St.

Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

THE TEMPLE OF HIS BODY:

SAINT CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEMPLE
AND WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH IN HIS COMMENTARY ON JOHN

Erik Timothy Winegar

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Mary Ford

Department of Scripture
 THE TEMPLE OF HIS BODY:
SAINT CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEMPLE
AND WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH IN HIS COMMENTARY ON JOHN

by

Erik Timothy Winegar

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of

MASTER OF DIVINITY

South Canaan, Pennsylvania

2016
 THE TEMPLE OF HIS BODY:
SAINT CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEMPLE
AND WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH IN HIS COMMENTARY ON JOHN

ABSTRACT

In his Commentary on John, St. Cyril of Alexandria follows the divine Apostle in

understanding Christ’s body – or more specifically, His assumed human nature – as the

true Temple, the fulfillment of the Mosaic Tabernacle and Jerusalem Temple, which were

but shadows and types. For Cyril, the Temple of Christ’s body becomes the central

image for understanding not only His incarnation, but the meaning of worship in spirit

and truth and the redemption and deification of fallen humanity. Though writing before

the Nestorian controversy, Cyril nonetheless stresses that while Christ’s Temple is a real

human body and soul, it is not a separate person and in no way divides Him. Jesus

sanctifies His Temple through the Holy Spirit in order to sanctify all of human nature –

and indeed all of creation – and through this sanctification He affords created nature the

potential to become a temple of the Holy Spirit and to participate in God Himself. When

the veil of the Temple was torn asunder, worship according to the Law ended and a new

era of spiritual worship was inaugurated, which is carried out in the “temple” of each

believer. Yet spiritual worship is also ecclesial and sacramental, being figuratively

connected with the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side on the Cross and

marked the inauguration of the Christian Sacraments. For by partaking of the body of the

Son of God Himself in the Holy Eucharist and receiving the Holy Spirit in Baptism, the

faithful become temples of God, the very places where true worship is offered, and are

thereby united to God and to one another.

v
 Table of Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Interpreting the Temple in St. John’s Gospel 1
1.2 Temple Imagery in John’s Gospel 4

2. Saint Cyril’s Commentary on John 8

2.1 Background on the Text 8
2.2 Cyril’s Purpose and Exegetical Approach 10

3. Worship in Spirit and Truth 19

3.1 Worship in Spirit and Truth as an Hermeneutical Principle 19
3.2 Grace in Place of Grace 22
3.3 Encounter with the Samaritan Woman 24
3.4 The Healing of the Paralytic and the Blind Man 30
3.5 The New Commandment 32
3.6 Spiritual Worship and the Farewell Discourse 34

4. The Temple of His Body 39

4.1 The Temple as the Dwelling Place of God 39
4.2 The Humanity of the Incarnate Word as the Temple 41
4.3 The Cleansing of the Temple 44
4.4 The Feast of Tabernacles 46

5. The Temple of the Word and the Unity of Christ 55

6. The Rending of the Veil and the End of Old Testament Worship 62
7. The Temple, Sanctification and the Eucharistic 68
7.1 Temple and Sanctification 68
7.2 Sanctification, Worship, and Deification 71
7.3 Temple and Eucharist 77
7.4 The Eucharist and the Unity of Believers 81
7.5 Sanctification, Priesthood, and New Testament Worship 83

8. Conclusions 87
Bibliography 91

vi
 Acknowledgements
All glory be to my Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, who in His boundless mercy,
has enlightened and continues to enlighten my darkness, guide my steps, and grant me to
know the inexpressible joy and peace of abundant life in Him and in the Holy Spirit!
Any inspiration in this work is from Him; all the imperfections and errors are mine.

My sincere and heartfelt gratitude to my thesis advisor, Dr. Mary Ford, who spent
countless hours reviewing my work and discussing sections of it over tea. I am sincerely
grateful to her for guiding me through this process, helping me to develop and focus my
ideas, and making it such an enriching and enjoyable experience. And, moreover, I am
grateful to her for helping me to acquire a truly Orthodox approach to interpreting Holy
Scripture.

Likewise, my deepest gratitude to Archbishop Michael, a true instructor in the Word of

God, not only for his encouragement and support in coming to seminary, but for
imparting his love of Holy Scripture and for being a model to me of a good and faithful
pastor, teacher, and scholar. My heartfelt thanks to him for agreeing to be my second
reader, and for continuing to devote so much of his time and energy to the education of
future pastors of the Church in spite of his demanding archpastoral duties and schedule.

Also, my profoundest gratitude to my spiritual fathers and instructors in the Christian life,
who have guided me into the Church, to and through seminary, and continue to support
me through their prayers and wise advice, especially, Schema-Igumen Seraphim
(Pokrovsky), Archpriest Ian Mackinnon, Archpriest Michael Westerberg, and Archpriest
Daniel Donlick.

Likewise my gratitude to my dear professor Fr. Archimandrite Athanasy (Mastalsky),

who did not live to be able to read this thesis as he had desired to. Memory eternal!

And finally, my love and gratitude to my dear fiancé Joni for her love and support, and
for taking the time to read through and discuss this thesis with me, and to all of my
professors, seminary brothers, family and friends who have supported me through their
love and prayers.

vii
 1 Introduction
1.1 Interpreting the Temple in St. John’s Gospel

The significance of the Temple in St. John’s Gospel has been the subject of

numerous recent scholarly works, and is generally acknowledged now to be a central

theme in the Fourth Gospel.1 Such studies have made rich use of the findings of Biblical

archaeology and of biblical-critical methods of interpretation, especially literary and

linguistic, and have variously interpreted Jesus as the replacement of the Temple, a new

Temple, the One superseding the Temple or the fulfillment of the Temple.

Mary Coloe, for example, emphasizes the role of the Temple as a Christological

symbol – the dwelling place of God – and posits the transference of Temple imagery

from Jesus to the new Christian community. Paul Hoskins, meanwhile, emphasizes the

need to interpret Temple imagery primarily in the context of the death, resurrection and

exaltation of Jesus. Alan Kerr identifies numerous Temple allusions throughout John’s

Gospel, but does not offer an overriding narrative. Hoskins, interestingly, criticizes

Coloe and Kerr for failing to see in John’s Gospel the use of typology related to the

Temple, and likewise finds in the death of Jesus the fulfillment of all three Jewish feasts,

something characteristic of a pre-critical hermeneutical approach.2

1 A partial bibliography in English includes: Mary L. Coloe, God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth
Gospel (Liturgical Press) 2001; Scott W. Hahn, “Temple, Sign, and Sacrament: Towards a New Perspective on the
Gospel of John,” in Letter & Spirit Volume 4, Hahn, ed. (St. Paul Center) 2008; Paul M. Hoskins, Jesus as the
Fulfillment of the Temple in the Gospel of John (Paternoster) 2006; Alan R. Kerr, The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The
Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (Sheffield Academic) 2002; James M. McCaffrey, The House with Many Rooms:
Temple Imagery in Jn. 14, 2-3 (Editrice Pontificio Instituto Biblico) 1988. Also more generally, Craig R. Koestler, The
Dwelling of God: The Tabernacle in the Old Testament, Intertestamental Jewish Literature, and the New Testament
(Catholic Biblical Assn. of America) 1989; Gregory K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical
Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (IVP Academic) 2004.
2 Hoskins, 17.

1
 Interest in the imagery and significance of the Temple in John’s Gospel, however,

is nothing new in the Christian tradition, and is, in fact, a theme the early Church Fathers

reflected upon deeply. For the early Church, the meaning of the Temple was significant

because it was connected to the broader question of the continuity between the two

Testaments and the question of the legitimacy of their worship.3 Jews and Judaizers

criticized the Church for departing from the Mosaic Law and long-established patterns of

worship ordained by God and described in the Scriptures they claimed to retain as their

own. It was precisely because of the success of these arguments in attracting Christians

to Judaizing practices that we encounter such harsh polemical responses in the 4th and 5th

centuries, with St. John Chrysostom’s famous homilies against such practices in Antioch

being perhaps the most well-known example.

In contrast, the Church saw in Christ the fulfillment of the Law (cf. Mt. 5:17), and

with Jesus’ Incarnation, Death and Resurrection, she understood there to be a movement

away from worship under the Law in shadows and types to a new form of worship in

spirit and truth. (cf. Jn. 4:23-24) This is already a prominent theme in the Epistle to the

Hebrews, where the Law is said to contain only a shadow of the good things to come and

not the very image or realities, and the true Tabernacle is said to be in heaven, set up by

the Lord and not by man. (Heb. 10:1, 8:1)

The Early Church continued to emphasize the typological character of the Law

and the Temple. The Epistle of Barnabas, for example, refers numerous times to the

believer or to the believer’s heart as the Temple, and faults the Jews who did not accept

3Robert L. Wilken, Judaism and the Early Christian Mind (Yale University Press) 1971, 14-19. Early writers who
addressed these questions at greater length included Justin, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and Eusebius in his
Demonstratio Evangelica.
2
Christ for setting their hopes on the Temple building rather than on the God who made

them, and for failing to allow Him to build a spiritual temple in their hearts and dwell in

them.4

While St. Cyril of Alexandria was certainly not the first to explore these themes,

he is perhaps the most eloquent and thorough proponent of such an approach. The notion

of “worship in spirit and truth” was a central and recurring theme in his early exegetical

writings. In fact, the title of his first major work, which is a typological and spiritual

exegesis of the Pentateuch in 17 books, reflects just this: The Adoration and Worship of

God in Spirit and Truth.5

These discussions often took place in dialogue, or more frequently, in polemics

with Jews, as Christians needed to defend and justify their use of the Old Testament

Scriptures and their claim to be the New or True Israel of God. The destruction of the

Temple in A.D. 70 was a pivotal moment that Christians understood not only as a

fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy and proof of His divinity, but as a clear divine indication

that worship under the Old Law had passed away and that now the true worship of the

New Israel takes place within the ekklēsia, the Church.

Though Cyril does not discuss the Roman destruction of the Temple in his

Commentary on John, it was very much on the mind of Christians in the early 5th century

because of the figure of Emperor Julian the Apostate.6 His unsuccessful attempt to

rebuild the Temple was understood as an attempt to discredit Christianity. Julian

4 Epistle of Barnabas, 4:11, 6:15, 16:1-10.

5 Johannes Quasten, Patrology: Volume III (Christian Classics, Inc.) 1984, 120. The Latin and Greek titles are: De
adoratione et cultu in spiritu et veritate and Περί της εν πνεύματι και αλιθιάς προσκυνήσεως και λατρείας. This work
has not yet been translated into English.
6 Robert L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (University of California Press) 1983, 121-160.

3
reasoned that if Jewish Temple worship could be reestablished, then Christ’s prophecy

would be proved false. Moreover, Christian claims that Jewish forms of worship had

passed away and that they are the legitimate heirs of the Old Covenant would be

undermined. The centrality of rebuilding the Temple to Julian’s anti-Christian program,

and the fact that the Cyril was later to write a lengthy refutation of Julian’s Against the

Galilaeans demonstrates that the Apostate’s memory and influence was still being felt

strongly in early 5th century Alexandria. It is certainly plausible that this contributed to

the need for Cyril to more clearly articulate the nature of Christian worship, the

significance of the Temple, and the connection between the Old and New Dispensations.

This paper will examine Cyril’s thought on the meaning of the Temple imagery in

John’s Gospel within the context of his understanding of worship in spirit and truth in his

Commentary on John. In doing so, it will explore a profound theological approach that

connects the images of Christ’s humanity as the Temple with mankind’s sanctification

and deification. The Temple becomes for Cyril the quintessential image for the flesh –

which he is careful to emphasize means both body and rational soul – that the Word of

God united hypostatically to Himself. Through partaking of the body and blood of Christ

that has been hypostically united to God the Word in the Eucharist, Christians become

participants in and partakers of the divine nature, and thus become temples of God

themselves where true worship in spirit and truth may be offered to Him in the manner

most pleasing to Him.

1.2 Temple Imagery in John’s Gospel

In contrast to the Synoptic Gospels, which focus more attention on Jesus’

Galilean ministry, most all the action in John’s Gospel is centered around Jerusalem, the

4
Temple, and the Temple Feasts.7 Temple imagery is employed in John’s Gospel from the

very outset, as the Evangelist informs us that the Word became flesh and tabernacled

among us (ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν). (Jn. 1:14) Then, during the first Passover account, Jesus

finds the money changers and those selling sheep, oxen and doves in the Temple, and

drives them out with a whip of cords, saying not to make His Father’s house a house of

merchandise.8 (Jn. 2:14-16)

When asked by the Jews for a “sign” in response to this, presumably to

demonstrate His authority to commit so daring an act in the Temple, He replies boldly

and enigmatically: Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up. (Jn. 2:19)

The Jews express their indignation, and St. John clarifies that He was speaking of the

Temple of His body. (Jn. 2:20-21)

The Temple figures prominently as the backdrop both for several miracles or

signs, as well as for several discourses with the Jews during the feasts. After healing the

paralytic at the pool of Bethesda during one of the Jewish feasts, Jesus finds him once

more in the Temple, admonishing him to sin no more. (Jn. 5:1-14) The Temple is the

setting for the lengthy discourses during Feast of Tabernacles, where we read that Jesus

went up into the Temple, and taught (Jn. 7:14), and, at one point, Jesus cried out as He

taught in the Temple. (Jn. 7:28) During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Temple courts were

kept illuminated day and night, and water was poured daily on the altar steps from the

Pool of Siloam.9 And it is at this Feast that Jesus claims to be the light of the world and

to be the source of living water that will quench all thirst. (Jn. 7:37-38, 8:12)

7 Hahn, 111.
8 A reference to His Father’s house is found once again during Jesus’ Farewell Discourse, where He assures His
disciples that in His Father’s house there are many mansions (14:2).
9 Hahn, 114.

5
 This dialogue continues the next day when, we are told, early in the morning He

came again into the Temple, and all the people came unto Him. (Jn. 8:1-2) It is later

emphasized that He was speaking in the treasury as He taught in the Temple, and that no

one laid hands on Him because His hour had not yet come. (Jn. 8:20) When the Jews

take up stones to cast at Him we are told that Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the

Temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. (Jn. 8:59) We later find

Jesus once again in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Dedication walking in the Temple in

Solomon’s porch (Jn. 10:22-23), where He again teaches and enters into conversation

with the Jews. This Feast commemorated the re-consecration of the Temple by the

Maccabees, which is especially noteworthy since it is during this Feast that Jesus speaks

of being sanctified or consecrated by the Father and sent into the world.10

After the raising of Lazarus, it is in the Temple that we find the Jews seeking

Jesus and speaking among themselves about whether or not He will come to the Passover

Feast so that they might arrest Him. (Jn. 11:56-57) And after His arrest when the High

Priest questions Him, Jesus affirms that He taught and spoke everything openly to world,

both in the synagogue and in the Temple, where the Jews always meet. (Jn. 18:20)

Scholars have also often linked the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s

pierced side on the Cross with the blood and water that flowed from the Temple into the

Brook Kidron, which is mentioned in several passages of the Mishnah.11

It should also be noted that in the Greek New Testament there are actually two

words that are commonly translated into English as temple. The first word, naós (ναός),

generally refers to the inner part of the Temple building – the sanctuary or holiest place –

10 Hahn, 114. Coloe, 145-155.

11 Hahn, 114.
6
though it can sometimes refer to the Temple as a whole.12 The second, hierón (ἱερόν),

more generally refers to the whole building and its precincts, and sometimes may refer to

the outer courts which were open to worshippers.13 At times, the words appear to be used

synonymously.

The importance of this distinction for the New Testament writers is debated;

however, we may note that in John’s Gospel, it is the word naós that is used to refer to

Jesus’ body (Jn. 2:19-21), while hierón is used generally in the context of the building

itself and the place where Jesus teaches and converses with the Jews.

We also should note the use of the word house, oikos (οἶκός), in reference to the

Temple in Jn. 2:14-16. This term is occasionally used elsewhere in Scripture to describe

the Temple (2 Sam. 7:1-2), Tabernacle (Ex. 34:26), or, more generally, for the dwelling

place of God. (Gen. 28:16-17) It only appears twice in John’s Gospel; once clearly in

reference to the Temple, and another time in reference to the many mansions awaiting the

disciples in the Father’s house. (Jn. 14:2)

Modern commentators have offered extensive interpretations about the meaning

of the Temple in these passages. However, the intent of this paper is to explore Cyril’s

views, so it is sufficient for now to note the passages themselves at the outset without

providing further commentary.

12 Edward Robinson. Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament, (Harper and Brothers) 1850, 475-476.
13 ibid, 345-346.
7
 2 Saint Cyril’s Commentary on John
2.1 Background on the Text

Saint Cyril devoted much of his time during the early years of his episcopate,

which began in 412, to composing Scriptural commentaries. This activity continued until

the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy in 429, which then became the untiring focus

of his theological writing – though he did still manage to find time to produce a few more

exegetical works in his later years. While his earliest efforts focused on the Pentateuch

and on the Prophets, Cyril eventually turned his attention to the New Testament, and in

particular, St. John’s Gospel. His Commentary on John is generally dated toward the end

of this earlier period of his episcopate, with the scholarly consensus placing it between

425 and 428, before the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy.14 However, several

scholars have placed it much earlier, even before his episcopal consecration, and have

identified the Commentary on John as his first major exegetical work.15

The dating is primarily based on internal evidence. While a number of passages

emphasize the unity of Christ as the Incarnate Word and condemn any attempt to divide

Him into two persons, the title Theotokos is never used and Nestorius is never mentioned

by name. It is generally agreed that Cyril is familiar with and writing against the views

of earlier proponents of theological opinions similar to Nestorius from the so-called

Antiochian school. Georges Jouassard, for example, has suggested that he may have had

Eustathius of Antioch in mind. Alexander Kerrigan notes surprising points of contact

between Cyril and Theodore of Mopsuestia in their Old Testament commentaries, though

14Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John: Volume 1 (IVP Academic) 2013, xvii. Quasten, 123.
15Lois M. Farag, St. Cyril of Alexandria, A New Testament Exegete (Gorgias Prss) 2014, 64-68. Farag follows Charlier
and Liebart in placing the Commentary on John before De Adoratione and the Glaphyra.
8
he does not go so far as to conclude that Cyril had read Theodore at the time he was

composing his earlier exegetical works.16

While all scholars agree on placing the Commentary before 428, several scholars,

including Lois Farag most recently, have argued for a much earlier date and identify it as

Cyril’s first major exegetical work. The evidence, however, is rather limited: a single

passage at the beginning of the Commentary could be translated either, “We begin the

writing of John” or “We begin with the writing of John.” The latter reading has been

understood by them to imply it is his first exegetical work. The other evidence is a lack

of any references to his exegetical works on the Pentateuch where one might expect

them, and a certain redundancy in Old Testament interpretations that appear both in his

Commentary on John and his other works. The enormous volume of his literary output,

perhaps too much to compose between 412 and 428, suggests that he may have begun

writing before his episcopal consecration, perhaps as early as 406. During that time he

held the position of reader and catechist in the Church, and had the close patronage of his

uncle Patriarch Theophilus.

In any case, for our purposes the most important point is that the composition of

his Commentary on John before the Nestorian controversy allowed Cyril to fully explain

his ideas about the Temple and a proper Christological understanding of it before

Nestorius began promoting a very different interpretation of the Temple that divided the

person of Christ.

16 Alexander Kerrigan, Cyril of Alexandria: Interpreter of the Old Testament (Institutum Pontificio Biblicum) 1952; 16,

96, 110, 443.

9
2.2 Cyril’s Purpose and Exegetical Approach

Cyril presents his Commentary as a work composed in response to a need within

the Church, which convinces him to undertake it despite the difficulty: “…The

interpretation of the divine mysteries is extremely difficult. But your many words

persuade me, my most diligent brother, to offer this work as a kind of fruit of my lips and

spiritual sacrifice.”17

Cyril intended his Commentary on John to be a dogmatic exposition of the Gospel

composed for catechists and teachers in the Church. Unlike other exegetical works on

John’s Gospel, such as that of St. John Chrysostom, it was not composed in the form of

homilies delivered in Church. Rather, it was composed as a theological treatise in such a

way that it could be easily used as a reference work.18 Cyril explains that chapter titles

and numberings have been added, “so that the readers will very quickly be able to find

what they are looking for.” The Commentary itself is divided into 12 books, with all but

two surviving in their entirety. Of books 7 and 8 – containing the commentaries from

Chapter 10:18 through 12:49 – only fragments have survived, though they do cover

significant portions of these chapters.

Saint Cyril makes it clear that he intends the work to be both dogmatic and

apologetic; he aims to refute known heresies, and to arm catechists and teachers with the

theological arguments to effectively do so: “I will muster my discourse for battle, as well

as I can, against the false opinions of those who teach wrongly. I will direct the

discussion at every point to doctrinal explanation.”19

17 Cyril, Commentary on John: Vol.1, 3.

18 ibid, xx.
19 ibid, 3-4.

10
 Despite his concern for refuting heresies, it is not an apologetic work per se, in

that it is not intended to be read by the heretics themselves, but rather by those who need

to be able to refute them. Another indication of the catechetical nature of the work is that

Cyril frequently draws lessons about pedagogy from the text of John itself, and often

portrays Jesus as the master catechist. For example, Jesus’ dialogues with Nicodemus

and the Samaritan woman are explained in part as models for how to instruct

catechumens. As David Maxwell states in his introduction to Cyril’s work, “The main

pedagogical principles that Cyril wants to impress on his readers are that teachers in the

Church should be tireless in their attention to detail as well as their efforts in teaching and

that they should start at the level appropriate to their students and gradually lead them to

the full truth.”20

While numerous heretical views are refuted in the work, such as those of Origen

and Sabellius, the heresy that most absorbs his attention is Arianism. He rarely mentions

heretics by name, but does specifically mention the neo-Arian Eunomius, demonstrating

that Arianism was continuing to be a major problem in the early 5th century.21

Despite the length of the work, which comprises nearly two complete volumes of

Patrologia Graeca, Cyril surprisingly promises, “not to extend the length as much as I

could” and to “even get rid of the excess.”22 And given the industry with which he

produced his massive literary output, he probably considered his Commentary to have

succeeded in this regard!

20 ibid, xvii -xix

21 ibid, xvii.
22 ibid, 3.

11
 Cyril’s style has been described by some as “prolix and turgid, an unhappy

synergy of grandiloquence and affectation,” though others have more kindly suggested

that such a style for him conveyed a sense of erudition and prestige. In any case, Cyril’s

style can certainly be described as challenging, with long and complicated sentences

along with his penchant for coining new terms and compound words.23 Cyril coined a

highly distinctive vocabulary, with over 1000 words that occur either in his works alone

or more frequently in his works than in the rest of Greek literature as a whole.24

In contrast to his Alexandrian predecessors, Cyril gives much greater attention to

the literal level in his exegesis, and is not given to allegorical excesses.25 As was

common in his day, he has a genuine interest in the historicity of the events of Sacred

Scripture; though his interests tend toward more dogmatic questions and spiritual

interpretations, the historical level is nevertheless neither dismissed nor ignored. He

frequently interprets the same text at different levels, whether literal/historical,

spiritual/Christological, or moral.

Manlio Simonetti argues that Cyril occupies a more moderate position that his

Alexandrian predecessors, “particularly because the deeper philosophical and spiritual

motives which provided the basis for Origen’s hermeneutics were foreign to him.”26 As

Kerrigan and others have noted, Cyril employs exegetical tendencies thought to be

peculiar to Antioch; indeed, sharp distinctions between so-called Antiochian and

Alexandrian exegetical approaches cannot be applied to many of both schools.27 For

23 ibid, xx.
24 Cited in Wilken, Judaism and the Early Christian Mind, 89, footnote 55.
25 Manlio Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church (T&T Clark) 1994, 80-83. Predecessors well-known

for their use of allegory include Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria and Didymus the
Blind.
26 ibid, 82.
27 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, xxii-xxiii.

12
example, in interpreting a passage where Christ Himself makes use of typology, Cyril

affirms the importance of the historical level:

He must surely be lifted up, He says, as the serpent was lifted up by Moses,
showing that searching the historical narrative is absolutely necessary and
practically saying to the one who understands nothing, Search the Scriptures,
because it is they that bear witness to me. (Jn. 5:39)28

Cyril’s exegetical works on the Old Testament demonstrate a clear preference for

typology, which he warns must be done carefully and not arbitrarily. For figures who are

types of Christ, only certain aspects of their lives should be understood as pointing to

Christ, and the “merely human” aspects should be disregarded. For example, while Jonah

is a type of Christ in his three days and nights in the belly of the whale, his attempt to

escape God’s command and his grieving over the Ninevites’ repentance should not be

read typologically. Cyril’s work Glaphyra on the Pentateuch specifically highlights and

explains only select passages that he understands Christologically. These are generally

passages for which a typological interpretation was not only traditional, but easily

recoverable on the more literal level of the text.29

Cyril’s primary exegetical concern in his Commentary on John is to offer clear

dogmatic interpretations. To try to characterize what ‘level’ or ‘method’ of interpretation

he prefers would be to miss the point. He intended to use every available tool to instruct

his readers in sound doctrine and protect them against various heresies.

Farag argues that Cyril interprets basically at two levels: the literal and the

spiritual, with the latter understood quite broadly.30 He has a keen interest in typology –

explaining the spiritual meaning of the events of sacred history – and focuses on the

28 ibid, 100-101.
29 Simonetti, 81.
30 Farag, 252-254.

13
transformation of Old Testament types, which are often “hidden,” “enigmas” and

“shrouded in mystery,” into New Testament realities. At one point he describes himself,

“swimming in the deep and wide sea of divine contemplation.”

Simonetti argues that Cyril interprets the events of the Gospel narratives, both in

his Commentary on John and in his homilies on Luke, “in a predominately literal

manner,” avoiding allegorizing tendencies.31 What he says in one of his homilies about

interpreting the parables is worth noting: “[Parables] should not be given too meticulous

or subtle an interpretation since this makes for obscure prolixity; and only certain parts of

them should be interpreted allegorically, to extract what may help the listeners.”32

Though Cyril does not use allegory frequently in his Commentary on John, and

avoids the technical term allegoria, he nonetheless affirms its use when it does not

contradict sound doctrine. Cyril affirms that multiple sound interpretations can exist for a

given passage, and that seeking them out is something worthy of praise. Allegory may be

used, but it must not negate or supersede other, more primary interpretations. And as

long as interpretations are dogmatically sound, then discovering new and varied

interpretations is praiseworthy and enriching.

We will not shrink back from proceeding to other explanations as well. The eager
desire to track down the meaning of difficult passages would be highly prized, I
think, both by those who have the desire to do it and by those who listen to them
and want to learn.33

Regarding an allegorical interpretation of the crown of thorns, he says:

Everything that does not violate a godly interpretation and whose belief will not
be unprofitable is to be accepted. Therefore, we should not reject this explanation,
since it involves careful and ingenious attention to the text.34

31 Simonetti, 82.
32 ibid.
33 Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John: Volume 2 (IVP Academic) 2015, 299.
34 ibid, 334.

14
 Again, in discussing an allegorical interpretation of the undivided tunic for which

the soldiers cast lots, he explains, “When interpretations do no damage to necessary

teachings but are pregnant with what might perhaps bring profit, it would surely be

ignorant for us to reject them. Instead we should praise them as discoveries of an

excellent mind.”35

While what has sometimes been criticized as the excessive use of allegory by the

Alexandrians Origen and Didymus was foreign to Cyril’s approach, he nonetheless felt a

need to defend his occasional use of it and provide a basis for its proper use. In the

preceding quotation, he gives us two criteria: first, any use of allegory must be

dogmatically sound and consistent, and second, the interpretation must be morally

profitable. Allegorical interpretations are valid and beneficial when these criteria are

met, but excessive allegorizing of minor textual details should be avoided.

On the whole, Cyril’s dogmatic exegesis comfortably employs a range of

interpretive methods. Fundamentally, what is most important in his exegetical approach

is not any particular method, but rather his deeply held convictions about the person of

Christ, the Holy Trinity and Christ’s saving work (the divine oikonimia).36 He is willing

to use any exegetical tool available to him to clearly explain what he holds to be true and

saving dogma, and what is central for him are the dogmas rather than the methods. Such

an approach is by no means unique to Cyril, but rather may be accurately characterized as

the Patristic approach to Scriptural interpretation, common to all the great Fathers of the

Church.

35 ibid, 347.
36 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, xxiii.
15
 For Cyril, all of the sacred text is inspired and precise in its use of language

because the Evangelists themselves are instructed by God and inspired by Holy Spirit.

God has instructed the thought of the holy Evangelists, and it is truly precise.
From a hill or lookout post, as it were, they scan with an eagle eye in every
direction for something to benefit their hearers….[They] have a precision in their
writing that is quite amazing because they are not the ones who are speaking, as
the Savior says, but the Spirit of the Father who is in them.37

Cyril is not implying that the Gospels were dictated by the Spirit in a way that

negates the role or individuality of the Evangelist. Rather, because of the Spirit’s

inspiration, Cyril holds that nothing has been written by the Evangelists accidentally or

without meaning, and we are to diligently seek out what is profitable. He adds, “I do not

think anything has been placed in the writings of the saints in vain, but even that which

someone thinks is insignificant is sometimes found to be pregnant with a profit that is not

to be despised.”38

Without naming them specifically, Cyril tells us that he has consulted a wide

variety of sources, and encourages those who are “engaged with the Holy Scriptures” –

that is, his readers – to likewise acquaint themselves with “all writings that might be

good, noble and free from harm.” In this way, by gathering what many people have

observed from various points of view and bringing all of them together, “they will climb

to a good measure of knowledge,” and be like clever bees building a sweet honeycomb

of the Spirit.39 However, Cyril’s extensive knowledge of the various heresies he seeks to

refute demonstrates that he himself was acquainted with far more works than just those

he considered to be “free from harm.”

37 ibid, 3-4.
38 ibid, 130.
39 ibid, 4.

16
 While for Cyril all of Scripture is inspired, there is nonetheless an inherent

imperfection or inadequacy in it when speaking about divine things since the divine

nature is ineffable and unknowable. He thus emphases that matters relating to God must

be understood in a manner befitting Him, and not be interpreted in an overly literalistic

manner.

Our nature has no words or even ways of thinking that could accurately convey
the mysteries that are above us or that could faultlessly explain matters that are
fitting to God…When it comes to matters of the divine nature, we will not take
the words as they read, but we will take them in a way that is consonant with the
dignity and will of that nature.40
He also notes that there is a certain inconsistency in the terminology used by

Scripture, which he holds is not a problem as long as we look more deeply into the

intended meaning. Ultimately, when speaking about God, the power of words is weak

and precise explanations are impossible.

The Holy Scripture is sometimes indifferent regarding its words without harming
the subject matter. When it speaks of topics, it sometimes employs, in a looser
sense, both the words and the concepts that it thinks explains them well. But it is
better to say of such things, The glory of the Lord hides speech (Prov. 25:2), since
the total power of words is weak when it comes to a precise explanation of
ineffable and God-befitting glory. Therefore we must not be offended at words
that are not very fitting.41
Because our ability to comprehend the divine mysteries is limited, our ability to

express them will consequently be further limited. After all, “The one who sees in an

enigma…speaks in an enigma.” It is due to this limitation, he explains, that the things of

God are spoken of in a human way. As long as we understand them in a way befitting

God, we will not go astray. We need not fear using our limited capacity to speak of

diving things if we do so with humility and an awareness of our limitations, because, “the

40 ibid, 22.
41 ibid, 32.
17
limits of our tongue will not harm the nature that is above all.”42 The greatest danger is to

think that we have a clearer conception of divine things than we really do. The

incomprehensibility of God requires that a certain apophaticism be maintained when

speaking of diving things and interpreting Scriptural passages that relate to the divine

nature.

Cyril himself is known for being somewhat inconsistent in his use of theological

terminology and at times expresses himself in different ways when explaining the same

truths. In light of the “Cyrillian fundamentalism” that developed in Alexandria after his

repose when some of his terminology was raised to the level of dogmatic formula,43 it

would perhaps be helpful to see these qualifications as applying to his own writings as

much as to Sacred Scripture. What is most important is the dogmatic truth the words

seek to express, not a precise formula of words which are inherently limited and

imperfect.

42 ibid, 132.
43 John Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press) 1989, 192-193.
18
 3 Worship in Sprit and Truth
3.1 Worship in Spirit and Truth as an Hermeneutical Principle

From St. Cyril’s earliest days as an exegete, Jesus’ words regarding worship in

spirit and truth (Jn. 4:23-24) form a central and recurring theme. As we have already

noted, he chose to title his first major work – a commentary on the Pentateuch – with

these very words: The Adoration and Worship of God in Spirit and Truth (De

Adoratione). This theme appears frequently throughout his Commentary on John, and

not only in the context of the Lord’s encounter with the Samaritan woman. It thus forms

an important interpretive backdrop and hermeneutical key for how he understands the

Temple.

Cyril’s De Adoratione is written in the form of a dialogue between himself and a

certain Palladius, who comes to Cyril to resolve his difficulties in understanding two

Gospel passages.44 Palladius is perplexed by the meaning of the Lord’s words, Think not

that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but

to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot, not

one tittle will pass from the Law until all is accomplished (Mt. 5:17-18), and, The hour is

coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and

truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who

worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. (Jn. 4:23-24)

These passages pertain to the relationship of the Law, and indeed, the whole Old

Testament, to the Gospel. In what way has the Law not been abolished, nor passed away,

44 Wilken, Judaism and the Early Christian Mind, 70.

19
but rather been fulfilled, and what does it mean to worship God now in spirit and truth?

How does Christian worship differ from Jewish worship as something new, and how can

the Church claim the Old Testament Scriptures as her own while not following the

prescriptions of the Law?

Cyril was not the first ecclesiastical writer to discuss this, but it seems he is the

first to make it such a central exegetical theme. His inspiration did not come from St.

Athanasius, who refers to Jn. 4:24 only once in his extant writings, and even then in a

quotation from another writer.45 Prior exegetes, such as Origen, Tertullian, and Theodore

of Mopsuestia, tended to emphasize the dogmatic nature of this passage, namely that the

words God is Spirit evidence God’s incorporeal nature. Connected with this

interpretation is the notion that worship ought to be consistent with God’s spiritual

nature, and not bound to any one location.

However, Jn. 4:24 was also used to contrast the ‘truth’ of New Testament worship

with the ‘types’ of worship found in the Old Testament.46 In Alexandria this had been

discussed by both Origen and Didymus. Both of these aspects are present in Cyril’s

works, but what is unique to him is the change in emphasis from a dogmatic

interpretation relating to the nature of God to an interpretation centered around the

fulfillment of the ‘shadows and types’ of Old Testament worship in the ‘truth’ of the

New. Cyril offers a more extensive elaboration of this idea than any of his predecessors.

It is important to note that the word “truth,” aletheia (ἀλήθεια), employed by

Cyril means true in the sense of “real” or “genuine” as opposed to what is false or unreal,

45 ibid, 72.
46 ibid, 71-74.
20
rather than meaning “right” or “correct.”47 Thus in the context of typology, it highlights

a contrast between foreshadowing in Old Testament types and the genuine reality in the

fulfillment of the types.

Central to De Adoratione is the idea that Old Testament types or figures are

transformed into the “truth” in the New: “When Jesus says He came to fulfill the law, He

does not mean to put away the oracles of God…rather there is a kind of remaking, and, I

might say, a transposition of the types into the truth.”48 As Wilken notes, the central idea

is the transformation of Judaism into a more God-pleasing way of life. It is a fulfillment,

not a replacement, which results in a new way of life. Cyril writes, “All things are new in

Christ: worship, life and law; we do not adhere to useless types and shadows but rather

perform the worship of God in spirit and truth.”49

There is a great kinship between the two Testaments, as “The New Testament is

sister and kin to the things spoken of old through the most-wise Moses,” and, “The life in

Christ is not greatly different from the way of life according to the Law, if the ancient

ordinances are given a spiritual interpretation.” The Law is a type and shadow

describing, “A form of piety as yet in birth pangs, and having the beauty of the truth

hidden in it.”50 It is present embryonically in the Old, but comes to term in the New.

Cyril’s Old Testament exegesis is deeply Christological, and he is generally less

concerned with cosmological questions than he is with Christological typology.

However, he interestingly uses the exact same terms to describe the transformation of the

old types of worship into truth as he does to describe the renewing of the old creation

47
Robinson, Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament, 29.
48 ibid, 74. Ador. 1 (PG 68:140c).
49 ibid, 76. In Is. 65:16-18 (PG 70:1417b).
50 ibid, 74. Ador. 1 (PG 68:137b-d).

21
through Christ.51 For it is through Christ that everything is fulfilled, reformed, renewed

and transformed.

3.2 Grace in Place of Grace

In his Commentary on John, Cyril’s discussion of worship in spirit and truth is not

limited to his commentary on the encounter with the Samaritan woman. Rather, it is a

recurring theme throughout the work, especially wherever themes related to the Law or

worship arise. He first mentions it when commenting on the opening Gospel verses by

way of a digression:

Little by little [Jesus] drew His hearers from the worship of the Law, and He often
cried out, ‘I am the truth!’ all but saying, ‘Shake off from yourselves, people, the
yoke of the Law. Receive the worship in the Spirit. The truth has shined, so let the
shadow finally depart and the type go far away! But not everyone thought He
acted rightly when He overthrew the teachings of Moses, or rather led them to
what is truer…52

Here the same theme is introduced. Jesus is the truth, and as the truth has now

been revealed, it is time for the yoke of the Law to be shaken off and for the shadows and

types to pass away. Cyril’s qualification at the end of this passage is significant. It is not

quite right to say that Christ overthrew the Law, and at times it seems Cyril must force

himself to qualify his enthusiasm in making such statements. As he repeated many times

in De Adoratione, Christ came not to overthrow the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill

them (cf. Mt. 5:17-18), and thus he clarifies this by saying that Christ rather led them to

what is truer.

Cyril reiterates that the purpose of the Law was to instruct the Jews in the ways of

righteousness, and ultimately to lead them to Christ. “For He gave the Law as a help (Is.

51 ibid, 91.
52 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 21.
22
8:20) to rekindle the divine light in us and to clear away the darkness imposed by ancient

ignorance like a sort of film over the eyes of the heart.”53

Cyril proceeds to pose the question as to what believers in Christ possess that is

greater compared to the Israel of old, since they too are said to be born of God and be

sons of God at times.54 For example, in Isaiah, the Lord says, I begat and raised sons,

but they rejected Me. (Is. 1:2) He answers that Israel did not yet possess this honor in

truth, but only “in the form of a type and sketch” until the time of the restoration (Heb.

9:10); for the Law has a shadow of the good things to come, not the image itself of the

realities. (Heb. 10:1)

At that time, He will reveal those who call on God the Father with more fitting
and truer worship because the Spirit of the Only Begotten dwells in them. The
former had the Spirit of slavery to fear, the latter the Spirit of sonship for freedom,
in whom, we cry, ‘Abba, Father. (Rom. 8:15)55

Cyril then makes the bold assertion that, “In sum, everything we have, they had in

type.”56 There is therefore nothing in the Christian revelation that is not already found

typologically in the Old Testament. He offers both a profound affirmation of the Old

Testament Scriptures and all that the Jews possessed, while at the same time asserting its

temporary nature and inadequacy until its fulfillment. It is in this context that he

interprets the words of Jn. 1:16, And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for

grace, alternatively translated, grace in place of grace (χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος).

Cyril explains that the Law, as a schoolmaster, “used to give grace to humanity by

drawing the deceived away from the worship of idols and calling them to a knowledge of

53 ibid, 51.
54 ibid, 61.
55 ibid.
56 ibid.

23
God,”57 though not yet a perfect knowledge. It made “shadowy sketches” of what is

profitable, and “[led] us by the hand to perfect knowledge of the faith.” But the contrast

here is best seen in the spirit of the Law as compared to the Gospel, for, “The Law kept

giving a spirit of slavery to fear, but Christ gives a spirit of adoption for freedom.” (Rom

8:15) While upholding the goodness and usefulness of the Law, Cyril nonetheless

underlines its limitation and inferiority; if one examines the matter closely, he says, we

will find that the way of life introduced by the Son is as superior to that of the Law as the

Son of God is superior to Moses.58

Cyril goes on to enumerate the fulfillment of various Old Testament types.59 The

Law gave circumcision which is nothing (1 Cor. 7:19), while Christ introduces

circumcision of the heart through faith. (Rom. 2:29) The Law commanded the baptism

(immersion) of the ritually defiled in water, while the Savior baptizes in the Holy Spirit

and fire. (Mt. 3:11) And, more significantly for this purpose, “The Law introduced the

Tabernacle as a copy of the true sanctuary, but the Savior raises us up to heaven itself and

leads us into the truer Tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not a human being.” (Heb.

9:24, 8:2)

3.3 Encounter with the Samaritan Woman

At the outset of his commentary on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman,

Cyril notes the spiritual significance of the location at Jacob’s well. He writes, “With this

action, He shows us, in another type and enigma, that even though the Gospel

proclamation departs from Jerusalem and the divine word goes out to the Gentiles, love

57 ibid, 68-69.
58 ibid, 69.
59 ibid.

24
for the Fathers will not be cast out along with Israel.”60 This is significant because he

speaks of the love and reverence with which Christians are to relate to the Old Testament

and the Patriarchs and Prophets of former times. Cyril is responding both to any

Marcionite tendency that would reject or deem unnecessary the Old Testament

Scriptures, as well as to any Jewish objections that these Scriptures do not belong to

Christians as their own.

In regard to the challenge posed by the Samaritan woman that, Our fathers

worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where one should worship is in

Jerusalem (4:20-21), Cyril notes a sort of equality of ignorance among both Jews and

Samaritans about thinking divine worship must be limited to a specific location.

The Jews, since they still accepted a courser understanding about the divine and
incorporeal nature, maintained that the God over all should be worshipped ‘only
in Jerusalem’ or its neighbor Zion, assuming that the entire ineffable and
incomprehensible divine nature had once and for all made its dwelling there and
was enclosed in temples made with hands…The Samaritans, moreover, are no
farther along than the ignorance of the Jews…since they similarly think that both
prayer and worship must take place on a mountain called Gerizim.61

The Jews, however, should have known better since they had the Prophets

instructing them that, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. What house will

you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? (Is. 66:1) The

incorporeal and uncircumscribable God cannot be limited to a particular place. The

universality of divine worship was also already spoken of by the Prophets, only the Jews

did not understand this either.

He condemns alike the ignorance of all, saying that the form of worship will be
transformed so that it is truer. A place will no longer be sought, he says, in which
they think that God dwells strictly speaking, but each one in their own place will

60 ibid, 118.
61 ibid, 122-123.
25
 worship the Lord, (Zeph. 2:11) as one of the holy Prophets says, as One who fills
all things and is able to contain them.62

Cyril then identifies the time of the Lord’s Incarnation, “His sojourn with the

flesh in the world,” as the hour when the change comes about and the former worship is

transformed into the new. He does, however, acknowledge that the Jews possessed a

higher understanding of worship when commenting on verse 22, You worship what you

do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. Cyril writes,

“The Samaritans worship God in a simple and unexamined way, but the Jews do so as

they receive through the Law and the Prophets knowledge of the One Who Is, as far as

they are able.” While the Samaritans are ignorant as to God’s plan of salvation, the Jews

at least understood that salvation, in the person of the Messiah, would come from them,

that is, from the seed of David according to the flesh.63 It is a partial understanding,

though greater by comparison.

The mention of the Incarnation leads Cyril to digress on the question of how the

Incarnate Word both worships and is worshipped. He explains:

As a human being, He classifies Himself with those who worship, even though He
is worshipped with God the Father both by us and the holy angels. Since He put
on the form of a servant, He carries out the worship that is fitting for a servant
without ceasing to be God and Lord and the object of worship.64

This is a paradox of the Incarnation. Having taken on the form of a servant, He

carries out worship that is fitting to servants, while not ceasing to be God and the object

of worship. For Cyril, the fact that Jesus worships is evidence that He has taken on the

fullness of human nature, and does what is proper to that nature without ceasing to be the

62 ibid, 123.
63 ibid.
64 ibid.

26
divine Word of God. Cyril further explains that worship is the act most fitting for human

beings, and that it is a type of debt offered by us to God. Jesus Christ “worships as man

because He became human, but He is always worshipped with the Father since He was, is

and will be true God by nature.”65

Cyril proceeds to discuss the half-shekel offering required by the Law of Moses

(Ex. 30:13), and offers an allegorical explanation: “The Law commanded that ‘the half-

shekel’ be paid by each of the Jews to God who is over all, not to devise a way to gain

wealth or as a contribution of money to no purpose, but to give instruction that shines

forth in the clearest types.”66 It teaches first of all that no one is lord of his or her own

head, but all have one Lord. Next, he says, “It depicts mental and spiritual fruit in coarser

words and deeds.” The proverb, Honor the Lord with your righteous labors, and give

Him the first fruits of your righteousness (Pr. 3:9), has been fulfilled, “through the

teaching of the Gospel when the worship according to the Law is now brought to a

close.” Cyril admonishes his readers to no longer worship the Lord of all with outward,

corruptible gifts, “hastening to pay the half-shekel.” Rather, “Since we are true

worshippers, we worship God the Father in spirit and in truth.” This understanding is not

something completely new, he reiterates, but was “hidden in the letter of the Law.”

True worship (προσκύνησης), according to Cyril, is connected with spiritual

service (λατρεία), and is not an offering of material or corruptible things. Worship is the

beginning, and it is likened to a gate or road that must lead to a deeper service by works.

Shall we not consider worship to be a kind of tribute and spiritual fruit bearing
and say that it is a form of service? For why did the Law bind service to worship
by saying, You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve?

65 ibid, 124.
66 ibid, 126.
27
 (Dt. 6:13) Worship is a sort of gate and road for service by works since it is the
beginning of servitude toward God.67

With the coming of Christ, the time of the transformation of the old types and

shadows into truth and true spiritual worship is now at hand. It is through the instruction

of the Gospel that the “true worshipper” or “spiritual person” is led by the hand to a way

of life pleasing to the Father and attains to friendship with God.68

True worship must be done in spirit, because God is an incorporeal being.69

Moreover, true worship must be connected with doctrinal correctness, because Jesus

Christ is Himself the Truth.

Therefore, [Christ] rightly receives the spiritual worshipper who does not carry
the form of godliness in a Jewish way in forms and types, but who shines forth in
an evangelical way through achievements of virtue, and carries out true worship
by the rightness of divine doctrines.70

There must be a synergy of faith, correct doctrine, and a life of virtue, all of which

are integrally connected for Cyril.

In commenting on the verse the fields are already white for harvest (4:35), Cyril

describes how true worship will be spread to the ends of the earth. With the coming of

the Word in the flesh, the proclamation of the Law and the Prophets reached its

completion and the time of the harvest is now at hand.71 The harvest involves not only

those who are slaves to the worship of the Law, but also those who are slaves to the

ignorance of idol worship. Cyril describes the multitude of spiritual ears that were tilled

beforehand by the Prophets and are now white, in the sense that they are ripe and ready

67 ibid.
68 ibid, 127.
69 ibid.
70 ibid.
71 ibid, 132-133.

28
for faith in Christ.72 The reapers are the apostles and their sickle is their “sharp, shining

word…which cuts off its hearers from the worship prescribed by the Law and transfers

them to the threshing floor, that is, the Church of God.” In the Church they are pounded

and pressed into pure wheat, worthy of the storehouse, by noble toil.

Thus for Cyril, New Testament worship is fundamentally ecclesial. Worship in

spirit does not imply a disregard for the place or manner of worship, but rather is

something that belongs to the Church. Indeed, the Church is the place where worshippers

of Christ are instructed in the life of virtue and perfected in holiness. The Apostles’

teaching transforms all who believe, whether Jew or Gentile, from living an earthly-

oriented to a heavenly and divine way of life through faith in Christ, and this

transformation takes place in the Church.

It is important not to misunderstand what Cyril teaches about worship in spirit as

being somehow non-ecclesial, non-liturgical or non-sacramental. While such questions

later become prominent in the West beginning from the Protestant Reformation, Cyril

was writing as a bishop of the Alexandrian Church to catechists in his flock, and did not

see a need to defend or expound upon contemporary Christian liturgical practices in his

Commentary on John. Rather, his more pressing need was to explain how Christian

worship is the legitimate heir and fulfillment of Jewish worship. To see that Cyril

allowed for the use of material things in Christian worship, it is sufficient to cite a

passage from his Commentary on the Prophet Zechariah, which begins, And the pots will

be in the house of the Lord like bowls before the altar: (Zech. 14:20)

There were pots in the holy Tabernacle and in the Temple built later, in which the
meat of the sacrifices was cooked; the priests consumed it in a holy place…With

72 ibid, 132.
29
 the cessation of those ancient rites, however, the mysteries moved to another form
of worship for us; we were taught by our faith to honor the God of all, no longer
with the slaughtering of sheep and with offering of incense, but rather with
bloodless sacrifices, and to perform sacred rites of a spiritual nature in churches to
Christ the Savior of all, using, instead of pots, other sacred vessels, which the
Prophet here calls bowls, vessels very useful for drinking…He speaks of pots, still
employing the ancient terms for the sacramental vessels; they are holy, venerable
and precious both to those in Jerusalem, or in the Church—namely to the divine
ministers—and in Judah itself, that is to say…those given a share in circumcision
in the spirit."73

Just as in the Temple of old, the sacred vessels used in Christian worship to

perform the Eucharistic Liturgy are to be kept in the holy churches and used by

“ministers of the holy table.” We will return later to the themes of the Eucharist and

Christian priesthood in Chapter 7.

3.4 The Healing of the Paralytic and the Blind Man

Christ’s healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath (Jn. 5:1-

15) demonstrates for Cyril that the Sabbath itself has now been transcended. He notes

how Christ immediately commands the man to break the custom of the Sabbath by taking

up his mat in contradiction to the Law: And you shall not carry a burden out of your

houses on the Sabbath day.74 (Jer. 17:22) For through this action, “Christ was revealing

to the Jews in a type that they will be healed through obedience and faith in the last times

of the age.”

The Sabbath points to the last times because it is the last day of the week. At that

time, the old customs and types must be put away to receive healing and a new way of

life: “Once they receive healing through faith and are transformed into newness of life,

73 Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets (Catholic University of America Press) 2012, 277.
74 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 138-139.
30
they must consider the oldness of the letter of the Law to be of no account, and they must

reject the worship characterized by enigma in shadows…”

The healing of the blind man affords Cyril another opportunity to expound upon

the nature of worship. (Jn. 9) For Cyril, the man born blind is understood as a type of the

Gentile believers who were in error from their earliest youth and were bereft of the

knowledge of God and illumination by the Spirit.75 The blind man’s healing and

response to Christ thus represents the ascent of the Gentiles to spiritual worship: “[He]

beautifully fulfilled the type of the worship of the Gentiles by placing worship right next

to his confession of faith,” when said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshipped Him.76

The Gentile converts were unfamiliar with the ways of worship according to the

Jewish Law. And this ignorance of legal worship actually helped them turn directly to a

spiritual manner of worship when they came to know Christ:

For I do not eat the flesh of bulls, He says, or drink the blood of goats (Ps.
49/50:13). Rather, He commands us to offer a sacrifice of praise (Ps.
49:13/50:14), that is, worship with song. The psalmist sees that the Gentiles, by
faith and in the Holy Spirit, would surely ascend to this sacrifice, so he says to our
Lord and Savior, Let all the earth worship You and sing to You; let them sing to
Your name (Ps.65/66:4).77

In this instance, emphasis is placed on the manner of the offering or worship.

Cyril likens spiritual worship to the angelic way of worship, for the angels continually

offer sacrifices of praise. He stresses that what is most important is the inner disposition

offered to the Lord, illustrated here by songs of praise and the confession of Christ as

Lord, rather than on external offerings prescribed by the Law.

75 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 21.

76 ibid, 52-53. Jn. 9:38.
77 ibid, 53. Psalm references in this paper are given first in the LXX followed by the Hebrew ordering unless otherwise

indicated.
31
3.5 The New Commandment

In commenting on Jn. 13:34, Cyril discusses at length what exactly is new about

Christ’s new commandment and the life in Christ, and in particular, how this relates to

worship.78 Christ recreates us and refashions us to a newness of life, “which is unknown

to and untraveled by others who love to live by the Law and to observe the commands

given through Moses.” For the Law makes nothing perfect (2 Cor. 5:17), but rather the

commandments of Christ reflect “the highest possible reverence.” And, “unless we

greatly outstrip the righteousness in the Law,” Cyril writes, “I doubt we will ever enter

the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Though imperfect, the Mosaic Law was not completely useless and unprofitable

since it was a tutor leading to the Gospel way of life.79 Cyril explains, “By introducing

an image of the true worship in enigmas and types, it engraved, so to speak, the shadow

of Christ’s teaching on our mind.” It is noteworthy that Cyril’s use of the first person

plural here implies that the Law in some way played a role in preparing all of humanity,

and not just the Jews, to receive Christ. Christ’s words that every scribe who has been

trained for the Kingdom of Heaven is like a rich man who brings out of his treasury what

is new and what is old (Mt. 13:52) imply that there is great spiritual wealth in knowing

and benefiting both from the words of Moses as well as “the beauty of the Gospel

teaching.” The latter, however, is incomparably greater.

The love that Christ speaks of is not according to the Law, “but transcends the

Law.” That is precisely why the commandment is called new. But how is the

commandment to love one another really new, Cyril asks, if it is contained in the ancient

78 ibid, 138.
79 ibid.
32
Law? The answer lies in the fact that the love revealed by Christ is something

completely new, inconceivable under the Old Covenant.

He shows the novelty of His statement and demonstrates that His kind of love is
far better than the ancient love (I mean love for each other) by immediately
adding, Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.80

Christ yokes together our love for God with our love for one another, “so that the

only way love for God could be right is if it is accompanied by the love due our neighbor,

since we are all brothers of each other.”81 While the Law commanded us to love our

brother as ourselves, “Our Lord Jesus Christ loved us more than Himself.” This is

demonstrated through His divine humility, as He descended to our lowly state though He

was in the form of God and equal to God (cf. Phil. 2:6-7), and likewise, through all the

shame, derision, abuse and the bitter death on the Cross He endured for our sakes. “Nor,”

he writes, “would He have become poor when He was rich if He did not love us very

much, even more than Himself. Marvelous, then, was the extent of His love.”

And Christ commands us to have this very same disposition, “considering nothing

at all more important than love for the brothers: not glory, not riches, not even hesitating

to undergo the death of the flesh for him if necessary, so that we may obtain the salvation

of our neighbor.”

What is the connection of all this to the notion of true worship? Namely that to

love as Christ loved is at the heart of worship in spirit and truth.

Therefore our Savior commanded us to practice love that transcends the Law,
which is the root of the perfect worship of God, knowing that in this way and no
other we will be completely approved in the sight of God, and that by tracing out
the beauty of the love He implanted in us, we will obtain great and perfect
blessings.82

80 ibid.
81 ibid, 138-139.
82 ibid, 139.

33
 Worship in spirit and truth is impossible and a contradiction if it is not rooted in

love – love for God and love for neighbor. It is a love that transcends the old

commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Lv. 19:18) because Christ has revealed

a new type of love that places love for the other above love for oneself. Without this,

worship will be imperfect and fall short of the measure of the stature of the fullness of

Christ. (Eph. 4:13)

3.6 Spiritual Worship and the Farewell Discourse

Later in Christ’s Farewell Discourse, the words You are already pure because of

the word I have spoken to you (Jn. 15:3) move Cyril to discuss spiritual perfection and

spiritual worship. His disciples have thrown off vain customs and worldly corruption,

been freed from “profitless and vain legal observance,” and are ready to bear God-

pleasing fruit. Christ’s purifying word has freed them from being subject to the

ordinances of the Mosaic Law: “Do not seek sanctifications in food or drink or in

teachings about ritual immersions or in offerings of blood, but believe that it is brought

about by a firm faith, and be eager to please God with every good work.” For it is in faith

and good works that the power of spiritual worship is seen. And through the practice of

spiritual worship and sanctification in and through Christ’s word, they will be united with

Him and nourished by Him.

They will be joined to Me like branches, and when they are attached by their love
for Me, their hearts will be nourished by the streams of the Spirit….When the
Israelites are united with Me by faith and attached to Me like branches, then they
will receive the purification of their mind by My word. They will no longer waste
time devoting themselves to the letter or fix their heart on shadowy types as they
do now, but they will bear fruit to God with the true worship in the Spirit.83

83 ibid, 221.
34
 Cyril also contrasts the much fruit that the disciples are told they will bear (Jn.

15:8) with the little fruit that was born under the Law, saying, “He calls the fruit much in

order to put the fruit of the Law’s worship behind Him and show that it is inferior.”84 His

disciples are like the rich man who draws out of his treasury both what is new and what is

old (Mt. 13:52) by, “transforming the shadow of the Law and the power of legal worship

into the form of the Gospel way of life.”

Cyril identifies the much fruit that the disciples will bring forth precisely as the

power of evangelical worship, “which is in spirit and in truth, since the Only Begotten

became human to the glory of God the Father.” It is noteworthy that Cyril does not

primarily identify the fruit with the people who will be converted to the Gospel of Christ,

but rather with true worship and the evangelical way of life which has the power to draw

people to Christ and introduce them into this life. As we shall see in his commentary on

John 21, without the power of true worship, the disciples were unable to draw any fish

into their nets, but with it, their catch is abundant.85

The coming of spiritual worship is also connected with the sending of the Spirit.

Before that time, the disciples were not yet ready to be taught all the “deep mysteries that

surpass human understanding.”86 However, when they receive the Spirit, who enables

them to transform their minds and “to choose the beauty of worship in the Spirit instead,

and to prefer the truth to the shadows,” then they will very easily be able to understand

what Christ wants to teach them.

84 ibid, 226.
85 ibid, 380-381.
86 ibid, 255.

35
 Thus the capacity of the disciples to understand the divine mysteries depends not

only on their receiving the Holy Spirit, but also on leaving off the old ways of worship

and choosing, by the aid of the Spirit, to embrace the beauty of spiritual worship.

Revelation and understanding of the divine mysteries are intrinsically connected with the

spiritual life – with prayer and worship.

The new instruction of the Gospel proclamation does not belong to those who are
not yet refashioned by the Spirit into newness of life and knowledge, and they
cannot contain the mysteries of the Holy Trinity...He will not allow the mind of
those who believe in Christ to be devoted to the oldness of the letter of the Law
but will transform it to newness of thought and implant the understanding by
which it will be able to see the beauty of the truth.87

Belief in Christ and reception of the Holy Spirit enable the disciples to be

instructed in the ways of true worship, and this in turn makes them receptive to

understanding deeper mysteries. Only then will they be ready to instruct all nations and

bring in an abundant catch.

It is in this context that Cyril understands the disciples’ failure to catch any fish

before the Lord’s third post-Resurrection appearance as a type of the failure of the

‘ancients’ – both the Gentiles and the Jews – to draw the world to God.88 This is

contrasted with their abundant catch at Christ’s command. Even though Israel had been

caught by Moses, in a certain sense, it was really as if they had not been caught at all

because they practiced worship in types and shadows, and had no instruction in the law

that leads to perfection. Ultimately, Cyril says, God rejects fleshly sacrifices: Why do

you bring Me frankincense from Saba, He says, and cinnamon from a distant land? Your

whole-burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please Me. (Jer.

87 ibid.
88 ibid, 380-81.
36
6:20) Cyril clarifies that he does not mean to dishonor the Law, which had a temporary

role to play, but rather to point out that God ultimately, “has regard only for the beauty of

the Gospel way of life.” Those who are “caught in the net of the Law” are likened to

those who are not caught at all because the form or type without the fulfillment has no

ultimate value.

This all changes when the time of reformation (Heb. 9:10) dawns, and the Word

becomes flesh. The disciples worked all night but failed to catch anything before the

advent of Christ, which is symbolically likened to their encounter with Christ at

daybreak, “when the devil’s mist was dispersed and the true Light (Christ) arose.” Jesus

asks them if they had any food, since as God He hungers for the salvation of all.

Cyril concludes by summing up once more his thoughts on the transition to New

Testament worship:

The instruction of Christ is incomparably greater and far superior to the

commandments of the Law, both in honor and glory, since the truth surely
surpasses the types, the master surely surpasses the servant and the justifying
grace of the Spirit surpasses the letter that condemns.89

For Cyril, the notion of worship in spirit and truth is an hermeneutical principle

and a key to understanding the fulfillment of the Old Covenant in the New, with the

Gospel of Christ completing, perfecting, transforming and surpassing what was there

before. As he often repeats, everything in the New Testament was present in the Old in

types and shadows, and was good and useful to a point. But the new revelation of Christ

is something incomparably greater, and thus the old must pass away. Practicing true and

right worship is central to what it means to be a worshipper of God – to be a Christian –

89 ibid.
37
and is ultimately a prerequisite not only for our salvation and sanctification, but for union

with and knowledge of God. It also requires a radical and new kind of love, a love

revealed uniquely by Christ Himself, where love of God and neighbor is placed higher

than love of self, and indeed, requires the same self-sacrificial and self-emptying humility

that God revealed to us in the Incarnation.

Moreover, it will be evident in the subsequent chapters why a thorough

exploration of Cyril’s understanding of worship in spirit and truth is essential to

understanding how he understands the Temple and interprets its ultimate fulfillment in

Christ.

38
 4 The Temple of His Body
4.1 The Temple as the Dwelling Place of God

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Temple in the life of 1st century

Jews. The Jerusalem Temple, along with its predecessor the Mosaic Tabernacle,

represented the special place of God’s presence among His people. It was believed to be

the dwelling place of God’s name, His glory, and even of God Himself.90

After the Tabernacle was first set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle of

Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle; (Ex. 40:34) again, after the

Jerusalem Temple was constructed and the ark was brought in, the house of the Lord, was

filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the

cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God. (2 Chron. 5:13-14) The

Evangelist John appears to be drawing a parallel between these accounts of the glory of

the Lord filling the Tabernacle and Temple with the Incarnation when writing, And the

Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of

the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn. 1:14)91

While Jews certainly believed in God’s transcendence, they nonetheless believed

that the Temple was the place where He was uniquely accessible or present to them.92 It

was the special place He Himself had designated to encounter and reveal His will to His

people, and was the sole place He ordained for the performance of sacrificial worship

according to the Law. In this context, Jewish writers such as Josephus and Philo speak of

90 Hahn, 109-111. See Dt. 16:2, Ps. 74:7, 1 Kings 8:10-11, Ez. 43:2-5, Ps. 68:16, Ez. 43:6.
91 See, e.g., Hoskins, 119.
92 Lawrence Schiffman. “The Importance of the Temple for Ancient Jews.” James Charlesworth, ed. Jesus and Temple

(Fortress) 2014, 75-85.

39
the Temple as a microcosm of the universe, and contrast it with the pagan understanding

of temples as homes of local deities on earth.

Jerusalem was the Holy City, considered to be the center of the world, and the

Temple was the House of God.93 The imposing Temple Mount, with smoke rising from

daily whole-burnt offerings, dominated the landscape as one of the largest and most

impressive edifices in the ancient world. The custom of Jews to always pray toward

Jerusalem and the Temple (cf. Ps. 137/138:2) highlights its centrality in daily life. The

Temple was likewise a center of pilgrimage and the focal point of the three primary

Jewish Feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, that all men of Israel were required

to celebrate annually if able. Jews living at a greater distance, such as in Galilee, were to

make pilgrimage at least once a year, while those in the diaspora at least once in a

lifetime.94

Finally, the Temple was the symbol of God’s covenant with David: When your

days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who

will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for

My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.95 (2 Sam. 7:12-13) Thus

the Temple had long been associated with the Davidic line and the expected Messiah who

was understood to be the Son of David.

93 James Charlesworth, Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archeological Explorations, (Fortress) 2014, 1-17.
94
Charlesworth, 3.
95 ibid.

40
4.2 The Humanity of the Incarnate Word as the Temple

For St. Cyril, the Temple finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Incarnation of the

Word of God, and more specifically, in the human nature He assumed. Christ thus

fulfills in Himself everything that the Temple symbolized and pointed to in type.

The Temple, for Cyril, is first and foremost Christ’s body. (Jn. 2:21) However,

Cyril is careful to clarify that when he uses the terms, ‘Temple,’ ‘flesh’ or ‘body’ in

reference to Christ, he usually has in mind the fullness of the human nature assumed by

the Word – a body together with a rational soul: “Christ is in fact truly one for our sake,

wearing a royal purple robe, as it were, as His own clothing, I mean the human body, or a

Temple that is, of course, composed of body and soul since Christ is one from both.”96

Elsewhere he writes, “One must understand, however, that though we say that He was

made flesh, we do not mean that the Word of God was clothed in flesh alone, but with the

word ‘flesh’ we indicate the whole human being (πάντα άνθρωπων).”97

Cyril frequently speaks of the Incarnation of the Word as His, “taking the Temple

from the Holy Virgin,”98 and His humanity is referred to as “the Temple He assumed.”99

He speaks of Christ’s voluntary passion as subjecting His Temple of His own free will to

death,100 and later of His Temple being laid in the tomb.101 He asks, “How can we ‘look

for the Resurrection’ if Christ did not raise His Temple, as the first fruits of those who

have fallen asleep, thus making Himself the firstborn from the dead for us?”102 Or again

regarding the Resurrection, “[Christ] has raised the Temple that hung upon the Cross and

96 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 197.

97 ibid, 319.
98 ibid, 8.
99 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 365.
100 ibid, 355.
101 ibid, 358.
102 ibid, 365.

41
the very body that He bore came to life again.” When He appeared to the disciples after

the Resurrection, “[He] did not yet transform His Temple into the glory that was due and

fitting for it but still appeared in His original form,” so that faith in the Resurrection

might not be transferred, “to any other form or body than the one He assumed from the

Holy Virgin, in which He was crucified and died, according to the Scriptures.”

Commenting on Psalm 67:29 (68:30), Cyril writes, “By the good pleasure of God

the Father, His power, that is, His Son, was made flesh in order to strengthen this body

which He furnished for us. If He had not tabernacled among us, the nature of our flesh

would not at all have put off the weakness that comes from decay.”103 The Word’s

tabernacling among us is an essential part of the divine economy and the redemption of

fallen human nature.104

Christ’s descent from heaven (Jn. 6:42), Cyril says, did not happen as far as His

body is concerned; “Nevertheless the divine Word was in the body from the Virgin, as in

His own Temple.”105 And this Temple is the fullness of human nature: “He arrived to us

from the Father above, and for the salvation of all He took on the seed of Abraham so that

He may be made like His brothers in every way (Heb. 2:16-17) and call human nature to

adoption by God.” In this way, Cyril says, Jesus is shown, “to be at once both God and a

human being,” which would be impossible to say if Cyril’s use of the term Temple

implied something less than complete human nature. Elsewhere, Cyril speaks of the

Incarnation as “building a Temple in the Virgin.”106

103 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 131.

104 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 365.
105 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 224.
106 ibid, 240.

42
 Such examples are sufficient to demonstrate how central the idea of Christ’s

humanity as the Temple is for Cyril. He could have easily used other words such as

“body,” “flesh” or “humanity” in these contexts, but it is clear he wanted rather to make a

theological point. God is with us in the Incarnate Word, and His body is the true Temple

because the Word, who is the personal subject who has “assumed the Temple,” is the Son

of God Himself. It is significant that Cyril tends to use the term “Temple” in contexts

which highlight the divine oikonomia. The Word assumes His Temple in the Incarnation,

and it is His Temple that is voluntarily subjected to the passion and death. The Temple is

laid in the tomb and the Temple is raised by the Word on the third day.

The sacrificial system of Temple worship is fulfilled here, which had been,

according to Cyril, just a type. Just as the Jerusalem Temple had been the only place

where sacrifice could be made according to the Law, so too, in the fulfillment of the type,

Jesus’ assumed humanity is the only true Temple where the sacrifice in His blood could

be made for the remission of sins. He fulfills the type of the Levitical priesthood as the

one who offers the ultimate sacrifice, and the type of the Paschal lamb without blemish,

redeeming the people from death. In this context it is helpful to recall St. Paul’s words to

the Hebrews, The Law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the

realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated

endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship…[Jesus,

however,] sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been

made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Heb. 10:1, 9-10)

Thus Jesus fulfills in His Incarnation all of the functions related to the Tabernacle

and Jerusalem Temple: as the place of the special presence of God among His people, as

43
the meeting place between heaven and earth, and as the location where the ultimate and

redeeming sacrifice for remission of sins and the salvation of the world is carried out. In

the Incarnate Word, the Old Testament types and figures find their reality and fulfillment.

4.3 The Cleansing of the Temple

This central image of Christ as the Temple is helpful in shedding light on the

numerous passages in John’s Gospel where the Temple and Temple feasts figure

prominently. Commenting on Christ’s expulsion of the money changers from the

Temple, Cyril emphasizes that their greed and desire for gain defiled the holy court, thus

breaking the spiritual meaning of the Law that had commanded them to cleanse

themselves before ascending.107 It was they who entered with ‘unwashed feet’ contrary to

the Law. The Lord’s vineyard, he says, was being destroyed from the inside, since it was

being taught to trample on the divine worship through the greed of the wicked shepherds.

(cf. Jer. 12:10-11)

Cyril understands Christ’s action of expelling the moneychangers with a whip of

cords as a fitting punishment for slaves, because they refused to believe in the Son who

sets people free, and as being consistent with the warning given by St. Paul, if anyone

destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. (1 Cor. 3:17) It is noteworthy that

Cyril should cite this passage because St. Paul is not there speaking of the Jerusalem

Temple, but identifying the bodies of believers as temples of God (for God’s temple is

sacred, and you together are that temple). What applies to the Jerusalem Temple as a

type applies to Christ’s body, and by virtue of Christ, to all believers. This is an idea

107 ibid, 92.

44
Cyril develops at length in his commentary and will be discussed further at the

appropriate time.

In this passage Cyril also highlights how Christ’s words and actions demonstrate

His authority to cleanse the Temple and His unique relationship to the Father.108 If He

were not the Son by nature and truly begotten of the Father, Jesus would have said, “Stop

making our Father’s house…” as in the Lord’s Prayer. Those called to sonship by

adoption may pray “our Father,” but only the Only Begotten may call God His Father in

His own right. Jesus can rightly act to cleanse the Temple because He alone is Lord of

the Temple.

Christ’s identification of His body with the Temple (Jn.2:9) is likewise a clear

claim to divinity. Cyril argues, “When the body of Christ is called a Temple, how could

the Only Begotten Word who dwells in it not be God by nature, since one who is not God

cannot be said to dwell in a temple?”109 Scripture does not call the bodies of any saints

who lived before Christ temples, and Cyril challenges anyone to find a text that proves

otherwise. For example, not even John the Baptist’s body is called a ‘temple,’ and, “If

the body of John is called a corpse, whose body will be a temple?”

Cyril explains that it is in another sense that we are said to be temples of God with

the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. “We are called temples of God, after all, not temples of

ourselves.” Cyril goes on to explain that our being called temples of God is only by

virtue our participation in God and our communion with Him.

Cyril expresses related ideas regarding the end of Temple worship and its

fulfillment in Christ when commenting on His discourse during the Feast of the

108 ibid, 92-93.

109 ibid, 95.
45
Dedication of the Temple.110 The Evangelist specifically mentions that the discourse

took place during this winter feast while Jesus was walking in the Temple, in the portico

of Solomon. (Jn. 10:22-23) Cyril argues that, “The Lord was present at the festival, but

not as a participant,” since He is the one who declared through the Prophet Amos, I hate,

I despise your festivals. (Am. 5:21) This is not meant to imply that the festivals were

somehow evil or not divinely established, but rather that the celebration of them had been

corrupted on one hand (i.e. worship was not conducted according to the spirit), and more

importantly, that the type a festival represents is no longer of value when the reality is

present. Rather than coming to observe the feast, Christ comes to address the Jewish

leaders and the people at the time when everyone is gathered together to benefit them by

His instruction and presence.

4.4 The Feast of Tabernacles

Toward the end of his commentary on John 6, Cyril offers a detailed spiritual

interpretation of the holy Tabernacle as a type of Christ during the Israelites’ sojourn in

the Sinai desert. After the Israelites had been freed from the oppression of the Egyptians,

he says, God did not permit them to make a disorderly march or go wherever they

pleased, but rather Christ Himself was their leader in the form of the cloud that covered

the Tabernacle by day and the fire by night.111 (Num. 9:15-20) They were only permitted

to leave when the cloud departed from the Tabernacle, and they were to camp where it

110 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 74-75. Cyril notes that the ‘Dedication’ could either refer to the
commemoration of the first dedication by Solomon (1 Kg. 8) or the second after the return from Babylon (Ezra 3:2)
without specifying which of the two he thinks it is. He sees the wintry weather as the reason why the people had
gathered under the portico, which is why Christ went to meet them there.
111 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 252.

46
stopped. For the Israelites, being with their leader meant salvation, just as for us now, not

departing from Christ means salvation.

Cyril then advises us to understand the narrative in a spiritual way. “When

Wisdom…built herself a house, (Prov. 9:1) and set up the truer Tabernacle (that is, the

Temple from the Virgin),112 God the Word, who was in the bosom of God the Father,

came down into it in an incomprehensible and God-befitting manner.”113 Wisdom here

refers to the Word of God, while the ‘house’ is His incarnate body or ‘Temple.’ In this

way, for those who have been enlightened and who walk as in the day, (Rm. 13:13) “He

might become a cloud that gives shade and relieves the burning heat of the passions that

come from their weakness.” But for those who are yet ignorant and “living as in the

night and darkness,” Christ rather becomes, “a fire that illuminates and transforms them

into the fervor that comes from the Spirit.” Cyril’s interpretation here is remarkably

positive, with the aim of the Incarnation being understood to purify and illumine those

yet in darkness, and then to lead them to the Promised Land by day.

Cyril posits that if we examine the Scriptures with “discriminating attention,” we

will learn that the holy Tabernacle was a type of Christ.114 With the holy Tabernacle as

their leader, the Israelites were ordered both to set out and to rest with it. Through this,

“God was profitably teaching and instructing us that God the Word made flesh for us is

our leader and guide on the road to salvation and that by assenting to His commands

without hesitation we ascend to eternal life.”115

112 PG 60:615B. “τοῦτ ἐστι, τὸν εκ Παρθένου ναὸν.” Despite some possible ambiguity, Cyril is not identifying the
Virgin as the Temple here. He says the Temple is from (ἐκ) the Virgin, which implies His assumed human nature.
This is consistent with his thought as a whole, since there are no instances in the text where he clearly identifies the
Virgin as the Temple.
113 ibid.
114 ibid, 252-253.
115 ibid, 257.

47
 God commanded the Tabernacle to be set up in one day at the new moon of the

first month, (Ex. 40:1-2) but what possible significance, Cyril asks, can these detailed

instructions have? 116 He reiterates the hermeneutical principle that nothing in Holy

Scripture is said in vain, and indeed, no command of God is without purpose. For Cyril,

the Tabernacle signifies “the holy body of Christ,” and the Incarnation is, “the pitching of

His precious Tabernacle, in which all the fullness of the deity was pleased to dwell

bodily.” (Col. 2:9) The new moon signifies the Lord’s Nativity, which inaugurates a new

season in which the old things have passed away and all is made new. (2 Cor. 5:17) This

especially applies to worship, as the new season “expels the oldness of the Law’s worship

and re-creates us into a new and fresh life through the teachings of the Gospel.” The

oldness of decay and corruption give way to eternal life by faith, and If anyone is in

Christ, he is a new creation. (2 Cor. 5:17)

Thus for Cyril there is an inseparable connection between the Incarnation and

worship, that is to say, between the Lord’s tabernacling among us and taking His Temple

from the Holy Virgin, and the transition from worship in shadows and types to worship in

spirit and truth. In this context, Cyril cites the prophecy of Zechariah regarding the true

meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles.117 And it will come to pass, the Prophet says, that

whoever is left from all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up every year to

worship the king, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of the Tabernacles.

(Zech. 4:16) He sees in this the universality of Christ’s call to all nations to worship in

spirit and truth. (cf. Mt. 20:16)

And when [the Prophet] says they will go up to worship, he shows that they no
longer observe the worship of the Law but the worship in spirit, and that they
116 ibid, 252-253.
117 ibid, 264.
48
 observe the Feast of the Tabernacles in truth, all but sending up with a clear voice
that song in the Psalms, Blessed be the Lord, for He has heard the voice of my
supplication. My heart hoped in Him, and I was helped and my flesh revived. (Ps.
27/28:6-7) The flesh has revived and will live again, and not without Christ, for
He Himself has become for us the source of resurrection and the door of the truer
Tabernacle.118

Cyril connects this passage from the Psalms – which he understands as a

prophecy of the Resurrection – with another from Amos: I will raise up the fallen

Tabernacle of David. (Am. 9:11) Since Christ is of the seed of David, this is fulfilled

when, “The fallen Tabernacle of Christ…was first raised to incorruption by the power of

God the Father.” Thus the meaning of the Feast is to point to the Resurrection, and to

lead us to the truer Tabernacle.

According to Cyril, the Lord commanded the Tabernacle to be erected in the first

month since that is the time when winter gives way to spring:

when the beauty of springtime shines forth, washing away, as it were, the sorrow
of winter, when the earth is warmed softly by suns that are now brighter and
purer, when the vines bloom and the farmer revels in the sweet smell of flowers,
when the plains bear grass and all the fields bristle with rows of corn, as certain of
the Greek poets say, when the winter is past, as it is written, and the rain is gone
and the time for pruning has come.119 (Song. 2:11-12)

Cyril’s moving and poetic description of the transition from winter to spring is

intended to underline just how great was that transition in the history of world when the

true Tabernacle was constructed, which is to say, when the Word became flesh and

tabernacled among us. He advises us to understand all these matters spiritually. The

harsh winter and rains signify the tyranny of the devil and his violence against all

creation, and their cessation in the light of spring is a figure of the destruction of the

118 ibid.
119 ibid, 253.
49
power of evil through the coming of Christ. The bright sun has indeed risen on us, the

Sun of righteousness. (Mal. 3:20/4:2)

The Tabernacle was to be erected in a single day so that we might understand the

singular nature of Christ’s Incarnation, Death and Resurrection.120 Christ has come, died,

and risen just once in all of history, and this shall never be repeated again.

Resurrection, which is a kind of pitching of the holy Tabernacle, must follow

death. And it is in the new moon because we have a new age in Christ, since
whatever is in Him is a new creation. And the first month is taken to indicate a
renewal of human nature from death and decay to life and incorruptibility.121

Indeed, everything in the Tabernacle – the ark, the lampstand, the table, and so on

– are all types of Christ or have symbolic meaning that point to the mystery of the

Incarnation.122 While the Tabernacle as a whole points to the Incarnate Word, “since it

was the house of God and God dwelled in it, that is, the holy body of Christ,” Christ is no

less signified by the ark in particular. The incorruptible wood of the ark leads us to

contemplate His incorruptible body. (Ex. 25:10) It is covered with pure gold, both inside

and out, (Ex. 38:2) so that we might understand that all aspects of Him are honorable and

royal, “both the divinity and the humanity,” and that He has preeminence in all things.

(Col. 1:18) The divine Law was placed in the ark, “as a type of God the Word dwelling

in and united with the holy flesh.” There is an inherent connection in this symbol

because the Law was also the Word of God, though not the hypostatic Word.

Covering the ark with a veil points to the flesh of the Word, which also acted as a

kind of veil that prevented those without faith and spiritual understanding from

recognizing His God-befitting dignity. And as a type of Christ, the ark went before the

120 ibid, 254.

121 ibid.
122 ibid, 253-257.

50
Israelites in the desert, acting as the leader of the people. The Psalmist witnesses to this

when he sings, O God, when You went out before Your people, in reference to the ark.123

The Tabernacle was to be covered on all sides, “so that it is seen as one and not

many.”124 This underscores the unity of Christ in spite of the multiplicity of types and

symbols that point to Him, and the fact that He may be perceived in various ways.

Whether this symbol be the Tabernacle, the ark, the table (“since He is food and life”),

the lampstand (“since He is intellectual and spiritual light”), the altar of incense (“since

He is the pleasing aroma of sanctification”), or the altar of burnt offering (“since He is

the sacrifice for the life of the world”), it all points to Christ. And everything in the

Tabernacle is sanctified and holy, because Christ is completely holy no matter how He is

perceived.

Having given such a detailed interpretation of the Mosaic Tabernacle at the end of

his commentary on John 6, Cyril goes on to make several further observations about the

Tabernacle and Temple when the Gospel narrative reaches the Feast of Tabernacles and

Jesus goes up to the Temple to teach. (Jn. 7:14) Cyril remarks that it is fitting for our

Savior to teach in the Temple since there is nowhere more fitting to hear the divine voice

than where the divinity was believed to dwell.125 Cyril affirms that God is completely

uncontainable and uncircumscribed by any place, and yet, in the great care that God

exhibits for us, it is somehow more proper that we should suppose Him to dwell in holy

places, and it “is quite reasonable for us to think that we should hear the decrees of the

divine nature especially in sacred places.” In other words, God descends or condescends

123 ibid, 254. Ps. 67:8-9/68:7-8.

124 ibid, 256.
125 ibid, 268.

51
to our piety, meeting us in places that are set apart as holy, though He is everyway

present and limited by nothing.

By coming to teach in the Temple in the middle of the Feast, Jesus “transforms

into truth” what was “pictured to the people of old in type and shadow” when God

instructed Moses to place the mercy seat on top of the ark and to place the testimonies

into the ark.126 As the Incarnate Word, Jesus is fulfilling in His person what occurred

when God revealed Himself to Moses and spoke to him from above the mercy seat and

between to the two cherubim. (Ex. 23:21-22) The mercy seat was the place of God’s

self-revelation, and the divine decrees were contained in the ark, just as now the Incarnate

Word (who is the ark), proclaims the divine doctrines. (Jn. 7:16-17)

For it is significant, Cyril explains, that although Jesus went up to the Feast in

secret, He enters as God into the holy place dedicated to God and there addresses the

crowds. And just as the descent of God to the mercy seat in the Tabernacle occurred in

secret and He spoke with one person Moses, so too now, Jesus comes to the Temple in

secret and speaks to one race, the Jews. It was not yet the time to unfold His grace to the

Gentiles.

Cyril also underlines the significance of remarking that Christ went up into the

Temple, rather than simply saying He entered it.127 For it is a high matter, he says, to

enter the divine school and abide in holy places. Cyril’s intention is to emphasize that it

is Christ Himself who sanctifies the Temple – both the Jerusalem Temple and the Temple

of His body – and that Moses was a type of this when he poured oil on the Tabernacle

and sanctified it. (Lev. 8:11. He points out that Moses needed much more to be

126 ibid.
127 ibid.
52
sanctified by the holy place than the holy place by him, but Moses was commanded to do

it for the sake of the truth symbolically contained in the action, similar to the strange

prophetic actions of Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.128 Moses was indeed commanded to

sanctify the Tabernacle, “in order that Christ might be understood in him to sanctify His

own Temple, although He lived with flesh among the Jews and in that flesh He addressed

the crowds, just as God did from the mercy seat long ago.”

Cyril then interprets the entire spiritual meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles as a

type of “the thrice longed-for time of the Resurrection.”129 The Law required that whole-

burnt offerings and sacrifices be made for seven days, with a day of rest from labor on the

first and eighth days. (Lv. 23:33-43) Moreover, it was ordered to be a time of great

rejoicing, with palm branches, leafy branches, and branches from the willows of the brook

being gathered. The taking of these branches and fruit is understood as the regaining of

paradise through Christ, who is the stream of living water from which the branches are

taken. Jesus is, “a stream in whom we will all find enjoyment and delight in hope, and in

Him we will rejoice in a spiritual and divine way.” Cyril remarks on the connection

between the stream mentioned in the instructions of the Feast, and Christ’s invitation, Let

anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. (Jn. 7:37) Christ “ingeniously transfers the

figures to the truth,” identifying Himself with the stream spoken of by Moses.

The Feast of Tabernacles had been instituted as a memorial of the Israelites

deliverance from the bondage of Egypt: You shall dwell in booths for seven days…that

your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I

brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God; (Lv. 23:44-45) so the

128 Hos. 3:1-3, Is. 20:2, Ez. 4:6.

129 ibid, 307.
53
typological connection with the Christ’s Passover – His Passion, Death and Resurrection

– is natural. The Law commanded the people to come to the Temple to make offerings

and rejoice in their deliverance, and in Christ’s self-revelation as the true Temple and the

source of living water, the true cause of this rejoicing becomes clear.

When Cyril discusses the location of Christ’s teaching in John 8, he emphasizes

the fact that Christ was speaking, “not outside Jerusalem, or in a neighboring city or

insignificant town or village of Judea, but He stood in the treasury itself, that is, He was

talking about these things right in the middle of the very Temple, in the holy place

itself.”130 This is clear evidence that Christ’s death on the Cross was completely

voluntary and did not come about against His will, but rather, “by offering Himself for us

as a spotless sacrifice to God the Father because of the love He had for us.” The

Pharisees had been cut to the heart and were extremely upset at His words, and yet they

did not arrest Him, a fact which Christ Himself later points out to the Jews who came to

arrest Him. (Mt. 26:55)

In John 8:26, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I

am, Jesus repeats in a different form the sign of the Crucifixion and Resurrection that He

gave to the Jews in John 2, Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Cyril

connects these two verses, and again identifies Jesus’ body as the Temple that will be

crucified and raised up. He has Christ say, “I am life by nature, I will raise my

Temple.”131 For Cyril, the Resurrection is the clearest proof that Jesus is God by nature.

It is likewise the special sign He gives to the Jews, since as God, He raises His “Temple”

by His own authority.

130 ibid, 326-327.

131 ibid, 341.
54
 5 The Temple of the Word and the Unity of Christ
Though scholarly consensus places Cyril’s Commentary on John before the

outbreak of the Nestorian controversy in 429, the question of the unity of the Incarnate

Word is by no means absent from his thought.132 In fact, he frequently stresses the unity

of Christ, especially in the context of speaking of His humanity as the Temple. It is

unclear precisely who Cyril had in mind when writing against theological tendencies that

divide Christ into two personal subjects, though they appear to hold to a Christology very

similar to that of Nestorius.

The theological tradition from which Nestorius came, the so-called School of

Antioch, had a tendency to separate the Word of God and the man Jesus into two

personal subjects.133 Consequently, it offered a different interpretation of Christ as the

Temple, where the Temple instead signified the assumed man in which the Word dwelt.

This approach was already evident in Nestorius’ teachers and predecessors, Diodore of

Tarsus (d. 390) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428). Regarding Theodore’s

Christology, Carl Joseph von Hefele writes:

Theodore…not merely maintained the existence of two natures in Christ, but of

two persons; as he himself says, no subsistence can be thought of as perfect
without personality…Theodore designates a merely external connection…to the
effect that "the Logos dwells in the man assumed as in a temple." As a temple and
the statue set up within it are one whole merely in outward appearance, so the
Godhead and manhood in Christ appear only from without in their actuality as
one Person, while they remain essentially two Persons.134

132 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, xvii. Quasten, 123. Farag, 64-68.
133 John McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press)
2010, 22, 126. In terms of Christology, Nestorius differs little from the thought of his teacher Theodore. The
designation of his theology as ‘Antiochian’ is problematic because the authentic orthodox Antiochian Christological
tradition, exemplified by saints such as Eustathius of Antioch and John Chrysostom, did not divide the Word into two
personal subjects, though they did emphasize the two natures in Christ in order to affirm the completeness of His
humanity in the Incarnation.
134 Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 14 (Peabody), 2004, 211.

55
 For Theodore there was no true union of the divine and human natures in Christ,

but rather a conjunction or connection, a union akin to that of husband and wife: “The

two natures united together make only one Person, as man and wife are only one

flesh.”135 Another example from his Commentary on John illustrates that for him the

“temple” is the “assumed man,” which appears to be a different personal subject than the

Word:

No one is so demented as to assert that the words, to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God, are meant to convey anything other than the temple of
God the Word; that is, they refer to the man assumed for our salvation, who died
and resurrected and ascended into heaven, and called God his Father along with
his disciples, and deserved the grace of adoption.136

It is uncertain whether Cyril was directly acquainted with the works of Diodore

and Theodore at the time he wrote his Commentary on John; they are never mentioned by

name, though he does, according to Johannes Quasten, “inveigh against…the Christology

of the School of Antioch.”137 As a Biblical exegete and avid reader of Biblical

commentaries, Cyril would certainly have been interested in their work if it had been

available to him. Some scholars have noted “really striking” affinities between Cyril’s

Old Testament exegesis and those of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrus,

though this in and of itself does not prove a familiarity with their work.138 Cyril would

later write a work Contra Diodorum et Theodorum as the teachers of Nestorius around

438.

In any case, Cyril takes great pains in his Commentary to emphasize the unity of

the Incarnate Word. When referring Isaiah 45:14 to the Incarnation, [People of stature]

135 ibid.
136 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on John (Catholic University of America Press), 2010, 162.
137 Quasten, 128.
138 Kerrigan, 110.

56
will worship You and pray to You since God is in You, and there is no God besides You,

he remarks, “Notice that they say God is in Him, not separating the flesh from the Word.

Furthermore, they insist there is no other God besides Him, uniting the Word to that

which He carries as His very own, that is, the Temple of the Virgin. For there is one

Christ of both.”139 There is but one Christ because there is one personal subject – the

Word of God – and the Temple is the human nature that He has united to Himself, not a

separate human person.

When you realize that two things are signified, the dweller and that in which He
dwells, you will not think that He turned into flesh, but rather that He dwelt in
flesh, using as His own body the Temple that came from the holy Virgin. For in
Him the whole fullness of the deity dwelt bodily (Col. 2:9) as Paul says.140

Cyril not only affirms the unity of Christ’s person in a positive sense, but

expressly condemns any attempt to divide Him.

Even though God the Word has descended from heaven, He says that the Son of
Man descended, (Jn. 3:12-13) refusing, after He became human, to be divided into
two persons (πρόσωπα). He does not allow certain people to say that the Temple
taken from the Virgin because of our need is one son and the Word who appeared
from the Father is another, except insofar as there is a distinction between what is
appropriate to each one by nature (κατά φύσιν). Just as the Word is from God, so
also the man is from the woman (ούτω και άνθρωπος εκ γυναικός); but ultimately
Christ is one from both, indivisible in sonship and God-befitting glory.141

Or again later, he writes:

There are some now who think they are Christians who do not understand
accurately the point of the oikonomia with the flesh. They dare to separate from
the Word of God that Temple that was assumed for us from the woman, and they
divide the one true Son into two sons just because He became a human being.142

139 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 63.

140 ibid, 63-64.
141 ibid, 100.
142 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 52.

57
 Such passages are clearly directed against the Christology of the so-called

Antiochian school represented by Theodore. And, very significantly, we find Cyril

allowing for a distinction between what is appropriate both to Christ’s divinity and

humanity by nature after the Incarnation without dividing Him into two prosopa. This is

the Christology of Chalcedon, though unfortunately Cyril’s use of terminology with

regard to the distinction of natures in Christ was not always clear enough to avoid later

controversy.

Christ’s self-revelation to the man born blind, you have both seen Him and it is

He who is talking with you, (9:37) is also evidence of this unity of person.143 There is one

and only one Son, “both before and after He came together with the flesh…and by ‘flesh’

we are referring to the complete human being, consisting of body and soul.” The Lord

wanted to emphasize this unity by not simply answering that it was He, but instead saying

that both the one speaking and the one being seen are one and the same person. Those

who would separate the Word and the man Jesus are, “mentally excluding the Temple

assumed from the woman from true sonship.”

Cyril goes on to discuss the exchange of properties between the natures, or

communicatio idiomatum. He asks, “How does [the Word] confer upon the Temple from

the Virgin as the Temple’s own properties, those properties that are appropriate to the

naked Word alone? Conversely, how does He make His own the properties that are

appropriate to the flesh alone?”144 He offers this more as a rhetorical question. Rather

than answer it directly, Cyril simply observes that it is one and the same Son of Man who

143 ibid, 52.

144 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 100.
58
came down from heaven, who at the time of His Passion is afraid and distressed, and

undergoes sufferings appropriate to the humanity (ανθρωπότητι) alone.

Cyril points out that by saying I am the light of the world (Jn. 8:12) rather than in

Me is the light of the world, Christ is again emphasizing the unity of person. There is no

separation between the Word and the Temple, and clearly “no pair of sons after the

oikonomia of the Incarnation.” He is emphatic that there is one Lord Jesus Christ as Paul

says (1 Cor. 8:6) both before and after the Incarnation. And the Word must, “not [be]

counted apart from the Temple that was taken from a woman. For the body is His own,

and to divide Him at all after the Incarnation, at least when it comes to sonship, is not

without a share of blasphemy.”145

When Christ points out to the Jews, But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has

told you the truth which I heard from God, (Jn. 8:39-40) Cyril observers that it is proper

for Jesus to speak of Himself as ‘Man’ in relation to dying, and in this way, “He

completely preserves His incorruptibility as God by nature, yet He does not separate His

Temple from Himself but exists as one Son, even when He has become man.”146 And

significantly, Cyril immediately connects truth here with worship: “And so He says that

He has spoken the truth, since the Savior’s statement teaches us to practice piety no

longer in types and figures; instead, it persuades us to love true and spiritual worship.”

The unity of Christ, His humanity as the true Temple, and His doctrine instructing us in

the ways of true, spiritual worship are all intimately connected.

Passages of this nature recur throughout Cyril’s commentary, and it is sufficient

to cite but a few more examples. Christ, he says, “permits no division that cuts off the

145 ibid, 318-319.

146 ibid, 362.
59
Temple of the Virgin from the true sonship.” Rather, He defines Himself and wants to be

understood as one: “Christ is in fact truly one for our sake, wearing a royal purple robe,

as it were, as His own clothing (I mean the human body) or a Temple that is of course

composed of body and soul since Christ is one from both.”147

Here an abundance of images come together to emphasize a single point. Christ’s

humanity is not only the Temple, but is like a royal garment that clothes God the Word.

The Word is neither transformed into flesh, nor is the flesh subsumed by the Word, “Each

remains what it is by nature, and Christ is one from both.”148 And our salvation in Christ

depends on the fact that the Son and Word of God has made our humanity His very own.

He has taken our humanity to be His Temple, and has wrapped Himself in it as if in a

garment. It is God who saves us, not an “assumed man,” and He has saved us by

assuming our nature as His own, the implications of which will be explored subsequently.

Cyril’s thought on the unity of Christ is summed up in the following declaration:

“We maintain, in accordance with our holy and divinely inspired Scriptures, that Jesus is

one Christ and one Son, who is understood to be both from the divine Temple, which

contains the full definition of humanity, and from the living Word.”149

Without exploring the history of Church hymnography, which is beyond the scope

of this paper, it is simply worth noting in this context that Cyril’s frequent identification

of the Temple with Christ’s humanity is not the usual Temple symbolism sung about.150

147 ibid, 197.

148 ibid, 237-238.
149 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 378-379.
150 Though not entirely absent, the identification of Christ with the Temple is liturgically uncommon. It is most

prominent during Holy Week: O lawgivers of Israel…behold the Temple that ye have destroyed; behold the Lamb that
ye have crucified, and, The most pure Temple is destroyed, but raises up the fallen tabernacle; the second Adam, He
who dwells on high, has come down to the first Adam in the depths of hell. From the stichera for the Sixth Hour, Holy
Friday Royal Hours, and Canticle Eight of Holy Saturday Matins.
60
The later Nestorian controversy likely led the Church in her public worship to place

primary emphasis on understanding the Temple as the Holy Virgin – the Mother of God

or Theotokos – in order to avoid any heretical misunderstandings of Christological

Temple imagery.

As but one example, the Kontakion of the Feast of the Entry of the Mother of God

into the Temple proclaims:

Today, the most pure Temple of the Savior, the precious bridal chamber and
Virgin,
The sacred treasure of God, enters the house of the Lord,
Bringing the grace of the Divine Spirit. The angels of God praise her;
She is the heavenly Tabernacle.

The most likely explanation for this emphasis is that the Church sought to avoid

any Nestorian misunderstanding of Temple imagery used in relation to Christ. The

Mother of God, by contrast, may rightly be understood as the Temple in a “Nestorian”

sense, since the Word dwelt in her in a way that still maintained the distinction of

persons, while such an understanding is heretical when applied to Christ.

61
 6 The Rending of the Veil and the

End of Old Testament Worship

When we arrive at St. Cyril’s commentary on Jn. 19:30, we encounter a peculiar

addition to the text not appearing in any known manuscript variation of John’s Gospel.151

After commenting on the verse which reads, When Jesus had received the vinegar, He

said, “It is finished.” Then He bowed His head and gave up His spirit, Cyril then appears

to insert, and proceed to comment upon at length, a variant of a verse from the Synoptic

Gospels: And when He had breathed His last, the curtain of the Temple was torn down

the middle from top to bottom.152 (cf. Mt. 27:51, Mk. 15:38. Lk. 23:45) The language is

not identical with any of the Synoptics, but the timing after Christ’s death and the use of

the words from top to bottom agree more closely with that of Matthew and Mark. While

it is possible that this variant is unique to Cyril’s manuscript, it seems more likely that he

himself added it because of the significance of this event for the exposition of his

theological views. Its importance for Cyril is supported by the fact that he proceeds to

comment on this single line at great length.

Earlier in his commentary, Cyril had identified the veil that God instructed Moses

to hang to partition off the ark in the Tabernacle with Christ’s flesh or humanity.153 He

was, “in a certain way unseen by the many, having His own body as a cloak and hiding in

His own flesh as behind a veil.” The veil acted in a way that obscured the vision of those

weak in faith so that it was difficult to recognize His divinity within. After citing several

151 This question may warrant further research as to whether any such variant readings existed in the Alexandrian
tradition. I could not find any in my research, but my search was by no means exhaustive.
152
Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 351.
153 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 254.

62
examples of this failure to recognize Him for Who He is, Cyril concludes, “The placing

of the veil over the ark then indicates that Jesus will not be recognized by the many.”

Thus Cyril had already laid the interpretive groundwork to understand the rending of the

curtain as a revelation of Christ’s divinity.

For Cyril, the rending of the veil of the Temple is also the key event symbolizing

the end of Old Testament worship and the opening (or revelation) of the divine mysteries

to all.154 Not that all people will necessarily understand this, but, nonetheless, the full

revelation of Christ is now made available to all. From that moment, worship will no

longer be performed in the obscurity of shadow and type, but rather will be performed

clearly and openly.

Cyril begins by explaining how the veil had in the past symbolically excluded the

Jews from the Gospel way of life in the Holy of Holies, relegating them for a time to the

outer courtyard of the letter of the Law.155 The Spirit was demonstrating this to us, he

says, in the form of types. While the commandment of the letter was still in force, the

Jews remained in the outer courtyard. This changed when the way of life given by Christ

and more fitting for the saints – those “who are called by the Spirit to sanctification” –

was revealed.

Cyril goes on to explain that the teaching of the Law was like the court and

vestibule compared to the teaching of the Gospel and its way of life. The former only

existed in types which point toward the truth. He clarifies that he does not mean to

disparage the Law, which is holy, but to illustrate that the Jews had not yet received

something incomparably greater, represented by the inner sanctuary.

154 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 351.

155 ibid.
63
 The first tent is holy, since the Law is holy and the commandment righteous and
good. (Rom. 7:12) But the inner tent is the Holy of Holies because, although
those who partook in the righteousness of the Law were holy, they became holier
still by receiving faith (that is, faith in Christ) and by being anointed by the divine
and Holy Spirit. The righteousness of faith, then, is greater than the righteousness
of the Law, and its sanctification is far richer.156
This passage illustrates that for Cyril the difference between the Old and New

Testament worship and righteousness is fundamentally a matter of degree. It is a

fulfillment rather than a replacement of what was there before, and there is no inherent

contradiction between the two, though the fulfillment is incomparably greater than the

type. Thus he speaks of the new way, represented by the inner tent, as affording a

greater holiness, a richer sanctification in the Spirit and a greater righteousness of faith.

The rending of the curtain is an action of God Himself, which is demonstrated by

the fact that it is torn from top to bottom.157 The Holy of Holies, which had formerly

been shrouded and obscured by the letter of the Law, is now open to all believers: “God

revealed, as it were, the Holy of Holies and made the inner tent accessible to those who

believe in Christ.” He emphasizes that the knowledge of the divine mysteries is now

open to us, and, “no longer shrouded by the coarseness of the letter like some curtain, or

veiled by the historical account, or walled off by the obscurity of types from the eyes of

our mind.” Cyril emphasizes rather that the way to this knowledge lies open to us in the

simplicity of a few words – the confession of faith in Jesus’ Lordship and His

Resurrection with your mouth and in your heart that St. Paul writes of to the Romans.158

(10:8-10) He declares, “In these words we see the entire mystery of godliness.”

156 ibid.
157 ibid, 352.
158 ibid.

64
 Cyril then proceeds to identify Christ’s Death on the Cross as the definitive

moment of the transition from worship in types and figures to worship in spirit and truth:

As long as Christ had not yet waged the battle for our life and undergone the
death of the flesh, the ‘curtain’ was still stretched out, since the power of the
Law’s commandments still prevailed. But when all the atrocities committed
against Christ by the unholiness of the Jews were ‘finished’ and He finally
‘breathed His last for us’…it was then time to rip up that ancient, wide curtain,
that is, the protection of the letter of the Law, and lay bare the beauty of the truth
to those who are sanctified by faith in Christ.159
It is the moment of Christ’s Death when the curtain is torn, and thus Christ’s

Death is the decisive event. Cyril interprets finished here in a primarily negative sense –

it is the outrages against Christ that are finished, rather than His saving work on the

Cross. This is reflected also in how he interprets the previous passage: “It is finished, that

is, the measure of the Jews’ godlessness and their furious rage against Him were

completed.”160 However, he also presents us with a paradox that should not be

overlooked. At the summit of these outrages and this godlessness, the ‘protection’ of the

letter of the Law is removed to reveal the ‘beauty’ of the truth. The language is not

arbitrary. At the height of man’s inhumanity, when the Incarnate Word appears most

vulnerable and humiliated, the beauty of God’s truth is revealed. It is the truth of God’s

boundless compassion, humility and love for mankind. And both the Beauty and Truth

are Christ Himself.

It is also very significant that the curtain is torn completely and not partially. 161

This signifies that what Christ has revealed is “no partial revelation” but rather it affords

us “perfect illumination in the divine mysteries.” Cyril finds prophetic support for this in

159 ibid.
160 ibid, 350.
161 ibid, 352.

65
Psalm 50/51, which reads, You have manifested to me Your hidden and secret wisdom.

Worshippers of Christ are enriched, “in all wisdom and in all knowledge and in all

speech.” The emphasis here must be seen on the word all. There is nothing lacking in

Christ’s revelation and there is certainly no need for future developments or revelations.

He concludes that the tearing of the veil from top to bottom means that those

worshipping Him in spirit and truth will receive knowledge of Him, “without any trouble

or obscurity.” This should not be understood in terms of merely intellectual knowledge,

but as Cyril’s teaching on deification and participation makes clear,162 it is something

much deeper that involves sharing in the divine life when God dwells within us.

The tearing of the veil also has one further allegorical meaning, which, according

to Cyril, relates to the Jewish custom of rending one’s clothes when one has witnessed an

outrageous and blasphemous act.163 This is observed, for example, in the actions of the

High Priest tearing his clothes at Christ’s trial when he declares that Christ has spoken

blasphemy. (Mt. 26:65) Cyril holds that such an act was understood as defending God’s

honor, passing judgment on the transgressor, and acquitting oneself of blame. He

interestingly sees the Temple itself following this custom in the rending of the veil,

symbolically expressing outrage at the blasphemy that has just been committed against

God.

So the divine Temple itself followed, as it were, this custom that was prevalent
among them, tearing its own curtain like a garment right when our Savior
breathed His last. It was condemning the impiety of the Jews for blasphemy
against Him. This too was surely accomplished by divine action in order to show
us the holy Temple itself mourning for Israel.164

162 Discussed further in the next chapter.

163 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 353.
164 ibid.

66
 Since Christ’s flesh or humanity is the true Temple – the place of God’s dwelling

among men – it somehow seems natural that the Jerusalem Temple, as a type or shadow

of the true Temple, should respond to the sacrilege committed against Christ’s body. The

personification of the Temple is interesting in that it expresses both outrage and

mourning. The whole purpose of the Temple was to point the Jews to Christ, and

therefore it mourns for those who failed to see this and instead destroyed the true Temple.

The rending of the veil of the Temple, though likely not found in Cyril’s

manuscript of John’s Gospel, is nonetheless so central to his understanding of true

worship and of the Temple itself that he appears to have inserted it into his commentary.

It is, in the end, an event that has both positive and negative significance. Negative, in

the sense that it is an expression of outrage and mourning against the inhumanity of the

Jews in crucifying the Messiah. But much more important is the positive significance, in

that it signals the end and fulfillment of Temple worship, which was only a shadow of

what was to come, and the inauguration of New Testament worship, with the Holy of

Holies and the fullest possible knowledge of God now available to all who worship Christ

in spirit and in truth.

67
 7 The Temple, Sanctification and the Eucharistic
7.1 Temple and Sanctification

Cyril’s understanding of how the Temple finds its ultimate reality and fulfillment in

the human nature assumed by the Word of God has profound implications for the

salvation of the human race. For the Incarnation provides a means for human nature to

be sanctified in Christ: through receiving the Holy Spirit and communing of the Holy

Eucharist, God comes to dwell in man and makes the followers of Christ sharers in His

divine life, sons by adoption and temples of the Living God.

Cyril explains that those “who rise to divine sonship through faith in Christ” are

baptized into the Holy Trinity through the mediation of the Word of God.165 The Word,

who is ever united to the Father by nature, “joins what is human to Himself through the

flesh that was united to Him [in the Incarnation].” In this way, those who were slaves

ascend to sonship through participation (διά μετοχῆς) in the true Son, and are “raised to

the honor that is in the Son by nature.”

The central theological concept is metochē (μετοχή), meaning participation or

sharing. Cyril refers to this notion of participation frequently. By uniting our nature to

Himself, the Word has not only participated fully in the human experience,166 He has also

now made participation in the fullness of His divine life available to mankind. “When we

are considered worthy to participate in Him through faith in Christ,” Cyril writes, “we are

made sharers in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) and are called born of God.”167

165 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 61.

166 Excepting only sin, since sin is not something natural to mankind but rather foreign and destructive to human nature.
167 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 62.

68
 This participation in God allows those who are born of God to be called gods (cf. Ps.

81:6Lxx) for two reasons. First, they are raised by grace to a glory that is beyond

themselves, beyond human nature. And secondly, they now have God dwelling and

abiding in them, fulfilling the prophecy, I will dwell in them and walk in them. (Lev.

26:12) It is for this reason, says Cyril, that we are called the “temple of God” by St. Paul,

(1 Cor. 3:16) and it is also proof of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit were

not God by nature, how, he asks, could we be called temples of God?

While the Spirit is the one who is said to dwell in believers, they nonetheless

become dwelling places of the Holy Trinity by virtue of the unity of the divine essence:

“We believe that through [the Spirit], we also have the Father and the Son at the same

time.”168 As further evidence of this, Cyril cites Christ’s words, If anyone loves Me, he

will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our

home with him and dwell in him, (Jn. 14:23) and John’s epistle, By this we know that we

abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” (1 Jn. 4:13)

Cyril also interprets John 1:14 in a manner that has profound implications for the

salvation of the human race. The Word became flesh, and did not just dwell or

‘tabernacle’ among us in an external sense – like one among a crowd of people – but

rather He tabernacled in us (ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν).

We were all in Christ and the shared properties of our human nature were taken
up into His person. That is why He is called the last Adam. He gives all the
riches of His tranquility and glory to our common nature, just as the first Adam
gave corruption and shame. Therefore, the Word tabernacled in all people
through the one man so that when the one man was designated Son of God in
power according to the Spirit of holiness, (Rom. 1:4) this honor might extend to
all humanity.169

168 ibid, 62.

169 ibid, 64.
69
 Once again, the notion of participation is at the fore. Since the fullness of human

nature has been assumed by Christ, He may now truly “tabernacle” or dwell and

participate in each and every person possessing this same human nature. And He has

bestowed His riches and glory upon our “common nature” in place of the corruption that

came from Adam. The designation as Son of God in power, of course, does not refer to

any kind of adoptionism in relation to Christ, a notion so far from Cyril’s thought and

emphasis on the unity of Christ. Rather, it refers to the exaltation of our human nature

assumed by the Word, who did not take on the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham

and who was made to be like His brothers in every way. (Heb. 2:16-17) And this

exaltation has consequences for each and every person who possesses the nature He

assumed – just as Christ now participates in our nature, so may we now also participate in

His divine nature.

Is it not therefore perfectly clear to all that He came down into that which was in
slavery, not to do anything for Himself but to give Himself to us that by His
poverty we might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9) and that we might ascend by likeness
with Him to His own exceptional dignity and be shown to be gods and children of
God through faith? He who is by nature Son and God dwelt in us. Therefore, in
His Spirit, we cry Abba! Father! (Rom 8:15)
The Word dwells in the one Temple, taken from us and for us, as He dwells in all
people, so that having everyone in Himself He might reconcile everyone in one
body with the Father, as Paul says.170 (Eph. 2:16,18)
The preceding passage makes clear the soteriological significance of the Temple

understood as Christ’s humanity. God the Word dwells and tabernacles in the one

Temple (assumed human nature) taken from the Holy Virgin in order that He might

tabernacle in each and every person, reconciling all people in His Temple with the Father.

This has the most profound consequences for our understanding of human nature, and

170 ibid.
70
just how and where it is that we may meet God. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you

(Lk. 17:21) because our body, indeed our human nature, has now become, or at least has

the potential to become, a true temple of God – the place where we meet Him, commune

with Him and participate in Him. We also understand Christ here as the true High Priest,

offering the pure sacrifice of Himself as the second Adam to God in the holy Temple of

His body, and in such a way, destroying the wall of separation between God and man that

had existed because of sin.

7.2. Sanctification, Worship and Deification

Cyril goes on to elaborate in greater detail the notion of our sanctification and

deification when commenting on a passage in Christ’s Farewell Discourse: And for their

sakes I also sanctify Myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.171 (Jn. 17:18)

Jesus’ words indicate that before His disciples may be sent into the world, they must first

be sanctified by the Father, who imparts the Holy Spirit to them through the Son. He

asks the Father to bestow upon His disciples sanctification in and through the Spirit, so

that they might regain the grace and state that Adam and Eve possessed in the beginning

of creation.

Since the Holy Spirit is “the perfect image of the essence of the Only

Begotten,”172 He makes those in whom He dwells conform perfectly to the express image

of the Father, which is the Son. (Heb. 1:3) All things are brought up to the Father by the

Son through the Spirit.

The purpose of this sanctification is to allow human nature to be “renewed and

reshaped” into its original image through communion with the Spirit, that is, for it to be

171 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 296-297.

172 ibid.
71
clothed once again with the grace it formerly possessed.173 In this way, believers are

given the strength to overcome all sin and devote themselves wholly to the love of God

and to seeking what is pleasing to Him.

By striving with all our might to do whatever is good and by setting our mind
above the pleasures of the flesh, we may preserve intact the beauty of the image
that is implanted in us. This is the spiritual life, and this is the meaning of worship
in the Spirit.174

Here we find the two main themes of our study coming together again: the

Temple and worship in the Spirit. By virtue of Christ’s Incarnation, sanctification

through the Spirit (whom He sends) is now possible, allowing “fellowship with the divine

nature.”175

Exploring in greater detail the notion of sanctification, Cyril notes that while the

Law spoke of offerings and gifts made to God as being sanctified, this sanctification

never happened through Moses.176 This power to sanctify through the Spirit, “belongs to

and is properly ascribed to God alone.” Cyril therefore holds that our reconciliation with

God through Christ could have been accomplished, “in no other way than through

communion in the Spirit and sanctification.”

Through the Spirit, Christians are united to God and “knitted together” with one

another. As we have seen, when they receive the Holy Spirit, they receive not only the

Spirit, but the entire consubstantial Trinity. The Spirit is the one who enriches believers

and “puts [them] in the rank of sons,” making them sharers in the divine nature. If a

173 ibid.
174 ibid, 297.
175 ibid, 297-298.
176 ibid, 298.

72
person does not receive the Spirit, then the adoption to divine sonship by grace is not

possible.

What kind of addition would it be, and how could we have been shown to be
sharers in the divine nature, if God were not in us and we were not in Him by
being called through participation in the Spirit. But as it is we are participants and
sharers in the essence that is above all things, and we are called temples of
God.177

Cyril is here referring to the theological notion of deification – becoming by grace

a participant in the life of God Himself, a partaker of the divine nature. (2 Pet. 1:4) In

this context, Cyril employs the terms essence and nature synonymously. It is important

to emphasize that Cyril does not imply any blending or mixing of the natures that would

blur the distinction between Uncreated and created nature, or result in human nature

being subsumed by the divine nature (the later error of Eutyches). Rather, it involves a

communication of attributes and life, whereby the divine life of God becomes accessible

to man because the Word of God has made human nature His own in the Incarnation.

Thus this participation in the divine nature and potential to become temples of God is

only possible because the Word first sanctified Himself – His Temple (assumed

humanity) – and offered and presented Himself as a holy sacrifice well-pleasing to God

the Father.178 As God, He intervened to rescue human nature from sin, and by doing so,

“[now] nothing may stand in the way of our ability to draw near to God and have

fellowship with Him.” And this fellowship is possible through participation in the Holy

Spirit, “who reshapes us into righteousness and holiness, and into our original image.”

177 ibid.
178 ibid.
73
 But how is it possible, Cyril asks, for Christ, who is holy by nature, to be

sanctified?179 The answer lies in the divine oikonomia, in His assumption of human

nature and sanctification of that nature. Cyril posits that the sanctification of Christ’s

assumed human nature is essential for our own sanctification and salvation: “He ineffably

united Himself to our nature of His own will that He might restore it first in Himself and

through Himself to that beauty that it had in the beginning.”

Christ is the second Adam, the “heavenly man,” and as such, the one in whom

human nature was recreated to newness of life, “in incorruption, righteousness and

sanctification through the Spirit.” Through this sanctification, Christ bestowed His own

divinely good attributes upon the entire human race. The very purpose of the Incarnation

was precisely this recreation and sanctification of human nature, and it was why the

Incarnate Word, though Life by nature, willed to suffer death. In doing so, He destroyed

death in us and “refashioned us into His own life.” Even though He is holy by nature as

God, “He is sanctified for us in the Holy Spirit in the sense that He gives all creation

participation in the Holy Spirit for its continuance and preservation and sanctification.”

It was certainly not that Christ, in His person, had need of sanctification, but He

was sanctified in the nature He assumed, “so that originating from Him and in Him the

grace of sanctification might extend to the entire race.” Echoing the thought of St. Paul,

(cf. Rom. 5) Cyril writes that just as our nature was condemned to death through the

transgression and disobedience of Adam, “in the same way, I think, through the

obedience and righteousness of Christ…blessing and restoration of life through the Spirit

could extend to our entire nature.”180

179 ibid, 299.

180 ibid, 299.
74
 Since flesh – even that assumed by Christ – is not holy in and of itself, it needed

to be sanctified in order to be brought back to its original incorruption.181 And Christ’s

human nature was sanctified both by the Word dwelling in it as well as through the Holy

Spirit, “sanctifying His own Temple…and transforming it to carry out the activities of

His own [divine] nature.”

It is not by chance that Cyril brings up the Temple again in this context, for the

Temple unites the notion of the sanctification of human nature with that of participation

and sharing in the divine nature and attributes. In other words, it is an image that

conveys Cyril’s understanding of deification in a way that is closely connected to his

understanding of worship.

That is why the body of Christ is understood to be holy and sanctifying. It has
become a Temple, as we have just said, of the Word who is united to it bodily, as
Paul says. (Col. 2:9)…His flesh was sanctified by the Spirit in that the Word, who
is holy by nature and is from the Father, anoints His own Temple with the Spirit,
just like the rest of creation.182

The body of Christ is sanctified as the Temple, and as the Temple, in turn, it acts

to sanctify all of human nature. Indeed, this sanctification extends to all of creation.

Cyril repeatedly asserts that it was impossible for fallen humanity to be restored

to its original beauty, “except by attaining an ineffable communion and union with

God.”183 Such a union and communion was intended by God in the beginning of

creation, and it is impossible to have such a union “except through participation in the

Holy Spirit, who implants His own attribute of sanctification in us and refashions into His

own life the nature that was subject to decay.” Through participation, the Holy Spirit

181 ibid, 300.

182 ibid.
183 ibid, 302.

75
leads those who had lost their former glory back to God, conforming them to Him. He

refashions human souls to Himself, engraves the divine form into them, and seals them

with the image of His essence.

Christ’s High-Priestly prayer is not only intended for His disciples’ sanctification,

but is offered on behalf of all who would come to believe in Him in every subsequent

age.184 (Jn.17:20) The gift is universal and intended for all, since this sanctification in the

Spirit is the means of reestablishing the lost communion with God. And the essential

corollary to His universal prayer for sanctification is His prayer for unity: that they may

all be one. As You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, may they also be one in Us, so that

the world may believe that You have sent Me. (Jn. 17:20-21)

Cyril understands Christ to be asking for a bond of love, agreement and peace that

brings believers together in a spiritual unity characterized by inseparable harmony of soul

and mutual agreement in all things. Such a unity imitates “the imprint of the natural and

essential unity” of the Father and the Son. However, Cyril is careful to qualify that this

unity among believers will never reach the point of identity with that of the essential

unity of the Father and the Son. Rather, the bond of love and agreement in Christians is

meant to imitate, as far as possible, the form of the divine unity.185 Christ’s essential

unity with the Father is therefore an image and type of the “inseparable friendship and

concord and unity of kindred souls” that He desires for all mankind.186 Believers in

Christ – Jews and Gentiles alike – are to be “blended with one another, so to speak,” by

the power of the consubstantial Trinity so that the entire body of the Church may be one

184 ibid.
185 ibid.
186 ibid, 304.

76
and united “into one perfect whole.” We should also recall in this context that for Cyril,

love that transcends the Law is the root of perfect worship.187

7.3 Temple and Eucharist

For Cyril, the Sacraments, and most especially the Holy Eucharist, are essential

elements in the sanctification and salvation of mankind. Since the bread of God is the

one Who came down from heaven and gives life to the world, (Jn. 6:33) those who

partake of the Eucharist partake of the very flesh of the Word, which has been

hypostically united to Him and is inseparable from Him.

Cyril understands the Sacraments as being rooted in the Incarnation – the Word’s

assumption of human nature. It is in this context that he interprets the blood and water

that flowed from Christ’s side when He was pierced by the soldier on the Cross. (Jn.

19:32-34) The water and blood proceed from the true Temple, and are the means of our

sanctification.

God presented us with this event as an image and first fruits, as it were, of the
mystical blessing [i.e., the Eucharist] and holy Baptism. After all, holy Baptism
truly belongs to Christ and comes from Christ, and the power of the mystical
blessing springs from His holy flesh.188

Cyril’s interpretation of the Eucharistic typology of the Old Testament manna is

significant in this context.189 The perceptible manna given by God in the desert is a type

of the spiritual manna; the former alludes to “the courser teaching of the Law,” while the

latter points to Christ Himself. The Israelites were to go out and gather manna daily, (Ex.

16:4) and were not allowed to keep any until the following day. Through this, “[Christ]

subtly indicates through an enigma,” that the gathering of food from the “courser types”

187 ibid, 139.

188 ibid, 354.
189 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 1, 207.

77
of the Law is only to last until the coming of the Word in the flesh. At that time, the

types are made vain and the Truth itself is now available “for our pleasure and

enjoyment.”

The command not to leave any of the manna until morning is also significant (Ex.

16:19-29), for Cyril understands the morning as, “the bright and shining time of the

advent of our Savior.”190 At that time, he says, the darkness of the Law was scattered for

the Jews, along with the diabolical mist of pagan teachings that had kept the Gentiles in

darkness. The Only Begotten Son, “arose on us like light, and the spiritual daybreak was

revealed.” Therefore manna, which was only a type, must not be allowed to remain after

the dawn of the Lord’s Nativity.

Continuing with the imagery of light and sunrise, he argues, “When the

aforementioned time rises on us, the shadows of the Law are now superfluous and

completely out of season because of the truth that is now present.” Since this time has

now come, an eagerness to still keep the letter of the Law will only lead to rottenness and

worms.

Cyril places great emphasis on the soteriological dimensions of Christ’s words,

unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you.191

(Jn. 6:53) The Only Begotten Son is life by nature, being begotten of the living Father,

“and His holy body is no less life-giving,” since it has been brought together and

ineffably united with the Word.

He is indivisible after the Incarnation except for the knowledge that the Word,
who comes from God the Father, and the Temple, which comes from the Virgin,
are not the same in nature. That is because the body is not of the same substance

190 ibid, 209.

191 ibid, 236.
78
 as the Word of God. But they are one by that coming together and ineffable
concurrence (συντρέχω).
And since the flesh of the Savior has become life-giving (in that it has been united
to that which is by nature life, namely, the Word from God), when we taste of it,
then we have life in ourselves, since we too are united to that flesh just as it is
united to the Word who indwells it.192

There are several important points in this passage. The first is an affirmation of

the consubstantiality of the Incarnate Word with God the Father in respect to His divinity

and with us in respect to His humanity, while again maintaining the unity of His person

as the Word of God. Cyril speaks of two natures that come together in an “ineffable

concurrence,” and which are indivisible except for the knowledge of their distinction.

Christ’s body is not of the divine nature, but of the human; nonetheless, in the Incarnation

His body truly becomes the body of God the Word who remains the only personal

subject. And because of this ineffable union of human nature with the Word, the flesh of

the Savior becomes life-giving. Thus those who commune of it are united to the Word,

who is ineffably united to His body. As a result, God Himself comes to dwell in those

who partake of His body, the true bread from heaven. (Jn. 6:32)

Cyril goes on to elaborate that the Word has not only been united to His own flesh

“in a way that is ineffable and beyond human understanding,” but has “transformed all of

it into Himself…by the activity that can give life to what lacks life.”193 He wants to

emphasize here the implications of that ineffable union for all of human nature. For

through it, Christ has “driven decay from our nature” and “dislodged death” which had

become rooted in mankind through sin. Therefore, “whoever eats the holy flesh of Christ

192 ibid.
193 ibid, 237-238.
79
has eternal life because the flesh has in itself the Word, who is life by nature.” Christ, in

this way, sows immortality like a seed in those who partake of His flesh.

There can likewise be no separating the Word from the flesh, which is why Christ

does not say the flesh will raise him up [who eats His flesh and blood] on the last day, but

I will raise him up. (Jn. 6:55) According to Cyril, Christ again refuses here to be divided

into a pair of sons after the union.

Reflecting on the relationship between the Incarnation and the Eucharist, Cyril

refers the words as the living Father sent Me (Jn. 6:57) to the Incarnation. The Word was

pre-eternally begotten as Life from the one who is Life by nature; however, having

become flesh – “a complete human being” – He may now say:

I have filled My Temple – that is, My body – with My own nature now that I have
become human. In the same way, whoever eats My flesh will live because of Me.
I have taken on mortal flesh, but since I have dwelt in this flesh—I, who am life
by nature because I am from the living Father—I have transformed all of My flesh
into My own life, I have not been overcome by the decay of the flesh, but rather
have overcome it as God…whoever receives Me into themselves through
participation in My flesh will live, being wholly transformed into Me, the One
who can give life because I am from a life-giving root, that is, God the Father.194

The whole mystery of the Temple and our salvation is here laid bare. Christ has

filled His Temple – His human nature – with His divine nature, which overcomes in that

human nature all the death, decay and mortality that resulted from sin. Consequently,

whoever communes of the body of Christ – the Holy Eucharist, His very Temple –

receives the Word into himself through participation (διά τῆς μεταλήψεως) in His flesh.

And the transformation that takes place is whole and complete, meaning nothing less than

194 ibid, 239-240.

80
the deification of man – the possibility of sharing in the fullness of the divine life and

becoming a temple of God.

As a creature, man does not cease to be man, and yet the division between created

and Uncreated has been overcome in the ineffable union of the Word and the Temple, so

that real communion and participation in the divine nature – real transformation – is

possible for created human nature.195

7.4 The Eucharist and the Unity of Believers

Returning to the topic of unity and Christ’s prayer that they may all be one

discussed in the previous section, (Jn. 17:20) Cyril points out that there is an important

aspect to this unity connected with the Holy Eucharist.196 He speaks about “a natural

unity” by which we are connected with one another and with God that, “perhaps [does]

not even fall short of a corporeal unity” among believers. Even though each believer is

separated according to body and person (hypostasis), there is a real unity possible by

virtue of the Incarnation and Holy Communion.

…Let us consider how we too are found to be one with one another and with God
both corporeally and spiritually. The Only Begotten shone forth for us from the
very essence of God the Father and had His Father completely in His own nature.
He then became flesh according to the Scriptures, and mixed Himself, as it were,
with our nature through the unimaginable coming together and union with His
body from the earth…He is God and a human being in the same [person], so that
by uniting in Himself, as it were, things that are very different by nature and
essentially distinct from each other He may make humanity share and participate
in the divine nature.197

195 Though, as Cyril elsewhere clarifies, it is in a different sense that we are said to be temples of God with the Holy
Spirit dwelling in us. “We are called temples of God, after all, not temples of ourselves.” Commentary on John:
Volume 1, 95
196 Cyril, Commentary on John: Volume 2, 304.
197 ibid.

81
 As explained above, by virtue of the hypostatic union in Christ, communion in the

Holy Spirit is now extended to us; as the second Adam and Heavenly Man, Christ

recreates the world in Himself. The mystery of Christ has become a beginning and a way

for us to attain participation in the Holy Spirit and union with God.198

From this starting point, Cyril goes on to describe how believers come together in

union with one another and with God, while still remaining individually distinct.

By one body, that is, His own, He blesses those who believe in Him through
mystical participation and makes them to be of the same body as Himself and one
another. Who could divide or separate from their natural union with one another
those who are bound together through His one holy body into unity with Christ?
If we all partake of the one bread, (1 Cor. 10:17) then we are all made one body,
since Christ cannot be divided.199

For Cyril, Eucharistic communion is the basis for how believers as individual

members together constitute the Church as the body of Christ.200 (cf. 1 Cor. 12:27) Each

communicant receives the “one indivisible body” into his or her own body, and is thus

united into the one Christ. Each becomes a member of His holy body, and through

participation, obtains a “bodily union” with Christ. As he says, “If we are all members of

the same body with one another in Christ—not only with one another but also with Him

who is in us through His flesh—how is it not obvious that we all are one both with one

another and with Christ?”201 Being God and man, and uniting both natures in Himself,

Christ is “the bond of union” between believers, both among themselves and with God.

A similar process occurs with regard to the Holy Spirit.202 All who receive the

Holy Spirit “receive one and the same Spirit,” and consequently, are “mixed together, so

198 ibid.
199 ibid, 305.
200 ibid.
201 ibid.
202 ibid.

82
to speak, with one another and with God.” For the Spirit is one and indivisible, though

He dwells in many individually.

[The Holy Spirit] gathers together the spirits of others, who are cut off from unity
(I mean in terms of their essence), into unity of His own personal subsistence,
making them all one in Himself. Just as the power of His holy flesh makes those
in whom it dwells one body, in the same way I think that the one Spirit of God,
who dwells indivisible in all, gathers everyone into a spiritual unity.203

Hence, just as those who partake of Christ’s body are united together in His body,

so too all who have received the Holy Spirit are united together – to one another and to

God – in the Spirit. According to Cyril, the fact that there is one body and one Spirit, just

as there is one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, and one God and Father of all, is the basis

for believers maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (cf. Eph. 4:2-6)

Sharing in the same Spirit, Christians are no longer merely human, but rather “sons of

God” and “heavenly men” since they have been made partakers of the divine nature.

Therefore, according to Cyril, all Christians become one, not in person, but in disposition

and form of piety through communion in the holy flesh of Christ and communion in the

one Holy Spirit.

7.5 Sanctification, Priesthood, and New Testament Worship

Any question as to whether Cyril’s emphasis on spiritual worship is somehow

non-liturgical or non-sacramental is dispelled by his commentary on Christ’s post-

Resurrection evening meeting with His disciples. (Jn. 20:19-23) Cyril explains that with

the words, Peace be with you. As my Father sent Me, so I send you, Christ appointed the

disciples to be “leaders and teachers of the world and stewards of the divine

mysteries.”204 They are not only to instruct all nations in true doctrine and lead them to

203 ibid.
204 ibid, 366-367.
83
Christ as true shepherds of His flock,205 but they are to be priests of the New Covenant –

“priests and stewards of the divine altar.”

Cyril explains that the disciples would not be able to overcome the snares of sin

nor do anything pleasing to God until they had been clothed with power from on high,

(Lk. 24:49) and been transformed into something greater than what they were. He

connects this transformation to Christ’s commissioning of the disciples as priests and His

action of “sanctifying them by His own Spirit” when He breathed on them and said,

Receive the Holy Spirit.206 (Jn. 20:21) Cyril finds in this event the typological fulfillment

of the institution of the Levitical priesthood as described in the consecration of Aaron and

his sons (Lev. 8):

The ancient letter of the Law, which contains shadows and types of the truth,
ordained that the appointment of priests should be done in a more bodily way…in
course, visible actions…Our Lord Jesus Christ transforms the outline of the Law
into the power of the truth when He consecrates through Himself priests of the
divine altar.207

Aaron and his sons were ordered first to be washed with water, and then, after the

ram of consecration had been slaughtered, the lobe of their right ears, their right thumbs,

and their right big toes were anointed with the blood of the ram. This action, says Cyril,

sketched out the mystery of Christ like a picture, where water and blood are likewise the

means of sanctification. Hence the connection with their fulfillment in Baptism and the

Eucharist.

205 ibid, 367. Cyril is emphatic about the universality of the Gospel message and Christ’s Great Commission: “He now
commands them to shine like lights and illuminate not only the land of Judea…but every country under the sun and
their inhabitants strewn everywhere.” Apostolic ministry is essentially a continuation of Christ’s earthly ministry:
“Summing up in a few words, then, the activities of apostleship, He says that He has sent them just as the Father sent
Him, so that they may know from this that they ought to call sinners to repentance, to heal those who are sick—both
bodily and spiritually—and in all their actions to seek not their own will, but the will of Him who sent them, to save the
world, as far as possible, by their teaching.”
206 ibid, 367-368.
207 ibid.

84
 Christ Himself is the ram of consecration, and He consecrates through a “true

sanctification,” which makes His disciples sharers of His nature through participation in

the Spirit. He thereby strengthens human nature to a power and glory that is

“superhuman” (υπέρ άνθρωπον). For to bind and loose sins belongs to the divine nature

alone, and so to receive this power is to receive something beyond human nature.208 It is

only by virtue of the Holy Spirit dwelling within them that the disciples are able to

receive this authority, “since the Holy Spirit dwelling in them forgives and retains sins

according to His own will, even though the deed may be accomplished through human

beings.” This authority applies both to the administration of Baptism, in which past sins

are remitted, and to the forgiveness of the sins of “the children of the Church” who

repent.

By rising and appearing to His disciples on the first day of the week, and then

appearing to them once again on the eighth day, (Jn. 20:26-27) Christ established the

appointed time for the Christian synaxis – coming together or gathering – and celebration

of the Holy Eucharist.209 This is the Lord’s Day – the mystical Eighth Day – when He

visits and dwells with those who are gathered in His name. And when Christians are

gathered together at this time, Christ visits them both invisibly as God and visibly in His

body.

He gives us His holy flesh and allows us to touch it. By the grace of God we
approach to participate in the mystical blessing, and we receive Christ into our
hands in order that we may firmly believe that He has truly raised His own
Temple. It should be quite clear that communion in the mystical blessing is a
confession of Christ’s Resurrection by what He said when He instituted the
pattern of the mystery…Therefore, participation in the holy mysteries is a true
confession and remembrance of the Lord’s Death and Resurrection for us on our

208 ibid, 372.

209 ibid, 374.
85
 behalf…Let us therefore avoid doubt as a destructive thing, and after touching
Christ let us be found completely faithful and full of firm conviction.210

The immediate context here relates to Thomas’ doubts and the need for assurance

of the Resurrection of Christ. The Holy Eucharist is Christ’s body, the true Temple. And

thus by receiving His body, a Christian is granted to touch and behold the risen Christ

like Thomas. But why does Cyril refer to Christ’s body as the Temple again in this

context? The answer lies in the connection between the Eucharist, worship, and the

potential for Christians to become temples of God through communion and participation

in His life.

A person who truly believes that Christ has raised His Temple is granted to

receive God Himself in Holy Communion by virtue of the Temple Christ assumed and

united to Himself. Thus God comes to dwell in the believer, and the believer is able to

offer back to God true worship in the very temple that his body has now become –

through offering all of his thoughts, words and deeds back to God, and through abiding in

the fellowship of love and unity with all men that he has been made partaker of through

the Eucharist. In this way, the believer is granted to become a partaker of the divine life

and to acquire divine attributes, in other words, to become a true son of God by grace.

210 ibid.
86
 8 Conclusions
Long before modern scholarship began to highlight the centrality of the Temple in

St. John’s Gospel, St. Cyril of Alexandria had already expounded a rich theology of the

Temple and its fulfillment in Christ’s human nature. For Cyril, everything that was

revealed to the people of Israel in the Old Testament had, and continues to have,

profound significance; however, this significance must be understood in the context of

the Incarnation of the Word of God – in whom everything finds its ultimate meaning.

Thus Cyril constantly contrasts the types, figures, and shadows of the Old Law with the

realities that are now present in Christ.

Cyril’s hermeneutic is first and foremost typological and Christological –

everything must be related to Christ and understood in the context of His saving work.

But Cyril’s exegesis has a broader dogmatic basis as well: allegorical and other

interpretive methods are all permissible and helpful so long as they yield sound doctrine

and moral profit. It is not the exegetical approach that determines doctrine, but rather it is

possessing the correct rule of faith that ensures that the use of any given exegetical

method will yield beneficial and orthodox interpretations. St. Cyril and Theodore of

Mopsuestia understand the Temple differently not because they are using different

methods, but because they have different presuppositions about Jesus Christ.

Thus while God had instructed the Israelites through the Law that there was to be

only one place where worship might be conducted and sacrifices made, the ultimate

meaning of this geographic limitation on worship was not to limit their conception of

God – who is everywhere present and fills all things – but to point to the coming of God

in the flesh. The Tabernacle and Temple were to be a sign of God’s presence among His

87
people, a sign that was fulfilled in the person of Emmanuel – the Incarnate Word Jesus

Christ. And once Christ had come, the physical Temple was no longer needed because

God now tabernacles among us in reality.

In the same manner, the role of the Temple as the place of sacrificial worship is

also fulfilled in Christ. Cyril’s thought on this is but an elaboration of what is expressed

well in the Epistle to the Hebrews:

For the Law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image
of the things, can never with these same sacrifices…make those who approach
perfect…Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and
offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me…Then I said,
‘Behold, I have come…To do Your will, O God.’…By that will we have been
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all….For by
one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. (Heb. 10:1-
14)

Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, (Jn. 1:29)

and He offers Himself on the Cross in the Temple of His body for the salvation of the

world. His sacrifice is the one and only saving sacrifice that remits sins and sanctifies all

of human nature. Cyril frequently refers to Jesus’ body as the Temple in relation to His

Passion, Death and Resurrection to emphasize this very point: His sacrifice is the ultimate

sacrifice and His human nature is the Temple in which it is offered.

True worship for every believer is intimately connected with sacrifice,

specifically with sacrifice as revealed by Christ on the Cross. For true worship must

involve the love of God and neighbor to the point of complete self-sacrifice, because this

is the kind of love that the Word of God revealed to us. The new commandment requires

Christians to love one another as He loved us, a love which involves a willingness to lay

down one’s life for the salvation of the other.

88
 New Testament worship in spirit and truth no longer involves the external forms

of worship under the Law, yet it is by no means non-liturgical or non-ecclesial. On one

hand, true worship is intimately connected with the disposition of the human heart,

though Cyril is also clear that it is not limited to this; it involves virtuous living, correct

doctrine and the corporate worship of the Church. It is through this ecclesial worship and

the partaking of the Holy Eucharist that Christians receive the flesh of God into

themselves, and are sanctified and united to Him and to one another. Worshippers of

Christ are thus able to become temples of the Holy Spirit in whom true worship is offered

to God by virtue of sanctification and reception of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and of

partaking of the body of the Son of God – His Temple – in the Holy Eucharist. Both of

these Sacraments have their origin in Christ, specifically in the water and blood that

poured from His “Temple” on the Cross. And it is through these Sacraments that

participation in His divine life and the acquisition of His divine attributes are possible.

Cyril’s interpretation of the Temple is emphatically Christological. It must never

be an image that divides Him into two personal subjects –for the Temple is His assumed

human nature, not an assumed man – and he is outspoken against interpretations that

would do so. For in the Temple of Christ, the veil separating humanity from the Holy of

Holies is torn asunder, from top to bottom by God Himself. All of the mysteries of God,

indeed His very divine life, are now accessible to each and every Christian. Worshippers

of Christ become a royal priesthood, a holy nation by virtue of their Baptism, (1 Pet. 2:9)

and as priests, eat of the one Sacrifice of the Lord’s body.

Cyril never differentiates between clergy and laity in regards to who may be

afforded the “perfect illumination in the divine mysteries.” Yes, there is a special grace

89
for those charged with performing the Sacraments – baptizing, offering the bloodless

sacrifice, and loosing sins – but what Christ has made available, He has made available to

every true worshipper, no matter who he or she may be. Christ’s apostles and disciples

are charged with bringing His Gospel to all peoples of all nations, and instructing them in

the evangelical way of life. For it is precisely true worship and the evangelical way of

life which has the power to draw people to Christ.

In the Temple of the Word, human nature – and indeed all of creation – is

renewed. And a marvelous transfiguration of all creation thus becomes possible! Every

person is granted the opportunity not only to be saved from the torment of eternal

separation from God, but to have the indescribable blessing of being eternally united to

Him, having Him dwell within us and becoming His temples. Being thus instructed in

true worship, divided humanity becomes united into one with God and with one another,

and all the created world becomes His temple, as a hymn of praise is offered to Him with

one heart and one mind by brothers and sisters dwelling together in unity.

90
 Bibliography
Primary Sources

Cyril of Alexandria. Commentary on John: Volume 1. Joel Elowsky, ed. and David

Maxwell, trans. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013.

---------- Commentary on John: Volume 2. Joel Elowsky, ed. and David Maxwell, trans.

Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015.

Patrologia Graeca: Tomus LXIII-LXIV. Migne, ed. Paris.

Other Works of Cyril Consulted

Cyril of Alexandria. Against those who are unwilling to confess that the Holy Virgin is

Theotokos. Rollinsford, NH: Orthodox Research Institute, 2004.

---------- Commentary on the Twelve Prophets. Volume 3. Robert C. Hill, trans.

Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012.

---------- On the Unity of Christ. John McGuckin, trans. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s

Seminary Press, 1995.

---------- Tvorenie Svatago Kililla Aleksandiisako: tom 2: O Poklonenii i Sluzhenii v

Duxe i Istine, chast 2. Moskovskoi Duxovnoi Akademii: Moskva, 1882. [Works

of Saint Cyril of Alexandria: Tome 2: On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and

Truth, part 2. Moscow: Moscow Theological Academy, 1882.]

McGuckin, John. Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy.

Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2010.

Russell, Norman. Cyril of Alexandria. London: Routledge, 2000.

91
Secondary Sources

Anderson, Gary. “To See Where God Dwells: The Tabernacle, the Temple, and the

Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition.” Letter & Spirit Volume 4: Temple

and Contemplation: God’s Presence in the Cosmos, Church and Human Heart.

Scott Hahn, ed. Steubenville, IL: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 2008. 13-

46.

Attridge, Harold. “The Temple and Jesus the High Priest in the New Testament.” J.

Charlesworth, ed. Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archeological Explorations.

Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014. 213-238.

Brown, Raymond. The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John I – XII. New

York: Doubleday, 1966.

---------- The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John XIII – XXI. New York:

Doubleday, 1970.

Charlesworth, James. “Jesus and the Temple.” and “The Temple and Jesus Followers.” J.

Charlesworth, ed. Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archeological Explorations.

Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014. 145-212.

Coloe, Mary. God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. Collegeville,

MN: Liturgical Press, 2001.

Congar, Yves M.-J. “Church, Kingdom, and the Eschatological Temple.” Letter & Spirit

Volume 4: Temple and Contemplation: God’s Presence in the Cosmos,

Church and Human Heart. Scott Hahn, ed. Steubenville, IL: St. Paul Center for

Biblical Theology, 2008. 289-318.

Danielou, Jean. “The Sign of the Temple: A Meditation.” Letter & Spirit Volume 4:

92
 Temple and Contemplation: God’s Presence in the Cosmos, Church and Human

Heart. Scott Hahn, ed. Steubenville, IL: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology,

2008. 255-288.

Dragas, George Dion. St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Teaching On the Priesthood. Rollinsford,

NH: Orthodox Research Institute, 1993.

Farag, Louis. St. Cyril of Alexandria, a New Testament Exegete: His Commentary on the

Gospel of John. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007.

Florovsky, Georges. “Revelation and Interpretation.” Bible, Church, Tradition: An

Eastern Orthodox View. Collected Works, vol. 1. Belmont MA: Norland

Publishing Company, 1972. 17-36.

---------- The Eastern Fathers of the Fifth Century. Collected Works, vol. 8.

Postfach: Buchervertriebsanstalt, 1987.

Ford, Mary. The Soul’s Longing: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on Biblical

Interpretation. South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 2015.

Hahn, Scott. “Temple, Sign, and Sacrament: Towards a New Perspective on the Gospel

of John.” Letter & Spirit Volume 4: Temple and Contemplation: God’s Presence

in the Cosmos, Church and Human Heart. Scott Hahn, ed. Steubenville, IL: St.

Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 2008. 107-144.

Hoskins, Paul. Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Temple in the Gospel of John. Carlisle, UK:

Paternoster, 2006.

Keating, Daniel. “‘You are Gods, Sons of the Most High’: Deification and Divine

Filiation in St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Early Fathers.” Letter & Spirit Volume

4: Temple and Contemplation: God’s Presence in the Cosmos, Church and

93
 Human Heart. Scott Hahn, ed. Steubenville, IL: St. Paul Center for Biblical

Theology, 2008. 225-244.

Kerr, Alan. The Temple of Jesus' body: the temple theme in the Gospel of John. London:

Sheffield Academic, 2002.

Kerrigan, Alexander. Cyril of Alexandria: Interpreter of the Old Testament. Analecta

Biblica vol. 2. Rome: Institutum Pontificio Biblicum, 1952.

Margerie, Bertrand de. An Introduction to the History of Exegesis: Volume 1: The Greek

Fathers. Petersham: St. Bede’s Publications, 1993.

McGuckin, John. Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversies.

Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2010.

Meyendorff, John. Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions. Crestwood, NY: St.

Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989.

Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 14. The Seven Ecumenical Councils.

Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004.

Pitre, Brant. “Jesus, the New Temple, and the New Priesthood.” Letter & Spirit Volume

4: Temple and Contemplation: God’s Presence in the Cosmos, Church and

Human Heart. Scott Hahn, ed. Steubenville, IL: St. Paul Center for Biblical

Theology, 2008. 47-84.

Quasten, Johannes. Patrology: Volume III: The Golden Age of Greek Patristic Literature.

Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, Inc, 1984.

Russell, Norman. Cyril of Alexandria. London: Routledge, 2000.

Schiffman, Lawrence. “The Importance of the Temple for Ancient Jews.” J.

94
 Charlesworth, ed. Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archeological Explorations.

Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014. 75-93.

Simonetti, Manlio. Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical

Introduction to Patristic Exegesis. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994.

Theodore of Mopsuestia. Commentary on the Gospel of John. Marco Conti, trans.

Joel Elowsky, ed. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010.

Veniamin, Christopher. “The Resurrection of the Human Body in the Christology of

Saint Cyril, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria.” in The Orthodox Understanding

of Salvation: Theosis in Scripture and Tradition. Dalton, PA: Mount Thabor

Publishing, 2013.

Wilken, Robert Louis. John Chrysostom and the Jews. Berkeley, CA: University of

California Press, 1983.

---------- Judaism and the Early Christian Mind: A Study of Cyril of Alexandria's

Exegesis and Theology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971.

Young, Francis. Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. New

York: Hendrickson, 2002.

---------- From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and its Sources. Grand

Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010.

95