Introduction
This hymn is attributed to St John Damascene, a contemporary of St Bede. It is packed with Biblical allusions, all centred on the Christian belief that God entered into the womb of the virgin Mary and there became a human child.
In thee is all creation glad
O virgin full of grace,*
Both angel host before the throne
And Adam’s lowly race.
Thou art the Eden of our hearts,*
Thou art the virgins’ boast;*
A Temple thou,* made not by hands
But by the Holy Ghost.
Within thy womb our timeless God
A child began to be;
The girdle round thy waist described
His vast infinity.*
In thee is all creation glad
O virgin full of grace;
We sing thy praise, both angel host
And Adam’s thankful race.*
* ‘Full of grace’ was the greeting to Mary from the archangel Gabriel when she learnt of the conception of Jesus. The translators of the Authorised Version rendered the greeting “Hail, thou that art highly favoured”, which is perfectly sound but does not lend itself to making verses; see Luke 1:28.
* Mary is a ‘spiritual paradise’ in at least two ways. First, Eden was where Adam the first man was made, and in Mary’s womb a new humanity was made, Jesus Christ: see 1 Corinthians 15:45-49. Second, as Jesus is a second Adam, a new man, so Mary is like a second Eve, mother of a new race, who unlike the first Eve obeyed God’s command: see Luke 1:38.
* ‘Virgins’ here means both men and women who have consecrated themselves to a life of perpetual celibacy for God’s sake. ‘Boast’ and ‘glory’ are both used in the Authorised Version as translations of the underlying Greek word καύχημα. ‘Boast of virgins’ or ‘glory of virgins’ is used here in the sense in which St Paul speaks of ‘glorying in the cross of Christ’ rather than in popularity, wealth or achievements. See Galatians 6:14, and Psalm 34:2.
* Mary is a new Temple in the sense that she was the dwelling-place of God among his people, the house (for a time) of Emmanuel, God-with-Us, the place where Divine Wisdom became living man. See Ecclesiasticus 24:1-12, Matthew 1:23.
* A much-loved paradox among the Church Fathers, picked up by Charles Wesley when he wrote “Our God contracted to a span / Incomprehensibly made man”: see his Christmas hymn Let Earth and Heaven Combine. God, who has no beginning, begins to be; he is infinite in time and space, yet is found within one woman’s womb.
* St John Damascene’s hymn was originally in Greek. It later made its way into the Russian service books, and from there was translated into English by American author Isobel Hapgood (1850-1928) as follows: “In thee rejoiceth, O thou who art full of Grace, every created being, the Hierarchy of the Angels, and all mankind, O Consecrated Temple and super-sensual Paradise, Glory of Virgins, of whom God, who is our God before all the incarnate and became a little child. For he made of thy womb a throne, and thy belly did he make more spacious than the heavens. In thee doth all Creation rejoice, O thou who art full of Glory: Glory to thee.”
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