Second-Adam Typology and the Restoration of the Holy Spirit in Cyril of Alexandria: Reasons for His Christological Defense

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse the merits of a scholarly position about Cyril of Alexandria’s motivation for his Christology during the Nestorian controversy. The position holds that Cyril’s Christology was influenced by and developed out of his eucharistic theology. I argue, however, that Cyril was motivated rather by what he saw as the redemptive deification of our human nature in the incarnate Christ. I hold that Cyril argued that the person of Christ had to be the single-Subject Word of God for two reasons: (1) Christ is referred to as the Second Adam while still being God, and so must be joined to our human nature hypostatically in order to be perfectly God and man without any absorption or mixture of the natures and (2) that He did so to restore to our human nature the Holy Spirit that was lost in Adam’s fall.