{"id":143978,"date":"2026-03-18T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143978"},"modified":"2026-03-18T06:52:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T10:52:34","slug":"commonweal-greg-hillis-for-his-feast-day-cyril-of-alexandrias-understanding-of-the-baptism-of-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143978","title":{"rendered":"(Commonweal) Greg Hillis\u2013[For his feast day] Cyril of Alexandria\u2019s Understanding of the Baptism of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Cyril interprets this \u201cbreath of life\u201d to be the Holy Spirit, and argues that God\u2019s breathing of the Spirit into the first human demonstrates that we were created to exist in intimacy with God. We were created to partake of the divine nature, to participate in the divine, and so to attain the beauty of likeness with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sin disrupted this intimacy. Cyril describes the fall, not as a descent into depravity and sinfulness, but as a loss of the Holy Spirit. Through the exercise of the freedom God gave us, humankind shrank from intimacy with the divine and so lost the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cyril argues that one of the central purposes of the Incarnation was our recovery of intimacy with God through the Holy Spirit, and it is this recovery that Jesus\u2019 baptism accomplishes. Through the Incarnation, the Son of God made man becomes the Second Adam, and at his baptism, the Second Adam receives the Holy Spirit, not for his own sake, but for the sake of all humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonwealmagazine.org\/gift-not-guilt-trip\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Baptism Of Jesus Christ Icon, Moscow School, c.1408 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Mi8ZEcIhTd\">pic.twitter.com\/Mi8ZEcIhTd<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Solas (@solas_na_greine) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/solas_na_greine\/status\/1974791119637811611?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 5, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cyril interprets this \u201cbreath of life\u201d to be the Holy Spirit, and argues that God\u2019s breathing of the Spirit into the first human demonstrates that we were created to exist in intimacy with God. We were created to partake of<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143978\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[581,162,186,163,166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptism","category-christology","category-church-history","category-the-trinity-father-son-and-holy-spirit","category-theology-holy-spirit-pneumatology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143980,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143978\/revisions\/143980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}