Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 191.1 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 1010; tr. Edmund Hill, with his note):

The maker of man, he was made man, so that the director of the stars might be a babe at the breast; that bread might be hungry, and the fountain thirsty; that the light might sleep, and the way be weary from a journey; that the truth might be accused by false witnesses, and the judge of the living and the dead be judged by a mortal judge; that justice might be convicted by the unjust, and discipline be scourged with whips; that the cluster of grapes might be crowned with thorns, and the foundation be hung up on a tree; that strength might grow weak, eternal health be wounded, life die.²

2. Here are some of the texts alluded to in this elaborate chain of paradoxes: Ps 147:4; Jn 6:35; Lk 4:2; Ps 36:9; In 7:38; Jn 19:28; Jn 8:12; Mk 4:38; Jn 14:6, 4:6; Jn 14:6; Mk 14:57; 2 Tim 4:1; Mt 27:26; 1 Cor 1:30; Mk 14:64; Nm 13:23; Mk 15:17; 1 Cor 3:11; Jn 14:6.

Homo factus, hominis factor: ut sugeret ubera, regens sidera; ut esuriret panis, ut sitiret fons, dormiret lux, ab itinere via fatigaretur, falsis testibus veritas accusaretur, iudex vivorum et mortuorum a iudice mortali iudicaretur, ab iniustis iustitia damnaretur, flagellis disciplina caederetur, spinis botrus coronaretur, in ligno fundamentum suspenderetur, virtus infirmaretur, salus vulneraretur, vita moreretur.

See Eduard Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, Bd. 2 (Berlin: B.G. Teubner, 1923), pp. 622-623.