8

they have shown that our own choice was present by appropriation in the incarnate God.

Having especially considered this, your servant and disciple, in the works addressed to my most holy lord and teacher Thalassius concerning the difficult passages of Holy Scripture, I spoke of choice; knowing that if indeed the creator of men became a man for us, he clearly also accomplished for us the immutability of choice, as the creator of immutability; receiving the passions of our penalty through experience itself, essentially 0032 according to his authority; but the passions of our dishonor he philanthropically took up by appropriation; of which he made the appropriation the cause of passibility of choice for the human race; and the experience he has given as a faithful pledge of the consequent natural incorruptibility. For the human element of God was not moved according to choice as we are, making the discernment of opposites through counsel 15Α_040 and judgment; so that he might not be thought mutable by nature according to choice; but having received its being at the same time as its union with God the Word, it had a natural appetitive movement, that is, a will, that was unhesitating, or rather stable; or to speak more properly, a state unmoved in him, being completely deified in its most pure substantial existence by God the Word; which, naturally forming and moving(6) it as his own and as natural to his soul, he fulfilled without fantasy the great mystery of the economy for us; diminishing nothing at all of what was naturally assumed, except sin; of which no principle has been sown in any of the beings at all.

Since, therefore, the difference of the names has been made clear to us, through the description clearly adapted to each, let us not be disturbed when we hear those who use the names indiscriminately for the confusion of the things being understood; since truth is for us in things, and not in names; and let us not think that which is not the same to be the same; but piously believing, let us confess Christ to be truly perfect God, and truly perfect man, the same being in reality, properly and in truth, and not called this by a mere name alone; and for this reason let us proclaim him as two natures, of which he himself is the hypostasis, if indeed he is not without flesh; and let us dare to say that he has two natural wills, according to the Fathers, if indeed he is not without soul and without mind; and let us not dare to innovate a phrase, for which we do not have patristic authority as a refuge. For those who are zealous to be pious have a fear to speak of one natural or gnomic will of Christ, not only because of the absurdity shown, 0033 but also because no one of the saints has ever been found to have said this; truly knowing that choice 15Α_042 belongs to those capable of being moved toward both; I mean both good things and bad things; which in the case of Christ, the true essence and source of good things, even to conceive, let alone to say, is most full of all impiety. And concerning these things, this much.

Concerning the one energy mentioned in the seventh chapter of the *Difficulties* of the great Gregory, the account is clear. For I said that the future state of the saints, describing it, is one energy of God and the saints, the deifying energy of all the saints, of the hoped-for blessedness; belonging to God in essence, but having come to be for the saints by grace. Rather, I added that it is of God alone, since the deification of the saints by grace is the result of the divine energy alone(7), of which we do not have the power sown into our nature. And of those things for which we do not have the power, we also do not have the act, which is the fulfillment of a natural power. Therefore, the act depends on the power, and the power on the essence. For the act comes from the power, and the power from the essence and in the essence. There are therefore these three, as they say, that depend on each other: that which has power, the power, and the possible. And that which has power, they say, is the essence; and the power is that according to which we have the movement of being able; and

8

τήν ἡμῶν αὐτῶν προαίρεσιν τῷ σαρκωθέντι Θεῷ κατ᾿ οἰκείωσεν ἐνυπάρχουσαν, παρεδήλωσαν.

Ὅ δή μάλιστα σκοπήσας ὁ σός δοῦλος καί μαθητής, ἐν τοῖς πρός τόν ἁγιώτατόν μου κύριον καί διδάσκαλον περί τῶν ἀπόρων τῆς ἁγίας Γραφῆς ἐκτεθεῖσι Θαλάσσιον, εἶπον προαίρεσιν· εἰδῶς, ὡς εἴπερ ἡμῖν γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος ὁ ποιητής τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἡμῖν δηλονότι καί τήν ἀτρεψίαν κατώρθωσε τῆς προαιρέσεως, ὡς ἀτρεψίας δημιουργός· τά μέν τῆς ἡμῶν ἐπιτιμίας δι᾿ αὐτῆς τῆς πείρας, οὐσιωδῶς 0032 κατ᾿ ἐξουσίαν πάθη δεχόμενος· τά δέ τῆς ἀτιμίας, κατ᾿ οἰκείωσιν φιλανθρώπως ἀναδεχόμενος· ὧν τήν μέν οἰκείωσιν, τῆς προαιρετικῆς ἀπαθείας αἰτίαν τῷ γένει πεποίηται· τήν δέ πεῖραν, τῆς ἑπομένης φυσικῆς ἀφθαρσίας πιστόν ἀῤῥαβῶνα δεδώρηται. Τό γάρ ἀνθρώπινον τοῦ Θεοῦ, κατά προαίρεσιν ὡς ἡμεῖς οὐ κεκίνηται, διά βουλῆς πεποιημένον 15Α_040 καί κρίσεως τήν τῶν ἀντικειμένων διάγνωσιν· ἵνα μή φύσει κατά προαίρεσιν νομισθείη τρεπτόν· ἀλλ᾿ ἅμα τῇ πρός τόν Θεόν Λόγον ἑνώσει τό εἶναι λαβόν, ἀδίστακτον, μᾶλλον δέ στάσιμον τήν κατ᾿ ὄρεξιν φυσικήν ἤτοι θέλησιν, κίνησιν ἔσχεν· ἤ κυριώτερον εἰπεῖν, τήν στάσιν ἀκίνητον ἐν αὐτῷ κατά τήν ἀκραιφνεστάτην οὐσίωσιν τῷ Θεῷ Λόγῳ παντελῶς θεωθεῖσαν· ἥν φυσικῶς τυπῶν τε καί κινῶν(6), ὡς οἰκείαν, καί τῆς αὐτοῦ ψυχῆς φυσικήν, ἀφαντασιάστως πεπλήρωκε τό μέγα τῆς ὑπέρ ἡμῶν οἰκονομίας μυστήριον· μηδέν τοῦ προσλήμματος φυσικόν παντελῶς ἀπομειώσας, πλήν τῆς ἁμαρτίας· ἧς οὐδείς οὐδενί τῶν ὄντων καθάπαξ ἐνέσπαρται λόγος.

Τῆς οὖν διαφορᾶς τῶν ὀνομάτων φανερᾶς ἡμῖν γεγενημένης, διά τῆς εὐκρινῶς ἑκάστῳ προσαρμοσθείσης ὑπογραφῆς, μή ταρασσώμεθα τῶν ἐπί συγχύσει τῶν νοουμένων πραγμάτων, ἀδιακρίτως τοῖς ὀνόμασι κεχριμένων ἀκούοντες· εἴπερ ἐν πράγμασιν ἡμῖν, ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ ὀνόμασιν ἡ ἀλήθεια· καί νομίσωμεν ταυτόν εἶναι τό μή ταυτόν· ἀλλ' εὐσεβῶς πιστεύοντες, ὁμολογήσωμεν τόν Χριστόν Θεόν τέλειον ἀληθῶς, καί ἄνθρωπον τέλειον ἀληθῶς, τόν αὐτόν πράγματι κυρίως κατ᾿ ἀλήθειαν ὄντα, καί οὐ μόνῃ ψιλῇ κλήσει τοῦτο λεγόμενον· καί διά τοῦτο φύσεις δύο, ὧν αὐτός ἐστιν ὑπόστασις, εἴπερ οὐκ ἄσαρκος, αὐτόν καταγγείλωμεν· καί δύο θελήματα φυσικά, κατά τούς Πατέρας· εἴπερ οὐκ ἄψυχος καί ἄνους, ἔχειν αὐτόν παῤῥησιασώμεθα· καί μή θαῤῥήσωμεν καινίσαι φωνήν, ἐφ᾿ ᾗ καταφυγήν οὐκ ἔχομεν τήν πατρικήν αὐθεντίαν. Ἕν γάρ θέλημα Χριστοῦ φυσικόν, ἤ προαιρετικόν, οὐ μόνον διά τήν δειχθεῖσαν ἀτοπίαν δέος εἰπεῖν τούς εὐσεβεῖν ἐσπουδακότας, 0033 ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι καί μηδείς τῶν ἁγίων πώποτε τοῦτο φήσας πέφανται· ἀληθῶς εἰδότες, ὡς ἡ προαίρεσις 15Α_042 τῶν ἐπ᾿ ἄμφω· τά καλά τε λέγω καί τά κακά, κινεῖσθαι δυναμένων ἐστίν· ὅπερ ἐπί Χριστοῦ τῆς ὄντως οὐσίας τῶν ἀγαθῶν καί πηγῆς, κἄν ἐννοεῖν, μή ὅτι γε λέγειν, πάσης ἀσεβείας πληρέστατον. Καί περί μέν τούτων ταῦτα.

Περί δέ τῆς ἐν τῷ ἑβδόμῳ κεφαλαίῳ τῶν ἀπόρων τοῦ μεγάλου Γρηγορίου κειμένης μιᾶς ἐνεργείας, σαφής ὁ λόγος. Τήν ἐσόμενην γάρ κατά τό μέλλον τῶν ἁγίων ὑπογράφων κατάστασιν, ἔφην μίαν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Θεοῦ καί τῶν ἁγίων, τήν πάντων ἐκθεωτικήν τῶν ἁγίων, τῆς ἐλπιζομένης μακαριότητος· τοῦ μέν Θεοῦ κατ᾿ οὐσίαν ὑπάρχουσαν, τῶν ἁγίων δέ κατά χάριν γεγενημένης. Μᾶλλον δέ, μόνον Θεοῦ προσεπήγαγον· ἐπειδή μόνης ἀποτέλεσμα τῆς θείας ἐνεργείας ἐστίν(7), ἡ κατά χάριν τῶν ἁγίων ἐκθέωσις, ἧς ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἔχομεν ἐγκατεσπαρμένην τῇ φύσει τήν δύναμιν. Ὧν δέ τήν δύναμιν οὐκ ἔχομεν, τούτων οὐδέ τήν πρᾶξιν, φυσικῆς δυνάμεως οὖσαν συμπλήρωσιν. Ἔχεται οὖν ἡ μέν πρᾶξις, δυνάμεως· ἡ δέ δύναμις, οὐσίας, Ἥ τε γάρ πρᾶξις, ἀπό δυνάμεως καί ἡ δύναμις, ἀπό τῆς οὐσίας καί ἐν τῇ οὐσίᾳ. Τρία οὖν ταῦτά ἐστιν, ὡς φασιν, ἀλλήλων ἐχόμενα· δυνάμενον, δύναμις, δυνατόν. Καί δυνάμενον μέν λέγουσι, τήν οὐσίαν· δύναμιν δέ, καθ᾿ ἥν ἔχομεν τήν τοῦ δύνασθαι κίνησιν· καί