Homilies on the Dormition of the Mother of God · §2.5 · John of Damascus

Homily II — The preacher embraces her bier

But now that I have come to this point in my discourse, let me confess what I myself feel. Burning most hotly with the blazing torch of longing, I am seized with a kind of trembling and with tears that bring joy. As though I were embracing the very bed, blessed and lovely, full of wonders, which received the tabernacle that was the source of life and was granted holiness by having it laid there, I seemed to take into my own arms that sacred, all-holy dwelling, worthy of God. I pressed my eyes and lips and brow, my neck and cheeks, against her limbs, and I felt the touch, as though the body were there before me; and yet, when I looked, I could not see with my eyes what I longed for. How could I, when it has been caught up on high to the heavenly sanctuaries? But so much for that.

Greek

Ἀλλ' ἐνταῦθα τοῦ λόγου γενόμενος, ἵνα τὸ οἰκεῖον πάθος ἐξαγορεύσαιμι, θερμότατα καὶ ζέοντι πυρσῷ τοῦ πόθου καιόμενος, φρίκῃ τινὶ καὶ χαροποιοῖς συνείλημμαι δάκρυσιν, αὐτὴν τὴν κλίνην οἷα περιπτυσσόμενος, τὴν μακαρίαν τε καὶ ἐπέραστον, τὴν θαυμάτων γέμουσαν, τὴν τὸ ζωαρχικὸν σκῆνος δεδεγμένην, καὶ τῇ παραθέσει τὸν ἁγιασμὸν εὐμοιρήσασαν, αὐτὸ τὸ ἱερὸν, καὶ πανίερον, καὶ ἀξιόθεον σκήνωμα χερσὶν οἰκείαις ἐδόκουν ἐναγκαλίζεσθαι· ὀφθαλμοὺς, καὶ χείλη, καὶ μέτωπα, αὐχένα καὶ παρειὰς προσερείδων τοῖς μέλεσι, καὶ τῆς ἁφῆς ᾐσθόμην, ὡς ἐκ παρόντος συνισταμένης τοῦ σώματος, καὶ κατανοήσας ὀφθαλμοῖς κατιδεῖν τὸ ποθούμενον οὐ δεδύνημαι. Πῶς γὰρ ἂν ὃ μετάρσιον πρὸς σηκοὺς οὐρανίους ἀνήρπασται; Καὶ ταῦτα μὲν οὕτως.

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About this text

John of Damascus's three sermons on the falling asleep of Mary, preached at her tomb at Gethsemane: praise of the Mother of God, the story of her last days and burial, and the old account in which Juvenal of Jerusalem tells the empress Pulcheria that the apostles found the tomb empty.

English translated from the Greek of Migne, Patrologia Graeca 96, cols. Where the printed Greek is plainly wrong, the English follows the reading that the sense and Migne's facing Latin require; each such place is listed below. Psalm numbers are given in the English (Hebrew) numbering.

Printed text used

Translated from Migne, Patrologia Graeca 96 (Paris, 1860), cols. 699-762 (Greek · All three homilies)

Where the prints differ

Homily II, section 1 — Printed διαιρέσεως ('division'); the English follows προαιρέσεως ('a good will'), with the facing Latin 'probaque voluntate'.
Homily II, section 2 — Printed ἐνδέδυμαι ('I have put on') is read as ἐκδέδυμαι ('I have put off' the garments of skin), with the facing Latin 'exui'; printed ὑπερέρχεται is read as ὑπέρχεται ('undergoes'); printed ἀχειροτμήτῳ is taken in the sense 'not made by hands'.
Homily II, section 4 — Printed θέσματα ('ordinances') is rendered 'wills', with the facing Latin 'voluntates'.
Homily II, section 10 — Printed 'our hands' is read as 'my hands', since Mary is speaking (facing Latin 'manuum mearum').
Homily II, section 13 — Printed ἀμελητί ('carelessly') is read as ἀμελλητί ('at once').
Homily II, section 14 — Printed ἐλαίου ('oil') is read as ἐλέου ('mercy'), as Migne's own note directs; printed γεύμασιν is read as ῥεύμασιν ('in their flowing'), with the facing Latin 'fluentis'.
Homily III, section 2 — Printed κλίματι is read as κλίμακι ('ladder'), ἐδείξατο as ἐδέξατο ('received'), and 'fruits of the presence' as 'the bread of the presence', each with the facing Latin.

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