ACC ~ Hebrews 4 v15

HE SYMPATHIZES WITH OUR WEAKNESSES. PHOTIUS: From both ways he establishes that “he will sympathize with our weaknesses”: first, because he is great and mighty, being the Son of God and very God himself, and, second, because he also as very man suffered and endured the testing of afflictions and the weakness of the flesh. For both these reasons he is in every respect made a partaker of our weaknesses. FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 4.15.

TRIUNE WORK OF OUR RESTORATION. LEO THE GREAT: By the saving cooperation of the indivisible divinity, whatever the Father, whatever the Son, whatever the Holy Spirit accomplishes in a particular way is the plan of our redemption. It is the order of our salvation. For if human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, had remained in the honor of their own nature and, undeceived by the devil’s lies, had not deviated from the law placed over them for their lusts, the Creator of the world would not have become a creature. The eternal would not have undergone temporality, and God the Son, equal to God the Father, would not have assumed the “form of a servant” and the “likeness of sinful flesh.”

Since, however, “through the devil’s envy death entered the world” and because captive humanity could only be freed in one way, namely, if that one would undertake our cause who, without the loss of his majesty, would become true man, and who alone had no contagion of sin, the mercy of the Trinity divided for itself the work of our restoration so that the Father was appeased, the Son was the appeaser, and the Holy Spirit enkindled the process. It was right that those to be saved should do something for themselves, and, when their hearts were turned to the Redeemer, that they should cut themselves off from the domination of the enemy. In regard to this, the apostle says, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”“No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” SERMON 77.

THE WORD SAVED THE FALLEN ADAM. HIPPOLYTUS: So let us in the future believe, blessed brethren, in accordance with the tradition of the apostles, that God the Word came down from the heaven into the holy virgin Mary. … Once he had taken flesh out of her and taken a soul of the human kind—a rational one, I mean—and had become everything that a human is, sin excepted, he might save fallen Adam and procure incorruption for such as believe in his name. AGAINST NOETUS 17.2.

THE ONE IN WHOM HUMAN NATURE WAS INNOCENT. LEO THE GREAT: What has been instilled in our hearts, if not that we should be “renewed” through them all “after the image”of that one who, remaining “in the form of God,” condescended to become “the form of sinful flesh”? He assumed all those weaknesses of ours that come as a result of sin, though “without” any part in “sin.” Consequently, he lacked none of the afflictions due to hunger and thirst, sleep and weariness, sadness and tears. He endured grievous sorrows even to the point of death. No one could be released from the fetters of mortality unless he, in whom alone the nature of all people was innocent, should allow himself to be killed by the hands of wicked persons.

Our Savior, the Son of God, gave both a mystery and an example to all who believe in him, so that they might attain to the one by being reborn and arrive at the other by imitation. Blessed Peter the apostle teaches this, saying, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” SERMON 63.

UNITED TO THE WORD. THEODORET OF CYR: It was the nature assumed from us for our sake that experienced our passions without sinning, not the one who took our nature for our salvation. And in the beginning of this section Paul teaches us by saying, “Consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, faithful to him who made him.” … No one of orthodox conviction would call a creature the uncreated and unmade, God the Word, coeternal with the Father. Rather the one from the seed of David, who existed free from all sin, became our high priest and sacrifice by offering himself to God for us, having the Word … united to himself and joined inseparably. IN CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA’S LETTER TO EUOPTIUS, ANATHEMA 10.

FRIEND OF THE OUTCASTS. SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN: Almost everyone views those who are weak and poor as disgusting. An earthly king does not put up with seeing them, rulers turn away, wealthy people disregard them as not worthy of their notice, and when they encounter them they pass by them as if they did not exist. No one thinks it is a blessing to live among them. But God, who is served by innumerable millions of powers, who “upholds the universe by his word of power,” whose magnificence no one is able to endure, this God did not shun becoming father and friend and brother of these outcasts. Rather, in fact, he wanted to become incarnate, so that he might be identified as like us in every way, apart from sin, and might make us sharers in his glory and kingdom. O the depths of the wealth of his great goodness! O the depths of the unspeakable lowering of himself by our Master and God! DISCOURSE 2.4.

HE WILL TAKE OUR WEAKNESS INTO ACCOUNT. THEODORET OF CYR: The believers at that time were subjected to constant billowing by trials; so he consoles them by bringing out that our high priest not only knows as God the weakness of our nature but also as man had experience of our sufferings, remaining unfamiliar with sin alone. Understanding this weakness of ours, he is saying, he both extends us appropriate help and when judging us he will take our weakness into account in delivering sentence. INTERPRETATION OF HEBREWS 4.

Heb