{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/004/0040029.htm","path":"chr/ecf/004/0040029.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/004/0040029.htm","text":"(Author Uncertain.)1\nWho will for me in fitting strain adapt\nField-haunting muses? and with flowers will grace\nThe spring-tide's rosy gales? And who will give\nThe summer harvest's heavy stalks mature?\n5 And to the autumn's vines their swollen grapes?\nOr who in winter's honour will commend\nThe olives, ever-peaceful? and will ope\nWaters renewed, even at their fountainheads?\nAnd cut from waving grass the leafy flowers?\n10 Forthwith the breezes of celestial light\nI will attune. Now be it granted me\nTo meet the lightsome2 muses! to disclose\nThe secret rivers on the fluvial top\nOf Helicon,3 and gladsome woods that grow\n15'Neath other star.4 And simultaneously\nI will attune in song the eternal flames;\nWhence the sea fluctuates with wave immense:\nWhat power5 moves the solid lands to quake;\nAnd whence the golden light first shot its rays\n20 On the new world; or who from gladsome clay\nCould man have moulded; whence in empty world6\nOur race could have upgrown; and what the greed\nOf living which each people so inspires;\nWhat things for ill created are; or what\n25 Death's propagation; whence have rosy wreaths\nSweet smell and ruddy hue; what makes the vine\nFerment in gladsome grapes away; and makes\nFull granaries by fruit of slender stalks distended be; or makes the tree grow ripe\n30 'Mid ice, with olives black; who gives to seeds\nTheir increments of vigour various;\nAnd with her young's soft shadowings protects\nThe mother. Good it is all things to know\nWhich wondrous are in nature, that it may\n35 Be granted us to recognise through all\nThe true Lord, who light, seas, sky, earth prepared,\nAnd decked with varied star the new-made world;7\nAnd first bade beasts and birds to issue forth;\nAnd gave the ocean's waters to be stocked\n40 With fish; and gathered in a mass the sands,\nWith living creatures fertilized. Such strains\nWith stately8 muses will I spin, and waves\nHealthful will from their fountainheads disclose:\nAnd may this strain of mine the gladsome shower\n45 Catch, which from placid clouds doth come, and flows\nDeeply and all unsought into men's souls,\nAnd guide it into our new-fumed lands\nIn copious rills.9 Now come: if any one\nStill ignorant of God, and knowing naught\n50 Of life to come,10 would fain attain to touch\nThe care-effacing living nymph, and through\nThe swift waves' virtue his lost life repair,\nAnd'scape the penalties of flame eterne,11\nAnd rather win the guerdons of the life\n55 To come, let such remember God is One,\nAlone the object of our prayers; who 'neath\nHis threshold hath the whole world poised; Himself\nEternally abiding, and to be\nAlway for aye; holding the ages12 all;\n60 Alone, before all ages;13 unbegotten,\nLimitless God; who holds alone His seat\nSupernal; supereminent alone\nAbove high heavens; omnipotent alone;\nWhom all things do obey; who for Himself\n65 Formed, when it pleased Him, man for aye; and gave\nHim to be pastor of beasts tame, and lord\nOf wild; who by a word14 could stretch forth heaven;\nAnd with a word could solid earth suspend;\nAnd quicklier than word15 had the seas wave\n70 Disjoined;16 and man's dear form with His own hands\nDid love to mould; and furthermore did will\nHis own fair likeness17 to exist in him;\nAnd by His Spirit on his countenance\nThe breath18 of life did breathe. Unmindful he\n75 Of God, such guilt rashly t' incur I Beyond\nThe warning's range he was not ought to touch.19\nOne fruit illicit, whence he was to know\nForthwith how to discriminate alike\nEvil and equity, God him forbade\n80 To touch. What functions of the world20 did God\nPermit to man, and sealed the sweet sweet pledge\nOf His own love! and jurisdiction gave\nO'er birds, and granted him both deep and soil\nTo tame, and mandates useful did impart\n85 Of dear salvation!'Neath his sway He gave\nThe lands, the souls of flying things, the race\nFeathered, and every race, or tame or wild,\nOf beasts, and the sea's race, and monsterforms\nShapeless of swimming things. But since so soon\n90 The primal man by primal crime transgressed\nThe law, and left the mandates of the Lord\n(Led by a wife who counselled all the ills),\nBy death he 'gan to perish. Woman 'twas\nWho sin's first ill committed, and (the law\n95 Transgressed) deceived her husband. Eve, induced\nBy guile, the thresholds oped to death, and proved\nTo her own self, with her whole race as well,\nA procreatrix of funereal woes.\nHence unanticipated wickedness,\n100 Hence death, like seed, for aye, is scattered. Then\nMore frequent grew atrocious deed; and toil\nMore savage set the corrupt orb astir:\n(This lure the crafty serpent spread, inspired\nBy envy's self:) then peoples more invent\n105 Practices of ill deeds; and by ill deeds\nGave birth to seeds of wickedness.\nAnd so\nThe only Lord. whose is the power supreme.\nWho o'er the heights the summits holds of heaven\nSupreme, and in exalted regions dwells\n110 In lofty light for ages, mindful too\nOf present time, and of futurity\nPrescient beforehand, keeps the progeny\nOf ill-desert, and all the souls which move\nBy reason's force much-erring manf-nor less\n115 Their tardy bodies governs He-against\nThe age decreed, so soon as, stretched in death,\nMen lay aside their ponderous limbs, and light\nAs air, shall go, their earthly bonds undone,\nAnd take in diverse parts their proper spheres\n120 (But some He bids be forthwith by glad gales\nRecalled to life, and be in secret kept\nTo wait the decreed law's awards, until\nTheir bodies with resuscitated limbs\nRevive.21 ) Then shall men 'gin to weigh the awards\n125 Of their first life, and on their crime and faults\nTo think, and keep them for their penalties\nWhich will be far from death; and mindful grow\nOf pious duties, by God's judgments taught;\nTo wait expectant for their penalty\n130 And their descendants', fruit of their own crime;\nOr else to live wholly the life of sheep,22\nWithout a name; and in God's ear, now deaf,\nPour unavailing weeping. Shall not God\nAlmighty, 'neath whose law are all things ruled,\n135 Be able after death life to restore?\nOr is there ought which the creation's Lord\nUnable seems to do? If, darkness chased,\nHe could outstretch the light, and could compound\nAll the world's mass by a word suddenly,\n140 And raise by potent voice all things from nought,\nWhy out of somewhat23 could He not compound\nThe well-known shape which erst had been, which He\nHad moulded formerly; and bid the form\nArise assimilated to Himself\n145 Again? Since God's are all things, earth the more\nGives Him all back; for she will, when He bids,\nUnweave whate'er she woven had before.\nIf one, perhaps, laid on sepulchral pyre,\nThe flame consumed; or one in its blind waves\n150 The ocean have dismembered; if of one\nThe entrails have, in hunger, satisfied\nThe fishes; or on any's limbs wild beasts\nHave fastened cruel death; or any's blood,\nHis body reft by birds, unhid have lain:\n155 Yet shall they not wrest from the mighty Lord\nHis latest dues. Need is that men appear\nQuickened from death 'fore God, and at His bar\nStand in their shapes resumed. Thus arid seeds\nAre drops into the vacant lands, and deep\n160 In the fixt furrows die and rot: and hence\nIs not their surface24 animated soon\nWith stalks repaired? and do they25 not grow strong\nAnd yellow with the living grains? and, rich\nWith various usury,26 new harvests rise\n165 In mass? The stars all set, and, born again,\nRenew their sheen; and day dies with its light\nLost in dense night; and now night wanes herself\nAs light unveils creation presently;\nAnd now another and another day\n170 Rises from its own stars; and the sun sets,\nBright as it is with splendour-bearing light;\nLight perishes when by the coming eve\nThe world27 is shaded; and the phoenix lives\nBy her own soot28 renewed, and presently\n175 Rises, again a bird, O wondrous sight!\nAfter her burnings! The bare tree in time\nShoots with her leaves; and once more are her boughs\nCurved by the germen of the fruits. While then\nThe world29 throughout is trembling at God's voice,\n180 And deeply moved are the high air's powers,30\nThen comes a crash unwonted, then ensue\nHeaven's mightiest murmurs, on the approach of God,\nThe whole world's31 Judge! His countless ministers\nForthwith conjoin their rushing march, and God\n185 With majesty supernal fence around.\nAngelic bands will from the heaven descend\nTo earth; all, God's host, whose is faculty\nDivine; in form and visage spirits all\nOf virtue: in them fiery vigour is;\n190 Rutilant are their bodies; heaven's might\nDivine about them flashes; the whole orb\nHence murmurs; and earth, trembling to her depths\n(Or whatsoe'er her bulk is32 ), echoes back\nThe roar, parturient of men, whom she,\n195 Being bidden, will with grief upyield.33 All stand\nIn wonderment. At last disturbed are\nThe clouds, and the stars move and quake from height\nOf sudden power.34 When thus God comes, with voice\nOf potent sound, at once throughout all realms\n200 The sepulchres are burst, and every ground\nOutpours bones from wide chasms, and opening sand\nOutbelches living peoples; to the hair35\nThe members cleave; the bones inwoven are\nWith marrow; the entwined sinews rule\n205 The breathing bodies; and the veins 'gin throb\nWith simultaneously infused blood:\nAnd, from their caves dismissed, to open day\nSouls are restored, and seek to find again\nEach its own organs, as at their own place\n210 They rise. O wondrous faith! Hence every age\nShoots forth; forth shoots from ancient dust the host\nOf dead. Regaining light, there rise again\nMothers, and sires, and high-soured youths, and boys,\nAnd maids unwedded; and deceased old men\n215 Stand by with living souls; and with the cries\nOf babes the groaning orb resounds.36 Then tribes\nVarious from their lowest seats will come:\nBands of the Easterns; those which earth's extreme\nSees; those which dwell in the downsloping clime\n220 Of the mid-world, and hold the frosty star's\nRiphaean citadels. Every colonist\nOf every land stands frighted here: the boor;\nThe son of Atreus37 with his diadem\nOf royalty put off; the rich man mixt\n225 Coequally in line with pauper peers.\nDeep tremor everywhere: then groans the orb\nWith prayers; and peoples stretching forth their hands\nGrow stupid with the din! The Lord Himself\nSeated, is bright with light sublime; and fire\n230 Potent in all the Virtues38 flashing shines.\nAnd on His high-raised throne the Heavenly One\nCoruscates from His seat; with martyrs hemmed\n(A dazzling troop of men), and by His seers\nElect accompanied (whose bodies bright\n235 Effulgent are with snowy stoles), He towers\nAbove them. And now priests in lustrous robes\nAttend, who wear upon their marked39 front\nWreaths golden-red; and all submissive kneel\nAnd reverently adore. The cry of all\n240 Is one: \"O Holy, Holy Holy, God!\"\nTo these40 the Lord will mandate give, to range\nThe people in twin lines; and orders them\nTo set apart by number the depraved;\nWhile such as have His biddings followed\n245 With placid words He calls, and bids them, clad\nWith vigour-death quite conquered-ever dwell\nAmid light's inextinguishable airs,\nStroll through the ancients' ever blooming realm,\nThrough promised wealth, through ever sunny swards,\n250 And in bright body spend perpetual life.\nA place there is, beloved of the Lord,\nIn Eastern coasts, where light is bright and clear,\nAnd healthier blows the breeze; day is eterne,\nTime changeless: 'tis a region set apart\n255 By God, most rich in plains, and passing blest,\nIn the meridian41 of His cloudless seat.\nThere gladsome the air, and is in light\nEver to be; soft is the wind, and breathes\nLife-giving blasts; earth, fruitful with a soil\n260 Luxuriant, bears all things; in the meads\nFlowers shed their fragrance; and upon the plains\nThe purple-not in envy-mingles all\nWith golden-ruddy light. One gladsome flower,\nWith its own lustre clad, another clothes;\n265 And here with many a seed the dewy fields\nAre dappled, and the snowy tilths are crisped\nWith rosy flowers. No region happier\nIs known in other spots; none which in look\nIs fairer, or in honour more excels.\n270 Never in flowery gardens are there born\nSuch lilies, nor do such upon our plains\nOutbloom; nor does the rose so blush, what time,\nNew-born, 'tis opened by the breeze; nor is\nThe purple with such hue by Tyrian dye\n275 Imbued. With coloured pebbles beauteous gleams\nThe gem: here shines the prasinus;42 there glows\nThe carbuncle; and giant-emerald\nIs green with grassy light. Here too are born\nThe cinnamons, with odoriferous twigs;\n280 And with dense leaf gladsome amomum Joins\nIts fragrance. Here, a native, lies the gold\nOf radiant sheen; and lofty groves reach heaven\nIn blooming time, and germens fruitfullest\nBurden the living boughs. No glades like these\n285 Hath Ind herself forth-stretcht; no tops so dense\nRears on her mount the pine; nor with a shade\nSo lofty-leaved is her cypress crisped;\nNor better in its season blooms her bough\nIn spring-tide. Here black firs on lofty peak\n290 Bloom; and the only woods that know no hail\nAre green eternally: no foliage falls;\nAt no time fails the flower. There, too, there blooms\nA flower as red as Tarsine purple is:\nA rose, I ween, it is (red hue it has,\n295 An odour keen); such aspect on its leaves\nIt wears, such odour breathes. A tree it43 stands,\nWith a new flower, fairest in fruits; a crop\nLife-giving, dense, its happy strength does yield.\nRich honies with green cane their fragrance Join,\n300 And milk flows potable in runners full;\nAnd with whate'er that sacred earth is green,\nIt all breathes life; and there Crete's healing gift44\nIs sweetly redolent. tide,\nFlows in the placid plains a fount: four floods\n305 Thence water parted lands.45 The garden robed\nWith flowers, I wot, keeps ever spring; no cold\nOf wintry star varies the breeze; and earth,\nAfter her birth-throes, with a kindlier blast\nRepairs. Night there is none; the stars maintain\n310 Their darkness; angers, envies, and dire greed\nAre absent; and out-shut is fear, and cares\nDriven from the threshold. Here the Evil One\nIs homeless; he is into worthy courts\nOut-gone, nor is't e'er granted him to touch\n315 The glades forbidden. But here ancient faith\nRests in elect abode; and life here treads,\nJoying in an eternal covenant;\nAnd health46 without a care is gladsome here\nIn placid tilths, ever to live and be\n320 Ever in light.\nHere whosoe'er hath lived\nPious, and cultivant of equity\nAnd goodness; who hath feared the thundering God\nWith mind sincere; with sacred duteousness\nTended his parents; and his other life47\n325 Spent ever crimeless; or who hath consoled\nWith faithful help a friend in indigence;\nSuccoured the over-toiling needy one,\nAs orphans' patron, and the poor man's aid;\nRescued the innocent, and succoured them\n330 When press with accusation; hath to guests\nHis ample table's pledges given; hath done\nAll things divinely; pious offices\nEnjoined; done hurt to none; ne'er coveted\nAnother's: such as these, exulting all\n335 In divine praises, and themselves at once\nExhorting, raise their voices to the stars;\nThanksgivings to the Lord in joyous wise\nThey psalming celebrate; and they shall go\nTheir harmless way with comrade messengers.\n340 When ended hath the Lord these happy gifts,\nAnd likewise sent away to realms eterne\nThe just, then comes a pitiable crowd\nWailing its crimes; with parching tears it pours\nAll groans effusely, and attests48 in acts\n345 With frequent ululations. At the sight\nOf flames, their merit's due, and stagnant pools\nOf fire, wrath's weapons, they 'gin tremble all.49\nThem an angelic host, upsnatching them,\nForbids to pray, forbids to pour their cries\n350 (Too late!) with clamour loud: pardon withheld,\nInto the lowest bottom they are hurled!\nO miserable men! how oft to you\nHath Majesty divine made itself known!\nThe sounds of heaven ye have heard; have seen\n355 Its lightnings; have experienced its rains\nAssiduous; its ires of winds and hail!\nHow often nights and days serene do make\nYour seasons-God's gifts-fruitful with fair yields!\nRoses were vernal; the grain's summer-tide\n360 Failed not; the autumn variously poured\nIts mellow fruits; the rugged winter brake\nThe olives, icy though they were: 'twas God\nWho granted all, nor did His goodness fail.\nAt God earth trembled; on His voice the deep\n365 Hung, and the rivers trembling fled and left\nSands dry; and every creature everywhere\nConfesses God! Ye (miserable men!)\nHave heaven's Lord and earth's denied; and oft\n(Horrible!) have God's heralds put to flight;50\n370 And rather slain the just with slaughter fell;\nAnd, after crime, fraud ever hath in you\nInhered. Ye then shall reap the natural fruit\nOf your iniquitous sowing. That God is\nYe know; yet are ye wont to laugh at Him.\n375 Into deep darkness ye shall go of fire\nAnd brimstone; doomed to suffer glowing ires\nIn torments just.51 God bids your bones descend\nTo52 penalty eternal; go beneath\nThe ardour of an endless raging hell;53\n380 Be urged, a seething mass, through rotant pools\nOf flame; and into threatening flame He bids\nThe elements convert; and all heaven's fire\nDescend in clouds. 3 Then greedy Tartarus\nWith rapid fire enclosed is; and flame\n385 Is fluctuant within with tempest waves;\nAnd the whole earth her whirling embers blends!\nThere is a flamy furrow; teeth acute\nAre turned to plough it, and for all the years54\nThe fiery torrent will be armed: with force\n390 Tartarean will the conflagrations gnash\nTheir teeth upon the world.55 There are they scorched\nIn seething tide with course precipitate;\nHence flee; thence back are borne in sharp career;\nThe savage flame's ire meets them fugitive!\n395 And now at length they own the penalty\nTheir own, the natural issue of their crime.\nAnd now the reeling earth, by not a swain\nPossest, is by the sea's profundity\nPrest, at her farthest limit, where the sun\n400 (His ray out-measured) divides the orb,\nAnd where, when traversed is the world,56 the stars\nAre hidden. Ether thickens. O'er the light\nSpreads sable darkness; and the latest flames\nStagnate in secret rills. A place there is\n405 Whose nature is with sealed penalties\nFiery, and a dreadful marsh white-hot\nWith heats infernal, where, in furnaces\nHorrific, penal deed roars loud, and seethes,\nAnd, rushing into torments, is up-caught\n410 By the flame's vortex wide; by savage wave\nAnd surge the turbid sand all mingled is\nWith miry bottom. Hither will be sent,\nGroaning, the captive crowd of evil ones,\nAnd wickedness (the sinful body's train)\n415 To burn! Great is the beating there of breasts,\nBy bellowing of grief accompanied;\nWild is the hissing of the flames, and thence\nThe ululation of the sufferers!\nAnd flames, and limbs sonorous,57 will outrise\n420 Afar: more fierce will the fire burn; and up\nTo th' upper air the groaning will be borne.\nThen human progeny its bygone deeds\nOf ill will weigh; and will begin to stretch\nHeavenward its palms; and then will wish to know\n425 The Lord, whom erst it would not know, what time\nTo know Him had proved useful to them There,\nHis life's excesses, handiworks unjust,\nAnd crimes of savage mind, each will confess,\nAnd at the knowledge of the impious deeds\n430 of his own life will shudder. And now first,\nWhoe'er erewhile cherished ill thoughts of God;\nHad worshipped stones unsteady, lyingly\nPretending to divinity; hath e'er\nMade sacred to gore-stained images\n435 Altars; hath voiceless pictured figures feared;\nHath slender shades of false divinity\nRevered; whome'er ill error onward hath\nSeduced; whoe'er was an adulterer,\nOr with the sword had slain his sons; whoe'er\n440 Had stalked in robbery; whoe'er by fraud\nHis clients had deferred; whoe'er with mind\nUnfriendly had behaved himself, or stained\nHis palms with blood of men, or poison mixt\nWherein death lurked, or robed with wicked guise\n445 His breast, or at his neighbour's ill, or gain\nIniquitous, was wont to joy; whoe'er\nCommitted whatsoever wickedness\nOf evil deeds: him mighty heat shall rack,\nAnd bitter fire; and these all shall endure,\n450 In passing painful death, their punishment.\nThus shall the vast crowd lie of mourning men!\nThis oft as holy prophets sang of old,\nAnd (by God's inspiration warned) oft told\nThe future, none ('tis pity!) none (alas!)\n455 Did lend his ears. But God Almighty willed\nHis guerdons to be known, and His law's threats\n'Mid multitudes of such like signs promulged.\nHe 'stablished them58 by sending prophets more,\nThese likewise uttering words divine; and some,\n460 Roused from their sleep, He bids go from their tombs\nForth with Himself, when He, His own tomb burst,\nHad risen. Many 'wildered were, indeed,\nTo see the tombs agape, and in clear light\nCorpses long dead appear; and, wondering\n465 At their discourses pious, dulcet words!\nStarward they stretch their palms at the mere sound,59\nAnd offer God and so-victorious Christ\nTheir gratulating homage. Certain 'tis\nThat these no more re-sought their silent graves,\n470 Nor were retained within earth's bowels shut;60\nBut the remaining host reposes now\nIn lowliest beds, until-time's circuit run-\nThat great day do arrive. Now all of you\nOwn the true Lord, who alone makes this soul\n475 Of ours to see His light,61 and can the same\n(To Tartarus sent) subject to penalties;\nAnd to whom all the power of life and death\nIs open. Learn that God can do whate'er\nHe list; for 'tis enough for Him to will,\n480 And by mere speaking He achieves the deed;\nAnd Him nought plainly, by withstanding, checks.\nHe is my God alone, to whom I trust\nWith deepest senses. But, since death con\nEvery career, let whoe'er is to-day\n485 Bethink him over all things in his mind.\nAnd thus, while life remains, while 'tis allowed\nTo see the light and change your life, before\nThe limit of allotted age o'ertake\nYou unawares, and that last day, which62 is\n490 By death's law fixt, your senseless eyes do glaze,\nSeek what remains worth seeking: watchful be\nFor dear salvation; and run down with ease\nAnd certainty the good course. Wipe away\nBy pious sacred rites your past misdeeds\n495 Which expiation need; and shun the storms,\nThe too uncertain tempests, of the world.63\nThen turn to right paths, and keep sanctities.\nHence from your gladsome minds depraved crime\nQuite banish; and let long-inveterate fault\n500 Be washed forth from your breast; and do away\nWicked ill-stains contracted; and appease\nDread God by prayers eternal; and let all\nMost evil mortal things to living good\nGive way: and now at once a new life keep\n505 Without a crime; and let your minds begin\nTo use themselves to good things and to true:\nAnd render ready voices to God's praise.\nThus shall your piety find better things\nAll growing to a flame; thus shall ye, too,\n510 Receive the gifts of the celestial life;64\nAnd, to long age, shall ever live with God,\nSeeing the starry kingdom's golden joys.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IV: 4. A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord.","type":"page"}