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Hymns on Faith

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

4. Rhythm the Fourth

A thousand thousands stand, ten thousand ten thousands run: thousands and ten thousands are not able to search into One: for all of them in silence stand to minister. He hath no assessor save the Son who is from Him: within the Silence¹ [alone] is there investigation into Him. If the Angels had come to search, they had met the Silence, and been restrained. The First-Born entered the belly, and the pure Virgin suffered² not. He went in, and came forth in pangs, and the Fair One perceived Him. Glorious and hidden was His entering in: vile and visible His coming forth, for He was God in His going in, and Man in His coming forth. A wonder and an astonishment to hear! Fire went into the Belly³, and clothed⁴ Himself with a Body and came forth! Gabriel gave the⁵ Name of ‘Lord’ to Him Who is the Lord of Angels. He called Him ‘Lord’ that he might teach that He was his Lord, and not his fellow-servant. Michael was Gabriel’s fellow-servant. The Son is the Lord of servants: High is His⁶ Nature as is His Name. The servant cannot search Him out, because how great soever the work⁷ is, greater than it is the Workman!

Wondrous is it that the mind should gather all its forces to break through and gaze upon Thy Light. Thy Brightness⁸ came forth but a little; It scattereth it and throws it back altogether. Who shall look upon the Son, whose rays are fearful? The whole of them with His whole Nature are closely blended⁹. He is the Sun Whom the Prophets proclaimed, with healing in His wings, and trouble among His examiners. Shall one feel Thee with his hands, when there is not even a mind keen enough to feel after Thee and search Thee out, seeing Thou art a great mountain? Shall one listen to Thee with the ears, seeing Thou art more fearful than thunder? A stillness art Thou that cannot be heard, yea, a silence that cannot be listened unto. Shall a man see Thee with his eyes, when Thou art the Bright Morning Light? From all is the sight of Thee concealed!

It is not for weak beings alone that the sight of Thee is too great, or the searching out of Thee is concealed: for the senses¹⁰ of the body, since they much need other senses which are in the inmost imagination, do not grasp even the smallest things within their search. Let us then ask the Angels that are near Thy gate. Though the Angels¹¹ stand¹² before Thee with praises, yet know they not upon what side to see Thee. They sought Thee above in the height, they saw Thee in the depth, they searched for Thee in the heaven, they saw Thee in the deep; they looked for Thee¹³ with the Adorable One, they found Thee amid the creatures,¹⁴ they came down to Thee and gave praise. When they had begun to enquire into Thy appearance among things created, they comprehended not how, by running up and down, to come to a stand in their search into Thee. For they saw Thee in the depth, they saw Thee above on high¹⁵; they saw Thee in the sepulchre, they saw Thee in the chamber¹⁶, they saw Thee dead, they found Thee a raiser of the dead: they were amazed, they were astonied, and had no strength left.

In every place is Thy mysterious Presence¹⁷, Lord, and from every place Thou art withdrawn. Though Thy myste¹⁸¹⁹rious Presence¹⁷ be in the height, yet it feeleth not that Thou art what Thou art. Though Thy mysterious Presence¹⁷ be in the depth, is it not comprehended what it is. Though Thy mysterious Presence¹⁷ be in the sea, from the sea Thou art concealed: though Thy mysterious Presence¹⁷ be in the dry land, it knoweth not that Thou art He. Blessed be the glorious hidden One, since even Thy little mystery²⁰ is a fountain of mysteries! who is able to clear up mysteries that fail not? If a man were to take a likeness of Thee it would be a fountain whence all likenesses²¹ would flow, and to what shall we be able to look and shadow out Thy Image upon our heart²². In Thy one adorable Image ten thousand beauteous things are crowded together.

Wondrous art Thou altogether on all sides that we seek Thee! Thou art near and far off. Who shall approach to Thee? No searching is able to extend and reach unto Thee. When it had reached itself forth to approach, it was intercepted and stopped short. It is too short to reach Thy mountain; faith does find it, and love with prayer. Imagining is easier for us than speaking in words²³; the mind is able to extend itself to every place; when it cometh to walk in Thy way to seek after Thee it loseth its path before itself; it is perplexed and halteth. And if the mind be overcome, how much more the language, whose path is amongst perplexities²⁴.

This becometh the mouth, that it should praise and keep silence, and if it is asked to be hasty, let it betake its whole self to silence as its strong hold. Thus [only] can it comprehend, if it be not hasty to comprehend; the quiet is more able to comprehend than the rash that is hasty. The weak that searcheth²⁵ is as a feeble one, that laboureth to measure the fearful sea. Lo, if the mouth refrain, Lord, from searching into Thee, no gracious act would it have done, if able to search into Thee, it yet refused to search! Its weakness hindered it from that to which its audacity led it away²⁶. It had been a gracious act in it, had it decided to be still; for silence would have been a port to it, that it should not perish, in perplexity, in Thy sea and Thy billows!

And if there be a mode of seeking Him out, come let us seek out the hidden One; come, let us in astonishment feel after Him if He can be comprehended! Thou art revealed, Lord, to babes and hidden from the cunning; to him that²⁷ believeth Thou art found, to him that searcheth Thou art hidden. Blessed be he that is simple in searching out Thee and vigorous at Thy promise. Searching, Lord, is too little to glorify²⁸ Thee within itself. The power that extendeth unto every place²⁹ is able to search for Thee, in the height to shadow Thee forth, and in the depth to feel after Thee, but though reaching to every place is not able to find out Thee. Blessed be he that hath felt that [only] in the Bosom of Thy Father is the enquiry into Thee fully set at rest³⁰.

The Seraph that is winged and flieth is too weak to search Thee out; his wing is weak in comparison of Thee, so as not to measure with Thy Majesty. In Thy Bosom are the worlds laid; how much soever one would wander into it, one is hindered. The Seraph whose voice proclaims Thee Holy³¹, in reverential silence keeps from search into Thee³². Woe unto him that is bold, when the Seraph before Thee with his wings covereth his face! The Cherubs bear that Mighty One³³ Who beareth all. Bowing downwards do the hosts of the Cherubim in fear beneath Thy chariot veil themselves and fear to gaze therein, carrying yet not able to find Him, trembling when approaching. Blessed he that hath learnt the honour due to Thee from them, and hath praised and been silent in fear!

Notes

‘Silence’ ‘ἡσυχία’ ‘ἀφθεγξία’ is used of God by Dionys. Areop. de Div. Nom. p. 841. which Corderius (p. 848.) says, is used, “because neither can we by speech declare God, nor doth He thereby so declare Himself to us as that we can know Him perfectly as He is.”
‘Suffered,’ will apply to mind or body. St. Hil. de Trin. iii. §. 19. ‘She begat a perfect Man without having ought that was her’s minished.’ See on xviii. fin. The received doctrine is, that as Christ entered the house in spite of the doors being shut, so He came forth from the Blessed Virgin without opening the gate of her womb. See Petav. de Incarn. x. 6. §. 3. and Assem. in Oper. Gr. iii. (p. 41.) Huet. Origenian ii. 4. §. 2. who quote Pseud.-Orig. Hom. in div. Theod. Dial. 2. p. 79. St. Aug. de Civ. D. xxii. 8. §. 21. Jerom. c. Pel. ii. §. 4. St. Ambr. Epist. 81. (42. §. 4. Bened. whom see on Comm. in Luc. ii. §. 57.) St. Hormisd. Epist. 79. Greg. Magn. Hom. 26. §. 1. in Evan. besides several passages from the Opera Græca of St. E. e. g. vol. ii. p. 265. “Mary neither suffered as a woman, nor had she the pains in bringing forth as a Virgin.” See above, p. 40. and 46. where he speaks of the womb as sealed, an expression used by Origen and others, and taken from Cant. iv. 12. The ‘pangs’ he mentions presently (if not those of Compassion) may of course be quite consistent with this, as they may have preceded Child-birth.
The incomprehensibleness of Christ’s Generation from St. Mary is urged as a reason for accepting a fortiori the incomprehensibleness of His Eternal Generation by St. E. here, as by St. Greg. Nyss. c. Eun. ii. vol. ii. p. 445. d. “Oh the disgustingness of these foul and filthy thoughts! how is it that he who talks in this way understandeth not, how that, even when manifested by the flesh, God did not allow of the passions of nature in the formation of His own Body, but it was from the Holy Spirit and the Power of the Most High that the Child was born to us: and neither did the Virgin suffer, nor was the Spirit minished, nor the Power of the Most High divided.....and the Child was born whole, and to the undefiled estate of His Mother He wrought no scathe,” which he again refers to p. 536. c. See also Feuard. on St. Iren. ii, 28.
p. 51, n. y.
Luke 1, 28.
see John 8, 35.
p. 121, § 3.
Exod. 19, 24.
i. e. Those attributes whereby He shines on us are not in reality different from His Essence, though we contemplate them one by one. See p. 30, n. i. and below, lxii. §. 4. The word ‘feel’ which occurs presently and often in the original, where ‘explore’ is necessarily substituted in the translation, has a force from the fact that the Anomœans said, “that they did not only know God in the knowledge of faith, but as a man would know any thing visible or tangible with his hands, as when he might take into his hands a stone or a stick or implement made of any other matter.” Epiphan. i. p. 989. d. To this atrocious sentiment St. E. is evidently alluding.
See R. xiv. n. a.
It must be observed, that St. E. is here combating those who said that they could understand God as He could Himself: hence it is open for him to hold that certain spirits see Him as He is, i. e. behold His Essence, though they see it only in part, as a man in a well really beholds the Heaven, though in part only, which is St. Epiph. illustration, lxx. §. 8. See Petav. de Deo. vii. 5. §. 6. and on contr. Scrut. i. §. 2. Comp. R. v. §. 4. and vol. i. p. 268. where he speaks of Apostles and Saints as also brought “near by Christ to the Majestic Glory of the invisible heavenly Tabernacle.”
See Luke 1, 19. p. 137. n. a.
1 Pet. 1, 12.
1 Tim. 3, 16.
See p. 24.
S. [Syriac] Ass. ‘in thronosedentem.’ This paraphrase is truer perhaps than it seems: Anonymus ap. Corder. Cat. in Ps. xix. 6. p. 357. “He being the Sun of Righteousness cometh forth from the Chamber of His Father’s Bosom.” However, one should rather think St. E. would allude here to Abraham’s bosom and the descent into hell. In vol. iii. p. 583. f. he calls it ‘the chamber of the just.’ The contrast then would lie between the powerlessness of one dead, and the wonders shewn by Christ in the grave.
S. Thy mystery
See Job 23.
Ps. 139.
Thy little mystery, i. e. Thy Birth of Mary as contrasted with Thy Birth of God. see p. 38. ‘A great crown, &c.’
Comp. Athanas. p. 29. O. T. and note k. Pseudo-Bas. c. Eun. v. p. 301. c. “If it is impossible that matter should be made into the shape of a pattern by men, unless they partook of the ideal form thereof, how should the creature ascend up to a likeness unto God, if not partaking of the express image (χαρακτὴρ) of God? But the express image of God is not such as man’s is, but is living, and is in very deed the likeness productive of likenesses, whereof all things that partake, become likenesses of God.” That St. E. conceived there were different degrees of likeness is plain from vol. i. p. 128. d. “That man was created in the Likeness and Image of God, we understand in three ways. For it is not to his external form that the phrase ‘image of God’ is applied, but to his freedom and power over the creatures. This also do we understand as of the Image in three ways—one is, that as the power of God is over all things, so also the lordship of man is established over all: a second, that he obtained a just soul, whereby he is capable of all species of virtues and divine indwellings; and the third is, that by the intellectual and governing faculty of the mind he reacheth unto every place, and carrieth in himself the image of whatsoever he pleaseth.” And again, p. 147. on ‘My Spirit shall not always dwell in man, &c.’ he says: “some interpreters take it thus: This is said by reason of the Spirit which was breathed into us and shaped man to a likeness unto God, to express how by their evil doings they had lost the grace of that Divine likeness. We might then think here of the Pagans and Jews, who are not called the image of God, since they have not that holy inspiration, whence we have become in very truth the image of God. Still the ‘image of God’ is used also in another sense, and all mankind by reason of the human soul which is rational and intelligent may properly have all of them the name of ‘image of God’ in a certain sense.”
St. Athan. de Incarn. §. 13. “How could this (i. e. the renewing of what was made in God’s Image) have been effected, save by the coming of the Image of God Itself, even our Saviour Jesus Christ?”
p. 110, note a.
The Anomœans contended that there was an inherent connection between words and things, as if God Himself had given the names to things. This is combated at great length by St. Gregory Nyss. c. Eunom. lib. xii. At p. 812. c. he says, seeing that the thoughts which be in us, are, owing to our nature being clasped round with a fleshly enclosure, incapable of being manifested, it is of necessity that we put certain names as if signs upon things, and thereby publish to one another the movements of our minds.” The inadequacy of language to the expression of the substance of the faith was noticed as early as by St. Clement Alex. Strom. v. §. 82. §. 83. p. 695. Pott. ‘We speak (of Lord, &c.) not as though we uttered His Name, but in our perplexity we use comely Names, that the mind may, without wandering about over other things, have in these whereon to stay itself up.’ We shall have to recur to this subject below.
Is. 32, 4.
S. took it captive
Mat. 11, 25.
i. e. perhaps searching as though it comprehended Thee in itself would glorify, &c. The Latin version has ‘non capit’, and possibly [Syriac] is a misprint for [Syriac] or [Syriac] to comprise, or to imagine.
i. e. the mind see §. 5. and n. h. fin.
§. 1.
Similar reasoning occurs in St. Chrys. de Incompr. i. p. 301. d. ‘Some Angels say, Glory to God in the highest; and the Seraphim say, Holy, Holy, Holy, and turn away their eyes, unable to bear God even in His condescension; and the Cherubim, Blessed be His glory from out of His place.... See what fear there is above, what contemptuousness below: they give glory; these are curious, &c.’ So p. 317. p. 319. p. 327. See on v. §. 2. See n. d. on R. x.
S. and in silence honoureth Thee.
S. Power