Cathemerina

Hymn at Cockcrow

The winged herald of the day sings forth that light draws near; now Christ, the rouser of our minds, calls us to life again. "Take away," he cries, "your beds, the sick, the drowsy, the slothful; and chaste, upright, and sober, keep watch — I am now at hand." After the bright sun has risen it is late to spurn the couch, unless, adding part of the night, you have given more time to toil. That voice with which the birds make clamour, standing under the very roof-ridge, a little before the light flashes out, is the figure of our Judge. Those covered in dreadful darkness, hidden beneath sluggish coverlets, it urges to leave their rest, since now, at once, the day will come, that, when with glittering breath the dawn has sprinkled the sky, it may confirm all, worn with toil, toward the hope of the light. This sleep, given for a season, is the image of perpetual death: sins, like dreadful night, force us to lie and snore. But a voice from the high roof-ridge, of Christ who teaches, forewarns that the light is now close at hand, lest the mind be slave to slumber, lest sleep, even to the bounds of a sluggish life, oppress the heart buried in crime and forgetful of its own light. They say that the wandering demons, glad in the darkness of the night, when the cock crows are terrified, and scatter in fear and give way. For the hated nearness of light, of salvation, of godhead, the gloom of darkness broken, puts to flight the henchmen of night. The foreknowing know this to be the sign of the hope that has been promised, by which we, free from slumber, hope for the coming of God. What power this bird has, the Saviour showed to Peter, foretelling that, before the cock should crow three times, he himself would be denied. For the sin is committed before the herald of the coming light illumines the human race and brings the end of sinning. The denier wept at last over the wrong slipped from his lips, while his mind remained guiltless and his soul kept its faith. Nor afterward did he speak any such thing with slippery tongue, and, the cock's crow once known, the just man ceased to sin. Hence it is that we all believe that in that time of rest, when the cock, exulting, crows, Christ came back from the dead. Then the strength of death was crushed, then the law of Tartarus was subdued, then the power of day, the stronger, forced the night to yield. Now, now let wicked things grow still, now let dark guilt fall asleep, now let deadly wrong, having endured its own sleep, grow faint. Let the watchful spirit in turn, for whatever time remains, while the bound of night is closing, stand and labour and keep watch. Let us call on Jesus with our voices, weeping, praying, sober; earnest supplication forbids the pure heart to sleep. Enough has deep forgetfulness, the limbs entangled, pressed upon the sense, weighed it down, overwhelmed it, as it strayed in empty dreams. For surely false and frivolous are the things that, in worldly glory, as men asleep, we have done: let us wake — here is the truth. Gold, pleasure, joy, wealth, honours, prosperity, whatever evils puff us up, morning comes — all are nothing. You, O Christ, scatter our sleep, you break the bonds of night, you loose the old sin, and bring in the new light.

Morning Hymn

Night and darkness and clouds, confused and troubled things of the world, the light comes in, the sky grows white, Christ comes — depart. The gloom of earth is split, struck by the sun's dart, and now colour returns to things at the face of the gleaming star. So soon our darkness too, and the breast conscious of guile, laid bare, the clouds broken, will grow pale when God reigns. Then it will not be allowed to hide whatever dark thing each man thinks, but in the new morning the secrets of the mind, betrayed, will grow bright. The thief before the light, in the squalid season, sins unpunished, but the light, hostile to deceits, does not let the theft lie hidden. Cunning and crafty fraud loves to be cloaked in darkness, and the hidden adulterer cherishes the night fit for shameful deeds. The sun, behold, rises fiery: it irks, it shames, it makes repent, nor can anyone steadily sin while the light is witness. Who does not blush, the cups wickedly taken in the morning, when lust grows temperate, and the trifler grows wise to craft? Now, now men live sternly, now no one attempts a frivolous thing, now all colour their foolish doings with a serious face. This hour is useful to all, in which each does what he is bent on: the soldier, the man in the toga, the sailor, the craftsman, the ploughman, the trader. This man the glory of the forum draws, that man the grim war-trumpet. Hence the merchant and the rustic sigh after greedy gains. But we, of petty gain and usury and of pleading altogether ignorant, nor strong in the art of war, know you, O Christ, alone. You, with a pure and simple mind, you, with voice, with pious song, to entreat on bended knee by weeping and singing we learn. By these wares we make our gain, by this art alone we live, these offerings we begin, when the rising sun flashes out. Attend to our senses, and look over our whole life; there is much smeared with paint, which may be cleansed by your light. Bid us remain such men as, the filth removed, you long ago bade shine, dipped in the river Jordan. Whatever the world's night henceforth has stained with black clouds, you, O King of the Eastern star, illumine with serene face, you, O holy one, who tinge the foul pitch with milky whiteness, and make crystal of ebony, wiping away the livid stains. Beneath the dark blue night Jacob, bold wrestler with the angel, even until the light should rise, sweated through the unequal struggle; but when the radiance grew bright, lame with slipping hams and his thigh defeated and feeble, lost the strength of his fault. The wounded groin wavered, the part of the body more base and far below the heart's place, which fosters dire lust. These images teach us that the man beset by darkness, should he by chance not yield to God, loses his rebel strength. Yet more blessed will he be whom, his unruly member lame and wasted by wrestling, the risen day shall find. At last let blindness be gone, which long has drawn us, headlong fallen by sinister steps, into the abyss through devious error. May this light bring serenity, and make us pure to itself; let us speak nothing deceitful, let us turn over nothing dark. So let the whole day run on, that neither lying tongue, nor hand, nor slippery eyes may sin, nor any harm defile the body. A watcher stands above, who on all our days looks down upon our acts, from the first light to evening. He is witness, he is arbiter, he beholds whatever it be that the human mind conceives; no one deceives this Judge.

Hymn before Eating

O good Cross-bearer, sower of light, all-begetting, holy, Word-born, brought forth from a virgin body, yet first mighty in your Begetter before the stars, the soil, the sea were made, hither, I pray, with bright gaze turn your salutary face, serene of brow, and shine forth, that under the honour of your name it may be allowed to take this food. Without you nothing is sweet, O Lord, nor does it please to desire anything with the mouth, unless first the cups and the food, O Christ, your favour has filled, faith hallowing all things. Let our dishes savour of God, and Christ flow into our bowls; the serious, the playful, the words, the jests, in short whatever we are or do, let the threefold love from on high rule. Here for me no spoils of the rose, no fragrance breathes of spices, but an ambrosial liquor flows in and gives back a nectarous faith, poured from the very bosom of the Father. Spurn, my Muse, the light ivy with which you were wont to bind your brows, and the mystic garlands, woven, learned, in the dactylic measure, bind with the strophe, your hair wreathed in the praise of God. What worthier homage can the noble soul, native of light and heaven, render in service, than that, set to music, it should sing back the gifts it has received to its own maker? Since he himself has given man all things, which we receive from his ruling hand; whatever the sky or the soil or the sea, in air, in flood, in field, create, these he has subdued to me, and me to himself. The cunning snare entangles birds, either by fetters or by nets, or twigs smeared with bark-glue hinder the feathered tribe and forbid it to depart. Behold, through the waters the wave-wandering flocks the winding mesh drags; likewise the fish follows the rod, snatched by the wounding point, its credulous mouth pierced by the bait. The field pours out its noble riches, rich with the ear-bearing crop, here where the vine's arms luxuriate in tendrilled shoot, where the berry, nursling of peace, grows green. This abundance serves the worshippers of Christ and furnishes all things. For far be that hunger, that it should please, with the slaughter of beasts, to tear at bloody banquets. Let savage feasts of slain quadrupeds belong to untamed nations; let the leaf of the herb, the pod teeming with manifold pulse, feed us with harmless food. The foaming milk-pails carry the snow-white liquids from the twin udder, and through thick rennet the fluid gathers into a solid mass, and the tender milk is pressed in the frail basket. Fresh Cecropian honey for me sweats from the comb with fragrant nectar; this the working bee melts from the airy dew and from slender thyme, knowing nothing of the bonds of wedlock. Hence too the fruit-bearing grove's mild gifts come forth; the tree, shaken under its burden, heavy, rains down a falling shower, and casts forth its purple heaps. What trumpet of the ancients, or what lyre, famed for breath or for strings, could equal in praise the work of the rich Almighty, and all that lies open for man's enjoyment? You, best Father, in the new morning, and when the sun's track is at midpoint, you too beneath the setting light, when the hour warns us to take food, shall our harmony sing, O God. That the inner breath grows warm, that the hidden vein trembles in the heart, and that the tongue, hidden under the mouth, strikes the resounding hollow when stirred, let it be to me the praise of the Father above. Your hand, then, O holy one, shaped us from the moist turf, designing your own likeness, and, that the matter might be firm, breathed and put the soul in by your mouth. Then through the pleasant green glades you bid us dwell in leaf-crowned places, where perpetual spring is fragrant and the swift water waters the many-coloured meadows with its four-flowing stream. "Let these now serve you," he says, "I give all things to your uses, yet nevertheless I forbid you to pluck the harsh fruits from the death-bearing stock which grows green in the midst of the grove." Here the treacherous serpent infects the untaught mind of the virgin, that, ill-counselling, she should force her partner-man to eat of the forbidden, herself to perish in like manner. Their mutual bodies — a sin to know — after the feast they see uncovered; slippery error blushed: they prepare coverings sewn from leaves, that shame might hide their disgrace. Conscious of guilt, trembling before God, she is driven far from the holy seat. The woman who had been unwed receives her husband's command, bidden to bear the grim bonds. And the author of the deceit himself, the serpent, wicked, is punished, so that the woman may tread his triple-tongued neck with her heel; so the serpent looks up to the woman's sole, and the woman to the man. With these as leaders, vicious posterity thenceforth rushed into crime, and, while it imitates its rude forefathers, heaping together both right and wrong, pays for its impious crimes with death. Behold, a new race comes, another man, brought forth from heaven, not of clay like that one before, but God himself bearing man, and free from bodily faults. The Word of the Father becomes living flesh, which, heavy with the gleaming godhead, not by marriage, nor by the law of the bed, nor by genial allurements, the undefiled maiden bears. This was that ancient hatred, this was the deadly strife, to be fought out, of the asp and of man, because now the headlong viper is trodden under a woman's feet. For, having deserved to bring forth God, the virgin tames all venom; in its inextricable coils the serpent, sluggish, spews back its harmless poison, matching the colour of the green grass. What savageness does not now tremble, terrified, before the white flock? The grim wolf walks amid the fearless sheep, and, forgetful of blood, restrains his raging mouth. For the lamb, by a marvellous turn, behold, commands the lions, and, harrying the fierce eagles, the dove, fallen from the star, puts them to flight through the drifting clouds and the south winds. You for me, O Christ, are the mighty dove, to whom the bird fed on blood gives way; you, the snow-white lamb, through your fold forbid the wolf to gape, pressing down the jaws of the tiger that you have yoked. Grant, O wealthy God, to your servants duly praying, this: that with slender food their bodies, restored, may be refreshed, nor that the sluggish stomach, with excessive feasts, should weigh down the strained vitals. Let the bitter draught be far away, lest it please to have touched with the hand anything deadly or forbidden; let taste itself keep measure, that it may keep the liver safe and sound. Let it be enough for the dreadful serpents that the impious morsels brought to our bodies — alas — a wretched death; let it suffice that once, for the crime, the creature of God was able to die. The work of his mouth, the fiery vigour, does not die, since, composed by the breath of God and flowing from on high from the throne of the Father, the craftsman, it has the power of liquid reason. Nay, even the dead flesh it is granted to repair after death, and from its own tombs again the ancient form is reborn, the dusty mould coming together. I believe indeed — nor is the faith vain — that bodies live after the manner of the soul; for I remember that lately, in bodily form, God returned by an easy step from Phlegethon to the world above. The same hope awaits my limbs, which, fragrant, bidden to rest in the funeral sarcophagus, the leader Christ, raised again from like ground, calls to the fiery stars.

Hymn after Eating

Our vitals fed and the food taken which the weak law of the body demands, let the tongue render praise to God the Father, to the Father, who holds and rules the holy seat of the Cherubim and his Seraphim too, supported on the supreme throne. This is he whom we call God Sabaoth, without beginning and lacking end, founder of things and discoverer of the world, fount of life flowing in a liquid stream from the height, infuser of faith, sower of chastity, subduer of death, author of salvation. All that we are or thrive by, comes from him. That everlasting Spirit reigns, sent at once from Christ and from the Parent. He enters chaste breasts, shining white, which, hallowed like a temple, rejoice after they have drunk in God to their marrow. But if he has felt any vice or guile arise amid the vitals already dedicated, he flees swiftly as from a defiled shrine. For a foul horror flames with thick vapour, conscious, with seething guilt, and the black thing repels the offended good. Nor do chastity alone or innocent vow set up a perpetual temple to Christ in the inmost bosom and recess of the heart, but one must beware lest surfeit seethe, which would cram the seat of faith, filled with food, within, up to a heap. Hearts unhampered by sparing fare better receive God poured into them; this is the food and the true savour of the soul. But you, cherishing us with twofold provision, both our limbs and our souls with double food you confirm, O Father, and fill with vigour. So once your renowned power, amid the hoarse-sounding lions, refreshed the man with food sent gliding down. That man, who cursed the molten godhead and thought it a sin to bend his head beneath the polished bronze material, the folk of dire Babylon and the tyrant had given over to death, had dedicated him to the savage beasts, straightway to be devoured by their hungry gulps. O piety and faith ever safe! The untamed lions lick the man, and tremble before the untouched nursling of God. They stand close by and lay down their manes, their rage grows gentle, and with fawning hunger they court the prey with bloodless jaws. But when he stretched his palms toward the heights and entreated the God he had proved, shut in unceasingly and lacking food, a messenger, bidden to fly to the lands, to give food to the approved servant, quickly leaps down, the world obeying. By chance he sees afar an unbought meal, which the prophet Habakkuk, good, was setting out for the reapers by rustic art. Seizing him by the hair with his hand, laden, just as he was, with full baskets, he snatches him up and carries him through the air. Then, snatched up together, both himself and the meal, he glides gently into the den of lions, and offers the food he then was bearing. "Take it gladly," he says, "and willingly partake of what the supreme Father and the angel of Christ send you as cakes in this peril." These taken, Daniel raised his face to heaven, and, strengthened by the food, gave back "Amen," said "Alleluia." So we, refreshed by your gifts, O God, bestower of all good things, render thanks and consecrate hymns. You, as from a grim tyrant — that is, by the act of the unruly world — rule us, shut in, and drive off the beast that roars about us and tries to devour, sharpening its mad teeth in fury, that we may entreat you, supreme God, alone. We are harried, oppressed, whirled about by evils; they hate, they tear, they drag, they provoke us; faith is joined to unjust punishments. Yet there is no lack of remedy for the anxious; for when the lion's grim wrath grows faint, food is heaped down, gliding from above. And if anyone, drinking it thirstily, not with slight taste but with full mouth, would weave it into his inmost veins, he, satisfied from the holy prophet, will take the food of just men, who reap their fruit for the eternal Lord. Nothing is sweeter or more savoury, nothing that can profit man more, than the pious utterances of the prophet who foretells. These taken, though the insolent power judge wickedly and inflict death, though the unfed lions rush in, we, ever confessing the Lord and Father, will speak of you, Christ God, alone, and steadfastly bear your cross.

Hymn at the Lighting of the Lamp

Discoverer of the ruddy light, good guide, who divide the seasons by fixed turns, the sun sunk, the dreadful chaos rushes on. Give back the light, O Christ, to your faithful. Though with countless stars you have painted the royal sky and with the lunar lamp, yet by the striking of flint you teach us to seek light from the rock-born seed, that man might not be unaware that the hope of light is laid up for him in the solid body of Christ, who willed to be called the steadfast rock, whence comes the race of our little fires. These, on wicks moist with the rich dew of oil, or on dry torches, we feed, nay, we even fashion threads of rush in the flowering combs, smeared first with pressed honey. The lively flame thrives, whether the hollow shell supplies sap to the drunken linen, or the pine bears its pitchy nourishment, or the warm tow drinks the rounded wax. The nectar, fervid from the liquid crown, drips drop by drop in fragrant tears, since the fiery force makes the kindled peak weep a shower from its moist top. Therefore the halls shine, O Father, by your gifts, that is, with noble flames, and a rival light brings on the absent day, which night, conquered, flees with torn robe. But who would not behold the lofty origin of the swift light, flowing from God? Moses indeed saw God in the thorny bush, fiery with conspicuous light. Happy he who deserved, among the sacred thorns, to see the prince of the heavenly throne, bidden to loose the bound fetters of his feet lest he defile the holy place with coverings. This fire the people of glorious blood, safe by the merits of their forefathers, yet powerless, wont to live under barbarian lords, now free, follow through the long pathless wastes. Where they had borne their step, and had stirred their camp, hastening through the midst of the dark blue night, a ray brighter than the sun, with foregoing flame, led the ever-watchful people. But the king of the Nile shore, seething with envious gall, bids a most powerful host go to war with swift cohorts, and the iron-clad ranks to sound the war-trumpet. The men take up arms and gird themselves with menacing swords; the trumpet sings its grim note. This one trusts in javelins, that one fixes flying darts on Cnossian reeds. The throng is massed in companies on foot; some mount the swift chariots and the horses and the winged wheels, and stretch out the bright war-standards on swollen dragon-banners. Here, now ignorant of its former servitude, the race, scorched by the vapours of Pelusium, guest at last of the purple gulf, had sat down weary on the red shores. The dire foe is at hand with the treacherous leader, and brings on battle with strong forces. But Moses bids his own, steadfast, to make their way into the sea with fearless steps. The broken pools yield a place to the travellers, the surrounding wave, made passable, stands still in the likeness of banks, with glassy waters, while the people pass through beneath the cloven sea. Nay, even the dark youth, provoked by harsh hatreds, under their impious king, thirsting to shed Hebrew blood, dares to trust itself to the hollow sea. The royal columns went, driven by headlong whirlwind, through the midst of the waves, but then the confused wave rolls back, returning into itself in a confluent flood. Then the chariots and horses and shipwrecked weapons, the very nobles and the floating bodies of the black henchmen you might see swimming — the grim cessation of the tyrant's stronghold. What tongue at last could unfold your praises, O Christ? who force tamed Pharos to yield to the chief of righteousness by manifold plagues, with avenging hand; who forbid the sea, impassable with raging tides, to leap forth, that on the refluent ground, under your leadership, a safe passage may lie open, and soon the ravening wave may swallow the impious; to whom the hungry rocks of the desert overflow with talking gushes, and the riven flint pours forth new waters, which to the thirsting peoples give drink beneath the fiery sky. Like gall the water in the grim pool becomes, by the favour of the wood, like Attic honey; the wood is that whereby harsh things taste more sweet, for, fixed to the cross, the hope of men flourishes. Then too a snowy food fills the camp, falling thicker than cold hail; with these viands they build their tables, with this feast, which Christ gives from the starry sky. Moreover the wind with rainy breath brings in light birds on a thick cloud, which, when once the flocks, scattered to the ground, have fallen, do not fly back in return. These rewards the surpassing love of the one godhead once bestowed upon our fathers, by whose help we too are fed, nourishing our hearts with mystic banquets. He calls the weary through the straits of the world, ruling the people, the whirlwinds split apart, and bids the souls, tossed by a thousand toils, to climb into the homeland of the just. There the whole ground, roofed with purple rose-beds, is fragrant, and pours forth rich marigolds and soft violets and slender crocuses moist with their fleeting little fountains. There too the balsams, sweated from the slender shoot, flow, and rare cinnamons breathe, and the leaf which, from a hidden source, the river, fore-licking, carries to its outlet. The happy souls through the grassy meadows, matched in harmony with sweetly sounding measures of hymns, sing a sweet song, and tread the lilies with white feet. There are also, for the often-harmful spirits, crowded holidays from punishment beneath the Styx on that night when the holy God returned from the Acherontic pools to the world above, not as Lucifer, rising from Ocean, imbues the darkness with his shining torch, but, from the Lord's cross, to the grieving lands greater than the sun, restoring a new day. Tartarus grows faint with mild punishments, and the folk of the dead, free from the fires, exult in the leisure of their prison, nor do the rivers boil with their wonted sulphur. We draw out the night with festive gatherings through pious joys, and prosperous vows we heap together, vying, with watchful prayer, and, the sanctuary built up, we offer the cakes. The lamps hang on movable cords, which, fixed beneath the ceilings, glitter, and, fed by their languid swimmings, the flame casts light through transparent glass. You might believe a star-bearing plain above stood adorned with twin Wains, and, where the beam guides the Bosphoran yoke, that the purple evening-stars are scattered everywhere. O thing worthy, O God, that your flock should offer you at the beginning of the dewy night — the light, than which you grant nothing more precious, the light, by which we discern the rest of your rewards. You are the true light to the eyes, light also to the senses, within you the mirror, you the mirror without; the light which, serving, I offer, receive, dipped in the unguent of peace-bringing chrism, through Christ, your only-begotten, O supreme Father, in whom your visible glory stands, who, our Lord, your only one, breathes the Paraclete from your fatherly heart. Through whom splendour, honour, praise, wisdom, majesty, goodness, and your love continue your kingdom in threefold godhead, weaving the ages through perpetual ages.

Hymn before Sleep

Be present, supreme Father, whom no one ever saw, and Christ, the Word of the Father, and kindly Spirit, O of this Trinity the single power, the single light, God from God eternal, God sent forth from both. The labour of the day has flowed away, and the hour of rest returns, and soothing sleep in turn relaxes the weary limbs. The mind, seething with storms and wounded by cares, drinks in to all its marrow the cup of forgetfulness. Through the whole body creeps the Lethean power, nor does it suffer any sense of aching sorrow to remain to the wretched. This law is given to perishable limbs at God's command, that a healing pleasure may temper their toil. But while friendly rest wanders through all the veins and soothes the heart kept holiday with sleep that bedews it, the sense roams free through the air with swift vigour, and through various shapes beholds what is hidden; because the mind, loosed from cares, whose origin is heaven and pure source from the upper air, knows not how to lie idle. Imitating many-formed faces, it fashions them for itself, through which, running suddenly, it enjoys a slender activity. But the senses of those who dream an unequal horror wearies; now a splendour intermingles which gives knowledge of things to come; often, the truth scattered, a lying image deceives the minds, sad with fear, with its black riddle. Whom rare fault does not often defile, on him a serene light, quivering, teaches hidden things; but whoever has made impious his heart, defiled with vices, mocked with much fear sees dreadful shapes. This our patriarch beneath the chain of prison, as interpreter, proved at once to his two fellow-servants, of whom one, on his return, gives the cup to the tyrant, but the other, fixed, the ravening birds devour. Then the king himself, dreaming perplexing dreams, he warned to beware a coming famine with stored-up heaps. Soon, made governor and tetrarch, bidden to hold over the whole kingdom the partner staff, he sat in the lord's hall. O how deep the secrets through sleep, to be watched, Christ opens to the just, how clear, how not to be told! The evangelist, most faithful of the supreme Master, sees the sealed things that lay hidden, the mists removed: the very Lamb of the Thunderer, crimsoned with slaughter, who alone unseals the book that knows the future. His mighty hand a two-edged sword arms, and, flashing on both sides, it threatens a double blow. He alone is the inquisitor both of soul and body, and the sword, twice to be feared, is the first and the second death. Yet the same, kindly, the avenger blunts his wrath, and suffers not a few of the wicked to perish forever. To him the glorious Father gave an eternal tribunal, him he bade to hold the name above every name. This is he, all-powerful, the extinguisher of the bloody Antichrist, who from the raging monster brings back a fair trophy. What devouring beast, swallowing the peoples, what Charybdis of blood, John curses; this, surely, which, daring to set forth the sacred name, seeks the lowest Gehenna, slain by the true Christ. With such sleep the just hero relaxes his mind, that with sagacious spirit he may range the whole heaven. We deserve nothing of these, whom frequent error fills, whom the ingrained desire of evil things corrupts. It is enough with sweet rest to cherish the weary body; enough, if nothing sinister the empty shadows threaten. Worshipper of God, remember that you have passed beneath the holy dew of the font and laver, that you are marked with the chrism. See that, when at sleep's call you seek the chaste couch, the figure of the cross may sign your brow and the place of your heart. The cross drives out every crime, the shadows flee the cross: dedicated by such a sign, the mind knows not how to waver. Far off, O far off, you portents of wandering dreams, far off be the deceiver with your obstinate working. O twisting serpent, who through a thousand meanders and winding frauds trouble quiet hearts, depart, here is Christ, here is Christ — melt away. The sign you yourself know condemns your troop. Though the wearied body lie reclined a little, yet Christ, even in that very sleep, we will meditate upon.

Hymn for Those Who Fast

O Nazarene, light of Bethlehem, Word of the Father, whom the birth of a virgin womb brought forth, be present, O Christ, to our chaste abstinences, and, a serene king, behold our festival, while we offer the victim of our fasts. Nothing, surely, is purer than this mystery, by which the fibre of the living heart is purged, by which the intemperate vitals are tamed, lest the fat, sweating out a rotten surfeit, press down the genius of the choked mind. Hence luxury and base gluttony are subdued, the degenerate sloth of wine and sleep, sordid lust, immodest wantonness, and the various plagues of languid senses feel the sparing discipline of subjection. For if, freely flowing with drink and food, you do not duly restrain the fasting limbs, it follows that, made faint by frequent indulgence, the noble spark of the mind grows lukewarm, and the soul snores in a sluggish breast. Let the desires of the body, then, be bridled, and let prudence, wiped clean, flash forth within; so, the keen edge roused, and the spirit, free, with a more spacious breath, will more rightly pray to the Parent of things. By such observance Elijah grew great, the old priest, guest of the dry country, whom, remote and apart from every uproar, they say to have spurned the throng of crimes, enjoying the chaste silence of the Syrtes. But soon, by fiery steeds and chariot, he was snatched away and flew into the air, lest, from the near contagion of filth, the dire world should breathe upon the quiet man, glorious of old for his approved fasts. Not before could Moses, faithful interpreter of the dread throne, see the prince of the sevenfold heaven, than when the sun, ranging the stars in forty returns, beheld him lacking all sustenance. His only sustenance in praying was in tears; for, weeping all night, with downcast face he pressed the moist dust of the wet ground, until, dazzled by the voice of God speaking, he dreaded the fire not to be borne by sight. John, no less mighty in this art, ran before the Son of the eternal God, who turned back the crooked tracks of the ways, and, correcting the winding detours, gave a line to be followed by a straight path. This compliance the messenger prepared, building the way for the God soon to come, that steep places might be turned to plains, the rough to the smooth, nor that the truth, gliding to earth, might find anything devious. Of no usual birth was he: forgetful of milk now in her withered breast, the late infant stretched out to his mother's paps, nor was he poured forth from the aged birth before he had proclaimed the virgin full of God. Afterward he, into the open solitudes, clothed in the rough skins of beasts or covered with bristles and shaggy down, withdrew, dreading to be stained and defiled by the corrupt manners of the towns; there, sparing, in dedicated abstinence, the man of severe industry rejected drink and food until the late evening, wont to give his body food made rare of locusts and the liquor of wild honeycombs. He was the first encourager and teacher of the new salvation; for in the sacred river he washed the atoned marks of old errors, but after he had cleansed the dipped limbs, the Spirit, gleaming from heaven, flowed in. From this laver, the stain of crimes removed, they went reborn, no otherwise than as the vein of crude gold, refined, gleams beautiful, or the light of silver metal glitters, clear, shining bright with its polished cleansing. It pleases now to recount the lineage of an ancient fast, handed down in the faithful volume, how, for the inhabitants of a city doomed to ruin, the thunderbolt of the kindly Father, made gentle, piously spared, the fires held back. A nation, once mighty with insolent boasting, flourished, which, flowing wickedly, corrupt wantonness had loosed among the common folk, and thence, defiant with brutish disdain, neglected the worship of the supernal godhead. Offended at last, the censure of his ceaseless indulgence is roused by just emotions, arms his right hand with sword-fire, and, brandishing crackling storm-clouds and roaring whirlwinds, shakes the cloud of thundering flames. But while a little day for repenting is granted, in case perhaps they should wish their wicked lust and old trifles to subdue and break, relenting terror suspended the blow, and a little the spoken sentence held back. The mild avenger rouses the prophet Jonah, that he might go as herald of the impending punishment, but he, who knew that the menacing Judge would rather save than strike and chastise, turned a hidden flight secretly toward Tarshish. He climbs the lofty ship, the gangways set, the stern, bound with wet rope, is loosed, they go through the deep: the sea grows stormy, then the cause of so great peril is sought, the lot cast falls upon the fleeing prophet. Bidden alone of all to perish, the guilty one, whose crime the turned urn had declared, is whirled headlong and plunged in the deep: caught up thence by the jaws of a monster, he is swallowed living into the cavern of its capacious belly. The prey, swiftly passed through, eludes the vain strokes of its teeth, flying unbloodied and unpunished past the tongue, lest, held by the bite, the moist molars should cut the morsel asunder; he passes the whole mouth and goes past the palate. For three passings of days and nights he remained, devoured in the beast's gullet; there he wandered through the hiding-places of the entrails, went round the twisting meanders of the belly, gasping, the bowels seething within. Untouched then, at the turn of the third night, he is driven out by the heavings of the vomiting monster, where, at the murmuring boundary, the wave breaks and the gleaming foam pours over the salt rocks; belched forth, he comes out and marvels that he is saved. To the Ninevites, compelled, with hastened step he turns himself back, whom, when he had rebuked, the censor charging them with shameful reproaches, "There hangs," he says, "the wrath of the supreme avenger, and flame will soon burn the city, believe it." Then he seeks the peak of a high mountain, about to see thence the rolled-up smoke of the turbid disaster's ruin and the dire heap, covered by the many-knotted scourges of a plant, suddenly enjoying the shade that had grown. But after the sorrowing city had drunk in the wound of a new grief, alas, it palpitates utterly: through its broad walls in crowds they run, the people and the senate, every age of citizens, pale youths, wailing women. It pleases them to appease the angry Christ with public fasts; the custom of eating is spurned, the matron puts on grey-green garments, her necklaces removed, and for jewels and silk sordid ash sprinkles her flowing hair. The fathers, ungirded, dark-clad, are squalid, and the lamenting throng takes up woven hair-cloth, the unkempt maiden veils her face with shaggy beast-hides in a blackening covering, and the boy is rolled in the sands, prostrate. The king himself was tearing apart and scattering, the brooch wrenched off, his Coan cloak seething with purple, and was stripping off the binding badge of his brow, the green gems and the sewn stones, his hair tangled with foul dust. None mindful of drinking, none of eating, all the youth had left the tables fasting: nay, even, the milk denied, the cradles of the little crying ones grow wet with weeping, the sparing nurse withholds the sap of her breast. The skilful care of the cattle-keeping men shuts up the herds themselves, lest the straying beast touch with its mouth the dewy grass, nor drink the draught of the brawling fount; the empty mangers ring with complaints. Softened by these and such things, God reins in his brief wrath, prosperously tempering his sinister oracle; for ready clemency not without difficulty looses the suppliant guilt of mortals and becomes the favourer of those who weep. But why do I speak of the example of an old nation, when long ago Jesus, burdened with perishable limbs, with dedicated heart kept the fast, who, named by the prophetic mouth, is Emmanuel, that is, "God with us"? He who made this body, soft by nature and captive beneath the loose yoke of pleasures, free by the strict law of virtue, the liberator of the enslaved creature, victor over the reigning desire of old. For, withdrawn in an inhospitable place, with five times eight days gliding by, he claimed no favour of food, strengthening, that is, by a healthful fast the vessel weak toward the joys to be desired. The enemy, marvelling that wasting clay could sustain and endure so much labour, explores by cunning art, asking, whether God was received into earthly limbs, but, his fraud rebuked, he rushes off behind his back. Let each of us now follow this, according to our strength, which you, the master of the consecrated teaching, O Christ, gave to your followers, that, when the spirit has conquered the lust of devouring, the emperor may triumph far and wide. This is what the malice of the black foe envies, which the governor of the world and sky approves, which makes the altar's table appeasing, which rouses the faith of the sleeping heart, which files away the sick rust of the breast. Not so is the flame quenched, drenched with water, nor do the snows so melt under the warming sun, as the scabrous crop of turbid faults vanishes, ground beneath the kindly fast, if a gracious bounty be ever mingled. For there is also that great kind of virtue, to clothe the naked, to feed the needy, to bring kind help to suppliants, to count one and an equal turn of human lot between the powerful and the poor. Blessed enough is each man who holds out his right hand, grasping at praise, lavish of money, whose left hand knows not its sweet deed: him perennial riches straightway fill, and a hundredfold fruit enriches the lender.

Hymn after Fasting

Christ, the guidance of your servants, who, governing us with soft reins, gently bridle us, and, hedged about by an easy law, restrain us, since you yourself, bearing the encumbered burden of the body, have borne hard labours, greater than these examples, you stroke your servants with a teaching relaxed. The ninth hour wheels the lowered sun, three of its parts scarcely unrolled, a fourth portion of light remains on the sloping axis; we, the brief vow discharged with the rescued feast, release the festival, and enjoy tables abundantly full, with which the prone pleasure may be steeped. So great is the favour of the eternal Master, the indulgent teacher so coaxes us with friendly exhortation, that an easy compliance may soothe the limbs, and he adds that no one should wish, in unlovely fashion, sordid, to mar his brow, but should comb the grace of the face and the dressed honour of the head. "Cleanse," he says, "when fasting, your whole body, nor, the redness withdrawn, let a clay-coloured tint stain your face, nor pallor be marked in your countenance." More rightly do we cover with glad modesty whatever we offer for the worship of the Father; God beholds the hidden and gives a gift to the one concealed. He, the sheep sluggish with disease and lost to the sound flock, badly scattering its fleece on the clinging brambles through the byways of the shaggy wood, the tireless shepherd calls back, and, the wolves shut out, carries it, his shoulders weighed down; then, bringing it back cleansed, he restores it to the sunny sheepfold, restores it too to the meadows and the green field, where no thorn quivers in unkempt burrs, nor does the bristling thistle arm its growth with stakes, but a grove thick with palms, and the bent foliage of grasses comes; then a perennial laurel overshadows the glassy pool of living streams. For these gifts, O faithful Shepherd, what service could be repaid you? No vows of those who pray compensate the price of salvation. However much, scorning food unlawfully, we waste our limbs, worn out of our own accord, and entreat you, the banquets despised, by night and by day, the lesser care of the obedient is ever overcome, nor does the gift equal the Begetter's, and a greater use breaks the clay frame of our labour. Therefore, lest, the strength loosed, they desert the frail clay, and the watery humour hold sway in the white veins, unnerving the sick body, a loose and free measure of abstaining is set before all, nor does stern terror drive us; each man's own power compels his will. It suffices, whatever you do, to begin it first, the nod of the godhead invoked, whether you refuse the table or attempt to take food. God, propitious, assents and prospers it with favouring face, just as we trust that this will be healthful for us, that we partake of the dedicated viands. Let it be good, I pray as a suppliant, and let it bring healing to our limbs and feed the soul, the food sprinkled into the veins of the praying worshippers of Christ.

Hymn for Every Hour

Give, boy, the plectrum, that I may sing for the faithful choirs a song sweet and melodious, the renowned deeds of Christ: this alone let our Muse compose, this let the lyre praise. It is Christ whom the king and priest, fillet-crowned, sang of as soon about to come, with voice, with string and timbrel, drinking in the spirit that flowed from heaven through his marrow. We sing the miracles done and now proven, the world is witness, nor does the earth itself deny what it saw, that God was brought forth close at hand to teach mortals. Born from the Parent's heart before the world's beginning, named Alpha and Omega, himself the fount and close of all things that are, that were, and that shall be hereafter. He commanded, and they were created; he spoke, and they were made, the earth, the heaven, the deep of the sea, the threefold frame of things, and whatever thrives in these beneath the high orb of sun and moon. The form of a perishable body, limbs liable to death he put on, lest the race should perish from the first-moulded seed, which the harmful law had plunged into deep Tartarus. O blessed was that birth, when the virgin in childbed brought forth our salvation, pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and the boy, redeemer of the world, put forth his sacred face. Let the height of heaven sing, sing all you angels, whatever of power is anywhere, let it sing in the praise of God, let no tongue be silent, and let every voice be in concord. Behold, he whom the prophets sang of in the ancient ages, whom the faithful pages of the prophets had pledged, flashes forth, promised of old: let all things praise him together. The water poured into the jars becomes noble Falernian, the servant announces that wine is ready from the urn, the king himself stands amazed at the cups dyed with savour. "The limbs ulcerous with diseases, the rottennesses of the vitals, I bid be washed away," he says: what he had commanded is made firm; the cleansings of the wounds purge the swollen skin. You smear with healing mud and with the nectar of your sacred mouth the eyes now buried in everlasting darkness: soon, by this remedy, the light is restored to the opened orbs. You rebuke the raging wind, that with grim storms it turns the sea from its lowest depth and harries the wandering ship: it obeys your commands, the wave is laid mild. The woman secretly touched the hem of the sacred garment: straightway salvation followed, the pallor leaves her face, the stream of blood that flowed unceasing is stayed. At the close of sweet youth he had seen a young man snatched away, whom his bereaved mother was burying with last weeping; "Rise," he said: that one rises, and is restored, standing by his mother. Lazarus, now lacking the sun for the fourth day, now hidden in the tomb, he bids to live, the breath given back: the recalled breath enters again the foul flesh. He walks across the pools of the sea, treads the surface of the waves: the moving water of the deep affords a hanging way, nor does the wave grow weary, pressed beneath holy footsteps. One wont, in the burial cave, to gnash beneath chains, out of his mind, driven by savage furies, leaps forth and was a suppliant, when he felt Christ at hand. The thousand-shaped plague of the slippery demons, driven out, seizes the foul filth of the swine-herd, and the maddened beast plunges itself in the black waves. Bring the fragments of the meals, twelve times in their baskets; abundantly filled now are the thousands of those reclining, five loaves eaten and a pair of fishes. You are our food and our bread, you the perennial sweetness; he knows no hunger forever who takes your banquet, nor does he fill the hollow of the belly, but he warms the vitals. The closed passage of the ears, ignorant of sounds, purges at the precepts of Christ every gross obstacle, made capable of enjoying voices and open to whispers. Every sickness gives way, every languor is driven off, the tongue speaks which old silences had bound, and the glad sick man carries his own pallet through the city. Nay, even, lest the dwellers below should be without salvation, he kindly enters Tartarus; the broken gate gives way, the bolts wrenched off, the dissoluble hinge falls. That gate, ready for those rushing in, tenacious for those returning, the barrier outward thrown back, gives the dead again, the law reversed, and the black threshold now lies open to be retrodden. But while God with tawny light illumines the caves of death, while to the astonished darkness he affords white day, the dismal stars of the squalid sky grew pale. The sun fled back and, sordid with mournful rust, left its fiery axle and, mourning, hid itself; the world, they say, shuddered at the chaos of eternal night. Loose your voice, resounding mind, loose your nimble tongue, tell the trophy of the Passion, tell the triumphal cross, sing the standard which gleams on marked brows. O new miracle of the wound by the astounding slaughter! Hence flowed a wave of gore, from the other part water; the water surely gives the laver, then the crown is from the blood. The serpent saw the victim of the sacred body offered up, he saw it, and soon lost the venom of his burnt gall, wounded with much grief, his hissing necks broken. What did it profit you, profane serpent, in new affairs to have struck down the first creature by your shape-shifting exhortation? The mortal form washed out the guilt, God received within. The leader of salvation gave himself to the brief experience of death, that the dead, once buried, he might accustom to return, the bonds of their former sins dissolved. Then the fathers and many saints, following the foregoing Founder, now returning, on the third day at last take up the garments of flesh, and come forth from the tombs. You might see the limbs gather from the dry ashes, the cold dust grow warm, the veins resumed, the bones, sinews, and marrows covered with the glue of skin. After, when he had loosed the setting of life and restored man, the victor ascended the lofty tribunal of the high Father, bearing back to heaven the glorious renown of his Passion. Hail, judge of the dead, hail, king of the living, who, at the right hand in the Parent's height, are renowned for your powers, to come thence as the just avenger of all crimes. You the old men, and you the youth, you the choir of little ones, the throng of mothers and of virgins, the simple little girls, let them resound, harmonious in voice with chaste concords. The fall of rivers and the wave, the edges of shores, rain, heat, snow, frost, forest and breeze, night, day, let all things celebrate you for ages of ages.

Hymn at the Burial of the Dead

God, fiery fount of souls, who, joining two elements, the living at once and the mortal, shaped man, O Father, yours are they, yours, O ruler, both; for you the union of these is joined, for you, while quickened they cohere, both spirit and flesh do service. But these, torn asunder, loose man and destroy him; the dry earth receives the body, the breeze snatches the liquid of the soul; for all created things must needs at last, undermined, grow old, and what was compacted be dissolved, and the discordant fabric unwoven. This death, O best God, ready to abolish for your servants, you show an inviolable path, by which the lost limbs may rise again, so that, while the noble is bound to the perishable, as if shut in a prison, that part may stand out the stronger which drew its germ from the upper air. If perchance the iron will savours of clay and grasps the heavy, the soul too, overcome by the weight, follows its own limbs downward. But if, mindful of its origin, the fire refuse the sluggish contagions, it bears its guest vitals with it, and carries them likewise to the stars. For that we see the body rest, empty, without the mind, a brief space remains, until it seek again the fellowships of the deep sense. The ages will come swiftly, when now the kindred warmth shall revisit the bones, and, quickened with living blood, shall wear its former dwellings. The bodies which lately lay sluggish, rotted in the tombs, will be snatched into the winged airs, accompanying their former souls. Hence the greatest care is spent on tombs, hence the last honour receives the loosened limbs and the funeral's pomp adorns them. It is the custom to spread linens gleaming with bright whiteness, and, myrrh sprinkled with Sabaean medicine, to preserve the body. What do the hollowed stones mean, what do the fair monuments intend, unless that the thing is believed not dead in them, but given to sleep? This the provident piety of the worshippers of Christ is eager for, believing that all things will be at once alive which now cold slumber presses. He who, pitying the corpses cast about, covers them with a mound of earth, performs that kindly work, pious to the almighty Christ, since the same law warns all to give their groan under one lot, and to grieve in another's death the kindred funerals belonging to us. That sire of holy Tobias, a sacred and venerable hero, the banquet now duly prepared, preferred the law of the obsequies. Even with the servers standing by he left the cups and the dishes, and, girded with zeal of burying, gave the bones to a wept-over grave. Soon rewards come from heaven, and a vast recompense is repaid; for the eyes that knew not the sun God clears, the gall smeared on. Then already the Father of the world taught how, to those poor in reason, the medicine is biting and bitter, when a new light troubles the mind. He taught too that no one beholds the heavenly realms before he has endured, in night and grim wound, the harsh things of the world. Death itself is the more blessed for this, that through the torments of dying a steep way is opened to the just, and one goes to the stars through pains. So the bodies put to death return in better years, nor, growing warm again after death, does the frame know how to fall apart. These faces, which now a whitish hue stains pale with corruption, then, more lovely than every flower, the blood shall tinge with pleasing skin. Now no old age henceforth shall, envious, pluck the glory of the brow, nor dry leanness thin the arms with their substance gnawed away. The plague-bearing disease too, which now ravages the panting limbs, then, sweating out its own torments, shall pay them amid a thousand chains. This, from afar in the high air, the victorious flesh, now eternal, shall behold, groaning without end the pains which it itself had stirred. Why does the surviving throng, foolish, clanging, mingle howlings? Why does mad grief with mourning arraign laws so well ordained? Now grow still, sad complaint, hold back your tears, you mothers: let no one bewail his own pledges, this death is the restoration of life. So the dry seeds grow green, now dead, now buried, which, given back from the depth of the turf, meditate their old ears of corn. Now receive, O earth, this to be cherished, and take it into your soft bosom: I commit to you the limbs of a man, and I entrust noble fragments. This was once the soul's home, created by the maker's mouth; fervent there dwelt Wisdom, with Christ as prince. Cover the deposited body; not unmindful, he will require his own gifts, the moulder and author, and the riddles of his own face. Let only the just times come, when God may fulfil all hope; laid open, you must give back such a figure as I hand to you. Not, if rotting age shall dissolve the bones into ashes, and there shall be but dry dust, the measure of a tiny handful, nor, if the wandering blasts and breezes, flying through the empty void, shall have borne off the sinews with the dust, will it be allowed that the man has perished. But while you recall the dissoluble body, O God, and reshape it, in what region will you bid the pure soul to rest? Added to the bosom of the holy old man it shall recline, as is Eleazar, whom, hedged about on all sides with flowers, the rich man, burning, beholds from afar. We follow your words, Redeemer, by which, triumphing over black death, you bid the robber, companion of the cross, go along your footsteps. Behold, the shining way of ample paradise now lies open to the faithful, and it is allowed to enter that grove too which the serpent had taken from man. There, I pray, best leader, bid the mind, your handmaid, be consecrated in its native seat, which it had left, an exile and wandering. We will cherish the covered bones with violets and frequent foliage, and the epitaph and the cold stones we will sprinkle with liquid fragrance.

Hymn for the Eighth Day before the Kalends of January

Why is it that the sun, now returning, leaves the narrow circle? Is Christ born on earth, who increases the path of the light? Alas, how fleeting a grace the hastening day was rolling! How nearly the torch withdrawn, gradually cut short, it had quenched! Let heaven shine more gladly, and let the earth give thanks, rejoicing: the radiance climbs again, step by step, to its former lines. Come forth, sweet little one, whom chastity, your mother, brought forth, parent yet without a husband, mediator and twofold race. Though from the Father's mouth you sprang and were brought forth by the Word, yet in the Father's heart, as Wisdom, you knew of old, which, ready, founded heaven, heaven and day and the rest; by the power of the Word were made all these, for the Word is God. But when the ages were ordered and the state of things arranged, the founder himself and craftsman remained in the Father's bosom, until the wheeled thousands of the years should roll past, and he himself should deign to visit the world long sinning. For the blind power of mortals, worshipping empty trifles, believed either bronze or cold stone or wood to be God. While they follow these, they had come into the power of the treacherous robber, and had plunged their enslaved life into the smoking pit. But Christ did not endure that ruin of the falling nations, lest perhaps unpunished the fabric of his Father should perish: he put on a mortal body, that, the body raised again, he might break the chain of death, and carry man to the Father. This is that natal day, on which the lofty Creator breathed you forth and set you in the clay, gluing flesh by his word. Do you feel, noble virgin, through your ripening qualms, the untouched glory of chastity grow by the honour of birth? O how great joys of things the chaste womb contains, from which a new age comes forth, and golden light! That wailing betrayed the beginning of a spring-blooming world, for then, reborn, the world drove off its sordid old decay. I think the earth has sprinkled every field with thick flowers, and that the very sands of the Syrtes were fragrant with nard and nectar. At your birth, O boy, all hard and barbarous things felt you, and the conquered hardness of the rocks drew grass over the flints. Now honey flows from the crags, now the holm-oak drips, sweating balsam from its dry trunk, now there are balsams on the tamarisks. O holy cradle of your manger, eternal king, and the swaddling-clothes, sacred to the peoples through the age and trusted even by the dumb beasts! The brute cattle adore these, the untaught throng, surely, the senseless nation adores, whose strength is set in feeding. But while with faithful spirit the pagan race and the quadruped run together to the manger, and what was brute grows wise, the lineage of the fathers denies, hating the present God: you would believe it drunk with poisons, or snatched, maddened by furies. Why do you rush headlong through crime? Acknowledge, if anything of a sound mind remains to you, the leader of your princes. Him, whom the hiding-place and the midwife and the pregnant virgin and the cradles and feeble infancy gave as king to the nations, you, sinner, will behold on high amid the gleaming clouds, yourself cast down, and bewailing your guilt with vain tears, when the vast trumpet shall have sent the signal to the lands to be burnt, and the cleft axle shall have loosed the hinge of the falling world. He himself, glorious and pre-eminent, will repay fitting things to merits, to these the use of perpetual light, to those Gehenna and Tartarus. Judaea, then, having proved the thunderbolt of the cross, you will feel who he is whom, you the leader of the fury, death swallowed and soon gave back.

Hymn of the Epiphany

Whoever you are who seek Christ, lift up your eyes on high: there it will be allowed to behold the sign of perennial glory. This star, which surpasses the wheel of the sun in beauty and in light, announces that God has come to the lands with earthly flesh. It does not serve the nights, following the monthly moon, but, alone possessing the sky, tempers the course of the days. Though the northern stars with their backward-turned motions refuse to set, yet often they lie hidden beneath the clouds. This star remains eternal, this star is never submerged, nor, hidden by the meeting of a cloud, does it shadow its veiled torch. Let the gloomy comet fall away, and, if any star burns with the heat of Sirius, now beneath God's light let it fall destroyed. Lo, from the bosom of the Persian world, whence the sun takes its gate, the skilled interpreters, the Magi, discern the royal standard. When it shone forth, the other companies of the constellations gave way, nor did fair Lucifer dare to compare his own beauty. "Who is this so great," they say, "ruler commanding the stars, whom the heavenly things so tremble at, whom light and the upper air serve? We discern something illustrious, which knows not how to suffer an end, sublime, lofty, boundless, older than heaven and chaos. This is that king of the nations and king of the Jewish people, promised to father Abraham and to his seed forever. For he learned long ago that his offspring, to be matched with the stars, the first sower of believers, the sacrificer of his only son. Now the Davidic flower rises, brought forth from the root of Jesse, and, blooming through the rod of the sceptre, takes the summit of things." Thence they follow, roused, their faces fixed on high, where the star had drawn a furrow and marked out a bright way, but above the boy's crown the sign hung impending, and with downward torch betrayed the sacred head bowed beneath it. After the Magi saw this, they bring forth Eastern gifts, and prostrate, with vows they offer frankincense, myrrh, and royal gold. Acknowledge the bright insignia of your power and your kingdom, O boy, for whom the Father predestined a threefold nature: king and God they announce, the treasure and the fragrant scent of Sabaean frankincense, while the myrrh powder foretells the tomb. This is the tomb in which God, while he allows the body to be slain and raises it up again, buried, broke the prison of death. O Bethlehem, alone greater than the great cities, to whom it fell to bring forth from heaven, made flesh, the leader of salvation! With you as nurse, to the supreme Father the only heir is created, man from the Thunderer's spirit, and the same, beneath his limbs, God. Him, with the prophets as witnesses and the same as signatories, the testator and sower bids approach the kingdom and behold it, the kingdom which encompasses all things, the heavenly and sea and earthly, from the sun's rising to its setting, and Tartarus and heaven above. The anxious tyrant hears that the prince of kings is at hand, who should rule the name of Israel, and hold the palace of David. Out of his mind he cries at the news: "A successor presses on, we are driven out: go, henchman, snatch the sword, drench the cradles with blood. Let every male infant be slain, search the bosoms of the nurses, and amid the mother's breasts let the boy-child redden the sword. Suspected to me through Bethlehem is the fraud of all the women in childbed, lest any secretly withdraw an offspring of male nature." Therefore the executioner, raging with drawn blade, ranges over the bodies lately brought forth, and probes for the new souls. The slayer scarcely finds, in the tiny limbs, a place where the open blow may descend, and the dagger is greater than the throat. O barbarous spectacle! The neck dashed on the rocks scatters the milky brain, and vomits out the eyes through the wound; or, palpitating, the infant is plunged into the deep gulf, beneath whose narrow throat the water and the breath sob. Hail, flowers of the martyrs, whom, on the very threshold of light, the persecutor of Christ snatched away, as a whirlwind snatches the new-blown roses. You, the first victim of Christ, the tender flock of the slaughtered, before the very altar, simple, play with palm and crowns. What does so great a crime profit? What does the crime avail Herod? Alone amid so many deaths, Christ is borne off unharmed. Amid the streams of his coeval's blood alone untouched, the virgin's child eluded the sword which was bereaving the young mothers. So once the foolish edicts of evil Pharaoh had Moses fled, bearing the figure of Christ, the deliverer of his fellow-citizens. A cautious and established law there was by which it was not allowed to mothers, when they discharged the burden of the womb, to rear a male pledge. The mind of a diligent midwife, piously defiant against the tyrant, toward the hope of mighty glory stole and preserved the little one, whom soon as priest for himself the founder of the world took up, through whom he might hand down the law marked on tablets of stone. Is it allowed to know Christ through the example of so great a man? That leader, the Egyptian slain, freed Israel from the yoke; but us, subdued unceasingly beneath the heavy rule of error, our leader, the foe wounded, frees from the darkness of death. He, the people atoned by the waves in the sea-crossing, cleanses again with sweet waters, bearing before them the pillar of light; he, when the army fought, his arms spread out on high, sublime, presses down Amalek, which was then the likeness of the cross. He, surely, is the truer Jesus, who, after long trials, victor, fulfilled for his tribesmen the promised acres, who at last, in the channel of the refluent river, founded and fixed twelve stones, the lineages of the apostles. With right, then, the Magi testify that they had seen the leader of Judah, when the deeds of the ancient leaders had painted the figure of Christ. This is the king of the former judges, who ruled the race of Jacob, and king of the mistress Church, of the temple both new and old. Him the descendants of Ephraim worship, him the holy house of Manasseh, and all the tribes look up to him, the twice-six seeds of the brothers, nay, even the degenerate stock, having followed an uncouth rite, whatever dire Baal it had cooked in fervid furnaces, the smoky godheads of its forefathers, stone, metal, stump, scraped, hewn, cut, forsakes in honour of Christ. Rejoice, whatever of the nations there is, Judaea, Rome and Greece, Egypt, Thracian, Persian, Scythian: one king possesses all. Praise your prince, all you blessed and lost, living, weak, and dead: living now, no one henceforth dead.