Psalter of St. Ephraim the Syrian

or Divine reflections extracted from the works of our holy father Ephraim the Syrian and arranged in the order of the Psalms of David Preface by St. Theophan the Recluse to the first edition Troparion and Kontakion to St. Ephraim the Syrian “The Psalter, or Godly reflections, extracted from the works of our holy father Ephraim the Syrian and arranged in the order of the psalms of David” - this is the name given to this publication, which contains selected prayer offerings to God of the holy Venerable Ephraim the Syrian, for the Psalter is a book of praises, or prayer offerings to God. Saint Ephraim was filled with the grace of God and, moved by it, poured out his heartfelt prayers before God. It is the duty of every Christian to kindle the spirit of grace within oneself. The main means to achieve this is prayer. In whom grace is warmed, he himself prays as he should, when the power of grace is in motion within him, but whoever has not yet reached this point needs to cultivate prayer itself in himself, and it is cultivated by spiritually moved prayers poured out from souls flaming with grace. That is why the Holy Church gives prayer books into the hands of Orthodox Christians; This publication of selected prayers can also contribute to this. Just as among the prophets Saint David is primarily a psalmist, so among the holy fathers Saint Ephraim is primarily a prayer book. His soul could not touch a single divine object without being delighted with grief in prayerful outpourings of feelings. That is why his writings are filled with prayers. This holy father can rightly be called a Christian psalmist. The measure of the number of selected articles was the number of psalms in the inspired Psalter, and the index of their content was the content of the psalms. In the psalms, in addition to prayers, there is dogma, there is history, there is moral teaching. The same article content is included in this edition of selected prayers from the writings of St. Ephraim. From ancient times, among our dogmas, the confessions of faith of St. Athanasius the Great and St. Maximus the Confessor about the Most Holy Trinity and the incarnation of God the Word have been printed in the Psalter. The exposition of these dogmas is taken here from St. Ephraim. The history in the psalms is the history of the people of God. History in the prayers of Saint Ephraim is the history of every Christian, which is externally determined by birth, life on earth, death, resurrection and eternal destiny, and internally consists primarily of the struggle with sin, of uprisings and falls, of bright states in good and dark sojourns in evil. In the writings of St. Ephraim all this is depicted in the most subtle shades and in the most varied details. This is the main part of our publication. Moral teaching in the Psalter constitutes the content of most of the psalms. In correspondence with them, “beatitudes” and “sorrows” were taken from St. Ephraim with the addition of very few other articles under the title “Lessons of Life.” The desire to diversify its content prompted us to include moralizing articles in our Psalter, and the reason for choosing primarily these articles was that in their form of expression they are very suitable for prayerful speech patterns. Imitating the divinely inspired Psalter in the number and content of the articles, we also imitate it in the division given to it in church use: 150 articles are divided into 20 sections, like the Psalter into 20 kathismas. At the beginning of each of almost twenty sections there is a dogma, and at the end there is a moral teaching - “Life Lessons”. It was intended that each prayer contain something special. An attentive reader will immediately notice this, despite all the apparently identical prayer figures of speech. But for those to whom other prayers seem the same, it should not be boring to read them, just as it is not boring for someone who loves to pray to repeat countless times: “Lord, have mercy” or: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” We accompany this Psalter with a sincere desire that everyone who opens it will always find in it what they need according to the state of their spirit: now admonition, now contrition, now inspiration, now consolation. Through the prayers of our holy father Ephraim the Syrian, may the Lord grant this to all of us! Troparion to St. Ephraim, tone 8 With your tears you cultivated the barren desert, and you brought forth fruit from the depths with sighs of a hundred labors, and you were a lamp of the universe, shining miracles, Ephraim our Father, pray to Christ God for the salvation of our souls. Ever foreseeing the hour of Judgment, you wept bitterly, Ephraim, as if you were a loving and silent one, but you were an active teacher in matters, O Reverend. In the same way, universal father, you lift up the lazy to repentance. You might be interested in: