Christ's tears as measured instruction

For this reason, when he wept over his friend, he both displayed his own sharing in human nature and freed us from the excesses on either side—not allowing us to be weakened by sufferings, nor to be without feeling in the face of griefs. So then, just as the Lord accepted hunger when the solid nourishment in him was consumed, and admitted thirst when the moisture in his body was used up, and grew weary when his muscles and sinews were stretched beyond measure by the journey—not because his divinity was subdued by the fatigue, but because his body received the symptoms that follow from nature—so also he admitted the tear, permitting the natural symptom to come upon the flesh. This happens when the hollows of the brain, filled with the exhalations from grief, discharge the weight of moisture through the passages around the eyes as through certain channels. From this come certain sounds, dizzy spells, and darkenings of sight at the unexpected reports of griefs, as the head is shaken all around by the vapors which the contraction of heat toward the depths sends upward. Then, I think, just as a cloud turns into drizzle, so the thickness of the vapors dissolves into tears. And for this reason there is a certain pleasure for those who grieve in their lament, since what weighs on them is secretly emptied out through weeping. Experience of what happens confirms the truth of this account. For we have known many who, in irremediable misfortunes, forced themselves to hold back and shed no tear; then some fell into irremediable sufferings—apoplexies or paralyses—and others died outright, their strength giving way under the weight of grief like a weak prop. For what we see happen with a flame—that it is choked by its own smoke when the smoke does not escape but swirls around it—this, they say, also happens with the power that governs the living creature: it is withered by pains and extinguished, since no exhalation to the outside occurs. Therefore let the lovers of grief not put forward the Lord's tears as an advocacy for their own suffering. For just as the food the Lord ate is not an occasion for self-indulgence for us—on the contrary, it is the highest standard of self-restraint and self-sufficiency—so also the tear is not a legislation for lamenting, but a most seemly measure set forth, and an exact rule, according to which it is fitting to bear griefs reverently and decorously while remaining within the boundaries of nature. Neither women nor men, then, are permitted love of grief and abundant tears, but only to frown somewhat at griefs and to shed a small tear—and this quietly, without bellowing or wailing, without tearing one's garment or pouring dust on oneself, or doing any other such disgraceful thing practiced by those who are uninstructed toward heavenly things. For the one purified by divine teaching must be fenced about by right reason as by a strong wall, and must bravely and steadfastly ward off the assaults of such sufferings; and not, as into some low-lying ground, receive the crowd of sufferings rushing in upon the low and yielding part of the soul. For it belongs to an unmanly soul, one that has no vigor from hope in God, to be violently torn apart and to collapse under griefs.