Cyril of Alexandria's Trinitarian Exegesis

Abstract

Cyril of Alexandria’s scriptural exegesis is markedly Trinitarian in scope and Christological in focus throughout his writings. In the following thesis, I explore how Cyril reads Scripture as speaking about the Son of God both as God and as incarnate. While I focus on his Dialogues on the Trinity (dial. Trin.), Cyril’s vision of partitive exegesis permeates his entire corpus. Early Christian reading culture consists of more than simply how one reads, but also considers who reads and to what end. Accordingly, Cyril envisions that an ideal reader undertakes partitive exegesis with certain Nicene commitments. Partitive exegesis is a reading strategy whereby interpreters identify some texts as speaking of the Son qua divine and others as qua human. This method of reading does not speak of there being two Sons, nor does it intend to divide the unity of the single incarnate Word. I identify two modes of Cyril’s Christological exegetical framework to describe the single prosopon: (1) epochal exegesis (in which Cyril identifies any given text as speaking about one of the three stages in the Son’s economy) and (2) partitive exegesis (in which Cyril subsequently identifies whether texts speak about the Son qua divine Word, or Son as incarnate Word during His oikonomia with the flesh).