{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/213/2130220.htm","path":"chr/ecf/213/2130220.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/213/2130220.htm","text":"1. O feeble ones, why weep ye, over your dead: who in death are at rest from sorrows and sins?\u20142. R., Glory to Him Who endured all, for the sake of all men: yea tasted death for the sake of all, to bring all to life\u20143. I reveal unto you, that even Satan, though much content: at your weeping, yet laughs much, at your mourning.\u20144. In mockery he winks at me and nods to me, as a jester: \u201cCome let us laugh at sinners, for lo! they are mad.\u201d\u20145. Truly they have given up remembrance of that fire, which I have hidden for them: and lo! the fools are drunken with weeping, for their departed.\u20146. Instead of weeping as though, without provision: I had plundered and sent forth their dead, lo! they are mad.\u20147. The souls of the evil are to be afflicted, till the judgment day: and these weep over the graves, like to madmen.\u20148. They care not for their own sins, that haply to-morrow: they must go in shame of face, to join their dead.\u20149. And thus shall all be put to shame alike, family by family: in Sheol the wretches shall repent without avail.\u201410. Leave the drunken and the madman, until that day: wherein each shall shake off his wine wherewith he was maddened.\u201411. I will go to gather them, like children: that they may play the wanton and the madman, until they perish.\u201412. Lo! I have revealed to you the mystery, the secret of my comrade: go forth therefore, depart, amend, in repentance.\u201413. Leave me, I too will depart, I will see to my affairs: that with open face I may give my account to my Lord.\u201414. I know that the wind as it blew, has borne away my words: for ye are the same whom I, ofttimes have proved.\u201415. I remember Jeremiah how he, compared boldness: to the Indian who changes not his skin, though it is of freedom.\u201416. For this too belongs to it, even to freedom: that it binds itself by the will, as though by nature.\u201417. For so powerful is the will, in them that are free: that it may be likened to nature, through its workings. 354\nI.e. though boldness is matter of free will, it becomes a second nature.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XIII: Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage.: Hymn LXIV.","type":"page"}