Divine Truths for the Theologically Curious (St. Ephraim’s Hymns 64-65)

HYMN SIXTY-FOUR

12 stanzas

1] O our Lord, uproot the thorns, for the Evil One has sown them.

Plough up the weeds. They have seen us investigating,

And have rejoiced as we quarrel. They are united in our division,

And collected around our scattering. They have rejoiced, for our crucible

Has not rebuked their falsehood, nor our light their sores,

Nor our voice their debating.

REFRAIN: Praises to your righteousness!

2] Who would not weep? We are backwards:

Wherever it is right to be silent, we incite trouble.

Wherever it is fitting to rebuke, we are muzzled.

Before humans, we take and then move on.

In front of God alone we stand

To investigate how he is.

3] Who could even investigate Satan,

Who terrifies and incites us? Whether he has senses,

Or how he is put together? Where are the holes

For ears and eyes, and whether there is a mouth,

Since, look, he has no body? Or whether he has limbs,

Since, look, there are no joints?

4] Regarding accursed Satan, who teaches us

To investigate hidden things: who has investigated whether

He is entirely in every person, or how he can mix

His thought with our mind, and his words with our words,

Or how he inspires his will in our heart?

He is astounding in his foulness!

5] Who would not be ashamed? The Evil One enters

The body and scoffs at the soul dwelling within it.

How has [the soul] not felt Satan’s clinging,

Dwelling and housed within it? Nor can [the soul] feel

The touch of the one settled within it. While it investigates its Lord

It should be investigating its murderer.

6] Who has investigated the earth? Though its measurement can be observed,

It stretches out measurelessly. From where have ears [of corn] produced

Whole harvests? Date-palms, sweetness?

Grapes, wine? Olives, oils?

From where have blossoms brought colors and fragrances,

Along with spices?

7] Someone could say to us, “Water causes the seed

To grow, and makes it big.” On the basis of [water], ask

About [its] source: what causes it to swell,

For it flows without fail? The Good One, who increases

The treasure of springs, increases all,

For he gives life to all.

8] Who has seen and investigated the Behemoth on dry ground,

Or the Leviathan in the sea—how they are fat

And happy without food? And who has explored the dreadful

Insides of their nests? How much more hidden than all

Is the Child of the Lord of all? And who could explore the great

Womb of his Begetter?

9] Who could count how many natures

Are far from us, in the sea and on dry ground?

And our soul knows not how to depict them.

Look, they are all difficult [to understand], crying out together:

“Do not approach the air! Let your debating cease,

O weak humans!”

10] Someone may say to me, “From where do you know

The nature of the Lord of all?” It is anathema if I ever

Avow that I myself know. [Rather], his Books have uncovered him.

And because it is right to affirm God,

I have listened and affirmed him. And because of my faith, I have abstained from

An investigation [born out] of my presumption.

11] I have never wandered after people

Saying, as they say, “I have seen that they call

Our Savior other names, unwritten.”

I have left what is unwritten and turned to what is written,

Lest on account of those unwritten things,

Someone destroy what is written.

12] The waters he created and gave to the fish for their use.

The Books he inscribed and gave to humans as an aid.

The [two] testify to one another: if the fish pass beyond

The border of their path, their jerking is painful.

And if humans pass beyond the border of the Books,

Their dispute is deadly.

HYMN SIXTY-FIVE

13 stanzas 

1] Who has ever been crazy enough to look around without light,

Investigate without shining, or explore without brightness?

Yet the foolish scribes have gone out of the Books,

To wander around in a wasteland, and have neglected the Testament—

The way of the kingdom. Its milestones are the Prophets,

Its resting-places the Apostles.

REFRAIN: Praises to your comeliness!

2] Speak for your party: nature is before your hands,

And the Books before your eyes. Nature is hard for us [to understand],

But the Books are easy for us. It is not from nature

That we have learned Christ. It is fitting that wherever

We have learned his humanity, from there we should

Seek his divinity.

3] From the place we learned about Mary's child,

It is right that from there we should learn about his glorious

Former Birth. And although nature

Stands before us in everything, the Book can teach

About the Father and the Son and the Spirit-whether in truth

They baptize and enliven us.

4] By himself he is defeated: either he recants, and the baptism

Of the presumptuous is [thereby] false, or he affirms his baptism,

[And] becomes like Marcion, who partook of the Maker,

Yet denied the Maker, rejecting marriage,

Even as he was conceived and born.

Bitter is the fruit That has denied its root.

5] Who, once baptized, could debate and destroy

The thing into which he was baptized? He could not destroy [it],

Because he could not be baptized without the names

Of the Father, Son, and Spirit. And the word, sustaining

Itself in everything, can accept the testing

Of those who presume.

6] Who could investigate creation’s inner parts and secret places—

The tastes of different things, natures that change,

Some of which stand alone, and some of which procreate?

Marvel at the trees that mate, my brothers!

[Give] glory to their Creator, since disputing about them falls quiet,

And debating is silent.

7] Who has investigated the olive tree? Though it seems unified,

It bears distinctly—leaves that are unlike

The branches in their color, sinews that are different

From the fruits in their tastes. And in one single fruit,

Three are conceived, so that when [the olive] is pressed, it produces

Water, juice, and oil.

8] Who has investigated fire—how it is conceived

Within a womb of wood, and the friction, like labor pains,

Provides a resistance, and it produces [fire]? But for our purposes, let us imagine

A man who has never seen fire,

But only heard reports of it, and thus cannot investigate

What it is, or how it is.

9] From [the report] alone, can he understand

And mentally depict the image of a flame,

Or how two natures come from it—

The glow and its heat, one of which is seen by the eye,

And one felt with the hand? Neither can we who see

Comprehend disputing about him.

10] Therefore, if a blind man investigates the light,

Yet cannot depict the sun and its rays

In his heart of his thought, he can in no way

See the ray and the child of that sun,

But can only believe

What someone has told him.

11] If a blind man wants to resist

What he hears and not believe [it], he will fall into a host of evils,

For he has investigated without understanding, wishing to be found

Blind in both the eye and the mind.

If he wanted to believe, the teaching of righteousness

Would have illumined his blindness.

12] How we suffer under questions!

How we are troubled by debates!

Our mind is blind, as it considers that Child

And investigates how he is. There is no other way

Except to simply believe

The voice of truth.

13] Who will not fear? If a blind man is blamed

For hearing yet not believing the word of a person

Who wishes to tell him how the light is,

How much more deserving of judgment is one who has heard and not believed

The voice of God, for the voice of his Begetter

Proclaimed “This is my Son.”