62. It is one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the
Word made flesh, Who expresses Himself in all these utterances, Who is
man when He says He is abandoned to death: yet while man still
rules in Paradise as God, and though reigning in Paradise, as Son of
God commends His Spirit to His Father, as Son of Man gives up to death
the Spirit He commended to the Father. Why do we then view as a
disgrace that which is a mystery? We see Him complaining that He
is left to die, because He is Man: we see Him, as He dies,
declaring that He reigned in Paradise, because He is God. Why
should we harp, to support our irreverence, on what He said to make us
understand His death, and keep back what He proclaimed to demonstrate
His immortality? The words and the voice are equally His, when He
complains of desertion, and when He declares His rule: by what
method of heretical logic do we split up our belief and deny that He
Who died was at the same time He Who rules? Did He not testify
both equally of Himself, when He commended His Spirit, and when He gave
it up? But if He is the same, Who commended His Spirit, and gave
it up, if He dies when ruling and rules when dead: then the
mystery of the Son of God and Son of Man means that He is One, Who
dying reigns, and reigning dies.