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Hymns on Faith

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

6. The Pearl, Rhythm the Sixth

Would that the memory of the fathers would exhale from the tombs who were very simple as being wise, and reverend as believing. They without criticising searched for, and came to the right path. He gave the law¹; the mountains melted away; fools broke through it. By unclean ravens He fed Elijah at the desert stream, and moreover gave from the² skeleton honey unto Samson; they judged not, nor inquired³ why it was unclean, why clean⁴?

And when He undid the sabbaths⁵, the feeble Gentiles were clothed with health. Samson took the daughter of the⁶ aliens, and there was no disputing among the righteous⁷; the prophet also took a harlot, and the just held their peace. He blamed the righteous, and He held up and lifted up⁸ [to view] their delinquencies: He pitied sinners, and restored⁹ them without cost: and made low the mountains of their sins:¹⁰ He proved that God is not to be arraigned by men, and as Lord of Truth, that His servants were His shadow; and whatsoever way His will looked, they directed also their own wills; and because Light was in Him, their shadows were¹¹ enlightened.

How strangely perplexed are all the heretics by simple things! For when He plainly foreshadowed this New Testament by that of the Prophets¹², those pitiable men rose, as though from sleep, and shouted out and made a disturbance. And as for the Way, wherein the righteous held straight on, and by their truths had gone forth therein, that have these broken¹³ up, because they were besotted: this they left and went out of; because they pried, an evil searching, [yea,] an evil babbling led them astray. They saw the ray: they made it darkness, that they might grope therein: they saw the jewel, even the faith: while they pried into it, it fell and was lost. Of the pearl they made a stone, that they might stumble upon.

O Gift, which fools have made a poison! the [Jewish] people was for separating Thy beauteous root from Thy fountain, though they separated it not: [false] teachings estranged Thy beauty also from the stock thereof. By Thee did they get themselves estranged, who wished to estrange Thee. By Thee were cut off and scattered abroad the tribes from out of Sion, and also the [false] teachings of the seceders. Bring Thyself within the compass of our littleness, O Thou Gift of ours. For if love cannot find Thee out on all sides¹⁴, it cannot be still and at rest. Make Thyself small Thou that art too great for all, that comest unto all!

By this would those who wrangle at our pearl be reproved, because instead of love, strife hath come in and dared to essay to unveil thy beauty. It was not graven¹⁵, since it is a progeny which cannot be interpreted. Thou didst shew thy beauty among the abjects to shew whereto thou art like, thou pearl that art all faces¹⁶. The beholders were astonied and perplexed at thee. The separatists separated thee in two, and were separated in two by thee, thou that art of one consistency¹⁷ throughout. They saw not thy beauty, because there was not in them the eye of truth. For the veil of prophecy, full as it was of the mysteries¹⁸ of thy glistering faces, to them was a covering: they thought that thou wert other [than thou art], O thou mirror of ours! and therefore these blind sectarians defiled thy fair beauty.

Since they have extolled thee too much, or have lowered thee too much, bring them to the even level. Come down, descend a little from that height of infidelity and heathendom, and come up from the depth of Judaism, though thou art in the Heaven. Let our Lord be set between God and men!¹⁹ Let the Prophets²⁰ be as it were His heralds! Let the Just One as being His Father rejoice! that Word it is which conquered both Jews and Heathens!

Come, Thou Gift of Holy Church, stay, rest in the midst of Her! the circumcised have troubled Thee in that they are vain babblers, and so have the [false] doctrines in that they are contentious. Blessed be He that gave Thee a goodly company which beareth Thee about! In the covenant of Moses is Thy brightness²¹ shadowed forth: in the new covenant Thou dartest it forth: from those first Thy light shineth even unto those last. Blessed be He that gave us Thy gleam as well as Thy bright rays²².

Notes

contr. Scrut. i. §. 39, &c.
1 Kings 17, 4.
Judg. 14, 8.
On Levit. p. 242. He notices instances of violation of the letter of law. “It is known that of those who are righteous the bodies are also pure, Thus Elisha after his death did gloriously: Moses carried the bones of Joseph, and God covered Moses himself, and with bones did Samson do gloriously, and Elijah also was not polluted when he went close to the body of the woman of Zarepta’s son.” The instances in the text are grouped together by St. James of Nisibis, (in Gallandi v. p. xciii. Serm. xiii. §. 6.) who was said to be St. E.’s master. He uses them to shew the transitoriness of the law, St. E. man’s obligation to submit to God.
p. 10, n. b.
ib. 4.
ab. p. 42, note h.
Hos. 1, 2.
Matt. 9, 13.
Luke 18, 9.
Cant. 2, 17.
adv. Scrut. xxi. §. 4. note c, p. 107.
or pierced through—perhaps a word of intentionally uncertain meaning, so as to suit with ‘the way’ in either sense of it.
i. §. 1.
p. 89, n. b.
i. §. 1.
v. §. 5.
If read with the commas, the words ‘of thy glistering faces’ will apply either to the mysteries alluded to in i. §. 1. and just above, or to the word covering: the original seems ambiguous. The drift of the passage appears to be this: because they did not see the unity of doctrine (typified by the pearl) in both Testaments, therefore they marred thy beauty, i. e. maimed the Creed. See p. 85.
1 Tim. 2, 5.
p. 66.
See n. f. on R. i.
This is probably said with reference to the Gnostics, who denied that the Law was from the same God as the Gospel. See vol. ii. p. 441. b. and c. 471. b. At p. 493. e. he writes thus: “Moses tracked out the way in types before the [Jewish] people, which kept wandering during the whole way. But our Lord set up a finished path of Truth to the peoples who came to the way of life.” See however the note on adv. Scrut. xxi. §. 4.