never was, and never could be, a variation or a shadow of conflict between them.8 The Son of God from all eternity willed this great mystery of His Incarnation; and in time, by the spirit of prophecy, He said, 'In the head of the book it is written of Me-Ecce venioBehold, I come to do Thy Will, O God." When He came into the world He said, 'My meat is to do the 86 ' And that in Him were two natural wills or volitions, and two natural operations without division, or change, or separation, or confusion, . . . . and two natural wills not contrary, God forbid, as impious heretics have said, but His human will subjected to His Divine and Almighty Will without resistance or reluctance. For the will of the flesh must needs be moved and subjected to His Divine will, according to the doctrine of Athanasius, who was most wise for as His flesh is called and is the flesh of God (σápέ Toû cov), so also the natural will of His flesh is called and is the will of God, according to His own declaration, "I came down from heaven, not that I should do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me," that is, the Father. He called the will of the flesh His own Will, as also His flesh became His own; for as the most holy and spotless and living flesh being deified was not destroyed, but remained in its own state and kind, so also His human will being deified was not destroyed, but was rather preserved, according to the saying of Gregory Theologus: "For His will, which is understood, in the Saviour is not contrary to God, but is wholly deified. We adore also two natural operations without division, without change, without separation, without confusion in Him our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, that is, the divine operation and the human operation; as the divine teacher Leo most clearly asserted, for each nature wrought that which was proper to itself in union with the other; the Word, that is, operating that which is of the Word, and the body accomplishing that which is of the body."' Definitio Synodi VI. Const. III. A.D. 680. 9 Ps. xxxix. 8. will of Him that sent Me.'10 In His agony in the garden He said, 'Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done.'11 There was then no conflict in His human will. It was in perfect conformity with the divine. And upon the cross He offered Himself; as the prophet Isaias wrote, 'Oblatus est quia ipse voluit1-He offered Himself because He willed it.' Of His own will He gave up the Ghost: Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.'18 And these free acts of our Divine Redeemer had an infinite merit. It was the free oblation of the life and of the Blood of God that redeemed the world. 4. But though He had two natures, two intelligences, two hearts, and two wills perfect and distinct, yet there was but one agent. All His actions were divine and human, because the agent is both God and man. His actions are therefore called theandric or deiviriles, because they are the actions of God and man. There is but one agent, because there is but one person; and that one person is the Person of the Eternal Word. In the Incarnate Son there is no human personality, neither could there be. For a person is a rational nature, complete and 10 S. John iv. 34. 11 S. Mark xiv. 36. perfect, subsisting in itself, independent of all others. The Eternal Son of God is a person complete and perfect in Himself; therefore a human person in Jesus there could not be.14 If there had been a human person, Jesus could not have been God Incarnate. He might have been the son of a woman, and therefore the son of man, but He would not have been the Incarnate God. And it was impossible that there should be confusion in His personality, for, as I said before, a human person cannot become a divine person; because he cannot cease to be finite; and a divine person cannot become a human person, because he cannot cease to be infinite. Two persons cannot coexist without real distinction. And if there had been a human personality, Mary would have been, as Nestorius said, Mother of Christ, not Mother of God. Therefore, the Person of the Eternal Son was the sole and only personality in our Redeemer. In assuming our humanity, there was never a moment of time when that human nature existed 14 Uniri hypostaticè Deum et hominem, nihil esse aliud quam naturam humanam non habere propriam subsistentiam, sed as'sumptam esse a Verbo æterno ad ipsam Verbi subsistentiam.' Bellarm. De Incarn. lib. iii. c. viii. 3. 'Hoc est, unionem hypostaticam consistere in communicatione subsistentiæ Verbi non in communicatione attributorum Deitatis.' Ibid. s. 15. separate from or independent of the personality of the Eternal Son of God. The act of the Incarnation was an instantaneous act of almighty power. The Eternal Son clothed His Person with our manhood, and thereby anticipated all human personality by His own. If that human nature had ever for one moment subsisted independently, it would have had its own personality. But it was never for one moment conceived independent; and cannot, even in thought, be separated from the Person of the Eternal Son without ceasing to be the Humanity of God. The absence of human personality in the Incarnation of the Son is no imperfection of the Sacred Humanity. It is its highest perfection. Our human nature was elevated; it was perfected with a perfection above its own, and was thereby lifted above the order of creation. It was assumed into immediate union with a divine Person, and because it was assumed into the unity of a divine Person it was in Him united to the Divine Nature, and thereby deified. It became the flesh of God-it became from that moment unto all eternity the flesh of God, because those two natures subsisting in the Eternal Word can never be divided. And at the right hand of God there sits the Incarnate Son; God clothed in our humanity for ever. As, then, there never was a moment when His sacred humanity was separated from the Person of the Eternal Son, so there never shall be. 5. Lastly, as I have said, the humanity of Jesus, being the humanity of God, was thereby ipso facto, eo ipso, in the very moment of the Incarnation, by necessity, deified, for it became the flesh or the humanity of God.15 Now there are two senses in 15 S. Athanasius says: 'God Himself was made Flesh that His Flesh might be made God the Word.' Lib. de Human. Natura Suscepta. sect. 3, tom. ii. p. 873, ed. Ben. 'Therefore he assumed a human and ingenerate body that, having renewed it as its maker, He might make it God,' i.e. 'deify it.' Orat. II. contra Arianos, 70, tom. ii. p. 537. 'Though the Flesh regarded in itself be a part of things created, yet it has been made the Body of God.' Ep. ad Adelphium, sect. 3, S. Ath. Opp. tom. ii. p. 912. 'He deified that which He put on.' Orat. contra Arianos, i. s. 7. The Lord when made man for us, and bearing a body, was no less God, . . . . but (He) rather deified it.' Ep. in Defence of the Nicene Creed, sect. 3. 'For He received it as far as man's nature was exalted; which exaltation was its being deified.' Orat. I. contra Arianos, s. 45. Being God, He has taken to Him the flesh, and being in the flesh makes the flesh God, eоTOιeî; i.e. He deifies it.' Orat. III. contra Arianos, sect. 38. S. Cyril of Alexandria says: 'We never say that the flesh of the Word was made divinity, but divine, forasmuch as it was His own (flesh). For if the flesh of man is called human, what hinders our calling that (flesh) divine which is the flesh of God the Word? Why then mock and revile the apotheosis of that holy flesh which we rightly understand to be deification?' S. Cyrill. adv. Nest. ii. 8, tom. vi. p. 51. Again he says: Therefore we assert the Body of Christ to be divine; since it is the Body of God, adorned with ineffable glory, incorruptible, holy, life-giving; but that it has been changed into |