Daniel A. Keating presents a comprehensive account of sanctification and divinization in Cyril. By establishing the importance of pneumatology in Cyril's narrative of salvation and by showing the requirement for an ethical aspect of divinization grounded in the example of Christ himself, this study brings a corrective to certain readings of Cyril that tend to exaggerate the 'somatic' or 'physicalistic' character of his understanding of divinization. Keating argues that Cyril correlates the somatic and pneumatic means of our union with Christ, and integrates impressively the ontological and ethical aspects of our sanctification and divinization. A final chapter compares these findings with Theodore of Mopsuestia, Augustine, and Leo the Great, in order to examine in brief the relationship between Eastern and Western accounts of salvation.

There is no book in English that treats the whole of Cyril's theological thought. In the past scholars have normally focused on Cyril's Christology and left largely unexamined the remainder of his theological thought. Thus the English-speaking scholarly community has never fully appreciated the breadth, the depth and the immense significance of Cyril's theology. This book is therefore unique. The editors have brought together many of the foremost experts on Cyril. This international team examines all the major facets of his theology, and here for the first time reveals the theology of Cyril of Alexandria as a magisterial whole.