Traces of Ephraim's influence are to be found in two places of Basil's writings. It can scarcely be doubted that he points to Ephraim when (De Spiritu Sancto, xxix. 74), in defending the familiar formula "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,"--and again (Homil. in Hexaêm. ii. 6), in explaining the action of the Spirit on the waters (Genesis i. 2)--he appeals to the authority of an unnamed man of great knowledge and judgment, "as closely conversant with the knowledge of all that is true, as he is far removed from worldly wisdom," a "Mesopotamian," a "Syrian." From him he says he learned--in the former instance, that "and" was to be inserted before the name of the Holy Ghost as well as before that of the Son;--and, in the latter, that the Spirit was not to be conceived as being "carried upon" the waters (as the Septuagint represents); but (as the Peshitto more truly represents the Hebrew), as "brooding upon" them, to cherish them into life--as a bird on her nest. The verb thus variously rendered is common to the Hebrew with the cognate Syriac; and the explanation of it given by Basil is in fact found in Ephraim's extant Commentary on the passage of Genesis: [262] but he understands the "spirit" to be the wind--not (as Basil) the Holy Ghost.
7. Return to Edessa.--Ephraim's return to Edessa was hastened by the tidings that in his absence no less than nine new heresies had appeared there. His way thither lay through Samosata; and there he fell in with a chief man of the city, a heretic, who was passing by with a train of attendant youths. As the holy man sat by the wayside to eat bread, these followers mocked him, and one of them wantonly smote him on the cheek. The injury was borne in meek silence; but it was speedily avenged on the smiter, by a viper which came out from under a stone whereon he sat, and bit him so that he died on the spot. His master and companions hastened after Ephraim, and overlook him as he was begging his food in a village beyond the city which he had just passed through. At their entreaty he turned back with them, and by his prayers restored the dead youth to life. The nobleman and his followers, seeing this miracle, were converted to the orthodox faith.
8. Controversies.--Arrived at Edessa, he engaged at once in the conflict against the multiform heresies of the place, old and new--Manichean and Marcionite, as well as Arian. Of all the forms of error he encountered, the one that gave him most grief and trouble was that which had been originated about the year 200 by a Syrian, Bardesan. [263] Of this heresiarch he writes, in one of his Nisibene Hymns (the 51st; [264] not included in the following selection):
1. I have chanced upon tares, my brethren,
That wear the color of wheat,
To choke the good seed;
Concerning which the husbandmen are commanded,
Take them not away nor root them out;
And though the husbandmen heeded not,
The seed waxed stronger than they,
Grew and multiplied and covered and choked them.
2. I have chanced upon a book of Bardaisan,
And I was troubled for an hour's space;
It tainted my pure ears,
And made them a passage
For words filled with blasphemy.
I hastened to purge them
With the goodly and pure reading
Of the Scriptures of truth.
3. I heard as I read them
How he blasphemes justice,
And grace her fellow-worker.
For if the body be not raised,
It were foul reproach for grace,
To have created it unto corruption;
And it were slander against justice,
To send it unto destruction.
4. This then that I read was grievous
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." [265]
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; [266] 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 [267] 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, [268] 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
And houses be yielded to the king;