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Proemium 2

  1. The allusion is to the scene in the garden of Gethsemane, where the Jews come with ‘staves’ [Matt. 26:47], the same word as here. The English translation of the Lenten Triodion has missed this reference.
  2. The text of the Triodion adds ‘at every moment‘.

Stanza 1

  1. The allusion is to the raising of Lazarus in particular.
  2. Matt. 2,16-18.
  3. There could also be a secondary allusion to the flaming sword in Genesis 3. The link between this and the ‘lance‘ which pierced Christ’s side is characteristically Syrian, and has been discussed at length by Fr Robert Murray in a number of articles.
  4. John 19,34.

Stanza 2

  1. Zach. 9,9.
  2. It is impossible in English to keep the play on logos, ‘Word‘, or more correctly ‘Reason‘,and alogos, ‘animal‘, that is without the power of reason, and logikos, ‘humans‘, that is rational beings.
  3. Pss. 17,11; 79,2; Isa. 37,16. There is also an allusion to the divine Chariot of Ezekiel 1.
  4. 4 Kingd. 2,11; Sir. 48,9.

Stanza 3

  1. This is a reference to the tradition that when the infant Jesus reached Egypt, when the holy family fled from Bethlehem [Matt. 2,13-15], all the Egyptian idols fell down. The starting point is Isa. 19,1, from which the story was built up in many of the apocryphal infancy gospels, for example the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 22-24. The same story is mentioned in the Akathist L:
    Making the light of truth
    Shine out in Egypt,
    You dispelled the darkness of falsehood.
    For its idols, O Saviour,
    Unable to endure your strength, fell down.
    While those who had been delivered from them
    Cried out the Mother of God,
    Hail, Bride without bridegroom!

Stanza 4

  1. Matt. 21:10.
  2. This must refer to the question about Psalm 109, described in Matt. 21:41-46. But there is also an echo of Acts 2:22-36, where St Peter links Psalm 109 with Psalm 15.
  3. John 11,44.
  4. Luke 7,14.
  5. Matt. 9,23-25.

Stanza 5

  1. Exod. 32,1-6.
  2. Exod. 32,1
  3. The French editor makes a very good case for seeing in the reading of the western MSS the original text. If he is correct, then the refrain in every stanza should be ‘Who come to call back Adam’, which is usually, but not always introduced by ‘Blessed are you’. I have followed the western MSS, whose text is far better than the rather flat line in the majority of MSS: ‘They did not wish to cry, Blessed are you who come to call back Adam,’ with its virtual repetition of the corresponding line in the previous stanza. The Oxford apparatus here is more than usually inadequate.

Stanza 6

  1. This is not given as an epithet of the devil in Lampe. The word does not occur in the Bible. The idea comes from I Kingd. 17, where Goliath, using the verb, boasts that he has ‘mocked’, ‘reproached’ the Israelite army [17:10]. It is this which provokes David to offer his challenge. Cf. 17: 36.45.
  2. 1 Kingd. 18,6-7.
  3. Cf. John 1,17; Rom. 6,14.
  4. Sir. 24,17. Cf. Isa. 11,1.
  5. See the note on Stanza 5. Unfortunately text of the manuscripts C and V, which from the point of view of the sense is much better, since it points up the reference to the Gospel already alluded to in 4, is unmetrical and the French editor retains the majority reading in his text. The majority text has, ‘For you are David’s Lord. Blessed are you etc.’ With this text the refrain is simply tacked on to the end of the stanza with no evident connection to what precedes.

Stanza 7

  1. The text here is probably corrupt. The Oxford editors obelise the whole phrase. If we are to retain the text it might just be possible to take eis as meaning something like ‘for the purpose of‘. The only near biblical allusion could be to Psalm 18,5-7.
  2. Luke 2,7.
  3. Luke 2,14.

Stanza 8

  1. The French editor’s note here is unfair to Romanos. What he has not realised is that Romanos is deliberately linking the ‘Hosanna’ to its source in Psalm 117:25, where the LXX translates the Hebrew by ‘Save now’, and does not simply transliterate the word, as the Evangelists do.
  2. See again the note on Stanza 5. Here the majority reading is superior to that of C and V, ‘Look upon those who cry to you: Blessed etc.’ The Oxford editors print the reading of C and V, which it notes with ‘(sic)’ in the apparatus. Since their principle is to follow the majority reading ceteris paribus, one can only assume that the ‘inequality’ is the fact that they consider the refrain to be ‘Blessed are you etc.’

Stanza 9

  1. These lines recall the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, Matt. 18,25.
  2. This phrase, ‘as you are rich’, is the reading of the majority of MSS, but adopting it entails omitting ‘Blessed are you’. For reasons given above, this seems the best solution. The Oxford editors follow C and V, but are obliged to obelise ‘what we owe’, which in these MSS is unmetrical. The majority reading is preferable, since it makes a double contrast: we take refuge with the powerful and the rich one will pay the debt of the poor.
  3. Zach. 9,9.
  4. For the general problem of this line, see the previous notes. The MSS evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of this text, but all MSS also add ‘Blessed are you’, which is metrically impossible. As a result the Oxford editors obelise the whole line. The reference is of course to Col. 2:14. The origin of this metaphor, which is very frequent in the liturgical texts, is Colossians 2,14, where St Paul speaks of Christ ‘wiping out the record against us,…nailing it to the Cross’. The word cheirographon is a technical term from accountancy and means ‘a certificate of debt’, a ‘bond’, such as Shylock obtains in The Merchant of Venice. Such documents could be rubbed out and the materiel used again. This is the image St Paul uses, but it is more common in the liturgical texts to speak of Christ ‘tearing up the bond’, as here and in the Akathist, X:
    Wishing to give discharge
    From ancient debts
    The one who releases all mankind from their debts
    Made his home of his own will
    With those who had left the home of his grace,
    And having torn up the record,
    He hears from all,
    Alleluia!
    In this connection it is worth remarking that translations like ‘who tore up the handwriting of our sins‘ in some of the liturgic    al texts are simply pious waffle. The image is highly concrete and secular. We humans are bad debtors, who cannot honour their obligations. As in the parable of the two debtors, Christ, by his death, simply tears up the invoice. Moreover, it is wholly regrettable that modern versions of the Lord‘s Prayer, including the ‘ecumenical‘ one produced by ELLC, also remove the metaphor. One may hope the Orthodox will insist on the retention of the Lord‘s own metaphor.

Stanza 11

  1. Rom. 3,20.

Stanza 12

  1. Matt. 18,12.
  2. John 1,29.36.
  3. John 10,11.12. In the sermon of the Pseudo-Chrysostom the Good Shepherd offers himself as a bait to catch the wolf [PG 59,707].

Stanza 13

  1. I follow the reading of A and P, though both the Oxford and the French editors prefer that of C and V, ‘You have found children, your sons <to be> teachers of <their> fathers. The apposition, especially with the order of words in Greek, is less neat than the chiastic contrast.

Stanza 14

  1. These lines are echoed in a number of the texts for Good Friday in the Byzantine rite. They also recall the Reproaches of the Latin Good Friday ceremony of the Veneration of the Cross, themselves probably of Syrian origin. Cf. Exod. 14,16; Ps. 104,39.

Stanza 15

  1. Cf. John 14,23.

Stanza 16

  1. This most uncommon word kalliergos seems to be connected with farming or cultivation, as the related verb still is in Modern Greek. However the feminine noun kalliergia means ‘a work of beauty’, ‘embellishment’ and also ‘almsgiving’. It occurs again in Kontakion 31,3, where the Apostles are described as the shoots of [Christ] the Vine, the tilled land of the skilled cultivator on high’.
 

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This page was last updated on 10 February 2001