Letter to Calosyrius

Monks Who Say God Has Human Form§1

1Letter of Saint Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, to Calosyrius, Bishop of Arsinoë, against those who say that the divine has human form.

Some people who had come from the mountain of Calamon were asked by me about the monks there: how they live, and what manner of life they lead.

They told me that many excel in ascetic discipline and earnestly wish to achieve the life that befits monks.

But there are some, they said, who go about and, out of ignorance, trouble those who wish to live in quiet; and they assured me that these people go on to spread talk of this kind.

For they said: “Since divine Scripture says that man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), one must believe that the divine is human in appearance, that is, of human form.”

This is utterly senseless, and it can bring those who choose to think so under charges of the utmost impiety.

For it is agreed that man is in the image of God, but the likeness is not bodily; for God is without body.

And the Savior himself teaches this when he says, “God is spirit” (John 4:24).

So if he is spirit, he is not embodied, nor is he in bodily form.

God Has No Body or Shape§2

2For what is free of body would also be free of shape, since the divine has neither size nor shape.

But if they think that God himself, who is over all, was shaped after the nature of the human body, let them say whether he too has feet to walk with, hands to work with, and eyes to see with.

Where, then, does he walk?

Or from what place does he go, and to what place, he who fills all things?

For he said, “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24).

And what hands does he set to work, he who creates through the living Word?

And if, like us, he has eyes set in a face, then surely he does not see what is behind him.

When he looks toward the east, is he then unaware of what people in the west are doing?

And when he turns to the west again, can he not see those in the east?

I am ashamed even to write these things, but because of the senselessness of some I have become a fool (2 Corinthians 12:11).

What the Image of God Means§3

3Not willingly, but because they have forced me.

So let those who babble such things be silenced, as the ignorant people they are; let them keep quiet and not meddle with what is beyond their power, or rather, let them stop speaking against God.

For God is above all creation: he is not conceived as a body, nor in bodily forms or shapes.

He is simple, immaterial, without form, and not composite; he is not put together from parts, limbs, or members as we are.

Rather, as the Scriptures say, he is spirit (John 4:24); he looks upon all things, is present everywhere, fills all things, and is absent from nothing.

For he fills heaven and earth (Jeremiah 23:24).

The statement that man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) bears another sense and points to another meaning.

For of all the living creatures on earth he alone is rational and compassionate, with an aptitude for every virtue, and he has also been given the power to rule.

The Image Is Not the Body's Shape§4

4He holds rule over all that is on the earth, after the likeness and image of God (Genesis 1:26).

So it is because he is a rational living being, a lover of virtue, and a ruler over the things of the earth that he is said to have been made in the image of God.

But if they think the image refers to the shape of the body, then nothing stops them from saying that God shares the form of the brute animals as well.

For we see that they too are made of the same parts as we are: they have feet and a mouth, eyes, nostrils and a tongue, and the other members of the body.

Let your Reverence, then, put a stop to such people, or rather, rebuke those who make a habit of babbling such things.

I hear, too, that they say the mystical blessing has no power to sanctify if any of it is left over until another day.

They are mad to say this.