A he reproves, saying: "For the mind of the flesh is death, and its will is not subject to the law of God; for it is not able, since it is hostile to God." As, therefore, having partaken of flesh and blood, and having taken upon himself the seed and will of Abraham, Jesus refuses his own will, saying: "Nevertheless, let not my will be done." And after other things: "The divine Scriptures, therefore, teach us one created nature of the Son, according to which we also know in themselves his will, just as his efficacity."
Aetius, the author of every Arian heresy against the divinity, from the oration concerning the Son.
The Son of Mary is, therefore, not of a double will, lest according to the laws of the Manichaeans the B will of God should struggle against a carnal will.
Of the same, from the same oration.
For the Son himself interprets for himself the hypostasis and dissimilitude of his own nature, when he deprecates the execution of his own will. If, therefore, the will is to be deprecated, it is entirely flexible and [a matter of] nature. Whence the Son does not fear to confess the Father as his own God and Creator; for only the will of the Father is good. The natures of the Son and the Father are, therefore, different, and their wills are two and dissimilar.
Eunomius, the leader of the Arian scenic theater, from the third oration concerning the Son, chap. 19. C
"For I have descended," he says, "from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father." See the Word having descended from above renouncing his own will, as not agreeing with the uncreated will of the Father, because the Word has a created will just as he has a created nature.
The refutation of Celsus by the holy Eustathius, bishop of Antioch and martyr, from the commentary on the Gospel of John, chap. 26.
Christ submits—or rather, confirms above his own—the will of the Father in various contexts, not that a will existed in him that needed to be abolished, nor a divine one, nor indeed that of his humanization (for he acted D consistently with his own nature); but speaking to the Jews who thought him to be an adversary of God the Father, he spoke these things by dispensation, saying: "I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me."
From the first book of the impious Apollinarius on union.
Since Paul cries out most excellently, "In the omnipotent and sole God we live, and move, and are," his will alone sufficed for the flesh in which the Word dwelt to vivify and move it, seeing that the divine efficacity occupied the place of the human soul and mind. Whence also John calls his descent from the heavens an inhabitation. For after he said, "The Word was made flesh," he did not add, and
A a soul; for it is impossible that two intellectual and volitional [faculties] should dwell together in one, lest one should fight against the other through its own will and operation. Therefore the Word did not take hold of a human soul, but only of the seed of Abraham; for the temple of Jesus' body, he prefigured, was the soul-less, mind-less, and will-less temple of Solomon.
These things the God-hated Apollinarius uttered in his blasphemy, asserting that the flesh of the Lord was devoid of soul and will; in accordance with which, the lawless Eunomius and those Arians with him appear as new sophists, because, having peered into those scurrilous books of theirs and having sipped pleasure from them, they array themselves against us. For the same Apollinarius says again regarding the passage, "Father, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done," [Luke 22:42] thus: "If he who was approaching the passion and the cross was of equal power and a participant in the Father’s essence, B how, when he was in an agony, did he pray for that cup to pass, and that his own will might not be done, but rather that of the Father? And what need was there to speak of the will of him who was praying, unless it was abhorrent to God and contrary to Him?"
To refute these godless trivialities of Apollinarius, Gregory of Nyssa, the angel of the Nyssaeans, in the books written against him, uses such a syllogism against him: "If the will of the one praying—that is, of the man understood in the Savior—is brought to pass, it is seen that he who, according to the dispensation (oikonomia), prayed against death, possessed a personal will. But if, on the other hand, his will is not brought to pass, even then his will was still fulfilled; for this is what he wanted, that his [own] will should not be done. C Thus, both by the prayer being heard and not being heard, the human will of Christ was demonstrated and fulfilled."
From Saint Basil, from the discourse *Against the Arians*.
Since, therefore, while having one will with respect to the Father, he also assumed a human one, for this reason he says with great abundance: "Not my will, but thine be done."
From the same, from the same discourse.
The Lord's flesh possessed a life-loving will, in that it was a participant and companion of an immortal soul and of the life-giving, all-immortal God the Word, and from them it drew, as it were, a longing for immortality. D
From the commentary of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, on the passage: "Father, let this cup pass from me."
Even if the Savior, according to his human will, prays against death, do not be scandalized. For since the flesh possessed within itself the fount of life and God the Word of immortality, and since it was as it were a participant in his immortality, it justly turned away from death—not through cowardice, but through aversion to it, and because, being without sin, it was not subject to death.
A From the same, from the same discourse. For how could He who, by His own voice, was about to raise the entire human race from the tombs, have feared death? Therefore, to confirm the belief of men in his own human nature, because of the unbelief of the heretics, he applied to himself things belonging to man, and acted and spoke in a human manner as he approached his passion. For this reason he also prays, and sweats drops of blood B and is strengthened and heartened by an angel—He who is the Creator of angels—and asks that the cup might pass from him, and submits his human will to his paternal and divine will, saying: "Nevertheless, let not my will be done, but yours"—not showing any division or contrariety of wills, but perfection in humanity. For he who had taken on the nature, altogether appropriated to himself what belonged to that nature.
From the holy Athanasius, from the discourse on the text: "The Lord created me," and against the Arians. And so, as he approaches the cross, he prays intensely and bends his knee, saying: "Father, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will be done, but yours." He calls the will of the flesh his own will, because he had taken on our very flesh in himself.
Antipater, Bishop of Bostra, from the dissertation on the Cross. For as for the human will of our nature with which Christ was endowed—concerning which he says, "Let not my will be done, but yours"—the refusal of death was proper to it. For he foretold as God that the cup would pass him by; for he rose on the third day, having immortalized the flesh C and shattered the cup of death.
From the same, from the discourse against Apollinarius. He, then, who suffered for us not only did not commit sin, but also tore up the roots of sin from their foundations. Therefore, it is not as one who draws back from God that he says, "Let not my will be done," but as one providing us a pattern of how we ought to pray to God during temptations. But if Apollinarius, because Christ said, "Let not my will be done," denies his rational soul, and proclaims the incarnation to be soulless and mindless D and like one who is mentally deficient, it would be much more insulting, than what he says regarding the life-loving will, to say that Christ was made an abomination and sin, and was tempted by Satan for forty days, and fled from Herod into Egypt, and was subject to Joseph the carpenter, and was strengthened by an angel as one who feared death.
From Ephraim, most holy Bishop of Antioch, from the third book against Severus. Just as in the divine nature we speak of various properties of nature—that is, the uncreated, the unbeginning, the unalterable, the uncircumscribed, the immutable, and things related and consonant to these that are appropriate to the divine essence alone—so too, concerning the volitional faculty of God, many things are said in the holy Scriptures
A that are called volitions. In the same way, think also regarding the soul that is created in the image of God: for it possesses one and the same intellectual and rational faculty of willing, essentially, which it has received for the implanting and fulfilling of the divine commandments. This faculty, insofar as it exists according to nature, is called neither sin nor righteousness, but a volitional habit of the soul. Therefore, from this faculty of the soul, which possesses free choice, two species of volition arise, namely, the divine and the evil. And when we lean towards the commandment of God, our volition is called divine, not according to essence, but according to the act; but when it is dragged toward obedience to the evil one, then it is fittingly called carnal volition. For example: our rational nature’s volition is to love life; carnal volition, however, is to love it passionately; while the divine volition is to despise and renounce life.
Of the same, concerning the Apostle's word of prayer: «One who has been tested in all things, save for sin alone.»
Thence the choir of the Fathers with unanimous voice venerates the perfect Christ, just as in divinity, so also in humanity; seeing that He is consubstantial with us in every way, save for sin alone. And just as the substance of the Sinaitic bush was one and indivisible, surrounded on every side by the fire without harm, neither did the virtue of the fire obscure the nature of the shrub, nor did the power of the flame itself harm the shrub in any way; so therefore in the unique person of Christ, understand clearly the divine and human property. B And after other things: Wherefore the likeness and prototype of the Son of God was prefigured in the furnace of the children. For just as the human nature of those children was almost entirely joined with the power and nature of the flame, maintaining itself with bodily strength through motion and walking, and sang psalms with spiritual volition, and the fire did not harm any of their bodily or psychic properties, but Azarias was perfect in the fire and in humanity; so too must we think concerning Emmanuel: the fire of His divinity, as a kind of breath of life joined with the soul and the body, did indeed sanctify them, but did not diminish anything according to the essence of the soul and the body.
Of Proclus, archbishop of Constantinople, from his oration on the betrayal of Christ. D
He began, he says, to be sad and despondent. Now sadness, and sorrow, and stupor are proper to a spiritual soul, naturally adhering to it. For the spiritual soul of the Savior alone was immune to sin. And after other things: For when He said in prayer: «Not My will be done», having truly spoken as a man, He indicated His human will through His voice. And do not be troubled seeing Him consenting to His own flesh to undergo the agony of death. For agony is something more humble, that is, after His resurrection...
and the wounds in His hands and side, to be a participant in bodily and corruptible food for forty days. A
From Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, from his Oration on the Nativity.
For the Word liberated us from all the things that came upon us through disobedience, and He purified our nature. Those things which He Himself made according to His own image did not require a change, so that the body which was corrupted might not be corrupted [entirely], but remain corruptible, just as the soul is the image of God.
From Olympiodorus, the great philosopher and deacon of Alexandria, from his second oration against Severus, in which he produces the passage of Saint Athanasius which speaks of two wills in Christ, and discourses as follows:
And so I do not know how Severus, not having become accustomed to follow the straight path according to your own standards, can agree with the other canons. He did not unwillingly correct the present proposal of the Master, saying according to the preceding and following evangelical words—those which Athanasius weighing with the identity of the canon, applied to the humanity of the Savior those things which, because of their loftiness, are not perceived—it is manifest that when He did not wish to die, that was a will in Him who was in the form of a man. B
Interpretation of this passage.
In the oration against the Arians, in which Saint Athanasius spoke of two wills, he produced many evangelical citations of a humble nature agreeing with the humanity of Christ, such as, "My Father is greater than I" and, "Glorify Me, Father," and, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified," and, "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature." And producing all such things, he took and interpreted them as referring to the flesh of the Lord. From among these is also the passage, "Father, let this cup pass from me; yet not My will be done, but Yours." Since, therefore, some say that Christ speaks not of His own will, but of the will of emotional humanity, Olympiodorus wished to demonstrate and from the principles of Athanasius and from the consequences it is seen that he understood "not My will" as referring to the humanity of Christ. Therefore, he continues by saying that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." C Just as, therefore, we understand the Spirit of Christ, so also [do we understand] the flesh regarding the prophetic saying about man to God, which says: "You have made him a little lower than the angels," which the Apostle applying to Christ says: "We see Jesus made a little lower than the angels because of the suffering of death." D
Sequuntur in codice prolixa aliquot capita, quorum nunc exscribendorum, nedum divulgandorum, otium non est, videlicet 1. Kεφάλαιον πέμπτον ἀποδεικτικὸν διὰ πραγμάτων ὅτι ἄλλο τὸ φυσικὸν, ἄλλο τὸ σαρκικὸν, καὶ ἕτερον πάλιν τὸ θεῖον θέλημα. 2. Κεφάλαιον ἕκτον ἐν ᾧ αἱ ἀντιθέσεις τῶν ἐναντίων εὐσεβῶς σαφηνίζονται ὑφ' ἡμῶν. 3. Τοῦ ἁγίου Διονυσίου τοῦ Ἀρεοπαγίτου χρήσεις δεικνῦσαι ὅτι καὶ χωρὶς τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος ὁ Χριστὸς διαφόρους ἐνεργείας ἔχει κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Λόγου θεότητα. Subsequitur Anastasii co...
4. Concerning the theandric energy in Christ, [according to] Dionysius. 5. Chapters showing clearly that the Word, while being indivisible in his own flesh and soul, nevertheless suffered those things which belong to the flesh in his own nature, even if these things accrued to it primarily through him; and that all things are not known as theandric, as the empty-talkers imagine. 6. A chapter by which those who hold the contrary view—confessing one simple nature in Christ, as the laws of Manes do—are refuted, by Anastasius, presbyter and apocrisiarius of Rome, to the monks of Ascalon. Having come to know your pious, brotherly love, which is eager for the learning of divine dogmas... Various dogmatic definitions. Of John... concerning natural and blameless passions. We confess that our Lord Jesus Christ assumed all the natural and blameless passions of man, except for sin. For this is neither natural, nor was it sown in us by the Creator, but came into being voluntarily through the devil's sowing in our own self-determined will, not prevailing over us by force. A resolution, or rather an overturning, of the Monophysite proposition which says that the perfect divinity is the realized hypostasis of the Word of God, and that in it the whole fullness of the Trinity is seen. Aporia and examinations by question and answer, that foreknowledge and will are not the same thing, and that foreknowledge according to will is not the cause of those things foreknown concerning evil and virtue. The question of the opponents. The answer of the orthodox. By Anastasius, monk of Mount Sinai, concerning blasphemy: whence it arises. "Brothers, because the soul of man often speaks inwardly some foul and unclean thoughts, and atheistic blasphemies, and improper words against both God and the holy, life-giving, and fearful mysteries..."
OF OUR HOLY FATHER ANASTASIUS OF SINAI: A VERY USEFUL SERMON ON THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP.
A What is the reason, dearly beloved, that we have diligently and worthily gathered together to-day? For those brothers of ours, who have been called to Christ, have summoned us all together. Therefore, let us also go forward eagerly to Christ, singing hymns. For they who have left us in the flesh have aroused us, so that we might glorify them on earth, while in heaven they are glorifying [God] with the angels and performing choirs, and setting before us a spiritual table, filled with the delights of paradise, and offering us the wine of compunction; they who are enjoying the consolations of heaven, and lighting lamps, and illuminating their own hearts, and walking toward the light which cannot be approached. For they who are holy toward Christ have drawn the holy ones away from us; they have been translated from us, who once were with us; they have left us as orphans, and have walked to their own fatherland. They have forsaken corruption, and have passed on to incorruptible things; having slipped away from the world, they have risen to Christ; they have gone forth out of the shadow, and into...