---
title: "Gregory the Great, Ephrem Syrus and Aphrahat"
author: "Gregory the Great, Ephrem the Syrian and Aphrahat"
translator: "Philip Schaff (ed.)"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 64 of 134
url: https://scriptura.si/works/gregory-the-great-ephrem-syrus-aphrahat/64/
cite: "Gregory the Great, Ephrem the Syrian and Aphrahat, tr. Philip Schaff (ed.), Gregory the Great, Ephrem Syrus and Aphrahat, section 64. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/gregory-the-great-ephrem-syrus-aphrahat/64/"
---

# Gregory the Great, Ephrem Syrus and Aphrahat

*Gregory the Great, Ephrem the Syrian and Aphrahat, tr. Philip Schaff (ed.)*

Gregory the Great's letters, with Ephrem Syrus and Aphrahat the Persian Sage.

## 64. Hymn X

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/gregory-the-great-ephrem-syrus-aphrahat/64/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/gregory-the-great-ephrem-syrus-aphrahat/64/#p-N

[¶0] 1. My children have been slain; and my daughters that are without me,—their walls are overthrown, their children scattered,—and their holy places trodden down. R., Blessed is Thy chastisement!

[¶1] 2. The fowlers have taken, my doves out of my strongholds,—which quitted their nests, and fled to the caves;—in the net have they taken them.

[¶2] 3. After the manner of wax, that melts before the fire,—thus melted and dissolved, the bodies, of my sons before the heat—and the drought of my strongholds.

[¶3] 4. And instead of streams, of milk that used to flow,—for my sons and my little ones, milk fails the sucklings, and water the weaned children.

[¶4] 5. The suckling falls, from its mother and gasps,—because it cannot suck, nor can she give suck:—they breathe out their spirit and die.

[¶5] 6. How is it possible, that Thy grace can refrain—the welling of its stream, when it is not possible to restrain—the abundance of its flow?

[¶6] 7. And why has Thy grace, shut up its mercies,—and withheld its streams, from the people that cry,—for one to moisten their tongue?

[¶7] 8. And there was a pit, between them and their brethren;—like the rich man who cried, and there was none to answer,—to moisten his tongue.

[¶8] 9. And as into the midst of fire, the wretched ones were cast;—and heat in the midst of thirst, the fire was blowing,—and kindling upon them.

[¶9] 10. Their carcases were melted, and dissolved by the heat;—they that had thirsted gave in turn the earth to drink,—of the reek of their bodies.

[¶10] 11. And the fort that with thirst, had killed, its dwellers,—it drank in its turn of the flux from the corpses,—that were melted by thirst.

[¶11] 12. Who has seen a people—that were burning with thirst,—while there surrounded them a wall of water and they could not—moisten their tongue!

[¶12] 13. Surely with the judgment of Sodom, were my beloved judged,—and my children smitten, with the torment of Sodom;—though that was but for one day.

[¶13] 14. The torment of fire, though it be for one hour, O my Lord,—in lingering thirst, is a lingering death, and a subtle punishment.

[¶14] 15. After my sorrows, O my Lord, and my bitter sufferings,—this is the best comfort, wherewith Thou hast comforted me,—that Thou hast multiplied my afflictions.

[¶15] 16. The medicine that I hoped, it is sorrow decreed;—the binding up that I looked for, it is bitter calamity,—that it seeks to work for me.

[¶16] 17. And whereas I hoped to escape, from the midst of the storm;—worse for me is the storm in it, even in the harbour,—than that in the sea.

[¶17] 18. Whereas I thought in my folly, that I should anchor and escape—from the midst of the Gulf; my sins have cast me back—again into the midst of it.

[¶18] 19. Look, O my Lord, on my limbs, how the swords are thick in me,—and have left their mark on my arms; and the scars of the spears,—are planted in my sides!

[¶19] 20. Tears in mine eyes, and in my ears ill rumours,—wailing in my mouth, and mourning in my heart!—Add no more, O my Lord, to me!