Composed by St. Gerasimos of Little Anne Skete.
Ode I.
Irmos. After crossing the sea as if it
were dry ground and escaping the wickedness of Egypt, the Israelite cried
out: Let us sing to our redeemer and God.
Look graciously, holy Nilus, on those who run
reverently to your protection, O Myrrh-streamer, and fulfil, O Father, our requests.
Heal, Nilus the Myrrh-streamer, the grievous pains
of our bodies and the afflictions of our souls by your intercession with
Christ, for we faithfully hasten to your grace.
Wholly radiant Father, as a star disperse with your radiance
the darkness of my passions, holy Nilus, and cause the divine light of health
to shine on me.
You alone supernaturally bore the master of all,
restoring Adam, O Mother of God; deliver me from the malice of the enemy, O
Full of Grace.
Irmos. You covered the vault
of the sky with a roof, O Lord, and built the church; confirm me in your love,
O summit of desires, support of the faithful and only compassionate Lord.
By your sweet-smelling fragrance, O truly holy one, as a wondrous Myrrh-streamer of the Almighty, drive far away the stench of the passions, Nilus, which torment and afflict us.
See from the heights,
Father, with your fatherly gaze, those who have come to your temple with warmth
of soul and give to all your favor, health and strength and every other gift,
heavenly Nilus.
You appeared to the world as
a new sun by your virtues, O saint, having shone forth from Athos, and you always
distribute in our souls the light of true repentance and the ray of grace of
divine kindness.
Consolation of the world
and unbreakable support and benefactress of sinners who trust in you: give grace and mercy to my afflicted heart, O
Virgin, in your kindness.
Prayers following Ode III.
Preserve, Saint Nilus,
inspired Myrrh-streamer, from various calamities those who seek your divine patronage.
Tone 2. Fervent intercession.
Our fervent patron, become
also a refuge for those who have recourse to your protection with fervent
faith, always giving them the fulfilment of their requests from above by your
divine prayers to the creator, O Nilus, adornment of the Myrrh-streamers.
Irmos. I
have heard, O Lord, the mystery of your dispensation; I have meditated on your
works and glorified your divinity.
Always give strength and
healing in soul and body, Father Nilus, to those who faithfully fall before your
holy relics.
Those who hasten zealously
to your divine temple, myrrh-streaming Nilus, receive every benefit from the
grace given to you.
Ask for health and
deliverance from dangers and afflictions and undisturbed peace, Father, for
those who have recourse to your patronage.
By your ineffable
conception you have delivered Adam from condemnation; wherefore deliver me,
all-immaculate Mother of God from every attack of Belial.
Wholly blessed Nilus, out
of your kindness give to us divine gifts from above, so that we may live a
peaceful life.
Who takes refuge in your
temple and does not receive whatever he prayed for in his heart in truth? For you are the most fervent help of all.
You disdained the
incorporeal enemy by your asceticism; deliver your suppliants, Father Nilus
from their wickedness and bitter madness.
Crush the deceitful enemy
who ever attacks us, pure Virgin, and manage our life that we may live free of
pain.
As full of gifts from God
and as a pious servant of the Lord, you have great boldness with him; wherefore
entreat peace and genuine success, Father Nilus, for those who bless you.
The whole order of men
reverently approaching your holy temple are consecrated, Father, by touching
your all-holy relic, O saint, and receive deliverance from difficulties by your
intercession, Nilus.
In faith the pious people
celebrates your radiant memory and flowing in from every side to your divine
temple, Father, they are filled by the sacred overshadowing of the fragrance of
your myrrh in the Spirit.
Cleanse my soul of the
slime of the passions by your intercession and make it clean, O Maiden, by the cleansing
streams of your grace and save me from corruption, Virgin Mother of God, as you
are compassionate.
Prayers following Ode VI.
Preserve, Saint Nilus,
inspired Myrrh-streamer, from the adversities of divers kinds those who seek
your divine protection.
Kontakion in Tone 2.
As a sweet-smelling vessel
of divine kindness and an alabaster box of immaterial fragrance, make our souls
fragrant and heal the diseases of our bodies, O Nilus, myrrh-streaming saint.
Tone VI. Having laid all hope.
A vessel most fragrant of
divine inspiration, O saintly myrrh-streamer and holiest boast of Mount Athos! Guard those who celebrate you in sincerity so
that they are invulnerable to harsh afflictions, all kinds of needs, diseases
and adversities, and by your intercessions always give us a life free of pain,
forgiveness for our faults and renunciation of sin, for we reverently take
refuge in your power, Nilus.
Ask for our deliverance
from every bitter attack and misfortune in life, obtaining instead joy and
health and every blessing for us at every time, servant of Christ, Nilus,
all-blessed myrrh-streamer.
Taking refuge in your
divine temple in our time of need, Father, we are delivered speedily by your
attentive authority from the need which suddenly came upon us, because we have you
as our patron and savior.
Enable us to finish the
days of our life peacefully in every beneficent work and the acquisition of
virtues and in a proper way of life with your help, O Nilus the Myrrh-streamer.
Draw me from the road of destruction
to the road of salvation, O Maiden, and in your sympathetic kindness illumine
my mind with the light of repentance, so that I may see the illuminating beams
of the light which is above.
Irmos. The
king of Heaven whom the hosts of angels hymn, hymn and exalt him above all
forever.
With the divine streams of
your sweetly flowing unguents, make our thoughts fragrant, Nilus the Myrrh-streamer,
great fame of saints.
By your divine
intercession free from diseases and from every other need those who have
recourse to you faithfully, Nilus the Myrrh-streamer.
Speedily chase every
difficulty, mischief and pain from the homes of those who hymn you, Nilus the
Myrrh-streamer.
Heal, Maiden, my diseased
soul and grant me tears of repentance, so that I may wash away the filth of my
passions.
Ode IX.
Irmos. O Mother of God, we who have
been saved through you fittingly confess you, and with the incorporeal choirs
magnify you, O pure Virgin.
As a fragrant lily, you
always gladden those who go to you in faith, Nilus, and you chase away the odor
of evil, O saint.
Rescue my soul from deadly
pain and give me health of body, Saint, and to my mind grant the more excellent
fear, Nilus.
From on high you do not
fail in your duty, Father, of defending those who approach you undoubtingly in
soul, furnishing to all your defence in life.
Supremely radiant vessel
of the universal king, who was ineffably born of you, illumine my darkened
soul, O Virgin.
ENDNOTES FOR THE CIRCUMSPECT
This canon is available in several place online,
including https://paraklitikoi-kanones.gr/content/paraklisi-eis-ton-osion-theoforon-patera-imon-neilon-ton-myrovlytin/.
I am grateful to Zoilus Senior for his helpful
remarks.
Ode I.
“Holy” (θεοφόρε).
Constantinidos and Stephanus
define θεοφόρος as
Deum ferens and θεόφορος as divino motu latus.
Other lexicographers seem to ignore the distinction. For example, Lampe,
Montonari, Kyriakides and Sophocles define θεοφόρος as Deum ferens and
do not acknowledge the proparoxytone. Giles simply used both definitions
for the paroxytone. I suspect that the best general translation is
Giles’
divinely inspired, but in certain contexts sacred and holy might
do. For example, in modern Greek “the holy fathers” is rendered as οἱ θεοφόροι
πατέρες (Kontopoulos). Θεόφορος is
variously defined as inspired or
possessed by a god (Great Scott, Konstantinidos); God-bearing, inspired
(E. A. Sophocles); divinely inspired (Giles); divine, sacred, holy
(Kyriakides); divinus, plenus Deo (Suicerus); divino
motu latus, divino spiritu afflatus (Stephanus). I
voted with Kyriakides.
“To your grace” (τῇ σῇ χάριτι). St. Gerasimos departs from typical usage here
and in other canons. Instead of using τῇ σῇ χάριτι instrumentally,
as found in the Divine Liturgy and everywhere else (“by thy grace”), he is
using it to indicate goal (“to your grace”).
Just as Christians in the first troparion of this ode προστρέχουσιν εὐλαβῶς τῇ σῇ προστασίᾳ (hurry reverently to your protection), so he is asked to
heal the pains and afflictions τῶν προσιόντων πιστῶς τῇ σῇ χάριτι (of those who faithfully
approach your grace”). Grace, in this
case, is not “a supernatural help of God for salutary
acts granted in consideration of the merits of Christ” (Catholic Encyclopedia,
1911). Rather, it is an abstract quality used in
place of the person exhibiting that quality.
We find this rhetorical device in such titles as “Your Grace” and “Your
Excellency.” If so, then we know who the
person it is—St. Nilus—but which nuance of grace does St. Gerasimos imagine he
exhibits towards us? Grace in Greek has
many shades of meaning; no Greek speaker needs to pinpoint any one of them when
he uses that word. In the same way,
Milton says “the fruit of that forbidden tree” without indicating whether he
means “the apple” or “consequences drawn upon the human race by Adam and Eve by
eating the fruit of the tree.” A word
like grace will in Greek as in English summon a host of associations—sympathetic
resonances, so to speak. When we
translate, we have to bloodlessly whittle that range of associations down to a
single word in the target language.
Which shade of grace should we pick?
I chose to convert the abstraction to a concrete person—a
benefactor. I might easily have said “to
your kindness,” “to you, who are favorable to us” or even “to you, our powerful
saint,” since grace possesses all those nuances. I will keep my eyes peeled for any evidence
which would persuade me to change my current choice of words. The literalist may wish to say “to your
grace.”
Ode III.
“True” (ὡς ἀληθῶς). Fraedersdorff says that ὡς ἀληθῶς can be used as an
attributive adjective. Plato, for
instance, says ἡ ὡς ἀληθῶς γῆ (“the true earth”).
“As a wondrous myrrh-streamer”
(οἷα θαυμαστὸς Μυροβλύτης).
In Classical Greek, οἷα is used to mean “as, inasmuch as . . . to emphasise a
participle denoting the cause or ground of an action”
(Goodwin). In this respect, οἷα is used like ὡς.
However, just as ὡς comes to
be used to mark appositive predicates in the New Testament (e.g., in Lk 15:19,
where ποίησόν με ὡς ἕνα τῶν μισθίων σου
may be read as “treat me as one of your hired hands”), so in our hymns οἷα is extended in exactly the same direction. Our translation of οἷα θαυμαστὸς Μυροβλύτης is therefore “as a wondrous myrrh-streamer.” Modern Greek intuition seems to concur. E.g., John Sanidopoulos translates οἷα στρατιώτης as “as a soldier.” If we look at the entire sentence of that
phrase, we see that Ὤφθης νεανίας πανευπρεπής,
οἷα στρατιώτης τοῦ Δεσπότου περιφανής (you appeared (as) an all-comely
youth and as a soldier of the Master) features two predicate appositives: one without the adverb (Ὤφθης νεανίας πανευπρεπής), which is no less an
adverb clause of manner (or, following Leech and Svartvik, of role) and the
other with an adverb (οἷα στρατιώτης τοῦ Δεσπότου περιφανής). Our hymnographer could have used ὡς instead, but
there were two possible marks against it.
First, ὡς had just been
used at the beginning of the sentence.
Second, the isosyllabic convention of Byzantine hymns might have
required two syllables in that spot. Migne simply drops οἷα from the Latin translation (PGM 100, col. 843).
According to Aquinas, grace may refer to the
disposition of the giver of a gift, or it may refer to the gift the giver gives
as a result of his disposition, or it may refer to the gratitude expressed by
the recipient of the gift (ST, I, II, 110).
Although I usually try to
translate χάρις so that the appropriate nuance may be highlighted, in cases
like this it may be wiser to disguise my uncertainty by using the standard
definition. The reader may decide which of the meanings grace has by referring
to Aquinas’ analysis or, for that matter, Harrison’s.
χάριν (“grace”).
Ode IV.
“Health” (σωτηρίαν). This Greek word originally had no religious
connotations. It can mean many things—safety,
path to safety, means of escape etc. Later it came to mean health, well
being, preservation etc. In
the NT, of course, it takes on a new dimension of meaning. Even then, I sometimes suspect that the
lexicographers are guilty of reading later definitions into words in the
NT. E.g., BAGD says that Luke 1:71 shows
the meaning of σωτηρία shifting from deliverance to salvation,
but nothing in the context obliges us to read salvation into the
verse. Crucial here is that salvation is
an extension of deliverance. On the one
hand, we should never dispose of the basic meaning for the extended one without
justification; on the other, there is admittedly no clear rule for telling when
to shift from basic to extended meanings.
Ode VI.
“Order of men” (τάξις τῶν ἀνθρώπων). τάξις denotes orderly
groups—arrangements, squadrons, companies etc.
More abstractly, regularity and orderliness.
Notice that this troparion
offers the relatively rare thrice invocation of a saint.
Ode VII.
“Beneficent work” (εὐπραγίᾳ) is an attempt to capture some of
the meaning of this troublesome word.
Lampe reports beneficence (doing good, the manifestation of
benevolence or kindly feeling, active kindness [OED]), doing good, benefit,
good work, good deed, beneficent act, alms. We have to avoid the Classical definitions (well-being,
outcome, success etc.).
Kyriakides sends the lexical pilgrim to εὐποΐα: beneficence (doing good, the
manifestation of benevolence or kindly feeling, active kindness [OED]), bounty. My translation is clunky but marginally
superior to “in all active kindness” or “in every good deed” (which for those
of us who remember sends directly to the Boy Scouts trails of memory).
Ode VIII.
“Make our thoughts
fragrant” (εὐωδίασον ἡμῶν τὰς διανοίας). A bold metaphor or, as Zoilus remarks, “a
rather strange conceptual choice by the hymnographer.”
“Difficulty”
(σκανδάλον). The text has σκανδάλων,
which does not agree with ἅπαν. Montie reports trap, snare,
sinful act. Lampe reports obstacle,
difficulty, occasion of sin, sin, fall into sin, sinful
act. Kyriakides reports intrigue,
plot, machination, mischief as well as scandal and exposure. Was our hymnographer archaizing? Churchifying?
Modernizing? My principle is to
let the conjunction do the heavy lifting.
Mischief and pain originate externally, at least with respect to one’s
soul. This limits the field to snare,
obstacle, difficulty and plot. Now it’s a coin toss.
Ode IX.
“Health” (ῥῶσιν). Among
the fathers, this word can refer to bodily health (Lampe). Stephanos reports that ab Hesychio autem exp.
ὑγιεία, sanitas,
valetudo. I do not know which Hesychius
of the three listed in Lampe to whom Stephanos refers; based on the sheer
volume of output, it is most likely St. Hesychius of Jerusalem (ob. post 450).
