Christ's non-pleasing of himself

For the kingdom of God is within you in the spirit (Luke 17:21). Christ did not say that he pleased himself as in pleasing men (Rom 15:1), but he shows what is present: for he exhorts us not to choose for ourselves a way of living that would bring us harm, but to abstain for the benefit of the brothers, which happens through not causing grief. This was not granted as a good according to God; therefore, he does not make the annoying ones a pleasure to human feet, as the disciples sought fire from heaven (Luke 9:54) against those who did not receive the Lord, wanting to ask for it, but the divine good was accomplished, sparing the worthy punishment. For if he is God, he does not bring anything that displeases himself—nothing can defile or grieve God, so that we might say he did not please himself. For these things he brought forth not pleasingly: 'Will they not provoke me?' says the Lord (Ex 32:10)—but insofar as he was able to share in the human and to be set toward something with sorrow.

Because of this, he did not please himself by passing away or turning away from the annoying ones, but remained saying: 'O faithless and stray generation, how long shall I be with you?' (Matt 16:4). Besides the Lord, even the ungrateful and the strangers, when he rebukes them, should much more us, who ought to seek forgiveness and be brothers. And having exhorted to please the neighbor, he necessarily added to the good; for this is no longer human-pleasing, since God scattered the bones of those pleasing men, and if he still pleased men, I would not be a slave of Christ; for human-pleasing is doing something for men according to pleasure.

He says to them that his presence will appear through apostolic grace, full of the good things from Christ (Rom 15:24). He makes a portion of remembrance of each well-known person in greeting and salutation (Rom 16:8), which is appropriate to his own doing of love and of speaking in his spirit, showing to us the Philanthropist and having each one remembered by him according to his worth, just as in the old writings there are lists of the generations and a memory according to the worth of each, showing that each is written down by him according to worth in the invisible books of the Spirit.

Which indeed Daniel saw when opening the scroll that was set, upon the ancient of days, that is, upon the eternal God (Dan 7:9). And the angel, foretelling concerning the end, said to him: 'In that time all your people shall be saved who are found written upon the book' (Dan 12:1). But concerning those not worthy, the Lord said through a prophet, 'Let them be blotted out' (Ps 69:5), concerning whom also Paul, having remembered the contrast with the saints, says the following.