The Monk Ephrem the Syrian
Commemorated on January 28
The Monk Ephrem
the Syrian, a teacher of repentance, was born at the beginning of the IV
Century (his precise year of birth is unknown) in the city of Ninevah
(Mesopotamia) into the family of impoverished toilers of the soil. His parents
raised their son in piety. But from the time of his childhood he was known for
his quick temper and irascible character, and in his youth he often had fights,
he acted thoughtlessly, and even doubted of God's Providence, until he finally
recovered his senses from the Lord's doing, guiding him on the path of
repentance and salvation. One time he was unjustly accused of the theft of a
sheep and was thrown into prison. And there in a dream he heard a voice,
calling him to repentance and rectifying his life. After this, he was acquitted
of the charges and set free.
Within Ephrem there
took place a deep repentance. The youth withdrew outside the city and became an
hermit. This form of Christian asceticism had been introduced at Ninevah by a
disciple of the Monk Anthony the Great, the Egyptian Wilderness-Dweller Eugenios
(Eugene).
Among the hermits
especially prominent was the noted ascetic, a preacher of Christianity and
denouncer of the Arians, the bishop of the Ninevah Church, Saint James (Comm.
13 January). The Monk Ephrem became one of his disciples. Under the graced
guidance of the holy hierarch, the Monk Ephrem attained to Christian meekness,
humility, submission to the Will of God, and the strength without murmur to
undergo various temptations. Saint James knew the high qualities of his student
and he used them for the good of the Ninevah Church he entrusted him to read
sermons, to instruct children in the school, and he took Ephrem along with him
to the First OEcumenical Council at Nicea (in the year 325). The Monk Ephrem
was in obedience to Saint James for 14 years, until the bishop's death.
After the capture of
Ninevah by the Persians in the year 363, the Monk Ephrem abandoned the
wilderness and settled in a monastery near the city of Edessa. Here he saw many
a great ascetic, passing their lives in prayer and psalmody. Their caves were
solitary shelters, and they fed themselves off a certain plant. He became
especially close with the ascetic Julian (Comm. 18 October), who was one with
him in a spirit of repentance. The Monk Ephrem combined with his ascetic works
an incessant study of the Word of God, gathering within it for his soul both
solace and wisdom. The Lord gave him a gift of teaching, and people began to
come to him, wanting to hear his guidances, which produced a particular effect
upon the soul, since he began with self-accusation. The monk both verbally and
in writing instructed everyone in repentance, faith and piety, and he denounced
the Arian heresy, which during those times was disrupting Christian society.
And pagans likewise, listening to the preaching of the monk, were converted to
Christianity.
He also toiled no
little at the interpretation of Holy Scripture with an explication of the
Pentateuch (i.e. "Five Books") of Moses. He wrote many a prayer and
church-song, thereby enriching the Church's Divine-services. Famed prayers of
Saint Ephrem are to the Most Holy Trinity, to the Son of God, and to the
Most Holy Mother of God. He wrote for his Church song for the Twelve Great Feastdays
of the Lord (the Nativity of Christ, the Baptism, the Resurrection), and
funereal song. Saint Emphrem's Prayer of Repentance, "O Lord and Master of
my life...", is said during Great Lent, and it summons Christians to
spiritual renewal. The Church since times ancient valued highly the works of
the Monk Ephrem: his works were read in certain churches, at gatherings of the
faithful, after the Holy Scripture. And now at present in accord with the
Church Ustav (Rule), certain of his instructions are prescribed to be read on
the days of Lent. Amidst the prophets, Saint David is pre-eminently the
psalmodist; amidst the holy fathers of the Church the Monk Ephrem the Syrian
is pre-eminently a man of prayer. His spiritual experience made him a guide to
monks and an help to the pastors of Edessa. The Monk Ephrem wrote in Syrian,
but his works were very early translated into the Greek and Armenian languages,
and from the Greek into the Latin and Slavonic languages.
In numerous of the
works of the Monk Ephrem are encountered glimpses of the life of the Syrian
ascetics, the centre of which involved prayer and with it thereupon the toiling
for the common good of the brethren, in the obediences. The outlook of the
meaning of life among all the Syrian ascetics was the same. The end purpose of
their efforts was considered by the monks to be communality with God and the
diffusion of Divine grace within the soul of the ascetic; the present life for
them was a time of tears, fasting and toil.
"If the Son of
God be within thee, then also His Kingdom is within thee. Here then is the
Kingdom of God within thee, a sinner. Go inwards into thine self, search
diligently and without toil thou shalt find it. Outside of thee is death,
and the door to it is sin. Go inwards into thine self, dwell within thine
heart, for since there is God". Constant spiritual sobriety, the
developing of good within the soul of man gives unto him the possibility to
take upon himself a task like blessedness, and a self-constraint like sanctity.
The requital is presupposed in the earthly life of man, it is an undertaking by
degrees of its spiritual perfection. Whoso grows himself wings upon the earth,
says the Monk Ephrem, is one who soars up into the heights; whoso down here
purifies his mind there glimpses the Glory of God; in what measure each one
loveth God is that measure wherein is satiated to fullness by the love of
God. Man, cleansing himself and attaining the grace of the Holy Spirit while
still here, down upon the earth, has a foretaste therein of the Kingdom of
Heaven. To attain to life eternal, in the teachings of the Monk Ephrem, does
not mean to pass over from one sphere of being into another, but means rather
to discover "the Heavenly" spiritual condition of being. Eternal life
is not bestown man as a one-sided working by God, but rather like a seed, it
constantly grows within him through effort, toil and struggle.
The pledge within us
of "theosis" ("obozhenie" or "deification") is
the Baptism of Christ, and the primal propulsion for the Christian life is
repentance. The Monk Ephrem was a great teacher of repentance. The forgiveness
of sins in the sacramental-mystery of Repentance, according to his teaching, is
not an external exoneration, not a forgetting of the sins, but rather their
complete undoing, their annihilation. The tears of repentance wash away and
burn away the sin. And moreover they (i.e. the tears) vivify, they
transfigure sinful nature, they give the strength "to walk in the way of
the commandments of the Lord", encouraging the hope on God. In the fiery
font of Repentance, wrote the Monk, "thou dost sail thyself across, O
sinner, thou dost resuscitate thyself from the dead".
The Monk Ephrem, in
his humility reckoning himself the least and worst of all, at the end of his
life set out to Egypt, to see the efforts of the great ascetics. He was
accepted there as a welcome guest and received for himself great solace in his
associating with them. On the return journey he visited at Caesarea Cappadocia
with Sainted Basil the Great (Comm. 1 January), who wanted to ordain him a
priest, but the monk considered himself unworthy of priesthood, and at the
insistence of Saint Basil, he accepted only the dignity of deacon, in which he
remained until death. Even later on, Saint Basil the Great invited the Monk
Ephrem to accept the cathedra-chair of a bishop, but the saint feigned folly to
avoid for himself this honour, in humility reckoning himself unworthy of it.
Upon his return to
his own Edessa wilderness, the Monk Ephrem intended to spend the rest of his
life in solitude. But Divine Providence again summoned him to service of
neighbour. The inhabitants of Edessa were suffering from a devastating famine.
By the influence of his word, the monk induced the wealthy to render aid to
those that lacked. From the offerings of believers he built a poor-house for
the destitute and sick. The Monk Ephrem then withdrew to a cave nigh to Edessa,
where he remained to the end of his days.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
