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Hymns on Faith

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

24. Rhythm the Twenty-fourth

With the weapons of the guilty wrestler, did the Lord prevail¹! He clad on a body which was from Adam, and from David, that with that body which the wicked one had made guilty², he might be brought low, so that his disgrace might the more abound. Yea, that littleness of Thine is too great for the eloquent. For who shall open his mouth [to speak] of Him that feedeth³ all, who was yet brought up at the poor table of Joseph and of Mary! [Coming] from the Bosom great and rich, which maketh all rich, in the poor bosom of Mary wert Thou brought up. Thou hadst a mortal⁴ father upon earth, the while Thou wert living and quickening all things.

He rode upon a lowly ass; hidden in His humility was His nobleness. They that rode upon horses and chariots were overcome while victorious. For David conquered the warrior ranks, and a weak rib⁵ brought this⁶ warrior low. The ass spake, and knew that she was an ass,⁷ and knew also her master for her master. What sort of⁸ teacher is he that cannot distinguish the work which is made, from the Maker? If Nabal too was overcome because he thrust forth his scornful⁹ tongue, in that he opened his mouth brutishly, for he esteemed lightly of David the great king, and joined his name with servants; then whoso is so foolish as to be like Nabal, flee from his tongue, my brethren, and from his death; for it is not the son of Jesse of whom he speaketh scornfully, but the Son of David.

The Lord humbled Himself and came down, and the Maker became a servant¹⁰. He was as a minister, He was a fellow-servant who washed the feet. These things let us search into, my beloved, if we be able to give due thanks! The Lord of Heaven came down to the earth and became a sojourner! He was a sojourner [there], and a dweller, and also a traveller, that He might take us up and cause us to dwell in¹¹ His Kingdom in an everlasting mansion.

Praise we with all our mouths the Lord of all tongues! how long shall we go astray, and how long will it be ere we praise the Son of the Living One, against Whom, because He took a Body in His Love, the crucifiers have been bold, and the disputers have been mad!

Notes

p. 20.
On Athan. p. 241, n. h.
p. 23.
R. xvii. §. 3.
i. e. Bathsheba.
2 Sam. 11. 12.
Num. 22, 28.
Pearl iv. §. 2. R. xli. §. 3.
On 1 Sam. xxv. 25. “Nabal means scornful and contemptuous; even at this day there is the expression of ‘m’nabel ‘no loch,’ i. e. ‘I scorn thee,’ when a man in a passion is chiding vehemently with his neighbour.” This comment illustrates the expression ‘wrought folly [Hebrew] in Israel,’ which occurs so often of acts of open contempt of all law and feeling—an expression which does, in this sense of the word folly, further illustrate the text. A part of his commentary on that seemingly unintelligible conduct of David’s may be worth adding. After noticing that Abigail’s words, v. 28. shew how notorious it was that David was to be king, and that Abigail had kept David from a sin; “Nabal,” he proceeds, “was smitten justly by the Lord ten days after, because he had rejected David’s ten youths and iniquitously scorned them. He then perished by a plague that corresponded with his iniquity in such sort, that, as he had divested himself of mercifulness and put on the hardness of a rock toward his brethren that were importunate with him, so his heart might become as a senseless stone. Nabal, then, whom for his wife’s pleading’s sake man did not slay, did the justice of God kill for his sin’s sake. But as God rewarded him according to his hardness, so did He also reward his wife with good according to her mercifulness, and brought her up unto the chamber of David the king.” Some see the character of Nabal in Ps. xiv. which might begin, Nabal hath said in his heart, &c. Vid. the Chozé Zion on the place.
On the sense of the word servant, see Petav. de Incarn. vii. §. 7. The word in the Syriac comes from the same root as the word for Maker. Hence it easily suggests to the mind the text, Ps. 119, 91. ‘for all things are Thy servants.’
The well known words of St. Greg. the Great may be added here. Hom. in Matt. xxv. H. ix. §. 1. “Who is that man that travelled into a far country, but our Redeemer, who with that flesh which He had taken, departed into Heaven? For of flesh the proper abode is earth; and it is as it were led to a strange country, when, by our Redeemer, it is placed in Heaven.”