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SERMON 72B A Second on the Lord’s Passion1 ecently when we heard the many bitter2 indignities comprising the Lord’s Passion, we suddenly came to wonder why God, who has created by his command and has marked off by his decree everything that heaven has, that the earth bears, that the sea contains, and that Tartarus used to summon, has arranged the world in such beauty, yet in order to absolve the sentence of death shed that stream of sacred blood.3 Why did the Origin of the universe, the Author of nature, will to be born, except that he willed to die? Why did God assume flesh with all its weakness, except that4 he chose to take on the indignities associated with the flesh? Why did the Lord of all creation enter the form of slavery except to endure all the indignities of slavery? The Judge chooses to be judged, the Advocate chooses to be put on trial, when he has endured being judged by reprobates. What need is there for him to suffer when he has both the capacity and the power to save? Or what is the reason then for him to die, when he has both the strength and the means to give life? 2. Behold, we are now going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to5 the chief priests, and they will condemn him to 6 1. On this sermon’s authenticity, see A. Olivar, Los sermones, 357–65. On when this sermon was preached, see Sermon 72a, n. 1. At any rate, it was the next sermon Chrysologus preached after Sermon 72a. 2. Emending Olivar’s acervas, with acerbas, from PLS 4.662. 3. The question of why the Son of God suffered death was posed at the end of Sermon 72a, and a sermon on that topic was promised, namely, this Sermon 72b. 4. Emending Olivar’s qua with quia, from PLS 4.662. 5. Emending Olivar’s CCL text by omitting a, as in PLS 4.662, especially since that preposition is not found in Sermon 72a’s citation of Mt 20.18–19. death, and they will hand him over to the gentiles, and they will mock him and spit at him, and after three days he will rise (Mt 20.18–19). We are going up to Jerusalem, and on the day of Passover, so that the entirety of the Jewish city would gather at the display of the Passion, at the public spectacle of his death, and at the scandal of the cross. An ordinary kind of passion is not sufficient, nor a private death, nor a regular kind of death, nor a death like any other death;6 the uniqueness of the Passion had to match the uniqueness of the Sufferer. It was done so that the Creator of the world would die with the world as his witness; and so that the Lord of the world would be recognized by the world through his pain before he would be through his glory. The Peace of heaven is betrayed by the kiss of deceit,7 the One who holds all is held fast, the Bond of all is bound, the One who draws all is led forth, Truth is accused by falsehood, and the One for whom all things stand at his service, is made to stand trial; the Jews hand him over to the gentiles, the gentiles return him to the Jews; Pilate sends him to Herod, Herod sends him back to Pilate, and piety becomes the business of impiety, and holiness is brought to the market of cruelty. Forgiveness is beaten, Pardon is condemned, Majesty is mocked, Virtue is ridiculed; the Bestower of rain is drenched with spittle, the One who has arrayed the heavens is restrained by nails of iron, the Giver of honey is fed with gall, the One who makes springs of water flow is given vinegar to drink; and when there is no longer any punishment left, death takes cover, death hesitates, because it does not notice anything there that is its own. Newness is looked at with suspicion by antiquity; he was the first, he was the only man it saw innocent of sin, free of guilt, owing nothing to the laws of its domain. It is amazed to see on earth One who has no trace of earthliness in him. “The first man,” Scripture says, “is earthly from earth, the second man...

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