Two Natures of Emmanuel

 "TWO natures," says S. Leo, "met together in our Redeemer, and, while what belonged to each respectively remained, so great a unity was made of either substance, that from the time that the Word was made flesh in the Blessed Virgin's womb, we may neither think of Him as God without that which is man, nor as man without that which is God. Each nature certifies its own reality under distinct actions, but neither of them disjoins itself from connection with the other. Nothing is wanting from either towards other; there is entire littleness in majesty, entire majesty in littleness; unity does not introduce confusion, nor does what is special to each divide unity. There is what is passible, and what is inviolable, yet He, the Same, has the contumely whose is the glory. He is in infirmity who is in power; the Same is both the subject and the conqueror of death. God then did take on Him whole man, and so knit Himself into man and man into Himself in His mercy and in His power, that either nature was in other, and neither in the other lost its own attributes." Serm. 54, 1. "Suscepit nos in suam proprietatem illa natura, quæ nec nostris sua, nec suis nostra consumeret," etc. Serm. 72, p. 286. vid. also Ep. 165, 6. Serm. 30, 5. Cyril. Cat. iv. 9. Amphiloch. ap. Theod. Eran. i. p. 66, also pp. 60, 87, 88.

 "All this belongs to the Economy, not to the Godhead. On this account He says, 'Now is My soul troubled,' ... so troubled as to seek for a release, if escape were possible ... As to hunger is no blame, nor to sleep, so is it none to desire the present life. Christ had a body pure from sins, but not exempt from physical necessities, else it had not been a body." Chrysost. in Joann. Hom. 67, 1 and 2. "He used His own flesh as an instrument for the works of the flesh, and for physical infirmities and for other infirmities which are blameless," etc. Cyril. de Rect. Fid. p. 18. "As a man He doubts, as a man He is troubled; it is not His power (virtus) that is troubled, not His Godhead, but His soul," etc. Ambros. de Fid. ii. n. 56. Vid. a beautiful passage in S. Basil's Hom. iv. 5 (de Divers.), in which he insists on our Lord's having wept to show us how to weep neither too much nor too little.

 "Being God, and existing as Word, while He remained what He was, He became flesh, and a child, and a man, no change profaning the mystery. The Same both works wonders, and suffers; by the miracles signifying that He is what He was, and by the sufferings giving proof that He had become what He had framed." Procl. ad Armen. p. 615. "Without loss then in what belongs to either nature and substance" (salvâ proprietate, and so Tertullian, "Salva est utriusque proprietas substantiæ," etc., in Prax. 27), "yet with their union in one Person, Majesty takes on it littleness, Power infirmity, Eternity mortality, and, to pay the debt of our estate, an inviolable Nature is made one with a nature that is passible; that, as was befitting for our cure, One and the Same Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, might both be capable of death from the one, and incapable from the other." Leo's Tome (Ep. 28, 3), also Hil. Trin. ix. 11 fin. "Vagit infans, sed in cælo est," etc., ibid. x. 54. Ambros. de Fid. ii. 77. "Erat vermis in cruce sed dimittebat peccata. Non habebat speciem, sed plenitudinem divinitatis," etc. Id. Epist. i. 46, n. 5. Theoph. Ep. Pasch. 6, ap. Conc. Ephes. p. 1404. Hard.

 Athanasius, Orat. iv. § 33, speaks of the Word as "putting on the first-fruits of our nature, and being blended ([ anakratheis ]) with it;" vid. note on Tertull. Oxf. Tr. vol. i. p. 48; and so [ he kaine mixis, theos kai anthropos ], Greg. Naz. as quoted by Eulogius ap. Phot. Bibl. p. 857; "immixtus," Cassian. Incarn. i. 5; "commixtio," Vigil. contr. Eutych. i. 4, p. 494 (Bibl. Patr. 1624); "permixtus," August. Ep. 137, 11; "ut naturæ alteri altera misceretur," Leon. Serm. 23, 1 (vid. supr. p. 134). There is this strong passage in Naz. Ep. 101, p. 87 (ed. 1840), [ kirnamenon hosper ton physeon, houto de kai ton kleseon, kai perichorouson eis allelas toi logoi tes sumphuias ]; Bull says that in using [ perichorouson ] Greg. Naz. and others "minùs propriè loqui." Defens. F. N. iv. 4, § 14. Petavius had allowed this, but proves the doctrine intended amply from the Fathers. De Incarn. iv. 14. Such oneness is not "confusion," for [ ou sunchusin apergasamenos, alla ta duo kerasas eis hen ], says Epiph. Ancor. 81 fin. and so Eulog. ap. Phot. Bibl. p. 831 fin. [ ou tes kraseos sunchusin autoi delouses ]. Vid. also on the word [ mixis ], etc. Zacagn. Monum. p. xxi.-xxvi. Thomassin. de Incarn. iii. 5, iv. 15.