Through the tender mercy of our God; by which the dawn from on high has visited us,
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Bede
AD 735
When Zechariah says, “for his people,” he certainly does not mean that he found them his people upon his arrival but that he made them his by visiting and redeeming them. Do you want to hear about the condition in which he found this people and what he made of them? The end of this canticle clearly makes this evident by saying “the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” He found us sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, weighed down by the ancient blindness of sins and ignorance, overcome by the deception and the errors of the ancient enemy. He is rightly called death and a lie, just as on the contrary our Lord is called truth and life. Our Lord brought us the true light of recognition of himself and, having taken away the darkness of errors, opened up for us a sure way to heaven. He guided our works so that we may be able to pursue the way of truth that he showed us a...
For the world was wandering in error, serving the creation in the place of the Creator and was darkened over by the blackness of ignorance. Night, as it were, that had fallen upon the minds of all, permitted them not to see him, who is truly and by nature God. But the Lord of all rose for the Israelites, like a light and a sun. .
For those under the law and dwelling in Judea, John the Baptist was a lamp preceding Christ. God also spoke of him in a similar way: “I have prepared a lamp for my anointed.” And the law also typified him in the lamp. In the first tabernacle it was necessary for the lamp to always remain lit. But the Jews, after being pleased with him for a short time, flocking to his baptism and admiring his mode of life, quickly made him sleep in death, doing their best to extinguish the everburning lamp. Therefore the Savior also spoke of him as “a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.” .
The rising light, or the rising sun, hath visited us from on high. The Rheims translation hath the Orient, the Protestant, the day-spring. Both seem more obscure than they need be. The Latin, as well as the Greek, hath a noun substantive, by which Christ himself is signified. Yet the same word, in both languages, is sometimes taken for a rising light, and sometimes for a bud, or branch; in which latter sense it is expounded by St. Jerome. (Comment in Zachar. p. 1737, tom. 3, Ed. Ben.) But in this place it is rather taken for a light that riseth, by the following words, to enlighten them that sit in darkness (Witham)
The Orient. It is one of the titles of the Messias, the true light of the world, and the sun of justice. (Challoner)
By this he shows that God has forgiven us our sins, not through our merits, but through his own most tender mercy; (Theophylactus) and that we are to solicit this forgiveness through the bowels of his most tender mercy.
Abiding on high yet present upon the earth, suffering neither division nor limitation, which thing neither can our understanding embrace, nor any power of words express.
Abiding on high yet present upon the earth, suffering neither division nor limitation, which thing neither can our understanding embrace, nor any power of words express.
What greater destiny can befall man’s humility than that he should be intermingled with God, and by this intermingling should be deified, and that we should be so visited by the “dayspring from on high”? Further, that even the holy thing that should be born should be called the Son of the Most High and that he should be given “a name that is above every name”? And what else can this be but God? That every knee should bow to him that was made of no reputation for us, that mingled the form of God with the form of a servant, and that all the house of Israel should know that God has made him both Lord and Christ? For all this was done by the action of the begotten One, and by the good pleasure of him that begot him. Oration, On the Son.
This same God, after His great goodness, poured His compassion upon us, through which compassion "the Day-spring from on high hath looked upon us, and appeared to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, and has guided our feet into the way of peace; ".
For how can he be good, who does not give from what belongs to himself? Or how can he be just, who snatches away the goods of another? And in what way can sins be truly remitted, unless that He against whom we have sinned has Himself granted remission "through the bowels of mercy of our God "in which "He has visited us"
Which mercy we find not indeed by our own seeking, but God from on high has appeared to us, as it follows; Whereby (i.e. by His tender mercy) the day-spring from on high (that is, Christ) has visited us, taking upon Him our flesh.
