Amos 8:10

12. Some of them, moreover, [when they predicted that] as a weak and inglorious man, and as one who knew what it was to bear infirmity, and sitting upon the foal of an ass, He should come to Jerusalem; and that He should give His back to stripes, and His cheeks to palms [which struck Him]; and that He should be led as a sheep to the slaughter; and that He should have vinegar and gall given Him to drink; and that He should be forsaken by His friends and those nearest to Him; and that He should stretch forth His hands the whole day long; and that He should be mocked and maligned by those who looked upon Him; and that His garments should be parted, and lots cast upon His raiment; and that He should be brought down to the dust of death with all [the other] things of a like nature, prophesied His coming in the character of a man as He entered Jerusalem, in which by His passion and crucifixion …

Clearly, then, did the prophet behold in type Him who was born of the holy virgin, whom thou, O holy virgin, wouldest have had no strength to bear, hadst thou not beamed forth for that time with all that is glorious and virtuous. And with what words of laudation, then, shall we describe her virgin-dignity? With what indications and proclamations of praise shall we celebrate her stainless figure? With what spiritual song or word shall we honour her who is most glorious among the angels? She is planted in the house of God like a fruitful olive that the Holy Spirit overshadowed; and by her means are we called sons and heirs of the kingdom of Christ. She is the ever-blooming paradise of incorruptibility, wherein is planted the tree that giveth life, and that furnisheth to all the fruits of immortality. She is the boast and glory of virgins, and the exultation of mothers. …

What more can now be said respecting the crime of the Jews, than that they were then blinded and seized with incurable madness, who read these things daily, and yet neither understood them, nor were able to be on their guard so as not to do them? Therefore, being lifted up and nailed to the cross, He cried to the Lord with a loud voice, and of His own accord gave up His spirit. And at the same hour there was an earthquake; and the veil of the temple, which separated the two tabernacles, was rent into two parts; and the sun suddenly withdrew its light, and there was darkness from the sixth even to the ninth hour. …

And the prophets had predicted that all these things would thus come to pass. Isaiah thus speaks: “I am not rebellious, nor do I oppose: I gave my back to the scourge, and my cheeks to the hand: I turned not away my face from the foulness of spitting.” The same prophet says respecting His silence: “I was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.” David also, in the xxxivth Psalm: “The abjects were gathered together against me, and they knew me not: they were scattered, yet felt no remorse: they tempted me, and gnashed upon me with their teeth.” The same also says respecting food and drink in the lxviiith Psalm: “They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Also respecting the cross of Christ: “And they pierced my hands and my feet, they numbered all my bones: they themselves have loo …

25. But dost thou ask exactly at what hour the sun failed? was it the fifth hour, or the eighth, or the tenth? Tell, O Prophet, the exact time thereof to the Jews, who are unwilling to hear; when shall the sun go down? The Prophet Amos answers, And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall go down at noon (for there was darkness from the sixth hour;) and the light shall grow dark over the earth in the day .” What sort of season is this, O Prophet, and what sort of day? And I will turn your feasts into mourning ; for this was done in the days of unleavened bread, and at the feast of the Passover: then afterwards he says, And I will make Him as the mourning of an Only Son, and those with Him as a day of anguish ; for in the day of unleavened bread, and at the feast, their women were wailing and weeping, and the Apostles had hidden themselves and were in angu …

2. Persecution has come upon us, right honourable brethren, and persecution in the severest form. Shepherds are persecuted that their flocks may be scattered. And the worst of all is that those who are being treated ill cannot accept their sufferings in proof of their testimony, nor can the people reverence the athletes as in the army of martyrs, because the name of Christians is applied to the persecutors. The one charge which is now sure to secure severe punishment is the careful keeping of the traditions of the Fathers. For this the pious are exiled from their homes, and are sent away to dwell in distant regions. No reverence is shown by the judges of iniquity to the hoary head, to practical piety, to the life lived from boyhood to old age according to the Gospel. …