for just as from the very moment of conception he became a perfect infant, the body not being gradually articulated and organized bit by bit — as the great Basil says in his homily on the Nativity — so also he became perfect in human and divine wisdom from the very moment of conception, as man, that is to say;
for as God he did not become perfect in divine wisdom, but was so eternally; but according to the advance of the body's stature, the manifestation of the perfect human wisdom in him was reckoned as advance.
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Εἰδὲσοφίανἔσχενἀνθρωπίνην, πάντωςκαὶνοῦν·
他若有人性的智慧,那麼他必然也有〔人性的〕心思(理智);
And if he had human wisdom, then certainly also a human mind;
'But we have the mind of Christ.' And the holy Fathers, moreover, understand 'according to the image' in terms of the intellectual faculty, whose testimonies we have appended below.
If, then, he assumed the man made according to his image, that is, the nature of humanity, then certainly he assumed an intellectual and rational nature.
for as God by nature he had a divine, almighty willing, and as having become man by nature he had the human willing, according to which he willed, having entered into a house, to go unnoticed, and was not able.
He had, then, the volitional power of his human soul, and according to this he willed human things, and according to his soul's willing he was moved toward human things — just as, by the divine willing, he willed divine things, the one and the same Son of God, Christ, perfect God and perfect man — but not with any opposition of gnomic disposition;
for his human willing was subjected, of its own free choice, to his divine and paternal will, and it willed those things which his divine willing willed it to will.
For since the willing of Adam was not subjected to the divine will, but his gnomic disposition willed things contrary to the divine will — and this was the transgression, and none of those descended from Adam has become obedient to the divine will in all things, but each hypostasis, according to its own gnomic disposition, has become disobedient to the divine will —
(for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, according to the Apostle) — for this reason the Son of God, having become man by the Father's good pleasure, assumed a human nature and a natural human willing, but did not assume a human hypostasis, so that the natural willing of humanity might not act, according to its own hypostatic and gnomic will, contrary to the divine will, but might, of its own free choice, become obedient in all things, and thus the ancient transgression be undone.
By human willing, then, he willed, his divine willing having consented and given opportunity to his human nature to make use of its own properties — to will, I mean, and not to be able.
'Nevertheless, not my will be done, but yours.' Behold the natural and rational appetite of the mind, self-determining and judging and restraining the irrational appetite.
gnomic disposition, contrary to your will, my human willing should act, but that it should become obedient to your will, and that the object willed by your willing should also become the object willed by my human willing.
for it is not proposed to him to enact the divine willing itself — for this is uncreated and without beginning — but rather the thing willed, which the divine willing wills; just as also 'all his wills' is to be understood as referring to these very things.
For there are not many volitional faculties of God, but one; nor is the volitional faculty of God in the saints — since then the nature too would be one (for those whose willing is one, of these the nature is also one) — but rather the wills of God are in the saints, that is, his commandments.
It has been shown, then, that just as Christ had two natures, so also he had two natural willings and two natural operations, so that he might be perfect God and perfect man;
for one who does not have all the properties of the Godhead, and before these the divine nature, is not perfect God; nor is one who does not have the perfect nature of man and all the natural properties of humanity, a perfect man.
He also had the divine operation, according to which, willing of his own free choice, he operated divine things together with the Father and the Spirit;
For it was not by divine willing that he willed to escape notice, and yet could not; nor did he will to eat and drink by divine willing—for these are things willed by human nature, and not by the divine—; nor did he walk or stretch out his hands by divine operation.
Yet each of the two natures in Christ, in communion with the other, willed and operated that which was proper to it, his human willing and operation being made subservient to his divine willing and operation.
For just as through his bodily operation his divine operation was at work—for he took hold with his hand of the girl's hand and said, "Little girl, arise," and through the touch and the word the divine operation gave life to the maiden—so also through his human willing his divine willing was at work.
For he did not perform the divine things merely as God—for he did not work the miracles through the touch and stretching-out of hands as bare God—nor did he do the human things merely as man—for the sufferings that brought salvation to the world were not those of a mere man—but, being God and having become man, he displayed a certain new and strange theandric operation: divine, yet operating through the human; human, yet made subservient to the divine, and manifesting the tokens of the divinity conjoined with it.
For fire does not cut, but burns and gives light; and iron, according to its own natural operation, neither burns nor gives light, but cuts and is black.
But when a union of the two takes place, each performs its own operation in union and not in division—for at the same instant as the cutting the burning also occurs, and through the iron the fire burns and gives light—yet it is not one natural operation but two: one, the natural operation of the fire, which is the burning; the other, the natural operation of the iron, which is the cutting; and each has its own proper result: that of the fire, the burning; that of the iron, the cutting—even though the cutting is a burning cutting, and the burning is a cutting burning.
And in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, each nature operates its own properties in communion with the other, and the two are not one, nor is there one result of the two; but it belongs to his human nature freely to obey and to be subservient to the divine will, and by its own will to stretch out the hand and touch the girl in obedience to, and in service of, the divine will, while it is the divinity that, through the touch, effects the raising of the girl.
For indeed the Lord, having pity on his own creature, which had willingly received the affliction of sin as a sowing by the enemy, assumed the whole of what was diseased, that he might heal the whole.
In order, then, that he might banish from the soul the disease of sin sown by the enemy, for this reason he assumed a soul and its willing, but did not commit sin; and in order that he might free the body from corruption and the servitude of sin, he also assumed a body.
He also took upon himself the penalties incurred by the first transgression, that, by paying on our behalf the debt that lay against us, he might free us from condemnation.
For this reason he himself, being sinless and therefore free, and subject neither to death nor to any other penalty, took upon himself our penalties on our behalf and died for us, that he might give power to those who receive him to become children of God, and grant them incorruptibility, and in the regeneration, in the age to come, bestow upon them a life equal to the angels', free from grief and free from toil.
For it is necessary first to endure the things of the first Adam, from whom we have also received our origin, and thus to obtain the gifts of the second Adam.
If we follow in his footsteps and keep the law of freedom and do not again become enslaved to the yoke of sin—for having freed our nature, he again gave us a commandment and showed us a way, walking in which we shall reign together with him, going where he himself, as our forerunner, has gone; but if we travel another way, we shall remain outside—may it be granted us, following in his footsteps, always to be with him and to enjoy his glory and kingdom, now and always and unto the ages of ages.