Some suppose that God too, measuring Him by the standard of their own disposition, regards the same things as praiseworthy or blameworthy that base men do, as though He used the opinions of men as a rule and measure—not understanding, because of the ignorance that is in them, that the whole creation, doubtless, is in need of the beauty of God.
For He Himself, out of the whole of all substance and nature, draws all things toward life by His own Word. For if He wills the good, He Himself being the good abides in Himself; and the beautiful being lovely to Him, He Himself being the only beautiful looks toward Himself, setting nothing among the things admired by men. For that must in truth be called most beautiful and praiseworthy which God Himself should reckon to be beautiful, even though it be despised and mocked by all—but not that which men suppose.
Hence, if even through this figure He willed to free souls from the soul-destroying passions, putting to shame the multitudes of demons, one ought to have accepted it, and not to blaspheme—seeing it given as a thing that frees and looses us from the bonds fashioned for us out of disobedience.
For the Word suffered in the flesh, being nailed to the cross, in order that He might spread out man, who had been benumbed by error, equalizing him by the tree of life toward the upward and divine greatness from which he had formerly been driven away—because by this figure the passions were blunted, He becoming a passion of passions through suffering, and a death of death through dying, not being mastered by death, nor pained by suffering.
For neither did suffering at all displace Him, nor did death corrupt Him; but He was, remaining impassible in that which suffers and immortal in that which is mortal, having comprehended all that air contains—both the middle and the upper region—and having blended the mortal with immortal deity; and death was utterly conquered into a pattern of incorruptibility, the flesh having been raised on the cross.