If, then, Adam [2114] obeyed of his own will and ate of his own will, surely in us the will is the first part to suffer. And if the will is the first to suffer, and the Word Incarnate did not assume this with the rest of our nature, it follows that we have not been freed from sin.
Moreover, if the faculty of free-will which is in nature is His work and yet He did not assume it, He either condemned His own workmanship as not good, or grudged us the comfort it brought, and so deprived us of the full benefit, and shewed that He was Himself subject to passion since He was not willing or not able to work out our perfect salvation.
Moreover, one cannot speak of one compound thing made of two wills in the same way as a subsistence is a composition of two natures. Firstly because the compositions are of things in subsistence (hypotasis), not of things viewed in a different category, not in one proper to them [2115] : and secondly, because if we speak of composition of wills and energies, we will be obliged to speak of composition of the other natural properties, such as the uncreated and the created, the invisible and the visible, and so on. And what will be the name of the will that is compounded out of two wills? For the compound cannot be called by the name of the elements that make it up. For otherwise we should call that which is compounded of natures nature and not subsistence. And further, if we say that there is one compound will in Christ, we separate Him in will from the Father, for the Father's will is not compound. It remains, therefore, to say that the subsistence of Christ alone is compound and common, as in the case of the natures so also in that of the natural properties.
And we cannot [2116] , if we wish to be accurate, speak of Christ as having judgment (gnome) and preference [2117] . For judgment is a disposition with reference to the decision arrived at after investigation and deliberation concerning something unknown, that is to say, after counsel and decision. And after judgment comes preference [2118] , which chooses out and selects the one rather than the other. But the Lord being not mere man but also God, and knowing all things, had no need of inquiry, and investigation, and counsel, and decision, and by nature made whatever is good His own and whatever is bad foreign to Him [2119] . For thus says Isaiah the prophet, Before the child shall know to prefer the evil, he shall choose the good; because before the child knows good or evil, he refuses wickedness by choosing the good [2120] . For the word "before" proves that it is not with investigation and deliberation, as is the way with us, but as God and as subsisting in a divine manner in the flesh, that is to say, being united in subsistence to the flesh, and because of His very existence and all-embracing knowledge, that He is possessed of good in His own nature. For the virtues are natural qualities [2121] , and are implanted in all by nature and in equal measure, even if we do not all in equal measure employ our natural energies. By the transgression we were driven from the natural to the unnatural [2122] . But the Lord led us back from the unnatural into the natural [2123] . For this is what is the meaning of in our image, after our likeness [2124] . And the discipline and trouble of this life were not designed as a means for our attaining virtue which was foreign to our nature, but to enable us to cast aside the evil that was foreign and contrary to our nature: just as on laboriously removing from steel the rust which is not natural to it but acquired through neglect, we reveal the natural brightness of the steel.
Observe further that the word judgment (gnome) is used in many ways and in many senses. Sometimes it signifies exhortation: as when the divine apostle says, Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; yet I give my judgment [2125] : sometimes it means counsel, as when the prophet David says, They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people [2126] : sometimes it means a decree, as when we read in Daniel, Concerning whom (or, what) went this shameless decree forth [2127] ? At other times it is used in the sense of belief, or opinion, or purpose, and, to put it shortly, the word judgment has twenty-eight [2128] different meanings.
[2082] Leo, Epist. 10, ad Flavian.
[2083] Max., Disp. cum Pyrrho.
[2084] Supr., bk. ii. ch. 22.
[2085] oikonomias, incarnation.
[2086] Max., Dial. cum Pyrrho; Anast. in Odegos, ch. 6, p. 40.
[2087] to men haplos thelein, thelesis, etoi he theletike dunamis.
[2088] orexis.
[2089] theleton, willed, the thing willed.
[2090] thelema gnomikon, dispositional volition, will of judgment.
[2091] theletikon, volitive. Volitivum, volitive, is the Scholastic translation theletikon.
[2092] Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2093] Max., ibid.
[2094] Max., ibid.
[2095] theletikos, endowed with volition.
[2096] thelesis, will.
[2097] theletikos.
[2098] theletikos.
[2099] kai kata touto hoi Pateres to hemeteron en heauto tuposai auton ephesan thelema: and according to this the Fathers said that He typified, moulded, had the form of our will in Himself.
[2100] Greg. Nyss., Cont. Apollin and others, Act. 10, sext. syn.
[2101] Max., Agatho pap. Epist. Syn. in VI Syn., Act. 4.
[2102] St. Mark vii. 24.
[2103] Max., ibid.
[2104] St. Matt. xxvii. 33 and 34; St. John xix. 28 and 29.
[2105] empathes, passible, sensible, possessed of sensibility.
[2106] pathos, sensibility.
[2107] In N. is added: kai ei en te hemera tou pathous legei; Pater, ei dunaton, pareltheto to poterion touto ap' emou. Plen ouch hos ego thelo, all' hos su. 'Idou duo theleseis, theike hama kai anthropine.
[2108] Phil. ii. 8.
[2109] Max., ut supr.
[2110] ton hupo cheira gar tauta.
[2111] Orat. 36, some distance from the beginning.
[2112] Max., Disp. cum Pyrrh.
[2113] hos suntrechouses te hexei tes procheiriseos, the choice, or decision, being synchronous with the moral disposition.
[2114] Max., Disp. cum Pyrrh.
[2115] proton men, hoti hai suntheseis ton en hupostasei onton, kai ou ton hetero logo, kai ouk idi& 251; theoroumenon eisi.
[2116] Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2117] Max., Epist. ad Marin.
[2118] proairesis.
[2119] Basil, on Ps. xliv., or rather on Isaiah vii.
[2120] Is. vii. 16, sec. LXX.
[2121] Phusikai men gar eisin hai aretai; cf. Cicero, De leg. 1.
[2122] Supr., bk. ii., ch. 30.
[2123] Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2124] Gen. i. 26.
[2125] 1 Cor. vii. 25.
[2126] Ps. lxxxiii. 3.
[2127] Dan. ii. 15. peri tinos exelthen he gnome he anaides haute. In our A.V., Why is the decree so hasty from the king?
[2128] Text, kata eikosi okto: Variants, kata koinou, kata polu, secundum multa (old trans.), and secundum plurima (Faber). Maximus gave 28 meanings of gnome.