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Hymns on Faith

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

20. Rhythm the Twentieth

To Thee, Lord, I offer up my faith with my voice: for prayer and request can both of them be conceived and brought forth likewise, without any voice, in silence. The womb if it closes upon the child, two die. O Lord, let not my speech too close upon my faith¹, so that that perish and this be smothered, and both of them perish each by the other. The tree if it close over its graft, destroyeth it; but if it lets the graft-bud out, it maketh leaves come forth from it, and in its season yieldeth fruit. And if from the womb of the green wood fruit buddeth, then let my faith leap for joy!

The seed in its greenness bursteth the covering of the earth, as looking out for the shock of corn full of mysteries²: and faith, whose bosom is filled with goodly fruits, is the shock of glory. The fish³ hath in the sea its conception, and also its birth, and if it plunge into the deep, it escapeth those who would take it. In becoming silence, within the mind let prayer gather itself up, that it may not wander. A virgin of the bride-chamber⁴ is this well-refined entreaty, and if it pass the door of the mouth, it is as one that wandereth. Truth is its chamber, Love its crown; stillness and silence are the eunuchs at [its] gate. She is the Betrothed of the King’s Son: let her not go forth to be lured into wantonness: but let Faith, as a bride to be seen in the street, mounted upon the voice ride stately on from the mouth unto the chamber of the ear⁵.

For it is written, that there were many who believed⁶ on the Lord, whose voice because of danger denied the faith, while the heart within confessed it. With unbelievers did He count the speechless. Jonah prayed a prayer without⁷ any voice; the preacher was put to silence in the belly of the fish: from the midst of the reptile his prayer crept forth, and the High One heard, for silence was to Him a crying. In one body are, both prayer and faith, hidden and visible, for the Hidden One and also for the visible. Hidden prayer for the hidden ear, and faith for the visible ears. Our prayer is as it were a secret taste in the middle of our body. Let us then be rich and breathe forth the savour of faith, a savour which preacheth, and that to the taste of him that possesseth discernment⁸ in sweetly savoured things!

Truth and Love are wings that cannot be separated, since Truth without Love cannot fly, neither can Love mount without Truth. Their yoke is that of amity. There is one look too and one movement of the eye-balls, and though the nose be a division, yet is there no separation therein: since not even the least wink can one eye take without the other’s cognizance⁹. Never did the feet separate into two [different] paths. His heart is divided who goeth in two paths at once. In the two ways of darkness and of light he goes waywardly in his wilfulness. His feet and his eyes reprove him for a divided man. Oh heart, thou ox equally divided to two yokes! He that divideth himself unto the righteous yoke and into that of unrighteousness, to a cursed husbandman his will is enslaved. He draweth a hard yoke: he ploweth error, and instead of wheat he soweth thorns¹⁰, while the goad of sin drives him on. Let prayer within wipe out troubled imaginations! let faith also wipe out thoughts of things without, and let the one man who is divided collect himself, Lord, and become one before Thee¹¹!

Notes

See note b.
Pearl, vi. §. 5. R. xvi. §. 2.
R. lxiv. xiv. §. 5.
It may be right to give here a longer passage from vol. ii. p. 330, f. to the same effect as the text. “For prayer, my brethren, it is fit that we should at all times be ready; for very great is prayer which communeth with God. When prayer goeth up in love to hold intercourse with God, then the gates of Heaven are opened, and there is none that letteth it from entering. The Angels let it not, neither do the empyreals delay it. When it seeketh to enter, then doth it make its requests come forth from God. Let each man be in love with prayer and labour with her, vigil-keeping in the day-time and at night. Let him that prayeth, never faint: prayer raised Jonah up when the fish had swallowed him in the sea. Prayer rescued Daniel from the beasts that were in the den, and the children of Ananias’ company it rescued them too from the fire; and on every occasion on which it riseth it taketh the victory. It taketh and carrieth forth its requests from God who giveth to it: and it bringeth forth and giveth its gifts to him that loveth dealings with it. The Lord rejoiceth that it seeketh of Him and is glad at its asking from Him: and when it commandeth with boldness, He with gladness bringeth out and giveth to it. Behold how prayer is a prophet, standing before God, and speaking with boldness, and not ashamed to say, O Lord my God, preserve me as the apple in the eye in Thy tabernacles, yea, beneath Thy wings may I be rescued from temptations! I beseech Thee, Lord of height and depth and of this world, preserve me as that pupil which is preserved for me in the eye. Be Thou, O God, a Preserver unto all that trust in Thee! And as a pupil in the eye, so may Thy preserving be their hiding-place! Two lids hath He made to the eye, that within them it might hide, that no hurtful thing might come into it: for by it the whole body is lighted. Two gates hath He set to the pupil which veils itself within the eye, as a modest virgin within them, as a beloved one in the bridechamber; two gates hath He raised before it, to be open or be shut; open to admit the light, and to keep out when shut things hurtful. Its eyelids furnish it with covering, that when any thing is falling into it, it may be kept from entering, and its clearness may not be impaired....... The eye, it is an adulteress if it doth look not chastely; the ear, it is a fornicatress if it hear not uprightly. When the eye looketh and lusteth after aught that belongeth not to it, it is an adulteress to God, and committeth whoredom by lusts. It was to see the works of God that the eye was placed in the body, and to receive in itself wondering, and convey it into the region of the heart.”
See R. ii. §. 2. xi. §. 3. xiii. §. 1. n. c. faith here means the Creed, which is set up as a beacon to all, which ought to be openly professed. St. E.’s object is to contrast it in its external developement with prayer; in its internal existence in the mind of the believer it is the truth which St. E. makes the ‘chamber’ of prayer. St. Cyprian de Or. Dom. init. “Anna in the First Book of Kings bearing a type of the Church....prayed with an entreaty not else than noiseless, silently and humbly within the secret chambers of the heart itself. She spoke with a prayer concealed, but with a manifest faith, &c.”—a passage of Scripture which St. E. himself takes as a type of the Apostles preaching the faith when they were thought to be filled with new wine.
John 17, 13; 19, 38.
Mat. 22, 12; 25, 41.
S. a furnace for, p. 122, n. i.
S. steal from the other
R. xxxvi. fin.
Vol. ii. p. 332, f. “He said that the Kingdom of God is within you, because the Son of God is within thee. His kingdom dwelleth in thee: lo! the riches of Heaven are within thy soul, if thou be willing! Lo! the Kingdom of God is within thee, O sinner! Enter in, and seek with earnestness, and thou wilt find it without toil. Enter in, leaving the wandering of pleasures and the corruption of lusts, the errors of the love of money and the business that harmeth thee. Enter thou in and dwell in thine own self in the cleared ground of thine own mind, and seek thee there the Kingdom, as our Redeemer taught. And if so be it dwell not in thee, call it as He taught us, saying, Our Father, Thy Kingdom come. Come it will, if thou dost call. The Kingdom standeth within thee, and without thee it is not. The Kingdom dwelleth within thee, and without thee hell. Without thee death standeth, and sin is the gate thereof. Evils with torments are far off from thee. Go not forth to things without, that thou perish not with those without. Go not in unto strangers, that the murderers may not destroy thee: neither open thou the door of thy body, lest robbers enter into thee and bind thee with chains and cast thee into darkness. Shut the gates of thy members, that they who lead away captives lead not thee, and take thee forth from the Kingdom, and thou go with them unto hell. Enter thou in and dwell within thine heart, for lo! there is God: for it is not He that goeth forth from thee, but thou that goest forth from Him.”