SOME HYMNS OF GREAT WITNESSES.
JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
Ἔρχεσθε, ὦ πιστοί,
Ἀναστάσεως Ἡμέρα.
John of Damascus, called also St. John of Jerusalem, a theologian and poet, was the last but one of the Christian Fathers of the Greek Church. This eminent man was named by the Arabs “Ibn Mansur,” Son (Servant?) of a Conqueror, either in honor of his father Sergius or because it was a Semitic translation of his family title. He was born in Damascus early in the 8th century, and seems to have been in favor with the Caliph, and served under him many years in some important civil capacity, until, retiring to Palestine, he entered the monastic order, and late in life was ordained a priest of the Jerusalem Church. He died in the Convent of St. Sabas near that city about A.D. 780.
His lifetime appears to have been passed in 80 / 54 comparative peace. Mohammed having died before completing the conquest of Syria, the Moslem rule before whose advance Oriental Christianity was to lose its first field of triumph had not yet asserted its persecuting power in the north. This devout monk, in his meditations at St. Sabas, dwelt much upon the birth and the resurrection of Christ, and made hymns to celebrate them. It was probably four hundred years before Bonaventura (?) wrote the Christmas “Adeste Fideles” of the Latin West that John of Damascus composed his Greek “Adeste Fideles” for a Resurrection song in Jerusalem.
Come ye faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness.
* * * * * *
'Tis the spring of souls today
Christ hath burst His prison;
From the frost and gloom of death
Light and life have risen.
The nobler of the two hymns preserved to us, (or six stanzas of it) through eleven centuries is entitled “The Day of Resurrection.”
The day of resurrection,
Earth, tell its joys abroad:
The Passover of gladness,
The Passover of God.
From death to life eternal,
From earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over,
With hymns of victory.
Our hearts be pure from evil,
That we may see aright
The Lord in rays eternal
Of resurrection light;
And, listening to His accents,
May hear, so calm and plain,
His own, “All hail!” and hearing,
May raise the victor-strain.
Now let the heavens be joyful,
Let earth her song begin,
Let all the world keep triumph,
All that dwell therein.
In grateful exultation,
Their notes let all things blend,
For Christ the Lord is risen,
O joy that hath no end!
Both these hymns of John of Damascus were translated by John Mason Neale.