Cyril Of Alexandria Research Articles

The Biblical Text and its Variants at the Heart of the Debate between the Emperor Julian and Cyril of Alexandria: The Cases of Genesis 6,2 and 49,10

Abstract The biblical argument plays a considerable role in Julian’s controversy against Christianity and has certainly contributed to the “invincible efficiency” of his work, as pointed out by his adversary Cyril of Alexandria. This paper focuses on two verses Gen 49:10 and Gen 6:2 invoked by Julian to prove that Moses has never spoken, either of the coming of Jesus, or of an Only-Begotten Son of God, and consequently that Christians are unfaithful to Moses. The specificity of this debate is that it concerns not only the interpretation of these verses, but the very form of the biblical text, its possible falsification or the existence of marginalia. In this second case, Cyril’s refutation in his Contra Julianum, as well as parallels in other Cyrillian works, helps to understand that Julian is referring to a biblical paratext, a rare element that enhances his reputation as a good connoisseur of the exegetical debates of his time, and provides a particularly interesting testimony about the material transmission of the biblical text.

Der Erstgeborene Eingeborene oder warum man das Gerade nicht krumm machen soll. Ein neues unbekanntes griechisches Fragment aus dem Kommentar Cyrills von Alexandrien zum Hebräerbrief

Abstract The present article offers the first edition of a hitherto unpublished Greek fragment from Cyril of Alexandria’s lost commentary on Hebrews. Moreover, the article provides a German translation of it and a discussion about its authenticity. A detailed theological analysis of the fragment that contains Cyril’s explanation of the Greek term ὁ πρωτότοκος (Hebr 1,6) concludes the article.

Basilios Bessarion on George of Trebizond’s translation of Plato’s Laws

George of Trebizond (1395-1472) has spent a significant part of his life translating Greek books into Latin. The bulk of his translations is impressive: from Ptolemy’s Almagest to John Chrysostom’s homilies and works by Cyril of Alexandria, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Aristotle. He was quite an experienced translator, who had worked out an elaborated method explained in several writings. At the height of his career, George rather hastily translated Plato’s Laws. The haste and, probably, George’s bias against Plato and Platonism resulted in numerous inaccuracies of translation. Several years later, Basilios Bessarion closely scrutinized these faults in the fifth book of his In Calumniatorem Platonis, a comprehensive work aiming to refute the arguments set out in George of Trebizond’s anti-Platonic treatise Comparatio Philosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis. The paper analyses the use of such rhetorical devices as sarcasm and irony in Bessarion’s In Calumniatorem Platonis and especially in his commentary on George’s translation of Laws; it also aims to demonstrate how Bessarion turns George of Trebizond into a comic figure, thus compromising both the opponent and his interpretation of Plato’s doctrine.

So Great a Salvation: A Dialogue on the Atonement in Hebrews

So Great a Salvation: A Dialogue on the Atonement in Hebrews

Luke, Widows, Judges, and Stereotypes by Febbie C. Dickerson

Reviewed by: Luke, Widows, Judges, and Stereotypes by Febbie C. Dickerson F. Scott Spencer febbie c. dickerson, Luke, Widows, Judges, and Stereotypes (Womanist Readings of Scripture; Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019). Pp. 223. $95. This work marks the first installment of a new series, Womanist Readings of Scripture, edited by Mitzi J. Smith and Gay L. Byron. Dickerson’s volume, an outgrowth of her doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University, treats Jesus’s parable of a widow and judge in Luke 18:2–5. D. provides a critical, multilevel analysis of this story, attending to (1) Luke’s context in 18:1–8, (2) the broad history of interpretation, and (3) particular African American readings. In chap. 1, D. challenges common stereotypes, both ancient and modern, of the helpless widow and heartless judge. In short, “[a]ll widows are not vulnerable and needy, and [End Page 138] all judges are neither uncaring nor impervious to justice” (p. 3). The parable’s brevity and limited character descriptions warrant resisting stock presumptions that foreclose wider interpretive options. In chap. 2, D. delineates a set of nine critical “problems” that this parable raises: The Problem of Place: Which City?; The Problem of a Judge with No Respect for People; The Problem of the Stereotyped Widow; The Problem of the Widow’s Question: Vengeance or Justice?; The Problem of Interior Monologue; Another Problem of Translation: A Threat of Violence or a Misunderstanding?; The Problem of the Inscribed Subject and Redaction Criticism; The Problem the Text Creates for Theodicy; Problems with the Text in African American Church Traditions. I list these headings in full because of their clear focus and comprehensive scope. Such issues pertaining to setting, characters, translation, rhetoric, readers, theology, and ethics provide a model framework for investigating other parables and other parts of Gospel narratives. In the next two chapters D. considers the parable’s reception history. Chapter 3 tracks reading trends across the patristic (Ephrem of Syria, Augustine of Hippo, Cyril of Alexandria), medieval (Venerable Bede, Hugh of St.-Cher), Reformation (Erasmus, Luther), and modern eras. Overall a dominant stereotypical pattern emerges: “The increasingly common portrayal of the widow as desolate—whether as the desolate church, or the desolate soul— eventually becomes, for the modern interpreter, the widow as epitomizing the desolate socially vulnerable” (p. 50). In this prevailing image of the widow as a “desolate” victim, she seeks justice rather than vengeance (ἐκδικέω, used in Luke 18:7, allows both meanings) through virtuous rather than violent means. A few modern scholars, however, have dared to challenge this helpless-widow pigeonhole, such as Wendy Cotter, who marshals evidence of wealthier, more self-sufficient women, including widows, representing themselves in ancient courts (“The Parable of the Feisty Widow and the Threatened Judge [Luke 18:1–8],” NTS 51 [2002] 323–43), and Barbara Reid, who sees the parable’s widow as a God-figure in Luke’s narrative (“A Godly Widow Persistently Pursuing Justice: Luke 18:1–8,” BR 45 [2000] 25–33). Both Cotter and Reid, however, still view the judge in wholly negative terms—another stereotype that D. aims to shake, if not shatter. To this end, she calls attention to Charles W. Hedrick’s provocative study of the legal system underlying the parable (Parables as Poetic Fictions: The Creative Voice of Jesus [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994]). In Hedrick’s view, the judge’s absent “fear” of God and others reflects objectivity and impartiality, qualities of a “thoroughly honest man” (Hedrick, p. 197); conversely, the widow’s “demand for vengeance violates Torah” (Hedrick, p. 102), and her disrespect for the court makes her a dishonorable character. Chapter 4 zeroes in on the first and most formative interpretation of the parable—that of Luke’s Gospel—which D. regards as a tendentious, constrictive reading against the wider grain of Jesus’s original story. In short, via the introduction in 18:1 and Jesus’s commentary in 18:6–8, “Luke’s narrative frame turns the widow into a prayerful petitioner” and “turns the judge into a negative image of the divine . . . a bad judge who yields to prayer” (p. 88). Such counter-“turning” fits Luke’s overall gendered stereotypes of widows...

Spigolature pseudodidimiane

The present study, after a quick codicological investigation of the two surviving manuscripts of the De trinitate by pseudo-Didymus, in which it is concluded that one is a copy of the other, focuses on the lexical analysis of the first book of the mutilated trinitarian treatise. By showing divergences from the authentic works of Didymus, alongside parallels with the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, of other late patristic authors, as well as with those of the Neoplatonic philosophers, in particular Proclus, the author concludes that the chronological position of De trinitate should not be before the end of the 5th century, and suggests a possible origin from an environment of Antiochene influence.

The Eucharist and the Life of Christ in the Preaching of John Chrysostom

The Eucharist and the Life of Christ in the Preaching of John Chrysostom Kenneth J. Howell When Jean Daniélou penned an article on the symbolism of baptismal rites in early Christianity in a rather obscure and short-lived French journal, he could not foresee how ubiquitously the opening sentence would be quoted. The content of this quotation, however, stands on its own merits as a succinct yet insightful unification of diverse aspects of the Christian faith: The Christian faith has only one object, the mystery of Christ died and risen. But this unique mystery subsists under different modes. It is prefigured in the Old Testament; it is accomplished historically in the earthly life of Christ, it is contained in mystery in the sacraments, it is lived mystically in souls, it is accomplished socially in the Church, it is consummated eschatologically in the heavenly kingdom. Thus, the Christian has at his disposal several registers, a multi-dimensional symbolism, to express this unique reality. The whole of Christian culture consists in grasping the links that exist between Bible and liturgy, Gospel and eschatology, mysticism and liturgy. The application of this method to Scripture is called spiritual exegesis, applied to liturgy it is called mystagogy. This consists in reading in the rites the mystery of Christ, and in contemplating beneath the symbols the invisible reality.1 [End Page 791] In speaking of a method, Daniélou brought to the fore an approach to the Church Fathers which sought to capture the diverse aspects of a given figure's theology by showing, such as how scriptural interpretation related to sacramental theology and liturgy. Daniélou himself was deeply immersed in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa and possessed a wide acquaintance with the Greek-speaking East.2 Years later, Daniélou would again turn his attention to liturgical details in his introduction to John Chrysostom's homilies on the incomprehensibility of God, where he explicated Chrysostom's invocation of the liturgy to argue against the Anomeans.3 Both his programmatic and descriptive work suggests wide possibilities of demonstrating significant linkages between scriptural exegesis and sacramental theology. Eastern authors, both ancient and modern, acknowledge the liturgy of the Church as the centerpiece of the Christian faith.4 The Eucharist naturally holds pride of place in that centerpiece because it establishes the existence of the Church. Without the Eucharist, the Church could not be what it is or is intended to be.5 Accordingly, one would expect numerous discussions of the Eucharistic mystery in the Greek Fathers, especially in the large corpora of figures like John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria. [End Page 792] And yet, as Jaroslav Pelikan pointed out, there was no treatise devoted to the Eucharist in the ancient Church in a manner similar to the various Trinitarian or baptismal treatises. The fact that the Eucharist was never controversial in the same way that the Trinity or the Incarnation was may account for this lacuna.6 It would be misguided, however, to conclude that the Greek Fathers did not have much to say about the Eucharist. John Chrysostom, for example, wrote more about the Eucharist than any other Eastern Father.7 While the Antiochene Father never devoted a treatise to the Eucharist as he did to the priesthood, his voluminous sermons are filled with discussions of the sacrament. He is rightly celebrated as one of the great three hierarchs in the Eastern churches, not the least because he never tired of placing the Eucharist front and center. There has been scant Anglophone attention paid to the theology of the Eucharist in the writings of John Chrysostom over the last one hundred years.8 Although Chrysostom's Eucharistic doctrine has received some recent attention,9 many modern Western authors continue to focus on his rhetoric and biblical interpretations.10 A second possibility is the sheer [End Page 793] difficulty of accessing his ideas because his discussions of the Eucharist are scattered throughout a wide-ranging variety of his homilies.11 A third factor is more telling. Most histories of Eucharistic doctrine, at least in the West, have focused largely on the problems of the Real Presence of Christ and the...

Minor Prophets

Minor Prophets Christopher T. Begg, John M. Halligan, Fred W. Guyette, and Thomas Hieke Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America John M. Halligan St. John Fisher College Fred W. Guyette Erskine College and Seminary Thomas Hieke Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz 2368. [Torah in the Twelve] Jacques van Ruiten, "The Torah in the Book of the Twelve Prophets," The Challenge of the Mosaic Torah, 19-43 [see #2540]. In this article, I investigate whether there is a shared concept of tôrâ in the Book of the Twelve. Does that book give any indication of what the tôrâ might be? And is there a relationship between the tôrâ of which it speaks and the Torah of Moses in the Pentateuch? The final redaction of the Book of the Twelve might have taken place after Ezra, as is also the case with several of its component books, whereas other of its books were written before Ezra, and in part even before King Josiah. The question about the role of the tôrâ in the Book of the Twelve is thus both intriguing and complicated. [p. 20, adapted] Mal 3:22 is the last text in the Book of the Twelve where we encounter the word tôrâ, and is the only passage where it occurs in the construction twrt mšh. It seems to be used here in a comprehensive sense, as a reference to the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch. [End Page 870] As such, its meaning deviates from its meaning elsewhere in the Twelve, where the word tôrâ is used either of authoritative decisions by the priests (e.g., Hag 2:11) or as an allusion to specific rules and laws (e.g., Hos 4:6) that were probably included in an authoritative composition, whose extent, however, remains unclear. In addition, the use of the word in Malachi 2 does not seem to have in view the Torah of Moses as a whole, but rather individual rules, whether or not these have been written down as part of a written version of the Torah, of which the priests were the designated interpreters. In Zech 7:12, the term might even reflect the teachings of the prophets. Within the Book of the Twelve, the word tôrâ thus has several meanings and connotations. As a result, it does not contribute to the understanding of the book as an authorial unity. In addition, the redactors who intervened in the transmission process of the book do not seem to have felt it necessary to unify the uses of the term into a single coherent conception. Thus, the varying uses of the term might serve as indicators of successive stages in the formation-history of the book. [Adapted from author's conclusion, p. 43—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 2369. [The Homily of Pierius of Alexandria "On the Beginning of Hosea"] Dimitrios Zaganas, "L'homélie Sur le début d'Osée de Piérius d'Alexandrie," Adam 25 (2019) 331-38. This article deals with the homily of Pierius of Alexandria (late 3rd cent. a.d.) entitled "On the Beginning of Hosea," which, like his other writings, is now lost. I begin by reconstructing the title, the circumstances, and content of Pierius's homily on the basis of explicit references to this by ancient authors. Next, I present a hitherto unrecognized witness to the homily, i.e., Cyril of Alexandria's In Oseam. In this work, Cyril criticizes a short writing of one he refers to as a renowned exegete and transmits four fragments of the purely allegorical interpretation which this author—who is to be identified with Pierius—gave of Hosea's marriage to a prostitute (see Hos 1:1-3). Thereafter, I compare Cyril's attestation to the (independent) testimony by Jerome in his In Osee to Pierius's homily. In an appendix I reproduce and provide translations of Cyril's allusion to Pierius's homily and the fragments of this (which have not previously been recognized as coming from Pierius) cited by him as well as Jerome's mention of Pierius and his homily. [Adapted from published abstract—C...

Когда Евнапий писал свои школьные биографии? К вопросу о датировке «Vitae Sophistarum»

This article examines the problem of the dating of Eunapius’ "Lives of Philosophers and Sophists" - one of the main sources of information on the history of Late Antique education, intellectual tradition and school culture. Arguments are put forward in favor of the fact that Eunapius’ story about the necrolatry of Christian monks who settled in the Egyptian Canopus, reflects the assertion of the cult of relics of St. Cyrus and John, dating back to the time of the Archbishopric of Cyril of Alexandria (412 – 444). These conclusions make it possible to correct the well-established historiographic tradition, according to which "Lives of Philosophers and Sophists" was published around 399–400, and enhance F. Paschoud's hypothesis, that the text of this work was composed no earlier than 412.

The Minor Prophets as Christian Scripture in the Commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria. By Hauna T. Ondrey

<i>The Minor Prophets as Christian Scripture in the Commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria</i>. By <scp>Hauna</scp> T. <scp>Ondrey</scp>

Nexus of Christian Mysteries: The Filioque and its Doctrinal “Life-Significance”

AbstractNeither a recapitulation of the Catholic Church's teaching on the Filioque nor a comprehensive reconstruction of Thomas Aquinas’ theology of the Spirit, this paper is instead a response to several objections raised against Thomas’ defense of the Filioque by the highly-original Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov. Following his patristic predecessors, particularly Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Alexandria, and the conciliar tradition, Thomas situates the contemplation of the Spirit's procession within Christology—for He is the Spirit of Christ (see Rom. 8:9). The Christological framing of the Spirit's procession a Filio leavens theological examination of the doctrine's expansive influence on the understanding of other Christian Mysteries. By examining Matthias Joseph Scheeben's speculative reflections on the procession of the Spirit as analogous to the creation of Eve and illuminative of the Church as Bride of Christ, Bulgakov's most damning criticism, that the Filioque is a theologoumenon lacking in “life-significance” is rebutted. Finally, additional avenues of elaborating upon the Spirit's procession as indivisibly connected to other mysteries of the faith are advanced.

Sacred, Profane, Troublesome, Adventurous

This article is concerned with a gigantic unpublished dictionary of Ancient Greek, most probably compiled at Alexandria during the first half of the sixth century ad. The dictionary is ascribed to Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria, an ascription strongly doubted. It is the first Greek dictionary which unites entries (usually rare ancient Greek words) found in Christian as well as pagan writers. The article investigates the ideology of the lexicon, which is strongly Christian, but also displays a warm acceptance of the classical literary past. The lexicon became the most influential in the history of Greek lexicography, having influenced almost all medieval Greek lexica (Hesychius, Synagoge, Photius, Suda, Zonaras and others). The article assembles all the information available today concerning the complicated history of scholarship on the lexicon, whose 200 preserved manuscripts and different surviving receptions have long puzzled scholars.

Superseding Patristic Supersessionism: Hilary of Poitiers and Cyril of Alexandria on Hosea 1–3

ABSTRACT Richard Kendall Soulen holds that the major error of early Christians’ interpretation of the state of the Jewish faith in relation to Christianity is in their “flattening” of history. In this view, the Jewish faith is superseded by the Christian faith because of Christ’s rejection by the Jews and the establishment of the church. While the church fathers have received much generalized criticism due to apparent supersessionist tendencies in their exegesis, Michael Azar’s recent scholarship on Origen of Alexandria demonstrates that a closer examination of patristic exegesis is warranted. This article builds on the work of Azar by drawing attention to the interpretation of Hos 1–3 in the exegetical work of Hilary of Poitiers and Cyril of Alexandria. Both Hilary and Cyril treat Hosea’s relationship with Gomer as a synecdoche for the openness of God’s promises to all people and not as evidence that God has abandoned the Jews for the church. In light of their exegesis of Hosea, and following Azar’s work on Origen, I argue that the interpretive practice of viewing salvation history as non-linear reveals a more complex interpretive tendency in the first several centuries of the church than generalizations about supersessionism allow.

"We Have Seen His Glory": Pentecostal Spirit Christology in Conversation with Cyril of Alexandria

This article proposes a constructive Pentecostal Spirit christology, primarily in conversation with a feature of Cyril of Alexandria’s thought. After considering key features of kenotic Pentecostal Spirit christologies, and showing their limitations, the article takes up the task of constructing an alternative account of kenosis via a re-reading of the Christ hymn in Philippians 2.

A Public Debate on Cyril of Alexandria\u2019s Views on the Procession of the Holy Spirit in Seventeenth-Century Constantinople: the Jesuit Reaction to Nicodemos Metaxas\u2019s Greek Editions

A Public Debate on Cyril of Alexandria\u2019s Views on the Procession of the Holy Spirit in Seventeenth-Century Constantinople: the Jesuit Reaction to Nicodemos Metaxas\u2019s Greek Editions

Leontius of Byzantium: Complete Works by Brian E. Daley, SJ.

Reviewed by: Leontius of Byzantium: Complete Works by Brian E. Daley, SJ. Paul R. Kolbet Brian E. Daley, SJ Leontius of Byzantium: Complete Works Oxford Early Christian Texts Oxford: Oxford University, 2017 Pp. xvii + 616. $205.00. When the many readers of Aloys Grillmeier’s standard work on the early history of Christian thinking about Jesus arrive at the sixth-century theologian Leontius of Byzantium, they are informed, “Until recently there was no attempt to produce a critical edition of the authentic works which were or should be ascribed to one and the same Leontius. This important goal is now close to completion.” (Christ in Christian Tradition, 2 vol. [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995], 181) This reference is to Brian Daley’s 1978 dissertation. In the intervening decades, Daley has made any number of important and lengthy contributions to early Christian studies, but this long-promised critical edition had yet to appear, until now. Daley is unsurpassed as a translator when it comes to rendering technical theological Greek into readable, and at times, eloquent English prose. This is the first critical edition of Leontius’s Greek corpus since that of Angelo Mai published in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca in the early nineteenth century (flaws noted 26n147, 96–97). The establishment of the Greek text is its own scholarly achievement. Daley includes a robust critical apparatus that incorporates textual variants, identifications of biblical, classical, and patristic citations, marginal scholia found in manuscripts, and textual attestations in later Greek authors. In addition to the six treatises, Daley happily includes the texts and translations of extensive florilegia (extracts of prior texts in support of arguments) assembled by Leontius and appended to three of the treatises. In his introduction and notes, Daley contextualizes the corpus historically within the notoriously complicated and contested history of late antique Origenism. To this end, Daley sifts through the several Leontiuses of the period and concludes that the author of the corpus is distinct from his contemporary, Leontius of Jerusalem, but likely the same Origenist Leontius of the Vita Sabae of Cyril of Skythopolis (12–25). The six treaties themselves are in their entirety serious, technical, heavy-going, ancient Christology. Those without Greek may struggle, but with work can learn the relevant distinctions and categories. Anyone [End Page 333] desiring to learn this material first-hand from an expert would be hard-pressed to find a better volume to study. Daley’s Leontius is a “strict Chalcedonian” (75) resistant to Christologies lacking the balance enshrined in the conciliar definition. Leontius follows Cappadocian terminological precedents to apply definitions and distinctions codified in the Trinitarian controversy to Christology (179, 305, 319). Readers may well be astounded how in the ecclesially polarized sixth century, each side could be so vigilant in warding off what they feared the most that they managed to alienate the other side; namely, the divine suffering entailed in a too unified Christology on the one hand, and on the other, the lack of transformation or even humanly meaningful divine presence in a too differentiated Christology. Leontius labors to infuse speech with greater analytic capacity so as to assuage both fears and to express a mystery that preserves but does not mystify the subtle truths of the incarnation. Leontius thus calls his readers to navigate between “some Scylla or opposed Charybdis” to find a middle course (343). The persistent issue was not so much the existence of the humanity or the divinity of Christ (both of which were asserted by all parties at the time) as how to articulate the mode of their relation and the thorny issues entailed in Christ’s death, where the Divine Word made human suffering truly his own without being engulfed by it. At every turn, as Leontius enriches and refines the language of Chalcedon, he also refutes what he understood to be pious-sounding phrases that mislead the mind and prove inadequate to the mystery (as in the formula thought to be Cyril of Alexandria’s but, in fact, Apollinarian, “One nature of God the Word, made flesh” [320–23]). According to Leontius, “when there is a struggle and a discussion about doctrine, then we must refrain from using verbal ambiguities, and...

Development in Theological Method and Argument in John of Damascus

Terminological confusion exacerbated by councils divided the church in late antiquity. John of Damascus addressed the resultant terminological impasse by providing the re-established Jerusalem patriarchate with theological polemic that reemphasized the preeminence of the Council of Nicaea. John’s early works relied on scripture and patristic argument, but after his philosophical works, his theological method couched scripture and patristic argument in terms of a new philosophical acumen. Building on this change in theological method, I argue that John’s theological argument also underwent development using the term “perichōrēsis” as a case study, resulting in a provisional date-list of John’s polemical works. I then argue that development in John appears to have an ecumenical motivation by analyzing his redeployment of the theological technical term “perichōrēsis” from his Christology to his Trinitarianism. I argue that John subordinates his Christology to a terminologically clarified Nicene Trinitarianism in order to address concerns of his local inter-locutors by re-casting local christological debate in three ways: 1) he couched his Christology in terms of a specifically Nicene heresiology shifting fifth- and sixth-century theologians off-stage, whether Cyril of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, or Maximus the Confessor, pushing Gregory of Nazianzus to the fore as universal authority; 2) he avoided the critique of Aristotelianism by couching his Christology in terms of the Nicene locus classicus, John 10.30; and finally, 3) he adroitly granted but restated the theological premise of his interlocutors turning their argument on its head. Thus, John grounds his innovative theological polemic in the tradition while providing his bishop and the newly re-established patriarchate with a more progressive and ecumenical theological method, argument, and polemic.

New Reasons to Doubt the Authenticity of the Enarratio in Isaiam Attributed to Basil

The present article seeks to problematize the Enarratio in Isaiam’s genesis, attribution and relation to Basil of Caesarea on the grounds of new evidence. On the one hand, a critical and philological re-examination of the Enarratio’s preface reveals a hitherto unnoticed textual agreement with Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, a number of repetitions and stylistic infelicities, and some discrepancies. On the other hand, a fresh analysis of the lacuna on Is 6:1-5 and especially the double exegesis of Is 6:6-8 strongly points to a then open and unfinished text and to rewriting processes of compilation literature. No doubt the authenticity issue of the Enarratio is more complex than it appears, and needs further critical study

Ancient Natural Philosophy in Byzantine Christology: The Issue of Penetration of Fire into Iron

Introduction. The author shows how the Stoic principle of total blending of physical bodies finds its refraction in the Byzantine Christological teachings on the example of penetration of fire into iron. According to the Stoics, total blending occurs when one body accepts certain qualities of the other, however, remaining themselves, or both mixed bodies acquire qualities of each other preserving their natures. Analysis. The author asserts that Origen’s use of the example of iron incandesced by fire turned out to be paradigmatic for the subsequent Christian literature, and influenced the formation of two directions of using this example at once: in Christological context, as well as to describe deification of man. Further, the author addresses to Christological problematics and claims that using the incandesced iron example in Byzantium literature in properly Christological context began with Apollinarius of Laodicea. The paper also investigates the specificity of the refraction of this example in Christological perspective in (Ps.-) Basil of Caesarea, Theodoret of Cyrus, Cyril of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, John of Damascus, and Corpus Leontianum. Results. In this context, the author pays special attention to the discrepancy between John Damascus and Leontius of Jerusalem regarding the issue of the complexity of Christ’s hypostasis. The researcher clarifies prerequisites of this discrepancy.

Cyril of Alexandria and the Incarnation

Cyril of Alexandria and the Incarnation