The life of St Ephrem the Syrian
He lived for a time as one of the covenant, an early Syriac form of ascetic dedication that predated organized monasticism in that region, and it was in this office of teacher that he began composing the hymns and biblical commentaries that would occupy the rest of his life. When Nisibis was ceded to Persia in 363 and its Christian population expelled, Ephrem relocated to Edessa, where he opened a school of his own and continued writing and preaching against the heresies then troubling the Syriac speaking Church. He left behind an enormous body of hymnody, verse commentary reaching into the millions of lines by later count, built from rich scriptural imagery rather than formal argument, work that earned him the title Harp of the Holy Spirit among later generations. Though ordained deacon, he is said to have avoided the priesthood his whole life, feigning madness on at least one occasion to escape being made a bishop. When famine and plague struck Edessa in 373, he spent his final months distributing what aid he could and tending the sick, work that itself may have cost him his life; he died that same year, in his own city of adoption rather than his birthplace.
