Library › St Ephrem the Syrian › Hymns on Faith

Hymns on Faith

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

39. Rhythm the Thirty-ninth

If, my son, the crucifiers and the heathen mocked our Lord, because He was the Son of Man¹, yet it is true that He is God of glory unsearchable; and instead of disputers who pry into His glorious Generation, Martyrs loved Him, who with the blood of their necks preached the Generation of the Son of God². Discern ye how our strife hath refuted all those children of error, so that there is none among them that lifteth his wing in the midst of the streets and muttereth questionings. If in the Church too all the children of light were agreed, then would their peaceful brightness, by the might of concord³, dissipate errors.

The learned know that amongst them who are Gentiles themselves, there have been sometime sects⁴; yet not by them ever, or by their sects, did the world suffer, but it hath felt and been straitened by this. For our dispute have kings heard, the nations felt, and all creatures have made a tumult together. Lo, our doctrine has been ridiculed, because they thought that it would not stand by itself⁵ in the contest, and that the furnace would give the victory against it! For they saw the disputers, that they perplexed themselves with questionings and divided it and forgot that it is a Majesty of depth inexplorable, and that on this account the learned⁶ plunged into it and were bewildered in their prying into it. Whatsoever is utterable and possible to be explained, and easy to be investigated, and searched into, and expounded, that the mouth, its correlative⁷, explaineth as belonging to its province⁸. And that which is utterly incapable of being searched into or expounded, silence is its boundary, since with the hidden Nature thereof our mind hath no correlativeness. And if the fact that He generated be an impossibility, it is still a possibility that He should convince thee of sin. For if thou searchest into Him, not only will it be a difficulty and perplexity to thee that He begot⁹, but thou wilt not prove to a certainty that He exists. Rather, let it not be discussed¹⁰ whether it be possible for Him to generate, since He is Master of all possibilities¹¹. For it is not on one side that the Godhead is confounding; it is a difficulty on all sides. Who hath been able to measure the grains of seed, and the¹² drops of water, and the herbs of all tribes, seeing it is all wonder in all these? For if to us Its motion in our own procreation is incomprehensible, who can comprehend the¹³ Generation from Its own Bosom?

Notes

See on R. xliv. §. 3.
[The faith of Martyrs is urged against Eunomianism, because Eunomius despised them.] Jerome c. Vigilant. §. 9. calls Eunomius ‘the author of his [Vigilantius’] heresy,’ and [says that he attributes to Satanic agency the miracles wrought at the tombs of the Martyrs, mocked at all reverence paid to their remains, which he spoke of as “common dust,” and spoke against the Church for celebrating the Holy Eucharist at their tombs. All the followers of Eunomius refused, it seems, to enter the Basilicas of the Apostles and Martyrs, c. 9. 11. 7.] The force of this appeal can only be appreciated by recollecting the esteem in which the Martyrs and Confessors were held in those days. Upon their admission at once to the beatific vision, as believed then, see on Tertullian, p. 120. [On their intercession see on S. Chrys. Hom. on the Statues, p. 134. and on Rom. 16, 24. Hom. 32. p. 504. Oxf. Tr.] It may be useful here to add passages shewing the esteem in which they were held in St. E.’s own Church. In vol. i. p. 260, f. he says of the censers of Coreh and his company, ‘If the censers of them that provoked God were sanctified by the men themselves, and became plates before the altar, in the case of Confessors how much more would their bodies be sanctified before their souls.’ Vol. ii. p. 349, e. ‘The soul that liveth in God is able to give others life, and a testimony of this is (if thou wilt hearken in an enlightened way) Elisha, who himself quickened two dead bodies, one whiles he was in the world, and one after he departed. His soul was living in God, and it gave the body life: and after it went forth from it, it gave life to others. From God did the prophet’s soul gain life, and after it went forth from him, he quickened those dead like himself. Lo! there is life in the Martyrs’ bones, for who will assert that they live not? Behold the living monuments, and who would doubt of this? they are fortified strongholds that rescue from robbers, they are cities strong that protect from capturers: towers high and very strong for any one who fleeth to them, which from murderers will rescue: and death to them approacheth not. He that is with envy vanquished, or with fraud, that soul-destroying venom, help shall take from these: that the poison may be stopped, nor have injured him a whit. Let him that hath oppressed ask, that he may oppress no more; the stealer ask no more to steal; him, from whom love is far removed, and who against his brother swells with wrath, from these in prayer demand peace, to be reconciled to him. Let him to whom hath entered in the demon of adultery, enkindling in him foul desire, with oil wherewith their lights are kindled, anoint himself—forth will it come. Physicians are they that are strenuous after health, with life-drugs laden, healing for the soul and body, a healing spiritual, alike for soul and body yielding health. Faith of thee do they require, and all thou askest, will they give, if untorn by doubt thy mind. If thou art dead, thou shalt be quick. God is dwelling in their bones, and by Him it is they do all mighty works. Be praise to Thee, and upon us Thy mercies be, Thou God that dwellest in the just.’ And in vol. iii. p. 234, c. ‘The prophet made a great lamentation over his brother, and over his yoke-fellow. (1 Kings 13, 26, 29.) He buried him, and made him a refuge, and delivered himself from slaughter. Let every man see to it, how he is to rescue himself from wrath!—A great wall were the bones of Joseph to the camp. May the sacred office that thou didst hold be a wall to our place. To cities and to towns, walls are made for preservers: and the assemblies of Christ do priests keep sacredly. Since thy voice hath ceased from our congregation, may thy benedictions to usward be multiplied! Since the sight of thee hath departed from us, may thy name get itself glory among us! Since thou hast left us orphans, father, may thy prayer be a mother to us! May the glorious Trinity be a wall to our souls.’ See also iii. p. 250, f. p. 583, c. So also in the Acta Martyr. i. p. 107. a matron in Sapor’s persecution, A.D. 344. addresses the Martyrs before suffering: “Ye are magnifying Him with your blood; but I have one request to make to you: perform it for me: that ye would request of your Lord, whom ye have loved, and for whom ye are being sacrificed, that He would count me worthy in that day of seeing you, and entering into your place, and being settled near to your abode, because I know that I am a sinful woman, and I believe that if ye will request it of my Lord, He will forgive my sins.” Ibid. p. 173. “I beseech Thee, O Lord, in mercy for their sakes, (speaking of the Martyrs,) give me a little breath of wisdom, not that I may glory in it, but that I may be holpen by it.” A.D. 376. The same reverence for these holy men continued in force long after, as may be seen by the contemporary acts of St. Simeon Stylites ibid. ii. p. 393. Assem. Cod. Lit. vol. v. pp. 218, 219.
R. lii. §. 6.
R. xxxvii. §. 3. contr. Scrut. iii. §. 13. Pearl vi. §. 7.
R. viii. §. 5.
S. Scribes
R. xxvii. §. 2. 3. R. xii. §. 2.
S. house.
Comp. n. a. p. 126. Athan. p. 356.
S. spoken
Ass. gives; ‘Atqui si saperes, neque disputares quâ ille ratione Pater sit, cui omnes subsunt rationes.’ It might perhaps be rendered in Greek nearly word for word as follows: Μὴ εἴη ἄρα διειλεγμένον τὸ, πότερον ἐστὶ μηχάνη αὐτοῦ τούτου, τοῦ γεννᾶν δηλαδή· Κύριος γὰρ ἐκεῖνος πασῶν μηχανῶν. The version in the text amounts to the same as A.’s paraphrase, although there is some difficulty in getting it out of the words. A few words must be added in regard to the connection of this sentence with the foregoing. Aetius was charged with Atheism; see n. k. on Athan. p. 184. where it will be seen that Ath. says that he who denieth the Son, and so hath not the Father, “will in no long time say, as the fool, There is no God.” Perhaps St. E. has in his mind the Anomean tenet, that Ingenerateness is the Essence of the Father. In attempting to explain the Generation of the Son, they hit upon a mere negative, as definitive of the Father’s Nature; now this negative did not, with them, imply the positive of which it was the opposite, for they denied that the Son was coeternal with that Ingenerateness. (See Gr. Nyss. ii. p. 419.) The natural consequence of this procedure would be that it would induce others to go a step further, and to argue as follows: Since no negative can be conceived without conceiving a positive opposed to it, and since the particular negative, Ingenerateness, was conceivable only through the positive, Generateness, (i. e. the Son in their view): it will follow, that as they admit that there was a time when the Son had no existence, so they ought to admit that there was a time when the Father also had none. This conclusion is what others might fairly be expected to draw from their premises. The same premises, however, may be made to yield a different conclusion: it may be said; ye heretics allow God to be Almighty, and allow that He generates in some sense or other: if you will reduce your notions of that Generation to somewhat intelligible, at all events adhere in practice to the conceptions of God, you still hold in theory: ‘if the Son which God generated is less than Himself, either God willed Him to be less, or else could not help His being less: Either therefore He was envious, or else not omnipotent. (Comp. R. xlv. §. 4.) By pursuing your own admissions to the legitimate conclusions you will see that you cannot reduce what we know of God to a mere intelligible system: God is ‘a difficulty on all sides.’ This mode of arguing which is not desirable in itself, (see below, lii. §. 6.) but served to shew the untenableness of the heretical position, is adopted by Hilary de Trin. vi. §. 21. Ambr. de Fid. iv. §. 78. August. Serm. 139. c. Maxim. ii. cap. 7. Basil c. Eun. ii. §. 12. upon which see Greg. Nyss. c. Eun. viii. p. 647. P. Chrysol. lx. p. 300. Ixi. p. 301. Cyril Alex. Thes. p. 68, a. with more or less appearance of going along with it themselves. See Petav. de Trin. vi. 8. §. 4. and §. 9. With the sequel Alex. ap. Theodoret, H. E. p. 13. may be compared.
Ecclus. 1, 2.
Eccles. 11, 5.