Chapter 4. Lhe third fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the fourth word spoken by Christ upon the Cross

When our Lord exclaimed on the Cross, “ My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He was not ignorant of the reason why Gop had forsaken Him. For what could He be in ignorance of, Who knew all things? And thus St. Peter, when he was asked by our Lord,-. “ Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?” replied, “ Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee” * And the Apostle St. Paul, speaking of Christ, says, “Jz

Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,”* Christ therefore asked, not in order that He might learn anything, but to encourage us to inquire, so that by seeking and finding we might learn many things that would be useful, perhaps even necessary for us. Why, then, did Gop abandon His Son in the midst of His trials and bitter anguish? Five reasons occur to me, and these I will mention in order that those who are wiser than I may have the opportunity of investigating better and more useful ones.

The first reason that occurs to me is the greatness and the multitude of the sins which mankind have committed against their Gop, and which the Son of GoD undertook to expiate in His own Flesh: “Who Hits ownself,’ writes St. Peter, “bore our sins in Fis, Body upon the tree; that we being dead to sins, should live to justice; by Whose stripes you were healed.’ Indeed, the enormity of the offences which Christ undertook to atone for in His Passion is in a certain sense infinite, by reason of the Person of infinite majesty and excellence which has been offended ; but, on the other hand, the Person of Him Who atones, which Person is the Son of GOD, is also of infinite majesty and excellence, and consequently every suffering willingly undertaken by the Son of GOD, even if He spilt but one drop of His Blood, would be a suthcient atonement. Still it was pleasing to Gop that His Son should suffer innumerable torments, and sorrows most severe, because we had committed not one but manifold offences, and the Lamb of Gop, Who taketh away the sins of the world, took upon Himself not the sin of Adam only, but all the sins of all mankind. This is shown in that abandonment of which the Son complains to the Father: “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The second reason is the greatness and the multitude of the pains. * Coloss. ii. Tet otePeter-ity 24.

80 On the Last Four Words of hell, and the Son of Gop shows how great they are by wishing to quench them in the torrents of His Blood. The prophet Isaias teaches us how terrible they are, that they are clearly intolerable, for he asks: “Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? Which of you shall dwelt with everlasting burnings?” * Tet us therefore return thanks to Gop with our whole heart, Who was willing to abandon His only-begotten Son to the greatest torments for a time to free us from flames which would be eternal. Let us return thanks, too, from the bottom of our heart to the Lamb of Gop, Who preferred to be abandoned by Gob under His chastising sword than abandon us to the teeth of that beast who would ever gnaw and would never be satisfied with gnawing us. The third reason is the high value of the grace of GOD, which is that most precious stone which Christ, the wise merchant, purchased by the sale of everything He had, and restored to us. The grace of Gop, which had been given to us in Adam, and which we lost through Adam’s sin, is so precious a stone that whilst it adorns our souls, and renders them pleasing to GOD, it is also a pledge of eternal felicity. No ne could restore to us that precious stone, which was the gem of our riches, and of which the cunning of the ‘serpent had deprived us, except the Son of Gob, Who overcame by His wisdom the wickedness of the devil, and Who gave it back to us at His own great cost, since He endured so many labours and sorrows. The dutifulness ‘of that Son prevailed, Who took on Himself a most laborious pilgrimage to recover for us that precious gem. The fourth cause was the exceeding greatness of the kingdom of heaven, which the Son of Gop opened for us by His immense toil and suffering, and to Whom the Church gratefully sings, “When Thou hadst overcome the sting of death, Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven

to believers.’ But in order to conquer the sting of death it was necessary to sustain a hard contest with death, and that the Son might triumph the more gloriously in this contest, He was abandoned by His Father. The fifth cause was the immense love which the Son had for His Father. For in the redemption of the world and in the wiping away of sin, He proposed to make an abundant and a superabundant satisfaction to the honour of His Father. And this could not have been done if the Father had not abandoned the Son, that is, had not allowed Him to suffer all the torments which could be devised by the malice of the devil, or could be endured by a man. If, therefore, any one asks why GOD abandoned His Son on the Cross when He was suffering such an extremity of torments, we can answer that He was abandoned in order to teach us the greatness of sin, the greatness of hell, the greatness of divine grace, the greatness of eternal life, and the greatness of the love which the Son of Gop had for His Father. From these reasons there arises another question: Why, forsooth, has GOD mixed the martyrs’ chalice of suffering with such spiritual consolation as that they preferred to drain their chalice sweetened with these consolations, than be without the suffering and the consolation, and allowed His dearly beloved Son to drain to the dregs the bitter chalice of His suffering without any consolation? The answer is, that in the case of the martyrs none of the reasons which we have given above in reference to our Lord have any place.

82 On the Last Four Words

Chapter 5. The fourth fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the fourth word spoken by Christ upon the Cross

Another fruit may be gathered, not so much from the fourth word itself, as from the circumstances of the time in which it was spoken: that is, from the consideration of the terrible darkness that immediately preceded the speaking of the word. The consideration of this darkness would be most proper, not only for enlightening the Hebrew nation, but for strengthening Christians them- | selves in the faith, if they would seriously apply their minds to the force of the truths which we propose to found on it. .

The first truth is that whilst Christ was on the Cross the sun was so totally obscured that the stars were as visible as they are in the night time. This fact is vouched for by five witnesses, most worthy of credibility, who were of different nations, and wrote their books both at different times and in different places, so that their writings could not have been the result of any comparison or collusion. The first is St. Matthew, a Jew, who wrote in Judza, and was one of those who saw the sun darkened. Now certainly a man of his caution and prudence would not have written what he has written, and as is probable in the very city of Jerusalem, unless the fact he described was true. For otherwise he would have been ridiculed and laughed at by the inhabitants of the city and county for writing what everybody knew to be false. Another witness is St. Mark, who wrote at Rome; he also saw the eclipse; for he was in Judea at the time with the other disciples of our Lord. The third is St. Luke, who was a Greek who wrote in Greece: he also saw the eclipse at Antioch.

For since Dionysius the Areopagite saw it at Heliopolis in Egypt, St. Luke could more easily see it at Antioch, which city is nearer Jerusalem than Heliopolis. The fourth and fifth witnesses are Dionysius and Apollophanes, both Greeks, and at the time Gentiles, and they distinctly assert that they saw the eclipse and were filled with astonishment at it. These are the five witnesses who bear testimony to the fact because they saw it. To their authority we may add that of the Annals of the Romans, and Phlegon, the chronicler of the Emperor Adrian, as we have shown above in the first chapter. Consequently this first truth cannot without great rashness be denied either by Jews or Pagans. Amongst Christians it is regarded as part of the Catholic faith.

The second truth is, that this eclipse could only be brought about by the almighty power of GoD: that therefore it could not be the work of the devil, or of men through the agency of the devil, but proceeded from the special providence and will of Gop, the Creator and Ruler of the world. The proof is this. The sun could only be eclipsed by one of three methods: either by the interposition of the moon between the sun and earth? or by some vast and dense cloud ; or through the absorption or extinction of the sun’s rays. The interposition of the moon could not by the laws of nature have happened, since it was the Pasch of the Jews, and the moon was at its full. The eclipse then must have happened either without the interposition of the moon, or the moon, by some extraordinary and great miracle, must have passed in a few hours over a space which naturally it would take fourteen days to accomplish, and then by a repetition of the miracle have returned to its proper place. Now it is admitted by everyone that GOD alone can influence the motions of the heavenly spheres,

84 On the Last Four Words for the devils have power only in this globe, and so the Apostle calls Satan “ The prince of the power of this air.’* The eclipse of the sun could not have happened in the second method, for a dense and thick cloud could not hide the rays of the sun without at the same time concealing the stars. And we have the authority of Phlegon for saying that during this eclipse the stars were as visible in the sky as they are during the night. As for the third method, we must remember that the rays of the sun could not be absorpt or extinguished but by the power of GOD who created the sun. Therefore this second truth is as certain as the first, and cannot be denied without an equal degree of rashness.

The third truth is that the Passion of Christ was the cause of this eclipse which was brought about by the special providence of GOD, and is proved by the fact that the darkness overshadowed the earth just as long as our Lord remained alive on the Cross, that is from the sixth to the ninth hour. This is attested by all those who speak of the eclipse; nor could it happen that an eclipse which was itself miraculous should by chance coincide with the Passion of Christ. For miracles are not the result of chance, but of the power of Gop. Nor am I aware of any author who could assign another cause for this so wonderful an eclipse. Those then that know Christ acknowledge that it was brought about for His sake, and those who do not know Him confess their ignorance of its object, but remain in admiration of the fact. |

The fourth truth is, that so terrible a darkness could only show the sentence of Caiphas and Pilate to be most unjust, JESUS to be the true and only Son of Gop, the Messias promised to the Jews. This was the reason why the Jews demanded His death. For when in the council

of the Priests, the Scribes, and the Pharisees, the High Priest saw that the evidence produced against Him proved nothing, he arose and said: “Jf adjure Thee by the living God that Thou tell us tf Thou be the Son of God.’ And on our Lord acknowledging and confessing Himself to be so, he “vent his garments saying: He hath blasphemed, what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard the blasphemy; what think you? But they answering said: He is guilty of death.* Again when He was before Pilate, who wished to liberate Him, the Chief Priests and people cried out: “ We have a law ; and according to the law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God:+ This was the principal reason why Christ our Lord was condemned to the death of the Cross, and it was foretold by Daniel the prophet when he said: “Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny Him shall not be His.t For this cause, then, during the Passion of Christ, GoD allowed a horrible darkness to overspead the world to show most clearly that the High Priest was wrong: that the Jewish people was wrong: that Herod was wrong, and that He Who was hanging on the Cross was His only Son, the promised Messiah. And when the Centurion saw these heavenly manifestations he exclaimed, “ Judeed this was the Son of God ;§ and again, “Indeed this was a just Man."|| For the Centurion recognized such celestial signs as the voice of Gop annulling the sentence of Caiphas and Pilate, and declaring that this Man was condemned to death contrary to all law, since He was the author of life, the true Son of Gob, the promised Christ. For what else could GoD mean by this darkness, by the secret splitting of the rocks, and the rending of the veil of the Temple, but that He withdrew Himself from a people who were

86 _ On the Last Four Words once His own, and was wrathful with a great wrath because they had not known the time of His visitation.

Certainly if the Jews would consider these things, and at the same time turn their attention to the fact that from that day they have been scattered through every nation, have had neither kings nor pontiffs, nor altars, nor sacrifices, nor miracles, nor prophets, they must conclude that they have been abandoned by GOD, and what is worse, have been given over to a reprobate sense, and that that is now being accomplished in them what Isaias foretold when he introduces the Lord as saying: “ Hearing hear and understand not: and see the vision and know it not. blind the heart of this people and make their cars heavy and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted and I heal them.”*