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When the blessed Dionysius says that Christ exhibited to us some sort
of novel theandric energy, he does not do away with the natural
energies by saying that one energy resulted from the union of the divine
with the human energy: for in the same way we could speak of one new
nature resulting from the union of the divine with the human nature.
For, according to the holy Fathers, things that have one energy have
also one essence. But Ire wished to indicate the novel and ineffable
manner in which the natural energies of Christ manifest themselves, a
manner befitting the ineffable manner in which the natures of Christ
mutually, permeate one another, and further how strange and
wonder-rid and, in the nature of things, unknown was His life as
man, and lastly the manner of the mutual interchange arising from the
ineffable union. For we hold that the energies are not divided and
that the natures do not energies separately, but that each conjointly
in complete community with the other energises with its own proper
energy. For the human part did not energise merely in a human manner,
for He was not mere man; nor did the divine part energise only after
the manner of God, for He was not simply God, but He was at once
God and man. For just as in the case of natures we recognise both
their union and their natural difference, so is it also with the
natural wills and energies.
Note, therefore, that in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, we
speak sometimes of His two natures and sometimes of His one person:
anti the one or the other is referred to one conception. For the two
natures are one Christ, and the one Christ is two natures.
Wherefore it is all the same whether we say "Christ energises
according to either of His natures," or "either nature energises in
Christ in communion with the other." The divine nature, then, has
communion with the flesh in its energising, because it is by the good
pleasure of the divine will that the flesh is permitted to suffer and do
the things proper to itself, and because the energy of the flesh is
altogether saving, and this is an attribute not of human but of divine
energy. On the other hand the flesh has communion with the divinity of
the Word in its energising, because the divine energies are
performed, so to speak, through the organ of the body, and because
He Who energises at once as God and man is one and the same.
Further observe that His holy mind also performs its natural
energies, thinking and knowing that it is God's mind and that it is
worshipped by all creation, and remembering the times He spent on
earth and all He suffered, but it has communion with the divinity of
the Word in its energising and orders and governs the universe,
thinking and knowing and ordering not as the mere mind of man, but as
united in subsistence with God and acting as the mind of God.
This, then, the theandric energy makes plain that when God became
man, that is when He became incarnate, both His human energy was
divine, that is deified, and not without part in His divine energy,
and His divine energy was not without part in His human energy, but
either was observed in conjunction with the other. Now this manner of
speaking is called a periphrasis, viz., when one embraces two things
in one statement. For just as in the case of the flaming sword we
speak of the cut burn as one, and the burnt cut as one, but still hold
that the cut and the burn have different energies and different
natures, the burn having the nature of fire and the cut the nature of
steel, in the same way also when we speak of one theandric energy of
Christ, we understand two distinct energies of His two natures, a
divine energy belonging to His divinity, and a human energy belonging
to His humanity.
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