One death saves; one Lord, one faith, one baptism
holy prophets died before — famous Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Samuel, and the holy ones after them. Their death did the human race on earth no good. Christ’s death has saved it.
For he offered his own flesh for us, and by giving it to death for our sake he freed everyone from death’s bonds. One who died for all was enough — the one worth more than all — because he is by nature God, the Word from the Father, and the body offered for us as a fragrant aroma to God the Father is his own (Ephesians 5:2).
So it is impious, and among the wildest errors, to split the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons. The wisest Paul will stand against them when he says: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Ephesians 4:5)
If the Lord is one, and they then cut the one into two sons, to which do we assign the glory of lordship? To the Word sprung from the Father? The name and the reality of lordship fit him above all, and he is truly Master of all. Then where do we put the other? He will lie outside lordship, yielding to the one who already was, and who is raised beyond compare.
Or will we fasten lordship’s glory on the one from the woman, as they say when they pull them apart? Then how is the Word from God the Father Lord, if — when Scripture says there is one Lord — we hand the name of lordship to a bare human? How is there one faith? Or one baptism?
If some make two sons, in whom do we believe? Only their ignorance would invent whose name we were baptized into, when baptism is one.
But your shrewdness surely sees that the argument on this point is drunk
Greek
προαπέθανον ἅγιοι προφῆται, ᾿Αβραὰμ ἐκεῖνος ὁ διαβόητος,
᾿Ισαὰκ καὶ laxo, Μωσῆς τε καὶ Σαμουὴλ καὶ οἱ καθεξῆς
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ἀξιώτερος, ὅτε καὶ φύσει Θεὸς ὁ ἐκ Πατρός ἐστι Λόγος,
καὶ ἴδιον αὐτοῦ τὸ σῶμα τὸ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας
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μένον Cod. I2. ἀντιτετάξεται Cod. ἀντιτάξεται Comm. Edd. I3. οὕτω
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About this text
Cyril’s court treatise on right faith for Arcadia and Marina (CPG 5219). One Son, Word made flesh — not two Christs. English from Pusey’s Greek.
English follows Pusey’s 1877 Greek of De recta fide ad Arcadiam et Marinam. This is a reading translation for study, not a new critical edition.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Pusey, De recta fide ad reginas (Oxford, 1877) (Greek · CPG 5219 §§1–100)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.