From St. Cyril of Alexandria (Cyril of Alexandria: The Early Church Fathers by Norman Russell, Commentary on John 12:27; Routledge pgs. 119-120): Now, He says, is My soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Notice... how easy it is to produce confusion and fear in human nature, whereas by contrast the divine and ineffable power is in all respects indestructible and invulnerable and oriented only towards the courage that befits it. For the thought of death that has slipped in attempts to agitate Jesus, while the power of the divinity at once masters the emotion that has been aroused and immediately transforms that which has been conquered by fear into an incomparable courage. We may therefore suppose that even in the Saviour Christ Himself that which belonged to His humanity was moved in two necessary ways. For it was absolutely essential that even in this manner He should show Himself to be a human being, not in mere appearance or by some fiction, but rather a natural and true human being born of a woman and bearing every human characteristic except sin alone. Now fear and timidity, being natural emotions in us, are not to be classified among the sins. Moreover, the human qualities were active in Christ in a profitable way, not that having been set in motion they should prevail and develop further, as is the case with us, but that having been set in motion they should be brought up short by the power of the Word, nature having first been transformed in Christ into a better and more divine state. For it was in this way and in no other that the mode of healing passed over into ourselves too.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 21:22:47 +0000