St. Cyril of Alexandria's Metaphysics of the Incarnation

Description

Cyril of Alexandria is one of the major intellectuals of the early Byzantine Christian world. His approach to Christ is at the core of the classical Christian tradition, however, because his works were not translated into English in the post-Reformation environment, the precise implications of his "science of Christ" have been extensively misunderstood. This work seeks to reposition Cyril in the precise philosophical context to which he belonged, seeking, as he did, for a deliberate bridge-building between ecclesiastical biblical presuppositions and the semantic terms central to the Late Antique philosophical Academy, with which he understands the Church must communicate. This book seeks to lay bare the fundamental philosophical axioms of Cyril’s metaphysics of the Incarnation. To illuminate this, it investigates the fifth-century curriculum of metaphysical studies as followed in the academies of both Alexandria and Athens. Common to both Cyril and his Hellene contemporaries are the terms of theological speculation prevalent in the Commentaries on the Parmenides. This monograph applies the schema of theological analysis offered by the Commentators to Cyril’s metaphysics of the Incarnation to see how well it accounts for the precise terms of the Incarnational doctrine posited by Cyril. This study also endeavors to expound and evaluate the many previous (and heavily conflicting) scholarly accounts of Cyril’s intellectual agenda. It outlines various cognitive gaps associated with the macro arguments of the different positions, which by and large have underestimated Cyril’s philosophical acumen and ignored his own immediate academic context. Cover Table of Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One: Incarnation, Incomplete Substantial Change, and Unification through Mixture 1.A. Harry Wolfson and the Philosophical Underpinning of Patristic Thought 1.A.1. The Church Fathers’ Account of the Incarnation 1.A.2. Three Types of Physical Union in Aristotle according to Wolfson 1.A.3. Other Types of Physical Union 1.A.4. The Union of “Predominance” and Its Place in Cyril’s Metaphysics of the Incarnation 1.B. Aristotle’s Account of Mixture in the De Generatione et Corruptione 1.10 and 2.7 1.B.1. An Orthodox Conception of Mixture 1.B.2. An Alternative Conception of Mixture 1.B.3. Questions and Ἀπορίαι of Mixture: Some Clarification 1.B.4. Atypical Mixtures and Their Status 1.C. A Critical Re-Assessment of Wolfson’s Interpretation of Aristotle and Cyril 1.C.1. Wolfson’s Assessment of Aristotle’s Mixture 1.C.2. Wolfson’s Assessment of Aristotle’s Mixture in Cyril’s Conception of the Incarnation 1.D. A Further Development of the Conception of Mixture in the Peripatetic, Stoic, Platonist Traditions and Their Relevance to the Subject 1.D.1. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Mixture 1.D.2. The Stoic Account of Mixture 1.D.3. Cyril’s Use of the Analogy of Fire and Iron 1.D.4. Mixing Natures and Mixing Qualities: The Notion of Communicatio Idiomatum: McGuckin and Wolfson 1.D.5. Mixing Matter with Qualities: Plotinus’ Account of Mixture 1.D.6. Unification without Disintegration and Separation Chapter Two: Incarnation and the Conception of Inherence 2.A. Ruth Siddals and the Conceptual Grounds of Cyril’s Metaphysics of the Incarnation 2.B. The Status of Christ’s Humanity 2.B.1. Cyril’s Primary Christological Model: One “in” Another 2.B.2. A Corollary of the Primary Model: Communicatio Idiomatum 2.B.3. Cyril’s Secondary Christological Model; One “in” Another: The Order Reversed 2.B.4. An Alternative Version of the Secondary Model: Two “in” One 2.C. The Nature of Unity 2.C.1. The Being of the One and Accidental Unity 2.C.2. Aristotle’s Conception of Unity/Oneness 2.D. Accidental Change and Its Significance 2.D.1. Nestorius and the Category of Relation: Accidental Change 2.D.2. Cyril and the Notion of Change 2.E. Conclusion: The Problematic Aspects of Siddals’ “Model” Chapter Three: Coming-to-Be without Change: Soul Uniting with Body 3.A. Preliminary Notes 3.B. Plotinus on the Integral Unity of the Soul 3.B.1. Preamble 3.B.2. The Mode of Presence 3.B.3. Identity 3.B.4. The Attribution of Names and the Mode of Soul-Body Connection 3.C. Cyril on the Integral Unity of the Word 3.C.1. Preamble 3.C.2. Identity: “One out of Both” 3.C.3. Two in Contemplation and One in Reality 3.C.4. The Notion of Indivisibility 3.C.5. The Assignment of Names: Cyril’s Syllogism 3.C.6. The Categories of Acting and Being Acted Upon and Their Application to the Intelligible Natures 3.C.7. Suffering and the Mode of Connection between the Soul and Body 3.C.8. The Soul-Body Analogy and the I-Conditions 3.D. Cyril’s Philosophical and Rhetorical Arsenal 3.D.1. Analogies, Rhetoric, and Philosophy 3.D.2. Cyril’s Christological Terms and Formulas 3.D.3. I-Conditions and their Significance Chapter Four: The Parmenides and the Structure of Cyril’s Metaphysics of the Incarnation 4.A. The Parmenides: General Notes 4.A.1. The Fifth Century Educational Curriculum and Patterns of Thought 4.A.2. The Parmenides: Its Subject, Content, and Relevance to Cyril’s Thought 4.A.3. The Second Hypothesis of the Parmenides: Its Scope and Content 4.A.4. The “in-Relation-to” Qualification 4.A.5. General Notes on the Second Hypothesis 4.B. Late Antique Exegesis of the Second Hypothesis 4.B.1. Iamblichus 4.B.2. Syrianus and Proclus 4.C. Cyril’s Metaphysics of the Incarnation 4.C.1. Names and Essences: What Is Christ? 4.C.2. The Πρὸς Qualifications 4.C.3. The Word as a Whole Made of Parts: The Imposition of Structure 4.C.4. Deductions and the Allocation of Characteristics to the Word 4.D. The Second Hypothesis of the Parmenides and Cyril’s I-Conditions 4.D.1. Radical Difference of Natures 4.D.2. Separation 4.D.3. One and the Same out of Both 4.D.4. Divisibility of the Unified 4.D.5. Other Conditions 4.E. The Chalcedonian Definition and Its Correspondence with Cyril’s Metaphysics Epilogue Notes Bibliography Name Index Subject Index