7. He has next added the reason why He prays
for His words to be heard: For strangers are risen up against
Me and violent men have sought after My soul; they have not set God
before their eyes. The Only-begotten Son of God, the Word of
God and God the Word—although assuredly He could Himself do all
things that the Father could, as He says: What things soever
the Father doeth, the Son also doeth in like manner St. John v. 19., while the name describing the divine
nature which was His inseparably involved the inseparable possession of
divine power,—yet in order that He might present to us a perfect
example of human humility, both prayed for and underwent all things
that are the lot of man. Sharing in our common weakness He prayed
the Father to save Him, so that He might teach us that He was born man
under all the conditions of man’s infirmity. This is why He
was hungry and thirsty, slept and was weary, shunned the assemblies of
the ungodly, was sad and wept, suffered and died. And it was in
order to make it clear that He was subject to all these conditions, not
by His nature, but by assumption, that when He had undergone them all
He rose again. Thus all His complaints in the Psalms spring from
a mental state belonging to our nature. Nor must it cause
surprise if we take the words of the Psalms in this sense, seeing that
the Lord Himself testified, if we believe the Gospel, that the Psalms
spiritually foretold His Passion.