Cyril was an early fifth century Patriarch of Alexandria, serving from 412 to 444. Cyril was most known for his Christological disputes with Nestorius which lead to his involvement at the first council of Ephesus (431) and resulted the in deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople. The dispute dealt with the hypostatic union and centered on whether the virgin Mary could be called Theotokos (God-bearer) or Christotokos (Christ-bearer). Nestorius coined Christotokos (Christ-bearer) seeking to find middle ground between those who deny the full deity of Jesus and those who affirm it. This view lead to both Nestorius and his phrase Christotokos being ruled as heretical in Canon’s 1-5 at the first Council of Ephesus. Cyril was known to be a prolific writer and thankfully, many of his works have survived antiquity. He wrote much on the trinity and the hypostaic union as well as several commentaries on the Old Testament, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. The first volume of a modern English translation of his commentary on the Gospel of John (translated by David R. Maxwell and edited by Joel C. Elowsky) was recently released (and can be found here). Today’s selection is taken from this very work as found in “Book 1” on pages 4 through 6. (more…)