The Pearl 6:3 - Heretics


St Ephrem's The Pearl 6:3

How strangely perplexed are all the heretics by simple things!
For when He plainly foreshadowed this New Testament
       By that of the Prophets,
Those pitiable men rose, as though from sleep,
And shouted out and made a disturbance.

And the Way, wherein the righteous held straight on,
And by their truths had gone forth therein,
That [Way] have these broken up, because they were besotted:
This they left and went out of;
Because they pried into it, it fell, and was lost.
Of the pearl they made a stone, that they might stumble upon it.

6:4


O Gift, which fools have made a poison!
The People were for separating Thy beauteous root from Thy fountain,
Though they separated it not:
Teachings estranged Thy beauty also from the stock thereof.
By Thee did they get themselves estranged,
Who wished to estrange Thee.

By Thee the tribes were cut off,
And scattered abroad from out of Sion,
And also the teachings of the seceders.
Bring Thyself within the compass of our littleness,
O Thou Gift of ours.

For if love cannot find Thee out on all sides,
It cannot be still and at rest.
Make Thyself small,
Thou Who art too great for all,
Who comest unto all!

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