An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 67

1 BOOK III — CHAPTER 23: Concerning His Fear.

2 The word fear has a double meaning. For fear is natural when the soul is unwilling to be separated from the body, on account of the natural sympathy and close relationship planted in it in the beginning by the Creator, which makes it fear and struggle against death and pray for an escape from it. For if all things were brought by the Creator out of nothing into being, they all have by nature a longing after being and not after non-being.

3 Hence God the Word when He became man had this longing, manifesting the inclination of His nature in desiring food and drink and sleep, and having in a natural manner made proof of these things, while on the other hand displaying in those things that bring corruption His natural disinclination in voluntarily shrinking in the hour of His passion before the face of death. For although what happened did so according to the laws of nature, yet it was not, as in our case, a matter of necessity. For He willingly and spontaneously accepted that which was natural. So that fear itself and terror and agony belong to the natural and innocent passions and are not under the dominion of sin.

4 Again, there is a fear which arises from treachery of reasoning and want of faith, and ignorance of the hour of death. This is unnatural fear. This our Lord did not assume. Hence He never felt fear except in the hour of His passion, although He often experienced a feeling of shrinking in accordance with the dispensation. For He was not ignorant of the appointed time.