CHAPTER IX. Answer to the objection based on the saying: "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me " (Matt. xxvi. 36 seq., etc.).

(This answer sounds strange and unsatisfactory to modern ears, but the latter part is given in full, for it raises the important question of its relation to the similar explanations of the Passion given in other Fathers of the period.)

[Evidently it is Christ's inconsistency that is complained of. This is a saying where we must look below the surface, like doctors, who do not judge a herb by its being disagreeable, but look within it for some hidden use.

Christ's action in Gethsemane must be explained as follows : The devil had seen His mighty works, and was so convinced of His Godhead, that he was afraid to bring his forces against Him, and was slow in bringing on the predicted Passion. Had he altogether failed to do so, Christ's coming to take away sin would have been in vain, and the last state of the world would have been worse than the first. To prevent this misfortune, He lays bare His manhood, and pretends to be afraid of death, as a man might stir up a wild beast by making a noise. |59

Now man had met his fall through two things, a tree, and the food from that tree. In the case of the latter, Christ had already won back the victory by fasting from food; but it was only when He pretended to be hungry that the devil attacked Him as he had the first Adam, and was beaten. Just in the same way Christ now provokes him to a second conflict, by pretending to be afraid, so that by means of a tree He may counteract the deceit once caused through a tree, and when His tree is planted, He may slay from it him who himself shows his enmity in a tree.

So He really wants the cup to come quickly, not to pass away. Note that He calls it a "cup" and not "suffering"; and rightly so, as being associated with good cheer. And, indeed, He sipped nectar which was to bring life to the faithful. Thus was the devil to be finally ensnared, like a dragon with a hook.¹²⁰]

This is what an experienced angler often does when he wishes to draw a weighty fish from the deep. By placing a small worm on the hook, he deceives him through the greediness of his belly and draws him up. Thus, when Christ wished to draw up by his throat the cunning and deceitful dragon who is hidden in the sea of life, and is the source of all mischief, He put the body like a worm round the hook of the Godhead, and, speaking through it, he deceived the metaphorical serpent of the spirit world. Wherefore speaking as man in a psalm of long before, He revealed this, saying, "I am a worm and no man" (Ps. xxi. 17). This worm, which was brought together with God the Word and then held fast in the sea of mortal life, provoked the mouth of the dragon against itself, and seized it at the moment that it seemed to be seized itself. This worm devoured in a hidden manner the tree of death; this worm creeping imperceptibly over the mount of impossibilities, aroused the voiceless bodies of the dead. This worm |60 by coiling round and encircling Hades strangled the commanders that watched over its garrisons, and seized the mighty ones there and bound them together. This worm, descending to the archives of the despotism, cut through the leaves with their record of sins, wherein had been written the transgressions of men, and destroyed them utterly. This worm made the devil's ark disappear, which he planned and made from the tree of transgression, wherein he had put away and hidden the robe of man's glory. This worm came into being without parentage and union; it is mystic, only begotten,¹²¹ ineffable. Through this worm the mystic hook drew up the primeval¹²² dragon, concerning whom one of the chosen holy ones prophesied, "Thou shall draw a dragon with a hook."¹²³

The points of our answer to you are sufficient, and the fact is quite plain that Christ deprecated His Passion for the sake of the dispensation of the world.