As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not rejoice among the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
Read Chapter 3
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
35. For the awakened spirit of sorrow is like a kind of tempestuous whirlwind. For when a man understands what sin he has committed, when he minutely considers the wickedness of his evil doings, he clouds the mind with sorrow, and the air of quiet joy being agitated, as it were, he sweeps away all the inward tranquillity of his breast, by the whirlwind of penitence. For unless the heart, returning to the knowledge of itself, were broken by such a whirlwind, the Prophet would never have said, Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with a strong wind. [Ps. 48, 7] For Tarshish is rendered, ‘the exploring of joy.’ But when the strong blast of penitence seizes the mind, it disturbs therein all the ‘explorings’ after a censurable joy, that it now takes pleasure in nought but to weep, minds nought but what may fill it with affright. For it sets before the eyes, on the one hand, the strictness of justice, on the other the deserts of sin, it sees what punishment it deserves, if the pitifulne...
11. For it is written, Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. [Ps. 50, 3] Thus [Vulg. tenebrosusturbo] a dark whirlwind seizes upon that night, in that the apostate Angel is by that fearful tempest carried off from before the strict Judge to suffer eternal woe; thus this night is seized by a whirlwind, in that his blind Pride is smitten with a strict visitation. It goes on;
Let it not be joined unto the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.
12. By year we understand not inapplicably the preaching of supreme grace. For as in a year the period is completed by a connected series of days, so in heavenly grace is a complex life of virtue made complete. By a year too we may understand the multitude of the redeemed. For as the year is produced by a number of days, so by the assemblage of all the righteous there results that countless sum of the Elect. Now Isaiah fore...
