st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

SERMONS.
IO5
us hold high festival this day. Come, and let us keep
the feast this day along with the festal Powers above.
For they are come hither to join in the festival with
us. Come, let us raise the shout of joy with our lips,
as with well-tuned cymbals. Come, let us exult in
spirit. For to whom belong feast and solemnity?
To whom belong joy and gladness, if not to them
that fear the Lord, that worship the Trinity, that
revere the Son and Holy Spirit with the Father
co-eternal, that with heart and mind and mouth
confess the Godhead revealed to us indivisibly in three
Persons, that both know and affirm that Christ is the
Son of God, and very God, revealed to us in two
and without confusion, and
natures, without division
with their natural properties? For us is
gladness
and every festal joy. It is for us that Christ has
ordained the festivals ;
for there is no joy to the wicked.
Let us lay aside the cloud of every grief that darkens
our mind, and suffers it not to be raised on high.
Let us make light of all earthly things, for our
citizenship
thoughts to
is not on the earth. Let us direct our
heaven, from whence also we look for the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."
The reader will not fail to be struck with the way
in which the preacher brings the controverted topic
of Christ s twofold nature even into this exordium.
After enlarging on the same subject (c. ii.),
he quotes
the words of the Psalmist, Tabor and Hermon shall
rejoice in thy name ; and applies them in the usual
manner. Hermon had its
day of rejoicing when
Christ was baptized in the neighbouring Jordan.
Now Tabor has its
day of "
honour, that divine and