‘I depart’, cried Simeon, ‘to declare the good tidings to Adam abiding in hell and to Eve’; and with the prophets he sang rejoicing: O God of our fathers, blessed art Thou. ‘To deliver our kind formed from dust, God will go down even unto hell: He will give freedom to all the captives and sight to the blind, and will grant the dumb to cry aloud: O God of our fathers, blessed art Thou.’ ‘And a sword shall pierce thy heart, O All-Pure Virgin,’1 Simeon foretold to the Theotokos, ‘when thou shalt see
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