For the first man was of the mire of the earth; and the second Adam, descending from heaven into the deep of this mire, fixed Himself, as it were, coming from on high. Emptying Himself therefore, inasmuch as for Him there was no substance, He descended no longer merely unto the depths of the flesh, but even unto the depths of death, and all the terror of the tempest raging against us fell upon Him. For when He fixed Himself into this mire against the diversity of the heavenly and earthly nature, by the power of His own might — because those things which by nature are at variance come together into a certain solidity of their union not by the kinship of their kind, but are joined as though fastened together by a stronger force — then He also began to be able to suffer and to die, descending into hell by the setting of death. For there follows:
'I am come into the depth of the sea, and a tempest hath overwhelmed me.' That imitator both of the Lord's death and of the time, Jonah, plunged into the sea and received by the whale, testifies that he was set not so much in the sea as in hell: 'I cried out in my affliction unto my God, and He heard the voice of my crying out of the belly of hell.' And although the whale had swallowed him unto the likeness of infernal death, he says: 'My head entered into the clefts of the rocks; I descended into the earth, whose bars are enduring and eternal.'
To holy Job also, after that most glorious war of all sufferings, when he was now worthy of the divine word and of the knowledge of nature, after the gates of the sea broken within him and its roaring terrors in the womb of his mother, the Lord again revealed what was signified even in the sea, saying: 'But hast thou come upon the fountains of the deep, or walked in the traces of the sea? And are the gates of death opened to thee for fear?' — signifying that the gates of death are, in the traces of the sea, that is, in the depth or height of the sea. For since the depths of the sea are lower than the earth, it is necessary that in the depth of the sea, that is, in the lower parts, the seat of death be shown.
Coming therefore into this depth of the sea, He was overwhelmed by the tempest, which He thus mentions in the earlier psalm, saying: 'All thy high things and thy waves have passed over me.' But he too, as I said, the imitator of the Lord's death, whom that most savage whale of that sea vomited forth out of the tenacious and eternal bars of the earth, made no dissimilar complaint: 'All thy suspensions and thy waves were passing over me.' Coming therefore even unto the depth of death, He was overwhelmed by the tempest of death itself and pressed down by the storms of the adverse powers.
Yet He was not silent concerning those who were to offer themselves to the devil as, so to speak, weapons of ministry for sin — inasmuch as He both sometimes reproached the counsels of His death that was being set in motion, and standing in the temple often cried out, and frequently, with eyes lifted up to God, gazed intently, that at each greatest work of His divinity they might look up — He is understood to look unto the Father; on account of which there follows: 'I have labored with crying, my jaws are become hoarse: my eyes have failed, whilst I hope in my God.' Taking upon Himself our infirmities and bearing our sins, He spoke by the use and custom of human weariness; for indeed He who often committed Himself to sleep and lassitude, even unto the necessity of thirst and hunger.
His jaws therefore are hoarse and His eyes failed. But He taught that the cause chiefly of His crying and of the straining of His eyes was this, that He hoped in God — whether when He cries out, saying: 'He that believeth in me, believeth not in me, but in Him that sent me'; or when, about to cry out Lazarus, with eyes lifted up on high, He says: 'Father, I give thee thanks, that thou hast heard me.' But while He testifies to the magnificence of the paternal name, or labors at the work of human salvation, hatreds against Him are multiplied in vain. For there follows: 'They that hate me without cause are multiplied above the hairs of my head. My enemies who persecute me unjustly are grown strong; then I paid for the things that I took not away.'
The number of those hating Him is manifold beyond the hairs of the head, whether on account of the copious multitude of the impious, or because they are unworthy of God's care — for we know that the hairs of the apostles are numbered, because their care with God is so great — or because the number of the unfaithful is beyond the number of the faithful. For since the comeliness of the head is in the hairs, and of the Church, which is the body of Christ, all the adornment is in the comeliness of the apostles, above this comeliness of His head is the multitude of those who hate. And they hated Him without cause, that is, having no cause of hatred. And His enemies, growing strong, persecuted Him unjustly. For He had done no sin, nor had He guile; and therefore He was then required to pay for the things which He had not taken away.
For since He was not a debtor of death and of sin, He was nevertheless held as a debtor of sin and of death, by those, namely, who were exerting in Him the law of sin which is in our members. For of sin He condemned sin in the flesh. In which, because He was fulfilling the great counsel of the divine wisdom, and the death of the cross seemed folly to the nations in God, and great in Him was the expectation of both the heavenly and earthly hope, He subjoined: 'O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my offences are not hidden from thee. Let not them that wait for thee, O Lord of hosts, be confounded in me: let not them that seek thee, O God of Israel, be put to shame over me.' God is conscious of His foolishness, and His offences are not hidden from Him:
namely, the penalties of foolishness and of offences, which He had not taken away, He was required to pay. Even unto the folly of the cross — that is, because it is folly to the nations thus to take upon Himself our sins — He is troubled as a sinner and a fool, without cause and unjustly. But because He had taken upon Himself foolishness and offences for the sake of our wisdom and life, so that He might both judge the prince of this world and condemn sin of sin in the flesh — since, when in Himself, that is, in the flesh of His body, in which nothing of sin could be found, according to that which He says:
'Behold, the prince of the world shall come, and shall find nothing in me' — this prince of the world, coming and finding nothing of sin, nevertheless exerted the penalty, that is, the right of death; through which the author of human death, because he had contrived death against the author of life who knew no sin, is judged. This was the expectation of the saints, that all flesh might be redeemed in Christ, that in Him the firstfruits of eternal resurrection might exist — He asks that they be not confounded in Him who wait for the Lord, nor that those seeking the God of Israel should fear or be ashamed over Him; because the time of the flesh to be assumed by Him was longed for, according to that: 'Many prophets and just men have desired to see the things which you see, and to hear the things which you hear.'
He prays therefore that nothing weak and infirm may remain in Him, lest the infirmity of the body and of the flesh confound the hope of those who wait. For through Him and in Him is all our expectation toward God. Coming therefore into the body, He prays that the hope of the saints be not confounded in Him. And that He took upon Himself our infirmities for the salvation of the human race out of the paternal will — because He was to come not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him, of the Father — He now also declares through what follows: 'Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother: because the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.'
There was, therefore, in the only-begotten God no infirmity of nature, but one that was assumed, since it was for man's sake that He took upon Himself these reproaches of the Passion. And yet not even in the natures of men is there any necessity of sin; rather, from the craving of the will and the delight in vices the practice of sin is seized upon. And for this reason the Lord shows that He did not seize by robbery the things which were demanded back that He might repay them; for the things which are desired against nature are seized as by robbery, and all who would discharge such debts must pay the last farthing. And on account of this, by the prescribed form of the Lord's Prayer, we beseech that our debts be forgiven us.
He therefore endured reproach for God's sake, in that He assumed a body foreign to His own nature, in that, according to the Apostle, the Father made Him who knew no sin to be sin, in that He became obedient even unto the death of the cross, in that it was cast in His teeth that, while saving others, He did not save Himself, in that He suffered the insults of spittings and blows. Covered therefore with this shame for God's sake, He became a stranger to His brethren and an alien to the sons of His mother — a stranger, that is, from the vices of those who were reckoned His kinsmen according to the flesh — when, entering the Temple, He overturned the tables of the money-changers, when He forbade the market in sheep and oxen, when He reproached those who sold doves, asking why they had made His Father's house a house of merchandise.
For He did these things because He was consumed with zeal for the house of God. And this is the indignation of a pious love, whereby we are stirred, as with a boiling zeal, at the insults offered to those whom we love. For with this zeal for the defiled house — as the Gospel, as I have shown above, has testified — He entered the Temple and cast out the whole crowd of buyers and sellers. And to have been pleased, out of zeal for God, even unto the severity and the end of death, is praiseworthy. Through this indignation, then, at the desires reproached in them, the heaped-up revilings of all curses were gathered against Him. Whatever reproaches are wont to be directed against the impious, these were heaped upon Him as abuse, when He is called a blasphemer, a Samaritan, Beelzebub, one having a devil. For this is what underlies the words:
'And the reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon Me.' The reproach of blasphemy is heaped rather upon him who casts insult against God; just as the infamy of having a devil belongs rather to him who is estranged from God. Since, then, all these things were cast at Him because of His zeal for the house of God, the reproaches of those who reproach God are heaped upon Him. And the Apostle, writing to the Romans, made mention of this saying under the understanding of this meaning. His very abstinence in fasting also turns into reproach, when He is tempted by the devil, when He is set upon the pinnacle of the Temple, when He is carried upon the mountain, when finally, with the whole grandeur of the world, He is tempted to worship Satan.
At times He weeps and groans and is sorrowful, and this very thing is ascribed as an instance of infirmity. In short, to every kind of men He becomes both an object of detraction and a song. For those very men who sit in the gates for the sake of winning food, speak against Him and disparage Him, and being drunken they make Him the theme of their songs. And He laments that all these things were so done against Him, whether according to the truth of the deeds or according to the manner of human custom: 'And I covered my soul with fasting, and it was turned to my reproach. And I made sackcloth my garment, and I became a byword to them. They that sat in the gate spoke against me; and they that drank wine sang against me.'
And so fasting was to Him a reproach, because through the reproach of hungering He was tempted even to the insult of worshipping Satan. But the garment of sackcloth is the habit of mourning. And all mourning is an affection expressed in weeping. And when, about to raise Lazarus, He weeps, He was mourning the unbelief of the human race: for in the habit of mourning is signified the affection of weeping. But that He did not weep for Lazarus — at whose death indeed He rejoiced, and whom He was about to raise from the dead — the whole discourse of the Gospel declares.
But since He had wept, in the very work of the resurrection, over the fact that there would be no faith in the resurrection, His weeping issued into a parable, so that on the one hand He is said to have shown, by weeping over Lazarus, a proof of His love for him, and on the other hand He is reproached by very many today, because He wept, as though He were weak. And in the drunken men singing and in those who sat in the gate detracting, the insults offered to Him even by all the weak are set forth through this custom of the common people. And that no kind of men was silent concerning Him is so manifest, that Cleophas is written to have replied thus to Him who, as though ignorant of affairs, asked the cause of their conversation: 'Art Thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast Thou not known the things which have come to pass there in these days?'
For it is astonishing that one should be ignorant of what all knew. But amid all these detractions and insults concerning Himself, He was accomplishing the mysteries of human salvation; and He entreats salvation from God for the man whom He had assumed. For this follows: 'But as for me, my prayer is unto Thee, O Lord; it is the time of good pleasure, O God! In the multitude of Thy mercy hear me, in the truth of Thy salvation. Deliver me out of the mire, that I stick not fast, and rescue me from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the tempest of water drown me, neither let the deep swallow me up, nor let the pit shut her mouth upon me.' While the rest are intent upon insults and reproaches against Him, He Himself is wholly turned to God in His prayer:
having indeed in Himself our assumed infirmities, but in those very things by which He is afflicted He carries out the office of heavenly mercy toward us; and taking these things not unwillingly, He shows, in the multitude of mercy, that it is a time well-pleasing to God. In this time of good pleasure, then, He prays, because He is not ignorant of this prophecy of the Father concerning Himself, recognized also by the Apostle Paul: 'In an accepted time have I heard Thee.' All things indeed, because of the magnificence of the works, are to be understood as pleasing to God, whatsoever have been done; and when it is written in Genesis:
'And God saw that they were good,' no fault is left in the creatures of things, even though certain things have been corrupted by the wickednesses of human ingenuity — as poisons come from remedies, as the sword from iron, as conflagration from fire, as indigestion from foods, as drunkenness from wine, as finally the very parts and members of the body, though formed for natural and useful purposes, have offered themselves as instruments of vices and crimes. And though all things be pleasing to God, yet this is the well-pleasing time, wherein the only-begotten God, in the blood of our body, was about to reconcile to God, as it were things hostile and at variance, all things in heaven and in earth: when that manifold wisdom of God, hidden in other times and to no princes or magistrates,
known to the age, was to be revealed unto the praise of the glory of God, when the Gentiles were to become fellow-heirs and of the same body and partakers together with Christ, when in Him all the powers hostile to God were to be put to shame, when death, after it had raged upon God, was to cease, when the law of sin, which is in our flesh, was to be taken away, when all creation, groaning together, was to hope for the revelation of the sons of God, when in the passion of the only-begotten God the effect of all the causes and origins before the foundation of the world was to be consummated: by judging the prince of this world, by redeeming man from the law of sin, by freeing the creatures from the vanity of corruption to which they are enslaved, by condemning the spiritual wickednesses through the death of the Lord, by praising God in all and through all with the gift of eternity and the glory of our immortality.
But all these things the power of the resurrection fulfilled, because through the first-fruits from the dead, death having been driven away from the human race, the penalty of eternal death was decreed against the authors of death. For in Himself He triumphed with confidence over the principalities and powers that had been put to shame. And therefore, after the signification of the well-pleasing time, all the prayer is for the true salvation to be granted, that the very truth of that salvation might be understood which is hoped for from the resurrection. Then He who was fixed in the mire of the deep prays that He may not stick fast in the mud, according to that word: 'For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption.' For he who is earth, and shall return into the earth from which he was taken,
will cleave, being dissolved into the origin of his nature — that is, of his body — to the mud and mire in which he is fixed. He also entreats to be freed from those that hate Him and from the deep waters, because they had broken through even to His soul — that is, to the sufferings of His persecutors. Coming also into the depth of the sea and now submerged by the tempest, He prays that He may not be drowned: so that the former was a profession of our assumed infirmity, when He professes that He is submerged, but this now is a confidence conscious of the salvation within Him, when He prays that the tempest of water may not drown Him. For it is not of the same nature both to be already submerged and to pray that one may not be drowned: but it belongs to that nature which, though it may be submerged through the body, is nevertheless not to be held fast through the spirit.
And therefore now He prays that He may not be swallowed up by the deep, nor that the pit shut its mouth over Him. That by the pit is signified the abode of infernal death, another psalm also is a witness, when it is said: 'But Thou, O Lord, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction,' showing that this submerged and deep place of pits signifies the nether parts of the earth. He asks, therefore, that the pit may not shut its mouth over Him. For it is impossible that the God of life should be held fast by the gates of hell. And lest, in that He assumed the death of our infirmity, He should, according to human necessity, grieve at anything of the bitterness of death, He added: 'Hear me, O Lord, for Thy mercy is sweet unto me: according to the multitude of Thy mercies look upon me.'
For this is the well-pleasing time in the multitude of mercy, when God, having compassion upon the life of all men, was, as a compassionate God, about to bestow life from the dead. But He who testified that this mercy of God was sweet to Him does not, nevertheless, relax the solicitude of our assumed infirmity, saying: 'Turn not away Thy face from Thy servant: for I am in trouble, hear me speedily. Attend unto my soul and deliver it: rescue me because of mine enemies.' All things He both suffers and speaks as a man. For from the assumption of the flesh He is also a servant, according to that word:
'Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased,' and He prays for speedy help to His tribulation, and asks that attention be given to His soul, so that through that whereby God attends to it, it may be worthy to be delivered. And these things indeed He prays as our man, obedient even unto the death of the cross. But when He asks to be rescued because of His enemies, He exceeds the custom both of human hope and of usage; for no one who is safe wishes to be so for any cause more than for the sake of his own salvation; and everyone whom it is necessary to be rescued from evils will desire it for this end, that he be not afflicted by evils.
But now He demands to be rescued not for His own sake, but for the sake of His enemies — from those very things by which He is afflicted — because these enemies were soon to be put to shame in Him who suffered, and to be triumphed over with confidence in Him who was rising from the dead. Finally, He teaches by what follows that He does and suffers nothing for His own sake, saying: 'For Thou knowest my reproach and my confusion and my shame; in Thy sight are all that trouble me. My heart hath expected reproach and misery.' The former profession is not dissimilar, when He says: 'O God, Thou knowest my foolishness, and my offences are not hidden from Thee.' For against the error of human opinion, it was known to God alone that this infirmity was assumed by Him rather than natural.
And because these things had to be endured by Him for the sake of His enemies — the things whereby He provided for human salvation and eternity — He testifies to the affection of this well-pleasing time, saying: 'My heart hath expected reproach and misery,' signifying that the sufferings of this time were desired by Him, according to that mystery of the divine communion: 'With desire I have desired to eat this,' because in these desires of His passion consisted the effect of the well-pleasing time. But awaiting to suffer for the advancement of our salvation, He was held also by the desire of another expectation. For it follows: 'And I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and there was none; and for comforters, and I found none.'
He seeks not the solace of one grieving and comforting together with Him, but his faith — as if someone, coming out of the Law and understanding the prophecy of all these sufferings, should stand by Him as at the consummation of the Law itself: even as afterward Paul, filling up the sufferings of Jesus Christ and buried together with Him in baptism, knows Christ to be the end of the Law. For as to the consummation of the human sufferings and the prophetic sayings, He who was to be the end of the deeds, the same is also the end of the complaints. For this follows: 'And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.' For these things were fulfilled just as they are read written. For that gall was offered to Him, and that He was given vinegar to drink, the Gospels testify.
According to Matthew He indeed refused the gall offered to Him, but according to John He thirsted that He might drink the vinegar. The passage itself is set forth in these words: 'After this Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst; and there was a vessel set full of vinegar. So they filled a sponge full of vinegar and put it about hyssop and offered it to His mouth. When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, He said: It is finished.' He had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and expecting a comforter and one grieving with Him, He had none:
not that He, willing to suffer and to die, needed consolation, but that He might grieve with them over the impiety of the whole people, and that He might console Himself by the very salvation of one grieving with Him, so that, amid all who had committed so great a crime, He might receive solace at least in those who should be saved, according to that word: 'And He shall be comforted in His servants;' because, Israel not believing, the Gentiles were to believe in Him. But of the prophecy He is not written to have thirsted, but, that all things might be fulfilled, He said that He thirsted. For all our infirmities which were in Him are not natural, but assumed. Then, that it might be known that He had satisfied the prophetic Scripture, having drunk the vinegar He testified that all things were accomplished, that He might be the fullness of the Law and the Prophets,
even He who was to consummate the Law and the Prophets. But now, since within the consummation of the offered gall and the vinegar to be drunk the prophecy of the whole passion also was to be consummated, the discourse turned itself to those things which afterward followed the impiety of so great a crime, saying: 'Let their table become before them a snare, and a trap, and a recompense, and a stumbling-block. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not, and bow down their back always.' That the table is the table of sacrifices — that we may say nothing of the Law, which in itself embraced the figure of things to come — the Apostle is witness, saying: 'Ye cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils.' But that it is the table of knowledge,
since it is recognized in not a few passages, so too that in these very words it ought to be understood in the same way, the same blessed Apostle, writing to the Romans, is the interpreter, when he testifies that they were blinded, that they might understand nothing. This table, then, whence the food of spiritual life is received, was made before them a snare, and a trap, and a recompense, and a stumbling-block:
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when either the precepts of the Law or the voices of the prophets are handled by the men of the Church for the revelation of the divine counsel, when, for the faith of the assumed flesh, the only-begotten God is shown to have been adored by Abraham and to have wrestled with Jacob in the appearance of a man, when the prince coming from Judah is announced as the same expectation of the nations, when in the seed of Abraham all the families of the nations are to be blessed, when the Lord of an eternal kingdom is proclaimed from the womb of David, when according to Isaiah the Lord, led as a sheep to the slaughter, turned neither His cheeks from the blows nor His face from the spittings, when according to Jeremiah 'this is our God,' who, having delivered all disciplines to Israel His beloved, was afterward seen on earth and conversed among men, when finally the sayings of all the prophets agree concerning His coming.
This table of doctrine, then, or this word of vital food, is both a snare and a trap and a recompense and a stumbling-block, when it is shown by us that the God of Jacob is He who was crucified by them. For this is the recompense of so great an impiety, that what to us is the power of God is to them a stumbling-block. For though they are ensnared and caught by the Scriptures, yet they lack the sense of understanding; and therefore they have been darkened in their eyes, that they should not behold — that is, the light of understanding — because according to the Gospel, 'to everyone that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away': being unworthy, that is, to receive the sense and light of understanding, and therefore not having attained the knowledge of evangelical liberty,
they are still perpetually weighed down by the burden of the Law, so that they bear what they cannot sustain. For this is what He signifies in the bowing down of the back through the appearance of bodily works. But this ignorance of their blinded heart is followed also by another penalty of a due retribution: 'Pour out Thy wrath upon them, and let the fierceness of Thy anger take hold of them. Let their habitation become desolate, and let there be none to dwell in their tents.' By the wrath of God we have often shown to be signified the appointment of a penalty, not the emotion of a mind blazing up to a will of vengeance, which He would not intend as one about to punish suddenly, but into which one deserving of the penalty would fall. And this condemnation, denounced by all the prophets against this impious people, has remained.
For soon, with the city overthrown and destroyed, they were blotted out, that most glorious worship of the Temple being abolished and its adornment stripped away. And therefore, their habitation being desolate, none shall dwell in their tents. But further, according to the increments of impiety, the prophecy of penalty and retribution is also extended: 'For they have persecuted him whom Thou hast smitten, and they have added to the pain of my wounds. Add iniquity upon their iniquity, and let them not enter into Thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and let them not be written with the just.'
He shows the cause for adding iniquity upon their iniquity, and for repelling them, that they should not enter into righteousness, and for blotting them out of the book of the living and not writing them with the just, to be this: that they persecuted him whom God had smitten, and added, to the pain of his wounds, that which grieved. And perhaps not unjustly do they seem to have persecuted him whom God had smitten; and concerning those things which are smitten by God, what ought to be thought must first be treated, that it may be understood in what way both this smiting is salutary and that persecution of the smitten is impious. The Lord smote Sodom and Gomorrah, polluted and abominable with the uttermost crimes;