Due to their exceedingly great wickedness, they would not believe in him, as the Lord shows in these words, Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? And afterward, Hearing you shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive, for the heart of this people has become desensitized.^[1] Therefore, knowledge was taken from them, because when they saw, they overlooked, and when they heard, they heard nothing at all.

For it is incredible that God, the Son of God, should be spoken of and preached as having suffered these things. For this reason they are foretold by the prophets, lest any doubt should spring up in those who are about to believe.

Now he would most certainly have said your arm if he had not wished us to understand that the Father is Lord and the Son also is Lord.

May your right hand with which you fashioned the world bring light to the world. To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? May your right hand with which you formed humanity take on a human body and save human persons.

Are we correct in understanding God’s right hand to be the one of whom Isaiah says, And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed? That, you see, is the only Son, whom the Father did not spare but handed him over for us all.^[1] And thus he stretched out his right hand on the cross, and the earth devoured the godless, when they thought of themselves as victorious and of him as despicable in defeat.

If we should understand hand as power, the power of the Father and the Son is one; but if we should understand hand as it was said through the prophet, And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? the hand of the Father is the Son himself.

For just as it is your arm through which you work, so his Word was called the arm of God, because through the Word he constructed the world. For why does a person, in order to construct something, stretch out his arm except to directly execute his will?

God truly put his arm around the prodigal son when he clothed his Son in human flesh. Then he exclaimed and said to all, Take my yoke on you.^[1] Whoever accepts the yoke of Christ is embraced as with the arm of a father and is known to be reconciled with God.

Look and see that he alone is Father and his arm is the Son, and there are not two but one, a person and his arm. Not understanding or noticing how the words of one thing are transferred to other things on account of some similarity in everyday speech concerning visible and well-known things, how much more when ineffable things are spoken in some way, which are said in such a way to be impossible [in another way]? For a person calls another person his arm through whom he does whatever he does. And if he is taken away, he mourns and says, I have lost my arm. And to the one who took him away, he says, You have taken my arm away. We can thus understand how it can be said that the Son is the arm of the Father through which the Father works all things. Failing to understand this, we remain in the shadows of error, just like those of whom it was said, To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? ^[1] LIKE A ROOT OUT OF DRY GROUND. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: For he grew up before him like a child, like a child dear to his Father, he says, because he will be dear to God. But like a root out of the ground, which is deprived of water, he will also be deprived of life at the moment of the passion. In fact, God wanted these evil things to befall him. Others have seen these words as referring to the apostles who, like candid and young children, believed in him and did not refrain from knowing him, as the scribes and the Pharisees did. According to Qatraya,^[1] this points to the fact that Simeon had already blessed him in the temple before God when he was yet an unborn child. Or this: The Son offered our nature before God, like a child, and made it pleasing before God. ^[2]

There are, indeed, admitted to be recorded some statements respecting the body of Jesus having been ill-favored; not, however, ignoble, as has been stated, nor is there any certain evidence that he was little.

I have shown from the Scriptures that no one of the children of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that he is himself in his own right, beyond all people who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King eternal and the incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles and the Spirit himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of him if, like others, he had been a mere man. But that he had, beyond all others, in himself that preeminent birth that is from the most high Father and also experienced that preeminent generation that is from the Virgin, the divine Scriptures do in both respects testify of him: also, that he was a man without comeliness and liable to suffering; that he sat on the foal of a donkey; that he was despised among the people and humbled himself even to death; and that he is the holy Lord, the wonderful, the counselor, the beautiful in appearance and the mighty God,^[1] coming on the clouds as the judge of all people^[2]—all these things did the Scripture prophesy of him.

The Spirit gives witness through Isaiah that even the Lord became an unsightly spectacle: And we saw him, and there was no beauty or comeliness in him, but his form was despised and rejected by people. Yet, who is better than the Lord? He displayed not beauty of the flesh, which is only outward appearance, but the true beauty of body and soul—for the soul, the beauty of good deeds; for the body, the beauty of immortality.

Isaiah says, We have seen him, and he had neither appearance nor beauty. Nevertheless, from being great he became lesser, and from being lesser he became great.

For not by any means in working wonders only was he wonderful, but even when merely showing himself, he was full of great grace. To declare this, the prophet said, Fair in beauty beyond the children of humankind.^[1] When Isaiah says, He had no form nor comeliness, he is comparing the [embodied Son] with the glory of his godhead, which surpasses all utterance and description. Or he is speaking of what took place at his passion, the dishonor that he underwent at the season of the cross and the mean estate that throughout his life he exemplified in all respects.

For he whom you now treat with contempt was once above you. He who is now man was once the uncompounded. What he was he continued to be; what he was not he took to himself. In the beginning he was uncaused; for what is the cause of God? But afterwards for a cause he was born. And that cause was that you might be saved, who insult him and despise his godhead, because of this, that he took on him your denser nature, having converse with flesh by means of mind. While his inferior nature, the humanity, became God, because it was united to God and became one person because the higher nature prevailed, [this happened] in order that I too might be made God so far as he is made man. He was born—but he had been begotten. He was born of a woman—but she was a virgin. The first is human, the second divine. In his human nature he had no father, but also in his divine nature [he had] no mother. Both these belong to godhead. He dwelled in the womb—but he was recognized by the prophet [John the Baptist], himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for whose sake he came into being.^[1] He was wrapped in swaddling clothes—but he took off the swathing bands of the grave by his rising again. He was laid in a manger—but he was glorified by angels, and proclaimed by a star and worshiped by the magi.^[2] Why are you offended by what is presented to your sight, because you will not look at what is presented to your mind? He was driven into exile into Egypt^[3]—but he drove away the Egyptian idols. He had no form or comeliness in the eyes of the Jews—but to David he is fairer than the children of humankind.^[4] And on the mountain he was bright as the lightning and became more luminous than the sun,^[5] initiating us into the mystery of the future.

Therefore, beloved, have in your mind God’s providence (which from the beginning until now is dispensed with foreknowledge) as some excellent medicine for weakened eyes, and keep its recollection with you at all times. Ponder, consider, and be taught by these things, that you may learn to hold the remembrance of the greatness of God’s honour in your soul, and thus find life eternal for your soul in Jesus Christ our Lord, Who is become the Mediator between God and men,^[1] as being the Uniter in His two natures. The orders of the angels cannot approach the glory that surrounds the throne of His majesty, yet He has appeared in the world for our sake in a mean and humble form, as [Isaiah] said: We beheld Him, that He had no form nor beauty. It is He that, being invisible to all created nature, put on a body and fulfilled the economy for the salvation and life of all the nations that were cleansed by Him, and to Him be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Christ’s deformity is what gives form to you. If he had been unwilling to be deformed, you would never have got back the form you lost. So he hung on the cross, deformed; but his deformity was our beauty.

One of the holy Evangelists^[1] said that when our Lord’s time of suffering drew near, he began to weep and grew sad. Yet by nature he was the only-begotten Word of the Father, being immune from sufferings and grief and the like. Nevertheless, he accommodated himself to our nature and showed himself empty of all [his divine qualities] in the face of the anxiety of the threatening onslaught of his trials. Through all these trials he declared himself to be similar to us, so that he emerges not (as some are fond of saying) as a shadow or specter seen on the earth but as a real human being.

Nor is even his death passed over in silence: on the contrary, it is referred to in the divine Scriptures, even exceedingly clearly. . . . He suffers it not for his own sake but for the immortality and salvation of all, and the counsels of the Jews against him and the indignities offered him at their hands. . . . O marvel at the loving-kindness of the Word, that for our sakes he is dishonored, that we may be brought to honor.

Therefore, when it is said that he was troubled in spirit,^[1] that he was sorrowful in soul,^[2] that he was wounded in body, he places before us designations of susceptibilities proper to our constitution, in order to show that he was made man in the world and had his conversation with [people], yet without sin.

We did not reckon him to be much or wonder who he was then. He was, however, the Savior of our souls, the healer and purifier of all sin. Therefore it continues, He bore our sins . . . though we reckoned him struck down by God and humiliated, as Aquila has it. . . . We like babes had this opinion of him while he suffered these things for us, so as to save us from all disgrace . . . he was wounded and became a curse for us . . . he became a peace offering . . . who was through all his life a sin offering in word and deed.

Let him be understood now not as the Word of God and wisdom but as servant and boy. . . . And here there will be the greater miracle that his appearance will be inglorious among people, not in that it means a foulness of form but that he came in lowliness and poverty. . . . He will wash many nations, cleansing them with his blood and consecrating for service in the baptism of God. . . .

He did not have beauty or glory. His form was base and lacking before [humanity], or as the Hebrew has it, despised and least among people. . . . How then can it be said in the psalms, Gird your side with your sword, O most powerful, with your beauty and fairness?^[1] This puzzle can be easily solved. He was despised and base when he hung on the cross and was made for us a curse and carried out sins and said to the Father, God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But he was glorious and fair in appearance when, at his passion, the earth trembled, rocks were split and the elements were terrified at the sun’s fleeing and the eternal night.

What therefore does the prophet say in these words? . . . For he confesses what we also have announced,^[1] that is, we have foretold unceasingly that he will come in due season. But perhaps someone shall say in response, What then if God who is the Word should come down from heaven, covered in divine glory and resplendent in unapproachable light, and appear to those on earth as one who cannot be looked at because of his ineffable glory? Indeed, when he visited the earth in the form of fire on Mount Sinai it was dark and gloomy, and storms and fire burst from on high along with smoke, and there were many other things that so completely terrified [the Israelites] that his appearance was unbearable to those who saw it. In fact, it was so unbearable that the Israelites called for a mediator, saying to Moses, Speak to us, and do not let God speak lest we die.^[2] So, as Isaiah says, it is no wonder that the one who shall appear should be hard to look at. Why then do the prophets say that unbelief is without excuse and rebellion is unjustifiable when there is no form or glory to his appearance? For he was not, it says, in a form or glory that befits the divine. For he emptied himself, taking on the likeness of humanity, and being found in the appearance of a man he humbled himself.^[3] And we say this not merely from hearing the reports, but we have gazed with our own eyes on the one proclaimed. For human things are in every way small, cheap and worthless compared with the divine, supreme, eminent and illustrious beauty of that nature that is above all things. For it is said in the Psalms, You are the most beautiful among the sons of men.^[4] And our text here adds, more rejected than all people, speaking of his appearance, as if to say that there are to be seen among people of distinction some which are distinguished by their fine radiant appearance . . . but Emmanuel was not among them, reduced instead to someone who was despised and lowly. This message is true, for he did not come from the holy virgin mother in opulence, but through all that is lowly and humble so as to raise up the humble and to bless those who seem worthless. And anyway, what need does God, who is Lord and king of the universe, have of human splendor?

How could one say that the body of the Lord [Christ] is void of soul and understanding? For perturbation and grief and distress are not the properties either of a flesh void of a soul or of a soul void of understanding; nor are they the sign of the nature of immutable divinity or the index of a mere phantasm; nor do they mark the defect of human moral weakness. But the Word exhibited in himself the exercise of the affections and susceptibilities proper to us, having endued himself with our passibility, even as it is written, that he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. For perturbation and grief and distress are disorders of soul; and toil, and sleep and the body’s liability to wounding are infirmities of the flesh.

Now the Greeks are accustomed to use for carry a word that also signifies to take away. . . . Whatever were the cures that Jesus effected, he is mine.

And next he teaches the forms of dishonor and shame, A man being in sorrow. He points out the nature that received the suffering, for his body was nailed to the cross, but his divinity made the passion its own. And he was familiar with sickness. This was said about his humanity. For to be courageous and philosophical touches not divine but human nature. For his face was turned away. It was not valued or appreciated. The three translators render it this way, And like a hiding of the face from him, he was made nothing and not appreciated. That is, he hid the divine energy and chose suffering and did not seek vengeance on others. For as he was on the cross he said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. This teaches us the reasons for the passion: He bore our sicknesses and suffered for us. Symmachus translated, Indeed, he personally has taken on our sicknesses and endured our pains. We deserved death for those sins we had committed, and having received this penalty, he received death on our behalf.

[To bishops.] For as yours is the burden, so you receive as your fruit the supply of food and other necessities. For you imitate Christ the Lord; and as he bore the sins of us all on the tree at his crucifixion, the innocent for those who deserved punishment, so also you ought to bear the sins of the people your own. For concerning our Savior it is said in Isaiah, He bears our sins and is afflicted for us. . . . For do not you imagine that the office of a bishop is an easy or light burden.

He was made flesh seems to be equivalent to that in which it is said that he was made sin or a curse for us, not that the Lord was transmuted into either of these—for how could he? But because by taking them on him he took away our iniquities and bore our infirmities.

But not what I will, but what you will, Father,^[1] It is not as if the Father’s will was one thing and the Son’s another. [Christ is referring to] the utterance of our weaknesses, however faithful, which our Head transformed into himself, when also he bore our sins.

No one usually brings hardship on himself. For example, the prophet insinuates the severity of [Christ’s] hardship when he says, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. For dying does not [necessarily] entail suffering what a condemned nature is capable of suffering. Therefore, the severity of the hardship he brought on himself comes to the fore in that he did not have by nature^[1] a body that could suffer; and yet, so that he might free us by his suffering, he humbly assumed the very thing that would allow him to suffer.

It did not say, He remedied our infirmities, lest, as being external to the body and only healing it, as he has always done, he should leave people subject still to death. Rather, he carries our infirmities, and he himself bears our sins, that it might be shown that he has become human for us, and that the body that in him bore them was his own body.

Alone did he assume the penalties of our wicked deeds, not when we were half dead but even when already altogether foul and stinking in tombs and graves.

He bore the sum of human evils and every form of transgression, as well as their recompense and punishment. And as if he were our debtor, the only-begotten Word of God, coming into the world alongside us, fulfilled every law and all righteousness and did not stumble over sin but received it willingly so as to change our punishment into peace and harmony. For undergoing temptation he carried our rebukes and punishments, and by faith we make our own his sufferings, and dying together with him we are saved by grace. He was not delivered by force but as an act of obedience.

The offenses of all were not equal, and there was not only one way of being impious; for the idols of the Egyptians and those of the Phoenicians were not the same, those of the Greeks were different, and those of the Scythians were something else. Nevertheless, although the forms of error were different, we had all in a common manner abandoned the true God, and by this we resembled sheep who have gone astray and are exposed to the wolves.

Isaiah says [about Christ], The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all, that is, to correct our iniquities and set them right. For that reason, he alone is able to forgive our sins, he who has been appointed by the Father of all as our educator, for he alone is able to separate obedience from disobedience.

It is the price of our freedom, as Peter says, You were redeemed with the precious blood,^[1] not of a lamb but of him who came in meekness and humility like a lamb and freed the whole world with the single offering of his body, as he himself said, I was led like a lamb to be sacrificed, and John also said, Behold, the lamb of God, behold the one who takes away the sins of the world.^[2]

He prays, but he hears prayer. He weeps, but he causes tears to cease. He asks where Lazarus was laid, for he was man; but he raises Lazarus, for he was God.^[1] He is sold, and very cheap, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver,^[2] but he redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the price was his own blood.^[3] As a sheep he is led to the slaughter, but he is the shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also. As a lamb he is silent, yet he is the Word and is proclaimed by the voice of one crying in the wilderness.^[4] He is bruised and wounded, but he heals every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the tree, but by the tree of life he restores us, yes, he saves even the robber crucified with him.^[5] . . . He dies, but he gives life, and by his death, he destroys death. He is buried, but he rises again; he goes down into hell, but he brings up the souls; he ascends to heaven and shall come again to judge the living and the dead.

It was fitting for him to heal like by like and to recall the other wandering sheep by becoming a sheep himself. He became a sheep, without being changed into one, or without being altered or without quitting his own essence. . . . For, according to Isaiah, he was sheared as well as slaughtered. For he endured death in his humanity. But as God he remained alive and impassible and gave the fleece of his body to the shearers.

For the spiritually dead and unholy Caiaphas asked him, I put you under oath to the living God to tell us if you are the Chist, the Son of God. And he answered him right away, saying, From now on you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.^[1] And then Pilate asked him whether he was king of Israel, and Christ replied, You say so.^[2] Pilate was complacent with the madness of the Jews and had Jesus beaten, and he ordered his soldiers to put him between two thieves in his suffering of death on the cross. So what the prophet said was true: Because of his affliction he did not open his mouth. But he suffered a myriad of afflictions from the time of his arrest onwards, suffered insolence and spitting and the beatings of mindless underlings and other things beside these that could be wickedly arranged, before he was brought to Pilate.

[Christ] kept silent while he was concealed, because in humility his judgment was taken away.^[1] He kept silent while he was concealed, because he was thought to be only human. But as God he will come openly; and as our God, he will not keep silent. So what about you? You were saying, I want him to come.

Because he has come hidden, our God, that is, Christ, will come manifest. And he will not keep silence.^[1] What does it mean, will not keep silence? Because he had first kept silence. When did he keep silence? He was judged in order that there might be fulfilled that which the prophet had also predicted: As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer, without voice, so he opened not his mouth. Therefore, if he were unwilling to suffer, he would not suffer. If he did not suffer, his blood would not be poured forth. If his blood would not be poured forth, the world would not be redeemed.

Though he was guilty of not even a slight sin, for no serpent could make a mark on this rock, he was condemned. He suffered with patience the insults, blows, crown of thorns, scarlet robe, and the other mockeries enumerated in the Gospel. Although guiltless, he endured it in order that filled with patience he might come to the cross as a sheep for sacrifice. Although he could have returned the injury to his adversaries, he bore it all with kindness.

This is the one who comes from heaven onto the earth for the suffering one, and wraps himself in the suffering one through a virgin womb, and comes as a man.

He accepted the suffering of the suffering one,

through suffering in a body that could suffer,

and set free the flesh from suffering.

Through the spirit that cannot die

he slew the manslayer death.

He is the one led like a lamb

and slaughtered like a sheep;

he ransomed us from the worship of the world

as from the land of Egypt,

and he set us free from slavery of the devil

as from the hands of Pharaoh,

and sealed our souls with his own spirit,

and the members of our body with his blood.

This is the one who clad death in shame

and, as Moses did to Pharaoh,

made the devil grieve.

This is the one who struck down lawlessness

and made injustice childless,

as Moses did to Egypt.

This is the one who delivered us

from slavery to freedom,

from darkness into light,

from death into life,

from tyranny into eternal kingdom,

and made us a new priesthood,

and a people everlasting for himself.

This is the Pascha of our salvation:

this is the one who in many people endured many things.

This is the one who was murdered in Abel,

tied up in Isaac,

exiled in Jacob,

sold in Joseph,

exposed in Moses,

slaughtered in the lamb,

hunted in David,

dishonored in the prophets.

This is the one made flesh in a virgin,

who was hanged on a tree,

who was buried in the earth,

who was raised from the dead,

who was exalted to the heights of heaven.

This is the lamb slain,

this is the speechless lamb,

this is the one born of Mary the fair ewe,

this is the one taken from the flock,

and led to slaughter.

Who was sacrificed in the evening,

and buried at night;

who was not broken on the tree,

who was not undone in the earth,

who rose from the dead and resurrected humankind from the grave below. ON

The Son of God, who is also the Son of man, our Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Father without mother, created every single day; born of his mother without father, he consecrated this particular day [Christmas Day]; invisible in his divine birth, visible in his human one, in each of them wonderful. Thus it is difficult to judge about which of the two the prophet is more likely to have prophesied, Who shall tell the tale of his begetting?—whether of that one in which, never not born, he has the Father co-eternal with himself; or of this one in which, born at a particular time, he had already made the mother of whom he would be made; whether of that one where he was always born, since he always was. Who, after all, will tell the tale of how light was born from light, and they were both one light; how God was born from God, and the number of gods did not increase?

The birth of our Lord and Savior, whether that of his divinity from the Father or that of his flesh from his mother, surpasses the power of human eloquence. As a result, the saying (Who will recount his generation?) may rightly be referred to either.

Who shall declare his generation? His subsistence no nature that is begotten can investigate, even as the Father can be investigated by none. For the nature of rational beings cannot receive the knowledge of his divine generation by the Father.

For he it is who proceeded from a virgin and appeared as man on the earth and whose generation after the flesh cannot be declared. For there is none who can tell his father after the flesh, his body not being of a man but of a virgin alone. Thus, no one can declare the corporeal generation of the Savior from a man in the same way as one can draw up a genealogy of David and Moses and of all the patriarchs.

Those who do not understand the manner of begetting may mislead you when they say, Who can speak of the birth of the Lord? First, who or still more no one does indeed seem to signify men. Only the Holy Spirit can grasp or explain this manner of begetting. That is why we ourselves with the permission of God the Father and of Jesus Christ our Lord have set it forth. Certainly it is not a hopeless enterprise, but we have described it as by a miracle. Next, supposing that the manner of begetting is unknown, we speak of substance when we say that the Father and Son are of the same essence (homoousios).

If you think this to be referred to the human generation by which he was born of a virgin, look into yourself and ask your soul whether the prophet would dare to declare the divine generation if words failed him for the human one.

To sum up, Christ was born both of a Father and of a mother; both without a father and without a mother; of a Father as God, of a mother as man; without a mother as God, without a Father as man. . . . Who will recount his begetting, whether that one without time or this one without seed; that one without beginning or this one without precedent; that one which never was not, or this one which never was before or after that one which has no end, or this one which has its beginning in its end?

This sheep is equally called shepherd and says I am the good Shepherd.^[1] By his manhood he is sheep; by his divine loving-kindness he is shepherd.

In reality, the people were subject to another curse, which says, Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all that is written in the book of the law.^[1] To this curse, I say, people were subject, for no person had continued in or was a keeper of the whole law. But Christ exchanged this curse for the other, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree.^[2] . . . It was necessary for him who is about to relieve us from a curse to be himself free of it. But he received another instead of ours. Therefore Christ took on himself just such curse and thereby relieved us from the curse. It was like an innocent person deciding to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took on him not the curse of transgression but the other curse, in order to remove that of others. For he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Then to show that the court was corrupt and the sentence unjust, he went on to say, In his humiliation his legal trial was taken away, that is, no one judged justly in his case.

And is not one ashamed to say that God is not crafty or deceitful? Concerning him, however, in respect of the flesh, it might be reasonable [to say it].

David alone of the prophets prophesied with an instrument, called by the Greeks the psaltery. . . . But this psaltery has the source of its musical numbers above, in order that we, too, may practice seeking things above and not suffer ourselves to be borne down by the pleasure of melody to the passions of the flesh. And I think that this truth, too, was signified deeply and clearly to us in a prophetic way in the construction of the instrument, namely, that those who have souls well ordered and trained have the way ready to things above. And again, an instrument having the source of its melodious sound in its upper parts may be taken as like the body of Christ and his saints—the only instrument that maintains rectitude; for he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.^[1] This is indeed an instrument, harmonious, melodious, well-ordered, that took in no human discord and did nothing out of measure but maintained in all things, as it were, harmony toward the Father; for, as he says, he that is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth; he that comes from heaven testifies of what he has seen and heard.^[2]

If you wish to look at the mind behind his appearance, you will find it to be an ocean of compassion for humanity residing there. For he saved them, the most foul people who gloried in their wealth and those condemned to death from their deeds, as they trusted and received the death of the Savior which was a ransom for them, offering them, in place of the tomb and death, eternal life and incorruptible everlasting life.

This verse shows the unrighteous rage of the devil when he unleashed himself on our Savior. For although there was no sin found in his being according to the flesh, but that flesh remained sinless, the devil as if [Christ] were a sinner killed him and in so doing manifested the totality of his wickedness. But for this very reason came salvation for those who had fallen into sin.

Receiving the sufferings due to us, [Christ] made them his own and so from a standpoint of faith it is said that he became a curse for us himself. And it is said that they make gifts not with sacrifices but with feeling and repentance, and thus they receive a spiritual healing as they trade not only their present life.

Once the only Son of God made our salvation his own prize when he took a body and endured sufferings on our behalf. And his Father rightly said that he took away [Christ’s] pain as our healing and purifying, that our illumination was shown to be his light just as we grow into the knowledge of God and understanding with our behavior changed for the better and converted in the intelligence of God. Since the only-begotten Son of God acted in every way according to the paternal command and filled every thought with obedience, it was characteristic of him that the Savior should wrap a towel around himself and fill the basin with water and be of service in every way.^[1]