Therefore understand, children of gladness, that the good Lord manifested all things to us beforehand, that we might know Him to whom we ought to give praise, giving thanks in all things.
If, then, the Son of God, being Lord and about to judge the living and the dead, suffered, that His wound might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sake.
But also, having been crucified, He was given vinegar and gall to drink. Hear how the priests of the temple have made this manifest. The commandment having been written: "Whoever does not fast the fast shall be utterly destroyed by death," the Lord commanded it, since He Himself too was about to offer the vessel of the Spirit as a sacrifice for our sins, that the type which came to pass in Isaac, who was offered upon the altar, might be fulfilled.
What, then, does He say in the prophet? "And let them eat of the goat which is offered at the fast for all their sins." Take heed exactly: "And let the priests alone, all of them, eat the entrails unwashed with vinegar."
To what end? Since you are about to give me, who am to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people, gall with vinegar to drink, eat you alone, while the people fast and lament in sackcloth and ashes. This is to show that He must suffer at their hands.
Take heed to the things He commanded: "Take two goats, fair and alike, and offer them, and let the priest take the one for a whole burnt offering for sins."
"And let all spit upon it and pierce it, and put the scarlet wool around its head, and so let it be cast into the wilderness." And when this is done, the one who carries the goat leads it into the wilderness and takes off the wool and places it upon a bush called rachel, whose buds we are accustomed to eat when we find them in the country; so of this rhachos alone the fruits are sweet.
What, then, does this mean? Take heed: the one upon the altar, the other accursed—and why is the accursed one crowned? Because they shall see Him then in that day having the long scarlet robe about His flesh, and they shall say: Is this not He whom we once crucified, despising and piercing and spitting upon Him? Truly this was He who then said that He was the Son of God.
For how is He like that goat? To this end the goats were alike, fair, and equal, that when they see Him then coming, they may be astonished at the likeness of the goat. Behold, then, the type of Jesus who was to suffer.
But why is it that they place the wool in the midst of the thorns? It is a type of Jesus set forth for the Church: that whoever wishes to take away the scarlet wool must suffer many things because the thorn is fearful, and only through affliction can he gain it. So, He says, those who desire to see me and to lay hold of my kingdom must, through affliction and suffering, receive me.