f, and took a
servant's form," so David celebrates the Lord, as the everlasting
God and king, but sent to us, and assuming our body, which is
mortal. For this is his meaning in the Psalm, "All thy garments
smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia"; and it is represented by
Nicodemus's and by Mary's company, when he came, bringing a mixture
of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight; and they took
the spices which they had prepared for the burial of the Lord's
body.

What advancement, then, was it to the Immortal to have assumed the
mortal? Or what promotion is it to the Everlasting to have put on
the temporal? What reward can be great to the Everlasting God and
King, in the bosom of the Father? See ye not, that this, too, was
done and written because of us and for us, that us who are mortal
and temporal, the Lord, become man, might mate immortal, and bring
into the everlasting kingdom of heaven? Blush ye not, speaking lies
against the divine oracles? For when our Lord Jesus Christ had been
among us, we, indeed, were promoted, as rescued from sin; but he is
the same, nor did he alter when he became man (to repeat what I have
said), but, as has been written, "The word of God abideth forever."
Surely as, before his becoming man, he, the Word, dispensed to the
saints the Spirit as his own; so also, when made man, be sanctifies
all by the Spirit, and says to his Disciples, "Receive ye the Holy
Ghost." And he gave to Moses and the other seventy; and through him
David prayed to the Father, saying, "Take not thy Holy Spirit from
me." On the other hand, when made man, he said, "I will send to you
the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth"; and he sent him, he, the Word
of God, as being faithful.

Therefore "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever,"
remaining unalterable, and at once gives and receives, giving as
God's Word, receiving as man. It is not the Word then, viewed as the
Word, that is promoted,--for he had all things and has had them
always,--but men, who have in him and through him their origin of
receiving them. For, when he is now said to be anointed in a human
respect, we it is who in him are anointed; since also, when he is
baptized, we it is who in him are baptized. But on all these things
the Savior throws much light, when he says to the Father, "And the
glory which thou gavest me, I have given to them, that they may be
one, even as we are one." Because of us, then, he asked for glory,
a