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Hymns on Faith

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

77. Rhythm the Seventy-seventh

‘That Hour knoweth no man;’ this the childish have¹ balanced² with the Son, and it as it were preponderates. For if the First-born does know the Father, who is there that is greater than the Father Himself, whom yet He doth not know³? That hour, forsooth, no man knoweth, not even the First-born, for it is the Father only who knoweth it. And if as they think, it is because He is a creature that [the Son] does not know it; behold fools are making Him a creature by their pryings.

Come, wonder ye how our Lord, because He is a creature knoweth not that hour, while they which are created by His own Hand⁴ have dared to pry, not into that hour, but into the Lord of hours. Would that they would abide by their own word⁵, that every thing which is a creature might keep silence before its Creator!

By that knowledge wherewith He knoweth His Father, is that hour also pondered upon⁶ in His knowledge: for if He gave Him to know His glory, and concealed from Him an hour of time, then is it greater than Himself. Set the hour which He knoweth not, along side of the Father whom He knoweth, and weigh⁷ and see whether is more excellent. For the Son by the mere fact of His knowing the Father knoweth Him entirely: He is not less than Him; for that He lacketh naught. And since the Root is real, in a real way doth the Fruit which He brought forth know Him⁸. And what fruit is there that knoweth⁹ less than the root thereof, in that the whole of it is blended¹⁰ with the whole. For if in its knowledge it fell short of its tree, then in name also hath it ceased, for it were not its fruit. If then that fruit agreeth with its root in its name, it agreeth also therewith in knowledge. The sweetness which is in both of them is one: one is the knowledge¹¹, which is in both of them, being they are commingled.

The fruit is mingled into its tree, and so is its root into the fruit: who can sever them? They are not divided in the sweetness; they are not divided either, in the knowledge of perfect truth. The love¹² of the fruit is amid the root, and amid the fruit that of the tree: who can divide them? The Names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, equal are they, and at unity in the illapse at Baptism. The Names are united, the movement is the concordant¹³ one of one Will¹⁴. They bear as it were one yoke, and come; and as They are equal in the illapse at Baptism¹⁵, so are They also in Their unanimity.

But the Fruit came down and clothed Himself with a Body¹⁶, and clothed Himself along with it with the feeble names of His kindred, that as He even put on our human nature, He might also put on our knowledge for our sakes¹⁷. He that knew all things became unknowing, He asked and listened, as a man, for man’s sake!

If feeble men then have pried into the Essence [to see], how He is the Son and yet cannot contain that [Essence], either let them be still, if He knows it not¹⁸, or if they pry, let them confess that the Son knoweth all things. If then they pry when not permitted, this is audacity¹⁹; or if it be permitted, it is as a gift [of grace]²⁰. He then who gave dust [the liberty] to search, how should He hinder His Son from knowing an hour of time? Grant that He knew not that hour: the cause of His not knowing was the Body²¹ where withal He was clothed²².

Notes

Mark 13, 32.
§. 3. R. liii. §. 5. R. lxxviii. §. 1. 2. R. lxxix. §. 1.
To argue from the Son’s knowledge of the Father, that He must have known the hour of the Judgment, was a common way of meeting the Arian use of this text. See Petav. de Trin. ii. 3. §. 5. iii. 1. §. 16. vii. 15. §. 2. on Athan. p. 463, n. e. Greg. c. Maced. ap. Mai C. N. viii. p. 4. p. 9. Did. de Trin. iii. 22. c. Scrut. i. §. 5. Since all argument is necessarily understood imperfectly, unless we bear in mind the thing argued against, it ought very distinctly to be kept in mind, that St. E. is here arguing against those who represent our Lord’s Divine Nature, as ignorant of the hour, &c. and that with a view of shewing that it was inferior to the Father’s, i. e. was not really Divine. Hence any expression of his opinion upon the extent of Christ’s knowledge as Man comes in incidentally; so far as the Arian controversy was concerned, the Fathers do not seem to mind what the Arians think of Christ’s human knowledge, provided they prove distinctly that such texts as that before us cannot belong to His Divine Nature. Vide Thomassin de Inc. vii. 4. §. 2. The reason is sufficiently obvious; the Arians virtually made the Son the soul of their Christ, and to disprove this was the first step to be taken against them, and it would not be to the purpose to discuss the dignity of what with the Arians was a non-entity. St. E.’s question in the text may be paraphrased as follows: The Son knows the Father, and therefore all that is in the Father, His knowledge and His Essence being in reality one and the same thing, (see R. xlv. §. 3. and R. lxxi. §. 2.) the knowledge of the hour which the Son does not know, is not part of the Father’s knowledge; therefore it is inherent in some other being greater by this than the Father; and who is this? When they go on to urge that Scripture adds ‘but the Father only,’ and that the Son being a creature does not know it; this, of course, is in other words assuming that He is (not Son but) a creature, and that the word Father is the correlative not of Son, but of creature. The emphasis must be laid on the word ‘making,’ and then the passage will be plain.
see p. 126, n. a.
§. 6.
It might seem from the Latin, (complectitur et repræsentat,) though very loose, that it was intended to be printed [Syriac], ‘was comprised in His own knowledge;’ which certainly would make the passage run on more easily.
§. 1. ref. 1.
R. lxxvi. §. 1.
This is a mode of arguing not uncommon in the Fathers; viz. to take some thing as a type, and conceive it endued with such and such attributes which do attach to the antitype, and which would, if conferred on the type, make it resemble the antitype more closely. Only St. E. above does this without stating that he is doing so.
p. 210, ref. 4. c. Scrut. i. §. 31.
R. xlv. §. 3.
This must not be taken as if St. E. held that the Spirit was the essential Love by which the Father and Son love Each Other, which of course would be heretical, since Love, like Wisdom and all God’s attributes, is His Substance. For a little attention will shew that he used Love relatively of the Spirit only, as Wisdom may be used of the Son. See Petav. de Trin. viii. 12. §. 5. and p. 369, n. l.
S. equal
c. Scrut. i. §. 30.
p. 166, n. d.
or Flesh
This squares with the passages noticed above, p. 190, n. g. p. 305, n. e. The words ‘for our sakes,’ which tally with ‘for our profit,’ in Athan. p. 461, n. f. are explained by the next sentence, in which the asking of questions evidently refers not to the real state of our Lord’s knowledge as Man, but to what He said and did with a view to carrying out the economy, asking questions when He Himself knew what He would do, as though He did not know. Having put on our nature, He demeaned Himself, so to speak, as though He had all its accidents, some of which He suspended at will, see p. 202, n. c. p. 199, a. So in a Sermon on Lazarus, vol. ii. p. 391, c. he says, “When the third day of the death had come to the dead, (Lazarus,) and upon the fourth the worm had begun to gnaw his features, the Quickener with His disciples came to the city of the deceased, and asked his buriers that were assembled, ‘Where have ye laid him?’ The question about this was owing to the perverse [Jews]; for it is clearer than the sun that Himself had no need to ask it: it was to attest his burial that He asked. ......He did not say, Where is his sepulchre? but, Where have ye laid him? He knew the haughtiness with which they gainsayed His noble acts, and so by the question tied them down to the place in which they had laid the buried man. He did not ask, Where is Lazarus laid? or, Where is he buried? but, Where have ye laid him? do you shew Me, ye gainsayers! Even of the Father is there a question which is like to this, and what is uttered by many that do I through reverence abstain from, without going into perverse disputings. Truth standeth by itself; it is not a marshalling of words that grapples with faith; simplicity with cheerful look it is which beholdeth truth as it is, and without wordiness and strife it standeth on the side of verity that is without strife and disputing. Whether of the two is greater to know, where the sepulchre is, or to raise him after he stank? That He was a knower of hidden things He proved before He came, by His revealing to His Apostles that ‘our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep;’ but the gainsaying buriers did He ask,’ Where have ye laid him?’ that He might take a pledge of his burial from them, and then call him. He wittingly bound them down to their having laid the buried man there, that when He had called him and raised him up, they might be witnesses of his resurrection. He asked, Where have ye laid him? they say unto Him, Come and see. They were tied by the question, that they might not gain fresh haughtiness. The Son is not inferior to the Father, through His asking concerning the sepulchre, or from His weeping over Lazarus. His Incarnation did He attest; both in His weeping and in His sweating the tears and the sweat were His own, yet do they not minish the Son, seeing He is a Raiser of the dead as His Father. He wept to attest the reality of His Body; He called the dead to shew His power; He put questions to tie down the gainsayers; He prayed to shew His perfectness. Neither doth His prayer over the grave make Him less than His Father, and indeed from His own language thou learnest, that it was not from any need to do so that He prayed, for what I say, He says, is for the sake of the people of the Jews, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me. The mind of the people did He heal, seeing their hearing was weak, and they manifestly doubted if He was the Son of the Most High. This was why He referred all His actions to the Father, to shew that it was not from ‘robbery’ that He was Lord and Quickener of the dead. In lowliness were the things done by Him, done, that the understanding might behold His love. It is beside our purpose to speak of these things here. Clearly shineth truth in its generations, and without our words it gleameth! Perfect is the Generate, as is His Generator! Wonderful the Firstborn, as He that sent Him! a Raiser of the dead is He, as is His Father also! For He that wept raised also. Upon this point it is possible for us, if ye asked us, to speak many things, if we see that the seed of our word hath budded in your ears. Even if ye reject it, I shall not cease to sow! Be not a rock unto my word, nor the high-way, nor a place of thorns, &c. &c.” In this passage we see that St. E. used the account of Lazarus’ resurrection to establish any thing but a true ignorance of what our Lord asked about, which the Adoptionists afterwards used it for: see on Athan. p. 466, g. What St. E. argues from it is, that our Lord’s disclosures of His knowledge were made with reference to those whom He was addressing, and also to prove the reality of the Flesh, i. e. to shew that He had a certain Nature, not to describe the state in which that Nature existed in Him. See Eulogius in Phot. p. 284. ed. Bekker. who has many topics in common with St. E. here quoted, and in R. lxx.
§. 2.
p. 128, n. f.
p. 337, n. a. p. 374, n. o.
or Flesh
This language is remarkable, as perhaps throwing some light upon the expression commented upon above, p. 317, n. b. It seems intended to suggest that the apparent ignorance was not in the Soul of Christ, but was necessary on account of the Body, which if illuminated with all the graces which the Divine Nature could, through the Soul, have communicated to it, (witness the Transfiguration,) would not have seemed to be a real Body. E. g. Had our Lord in His infancy put forth all His wisdom, He would not have seemed to be Man; as He grew on, He made His advance in wisdom appear to hold some proportion to the years of His Body, and all throughout disclosed it in such way as He deemed congruous to His Body antecedently to its glorification; it being definitely certain that our minds grow with our bodies, though it is not definitely certain in what proportion the growth even of our minds would be accelerated by sinlessness. Cyril c. Nest. iii. p. 87, a. “We believe that Immanuel, being God from the belly itself and the womb of the Virgin, came forth as Man, full, assuredly, of that wisdom and grace which was in Him by Nature. What increase then could He, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom, who joins with God the Father in giving grace from above, experience? In what sense is He said to increase? I suppose it is said of the Divine Word, proportioning to the growth and age of His own Body the disclosure of the godlike blessings inherent in Him. For we may observe, that though He was made Man like unto us, yet He made it His study to avoid notice in the beginning.....Now it would have been pointed out to all as a thing unusual and strange and worth curiosity, if, while yet an Infant, He had made a manifestation, suitable to God, of the wisdom He had. But when little by little, and proportionably with the age of His Body, He made it widen, and set it clearly before all men, He may be said to ‘increase,’ and that with good reason.” See also Thes. p. 248. and for fuller information, Petav. de Inc. xi. 2.