The Twelfth Anathema: The Word Suffered in the Flesh

Whoever does not acknowledge that the Word of God suffered in the flesh, that he was crucified in the flesh, and that likewise in that same flesh he tasted death and has become the firstborn from the dead, since, as he is God, he is the life and it is he who gives life: let him be anathema. [a]

Nestorius’s twelfth counter-anathema: [c] If anyone, in confessing the sufferings of the flesh, ascribes these also to the Word of God, as to the flesh in which he appeared, and so does not distinguish the dignity of the natures: let him be anathema.

Saint Cyril: From his Defense against the Eastern Bishops, on the twelfth anathema, quoting Athanasius. [d] For if the body belongs to another, the sufferings must be ascribed to him as well. But if the flesh is the Word’s (for “the Word was made flesh”), then the sufferings of the flesh must also be called his, whose the flesh is. And the one whose sufferings these are, above all the condemnation, the scourging, the thirst, the cross, death, and the other weaknesses of the body like them, is also the one whose merit and grace it is. So these sufferings are rightly and properly ascribed to no one other than the Lord, just as the grace too comes from him. And we will not be guilty of idolatry, but will be true worshipers of God, for we call on one who is no creature and no ordinary man, but the natural and true Son of God, made man, and yet the same Lord and God and Savior. [e] These quotations, I think, will be enough for the learned to prove the propositions put forward, since the divine law plainly says, “At the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established.” But if after this anyone still wants to be contentious, we would say to him: “Go your own way. We, however, will follow the divine Scriptures and the faith of the holy fathers.” [f]

The student should read in full all of Cyril’s defense of his anathemas, and also his answers to the criticisms of Theodoret and to those of the Eastern bishops. All of them will be found in his works, and in Labbe and Cossart’s Councils, volume 3, from column 811 onward. [g]