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

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SERMONS. 133
the kind of handling which the subject receives. It
is not easy, nor perhaps desirable, to reproduce much
from them in an English dress. The subject, to a
member of the Church of England, is a painful one.
The style, to an English mind, is oppressively forced
and exaggerated. Joachim and Anna, the traditional
parents of the Virgin Mary, are addressed under
every conceivable figure. Rational pair of turtle
doves is the most frequently recurring. The birth
of their child is the bringing forth of a conch-shell,
hereafter to contain the most precious of pearls.
They are the planters of a vine destined to bear the
fairest fruit. They are the rearers of a ladder that is
to connect earth with heaven. If such are the terms
applied to them, the language in which the Virgin
herself is
apostrophised may perhaps be imagined.
There is
hardly a metaphor in the Song of Solomon
which is not pressed into the service. No doubt there
are some good qualities brought into play by such a
method. While modern commentators, especially of
one particular school, are fond of reiterating a few
texts, or, at any rate, resorting to a few portions of
Holy Writ for their authorities, the older ones show
No book, either of
a command of a far wider field.
the Old Testament or the New, is neglected by them.
The correctness or propriety of their references may
often be a matter of dispute ;
but the fact remains,
that the minds of men like John of Damascus must
have been saturated with the language of the Bible
to a degree we can hardly realise. Dr. Neale l has
1
"Mediaeval Preachers," 1856, Introd. pp. xxv.-xxxi.