We, therefore, maintain Max.,
Opusc. Polem., pp. 31, 32.
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 Leo, Epist.
10.,” did something quite different
from him who said, And when He had fasted forty days, He was
afterwards an hungered St. Matt. iv. 2.: (for He
allowed His nature to energise when it so willed, in the way proper to
itself Nyss., adv.
Apoll.,) 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 Chrysost., Hom.
in S. Thom.. For these statements with the
change in terms δι᾽
ἀντωνυμίας. signify the two
energies. Indeed, often the number is indicated both by change of
terms and by speaking of them as divine and human Cyril, in
Joan., bk. viii.. For the difference is difference
in differing things, but how do things that do not exist
differ?