Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/73

Rh Who makes all visible creatures to subsist, Who tries and judges them. Before the Union these offices belonged to the Person of the Divinity; afterwards it was given to the Person of the Humanity. And since all these things are fulfilled in this Begotten One, He is therefore Man and most truly, certainly, and beyond all doubt. Let our abject race, therefore, rejoice, exult, and leap for joy, since the King of the highest and of the deep came down in order to raise it from its fall, and through Him the pure in heart see God. Let not heretics, with perverse minds, dispute this truth; but henceforward let angels and men rejoice together, because they shall abide one Church for ever.…

(n) "By His birth He has opened the gates of the highest which were shut, and by His nativity He found again the lost sheep of the, as was figured in the shepherds who crowded round the manger, praising Him Who is the Good Shepherd. These did not indeed comprehend the meaning of the occurrence; but nevertheless they took up and repeated the song of the angels. For in those days men were like beasts in every thing, living like brutes in sensual lusts, and they stumbled in their goings over the stumbling-block of sin through the obliquity of their souls: they were, moreover, vain-glorious, and walked after the law of their nature without any discernment. And whilst in this condition, led about forcibly by this law of their nature, they took medicine for their souls from the manger of His Body, and thus prefigured to us the mystery of His sacraments, their actions loudly proclaiming and foreshadowing His Body as our meat, and His Blood as our drink, which fulfil in us the mystery of life. Whilst these were thus engaged round about the manger, the angels in heaven were singing praises unto Him; and let us, in the renewal of that life which was decayed, join in their exultations.

(o) "The Invisible Will came down, took a parsopa, and appeared openly, and thereby renew-ed that which was broken up. And the rain of the wicked one descended furiously upon Him, because without water He made the rod of the wonderful Virgin Child to bud, and without germinating heat He made it to blossom anew, and thereby consummated all by restoring our nature.