CHAPTER IV. That not by participation are the Properties of God the Father in the Son, but Essentially and by Nature. 35 The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His Hand.
Commentary on the Gospel according to John · St Cyril of Alexandria
For since he had said, that it behoved not the Son Who had beamed forth God of God, to be able to use words other than He That begat Him, to wit, true words; for He Whom God hath sent, saith he, speaketh the words of God, needs does he subjoin what is before us, and saith, The Father loveth the Son. We shall not grieve (saith he) God the Father by clothing in equal honour Him That is begotten of Him, we shall not offend Him by crowning with God-befitting Glory Him Who is Essentially the Heir of the Father's goods. For He loveth the Son. He will therefore be pleased at His being glorified by us, and be grieved by the contrary. And let no one suppose, saith he, that He hath His Own Son Heir of this one Divine Excellence only. For He hath given all things into His Hand; i. e., everything, which is essentially good in the Father, this is altogether in the power of the Son. For he calleth power Hand in these words, as when God saith by one of the Prophets, My right Hand hath spanned the heavens, instead of, My Power. But the Son hath in Himself the whole Property of the Father, not by participation, though the Father be said to have given it (for so He would have an acquired, not a Natural Godhead) but the Father gives all that is His to His Son, just as a man too may be conceived to give to the child born of him all the properties of manhood, or as the fire too may be said to give to the heat proceeding from it in the way of energy, the property of its own nature. In such things, both is the giving no loss to the givers (for not by division or severance is the going forth of what is conceived to be given) and the appearance of receiving is blameless on the part of the recipients. For only because of the 'whence,' are such things said, and the offspring are conceived of as being a certain natural quality, so to say, of their begetters, shewing clearly what the generator is by nature, and flashing forth the natural energy of their own source. And these things again are adduced by way of examples, but God is above them all. We will not for this accuse human language which is weak, for the glory of God hideth speech, as it is written. And if we see through a glass and darkly, and conceive in part, how shall we not be yet more powerless in the words through the tongue? You will then piously conceive, either that in this way all things are given by the Father to the Son: or you will take it again of the oeconomy with Flesh, no longer introducing the giving and receiving in respect of Natural Properties, but as putting the Son in authority over all things originate, that you may conceive of it in some such way as this,
CyrJn 2.4.1
Let not the slow to hearken (he says) be bold in speech, at seeing the Lord of all a Man, nor let him suppose that the Truth is false, rejecting the due belief in God by reason of the Flesh. Let him receive His testimony, let him readily set to his seal that God is true, lest he grieve the Father Which is in Heaven. For He loveth His Son: and the proof of His Love for Him, is that authority over all is given to Him. Which also the Saviour Himself says, All things are delivered unto Me of My Father, and again, All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Nor do I suppose that because of the Son's seeming to receive it, will He reasonably be predicated by any as lesser: and why? for He receives when He became Man, when He humbled Himself for our sakes, when the Lord was called a slave, when the Son, Who is free, became among servants. For how did He humble Himself? or how is He said to have descended from His Equality with God the Father? Dost thou not in these things see Him Who Divinely giveth, Him Who Humanly and as a servant is said to receive what as God He had? For not strictly a gift from the Father is that which appointed the Son to the beginning of Lordship over all things; but rather a return and regain with the Flesh also of the authority that He had before the Flesh. For not when He became Man, did He then begin to rule the creation.
CyrJn 2.4.3
Since to what lowliness would one say that He had descended, if, when He became Man, He then began to have lordship? how will He appear in the Form of a servant, if then at length and scarcely declared Lord of all? Away with the absurdity of the reasonings herein. But when He became Man, then even so begins He to rule, not losing by reason of His Flesh the Divine Dignity, but mounting again with the Flesh also, to what He was from the beginning. But that the things spoken of as Christ's, were but the regain of what He had before, Himself will prove, saying, Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. Seest thou that He asketh not for a beginning of glory, but a renewal of the pristine glory, saying this too as Man? But that because of the Human Nature is it said that all things are given to the Son, he that is fond of learning will from all quarters heap up proofs with wisdom, and will be able to understand, but specially from that most dread vision of Daniel, wherein he savs that he saw the Ancient of Days set on His Throne, and declares that thousand thousands ministered unto Him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. And hereto he added, And behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him, and there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him. Thou seest how here is the whole Mystery of the Incarnation accurately delineated to us; thou seest how the Son is said to receive the kingdom of the Father; shewn to the Prophet as no bare Word , but as the Son of Man (for He humbled Himself, as it is written, being found for our sakes in fashion as a Man), that He first brought back to His Kingdom, might be shewn forth a Beginning and Way to us of Glory into the Kingdom. And as He being by Nature Life did for our sakes descend unto death after the Flesh for all, that He might free us both from death and corruption, by His likeness to us having immingled us as it were with Himself and rendered us partakers of eternal life: so doth He confashion Himself to our low repute, being Lord of Glory as God, that He might restore the nature of man to the royal honour also. For in all things He hath the preeminence, as Paul saith, being both the Way and the Door and the Firstfruits of the good things of human nature, from death to life, from corruption to incorruption, from weakness to might, from bondage to sonship, from dishonour and ignominy to honour and kingly glory. Therefore when the Son appears to receive as Man what He had as God, let us no wise be offended but let us consider rather the mode of the oeconomy on our account and for us. For so we shall preserve our mind unwounded and unhurt.
CyrJn 2.4.4