It is fundamental also as you point out. The Reader David has referenced and quoted how who Christ is is fundamental to salvation as well. Your quote from Cyril of Alexandria is incredibly apt.
He also wrote, "I am amazed that there are some who are entirely in doubt as to whether the holy Virgin should be called Theotokos or not. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how is the holy Virgin who gave Him birth, not Theotokos?" (Epistle 1, to the monks of Egypt).
Theotokos is like a canary in the mine detecting false teaching or understanding about Christ.
Thanks for your posts...
Classical Unitarians, not the UU types, defend their rejection of the Trinity based on the Bible alone.
4. Christ is said expressly to be inferior to the Father; all his power is said to have been given him by the Father, and he could do nothing without the Father. “My Father is greater than I” (John 16:28); “Ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3:23); “The head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3); “Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19); “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, and the Father that dwelleth in me he doth the works” (John 14:10); “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18); “He received from God the Father honour and glory” (2 Pet. 1:17); “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him” (Rev. 1:1).
It is now alleged that Christ did not mean that he was inferior to the Father with respect to his divine nature, but only with respect to his human nature. But if such liberties be taken in explaining a person’s meaning, language has no use whatever. On the same principles it might be asserted that Christ never died, or that he never rose from the dead, secretly meaning his divine nature only. There is no kind of imposition but what might be authorized by such an abuse of language as this.
5. Some things were withheld from Christ by his Father. “But of that day, and that hour, knoweth no man; no not the angels that are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” (Mark 13:32); “To sit on my right-hand and on my left, is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father” (Matt. 20:23).
6. As all the dominion that Christ has was derived from the Father, so it was subordinate to that of the Father. “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith that all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted who did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued to him, then shall Son also himself be subject unto him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:24ff.).
7. Christ always prayed to the Father, and with as much humility and resignation as any man, or the most dependent being in the universe, could possibly do. Our Lord’s whole history is a proof of this; but especially the scene of his agony in the garden: “And he began to be sorry and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death, tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:37ff.).
8. Christ is not only styled a man even after his resurrection, but the reasoning of the apostles, in some of the passages where he is spoken of, requires that he should be considered as a man with respect to his nature, and not in name only, as their reasoning has no force but upon that supposition. “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of by God, by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you” (Acts 2:22); “Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren” (Heb. 2:17); “It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Heb. 2:10); “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead, for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21).
9. Whatever exaltation Christ now enjoys, it is the gift of his Father, and the reward of his obedience unto death. “And being in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:8, 9); “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour” (Heb. 2:9); “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy which was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sitten down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).
Let it also be considered that no use whatever is made of the doctrine of the incarnation of the maker of the world in all the New Testament. We are neither informed why so extraordinary a measure was necessary for the salvation of men, nor that it was necessary. All that can be pretended is that it is alluded to in certain expressions. But certainly it might have been expected that a measure of this magnitude should have been expressly declared, if not clearly explained, that mankind might have no doubt what great things had been done for them, and that they might respect their great deliverer, as his nature and his proper rank in the creation required.
The author of the epistle to the Hebrews evidently considered Christ as a being of a different rank from that of angels, and the reason why he says that he ought to be so is that he might have a feeling of our infirmities. But, certainly, we shall be more easily satisfied that any person really felt as a man if he was truly a man, and nothing more than a man, than if he was a superior being (and especially a being so far superior to us as the maker of the world must have been) degraded to the condition of a man, because, if he had any recollection of his former state, the idea of that must have borne him up under his difficulties and sufferings in such a manner as no mere man could have been supported; and it is supposed by the Arians that Christ had a knowledge of his prior state, for they suppose him to have referred to it in his prayer to the Father for the glory which he had with him before the world was, and yet this is hardly consistent with the account that Luke gives of his increasing in wisdom.
http://www.americanunitarian.org/priestleyunity.htm
Evangelicalism is only a hearbeat away from embracing the Unitarian mindset.
For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how is the holy Virgin who gave Him birth, not Theotokos?
Interesting that you would use that reasoning.....That's the very same question Nimrod's wife, Semiramis, reasoned to support her position after she declared herself.. 'Mother of God'... for bearing her son Tammuz..... who became a Deity in the false religion she established in Babylon.
Resources:
Legendary Mysterious Great Queen of Assyria, edited by George E. Foryan.....Legend of Semiramis, by George E. Foryan......Worship of Semiramis, (Bahai).....The Original Goddess Semiramis of Babylon, by Yisrayl Hawkins, House of Yahweh...Semiramis, Queen of Assyria, (Amazon Nation).... The Two Babylons, The Mother of the Child, Alexander Hislop