And the divine Paul clearly cries: Christ redeemed us from the oath of the law, having sworn an oath for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Galatians 3:13). And having said, "For us," He showed that, being innocent and free from all sin, He repaid our debt and us, burdened with many debts and therefore forced into slavery, He vouchsafed freedom, redeeming us and offering His own Blood as a price for us. Wherefore in another place the same Apostle cries, saying: "Buy us with price" (1 Corinthians 6:20); and again he says, "A weak brother shall perish in thy mind, for whose sake Christ shall die" (8:11). And he died on the cross, because this kind of death was cursed according to the law, and cursed was our nature as having transgressed the law, for it is said: "Cursed is everyone who does not abide in all that is written in the book more lawfully, as I do" (Galatians 3:10).

Therefore He takes upon Himself a general oath, and absolves Himself from the oath, having accepted the unrighteous sacrifice. Not being subject to an oath (for thou shalt not commit sin, neither shall deceit be found in His mouth), He suffered the death of sinners, and, having become the defender and intercessor of our nature, He sues the destroyer, who is hostile to all nature, and justly says to our cruel tormentor: Thou art captive, O all-wicked one, and ensnared by thy own snares; Thy sword has entered into thy heart, and thy arrows are broken; having dug a pit, he himself fell into it; Thy hands are bound by the snares which thou hast spread. For tell me, Why hast thou nailed my body to the cross, and put it to death? What kind of sin have you noticed in Me? What transgression of the law did he see? Examine now with all precision, seeing My body naked on a tree. Behold, the tongue is clean from defilement, and the ear is free from all harm, and the eyes have received nothing pernicious from conscience, and the hands are far from iniquity, but are adorned with all righteousness, the feet, speaking the prophetic word, have not flowed into evil (Isaiah 59:7), but have completed the race of virtue. Examine all the members of the body in all their exactness, examine the movements of the soul. If even a small sin is found, then it is lawful and very just for you to keep Me, because death is a punishment for those who have sinned. And if you do not find anything forbidden by God's law, or rather, you find everything that is commanded by the law, then I do not allow you to withhold, which you have no right to hold.

Remember why the ancestor Adam was put to death. Having received all the plants of paradise in power, he was not satisfied with the data and it was not enough for him to enjoy the abundance of all plants, but encroached on the tree of knowledge, the fruit of which the Creator forbade to eat. And having been sick with insatiability, having coveted what did not belong, he was deprived of the whole paradise. I will subject you to these punishments, because it is unjust for the deceived to suffer this punishment, and for the deceiver not to suffer the same punishment. Therefore, since you, having taken authority over those who have sinned, have touched a body that has not committed a single sin, then be deprived of power, put an end to your torment. I will deliver all from death, but I will do this not by mercy alone, but by just mercy, not by the power of dominion, but by the power of justice, because I have paid a debt for the whole generation: I did not have to die, and I endured death, I was not subject to death, and I brought death, I was innocent, and included myself among the guilty, I was free from duty, and I was imputed with debtors. Therefore I have paid the debt of nature, and having suffered an unjust death, I put an end to a just death. Being imprisoned illegally, and lawfully imprisoned I release from prison to freedom. Behold, cruel punisher of sin, the handwriting of nature has been destroyed. Look, it is nailed to the cross and there are no inscriptions of sin on it. Look, it did not retain the signature of deceit. The eyes of My Body have paid their debt for the eyes that have looked upon themselves evil, its ears for the ears that have taken defilement into themselves, and also the tongue for the tongue that has moved unlawfully, and the hands for the hands that have committed iniquity, and the other members for the members that have committed any sin. And since the debt has been paid, then those imprisoned for it must also be released from imprisonment, receive their former freedom and return to their homeland. By saying this, the Lord resurrected His Body and sowed in human nature the hope of resurrection, giving to all the resurrection of His own Body as a pledge of it.

Let no one think that this is our wisdom: both by the Holy Gospel and the apostolic instructions we have been taught that this is really so. For we have heard what the Lord Himself says: "For the prince of this world is coming, and in Me he shall have nothing" (John 14:30), because in Me there is no sign of sin, My Body is free from all iniquity; yet, having found nothing in Me, he puts to death as having innumerable debts upon Himself. And I endure this, desiring in all justice to deprive him of the right to torment. That is why in another place the Lord says: "Now is the judgment of this world: now the prince of this world shall be cast out" (John 12:31). By trial and investigation, he will be condemned and deprived of the right to torture, as having pronounced an unjust sentence on Me. Then, teaching that He would free not only His own Body, but together with all human nature from the dominion of death, the Lord immediately added to this, saying: "And if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself" (12:32). I will not agree to resurrect the one Body that I have received, but I will arrange the resurrection for all men. For this I came, and took the form of a servant, for this I was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer was silent. This is also said by Blessed Paul, who writes to the Colossians, and through them to all men. For it is said: "And you, who are dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive with Him, having given us all transgressions, having destroyed the handwriting of the teachings against us, which are contrary to us, and this He was taken from among us, nailing them to the cross: He put off principalities and powers, and brought them to shame by boldness, exposing them in Himself (Col. 2:13-15). And so, from this we have learned that the Lord has repaid the debt for us, blotted out the handwriting that was against us and nailed it to the cross, and brought to shame the principalities and powers, i.e. the opposing forces, boldly exposing them in Himself, i.e. showing them His sinless body and sinless soul, and rebuking them for the unrighteous sentence made against Him, and having done this, He made all human nature alive with Him. In the Divine Scriptures one can find thousands of other testimonies showing that this is really so. But if I wanted to collect all these testimonies and make a proper interpretation of each, then our reasoning would become excessively long. Therefore, leaving them to inquisitive people, I will proceed to the uninterrupted continuation of the word.

Thus the Lord Christ, having crushed death and arranged our salvation, ascended into heaven and left the hope of this ascent to the pets of piety. For He says, When I am lifted up, I will draw all things to Myself. Such is God's care for people. Such a providence was provided by the Creator of the ungrateful creature. Such is the care of the prototype for His own image. In the beginning, He created man, honored him with likeness, but he became ungrateful before Him who created, and, having corrupted the image of God, took into himself the features of beasts, and from being like God he became like beasts. But the Creator did not despise him and the one clothed in animal images, but renewed him, brought him to his former splendor, gave him primitive beauty, and made sons of those unworthy to be slaves.

But there are people, according to the words of Blessed Paul, who do nothing, but deceitfully avoid it (2 Thessalonians 3:11), who are curious about what is not allowed, who are strengthened by their own thoughts to measure the depth of God's wisdom, and who say: "Why did God, not in the beginning, but after the lapse of many thousands of years, dispense with the salvation of men? That to be curious about anything of the kind is extremely impudent, impudent, and beyond all madness, will be said by themselves, who have gone into such investigations. But to prove that God did not dispense with the newly adopted discretion, but so established from ancient times, at the very beginning, let us present the Divine Scriptures for Wednesday, and first of all let us listen to what the Lord Christ Himself says in the Gospel: "Come ye in the blessing of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34). If, before the foundation of the world, He prepared the Kingdom for the Apostles and for those who believed through them, then it is evident that this was pleasing to Him from ancient times, from the beginning, and He does not desire this, now one or the other. And he buildeth the economy at all times, which is fitting of the time, and measures doctrines by the ability of men.

That is why Adam, as a newborn child, is given the commandment about the tree, for for him every positive law was superfluous: about adultery, about murder, about perjury, about injustice. For with whom was it to commit adultery? His wife was alone at that time. Who was to be killed? No one irritated him. Against whom was perjury to be laid or who was to be offended? For this reason Adam accepts only the law of the tree, the law of children, and the law befitting newborn babes.

At the end of a great number of years, when the generation has multiplied, he gives Noah the law about food and commands him to eat all kinds of meat without prohibition, of course clean animals (because he taught Noah this distinction as well), and forbids only the use of blood.

When a long time had passed since Noah, God called Abraham, commanded him to leave his father's house, led him to the country of old called Canaanites, present-day Palestine, and gave him the commandment to be circumcised, so that the generation descended from him would have the taking away of excess as a sign of piety.

Such was God's providence for Isaac and Jacob. The first did good to Abimelech, the other pointed out to Laban the true God and denounced the impotence of the gods, not true, but imaginary.

Such was God's providence for Joseph: first, having allowed him to become a slave, through slavery, slander and bondage, God entrusted him with the reins of Egypt, and first he preached the true God to the cupbearer, and then he expounded the same teaching to the king, and after that, taking up the feeder, he wisely ruled the whole boat. Thus, God, wishing to deliver the multiplied Israelites from Egyptian slavery, delivers them with a multitude of great miracles, and through this makes them a famous people, because this people makes them teachers of the knowledge of God for all nations. And just as for the care of this people he chooses Moses, then Jesus, and also Samuel, and at other times one of the other prophets, and by means of one man who exercises in wisdom he does good to all his fellow countrymen, so by means of one people of Israel he calls all nations into the communion of faith, because they also are of the same nature with Israel.

And that this is really so, testifies the harlot Rahab, for whom, although she was a foreigner and a harlot, one rumor was enough, and for the sake of it she accepted piety, despised her own and gave herself into the hands of strangers, for she says: "We have heard what the Lord God did with the Egyptians, and your fear fell upon us" (Joshua 2:9). Therefore he makes conditions with spies and confirms them with an oath.

The same is testified to by the foreigners, who feared the presence of the nod among them and said to one another: "This is the God who slew Egypt, woe to us foreigners (1 Samuel 4:8). For this reason, God, although He transmits the nod to the foreigners, denouncing the iniquity of His people (the law was not to be made a defender of obvious transgressors of the law), nevertheless preserves the reverence of the nod betrayed to them, thereby teaching the foreigners that they have gained victory not over God, but over the iniquity of men. Wherefore he arranges that Dagon, that voiceless and senseless idol, but which the foreigners worshipped as God, falls down before the kivot and assumes the appearance of a worshipper, so that the foreigners may know the difference between him and the nod. But they foolishly raise up Dagon again, and again see him fallen and worshipped. Then, remaining in their great stupidity and not wishing to see the difference, they are taught by experience to be chaste, and, having suffered the punishment, they come to their senses, sober up from the intoxication of ignorance, and send the nod, as they ought to, to their own servants, and, honoring it with offerings, announce the punishments they have suffered, and those who are to receive it are informed how it will be returned.

This is what God did with Belshazzar. Since the people of Israel have crept into great wickedness, God sends them captive to Babylon, and the sacred vessels become the war booty of the enemy. But Nebuchadnezzar removed them as Divine from general use, and brought into the temple those who were worshipped by them as gods; but his son, i.e. Belshazzar, not understanding his father's misfortunes, not paying attention to what punishments he had suffered for his arrogance, even reverence, as he believed, these Divine vessels, he carried out on the Wednesday that was forever consecrated to God, the impious one drinks from these vessels and offers this inviolability to those who feast with him. And at the same time, the sentence is pronounced on the wicked: someone's invisible hand writes God's decree on the wall. The king remains in perplexity, unable to read and know the power of what is written; his mother harassed Daniel on Wednesday, who repeatedly resolved such perplexities to his father.