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Hymns on Faith

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

33. Rhythm the Thirty-third

John¹ in truth when he saw Thee, shadowed out Thee,² who art the Word and God who cannot be searched out, in order that every man should shadow Thee out by that type, in his mind, and not dare to shadow³ out aught that is foreign to Thee. The appearance that the Spirit in John sealed upon us, therewith also are our heart and understanding and mind impressed⁴. His Nature is hidden, yet revealed, though it is entirely hidden; for it is revealed that it existeth, but concealed in its mode of existence⁵. Let us leave alone what He hath left, and that which He hath given us to hold fast, let us hold fast.

If it be too difficult for painters to paint us the wind⁶ in colours; whose tongue hath painted the Generation, which no mouths have painted with their words? When they paint the body, they paint not the soul; and when they paint the mouth, they paint not the voice, since these fall not at all under the pencil; the Scriptures which paint unto us the Son, paint not unto us, when [He became Son], and though⁷ they preach unto us the Father, yet they preach not unto us how [He begetteth], since these things fall not under investigation. And if then the devil⁸ cannot be shadowed forth with colours, who with his investigations hath shadowed forth the Holy Ghost? The unclean spirit chideth at their interpretations of Him: for as he concealeth himself from the painters, thus an hundredfold more concealed is the Godhead from their minds which do not comprehend the mode of His existence⁹.

And as colours paint not the voice, so thoughts suffice not for the Son, that mark at which they aim from a subtle mind. Which of the painters¹⁰ gazed upon that brightness in which Moses was enwrapped: neither the painters of faces¹¹ nor the painters of drapery sufficed to paint him. For those heavenly tints could not even by the eye be perfectly taken in or by the mind, which was not correlative to either of them¹². Now if the countenance of an aged man and a mortal, because it was but slightly suffused with the heavenly tint, put the colours to shame¹³, and perplexed the painters, who then shall shadow forth the Nature of that Essence which cannot be seen unto perfection¹⁴? And whoever is said in Scripture to have seen Him, saw not Him, but a shape in which He wrapped Himself. For lo! the intelligible¹⁵ colours of all minds are not correlative unto the Son, so that we should paint therewith His likeness to the hearers, or know Him as He is. For if that breath¹⁶ which may be held and felt, we yet cannot paint, who shall shadow forth that Generation which is revealed to the Father alone, and withdrawn and hidden¹⁷ from all [others]?

Notes

S. The truth of John
R. lii. §. 2.
p. 50, n. r. R. xliv. §. 5.
The ‘type in the mind’ and this expression probably refer not loosely to the whole view of doctrine so impressed upon the mind, but also the use of ‘Word’ in St. John, which refers to the λόγος in man’s mind as a type. See Petav. de Trin. vi. 2. (who points out wherein the type and antitype agree or differ,) and on Ath. p. 329, n. m. See on R. xlii. §. 5.
R. xlii. §. 1.
R. xlii. §. 1.
R. l. §. 1. above, p. 69, n. t.
See below R. l. §. 5. where a similar argumentum a fortiori drawn from the difficulty of understanding the mode of the evil spirits occurs: here also it is assumed by implication that he is present, yet unintelligible.
comp. n. c. p. 170.
This is only a vivid way of putting what we are told in Scripture, that the Jews could not look on Moses.
R. viii. §. 1. p. 86, n. f.
S. strange to both of them.
Ex. 34, 29. R. viii. §. 1.
p. 116, n. e.
S. [Syriac]. ‘intelligible’ is here used in the sense of the Greek νοητός.
R. v. §. 5. R. xlii. §. 1.
R. li. §. 5.