When is a King more glorious? When he is decked out in his purple, adorned with diadem, covered with gold, high on his throne, only when he is ready to go in solemn procession or seated in private? Or is he more glorious when wearing ordinary attire for the battlefield, last in honor, first in perils, laden with a sword, heavily equipped with arms, when for his country, for his citizens, for his children and for the life of all the people he destroys the enemy, despises dangers, thinks little of wounds, and is willing to endure his own death for the safety of his people, so that he gains a greater victory and triumph by despising death than by defeating the enemy itself?
And so what is the problem if Christ came to our condition of slavery from the bosom of the Father, from the hidden realm of divinity, in order to restore us to his liberty; he endured our death in order that we might have life by his death; when by disdaining death he brought us mortals back as gods, and put us earthly beings on the same level as heavenly ones? -- St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 72b
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