Hear Him who redeems the world with His own blood, who binds the devil and plunders his vessels, who tears asunder the bond of sin and the covenants of transgression; hear Him who opens the way to heaven and by the torment of the cross prepares for you the steps of ascension to the kingdom. Why do you tremble to be redeemed? Why are you terrified to be set free? Let what Christ wills be done, since I too will it. Cast off carnal fear and arm yourselves with faithful constancy; for it is unworthy that you should dread in the Saviour's passion what by His gift you shall not fear even at your own end.
These things, dearly beloved, were spoken not only for the benefit of those who heard them with their own ears, but in those three apostles the whole Church learned whatever their sight beheld and their hearing received. Let therefore the faith of all be confirmed according to the preaching of the most sacred Gospel, and let no one blush at the cross of Christ, through which the world was redeemed. Nor let anyone fear to suffer for righteousness or distrust the recompense of the promises, since it is through labour that we pass to rest and through death to life; for He has taken upon Himself all the weakness of our lowliness, in whom, if we abide in confessing and loving Him, we both conquer what He conquered and receive what He promised.
For whether it be for the doing of the commandments or for the enduring of adversities, the Father's foregoing voice ought always to resound in our ears, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear Him—who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto ages of ages. Amen. The mystery, dearly beloved, of the Lord's Passion, which the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, took upon Himself for the salvation of the human race, and, as He promised, being lifted up drew all things to Himself, the Gospel word has laid open so plainly and clearly that to religious and pious hearts it is no different to have heard what was read than to have seen what was done.
Wherefore, since the sacred narrative holds indubitable authority, we must strive, with the Lord's help, that our understanding may see clearly what history has made known. For after that first and universal ruin of human transgression, out of which by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned (Rom. 5:12), no one could escape the foul domination of the devil, no one the harsh chains of captivity; nor would reconciliation unto pardon or return unto life lie open to anyone, unless the Son of God, coeternal and coequal with God the Father, should deign to become also the son of man, coming to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10):
that as by Adam came death, so by our Lord Jesus Christ came the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:22). For not because, according to the inscrutable purpose of the wisdom of God, the Word was made flesh in the last days (John 1:14), did the birthgiving of the saving Virgin profit only the generations of the final age, and not pour itself out also upon the ages that were past. Absolutely all the antiquity of those worshipping the true God, all the number of the saints among the earlier ages, lived and pleased in this faith; and neither to the patriarchs, nor to the prophets, nor to any of the saints whatsoever, was there salvation and justification except in the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ:
which, as it was awaited, promised by many oracles and signs of the prophets, so was it also presented by that very gift and work. Hence now, dearly beloved, in the whole order of the Lord's Passion, let us not so consider the human weakness as to think that the divine power was there wanting; nor let us so conceive that form of the Only-begotten, coeternal and equal to the Father, as to suppose that those things were not true which seem unworthy of God. Wholly of both natures, Christ is one: neither is the Word there separated from the man, nor is the man dissociated from the Word. The humility was not disdained, because the majesty was not diminished. Nothing harmed the inviolable nature which had to be inflicted upon the passible:
and that whole mystery, which both the humanity and the Deity together accomplished, was a dispensation of mercy and an act of loving-kindness. For we were held bound by such fetters that we could not be loosed except through this succour. The humility therefore of the Divinity is our advancement. We are redeemed at so great a price, we are healed at so great a cost. For what recourse would there have been from impiety to righteousness, from misery to blessedness, unless He who is just had bent down to the impious, and He who is blessed to the wretched? Therefore, dearly beloved, the cross of Christ is not to be blushed at by us, for it is of the power of the divine counsel, not of the condition of sin.
For although out of our weakness the Lord Jesus truly suffered and truly died, yet He did not so abstain from His own glory that amid the outrages of the passion He exercised nothing of divine operation. For when impious Judas, no longer veiled in the sheep's fleece but manifest in wolfish fury, beginning the violence of his crime under the appearance of peace, offered with a kiss the sign of betrayal, more cruel than any weapon, and the raging multitude which had thronged together with an armed cohort of soldiers to seize the Lord, amid torches and lanterns, blinded by its own darkness, did not perceive the true Light, the Lord, who had chosen rather to await than to avoid the crowds, as John the Evangelist testifies (John
18:4), though not yet found, asks whom they seek: and when they said that they sought Jesus, He says, I am He (ibid. 5). Which word so laid low and struck down that band gathered from the most ferocious men, as if by some thunderbolt's blow, that all those fierce, threatening, and terrible men were driven back and fell down. Where was the conspiracy of savagery? Where the ardour of wraths? Where the array of arms? The Lord says, I am He: and at His voice the throng of the impious is prostrated. What now shall His majesty be able to do when it comes to judge, whose humility to be judged had such power? But the Lord, knowing what better befitted the mystery He had undertaken, did not persist in this power;
He did not permit His persecutors to return to the capacity for the crime they had arranged. For if He were unwilling to be held, He certainly would not be held. But what man could be saved, if He did not suffer Himself to be seized? For even blessed Peter, who clung to the Lord with more spirited constancy, and, kindled with the fervour of holy charity against the onslaught of the violent, used the sword against the servant of the chief of the priests, and cut off the ear of the man too fiercely pressing on (Matt. 26:51; Mark 14:47; Luke 22:50; John 18:10). But this pious movement of the zealous apostle the Lord does not allow to go further:
He commands the sword to be sheathed, and does not suffer Himself to be defended against the impious with hand and steel. For it was contrary to the mystery of our redemption that He who had come to die for all should be unwilling to be taken: lest, the triumph of the glorious Cross being delayed, both the diabolical domination should become longer and human captivity more lasting. He therefore gives to those raging against Him licence to vent their cruelty, yet even toward such the Divinity does not disdain to show itself. The hand of Christ recalls to its place the ear of the servant, already dead by the very cutting and estranged from the fabric of the living body, upon the head thus dishonoured. He reforms what He Himself had formed: nor is the flesh slow to follow the command of Him whose fashioning it was. These works therefore have divine power.
But that the Lord restrains the power of His majesty and admits against Himself the violence of the persecutor, this proceeds from that will by which He loved us and gave Himself for us (Eph. 5:2): the Father cooperating in this very thing, who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32). For the will of the Father and of the Son is one, as the Divinity is one; of the effect of whose dispensation we owe nothing to your favour, O Jews, nothing to you, O Judah. To our salvation, indeed—not because you willed this—your impiety was made to serve, and through you was done whatever the hand of God and His counsel had decreed to be done (Acts 4:28). The death of Christ therefore frees us, but accuses you.
Deservedly you alone have not that which you willed should perish for all. And yet so great is the goodness of our Redeemer, that even you may be able to obtain pardon, if, confessing Christ the Son of God, you forsake that parricidal malice. For not in vain did the Lord pray on the cross, saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Which remedy would not have passed you by either, Judas, had you fled to that repentance which would recall you to Christ, not that which would drive you to the noose. For in saying, I have sinned, betraying innocent blood (Matt. 27:4), you persisted in the perfidy of your impiety: because amid the extreme perils of your death you believed Jesus to be not God the Son of God, but only a man of our condition;
whose mercy you would have moved, had you not denied His omnipotence. Let these things, dearly beloved, imparted this day to your pious ears, suffice, lest weariness at length creep in from prolixity. But what is lacking to the fullness, we promise, with the Lord's help, to render on the fourth day: since He who has given us what we have spoken will give, as we believe, what we are to speak: through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory unto ages of ages. Amen.