ful, because the King is born at Ephratha, and has received the adoration of sovereigns through their gifts. Let the priests who surround the altar clap their hands, and let the Church dance for joy, since He is born Who will instantly destroy all those that hate her. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, because the Lord has been sent to create peace above and below, and to make all one. Henceforth the Leader of the weak, Who has been exalted, shall abolish death; and the Strength of the fallen, Who has been raised up, shall drive the oppressor far off. On this day the Law of despised nature puts to silence the scribes, and the Barrier of tradition. Which has been broken through, shall from this time forth annul their scriptures. The time has come for the Holy Church to adorn her neck with glory, because the body of her truth which was wounded is now suddenly healed, and the shoulders of her children are freed from the yoke of death.
(j) "That which good and righteous men, who declared the set seasons, waited for, has at length appeared and come to pass, and has dazzled the minds of men; the Essence, in Itself simple, has, by a wonderful operation, made Itself compound through the different 'kinds of flesh' [1 Corint. xv. 39,] and the accidents of colour, and thereby manifested the hidden mysteries of Itself.
(k) "The hope of the good, and the parables of the just, are now brought to light, and the sayings of the prophets are fulfilled in the birth of the Highest. The Fire and the Spirit, whose mysteriousness Moses the Prophet worshipped on the mount, have manifested their excellence in vile flesh. The stone cut out without hands, as prophesied of by Daniel, appears in the Child born without conjugal intercourse or connexion. Though the seals of virginity are unbroken, behold a child is found wrapped in swaddling bands, even as Isaiah had declared, that a Virgin should bring forth Emmanuel. A Branch from the root of Jesse sprouts out where there is no water; and the daughter of David inwardly magnifies and praises the Lord's Son. The emblem of Aaron's rod that budded speaks from afar that the tree of virginity bears fruit without having been watered. The prophets figured forth the hidden mystery of Him in divers manners, and in various ways the righteous
