Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

184 OPUSCULE 7
80A
C
B
C
has a natural will, he certainly wills in reality those things
that, as God by nature, he has fashioned and introduced
naturally into the constitution of [God Incarnate]. For he did
not come to debase the nature which he himself, as God and
Word, had made, but he came that that nature might be
thoroughly deified which, with the good pleasure of the Father
and and the co-operation of the Spirit, he willed to unite to
himself in one and the same hypostasis, with everything that
naturally belongs to it, apart from sin. Therefore, as God by
nature, he willed what is divine by nature and belongs to the
Father. For he was one who willed together with his own
begetter. And again the same, as man, he willed those things
that are naturally human. He kept the economy pure of every
delusion, not at all resisting the will of the Father. For nothing
that is natural, and certainly no nature itself, would ever
resist the cause of nature, nor would the intention [gnômê], or
anything that belongs to the intention, if it agreed with the
logos of nature. For if anyone said that something natural had
resisted God, this would be rather a charge against God than
against nature, for introducing war naturally to the realm of
being and raising up insurrection against himself and strife
among all that exists. That nothing natural is opposed to God
is clear from the fact that these things were originally
fashioned by him, and there can be no complaint on our side
about their natural constitution. Quite the contrary, they
clearly suffer accusations because of their being perverted. For
in accordance with this perversion, we have become inclined to
every evil because of the primordially wicked serpent but, in
accordance with our constitution, we exist naturally as
moulded by God and as honoured creatures. Therefore,
according to the divine Fathers, we make no diminution at all
in the natural wills, or energies, just as we make no
diminution in the natures themselves, in the case of one and
the same God the Word Incarnate. We hold the orthodox faith
that the same is perfect God and perfect man in every respect
from the fact that he possesses — and wills and performs—
perfectly and naturally both what is divine and what is human,
and has properly both divine and human being and will and
energy, lest we should maintain, contrary to the truth, that
because of a lack in any of his natural properties there be a
diminution of either of the natures, out of which and in which
he exists, and not rather their perfect existence.
For that he has by nature a human will, just as he has an
essentially divine will, the Word himself shows clearly, when,