Book Notice: Commentary on John by Cyril of Alexandria

Trans. David R. Maxell

Ed. Joel C. Elowsky.
Commentary on John: Cyril of Alexandria (Volume 1)
Ancient Christian Texts.
Series Eds. Thomas C. Oden and Gerald L. Bray.
Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2013.
Available at Amazon.com

IVP’s series of patristic commentaries in the ACT series has produced another gem. Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on John is a classic in patristic exegesis of the Fourth Gospel with its Scripture saturated study and its polemical drive against the Arians. According to the blurb:

Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 378-444), one of the most brilliant representatives of the Alexandrian theological tradition, is best known for championing the term Theotokos (mother of God) in opposition to Nestorius of Constantinople. Cyril’s great Commentary on John, offered here in the Ancient Christian Text series in two volumes, predates the Nestorian controversy, however, and focuses its theological fire power against Arianism. The commentary, which is addressed to catechists, displays Cyril’s breath-taking mastery of the full content of the Bible and his painstaking attention to detail as he seeks to offer practical teaching on the cosmic story of God’s salvation. David Maxwell provides readers with the first complete English translation of the text since the nineteenth century. It rests on Pusey’s critical edition of the Greek text and puts on display Cyril’s theological interpretation of Scripture and his appeal to the patristic tradition that preceded him. Today’s readers will find the commentary an indispensable tool for understanding Cyril’s approach to Scripture.

I could give a number of highlights, for me they were:

From the Intro in Book 1: The Evangelists are like a team of horses in the interpretation of divine teachings that has left the starting gate and is racing towards one goal. The character of the discourse, however, is put together differently for each of them. It seems to me that they are like people who are ordered to assemble in one city but by no means are to travel by one and the same route. One can see that the other Evangelists provide a precise account of our Savior’s genealogy according to the flesh. They trace the descendants in order from Abraham down to Joseph, or they go from Joseph back up to Adam. But the blessed John is not overly concerned about these matters. He harnesses the lightning-hot motion of his thoughts to reach for subjects that are beyond human comprehension. He dares to narrate the ineffable and unutterable birth of God the Word, knowing that the ‘glory of God hides speech’ and that the dignity that befits God is greater than all our thought and speech.

On John 1:28: Now, however, the one who was pictured dimly long ago, the true lamb, the spotless sacrifice is led to the slaughter for all, to drive away the sin of the world, to overturn the destroyer of the world, to abolish death by dying for all, to undo the curse that is against us so that the pronouncement ‘Earth you are, and to earth you will return’ may cease. The lamb is to become the second Adam, not from the earth but from heaven, and to become the source of all good for human nature, the deliverance from imported corruption, the bestower of eternal life, the basis fo transformation into God, the source of piety and righteousness and the road to the kingdom of heaven. For one lamb’ died for all,’ rescuing the entire flock on earth for God the Father – one for all, that he might subject all to God, one for all, that he might gain all so that all might ‘live no longer for themselves but for the one who died and rose for them.’ When we were in many sins and therefore deserved death and decay, the Father gave his Son as a ransom for us, one for all, since all are in him, and he is greater than all. One died for all that all may live in him.

On John 8.19: Now if this is true (and it is), let the God-fighting Arian be ashamed. The imprint of his essence must be like him in every conceivable way lest one suppose that something other than what the Father is, in shining forth unaltered in the Son. And if he loves to be known in the Son and appear in him, then the Son is surely of the same substance and knows that he is in no way inferior to his own inherent glory.