For how could He say negatively, "My God, I will cry by day, and thou wilt not hear," except in the sense I (c) have suggested? And I think He implies this sense when He says, "My God, shall I cry by day, and wilt thou not hear? and by night, and it is not folly for me." "For I do not cry 'Thou wilt not hear,' He says, 'in folly': for I know that I say this inspired by the conviction that it is Thy nature to help and to hear not only me, but all Thy saints. For Thou ever 'dwellest in Thy saints' continually, and art 'the praise' of every godly man that is called 'Israel.' For Thy sake to every one that worships Thee no (d) common praise accrues; in Thee our fathers hoped, and by their trust were saved from the evils that attacked them, 'Unto Thee they cried, and were saved.' Since, then, all Thy saints have had this blessing of Thee, to cry unto Thee and be heard and not be ashamed, how much more readily and specially wilt Thou hear Thy beloved Son that cries? And, if I ask as one who wonders, 'Shall I cry and Thou wilt not hear?' yet shall not My words be regarded as folly. For I know that I utter My prayer, not as one that glories or as one that boasts, but as one of lowly mind. For being gentle and lowly in heart, My words are humble and spoken in humility like My own gentleness, even as I call Myself a worm. For what could be more lowly than a worm? Hence I call Myself 'no man,' since I have descended from (498) My own majesty to such lowliness, that I seem to be no more than a worm, so that I may undergo even death and the destruction of My body. For how else can worms be generated but from the destruction of bodies, and I going to such destruction recognize Myself rightly as a worm and no man. So, too, have I become a reproach of men and the outcast of the people, and I should have become neither unless I had reached the state of a worm at the time of My Passion. For it was then that they who saw Me hanging (b) on the Cross mocked Me, and spake with their lips, and shook their heads saying, 'He trusted in God, let Him deliver him, let Him save him if He desires him.'"