Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

1060A
176 TEXTS
C
D
energy, have accomplished by this the wonders and the
suffering, which differ one from another by the logos of their
nature, without experiencing deprivation through the atrophy
of one part or other of its permanent condition? For no being
held together by the definition and logos of its nature can
perform what is opposed to one and the same energy.
Therefore it is not permitted to say that there is simply one
natural energy of Godhead and flesh in Christ, since Godhead
and flesh are not the same in natural quality. It would be to
say that there was one nature, and the triad would become a
foursome. For neither by nature, nor by power, nor by energy,
has the Godhead become the same, they say, as the flesh. For
the Son is the same as the Father and the Spirit through their
single nature, but it is not in virtue of that that he has become
the same as the flesh through union, and made life-giving
through union with him that which by nature is mortal. For he
would be shown as existing in a changeable nature, if he
changed the essence of flesh into what it is not, and made the
union the same by nature. But let us think about the
theandric energy as it has been explained. For he lives out this
energy not for himself but for our sake and renews nature so
that we can transcend nature. For his way of life is a life led
subject to the law of nature. For since the Lord is double in
nature, it is appropriate that he is manifest having a life
corresponding both to divine and human laws, welded
together without confusion to become the same. This life is
also new, not simply as strange and astounding to those on
earth, and so distinguished from the nature of the things that
exist, but also characteristic of the new energy of the life newly
lived. And perhaps the one who understood used the
appellation ‘theandric’, as appropriate to this mystery, so that
he might make plain the mode of exchange that accords with
the ineffable union, that makes whatever naturally belongs to
each part of Christ interchangeable with the other, without
changing and distorting each part into the other at the level
of the logos of nature. For it is just like the way the cuttingedge
of a sword plunged in fire becomes burning hot and the
heat acquires a cutting-edge (for just as the fire is united to
the iron, so also is the burning heat of the fire to the cuttingedge
of the iron, and the iron becomes burning hot by its union
with the fire, and the fire acquires a cutting-edge by union
with the iron). Neither suffers any change by the exchange
with the other in union, but each remains unchanged in its
own being as it acquires the property of its partner in union.