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Having swallowed, becoming very strong, he is forced to vomit miserably, sending away empty the one who boasts in his wealth. The child born and given to us, having gone down upon the den of asps, chokes, and kills, and destroys the haughty and boastful one. Now Hades has become heaven, and the regions below are filled with light, and the darkness that before was pursuing is driven away, and sight is given to the blind. For to those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, a dawn from on high has appeared. These things prophets, and patriarchs, and righteous men clearly prefigured and foretold. 23. The righteous one is bound, as useless. For they have devised a death-bringing counsel against themselves, those who gather the people of the Lord as reeds, and troubling the paths of their feet. Woe to their soul! evil things according to their works will happen to them, says Isaiah; but for us the deed has now become truly pain-releasing and pain-healing. I give my back to the scourges, and my cheeks to blows, and I endure the shame of spitting, he said, speaking in Isaiah. Therefore the work of my hands will not be put to shame, will not be confounded. For I did not consider it a thing to be grasped to be equal with God; but being God, consubstantial with the Father, I brought myself down to emptying, and for the sake of the ungodly I am humbled unto death, the Father having so willed. For what he wills, I will, being by nature one in will with him, and a sharer of the divinity. And I, the Most High, am exalted, and in me humanity having been glorified (for thus I commend the Father's love), so that being justified in my blood, and in my death having been blessed with reconciliation to my Father, they may live in life, and may rest under my wings, the sheep kept for me. 24. Let us understand, who have not seen, and let us believe the report of those who preach peace. For to us the arm of God, his all-working power, is revealed. For we shall be glorified if we understand, and we shall be greatly glorified, beholding as in a mirror in his lowliness the glory of the Lord, and perceiving in his inglorious form the beauty beyond understanding. For even if he suffered out of weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. If he is seen hanging on a tree, both uncomely and inglorious, failing beyond all the sons of men, yet he himself is the effulgence of glory, which the earth, seeing, was ashamed and mourned. He bore our sins upon the tree, and he was pained by our wound, and he is in anguish for us, and he bore the blow, and the pain, and the affliction, the reconciliations of 96.624 our peace. For since we went astray like sheep, turning from the way of the Lord, and completing our own path, through the bowels of mercy he was delivered for our sins; not striving, nor crying out, leaving us an example, and as a speechless sheep he is led to death for us. You will see, says Moses, your life hanging before your eyes, and you will not believe your life. The forefather of God, David, or rather through David the Lord of David, proclaiming beforehand his own passion and life-giving burial, said: They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast a lot. He who clothed the first parents of our race with tunics of skin, is willingly stripped for crucifixion, so that, having stripped us of mortality, he might clothe us with the comeliness of incorruption. And he gives his garment as an inheritance to the soldiers. For he is about, rising from the dead, to send to the nations those whom he himself chose as disciples, and himself to become for the faithful the garment of divine baptism; For as many of you, he says, as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. 25. Noah, on the one hand, being confined in an ark, and saving by wood the seeds of a second world, and again becoming the beginning of the race, willingly typified Christ

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κατέπιεν ἰσχύσας λίαν οἰκτρῶς, ἐμεῖν ἐκβιάζεται, ἐξαποστέλλων κενὸν τὸν ἐπὶ πλούτῳ κομπάζοντα. Τὸ γεννηθὲν, καὶ δοθὲν ἡμῖν παιδίον ἐπὶ τρώγλην ἀσπίδων καταβεβηκὸς, ἄγχει, καὶ ἀποκτείνει καὶ ὄλλυσι τὸν σοβαρὸν καὶ μεγάλαυχον. Νῦν οὐρανὸς ὁ ᾅδης γεγένηται, καὶ φωτὸς πληροῦνται τὰ καταχθόνια, καὶ τὸ σκότος τὸ πρὶν διῶκον ἐλαύνεται, καὶ τοῖς τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψις δίδοται. Τοῖς γὰρ ἐν σκότει καὶ σκιᾷ θανάτου καθημένοις, ἀνατολὴ ἐξ ὕψους ἐπέφανε. Ταῦτα προφῆται, καὶ πατριάρχαι, καὶ δίκαιοι σαφῶς προετύπουν καὶ προηγόρευον. κγʹ. Ὁ δίκαιος δεσμεῖται, ὡς δύσχρηστος. Βουλὴν γὰρ καθ' αὑτῶν ὀλεθροτόκον βεβούλευνται, οἱ τὸν τοῦ Κυρίου λαὸν καλαμώμενοι, καὶ τῶν ποδῶν αὐτῶν τὰς τρίβους ταράσσοντες. Οὐαὶ τῇ ψυχῇ αὐτῶν! πονηρὰ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν συμβήσεται αὐτοῖς, ὁ Ἡσαΐας φησίν· ἀλλ' ἡμῖν λυσίπονος ὄντως καὶ ἀκεσώδυνος ἡ πρᾶξις ἤδη γεγένηται. Τὸν νῶτον εἰς μάστιγας δίδωμι, καὶ τὰς παρειὰς εἰς ῥαπίσματα, καὶ ἐμπτυσμάτων αἰσχύνης ἀνέχομαι, ὁ ἐν Ἡσαΐᾳ ἔφη φθεγγόμενος. ∆ιὸ τῶν ἐμῶν χειρῶν τὸ πλαστούργημα, οὐκ ἐντραπήσεται, οὐκ αἰσχυνθήσεται. Οὐ γὰρ ἡρπάχθαι λελόγισμαι τὸ εἶναι ἴσα Θεῷ· ἀλλὰ Θεὸς ὢν τῷ Πατρὶ ὁμοούσιος, ἐμαυτὸν καθῆκα πρὸς κένωσιν, καὶ ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν ταπεινοῦμαι πρὸς θάνατον, οὕτω τοῦ Πατρὸς εὐδοκήσαντος. Ἃ θέλει γὰρ, βούλομαι, συνθελητὴς αὐτῷ πεφυκὼς, καὶ κοινωνὸς τῆς θεότητος. Καὶ ὑψοῦμαι ὁ Ὕψιστος, καὶ ἐν ἐμοὶ δεδοξασμένης τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος (οὕτω γὰρ τὴν πατρικὴν ἀγάπην συνίστημι), ἵν' ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ δικαιούμενα αἵματι, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ θανάτῳ τὴν πρὸς τὸν ἐμὸν Πατέρα καταλλαγὴν εὐμοιρήσαντα, ἐν τῇ ζωῇ ζῶσι, καὶ ὑπὸ τὰς ἐμὰς ἀναπαύσωνται πτέρυγας, τὰ ἐμοὶ φυλασσόμενα πρόβατα. κδʹ. Συνῶμεν οἳ οὐ τεθεάμεθα, καὶ τῇ ἀκοῇ τῶν εὐαγγελιζομένων εἰρήνην πιστεύσωμεν. Ἡμῖν γὰρ ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ βραχίων, ἡ παντουργὸς αὐτοῦ δύναμις, ἐκκαλύπτεται. ∆οξασθησόμεθα γὰρ εἰ συνήσωμεν, καὶ σφόδρα δοξασθησόμεθα, ἐν εὐτελείᾳ τὴν δόξαν Κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀδοξοῦντι εἴδει κατανοοῦντες τὴν ὑπὲρ νοῦν ὡραιότητα. Εἰ καὶ πέπονθε γὰρ ἐξ ἀσθενείας, ἀλλὰ ζῇ ἐκ δυνάμεως Θεοῦ. Εἰ καθορᾶται ἐπὶ ξύλου κρεμάμενος, ἀκαλλής τε καὶ ἄδοξος παρὰ πάντας ἐκλείπων τοὺς υἱοὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλ' αὐτός ἐστι τὸ τῆς δόξης ἀπαύγασμα, ὃ ὁρῶσα ᾐσχύνθη ἡ γῆ καὶ ἐπένθησεν. Οὗτος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον ἀνήνεγκε, καὶ τὸν ἡμέτερον ἤλγησε μώλωπα, καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται, καὶ πληγὴν, καὶ πόνον, καὶ κάκωσιν ἤνεγκε, τῆς 96.624 ἡμῶν εἰρήνης καταλλάγματα. Ἐπεὶ γὰρ ὡς πρόβατα ἐπλανήθημεν, τὴν ὁδὸν Κυρίου ἐκκλίναντες, καὶ τὴν ἡμῶν ἐξανύοντες τρίβον, διὰ σπλάγχνα ἐλέους ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἡμῶν παραδέδοται· οὐκ ἐρίζων, οὐδὲ κραυγάζων, ἡμῖν καταλιμπάνων ὑπογραμμὸν, καὶ ὡς πρόβατον ἄφωνον ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν εἰς θάνατον ἄγεται. Ὄψεσθε, φησὶν ὁ Μωϋσῆς, τὴν ζωὴν ὑμῶν κρεμαμένην ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ὑμῶν, καὶ οὐ μὴ πιστεύσητε τῇ ζωῇ ὑμῶν. Ὁ Θεοπάτωρ ∆αβὶδ, μᾶλλον δὲ διὰ τοῦ ∆αβὶδ ὁ τοῦ ∆αβὶδ Κύριος, τὸ οἰκεῖον πάθος, καὶ τὴν ζωοτόκον ταφὴν προαναφωνῶν ἔλεγε· ∆ιεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτια μου ἑαυτοῖς, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἱματισμόν μου ἔβαλλον κλῆρον. Ὁ δερματίνους χιτῶνας ἀμφιάσας τοὺς τοῦ γένους πρωτοπάτορας, ἑκὼν γυμνοῦται πρὸς σταύρωσιν, ἵνα γυμνώσας ἡμᾶς τῆς θνητότητος τὴν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας περιβάλῃ εὐπρέπειαν. Καὶ τὴν στολὴν κληρουχεῖ τοῖς στρατιώταις. Μέλλει γὰρ ἐκ θνητῶν ἀνιστάμενος ἀποστέλλειν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, οὓς αὐτὸς μαθητὰς ἐξελέξατο, καὶ αὐτὸς θείου βαπτίσματος τοῖς πιστοῖς γίνεσθαι περιβόλαιον· Ὅσοι γὰρ, φησὶν, εἰς Χριστὸν ἐβαπτίσθητε, Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε. κεʹ. Νῶε μὲν ἐν κιβωτῷ καθειργόμενος, καὶ ξύλῳ σώζων δευτέρου κόσμου τὰ σπέρματα, καὶ πάλιν ἀρχὴ τοῦ γένους γενόμενος, Χριστὸν ἑκουσίως ἐτύπου