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Hymns on Faith

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

35. Rhythm the Thirty-fifth

Like is nature unto Scripture, and like are those within to those without¹². In their questionings do their losses come, and by their own arguings their mischiefs. On nature those without looked and stumbled, in Scripture³ those within have read and have been perplexed. Grant me, Lord, that I may suffice to plead with them according to Thy will! One, ‘In the beginning⁴,’ is like the other, and John also is like Moses: for in the beginning of their books they have reproved the scribes that searched amiss. For one preached God who came to suffering—and Moses also nature which came to⁵ travail in pain⁶⁷. That the hearers might not be weakened [in the faith] they wrote their glories in the beginning of their books. Blessed be the Pure One who in pure things opened unto us the mouth of pure fountains!

For from the words which are written concerning the humiliation of the Son of the Creator, the searchers thought that He was a creature. They too disturbed the⁸ fountain,⁹ and when they had disturbed it with their strifes they turned to prying, and drank the waters that their feet had disturbed, and though that doctrine was clear, yet they were drinking dregs from out of its clearness. O Lord, shew mercy¹⁰ upon our wilfulness which first disturbed and then drinks. O Fountain of wonder that art clear and disturbed according to the parties using it¹¹. For it is pure to the pure who are purified in its pure drink; and to the disturbed it is disturbed, because it is to the disturbed as sweetness also is bitter to the sick¹². Truth is disturbed among the disputers, as sweetness among those that are sick. Lord, heal our sicknesses that we may hear of Thy Generation healthfully!

Those without looked on nature the whole of which was disturbed for Adam’s sake¹³; for in it were the sins from free-will, and the fearful stripes from [Divine] justice: they foolishly thought that it was nature that was deformed and confused¹⁴. And those within slandered our Lord for His Human Nature; they saw His littleness, and were perplexed. The wicked one mocked both sides. Reprove, Lord, that deceiver who mocketh us as he did Samson¹⁵. Because they have disturbed the stream by searching, they think that it is disturbed and its fountain too¹⁶. Let us go up to the Fountain Head: it is from their own mouths that they tasted their streams¹⁷. Without Adam nature was free from sin, and Christ also, without His Body, from necessitousness. Nature was straitened by reason of Adam; and Christ became small by reason of the Body¹⁸. Blessed be Thou, O Lord of nature, because it was little and yet great, and so preached of Thee¹⁹!

John, who tasted that Fountain²⁰ before them that drink it, tasted, and was astonished, and cried, and preached, that ‘He was God and was with God.’ And Moses too who²¹ wrote of nature at the first, wrote that ‘God saw all, and it was good in His sight.’ Clear is nature, and clear is Scripture; cease ye disturbers from the strife. Reprove, Lord, the strife which disturbeth the clear fountains! Have ye not disturbed the clear fountains enough, ye searchers? Our sin hath disturbed nature, and our searching hath confused the Scripture. And for the fair flock that cometh to drink it is²² perplexed, since we have given to it perplexed sounds to drink in. It came unto nature, we had corrupted it; and it came unto Scripture, we had confused it²³. Clear up, O Lord, the water-courses which the searchers have disturbed, who have been disturbers!

That searching which confuseth all, that strife which perplexeth all, Ezechiel had beforehand shadowed out²⁴ when he reproved the shepherds, saying, ‘My sheep fed upon pastures which your heels have trodden down, and they have returned and drank waters which your feet disturbed.’ Lo the words, and lo the doings of the proud have disturbed the creation! Let us give thanks, that before the searchers [came] the fountains were clear to the Apostles. Clear up, Lord, the streams that the shepherds have disturbed before Thy flock. Avenge²⁵ my simplicity, O Lord, from the wise that are very foolish; for if they had known Thy greatness they would not have dared to scrutinize Thee. For if they had cleaved to nature, yea, and to Scripture, they from both would have learned the Lord of both. Nature sheweth by open things²⁶, and Scripture too²⁷ by plain things! Blessed He who by one quickeneth bodies, and by the other quickeneth souls. By pure Pastors give me to drink from the pure water-courses of Scripture²⁸!

Notes

‘Those within’ means heretics, who still keep in the Church; those without, pagans: the same words occur contr. Scrut. R. iii. §. 16. in the same sense. But they have an indefiniteness in the original which gives them a larger scope, which is referred to at the end of this R. Vide also R. lxv. 1.
comp. p. 223, n. d.
p. 107, n. d. R. xlviii. §. 2.
The use of ‘In the beginning’ by St. John and Moses is noticed in a similar way by St. Hil. de Trin. ii. §. 12. 13. Origen in Gen. Hom. i. §. 1. in Jo. ii. §. 4. Austin in Jo. i. §. 11. de Civ. Dei, xi. 5. Jerom. Quæst. in Gen. 1. Acacius Cæs. in Caten. Gr. p. 7. &c. Chrys. in Jo. H. ii. p. 25. See Petav. de Mundi Opif. i. 1. de Trin. ii. 8. §. 3. Lipoman Cat. in Gen. 1. In the next words St. E. contemplates creation as a type of the Incarnation.
Gen. 1. Rom. 8, 22.
Upon Genesis, however, he does not notice this, perhaps because in common with St. Basil and St. Austin he was desirous of asserting the literal truth of the history of the creation. see vol. i. p. 6. a. quoted below in note b. p. 247.
S. to pains.
Allusion to this chapter of Ezekiel occurs again, R. lix. §. 5. contr. Scrut. iii. §. 13. St. Greg. Nys. ii. p. 609. St. Cyril c. Nest. p. 47. in Hos. p. 102. St. Austin, Serm. xlvii. §. 18. St. Jerome in loc. Origen, Philoc. xi. Const. Apost. ii. 18—20. all employ the passage in a kindred manner.
Ezech. 34, 18.
Ps. 75, 9.
S. for the two parties.
p. 194, n. b.
R. xxxiv. §. 1.
R. xxxvi. n. c.
Vol. i. p. 326, a. “The head of Samson which was shaven, foresheweth the falling off of the crown of the Saints from the head of the Jewish people: then was taken from off it the glory of the Prophets, and the beauty of the Apostles: and after that, there was in sin a power to humble them and deliver them up to serve in blindness, while that people was sunk in the mire before devils, as Samson was before the Philistines.” St. E. views the Philistines here, as in the text, as a type of Satan, first blinding his victims, and then mocking them.
S. Root. comp. 179, n. e.
See ref. 2.
p. 202, n. c. p. 211. §. 6.
Athan. de Incarn. xiv. speaks of the Son as “moving all things in the creation, and through them manifesting the Father.” Vide Thomassin de Adv. Tr. v. cap. 13. But there is a further meaning in this passage: St. E. regards nature, in spite of its being under sin through Adam, as a type of Christ, as in 1 Cor. xv. in the same way as in vol. i. p. 350, a. 353, b. he regards Saul, though in wilfulness the emblem of Adam, (p. 198, n. e.) yet as a type of Christ.
John 13, 25.
John 1, 1. Gen. 1, 31.
Jer. 13, 20.
R. xxxvii. §. 2.
Ezek. 34, 18.
S. stand up for
St. E. must not be taken here to mean more than he does: for of the insufficiency of Nature to teach without the Church, he elsewhere (vol. ii. p. 529.) speaks as follows: “Who is there equal to that universal harp, which the Lord of the universe hath made of the universe, that He by it might persuade all men, that whoso can make its strings vibrate is from Himself. Moses came and played upon it, and refuted that party of magicians that were overcome. The tares [i. e. heretics] were confounded, because they were not able to charm the strings of the harp, &c.” He then proceeds to Joshua, and to Christ. So too in p. 367, a. he speaks of tradition as the channel of Gentile knowledge: “We have heard from them of old, (he makes the Ninevites say,) them who preached the truth in the world, whose words were handed down to us, yea, the reports of their mighty deeds. For men were not severed from the understanding of knowledge: reports of the way in which the just were delivered, went abroad in the world, and the whole of it was filled therewith, that whoso wrought folly might be condemned: we have heard also how the wicked did presumptuously, and were destroyed, and a mirror was set up for any that was daring to be reproved, &c.” Comp. R. xxvii. §. 3. R. xlviii. §. 2. Upon the power parallel to this in the Church, see vol. ii. p. 494. quoted above, p. 106, n. b. p. 219, n. c. St. E. wrote a separate work, ‘de Ecclesia,’ which has unfortunately perished.
Rom. 1, 20.
Comp. R. liii. §. 3.