49. There is still, the heretics say, another serious and far reaching confession of weakness, all the more so because it is in the mouth of the Lord Himself, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me673    St. Matt. xxvii. 46.? They construe this into the expression of a bitter complaint, that He was deserted and given over to weakness. But what a violent interpretation of an irreligious mind! how repugnant to the whole tenor of our Lord’s words! He hastened to the death, which was to glorify Him, and after which He was to sit on the right hand of power; with all those blessed expectations could He fear death, and therefore complain that His God had betrayed Him to its necessity, when it was the entrance to eternal blessedness?

49. Derelictum objiciunt. Quam nihil inde conficiant.---0382C Restat nobis adhuc, ut haereticis videtur, magna et gravis cofessae infirmitatis professio, et maxime ipsius Domini vocibus edita, cum ait: Deus, Deus meus, quare me dereliquisti (Matth. XXVII, 46)? Quae maximae querelae esse intelligitur protestatio, derelictum se esse conqueri, infirmitatique permissum? Verum haec impiae intelligentiae violenta praesumptio, quam sibi in omni dictorum dominicorum genere compugnat: ut qui ad mortem festinat, ut qui per eam honorificandus est, ut qui post eam a dextris virtutis sessurus est, in his tot beatitudinum causis mori timuerit, et ob id ad necessitatem moriendi desertum se a Deo suo queratur, cum in beatis illis esset mortem obeundo mansurus!