| We confess, then, that he assumed all the natural and innocent passions of man. For he assumed the whole man and all man's attributes save sin. For that is not natural, nor is it implanted in us by the Creator, but arises voluntarily in our mode of life as the result of a further implantation by the devil, though it cannot prevail over us by force. For the natural and innocent passions are those which are not in our power, but which have entered into the life of man owing to the condemnation by reason of the transgression; such as hunger, thirst, weariness, labour, the tears, the corruption, the shrinking from death, the fear, the agony with the bloody sweat, the aid at the hands of angels because of the weakness of the nature, and other such like passions which belong by nature to every man. All, then, he assumed that he might sanctify all. He was tried and overcame in order that he might prepare victory for us and give to nature power to overcome its antagonist, in order that nature which was overcome of old might overcome its former conqueror by the very weapons with which it had itself been overcome. | |