For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:35-40
“How does our Lord hunger and thirst? Is he who made everything in heaven and on earth, who oversees the angels in heaven and every nation and race on the earth, who needs nothing that belongs to the earth since he is unfailing in his own nature—is this one naked? It is incredible to believe such a thing.
Yet what must be confessed is easy to believe. For the Lord hungers not in his own nature but in his saints; the Lord thirsts not in his own nature but in his poor. The Lord who clothes everyone is not naked in his own nature but in his servants. The Lord who is able to heal all sicknesses and has already destroyed death itself is not diseased in his own nature but in his servants. Our Lord, the one who can liberate every person, is not in prison in his own nature, but in his saints.
Therefore, you see, my most beloved, that the saints are not alone. They suffer all these things because of the Lord. In the same way, because of the saints the Lord suffers all these things with them.”
Epiphanius the Latin (late 5th/early 6th century), Bishop of Benevento or Seville, in Interpretation of the Gospels 38, on Matthew 25:35-40 in The Good Works Reader, ed. by Thomas C. Oden (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2007) 81.