Pre-Christmas

The Byzantine rite has no liturgical season corresponding to Advent in the Latin rite and its various western derivatives. This does not mean that there is no liturgical preparation for feast of Christ‘s Nativity. This begins on 15 November, the day after the commemoration of the Apostle Philip with the Christmas Fast, with replacement of ‘The Lord is God‘ by ‘Alleluia‘ and other non-lenten features on non-festal days. On 21 November we begin to sing the Christmas Katavasias, ‘Christ is born, give glory!‘ Then, on St Andrew's day and subsequent feasts, the office introduces pre-Christmas idiomela at Vespers and Matins. I have collected these on this and added some footnotes giving scriptural and other references.

Isaias, dance,[1] receive the word of God; prophesy to Mary the Maiden that the bush is aflame with the beam of the Godhead and is not being burned by fire.[2] Bethlehem, make ready,[3] Eden open your gate;[4] and Magi make your journey to see salvation swaddled in a manger; whom the Star above the cave reveals as the Lord, the giver of life, who saves our race.[5]

Joseph, tell us: how are you bringing the Maiden you received from the Holy Place, to Bethlehem great with child?[6] ‘I, he said, having searched the Prophets and been told by an Angel,[7] am assured that Mary will give birth to God in a way past explanation; to worship him Magi will come from the East, adoring him with precious gifts.’ Lord, incarnate for our sake, glory to you!

Bethlehem welcome the Mother City of God[8]; for she has come to give birth in you to the light that never sets.[9] You Angels, marvel in heaven; humans give glory on earth; Magi from Persia bring your triply glorious gift; Shepherds abiding in the fields[10] sing the thrice-holy hymn. Let everything that has breath praise the Maker of all.

Cave,[12] make ready; for the Ewe-lamb[13] has come, bearing Christ in her womb. Manger, receive the One who by a word freed us who are born of earth from irrational[14] action. You Shepherds abiding in the fields, bear witness to the fearful wonder; and Magi from Persia, offer gold, frankincense and myrrh to the King; because the Lord has appeared from a Virgin Mother. Bowing low like a slave his Mother worshipped him, and cried out to the One in her arms, ‘How were you sown in me, or how did you grow within me, my Redeemer and my God?’[15]

Bethlehem prepare; let the Manger make ready; let the Cave receive. The truth has come,[16] the shadow has passed away, and God has appeared among humankind from a Virgin, formed like us[17] and deifying the addition.[18] Therefore Adam is made new with Eve, as they cry, ‘Goodwill has appeared on earth, to save our race’.

Virgin without bridegroom, where have you come from? Who begot you? And who is your mother? How do you carry the Creator in your arms? How was your womb not corrupted? We see great marvels have come to pass on earth, All‑holy, and we make ready in advance that which fits your need: the Cave from the earth; and we ask heaven to provide the Star;[19] and Magi are advancing from the eastern regions of the earth towards the west, to look on the salvation of mortals being suckled as a babe.[20]

17 December

Sunday before Christmas
Vespers.
Prosomia of the Forefeast. Tone 1. All-praised Martyrs.

All-blameless Virgin, living Palace of God, you contained within yourself the One whom the heavens cannot contain;[21] beyond understanding you gave birth to him in the Cave, a beggar and incarnate, that he might make me divine[22] and enrich me, made a beggar by the incontinence of bitter eating.[23]

Through compassion enrolled with slaves by Caesar’s decree,[24] long-suffering Christ, you came to give freedom, life and deliverance to ungrateful servants, who worship your saving Nativity, for you have come to save our souls.

The All-holy and blameless Virgin, realising that her child-bearing was beyond explanation and had made new the laws of nature, cried to her Son, ‘My Child, so much desired, I am amazed at the great mystery: I have born a child and yet remain a virgin by your power, who do all things by your will!’

Listen, O heaven, and give ear, O earth;[25] for see, the Son and Word of God the Father comes forth to be born from a maiden who has not known man, by the good pleasure[26] of him who begat him impassibly and by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. Bethlehem, prepare; Eden, open your gate, for He Who Is[27] becomes what he was not, and the Fashioner of all creation is fashioned, he who grants the world his great mercy.

See, the time of salvation is at hand; Cave prepare, the Virgin draws near to give birth. Bethlehem, land of Juda,[28] rejoice and be glad, for our Lord has dawned from you. Hearken, mountains and hills, and the countries around Judea; for Christ is coming to save mankind whom he fashioned, for he loves humankind.

Christ made a child in the flesh, Christ willingly become a beggar, Christ made visible,[29] the Virgin now comes to Bethlehem to give birth to him. Let heaven and earth be glad.[30]

You hills and mountains, leap for joy;[31] Prophets inspired by God, dance. Peoples and nations, clap your hands. The salvation, the enlightenment of all is close at hand and is coming to be born in the city of Bethlehem.

The Rich becomes a beggar, and those rich by wickedness beggars. God is recognised as without change the mortal offspring of an unwedded Maiden. Let us all sing to him in praise, for he has been glorified.[32]

He who was begotten of the Father before the ages beyond understanding, in the last times[33] became flesh from the Virgin, as he knows how, for he wished to renew humanity, corrupted by the plot of the evil serpent.

The Son of God without beginning, who is seated in the highest with the Father and the Spirit, seeing how human nature had been brought low, takes a beginning and is about to be born in the flesh as man.

She who is holier than the Angels and all creation now bears in the flesh the Angel of the great counsel[34] of the Father for the recalling of all who sing to him unceasingly: Holy are you, O Lord.[35]

Rod out of Jesse’s root,[36] O Virgin, you budded, and blossomed with a flower that does wither, the Creator of all, who as God decks the whole earth with flowers, which cries aloud to him: Glory to your power, O Lord!

O Word of God you came to get me back, who had been stolen through evil eating, had fallen away by my own will and become like the dumb beasts.[37] So you became a babe and were laid in a manger for dumb beasts. Glory to your power, O Lord!

Avvakoum foresaw you, Jesu, incarnate of a shaded mountain,[38] the Virgin, crushing the evil mountains and hills and handing over to oblivion the uprisings of the evil one and the rebellions of the demons.

By nature the Master, you are found with slaves. All-perfect Son of God, you were well-pleased to be called Son of Man, All-merciful; and so you willingly became a beggar and are coming to be born in the Cave, O supremely Good.

Christ our King, by nature uncontainable, how will a little cave receive you? How will a manger, Jesu, be able to contain you? From a Mother who has not known man you come in flesh, Lord, to your own[39] that you may save those who have been banished.

The Ewe-lamb has come forth to bear the Shepherd. Holy Cave, prepare. Shepherds, hasten to behold the Lamb and Shepherd who has been born. Magi with gifts prepare to worship him in the flesh as King.

Sovereign Lady, you are a new heaven. From your womb, as from a cloud,[40] you hasten to make Christ, the sun of glory, dawn in a cave in the flesh, for by his owns bright rays he is going to make all the fullness of the earth cry aloud because of his measureless compassion.

Compassionate Christ, you saw our grief and our trouble, and you did not despise us; but, without parting from your Father, you emptied yourself and dwelt in a womb that knew not wedlock, which now comes to the Cave to give birth to you in the flesh without pangs.

Mountains and hills, plains and valleys, peoples and tribes, nations and everything that has breath, filled with divine joy, shout in exultation: The redemption of all, the timeless Word of God, through pity subject to time, came and dwelt on earth.

Bethlehem rejoice, Ephrata[41] prepare; for see the Ewe-lamb, bearing in her womb the great Shepherd, hastens to give birth. Seeing him the Godbearing Fathers exult as with the Shepherds they hymn a Virgin who gives suck.

Seeing the dazzling radiance of your conceiving, O Virgin, Abraham the friend of God, noble Isaac, Jacob and the whole choir of saints chosen by God rejoice; and they bring creation to meet you with words of joy. For you appeared as the source of joy, since you conceived in your womb him who once appeared in Babylon and beyond all understanding preserved unburned the Youths unjustly cast into the furnace. And so they also raise the song as they hymn a Virgin who gives suck.

The godly vine, which makes the pure cluster ripen,[42] draws near and has come to give birth to the wine of joy which gushes forth and gives drink to us who cry to him: God of our fathers, blessed are you![43]

The divine casket, bearing within it the sweet-scented myrrh,[44] is coming to pour it out in the cave of Bethlehem, and fill with mystic fragrance those who sing: God of our fathers, blessed are you!

The tong,[45] which the prophet Isaias saw of old, has come carrying in her womb the divine coal, Christ, who burns up all the material of sin and guides the souls of the faithful to the light.

Glory to God in the highest, let us cry in joy with the Angels. The Saviour will be born. The Master, whom a Star shows to the Magi as they hasten to behold him in a manger, will come to make his dwelling. Let all creation bless the Lord, and highly exalt him to all the ages.[46]

Obedient to Caesar’s law, Master, you were willingly enrolled among slaves,[47] that as God you might free humanity from the slavery of the evil one, O most merciful. therefore with joy we raise the song: Let all creation bless the Lord, and highly exalt him to all the ages.

‘O Word without beginning, I carry you as a young babe, yet am wholly without knowledge of man’, said the Virgin. ‘I am at a loss to know whom I should name as your father on earth; therefore with all I raise the song to you: Let all creation bless the Lord, and highly exalt him to all the ages’.

Strange, wonderful and dread mysteries! The Lord of glory[48] came to earth, and as a beggar in a cave he put on flesh, seeking to call back Adam, and to deliver Eve from her pains.

By your swaddling bands[49] you loose the cords of offences, while by your poverty, O Compassionate, you make all rich. Laid in manger for irrational beasts, you free mortals from irrational[50] wickedness, O Word of God ever without beginning.

The proclamations of the Prophets have come to their end, for he whom they prophesied would come at the consummation of the years,[51] has came, has appeared, embodied of a pure Virgin. Let us receive him with pure minds.

Bethlehem, rejoice; and you, Ephrata, prepare, for the Mother of God has come to give birth to God ineffably in a cave and in a manger. O dread mystery! whose divine Nativity Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all the Patriarchs and Prophets now radiantly feast in anticipation, as mortals do with Angels.

Peoples, let us celebrate the forefeast of the Nativity of Christ; and raising our minds, let us be taken up in spirit to Bethlehem, and let us contemplate with spiritual thoughts the Virgin, who hastens to give birth in a Cave to the Lord of all things and our God. Joseph, as he contemplated the greatness of the wonders, seemed to see a human, wrapped in swaddling clothes like an infant; while he understood from the things that came to pass that he was the true God, who grants our souls his great mercy.

Peoples, let us celebrate the forefeast of the Nativity of Christ; and raising our minds, let us be taken up in spirit to Bethlehem, and let us contemplate the great mystery in the Cave; for Eden has been opened, as God comes forth from a pure Virgin, he who is perfect in both divinity and humanity.[52] And so let us cry: Holy God, the Father without beginning; Holy Strong, the incarnate Son; Holy Immortal, the Advocate Spirit.[53] Holy Trinity, glory to you!

Listen, O heaven, and give ear, O earth;[55] for see, the Son and Word of God the Father goes forth to be born from a Maiden, who knows not man, by the good pleasure[56] of the One who begot him impassibly, and by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. Bethlehem make ready, Eden open your gate; because the One Who Is[57] becomes what he was not, and the Fashioner of all creation is being fashioned, he who grants the world his great mercy.

Bethlehem, land of Juda, city according to the flesh, radiantly make ready the divine Cave, in which God comes to birth in flesh from a Holy Virgin who knows not man, to save our race.

Come, let us all faithfully celebrate the forefeast of Christ’s Nativity; and spiritually setting forth our hymn like a star, let us with the Shepherds shout aloud the Magis’ hymn of glory, ‘The salvation of mortals has come from a virgin womb, to call back believers’.

O house of Ephratha, the holy City, the glory of the Prophets, make ready the house in which the Divine comes to birth.

Bethlehem prepare; Eden is opened for all. Make ready Ephratha, because the tree of life[59] has flowered in the Cave from the Virgin. For her womb has been revealed as the spiritual Paradise in which is the plant of life; eating from it we shall live; we shall not die like Adam. Christ is born to raise up his image[60] which had fallen.

T To the Lord, who by his divine command dried up the raging untrodden sea, and guided the people of Israel through it on foot, let us sing; for he has been greatly glorified.

Troparia

H The ineffable descent of the Word of God, that is of the God-man Christ, is made known; he did not think that to be God was robbery, but is coming having taken the form of a servant[62] from a pure Maiden, Child of God.

D Christ comes willingly to serve the one whose form the fashioner now puts on. He enriches Adam in his penury with Godhead, granting him a strange refashioning and rebirth, as he is compassionate.

E The unwearied fire, fed with unlimited fuel drew back in fear before the pure bodies and pure souls of the holy Youths; and as the ever-living flame died down an everlasting hymn was sung: All you his works, praise the Lord and highly exalt him to all the ages.

U I will make you all my kinsmen, if you keep my commandments,[63] says Christ to mankind, as he comes from a pure womb. He gives them peace[64] and now commands them to have lowly thoughts, to recognise him as Lord and chant: We highly exalt you to all the ages.

T O Word of God for you being given birth was the reverse of the order of the flesh; for it was not flesh and blood which sustained your holy flesh, but the presence of the Holy Spirit and the divine overshadowing of the Most High;[65] and knowing you as Lord, we hymn and highly exalt you to all the ages.

E Christ, our Creator, you magnified the Mother of God who gave you birth, from whom you took a body with like passions to our own, which was the deliverance from our faults. As with all generations we call her blest, we magnify you.[66]

R Rejecting all the stain of passion, let us take up as befits the coming of Christ a prudent disposition; for he is coming forth without stain to bear flesh and to grant to all divine refashioning through the Spirit.

A Looking to Christ, who humbles himself, let us be lifted up from the passions that seek the ground; with good zeal trained by faith not to think lofty things,[67] let us be humbled in spirit; that by works which exalt we may exalt up the One who is being brought forth.

[1] Cf. the well-known Irmos in Tone 5, which is used at weddings and ordinations, though why dancing should be considered appropriate to Isaias is not clear.

[2] Cf. Exodus 3:2-3.

[3] The idea that the places connected with the Nativity–Eden, Bethlehem, the Cave, the Manger–must prepare is a constant theme in the pre-Christmas texts.

[4] Cf. Genesis 3:23-24. Christmas reverses the results of the Fall.

[5] Note how the liturgical texts combine the two accounts of the Nativity.

[6] Cf. the Protoevangelium of James 8:2-9:3.

[7] Matthew 1:20-22.

[8] The Greek says, literally, ‘the Metropolis of God’. St Gregory the Divine, in his sermon On the Death of his Father, 17, calls Bethlehem ‘the metropolis of the inhabited world, as the nurse and mother of Christ, who created and conquered the world’– τῆς οἰκουμένης μητρόπολιν, ὡς Χριστοῦ καὶ τροφὸν καὶ μητέρα, τοῦ τὸν κόσμον καὶ ποιήσαντος καὶ νικήσαντος. This could perhaps be the source for the hymn writer’s bold image.

[9] The Greek word ÁdutoV usually means ‘inaccessible’, and as a neuter noun the ‘inner shrine’ of a temple. It also, though less frequently, means ‘unsetting’. When coupled with ‘light’ it can, therefore means either ‘inaccessible’ or ‘unsetting’. The former meaning is suggested by the expression ‘inaccessible light’–fwV Âprósiton–in 1 Timothy 6:16. Origen, however describes Christ as ὁ νοητὸς ἥλιος τὸ φῶς τὸ ἄδυτον καὶ ἀνέσπερον–‘the spiritual sun, the light that never sets and knows no evening’, while St Theodore the Studite, speaking of the Mother of God, says that she it was ἐξ ἧς ὁ τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἥλιος ἀνέτειλεν, ἡμέραν ἀδύτου σωτηρίας ἀνθρώποις δημιουργησάμενος–‘from who dawned the Sun of righteousness, who created for humans a day of salvation that never sets’. The meaning ‘inaccessible’ is scarcely appropriate here.

[10] Luke 2:8.

[11] This text is used elsewhere, for example on 17 December.

[12] The accounts of the Nativity in the Gospels make no mention of a cave. This comes from the Protoevangelium of James, 18:1.

[13] This epithet of the Mother of God is rare in the Fathers. It is used by Theodore the Studite in his homily on the Nativity of the Mother of God– Χαῖρε, ἀμνὰς,… ᾿Εξ ἧς ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου, ἐπεδήμησε.

[14] In Greek there is a play on LógoV–‘Word’, and ÁlogoV–‘irrational’.

[15] Cf. Romanos Kontakion 1, Stanzas 6 & 2.

[16] Cf. John 1:17.

[17] Cf. Philippians 2:7.

[18] A word used by St Gregory the Divine and John of Damascus, among others, with reference to Christ’s human nature. St John speaks of ‘deifying the addition’– ποιητῇ τοῦ παντὸς θεοῦντι τὸ πρόσλημμα–‘the Maker of all deifying the addition’.

[19] These phrases recall the fourth Sticheron for Vespers of the Nativity.

[20] Note by Bartholomew, ‘Elsewhere in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes’.

[21] Cf. 3 Reigns 8:27.

[22] Deification is a central idea in Orthodox theology. In his homily On Theophany, 13 St Gregory the Divine puts it succinctly, προελθὼν δὲ Θεὸς μετὰ τῆς προσλήψεως, ἓν ἐκ δύο τῶν ἐναντίων, σαρκὸς καὶ Πνεύματος· ὧν, τὸ μὲν ἐθέωσε, τὸ δὲ ἐθεώθη-‘coming forth as God with the addition, one from two opposites, flesh and Spirit. The latter deified, the former was deified’.

[23] Cf. Genesis 3:1-7.

[24] Luke 2:1.

[25] Cf. Deuteronomy 32:1.

[26] Luke 2:14.

[27] Exodus 3:14.

[28] Matthew 2:6.

[29] The opening is clearly an imitation of the Irmos.

[30] Cf. Isaias 49:3.

[31] Cf. Isaias 55:12, Psalm 113:4.

[32] Exodus 15:1.

[33] Cf. Hebrews 1:2.

[34] Isaias 9:5.

[35] Cf. 1 Reigns 2:1.

[36] Isaias 11;1.

[37] In Greek Âlógwn, with a play on LógoV.

[38] Avvakoum 1:3.

[39] John 1:11.

[40] Cf. Isaias 19:1.

[41] Cf. Michaias 5:1.

[42] Cf. Numbers 13:23. The cluster of grapes cut by Caleb in Canaan and carried on a wooden pole is frequently used as a type of Christ crucified. Hence the vine, from which the cluster was cut, is also used frequently as a type of the Mother of God.

[43] Daniel 3:26.

[44] Christ is often called ‘Myrrh’ in the liturgical texts. St John of Damascus calls Christ ‘the myrrh poured out for our renewal’– Χριστὸν τὸ κενωθὲν μύρον εἰς ἡμῶν ἀνακαίνισιν, Homily on Holy Saturday [PG 96:636]. Hence the Mother of God can be called muroq°kh.

[45] Cf. Isaias 6:6-7. The typology of Christ as the burning coal of Isaias’ vision is applied to the Eucharist. Hence the use of the word labíV, ‘tong’, for the spoon with which Communion is given to the people. Here the tong is used a type of the Mother of God.

[46] Cf. Daniel 3:74.

[47] Luke 2:1-3.

[48] 1 Corinthians 2:8.

[49] Luke 2:7.

[50] The word ‘irrational’–in Greek ÁlogoV–is a play on LógoV.

[51] Daniel 9:27. Note that the phrase ‘consummation of the time’ only occurs in Theodotion’s version of Daniel, which is that used by the Orthodox Church, but in neither the Septuagint nor the Hebrew.

[52] This is almost a quotation from the Chalcedonian Definition, τέλειος ὢν ἐν θεότητι καὶ τέλειος ὁ αὐτὸς ἐν ἀνθρωπότητι, ‘being perfect in his divinity and the same perfect in his humanity’.

[53] One of a number of examples in the liturgical texts of the Trinitarian understanding of the Trisagion in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition. This excludes, for the Orthodox at least , translations which add ‘and’ in the second and third clauses, which by so doing make the whole hymn refer to ‘God’, that is, to the Father.

[54] This sticheron is also used at the Liti on the Sunday before Christmas, where no author is given.

[55] Cf. Deuteronomy 32:1.

[56] Luke 2:14.

[57] Exodus 3:14.

[58] No author is given on the earlier occasion.

[59] Genesis 2:9.

[60] Genesis 1:26.-27.

[61] The days from 20-24 December are assimilated the first four days of Holy Week, hence the acrostics for the Triodes of the canons at Compline. In Holy Week the canons at Matins on the first three days are Triode, but this in not the case in December, and therefore the Triodes are included in Compline on the 20-22 of December. In Holy Week Great Thursday has a full canon, and so, on 23 December, the canon for Thursday is sung at Matins, as the acrostic makes clear. Bartholomew of Koutloumousiou has the following note on this canon, ‘In the manuscript at Koutloumousiou this Triode has the ascription, Composition by Symeon Metphrastes. The prosomia on the Wednesday before the Great Canon are also ascribed to him, according to the Typikon for the Annunciation, no. 6. But since Allatius (Prologue at the beginning of September, para. 8) does not include the Metaphrastes in the list of hymn writers, but says simply Monk Symeon, it seems that the present composition, and so the following Triodes as well, are by this Symeon, and not Symeon Metaphrastes’. He adds a further note, ‘In the 1843 Constantinople edition of the Menaia these Triodes are ascribed, Composition of Symeon, the Logothete, the Metaphrastes.

[62] Philippians 2:6-7.

[63] Cf. John 15:14, where the word is ‘friends’, rather than ‘kinsmen’.

[64] John 14:27.

[65] Cf. Luke 1:34.

[66] Luke 1:46-48.

[67] Romans 12:16.