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Prayer is an uprising of the mind
to God or a petitioning of God for what is fitting. How then did it
happen that our Lord offered up prayer in the case of Lazarus, and at
the hour of His passion? For His holy mind was in no need either of
any uprising towards God, since it had been once and for all united in
subsistence with the God Word, or of any petitioning of God. For
Christ is one. But it was because He appropriated to Himself our
personality and took our impress on Himself, and became an ensample
for us, and taught us to ask of God and strain towards Him, and
guided us through His own holy mind in the way that leads up to God.
For just as He endured the passion, achieving for our sakes a triumph
over it, so also He offered up prayer, guiding us, as I said, in
the way that leads up to God, and "fulfilling all righteousness" on
our behalf, as He said to John, and reconciling His Father to us,
and honouring Him as the beginning and cause, and proving that He is
no enemy of God. For when He said in connection with Lazarus,
Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I know that
Thou hearest Me always, but because of the people which stand by I
said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me, is it not
most manifest to all that He said this in honour of His Father as the
cause even of Himself, and to shew that He was no enemy of God?
Again, when he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from Me: yet, not as I will but as Thou wilt, is it not clear to
all that He said this as a lesson to us to ask help in our trials only
from God, and to prefer God's will to oar own, and as a proof that
He did actually appropriate to Himself the attributes of our nature,
and that He did in truth possess two wills, natural, indeed, and
corresponding with His natures but yet in no wise opposed to one
another? "Father" implies that He is of the same essence, but "if
it be possible" does not mean that He was in ignorance (for what is
impossible to God?), but serves to teach us to prefer God's will
to our own. For that alone is impossible which is against God's will
and permission. "But not as I will but as Thou wilt," for
inasmuch as He is God, He is identical with the Father, while
inasmuch as He is man, He manifests the natural will of mankind.
For it is this that naturally seeks escape from death.
Further, these words, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me? He said as making our personality His own. For neither would
God be regarded with us as His Father, unless one were to
discriminate with subtle imaginings of the mind between that which is
seen and that which is thought, nor was He ever forsaken by His
divinity: nay, it was we who were forsaken and disregarded. So that
it was as appropriating our personality that He offered these prayers.
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