This humble deacon was the most illustrious of all the doctors, who,
by their doctrine and writings, have adorned the Syriac church. He
was born in the territory of Nisibis, a strong city on the banks
of the Tigris, in Mesopotamia. His parents lived in the country,
and earned their bread with the sweat of their brows, but were
ennobled by the blood of martyrs in their family, and had themselves
both confessed Christ before the persecutors under Dioclesian, or
his successors. They consecrated Ephrem to God from his cradle,
like another Samuel, but he was eighteen years old when he was
baptized. Before that time he had committed certain faults which
his enlightened conscience extremely exaggerated to him after his
perfect conversion to God, and he never ceased to bewail, with floods
of tears, his ingratitude towards God, in having ever offended him.
Sozomen[72] says these sins were little sallies of anger, into which
he had sometimes fallen with his playfellows in his childhood. The
saint himself mentions in his confession[73] two crimes (as he styles
them) of this age, which called for his tears during his whole life.
The first was, that in play he had driven a neighbor’s cow among the
mountains, where it happened to be killed by a wild beast; the second
was a doubt which once came into his mind in his childhood, whether
God’s particular providence reached to an immediate superintendency
over all our individual actions. This sin he exceedingly magnifies
in his contrition, though it happened before his baptism, and never
proceeded further than a fluctuating thought from ignorance in
his childhood; and in his Testament he thanks God for having been
always preserved by his mercy since his baptism from any error in
faith. Himself assures us that the divine goodness was pleased in
a wonderful manner to discover to him, after this temptation, the
folly of his error, and the wretched blindness of his soul in having
pretended to fathom the secrets of providence.
Within a month after he had been assaulted by the temptation of the
aforesaid doubt, he happened in travelling through the country to be
benighted, and was forced to take up his quarters with a shepherd who
had lost in the wilderness the flock committed to his charge. The
master of the shepherd suspected him guilty of theft, and pursuing
him, found him and Ephrem together, and cast them both into prison,
upon suspicion that they had stolen his sheep. Ephrem was extremely
afflicted at his misfortune, and in the dungeon found seven other
prisoners, who were all falsely accused or suspected of different
crimes, though really guilty of others. When he had lain seven days
in prison in great anguish of mind, an angel appearing to him in
his sleep told him he was sent to show him the justice and wisdom
of divine providence in governing and directing all human events;
and that this should be manifested to him in the case of those
prisoners who seemed to suffer in his company unjustly. The next day
the judge called the prisoners before him, and put two of them to
the torture, in order to compel them to confess their crimes. While
others were tormented, Ephrem stood by the rack trembling and weeping
for himself, under the apprehension of being every moment put to the
question. The bystanders rallied him for his fears, and said--“Ay,
it is thy turn next; it is to no purpose now to weep: why didst thou
not fear to commit the crime?” However, he was not put on the rack,
but sent back to prison. The other prisoners, though innocent of the
crimes of which they were first arraigned, were all convicted of
other misdemeanors, and each of them received the chastisement due
to his offence. As to Ephrem, the true thief having been discovered,
he was honorably acquitted, after seventy days’ confinement. This
event the saint relates at length in his confession.[74] God was
pleased to give him this sensible proof of the sweetness, justice,
and tender goodness of his holy providence, which we are bound to
adore in resignation and silence; waiting until the curtain shall be
drawn aside, and the whole economy of his loving dispensations to his
elect displayed in its true amiable light, and placed in its full
view before our eyes in the next life. Though, to take a view of the
infinite wisdom, justice, and sanctity which God displayeth in all
the dispensations of his providence, we must take into the prospect
the rewards and punishments of the next world, and all the hidden
springs of this adorable mystery of faith; yet his divine goodness
to excite our confidence in him, was pleased, by this revelation to
his servant, to manifest in this instance his attributes justified in
part, even in this life, of which he hath given us a most illustrious
example with regard to holy Job.
St. Ephrem, from the time of his baptism, which he received soon
after this accident, began to be more deeply penetrated with the
fear of the divine judgment, and he had always present to his mind
the rigorous account he was to give to God of all his actions, the
remembrance of which was to him a source of almost uninterrupted
tears. Hoping more easily to secure his salvation in a state in
which his thoughts would never be diverted from it, soon after he
was baptized he took the monastic habit, and put himself under the
direction of a holy abbot, with whose leave he chose for his abode
a little hermitage in the neighborhood of the monastery. He seemed
to set no bounds to his fervor. He lay on the bare ground, often
fasted whole days without eating, and watched a great part of the
night in prayer. It was a rule observed in all the monasteries of
Mesopotamia and Egypt, that every religious man should perform his
task of manual labor, of which he gave an account to his superior at
the end of every week. The work of these monks was always painful,
that it might be a part of their penance; and it was such as was
compatible with private prayer, and a constant attention of the mind
to God; for they always prayed or meditated at their work; and for
this purpose, the first task which was enjoined a young monk was
to get the psalter by heart. The profits of their labor, above the
little pittance which was necessary for their mean subsistence in
their penitential state, were always given to the poor. St. Ephrem
made sails for ships. Of his poverty he writes thus in his Testament:
“Ephrem hath never possessed purse, staff, or scrip, or any other
temporal estate; my heart hath known no affection for gold or silver,
or any earthly goods.” He was naturally choleric, but so perfectly
did he subdue this passion, that meekness was one of the most
conspicuous virtues in his character, and he was usually styled _The
meek_, or _the peaceable man of God_. He was never known to dispute
or contend with any one; with the most obstinate sinners he used only
tears and entreaties. Once, when he had fasted several days, the
brother who was bringing him a mess of pottage made with a few herbs
for his meal, let fall the pot, and broke it. The saint seeing him
in confusion, said cheerfully,--“As our supper will not come to us,
let us go to it.” And sitting down on the ground by the broken pot,
he picked up his meal as well as he could. Humility made the saint
rejoice in the contempt of himself, and sincerely desire that all men
had such a knowledge and opinion of his baseness and nothingness as
to despise him from their hearts, and to look upon him most unworthy
to hold any rank among creatures. This sincere spirit of profound
humility all his words, actions, and writings breathed in a most
affecting manner.
Honors and commendations served to increase the saint’s humility.
Hearing himself one day praised, he was not able to speak, and
his whole body was covered with a violent sweat, caused by the
inward agony and confusion of his soul at the consideration of the
last day; for he was seized with extreme fear and dread, thinking
that he should be then overwhelmed with shame, when his baseness
and hypocrisy should be proclaimed and made manifest before all
creatures, especially those very persons who here commended him, and
whom he had deceived by his hypocrisy. We may hence easily judge how
much the thought of any elevation or honor affrighted him. When a
certain city sought to choose him bishop, he counterfeited himself
mad.
Compunction of heart is the sister of sincere humility and penance,
and nothing seemed more admirable in our saint than this virtue.
Tears seemed always ready to be called forth in torrents as often
as he raised his heart to God, or remembered the sweetness of his
divine love, the rigor of his judgments, or the spiritual miseries
of our souls. “We cannot call to mind his perpetual tears,” says
St. Gregory of Nyssa, “without melting into tears. To weep seemed
almost as natural to him as it is for other men to breathe. Night
and day his eyes seemed always swimming in tears. No one could meet
him at any time, who did not see them trickling down his cheeks.” He
appeared always drowned in an abyss of compunction. This was always
painted in most striking features on his countenance, the sight of
which was, even in his silence, a moving instruction to all that
beheld him. This spirit of compunction gave a singular energy to all
his words and writings; it never forsakes him, even in panegyrics
or in treating of subjects of spiritual joy. Where he speaks of the
felicity of paradise or the sweetness of divine love in transports
of overflowing hope and joy, he never lost sight of the motives
of compunction, and always returns to his tears. By the continual
remembrance of the last judgment he nourished in his soul this
constant profound spirit of compunction.
St. Gregory of Nyssa writes, that no one can read his discourses on
the last judgment without dissolving into tears, so awful is the
representation, and so strong and lively the image which he paints
of that dreadful day. Almost every object he saw called it afresh
to his mind. The spotless purity of our saint was the fruit of his
sincere humility, and constant watchfulness over himself. He says
that the great St. Antony, out of modesty, would never wash his feet,
or suffer any part of his body, except his face and hands, to be seen
naked by any one.
St. Ephrem spent many years in the desert, collected within himself,
having his mind raised above all earthly things, and living as it
were out of the flesh, and out of the world, to use the expression
of St. Gregory Nazianzen. His zeal drew several severe persecutions
upon him from certain tepid monks, but he found a great support in
the example and advice of St. Julian, whose life he has written. He
lost this comfort by the death of that great servant of God; and
about the same time died in 338 (not 350, as Tillemont mistakes), St.
James, bishop of Nisibis, his spiritual director and patron. Not long
after this, God inspired St. Ephrem to leave his own country, and go
to Edessa, there to venerate the relics of the saints, by which are
probably meant chiefly those of the apostle St. Thomas. He likewise
desired to enjoy the conversation of certain holy anchorets who
inhabited the mountains near that city, which was sometimes reckoned
in Mesopotamia and sometimes in Syria. Under the weak reigns of the
last of the Seleucidæ, kings of Asia, it was erected into a small
kingdom by the princes called Abgars. As the saint was going into
Edessa, a certain courtezan fixed her eyes upon him, which when he
perceived he turned away his face, and said with indignation: “Why
dost thou gaze upon me?” To which she made this smart reply. “Woman
was formed from man; but you ought always to keep your eyes cast down
on the earth, out of which man was framed.” St. Ephrem, whose heart
was always filled with the most profound sentiments of humility,
was much struck and pleased with this reflection, and admired the
providence of God, which sends us admonitions by all sorts of means.
He wrote a book on those words of the courtezan, which the Syrians
anciently esteemed the most useful and the best of all the writings
of this incomparable doctor, but it is now lost. It seems to have
contained maxims of humility.
St. Ephrem lived at Edessa, highly honored by all ranks and orders
of men. Being ordained deacon of that church, he became an apostle
of penance, which he preached with incredible zeal and fruit. He
from time to time returned into his desert, there to renew in his
heart the spirit of compunction and prayer; but always came out of
his wilderness, inflamed with the ardor of a Baptist, to announce
the divine truths to a world buried in spiritual darkness and
insensibility. The saint was educated with great natural talents,
which he had improved by study and contemplation. He was a poet, and
had read something of logic; but had no tincture of the rest of the
Grecian philosophy. This want of the heathenish learning and profane
science was supplied by his good sense and uncommon penetration,
and the diligence with which he cultivated his faculties by more
sublime sacred studies. He learned very accurately the doctrine of
the Catholic faith, was well versed in the holy scriptures, and was
a perfect master of the Syriac tongue, in which he wrote with great
elegance and propriety. He was possessed of an extraordinary faculty
of natural eloquence. Words flowed from him like a torrent, which
yet were too slow for the impetuosity and multitude of thoughts with
which he was overwhelmed in speaking on spiritual subjects. His
conceptions were always clear, his diction pure and agreeable. He
spoke with admirable perspicuity, copiousness, and sententiousness,
in an easy unaffected style; and with so much sweetness, so pathetic
a vehemence, so natural an accent, and so strong emotions of his
own heart, that his words seemed to carry with them an irresistible
power. His writings derive great strength from the genius and natural
bold tropes of the Oriental languages applied by so great a master,
and have a graceful beauty and force which no translation can attain;
though his works are only impetuous effusions of an overflowing
heart, not studied compositions. What recommends them beyond all
other advantages of eloquence, is, they are all the language of
the heart, and a heart penetrated with the most perfect sentiments
of divine love, confidence, compunction, humility, and all other
virtues. They present his ardent, humble, and meek soul such as it
was, and show how ardently he was occupied only on the great truths
of salvation; how much he humbled himself without intermission, under
the almighty hand of God, infinite in sanctity and terrible in his
justice; with what profound awe he trembled in the constant attention
to his adorable presence, and at the remembrance of his dreadful
judgment, and with what fervor he both preached and practised the
most austere penance, laboring continually with all his strength
“to prepare himself a treasure for the last hour,” as he expresses
himself. His words strongly imprint upon the souls of others those
sentiments with which he was penetrated: they carry light and
conviction; they never fail to strike, and pierce to the very bottom
of the soul. Nor is the fire which they kindle in the breast a
passing warmth, but a flame which devours and destroys all earthly
affections, transforms the soul into itself, and continues without
abating, the lasting force of its activity.[75] “Who that is proud,”
says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “would not become the humblest of men by
reading his discourse on humility? Who would not be inflamed with a
divine fire by reading his treatise on charity? Who would not wish to
be chaste in heart and spirit, by reading the praises he has given to
virginity?”
The saint, though most austere to himself, was discreet in the
direction of others, and often repeated this advice, that it is
a dangerous stratagem of the enemy to induce fervent converts to
embrace in the beginning excessive mortifications.[76] Wherefore
it behooves them not to undertake without prudent counsel any
extraordinary practices of penance; but always such in which they
will be able to persevere with constancy and cheerfulness. Who ever
laid on a child a burden of a hundred pounds weight, under which he
is sure to fall?
St. Ephrem brought many idolaters to the faith, and converted great
numbers of Arians, Sabellians, and other heretics. Saint Jerom
commends a book which he wrote against the Macedonians, to prove
the divinity of the Holy Ghost. He established the perfect efficacy
of penance against the Novatians, who, though the boldest and most
insolent of men, seemed like children without strength before this
experienced champion, as St. Gregory of Nyssa assures us. Not less
glorious were his triumphs over the Millenarians, Marcionites,
Manichees, and the disciples of the impious Bardesanes, who denied
the resurrection of the flesh, and had in the foregoing century
spread his errors at Edessa, by songs which the people learned
to sing. St. Ephrem, to minister a proper antidote against this
poison, composed elegant Catholic songs and poems which he taught
the inhabitants both of the city and country with great spiritual
advantage. Apollinaris began openly to broach his heresy a little
before the year 376, denying in Christ a human soul, which he
pretended that the divine person supplied in the humanity: whence
it would have followed that he was not truly man, but only assumed
a human body, not the complete human nature. St. Ephrem was then
very old, but he opposed this new monster with great vigor. Several
heresies he crushed in their birth, and he suffered much from the
fury of the Arians under Constantius, and of the Heathens under
Julian, but in both these persecutions reaped glorious laurels and
trophies.
It was by a divine admonition, as himself assures us,[77] that about
the year 372, he undertook a long journey to pay a visit to Basil.
Being arrived at Cæsarea he went to the great church, where he found
the holy bishop preaching. After the sermon, St. Basil sent for him,
and asked him by an interpreter, if he was not Ephrem the servant of
Christ.[78] “I am that Ephrem,” said he, “who have wandered astray
from the path of heaven.” Then melting into tears, and raising his
voice, he cried out,--“O my father, have pity on a sinful wretch,
and lead me into the narrow path.” St. Basil gave him many rules of
holy life, and after long spiritual conferences dismissed him with
great esteem, having first ordained his companion priest. St. Ephrem
himself never would consent to be promoted to the sacerdotal dignity,
of which he expresses the greatest dread and apprehension, in his
sermon on the priesthood.[79] Being returned to Edessa he retired
to a little solitary cell, where he prepared himself for his last
passage, and composed the latter part of his works. For, not content
to labor for the advantage of one age, or one people, he studied
to promote that of all mankind, and all times to come. The public
distress under a great famine called him again out of his retirement
in order to serve, and procure relief for the poor. He engaged the
rich freely to open their coffers, placed beds for the sick in all
the public porticos, visited them every day, and served them with
his own hands. The public calamity being over, he hastened back to
his solitude, where he shortly after sickened of a fever. He wrote
about that time his seventy-six Paræneses or moving exhortations to
penance, consisting in a great measure of most effective prayers;
several of which are used by the Syrians in their Church office. His
confidence in the precious fruits of the holy sacrament of the altar
raised his hope, and inflamed his love, especially in his passage
to eternity. Thus he expresses himself:[80] “Entering upon so long
and dangerous a journey I have my viaticum, even Thee, O Son of God.
In my extreme spiritual hunger, I will feed on thee, the repairer
of mankind. So it shall be that no fire will dare to approach me;
for it will not be able to bear the sweet saving odor of thy body
and blood.” The circumstances of our saint’s death are edifying and
deserve our notice. For nothing more strongly affects our heart, or
makes on it a more sensible impression, than the behavior and words
of great men in their last moments.
St. Ephrem was always filled with grief, indignation, and confusion
when he perceived others to treat him as a saint, or to express any
regard or esteem for him. In his last sickness he laid this strict
injunction on his disciples and friends:[81] “Sing no funeral hymns
at Ephrem’s burial: suffer no encomiastic oration. Wrap not my
carcase in any costly shroud: erect no monument to my memory. Allow
me only the portion and place of a pilgrim; for I am a pilgrim and
a stranger as all my fathers were on earth.” Seeing that several
persons had prepared rich shrouds for his interment, he was much
afflicted, and he charged all those who had such a design to drop it,
and give the money to the poor, which he in particular obliged a rich
nobleman, who had bought a most sumptuous shroud for that purpose,
to do. St. Ephrem, as long as he was able to speak, continued to
exhort all men to the fervent pursuit of virtue, as his last words
sufficiently show, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, meaning the saint’s
Testament, which is still extant genuine, and the same that was
quoted by St. Gregory, Sozomen, &c. In it he says: “I Ephrem die. Be
it known to you all that I write this Testament to conjure you always
to remember me in your prayers after my decease.”[82] This he often
repeats. He protests that he had always lived in the true faith, to
which he exhorts all most firmly to adhere. Deploring and confessing
aloud the vanity and sinfulness of his life, he adjures all present
that no one would suffer his sinful dust to be laid under the altar,
and that no one would take any of his rags for relics, nor show him
any honor, for he was a sinner and the last of creatures. “But,”
says he, “throw my body hastily on your shoulders, and cast me into
my grave, as the abomination of the universe. Let no one praise me;
for I am full of confusion, and the very abstract of baseness. To
show what I am, rather spit upon me, and cover my body with phlegm.
Did you smell the stench of my actions, you would fly from me, and
leave me unburied, not being able to bear the horrible corruption of
my sins.” He forbids any torches or perfumes, ordering his corpse
to be thrown into the common burying-place among poor strangers.
He expresses most feeling sentiments of compunction, and gives his
blessing to his disciples, with a prediction of divine mercy in
their favor; but excepts two among them, Aruad and Paulonas, both
persons famed for eloquence; yet he foresaw that they would afterward
apostatize from the Catholic faith. The whole city was assembled
before the saint’s door, every one being bathed in tears; and all
strove to get as near to him as possible, and to listen to his last
instructions. A lady of great quality named Lamprotata, falling at
his feet, begged his leave to buy a coffin for his interment; to
which he assented, on condition that it should be a very mean one,
and that the lady would promise to renounce all vanities in a spirit
of penance, and never again to be carried on the shoulders of men,
or in a chair; all which she cheerfully engaged herself to perform.
The saint, having ceased to speak, continued in silent prayer till
he calmly gave up his soul to God. He died in a very advanced age
about the year 378. His festival was kept at Edessa immediately after
his death. On it St. Gregory of Nyssa soon after spoke his panegyric
at the request of one Ephrem, who having been taken captive by the
Ismaelites had recommended himself to this saint his patron, and had
been wonderfully delivered from his chains and from many dangers. St.
Gregory closes his discourse with this address to the saint. “You
are now assisting at the divine altar, and before the prince of life
with the angels, praising the most holy Trinity: remember us all, and
obtain for us the pardon of our sins.” The true Martyrology of Bede
calls the 9th of July the day of his deposition; which agrees with
Palladius, who places his death in harvest-time, though the Latins
have long kept his festival on the 1st of February, and the Greeks on
the 28th of January. His perpetual tears, far from disfiguring his
face, made it appear more serene and beautiful, and his very aspect
raised the veneration of all who beheld him. The Greeks paint him
very tall, bent with old age, of a sweet and beautiful countenance,
with his eyes swimming in tears, and the venerable marks of sanctity
in his looks and habit.
Saint Austin says, that Adam in paradise praised God and did not
sigh; but in our present state, a principal function of our prayer
consists in sighs and compunction. Divine love, as St. Gregory
observes,[83] our banishment from God, our dangers, our past sins,
our daily offences, and the weight of our own spiritual miseries,
and those of the whole world, call upon us continually to weep, at
least spiritually and in the desire of our heart, if we cannot always
with our eyes. Every object round about us suggests many motives to
excite our tears. We ought to mingle them even with our hymns of
praise and love. Can we make an act of divine love without being
pierced with bitter grief and contrition, reflecting that we have
been so base and ungrateful as to have offended our infinitely good
God? Can we presume without trembling to sing his praises with our
impure affections, or to pronounce his adorable name with our defiled
lips? And do we not first endeavor by tears of compunction to wash
away the stains of our souls, begging to be sprinkled and cleansed by
hyssop dipped, not in the blood of sheep or goats, but in the blood
of the spotless lamb who died to take away the sins of the world? If
the most innocent among the saints weeps continually from motives of
holy love, how much more ought the sinner to mourn! “The voice of the
turtle hath been heard in our land.”[84] If the turtle, the emblem
of innocence and fidelity, makes its delight to mourn solitary in
this desert, what ought not the unfaithful soul to do? The penitent
sinner, instead of the sighs of the turtle, ought to pour forth his
grief in loud groans, imitating the doleful cries of the ostrich, and
in torrents of tears, by which the deepest sorrow for having offended
so good a God, forces his broken heart to give it vent.