Demonstrations · Part 3

For soul and for body alike;

And between these partners it casts

The severance of despair.

The body it cuts off from its resurrection,

And the soul from her comrade,

And the loss which the serpent threw on us

Bardaisan counts it for gain.

The controversy against the disciples of this man gave to the literary work of Ephraim an impulse to which his fame is largely due. His polemic in the above instance took, as we see, the form of a hymn; and his biographer informs us that it was in this controversy he first was led to adopt hymnody as a vehicle for teaching truth and confuting error. Of his hymns we possess some which can be confidently assigned to an earlier period--the first twenty-one of the Nisibene collection (which are the Nisibene Hymns proper), belonging to the epoch of the third siege (a.d. 350); but those are songs of triumph and thanksgiving, or of personal eulogy and exhortation,--not of controversy. The idea of the controversial use of hymnody he borrowed (we are told) from his adversaries. It appears that Harmodius, the son of Bardesan, had popularized the false teaching of his father, as embodied in a series of a hundred and fifty hymns (in profane rivalry with the Psalms of David), by setting them to attractive tunes, which caught the ear of the multitude, and inclined them to receive his doctrines. So Ephraim himself tells us (attributing the work, however, to Bardesan solely) in his Homily (metrical) LIII., "Against Heretics" (not included in our selection). "He fashioned hymns, and joined them with tunes; and composed psalms, and brought in moods. By weights and measures, he portioned language. He blended for the simple poison with sweetness. The sick will not choose the food of wholesomeness. He would look to David, that he might be adorned with his beauty, and commended by his likeness. An hundred and fifty psalms, he likewise composed."

To confute the heresies thus circulated, Ephraim borrowed the tunes employed by Harmodius; and his hymns, set to these tunes, soon carried the day in favor of orthodoxy, partly by the force of their truth, partly by their superior literary power, and partly by the help of a choir formed among the nuns whom he employed to sing them, morning and evening, in the churches. Thus the rival hymnody of heresy was superseded, and the hymns of Ephraim gained the place they have ever since held in the Church, wherever Syriac is the ecclesiastical language,--even though it is no longer the vernacular.

He celebrated this victory in the following strain of triumphant imprecation:--

"Cursed be our trust [if it be] on the Seven; the Æons which Bardaisan confesses!

Anathema [be he] who says, as he said: that from them descend the rain and the dew!

Anathema who affirms, like him: that from them are the showers and the frosts!

Cursed be he who says, as he said: that from them are the snow and the ice!

[Cursed be he who affirms, like him]: that from them are the seeds for the husbandmen!

Anathema who confesses, as he confessed: that from them are the fruits for the labourer!

Anathema who believes, like him: that from them are famine and plenty!

Anathema who confesses, as he taught: that from them are summer and winter!

Anathema be on the man: and on the woman who thus speaks!

Anathema be on the house: wherein it is thus affirmed!

Anathema his doctrine which rests: its trust on the Sevenfold!

Cursed be he who reproaches his Creator: and ascribes dominion to the Seven!

Cursed be he who reads the Scriptures: and becomes a gainsayer of the Scriptures!

Cursed be he who reads the Prophets: and breaks the words of the Prophets!

Cursed be he who reads the Apostles: and abides not by their words!"

To this is subjoined a verse, the response of Balai (Balæus) a disciple:--

"The Lord exalt thy horn: O Church that art faithful!

For the King, and the King's son: are established in thine ark."

Another demonstration of Ephraim's zeal against heresy, which the compiler of the History judiciously omits, is (unhappily for the fame of both) attested, and with evident approval, by Gregory of Nyssa.

Apollinaris, who was his contemporary, and whose erroneous teaching he held in abhorrence, had committed his heresies to writing in two volumes which he gave into the keeping of a woman, a follower of his sect. Ephraim approached this woman and persuaded her to lend him the books, pretending that he agreed with the doctrine of their author and desired to use them in controversy against its opponents. At her instance he returned them in a short time; but before so doing, he treated them with fish-glue in such fashion that the leaves of each cohered into a solid mass, while to outward appearance they were unharmed. Soon after, he challenged Apollinaris to meet him in a public disputation concerning the articles of faith which the heretic had impugned. The latter sought to decline the controversy, pleading his old age and infirmities; but consented to it,--only on condition, however, that he should be allowed to read from these volumes the statement and defence of his tenets therein written by him. On these terms, the disputants met. Apollinaris was called on to maintain his thesis, and his writings were placed in his hands; but when he went to open the books, it was in vain. No part of either volume would yield to his fingers; he was obliged to desist and to retire, baffled and ashamed; in such dismay as to bring on an illness that nearly proved fatal.

Another incident of this period, related in the History, is a miracle (a genuine one this time, if true) wrought by Ephraim on a paralytic. Seeing him as he sat and begged at the door of a church in Edessa, the holy man asked him: "Wilt thou be made whole?" "Yea, my Lord; lay thy hand on me," was the reply. With the words, "In the Name of Christ, arise and walk," he was cured instantly; and departed, glorifying God.

At the end of four years, messengers came to him from Basil, summoning him to come and receive consecration to the Episcopate, for some see unnamed (to which, as Sozomen relates, he had been elected;--Hist. Eccles. II. 16). When he learned their errand, he feigned madness, going to and fro in the streets in unseemly fashion, in motley garb, eating bread as he went and letting his spittle run down. Thus he succeeded in evading the undesired elevation: the messengers, shocked at his behaviour, returned without him, and reported that they found him a madman. "O hidden pearl of price" (cried Basil) "whom the world knows not! Ye are the madmen, and he the sane."

The city and the Mount of Edessa suffered in these days from an invasion of the Huns, who plundered, murdered, and ravished, without mercy,--not even sparing the cells and convents. This calamity Ephraim is said to have recorded, in writings which have not reached us.

9. Persecution by Valens.--From another peril the Edessenes were saved by their faith and constancy. In the days of their Bishop Barses (361-378), the Arian Emperor Valens (364-378), in the course of his persecution of the orthodox, approached the city and summoned the inhabitants to wait upon him in his camp and hear his pleasure there. They disregarded the command, and gathered into the great Church of St. Thomas, where they and their Bishop continued unceasingly in prayer. The historian Socrates, a trustworthy and early (fifth century) authority, confirms our History here; and explains that Valens had ordered their Church to be surrendered to the Arians, and was enraged against them for resisting his decree, and against his Prefect Modestus for failing to carry it out. Valens then, finding them contumacious, ordered one of his generals (this same Modestus, according to Sozomen, who also relates the story) to enter the city and put the people to the sword. As Modestus, who was a humane man, sought to persuade them to yield, he met a woman leading her two sons to the Church. He strove to stop her, warning her of the danger she incurred; but her reply was, "I hear that they who fear God are to be slain, and I am in haste to win the crown with the rest." "But what of these boys?" he asked. "Are they thy sons?" "They are," she answered, "and we pray, both I and they, that we may be made an oblation to the Lord." Amazed at her resolve, he reported the matter to Valens, to convince him that the Edessenes were prepared to die rather than submit. The Emperor was moved to relent; the people and their Bishop and priests came forth; he heard their plea, was ashamed of his cruel purpose, pardoned their disobedience, and departed. This well-attested incident is to be assigned to 371, or to the preceding or ensuing year.

This victory of faith was celebrated by Ephraim in the following verses:--

"The doors of her homes Edessa

Left open when she went forth

With the pastor to the grave, to die,

And not depart from her faith.

Let the city and fort and building