The Seventh Anathema: The Glory of the Only Son Is His Own

If anyone says that Jesus as man is only moved to act by the Word of God, and that the glory of the only Son is credited to him as something not truly his own: let him be anathema. [a]

Nestorius’s seventh counter-anathema: [c] If anyone says that the man who was formed of the Virgin is the only Son, who was born from the bosom of the Father before the morning star was, and does not rather confess that he has received the name of only Son because of his connection with the one who by nature is the only Son of the Father; and further, if anyone calls anyone other than Emmanuel Christ: let him be anathema. [d]

Saint Cyril: From his Explanation of the Seventh Anathema. [e] When the blessed Gabriel announced to the holy Virgin the birth according to the flesh of the only Son of God, he said, “You will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” But he was named Christ as well, because, according to his human nature, he was anointed along with us, as the Psalmist says: “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” For although he was himself the giver of the Holy Spirit, and did not give it by measure to those who were worthy (for he was full of the Holy Spirit, and from his fullness we have all received, as it is written), still, as man he was called anointed in keeping with the plan of salvation, the Holy Spirit resting on him spiritually and not in a human way, so that the Spirit might remain in us, although he had been driven out from us in the beginning by Adam’s fall. He, then, the only Word of God made flesh, was called Christ. And since he possessed as his own the power that belongs to God, he worked his wonders. So whoever says that the glory of the only Son was added to the power of Christ, as though the only Son were different from Christ, is thinking of two sons: the one truly working, and the other driven, as the Latin adds, by the strength of another, as a man like us. All such people fall under the penalty of this anathema. [f]