for their redemption, and sacrificed Him willingly, for this reason
they will find ground for blasphemy and reproach against Thee,
saying, "He saith He is the Son of God. Let God deliver Him now if
He will have Him." Why, O my God, hast Thou willed to spend so
precious a treasure for such vile and counterfeit goods? Besides,
this word may be understood to have been spoken by Christ against
those who seek to diminish the glory of His Passion, by saying that
it was not really so bitter and terrible, owing to the great support
and comfort which He drew from His Godhead. Let those who speak and
think thus know that they renew His Passion and crucify Him afresh.
It was to prove the error of such men that our Lord cried with a
loud voice, and said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
It is as if He had said these words to His own Divine nature, with
which He formed one Person--for the Godhead of the Father and of the
Son is all one--wondering, Himself, at His own love, which had so
cast Him down and worn Him out and humbled Him, and that He who
brings help to all mankind should have forsaken Himself, and offered
Himself to suffer every kind of pain, impelled thereto by conquering
love alone. Again, we should not be wrong, if we were to interpret
this word which Christ spoke out of the exceeding bitterness of His
sorrow in the following way--namely, that His spirit and inward man,
taking upon itself the severe judgment of God upon all sinners, and
at the same time discerning clearly and feeling and measuring in
Himself the intolerable weight of His Passion, on this account cried
out in a sorrowful voice to His Father, and complained tenderly to
Him because He had been cast into these dreadful torments; as if the
goodness of His Father had become so embittered against the sins of
men, that in the ardour of His justice He had quite forgotten the
inseparable union between His passible humanity and His impassible
Godhead, and therefore in the zealousness of His justice had quite