On the Two Wills 1 part 3/4

so that how one wills — well or ill — or what one wills — this thing or that — is not natural, but gnomic and hypostatic, in the case of both angels and men.

For in the case of the holy and undivided Trinity, there is one natural willing of the three hypostases, and one natural good, and no hypostasis has its own willed object or its own motion, but there is one motion and one willed object of the three hypostases;

wherefore there are not three gods, but the three hypostases are one God, one God with

his own faculties, yet not composite.

For each of them is perfect God and a perfect hypostasis;

and a composition of nature does not arise out of hypostasis, and this is entirely singular and fitting to God alone.

But in the case of angels and men it is not so;

for the willing of angels is one, the natural faculty of willing given to them by God;

for each angel wills and each man wills, yet there is not one motion belonging to all angels, nor indeed to all men, but each hypostasis has its own motion and its own willed object;

for not all the hypostases of angels will in the same way, nor the same thing, nor do those of men; rather, one wills well, another ill, and one wills this, another that, and when the one is moved and wills, the other is not moved together with him nor wills together with him.

So that in the case of angels and men, the willing is natural, and likewise to will is natural.

For every man is capable of willing and every man wills, but not every man is capable of willing the same thing, nor does he will the same thing.

For in the case of the holy Trinity, the three hypostases are in one another, and the Word and the Spirit are the Father's own faculties, and on account of this there is one motion, and likewise one and the same willed object.

But angels and men each possess a separated and individually distinct hypostasis of his own, even though they are of one nature;

on account of this, the faculty of willing and the act of willing are one and natural, but how one wills and what one wills are hypostatic and gnomic.

And their willing nature is one, but those who will are many, willing differently, and one thing and another.

The willing, then, is a vital and rational appetite;

and the vital is, in every case, also sentient.

Irrational creatures, then, desire in a sentient manner, but not rationally, nor self-determinedly;

but man, being a rational animal, as an animal desires vitally and sentiently, and as rational, rationally and self-determinedly.

The willing, then, is a natural appetite, rational and vital, depending on natural things alone.

The natural wills, then, are: first, submission to the law of God — for man is by nature a servant and subject of God — and then also the constituents of nature, such as hunger, thirst, sleep, and the like;

but hypostatic and gnomic willing is an appetite according to pleasure and according to the proper deliberation of the hypostasis that exercises it, and not according to the law of God; it is the manner of exercising the natural willing according to the deliberation of the hypostasis that exercises it.

The separateness of hypostases, then, produces a difference of deliberation.

But they say that man does not have a natural will.

They say there are only two wills: the one divine, the good, and the other evil, the diabolical;

and whenever a man wills the good, he has had the will of God; but whenever the evil, that of the devil.

But they do not know that it is impossible for any nature whatsoever to make use of an activity the faculty of which it did not receive according to nature.

For example, a winged creature cannot fly if it has not received the faculty of flying according to nature; likewise a land creature cannot walk, if it has not received the faculty of walking according to nature.

So too man cannot think, if he has not received thought according to nature, nor speak, if he has not received the faculty of speech according to nature; likewise he can neither see nor will, if he has not received by nature the faculty of willing.

It is necessary, then, first to have by nature the capacity to will, which is the willing, and then thus to will.

Wherefore, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, since there are two natures, there are two natural willings, so that he may be perfect God and perfect man, lacking none of the properties of the Godhead, nor indeed of the manhood; and there is a twofold willing and a differing willing according to the natural difference — divinely and omnipotently (for the divine will is omnipotent), and not omnipotently, but weakly and passibly (for the human will is passible and weak) — and the natural willed object is one thing and another.

For the wills of the manhood are not also the willed objects of the Godhead;

human nature has appetite for food and drink and sleep and such things, but the Godhead has no appetite for these.

For it does not itself desire these things, even though it wills that human nature desire them naturally, both as it ought and when it ought.

According to the natural difference, then, there are two wills in our Lord Jesus Christ, not contrary to each other.

For neither man's natural will is contrary to the divine will, nor the natural faculty of willing, nor the things naturally subject to it, nor the natural exercise of the willing;

for the divine will is the creator of all things natural.

Only the things contrary to nature are opposed to the divine will, which is the appetite according to one's own deliberation and for sinful pleasures, that is, sin.

This the Lord did not assume;

for 'he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.' And since Christ's hypostasis is one and Christ is one, there is one who wills according to both natures — as God well-pleased, and as man having become obedient: as God, well-pleased together with the Father and the Spirit in the paternal and divine will; but as man, having become obedient to his own divine and paternal will by our will.

For it was not according to his divine will that he became obedient to the Father;

For the divine will is neither obedient nor disobedient.

For these things belong to those under [another's] hand, as Gregory the Theologian says, and to the form of a servant — the assumed [humanity] taken from us.

But he became obedient, in a manner natural [to his humanity], according to his human will;

for obedience is the self-determined and unforced subjection of one will to another will.

He willed, then, and wills, as God, the things divine, and he willed and wills, as man, the things human — not by opposition of intention, but by the distinctness of the natures.

For he willed and wills the human things as his divine willing was pleased, both as to when and as to what, his human willing being self-determinedly subjected to his divine willing.

For the willing and operation of God is, according to the blessed Irenaeus, the productive and providential cause of every time and place and age and every nature; but human willing is a natural power desirous of that which exists according to nature, and conservative of those things that essentially belong to that nature;

for the essence desires to be, and to live, and to move according to sense and mind, longing for its own natural and complete being.

For nature is desirous of itself and of all its constituent elements, by the principle of being according to which it exists and has come to be, being attached to it appetitively.

Wherefore others, in defining this natural [faculty], call it will, saying:

"The will is natural, a rational and vital appetite, attached only to what is natural."

Willing, then, is, according to the blessed Clement, a power desirous of that which properly is, and again an appetite fitting to the nature of the rational being, and again a self-determined movement of the sovereign mind. For in the beginning, having formed man, God made him a nature without sin, and gave him a self-determined willing, as the holy Athanasius says.

And every creation — rational and irrational, sensible and insensible, and even lifeless — is, as to its nature, without sin; but not every creation is a self-determined willing.

And the divine nature is without sin and a self-determined willing, yet not mutable, but immutable.

The divine nature, then, is possessed of will, and self-determined, and without sin, and immutable.

But every creation came into being without sin from God — for all things that God made were very good — yet is mutable.

For those things whose coming-into-being began from a change are, by nature, mutable;

and change is the passage from not-being into being.

If, then, he did not assume the will of man, by what will did he become obedient to the Father? If he did not assume the human will, by what will did he come to be under the law? If he did not assume the human will, by what will did he fulfil all righteousness? For that he indeed pursued all virtue and all righteousness, hear him,

speaking to John the Baptist:

"For thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness." For he fulfilled all virtue and righteousness, but he did not advance from works nor from virtue, but was perfect from the utmost union;

for he did not, being man, become God, but, being perfect God, he became perfect man.

If he did not assume a human will, he did not become perfect man.

If he did not assume a human will, he did not heal that which first suffered in us.

For that which is not assumed is not healed, as Gregory the Theologian said.

For what is it that stumbled, if not the will? What is it that sinned, if not the will? That, then, which stumbled, that which sinned, had all the more need of healing.

But if you say that he did not assume that which sinned, then neither did he assume the nature that sinned and was diseased.

But if he did not assume this, neither did he assume the nature of humanity;

If he did not assume the human will, how, before knowing good and evil, does he disobey evil in order to choose the good? For the divine will does not disobey, or obey, or choose.

He disobeys evil, then, and chooses the good, obeying self-determinedly, as man, the paternal will;

for choice belongs to a self-determined will — yet he was not, as we are, deliberating and judging, reckoning both opposites (virtue, I mean, and vice), and coming to a knowledge of these, but choosing only the good, which is the good pleasure of the divine will; and thus he paid off Adam's debt.

"Before knowing good and evil": for the God-Word who became man did not know or reckon evil, on account of the union according to hypostasis;

he did not have a wavering or hesitant reasoning, but he himself, being the one Christ — this and that, that is, God and man — made use of his human [properties], that is, of all the natural properties of humanity, for obedience to his paternal and divine will.

If he received the help through angels — for it says:

"And behold, an angel strengthened him" — which is the law of human nature — did he not assume the will? For it says: "He will give his angels charge concerning you, and they will bear you up on their hands." If he received the abandonment, did he not assume the will? For it says:

"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" that is:

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For God the Father delivered up his only-begotten Son, who had become man, unto death on our behalf;

for his flesh was not forsaken, nor was it separated from his divinity, nor did it see corruption; nor was his soul forsaken in Hades; but God the Father did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us to insults and dishonors and blameless and sinless sufferings, and unto death.

Wherefore, having become obedient unto death to the good pleasure of the Father, and having despised the shame, he crowned our nature with the glory and honor of incorruption.

If those who confess one composite nature in Christ, while denying the two, nonetheless admit the difference of the natures, how is it that you, who proclaim two natures in Christ, monstrously assert one willing in him? But they say:

"The will is not natural, but hypostatic."

Which will, then, do you mean? The volitional faculty and the simple act of willing and the natural [thing] willed, or the manner of the use of willing, that is, both the 'how' of willing and the [thing] willed according to one's own deliberation and pleasure? But if you say that the volitional faculty and the simple act of willing are hypostatic, you do not speak truly;

for every man has the volitional faculty and the simple act of willing;

but the things that are observed in all the hypostases under the same species are natural, and not hypostatic.

But not every man wills the same thing, nor in the same way.

So that the volitional faculty and the simple act of willing are natural, but the willing of some particular thing, and —

— the 'how' of willing, is different according to each hypostasis, and, as an accident, hypostatic.

And a witness to this is the holy and truly-named Chrysostom John, speaking thus in the first book, the fourteenth discourse of his interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews:

"For wishing is innate and from God, but this-or-that wishing is ours, and belongs to our deliberation." Furthermore, if the volitional faculty is hypostatic, then, just as the Son is of a different hypostasis from the Father, he will also be of a different wish.

For no one is taught to hunger or thirst, to sleep or to breathe; thus neither is anyone taught to will.

But how to will, whether well or ill, and what to will, is taught;

for the law of God does not teach the [act of] willing — for this is given to us by him naturally — but rather willing well and what to will.

So that the [act of] willing is natural, but the 'what' and the 'how' of willing is hypostatic and different, except in the case of the Holy Trinity;

for there, the three holy hypostases of the Godhead will in the same way, and the same things, according to the essence of the Godhead.

For the one of the Holy Trinity, the incarnate Son and Word of God and God, just as he had a human nature distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit, and, in becoming man, is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit, so also in the natural properties of humanity he is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit, having two natures and two natural properties.

Furthermore, that is essential and natural which, when present, preserves the definition of the nature, and, when absent, destroys it.

Will man, then, be a will-less living being? By no means.

For man never came to be without will.

If hunger and thirst and the desire for sleep, being irrational appetites, are natural, will not the rational, self-determined appetite of the mind be natural? We have come to be according to the image of God with respect to what is intellectual and self-determined.

If, then, he did not assume a mind and a self-determined willing, he did not assume that which is according to the image;

and after a little we shall also discuss briefly concerning that which is according to the image.

If he did not assume a human willing, then all the things that Christ willed, he willed by the divine will.

And how, then, having entered into a house and wished to be unnoticed, was he unable [to be so]? Then the divine will is not omnipotent, but powerless!

Cease, O man, from talking such nonsense.

It does not belong to the divine willing to desire food and drink, and to move from place to place, and such things, but to the human [willing] — even though Christ willed these things by his human willing, according to the paternal good pleasure.

Self-determination was not given to man according to nature, but according to honor, in that Gregory the Theologian says:

"having honored him with self-determination."

But hear the father again:

"this one, honored with reason and the image of God."

Then he will not have the rational [faculty] according to nature either, but according to honor; and it is time for you to say that the Lord took up not a rational soul, but an irrational one.

In how many ways is 'according to the image' spoken of? According to the rational, intelligent, and self-determining [faculty]; according to the mind's begetting the word and putting forth the spirit; and according to dominion.

According to these, both the angels and men are according to the image.

Moreover, in abundance, men also [bear the image] according to the unbegotten — as exemplified in Adam — and the begotten — as exemplified in Abel — and the proceeding — as exemplified in Eve; and according to dominion by nature (for by nature the soul possesses the body as a slave and rules over it); and according to the gathering together of all creation (for in God all creation is united, and likewise in man —

for he is the bond of the intelligible and sensible creation) — and [also] because he is according to the image of that which the Son of God was to become;

for it was not an angel that he became, but a man.

Every hypostasis that is composite, being compounded of different natures, necessarily has the natural properties of the two natures, even if a confusion should be observed in the union.

For fire and water are entirely opposite — fire is hot and dry, while water is cold and moist — yet when a body is composed from the four elements, it has the

four qualities: heat and cold, moisture and dryness.

If, then, where confusion is observed, it is necessary that the natural properties of the things combined be observed, how much more in the case of an unconfused union!

But they say that man does not have a natural will.

and they say, in Manichaean fashion, that there are only two wills: the one divine and good, the other diabolical and evil.

And whenever man wills the good, he has had the will of God;

but whenever [he wills] the evil, [he has had] that of the devil.

Is the divine will all-effecting, or not? 'Yes,' they say.

If, then, man has the divine will when he wills the good, he will, according to them, be all-effecting.

But they are ignorant of the fact that it is impossible for any nature whatsoever to make use of an act, or to perform an operation, the capacity of which it did not receive according to nature;

for example, a winged creature that has not received by nature the power of flight cannot fly, nor can a land creature walk, unless it has received by nature the power of walking.

So too man cannot operate and will, unless he has received by nature the faculty of willing and of operating;

for neither can he think, unless he has by nature received the faculty of thinking, nor see, nor perform any other operation;

so that the faculty of willing and of operating is naturally present in man, as are the acts of willing and of operating.

Wherefore in every nature the natural operations always inhere and co-exist [with it], but the things willed and the things effected do not [necessarily] co-exist [with it].

And the natural willing, that is, the faculty of willing, is one, while the things willed are many and various;

'All his wills are in them.'

It is not that the divine willing itself is in them; rather, 'all his wills are in them' — that is, the things willed.

But it must be understood that the things willed by the Godhead are natural;

for, being immutable, it is not its nature to will now one way and now another, but it always wills in the same way.

Wherefore also the things willed are the same for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;

for all the natural [properties] are the same for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, since their nature is one and the same.

But nothing is hypostatic in the super-essential Godhead, except the unbegottenness and the generative property of the Father, the begottenness of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit.

As we have spoken concerning the will, so also we speak concerning operation: that the term 'operation' signifies various things.

It is proper to the operation of God not merely to be, unto infinity, beyond all sense-perception and beyond all mind and every age, but also beyond every essence and every name.

For operation is the natural power and movement of each essence.

Operation is the natural, innate movement of every essence.

Operation is the natural power that manifests each essence.

Operation is the natural and primary, ever-moving power of the intelligent soul — that is, its ever-moving reason (logos), which naturally and continually springs forth from it.

The acts themselves are also called operations, such as seeing, speaking, breathing, walking, eating, drinking — that is, the use of every natural faculty.

And the natural affections too are often called operations, such as hunger, thirst, and the like.

Operation is the natural power and movement of each essence, apart from which there is only non-being.

How then shall the Lord not have the natural operation of the human nature? For the non-existence of the natural operation of anything is the non-existence of the nature itself.

If, then, he did not have a human natural operation, neither did he have a human nature;

for those whose nature differs also have a different willing and a different operation.

Operation, then, is one thing; to operate is another; what and how one operates is another; the thing operated — that is, the effect — is another; the capacity for operating is another; and the one who operates is yet another.

Operation, then, is itself the operative faculty,

that is, the ability to operate; while to operate is to make use of the operative faculty.

And 'what one operates' is seeing, thinking, hearing, walking, eating, drinking;

and 'how one operates' is well or badly.

'That which has the capacity to operate' is that which possesses the power of operating, such as man or angel.

And 'the one who operates' is the one who makes use of the operation — that is, the hypostasis.

Operation, therefore, sometimes signifies the operative faculty, sometimes the act of operating, and sometimes the effect produced;

so then, operation — that is, the operative faculty — and the act of operating, are natural.

For every man has the power to operate, and every man has the act of operating;

for man is a being that operates.

But the effect [of operation], in the case of both angels and men, is not only natural but also hypostatic.

For in the case of the Holy Trinity, all the things willed and effected are natural, wherefore they are also the same for the three hypostases.

But in the case of angels and men, the thing willed is not the same, nor is the thing effected the same, nor is the manner of use the same;

for each hypostasis of angels and of men has its own movement, and wills and operates in its own distinct manner.

Wherefore, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, since there are two natures, there are also two natural operations, in order that he might be perfect God and perfect man; and there is a twofold willing, willing differently according to the natural difference of the two natures — divinely and humanly, all-powerfully and impassibly according to the divine nature, and weakly and passibly according to the human nature.

And the natural effect [of operation] is one thing in one case and another in another;

for the effect of the divine nature is one thing, and that of the human nature another.

For the things effected by the human nature are not also the things effected by the divine nature, nor are the things [effected] by the divine nature and by the human nature the same;

for the human nature does not create, nor does the divine nature eat, nor does it move from place to place — even though the divine nature exercises its operation through the human operation.

But it is one who operates both the one and the other, because there is one hypostasis.

For if he did not assume the human operation, then he neither lived as man, nor thought, nor reasoned, nor ate, nor drank, nor perceived food, nor walked, nor saw, nor heard, nor breathed, nor performed any human act at all — nor did he become man at all.

For Gregory of Nyssa says:

These things having thus been articulated and carefully delineated, let us see whether the holy Gospels, the apostles, and the holy fathers say that the Lord possesses all these, or not.

That he indeed had a human soul, the Lord himself declares in the Gospel according to John:

'I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it again' (John 10:18); and again, 'and I lay down my soul for the sheep' (John 10:15).

And that he also had a body, Joseph bears witness — he who asked for his body, prepared it for burial, and laid it in the tomb.

And that he also had the organized structure of bodily members, witness is borne by the woman who anointed his head with myrrh and wetted his feet with her tears; and by the nails driven into his palms and the soles of his feet; and by the spear that pierced his side; and by the disciple who reclined upon his breast; and by the tongue that said:

'If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink' — the mouth that imparted the Holy Spirit; the teeth and throat that partook of the Passover, and that which conveyed it to the stomach; and the liver that turned it into blood; and the weariness arising from the journey, when the muscles and sinews were overstrained, as the divine Basil says; and the circumcision of the foreskin; and the buttocks that sat upon the donkey; and the scourges upon the back; and the blows upon the cheeks, together with the spittings upon the face.

That he also received cutting and flux — that which is mine — is witnessed by the circumcision, the nails, the spear, the spittle, the sweat, and the blood and water that flowed from his side.

And that he also assumed the operations of the soul and the passions is witnessed by the operations — effected through the incorrupt body — of his

all-holy soul — for he saw, it says, the city of Jerusalem and wept, and he heard that John had been cast into prison — and the sense of smell that perceived the ointment, and the voice that raised Lazarus, and the taste that turned away naturally from the unpleasantness of the gall and the vinegar (for surely these are not operations of the divine nature), and the touch of the leper, and the walking, and the stretching out of the hands upon the cross; from the natural power came the nourishment of the body and its growth (for blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts you sucked; and the child grew in stature, it says); and from the sensitive faculty, as belonging to an ensouled yet irrational nature, came sensation, movement by impulse, hunger, thirst (for afterward, it says, he hungered; and on the cross, I thirst), the desire for food (for with desire, it says, I have desired to eat this Passover with you), anger (for he was troubled in spirit, it says, and testified and said:

'One of you will betray me' — and the digestion of food and drink, and the formation of blood;

for whence came the sweat, the spittle, the saving blood and water, if not from digestion? For he did perceive, and made use of all these, but not passibly, but naturally; and he was nourished not according to passionate pleasure, but for the replenishment of what had flowed away.

For even if his all-holy body did not see corruption, yet it naturally endured cutting and flux;

for corruption is the dissolution into those elements out of which the body was composed.

And before all else, life itself, which is the first operation of the living being, imparted from the soul to the body.

But the seminal and generative faculty he did not have;

for the properties of the divine hypostases are immutable, and it is impossible for the Father or the Spirit to become the Son.

Therefore no one became son of man except the Son of God, that the property might remain unchanged.

Moreover, a hypostasis unites with a hypostasis of the same nature.

But there is no other such hypostasis that is son of God and of man;

for there is one only-begotten Son, alone from the Father alone and alone from the mother alone, Son of God and Son of Man, God and man, Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Furthermore, even if union is natural, for the multiplication of mankind, yet it is not necessary;

for it is possible for a man to live and be a man without uniting, and many have been free of this passion.

For the body itself had no operation of its own except cutting and flux, which are passions, not operations;

but all the rest are clearly operations of the soul making use of the body, not of the Godhead;

'Now, it says, my soul is troubled' — sorrow and distress;

'For he began to be sorrowful and distressed, and my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death' — the fear of death;

'For Father, it says, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me' — death itself.

All these belong not to the Godhead — for the divine is impassible and ever-living and immortal — but to the living being, that is, to an ensouled and sentient essence.

And from the rational and intellectual soul, wisdom.

For he advanced in wisdom and stature.

For it was not in divine wisdom that he advanced;

for from the very moment of conception the union became perfect, and the conjunction was utmost, and he received no addition of any divine power, but he advanced in human wisdom.

For according to the measure of his bodily stature, the human wisdom in him was shown forth;