Document against HH Pope Shenouda's "The Nature of Christ"

Comments

• peterfarrington

  December 2010

  The phrase 'in thought alone' belongs to both communities. It means that the distinction between the humanity and Divinity is real but does not become a division. When we see Christ we see the Incarnate Word of God. If we could have touched Christ, we would have been touching the Incarnate Word of God.
  
  The distinction between the humanity and Divinity is real, but it is not correct to say, I touched only the humanity of the Word of God. We would have been touching the Word of God Himself, Incarnate.
  
  Why is it disturbing to find that a saint might criticise another saint? This happened all the time. But in fact the Eastern Orthodox who composed this tract you have referenced have not bothered to spend any time studying the authentic writings of St Timothy. They have scrabbled around in a few Greek fragments. There are many of his writings available, but they have ignored them all. This particular one was actually written after the time of St Timothy by a different Pope Timothy. It is not even an extract from a letter of any Timothy, but it is hearsay in any case and the full text of the fragment says something like 'It is said that Timothy said in a letter....'.
  
  Here is a link to a paper I wrote about St Timothy -
  
  http://britishorthodox.org/glastonbury-review-archive/misc/that-they-may-be-one-31-st-timothy-aelurus-of-alexandria/
  
  and
  
  http://britishorthodox.org/glastonbury-review-archive/misc/that-they-may-be-one-32-st-timothy-aelurus-of-alexandria/
  
  You must understand, these people, and this website, are not neutral. Their aim is to damage our Orthodox Church. I would urge you not to visit it, since it has clearly confused you. And I would urge all other Copts not to visit it. To increase its visitor numbers and to provide links to it is to encourage and support those who damage and harm our Orthodox Church.
  
  St Timothy is one of the great unsung Coptic Orthodox saints and one of my patrons. I venerate him greatly.
  
  Father Peter
• peterfarrington

  December 2010

  Let me add, having dug through my memory and notes.
  
  The text quoted by the EO source cannot be St Timothy Aelurus because he refers to St Severus who lived and died after his own death. Patrick Gray, an excellent modern scholar of the Christological Controversy, says who makes this reference,
  
  Leontius... ending with a curious citation, allegedly, but impossibly from Timothy Aelurus.
  
  
  Father Peter
• anba bola

  December 2010

  Thanks for the explanation of St. Timothy's quote. It was a great relief to find out that St. Timothy wasn't speaking out against St. Cyril. I've also edited out the link in my other post.
  
  I've noticed that a lot of what is written about the council of Chalcedon is utterly false. For example in reading the condemnation of St. Dioscorus by the council of Chalcedon:

  The holy and great and ecumenical Synod, which by the grace of God according to the constitution of our most pious and beloved of God emperors assembled together at Chalcedon the city of Bithynia, in the martyry of the most holy and victorious Martyr Euphemia to Dioscorus.
  
  We do you to wit that on the thirteenth day of the month of October you were deposed from the episcopate and made a stranger to all ecclesiastical order (θεσμοῦ ) by the holy and ecumenical synod, on account of your disregard of the divine canons, and of your disobedience to this holy and ecumenical synod and on account of the other crimes of which you have been found guilty, for even when called to answer your accusers three times by this holy and great synod according to the divine canons you did not come.
  

  I saw that it said nothing about any Christological differences but rather that he didn't attend when called upon, and through some research I found that this is because he was put under house arrest.
  
  
  However there is still one problem. What is the difference if any between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox formulations.  Would it be correct to say that Oriental Orthodox believe one unified nature, and that the Eastern Orthodox believe that there are two natures unified in one hypostasis? Also if a reunion occurred between the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox what Christological reason would prevent us from accepting Chalcedon if any?
  
  Please pray for me
• Ioannes

  December 2010

  The interesting thing about the Eastern church is that they accept the tome of Leo I. Which clearly separates the natures of Christ into two distinct individuals, and they call us heretics. They denounce papal primacy of Rome, yet accept Leo I, the mastermind behind it. They reject nestorianism but accept Theodoret, who wrote against St. Cyril, as a saint. The eastern church cant seem to make up its mind as to what is what. Let them condemn us, its them who are hipocrites and dont even realize it.
• peterfarrington

  December 2010

  We accept that the Eastern Orthodox hold an Orthodox Christology, but we consider that the Eastern Orthodox formulations are less satisfactory than those we use. It is possible to understand the Eastern Orthodox formulations in an Orthodox manner.
  
  In regard to Chalcedon, it is an event that took place in a real place and a real time. It is not possible to accept it, since this would require that we revise our entire understanding of that event. It is possible to reconsider the formulations and accept them in an Orthodox manner as being Orthodox but not authoritative and being rather ambiguous.
  
  Any document must be taken in the sense it is understood by those who use it. Even the creed can be understood in an Orthodox and an heretical manner. Mere words on their own do not guarantee the meaning which words carry. When we hear what Eastern Orthodox believe we see that generally speaking it is within the bounds of an Orthodox Christology, even though our own formulations and understandings seem to me to be much more satisfactory.
  
  Our fathers the bishops, indeed all the Synods of all of the Orthodox Churches, have agreed that the Eastern Orthodox are Orthodox even though they use a different lexicon. What is necessary is to go behind and beneath a particular vocabulary and understand what is meant.
  
  Father Peter
• anba bola

  December 2010

  Thank you Father Peter.  :)
  
  I have one last quick question. Do we believe that Christ has 1 unified will (i.e. what would be the term: mia or mono?).
• peterfarrington

  December 2010

  I am not a big fan of reducing the issue of will to a number, since whatever answer will be given will tend to cause misunderstanding.
  
  I think that we have to make several statements.
  
  i. The humanity of Christ has the faculty of willing as a natural component. This is particularly identified with the term 'rational' in our Fathers, which means a thinking, willing being. The Fathers are insistent that the Word of God became incarnate in a rational flesh, which therefore describes a flesh which has the faculty of will.
  
  ii. The blameless passions of hunger and thirst etc are not the same as the will. We may feel hungry and inclined to eat, but it is the exercise of our will that determines what we do. When we fast we are not considered to have broken the fast if we feel hungry, but if we will to eat.
  
  iii. The will is the place where we sin. Sin has no existence apart from as the disordered exercise of the will. The will is not our feelings, or even our desires, but our choices. Sin was introduced into our human existence when Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
  
  iv. It was necessary for the Word of God to be incarnate in a rational humanity because it is the human will which is especially weakened by the Fall, and was the locus of the Fall itself.
  
  v. But the one who wills is One, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate. All that is humanly willed is willed by the Word of God and no other.
  
  vi. The substance of those willed acts which our Lord wills in His humanity is the same substance as His Divine will. There is no separation or division, as if our Lord was schizophrenic. The same will of God is willed in the Divinity and in the humanity of our Lord in union with His Divinity, but the Divine will is willed humanly in his humanity and Divinely in His Divinity.
  
  vii. There is one will of the Word of God Incarnate because we cannot say that the humanity has some different object of will in relation to the Divine will. If we say that the humanity is led to will other than the Divine will then the humanity sins, because to will other than the will of God is sin.
  
  viii. This oneness is found in the oneness of He who wills, and in the oneness of the object of His willing, even while it is clear that the humanity is not without the faculty of will proper to our humanity. But this human faculty belongs only to the Word of God incarnate and to no other. Therefore just as the hand of the Christ is the hand of the Word of God and no other, so the human faculty of will is also the human faculty of will of the Word of God and no other.
  
  Therefore I am not entirely happy with simply saying that there is one will or two. To say there is one will without explanation might well lead others to think that we deny the human faculty of will in Christ. But to say two might well lead others to say that the humanity has a willing centre itself apart from the Word of God incarnate.
  
  Father Peter
• anba bola

  December 2010

  Thanks Fr. Peter, you've answered everything and more.
• jydeacon

  December 2010

  Father Peter,
  
  I also had a question that relates to the Will of God, that always confused me. If you answered this in your previous post I apologize I did not read the whole thing. When Christ prays in the garden and says, Let your will be done and not mine, how can this be? Does God the Father and God the Son have seperate wills? This cannot be correct? If they have one will, is Christ simply showing us how we should pray? Thanks
• peterfarrington

  December 2010

  Do try and read all of this post because it requires time to explain the teaching of the Church.
  
  The account of our Lord praying in the Garden of Gethsemane has been used by those who wish to suggest that our Lord was essentially no more than a God-filled man. But we may turn to the Fathers and see what they have always taught. Suffice it to say that if the Lord Jesus Christ had a different will to that of the Word of God and the Father Almighty then he would not be God.
  
  If we consider the passage as recorded in St Matthew's Gospel:
  
  Matthew 26:37-39  And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
  
  Matthew 26:42  He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
  
  and as recorded in St Mark's Gospel:
  
  Mark 14:33-36  And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.
  
  and as recorded in St Luke's Gospel:
  
  Luke 22:41-44  And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
  
  The Fathers have considered these passages from the earliest times, and their comments fall into several categories. The Fathers tend to adopt several different understandings at once, so that it is not the case that one view should be exclusive of all others.
  
  i. Our Lord wishes to show His disciples how to pray, and especially how to pray in the face of danger. They are to submit their own wishes to that of the Father. Not my will but yours be done, is the mark of a true disciple.
  
  ii. There is a distinction between a natural desire and the will. We may well be hungry but we may also WILL not to eat during the fast. In the same way, our Lord allows His humanity to experience the fear which is natural to it in the face of death, but this natural shrinking is not what He wills. YOUR will be done, he says. Rather than the natural and blameless desire of my flesh. It is what we CHOOSE that is the expression of the will.
  
  iii. Many of the Fathers agree that our Lord was not sorrowful because of the thought of what HE would suffer, but because of the suffering that He saw would come upon His disciples, the running from the Garden of Gethsemane in a few moments, the betrayal of St Peter, the tears of His Mother, the death of Judas, and especially the separation of the Jewish people from the will of God. He asks if there is another way for their sake, not for His own.
  
  Here are the words of St Cyril:
  
  But all the same it grieves Me for Israel the firstborn, that henceforth He is not even among the servants. The portion of the Lord, and the cord of My inheritance, will be "the portion of foxes," as it is written. He Who was the beloved one is greatly hated: he who had the promises is utterly stripped of My gifts: the pleasant vineyard with its rich grapes henceforth will be a desert land, a place dried up, and without water. "For I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it." "I will break through its hedge, and it shall be a spoil: and I will beat down its wall, and it shall be trampled under foot." And tell me then, what husbandman, when his vineyard is desert and waste, will feel no anguish for it? What shepherd would be so harsh and stern as, when his flock was perishing, to suffer nothing on its account? These are the causes of My grief: for these things I am sorrowful. For I am God, gentle, and that loves to spare. "I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his evil way and live." Right therefore is it, most right, that as being good and merciful, I should not only be glad at what is joyful, but also should feel sorrow at whatsoever is grievous.
  
  and
  
  And this too I think it necessary to add to what has been said: that the passion of grief, or malady, as we may call it, of sore distress, cannot have reference to the divine and impassive nature of the Word; for that is impossible, inasmuch as It transcends all passion: but we say that the Incarnate Word willed also to submit Himself to the measure of human nature, by being supposed to suffer what belongs to it. As therefore He is said to have hungered, although He is Life and the cause of life, and the living bread; and was weary also from a long journey, although He is the Lord of powers; so also it is said that He was grieved, and seemed to be capable of anguish. For it would not have been fitting for Him Who submitted Himself to emptiness, and stood in the measure of human nature, to have seemed unwilling to endure human things. The Word therefore of God the Father is altogether free from all passion: but wisely and for the dispensation's sake He submitted Himself to the infirmities of mankind, in order that He might not seem to refuse that which the dispensation required: yes, He even yielded obedience to human customs and laws, only, as I said, He did not bear ought of this in His own nature.
  
  and
  
  Behold then, yes, see, the pattern for your conduct depicted for thee in Christ the Saviour of us all: and let us also observe the manner of His prayer. "Father, He says, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me." Do you see that Christ made His prayer against temptation with a reverence befitting man? "For if You be willing, He says, remove it." And here too remember what the blessed Paul wrote concerning Him; "He Who in the days of His flesh offered up prayers and supplications to Him Who was able to save Him from death, with strong crying and tears, and was heard because of His reverence, even though He was a Son, yet learned obedience by what He suffered, and being made perfect became the cause of eternal life to all them that obey Him." For as though one of us, He assigns to His Father's will the carrying out of whatever was about to be done. And if therefore it happen that we also at any time fall into unexpected troubles, and have to endure any mental conflict, let us beseech God not so much that it may end according to our will, but rather let us ask that whatever He knows to be fit and expedient for the benefit of our souls may be brought to pass. "For we know not what to pray for as we ought:" but He is a treasure house of every thing, and to those who love Him He gives whatever is suitable for them.
  
  These are important passages.
  
  Firstly, we see that St Cyril teaches us that the grief and sorrow our Lord experienced in His humanity were because He saw that the people of Israel were falling away from their relationship with God. They were about to become those keepers of the vineyard who saw the son of the owner and said to themselves, 'come let us kill him and the vineyard will be our own'.
  
  Secondly, we see that St Cyril teaches us that our Lord allowed Himself to experience those blameless passions of sorrow and grief, even as He allowed Himself to experience hunger and tiredness. Therefore he truly experiences sorrow at the enormity of what is to happen - not so much fear for himself, but fear for those men who would put their Creator to death.
  
  Thirdly, we see that St Cyril teaches us that it was an aspect of the incarnation of our Lord that he submit Himself to the Father's will, even as Adam and Eve chose to advance their own will before that of God. So as the Son of God, incarnate, that is made man, He submits Himself as man, and as Son, to the Divine will, not even saying, 'This is my will also', but assigning all the Divine will to the Father Himself.
  
  There is no sense in the Father's at all that in the Garden we see two wills, let alone two contrary wills. We do not see a human man saying, 'Please don't make me suffer'. On the contrary, we see the Word of God Incarnate, careful always for His own creatures, and as one of His own creatures, if we may dare say such a thing, submitting ON OUR BEHALF to the will of the Father, even as Adam, ON OUR BEHALF, rejected the will of the Father.
  
  We can also consider how St Severus also makes use of these passages from the Gospels.
  
  In the first place his concern is Christological, and it is to show that the humanity of our Lord was entirely and completely according to our own nature. There was no aspect of humanity which was missing. So he says,
  
  a .. soul is not without reason, but it is reasonable because it is human. However this very same thing is also clearly shown even by the sacred writings of the gospel; for it said of him, «Then he began to be distressed and grieved, and to say, 'My soul is sorrowful, even unto death'». But it is plain to everyone that distress and grief happen to a rational and intellectual soul.
  
  Clearly we to understand, as the earlier Fathers had taught, that our Lord truly experienced distress and grief. It was not a pretence. But it is, as we would read further in St Severus, the distress and grief experienced by the Word of God Himself in and by means of His own humanity. It is not someone else experiencing these blameless passions.
  
  He speaks elsewhere in one of his homilies and says,
  
  This has been said for our instruction. It is indeed most certain, since the will of the Son and of the Father is not different, but is one and the same will. Furthermore with these words he showed us again that he participated in the same nature as us, one who was fearful of death, and endured voluntarily the suffering of fear and of anguish, saying, "My soul is anguished even unto death", to the end that these sorrows, so that the sorrows which had come into conflict with Christ, the power of the Father, were radically uprooted from our race.
  
  This is a remarkable passage, and it places the suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane in the context of the recaptulation of the history of the Fall. In these last days he endures suffering so that we might be free from suffering, and he will endure death so that we need not endure death. He prays IN OUR PLACE in the Garden. Truly bearing our sorrow, setting Himself in the place of an obedient Son. He has no other will than that of the Father, He could have no other will than that of the Father.
  
  Father Peter
• dzheremi

  December 2010

  Thank you for such a considered and response, Father Peter. It helps me, too. Can a similar understanding be applied to, for instance, the words of our Lord from the cross at the ninth hour, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabatchthani"? I ask because this is another situation in which, having been raised in Chalcedonian churches, the priests I have asked have invoked the two natures of Christ as believed by those who subscribe to Chalcedonian formulae. "Oh, that is His human nature coming forth" or some such.
• jydeacon

  December 2010

  Thank you Father Peter, that post helped me very much.
  
  Pray for me
• copt_believer

  December 2010

  Father Peter,
  
  My understanding is that Christ had two natural wills (the divine natural will and the human natural will) but only one personal will (the divine personal will, as He is only one Person [the second Person of the Trinity]).
  
  Again, I understand natural will to be the desire and personal will to be the decision.
  
  This is my understanding from reading (at least parts of) H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy's Lecture 4 of his Series of Lectures on Christology and Christological Controversies found here http://www.metroplit-bishoy.org/files/lectures/Lecture%204.doc Links to all the Lectures of the Series can be found here http://www.metroplit-bishoy.org/english/lectures.htm
  
  Here is a quote from the H.E. lecture that I mentioned above:

  Question:
  About wills issue.  
  
  Answer:
  In our agreement with the Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches, a point was mentioned concerning the will of the Logos.  In our  Interpretation of the First Agreed Statement on Christology on page 6 you find the following:
  
  [center]The Will of the Incarnate Logos:  The real union of the divine with the human.  The agreed statement gave a very clear solution for the debate concerning will of Jesus Christ as follows.  The real union of the divine with the human with all properties and functions of the uncreated divine nature, including natural will and natural energy, inseparably and unconfusedly united with created human nature with its properties and functions, including natural will and natural energy.  It is the Logos incarnate Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ.[/center]
  
  Jesus said to the Father, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mat. 27:46), and in His prayer in the Mount of Olives he said, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” (Mat. 26:39).
  
  We have to make a distinction between what we can call natural will and personal will.  The natural will is the desire, while the personal will is the decision.  We all believe that Jesus Christ is one single person not a composite person from two persons, but only one single person Who is the Person of the Word of God, the Logos.  It is not normal for one person to have two personal wills, otherwise he will be two persons; and this is a Nestorian concept.  The monothelites, are those who believe in a single will in Jesus Christ, they were anathematized by the Chalcedonian churches.  
  
  Our church also does not accept this concept that the natural human will was dissolved.  The natural divine will, natural human will were united without confusion and without mixture.  To say ‘without confusion’, means that the natural human will of Jesus Christ was not eliminated because of the union.  Does this mean that Jesus Christ had two wills?  It is impossible to say that He had two wills, otherwise He is going to be considered two persons.  That’s why we should define what we mean by the word ‘will’.  The same problem concerning the natures emerges with ‘will’.  He has His natural divine will united to His natural human will, but the two natural wills continued to exist in the union, in complete harmony without contradiction.
  
  What is the natural will and what is the personal will?
  
  The natural will is the desire; the personal will is the decision.  
  You can say, ‘I want to drink, but I don’t want to drink’;  ‘I have a will to go, but I don’t will to go.’   What does this mean?  If you are fasting you say ‘I am willing to drink, but I shall not drink’?   It means that ‘I desire to drink but I decided not to drink’.  So, there is difference between the natural will and personal will.  The personal will works with the decision, while the natural will works with the desire.
  
  As a human being Jesus Christ felt hunger and thirst while He was fasting on the mount. He naturally desired to drink or to eat, because His divinity did not eliminate the properties of His humanity; the energies and the natural will were not eliminated. Only tendency to sin was absolutely not in Him.  He never had a desire for sin - not to desire and resist;  no never.  He was absolutely holy and infallible.  However, all the other human desires were in Him.  One of these desires as any human being was that he does not like to die.  This normal desire was present in Him when He was approaching the cross.  But, obeying the Father, as a person He is the second Person of the Holy Trinity;  He is free, but He has input to His personal decision from His human desire and divine desire.  His divine desire is identical with the desire of the Father.  The three hypostaseis are three persons, three in their will, loving each other, but they have the same will and the same desire.  Three in number, but one in nature.  Naturally, whatever the Father desires, the Son desires, and the Holy Spirit desires.  
  
  Are the natural wills identical?  No, because if they are identical this means that we are Eutychean and that there is confusion, since the natural desire of His humanity was absorbed in His divinity.  This is the heresy of Monotheletism.  If the two natural energies and natural wills are reduced to one natural will, this is the Eutychean heresy.  Saint Cyril of Alexandria said that the differences of the properties of the two natures were not destroyed because of the union.
  
  “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”.  In other words: O Father if You want You may let this cup pass from Me, but not as I desire but as Your will which is also My will, As You and Me decided.  Let it not be My desire but Yours which is Your decision and My decision.  
  
  Jesus Christ has one personal will because He is one person. Concerning the natural will we can say that they are two in one, since the two natural wills are not mixed or cancelled, but they are in a perfect union, thus they are not separated.  His human desire and His divine desire are not separated.  Why?  Because He never followed His human desires unless it was accepted by His divine desire; and that is the full obedience of Jesus Christ to the Father.  Why do we say ‘to the Father’ and not ‘to His divinity’?  Because if we say that He is obedient to His divinity, this will mean that He is two personalities.  When I say, ‘He’, this refers to the person.  So I cannot say that He is obedient to Himself; that is illogical.  When we mention His obedience, we always refer to the Father; and the Father is automatically has the same desire and the same will of the Son.  It is wrong theologically to say that He was obedient to His divinity.  This is a Nestorian expression which is already condemned by Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his twelve anathemas.  Anything that leads to the concept of two persons, is Nestorian.  We should be very careful when we tackle this issue.  In the Greek text it is:  “Let it be not My desire, but Yours.”  In Arabic it is, “Not My desire, but Your desire” In Greek the word was not repeated when he was referring to the Father but said,  “But Yours”.  The core of the problem is that He said, “My will”.  The Greek term has two meanings, desire and decision.8  So scientifically speaking, the Greek text allows this interpretation.  
  
  In the first agreement the following is stated:
  
  [center]The real union of the divine with the human, with all properties and functions of the uncreated divine nature, including natural will and natural energy inseparably and unconfusedly united with the created human nature with all its properties and functions, including natural will and natural energy…It is the Logos incarnate9 Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ.[/center]
  
  In the second agreement, it is more clear:  
  
  [center]The one hypostasis of the Logos incarnate is always Who is acting and willing..  [/center]
  
  It is the Logos incarnate Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ.  In other words all willing and acting are from one person.  But, sometimes He acts according to His divinity; and sometimes according to His humanity.  Thus the human natural will did not cease to exist, and also divine energies and human energies did not cease to exist.  
  
  What does this mean?  It means that sometimes He did things from His divine energy and sometimes He did things from His human energy. When He accepted death, He accepted it according to His humanity.  When He destroyed Hades, He destroyed it according to His divinity, and so on.  The source of the energy was continuous in Him.  What is human was present and that’s why He fell under the cross; because His human energy continued in the union, without being separated from His divine energy.  When He raised the dead from the tombs, after His crucifixion, this was done through His divine energy.  So, the two energies continued to exist in the union.  
  
  Simply, the two natural wills continued to exist in the union.  The two natural energies continued to exist in the union, without being separated.  One person was willing and acting – the same person.  Sometimes His will according to His humanity is to eat, and according to His divinity with the Father He is content to do it, so He eats according to His human desire with the consent of the Father. The motive of eating comes from His human desire, not His divine; because divinity does not hunger.
  
  ...
  
  8 I wrote this in the Encyclopedia of Analysis from Greek to Arabic of the New Testament.  I wrote myself about three pages in this encyclopedia.  We got the Greek term and put the full explanation based on the New Testament grammar and dictionaries
  9 The logos Incarnate is the person.
• copt_believer

  December 2010

  Father Peter,
  
  I am not sure if your statements here
  
  [quote author=Father Peter link=topic=10239.msg125078#msg125078 date=1292952477]
  I am not a big fan of reducing the issue of will to a number, since whatever answer will be given will tend to cause misunderstanding.
  
  I think that we have to make several statements.
  
  i. The humanity of Christ has the faculty of willing as a natural component. This is particularly identified with the term 'rational' in our Fathers, which means a thinking, willing being. The Fathers are insistent that the Word of God became incarnate in a rational flesh, which therefore describes a flesh which has the faculty of will.
  
  ii. The blameless passions of hunger and thirst etc are not the same as the will. We may feel hungry and inclined to eat, but it is the exercise of our will that determines what we do. When we fast we are not considered to have broken the fast if we feel hungry, but if we will to eat.
  
  iii. The will is the place where we sin. Sin has no existence apart from as the disordered exercise of the will. The will is not our feelings, or even our desires, but our choices. Sin was introduced into our human existence when Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
  
  iv. It was necessary for the Word of God to be incarnate in a rational humanity because it is the human will which is especially weakened by the Fall, and was the locus of the Fall itself.
  
  v. But the one who wills is One, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate. All that is humanly willed is willed by the Word of God and no other.
  
  vi. The substance of those willed acts which our Lord wills in His humanity is the same substance as His Divine will. There is no separation or division, as if our Lord was schizophrenic. The same will of God is willed in the Divinity and in the humanity of our Lord in union with His Divinity, but the Divine will is willed humanly in his humanity and Divinely in His Divinity.
  
  vii. There is one will of the Word of God Incarnate because we cannot say that the humanity has some different object of will in relation to the Divine will. If we say that the humanity is led to will other than the Divine will then the humanity sins, because to will other than the will of God is sin.
  
  viii. This oneness is found in the oneness of He who wills, and in the oneness of the object of His willing, even while it is clear that the humanity is not without the faculty of will proper to our humanity. But this human faculty belongs only to the Word of God incarnate and to no other. Therefore just as the hand of the Christ is the hand of the Word of God and no other, so the human faculty of will is also the human faculty of will of the Word of God and no other.
  
  Therefore I am not entirely happy with simply saying that there is one will or two. To say there is one will without explanation might well lead others to think that we deny the human faculty of will in Christ. But to say two might well lead others to say that the humanity has a willing centre itself apart from the Word of God incarnate.
  
  Father Peter
  
  
  are in agreement with what I wrote and with what H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy's wrote (in my quote of him in the previous post above)?
  
  1) Do you agree with what I wrote and with the quote from H.E. that I quoted in the previous post? If not, why not? Where do you disagree?
  
  2) You seem to be saying that Christ had two natural wills (the divine natural will and the human natural will) and two personal wills (the divine personal will and the human personal will) but that the human personal will belongs to the Word of God?
  
  Whereas H.E. seems to be saying that Christ had two natural wills (the divine natural will and the human natural will) but only one personal will (the divine personal will) [see my previous post]?
  
  Have I misunderstood you? Can you please clarify.
  
  3) Also, you wrote that "The Fathers are insistent that the Word of God became incarnate in a rational flesh, which therefore describes a flesh which has the faculty of will."
  
  By rational flesh do you mean rational soul?
  
  Please correct me if I have written anything wrong.
  
• copt_believer

  December 2010

  Deleted [same post was posted twice in a row]
• peterfarrington

  December 2010

  It is difficult to answer comprehensively in a brief post.
  
  But I generally agree with H.E. brief paper. I would not want to consider that I disagreed with him on the basis of something that is probably not an exhaustive account of his own thinking.
  
  I need to say that I am not sure that I agree with the terms natural will and personal will. Or rather, I guess they are only as useful as any other terms which can also be misunderstood. Everything we say needs to be surrounded by exclusions and provisos.
  
  Anyhow, in brief, I would say that if a person is to be able to walk he must have the faculty of walking - he must have a pair of legs! And so if the incarnate Word of God is to will humanly he must have the human faculty of willing. The one who wills is one - it is the Person of the Word. But He wills in His humanity and by means of His humanity. He is the willing person in His own humanity, but He wills humanly by His own human will. It is the human will which is the seat of sin, and it was by the false choice of Adam's will that the Fall took place. Therefore it is necessary that a human life be lived entirely in the will of God by one who is authentically human.
  
  I don't think this is different in intent to what H.E. says. He wants to find unity in the Person of the incarnate Word, where of course I also do. I am saying that all aspects of the human exercise of will are natural, and the personal aspect is not some other faculty of will, but is found in the one who wills and the object of his will.
  
  Rational flesh, as far as I understand the Fathers, means a willing, thinking, intelligent human hypostasis in which the person of the Word becomes incarnate and which if course only comes into being and has existence as His own humanity. The human soul is one aspect of our human nature. The Word of God, as I know we agree, assumes both the human body and soul in the incarnation.
  
  The rational flesh does include the faculty of will. If it does not then Jesus Christ does not have a human will, and what is not assumed is not healed. Indeed although I do not generally turn to John of Damascus, he does desrcibe how rationality means to will. Whenever St Severus speaks of the rational and intelligent flesh he means, among other things, that the humanity contains the faculty of will, as all other aspects of humanity.
  
  The person does not contain any of the natural characteristics. These all belong to the person because the person owns his own humanity, but they are the characteristics of the nature and not the person.
  
  I will perhaps say more later.
  
  Father Peter
• copt_believer

  January 2011

  Thank you very much for your reply Father Peter.
  
  You mentioned that
  
  [quote author=Father Peter link=topic=10239.msg125589#msg125589 date=1293564237]
  Indeed although I do not generally turn to John of Damascus, he does desrcibe how rationality means to will. Whenever St Severus speaks of the rational and intelligent flesh he means, among other things, that the humanity contains the faculty of will, as all other aspects of humanity.
  
  Is it ok if I ask for quotes/sources (or a quote/source) for what you mentioned here regarding John of Damascus and St Severus? I generally like to know what the sources are and to read the sources.
  
  It seems to me that the concepts of 'nature' and 'person' are relevant here.
  
  This is another quote from H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy. This time, from Lecture 2 http://www.metroplit-bishoy.org/files/lectures/lecture 2.doc of his Series of Lectures on Christology and Christological Controversies http://www.metroplit-bishoy.org/english/lectures.htm
  
  The whole Lecture 2 is probably relevant, so please check the whole lecture as I will only quote part of it, as I do not want to make the post too long. [underline emphasis mine]

  A human being consists of a body, soul, and spirit.  Jesus Christ took a perfect human nature (body, soul and spirit), and united it to His divinity. Therefore, the Logos assumed perfect humanity, including the human spirit.  
  
  Soul and Spirit:
  The term spirit, and the term soul, are sometimes used interchangeably.  

  he also states

  
  The person (in Greek prosopon) is the owner of the nature who has the right to decide, who relates to others, deals with others, and is distinct from other individuals who own the same nature.  He is responsible for his doings and expresses himself by saying, ‘I’ ‘me’ ‘myself’.
  
  Now, if Jesus Christ is composed of divinity (the Person of the Son of God) and perfect humanity, including a rational human soul, does this necessitate that Jesus Christ has two persons? Nestorius said yes, He is two persons because He has a human spirit, and Apollinarius said no, He has one person and no human spirit; and both were wrong.  Apollinarius said, in order that He may not have a human person, He should not have a human spirit.  Nestorius said, since He assumed perfect humanity, so He assumed a full human person.  
  
  The human spirit in Jesus Christ, understood to be a person, made Apollinarius cancel the human spirit of the assumed human nature in order not to bring in another person. On the other hand the same made Nestorius accept two persons in Jesus Christ.  The error of both was in believing that the human spirit in Jesus Christ should be a human person.  Both agreed on this concept and were against each other in using it.
  
  In other words Apollinarius and Nestorius fell in the same error: in considering that the human spirit should be a person in Christ, they agreed in the same error but each of them came out with a conclusion that is opposite to the other. One cancelled that human spirit in Christ so that He would not be two persons and the other kept it and accepted having two persons in Christ.  Both of them depended on one common error that the human spirit should be a person in Christ. The reason is that they both believed that for the human nature to be perfect it should include a person, here, they mixed the concept of ‘nature’ and ‘person’.
  
  The Word of God assumed a full human nature but He did not assume a human person.  Nestorius the Patriarch of Constantinople, and a mighty theologian fell into this trap, therefore this subject deserves to be taken carefully.  It is a critical issue which we should not ignore in our study of Christology.  
  
  It is very dangerous to mingle the concept of nature with the concept of person.  Either not to study Christology, or to be precise.  We can say that Christ is the Son of God Who was crucified on the cross and feel that it is not our business to speak about ‘person’ and ‘nature’ etc.  We know that the only begotten Son of God incarnated, was born of the Virgin Mary and was crucified on the cross for our salvation. For simple people, this is sufficient, and is very good.  However, if someone has to face and fight heresies like Nestorianism and Apollinarianism he is obliged to explain. If he did not explain correctly he will fall into another trap.  For a simple person, it is sufficient to say that the only-begotten Son of God became incarnate in the fullness of time, for us and for our salvation; He is fully God and fully human at the same time and He, Himself, gave Himself for our sake on the cross for us and for our salvation.

  he also states

  The difference between the Person and the Nature:
  
  The person is the carrier of the nature; he is the owner of the nature.  The nature of a man is composed of body and spirit, and this spirit is a rational spirit. The Logos has reason according to His divinity and has a rational human spirit.  He can think as God, and He can think as man; but He is not two persons, since reason is a property of nature and the person owns it according to his nature.  
  
• copt_believer

  January 2011

  Father Peter,
  
  I sent you a pm (personal message) that may be related to this thread. Please read it and reply to it via pm.