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Hymns of the Eastern Church
tr. Neale, 1862
4. S. Cosmas
Canon for Christmas Day · Ode I
Χριστὸς γεννᾶται δοξάσατε.
Christ is born! Tell forth His fame!
Christ from Heaven! His love proclaim!
Christ on earth! Exalt His Name!
Sing to the Lord, O world, with exultation!
Break forth in glad thanksgiving, every nation!
For He hath triumphed gloriously!
Man, in God’s own Image made,
Man, by Satan’s wiles betrayed,
Man, on whom corruption preyed,
Shut out from hope of life and of salvation,
To-day Christ maketh him a new creation,
For He hath triumphed gloriously!
For the Maker, when His foe
Wrought the creature death and woe,
Bowed the Heav’ns, and came below,1
And, in the Virgin’s womb His dwelling making,
Became True Man, man’s very nature taking;
For He hath triumphed gloriously!
He, the Wisdom, Word, and Might,
God, and Son, and Light of light,
Undiscovered by the sight
Of earthly monarch, or infernal spirit,
Incarnate was, that we might Heav’n inherit:
For He hath triumphed gloriously!
Ode III
τῷ πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων.
Him, of the Father’s very Essence,
Begotten, ere the world began,
And, in the latter time, of Mary,
Without a human sire, made Man:
Unto Him, this glorious morn,
Be the strain outpoured;
Thou That liftest up our horn,
Holy art Thou, Lord!
The earthly Adam, erewhile quicken’d
By the blest breath of God on high,
Now made the victim of corruption,
By woman’s guile betray’d to die,
He, deceiv’d by woman’s part;
Supplication pour’d,
Thou Who in my nature art,
Holy art Thou, Lord!
Thou, Jesus Christ, wast consubstantial
With this our perishable clay,
And, by assuming earthly nature,
Exalted’st it to heavenly day.
Thou, That wast as mortal born,
Being God ador’d,
Thou That liftest up our horn,
Holy art Thou, Lord!
Rejoice, O Bethlehem, the city
Whence Judah’s monarchs had their birth;
Where He that sitteth on the Cherubs,
The King of Israel, came on earth:
Manifested this blest morn,
As of old time never,
He hath lifted up our horn,
He shall reign for ever!
Ode IV
Ῥάβδος ἐκ τῆς ρίζης.
Rod of the Root of Jesse,
Thou, Flower of Mary born,
From that thick shady mountain2
Cam’st glorious forth this morn:
Of her, the Ever Virgin,
Incarnate wast Thou made,
The immaterial Essence,
The God by all obeyed!
Glory, Lord, Thy servants pay
To Thy wondrous might to-day!
The Gentiles’ expectation,
Whom Jacob’s words foretell,
Who Syria’s pride shall vanquish,
Samaria’s power shalt quell;
Thou from the Root of Judah
Like some fair plant dost spring,
To turn old Gentile error
To Thee, its God and King!
Glory, Lord, Thy servants pay
To Thy wondrous might to-day!
In Balaam’s ancient vision
The Eastern seers were skilled;
They marked the constellations,
And joy their spirits filled:
For Thou, bright Star of Jacob,
Arising in Thy might,
Didst call these Gentile first-fruits
To worship in Thy light.
They, in holy reverence bent,
Gifts acceptable present.
As on a fleece descending
The gentle dews distil,
As drops the earth that water,
The Virgin didst Thou fill.
Tarshish and Ethiopia,
The Isles and Araby,
And Media, leagued with Sheba,
Fall down and worship Thee.
Glory, Lord, Thy servants pay
To Thy wondrous might to-day!
Ode V
Θεὸς ὢν εἰρήνης.
Father of Peace, and God of Consolation!
The Angel of the Counsel dost Thou send
To herald peace, to manifest Salvation,
Thy Light to pour, Thy knowledge to extend;
Whence, with the morning’s earliest rays,
Lover of men! Thy Name we praise.
Midst Cæsar’s subjects Thou, at his decreeing,
Obey’d’st and wast enroll’d: our mortal race,
To sin and Satan slave, from bondage freeing,
Our poverty in all points didst embrace:
And by that Union didst combine
The earthly with the All-Divine.
Behold! The Virgin, prophecy sustaining,
Incarnate Deity conceived and bore:
Virgin in birth, and Virgin still remaining:
And man to God is reconciled once more:
Wherefore in faith her name we bless,
And Mother of our God confess.
Ode VI
σπλάγχνων Ἰωνᾶν.
As Jonah, issuing from his three days’ tomb,
At length was cast, uninjured, on the earth;
So, from the Virgin’s unpolluted womb
The Incarnate Word, That dwelt there, had His Birth:
For He, Who knew no taint of mortal stain,
Willed that His Mother spotless should remain.
Christ comes, Incarnate God, amongst us now,
Begotten of the Father ere the day:
And He, to Whom the sinless legions bow,
Lies cradled, midst unconscious beasts, on hay:
And, by His homely swaddling-bands girt in,
Looses the many fetters of our sin.
Now the New Child of Adam’s race draws nigh,
To us, the faithful, given: This, this is He
That shall the Father of Eternity,
The Angel of the Mighty Counsel, be:
This the eternal God, by Whose strong hands
The fabric of the world supported stands.
Ode VII
οἱ παῖδες εὐσεβέιᾳ.
The Holy Children boldly stand
Against the tyrant’s dread command:
The kindled furnace they defy,—
No doom can shake their constancy:
They in the midmost flame confess’d,
“God of our Fathers! Thou art bless’d!”
The Shepherds keep their flocks by night;
The Heav’n glows out with wond’rous light;
The glory of the Lord is there,
The Angel-bands their King declare:
The watchers of the night confess’d,
“God of our Fathers! Thou art bless’d!”
The Angel ceas’d; and suddenly
Seraphic legions fill’d the sky:
Glory to God, they cry again:
Peace upon earth, good will to men:
Christ comes!—And they that heard confess’d,
“God of our Fathers! Thou art bless’d!”
What said the Shepherds?—Let us turn
This new-born miracle to learn.
To Bethlehem’s gate their footsteps drew:
The Mother with the Child they view:
They knelt, and worshipp’d, and confess’d,
“God of our Fathers! Thou art bless’d!”
Ode VIII
θαύματος ὑπερφυοῦς ἡ δροσοβόλος.
The dewy freshness that the furnace flings
Works out a wond’rous type of future things:
Nor did the flame the Holy Three consume,
Nor did the Godhead’s fire thy frame entomb,
Thou, on Whose bosom hung the Word:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the Lord,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
Babel’s proud daughter once led David’s race
From Sion, to their exile’s woeful place:
She bids her wise men now, with gifts in hand,
Before King David’s Royal Daughter stand,
The Mother of the Incarnate Word:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the Lord,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
From music grief held back the exiles’ hand:
“How sing the Lord’s song in an alien land?”
But Babel’s exile here is done away,
And Bethlehem’s harmony this glorious day
By Thee, Incarnate God, restored:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the Lord,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
Of old victorious Babel bore away
The spoils of Royal Sion and her prey:
But Babel’s treasure now, and Babel’s kings,
Christ, by the guiding star, to Sion brings.
There have they knelt, and there ador’d:
Wherefore we cry with heart’s endeavour,
“Let all Creation bless the Lord,
And magnify His Name for ever!”
Ode IX
μυστήριον ξένον.
O wond’rous mystery, full of passing grace!
The grot becometh Heav’n: the Virgin’s breast
The bright Cherubic Throne: the stall that place,
Where He, Who fills all space, vouchsafes to rest:
Christ our God, to Whom we raise
Hymns of thankfulness and praise!
The course propitious of the unknown Star
The Magi follow’d on its heav’nly way,—
Until it led them, beckoning from afar,
To where the Christ, the King of all things, lay:
Him in Bethlehem they find,
Born the Saviour of mankind.
“Where is the Child,” they ask, “the newborn King,
Whose herald-light is glittering in the sky,—
To Whom our offerings and our praise we bring?”
And Herod’s heart is troubled utterly.
Armed for war with God, in vain
Would he see that Infant slain.
Transfiguration
χορὸς Ἰσραήλ.
The choirs of ransomed Israel,
The Red Sea’s passage o’er,
Uprais’d the hymn of triumph
Upon the further shore:
And shouted, as the foeman
Was whelm’d beneath the sea,—
‘Sing we to Judah’s Saviour,
For glorified is He!’
Amongst His Twelve Apostles
Christ spake the Words of Life,
And shew’d a realm of beauty
Beyond a world of strife:
‘When all My Father’s glory
Shall shine express’d in Me,
Then praise Him, then exalt Him,
For magnified is He!’
Upon the Mount of Tabor
The promise was made good;
When, baring all the Godhead,
In light itself He stood:
And they, in awe beholding,
The Apostolic Three,
Sang out to God their Saviour,
For magnified was He!
In days of old, on Sinai,
The Lord Jehovah came,
In majesty of terror,
In thunder-cloud and flame:
On Tabor, with the glory
Of sunniest light for vest,
The excellence of beauty
In Jesus was express’d.
All hours and days inclin’d there,
And did Thee worship meet;
The sun himself adored Thee,
And bow’d him at Thy feet:
While Moses and Elias
Upon the Holy Mount,
The co-eternal glory
Of Christ our God recount.
O holy, wond’rous Vision!
But what, when this life past,
The beauty of Mount Tabor
Shall end in Heav’n at last?
But what, when all the glory
Of uncreated light
Shall be the promis’d guerdon
Of them that win the fight?
Notes
- The reference is, of course, to Psalm xviii., 9: —“He bowed the Heavens also, and came down.”
- The reference is to the Song of Habakkuk: (iii. 1), where the lxx. give—“God shall come from Teman, and The Holy from the thick and shady mountain of Paran.”