The Savior's timely coming as the healing of incurable sickness

Every remedy and help brought to them through their own kind had failed against their incurable diseases. So after all those things, the Savior came, as was fitting, healing every disease and every sickness, so as to remove even their deadness and death. For this truth, then, the Savior shone forth in the time of Augustus, when the time had been fulfilled, since the salvation of human beings was being accomplished suitably (Ps 102). About this the present word also says: "For it is time to have mercy on Zion, O Master, and you, having risen up through yourself, will have mercy on her" (the title of Psalm 102 [103]).

A thanksgiving had to follow the preceding prophecy. This has also been arranged through this song: the mercy of God and the judicial righteousness are glorified, because through mercy he will rescue the people from those who wrong them, and there is the removal of corruption, and the grace kept for successors, and the heavenly kingdom that will pass over all things.

The heaven is not a sphere encircling the whole and running around it, but it roofs the earth, stretched around it, being roofed from above by waters with a stable and fixed standing (Psalm 104:2).

It is clear that "stretching out" and "roofing" and "making" stand for "having stretched out" and "having roofed" and "having made." So also "forming the spirit of a human being within him": since the formation by God happened once for all, earth and the finished products from it come to be continually, according to which it is also said: "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (John 5:17). And "I am the one who is" (Exodus 3:14) would also contribute to this, since created things do not exist but come to be, having a generated nature, and for this reason their substance is understood in their coming to be and does not truly exist as the maker does. And this extends through the holy Trinity, which is creative.

He speaks of the wonder of the foundation as a proof of God's power: that the earth, being the heaviest element, has been fixed above the waters and remains unmoved forever, since the abyss beneath it can neither support nor establish it, but covers it like garments, so that its seat is ineffable and belongs to God's power, not to the nature of the elements (Psalm 104:5-6).

The earth gives springs of water that gush up from the beginning, and these too by God's power; and he says that they often dry up and go into hiding by the fear of God, which is said more clearly in Psalm 73 (74):15: "You broke open springs and torrents; you dried up other rivers" (Psalm 104:10). He also marvels at the position of the mountains, raised up unmoved above the plains and not dragged down by the appointed force to cover what lies beneath, according to: "They will say to the mountains, 'Cover us'" (Hosea 10:8) (Psalm 104:13; LXX 103:13).

He calls the air the upper rooms of God, as if the whole world were one house. And he says the rain is the work of the Son, from which the earth receives its fruitfulness (Psalm 104:13). And he would be saying that the drawing up of the waters from the sea is his work (Psalm 104:13).

And about the heron it is also said through Jeremiah: "Even the heron in the sky knows its times" (Jeremiah 8:7) (Psalm 104:17).

God is said to mock him, that is, to count his cunning as nothing. For God laughs at everyone who opposes him because of its futility, and counts it as play because of how easily it is caught, as he says about the Egyptians: "How many things I have mocked against the Egyptians" (Exodus 10:2) (Psalm 104:26).

Others have taken the preceding words about the food supplied to living creatures. For when this is present, it flourishes and rejoices; when it is absent, it is pressed by want and thrown into confusion by the lack of necessities (Psalm 104:29-30; LXX 103:29-30).

This is the work of Christ, who also says that he is the resurrection and the life, and has promised to raise all, and when he was present, he gave life to those he wished (Ps 103:31). So what is said belongs to the Father as the source, to the Son as the worker, and to the Spirit as the one who is participated in and, as it were, brought in through the Son into the life of all things, according to: "He will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you" (Romans 8:11). The Spirit, then, is life-giving through the life it works, and deifying through the participation it grants; and the human spirit is named after it, according to its formation by it (Psalm 104:30).

Eternal is the glory of the one who keeps his works forever; and since the glory is eternal, the things that glorify are eternal (Psalm 104:31).

The greatness of the glory is shown by the fear of creation, and the fear reveals the subjection. Thus the psalm says that the sea was subjected by being afraid. For what fears is subjected; and the subjection of the earth is the trembling at the oversight of God, and the smoking of the mountains is like burning, which was also seen bodily happening on Mount Sinai (Psalm 104:32).