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Hymns on Faith

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

7. Rhythm the Seventh

Who, that forgets himself, and knows not his own understanding, would declare the nature of the First-born, the Lord of natures? The natures, that by Him exist, who is able to search out? Even that nature which is in himself he cannot search out. How then shall he who meets a reproof in his own self, in that he is not equal to [investigating] himself, be equal to [investigating] his Lord? Plain is the object before us, great, and open, and at hand: yet, whoso will hit at it, misses it and fails¹. If then the object close at hand none be capable of hitting, the Hidden Object that strikes awe what man shall find a way to hit? The Manhood none is equal to²: who can attain unto the hidden Godhead?

He came down, and veiled His face with a veil of Flesh.³ From the brilliance of His light the whole of Jordan⁴ light became. He gleamed a little in the mount; trembling, quivering, and aghast, were those three pillars that the Apostle so accounted: He granted them a sight of His⁵ hidden glory commensurate with their strength⁶. The sea beheld Him and was shaken; though so sturdy with its⁷ waves, yet it bowed its back and bare Him, and took Him better than the colt. When He sat within the ship, the sailors counted Him a man: He went down and trod the sea, and awe the shipmen felt at Him. With no searching searched they Him, but with wonder wondered at Him. They praised and held their peace in fear. The Magi⁸ again sought Him, and when they found Him in the manger, it was not prying, but worship, that they offered to Him in silence: not empty strifes, but offerings, were what they gave to Him. Do thou too seek for the First-born, and if thou hast found Him in the height⁹, instead of wrangling disputations open thy treasures before Him, and offer unto Him thy works.

Come, let us be astonied at the men that saw the King in His low estate, and neither searched nor sought; not one of them made inquiry: there, pure faith was victorious in silence. The Magi, when He was in His low estate, durst not search into Him, who shall dare to search into Him now that He hath gone up and sat down at the Right Hand on high? Yea, the thief made no enquiries, but believed without searching into Him. The one on the¹⁰ left¹¹ hand enquired, and his enquiring cut off his hope. The Scribes¹² that sought fell with Herod, who asked [after] Him. Satan¹³ tempted Him,¹⁴ wishing to know who He was. Unto all these that searched, the Messiah gave Himself not, as He did to the little children¹⁵. A star rose above Him, to shew without all controversy that He was indeed the Bright Light of the Gentiles, in that they saw the Truth in Him. On Him when baptized the Spirit settled in the form of a dove, that He might shew¹⁶ without question that it was He who was to baptize with fire. The voice openly proclaimed, ‘This is My Son and My Beloved,’ that the voice might reprove prying.

These affections have they repressed who have refrained from searching, and have quieted the soul that it might believe without toil¹⁷. The Pharisees enquired, Who is this, and Whose Son? As searching into the Truth they fell from the Truth. On faith all dependeth. When seeking after the Truth Himself, in the seeking of Him they lost Him. The centurion was commended¹⁸ when he marvelled at Him as God: in faith he honoured Him, and suffered Him not to come in.¹⁹ His coming in he counted a weighty matter: do thou then think so of searching into Him, because at this day thou hast no room for checking His visibly coming in, check and count a weighty thing the searching into Him, that He may praise thy faith before Angels on high. Weigh them together, the Centurion that believes, and that Thomas²⁰ who would feel and²¹ search. His Lord praised the former, and the latter did His Master rebuke. If he were blamed that dared to search into Him and so believed, what disgrace does he store up for himself that wisheth to search first, and to believe afterwards²²?

Notes

R. i. §. 1.
p. 115, n. c.
Heb. 10, 20.
see n. f. p. 86.
Gal. 2, 9.
pp. 63, 126, n. c.
Mat. 14, 25.
ab. pp. 48, 53. cont. Scr. iii. §. 16.
R. v. §. 8.
S. the son of the
Ab. p. 13. n. l. and xxxviii. §. 3. Can. Necros. v. init. “Above low and middling was his rank exalted: and as we are perfect in what belongeth to the left hand, so was he perfect in what belongeth to the right hand. With him, Lord! may we stand on the right hand.” For the belief that it was the thief on the left hand who blasphemed, see the Catena on the place, p. 751.
Scribes, or ‘learned men’ generally, ‘have sought.’ The word will recur below in this sense.
Of Satan’s ignorance of the Incarnation, see xxx. §. 4. and above, p. 21. n. e. St. E. vol. i. p. 28. f. says, “Satan was not permitted to come to Adam in the garden in a human form, or a divine one, wherewith he came to our Lord in the mount,” &c. Cyril de Incarn. cap. xiii. ap. Mai, viii. p. 74. “He continued fasting forty days and as many nights. For He would not go beyond the measure of those who had fasted of old, lest the adversary should shun the contest with Him, lest, having recognised that which was hidden, he should shun the struggle with that which was seen.” St. Hil. on Mat. iv. 1. “There was in the Devil suspicion from his fear, not knowledge from his suspicion.....It was fit that before the temptation he should not be able to understand God in Man.” Chrys. Hom. xiii. in Mat. iv. 2. p. 147. a. see Petav. de Trin. iii. 6. §. 13.
Luke 23, 39. 40.
p. 43, ref. 4. p. 79, 80. &c.
Mat. 3, 17.
R. ix. §. 2. §. 5.
S. great
Matt. 8, 8.
The more usual view of St. Thomas’ doubt is perhaps to regard it as a dispensation, whereby for ‘the more confirmation of the faith’ light was for a time withheld from him. It is, however, usual with St. E. to avail himself as well of the moral and literal, as of the deeper and spiritual, lessons of Scripture. Thus in p. 20. he may be said to moralize on Noah’s drunkenness, while in vol. i. p. 152. there quoted, and p. 3. he considers of what it was the type: in vol. i. p. 112. d. we find him stating in terms that he gives both interpretations of the Benedictions of Jacob. Thus too in R. ix. §. 3. he speaks of Job as if he had done what (as he notices on Jerem. xx.) ‘the Spirit says he did not,’ sin or blaspheme with his lips. A large part of the prophecies he refers to Zorobabel, sometimes stating along with this, and sometimes not, the ultimate and spiritual sense of them.
John 20, 27.
See R. ix. §. 2. and xi. §. 4. St. Meletius in St. Epiph. i. p. 881. “There is reason to fear, lest, if forced to speak upon topics that we are not able to speak of, we should be no longer allowed to speak upon those whereof we are able. For it is from belief we ought to speak, and not from things spoken to believe; since it says, I believed and therefore did I speak.” The Anomœans objected to the Catholics, that they worshipped they knew not what, (V. G. Nys. ii. p. 519. l.) In observing on this sort of reasoning, St. Bas. Ep. 234. §. 2. says, “A sufficient faith it is that knoweth that God is, without knowing what He is, in that He is a rewarder, &c. For the knowledge of the Divine Essence is the perception of His incomprehensibleness; and what we worship is not that whereof it is comprehended what the essence is, but that it is.”
In this Rhythm St. E. is enforcing the necessity of faith in order to the reception of doctrine of the Eternal Generation of the Son, a doctrine which ‘more than any part of the Christian Religion requireth of us mere faith upon authority only.’ See Pet. de Trin. v. 5. who gives several passages to this effect from the Greek and Latin Fathers.