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Hymns on Faith

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

52. Rhythm the Fifty-second

From God Himself let us learn God; for as by His Names it is comprehended that He is God, and is Just, and also Good; so the Name of Father evinceth that He is a Generator¹. For the very Name of Fatherhood used of Him bears witness of the Son; and as He was the Father of One, in His love it is that He is so of many². Praises be to His grace! He is the true Lord; and lo, His servants stand witness; and He is King over His possessions! and that He is Creator, lo! His creation standeth [witness]: and because He is Father of a truth, He hath a Son of a truth! But if His Name of Father be borrowed, (which cursed be he that thinketh³) then by strife are dissolved the kindred names also⁴. Praises be to the True One! Who would speak so stoutly against the Father of the Truth, as to say that He could not beget⁵, and that that Name of Fatherhood wherewith He did invest Himself was borrowed? But since He is verily Truth, His savour is preserved in Himself; it is by His Salt⁶ that the foolish have lost their savour. For who can undo the Name wherein our Baptism standeth and our Atonement? Praises to Thy Atonement⁷!

Say thou that the work of man is external to himself, and his voice⁸ is within himself! say that he is God’s work, and not from himself⁹! For His Word is His Son, not a word of the voice. This is the Word that is able to declare all things, this the Word that our word is not able to declare! Praises be to Thy concealedness! Why is thy wordiness stirred, thou wise man¹⁰, to no advantage? for if the Father confesseth His Son and abhorreth it not, and if the Son also confesseth His Father and feareth not, get thee forth and weep, childish man, that They are Equal and at Unity, and we are divided¹¹. The heavens are full of peace, but there is a sword in the Churches¹². Praises be to Thy Peacemaking!

What detriment does thy enquiring do to God¹³? For if He crieth aloud that He begat, and is not ashamed of it, and that He is Father, and is not abashed at it¹⁴, who art thou, weak man! that wouldest be an avenger of Him who avengeth all? Get thee forth, go, avenge thyself of thine adversary who hath slain thee with thy tongue. Praises be to Him that slew him¹⁵! The fool hath cast himself down that he may penetrate into two Seas¹⁶, calm and holy, which have never been troubled at any time. Rivers grow troubled in their waves and get themselves calm again; those that are foul, by their abundant streams become limpid and purified. And if a man pry into them they eddy him¹⁷ in and cast him down, seeing that he has died in his scrutinizing. Praises be to Thy Righteousness!

Who would not refrain his searching into secret things? it is a plague which the Apostle calleth a canker. Con-¹⁸ tentious searching is a fountain of mischiefs for the fool that busieth himself therein. From out of it there may be formed a passion of a sudden, which is sweet in the beginning thereof, bitter in the end thereof¹⁹. Praises be to Him that exhausted it! Who hath persuaded thee to use thy feeble pupils in gazing on the secret and strong Lights²⁰, whose glistenings the Angels cannot look upon²¹. Moses wished to pierce through them and see them there a little while²². And as he did not look to pry, the glistening was eager to meet him, blinding, as it does, them that pry. Praises to Thy Majesty!

Who would not believe the two Testaments concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. Comment on them where you will²³, yet are They not called by the name of ‘made,’ ‘created,’ or ‘formed.’ No affinity to Them have the names there given to things created. Thus He willed it should be written, and since He is God, it is meet that we believe Him. Praises to His Lordly State! Who would not submit himself to his teachers and learn as they have taught him²⁴? But if a man hath thought that he has surpassed the measure of his teachers, empty is his vaunting! O man, whose taste is lost, and who hast raised a quarrel with God, to whom hast thou likened thyself? Who among the wise is as He who giveth²⁵ wisdom unto all? and who among deliverers is as He who giveth all freedom? or who in revelations can compare with the Holy Spirit? Praises to Thy teaching!

What strong reason then hath he that striveth with us? for the Truth fetters up all their reasonings! One of three things happeneth unto him that is a bold disputer: either grant that he is an infidel, or grant that he is a deceiver, or suppose that he is an ignorant fellow. [The cause] of them that pry is at a stop: [the cause] of them that are faithful is established. Praises to Thy victory! What then remaineth to the side of the vain-babblers? as they speak, so would I speak: for even when a man uses lies²⁶, he is able to overcome them. For either it was feebleness that He could not beget, and He concealed His weakness, and made us think²⁷ that He was Father; but if He was able to beget, this is a crown of victory on our side in two things. Why then should we add any new truth to that which He hath had written for us? The Names that we have added, they have been partizans to the bold disputers. At all hateful additions, thou hast added questionings, thou hast added strifes, and changed what is written.—Thou hast quieted those which were in confusion. Praises to Thy calmness! O Lord, make quiet in my days in Thy churches, and blend and²⁸ unite, O Lord, the contentious sects, and still, and rule also the conflicting parties²⁹. And may there be at every time one true Church, and may her righteous children gather themselves into her bosom to confess Thy graciousness. Praises to Thy reconciliation!

Notes

R. lx. §. 5.
p. 133. R. lviii. §. 3.
S. (which hush and curse)
i. e. if you argue, that there is no reality answering to what is implied by the Name ‘Father,’ the next step will be to argue that He was not really a Creator, that it was only our way of getting a first cause which obliged us to express ourselves so. See p. 231, n. b. p. 247, n. c. For the Anomeans assumed ‘Father,’ ‘Lord,’ ‘King,’ ‘Creator,’ to be kindred names, all indicative not of personal attributes, but of relations to us. Hence they argued from Acts ii. 36. (hath made Him Lord and Christ,) that God communicated His Lordship to the Son, (not by generating, but) by creating Him; see Basil c. Eun. ii. §. 3. G. Nyss. lib. v. vi. Ambr. de F. i. §. 95. Athan. c. Ar. ii. §. 4. p. 397. O. T. which the Fathers answered by shewing that this passage applied, evidently, to Christ as Man. In so taking the text, the Anomeans of course imply that the Name ‘Lord’ and the like belong by nature to God, by grace to the Son. St. E. shews, that there is the same reason for thinking that ‘Father’ corresponds to some reality, as there is for thinking that ‘Lord,’ ‘King,’ and ‘Creator’ do; that the eternal relationships of Person to Person in the Godhead are not less distinctly stated in Scripture than the temporal relationships of the Godhead to His creatures. Comp. Petav. de Deo iii. 2. §. 12. The following words of St. Austin de Trin. vii. §. 9. will help to make the text intelligible. “If to God it is one thing to be, and another to subsist, in the same way as to God to be is one thing, and to be Father or Lord, another; for His being is spoken in respect of Himself; but Father He is called in respect of the Son, and Lord in respect of the creation which serves Him; at that rate He subsists relatively, He begetteth relatively, and is Lord relatively.” The question whether God is Lord eternally, which St. E. incidentally denies here, is discussed by Petav. l. c. See R. lv. §. 6.
See R. xliv. R. xlvi. §. 2. R. lx. §. 1.
pp. 34, 49, 58.
R. lix. §. 1.
p. 211, n. a. R. lvii. §. 5.
Such is the version of the Editor; but as the two clauses begin similarly with ‘Say of man’ and ‘Say of God,’ it is difficult to suppose the second was not meant to predicate something of God, as the first does of man. The occasional six-syllabled verses intermixed with the five-syllabled lead one to suspect some confusion; and it seems not impossible that the words [Syriac] should come after the words ‘say of man,’ instead of being after ‘say of God.’ The whole would then run thus: ‘Say thou of man that he is a work (i. e. a thing made) and not from himself; his own work is external to himself, and his voice within himself. Say thou of God that His Word is His Son, not a word of the voice! This is the Word that is able to declare all things, (Matt. xi. 27.) this the Word that our word is not able to declare!’ As it stands, the phrase ‘this the Word’ is taken in two different senses in the Latin, which is awkward; the reference to Matt. xi. 27. so frequent with St. E. is lost: and the ‘His Word’ comes in in a way one should not expect. But it seemed best to give above such a version as could be forced out of the words as they stand.
Syr. Scribe
See above, Pearl, fin. and R. lxii. §. 6. §. 7. St. E. seems to allude to John xvii. 11. What Christ there prays is, that ‘as the Father is one by nature in respect to His Word, so we in respect of each other may become one in mind and unanimity and by our being in no wise at variance with each other, but clasped with one bond of holy love as it were into identity.’ Cyril Thes. p. 120, d.
§. 6. R. xxxix. §. 1. R. liii. §. 1.
R. xlvi. §. 5.
pp. 139, 249, n. e.
R. x. §. 4.
comp. §. 4.
p. 144, g.
2 Tim. 2, 17. Prov. 17, 14.
This seems to refer to Prov. v. 4. which anciently was commonly understood to contain besides its literal sense an account of the wiles and fate of heresy. See R. xliv. §. 5. Jerom. in Ezech. vi. 14. Epiphan. Hæres. lxxix. §. 8. Cyril de Ador. xv. p. 524. Bede and the Greek Catena on the place, &c. For as St. E. himself says, vol. iii. p. 670. “All our souls are together espoused unto God, after the fashion in which He took and espoused a wife for the son of Abraham His friend.”
i. e. the Three Persons, comp. §. 3. p. 241, n. c.
p. 116, n. e.
R. xlvi. R. xlvii. §. 3.
S. explain in every place. R. lix. §. 2, 3.
p. 139, n. e.
James 1, 5. John 8, 36. 1 Cor. 2, 10.
see n. b. p. 231.
R. lx. §. 1.
Is. 39, 8.
R. xxi. §. 4.