8…But you have heard but now when the Gospel was being read in what terms He has notified His Majesty: I and My Father are One. Behold how great a Majesty and how great an Equality with the Father has come down to the flesh because of our infirmity. Behold how greatly beloved we have been, before that we loved God. If before that we loved God, so much by Him we were beloved, as that His Son, Equal with Himself, He made a Man for our sake, what does He reserve for us now loving Him? Therefore many men think it to be a very small thing that the Son of God has appeared on earth; because they are not in the Holy One, to them has not appeared the power of the Same and the glory of the Same: that is, not yet have they a heart made holy, whence they may perceive the eminence of that virtue, and may render thanks to God, nor that to which for their own sakes so great an One came, unto what a nativity, unto what a Passion, they are not able to see, His glory and His power.

9. For better is Your mercy than lives. Many are the lives of men, but one life God promises: and He gives not this to us as if for our merits but for His mercy…For what is so just a thing as that a sinner should be punished? Though a just thing it be that a sinner should be punished, it has belonged to the mercy of Him not to punish a sinner but to justify him, and of a sinner to make a just man, and of an ungodly man to make a godly man. Therefore His mercy is better than lives. What lives? Those which for themselves men have chosen. One has chosen for himself a life of business, another a country life, another a life of usury, another a military life; one this, another that. Divers are the lives, but better is Your life than our lives… My lips shall praise You. My lips would not praise You, unless before me were to go Your mercy. By Your gift You I praise, through Your mercy You I praise. For I should not be able to praise God, unless He gave me to be able to praise Him.

10. So I will speak good of You in my life, and in Your name I will lift up my hands. Now in my life which to me You have given, not in that which I have chosen after the world with the rest among many lives, but that which You have given to me through Your mercy, that I should praise You. So I will speak good of You in my life. What is so? That to Your mercy I may ascribe my life wherein You I praise, not to my merits. And in Your name I will lift up my hands. Lift up therefore hands in prayer. Our Lord has lifted up for us His hands on the Cross, and stretched out were His hands for us, and therefore were His hands stretched out on the Cross, in order that our hands might be stretched out unto good works: because His Cross has brought us mercy. Behold, He has lifted up hands, and has offered for us Himself a Sacrifice to God, and through that Sacrifice have been effaced all our sins. Let us also lift up our hands to God in prayer: and our hands being lifted up to God shall not be confounded, if they be exercised in good works. For what does he that lifts up hands? Whence has it been commanded that with hands lifted up we should pray to God? For the Apostle says, Lifting up pure hands without anger and dissension. It is in order that when you lift up hands to God, there may come into your mind your works. For whereas those hands are lifted up that you may obtain that which you will, those same hands you think in good works to exercise, that they may not blush to be lifted up to God. In your name I will lift up my hands. Those are our prayers in this Idumæa, in this desert, in the land without water and without way, where for us Christ is the Way, but not the way of this earth.

11…Already our fathers are dead, but God lives: here we could not always have fathers, but there we shall always have one living Father, when we have our father-land…What sort of country is that? But you love here riches. God Himself shall be to you your riches. But you love a good fountain. What is more passing clear than that wisdom? What more bright? Whatsoever is an object of love here, in place of all you shall have Him that has made all things, as though with marrow and fatness my soul should be filled: and lips of exultation shall praise Your name. In this desert, in Your name I will lift up my hands: let my soul be filled as though with marrow and fatness, and my lips with exultation shall praise Your name. For now is prayer, so long as there is thirst: when thirst shall have passed away, there passes away praying and there succeeds praising. And lips of exultation shall praise Your name.

12. If I have remembered You upon my bed, in the dawnings I did meditate on you: because You have become my helper. His bed he calls his rest. When any one is at rest, let him be mindful of God; when any one is at rest, let him not by rest be dissolved, and forget God: if mindful he is of God when he is at rest, in his actions on God he does meditate. For the dawn he has called actions, because every man at dawn begins to do something. What therefore has he said? If therefore I was not mindful on my bed, in the dawn also I did not meditate on You. Can he that thinks not of God when he is at leisure, in his actions think of God? But he that is mindful of Him when he is at rest, on the Same does meditate when he is doing, lest in action he should come short. Therefore he has added what? Because You have become my helper. For unless God aid our good works, they cannot be accomplished by us. And worthy things we ought to work: that is, as though in the light, since by Christ showing the way we work. Whosoever works evil things, in the night he works, not in the dawn; according to the Apostle, saying, They that are drunken, in the night are drunken; and they that sleep, in the night do sleep; let us that are of the day, be sober. He exhorts us that after the day we should walk honestly: As in the day, honestly let us walk. And again, You, he says, are sons of light, and sons of day; we are not of night nor of darkness. Who are sons of night, and sons of darkness? They that work all evil things. To such a degree they are sons of night, that they fear lest the things which they work should be seen…No one therefore in the dawn works, except him that in Christ works. But he that while at leisure is mindful of Christ, on the Same does meditate in all his actions, and He is a helper to him in a good work, lest through his weakness he fail. And in the covering of Your wings I will exult. I am cheerful in good works, because over me is the covering of Your wings. If you protect me not, forasmuch as I am a chicken, the kite will seize me. For our Lord Himself says in a certain place to that Jerusalem, a certain city, where He was crucified: Jerusalem, He says, Jerusalem, how often I have willed to gather your sons, as though a hen her chickens, and you would not. Little ones we are: therefore may God protect us under the shadow of His wings. What when we shall have grown greater? A good thing it is for us that even then He should protect us, so that under Him the greater, always we be chickens. For always He is greater, however much we may have grown. Let no one say, let Him protect me while I am a little one: as if sometime he would attain to such magnitude, as should be self-sufficient. Without the protection of God, nought you are. Alway by Him let us desire to be protected: then always in Him we shall have power to be great, if always under Him little we be. And in the covering of Your wings I will exult.

13. My soul has been glued on behind You. See ye one longing, see ye one thirsting, see ye how he cleaves to God. Let there spring up in you this affection. If already it is sprouting, let it be rained upon and grow: let it come to such strength, that you also may say from the whole heart, My soul has been glued on behind You. Where is that same glue? The glue itself is love. Have thou love, wherewith as with glue your soul may be glued on behind God. Not with God, but behind God; that He may go before, you may follow. For he that shall have willed to go before God, by his own counsel would live, and will not follow the commandments of God. Because of this even Peter was rebuked, when he willed to give counsel to Christ, who was going to suffer for us… Far be it from You, O Lord, be merciful to Yourself. And the Lord, Go back behind Me, Satan: for you savour not the things which are of God, but the things which are of men. Wherefore, the things which are of men? Because to go before Me you desire, go back behind Me, in order that you may follow me: so that now following Christ he might say, My soul has been glued on behind You. With reason he adds, Me Your right hand has taken up. This Christ has said in us: that is in the Man which He was bearing for us, which He was offering for us, He has said this. The Church also said this in Christ, she says it in her Head: for she too has suffered here great persecutions, and by her individual members even now she suffers…

14. But themselves in vain have sought my soul. They shall go unto the lower places of the earth. Earth they were unwilling to lose, when they crucified Christ: into the lower places of the earth they have gone. What are the lower places of the earth? Earthly lusts. Better it is to walk upon earth, than by lust to go under earth. For every one that in prejudice of his salvation desires earthly things, is under the earth: because earth he has put before him, earth upon himself he has put, and himself beneath he has laid. They therefore fearing to lose earth, said what of the Lord Jesus Christ, when they saw great multitudes go after Him, forasmuch as He was doing wonderful things? If we shall have let Him go alive, there will come the Romans, and will take away from us both place and nation. They feared to lose earth, and they went under the earth: there befell them even what they feared. For they willed to kill Christ, that they might not lose earth; and earth they therefore lost, because Christ they slew. For when Christ had been slain, because the Lord Himself had said to them, The kingdom shall be taken from you, and shall be given up to a nation doing righteousness: there followed them great calamities of persecutions: there conquered them Roman emperors, and kings of the nations: they were shut out from that very place where they crucified Christ, and now that place is full of Christian praisers: it has no Jew, it has been cleared of the enemies of Christ, it has been fulfilled with the praisers of Christ. Behold, they have lost at the hands of the Romans the place, because Christ they slew, who to this end slew, that they might not lose the place at the hands of the Romans. Therefore, They shall enter into the lower places of the earth.

15. They shall be delivered unto the hands of the sword. In truth, thus it has visibly befallen them, they have been taken by storm by enemies breaking in. Portions of foxes they shall be. Foxes he calls the kings of the world, that then were when Judæa was conquered. Hear in order that you may know and perceive, that those he calls foxes. Herod the king the Lord Himself has called a fox. Go, He says, and tell that fox. See and observe, my brethren: Christ as King they would not have, and portions of foxes they have been made. For when Pilate the deputy governor in Judæa slew Christ at the voices of the Jews, he said to the same Jews, Your King shall I crucify? Because He was called King of the Jews, and He was the true King. And they rejecting Christ said, We have no king but Cæsar. They rejected a Lamb, chose a fox: deservedly portions of foxes they were made.

16. The King in truth, is so written, because they chose a fox, a King in truth they would not have. The King in truth: that is, the true King, to whom the title was inscribed, when He suffered. For Pilate set this title inscribed over His Head, The King of the Jews, in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues: in order that all they that should pass by might read of the glory of the King, and the infamy of the Jews themselves, who, rejecting the true King, chose the fox Cæsar. The King in truth shall rejoice in God. They have been made portions of foxes… Stopped up is the mouth of men speaking unjust things. No one dares now openly to speak against Christ, now all men fear Christ. For stopped up is the mouth of men speaking unjust things. When in weakness the Lamb was, even foxes were bold against the Lamb. There conquered the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the foxes were silenced.