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

"
O
136 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
be led into regions of obscurity in
the search for far
fetched and recondite allusions. But whether it be
from a certain oppressive consciousness of the fame
of his subject as a sacred orator, or from an effort
to write on this occasion with more classic symmetry
of form, the Greek is
undoubtedly stiffer and more
laboured than is usual with Damascene.
After praising the excellent nature that was in
Chrysostom, his unwearied zeal, his orthodoxy (under
which head he is praised for upholding what John of
Damascus is never weary of adverting to the twofold
nature and double will of Christ), he continues :
that I had given me a tongue worthy of thy
!
panegyric O that I were brought back to that day
of old time, when there beamed forth the divine fire
under the likeness of tongues, and rested in one form
and in many measures on each of the apostles, that
there might be preached in diverse tongues the one
unbroken doctrine of the faith ! That doctrine
brought together into one what had been separated,
by doing away with the manifold error which they
that built the tower in ancient days conspired to
bring in, when they received the reward of their im
piety in the confusion of tongues, and, through that,
in divided counsels. O that I had a share of that
tongue of the Spirit, so as to rehearse the more than
human excellences of this man who was filled with
the Spirit. I would bid an ocean of words then be
ready at my call, and a profoundest depth of thoughts.
But the grace of the Spirit yields not to words. For
he who, without the Spirit, would declare the things
-of the Spirit, is as a man who chooses to see without