Did Christ, the eternal Word from the Father, suffer for our sake or not? If it was only his flesh that suffered, then can we say that Christ tasted death for everyone? Or must we say, his flesh alone did? Cyril believes the Nestorian logic of the passion requires the latter belief; and he may be right.

Peter affirmed, “Christ suffered in the flesh” (1 Pet 4:1). This phrase and its conceptual parallels in the New Testament defined the terms for 5th-century debates over Christ’s passion (suffering).

On one side, Cyril of Alexandria championed the notion that the one Lord Jesus Christ suffered impassibly in the flesh. The emphasis here falls on the “one Lord Jesus Christ.” By contrast, others, sometimes called Nestorians, could use similar language but emphasize “in the flesh.”

This Christological debate revolved around the question who or what suffered. Was it the one Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh, or was it the flesh of the one Lord Jesus Christ?

Theodoret: The Suffering of Christ’s Body

What makes the fifth century Christological debates difficult is our historical distance. Most of the terms of the debate have been forgotten, and we tend to read theological claims from that era in a flattened way, assuming everyone merely battled over words without substance.

For example, Theodoret of Cyrus, when asked who suffered in the passion, can simply say, “Our Lord Jesus Christ.” That sounds nearly identical to the view of Cyril of Alexandria. And indeed, Theodoret would eventually affirm the Creed of Chalcedon and anathematize theological formulations attributed to Nestorius (in a guarded way). But Theodoret remains at the time of writing someone associated with the Nestorian position.

With that said, does Theodoret’s affirmation genuinely parallel Cyril’s? Probably not, since Theodoret also clarifies “the body is spoken of by the name of the person.”[2] In other words, Theodoret believes the apostolic authors use the name Christ in contexts of suffering to refer to the body, not the person (i.e., the One Lord Jesus Christ). He emphasizes the body’s (or flesh’s) suffering, flesh that is proper to the person, the one Lord Jesus Christ.

But the key here is that Christ’s human nature suffered, according to Theodoret. In this regard, he will affirm that “a body won our salvation for us” but is quick to add: “but not a mere man’s body, but that of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.”[3]

Cyril: The Suffering of Christ the Word

Cyril admits that we mentally sometimes need to think about Christ as God and as man: “It is appropriate for one’s mind to sense a distinction between the natures (after all, human and divine natures are not identical), but at the same time as this acknowledgment, the mind must also accept the concurrence of the two into a unity.”[4]

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