So, then, He had by nature, both as God and as
man, the power of will. But His human will was obedient and
subordinate to His divine will, not being guided by its own
inclination, but willing those things which the divine will
willed. For it was with the permission of the divine will that He
suffered by nature what was proper to Him Sophron.,
Epist. Synod.. For when He prayed that He might
escape the death, it was with His divine will naturally willing and
permitting it that He did so pray and agonize and fear, and again when
His divine will willed that His human will should choose the death, the
passion became voluntary to Him See Cyril,
In Joann., ch. x.. For
it was not as God only, but also as man, that He voluntarily
surrendered Himself to the death. And thus He bestowed on us also
courage in the face of death. So, indeed, He said before His
saving passion, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
Me St. Matt. xxvi. 39; St. Luke xxii.
22.,”
manifestly as though He were to drink the cup as man and not as
God. It was as man, then, that He wished the cup to pass from
Him: but these are the words of natural timidity.
Nevertheless, He said, not My will, that is to say, not
in so far as I am of a different essence from Thee, but Thy will be
done Ibid, that is to say,
My will and Thy will, in so far as I am of the same essence as
Thou. Now these are the words of a brave heart. For the
Spirit of the Lord, since He truly became man in His good pleasure, on
first testing its natural weakness was sensible of the natural
fellow-suffering involved in its separation from the body, but being
strengthened by the divine will it again grew bold in the face of
death. For since He was Himself wholly God although also man, and
wholly man although also God, He Himself as man subjected in Himself
and by Himself His human nature to God and the Father, and became
obedient to the Father, thus making Himself the most excellent type and
example for us.