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Dear Parish Faithful,
“Oh how did we not remember types of this tree! For of old they were shown forth in many and varied ways and saved the lost. By a tree, Noah was saved, but the whole world, unbelieving, was destroyed. Moses was glorified through one when he took a staff as a scepter, but Egypt, with the plagues that came from it, was drowned as though fallen into deep wells. What it has now done, the Cross showed forth of old in image. Why then are we weeping? For Adam is going again to paradise.”
—Dialogue between the devil and Hades on their fall by the Cross, in St Romanos the Melodist’s On the Victory of the Cross, a crucifixion kontakion for Wednesday of Mid-Lent, as found in Hymns of Repentance (Translated by Andrew Mellas)
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St. Romanos the Melodist (his icon is on one of our deacon's doors) was one of the great masters of a kind of poetic theology, on full display in his magnificent kontakia. His use of typological interpretations of the Old Testament, together with his arresting metaphors - and a certain "daring" speculation - as is this dialogue between the devil and hades, has created a series of wonderfully resonant images that the Church has embraced now for centuries.
