The Paradoxical Suffering of Christ

He shows how the holy things were profaned. The soulless consequences of the audacity were felt, but those committing these things had souls without feeling. The elements were enraged and left the order of the small things behind, and he worked a confusion of all, unless one knew the will of the Creator, that he was not acting out of malice or insolence.

Oh, of these new and paradoxical things! By wood he is stretched out, tearing the heaven with his word, and he is surrounded by bonds, the one who bound the sea with sand, and he is given gall to drink, he who granted the springs y, and he is crowned with thorns, he who crowned the earth with flowers, and his head is struck with a reed, he who struck Egypt with the ten plagues and covered the head of Pharaoh with the waters, and his face is spat upon, whom even the cherubim cannot bear to see. And suffering these things, he prayed for those crucifying him, saying: 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing' (Luke 23:34).

He overcomes evil with goodness; he justifies those who kill Christ for their own salvation by catching them in a snare; he dissolves the crime by blaming ignorance; he does not grow angry at their rebukes, becoming a plaything; he receives the drunkenness and calls through philanthropy toward repentance. What more is needed to say? Having not stripped away the goodness, they enclose him in a tomb in which nothing of the living can fit, and they place signs upon us, guarding the salvation and fearing the resurrection, they station soldiers as guards at the tomb. Who has seen a dead man being guarded? Rather, who has seen...