Born in the year 306, Ephrem was the son of a pagan priest living in Nisibis, Mesopotamia, which is modern Iraq. Ephrem was driven from home because of his sympathy for the Christian faith, then befriended by the local bishop and placed for some years with the desert monks of Egypt. He always declined the priesthood however, remaining a humble deacon all his life.

Those were turbulent times. Nisibis was on the borders of the eastern Roman Empire and during Ephrem’s lifetime, the city fell to the Persians. To avoid persecution, Ephrem and others fled to Edessa, where he spent the last years of his life. They were certainly not dull years.

Edessa was at that time at the confluence of various sectarian beliefs, the chief among them being Gnosticism, which spread its doctrine through poetry and song. Ephrem, a gifted poet and composer himself, produced so many writings and songs on the Scriptures and sacred mysteries, that he was called “the harp of the Holy Spirit”. St Jerome observed a whole century later: “So famous are the works of Ephrem, the Sun of the Syrians, that in some churches his writings are read out immediately after the Sacred Scriptures.”

Today Ephrem the Syrian is listed among the “fathers of the Church”, those great theologians of the first four centuries of Christianity, whose reflections on the faith laid the foundations of our understanding of the Scriptures for ages to come.