St. Cyril of Alexandria on Becoming Temples of God

Sts. Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria

John the Theologian says that, not only through the Logos all things were made, but also that in each and every being that was made, there was life, namely the only-begotten Logos of God, the beginning and constitution of all things – visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly and of those below the earth. He himself being the real life, He grants being and living and moving in many ways to creatures, not by being himself divided and changed when He goes into each creature that belongs to a different nature: the creation is made by the unspeakable power and wisdom of the Creator in a variety proper to each creature, while the life of all is one and single into each being as is proper to each being and according to the ability of each being to receive Him.

Everything was made by God, because through Him they came into creation, and this “made by God” is to be understood for the Son in a different and more true way, as they were made “by Him” according to their natures. This is why we don’t include the Son in the beings, because He is out of everything and above everything, together with the Father; He does not become weaker following the weakness of beings, because he does not belong to their nature and generation.

In what manner we become and will be temples of God, when we bear an alien or created spirit, and not rather the Spirit of God? How will we participate in God’s nature, according to the sayings of the saints, those who participate in the Spirit, if the Spirit belongs to the created things and does not come to us rather from the divine nature herself, not coming through herself to us as an alien, but, to say it thus, becoming in us something like a quality of the deity, and dwells in the saints and there remains forever, if they keep clean their mind’s eye and, through persisting attachment to the wholeness of virtue, maintain for themselves the grace. Because the Christ says that the Spirit can not be contained and can not be seen by those who are in the world, that is, by those who are after worldly things and chose to love the earthly, but it can be contained and is well seen by the saints.

*Taken from the Commentary to the Holy Gospel of John.