Psalms 85:2

Our Instructor, the Word, therefore cures the unnatural passions of the soul by means of exhortations. For with the highest propriety the help of bodily diseases is called the healing art, an art acquired by human skill. But the paternal Word is the only Pæonian physician of human infirmities, and the holy charmer of the sick soul. “Save,” it is said, “Thy servant, O my God, who trusteth in Thee. Pity me, O Lord; for I will cry to Thee all the day.” For a while the “physician’s art,” according to Democritus, “heals the diseases of the body; wisdom frees the soul from passion.” But the good Instructor, the Wisdom, the Word of the Father, who made man, cares for the whole nature of His creature; the all-sufficient Physician of humanity, the Saviour, heals both body and soul. …

4. “Preserve Thou My Soul, for I am holy” ( ver. 2 ). I know not whether any one could say this, “I am holy,” but He who was in the world without sin: He by whom all sins were not committed but remitted. We own it to be His voice saying, “Preserve Thou My Soul, for I am holy;” of course in that form of a servant which He had assumed. For in that was flesh, in that, was also a Soul. For He was not, as some have said, only Flesh and the Word: but Flesh and Soul also, and the Word, and all this, One Son of God, One Christ, One Saviour; in the form of God equal to the Father, in the form of a servant the Head of the Church. When therefore I hear, “for I am holy,” I recognise His voice: yet do I exclude my own? Surely He speaks inseparably from His body when He speaks thus. …

110. But that is insufficient; take again: “Preserve My soul, for I am holy.” Did David say this of himself? Nay, He says it, Who also says: “Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.” The Same then says both of these.

111. He has added further: “Save Thy Servant;” and, further on: “Give Thy strength to Thy servant, and to the Son of Thy handmaid;” and, elsewhere, that is, in Ezekiel: “And I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall rule them, even My Servant David. He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and My Servant David a prince among them.” Now David the Son of Jesse was already dead. Therefore he speaks of Christ, Who for our sakes was made the Son of a handmaiden in the form of man; for according to His divine Generation He has no Mother, but a Father only: nor is He the fruit of earthly desire, but the eternal Power of God.