Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

192 OPUSCULE 3
48A
C
D
B
Let no-one censure the doctrine that forbids a duality of
gnomic wills, when they find that nearly all the glorious
teachers say that there are two wills. Nor let him transfer his
reverent mind to the other position, and say with Severus that
there is one will, lest he let one evil follow another, I mean
confusion follow division. 2 For the divine Fathers do not speak
of quantity in relation to gnomic wills, but only in relation to
natural wills, rightly calling the essential and natural laws
and principles of what has been united wills. For they think
that it is the natural appetency of the flesh endowed with a
rational soul, and not the longing of the mind of a particular
man moved by an opinion, that possesses the natural power of
the desire for being, and is naturally moved and shaped by the
Word towards the fulfilment of the economy. And this they
wisely call the will, without which the human nature cannot
be. For the natural will is ‘the power that longs for what is
natural’ 3 and contains all the properties that are essentially
attached to the nature. In accordance with this to be disposed
by nature to will is always rooted in the willing nature. For to
be disposed by nature to will and to will are not the same
thing, as it is not the same thing to be disposed by nature to
speak and to speak. For the capacity for speaking is always
naturally there, but one does not always speak, since what
belongs to the essence is contained in the principle of the
nature, while what belongs to the wish is shaped by the
intention [gnômê] of the one who speaks. So being able to
speak always belongs to the nature, but how you speak
belongs to the hypostasis. So it is with being disposed by
nature to will and willing. If then to be disposed by nature to
will and to will are not the same (for the one, I said, belongs to
the essence, while the other exists at the wish of the one who
wills), then the Incarnate Word possesses as a human being
the natural disposition to will, and this is moved and shaped
by his divine will. ‘For the will of that one’, the great Gregory
says, ‘is not opposed to God but is completely deified.’ 4 If it is
deified, it is clearly deified by its coming together with the One
who deifies. What deifies and what is deified are certainly two,
and not one and the same by nature. What deifies and what
is deified are then related, and if they are related, they are
certainly brought together, the one to the other, naturally, and
each is thought of together with the other.
Therefore, in his natural capacity, the Saviour is
distinguished as a human being, willing in a fleshly way the
shrinking in the face of death together with the rest of the