Nisibene Hymn 20: The Name Set on the Flock

Virgin youth, you who have become a bridegroom, stir your mind to a little jealousy toward her who is the wife of your youth. Cut off the attachments she had with many others in her girlhood. Rebuke her and gather her affections together, so that she may know what she is and whose she is. In you may she desire, indeed love, Christ, the Bridegroom of truth. Refrain: Blessed be he who betroths her to his only Son! [a]

Be jealous, farmer, against the weeds that have sprung up and tangled themselves among the wheat. It is easier to root up the thicket than the despised one: if a light breeze carries it, it attacks the sown field and overpowers it. What three farmers have sown, may it come back in threefold measure: thirtyfold, and sixty, and a hundred! Refrain: Blessed be he who makes your harvest rich! [b]

It is right for a new shepherd to oversee the flock in a new way, to know its number, and to see what its needs are. It is a flock that was bought with the blood of the chief of the shepherds. Call each sheep by its name and make it pass before you, for it is a flock whose name is written, and its count is in the book of life. Refrain: Blessed be he who will require its number! [c]

See, the bride of your Lord is with you! Keep her from all harm and from men who deal corruptly, and call the congregations by their own names. The name of her husband is set on her; let her not go whoring after another name, for she was not baptized in the name of a man. Let her confess the names in which she was baptized, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Refrain: Blessed be he by whose name she is called! [d]

The apostle who betrothed her was jealous over her, that she should not be corrupted by names: not only by names that were false, but not even by names that were true; not by Cephas, no, not even by his name. Those who were true betrothers set the name of her betrothed on her. The false betrothers, like men who go after prostitutes, set their own names on the flock. Refrain: Glory to your name, our Creator! [e]

No one openly destroys the brand on living creatures, my brothers and sisters, and no one adds to or alters the name signed to a letter. Whoever effaces the brand is a thief, and whoever alters the name is a forger. The name of Christ has been altered; see, false names have been set on the congregations that have been corrupted. Refrain: Blessed be he who has called his flock by his name!

Look at the prophets and the apostles, how alike they are! By the prophets the name of God was set on the flock of God, and by the apostles the name of Christ was set on the church of Christ. The false betrothers are also like one another, for the congregations that go whoring with them are called by their names. Refrain: Blessed be he in whose name we were sanctified!