They will curse, and you will bless. To this day this happens: they curse in the synagogue, and the Lord blesses in the church. Those who rise up against me, let them be confounded: but your servant will rejoice. They rise up against me: but I, your servant, will rejoice. But why "your servant"? because "He who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant."
Let those who disparage me be clothed with shame. It profits us greatly to understand what we say. The clemency of God appears in this, in his saying "let them be clothed." He does not say, let them perish; he does not say, let them be blotted out forever: but what does he say? let them be confounded, that is, let them understand their error, and be confounded, and stand in repentance. He who is clothed with shame is near to salvation: for if anyone is truly confounded, he begins to repent. Consider, O monks, if you ever have anything against your brother, you ought always to pray to God for him. The Lord is crucified, and he prays for those crucifying him. But you, if you hear an evil word, do not hold on to anger. "Let not the sun set upon your wrath." And let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak (diplois). The diplois is a kind of cloak: indeed, in the Hebrew it is called ME'IL. It is called diplois for this reason, because the cloak is double. Therefore I say to you, O Lord: my enemies are the Jews, they have persecuted me, they have crucified me, they have done me every evil, they have blasphemed me: be gracious to them, since I, who have suffered, pray for them. And what do I ask? Let them blush and be confounded, and so be saved. They are naked, they have lost my tunic. Give them confusion, give them disgrace, and let them have a double cloak: that is, let them not have a single confusion, but a double one, that they may repent the more. He does not speak against the Jews, but he speaks for them. For he is the Creator both of them and of us: he has not rooted them out altogether. Do you wish to know? Peter was of them, Paul was of them, and all the apostles were of them. We have been grafted into their root; we are the branches, they the root. We ought not to curse the roots, but we ought to pray for our roots. We who have been grafted into the root, let us beseech the Lord, that just as the branches are saved, so also the root may be saved. Perhaps someone may say: You pray for the Jews, for blasphemers? I pray to the Lord for them: for if he himself has pity on his persecutors, how much more will he have pity on me?
I will confess to the Lord exceedingly with my mouth. This is said after the resurrection, and it is sung of the future church. And in the midst of many I will praise him. For not in Judea alone, but in the whole world, in the church I will praise you.
Because he stood at the right hand of the poor man. The devil stood at the right hand of Judas: but for me the Lord stood at my right hand. That he might save my soul from those who persecute it. My soul, he says, he will save. And elsewhere he says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." He who is sorrowful, had a faculty of feeling. For a soul without feeling has no perception, a soul without feeling has neither perception nor pain: for where there is pain and sadness, there is feeling. If then he had sadness, if he had pain, then he had also feeling: for feeling is pain.
If, then, they should wish to say to us: We do not say that he had feeling, for this reason, lest he seem to have sin; let us answer them: Did he have a body like us, or did he not have one? If they say, he had one, let us answer them: Then he had also the sufferings of our body. Everyone understands what I say. But if they deny that he had the passions or lusts of the body, then we say to them, that he did not have a body either. And let us say to them: Just as he had a true body like ours, and yet did not have the sin of the body; so also he had a true soul, and did not have the sin of the soul. Let us therefore confess that he had a true body and a true soul. For if the Lord did not take upon himself all the things that are man's, he did not save man. But if he took a body, and did not take a soul: then he saved the body, but he did not save the soul. Yet we wish rather that our soul be saved than our body. The Lord therefore took upon himself both body and soul, that he might save both, that he might save the whole man, just as he also created him. If, then, they say that the Lord did not take on feeling for this reason, that he might not sin, and they suppose this, that whoever has had human feeling cannot conquer it, let them tell us: Did John the Baptist have feeling, or did he not? In that time, in which he was in the desert, did he sin? Assuredly they say that he did not sin. Indeed, our Lord too says: "Amen I say to you, there has not been among those born of women a greater than John the Baptist." Did Peter have feeling, or did he not, and the rest of the holy apostles? If, then, the apostles conquered human feeling, did the Lord fear to take on feeling, lest he be conquered by it? And while they wish to glorify the Lord, they disparage him. How do they disparage him? by making the Lord seem to fear what the apostles did not fear. Let us therefore give thanks to almighty God, and say: In your feeling you had no sin. And: "The prince of this world came, and found nothing in you." So then grant to us, that just as in your own feeling you conquered the devil, so also in our feeling conquer the devil; that, just as you created us perfect, so also perfect you may save us. For you are the Creator, you are the master, you are the Lord, you are also the one who suffered for us: who live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.