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

146 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
When the Lord shall build up Sion :
and when His glory shall appear."
(cii. 1 6.)
Such a series
of troparia as the above, not limited
to three, but not as a rule exceeding five, would con
stitute an ode. The last troparion in each ode
being to the praise of the Holy Virgin, as the
Theotokos, or Mother of God, is entitled Theotokion.
Nine such odes make a canon ;
the number nine
being interpreted as a three-fold repetition of the
number of Persons in the Blessed Trinity. More
over, as an assistance to the memory, these canons
are often acrostichal. That is, each troparion begins
with one of the letters, taken in order, of a line or
lines (usually iambic), prefixed to the canon, and
having reference to its subject. The alphabetic
arrangement of the cxixth Psalm will make this more
intelligible to the reader. If, for example (to take
the illustration provided by Dr. Neale), the acrostich
were :
"To
rev rend athletes pour a rev rend song,"
(that being a literal rendering of one of the headings
in the service-book, and coinciding in the number
of letters), then the troparia of the odes in succes
sion would begin with the letters T., O., R., and so
on to the end.
Some little notion may be thus formed of the
nature of Greek hymnody in this particular depart
ment. It will be seen how widely
it differs from the
system on which the great hymns of the Latin
Church, whether rhyming or not, are composed ;