Ephraim: The Pearl, Seven Hymns on the Faith
The Pearl, Hymn 5: The Naked Divers
O gift that came up with the diver without price! You took hold of this visible light, which rises without price for human beings: a parable of the hidden One, who without price gives the hidden Dawn! The painter too paints a likeness of you with colors. Yet by you faith is painted, with types and emblems for colors; and in place of the image, your Creator is painted by you and your colors. O you frankincense without a smell, who breathe out types! You are not to be eaten, yet you give a sweet smell to those who hear about you! You are not to be drunk, yet by your story you are made a fountain of types for the ears!
It is you who are great in your littleness, O pearl! Small is your measure, and little your compass and your weight; but great is your glory. Only the crown in which you are set has no equal. And who has not seen how great your littleness is? If someone despised you and threw you away, he would blame himself for his boorishness; for when he saw you in a king’s crown, he would be drawn to you.
Men stripped off their clothes and dived and drew you out, O pearl! It was not kings who set you before people, but those naked ones, who were a type of the poor, the fishermen, and the Galileans. For clothed bodies could not come to you. Those who came were stripped like children; they plunged their bodies in and came down to you. And you longed for them greatly, and you helped those who loved you this way. They gave the good news about you. The poor fishermen loosed their tongues before they opened their bosoms, and brought out and showed the new riches among the merchants. They put you on people’s wrists as a medicine of life.
The naked ones saw, in a type, your rising again by the seashore; and by the side of the lake they, the apostles indeed, saw the rising again of the Son of your Creator. By you and by your Lord the sea and the lake were made beautiful. The diver came up from the sea and put on his clothing; and from the lake Simon Peter too came up swimming and put on his coat. These two were clothed, as if with coats, with the love of you both.
And since I have wandered about in you, O pearl, I will gather my mind together. By contemplating you, I would become like you, for you are wholly gathered into yourself; and as you are one at all times, let me become one through you! I have gathered pearls together to make a crown for the Son, in place of the stains that are in my members. Receive my offering. It is not that you are lacking anything; it is because of my own lacking that I have offered it to you. Make my stains white! This crown is made wholly of spiritual pearls, which are set in love instead of gold, and in faith instead of settings. And instead of hands, let praise offer it up to the Highest!