9
And when they cried out against him and scourged him,
They did not realize
that he was repaying the scourging
of that heir who was corrupted
and sinned in Eden.
You are the Lord,
who had compassion on his slave
lest he be scourged,
and presented your Son
and scourged him in his place.
Heaven and earth, and everything in them,
are too small to give thanks
for this! (Ephrem the Syrian, “On the Crucifixion 4,” trans. Blake Hartung, in St.
Ephrem the Syrian: Songs for the Fast and Pascha [The Fathers of the Church
145; Washington, D.C. The Catholic University of America Press, 2022], 144,
emphasis in bold added)
Ephrem applies the language of debt-payment to the
scouring of Jesus, through which Jesus “repaid” (prac) Adam’s
scouring. Ephrem appears to mean that Adam incurred punishment through his
debt, and out of compassion, the Son accepted this on his behalf. We should not
interpret this as an abstract endurance of the “wrath” of God, as in some later
western theologies. Instead, Ephrem’s language implies something much more
concrete, that the punishment Jesus suffered in Adam’s place was the physical
endurance of “scourging.” (Ibid., 144 n. 37)
From “On the Crucifixion 9”
which uses a refrain reflecting similar thought:
1
Blessed are you, too, Simon, who carried
the living cross after our king:
haughty are the standard-bearers of kings,
but kings perish, with their standards.
Blessed are your hands, that were lifted up
and carried the cross that bent down,
and your bearer revived you, bearing you
to the house of life, and brought you across,
for it is the vessel of the kingdom.
Refrain: Blessed is he who was
crucified in our place!
2
Blessed are you also, living wood,
that you became a hidden lance against Death.
For that lance which smote the Son,
though it struck him, he slew Death with it.
Truly his lance removed the lance,
for his forgiveness cut up our document.
See how paradise rejoices,
that the exiles have returned,
and the disinherited to their habitation!
3
For through your symbol the waters of Marah became sweet.
Through you bitter things—look—are made sweet!
For they were not able . . . (Lacuna in manuscript. The remainder of this poem
is lost.) (Ibid., 184-85)