Commodian — Carmen de Duobus Populis 621–670

And whatever he wills, he will do, so that mute things speak. He made Balaam’s donkey speak to the one beating her, and the dog, that it might say to Simon: You are being cried out by Peter! That many might learn from Paul preaching, he made a lion speak to the people with a divine voice. Then — what our nature itself does not allow — he made an infant in the fifth month speak to the crowd. This one was going to come mixed with our blood, so that he would be seen as man, but God was hiding in flesh. Not an elder will come, nor an angel, Isaiah said, but the Lord himself will come to show himself to us. Him the sea feared, him the winds, him Tartarus itself; every creature recognized the hidden Lord. Only the wicked people raised a centuria against him: ‘Far be it that the Lord should have come in such a figure!’ He was going thus on earth over the waves of the sea and commands the winds to give back a calm plain. He broke the Tartarean law by his present word and raises Lazarus from the tombs on the fourth day, stinking. For the one who was being carried, when he had met him: Rise, youth! he says. And that one rose from the bier. The synagogue-ruler’s daughter, begged from the father, already lifeless, he raises for those mourning her. He made the mute speak and the deaf hear especially, and the blind born from the womb, that he might see into the airs. After thirty-eight years he ordered a paralytic to rise, whom they would admire carrying the cot on his neck. … By touch of whose garment she was healed of a flow. He broke five loaves among five thousand men and again refreshed four thousand from seven. More fully that the Lord might show himself present, he had been invited to a wedding with his own mother; asked to help when wine failed, then he ordered the jars filled faster with water, which he first tasted and so commanded to be served. Nor so could they recognize the Lord by deeds, but they raged, as if a wicked man, to destroy him by death. Which he himself grants, since he decreed to suffer so — if yet they believe, then at last they will have pardon. This is the firstborn foretold beforehand through the prophets, that he be called on earth the Most High’s offspring. Happy those of men who place their hope in this one — for the foolish avoid him as a curse. Eternity is prepared for that one who believes Christ, so that man may be God’s partner living after funerals. Law and prophets teach who are worthy of the God of the heavens, and to whom the golden ages hidden are revealed. Through so many seers in number it is cried about God’s Son, and the first-called sons of God closed their eyes — ****** God hid in flesh; creation knew him. Seas, tombs, bread, wedding-jars — and still they raged. Happy who plant hope in this one.