The first volume of the Vatican edition of this father’s
works begins with his sermon On Virtues and Vices. He
expresses in it a surprise to see the full seek food from
him who was empty, and says he is confounded to speak,
seeing every word would accuse and condemn himself.
However, trembling, he recommends to his hearers the fear
of God; charity, by which we are meek, patient, tender to
all, desirous to serve, give to all; hope, and longanimity,
by which we bear all; patience, meekness, sweetness to all;
inviolable love of truth in the smallest things, obedience,
temperance, &c., and speaks against all the contrary vices,
envy, detraction, &c.
His two Confessions or Reprehensions of himself are only
effusions of his heart in these dispositions. The first
he begins as follows: “Have pity on me, all ye that have
bowels of compassion.” Then he earnestly begs their prayers
that he may find mercy with God, though he was from his
infancy an useless abandoned vessel. He laments his
spiritual miseries in the most moving words, declaring that
he trembles lest, as flames from heaven devoured him who
presumed to offer profane fire on the altar, so he should
meet with the same judgment for appearing before God in
prayer without having the fire of his divine love in his
heart. He invites all men to weep and pray for him, making
a public confession of the failings which his pure lights
discovered in his affections; for in these, notwithstanding
his extraordinary progress in the contrary virtues, he
seemed to himself to discern covetousness, jealousy, and
sloth, though he appeared of all men the most remote from
the very shadow of those vices; and by tears of compunction
he studied more and more to purify his heart, that God
might vouchsafe perfectly to reign in it. The second part
of this work is a bitter accusation of his pride; which
sin, as he adds, destroys even the gifts of God in a soul,
blasts all her virtues, and renders them a most filthy
abomination; for all our virtues will be tried at the last
day by a fire which only humility can stand. He laments
how pride infects the whole world; that some, by a strange
frenzy, seek to gratify it in earthly fooleries, and the
most silly vanities, on which the opinion of madmen has
stamped a pretended dignity and imaginary value. He laments
bitterly, that even spiritual men are in danger of sinning,
by taking pride in virtue itself, though this be the pure
gift of God; and when by his mercy we are enriched with it,
we are, nevertheless, base and unprofitable servants.
In his second Reprehension of himself, after having
elegantly demonstrated a particular providence inspecting
and governing the minutest affairs and circumstances, he
grievously accuses himself of having entertained a doubt of
it in his youth, before his conversion to God. He condemns
himself as guilty of vain-glory, sloth, lukewarmness,
immortification, irreverence in the church, talkativeness,
contentiousness, and other sins. He fears lest his
repentance should be like that of Esau, and begs the pity
and prayers of all men for an infamous blind leper. He
weeps to see that some men had conceived an esteem for
him to whom none was due; and he cries out to them--“Take
off my false covering, and you will see in me nothing but
worms, stench, and filth: remove the cloak of hypocrisy,
and you will find me a hideous and nauseous sepulchre.”
He compares himself to the Pharisees, as wearing only
the habit of the prophets and saints, to his heavier
condemnation; for vice, covered with a mask of virtue, is
always more odious and detestable. In another Confession
(t. 3, p. 439), after accusing himself of sloth, pride,
uncharitableness, and other sins, he most movingly entreats
all men to weep for him; wishing they could see the extreme
miseries of his heart, which could not fail most powerfully
to excite their compassion, though they could not be able
to bear the hideous sight of the load of his monstrous
iniquities.
His treatise on the Passions is of the same nature, a
lamentation that from his infancy he had been a contemner
of grace, and slothful to virtue, strengthened daily his
passions, and groaned in the midst of snares which made him
fear to live lest he should go on relapsing into sloth.
He has left us many tracts on Compunction, which indeed all
his writings breathe. In the first which bears this title,
he invites all, rich and poor, old and young, to join him
in weeping, to purchase eternal life and to be delivered
from everlasting death: by weeping and crying to see with
the blind man in the gospel, the soul will be enlightened
to see her miseries. God, the angels, all heaven expect and
invite us earnestly to these tears: God’s terrible judgment
is at hand which he describes, and then adds, to prevent
its justice we must weep not one day only, but all the
days of our life, as David did, in affliction, continual
prayer, austerities, and alms. The narrow gate does not
admit others; the Judge will exclude those who sought their
joy on earth and pampered their flesh. Then it will be
too late to trim our lamps, or seek for the oil of good
works; then no more poor will stand at any door for us to
redeem our sins by alms. He laments our spiritual miseries,
especially his sins and sloth continued all his life now
to the eleventh hour. He awakes his soul by the short time
that remains, and that uncertain too.
In his second he relates, that going out of Edessa early
one morning, accompanied with two brethren, and beholding
the heavens beautifully spangled with bright stars, he
said to himself--“If the lustre of these luminaries be so
dazzling, how will the saints shine when Christ shall come
in glory! But suddenly the thought of that terrible day
struck my mind, and I trembled in all my joints, and was
seized with convulsions, and in an agony of fear, sighing
and overwhelmed with a flood of tears, I cried out in
bitter anguish of mind: ‘How shall I be then found! How
shall I stand before that tribunal! A monster infected with
pride among the humble and the perfect, a goat among the
sheep, and a barren tree without fruit. The martyrs will
show their torment, and the monks their virtues; but thou,
alas! O sinful, vain, and arrogant soul, wilt only bear thy
sloth and negligence.’” His two companions, moved by the
excess of his tears, wept with him.
In his Discourse, that we ought never to laugh with a
worldly joy, but to always weep, he enforces the obligation
of perpetual compunction and tears.
In his ascetic Sermon, he says grief and zeal compel him
to speak, but his unworthiness and his sins persuade him
to be silent, his eyes delight only in tears to bewail
night and day in floods the wounds of his soul, and above
all that pride which conceals them from him. He laments
tepidity and love of earthly things should be found among
monks, and that some interrupt their mortifications,
weeping one day and laughing the next, lying one night on
the ground, the next on a soft bed, whereas all our life
ought to be a course of penance; he extols the humility and
constant mortification of the ancient and all true monks,
like shining diamonds in the world. The rest of this long
discourse is a vehement exhortation of the monks to fervor
and zeal, this life being a time of traffic, and very
short, and a nothing; the recompense immense, and the rigor
of God’s justice terrible to all. He pronounces woes to
himself in the confusion he expected in the last day before
all who esteemed him here. Begs earnestly all pray for
him. One of the principal means to preserve this fervor,
is a strict examen every night and morning. A trader casts
up every day his losses and gains, and is solicitous to
repair any losses; so do you, says he, every morning and
night make up your accounts carefully; examine yourself:
Have I to-day spoken any idle words, despised any, &c.?
Have I this night watched, prayed, &c.? He advises not to
undertake too much in austerities, but such as the soul
will not relax in, than which nothing is more pernicious.
His parænetic Sermon is also addressed to young monks,
whom he advises to the continual presence of God in their
minds most earnestly under temptations. Against sloth,
he observes, this succeeding fervor by fits makes a life
one chain of risings and falling again; building by
mortification and destroying again by relaxing. He bids
them have this inscription in the beginning of their book:
Sloth banished for ever and ever from my soul.
His two sermons on the Fathers deceased, are also to monks,
showing and lamenting their tepidity by the fervor of their
fathers in the deserts. His Hypomnisticon is an exhortatory
epistle to the same.
His treatise on Virtue is to a novice; he tells him
obedience has no merit unless in hard and harsh things, for
even wild beasts grow tame by mild treatment.
Next follows his book in Imitation of Proverbs, in
definitions and strong sentences on all virtues, in which
he teaches tears in prayer are the beginning of a good
life; vain-glory is like a worm in a tree. He speaks
much on humility, presumption, charity, tears out of the
desire of eternal happiness, and weeps to consider his own
wretchedness and poverty.
His treatise for the Correction of those who live wickedly,
is full of zeal, humility, and an extraordinary contempt of
himself, and spirit of compunction.
That on Penance is a pathetic exhortation to sinners
to return by the mercy of God, who expects them before
the dawning of the day of life which is coming on; by
the comfort which the angels will receive, and from the
frightful trial at the last day, against which he prays for
himself.
His discourse On the Fear of Souls, is a lamentation and
prayer for himself at the sight of the heavens, still in
stronger expressions and tears.
His sermon On the Second Coming of Christ, shows the joy
of the blessed, and exaggerates the severity of that trial
from the immensity of God’s benefits to us.
In his Tetrasyllabus he explains how the devil vanquished
by the fervent, always says, I will then go to my friends,
the slothful, where I shall have no labor, nor want
stratagems. I have but to fetter them in the chains with
which they are pleased, and I shall have them always
willing subjects. He exhorts all therefore to constant
fervor. In another place he exhorts all continually to
repeat to themselves against sloth; “Yet a little of thy
journey remains and thou wilt arrive at thy place of rest.
Then take thy rest not now on the road.”
In his book on those words, _Attende Tibi_, to a monk,
he presses the precept of being always fervent, never
relaxing, in every virtue, especially in purity; and adds
the example of St. Anthony, who, as St. Athanasius relates,
notwithstanding his great mortifications, which he never
relaxed from his youth to his old age, would never bathe or
so much as wash his feet, or ever suffered any part of his
body to be seen, except his face and hands, till after his
death.
He has left us an excellent long prayer for a soul to say
in time of any temptation; another for grace and pardon of
sins.
A novice among the monks often had begged of St. Ephrem
some direction. The saint extols his zeal and humility in
desiring advice from a sinner, whose intolerable stench
infects all his works. His first lesson to him is that
he always remember the presence of God, and avoid all
unnecessary words. He recommends then to him, in ninety-six
lessons, perfect obedience, abstinence, silence, solitude,
which frees a man from three dangers, viz., of the eyes,
ears, and tongue; never to have so much compassion for any
novice as to offend God, and so perish with him; if he be
tepid, it is better he should perish alone than you also
by condescension; never to speak to a superior in favor of
an expelled brother, without most evident proofs of his
perfect conversion; for a little spark falling into a barn,
easily destroys all the labors of a whole year: to avoid
frequent long conversations with any young man about piety
or other things, for fear of fond love; never to desire
anything great or public, for God’s honor, but rather
to love to be hid and unknown; many in dens and deserts
were the greatest saints, but without humility the most
glorious virtues and the greatest actions are lost; never
to seek the care of souls, but to employ in it the utmost
diligence, if it be laid upon him: always to walk in the
narrow way of compunction and mourning. His other lessons
conduce to humility and other virtues.
His fifty-five Beatitudes comprise the happiness of all
virtues, as of ever glorifying God, which is to be as the
cherubim and seraphim. He closes them bursting into tears
at the reflection how far he is from any of them by his
sloth under a holy garb, and how distant from the holy
servants of God, who persevered some in sackcloth and
chains, others on pillars, others in enclosure and fasting,
others in obedience, &c. He adds twenty other beatitudes.
His book of one hundred chapters on humility, consists
chiefly of short examples; as, a certain novice always
kept silence. Some said to him, He is silent because he
knows not how to speak. Others said, No, but it is because
he has a devil. He, hearing all this, gave no answer, but
glorified God in his heart.
In the second volume we have the life of St. Abraham;
a long panegyric on the Patriarch Joseph; a sermon on
the Transfiguration; one on the Last Judgment, and on
the necessity and advantage of spending this life in
tears; a treatise of ninety chapters on the right way of
living; fifty paræneses or exhortations to the monks, on
obedience, humility, &c.; a most pathetic sermon on the
second coming of Christ, in which he expresses himself as
follows: “Beloved of Christ, lend a favorable attention to
what I am going to say on the dreadful coming of our Lord.
Remembering that hour, I tremble with an excess of fear.
For who can relate those horrible things? what tongue can
express them? When the King of kings, arising from his
throne of glory, shall descend, and sit the just judge,
calling to an account all the inhabitants of the earth.
At this thought I am ready to swoon away: my limbs quake
for fear, my eyes swim in tears, my voice fails, my lips
shrink, my tongue falters, and my thoughts are wrapt up
in silence. I am obliged to denounce these things to you;
yet fear will not suffer me to speak. A loud thunder now
affrights us; how then shall we stand at the sound of the
last trumpet, louder than any thunder, summoning the dead
to rise! Then the bones of all men in the bowels of the
earth, hearing this voice, shall suddenly run, and seek out
their joints; and, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall see
all men risen and assembled to judgment. The great king
shall command, and instantly the earth quaking, and the
troubled sea shall give up the dead which they possess,
whether devoured by fish, beast, or fowl. All in a moment
shall appear present, and not a hair will be wanting.”
He goes on describing the frightful fire consuming all
things on the earth; the angels separating the sheep and
the goats; the standard of the great king, that cross on
which he was nailed, shining bright, and borne before him;
men standing to meet this tremendous majesty, revolving
their own deeds; the just with joy, the wicked worse
than dead with fear; the angels and cherubim appearing,
singing, Holy, Holy, Holy; the heavens opened, and the
King of kings revealed in such incomparable glory, that
the heavens and the earth will fly from before his face.
“Who then,” says he, “can stand? He places before our eyes
the books opened, and all our actions, thoughts, and words
called to an account!” He then cries out: “What tears
ought we not to shed night and day without intermission,
for that terrible appearance!” Here the venerable old man
was no longer able to break through his sighs and tears,
and stood silent. The auditory cried out--“Tell us what
more terrible things will follow.” He answered, “Then all
mankind will stand with eyes cast down, between life and
death, heaven and damnation, before the tribunal; and all
degrees of men shall be called to a rigorous examination.
Wo to me! I desire to tell you what things will follow,
but my voice fails me through fear, and I am lost in
confusion and anxiety; the very rehearsal of these things
is most dreadful.” The audience repeated again: “Tell us
the rest, for God’s sake, for our advantage and salvation.”
He therefore proceeded, “Then, beloved of Christ, shall
be required in all Christians the seal of baptism, entire
faith, and that beautiful renunciation which they made
before witnesses, saying, I renounce Satan, and all his
works; not one, or two, or five, but all the works of the
devil. In that hour this renunciation will be demanded of
us, and happy is he who shall have kept it faithfully as he
promised.” Here, he stopping in tears, they cried again:
“Tell us also what follows this.” He answered: “I will tell
you in my grief, I will speak through my sighs and tears;
these things cannot be related without tears, for they are
extremely dreadful.” The people entreated again: “O servant
of God, we beseech you to instruct us fully.” The holy man,
again striking his breast, and weeping bitterly, said: “O
my brethren, beloved of Christ, how sorrowful, and how
frightful things do you desire to hear! O terrible hour!
Wo to me, wo to me! Who will dare to relate, or who will
bear to hear this last and horrible rehearsal; all you who
have tears, sigh with me! and you who have not, hear what
will befall you; and let us not neglect our salvation. Then
shall they be separated, without hopes of ever returning to
each other again, bishops from fellow-bishops, priests from
fellow-priests, deacons from fellow-deacons, subdeacons and
lectors from their fellows; those who were kings as the
basest slaves; children from parents; friends from kindred
and intimates. Then princes, philosophers, wise men of the
world, seeing themselves thus parted, shall cry out to the
saints with bitter tears; ‘Farewell eternally, saints and
servants of God; farewell parents, children, relations, and
friends; farewell prophets, apostles, and martyrs; farewell
Lady Mother of God; you prayed much for us that we might
be saved, but we would not. Farewell life-giving cross;
farewell paradise of delights, kingdom without end, the
heavenly Jerusalem. Farewell ye all; we shall never more
behold one of you, hastening to our torment without end or
rest,’” &c.
A Sermon on fraternal Charity, and on the Last Judgment,
in which his tears again hindered him from pursuing his
subject. Nothing can be more terrifying or more moving
than these discourses, or than the next on Antichrist,
or that after on the Cross, or that of Interrogations.
There follow his Testament, his Sermon on the Cross and
on Charity, in which he salutes and honors that holy
instrument of our redemption in the strongest words and
highest epithets, which, as he says, all nations adore, and
which saving sign we mark on our doors, foreheads, eyes,
mouths, breast, and our whole body. His Sermon against
heretics on the precious margarite, to prove the Virgin
Mary mother of God; that on the vice of the tongue; his
Panegyric on St. Basil; his Sermon on the Sinful Woman in
the gospel; on the Forty Martyrs; on Abraham and Isaac; on
Daniel and the three children. Sermons on the eight capital
bad thoughts; gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger,
sadness, sloth, vain-glory, and pride; on perfection, on
patience, and suffering; and many small tracts to monks.
One contains a relation of a holy virgin in a monastery
of three hundred, who was never seen eating, but worked
washing the dishes and cleaning the scullery, feigning
herself a fool, and bearing blows and all insults without
murmuring or answering a word; called by derision, Salla or
Sallop. St. Pityrumus, an anchoret, was admonished by an
angel to go and see in her one who surpassed him and the
others in virtue: having seen all the nuns he found not
her, she being left behind in the kitchen. At his desire,
which all laughed at, she was brought out. The anchoret
immediately fell at her feet, crying, “Bless me, Amma” (_i.
e._ spiritual mother). She also fell at his feet. The nuns
said to him, “Don’t incur such a disgrace; this is Salla.”
“No (said he), you are all Salæ.” Upon this all honored
her, and one confessed, that she had thrown on her the
washings of the dishes; another had struck her; another had
thrust mustard up her nostrils, &c. She not bearing esteem,
retired thence unknown, and was never more heard of.
The third volume contains many Sermons and Discourses,
chiefly on the judgments of God and the last day; on
penance, compunction, prayer, charity, and other virtues;
and on vices and passions. Also the life of St. Julian
the anchoret. Pious poems and several panegyrics of, and
prayers to the Blessed Virgin, whose virginity and dignity
of mother of God he clearly asserts.
The fourth volume consists of his Commentaries on the five
books of Moses, on Joshua, Judges, and the four books of
Kings. St. Gregory of Nyssa says, he studied and meditated
assiduously on the holy scriptures, and expounded them
all from the first book of Genesis to the last in the New
Testament, with an extraordinary light, with which the Holy
Ghost filled him. Many other Oriental writers testify the
same. His exposition is very literal, full, and learned;
nothing escapes him in them.
The fifth volume gives us his Commentaries on Job and
on all the prophets. Eleven sermons on several passages
of holy scripture, in which he exhorts principally to
avoid all occasions of sin, and to perpetual tears and
penance. Thirteen sermons on the birth of Christ; and
fifty-six polemical sermons against heresies, viz. of
the Marcionites, Manicheans, especially their judiciary
astrology; of the Novatians, Messalians, &c. His zeal was
moved seeing these errors spread in his country. He employs
the Church’s authority, scriptures, and reasons to confute
them.
The sixth volume gives us ninety other polemical Discourses
against the Arian and Eunomian heretics or Searchers, as
he calls them, because they attempted to penetrate the
divine mysteries, and the incomprehensible nature of God
himself. They are equally solid and strong; not dry, as
most writings of controversy, but full of unction and of
the greatest sentiments of devotion, and an inexpressible
ardor to ever love and praise our great God and Redeemer.
His sermon against the Jews is no less remarkable.
His Necrosima or eighty-five funeral canons, were written
on Death and God’s judgments, which he had always before
his eyes. He teaches evidently in them the use of
ecclesiastical funeral rites and prayers at burials; that
the souls of the departed immediately are judged by a
particular judgment; the good immediately admitted to the
enjoyment of God; those who die without having expiated
venial sin, suffer in the flames of purgatory till it be
satisfied for, but are relieved by the sacrifices, prayers,
and other pious works of the faithful on earth. Of these
fifty-four are short funeral discourses on the death of
bishops, monks, and persons of all conditions. They are
full of his extreme fear of the divine judgment, and a
great contempt of the vanity of the world. He says in the
eighty-first canon, “Entering on so long and dangerous
a journey, I have my viaticum, thee, O Son of God; when
hungry, I will eat thee, repairer of mankind; so it shall
be, that no fire will dare approach my members, for it
will not be able to bear the sweet saving odor of thy body
and blood,” &c. He uses the same motive of confidence of
immortality, from being fed with the body and blood of
Christ, and employs that endearing divine grace to move God
to have mercy on him. He repeats the same prayer in his
thirteenth Parænesis. Nothing can be clearer than the texts
collected by Ceillier (t. 8, p. 101) from the writings of
St. Ephrem, in favor of the real presence of the sacred
body of Christ in the holy eucharist. See on them the
judicious remarks of an able critic, Mém. de Trev. Jan.
1756, p. 55.
Here follow four sermons on Freewill; also seventy-six
moving Paræneses or exhortations to penance. In the
forty-second, he tells us, that when he lay down to take a
little repose in the night, he reflected on the excessive
and boundless love of God, and instantly rose again to
pay him the tribute of the most fervent praise and thanks
he was able. “But being deterred,” says he, “by the
remembrance of my sins, I began to melt into tears, and
should have been disturbed beyond my strength, had not the
thief, the publican, the sinful woman, the Cananean, the
Samaritan, and other examples of mercy, given me comfort
and courage.” He says that at other times, when he was
going to fall asleep, the remembrance of his sins banished
all thoughts of giving rest to his wearied body, and made
sleep yield to sighs, groans, and floods of tears, to which
he invited himself by the example of the penitent David,
washing his bed with briny torrents; for the silence of
night is the most proper season for our tears. It appears
he composed this work, at least part, a little before his
death; for in the forty-third Parænesis he writes, “I
Ephrem am now dying. I write my last will and testament
to all lovers of truth, who shall rise up after me.
Persevere night and day in prayer. The husbandman reapeth
a great crop by assiduous labor; so will you, if you never
interrupt your devotion. Pray without ceasing.”
His book in fifteen elegant discourses on the Terrestrial
Paradise, explaining its history in Genesis, and comforting
himself with the name and happiness of the good thief on
the cross, makes a transition to the heavenly Paradise,
on the felicity of which he speaks with incredible joy
and pleasure. In his eighth discourse he teaches the soul
cannot perfectly see God before the resurrection; but means
by the perfectly complete enjoyment, for he is very express
(loc. cit. supra) that the blessed behold God immediately
on their death; as Muratori demonstrates against Burnet, in
his dissertation on Paradise, c. 2.
Eighteen very devout sermons on divers subjects close his
works; on Christ’s Nativity and Resurrection; on Prayer,
on Humility, which he teaches is the weapon our Redeemer
conquered hell by, and has put into our hands as our
principal and only armor against our spiritual enemies.
The works of this father demonstrate the uniformity in
faith of the Syriac church in the fourth century, with that
of the universal church of all ages.
Several of St. Ephrem’s works were translated into Latin,
and published at Rome in 1589, by Gerard Vossius or
Volkens, provost of Tongres. A Greek edition of the same
was printed at Oxford in 1709, by the care of Mr. Edward
Thwaites. A more complete edition of this father’s works
was given to the public at Rome in six volumes in folio,
in 1732 and 1743, under the direction of cardinal Querini,
librarian of the Vatican, and Monsignor Joseph Assemani,
first prefect of the same library. In this we have the
original Syriac text of a good part of these works, and the
ancient Greek version of the rest. The Latin translation
is the work partly of Gerard Vossius, partly of F. Peter
Benedetti, a Maronite Jesuit who lived at Rome; and in the
last volumes of Stephen Assemani archbishop of Apamea, who
also published the Chaldaic acts of the Martyrs, and is
nephew of the aforesaid Joseph Assemani. The Greek text in
the last volumes, especially in the sixth, is published
very incorrect. See Mémoires de Trevoux for January, 1756,
p. 146.