{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6621","native_reference":{"book_number":650,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":7,"verse_to":7},"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>Augustine of Hippo</b>: The fact that he is the Word is not the reason why he is a mediator, for certainly the Word at the summit of immortality and the apex of beatitude is far removed from miserable mortals. Rather, he is a mediator because he is human and, as a human, shows us that to attain that supreme good, blessed and beatific, we need not seek other mediators to serve like rungs on a ladder of ascent. For the blessed God who makes us blessed by deigning to share our humanity showed us the shortest way to sharing in his divinity. Freeing us from mortality and misery, he leads us, not to the immortal blessed angels so as to become immortal and blessed by sharing in their nature, but to that Trinity in communion with which even the angels are blessed. When, then, in order to be mediator, he willed to take \"the form of a servant\" below the angels, he remained in the form of God above the angels, being simultaneously the way of life on earth and life itself in heaven.<br/><i>— City of God 9.15</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Nyssa</b>: When, according to the prophetic word, people were alienated from the life-giving womb through sin and went astray from the womb in which they were fashioned, they spoke falsehood instead of truth. Because of this, the Mediator, assuming the first fruit of our common nature, made it holy through his soul and body, unmixed and unreceptive of all evil, preserving it in himself. He did this in order that, having taken it up to the Father of incorruptibility through his own incorruptibility, the entire group might be drawn along with it because of their related nature, in order that the Father might admit the disinherited to \"adoption\" as children and the enemies of God to a share in the Godhead. And just as the first fruit of the dough was assimilated through purity and innocence to the true Father and God, so we also as dough in similar ways will cleave to the Father of incorruptibility by imitating, as far as we can, the innocence and stability of the Mediator. Thus, we shall be a crown of precious stones for the only begotten God, having become an honor and a glory through our life. For Paul says, \"Having made himself a little lower than the angels because of his having suffered death, he made those whose nature had previously become thorny through sin into a crown for himself, transforming the thorn through suffering into honor and glory.\" And yet, once he has \"taken away the sins of the world\" and taken upon his head a crown of thorns in order to weave a crown of \"honor and glory,\" there is no small danger that someone may be discovered to be a burr and a thorn because of his evil life, and then be placed in the middle of the Master's crown because of sharing in his body. The just voice speaks directly to this one: \"How did you get in here without a wedding garment? How were you, a thorn, woven in with those fitted into my crown through honor and glory?\"<br/><i>— ON PERFECTION</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels: Thou crownedst him with glory and honor.\" \"Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.\"</p><p>Now although these things were spoken of human nature generally, they would nevertheless apply more properly to Christ according to the flesh. For this, \"Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet,\" belongs to Him rather than to us. For the Son of God visited us when we were nothing: and after having assumed our nature, and united it to Himself, He became higher than all.<br/><i>— Homily on Hebrews 4</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: For this reason, he now cites it. What is man that you are mindful of him? Since it seemed to oppose his purpose, he indeed shows that Christ is greater than the angels, yet he says that he was made a little lower than the angels. He presents this in order to resolve the objection that seems to arise, and in resolving it, he says that he was made lower because of the passion of death. \"For we saw him and he had neither form nor beauty.\" (Isa. 53:2)<br/><i>— The Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on Hebrews</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"You made him a little lower than the angels.\" Here he recalls the declaration after the transgression. For the mortal is made lower than the angels.<br/><i>— The Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on Hebrews</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"19f54daaaf897c016b10ff1b5400957b3ad68443789a93d88a5a10957a0996bc","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6621,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"0adf9852b4a93a3dba351cb0eaf576f21643f1169a6a0a311841c49fe9313173","translator":null,"work":null}