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Hymns on Faith

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

3. The Pearl, Rhythm the Third

Thou dost not hide thyself in thy bareness, pearl! With the love of thee is the merchant ravished¹ also, for he strippeth off his garments, not to cover thee, [seeing] thy clothing is thy light, thy garment is thy brightness, O thou that art bared! Thou art like Eve² who was clothed with nakedness. Cursed be he that deceived her and stripped her and left her. The serpent cannot strip off thy glory³. In the mysteries that thou typifiest⁴, women are clothed with Light in Eden⁵⁶.

Very glistening are the pearls of Ethiopia, as it is written, Who gave thee to Ethiopia [the land] of black men. He that⁷ gave light to the Gentiles, both to the Ethiopians and unto the Indians⁸ did His bright beams reach. The eunuch of⁹ Ethiopia upon his chariot saw Philip: the Lamb of Light met the dark man from out of the bath. While he was reading, the Ethiopian was baptized and glistened with joy, and journeyed on! He made disciples and taught, and out of black men¹⁰ he made men white [as snow]. And the dark Ethiopic¹¹ women became pearls for the Son; He offered them up to¹² the Father, as a glistening crown from the Ethiopians.

The Queen of Sheba was a sheep¹³ that had come into the¹⁴ place of wolves; the lamp of truth did Solomon give her, who also married¹⁵ her when he fell away. She was enlightened and went away, but they were dark¹⁶ as their manner was. The bright spark which went down home with that blessed [Queen], held on its shining amid the darkness, till the new Day-spring¹⁷ came. The bright spark met with this shining, and illumined the place.

There are in the sea various fishes of immense size¹⁸, and with all their greatness they are very small; but by thy littleness the crown is made great, like as the Son, by whose littleness Adam was made great. For the head is thy crown intended, for the eye thy beauty, for the ear thy fairness. Come up from the sea, thou neighbour to the dry land, and come and sojourn by the [seat of] hearing. Let the ear love the word of life as it loveth thee! In the ear is the word¹⁹, and without it is the pearl. Let it as being warned by thee, by thee get wisdom, and be warned by the word of truth. Be thou its mirror: the beauty of the Word in thine own beauty shall it see: in thee it shall learn how precious is the Word on High! The ear is the leaf: the flesh is the tree, and thou in the midst of it art a fruit of light, and to the womb that bringeth forth Light, thou art a type that pointeth²⁰. Thee He used as a parable of that kingdom, O pearl! as He did the virgins that entered into it, five in number, with the light supplied to their lamps²¹! To thee are those bright ones like, thou that art clad in light!

Who would give a pearl to the daughter of the poor? for when it hangeth on her, it becometh her not. Gain without²² price that faith, all of which becometh all the limbs of men. But for no gold would a lady exchange her pearl. It were a great disgrace if thou shouldest throw thy pearl away into the mire for nought! In the pearl of time let us behold²³ that of eternity, for it is in the purse, or in the seal, or in the treasury. Within the gate there are other gates with their²⁴ locks and keys. Thy pearl hath the High One sealed up as taking account of all.

Notes

S. drunk
p. 51, n. z.
p. 95.
S. by thy type
I. e. with the mysteries typified in the pearl, women are clothed with light at Baptism, and have the Robe of Righteousness which they lost through Eve, have Him who is Light, and are restored to Paradise.
p. 51, n. y. z.
Job 28, 19. S. Vers.
It is not easy to determine whom St. E. means by the Indians. In ii. p. 464. he speaks of them as overcome by Asa’s prayer, alluding perhaps to the Lubims mentioned in 2 Chron. 16,8. That they are not Joctan’s descendants as I. D. Michaelis makes them, is I think plain from what St. E. says, i. p. 466. where he speaks of Ophir as a mountain in the East by (or towards [Syriac]) India, where the sons of Joctan dwelt. Indian pearls were celebrated and known in Alexander’s time. see Arrian Exped. p. 524. ed. Blanc. and Origen ab. p. 86. n. h. Lindenbr. ad Amm. Marcellin. xxiii. vi. v. fin.
Acts 8, 27.
See Jer. 13, 23.
Is. 1, 18.
Ps. 68, 31
Why St. E. contemplates the queen as a sheep appears from his remarks on the place. The following are a part of them: “It was not the fame of Solomon only, but also the Name of the Lord, which called to this queen, who sought to know the God of Solomon, who set out upon a dangerous and long journey, and brought presents fit for a king.... Our Lord also extolled this queen in the Gospel, and praised her zealousness, when He rebuked the sluggishness of the Jews. Only He calls her not the Queen of Sheba, but of the South.... as one who ruled not over the Sabéans only, but other nations of the South,” (in which he says, vol. ii. p. 457. b. that the people were black.)...Solomon also taught her, and she abjured idolatry and praised the living God: of which we have a confirmation in Scripture, in that it says, that the queen was induced to take this journey by the fame of Solomon and for the Name of the Lord, as also from that which this queen said, Blessed be, &c. Mystically—the queen of the south that came to Solomon and was enamoured of his doctrine, is a type of the Holy Bride that came from the country of black men, i. e. of heathendom, unto the Heavenly Solomon. For God, when He came down to the earth and conversed with men, spoke unto the Bride that He espoused to Himself in types and parables: and when she asked interpretations by the Apostles, He interpreted; and now also this queen by her children asketh her riddles to have them interpreted, (quoting Rom. xi. 33. Eph. iii. 19.) Emmanuel also sheweth to His Queen all that is right for her to know: for to His queen, i. e. His disciples, He saith, ‘Whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have shewn you.’ John 15, 15.
1 Kings 10, 1.
This was a tradition of the Jews: see Josephus, (viii. 7. §. 5. compared with 6. §. 2.) who calls her queen of Egypt and Ethiopia, a tradition based in part on Canticles 1, 5. I have rendered (after Assemanni) [Syriac] from the Arabic [Arabic]: it is not in our lexicons.
He calls the Jews wolves and dark here, as ‘always resisting the Holy Ghost,’ Acts 7, 51. The following extract from the Chaldee Paraphrase on Canticles may be worth adding: “When the children of Israel made the calf, their faces were blackened like the children of Ethiopia (Gush) that dwelt in the tents of Kedar (i. e. blackness): but when they repented and were forgiven, the bright glory of their faces was like that of the Angels.....The synagogue of Israel said: Nevertheless ye Gentiles, despise me not, because I am blacker than you, in that I have done after your doings and have worshipped the sun and the moon, seeing the false prophets have occasioned that the might of the Lord’s wrath should fix itself upon me.”
The Bereshith Rabba, cited in the Pugio Fidei, fol. 603. on Gen. 25, 6. says, “This is that which is written, (Job 6, 19.) ‘the troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them.’ Sheba is none else than the descendants of Abram, as is said Gen. 25, 3. ‘Jokshan begat Sheba and Dedan.’ And when Solomon was magnified in his kingdom, they said, Haply this is the Messiah, and forthwith they came, as it is said, ‘The queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon for the Name of the Lord, and she came to prove him with hard questions.’ Read it not ‘the queen,’ but the ‘kingdom’ of Sheba. ‘By the Name of the Lord’—They had prophets which prophesied unto them by the Name of the Lord our God words that were handed down and came by their means from Abraham. And whence learn we that they would come in the days of the Messiah, and minister to Him? From Is. 60, 6. ‘The multitude of the camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: gold and incense shall they bring, and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord,’ i. e. the King Messiah as it is said, and this is the Name which he shall call Him, the Lord our Righteousness.”
S. fishes fishes of cubits cubits
On the word of man as a type of the Word of God, see adv. Scrut. lvii. §. 5.
S. thy type pointeth
clothed with the light of their lamps.
See Mat. 7, 6.
i. e. let us by the store men set by a pearl, learn what store to set by the ‘true Pearl,’ i. e. Christ. Within the gate, &c. seems to refer to the place in which the pearl is put, and also to the texture of the pearl itself which he is contemplating. The last words may be paraphrased: Careless as thou mayest be, it is that God who will judge all, who sealed Christ the true Pearl upon thee.
p. 86. n. g.