Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

49A
C
D
B
TEXTS 193
passions, showing the economy to be pure of any fantasy, and
redeeming the nature from the passions to which it has been
condemned as a result of sin. And again he shows his eager
desire, putting death to death in the flesh, in order that he
might show as a human being that what is natural is saved in
himself, and that he might demonstrate, as God, the Father’s
great and ineffable purpose, 5 fulfilled in the body. For it was
not primarily in order to suffer, but in order to save, that he
became a human being. Therefore he said, Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not mine, but
your will be done; 6 showing, in the shrinking, the
determination of the human will shaped and brought to be (in
harmony with the divine will) in accordance with the
interweaving of the natural logos with the mode of the
economy. For the Incarnation is an effective demonstration of
both nature and the economy, I mean of the natural logos of
what has been united, confirming the mode of the hypostatic
union, and ‘instituting afresh the natures’, 7 without any
change or confusion. But the will did not need to be rendered
idle or made active in accordance with the same will: that
would be absurd, since the Son’s will is by nature the same as
the Father’s. The Saviour therefore possesses as a human being
a natural will, which is shaped, but not opposed, by his divine
will. For nothing that is natural can be opposed to God in any
way, not even in inclination, for a personal division would
appear, if it were natural, and the Creator would be to blame,
for having made something that was at odds with itself by
nature.
How did the Word Incarnate truly become a human being, if
it lacked that which best characterizes a nature as rational?
For what is deprived of the movement of longing that follows
desire has no share in any power of life. And that which does
not possess any power of life out of its nature is clearly not a
soul of any kind, without which the flesh is not what it is.
Therefore the economy would be a mere fantasy, if he merely
had the shape of flesh. But if, as Severus said, he did not have,
as man, a natural will, the Word Incarnate would not fulfil the
hypostatic union with flesh, endowed by nature with a
rational soul and intellect. For if he was truly, as man, lacking
a natural will, he would not truly have become perfect man.
And if he did not truly become perfect man, he did not become
man at all. For what kind of existence does an imperfect
nature have, since the principle of its existence no longer
exists?