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Hymns on Faith

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

32. Rhythm the Thirty-second

Restore me to Thy teaching, for I sought to be at ease, and saw that I had done myself a harm, since the soul profiteth not, save in intercourse with Thee. Whensoever I have mused upon Thee, I have gained a treasure from Thee; and when I pondered upon Thee, a fount trickled down from Thee; and because I was not capable of Thee¹, glory be unto Thy fountain! Thy fountain is cut short unto him that thirsteth not for Thee, and Thy treasury is empty to him that hateth Thee. Love is the treasurer of Thy heavenly treasure².

That I should not cease from cleaving to Thee, Thy³ Beauty enticeth me: and though I would cleave to Thy Majesty, Thy glory affrighteth me. Am I to cease, or to come? I am overcome by both of them. I was affrighted, because I had felt Thee [present]. I am magnified, because I had magnified Thee. And though Thou wert not magnified abundantly, yet would he who magnified Thee, be magnified also in Thee. Glory to Thy Majesty! I have mused and spoken of Thee, not that I comprehended Thee. Then I languished, and was silent; it was not that I had lost [sight of] Thee. In Thee too I was amazed, and held my peace. Glory to⁴ Thy invisibleness! When I was distressed at my powerlessness, I was silent because I sufficed not [for Thee], since no man comprehendeth Thee, since it is Thou who comprehendest all things. Yet had I been sore vexed, if Thou wert under any bound!

Lo! for our sakes Thou madest Thy glory to abound, that Thou mightest shew us that Thou art great. Indeed Thy Nature is great, and for the children of men Thy Glory became very small. Even before Thou hadst created Adam⁵, in Thine own self Thou wert great. The sons of men made Thee small, since Thou didst come down to them, and clad Thyself with their form, that they might be made great by Thy humiliation; and if the likeness of man’s image⁶, which Thou didst borrow and clad on, made Thee small, how much more would the Body make Thee small wherewith Thou didst clothe Thyself in reality, not in likeness⁷? Thou didst make Thyself small when Thou didst create: for Thou didst come down from Thy Majesty to a low estate, since creation was not possible, unless in a state of condescension Thou hadst come to Thy framing of it⁸. He clothed Himself with littleness⁹ ere He was a Creator. How could He create, unless He could be little? or how else could He do great things? Glory to Thy good-will!

From Thine own Thou hast become little! from Thine own too Thou hast become great¹⁰! Thou becamest small, because Thou didst let Thyself down from that Majesty; and Thou wert great, because Thou shewedst Thyself gracious, and didst create the creatures. Thou becamest small outwardly, and Thou becamest great outwardly: it was not in Thyself¹¹ that Thy Glory waned and increased. Thy Nature is equable, and high above those changes¹². My littleness hath spoken of Thee, since Thy Majesty hath been willing to fall under words; and to be beneath voices, that Thou mightest be profitable to the mouth and to the hearing¹³. The Father and the Son are One, because Their Nature is One. They wander not out of One another¹⁴; they are blended with One another; they are distinct from One another. Glory to Thy blending¹⁵!

Notes

R. xxxii. §. 4, 5.
R. xxv. §. 1.
Ps. 45, 2; 50, 2. &c.
Zeph. 1, 7. Hab. 2, 20.
Adam is looked on by St. James of Nesibis, Serm. xvi. §. 5. as first in the idea or thought of God when creating, as that in reference to which all other things were made. Comp. R. xxviii. §. 1.
R. xxvi. §. 6.
R. xxvi. §. 5.
Syr. [Syriac] Assem. renders ‘quum creatura potis non esset a propria humilitate surgere,’ as if he took [Syriac] to be the third person feminine, which the word [Syriac] seems to require, as it is not used, that I know of, any more than ‘potuit’ for ‘was not possible,’ without a verb infinitive or future after it. The context, however, seems to require a sense akin to that given in the text; as it stands it might in Greek be rendered, though awkwardly, οὐ γὰρ ἱκανὴ ἡ κτίσις εἰ μὴ συγκαταβατικῶς ὅτι ἦλθες, εἰς τὴν δημιουργίαν Σοῦ; which when left without commas either at κτίσις or συγκαταβατικῶς admits of the same diversity of rendering as the Syriac: I believe St. E. would put the stop at κτίσις, which would give a sense equivalent to that given above, viz. ‘since the creation, if it had not been in condescension that Thou didst come, would not have been able to endure Thy plastic hand.’ See Newman on Athan. p. 372. where a similar passage is the subject of comment. This passage then would not, as the present writer once thought, give any sanction to Bull’s view of the συγκατάβασις, (see ibid. p. 368, n. g.) Rather it would refer to our Lord’s archetypal office, (see ibid. p. 279, m.) which is thus concisely described by Didymus, de Trin. “All created things would neither have subsisted nor have continued unimpaired, unless they had had as a basis and foundation the Son of God, the creative Word, and had stayed themselves upon Him.” iii. 4. p. 351. As calling the Son Wisdom in Scripture does not imply that the Father is not Wisdom, (the attributes of God being in reality identical with His Essence,) so calling the creative act of that Wisdom (in Whom God made all things) a condescension does not imply that it was not a condescension in the Father also to create. (Comp. p. 202, n. b.) Hence St. E. goes on to put the Son on a level with the Father by speaking of the unchangeableness of the Son, which attribute is in Scripture spoken of in one place (James i. 17.) as if exclusively belonging to the Father, as is the case with immortality, goodness, and other attributes. This done, he adds, to prevent all misconception, the doctrines of the Unity and Perichoresis; the very doctrines which Eusebius and the Semiarian school would contravene in speaking of the creation. See on Athan. p. 373, n. s. and p. 399, n. a. That act of the Divine Nature by which It directed Its Omnipotence to the creation and sustenance of a definite number out of the whole possible number of subsistences, is what St. E. contemplates as the condescension of the Creator. This definite number of subsistencies are conceived of by us as existing in God, and as in the Son in particular, because He is the express Image of the Father’s Substance. We must speak of God as if His actions had ‘a resemblance to the considering and reconsidering, and the preparations which men make in their doings.’ (above, p. 128, n. g. Petav. de Deo, iv. 11.) And in our case the inward word or discourse is what contains the determinate idea or form of things to be made or said; and this word is to the mind as the Word is to the Father in certain respects. Only as we can but shape and modify existing subsistencies, and not create new ones as God can, the resemblance is on this ground, as well as on very many others very imperfect. See Petav. de Trin. vi. 2. de Opif. i. 6. This conviction St. E. expresses in the words, ‘My littleness, &c.’ Comp. R. xxxiii. §. 1. R. viii. §. 7. n. g. R. xxx. §. 1. R. liii. §. 4. and the next notes.
R. liii. §. 4.
R. xix. §. 2.
Syr. [Syriac] from [Syriac] a word of uncertain origin, probably formed (as a similar word in Hebrew and Chaldee) from the fut. of [Syriac], ‘to stand up;’ for transpositions similar to the one required here occur in the Syriac proper names, for Jael, Naioth, &c. Etymologically then it would seem to be, ‘that which stands firm,’ as e. g. in R. i. contr. Scrut. §. 24. it is used for the ‘firmament’ of Heaven, and vol. i. p. 6, a: in §. 31. of the ‘reality’ or ‘substance,’ as opposed to the ‘name’ of the fruit, as also in vol. i. 6, b. ii. p. 532. and iii. p. 279, b: in vol. iii. p. 249. death is said not to have the ‘reality’ of speech and silence: ibid. p. 246, a. in our frame is Thy Baptism, and in our ‘substance’ is Thy living Body. But by far the commonest use of the word in St. E. is for ‘self.’ E. g. in vol. i. p. 373. Saul having in vain tried to get rid of David by means of the Philistines, ‘himself’ or ‘in his own person’ rises against him. P. 389, c. “a spirit ‘in itself’ wicked and lying and hostile, and hating God.” P. 392, e. “to stretch forth his hand against the king ‘himself,’ the king’s person.” P. 497, d. ‘by the sacrifice of Himself.’ See also iii. p. 61, b. 259, d. 269, f. &c. In this sense it seems to answer to one use of hypostasis, in which it was used of essence, considered as subsisting in one person, i. e. of one person, viewed not as person, but as essence. Hence, e. g. when the Son is said to be the express Image of the Father’s Essence in the Syriac, Heb. 1. our version has Person, and above, ‘a spirit in itself wicked,’ would not in a popular way of speaking differ much from ‘a spirit essentially wicked.’ See farther on R. i. contr. Scrut. §. 31. and on R. xl. §. 1. In the text the adverb employed is equivalent to ‘essentially,’ if we view the Son’s Human Nature, as an accident to His Essence. (Vide Petav. de Inc. vi. 8. §. 4.) What St. E. means to say is, that the Divine Nature remained what it was, as the following passage from vol. ii. p. 516, e. will shew: “It is not possible for the Nature of the [Divine] Majesty to become small or be humbled, except in similitudes.” And p. 512, f. “A wonder is the visible sample that meets our eye, even the word [of Christ] that wished to persuade the learned concerning that Majesty, of which fools thought that It was not perfect. For us then it was that It was small when small, and for us that It was great when great; and though it was equable in Itself at all times, all similitudes did It put on in Its mercy, for the Nature of the Divine Essence doth not ever at any time wane or increase....He is One, that waneth not; He is One, that increaseth not: for the whole of Him is in every place. There is no space within Him for us to enter into, neither is there any room without Him to go out into. How should He expand or be greater, or how contract or wane?”
R. xxxi. §. 5.
R. v. §. 3.
p. 87, n. i. p. 144, n. g. fin. p. 235, n. h.
S. [Syriac]. See R. l. §. 1. R. lxxiv. §. 1. contr. Scrut. R. i. §. 2. §. 30.