cyrill v. Alexandrien, in Römische Quartalschrift, 3 [1889], pp. 97-113), the 12th consists of passages taken from the commentary on St. Luke. Homilies 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 were preached at Ephesus.
4. Letters
The printed collection (PG 77) comprises 88 of them, 69 his own and 19 of correspondents. Of these the 80th is by St. Basil and the 88th (by Hypatia) is false. We have already pointed out the principal letters of a dogmatic character. They all relate to the Nestorian controversy. Some of them have come down to us only in Latin translation.
C. writes without great literary concern. Clear, precise, incisive, he concentrates his ideas in brief formulas when he engages in polemics; otherwise he is somewhat prolix and redundant. The overloaded and awkward sentence is sometimes laborious to read. Often, because of the Nestorian controversy, he finds himself obliged to repeat the same things, especially on the unity of Christ and the divine maternity of Mary.
III. DOCTRINE AND INFLUENCE
C. is incontestably one of the greatest figures of the Eastern Church in the patristic era. First of all he is a theologian; a well-balanced theologian, both positive and speculative. A. Arnauld called him "le plus scolastique de tous les Pères" (Perpétuité de la foi, V, Paris 1672, p. 14). This judgment can be accepted provided one adds that he is also extremely careful to base his speculations on the sources of Revelation. In refuting heretics he does not appeal only to Sacred Scripture, as many earlier Fathers did, but also to the writings of his predecessors, and his argumentation is supported by patristic florilegia (H. du Manoir, L'argumentation patristique dans la controverse nestorienne, in Recherches de science religieuse, 25 [1935], pp. 441-61, 531-59). His theological activity was carried on ex professo around the principal Christian mysteries, the Trinity and the Incarnation. He dealt with the other revealed truths only insofar as they were related to these fundamental dogmas. On the Trinity he masterfully condenses the teaching of his predecessors and brings the Arian controversy to a close in its doctrinal aspect. Anastasius the Sinaite calls him "the seal of the Fathers" (Hodegós, VII: PG 89, 113), and the appellation is well deserved as regards Trinitarian doctrine. The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son (διά τοῦ υἱοῦ) or from the Father and the Son (ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ: ἐξ ἀμφῶν) is, without his making it the object of a special study, one of the points he treats most clearly (cf. De adoratione in spiritu et veritate, I: PG 68, 148). In truth he is, among the Greek Fathers, the great authority for refuting the Photian dogma of the procession a Patre solo.
Concerning the mystery of the Incarnation and the mode of union of the divinity and the humanity in Jesus Christ, C. does not settle the controversy, but one may say that he accentuates it by giving prominence to the hypostatic dualism of certain Antiochene doctors, who, in refuting Apollinarianism, had overstepped the limits, compromising the personal unity of the incarnate Word. He is the great doctor of the unity of Christ and of the corollary of this unity: the divine maternity of Mary. To the Antiochene dualism, represented by Nestorius and by Theodore of Mopsuestia, he opposes the traditional faith in one Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, born of the Father ab aeterno, born of the Virgin in time. The designation Θεοτόκος, conferred on the Virgin for a long time, is for him the badge of orthodoxy against Nestorius, who could not manage to understand its meaning, and this term, in the Christological controversy, played the same part as the ὁμοούσιος understood in the Trinitarian one.
However, the orthodoxy of C. on the mystery of the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ has been contested. His famous anathematisms against Nestorius were violently attacked, as was his preferred formula for expressing the mystery: "One is the incarnate nature of the Word of God" (μία φύσις τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη): a formula that he believed to be that of St. Athanasius, whereas it was in reality that of Apollinaris. The anathematisms and the formulas "union according to the hypostasis, physical union, one incarnate φύσις" were explained by our doctor in a perfectly orthodox way. He said and repeated that these expressions were directed against Nestorius. Nestorius in fact, along with Apollinaris, Theodore of Mopsuestia and others, took the word φύσις in the sense of a concrete subject, of a distinct subject of attribution, of a nature-person. Theodore had said that there does not exist the φύσις, the real impersonal nature. By giving this sense to the word φύσις, it is in reality made a synonym of person, ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον. With this terminology, if one wishes to be orthodox, one must necessarily say that in the incarnate Word there is only one φύσις, that is to say one nature that is at the same time one person, namely the person, the hypostasis of God the Word. The adjective σεσαρκωμένη, incarnate, is added to indicate the individual and complete human nature assumed by the Word in the unity of his divine person. Likewise the expressions ἕνωσις φυσική, ἕνωσις καθ' ὑπόστασιν mean "real union, substantial union, true union," κατ' ἀλήθειαν as C. says, in opposition to "moral union," to "relative and extrinsic union," the Nestorian συνάφεια, which allowed two subjects of attribution, two individuals, two persons to subsist: the man Jesus born of the Virgin and the Word born of the Father before all ages. The union in Jesus of the two natures terminates in a true "numerical union" of the subject, of the individual, in a "natural unity," ἐνότης φυσική, analogous, though not entirely similar, to the union of soul and body in the human individual. How this can come about C. did not attempt to explain, as Theodore wished to do.
The weak part of C. is his terminology. He did not seek to fix in a precise way the meaning of the words φύσις, ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον, in the theology of the Incarnation. Depending on the case he gave different meanings to the terms φύσις and ὑπόστασις, thus often using the language of the Monophysites. It is true that, in order to avoid any heterodox interpretation of his thought, he takes all the necessary precautions. If, for example, he wishes to give the word ὑπόστασις the sense of person, he habitually joins it to the word πρόσωπον; if he gives it the sense of a real thing, then he has it followed by the term πρᾶγμα; if finally the word φύσις is taken in the sense of οὐσία, the context indicates the synonymy to us clearly enough. Nevertheless, this lack of uniformity in the later Christological controversies had serious drawbacks and effectively contributed to the birth and the prolongation of the long logomachy that was Severian or verbal Monophysitism, a logomachy that is not yet extinguished.
In fact the Monophysites took strength from his name to persist stubbornly in dangerous formulas, which the Church found herself obliged to proscribe. The Council of Chalcedon preferred the language of the two natures, while his adversaries persisted in maintaining and developing the Monophysite terminology, at the risk of falling into Eutychianism. If they had been sincere disciples of C., they would have shown themselves more accommodating about words and would have sacrificed their formulas for the unity of the Church.
After the mysteries of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, the revealed truths that C. brings most to light and to which he returns most often are the elevation of man to the supernatural state, the doctrine of Grace and of sanctification, the sanctifying effects of Baptism and of the Eucharist. He makes his own and develops in an original way the doctrine of the divinization of human nature through the physical contact of the incarnate Word, of which the Greek Fathers, his predecessors, had often spoken. But he also gives great prominence to the action of the Holy Spirit in sanctification through his indwelling in the holy soul, through his direct and in a certain sense personal contact with it, because the sanctifying action in a certain way deifies the soul, transforms it, infuses into it a certain quality that makes it conformable to Christ (διὰ τῆς ἐν ἁγιασμῷ ποιότητος, Homil. pasch., 10: PG 77, 617) and causes it to pass into another state (εἰς ἑτέραν τινὰ μεθίστησιν ἕξιν, In Ioannem, 16, 6-7: PG 74, 433).
From these expressions there shines through what our theologians call sanctifying Grace, the created gift, the effect of the uncreated gift, which is the very person of the Holy Spirit. This created effect, this quality, this seal, as C. again says, is inseparable from the personal presence of the Holy Spirit. If this ceases, that deifying quality likewise disappears. C., then, loves to consider divine Grace under this static aspect, and he may deservedly be called the theologian of habitual Grace, as St. Augustine is the theologian of actual Grace (cf. F. Cayré, Précis de patrologie, II, Paris 1930, p. 39).
Moreover, he does not at all exaggerate the theory of divinization through the physical contact of the Word with human nature; he teaches that every man must cooperate, through his own personal action, in his own deification by faith, by receiving the Sacraments (especially Baptism and the Eucharist) and by good works. He insists greatly on the sanctifying effects of the Eucharist, of the so-called "mystical eulogia." The flesh of Christ, united to the Word, source of life, vivifies our bodies and our souls through a true and in some way physical contact. Through Communion we are united to Jesus Christ like two pieces of wax melted together (PG 73, 584).
After his death C. was a great object of contradiction, and the cause lies in that lack of uniformity in his Christological terminology. Around his name, Catholics and Monophysites disputed bitterly. The Monophysites sought to claim him and made him their great doctor. The Catholics, opposing to them numerous testimonies drawn from his writings, were able to demonstrate that he had often employed formulas canonized at the Council of Chalcedon, and that he had always been of an impeccable orthodoxy. The Council of Chalcedon and the second Council of Constantinople attested this orthodoxy and censured those who had attacked it. However, his preferred formulas, those that express the dogma in a Monophysite language, had already been abandoned long before. After the dispute of the Three Chapters and the Monothelite controversy, only the formulas of Chalcedon remained in the common language of the Catholic Church.
In the Byzantine Church, after the Christological controversies, the influence of our doctor does not seem to have been preponderant. They preferred to him St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. John Chrysostom, "the three hierarchs," celebrated in a common feast since the 10th century. The controversy over the Filioque undoubtedly had its part in this eclipse; in fact, as we have said, C. is, among the Greek Fathers, the great opponent of the procession of the Holy Spirit a Patre solo. His formulas in advance refuted the quibbles and subterfuges of the adherents of the Photian dogma. A doctor who furnished the Latins with such effective weapons could certainly not win the sympathies of the disciples of Photius.