Page 101 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

88 THE BLESSING OF JESUS AND THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY
Elias,1 the holy man was revered at Urfa until recent times by Moslems also,
and a spring festival was held near his tomb in the Armenian Church of St.
Sargis (Sergius) to the west of the city.2
Ephraim's biographer relates that he
ate no food but barley and dry pulse and occasionally vegetables; his drink was water.
His body was dried on his bones like a potter's vessel. His clothes were of the many-
coloured rags of the dust heap. He was short in stature. He was sad at all times, and he
did not indulge in laughter at all. He was bald and beardless.
Ephraim shunned the social life of the city. He is said to have lived in one
of the innumerable caves in the hillside outside Edessa, and it is this that may
have given him the reputation of a hermit. Certainly he had sympathy with
monasticism. In his letter to the hermits who dwelt in the hill-country, he
encourages them to live in solitude, in faith and prayer, like Jesus in the
wilderness, without fear of wild beasts or hunger. They would not 'be soiled
o
by the sinful mire of the town', for they had 'cast ff... the yoke of the world
and the tyranny of possessions'. They did not 'fear the voice of those in
authority . . . like the owner of property and riches'.
But Ephraim is unlikely, on the other hand, to have tolerated the excesses
of asceticism and of self-mortification which too often were practised by the
Christian solitaries of Mesopotamia. He accepted loyally his vows of poverty
and chastity, but he was a man of action also. He was a scientist as well as a
theologian,3 and he had a high regard for the learning of others, even of his
enemies. He recognized the importance of pastoral duties. He rebuked the
Edessans who opposed their Bishop Barsai:
Thou [God] didst console Samuel when the fools rejected him, and didst say that it is
thee whom the people rejected. Thy church . . . hath rejected thy priest; through him
thy children have shown their hatred of me. . . . [Barsai] is poor, they are rich, he is
tolerant, they are quarrelsome, he is gentle, they are rough, he is humble, they are
oppressive. . . .
The new shepherd came forth—from the beginning he was met with violent rain and
clouds, and they have confused his assistants. They took pleasure in the wolves; they
thought the shepherd to be a wolf. When the eyes of the assistants have been dulled by
darkness, their sight and their knowledge will be restored by thy light, and they will
turn to the shepherd and tend his sheep.

1 The appearance of Khudr at Urfa must be 47-9, associates St. Theodore Stratelates of
later than the mid-seventeenth century since Euchaita, the dragon-killer, with the nephew
it is not mentioned by Evliya Celebi. Badger of Khudr buried in a nearby tomb (I owe this
describes the chapel of Sargis 'commonly reference to my colleague Dr. V. L. Menage),
called Khudr Elias. In the courtyard a descent It may not be accidental that Euchaita was
of four steps led to a grotto with four recesses acquainted with the letter of Abgar, p. 75
and a cave with eight tombs including the above.
remains of St. Ephraim and St. Theodoras.' 2 On, it appears, 28 Nisan; it should be
St. Theodore was a favourite saint of the remarked that this date was a day of pilgrimage
Edessans, see pp. 190, 339 f. below. Hasluck, among the pagans of Harran.
Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, i, 3 See p. 167 below.

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