Luke 21:37

What our Lord commanded in word, He confirms by His example. For He who bid us watch and pray before the coming of the Judge, and the uncertain end of each of us, as the time of His Passion drew near, is Himself instant in teaching, watching, and prayer. As it is said, And in the day time he was teaching in the temple, whereby He conveys by His own example, that it is a thing worthy of God, to watch, or by word and deed to point out the way of truth to our neighbor.

But what were the things He taught, unless such as transcended the worship of the law?

Now the Evangelists are silent as to the greater part of Christ’s teaching; for whereas He preached for the space nearly of three years, all the teaching which they have written down would scarcely, one might say, suffice for the discourse of a single day. For out of a great many things extracting a few, they have given only a taste as it were of the sweetness of His teaching. But our Lord here instructs us, that we ought to address God at night and in silence, but in day time to be doing good to men; and to gather indeed at night, but in the day distribute what we have gathered. As it is added, And at night he went out and abode in the mount that is called Olivet. Not that He had need of prayer, but He did this for our example.

But because His speech was with power, and with authority He applied to spiritual worship the things which had been delivered in figures by Moses and the Prophets, the people heard Him gladly. As it follows, And the whole people made haste to come early to hear him in the temple. But the people who came to Him before light might with fitness say, O God my God, early do I wait upon you.

Now mystically, we also when amid our prosperity we behave ourselves soberly, piously, and honestly, teach by day time in the temple, for we hold up to the faithful the model of a good work; but at night we abide on mount Olivet, when in the darkness of anguish we are refreshed with spiritual consolation; and to us also the people come early in the morning, when either having shaken off the works of darkness, or scattered all the clouds of sorrow, they follow our example.

That “the very powers also of heaven have to be shaken,” you may find in Joel: “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” In Habakkuk also you have this statement: “With rivers shall the earth be cleaved; the nations shall see thee, and be in pangs. Thou shalt disperse the waters with thy step; the deep uttered its voice; the height of its fear was raised; the sun and the moon stood still in their course; into light shall thy coruscations go; and thy shield shall be (like) the glittering of the lightning’s flash; in thine anger thou shalt grind the earth, and shalt thresh the nations in thy wrath.” There is thus an agreement, I apprehend, between the sayings of the Lord and of the prophets touching the shaking of the ear …

However, if you persist in pushing your views further, I shall find means of answering you with greater stringency, and of meeting you with the exclamation of the Lord Himself, so as to challenge you with the question, What is your inquiry and reasoning about that ? You have Him exclaiming in the midst of His passion: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Either, then, the Son suffered, being “forsaken” by the Father, and the Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what God was it that He addressed His cry? But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man, not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who “forsook” His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death. …