Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
All Commentaries on John 1:13 Go To John 1
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
They who, he says, have been called by faith in Christ unto sonship with God, put off the littleness of their own nature, and adorned with the grace of Him Who honoureth them as with a splendid robe mount up unto dignity above nature: for no longer are they called children of flesh, but rather offspring of God by adoption.
But note how great guardedness the blessed Evangelist used in his words. For since he was going to say that those who believe are begotten of God, lest any should suppose that they are in truth born of the Essence of God the Father and arrive at an exact likeness with the Only-Begotten, or that of Him too is less properly said, From the womb before the Day star begat I Thee, and so at length He too should be brought down to the nature of creatures, even though He be said to be begotten of God, needs does he contrive this additional caution. For when he had said that power was given to them from Him Who is by Nature Son, to become sons of God, and had hereby first introduced that which is of adoption and grace, without peril does he |106 afterwards add were begotten of God; that he might shew the greatness of the grace which was conferred on them, gathering as it were into kinness of nature that which was alien from God the Father and raising up the bond to the nobility of its Lord, by means of His warm love to it.
What more then, will one perchance say, or what special have they who believe in Christ over Israel, since he too is said to have been begotten of God, as in, I begat and exalted sons, but they rejected Me? To this I think one must say, first, that the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, did not give to the children of Israel to have even this in truth, but limned as in type and outline upon them, until the time of reformation, as it is written, wherein they should at length be manifested who should more fitly and truly call God Father, because the Spirit of the Only-Begotten dwells in them. For the one had the spirit of bondage to fear, the other the spirit of adoption unto liberty, whereby we cry Abba, Father. Therefore the people who should attain unto sonship through faith that is in Christ, were fore-described in Israel as it were in shadow, even as we conceive that the circumcision in Spirit was fore-typified in theirs of old in the flesh, and in short, all of ours were in them in type. Besides, we say that Israel was called to sonship typically through the mediator Moses. Wherefore they were baptized into him too, as Paul saith, in the cloud and in the sea, and were refashioned out of idolatry unto the law of bondage, the commandment contained in the letter being ministered by angels: but they who by faith in Christ attain unto sonship with God, are baptized into nought originate, but into the Holy Trinity Itself, through the Word as Mediator, Who conjoined to Himself things human through the Flesh which was united to Him, being conjoined of nature to the Father, in that He is by Nature God. For so mounteth up the bond unto sonship, through participation with the in truth Son, called and so to say raised up to the dignity which is in Him by Nature. Wherefore we who have received the regeneration by the Spirit through faith, are called and are begotten of God.
But since some in mad peril dare to lie, as against the Son, so against the Holy Ghost too, saying that He is originate and created, and to thrust Him forth altogether from. Consubstantiality with God the Father, come let us again arraying the word of the true Faith against their unbridled tongues, beget occasions of profit both to ourselves and to our readers. For if neither God by Nature, O sirs, nor yet of God, is He Who is His Own Spirit and therefore Essentially inexistent in Him, but is other than He, and not removed from being connatural with things made, how are we who are begotten through Him said to be begotten of God? For either we shall say that the Evangelist certainly lies, or (if he is true and it be so and not otherwise), the Spirit will be God and of God by Nature, of Whom we too being accounted worthy to partake through faith to Christ-ward, are rendered partakers of the Divine Nature and are said to be begotten of God, and are therefore called gods, not by grace alone winging our flight to the glory that is above us, but as having now God too indwelling and lodging in us, according to what is said in the prophet, I will dwell in them and walk in them.
For let them tell us who are filled full with so great unlearning, how, having the Spirit dwelling in us, we are according to Paul temples of God, unless He be God by Nature. For if He be a creature and originate, wherefore does God destroy us, as defiling the temple of God when we defile the body wherein the Spirit indwells, having the whole Natural Property of God the Father and likewise of the Only-Begotten? And how will the Saviour be true in saying: If a man love Me, he will keep My Words: and My Father will love him and we will come unto him and make Our abode with him and rest in him? albeit it is the Spirit Who dwells in us, and through Him do we believe that we have the Father and the Son, even as John himself said again in his epistles, Hereby know we that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. And how at all will He be called Spirit of God, if He be not of Him and in Him by Nature and therefore God? For if being, as those say, originate, He is the Spirit of God, there is nothing to hinder the other creatures too from being called spirits of God. For this will have already overtaken them in potential, if it is at all possible that originate essence should be Spirit of God.
And it were meet in truth to set forth a long discourse upon these things and to satiate more at length, overturning the uncounsels of the heretics. But having already sufficiently gone through what relates to the Holy Ghost, in the De Trinitate, we shall therefore forbear to say much yet.
