'I gave,'--purely voluntary. That word originally expressed the patient
submission with which He endured at the moment, when the lash scored
His back, but it may be widened out to express Christ's perfect
voluntariness in all His passion. At any moment He could have abandoned
His work if His filial obedience and His love to men had let Him do so.
His would-be captors fell to the ground before one momentary flash of
His majesty, and they could have laid no hand on Him, if His will had
not consented to His capture. Fra Angelico has grasped the thought
which the prophet here uttered, and which the evangelists emphasise,
that all His suffering was voluntary, and that His love to us
restrained His power, and led Him to the slaughter, silent as a sheep
before her shearers. For he has pourtrayed the majestic figure seated
in passive endurance, with eyes blindfolded but yet wide open behind
the bandage, all-seeing, wistful, sad, and patient, while around are
fragments of rods, and smiting hands, and a cruel face blowing spittle
on the unshrinking cheeks. He seems to be saying: 'These things hast
thou done, and I kept silence.' 'Thou couldest have no power at all
against Me unless it were given thee.'