flame before the light of “a greater Sun.”  Prudentius proclaims the
     increase of the sun’s light, which begins after the winter solstice,
     as symbolic of the ever-widening influence of the True Light.  The
     idea is given in a terse form by St. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 159: 
     Crescere dies coepit, quia verus dies illuxit.  “The day begins to
     lengthen out, inasmuch as the true Day hath shone forth.”

18 For the somewhat obscure phrase verbo editus, see note on iii. 2.

20 For “Sophia” or the Divine Creative Wisdom, see Prov. iii. 19, 20,
     and especially viii. 27-31, where the language “has been of signal
     importance in the history of thought, helping, as it does, to make
     a bridge between Eastern and Greek ideas, and to prepare the way
     for the Incarnation” (Davison, Wisdom-Literature of the O. T., pp.
     5, 6).  In Alexandrian theology the conception of God’s transcendence
     gave rise to the doctrine of an intermediate power or logos, by
     which creation was effected.  In the Prologue of the fourth Gospel
     the idea was set forth in its purely Christian form.  See 1, 3, where
     the Logos or the pre-incarnate Christ is described as the maker of
     all things—­an idea which is also illustrated by the language of St.
     Paul in such passages as Col. i. 6.

59 Cf. for the conception of a golden age, Virg., Ecl., iv. 5
     et seq.:  Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo, etc.

65 Reminiscences of ancient prophecy appear to be embodied in this
     and following lines.  Cf.  Joel iii. 18:  “And it shall come to pass
     in that day that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine and the
     hills shall flow with milk.”  Amos ix. 13:  “The mountains shall drop
     sweet wine and all the hills shall melt.”  But cf. especially Virg.,
     Ecl., iv. 18-30:  At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu, etc.

“Unbidden earth shall wreathing ivy bring,
And fragrant herbs (the promises of spring)
As her first off’rings to her infant king.

* * * * *

Unlaboured harvest shall the fields adorn,
And clustered grapes shall blush on every thorn;
The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep,
And through the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep.” 

                            (Dryden’s Trans.)

81 The legend of the ox and ass adoring our Lord arose from an
     allegorical interpretation of Isa. i. 3:  “The ox knoweth his owner,
     the ass his master’s crib.”  Origen (Homilies on St. Luke xiii.)
     is the first to allegorise on the passage in Isaiah, where the word
     for “crib” in the Greek translation of the O. T. is identical