Saint Ephrem the Syrian

Doctor of the Church
(306- 378)

Feast- June 18

Many wonderful lessons can be derived from the life of this Saint, known in particular for his unfailing and remarkable humility. Born around the year 306 in the city of Nisibis (now Nusaybin in Turkey), in the contested border region between Sassanid Assyria and Roman Mesopotamia, then-recently acquired by Rome. His forebears were poor folk, and he as a child tended the herds in the fields.

One day, while still an adolescent, he pursued the only cow of a neighbor, throwing stones at the poor beast to see it run, until it fell exhausted and died. To add to his fault, he denied having seen the animal when its owner came to look for it. All his life he wept over this double prevarication, and later he related to the religious who were his followers how he was punished for it: About a month later, he was with a shepherd who drank too much one evening, and through neglect lost the sheep of the owner’s flock when wolves entered into the fold. Ephrem was taken to prison with the shepherd and confined there. From the stories his companions there narrated, he realized that they too were detained for crimes not committed, but that they had committed others which had remained unpunished. Recognizing in these facts the effects of Divine Justice, he was warned to do penance by a severe Angel who appeared to him several times, also helping him accept his chastisement. He was released after two months, but never forgot the lessons in humility he had received.

Jacob, the second bishop of Nisibis, was appointed in 308, and Ephrem grew up under his leadership of the community (Jacob of Nisibis is recorded as a signatory at the First Council of Nicea in 325). Ephrem was baptized as a youth and almost certainly became a son of the covenant, an unusual form of syriac proto-monasticism.

The members of the covenant were an important part of early Syriac Christianity. Before the advent of monasticism proper (which developed in the desert of Egypt), most Syriac churches would consist of a community focused around the members of the covenant (men and women who had committed themselves to sexual abstinence and the service of the church. Living with the goal of godliness at the end of one’s path encourages a steady transformation into the image of Christ. This however, is not enough. To keep from becoming irrelevant and ultimately extinct in the community, each Christian must hold with equal regard those at different stages of the journey, and remain committed to them by giving other believers chances to grow).

Jacob appointed Ephrem as a teacher (Syriac malp̄ānâ, a title that still carries great respect for Syriac Christians). He began to compose hymns and write biblical commentaries as part of his educational office. In his hymns, he sometimes refers to himself as a “herdsman”, to his bishop as the “shepherd”.

In 337, Emperor Constantine I, who had legalized and promoted the practice of Christianity in the Roman Empire, died. Seizing on this opportunity, Shapur II of Persia began a series of attacks into Roman North Mesopotamia. Nisibis was besieged in 338, 346 and 350. During the first siege, Ephrem credits Bishop Jacob as defending the city with his prayers. In the third siege, of 350, Shapur rerouted the River Mygdonius to undermine the walls of Nisibis. The Nisibenes quickly repaired the walls while the Persian elephant cavalry became bogged down in the wet ground. Ephrem celebrated what he saw as the miraculous salvation of the city in a hymn that portrayed Nisibis as being like Noah’s Ark, floating to safety on the flood.

In that 359, Shapur attacked again. The cities around Nisibis were destroyed one by one, and their citizens killed or deported. Constantius II was unable to respond; the campaign of Julian in 363 ended with his death in battle. His army elected Jovian as the new emperor. When Shapur defeated the Roman emperor Jovian, he demanded the city as part of the treaty. Jovian not only gave him the city but agreed to force the Christians to leave Nisibis. Probably in his fifties or sixties at that time, Ephrem was one of the refugees who fled the city in 363.

Ephrem, with the others, went first to Amida. The death of Saint James of Nisibe and of another Saint who had lived in a cell near his own solitary dwelling, convinced him to make a pilgrimage to Edessa, a very Christian city, to honor the relics of the Apostle Saint Thomas, venerated there. While in Edessa he was ordained a deacon and attached permanently to the church of Edessa, then obliged under obedience to preach. The ministry of preaching is not usually that of deacons, but his virtue and capacities were recognized at once. He had not studied and knew only his own language, but he had absorbed Holy Scripture and profited from his intelligence of it. It is he who wrote: “You do not understand all that you read there? If you were traveling and, being thirsty, came upon a spring of fresh water, would you be incensed because you could not drink all of it? No, you would be happy that, on another journey, the spring would still be there to quench your thirst.”

Never did Saint Ephrem think himself anything other than a great sinner; we can read in his various writings his self-accusations and his confessions. He had the gift of tears and for years he wept, literally without ceasing, according to the testimony of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, who wrote: At times he was weeping over the sins of men, and again over his own. His sighs succeeded his tears, and then brought them forth again. It was also said that the tears he shed so profusely, instead of disfiguring his face, seemed to augment its serenity and grace; all who had seen or heard Saint Ephrem were inspired to venerate his holiness.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa remarked of the preaching of Saint Ephrem: “Although his tongue was prompt and the words flowed from his mouth like a torrent, these were too slow to express his thoughts. For this reason he prayed God: ‘Hold back, Lord, the waves of Your grace!’ The sea of understanding which was seeking an outlet through his tongue bore heavily upon him, because the organs of speech did not suffice for what his mind presented to him, for the benefit of others.” In the Syrian Liturgy, Saint Ephrem still is called the Harp of the Holy Spirit.

Heresy and danger followed him to Edessa. The Arian Emperor Valens camped outside of Edessa threatening to kill all the Christian inhabitants if they did not submit. But Valens was the one forced to give up in the face of the courage and steadfastness of the Edessans (fortified by Ephrem’s hymns):

“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 and houses be yielded to the king; our goods and our gold let us leave; so we part not from our faith!”

Tradition tells us that during the famine that hit Edessa in 372, Ephrem was horrified to learn that some citizens were hoarding food. When he confronted them, he received the age-old excuse that they couldn’t find a fair way or honest person to distribute the food. Ephrem immediately volunteered himself and it is a sign of how respected he was that no one was able to argue with this choice. He and his helpers worked diligently to get food to the needy in the city and the surrounding area.

The church historian Sozomen credits Ephrem with having written over three million lines. Ephrem combines in his writing a threefold heritage: he draws on the models and methods of early Rabbinic Judaism, he engages skillfully with Greek science and philosophy, and he delights in the Mesopotamian/Persian tradition of mystery symbolism.

Over four hundred hymns composed by Ephrem still exist. Particularly influential were his “Hymns Against Heresies.” Ephrem used these to warn his flock of the heresies that threatened to divide the early church.

After many years of good works, preaching and writing, for he also had great gifts of poetry and written discourse, he died a holy death in the year 378. This occurred one month after the death of Saint Basil, whom he had visited in Caesarea, wanting to profit from the renowned bishop’s conversation and sermons. They had found great consolation in one another’s company. Saint Ephrem was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XV in October of 1920.

[1] “Saint Ephrem – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_ephrem.html. [Accessed 29 May 2017].
[2] “St. Ephrem,” Catholic Online, [Online]. Available: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3. [Accessed 29 May 2017].
[3] “Ephrem the Syrian,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephrem_the_Syrian. [Accessed 29 May 2017].