Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/101

89 "So the strong Lion of Judah, shattering the gates of dreadful death, rises the third day; at His Father's roaring voice, He carries aloft His spoils to the bosom of the supernal mother.

"After three days the whale gives back from his belly's narrow house Jonas the fugitive, type of the true Jonas. The grape of Cyprus blooms again, opens and grows apace. The synagogue's flower withers, while flourishes the Church.

"Death and life fought together: truly Christ arose, and with Him many witnesses of glory. A new morn, a glad morn shall wipe away the tears of evening: life overcame destruction; it is a time of joy.

"Jesu victor, Jesu life, Jesu life's beaten way, thou whose death quelled death, bid us to the paschal board in trust. O Bread of life, O living Wave, O true and fruitful Vine, do thou feed us, do thou cleanse us, that thy grace may save us from the second death. Amen."

From the time of that old third-century hymn ascribed to Clement of Alexandria, hymns to Christ had been filled with symbolism, the symbolism of loving personification of His attributes, as well as with the more formal symbolism of His Old Testament prefigurements. Adam's symbolism is of both kinds. It has feeling even when dogmatic, and throbs with devotion as its theme approaches the Gospel Christ. Prevailing modes of thought and feeling may prescribe topics for verse which a succeeding age will find curiously unpoetic. Yet if the later time have a sympathetic understanding for the past, it will recognize how fervid and how songful was that bygone verse—the verse of Adam's hymns, for instance. In one for Christmas Day, beginning: Potestate, non natura, Fit Creator creatura,"