Library › St Ephrem the Syrian › Hymns on Faith

Hymns on Faith

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

31. Rhythm the Thirty-first

Let us praise Him that put on the names of the members: who named Himself ears to teach that He heard us, who surnamed Himself eyes to shew that He saw us; the names only of things did He put on. And as there is not in His Essence wrath or repenting, He put on the names of them¹ for our weakness’s sake. Let us know, that unless He had put on the names that belong to such things, it were not possible for Him to speak with us that were men. By what was ours He approached to us. Names did He put on that were ours², that He might put on us that which is His. For when He asked for and put on our form, and as a father with his sons³, so spake He with us childish creatures; lo! that likeness did the Invisible One put on, and yet He put it not on; He stripped it off, and yet He stripped it not off; and though He had it put on, yet He had it stripped off! He put it on to assist us, He stripped it off when He changed. For as He stripped off or put on every form, He taught that this was not the likeness of His Essence⁴; for the Invisible One shadowed that Essence forth in things visible.

He was in one place like an Old Man and the Ancient⁵⁶ of Days: also He became like a Mighty Man active and a⁷ Warrior: for judgment He was an Old Man; for battle He was an active One. In one place He was as one delaying, and, as⁸ He had run, in another place He is weary. In one place He was asleep; in another He was empty. In every way⁹ He laboured that He might gain us. For that Good One, when He could have made us glorious by compulsion without labour, laboured in all ways that we might be glorious by our own will¹⁰, that we might paint our glory in colours which our own free-will had gathered together. And if He had adorned us, we had been like unto a picture which another with his own colours hath shadowed out and beautified.

And he that teacheth speaking to a bird¹¹ hideth himself behind a mirror to teach it. It then, when it turns towards the speaking, has its own image before its eyes, and its master is hidden from it. By it he speaks with her: he himself instructs the likeness, that by it she may learn his speech; though the bird is related to the likeness and though it is quite her kin, as though it were foreign to herself, he persuades her by it and by it teaches her, speaking with her¹². The Essence that is in all respects high above all—in His love His height was bowed down. Our usage He gained from us. He laboured in all ways that He might turn all to Himself.

For He is likened only to an Old Man or to a Giant; to one of whom it is written that He sleepeth,¹³ or, that He slumbereth not; to one of whom it is written¹⁴ that He was weary, or, that He is never weary; by denying¹⁵ and affirming He profited us to our instruction. In the vision of the sapphire [throne] He gathered Himself up¹⁶ and sat upon it. He unfolded and filled the heavens, though every thing was in His fist. Himself He shewed in space, and shewed Himself every where. We fancied that He was in space, but every thing was filled with Him. He who was¹⁷ small that He might be on a level with us, was great that He might enrich us. He was small, and great again that He might make us great. Had He been small and not great, He had been small and would have made us small. Because He was fancied to be weak, therefore He was small, and great.

Let us marvel how that by being small He made our smallness great! Yet if He had not been great also, He would have made our mind’s conception of Him small¹⁸, since it would have thought Him weak, and would have been made less, in that it thought so. He is a Being of Whose greatness we are not capable, nor even of His littleness¹⁹. He was great; we got ourselves bewildered: and He was little; and we got ourselves into guilt. In all things He laboured with us. He willed to teach us two things, that it was He and yet it was not He. He made Himself a countenance in His love, that His servants might look upon Him. Again, that we might²⁰ not harm ourselves by thinking ‘this is His form,’ from form to form did He change, in order to teach us that He had no form, and though He departed not from the shape of man, yet in His changes of it He did depart from it.

Notes

1 Sam. 15, 29.
R. xxxvi. §. 2.
Greg. Nyss. c. Eun. xii. p. 818. “The Divine Power according to the similitude of [the sun] the example just mentioned, though infinitely transcending our nature, and not admitting of any approach to it so as to share with it, yet like some merciful mother stammering in harmony with the inarticulate chatterings of her little ones, bestoweth upon human nature that which it is capable of receiving.”
R. xxx. §. 1.
So the passages given above, p. 67, n. p. the following may be added here from Vol. ii. p. 511, c. “With pleas of all kinds He humbled Himself to children, that in His mercy He might lift them to His height. For when [God whom we have called] a mirror was incapable of old age, and the (Jewish) people incapable of the truth, He took to Himself old age for the instructing of the faithless: and since king and old man and child were become effeminate, He put on old age; as a venerable old man did He judge those iniquitous persons who were effeminate in sin. The Being that waxeth not old put on old age to teach by parables concerning His Son and His Beloved. By the mask of old age He shewed His Fatherhood to teach that He hath a Son, the Son of Man, Whom Daniel saw standing before the Ancient of Days, Who did away with mortal kings, and made Himself a King in the Son of the King Immortal. If it had been One only that was sitting, then had there been one seat; but for this reason he saw not one seat, but seats. He shewed that there was an Assessor with Him, and a Son to the Ancient of Days. The thousand thousands whom Daniel saw, them alone did he see standing: to the Son of Man he did not ascribe standing, because He is not a minister. If then this Mirror putteth on all similitudes and receiveth all colours, yet hath it not any colour stained into it, and is enwrapped in vestments while it is unrobed at all times, fair and beauteous, for no bareness doth He when naked admit of, seeing He is clad in the glory of His own Nature.” Here we see he dwells principally upon the visibility of the Father, as far as images of any kind may be said to make Him visible. See Petav. de Trin. viii. 2. §§. 8, 9.
Dan. 7, 6.
Ex. 15, 3.
Hab. 2, 3. Is. 7, 13.
Ps. 44, 23; 50, 12.
p. 123, n. k. p. 194, n. e.
R. xxi. §. 3.
Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 6. §. 39. mentions birds being ‘educated’ for the purpose.
Dan. 7, 13.
Ps. 78, 66.
[Syriac]. Assem. gives,—ilfud quod, &c. quo strinxit, solvit, profuit, et docuit. I am not sure what his meaning is, though perhaps it is the same as in the text, ‘that which Scripture tells us, that He was weary, &c. in which He binds and looses, i. e. denies and affirms, that, I say, was to profit and teach us.’ Literally it is, in eo quod strinxit, solvit, opitulatus est ut instrueret. [Syriac] is often used, (cf. i. p. 136, e. ii. p. 333, e. iii. p. 529. contr. Scrut. i. §. 42. p. 187, c.) nearly in this sense. In illustration of this see on the latter place. The whole passage is to me far from clear.
Ex. 24, 10.
p. 105, n. i.
S. have made our mind small
p. 144, n. g.
comp. Mark 16, 12. and R. xix. §. 1.