Moreover, while He is being betrayed, while He is
being led up "as a sheep for a victim," (for "so He no more opens His mouth than a
lamb under the power of the shearer,")He to whom, had He willed it, legions of angels
would at one word have presented themselves from the heavens, approved not the
avenging sword of even one disciple The patience of the Lord was wounded in (the
wound of) Malchus. And so, too, He cursed for the time to come the works of the
sword; and, by the restoration of health, made satisfaction to him whom Himself had
not hurt, through Patience, the mother of Mercy. I pass by in silence (the fact) that He
is crucified, for this was the end for which He had come; yet had the death which must
be undergone need of contumelies likewise? Nay, but, when about to depart, He
wished to be sated with the pleasure of patience. He is spitted on, scourged, derided,
clad foully, more foully crowned. Wondrous is the faith of equanimity! He who had set
before Him the concealing of Himself in man's shape, imitated nought of man's
impatience! Hence, even more than from any other trait, ought ye, Pharisees, to have
recognised the Lord. Patience of this kind none of men would achieve. Such and so
mighty evidences-the very magnitude of which proves to be among the nations indeed
a cause for rejection of the faith, but among us its reason and rearing-proves manifestly
enough (not by the sermons only, in enjoining, but likewise by the sufferings of the
Lord in enduring) to them to whom it is given to believe, that as the effect and
excellence of some inherent propriety, patience is God's nature.
