On the True Faith, to the Empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia · §44

Spirit of the risen one; same Christ weak in flesh, strong as God

And again concerning the holy apostles: “And coming opposite Mysia they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.” When therefore the Spirit is also his own—the Spirit of the one raised—although God and Father makes us alive in the Spirit, how can one doubt that the resurrection was done with respect to the human, yet the matter was worked together with his own Father by the God-Word from him by nature, whose own also is the life-giving Spirit?

“Since you seek proof of Christ who speaks in me, who toward you is not weak but is powerful in you. For he was also crucified from weakness, but he lives from God’s power.” Some of those who had believed in our Lord Jesus Christ were scandalized, perhaps carried by words from certain people toward thoughts like these: If he was truly God and Son by nature of the God who is able in all things, how did he not escape the killers’ plots? And how, having endured the most dishonorable death on wood, would he not reasonably be thought to have been weak as we are? Toward such things the inspired Paul says: For if you should wish to test rightly who and how great is the one who speaks in me, having considered your own case you will find a sufficient grasp. For he was not weak in you, but rather showed you most powerful through his own Spirit.

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About this text

Cyril’s court treatise on right faith for Pulcheria and Eudocia (CPG 5220). One Son who suffers in flesh yet remains impassible as God. English from Pusey’s Greek.

English follows Pusey’s 1877 Greek of De recta fide ad Pulcheriam et Eudociam. OCR of that print was cleaned section by section before Pass A/B. This is a reading translation for study, not a new critical edition.

Witnesses

  • Copy-text Pusey, De recta fide ad reginas (Oxford, 1877) (Greek · CPG 5220 §§1–48)

English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. It is not a complete critical edition.