Complete Works of Lactantius Vol. II

ANONYMOUS POEM ON THE PRAISES OF THE LORD

...of a certain man, who might raise up their common tomb.
The wife sensed the prophetic vows of her husband,
And bestowed great miracles upon those chaste times.
For when arms are joined to departed limbs,
And the repeated hand tightens the bonds to the trunk,
Lest to those for whom the duties of human life are fulfilled,
An ugly floating apart of the dissociated should happen.
It is immense to relate at what time life was completed,
The husband, to be joined to his partner, was seen in the seat.
After the gate of death was unlocked by the husband's demise,
And the ungrateful light now revealed the horrific hearth:
The woman was discovered extending her left palm,
Inviting her companion with the gesture of living love.
Who gave affection to the tomb? Who loosened the bonds?
From where does she who is buried see the shadow of her future spouse?
You do these things, You, Christ God, Your signs are moved,
And gradually You teach sleeping limbs to rise again:
You whom the holy prophets sang would come,
The incorrupt offspring of God, and ruler of the one who rules,
Without whom the great Father deliberates nothing great.
By whose command the sea stood still at fixed shores,
Nor is it permitted to the immense deep to run over the lands,
And flat shores enclose the mountainous waves:
You who endowed the stable earth with varied gifts
For our uses, generous with paternal piety.
At Your command, mortals entrust seeds to the furrows,
And a new birth proceeds from the parched sod.
You command vines to flow with favorable nectar:
You [command] juices for the feasts of men and healers of health
[To flow] from trees; You produce sweet honey.
You command every kind of living creature to serve man,
And moreover, that groves should bend with heavy fruits,
And that new returns should grow from no seed.
You [command] various rivers to profit our labor,
And to renew the age blessed by sacred fountains.
With You as guide, the seas were opened to sail-winged prows,
And the sailor traversed ports divided by straits.
You, after the elements were fashioned with certain forms,
Lest the heavenly machine should begin to grow dull
In its raw appearance, You marked the world with varied gifts:
And whatever shines in the sky, Your right hand fashioned.
It pleased [the Father] to weave the hall of the Lord with these signs.
Now, lest the seas should be acted upon as inhospitable to any lands,
And the eager sailor should count his constant port:
A frequent island is fixed in the swollen deep;
Nor does it fear, surrounded by the insane wave,
And it resists, leaning on the small circle in the straits,
Trusting in You as guide; whose venerable covenant,
Bound by equal law, levels both the highest and the lowest,
And does not permit those placed [there] to transcend the limits.
And lest the earth should lie too flat or naked,
You ordered hills to rise, suitable for vines
With great [trees], and to weave wide groves as shades.
Then, lest the vast horror should act in the sluggish woods,
You add countless offspring to the tall thickets:
Lest a dweller be lacking to the grove, or prey to the seeker.
Then many birds, then a thousand swarms of voices
Resonate with mortal harmony in the song-filled light:
Thus it pleased [You] to weave the year with varied forms,

A And to add fruit to mortals in pleasant turn:
Lest the long day should burn the globe too much,
Or the short one should snatch the hated fire from those being born.
And lest labor should shake all things with perpetual effort,
Dewy night gives rest to the weary cares of men:
And that human health might lead a secure age,
You, medicinal herbs, rise of your own accord from the sod.
The Father himself sows these with a nod, rich not by the plow.
If I were covered in viscera by an iron wall,
And had a thousand iron voices and tongues to sing,
I could not cover all the gifts of Your piety.
But that Father of Yours, placed in a secret seat,
Easy to look upon for no one, and fearful to all,
Sent You as Lord to the lands and as Teacher of life.
And whoever honors the Son with just honor,
B Let him say his vows and eternal life to both.
You, tenacious of the chaste and the right, and easy to bend the laws
After the crime, if rash folly has driven anyone
Away from the prescribed limit of life by You.
The Father clothed You in human face and perishable limbs,
So that our mouths might suffer to behold You.
For who would attempt to lift up fragile sights,
If He had willed to station such a one on the trembling lands,
As You are, when You twist thunderbolts with Your mighty right hand,
And command one to fear the present punishment directly:
Or when, appeased, You divide rains to the thirsty fields,
And bring forth wavering ears of corn in the furrows?
Lest, however, no thing should show an eminent birth,
You are conceived by a Virgin: it does not suffice to be chaste,
Nor she who, wedded, might join a brother to the Lord,
C Lest base contagion should be far from the womb.
Soon when the happy age matured in progression,
You approach to preserve unteachable minds with paternal warnings,
And offer the straight path to those slipping.
And so that the precepts sent by God might be fully clear,
You take away the empire from death, and with sickness solved,
You order the desperate to grasp the duties of life,
And You restore the day to the blind: and lest anything remained
Unattempted, which perfidious error might pursue,
You indicate feeling to the tombs, and command the members
Long since hidden to rise again into the upper airs,
And the beloved corpses recognize their own name.
But after the follower had drained the law,
So that the heavenly spirit might strip itself
From the mortal hall, with intent to the law by which You might teach all things
D To be endured for the highest God, and that each one should rightly assume
Eternal life for himself through the contempt of death:
Thus, bearing the fulfilled commands of the Father, You returned
To the secrets of the highest pole, where the shining ether
Forbids the sluggish clouds to burn in their own sky.
And so that there might be a certain abundance of the perishing crowd,
Which shuns the precepts of God from pitiful ears,
And new laws would no longer hold the departed:
You order the feral things of the infernal prison to be freed for us,
And the countless multitude to emerge from the darkness,
Only those being closed [away] whom an impious life has marked:
And You divide the places of punishment for the coming shades,
Who do not believe in You, or who pretend to believe.
Holy God, and venerable pledge of the highest God,