Hymns for the Hours

For ten periods of five years, if I am not mistaken, I have lived; and the hinge of time is turning a seventh year besides, while I enjoy the circling sun. The end is near, and already God brings close the day that borders on old age. What useful thing have I done in so long a space of time? My early years wept under the cracking cane. Soon the toga taught me, stained with vices, to speak falsehoods, not without guilt. Then wanton impudence and unruly self-indulgence (alas, I am ashamed and sorry!) defiled the young man with the filth and mud of wickedness. After that, quarrels armed a troubled mind, and a perversely stubborn desire to win exposed me to harsh mishaps. Twice, by the governing power of the laws, I held the reins of noble cities; I gave civil justice to the good and struck fear into the guilty. At last the emperor’s kindness raised me, promoted in rank of service, taking me closer and bidding me stand in the next rank to him. While life sped on in this way, white hair crept suddenly on the old man, convicting me of having forgotten the old consul Salia, under whom my first day dawned; how many winters it has rolled by since, and how often it has given roses back to the meadows after the ice, the snow on my head proves. Will such things, good or bad, profit me after the death of the flesh, when death has abolished whatever it was that I had been? This must be said to me: “Whoever you are, your mind has lost the world it cherished. The things it pursued are not God’s, whose you will be.” Yet, near the very end, let my sinful soul put off its folly; let it at least celebrate God with its voice, if it cannot with merits; let it link day to day with hymns, and let no night be idle of singing the Lord; let it fight against heresies, set out the catholic faith, trample on the rites of the pagans, bring ruin, Rome, on your idols, dedicate a song to the martyrs, praise the apostles. While I write or speak these things, oh, that I might spring free from the bonds of the body to wherever my nimble tongue has carried me with its last sound!

The bird, messenger of day, sings in advance of the approaching light; now Christ, who rouses minds, calls us to life. “Take away,” he cries, “your beds, sickly, drowsy, slothful; and, chaste, upright and sober, keep watch: now I am very near.” After the bright sun has risen it is late to spurn one’s couch, unless, by adding part of the night, you have added time to your labor. That voice with which the birds clamor, perched beneath the very roof-top a little before the light flashes out, is a figure of our Judge. Us, covered by bristling darkness and buried under sluggish bedclothes, he urges to leave our rest, since the day is coming now, even now; so that, when with flashing breezes the dawn has sprinkled the sky, he may strengthen all who are worn with labor to hope for the light. This sleep, given for a time, is an image of everlasting death; sins, like bristling night, force us to lie down and snore. But the voice of Christ, teaching from the high roof-top, warns beforehand that the light is now near at hand, so that the mind may not be a slave to sleep;

so that sleep may not, right up to the end of a slothful life, overwhelm a heart buried in guilt and forgetful of its own light. They say that the roaming demons, who rejoice in the darkness of night, are terrified when the cock crows and scatter in fear and withdraw. For the hated nearness of light, of salvation, of the divine power, breaking up the mouldering darkness, puts to flight the attendants of night. Those who foresee know this to be the sign of the hope that has been promised, in which we, set free from sleep, hope for the coming of God. What the force of this bird is the Savior showed to Peter, foretelling that before the cock crowed he would deny him three times. For the sin is committed first, before the herald of the approaching light shines on the human race and brings an end to sinning. Then at last the denier wept for the wrong that had slipped from his mouth, though his mind remained innocent and his heart kept its faith. Nor did he ever afterwards say anything like it with a slippery tongue; and when he recognized the cock’s crowing, the righteous man ceased to sin.

That is why we all believe that at that hour of rest when the cock crows exultantly Christ returned from the dead. Then the strength of death was crushed, then the law of Tartarus was subdued, then the stronger power of day forced night to give way. Now, now let wicked things be still, now let dark guilt fall asleep, now let deadly harm suffer its own sleep and wither. Let the spirit in turn be wakeful for whatever time remains, until the end of night is reached, and keep watch, standing and toiling. Let us call on Jesus with our voices, weeping, praying, sober; earnest supplication forbids a pure heart to sleep. Long enough has deep forgetfulness, with our limbs rolled up, pressed down, weighed down and overwhelmed our sense as it wandered in empty dreams. For false and trivial are the things we did for worldly glory, as if asleep: let us wake; here is the truth. Gold, pleasure, joy, wealth, honors, success, whatever evils puff us up: morning comes, and they are all nothing. You, Christ, scatter sleep, you break the chains of night; you loosen the old sin, and pour in new light.

Night and darkness and clouds, confused and troubled things of the world, depart: the light enters, the sky grows white, Christ comes. The gloom of the earth is torn apart, struck by the sun’s dart, and color now returns to things at the face of the shining star. So soon our own darkness and the heart aware of its deceit, laid bare when the clouds are broken, will turn pale when God reigns. Then no one will be allowed to hide the dark thing he is thinking; but in the new morning the secrets of the mind will be brought out and made clear. The thief before daylight sins unpunished in the murky hour; but light, the foe of tricks, does not let theft lie hidden. Cunning, crafty fraud loves to be covered by darkness, and the secret adulterer cherishes the night as fit for shameful things. See, the fiery sun rises: one regrets, one is ashamed, one repents; nor can anyone go on sinning steadily with the light as witness. Who does not blush at cups wickedly taken in the morning, when lust grows temperate and the trifler is chaste and wise?

Now, now life is lived in earnest; now no one tries frivolity; now all give their follies the color of a serious face. This hour is useful for all, in which each may do what he pursues: soldier, civilian, sailor, craftsman, ploughman, shopkeeper. One is swept off by the glory of the courts, another by the grim trumpet; the merchant and the farmer, for their part, sigh after greedy gains. But we, of petty gain and interest and of fine speaking wholly ignorant, and not strong in the art of war, know you alone, Christ; with a pure and simple mind, with our voice, with devout song, we learn to pray to you on bended knee, weeping and singing. These are the gains we make, by this art alone we live; these are the tasks we begin when the rising sun shines out. Attend to our senses, and look over our whole life: there are many things smeared with false colors that must be cleansed by your light. Bid us remain such as you once bade us shine, our filth removed, when we were dipped in the river Jordan. Whatever the night of the world has since stained with its black clouds,

you, King of the eastern star, light up with your calm face. You, Holy One, who dye black pitch with milky whiteness and make crystal out of ebony, wipe away our livid offenses. Under the dark-blue night Jacob, the bold wrestler with the angel, until the light rose sweated through an unequal fight. But when the radiance grew bright, lame, his knee giving way, and beaten, his thigh weakened, he lost the vigor of guilt. The wounded groin was faltering, which is the baser part of the body and, lying far below the seat of the heart, nourishes dire lust. These images teach us that a man covered with darkness, if perhaps he does not yield to God, loses his rebellious strength. Yet he will be the more blessed whose unrestrained member the rising day has found lamed and wasted by the wrestling. Let blindness at last depart, which has long dragged us headlong, fallen with crooked steps, by its wandering error. May this light bring us serenity and make us pure for itself; let us say nothing deceitful, let us turn over nothing dark in mind. So let the whole day run its course: let neither the lying tongue, nor the hand, nor the roving eyes sin, nor any guilt stain the body. A watcher stands above, who on all our days looks upon us and our deeds from the first light to evening. He is witness, he is judge, he beholds whatever the human mind conceives; no one deceives this Judge.

O good bearer of the cross, sower of light, maker of all, loving one, begotten as the Word, brought forth from a virgin’s body, but before that mighty in the Father, before the stars, the land and the sea came to be: turn here, I pray, with a radiant look, your face that brings salvation; calm of brow, shine on us, so that under the honor of your name we may partake of this meal. Without you, Lord, nothing is sweet, nor is it pleasant to seek anything with the mouth, unless first your favor, Christ, has steeped the cups and the food, with faith that sanctifies all things. Let our dishes savor of God, and let Christ flow into our cups; serious things, playful words, jests, in short what we are and what we do, let the threefold Love on high govern. Here I have no spoils of roses, no scent of spice is fragrant; but an ambrosial liquid flows in and breathes of nectar-sweet faith, poured forth from the very bosom of the Father. Spurn, my Muse, the light ivy with which you used to bind your temples; and, having learned to weave mystic garlands in dactylic measure, bind them with a fillet, your hair wreathed with the praise of God. What can a noble soul do, native of light and of the upper air,

pay as worthier homage than to sing back the gifts it was given, hymning its own Maker? Since he himself has given to man all things that we take and hold under our dominion, all that sky, or earth, or sea bring forth in air, in deep water, in the country, he has made these subject to me, and me to himself. Craft ensnares the birds with the trickery of snares or nets; twigs smeared with bark-glue entangle the feathered ranks and forbid them to fly off. See, through the waters winding nets drag the wave-roaming shoals; the fish too follows the rod, caught by the wounding hook, its trusting mouth pierced through the bait. The field pours out its native wealth, rich in the bearded corn, here where the vine’s arms run riot with leafy shoots, where the berry, nurseling of peace, grows green. This abundance serves the worshipers of Christ and supplies all things; far be from us that hunger which delights, by the slaughter of cattle, to tear bloody feasts. Let the untamed nations have their savage meals from the death of four-footed beasts; us, leafy herbs and the pod pregnant with many kinds of pulse will feed with innocent meals. The foaming milk-pails bear snowy

streams from the twin udder, and through rennet the liquid thickens and sets solid, and in a fragile basket the tender curd is pressed. Fresh Cecropian honey is sweated for me by the comb with fragrant nectar; this the craftsman bee distils from airy dew and slender thyme, knowing nothing of the bond of marriage. From here too come the mild gifts of the fruit-bearing grove: the tree, shaken and heavy with its burden, rains it down in a falling shower and throws down crimson heaps. What trumpet of the ancients, or what lyre, famed for its breath or its strings, the work of the rich Almighty and the things open for man to enjoy could equal with its praises? You, best Father, in the new morning and when the sun’s course is at its midpoint, you also at the setting of the light, when the hour bids us take food, our harmony shall sing, O God. Since the breath within is warm, since the hidden vein throbs in the heart, and since the tongue, quick-moving, beats the echoing hollow, hidden within the mouth, let the praise of the Father on high be mine. Us, then, Holy One, your hand formed from moist turf, designing its own likeness;

and that the material might be made firm he breathed, and put a soul into its mouth. Then he bids him dwell amid pleasant thickets, in places of leafy foliage, where perpetual spring breathes fragrance, and the many-colored meadows a swift stream waters with its four-branched river. “Let all these now serve you,” he says; “I give all things for your use; but yet I forbid you to pluck the harsh fruit from the death-bearing trunk which grows green in the middle of the grove.” Here the treacherous serpent entices the unteachable mind of the maiden, so that, giving evil counsel, she might force her companion, the man, to eat of the forbidden things, she herself to perish in like manner. Each other’s bodies (a sin to know) they see uncovered after the meal, and slippery error blushed: they make coverings sewn of leaves, so that shame might hide the disgrace. Conscious guilt, trembling before God, is driven far from the holy dwelling; the woman who had been unmarried receives the rule of a husband, commanded to bear a sad covenant. And the serpent himself, the author of the deceit, is punished, the wicked one, so that the woman should tread his three-tongued neck with her heel: thus the serpent looks up to the woman’s sole, and the woman to the man.

With these as leaders, posterity thereafter rushed, corrupted, into crime; and while it imitates its crude forefathers, heaping together right and wrong alike, it paid for its impious crimes with death. See, a new offspring comes, a second man sent forth from heaven; not of clay as that first one was, but God himself bearing man, and free of the body’s vices. The Word of the Father becomes living flesh, whom, heavy with the glowing divine power, not by the bridal chamber, nor by marriage right, nor by the enticements of wedlock, an undefiled girl brings forth. This was that ancient enmity, this was the deadly strife between the asp and man, that now the viper, bowed to the ground, is trodden under a woman’s feet. For the Virgin, found worthy to bear God, subdues all poisons: the serpent, in its uncoiled windings, sluggishly vomits back its harmless venom, the same color as the green grass. What savagery does not now tremble, terrified by the little white flock? Among the unafraid sheep the wolf walks sullenly about, and, forgetful of blood, restrains its raging mouth. For the Lamb, by a wondrous reversal, see, rules over lions; and, chasing the fierce eagles through the wandering clouds and through the south winds,

the dove, come down from the sky, puts to flight. You are my mighty dove, Christ, to whom the bird that feeds on blood gives way; you, the snow-white Lamb, throughout your fold forbid the wolf to gape, pressing the tiger’s jaws beneath the yoke. Grant this, bountiful God, to your servants who pray rightly: that their limbs, refreshed with light food, may be lightened, and that the sluggish stomach may not weigh down the bowels stretched with immoderate feasts. Let the bitter draught be far away; let us take no pleasure in touching with the hand anything deadly or forbidden; let taste itself keep measure, so that it may keep the liver unharmed. Let it be enough for the horrid serpents that impious food brought forth for our bodies, ah, a wretched death; let it suffice that once, because of a crime, God’s handiwork could die. The work of his mouth, the fiery vigor, does not die, for, formed by the breath of God and flowing from the highest throne of the Father the craftsman, it has the power of clear reason. Moreover, the dead flesh too is granted to be restored after death, and from its tomb once again the former likeness is reborn, as the dusty decay comes together. I believe indeed, and it is no empty faith, that bodies live as souls do; for I remember that God, in bodily form, lately returned with easy step from Phlegethon to the world above. The same hope awaits my limbs, which, fragrant in the funeral coffin, are bidden to rest: Christ their leader, returning to life on a like path, calls them to the golden stars.

Our bodies fed, and the food taken that the law of our weak body demands, let the tongue pay back praise to God the Father: to the Father, who the Cherubim, his sacred seat, and his Seraphim too, resting on his supreme throne, holds and rules. This is he whom we call God of Sabaoth, without beginning and without end, founder of things and discoverer of the world, fountain of life flowing clear from the height, pourer-in of faith, sower of modesty, conqueror of death, author of salvation. That we all exist or have strength comes from him. That eternal Spirit reigns, sent at once by Christ and by the Father. Bright, he enters chaste hearts, which, consecrated in place of a temple, smile, once they have drunk in God to their marrow. But if he perceives any vice or guile arise within the inward parts already dedicated, he flees swiftly as from a defiled shrine. For a foul horror, conscious of seething guilt, reeks with thick vapor, and in its blackness drives away the offended Good. Nor do modesty and innocent vows alone make up a lasting temple for Christ in the bosom and recess of the inmost heart; but care must be taken that gluttony does not seethe, which crams the seat of faith full of food and compresses it within into a heap. Hearts unburdened by sparing meals better receive the God who is poured into them:

This is the soul’s food, and the true savor. But you, Father, cherishing us with a twofold provision, strengthen both limbs and souls with both kinds of food and fill them with vigor. So once your shining power refreshed a man placed among hoarse-roaring lions with food that slipped down from above. Him, who cursed the molten deity and thought it a sin to bow his head beneath the polished bronze, the people of dread Babylon and the tyrant had handed over to death, had devoted to wild beasts, to be devoured at once by their savage gulps. O piety and faith, ever safe! The untamed lions lick the man and tremble at God’s nurseling, untouched. They stand close by and lay down their manes; their rage grows gentle, and, fawning in their hunger, they court their prey with bloodless jaws. But when he stretched his palms to heaven and called upon the God he had proved, shut in continually and in want of food, a messenger bidden to fly to earth, to give food to the servant who had stood the test, leaps swiftly down as the world yields to him. He sees by chance, far off, food not bought, which the prophet Habakkuk was kindly offering to reapers with rustic skill. Seizing him by the hair with his hand, heavy as he was with full baskets, he snatches him up, suspended, and carries him through the air. Then, snatched away, he and the meal together glide gently down into the lions’ den.

and he offers the food that he was then carrying. “Take it gladly,” he says, “and eat it willingly: these cakes the most high Father and the angel of Christ send you in this danger.” When he had taken them, Daniel lifted his face to heaven, and, strong with the food, he answered “Amen” and said “Alleluia.” So we, refreshed by your gifts, God, bountiful giver of all good things, give thanks and consecrate hymns. You rule us, shut in as by a grim tyrant, that is, by the doings of a world without self-control, and you drive back the beast that roars around us and tries to devour us, sharpening its maddened teeth in fury, when we pray to you, highest God, alone. We are harassed, crushed, rolled about by evils; they hate, mangle, drag, provoke us; faith is joined to unjust tortures. Yet healing is not lacking to the anxious; for, while the lion’s savage anger languishes, food that slips down from above is heaped upon us. If anyone, drinking this thirstily, not with a slight taste but with a full mouth, would take it into his inner veins, he, filled from the holy prophet, will take the food of righteous men who reap fruit for the everlasting Lord. Nothing is sweeter or more savory, nothing that can help a man more, than the holy words of the prophet singing beforehand. When these are taken, though arrogant power may judge a man wicked and impose death, though unfed lions may rush upon him,

Creator of the glowing light, good Leader, who divide the seasons by fixed turns, the sun has sunk, and horrid chaos falls upon us: give back the light to your faithful, Christ. Although you have painted the royal sky with countless stars and with the lamp of the moon, yet you show us how to seek light by striking flint, from the seed in the rock, so that man might not be ignorant that his hope of light [is founded in the solid body of Christ,] who willed to be called the steadfast rock, from which the race of our little fires comes; these we feed with lamps soaked in the dew of rich oil, or with dry torches; and we also smear wicks of rush first coated with honey pressed from the flowery combs. The lively flame thrives, whether a hollow little pot supplies juice to the drunken wick, or the pine bears pitchy nourishment, or the hot tow drinks in the smooth wax. Hot nectar from the melting top drips drop by drop in fragrant tears, since the fiery force makes the burnt part weep a shower from its moist top. So by your gifts, Father, the halls shine with moving flames, and a rival light drives off the absent day, before which night, defeated, flees with torn robe. But who would not see that the swift light has a lofty origin, flowing from God? Moses indeed saw God, flaming with conspicuous light, in the thorny bush. Happy he who was found worthy, in the sacred brambles,

to look on the Prince of the heavenly throne, lest he defile the holy place with his shoes! This fire the people of famous blood, safe through the merits of their forefathers, though powerless, accustomed to live under barbarian masters, now free, follow through long trackless ways. Wherever they went, and when they had moved camp hastily through the middle of the dark-blue night, a ray brighter than the sun, with its lightning going before, led the wakeful people. But the king of the Nile shore, burning with envious gall, bids his mighty force go to war in swift cohorts, and the trumpet to sound to the iron-clad lines. The men take up arms, and fix Cretan points on their threatening shafts. The crowd of foot soldiers is massed in wedges; some swiftly mount the chariots, the horses and the flying wheels, and hold out war-standards bright with swelling dragons. Here already the nation, ignorant now of its former slavery, scorched by the heat of Pelusium, had at last, as guest of the purple sea, settled down, weary, on the Red shores. The dread enemy is at hand with his treacherous leader, and brings battle with strong forces. Moses then, steadfast, commands his people to march into the sea with fearless steps. The waters, broken, make room for the travelers, passable like the face of a shore; the wave stands still around them in glassy liquid, while the people pass through beneath the cleft sea.

Moreover the swarthy youth, provoked by bitter hatred, under an impious king, thirsting to shed Hebrew blood, dares to trust itself to the hollowed sea. The royal columns went, driven in headlong rush, through the midst of the waves; the sea rolls back upon itself in a flood that flows together. Then you might see chariots and horses and shipwrecked weapons, the nobles themselves and the drifting bodies of the dark attendants swimming, the grim day of mourning of the tyrant’s citadel. What tongue at last will be able to unfold your praises, Christ? You compel Pharos, tamed by plagues of many kinds, to yield to the leader, with your right hand, the avenger of justice; you forbid the sea, impassable with its rushing tides, to leap about, so that in the ebbing salt water a safe passage lies open, with you as guide, and soon the greedy wave devours the impious; for you the hungry rocks of the desert overflow with babbling springs, and the split flint pours out new waters, which give drink to thirsty peoples under a fiery sky. Water like gall in a grim pool becomes, by the grace of wood, like Attic honey: it is wood by which bitter things taste sweeter; for the hope of men flourishes fixed to the Cross. Then too snow-like food fills the camp, falling down thicker than icy hail; with this feast, this fare, they furnish their tables, which Christ gives from the starry heaven. [Then] the wind, with rainy breath,

flocks which, once blown down to the ground, have streamed in, do not fly back in returning flight. These rewards the noble kindness of the one Godhead once bestowed on our fathers; by its help we too are fed, feeding our hearts with mystic food. He calls the weary through the straits of the world, guiding his people as the whirlwinds are parted, and bids souls tossed by a thousand labors to climb into the homeland of the righteous. There, covered with purple rose-beds, all the ground is fragrant, and rich marigolds and soft violets and slender crocuses the water pours forth from fleeting little springs. There too balsam, sweated out from its slender shoot, flows, and rare cinnamon breathes, and the leaf which the river, licking past from a hidden spring, carries to its outlet. Happy souls, through grassy meadows, in harmony with sweetly sounding measures of hymns, sing a sweet melody and tread the lilies with white feet. And the harmful spirits too often have a famous holiday from their punishments beneath the Styx on that night on which the holy God returned from the pools of Acheron to the world above: not as the Morning Star, rising from the ocean, tinges the darkness with its bright torch, but, greater than the sun, restoring a new day to the lands saddened by the Lord’s Cross. Tartarus slackens with gentler punishments, and the people of shades, free from fires, exults in the respite of its prison,

nor do the rivers boil with their usual sulphur. We spend the night in festal gatherings amid holy joys, and, vying with one another, heap up prayers for blessing in wakeful supplication, and present our offerings at the shrine that has been built. Lights hang from swaying ropes, which, fastened below, sparkle along the paneled ceilings, and the flame, fed by its languid floating, casts its light through the clear glass. You would think that the starry floor above stood adorned with the twin Bears, and that, where the pole guides the Bosporan yoke, purple evening stars were scattered everywhere. At the beginning of the night let your flock offer the light, than which you grant nothing more precious, the light by which we see your other gifts! You are the true light to the eyes, light too to the senses, a mirror within, a mirror without; through Christ, your Son, highest Father, who is our Lord, who is your only one, through whom your splendor, honor, praise, wisdom, majesty, goodness and love continues its reign in threefold divine power, weaving ages into everlasting ages.

Be present, supreme Father, whom no one has ever seen, and you, Christ, Word of the Father, and kindly Spirit. O single power of this Trinity, one light, God everlasting from God, God sent from both. The labor of the day has flowed away, and the hour of rest returns; in turn gentle sleep relaxes weary limbs. The mind, tossed by storms and wounded by cares, drinks with all its marrow the cup of forgetfulness. A Lethean force creeps through the whole body, and does not allow any sense of sick pain to remain in the wretched. This law was given to frail limbs by God’s command, that a healing pleasure should temper labor. But while friendly rest wanders through all the veins and, as sleep waters it, calms the heart on holiday, the mind wanders free through the air with swift vigor, and in various figures sees things that are hidden.

For the mind, released from cares, whose origin is heaven and whose pure source is from the upper air, does not know how to lie idle. Imitating many-shaped appearances, it fashions them for itself, running through them suddenly, so that it enjoys a slight activity. But a varying dread disturbs the perceptions of dreamers: now a splendor wanders in among them which gives knowledge of the future; often, the truth being scattered, a lying image deceives minds sad with fear by dark ambiguity. The man whom faults of conduct, being rare, do not often pollute, him a calm, flashing light teaches hidden things; but he who has entangled his heart, defiled with vices, mocked by much fear, sees dreadful apparitions. This our patriarch under the chain of prison proved as interpreter for two servants together; of whom one, restored, gives the cup to the tyrant; but the other, fixed on a stake, the greedy birds devour.

Then the king himself, dreaming perplexing dreams, he warned to guard against the famine to come by shutting up stores of grain. Soon, made governor and tetrarch, bidden to hold throughout the whole kingdom a shared sceptre, he sat as lord in the palace. Oh, what profound mysteries Christ opens to the righteous through sleep for them to see! How clear, how fit for silence! The evangelist, most faithful disciple of the supreme Master, sees what lay hidden and sealed, the clouds removed: the very Lamb of the Thunderer, purple from his 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 judge of soul and of body, and the sword, twice to be feared, is the first and the second death. Yet the same, a kindly avenger, blunts his wrath, and of the ungodly allows only a few to perish forever.

To him the glorious Father has given the everlasting judgment seat; him he has bidden to hold the name above every name. He is the all-powerful destroyer of the bloody Antichrist, who brings back a fair trophy from the raging monster. That rapacious beast, devouring peoples, that Charybdis of blood, John curses. This beast, which dared to display the sacred name, seeks the lowest hell, slain by the true Christ. In such sleep the righteous hero relaxes his mind, so that with discerning spirit he roams through all heaven. We deserve none of these things, we whom frequent error fills, whom a hardened desire for evil things corrupts. It is enough to refresh the weary body with sweet rest; enough, if empty shadows threaten nothing harmful. Worshiper of God, remember that you have received the holy dew of the font and of the washing, that you were renewed with chrism. See that, when sleep calls and you seek your chaste bed,

let the sign of the Cross mark your forehead and the place of your heart. The Cross drives away every sin; darkness flees from the Cross; a mind dedicated by such a sign does not know how to waver. Away, away, you monstrous shapes of wandering dreams! Away with you, deceiver, with your persistent cunning! O twisting serpent, who through a thousand windings and tortuous frauds disturb quiet hearts, depart: Christ is here; here is Christ: melt away! The sign, which you yourself know, condemns your band. Though the body, worn out, lies reclining for a little while, yet even in sleep we shall meditate on Christ.

O Nazarene, light of Bethlehem, Word of the Father, whom the birth from a virgin womb brought forth, be present, Christ, at our chaste abstinence, and look kindly, King, on our festival, while we offer the sacrifice of fasting. Nothing indeed is purer than this mystery, by which the fiber of a livid heart is cleansed, by which the unrestrained bowels are tamed, lest the fat, sweating out putrid surfeit, should crush the native power of the strangled mind. By this luxury and foul gluttony are brought under the yoke, the degenerate sloth of wine and sleep, filthy lust, shameless jesting, and the various plagues of the languid senses, subdued, feel discipline. For if, flowing licentiously with drink and food, you do not duly restrain the limbs by fasting, it follows that, withered by frequent pleasure, the noble spark of the mind grows lukewarm and the soul snores in a sluggish breast. Let the cravings of bodies therefore be reined in, so that wisdom, cleansed, may shine out within: so, discerning with sharpened insight, and free with a looser breath, the spirit will pray more rightly to the Parent of all things. By such observance Elijah grew, the ancient priest, guest of the parched countryside; removed and apart from all din, they say, he spurned the press of crimes, enjoying the chaste silence of the sands. But soon, caught up by fiery yoke-mates and a swift chariot, he flew up into the air,

lest the dreadful world, from near contagion of filth, should breathe upon the quiet man, famed long since for his proven fasts. The prince of the sevenfold heaven Moses, faithful interpreter of the dread throne, could not see until, with ten circuits rolled four times, the sun, travelling through the stars, had seen him go without all sustenance. His only food, as he prayed, was in tears; for, weeping all night, he pressed the watered dust of the moist ground with his face bowed down, until, dazzled by the voice of God speaking, he dreaded the fire unbearable to sight. John, no less mighty in this art, ran before the Son of the everlasting God, he who straightened the crooked paths of the ways and, correcting the winding detours, gave a line to be followed on a straight track. This service the messenger was preparing, building a road for God who would soon be present, so that steep places might be changed to level, rough to smooth, and that Truth, coming down to the earth, might find nothing out of the way. Born by no usual birth, in a withered bosom that had forgotten milk the late-born infant reached for his mother’s breasts; nor was he poured forth from an aged womb before he proclaimed the Virgin full of God. Afterwards he withdrew into the open wilderness, clothed in the shaggy skins of beasts, or covered with bristles and rough hair, shrinking from being defiled and polluted

by the contaminated ways of the towns. There, sparing in his dedicated abstinence, a man of stern diligence, he refused drink and food until late evening, accustomed to give his body scant food of locusts and the liquid of wild honeycombs. He was the first exhorter and teacher of the new salvation; for in the consecrated river holiness washed away the marks of old errors; but after it had cleansed the dipped limbs, the Spirit, shining from heaven, flowed down. From this washing, the stain of crimes removed, they went forth reborn, just as if a rough vein of gold, smelted again, shines beautifully, or the light of silver metal gleams, bright as a clear sky, its dross polished away. Now I would recount the lineage of an ancient fast, handed down in the faithful volume: how, to the inhabitants of a city to be destroyed, the thunderbolt of the kindly Father, softened, in goodness spared them, its fires checked. A nation, overpowerful in insolent boasting, was once strong; as it flowed wickedly, corrupt wantonness had loosened it among the people, and thereupon, stubborn in brutish disdain, it neglected the worship of the supreme Godhead. At last the strictness of a constant indulgence, offended, is roused to just emotions; it arms its right hand with the fire of the sword, and, brandishing crashing storm-clouds and roaring whirlwinds, shakes them in a thundering cloud of flames. But while he gives a short space for repentance,

in case they might be willing to tame and break their wicked lust and old trifling, the terror that can be entreated holds back the blow, and the sentence pronounced stood still for a little. The gentle avenger rouses the prophet Jonah to go as forerunner of the imminent punishment; but since he knew that the threatening judge would rather save than strike and punish, he secretly turned his flight toward Tarshish. He boards a lofty ship by the gangways made ready; the stern, tied with a wet rope, is cast off; they sail out over the deep; the sea becomes stormy. Then the cause of such great danger is sought: the lot, cast, falls upon the fleeing prophet. The one guilty man among them all, ordered to perish, whose guilt the shaken urn had declared, is flung headlong and plunged into the deep; taken from there by a monster’s jaws, he is swallowed alive into the cave of its capacious belly. The prey, swiftly passed through, eludes the empty bites of the teeth, flying unharmed over the bloodless tongue, so that the wet molars might not cut up the morsel held in their grip: he passes the whole mouth and goes by the palate. For three courses of days and nights he remained, devoured, in the beast’s gullet; there he wandered through the hiding-places of the entrails, he went round the twisting windings of the belly, panting, as the bowels seethed within. Then, untouched, at the turn of the third night, he is driven out by the retching of the vomiting monster, where at the murmuring shore the wave is broken

and the white foam pounds the salty pumice stones: belched out, he comes forth and is amazed that he is saved. Under compulsion he turns back to the Ninevites with hurried step; and when he had rebuked them, as censor charging them with shameful disgraces, “The wrath of the supreme Avenger,” he said, “hangs over you, and flame will soon burn up the city: believe it.” Then he goes to the summit of a steep mountain, to see from there the massed smoke of turbulent ruin and the heap of dire destruction, covered by the lashes of a many-knotted growth and enjoying a shade that had suddenly sprung up. After the sorrowing city had drunk in the wound of the new grief, alas, it throbs its last: through the wide walls run in crowds the people and the senate, citizens of every age, the pale young men, the wailing women. They resolve to appease the angry Christ with public fasts; the habit of eating is spurned. The matron puts on gray garments, her necklaces removed; and in place of gems and silk dirty ash sprinkles her flowing hair. The fathers, in dark clothes, are squalid in ungirt robes, and the lamenting crowd takes woven haircloth; the maiden, dressed in the shaggy hair of beasts, covers her face with a black veil; the boy too lies rolling in the sand. The king himself, his brooch torn off, scattered the cloak that glowed with Coan purple; the green gems and the threaded stones, the badge of his brow, he put off, his hair matted with foul dust. No one mindful of drinking, no one of eating, all the young, fasting, had left the tables; even the infants, denied milk, wailing,

the cradles of the little ones grow wet with weeping, and the sparing nurse withholds the juice of the breast. The careful concern of the men shuts up even the herds of cattle, lest the wandering flock touch the dewy grass with their mouths or drink from the babbling spring: complaints resound in the empty stalls. Softened by these and such things, God reins in his brief anger, tempering the oracle, favorable instead of ill-omened; for his ready mercy without difficulty releases the guilt of suppliant mortals and becomes the patron of those who weep. But why do I speak of the example of an ancient nation? Long ago, when burdened with perishable limbs, Jesus fasted with dedicated heart, he who was named beforehand by the prophet’s mouth Emmanuel, that is, God with us; who made this body, soft by nature and captured under the loose yoke of pleasures, free by the strict law of virtue, emancipator of the enslaved creature and victor over the desire that reigned before. For withdrawn in an inhospitable place, while five days slipped by eight times, he claimed no comfort of food, strengthening, that is, by wholesome fasting the vessel that is weak toward desirable pleasures. The enemy, amazed that wasting clay could bear and endure so much labor, with cunning art, as questioner, tries to find out whether God had been received in earthly limbs; but, his fraud rebuked, he rushes backward.

Let each of us now follow this, as far as he can, which you, Christ, teacher of the consecrated doctrine, gave to your followers, so that, when it has overcome the lust for devouring, the spirit may triumph far and wide as commander. This it is that the spite of the black enemy envies, that the governor of earth and sky approves, that makes the altar favorable, that rouses the faith of the sleeping heart, that files away the sick rust of the breast. Flame drenched by a river is not so put out, nor do snows so melt in the warm sun, as the rough crop of turbid sins vanishes, worn down under kindly fasting, if gentle generosity is always mixed with it. For that too is a great kind of virtue: to clothe the naked, to feed the needy, to bring kindly help to those who beg, to draw one and the same lot of human life between the powerful and the poor. Blessed enough is he who stretches out a right hand eager for praise, lavish with money, whose left hand does not know the sweet deed: everlasting riches at once fill him, and a hundredfold fruit enriches the lender.

Christ, guide of your servants, who, governing us with gentle reins, curb us lightly, and restrain us hedged by an easy law: since you yourself, carrying the hampering burden of the body, bore hard labors, greater than any example, you soothe your servants with a relaxed teaching. The ninth hour rolls the sinking sun, three parts having barely passed; a fourth portion of light remains in the declining sky. We, whose vow is short, claiming our food, end the fast and enjoy the tables abundantly filled, so that our inclined pleasure may be satisfied. So great is the favor of the eternal master, so does the indulgent teacher nurse us with friendly exhortation, that a light obedience may soothe the limbs. He adds too that no one should wish to disfigure his face with unsightly, squalid dress; but let comeliness of countenance and the combed honor of the head adorn him. “When you fast,” he says, “wipe your whole body, and do not let a sallow color, the red drawn off, tinge your face, nor let pallor be noticed on your mouth.” More rightly do we cover with glad modesty whatever we present to the worship of the Father: God sees what is hidden, and rewards the hidden thing with a gift.

That sheep, sluggish with sickness, lost to the healthy flock, wretchedly scattering its fleece on the clinging brambles through the rough byways of the forest, the tireless shepherd calls back, and, the wolves shut out, carries it, his shoulders burdened, [and] gives it back to the fold. He gives it back to the meadows and the green plain too, where with unkempt burrs no thorn quivers, nor does the bristling thistle arm its shoots with stakes; but a grove thick with palms, and the curling foliage of the grasses blooms in spring, and the evergreen laurel overshadows the glassy pool with its living streams. For these gifts, faithful Shepherd, what service can be paid back to you? No vows of those who pray compensate for the price of salvation. However much, spurning food beyond measure, we willingly thin our wasted limbs, and, despising feasts, beseech you night and day, the lesser care of those who obey is always outdone, nor does it equal the Father’s gift; and too great a practice of labor breaks the frame of clay. Therefore, lest its loosened strength should desert the fragile mud, and watery humor rule in the white veins, enfeebling the sick body, a lax and free measure of abstinence is set for all; nor does stern terror drive us: his own power moves each to will. It is enough, whatever you do, to begin it after first invoking the assent of the Godhead, whether you put the table away or try to take food. God nods his favor and prospers it with kindly countenance; and so we trust that this will be wholesome for us, that we take the food we have dedicated. May it be good, I humbly pray, and bring healing to the limbs, and may the food, spread through the veins of the worshipers of Christ who pray, nourish the soul.

Give me the plectrum, boy, that I may sing to the faithful dances a sweet and tuneful song, the glorious deeds of Christ: him alone let my Muse celebrate, him let my lyre praise. It is Christ, whose coming the king and priest sang of long ago, wearing the fillet, with voice, string and drum, drinking in through his marrow the Spirit flowing from heaven. We sing of miracles done and already proved; the world is witness, nor does the earth itself deny what it saw, God revealed face to face to teach mortals. Begotten from the Father’s heart before the world began, [he is the source and end] of all things that are, that have been, and that shall be hereafter. He himself commanded, and they were created; he spoke, and they were made: earth, heaven, the deep of the sea, the threefold fabric of things, and all that thrives in them beneath the high orb of sun and moon. He put on the form of a perishable body, limbs liable to death, so that the race sprung from the first-formed man might not perish, which the law of guilt had plunged into deep Tartarus. O that blessed birth, when the Virgin in childbed, made fruitful by the Holy Spirit, brought forth our salvation, and the Child, Redeemer of the world, showed his sacred face! Let the height of heaven sing psalms, sing psalms, all you angels, let whatever power there is anywhere sing psalms in praise of God: let no tongue be silent, and let every voice sound together. See, he whom the prophets sang of in ancient ages, whom the faithful pages of the prophets had pledged, shines forth, promised long ago: let all things praise him together. Water poured into jars becomes noble Falernian; the servant announces that wine is drawn from the water-pot; the master of the feast himself is amazed at the tinctured cups. “Limbs ulcerous with disease, rotting flesh, I command to be washed clean,” he says; what he commanded is done:

the cleansing of the wounds clears the swollen skin. Eyes already buried in everlasting darkness you smear with healing clay and with the nectar of your sacred mouth; at once, by this cure, light is restored to the opened orbs. You rebuke the raging wind for turning up the sea from its lowest bed with grim storms and harrying the drifting boat: it obeys your commands, the wave is laid down gentle. A woman secretly touched the edge of the sacred garment: at once healing followed; pallor leaves her face, the stream that flowed with constant blood is stanched. He had seen a youth snatched away at the outset of sweet youth, whom his bereaved mother was burying with her last tears: “Arise,” he said; he arises and, standing, is restored to his mother. Lazarus, already four days without the sun, already hidden in the tomb, he bids live, his breath restored: the breath, brought back, enters the stinking innards again. He walks over the waters of the sea, treads the tops of the waves; the moving liquid of the deep offers a hanging road, nor does the wave give way when pressed beneath the holy footsteps. One used to gnash his teeth in chains in a tomb-cave, out of his mind, driven by savage frenzies, leaps forth and falls as a suppliant as soon as he sensed that Christ was present. [The spirit] seizes the filthy herd of swine and plunges itself into the black waters, like a frenzied flock. Five loaves and two fishes eaten, the thousands reclining are now abundantly refreshed, and twelve baskets carry the fragments of the meal. You are our food and our bread, you everlasting sweetness: he who takes your fare never knows hunger, nor does it fill the hollow of the belly, but nourishes the vital parts. The closed passage of the ears, unaware of sounds, at Christ’s command clears every thick obstacle, able to enjoy voices and open to whispers.

Every sickness yields, all weakness is driven out, the tongue speaks which long silence had bound, and the sick man, glad, carries his own bed through the city. Moreover, lest those below be without salvation, in his kindness he enters Tartarus itself: the broken door gives way, the hinge, unfastened, falls as the bolts are torn away. That gate, ready for those who rush in, tenacious toward those who return, its bar thrust outward, gives back the dead, its law reversed, and the black threshold lies open to be trodden again. But while God lights up the caves of death with golden light, while he presents bright day to the astonished darkness, the sad stars of the gloomy sky turned pale. The sun fled back and, soiled with mournful rust, left its fiery course and hid itself in grief: the world is said to have shuddered at the chaos of everlasting night. Release your sounding voice, my mind; release your nimble tongue; tell of the trophy of the passion, tell of the triumphant Cross; sing of the standard that shines on marked foreheads. O new thing, astonishing slaughter, miracle of a wound! From here flowed a stream of blood, from the other side water; the water gives the washing, and the crown comes from the blood. The serpent saw the sacrificial victim of the sacred body; it saw, and soon lost the venom of its burnt-up gall, wounded with great pain, its hissing neck broken. What did it profit you, profane serpent, to have struck the first-formed man with novelties by your crafty urging? The mortal form, once God was received into it, washes away the guilt. The leader of salvation gave himself up to a brief experience of death, so that the dead, long buried, might learn to return, the chains of their former sins dissolved. Then the fathers and many saints, following the Creator who went before and was now returning, on the third day at last take on the garments of flesh and come forth from their tombs. You might see limbs coming together from dry ashes, the cold dust growing warm as it took back its veins, bones, sinews and marrows covered with the glue of skin. Afterwards, when he had undone his setting and restored man to life, the victor ascended to the lofty judgment seat of the Father on high, bringing back to heaven the glorious renown of his passion. Hail, judge of the dead, hail, king of the living, renowned for your powers at the right hand in the Father’s citadel, from where you will come as the just avenger of all crimes. Let old men, let young men, let the choir of little ones, the throng of mothers and virgins, simple little girls, resound to you in harmony with chaste songs. Let the gliding of rivers and the waves, the edges of shores, rain, heat, snow, frost, forest and breeze, night and day, celebrate you through all ages of ages.

God, fiery fountain of souls, who, joining two elements, fashioned man, Father, at once living and mortal, both are yours, yours, ruler; the bond that joins them is joined for you: while, quickened, they cling together for you, both spirit and flesh serve you. But when these are torn apart, they release man and destroy him; the dry earth receives the body, the breeze snatches away the clear substance of the soul. For all created things must at last decay and grow old, things compacted must be separated, and dissimilar things woven together be unwoven. This death, best God, you, ready to abolish it for your servants, show an inviolable road by which the lost limbs may rise again; so that, while noble things are bound to perishable ones, as if shut in a prison, that more powerful part may stand out which drew its seed from heaven. If perhaps an earthly will savors of clay and seeks what is heavy, the soul too, overcome by the weight, follows its limbs downward. But if, mindful of its fiery race, it refuses sluggish contagions, it carries its guest, the flesh, with it and brings it back likewise to the stars.

For that we see the body at rest, empty, without the mind, means that a short space remains until it seeks again the company of the high sense. The ages will come soon, when the companion warmth revisits the bones, and, animated with living blood, carries its former dwelling. The sluggish corpses that long lay rotting in tombs will be snatched into the flying breezes, accompanying their former souls. Hence the greatest care is spent on tombs; hence the last honor receives the loosened limbs, and the procession of the funeral adorns them. It is the custom to spread out linen cloths gleaming with clear whiteness, and myrrh sprinkled on it preserves the body with Sabaean remedy. What do the hollowed rocks mean, what the beautiful monuments, except that the thing entrusted to them is not dead, but given to sleep? This the provident piety of Christ’s worshipers pursues, believing, as it does, that all things will soon be alive which cold sleep now oppresses. He who, pitying, covers with a mound of earth corpses thrown down here and there shows, in his piety, a kindly work to Christ almighty.

to groan under one and the same lot, and to grieve for funerals as our kin in the death of strangers. The father of holy Tobias, a sacred and venerable hero, when his meal was already duly prepared, put the duty of burial first. While the servants stood waiting, he left the cups and the dishes, and, girt with zeal for burying, gave the bones to a tomb with weeping. Soon rewards come from heaven, and a great price is paid back; for God clears his eyes, which knew not the sun, smeared with gall. He taught how biting and bitter a remedy is to those who lack reason, when the new light troubles the mind. He taught too that no one sees the heavenly kingdoms before he has endured the harsh things of the world in night and painful wound. Death itself is the more blessed for this, that through the tortures of dying the steep road is opened to the righteous, and one goes to the stars through pains. So bodies put to death return in better years; nor does the frame, growing warm again after death, know how to fall apart. These faces, which now, pale with corruption, a whitish color stains,

then blood, more charming than any flower, will tinge them with lovely skin. No old age thereafter will grudgingly pluck the beauty of the brow, nor will dry leanness thin the arms by eating away their sap. Disease too, the pestilent thing that now ravages the panting limbs, will then sweat out its own torments and pay for them amid a thousand chains. From the high air, far off, [the flesh] will see it groaning without end at the pains which it itself had caused. Why does the surviving crowd, wailing, mingle unseemly lamentations? Why does mad grief accuse such well-founded laws with mourning? Be still now, sad complaint; mothers, hold back your tears: let no one mourn for his dear ones; this death is the renewal of life. [So dry seeds grow green,] already dead and already buried, which, given back from the depth of the turf, are planning the ears of old. Now, earth, receive him to cherish; I entrust to you the limbs of a man, and I give you noble fragments. This was once the house of a soul created from the mouth of its Maker; in these limbs dwelt fervent wisdom, with Christ as its prince. Cover the body that is laid down:

Not unmindful, it will require the riddles of its own face. Only let the just times come, when God fulfils every hope: opened, you must give back such a form as I hand over to you. No, even if decaying age has dissolved the bones into ashes, and there is only a dry little cinder, the measure of the smallest handful; [nor if winds and breezes,] flying through the empty void, have carried off the sinews with the dust, will it be possible for the man to have perished. But while you recall and refashion, O God, the body that can be dissolved, in what region will you bid the pure soul to rest? Hidden in the bosom of the holy old man, it will recline, as does the soul of Lazarus, whom, hedged on every side with flowers, [the rich man, burning, sees from afar.] We follow your words, Redeemer, by which, triumphing over black death, you bid the thief, companion of your cross, to go in your footsteps. See, the bright road of the spacious paradise now lies open to the faithful; and they may enter that grove which the serpent had taken from man. There, I pray, best guide, command this soul, your servant, to be consecrated in its native seat, which it had left as an exile and wanderer. We shall cherish the covered bones with violets and many leaves; and the inscription and the cold stones we shall sprinkle with liquid perfume.

Why is it that the sun, already turning back, leaves its narrow circle? Is Christ being born on earth, who lengthens the path of light? Alas, how fleeting a favor the hurrying day was rolling along! How nearly, cut short little by little, it had put out its withdrawn torch! Let the sky shine more gladly, and let the earth rejoice and give thanks: step by step the radiance climbs once again its former lines. Come forth, sweet Child, whom a chaste mother brings forth, a parent and yet without a husband, Mediator, of twofold nature. Though you have come forth from the mouth of the Father and been brought forth by his word, yet in the Father’s heart you were Wisdom, wise before; which, ready at hand, founded heaven, heaven and day and all the rest: by the power of the Word all these were made; for the Word is God. But when the ages had been ordered and the state of things arranged, the founder and craftsman himself remained in the Father’s bosom, until the rolling thousands of years had been turned over, and he himself deigned to visit the world that had long been sinning.

For the blind force of mortals, worshiping empty trifles, believed bronze, or cold stones, or wood to be God. While they followed these, they had come under the power of the treacherous robber, and had plunged their enslaved life into the smoky abyss. But Christ did not let this slaughter of falling nations go unpunished; lest perhaps his Father’s handiwork should perish, he put on a mortal body, so that, raising the body, he might break the chain of death and carry man to the Father. This is that birthday on which the lofty Creator breathed you and put you into clay, gluing flesh together by his word. Do you feel, noble Virgin, through the pains of ripening, the untouched glory of your modesty grow with the honor of childbirth? [What joys] the chaste womb holds! from which a new age comes forth, and golden light. That wailing of the infant revealed the beginning of a world in spring; for then the world, reborn, drove off its filthy old age. I think that the earth scattered

all the countryside with thick flowers, and that the very sands of the deserts were fragrant with nard and nectar. All hard and barbarous things felt you being born, Child, and the rigidity of the rocks, conquered, covered the stones with grass. Now honey flows from the cliffs, now the oak, sweating balm, drips from its dry trunk; now tamarisks bear balsam. O holy cradle of your manger, eternal King, sacred to peoples through the ages and entrusted even to dumb beasts! The brute beast adores it, an untaught crowd, to be sure; a senseless race adores it, whose strength lies in grazing. But while, with faithful spirit, the pagan race runs together to the manger, and the four-footed beast too, and what was brute becomes wise, the line of the fathers denies him, hating God when he is present: you would think it was drunk with poisons or carried off, maddened by Furies. Why do you rush headlong through crime? Acknowledge, if anything of a sound mind remains in you, the leader of your own princes. Him, whom a hiding-place and a midwife,

and the fruitful Virgin and the cradle and feeble infancy gave as king to the nations, you, sinner, will behold on high amid flashing clouds, yourself cast down, and lamenting your guilt with useless tears, when the vast trumpet has sent its signal to the lands that are to be burned, and the riven sky has loosened the hinge of the collapsing world. He himself, glorious and preeminent, will repay what is fitting to merits: to these the enjoyment of everlasting light, to those Gehenna and Tartarus. Judea, then, having felt the thunderbolt of the Cross, you will perceive who he is whom, with you as leader of the fury, death swallowed and soon gave back.

Whoever you are who seek Christ, lift your eyes on high: there you may see the sign of everlasting glory. This star, which surpasses the wheel of the sun in beauty and in light, announces that God has come to earth with earthly flesh. It does not serve the nights, following the monthly moon, but, possessing the sky alone, it governs the course of the days. Although the northern stars, with motions turned back on themselves, are unwilling to set, yet they often lie hidden under clouds: this star remains forever, this star never sinks, nor, hidden by the meeting of a cloud, does it shade its covered torch. Let the grim comet perish, and if any star burns with the heat of Sirius, let it now fall, destroyed under the light of God. See, from the bosom of the Persian world, where the sun takes its door, the Magi, skilled interpreters, see the royal standard. As soon as it shone out, the other globes of the constellations gave way, nor did the beautiful Morning Star dare to compare its form.

“Who is this so great ruler,” they say, “commanding the stars, since the heavenly things tremble so, whom light and sky serve? We see something glorious that does not know how to suffer an end, sublime, lofty, endless, 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 equal to the stars his own offspring he long ago knew, the first father of believers, the sacrificer of his only son. Now the flower of David comes up, sprung from the root of Jesse, and, flourishing through the rod of the sceptre, occupies the summit of the world.” Thereupon they follow eagerly, their faces fixed on high, where the star had drawn its furrow and marked out a bright way. But above the Child’s head the sign hung, poised over him, and with lowered torch revealed the sacred head. When the Magi had seen it, they bring out eastern gifts, and, prostrate in worship, offer incense, myrrh and royal gold.

Recognize the clear tokens of your power and your kingdom, O Child, for whom the Father predestined a threefold nature. The treasure and the fragrant smell of Sabaean incense announce king and God, and the dust of myrrh foretells the tomb. This, this is the tomb in which God, while he allows his body to be put to death and raises it when buried, broke the prison of death. O Bethlehem, alone greater than great cities, to whom it fell to bring forth the leader of salvation embodied from heaven! With you as nurse the only heir is begotten for the highest Father, man from the Spirit of the Thunderer, and the same God under the limbs. Him, with the prophets as witnesses and the same men as signatories, the testator and father bids enter upon the kingdom and take possession: the kingdom that embraces all things, heavenly, marine and earthly, from the rising of the sun to its setting, the underworld, and the heaven above. The tyrant, anxious, hears that the prince of kings is present, who would rule the name of Israel and hold the palace of David.

Mad at the news, he cries out: “A successor threatens; we are being driven out! Guard, go, seize your sword, drench the cradles with blood. Let every male infant die; search the bosoms of the nurses, and among the mothers’ breasts let the little boy bloody the sword. I suspect throughout Bethlehem the deceit of all women in childbed, lest any should secretly withdraw a child of male sex.” So the executioner, raging, with drawn blade pierces through bodies lately born, and searches out new souls. The slayer scarcely finds room on the tiny limbs where the wound may go down gaping, and the dagger is larger than the throat. O barbarous spectacle! The neck, dashed against the rocks, scatters the milky brain and pours out the eyes through the wound; or the infant, still throbbing, is plunged into a deep whirlpool, and beneath, in its narrow throat, water and breath sob. Hail, flowers of the martyrs, whom on the very threshold of light the persecutor of Christ took away, as a whirlwind does budding roses!

You, Christ’s first victims, tender flock of the sacrificed, innocently, before the very altar, play with palm and crowns. What does such a crime achieve? What does his guilt profit Herod? Alone among so many deaths Christ is carried off unharmed. Among the streams of blood of those his own age, he alone untouched, the sword that bereaved young wives the Virgin’s offspring escaped. So the foolish edicts of wicked Pharaoh Moses had once escaped, bearing a figure of Christ, Moses, deliverer of his countrymen. There was a provision and statute of law by which mothers were not allowed, when they were delivered of the burden of the womb, to raise a male child. The mind of the careful midwife, dutifully defiant toward the tyrant, stole and saved the little one for the hope of mighty glory; whom soon the Founder of the world took to himself as priest, through whom he would hand down the Law inscribed on stone tablets. May we know Christ through the example of so great a man? That leader, having slain the Egyptian, released Israel from the yoke.

But us, long subdued under the heavy rule of error, our leader, wounding the enemy, frees from the darkness of death. He, having cleansed the people in the waves in their crossing of the sea, purifies them again with sweet waters, carrying before them the pillar of light. He, while his army fights, his arms spread out on high, from above overwhelms Amalek, which was then a likeness of the Cross. He indeed is the truer Jesus, who, after long journeys, as victor paid his fellow tribesmen the promised acres; who, finally, twelve stones in the bed of the river flowing back founded and fixed, the lineage of the apostles. Rightly, then, the Magi testify that they have seen the leader of Judah, since the deeds of the ancient leaders shaped a figure of Christ. He is king of the former judges who ruled the race of Jacob, and king of the Church, our mistress, of the new temple and the 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.

Moreover the degenerate offspring, which had followed a crude rite, whatever dread Baal had baked in his glowing furnaces, the smoky gods of their ancestors, stone, metal, wood, scraped, hewn, cut, abandons in honor of Christ. Rejoice, whatever nations there are, Judea, Rome and Greece, Egypt, Thracian, Persian, Scythian: one king possesses all. Praise your Prince, all you blessed and lost, living, weak and dead: from now on no one is dead.