An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 61

1 BOOK III — CHAPTER 17: Concerning the deification of the nature of our Lord's flesh and of His will.

2 It is worthy of note that the flesh of the Lord is not said to have been deified and made equal to God and God in respect of any change or alteration, or transformation, or confusion of nature. For, just as we confess that God became man without change or alteration, so we consider that the flesh became God without change. For because the Word became flesh, He did not overstep the limits of His own divinity nor abandon the divine glories that belong to Him: nor, on the other hand, was the flesh, when deified, changed in its own nature or in its natural properties.

3 For the flesh of the Lord received the riches of the divine energies through the purest union with the Word, that is to say, the union in subsistence, without entailing the loss of any of its natural attributes. For it is not in virtue of any energy of its own but through the Word united to it, that it manifests divine energy: for the flaming steel burns, not because it has been endowed in a physical way with burning energy, but because it has obtained this energy by its union with fire.

4 And we hold that it is just the same with the deification of the will; for its natural activity was not changed but united with His divine and omnipotent will, and became the will of God, made man. For the deification of the nature and the will points most expressly and most directly both to two natures and two wills.