Hymn to the Creator
For Thou art He
who didst frame the heaven as an arch, and “stretch it out like the covering of a tent,” and didst found the earth upon nothing by Thy mere will;
who didst fix the firmament, and prepare the night and the day;
who didst bring the light out of Thy treasures, and on its departure didst bring on darkness, for the rest of the living creatures that move up and down in the world;
who didst appoint the sun in heaven to rule over the day, and the moon to rule over the night, and didst inscribe in heaven the choir of stars to praise Thy glorious majesty;
who didst make the water for drink and for cleansing,
the air in which we live for respiration and the affording of sounds, by the means of the tongue, which strikes the air, and the hearings which co-operates therewith, so as to perceive speech when it is received by it, and falls upon it;
who madest fire for our consolation in darkness, for the supply of our want, and that we might be warmed and enlightened by it;
who didst separate the great sea from the land, and didst render the former navigable and the latter fit for walking, and didst replenish the former with small and great living creatures, and filledst the latter with the same, both tame and wild;
didst furnish it with various plants, and crown it with herbs, and beautify it with flowers, and enrich it with seeds;
who didst ordain the great deep, and on every side madest a mighty cavity for it, which contains seas of salt waters heaped together, yet didst Thou every way bound them with barriers of the smallest sand;
who sometimes dost raise it to the height of mountains by the winds, and sometimes dost smooth it into a plain; sometimes dost enrage it with a tempest, and sometimes dost still it with a calm, that it may be easy to seafaring men in their voyages;
who didst encompass this world, which was made by Thee through Christ, with rivers, and water it with currents, and moisten it with springs that never fail, and didst bind it round with mountains for the immoveable and secure consistence of the earth:
for Thou hast replenished Thy world, and adorned it with sweet-smelling and with healing herbs, with many and various living creatures, strong and weak, for food and for labour, tame and wild;
with the noises of creeping things, the sounds of various sorts of flying creatures;
with the circuits of the years, the numbers of months and days, the order of the seasons, the courses of the rainy clouds, for the production of the fruits and the support of living creatures.
Thou hast also appointed the station of the winds, which blow when commanded by Thee, and the multitude of the plants and herbs.
And Thou hast not only created the world itself, but hast also made man for a citizen of the world, exhibiting him as the ornament of the world;
for Thou didst say to Thy Wisdom: “Let us make man according to our image, and according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the heaven.”
Wherefore also Thou hast made him of an immortal soul and of a body liable to dissolution—the former out of nothing, the latter out of the four elements—and hast given him as to his soul rational knowledge, the discerning of piety and impiety, and the observation of right and wrong;
and as to his body, Thou hast granted him five senses and progressive motion: for Thou, O God Almighty, didst by Thy Christ plant a paradise in Eden, in the east, adorned with all plants fit for food, and didst introduce him into it, as into a rich banquet.
And when Thou madest him, Thou gavest him a law implanted within him, that so he might have at home and within himself the seeds of divine knowledge;
and when Thou hadst brought him into the paradise of pleasure, Thou allowedst him the privilege of enjoying all things, only forbidding the tasting of one tree, in hopes of greater blessings; that in case he would keep that command, he might receive the reward of it, which was immortality.
But when he neglected that command, and tasted of the forbidden fruit, by the seduction of the serpent and the counsel of his wife, Thou didst justly cast him out of paradise.
Yet of Thy goodness Thou didst not overlook him, nor suffer him to perish utterly, for he was Thy creature;
but Thou didst subject the whole creation to him, and didst grant him liberty to procure himself food by his own sweat and labours, whilst Thou didst cause all the fruits of the earth to spring up, to grow, and to ripen.
But when Thou hadst laid him asleep for a while, Thou didst with an oath call him to a restoration again, didst loose the bond of death, and promise him life after the resurrection.
And not this only; but when Thou hadst increased his posterity to an innumerable multitude, those that continued with Thee Thou didst glorify, and those who did apostatize from Thee Thou didst punish.
And while Thou didst accept of the sacrifice of Abel as of an holy person, Thou didst reject the gift of Cain, the murderer of his brother, as of an abhorred wretch.
And besides these, Thou didst accept of Seth and Enos, and didst translate Enoch:
for Thou art the Creator of men, and the giver of life, and the supplier of want, and the giver of laws, and the rewarder of those that observe them, and the avenger of those that transgress them;
who didst bring the great flood upon the world by reason of the multitude of the ungodly, and didst deliver righteous Noah from that flood by an ark, with eight souls, the end of the foregoing generations, and the beginning of those that were to come;
who didst kindle a fearful fire against the five cities of Sodom, and “didst turn a fruitful land into a salt lake for the wickedness of them that dwelt therein,” but didst snatch holy Lot out of the conflagration.
Thou art He who didst deliver Abraham from the impiety of his fore-fathers, and didst appoint him to be the heir of the world, and didst discover to him Thy Christ; who didst aforehand ordain Melchisedec an high priest for Thy worship;
who didst render Thy patient servant Job the conqueror of that serpent who is the patron of wickedness;
who madest Isaac the son of the promise, and Jacob the father of twelve sons, and didst increase his posterity to a multitude, and bring him into Egypt with seventy-five souls.
Thou, O Lord, didst not overlook Joseph, but grantedst him, as a reward of his chastity for Thy sake, the government over the Egyptians.
Thou, O Lord, didst not overlook the Hebrews when they were afflicted by the Egyptians, on account of the promises made unto their fathers; but Thou didst deliver them and punish the Egyptians.
And when men had corrupted the law of nature, and had sometimes esteemed the creation the effect of chance, and sometimes honoured it more than they ought, and equalled it to the God of the universe, Thou didst not, however, suffer them to go astray, but didst raise up Thy holy servant Moses, and by him didst give the written law for the assistance of the law of nature, and didst show that the creation was Thy work, and didst banish away the error of polytheism.
Thou didst adorn Aaron and his posterity with the priesthood, and didst punish the Hebrews when they sinned, and receive them again when they returned to Thee.
Thou didst punish the Egyptians with a judgment of ten plagues, and didst divide the sea, and bring the Israelites through it, and drown and destroy the Egyptians who pursued after them.
Thou didst sweeten the bitter water with wood; Thou didst bring water out of the rock of stone; Thou didst rain manna from heaven, and quails, as meat out of the air; Thou didst afford them a pillar of fire by night to give them light, and a pillar of a cloud by day to overshadow them from the heat;
Thou didst declare Joshua to be the general of the army, and didst overthrow the seven nations of Canaan by him; Thou didst divide Jordan, and dry up the rivers of Etham; Thou didst overthrow walls without instruments or the hand of man.
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