mouth. [Ibid.] Behold, in fine, our loving Redeemer, Who to save us chose to suffer death and the punishment deserved by us: Surely He hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows. [Ibid., 4] St. Gregory Nazianzen says, "He refused not to suffer as guilty, provided only that men might obtain salvation."
Who has done this? asks St. Bernard. What has been the cause of this immense prodigy? A God to die for His creatures! Who has done this? Charity has done this. This has been wrought by the love which God bears to man. The Saint pursues his meditation on the time when our amiable Redeemer was seized by the soldiers in the garden of Gethsemani, as is related by St. John: And they bound Him. [John 18:12] And then he says to our Lord: "What hast Thou to do with chains?" My Lord, he says, I behold Thee bound by this vile rabble as if Thou wert a criminal, and they are about to drag Thee to an unjust death. But, O God, what have cords and chains to do with Thee? such things belong to evil-doers, but not to Thee, Who art innocent, Who art the Son of God, innocence itself, holiness itself. St. Laurence Justinian replies that the bonds which dragged Jesus Christ to death were not those that were fastened on Him by the soldiers, but the love He bore towards men; and hereupon he exclaims: "O charity, how strong are thy bonds, by which even a God could be bound!"
