Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship, the holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One! We venerate Thy Cross, O Christ, and Thy Holy Resurrection we praise and glorify; for Thou art our God, and we know no other than Thee; we call on Thy name. Come, all you faithful, let us venerate Christ's Holy Resurrection! For, behold, through the Cross joy has come into all the world. Let us ever bless the Lord, praising His Resurrection. By enduring the Cross for us, He destroyed death by death!The phrase in the title has been sticking in my head lately. It feels like it should come from the Psalms or at least something in the Scriptures, but I cannot quite find the reference. All my googling seems to turn up is this above hymn to the Resurrection and various other Orthodox sources which are clearly derivative. Even as vague a search as "you are our god" "know no other" (or with "Thou" appropriately substituted) does not have much luck. So, help on sources for this phrase (if any exist) would be appreciated. Obviously, the sentiment is found all over the Old Testament since it is the major theme of the work, but I want to find it expressed with these phrases in close proximity or in similar words.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
For Thou art our God and we know no other than Thee
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
The only text with the phrase "Thou art our God" is II Chron. 14:11 "O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee." A search for simply "no other" turns up no positive results except for the familiar second commandmen and Daniel 3:29, "because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort."
In my opinion, this is a case where the Church's liturgical language has been wonderfully influenced by biblical language and thought. Although the exact phrase does not occur in the Bible, it is a thouroughly "Biblical" phrase and concept. The only seemingly "unbiblical" or particularly "liturgical" characteristic is the use of "we" and "our" in the expression, which is more commonly found in the singular in the OT.
Well, I suppose there are countless of times when the LORD addresses the Israelites, saying, "I am the LORD your God," and talks about how He is the only God, the God they have known, etc. Take, for example, Osee 13:4, which says, "ἐγὼ δὲ κύριος ὁ θεός σου στερεῶν οὐρανὸν καὶ κτίζων γῆν οὗ αἱ χεῖρες ἔκτισαν πᾶσαν τὴν στρατιὰν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ οὐ παρέδειξά σοι αὐτὰ τοῦ πορεύεσθαι ὀπίσω αὐτῶν καὶ ἐγὼ ἀνήγαγόν σε ἐκ γῆς αἰγύπτου καὶ θεὸν πλὴν ἐμοῦ οὐ γνώσῃ καὶ σῴζων οὐκ ἔστιν πάρεξ ἐμοῦ".
One other possibility is the reply of the Apostles to the Sanhedrin, "We know of no other name under heaven by which men may be saved," which probably is a pun in Aramaic.
Post a Comment