Alexander Miller: Origenism and Cyril of Alexandria's Sacramental Theology

Since Chadwick’s influential article "Eucharist and Christology in the Nestorian Controversy" (1951), studies of Cyril of Alexandria’s theology have recognized the centrality of his sacramental concerns
to his christology and his theologies of Scripture and divinization.In the same period, the study of the first “Origenist controversy” has been driven by modern discoveries of Evagrian and “pro-anthropomorphite” texts.These strains of scholarship on Cyril and Origenism have seldom intersected, and of the few articles, none has focused on Cyril’s sacramental theology, despite Theophilus of Alexandria’s interest in the consequences of Origenist thought on sacramental theology. In this presentation, I shall argue that Cyril of Alexandria’s sacramental theology, as developed in his Commentary on John, is articulated as a corrective for extreme forms of “Origenist” ascetic theology that would denigrate sacramental participation in the church.(This paper proposes only that this line of thought was a risk, not the consensus, among Evagrius’ disciples.) In Book 4 (on John 6:38-7:24) and Book 6 (on John 8:44-10:17) of Cyril’s commentary, he argues that the extreme anti-anthropomorphite tendency to eschew images and physical representations in worship can render one in the image of Satan, rather than in the image and likeness of God.Following both an Evagrian pathology of sin and the ascetic ascent to apatheia, Cyril advocates for a continuity between the earthly and resurrected body and demonstrates that sacramental participation is necessary for attaining a true apatheia in this life and eternity.