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Hymns on Faith

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

74. Rhythm the Seventy-fourth

Who shall make me able to gaze and look upon thee, thou great light! wherein are crowded together types of thy Lord? Who can search out the heat thereof, which though separate is not cut off, as the Holy Ghost? The might of his heat dwelleth over every thing: the whole of Him is with every¹ thing, and also with each one². It is not cut off from the ray which is blended³ in it, neither from the sun as being mingled with it; and when it is spread over the creatures², each one taketh up the might of its heat according to its ability. By it the naked getteth him warmth, while putting it on, after the likeness of Adam⁴ who was unclothed; this it is which is grateful to all that are naked, while it sendeth them forth, as men invigorated, for all labours.

The Spirit also clothed the Apostles and sent them forth to the four quarters of the world⁵ upon labours. By heat all things are ripened, as by the Spirit all things are hallowed! O visible type! By that is the cold that is in the body overcome, as uncleanness⁶ by the Holy Spirit. By that things which the frost hath bound are loosened; as souls which the wicked one hath bound are by the Holy Spirit. By it the calves of Nisan⁷ dance; as the disciples [rejoiced] by the Holy Ghost which dwelt in them. By the heat also are the bridles of winter broken loose, wherewithal it holds back the fruits and the shoots; by the Holy Spirit again are the bridles of the wicked one broken off, wherewithal he hindered all graces. The warmth awakeneth the bowels of the still earth; as the Holy Ghost doth holy Church. How much then is it that he will go astray, and how much that he, a feeble man, will be searching the mighty boundless treasury? and how can he go astray so far as to measure with Him, unto whom whatsoever is in the four corners of⁸ the world is small?

Heat looseneth the evil bridle, yea, the chilly silence of the frost upon the lips, and penetrateth the mouth, yea, and the tongue, as did the tongues of the Spirit which settled on the⁹ Disciples. The Holy Spirit by His Heat applied by the tongues chased silence away from the Disciples, the evil, yea, the chilly silence which, as from the winter¹⁰, was scared away that we might speak. For that people being a sign of winter, a type of the frost, was altogether gloomy over the Disciples: the Holy Spirit by the tongues of fire which came, loosened the might of the cold, and chased away fear from the Disciples: and silence fled from their tongues by the tongues. Satan was condemned in the likeness of winter, and the people raged, which rage made them all an antitype of February¹¹. But there the small birds on high spoke with new voices, while the hawk and the winter was despised of them. These be things which the heat foreshadowed out, and these also the Holy Ghost accomplished¹². Who is sufficient for them?

Notes

See Ps. 19, 6.
Comp. Basil de Sp. S. §. 22. fin. In this sentence may be contained an allusion to the doctrine, that the Holy Spirit sanctifies the elect by the application of His Very Substance to their souls, each one of which taketh up that divinely infused Heat according to his ability. Yet it may be observed, in confirmation of the view taken in n. b. and c. to R. lxxiii. that St. E. here speaks of the heat as spread over the creatures, as he did of the ray in that passage. For as it would be heretical to make the Holy Spirit, (who never took into union with His Person a nature capable of change as the Son did,) to be in any way subject to change; it seems that this passage would shew in what sense the other is intended to be taken. For the mission of the Holy Spirit (of which §. 2. speaks clearly) is His Procession, viewed as influencing those ‘who take up the might of His Heat,’ i. e. the elect, (see Petav. de Trin. viii. 1. §. 10.) So far then the passage might be taken to allude not to what is eternal only, but also to what is temporal, i. e. to man’s part in the matter, inasmuch as it would be difficult to some to distinguish in words between the Unction of Christ’s Human Nature with His Divine, and (what of course in reality is a very different thing) the Unction of the elect with the Holy Spirit. (See however Petav. viii. 7. §. 10. &c.) Yet even the Incarnation of the Son, in spite of the new relations to man to which it gives rise, (p. 234, n. f.) is in such way the result of His eternal Procession from the Father, that neither of the Other Persons could have been incarnate without a confusion of the order of the Trinity. (Petav. de Inc. ii. 15. Thomassin ibid. ii. 1. and 2.) Nor is it else than remarkable, that those who favoured the Nestorian view of Christ’s Mission were also opposed to the Latin view of the Holy Spirit’s Mission, (vide Le Quien. Diss. D. i. §. 13. Petr. Strozza de Dogm. Chald. p. 17. ed. 1617. Assem. B. O. iii. 2. p. 233.) If then in a passage of disputed meaning what makes for A.’s explanation is not concealed; it is hoped that what is done for fairness’ sake will not be taken to be done from hesitation as to the explanation here given. For it seems, that had St. E. had before him here only the substantial application of the Spirit to the elect, he would have spoken of His being ‘mingled’ with them or ‘dwelling’ in them; and that the clause really alludes to the two constituents of the notion implied by the word ‘mission,’ the eternal Procession of the Omnipresent Spirit being alluded to by the phrase ‘spread over the creatures,’ and His union with the elect by the remainder of the sentence. See on c. Scrut. ii. §. 8. Calecas (in Petavius) illustrates the Mission of the Spirit much as St. E. does that of the Son in the last R. as follows; “Although we take the Mission in a sense implying time, referring our own affection to God, yet may we not make it subject to time. For if a blind man were just to recover his sight and enjoy the sun’s ray, one should not say that the ray or light then for the first time proceeded from the sun. For it is plain that before the man recovered his sight, &c.” St. E. himself gives such an abundance of illustrations that it requires some apology for introducing thus much from Calecas. But to use the words of Petav. viii. 5. §. 8. “rapit nos ad sese ac sine satietate delectat tantæ rei ac tam suavis jucundæque recordatio.”
p. 210, ref. 4. p. 340. ref. 1.
See on c. Scrut. i. §. 34.
There is the same play upon the two senses of the word [Syriac] here as in Pearl, R. v. §. 4. A portion of the places to which the different Apostles were sent is mentioned by St. E. vol. i. p. 453, b. “Twelve governors were appointed to bring bread for Solomon and for his house, because our Lord chose Himself twelve Apostles, and divided to them the four quarters of the world, and set them as stewards of His household, and ministers of His divine mysteries, and charged them to give to the Israel of God living and incorruptible Nourishment, and to bring heavenly Food unto the house of the King of peace. But the boundary of their domain doth Scripture therefore declare, because the Apostles divided the four-quarters of the world, and each one of them took a notable place to teach, Simon Rome, John Ephesus, Matthew Palestine, Thomas India, and so forth.”
p. 73, n. d.
p. 27.
§. 1. p. 235, ref. 1. comp. R. lxxii. §. 3.
Acts 2, 3.
p. 74, n. d.
S. Shebôt.
p. 169, n. m.