(A.D. 378.)
[Roman and all Latin Martyrologies, except that of Bede, which gives
July 9th. Commemorated by the Greeks on Jan. 28th. His death took
place in summer or autumn. Authorities:--His own narration to his
monks of his conversion, his confession and testament; also the
oration upon him by S. Gregory Nyssen; an account of him in the Life
of S. Basil, attributed to S. Amphilochius, Sozomen, etc.]
Saint Ephraem was the son of poor parents of Nisibis, who had
confessed Christ before the persecutors, under Diocletian or his
successors. In his narrative of his conversion, S. Ephraem laments
some of the faults of his youth. "When I was a boy," says he, "I was
rather wild. One day my parents sent me out of the town, and I found a
cow that was in calf feeding in the road leading to the wood. This cow
belonged to very poor people. I took up stones, and began pelting the
cow, and driving it before me into the wood, and I drove the beast on
till in the evening, it fell down dead, and during the night wild
beasts ate it. On my way back I met the poor man who owned it, and he
asked me, 'My son, have you been driving away my cow?' Then I not only
denied, but heaped abuse and insult upon him." Some few days after he
was sent out of the town by his parents again, and he wandered in the
wood, idling with some shepherds, till night fell. Then, as it was too
late to return, he remained the night with the shepherds. That night
the fold was broken into, and some of the sheep were carried off. Then
the shepherds, thinking the boy had been in league with the robbers,
dragged him before the magistrate, and he was cast into prison, where
he found two men in chains, charged, one with homicide, the other with
adultery, though they protested their innocence. In a dream an angel
appeared to Ephraem, and asked him why he was there. The boy began at
once to declare himself guiltless. "Yes," said the angel, "guiltless
thou art of the crime imputed to you, but hast thou forgotten the poor
man's cow? Listen to the conversation of the men who are with thee,
and thou wilt learn that none suffer without cause."
In the morning, the two men began to speak, and one said, "The other
day, as I was going over a bridge, I saw two fellows quarrelling, and
one flung the other over into the water; and I did not put forth my
hand to save him, as I might have done, and so he was drowned."
Presently the other man said, "I am not guilty of this adultery of
which I am charged, but nevertheless I have done a very wicked thing.
Two brothers and a sister were left an inheritance by their father,
and the two young men wished to deprive their sister of what was her
due, and they bribed me to give false evidence whereby the will was
upset, and the property divided between them, to the exclusion of the
poor girl."
After an imprisonment of forty days, Ephraem was brought before the
magistrate along with his fellow prisoners. He says, that when he saw
the two men stripped, and stretched on the rack, "An awful terror came
over me, and I trembled, thinking I was sure to be subjected to the
same treatment as they. Therefore I cried, and shivered, and my heart
altogether failed me. Then the people and the apparitors began to
laugh at my tears and fright, and asked me what I was crying for? 'You
ought to have considered this before, boy! but now tears are of no
avail. You shall soon have a taste of the rack too, never doubt it.'
Then, at these words, my soul melted clean away."
[Illustration: S. EPHRAEM SYRUS. After Cahier. Feb. 1.]
However, he was spared this time, and the innocence of his companions
having been proved, they were set free. Ephraem was taken back to
prison, where he spent forty more days; and whilst he was there, the
two men who had defrauded their sister of her inheritance, and the man
who had flung his adversary into the river, were caught and chained in
the dungeon with him. These men and Ephraem were brought forth to
trial together, and the men were sentenced, after they had been
racked, and had confessed their crime, to lose their right hands.
Ephraem, in another paroxysm of fear, made a vow that he would become
a monk, if God would spare him the suffering of the rack. To his
extreme terror the magistrate ordered him to be stripped, and the
question to be applied. Then Ephraem stood naked and trembling beside
the rack, when fortunately the servant came up to the magistrate to
tell him that dinner was ready. "Very well," said the magistrate,
"then I will examine this boy another day." And he ordered him back to
prison. On his next appearance, the magistrate, thinking Ephraem had
been punished enough, dismissed him, and he ran off instantly to the
mountains, to an old hermit, and asked him to make of him a monk.[4]
He was eighteen years old when he was baptized, and immediately after
he had received the Sacrament of Regeneration, he began to discipline
his body and soul with great severity. He lay on the bare ground,
often fasted whole days, and spent a considerable part of the night in
prayer. He exercised the handicraft of a sail-maker. He was naturally
a very passionate man, but he learned so completely to subdue his
temper, that the opposite virtue of meekness became conspicuous, so
that he received the title of the "Peaceable man of God." Sozomen
relates that once, after Ephraem had fasted several days, the brother,
who was bringing him a mess of pottage, let the dish fall and broke
it, and strewed the food upon the floor. The saint seeing his
confusion, said cheerfully, "Never mind, if the supper won't come to
me, I will go to the supper." Then, sitting down on the ground by the
broken dish, he picked up the pottage as well as he could.
"He devoted his life to monastic philosophy," says Sozomen; "and
although he had received no education, he became, contrary to all
expectation, so proficient in the learning and language of the
Syrians, that he comprehended with ease the most abstruse problems of
philosophy. His style of writing was so full of glowing oratory and
sublimity of thought, that he surpassed all the writers of Greece. The
productions of Ephraem were translated into Greek during his life, and
translations are even now being made, and yet they preserve much of
their original force, so that his works are not less admired in Greek
than in Syriac. Basil, who was subsequently bishop of the metropolis
of Cappadocia, was a great admirer of Ephraem, and was astonished at
his condition. The opinion of Basil, who was the most learned and
eloquent man of his age, is a stronger testimony I think, to the merit
of Ephraem, than anything that could be indicted in his praise."[5]
S. Gregory Nyssen gives the following testimony to the eloquence of S.
Ephraem: "Who that is proud would not become the humblest of men,
reading his discourse on Humility? Who would not be inflamed with a
divine fire, reading his treatise on Charity? Who would not wish to be
chaste in heart and soul, by reading the praises he has lavished on
Virginity? Who would not be frightened by hearing his discourse on the
Last Judgment, wherein he has depicted it so vividly, that nothing can
be added thereto? God gave him so profound a wisdom, that, though he
had a wonderful facility of speech, yet he could not find expression
for the multitude of thoughts which poured from his mind." At Edessa,
S. Ephraem was ordained deacon; it has been asserted that he
afterwards received the priesthood from the hands of S. Basil, but
this is contradicted by most ancient writers, who affirm that he died
a deacon. He was elected bishop of one town, but hearing it, he
comported himself so strangely, that the people and clergy, supposing
him to have lost his mind, chose another in his place; and he
maintained the same appearance of derangement till the other candidate
was consecrated. The city of Edessa having been severely visited by
famine, he quitted the solitary cell in which he dwelt, and entering
the city, rebuked the rich for permitting the poor to die around them,
instead of imparting to them of their superfluities; and he
represented to them that the wealth which they were treasuring up so
carefully would turn to their own condemnation, and to the ruin of
their souls, which were of more value than all the wealth of earth.
The rich men replied, "We are not intent on hoarding our wealth, but
we know of no one whom we may trust to distribute our goods with
equity." "Then," said Ephraem, "entrust me with that office."
As soon as he had received their money, he fitted up three hundred
beds in the public galleries, and there tended those who were
suffering from the effects of the famine. On the cessation of the
scarcity, he returned to his cell; and after the lapse of a few days
expired.
S. Ephraem was a valiant champion of the orthodox faith. Finding that
the Syrians were fond of singing the heretical hymns of Bardasanes, he
composed a great number of orthodox poems which he set to the same
tunes, and by introducing these, gradually displaced those which were
obnoxious. One instance of his zeal against heresy is curious, though
hardly to be commended. The heretic Apollinarius had composed two
reference books of quotations from Scripture, and arguments he
intended to use in favour of his doctrines, at a public conference
with a Catholic, and these books he lent to a lady. Ephraem borrowed
the books, and glued the pages together, and then returned them.
Apollinarius, nothing doubting, took his volumes to the discussion,
but when he tried to use them, found the pages fast, and retired from
the conference in confusion.