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Hymns on Faith

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

66. Rhythm the Sixty-sixth

Who is he that hath been daring and hath forgotten himself, and hath wished to be a measure1 of Him that formed him, himself being but dust? Let him who feels that he is dust praise that Image2 who fashioned, yea, and ordered him. The seducer3 seduced and bewildered the sons of men. Against the invisible Sun4 he incited them and darkened them, not that they should see, but that they should pry. By the Trinity, whereby they were washed, they have defiled themselves, in that they have made divisions5 about Their Names.

There is wrangling in the Church, and in the presence of the Truth the heart is divided upon disputation6. In the Church envy biteth men, and in the Ark there was a treaty of peace among the fanged beasts7. Under the pretext of8 truth there were bows; a quiver have they made of wrangling, and it is full of arrows. The wicked one hath decoyed the simple, and introduced them to hopeless questions and crushed them to pieces therewith. He hath irritated men with things which are not convenient, that they might leave off from those which are allowed. Because they were intoxicated, they put on strife as a coat of mail; they have rent Truth as the garment.9 Yet is the Truth itself not divided, for it hath rent them that rend it10, and cast them out of the Kingdom. Lo, they have put on armour, as in war, for that victory in which is concealed condemnation11! They have worn12 the Scripture to pieces, not that they might read it, but that they might go astray and [see] how to pry and wrangle. They are clothed within with hidden poison, while they are convicted of having the Serpent hissing13 amongst their words. Who shall be able to allay them who, when supposed to be searching after the truth, are searching how they may wrangle? The milestones14 set in the King’s high road15 have the foolish deserted, and have taken to trackless land, and lo, they go astray in it! He that goeth in the King’s high road, he it is that goeth to meet the King and His Gift.

Notes

  1. S. to comprise comp. R. xlv. R. lxix. §. 2.
  2. S. [Syriac] comp. p. 34, n. r.
  3. p. 299, n. e. R. lxiv. §. 2.
  4. R. lxv. §. 3.
  5. R. lxii. §. 7. R. lxv. §. 1.
  6. R. lix. §. 5.
  7. Vol. ii. p. 481, d. “In the Ark He shadowed out the creature to teach the same; for in it all families changed their natures. Lo, every nature there preached to us that evil is not of nature! Let them shew us then an evil, the nature whereof admitteth not of change. Upon nature and on will look and see how they were changed, &c.” See also iii. p. 603, b. c. d. i. p. 52. and p. 148. where he dwells on the marvellous concord of the beasts as a lesson to those who repented not at the preaching of Noah, and notices the larger number of innocuous and clean animals in the Ark as a type of the Church “making priests to God out of the pure and perfect in her.”
  8. Ps. 11, 2; 57, 4; 64, 3.
  9. Ps. 22, 18.
  10. R. viii. §. 5. R. ix. §. 6. R. xxxix. §. 2. R. lxi. §. 5.
  11. R. viii. §. 5. R. xxxix. §. 2. R. lxi. §. 5. R. lxviii. §. 2. Hilar. de Trin. vii. §. 4. “While all heretics conquer one another in turns, for their own selves they make no conquests.” See the whole §. and on Athan. p. 8, n. r.
  12. p. 279, n. d. p. 196, n. c.
  13. We have seen above, p. 223, n. d. that St. E. joins with the Fathers in general in holding idolatry and heresy to be intrinsically the same thing; here he speaks of heretics, as others also do, as the organs of Satan, inspired by him in what it is their miserable lot to invent and utter. See p. 269, n. e. on Athan. p. 9, n. s. p. 386, r. 1. p. 410, a. Iren. v. 26. 2. Epiphan. i. p. 104, a. b. 113,a. 514,c. 923,b. 944,b. &c. Cyril Thes. 118, d. Alex. ap. Theod. H. E. i. 4 init. and p. 17. Ambr. de Fid. ii. §. 134. Damas. c. Apoll. Concil. Hard. i. p. 762, b. It may be added, that the apparent contradiction implied in calling orthodoxy at one time a ‘narrow path’ and at another a ‘high road’ is parallel to a similar case in Scripture, in which God’s way is represented not only as a ‘narrow path,’ but also as ‘a large room,’ according as men are seeking it, or have found it. The words of Hesiod, ἐπὴν ἐς ἄκρον ἵκηται, ῥηιδίη δήπειτα πέλει χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα, illustrate the language of Scripture. Ecclus. 4, 15—19. Mat. 7, 13. As far as temptations to depart from the road through heterodoxy are concerned, Satan’s aim is to tempt men to think that a strict Creed cramps the intellect instead of illuminating it.
  14. p. 120, n. a.
  15. See p. 249, n. e. and p. 244, n. a. R. lxix. §. 1.

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