Baptized for Our Sakes

The ca seventh-century Christian hymn edited in this volume is one of the most extensive and important Greek liturgical documents to emerge from Egypt in recent years. The leather parchment, measuring 23.3 x 38.5 cm, preserves a three-hymn cycle, interlaced with the Trisagion refrain, "holy is God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us." The first cycle consists of an acrostic recounting of the birth, baptism, passion and ascension of Jesus. The second and third concern Isaiah's vision of the seraphim and Old Testament typologies of the person and work of Christ. As a whole the text focuses on the incarnation and baptismal motifs (with theologically interesting turns of phraseology, e.g., that Jesus was "begotten through the word of God" and "baptized for our sakes") and dramatically sets forth the polarities of Christ as pantocrator and sufferer. These themes receive detailed treatment in the commentary, as do other important issues, such as phonological and syntactic features of the Greek, the origin and use of the Trisagion in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox communions, the ascription of the hymn to Christ as opposed to the Trinity, and the Monophysite addition, "who was crucified for us."