Considerations on the passion of Jesus Christ - Chapter 2

THE SEPARATE SUFFERINGS THAT JESUS CHRIST ENDURED AT HIS DEATH.

I.

Prophecy of Isaias—Abasement of the Promised Redeemer.

We now come to consider the separate sufferings which Jesus Christ endured in his Passion, and which had been foretold for many ages by the prophets, and especially by Isaias, in the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy. This prophet, as St. Irenæus, St. Justin, St. Cyprian, and others say, spoke so distinctly of the sufferings of our Redeemer that he seems to be another Evangelist. Hence St. Augustine says that the words of Isaias, which refer to the Passion of Jesus Christ, call rather for meditations and tears than for the explanations of sacred writers; and Hugo Grotius records that even the old Hebrews themselves could not deny that Isaias (especially in his fifty-third chapter) spoke of the Messiah promised by God. Some have wished to apply the passages of Isaias to persons named in Scripture and not to Jesus Christ; but Grotius¹ answers that no one can be found to whom these texts may be referred.

Isaias writes: Who hath believed our report; and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?² This was fulfilled, as St. John writes, when the Jews, notwithstanding all the miracles which they had seen wrought by Jesus Christ, which proved him to be truly the Messiah sent by God, would not believe in him: When He did so many miracles before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaias the prophet might be fulfilled, when he said, Lord, who hath believed our report; and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?³ Who will believe, says Isaias, what has been heard by us; and who has recognized the arm, that is, the power of the Lord? In these words he foretold the obstinacy of the Jews in not choosing to believe in Jesus Christ as their Redeemer. They fancied that this Messiah would exhibit upon earth great pomp, and the splendor of his greatness and power; and that, triumphing over all his enemies, he would thus load the people of the Jews with riches and honors; but no, the prophet adds these words to those above named: He shall grow up as a slender plant before Him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground.⁴ The Jews thought that the Saviour would appear like a cedar of Libanus; but Isaias foretold that he would show himself like an humble shrub, or a root which grows in an arid soil, stripped of all beauty and splendor: There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness.⁵

He then goes on to describe the Passion of the Lord: We have seen Him and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him.⁶ We desired to recognize him, but we could not, for we have seen nothing but a man despised and vile upon the earth, and a man of sorrows: Despised, and the most abject of men,—a man of sorrows; whereupon we esteemed Him not.⁷

Adam, through his pride in not obeying the divine commands, brought ruin upon all men; therefore the Redeemer, by his humility, chose to bring a remedy to this great evil, and was content to be treated as the lowest and most abject of men; that is, by being reduced to the lowest depths of humiliation. Therefore St. Bernard cried out, “O Thou who art lowest and highest; O Thou humble and lofty; O shame of men and glory of angels! None is loftier than he; none more humble.”⁸ If, then, adds the saint, the Lord, who is higher than all things, has made himself the lowest of all things, every one of us ought to desire that all others should be preferred to him, and fear to be preferred to any.⁹ But I, O my Jesus, fear that any should be preferred to me, and desire to be preferred above all. O Lord, give me humility. Thou, O My Jesus, with such love, hast embraced contempt, to teach me to be humble, and to love a hidden and an abject life; and shall I desire to be esteemed by all, and to display myself in everything? O my Jesus! grant me Thy love; it will make me like to Thee. Let me no more live ungrateful to the love which Thou hast borne to me. Thou art almighty; make me humble, make me holy, make me all Thine own.

II.

Humiliations and Sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Isaias also called Jesus Christ the man of sorrows. It is to Jesus crucified that the words of Jeremias are especially applicable: Thy grief is great as the sea.¹⁰ As all the waters of the rivers meet in the ocean, so in Jesus Christ are united all the pains of the sick, the penitential sufferings of anchorites, and all the pangs and contempts endured by martyrs. He was laden with sorrows both of soul and body. Thou hast brought all Thy waves over me.¹¹ “O my Father!” said our Redeemer by the mouth of David, “Thou hast sent upon me all the waves of Thy wrath;” and therefore, in the hour of death, he said, that he died sunk in a sea of sorrow and shame: I have come unto the depths of the sea, and the storm hath sunk me.¹² The Apostle writes that Almighty God, in commanding his Son to pay for our sins with his blood, desired thus to show how great was his justice: Whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood, to the showing forth of His justice.¹³

To form a conception of what Jesus Christ suffered in his life, and still more in his death, we must consider what the same Apostle says in his letter to the Romans: God sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and by sin condemned sin in the flesh.¹⁴ Jesus Christ being sent by the Father to redeem man, clothed himself with that flesh which was infected with sin; and though he had not contracted the pollution of sin, nevertheless he took upon him the miseries contracted by human nature, as the punishment of sin; and he offered himself to the Eternal Father, to satisfy the divine justice for all the sins of men by his sufferings; he was offered because he himself willed it;¹⁵ and the Eternal Father, as Isaias writes, laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.¹⁶ Behold Jesus, therefore, laden with all the blasphemies, all the sacrileges, trespasses, thefts, cruelties, and abominable deeds which men have committed and will commit. Behold him, in a word, the object of all the divine curses which men have deserved through their sins: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.¹⁷

Therefore St. Thomas writes that both the internal and outward pains of Jesus Christ exceeded all the pains which can be endured in this life.¹⁸ As for the external pains of the body, it is enough to know that Jesus Christ received from the Father a body prepared on purpose for suffering; and on this account he himself said, A body hast Thou prepared for Me.¹⁹ St. Thomas remarks that our Lord suffered pains and torments in all his senses: he suffered in his sense of touch, because all his flesh was torn; he suffered in his taste, with gall and vinegar; he suffered in his hearing, through the blasphemies and mockeries that were offered to him; he suffered in his sight, at beholding his mother, who was present at his death. He suffered also in all his members: his head was tortured with thorns, his hands and feet with nails, his face with buffeting and spitting, and all his body with scourging, in the way that was foretold by Isaias, who said that the Redeemer would appear in his Passion like a leper, who has no sound portion in his body, and strikes horror into every one who sees him, as a man who is all wounds from head to foot. It is enough to say, that by such a sight of Jesus scourged, Pilate hoped to be allowed by the Jews to exempt him from death, when he showed him to the people from the balcony, saying, Behold the Man.²⁰

St. Isidore says that other men, when their pains are great and last long, through the very severity of the pain, lose all power of feeling it.²¹ But in Jesus Christ it was not so; his last sufferings were as bitter as his first, and the first stripes in his scourging were as torturing as the last; for the Passion of our Redeemer was not the work of man, but of the justice of God, who thought fit to chastise his Son with all the severity which the sins of all mankind deserved.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou hast desired by Thy sufferings to take upon Thee the punishment due to my sins. Thus, if I had less offended Thee, Thou wouldst have suffered less in Thy death. And knowing this, can I live henceforward without loving Thee, and without mourning continually for the offences that I have committed against Thee? O my Jesus, I grieve that I have despised Thee, and I love Thee above everything. Oh, despise me not; receive me, that I may love Thee, since now I love Thee, and desire to love nothing but Thee. Too ungrateful should I be, if, after all the mercies Thou hast shown me, I should henceforth love anything but Thee.

III.

Jesus Christ Suffered Voluntarily for Us.

Observe how it was foretold by Isaias: We have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one stricken by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.²² Jesus, full of love, of his own will, offered himself, without a reply, to accomplish his Father’s will, whose will it was to behold him outraged by executioners at their own pleasure. He was offered because it was His own will, and He opened not His mouth: He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer.²³ As a lamb offers itself to be shorn without complaint, so our loving Redeemer in his Passion caused himself to be shorn, not of his wool, but of his very skin, without opening his mouth.

What obligation did he lie under to offer satisfaction for our sins? Yet he chose to take it upon him, that he might deliver us from eternal damnation; and therefore every one of us ought to give him thanks, and say, Thou host brought forth my soul, that it should not perish; Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.²⁴

And thus Jesus voluntarily, through his own goodness, making himself the debtor for our debts, chose to sacrifice himself altogether, even to death in the pains of the cross, as he himself says in the Gospel of St. John: I lay down My life; no one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.²⁵

IV.

The Sufferings of Jesus were Extreme.

St. Ambrose, writing of the Passion of our Lord says that Jesus Christ has followers, but no equals.²⁶ The saints have endeavored to imitate Jesus Christ in suffering, to render themselves like him; but who ever attained to equalling him in his sufferings? He truly suffered for us, more than all the penitents, all the anchorites, all the martyrs have suffered, because God laid upon him the weight of a rigorous satisfaction to the divine justice for all the sins of men: The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.²⁷ And, as St. Peter writes, Jesus bore all our sins upon the cross, to pay our punishment with his most holy body: He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.²⁸ St. Thomas writes that Jesus Christ, in redeeming us, not only accomplished the virtue and infinite merit which belonged to his sufferings, but chose to suffer a depth of pain which might be sufficient to satisfy abundantly and rigorously for all the sin, of the human race.²⁹ And St. Bonaventure writes: “He chose to suffer as much pain as if he himself had committed all our sins.”³⁰ God himself thought right to aggravate the pains of Jesus Christ, until they were equal to the entire payment of all our debts; and thus the prophecy of of Isaias was fulfilled: The Lord was pleased to bruise Him in infirmity.³¹

When we read the lives of the martyrs, it seems at first as if some of them had suffered pains more bitter than those of Jesus Christ; but St. Bonaventure says that the pains of no martyr could ever equal in acuteness the pains of our Saviour, which were more acute than all other pains.³² In like manner, St. Thomas writes that the sufferings of Christ were the most severe pains that can be felt in this present life.³³ Upon which St. Laurence Justinian writes that in each of the torments which our Lord endured, on account of the agony and intensity of the suffering, he suffered as much as all the tortures of martyrs.³⁴ And all this was predicted by King David in a few words, when, speaking in the person of Christ, he said, Thy wrath is strong over Me; Thy terrors have troubled Me.³⁵ Thus all the wrath of God, which he had conceived against our sins, poured itself out upon the person of Jesus Christ; and thus we must interpret what the Apostle said, He was made a curse for us;³⁶ that is, the object of all the curses deserved by our sins.

V.

Interior Sufferings of Our Saviour.

Hitherto, also, we have spoken only of the outward bodily pains of Jesus Christ. And who can ever explain and comprehend the inward pains of his soul, which a thousand times exceeded his outward pains? This inward torment was such that in the Garden of Gethsemani it caused a sweat of blood to pour forth from all his body, and compelled him to say that this was enough to slay Him: My soul is sorrowful even unto death.³⁷ And since this anguish was enough to cause death, why did he not die? St. Thomas answers that he did not die because he himself prevented his own death, being ready to preserve his life, in order to give it in a while upon the tree of the cross. This sorrow also, which most deeply afflicted Jesus Christ in the garden, afflicted him also throughout his whole life; since, from the first moment when he began to live, he had ever before his eyes the causes of his inward grief; among which the most afflicting was, the sight of the ingratitude of men towards the love which he showed them in his Passion.

Nevertheless, an angel came to comfort him in the garden, as St. Luke relates.³⁸ Yet Venerable Bede says that this comfort, instead of lightening his pains, increased them.³⁹ The angel, indeed, strengthened him to endure with greater constancy for the salvation of men; upon which Bede remarks that Jesus was then strengthened for suffering, by a representation of the greatness of the fruits of his Passion, without the least diminution of the greatness of his sufferings.⁴⁰ Therefore the Evangelist relates that immediately after the appearance of the angel, Jesus Christ was in an agony, and sweated blood in such abundance that it fell to the ground.⁴¹

St. Bonaventure further relates that the agony of Jesus then reached its height;⁴² so that our afflicted Lord, at the sight of the anguish that he must suffer at the termination of his life now come, was so terrified that he prayed his divine Father that he might be delivered from it: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.⁴³ Yet he said this, not that he might be delivered from the pains, for he had already offered himself to suffer them,—He was offered, because He Himself willed,⁴⁴—but to teach us to understand the agony which he experienced in enduring this death so bitter to the senses; while in his will, in order to accomplish the will of his Father, in order to obtain for us the salvation he so ardently desired, he immediately added: Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.⁴⁵ And he continued thus to pray and to resign himself for the space of three hours: He prayed the third time, saying the same words.⁴⁶

VI.

Patience of Jesus Christ—Fruits of His Death.

But let us follow the prophecy of Isaias. He foretold the blows, the buffetings, the spitting, and the other insults which Jesus Christ endured the night before his death from the hands of the executioners, who kept him in bondage in the palace of Caiphas, in order to take him the next morning to Pilate, and to make him condemn him to death. I have given My body to the strikers, and My cheeks to them that plucked them; I have not turned away My face from them that rebuked Me and spit upon Me.⁴⁷ These insults are described by St. Mark, Who adds that these soldiers, treating Jesus as a false prophet, in order to mock him, covered his face with a cloth, and then striking him with blows and buffetings, bade him prophesy who it was that smote him.⁴⁸

Isaias goes on to speak of the death of Jesus Christ: He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter.⁴⁹ The eunuch of Queen Candace, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, reading this passage, asked of St. Philip, who, by a divine inspiration, had come to join himself with him, of whom these words were to be understood? and the saint then explained to him the whole mystery of the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ; upon which the eunuch, then enlightened by God, desired at once to be baptized.

Isaias then continues, and foretells the great fruits which the world would derive from the death of the Saviour, and says that from it great numbers of saints would be spiritually born: Because His soul hath labored, He shall see and be filled; by His knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and He shall bear their iniquities.⁵⁰

VII.

Prophecies of David—Various Circumstances.

David also predicted other circumstances more in detail respecting the Passion of Jesus Christ. Especially in the twenty-first Psalm he foretold that he should be pierced with nails in his hands and in his feet, so that they should be able to count all his bones.⁵¹ He foretold that before he should be crucified, his garments should be stripped off from him, and divided among the executioners;⁵² speaking of his outer garments alone, because: the inner vestment, which was made without seam, was to be given by lot: They parted My garments amongst them, and upon My vesture they cast lots. This prophecy is recalled both by St. Matthew and St. John.

David also foretold what St. Matthew thus relates respecting the blasphemies and mockeries of the Jews against Jesus Christ while he hung upon the cross: They that passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, Vah, Thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days dost rebuild it, save Thy own self; if Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. In like manner also, the chief priests, with the scribes and ancients, mocking, said, He saved others, Himself He cannot save; if He be the king of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God, let Him now deliver Him if He will have Him; for He said, I am the Son of God.⁵³ All this was in accordance with what David had foretold in the following words: All they that saw Me have laughed Me to scorn; they have spoken with the lips and wagged the head. He hoped in the Lord, let Him deliver Him, let Him save Him, seeing He delighteth in Him.⁵⁴

David further foretold the great pains which Jesus should suffer on the cross in seeing himself abandoned by all, and even by his own disciples, except St. John and the Blessed Virgin; while his beloved Mother, by her presence, did not lessen the sufferings of her Son, but rather increased them through the compassion that he felt for her, in seeing her thus afflicted by his death. Thus our suffering Lord, in the agonies of his bitter death, had none to comfort him. This also was foretold by David: I looked for one that would grieve together with Me, but there was none; and for one that would comfort Me, and I found none.⁵⁵ The greatest suffering, however, of our afflicted Redeemer consisted in his beholding himself abandoned by his Eternal Father, upon which he cried out, according to the prophecy of David, O God, my God, look upon me; why host Thou forsaken me? Far from My salvation are the words of My sins;⁵⁶ as though he had said, “O my Father, the sins of men, which I call my own, because I have taken them upon me, forbid me to be delivered from these sufferings which are ending my life; and why halt Thou, O my God, abandoned me in this my great agony?” To these words of David correspond the words which St. Matthew records as uttered by Jesus upon the cross a little while before his death: Eli, Eli, lamma sabachthani? that is, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?⁵⁷

VIII.

Jeans Christ is the True Messias—Superabundance of His Merits.

From all this it clearly appears how unjustly the Jews refuse to recognize Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Saviour, because he died so shameful a death. They do not perceive that if, instead of dying as a malefactor upon the cross, Jesus Christ had died a death accounted honorable and glorious by men, he would not have been that Messiah who was promised by God and predicted by the prophets, who, so many ages before, had foretold that our Redeemer should die a death loaded with insults: He shall give His cheek to the smiter, He shall be overwhelmed with insults.⁵⁸ All these humiliations, and all the sufferings of Jesus Christ, already foretold by the prophets, were not understood even by his disciples until after his resurrection and ascension into heaven: These things His disciples did not understand at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him.⁵⁹

In a word, by the Passion of Jesus Christ, which was accompanied by so great sufferings and so great ignominy, that which David wrote was fulfilled: Justice and peace have kissed each other.⁶⁰ They kissed each other, because, by the merits of Jesus Christ, men obtained peace with God, while, at the same time, the divine justice was more than abundantly satisfied by the death of the Redeemer. We say, more than abundantly, because to save us, it was not actually necessary that Jesus Christ should endure so many sufferings and insults. One single drop of blood, one single prayer, would have been sufficient (so to say) to save the whole world; while, in order to strengthen our hopes, and to inflame our love, he thought fit that our redemption should not only be sufficient, but more than abundant, as David foretold: Let Israel hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plentiful redemption.⁶¹

This had also been clearly announced by Job, when, speaking in the person of Christ, he said, Oh that my sins were weighed, and my calamities which I suffer in a balance! As the sand of the sea, it would appear very heavy.⁶² Here Jesus, by the mouth of Job, calls our sins his sins, because he had bound himself to make satisfaction for us, in order to make his justice ours, as St. Augustine expresses it.⁶³ On this account the gloss upon the text quoted from Job contains this remark: “In the balance of the divine justice the Passion of Christ outweighs the sins of human nature.”⁶⁴ All the lives of men would not have been sufficient to make satisfaction for a single sin; but the pains of Jesus Christ have paid for all our sins: He is the propitiation of our sins.⁶⁵ Therefore, St. Laurence Justinian encourages every sinner who truly repents to hope confidently for pardon through the merits of Jesus Christ, saying to them, “Measure thy sins by the afflictions of Christ the sufferer;”⁶⁶ meaning thereby to say, “O sinner, measure not thy guilt by thy contrition, for all thy works cannot obtain thee pardon; measure it by the pains of Jesus Christ, and from them hope for pardon, for thy Redeemer hath abundantly paid thy debt.”

O Saviour of the world! in Thy flesh, torn with scourgings, with thorns, and with nails, I comprehend the love Thou hast borne me, and my ingratitude in having so injured Thee after such love; but Thy blood is my hope, for, with the price of that blood, Thou hast redeemed me from hell as often as I have deserved it. O God! what would become of me through all eternity, if Thou hadst not determined to save me by Thy death! Miserable man that I am, I have well known that, by losing Thy grace, I condemned myself to live forever in despair, and far from Thee in hell; and yet I have repeatedly dared to turn my back upon Thee. But yet I turn to say, Thy blood is my hope. Oh that I had died, and not offended Thee! O infinite goodness! I deserved to continue blind, and Thou hast enlightened me with new light; I deserved to continue still more hardened, and Thou hast given me tenderness and compunction; wherefore I now abhor the offences I have committed against Thee more than death, and I feel a great desire to love Thee. These graces, which I have received from Thee, assure me that Thou hast now pardoned me, and desirest to save me. O my Jesus! who could cease to love Thee henceforth, or could love anything apart from Thee? I love Thee, O my Jesus, and I trust in Thee; increase in me this confidence and this love, that henceforth I may forget everything, and think of nothing but loving Thee and giving Thee pleasure.

O Mary, Mother of God, obtain for me the grace of being faithful to thy Son and my Redeemer.

1“Quis potest nominari aut Regum aut Prophetarum, in quem hæc congruent? Nemo sane!” – De ver. rel. chr. l. 5, n. 10.

2“Quis credidit auditui nostro? et brachium Domini cui revelatum est?” – Isa. liii. 1.

3“Cum autem tanta signa fecisset coram eis, non credebant in eum; ut sermo Isaiæ Prophetæ impleretur, quem dixit: Domine, quis credidit auditui nostro? et brachium Domini cui revelatum est?” – John, xii. 37.

4“Et ascendet sicut virgultum coram eo, et sicut radix de terra sitienti.” – Isa. liii. 2.

5“Non est species ei neque decor.” – Ibid.

6“Et vidimus cum, et non erat aspectus, et desideravimus eum.” – Ibid.

7“Despectum, et novissimum virorum, virum dolorum, . . . unde nec reputavimus eum.” – Isa. liii. 3.

8“O novissimum et altissimum! o humilem et sublimem! o opprobrium hominum et gloriam angelorum! nemo illo sublimior, neque humilior.” – S. de Pass. D.

9“Desiderabis subjici omnibus, et reformidabis præferri etiam minimo. “ – Ibid.

10“Magna est velut mare contritio tua.” – Lam. ii. 13.

11“Et omnes fluctus tuos induxisti super me.” – Ps. lxxxvii. 8.

12“Veni in altitudinem maris, et tempestas demersit me.” – Ps. lxviii. 3.

13“Quem proposuit Deus propitiationem per fidem in sanguine ipsius, ad ostensionem justitim suæ.” – Rom. iii. 25.

14“Deus Filium suum mittens in similitudinem carnis peccati, et de peccato damnavit peccatum in carne.” – Ibid. viii. 3.

15“Oblatus est, quia ipse voluit.” – Isa. liii. 7.

16“Et posuit Dominus in eo iniquitatem omnium nostrum.” – Ibid. 6.

17“Factus pro nobis maledictum.” – Gal. iii. 13.

18“Uterque autem dolor in Christo fuit maxims inter dolores presentis vita.” – P. 3, q. 46, a. 6.

19“Corpus autem aptasti rnihi.” – Heb. x. 5.

20“Ecce homo!” – John, xix. 5.

21“Præ doloris magnitudine sensum doloris amittunt.”

22“Et nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum, et percussum a Deo, et humiliatum. Ipse autem vulneratus est propter iniquitates nostras, attritus est propter scelera nostra. Disciplina pacis nostræ super eam, et livore ejus sanati sumus. Omnes nos quasi oves erravimus, unusquisque in viam suam declinavit; et posuit Dominus in eo iniquitatem omnium nostrum.” – Isa. liii. 4-6.

23“Oblatus est, quia ipse voluit; et non aperuit os suum. Et quasi agnus coram tondente se, obmutescet.” – Isa. liii. 7.

24“Tu autem eruisti animam rneam ut non periret, projecisti post tergum tuum omnia peccata mea.” – Isa. xxxviii. 17.

25“Ego pono animam meam. . . . Nemo tollit eam a me, sed ego pono eam a meipso.” – John, x. 17.

26“Æmulos habebat, pares non habet.” – In Luc. xxii.

27“Et posuit Dominus in eo iniquitatem omnium nostrum.” – Isa. liii. 6.

28“Peccata nostra ipse pertulit in corpore suo super lignum.” – 1 Pet. ii. 24.

29“Non solum attendit quantam virtutem dolor ejus baberet, sed etiam quantum dolor ejus sufficeret secundum humanam naturam ad tantam satisfactionem.” – P. 3. q 46. a. 6.

30“Tantum noluit doloris sufferre, quantum si ipse omnia peccata fecisset.”

31“Et Dominus voluit conterere eum in infirmitate.” – Isa. liii. 10.

32“Nullus potuit ei æquari vivacitate sensus; dolor illius omnium dolorum fuit acutissimus.” – In Sent. l. 3, d. 16, a. 1, q. 2.

33“Dolor in Christo fuit maximus inter dolores præsentis vita.” – P. 3, q. 46, a. 6.

34“In singulis singula Martyrum sustinebat tormenta.” – De Tr. Chr. Ag. c. 19.

35“Super me confirmatus est furor tuus . . .; in me transierunt iræ tuæ.” – Ps. lxxxvii. 8, 17.

36“Factus pro nobis maledictum.” – Gal. iii. 13.

37“Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem.” – Matt. xxvi. 38.

38“Apparuit autem illi Angelus de cœlo, confortans eum.” – Luke, xxii. 43.

39“Confortatio dolorem non minuit, sed auxit.”

40“Confortatus est ex fructus magnitudine, non subtracta doloris magnitudine.”

41“Et factus in agonia, prolixius orabat. Et factus est sudor ejus sicut guttæ sanguinis decurrentis in terram.” – Luke, xxii. 43, 44.

42“Dolor fuit in summo.”

43“Pater mi! si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste.” – Matt. xxvi. 39.

44“Oblatus est, quia ipse voluit.”

45“Verumtamen, non sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu.” – Matt. xxvi. 44.

46“Et oravit tertio, eundem sermonem dicens.” – Mark, xiv. 39.

47“Corpus meum dedi percutientibus, et genas mess vellentibus; faciem meam non averti ab increpantibus et conspuentibus in me.” – Isa. l. 6.

48“Et cœperunt quidam conspuere eum, et velare faciem ejus, et colaphis eum cadere, et dicere ei: Prophetiza! – Et ministri alapis eum cadebant.” – Mark, xiv. 65.

49“Sicut ovis ad occisionem ducetur.” – Isa. liii. 7.

50“Si posuerit pro peccato animam suam, videbit semen longævum . . .; in scientia sua justificabit ipse justus servus meus multos.” – Isa, liii. 10, 11.

51“Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos; dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea.”

52“Diviserunt sibi vestimenta mea, et super vestem mean miserunt sortem.” – Ps. xxi. 19; Matt. xxvii. 35; John, xix. 23.

53“Prætereuntes autem blasphemabant eum, moventes capita sua et dicentes: Vah, qui destruis templum Dei, et in triduo illud reædificas, salva temetipsum; si Filius Dei es, descende de cruce. Similiter et Principes sacerdotum illudentes cum Scribis et Senioribus dicebant: Alios salvos fecit, seipsum non potest salvum facere; si Rex Israel est, descendat nunc de cruce, et credimus ei. Confidit in Deo; liberet nunc, si vult eum; dixit enim: Quia Filius Dei sum.” – Matt. xxvii. 40-43.

54“Omnes videntes me deriserunt me; locuti sunt labiis et moverunt caput Speravit in Domino, eripiat eum; salvum faciat eum, quoniam vult eum.” – Ps. xxi. 8, 9.

55“Et sustinui qui simul contristaretur, et non fuit; et qui consolaretur, et non inveni.” – Ps. lxviii. 21.

56“Deus meus, respice in me; quare me dereliquisti? longe a salute mea verbs delictorum meorum.” – Ps. xxi. 2.

57“Eli! Eli! lamma sabacthani?–Hoc est: Deus meus! Deus meus! ut quid delerequisti me?” – Matt. xxvii. 46.

58“Dabit percutienti se maxillam, saturabitur opprobriis.” – Lam. iii. 30.

59“Hæc non cognoverunt discipuli ejus primum; sed, quando glorificatus est Jesus, tunc recordati sunt quia hæc erant scripta de eo, et hæc fecerunt ei.” – John, xii. 16.

60“Justitia et Pax osculatæ sunt.” – Ps. lxxxiv. 11.

61“Speret Israel in Domino, quia apud Domlnum misericordia, et copiosa apud eum redemptio.” – Ps. cxxix. 6.

62“Utinam appenderentur peccata mea . . . , et calamitas quam patior, in statera! quasi arena maris hæc gravior appareret.” – Job, vi. 2.

63“Delicta nostra sua delicta fecit, ut justitiam suam nostram justitiam faceret.” – In Ps. xxi. en. 2.

64“In statera divinæ Justitiæ, passio.Christi preponderat peccatis humanæ naturæ.”

65“Ipse est propitiatio pro peccatis nostris, . . . etiam pro totius mundi.” – 1 John, ii. 2.

66“Tua in ejus afflictionibus metire delicta.” – De Tr. Chr. Ag. c. 20.