A few minutes ago I came upon this from Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on John:
'Through all time, he "was" in his Father as in a source according to his own statement, "I came from the Father and have arrived." Therefore, since the Father is considered as source, "the Word was in him" because the Word was his wisdom, power, imprint, radiance, and image. If there was no time when the Father was without word, wisdom, imprint and radiance, one must confess that the Son, who is these things for the eternal Father, exists eternally. For how is he really the imprint, how is he the precise image, unless he exhibits the beauty of the one whose image he is, since he has been formed in relation to it?'
That is irrefutable as far as I can hear.
I remain obstinate in my friendship with St. Cyril, though so many have concluded that he is nothing more than an ecclesial thug. The evidence for that is rather thin, truth be told. Now, he is not particularly likable when he's not preaching, but then again neither am I. The fact remains that he proclaimed the Gospel, while Nestorius and his ilk drained it of its wonder, beauty, and power to save. It's not clear that they did so deliberately - I can't see that they were willful destroyers of souls, frothing at the mouth and eager to undo by force or guile all of God's creation. All the same they were in fact heretics, and Cyril was right to oppose 'em so relentlessly.
In this he was rather like Luther. Luther held firm on the real presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus in the consecrated bread and wine in communion. This confession was itself ingredient in a complex of doctrines concerning the incarnation of the Son of God and the promissory nature of the Gospel itself. (Luther also held to a strict sort of semantic logic which influenced his reading of such simple copulatives as 'is'. I see no reason to find fault with this.) At various meetings between Luther and other reformers, the others would appeal to him to join them in a unified front against the Papacy. All that was needed for true unity and concord was for him to compromise on the real presence.
You can see where this is going. The other reformers, supposedly so irenic, simply demanded a compromise that Luther could never offer 'em without unraveling the whole of the Christian confession. It's fascinating to me the way all those irenic reformers, like the heretics opposed to Cyril, sought only peace, peace, and were oh so conciliatory - as long as Luther compromised. In fact, the orthodox position on any particular doctrine has rarely been the true majority position. Cyril has been portrayed as a thug and a political bully because he refused to go along with an ever-growing movement of Christological error. Athanasius was sacked and exiled repeatedly as a disturber of the peace. Maximus the Confessor was martyred for his intractable confession of the two wills of Jesus by an Orthodox emperor and his patriarch because Maximus would not compromise in the name of unity and concord. Luther was opposed not only by the pope, the emperor, and the princes of the Roman Catholic Church, but had to stand apart from those who claimed that his recalcitrance was all that kept them from true unity in reform.
Well, you get the idea.
It's always thus. There are those even now who claim to seek peace, concord, and unity. They wish to be thought of as irenic, open-minded. Uncanny it is that the compromise must always be in their direction. One never hears an irenic Reformed leader publicly say that, while he doesn't understand the Lutheran and Orthodox confessions of Christ's person and work, and the concomitant confession of the real presence in the Eucharist, for the sake of unity and concord the Reformed churches of various stripes should compromise in this matter. In fact, since the Marburg Colloquy the Reformed have never once moved at all on these doctrines. No, the minority is expected to compromise, give up their confession, and fall in with the fold.
That is what passes for peace ever and always in Church Politics.
Lately I have been tempted in this direction. The ruins of the Church have made it damnably hard to know where to stand. What's more, I really do admire Calvin and the gang - even when they're wrong. For all that, wrong they remain. I cannot compromise, and I will grow ever more deaf to the call of those who claim to seek peace, peace, but only as long as they can set all the terms, and make all the demands. That is simply not the peace of Christ. It's just another worldly armistice, and we all know how fragile those are.
So, the Church Thing, as I call it - that stressed out search for a place to stand - is indeed over, but there is no utopian ending to it all. The Church is indeed in ruins. Nonetheless, the Gospel has never changed. Baptism still saves, the consecrated bread and wine are always the Body and Blood of Jesus, and we are justified by grace through faith in Christ crucified.
So, my wife and I are going to church again, every Sunday. I will try to deal with being another guy in the pews, though I don't know how long it'll be before I grow restless and have my tailor fit me for an alb. Indeed, neither of us knows what will happen, though I suspect things will get harder and harder.
After all, the Praise Band Collective has agents everywhere.
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