{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-7648","native_reference":{"book_number":290,"chapter_from":53,"chapter_to":53,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":2,"verse_to":2},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: Therefore, Christ is both the great mountain and the small mountain: truly great because He is the great Lord and His power is great; small because it is written: You have made him a little lower than the angels. Wherefore also Isaiah says: We beheld Him, and He had no form nor comeliness. Nevertheless, He became less from great and greater from less. Less from great, because, when He was in the form of God, He emptied Himself and took the form of a servant; greater from less, because Daniel says: And the stone which was cut out of the mountain, became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.<br/><i>— Interrogation of Job and David, 2.4.17</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: And that the Lord Himself was uncomely in aspect, the Spirit testifies by Esaias: \"And we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness but His form was mean, inferior to men.\" Yet who was more admirable than the Lord? But it was not the beauty of the flesh visible to the eye, but the true beauty of both soul and body, which He exhibited, which in the former is beneficence; in the latter-that is, the flesh-immortality.<br/><i>— The Instructor Book 3</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Alexandria</b>: What therefore does the prophet say in these words?… For he confesses what we also have announced, that is, we have foretold unceasingly that he will come in due season. But perhaps someone shall say in response, \"What then if God who is the Word should come down from heaven, covered in divine glory and resplendent in unapproachable light, and appear to those on earth as one who cannot be looked at because of his ineffable glory?\" Indeed, when he visited the earth in the form of fire on Mount Sinai it was dark and gloomy, and storms and fire burst from on high along with smoke, and there were many other things that so completely terrified [the Israelites] that his appearance was unbearable to those who saw it. In fact, it was so unbearable that the Israelites called for a mediator, saying to Moses, \"Speak to us, and do not let God speak lest we die.\" So, as Isaiah says, it is no wonder that the one who shall appear should be hard to look at. Why then do the prophets say that unbelief is without excuse and rebellion is unjustifiable when there is no form or glory to his appearance? For he was not, it says, in a form or glory that befits the divine. For he emptied himself, taking on the likeness of humanity, and being found in the appearance of a man he humbled himself. And we say this not merely from hearing the reports, but we have gazed with our own eyes on the one proclaimed. For human things are in every way small, cheap and worthless compared with the divine, supreme, eminent and illustrious beauty of that nature that is above all things. For it is said in the Psalms, \"You are the most beautiful among the sons of men.\" And our text here adds, \"more rejected than all people,\" speaking of his appearance, as if to say that there are to be seen among people of distinction some which are distinguished by their fine radiant appearance … but Emmanuel was not among them, reduced instead to someone who was despised and lowly. This message is true, for he did not come from the holy virgin mother in opulence, but through all that is lowly and humble so as to raise up the humble and to bless those who seem worthless. And anyway, what need does God, who is Lord and king of the universe, have of human splendor?<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Isaiah 5:1.53:2</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Nazianzus</b>: For he whom you now treat with contempt was once above you. He who is now man was once the uncompounded. What he was he continued to be; what he was not he took to himself. In the beginning he was uncaused; for what is the cause of God? But afterwards for a cause he was born. And that cause was that you might be saved, who insult him and despise his godhead, because of this, that he took on him your denser nature, having converse with flesh by means of mind. While his inferior nature, the humanity, became God, because it was united to God and became one person because the higher nature prevailed, [this happened] in order that I too might be made God so far as he is made man. He was born—but he had been begotten. He was born of a woman—but she was a virgin. The first is human, the second divine. In his human nature he had no father, but also in his divine nature [he had] no mother. Both these belong to godhead. He dwelled in the womb—but he was recognized by the prophet [John the Baptist], himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for whose sake he came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes—but he took off the swathing bands of the grave by his rising again. He was laid in a manger—but he was glorified by angels, and proclaimed by a star and worshiped by the magi. Why are you offended by what is presented to your sight, because you will not look at what is presented to your mind? He was driven into exile into Egypt—but he drove away the Egyptian idols. He had no form or comeliness in the eyes of the Jews—but to David he is fairer than the children of humankind. And on the mountain he was bright as the lightning and became more luminous than the sun, initiating us into the mystery of the future.<br/><i>— ON THE SON, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 3(29).19</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: For this reason [it is, said], \"Who shall declare His generation?\" since \"He is a man, and who shall recognise Him?\" But he to whom the Father which is in heaven has revealed Him, knows Him, so that he understands that He who \"was not born either by the will of the flesh, or by the will of man,\" is the Son of man, this is Christ, the Son of the living God. For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. But that He had, beyond all others, in Himself that pre-eminent birth which is from the Most High Father, and also experienced that pre-eminent generation which is from the Virgin, the divine Scriptures do in both respects testify of Him: also, that He was a man without comeliness, and liable to suffering; that He sat upon the foal of an ass; that He received for drink, vinegar and gall; that He was despised among the people, and humbled Himself even to death and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men;—all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him.<br/><i>— Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 19), Section 2</i></p><p><b>Isaac of Nineveh</b>: Therefore, beloved, have in your mind God's providence (which from the beginning until now is dispensed with foreknowledge) as some excellent medicine for weakened eyes, and keep its recollection with you at all times. Ponder, consider, and be taught by these things, that you may learn to hold the remembrance of the greatness of God's honour in your soul, and thus find life eternal for your soul in Jesus Christ our Lord, Who is become \"the Mediator between God and men,\" as being the Uniter in His two natures. The orders of the angels cannot approach the glory that surrounds the throne of His majesty, yet He has appeared in the world for our sake in a mean and humble form, as [Isaiah] said: \"We beheld Him, that He had no form nor beauty.\" It is He that, being invisible to all created nature, put on a body and fulfilled the economy for the salvation and life of all the nations that were cleansed by Him, and to Him be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.<br/><i>— ASCETICAL HOMILIES 3</i></p><p><b>Ishodad of Merv</b>: \"For he grew up before him like a child,\" like a child dear to his Father, he says, because he will be dear to God. But \"like a root out of the ground,\" which is deprived of water, he will also be deprived of life at the moment of the passion. In fact, God wanted these evil things to befall him. Others have seen these words as referring to the apostles who, like candid and young children, believed in him and did not refrain from knowing him, as the scribes and the Pharisees did. According to Qatraya, this points to the fact that Simeon had already blessed him in the temple before God when he was yet an unborn child. Or this: The Son offered our nature before God, like a child, and made it pleasing before God.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Isaiah 53:2</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: For not by any means in working wonders only was He wonderful, but even when merely showing Himself, He was full of great grace; and to declare this the prophet said, \"Fair in beauty beyond the children of men.\" And if Esaias saith, \"He hath no form nor comeliness,\" he affirms it either in comparison of the glory of His Godhead, which surpasses all utterance and description; or as declaring what took place at His passion, and the dishonor which He underwent at the season of the cross, and the mean estate which throughout His life He exemplified in all respects.</p><p>Further: He did not first give \"commandment to depart unto the other side,\" nor until He had healed them. For surely they could not have borne it. As therefore on the mountain they not only continued with Him while exhorting them, but also when it was silence followed Him; so here too, not in His miracles only did they wait on Him, but also when He had ceased again, from His very countenance receiving no small benefit. For if Moses had his face made glorious, and Stephen like that of an angel; consider thou our common Lord, what manner of person it was likely He would appear at such a time.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF Matthew 27:2</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: There are, indeed, admitted to be recorded some statements respecting the body of Jesus having been \"ill-favored\"; not, however, \"ignoble,\" as has been stated, nor is there any certain evidence that he was \"little.\"<br/><i>— AGAINST CELSUS 6:75</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: It is possible also in another way to see a twofold coming of Christ, that is, the coming of the Word into the soul. First indeed the untrained and those then beginning to know Christ, because they cannot see the brightness of his beauty, say: \"we saw him, and he had no form nor comeliness, but his appearance was without honor\". Now the unhonored appearance of the Word is the foolish preaching about Christ, when we preach Christ born and crucified. But the second coming is the coming of Christ among perfect men, concerning whom the steward of his word says: \"but we speak wisdom among the perfect\". And these perfect ones have become lovers of his beauty and beseech the Word, that he gird upon himself his rational sword and set it about the mystery of the fleshly nativity, which is called mystically the thigh. For disciples of this kind praise the beauty and comeliness of the Word, and to this second coming is joined the consummation of the age in the man coming to perfection and saying: \"but far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world\".<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Matthew 32</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"f772c124f2bcad973c2a5c08b1f600b73b77c804e98d44c23592ba8d5bda29ee","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":7648,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"0f9eedd3d89cf7e0e649cd51777bb8424ca4cc5b22e5a9142cd943e85c10580b","translator":null,"work":null}