Andrew Mercer: Salvation and the Soul of Christ in Cyril's Early Writings

Henry Chadwick once claimed that "Cyril [of Alexandria] has nothing to say about the part played by Christ's soul in the Passion," and others have made similar observations regarding the inattention given to the soul in Cyril's Christology. Against these claims, I will argue in this paper that Cyril's entire vision of the economy of salvation hinges on the fact that the Logos assumed ensouled flesh. I will focus on Cyril's early writings, since it has been recognized that Cyril became more explicit about Christ's soul after his dispute with Nestorius came to fore. The works I will use to prove my thesis are Cyril's early Festal Letters, written between 414 and 427. The letters naturally bear recurring themes related to the Passion of Christ. Cyril follows his predecessor Athanasius, I argue, in seeing the primary purpose of the incarnation as making it possible for the Logos to taste death on behalf of humanity, in order to undue the corruptive effects of sin, the chief of which is death itself. Cyril held the standard view of death as the separation of soul and body, and thus the event of Christ’s death only makes sense for him if Christ had a real human soul. I will conclude by offering an explanation of why Cyril may not have spent much time expounding the extent to which Christ's soul suffered or did not suffer in the Passion, since this has also contributed to the debate over Cyril’s Christological psychology.