Cyril of Alexandria

He remained Lord of all things even when he came, for the divine economy, in the form of a slave, and this is why the mystery of Christ is truly wonderful. Indeed God the Father said to the Jews through one of the prophets, “Look on this, you scoffers, be struck with wonder and disappear, for I am doing a work in your days, a work in which you will not believe even if one were to explain it to you.”

As for the inventors of impure heresies, those profaners and apostates who have opened their mouths wide against the divine glory, “those who have uttered perverted things,” we could accuse them of having slipped in their madness as low as the foolish pagans. [They have slipped] perhaps even lower, for it would have been better never to have known it than to have turned away from the sacred commandment which was handed on to them. What the book of Proverbs so rightly speaks of has indeed come about: “that the dog has returned to its vomit, and no sooner has it washed than the pig returns to wallow in the slime.” They have circulated among themselves blasphemous accusations against Christ and like wild, ferocious wolves ravage the flock for which Christ died. They pillage what is his very own, “bloating themselves on what is not theirs,” as it is written, and “stuffing their gorge to the full.” How aptly does that saying apply to them, that “they came out from us but were not part of us.”

And yet, someone may say, we shall find the name Christ applied not to Emmanuel alone, but also applied to others. For God said somewhere about those chosen and sanctified by the Spirit, “Do not touch my anointed ones, and to my prophets do no harm.” The divinely inspired David calls Saul, who had been anointed as king by God through the hand of Samuel: the “Lord’s anointed.” And why do I mention this when it is possible for those who desire to look at the matter calmly to see that those who have been justified by faith in Christ and have been sanctified in the Spirit are honored by such a name? And therefore the prophet Habakkuk has foretold the mystery of Christ and salvation through him, saying, “You went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed ones.” Consequently the name Christ would not be applicable exclusively and properly to Emmanuel, as I said, but also to all the rest who may have been anointed with the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the word is derived from the action and the name anointed from the fact of having been anointed.