Indeed, the most wise and great and holy John Chrysostom says in his interpretation of the Acts, in the second discourse [2153] , "One would not err if he should call even His passion action: for in that He suffered all things, He accomplished that great and marvellous work, the overthrow of death, and all His other works."
If all energy is defined as essential movement of some nature, as those who are versed in these matters say, where does one perceive any nature that has no movement, and is completely devoid of energy, or where does one find energy that is not movement of natural power? But, as the blessed Cyril says [2154] , no one in his senses could admit that there was but one natural energy of God and His creation [2155] . It is not His human nature that raises up Lazarus from the dead, nor is it His divine power that sheds tears: for the shedding of tears is peculiar to human nature while the life is peculiar to the enhypostatic life. But yet they are common the one to the other, because of the identity in subsistence. For Christ is one, and one also is His person or subsistence, but yet He has two natures, one belonging to His humanity, and another belonging to His divinity. And the glory, indeed, which proceeded naturally from His divinity became common to both through the identity in subsistence, and again on account of His flesh that which was lowly became common to both. For He Who is the one or the other, that is God or man, is one and the same, and both what is divine and what is human belong to Himself. For while His divinity performed the miracles, they were not done apart from the flesh, and while His flesh performed its lowly offices, they were not done apart from the divinity. For His divinity was joined to the suffering flesh, yet remaining without passion, and endured the saving passions, and the holy mind was joined to the energising divinity of the Word, perceiving and knowing what was being accomplished.
And thus His divinity communicates its own glories to the body while it remains itself without part in the sufferings of the flesh. For His flesh did not suffer through His divinity in the same way that His divinity energised through the flesh. For the flesh acted as the instrument of His divinity. Although, therefore, from the first conception there was no division at all between the two forms [2156] , but the actions of either form through all the time became those of one person, nevertheless we do not in any way confuse those things that took place without separation, but recognise from the quality of its works what sort of form anything has.
Christ, then, energises according to both His natures [2157] and either nature energises in Him in communion with the other, the Word performing through the authority and power of its divinity all the actions proper to the Word, i.e. all acts of supremacy and sovereignty, and the body performing all the actions proper to the body, in obedience to the will of the Word that is united to it, and of whom it has become a distinct part. For He was not moved of Himself to the natural passions [2158] , nor again did He in that way recoil from the things of pain, and pray for release from them, or suffer what befel from without, but He was moved in conformity with His nature, the Word willing and allowing Him oeconomically [2159] to suffer that, and to do the things proper to Him, that the truth might be confirmed by the works of nature.
Moreover, just as [2160] He received in His birth of a virgin superessential essence, so also He revealed His human energy in a superhuman way, walking with earthly feet on unstable water, not by turning the water into earth, but by causing it in the superabundant power of His divinity not to flow away nor yield beneath the weight of material feet. For not in a merely human way did He do human things: for He was not only man, but also God, and so even His sufferings brought life and salvation: nor yet did He energise as God, strictly after the manner of God, for He was not only God, but also man, and so it was by touch and word and such like that He worked miracles.
But if any one [2161] should say, "We do not say that Christ has but one nature, in order to do away with His human energy, but we do so because [2162] human energy, in opposition to divine energy, is called passion (patthos)," we shall answer that, according to this reasoning, those also who hold that He has but one nature do not maintain this with a view to doing away with His human nature, but because human nature in opposition to divine nature is spoken of as passible (pathetike ). But God forbid that we should call the human activity passion, when we are distinguishing it from divine energy. For, to speak generally, of nothing is the existence recognised or defined by comparison or collation. If it were so, indeed, existing things would turn out to be mutually the one the cause of the other. For if the human activity is passion because the divine activity is energy, assuredly also the human nature must be wicked because the divine nature is good, and, by conversion and opposition, if the divine activity is called energy because the human activity is called passion, then also the divine nature must be good because the human nature is bad. And so all created things must be bad, and he must have spoken falsely who said, And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good [2163] .
We, therefore, maintain [2164] that the holy Fathers gave various names to the human activity according to the underlying notion. For they called it power, and energy, and difference, and activity, and property, and quality, and passion, not in distinction from the divine activity, but power, because it is a conservative and invariable force; and energy, because it is a distinguishing mark, and reveals the absolute similarity between all things of the same class; and difference, because it distinguishes; and activity, because it makes manifest; and property, because it is constituent and belongs to that alone, and not to any other; and quality, because it gives form; and passion, because it is moved. For all things that are of God and after God suffer in respect of being moved, forasmuch as they have not in themselves motion or power. Therefore, as has been said, it is not in order to distinguish the one from the other that it has been named, but it is in accordance with the plan implanted in it in a creative manner by the Cause that framed the universe. Wherefore, also, when they spoke of it along with the divine nature they called it energy. For he who said, "For either form energises close communion with the other [2165] ," did something quite different from him who said, And when He had fasted forty days, He was afterwards an hungered [2166] : (for He allowed His nature to energise when it so willed, in the way proper to itself [2167] ,) or from those who hold there is a different energy in Him or that He has a twofold energy, or now one energy and now another [2168] . For these statements with the change in terms [2169] signify the two energies. Indeed, often the number is indicated both by change of terms and by speaking of them as divine and human [2170] . For the difference is difference in differing things, but how do things that do not exist differ?
[2129] Cf. Anast., De operationibus, I.; Joan. Scyth, Con. Sever. VIII., &c.
[2130] Supr. bk. ii.: Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2131] Orat. 37, near the beginning.
[2132] Anast. Antioch., De operationibus.
[2133] kai auto to apoteloumenon; cf. Max., ad Marin. II.
[2134] Max. tom. ii., Dogmat. ad Marin., p. 124.
[2135] St. Matt. viii. 3.
[2136] St. John vi. 11.
[2137] See Act. 10 sextæ synodi.
[2138] Text, theegorous. Variant, theophorous.
[2139] Orat. de natura et hyp. Also in Basil. 43.
[2140] Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2141] Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2142] St. John v. 17.
[2143] Ibid. 19.
[2144] Ibid. x. 38.
[2145] Ibid. v. 36.
[2146] Ibid. 21.
[2147] Max., ibid.
[2148] Maxim., lib. De duab. vol. et Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2149] St. Luke viii. 54; Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2150] Max., ibid.
[2151] Max., ibid.
[2152] Text, he de kata phusin energeia. Variant, ei de.
[2153] Hom. 1.
[2154] Thes., xxxii., ch. 2; Act. 10, sextæ Synodi.
[2155] The Monotheletes made much of the case of the raising of the daughter of Jairus. See Cyril, In Joan., p. 351; Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh., Epist. ad Nicand., Epist. ad Mon. Sicil.; Scholiast in Collect. cont. Severum, ch. 20.
[2156] oikonomo, in incarnate form.
[2157] Leo, Epist. cit.
[2158] ou gar aph' heautou pros ta phusika pathe ten hormen epoieito, oud' auten ek ton lupe?on haphormen kai paraitesin.
[2159] The term is morphe, as in Phil. ii. 6, 7.
[2160] Dion., ch. 2, De div. nom. et Epist. 4.
[2161] Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
[2162] See the reply of Maximus in the Dialogue cum Pyrrh.
[2163] Gen. i. 31.
[2164] Max., Opusc. Polem., pp. 31, 32.
[2165] Leo, Epist. 10.
[2166] St. Matt. iv. 2.
[2167] Nyss., adv. Apoll.
[2168] Chrysost., Hom. in S. Thom.
[2169] di' antonumias.
[2170] Cyril, in Joan., bk. viii.