14
Cum enim quietum silentium contineret omnia, et nox in suo cursu medium iter haberet,
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14
For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course,
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14
There was a hush of silence all around, and night had but finished half her swift journey,
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15
omnipotens sermo tuus de cælo, a regalibus sedibus, durus debellator in mediam exterminii terram prosilivit,
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15
Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction,
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15
when from thy heavenly throne, Lord, down leaped thy word omnipotent. Never lighted sterner warrior on a doomed land;
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16
gladius acutus insimulatum imperium tuum portans: et stans, replevit omnia morte, et usque ad cælum attingebat stans in terra.
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16
With a sharp sword carrying thy unfeigned commandment, and he stood and filled all things with death, and standing on the earth reached even to heaven.
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16
never was sword so sharp, errand so unmistakable; thy word that could spread death everywhere, that trod earth, yet reached up to heaven.
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Saint Bonaventure:
In an allegorical sense, the coming of Christ into flesh is described here for he is called the almighty word of God by eternal generation, according to John 1:1: ‘In the beginning was the Word’; but he came from heaven from your royal throne by a temporal assuming of flesh; Psalm 18:7: ‘His going out is from the end of heaven’; in the middle silence of the night, because of the suitability of the time; Galatians 4:4: ‘But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent the Son, made of a woman’. The first silence was under the law of nature due to an ignorance of weakness; the second, under the law of Moses due to the hopelessness of health; the third, under the law of grace due to the adoption of salvation. As a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction, namely, because of the storming of the demons; Luke 11:21-22: ‘When a strong man armed keeps his court, those things are in peace which he possesses. But if a stronger than he come upon him and overcomes him, he will take away all his armour wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils’. Into the midst of the land of destruction, that is, in the middle of the world because of the place on the earth in which he was born; Psalm 73:12: ‘He has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth’. Carrying the commandment of God with him, because he shares the all powerful Deity with the Father; John 1:1 and 14: ‘And the Word was God’, namely, he of whom he adds: ‘And the Word was made flesh’; also Matthew 28:18: ‘All power is given to me in heaven and in earth’. To have filled all things with death, on account of the completion of all things in his death, according to John 19:30: ‘It is consummated’. Standing on the earth to have reached heaven, because while in the condition of a pilgrim he had a continuous enjoyment of God; John 3:13: ‘No one has ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven’.