Library › St Ephrem the Syrian › Hymns on Faith

Hymns on Faith

St Ephrem the Syrian, tr. Morris, 1847; selections

11. Rhythm the Eleventh

I, O Lord, am not worthy, neither venture I upon this; for should I venture to fly, I should not reach it. He deceiveth Himself whosoever ventureth without Thee upon what is Thine, O Thou that art above all. Thy Nature with its breath reproacheth us when it affrighteth us. Thy height mocketh us, so high and lifted up is it. Thy mercy also, lo! it putteth us to shame, it hath so humbled itself to the abjects. Let him who hath ventured, yield proof openly; let his eye see the Great Mountain from afar, let his eye reprove that mind of his, because he hath scrutinized Him without measure; for his own troubled course¹ reproacheth him, and his vision putteth him to shame. His troubled course¹ reproacheth his tongue, that he hath thus strayed into that Majesty, in Whose Bosom the world is placed, as but a span.

Lo! his ear is not able to hear the mighty crash, neither can it hear the still silence; how then shall he hear the voice² of the Son or the silence of the Father, when the silence too is vocal? The heavens declare the glory of God. Lo! a silence³, the whole whereof muttereth among all languages to all languages! This firmament, lo! it declareth day by day the glory of its Maker. Man is too little to be able to hear all languages, and if he sufficed to hear the tongue of Angels⁴ that are spirits, so might he lift himself up to hear the silence which speaketh between the Father and the Son⁵. Our tongue is estranged to the voice of beasts; the tongue of Angels is estranged to every [other] tongue. That silence wherewith the Father speaketh with His Well-beloved, is⁶ strange unto the Angels.

Good is He that clad Him in all forms for our sight, clad Himself likewise in all voices in order to have intercourse with us⁷⁸. He alone is able to see His Own Nature, and His silence He alone can hear. His Son that is from Him is Himself also equal to Him. And he that is a stranger to His Nature is a stranger to the investigation of Him, and he wandereth exceedingly, since there is no path that leadeth to the Hidden One. When the Creator trod a path for the creature that the offerings of prayers⁹ might come to His door, it was not a path for prying which He made that by it man might come to the door of the [Divine] Essence.

To him that bringeth an offering and cometh unto prayer, the Way sheweth itself and cleaveth to him, and the Door itself when it seeth him, also openeth itself before his offering. Whoso cometh unto that Majesty to scrutinize, the paths are deceitful, the gates are closed to him, and there is a waste and a desert and a veritable solitude, and the rash one wandereth [herein]: let him learn that Satan¹⁰ brought him thither. Him who thought that he sufficed for Thy Godhead, his own nature doth reproach, in that he wandereth in Thee, while even it is not acquainted with itself¹¹. Foolish is he that thinketh he can overcome death, and he cannot know death nor its essence. Knowledge does not remain with him that forgetteth his own nature in Thy Nature. He is blameworthy who hath lost his own and found neither his own¹² nor Thine. He deceiveth himself that thinketh that he hath mounted up and searched out Thee. He injureth not Thee by all his knowledge, since it is in Thee; and what is his¹³, is without Thee.

My mouth sufficeth not for Thee, and I rejoice that I sufficed not, for if I sufficed it were a blasphemy on both accounts; either that the nature of man should be greater than that of God, or that it should be equal were harsh to think. Thy feast is athirst for them that were bidden.¹⁴ Without bound Thy banquet rejoiceth in ready guests and their dresses, Thy chamber longeth for the virgins whose lamps¹⁵ are furnished with oil. There are many called, that long for Thy door, but since Thy door is narrow¹⁶, they are very few that have given up and cast away every thing, and have been able to enter in, because it hateth riches.¹⁷

Thy furnace exulteth in us, that it may be perfect in the assaying, and true in the trial. And since Thou hast lifted up our mind unto the impress of Thy Image¹⁸, on it, Lord, may there be cast the impress of Thy Truth. Thy path to us is long. It is shortened, for in His mercy He cut short the length of it, in His love for him that is weak. He extended His mountain unto him that is little, that the praise for Thy wisdom might be increased. The throne of Thy glory, and also the tribunal of Thy righteousness¹⁹, rejoiceth in the victor that put the adversary to shame. Thy mercy also sustaineth the weak, and even Gehenna²⁰ would be refreshed with Thy shadow.

Notes

S. running
ab. p. 128, n. g.
Ps. xix. 4. in the present S. Vers. (according to Dathe’s text,) is, “There is no speech, no, nor words, which is not heard in their voices.” St. E. seems to have had the passage with this reading, or one similar to it, as it is not very grammatical at present. Nyssen. ii. p. 775. b. p. 776. d. has the same illustration from the heavens.
1 Cor. 13, 1.
This passage falls in with what was quoted above, p. 128, n. g. ‘Silence speaking’ implies that the speaking is only represented as taking place by an accommodation. St. Greg. Nyss. ii. p. 812. a. may be advantageously cited here. “No one do I suppose to be in such a heavy headed state, as not to know that God, the Only-begotten, who is in the Father and in Himself seeth the Father, doth not need any noun or verb towards the knowledge of the Subject, as neither is the Holy Spirit, who searcheth the deep things of God, led into the knowledge of what He searcheth by means of appellative nouns: neither doth the unembodied nature of the powers above this world name the Deity with voice and tongue. For in the case of an immaterial and spiritual nature, the energy of the mind is a language without the use of material appliances of organs of speech. And indeed in the case of human nature, no need would there be of using verbs and nouns, if it were possible to expose to one another the movements of our thoughts naked.”
Comp. R. v. §. 1.
Vol. ii. p. 511. b. “Borrowed appearances, my son, are stamped upon a mirror: it is perfect with the perfect, feeble is it with the feeble: it eateth with him that eateth, and receiveth these things, while they are not in it. Herein is a semblance of that Divine Majesty to whom the sacrifices of the Jewish people were sweet, for their advantage. By pleas of all kinds did He humble Himself to children, that He might bring them up in His Mercy to the height.” See R. lxii. §. 4. Gr. Nyssen. ap. Ang. Mai, C. N. viii. p. 2. ‘He appeared as man, but God by Nature He was and is, having circumscribed His illimitable greatness in a Body, and by Himself, as by a mirror, having shewn to us the whole greatness of the Godhead, that using this as a glass we might be beholders of the Father also. For being the Image of the invisible God according to the Apostle, He said, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father;’ thus also by the things which are said in the Scriptures, according to the measure of our hearing, which yet from the inadequacy of language do sundry times ill assort with the Godhead, we contemplate Him proportionably to our understanding. For as God, when circumscribed by a Body was seen unto us by our sight, thus also is the language, which through our hearing is preached unto us, more humble than is fitting touching God.”
S. for our persuasion.
R. xx. §. 3.
See on Athan. p. 9. n. s.
R. i. §. 1. xv. §. 3.
comp. Matt. 10, 39.
i. e. ignorance
see Matt. 22, 3.
Matt. 25, 1. p. 111, n. f.
See on Athan. note b. p. 190.
Mark 10, 23.
R. xii. §. 1. xviii. §. 2. and n. h. p. 87.
p. 34, n. s.
See contr. Scrut. iii. §. 24. where a similar impossibility is noticed; unless it be thought that St. E. held with St. Austin (in a difficult passage in the Enchir. ad Laur. v. fin.) that the punishment of the damned, though unalterable as a condition, might, in degree, be alleviated. It may be right to add, to prevent misconception, that St. E. held the fire of hell to be “inextinguishable, not consuming that which it devoureth, seeing it was not appointed to consume, but to cause suffering and torment.” ii. p. 354, s.