And what follows: 'My hope from the breasts of my mother. Upon You was I cast from the womb; from my mother's belly You are my God, for there is none to help me. Many bulls have compassed me; fat bulls have beset me round; they opened their mouth against me as a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like melting wax in the midst of my belly; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws'—was the foretelling of the things that came to pass.
For the words 'My hope from the breasts of my mother': for as soon as He was born in Bethlehem, as I said before, King Herod, learning about Him from the Magi who came from Arabia, plotted to slay Him; and by the command of God, Joseph took Him together with Mary and departed into Egypt. For the Father had decreed that He whom He had begotten should be put to death, after He had grown to manhood and preached His word.
And if anyone says to us, 'Could not God rather have slain Herod?'—I anticipate by saying: Could not God in the beginning have removed the serpent from existence, and not have said, 'And I will put enmity between him and the woman, and between his seed and her seed'? Could He not at once have made a multitude of men?
But, as He knew it was good for it to be so, He made both angels and men free agents toward righteous action, and appointed periods of time during which He knew it was good for them to have free will; and because He likewise knew it was good, He made both general and particular judgements, the free will being nevertheless preserved. Whence the Word says, in the laying of the foundation of the tower and in the confusion of tongues and the variety of speech, these things: 'And the Lord said: Behold, there is one race and one tongue of all, and this they have begun to do; and now nothing will fail of all that they may set themselves to do.'
And the words 'My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws,' likewise were the foretelling of the things that were to be done by Him according to the Father's will. For the power of His strong word, by which He always refuted the Pharisees and scribes who disputed with Him, and in general the teachers of your race, was stayed like a copious and mighty spring whose water has been turned back, when He kept silence and was no longer willing to answer anyone anything before Pilate, as has been declared in the memoirs of His apostles—so that what was said through Isaiah might have its effective fruit, where it is said: 'The Lord gives me a tongue to know when I ought to speak a word.'
And His saying, 'You are my God, depart not from me,' at the same time teaches that all ought to hope in God who made all things, and to seek salvation and help from Him alone, and not to think, as the rest of men do, that they can be saved by race or wealth or strength or wisdom—which you also have always done, at one time making the calf, and always being unthankful, murderers of the righteous, and puffed up because of your race.
For if the Son of God evidently says that He can be saved neither because He is Son, nor because He is strong, nor because He is wise, but that—being sinless, as Isaiah says (He having not committed lawlessness even so far as a word, nor deceit in His mouth)—He cannot be saved apart from God, how do you, or any others who expect to be saved apart from this hope, not reckon that you deceive yourselves?