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t. Ephrem wrote a series of very beautiful
hymns about the faith, which he entitled The
Pearl, which was the proximate reason why, for a number of years, I entitled
my notes “Pearl” as well. When, as the pastor of our parish in Miami a decade
and a half ago, I first started studying St. Ephrem on Sunday afternoons, I
found I always had some valuable insight to take away from my weekly visits to
this Father. I always had some “pearl”
of wisdom (as we sometimes say). At the beginning of the series of hymns that
Ephrem titles The Pearl, Ephrem
himself is depicted admiring a pearl in the palm of his hand. The pearl is identified in this first hymn as
the Son. The overall meaning of the hymn is expounded in the following
verses. The essential meaning of the
hymn was, I must admit, at first a bit disappointing to me, because it seemed
to be the same prosaic (dare I say) lesson that appears in so many other places
in the saint’s corpus. Basically, the
point of the hymn is to extend the solemn warning to all not to pry into the
mysteries of God, but to retain a reverent, worshipful and contemplative
distance. At one point, the
The daughter of the sea am I, the illimitable sea! And
from that sea whence I came up it is that there is a mighty treasury of
mysteries in my bosom! Search thou out the sea, but search not out the Lord of
the sea!
Ephrem goes on to use the image of the sea as
a means to convey the meaning of reverence itself. He describes the divers going down into the
waves, but they quickly return to the surface, when they become terrified and
astonished by the depths. In a similar way, Ephrem shows by means of examples
how the same sea can be death to one (the irreverent) and salvation to another
(the God-fearing). After all, in the
time of the Exodus the sea became a source of salvation for the people of
Having thoughtfully re-read the hymn again, I quickly recovered from my
initial disappointment, because I began to appreciate the author’s warning in a
way that I never did before. What Ephrem
is saying can be easily misunderstood.
Ephrem is not discouraging us from meditating on the Mysteries of our
salvation. He is not launching a tirade
against the Rosary and the other forms of meditative prayer, which we use in
our spiritual lives. He is warning against trespassing on territory that
belongs to God alone. He warns us against
acting as if we know God as well as God knows God. He admonishes us to remain steadfastly within
the bounds of what God has revealed. God
has revealed a great many things. But there are many things that He has not
revealed as well. Ephrem’s point is that
it is wrong for us to speculate about things that He has not revealed. Ephrem’s admonition is strictly confined to
truths impinging upon the spiritual world.
He is famous for his frequent references to the two Scriptures, which
our loving God has given us. God has
revealed Himself to us by means of two written texts; no, not the Old and New
Testaments. Ephrem is actually considering them to be one. The other Scripture is the natural
world. Just as the Bible teaches about
God, if we know how to read it, so too does the natural world tell us about the
Creator if we have the special ability to read it. Thus, Ephrem would consider
the world of nature to be fully revealed. We are free to plumb the depths of
the cosmos, and unlock its various “mysteries.” God wants us to ask questions,
like: “How does a tree get water from its roots all the way up to its uppermost
limbs and leaves?”
But
the spiritual world, including the inner life of God Himself, is not fully
revealed to us. We have no command from
God to “fill and subdue” that world, as we do the natural world. We are, therefore, to maintain a reverent
silence concerning those things that God has kept for Himself.
In
every civilized society it is considered offensive and ill-mannered to enter
your neighbor’s house without their knowledge and rifle through their private
papers, perhaps making a detour to look in the medicine cabinet on the way
out. All the more so is it wrong,
offensive and ill-mannered to trespass on the freedom of God, Who has revealed
what He wished to reveal, but has remained silent about what He desires (for
His own reasons) to keep for Himself.
The
primary reason why this warning, written by a saint from the fourth century, is
so apropos for us is that we have become a civilization of priers. We pry into
every aspect of the spiritual world, whether God has revealed it or not. The examples are too many to be
enumerated. It has now become vogue to
voice theological opinions, particularly about ethical issues, without even
making reference to the biblical Scriptures.
I think, for example, of the cardinal at the Vatican (the head of the
Pontifical Council on the Sciences) who declared that 1) it is very likely that
extraterrestrial intelligent life does in fact exist, and 2) if it does exist,
then those beings do not need the salvation that is wrought in Christ. One has to ask “How would he know?” and “What
is the basis of his “theological” opinion?” In the same way, we daily hear
theological opinions of the most daring kinds voiced by people from all walks
of life. One very well-intentioned lady
I once knew pronounced (in a rather ex
cathedra way) that all infants go to Heaven. The only problem with that is that God has
not revealed it to be true. What He has revealed is that Baptism is necessary
for salvation. Maybe there are all kinds
of other ways to be saved, but God has not revealed them. We do not know. He has only revealed one.
That one “way of salvation” is the only one that we can actually talk about,
think about, and meditate upon.
Nowadays, a lot of theological speculation is based on theodicy. You
will frequently hear things, like “I just feel that a loving God would not
condemn anyone to Hell.” Of course, the problem with that is that the statement
is not really about God. It’s about me and human beings in general. Here is the same statement put another way:
“God owes me.” A dangerous line of reasoning on any account.
In
Ephrem’s time there were lots of people eager to pry into what God (for His own
reasons) had not revealed. The short
list would certainly have to contain Origen, who lived a little earlier than
St. Ephrem, who believed in all kinds of strange, exotic things: the
preexistence of souls, and the universal salvation of everything that
exists. He hypothesized that the
original shape of the human body before the Fall was spherical. Others, who
fall into the same category, would be Valentinus and Basilides, founders of two
burgeoning Gnostic sects, that taught various different brands of
pseudo-Christian secret “knowledge,” that supposedly guaranteed salvation to
those who learned them.
In
our own time, there are just as many people who are eager to pry, invade the
privacy of God (as if they were able), and make startling theological
pronouncements about every possible subject.
Several examples come immediately to mind. First, there is the “personhood” debate. It is strange and macabre that natural
science feels competent to enter the arena where the definition of the human
person is being decided. The problem is that natural science has no access to
the true answer. It has no ability to
tell us why the severely retarded are just as much human persons as you and I. God
has revealed that the human being is the image of God. He has not revealed how
that is so.
Second, there is the question of sexual orientation and
“transgenderism.” At various different times in the past few years, we have
heard theological arguments advanced concerning these peoples’ afflictions. The most prominent of these opinions is that
homosexual and transgender persons are created as such by God. Again, the only problem with this argument is
that it has not been revealed by God.
Those who advance this theory are denying to God the basic right that
they themselves rely upon. They give God
no opportunity to confront His accusers (barring a bolt of lightning or some
other explicit theophany). The impulse
is understandable. If we define our afflictions as, in some sense, “normal,”
then we don’t have to deal with them.
There is a growing unwillingness in society to even consider
homosexuality an affliction. But Ephrem has something very helpful to
contribute to this debate. He and the other holy Fathers of the Church,
particularly those of the
Everywhere in the world there is an increasingly strange neo-Gnosticism
which is infecting all the facets of our lives.
Former U.S. president Barack Obama, for example, is reportedly obsessed
with Gioacchino da Fiore, a twelfth century Christian heretic, who taught that
the Church and world of the future would be one without dogmas or laws. Again,
there is that basic problem. That is not
the Church or the world that God has revealed.
Quite the contrary, that revelation has its origin in the Father of
Lies.
In
matters that impinge upon the truths of the spiritual world we have to stand
pat with what has been revealed by God.
Ephrem is right; to do otherwise is to put ourselves in extreme peril,
because what our minds invent cannot do justice to the Creator’s plan, and we
end up contaminating our life of prayer and worship with these false ideas,
false images and idolatrous delusions.
Ephrem describes our current state:
Searching is mingled with thanksgiving, and whether of
the two will prevail? The incense of praise riseth along with the fume of
disputation from the tongue, and unto which shall we hearken? Prayer and prying
come from one mouth, and which shall we listen to?
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