St. Cyril of Jerusalem

St. Cyril of Jerusalem is one of the most important Saints of the early Church. He was consecrated Bishop in 348, eventually playing a critical role in the defeat of Arianism.

“The series of twenty-four catechetical lectures, most of which he delivered in the  church of the Holy Sepulchre, is one of the most precious treasures of Christian antiquity.” As such, they should have great authority with all Christians. I suspect, however, that most Protestants have never heard of them. Let us turn to what he teaches in these lectures regarding the ninth article of the Nicene Creed:

[The Church] is called Catholic then because it extends over all the world, from one end of the earth to the other; and because it teaches universally and completely one and all the doctrines which ought to come to men's knowledge, concerning things both visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; and because it brings into subjection to godliness the whole race of mankind, governors and governed, learned and unlearned; and because it universally treats and heals the whole class of sins, which are committed by soul or body, and possesses in itself every form of virtue which is named, both in deeds and words, and in every kind of spiritual gifts. . . .

Concerning this Holy Catholic Church Paul writes to Timothy, “That you may know how you ought to behave thyself in the House of God, which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3.15).

Vladimir Lossky observes:

“The Church, in its Christological aspect, appears as an organism having two natures, two operations and two wills [as opposed to Monothelitism, a 6th century heresy defeated by St. Maximus the Confessor]. In the history of Christian dogma all the Christological heresies come to life anew and reappear with reference to the Church. Thus, there arises a Nestorian ecclesiology, the error of those who would divide the Church into distinct beings: on the one hand the heavenly and invisible Church, alone true and absolute; on the other, the earthly Church (or rather, ‘churches’) imperfect and relative, wandering in the shadows, human societies seeking to draw near, so far as is possible for them, to that transcendant perfection. . . . Thus, all that can be asserted or denied about Christ [or the Trinity, for that matter] can equally well be applied to the Church, inasmuch as it is a theandric organism, or, more exactly, a created nature inseparably united to God in the hypostasis of the Son, a being which has—as He has—two natures, two wills, and two operations which are at once inseparable and yet distinct.