st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul
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132 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.<br />
carried with angelic and apo<strong>st</strong>olic psalmody, with<br />
funeral rites, was deposited in a c<strong>of</strong>fin at Gethsemane.<br />
In this place the chorus and singing <strong>of</strong> the angels<br />
continued three whole days. But after three days,<br />
on the angelic music ceasing, those <strong>of</strong> the apo<strong>st</strong>les<br />
who were present opened the tomb ;<br />
as one <strong>of</strong> them,<br />
Thomas, had been absent, and on his arrival wished<br />
to adore the body which had borne God. But her<br />
all-glorious body they could not find but<br />
; they found<br />
the linen clothes lying, and they were filled with an<br />
ineffable<br />
odour <strong>of</strong> sweetness which proceeded from<br />
them. Then they closed the c<strong>of</strong>fin. And they were<br />
a<strong>st</strong>onished at the my<strong>st</strong>erious wonder ;<br />
and they came<br />
to no other conclusion than that He who had chosen<br />
to take flesh <strong>of</strong> the Virgin Mary, and to become a<br />
man, and be born <strong>of</strong> her God the Word, the Lord<br />
<strong>of</strong> Glory and had preserved her virginity after birth,<br />
was also pleased, after her departure, to honour her<br />
immaculate and unpolluted body with incorruption,<br />
and to translate her before the common resurrection<br />
<strong>of</strong> all men." 1 The special day (Aug. i5th) to be<br />
kept in memory <strong>of</strong> this passing <strong>of</strong> the Mother <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Lord, is said to have been fixed by the Emperor<br />
Maurice (A.D. 582-602).<br />
The reader will now be in a position to under<strong>st</strong>and<br />
the general drift <strong>of</strong> these homilies, and to<br />
anticipate<br />
1<br />
The passage is at p. 748 <strong>of</strong> vol. iii. <strong>of</strong> Migne<br />
s ed. It<br />
"<br />
should be added that in the De Divinis Nominibus" <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Pseudo-Areopagita, cap. iii., mention is made <strong>of</strong> some <strong>of</strong> the<br />
apo<strong>st</strong>les being assembled to witness the Virgin s decease, and<br />
that Hierotheus, the teacher <strong>of</strong> Dionysius, surpassed all the<br />
others in the divine hymns to which he then gave utterance.