Concerning "A Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God"

Preface to the Russian Edition by Saint Theophan the Recluse

This publication, which includes selected prayers that St. Ephraim the Syrian offered up to God, is called a Psalter because the Psalter is a book of praises of God; they both contain prayers offered up to God. St. Ephraim was filled with the grace of God and, moved by it, he poured out his heartfelt prayers to God.

It is the duty of every Christian to harbor in himself the spirit of grace. The best means to do so is prayer. He who harbors grace in himself prays as he should, for the strength of grace moves in him. But he who has not yet reached this state must nurture prayer in himself. Inner prayer is nurtured by means of prayers which have poured forth from souls inflamed with grace, prayers which move the spirit. This is why the holy Church puts prayer books in the hands of Orthodox Christians, and the present edition of selected prayers can serve this purpose as well.

Just as St. David is the foremost psalmist among the prophets, so is St. Ephraim the foremost author of prayers among the Holy Fathers. His soul could not contemplate any divine subject without becoming enraptured in a prayerful outpouring of feelings. For this reason his writings are replete with prayers. This holy father can rightly be called a Christian psalmist.

The number of psalms contained in the God-inspired Psalter served as a guide for choosing the works included here and the list of their contents reflects the contents of the Psalms. In addition to prayers the psalms contain dogma, history, and moral teachings. Works of this nature have been included in the selection of prayers by St. Ephraim.

From early times, works on dogma have been printed with the Psalter: the Confession of Faith by St. Athanasius the Great, and St. Maximus the Confessor’s work on the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of God the Word. Explanations of dogma here are taken from St. Ephraim. The history presented in the Psalms is the history of God’s people. The history presented in St. Ephraim’s prayers is the history of every Christian, which is externally delimited by birth, earthly life, death, resurrection and eternal destiny, and internally consists mainly of struggle with sin, of triumphs and of falls, of bright sojourns in good and murky dwellings in evil. In the writings of St. Ephraim, this is all captured in the most precise nuances and the most varied details. The better part of this edition is devoted to this struggle.

Moral teachings are contained in the majority of the psalms of the Psalter. Correspondingly, works have been taken from St. Ephraim’s “Beatitudes” and “Woe,” with the addition of a few other works under the heading “Life’s lessons”. The desire to make the content of our Psalter more diverse inspired the inclusion of works on moral teachings. We selected those works which most resembled prayer in form.

We have borrowed not only the number and content of works from the Psalter, but also their organization according to their use in Church as well. Thus we have 150 works divided into twenty sections as in the Psalter, which has twenty kathismas, and every section has three parts, sections termed “stases”, just as every kathisma is divided in three. At the beginning of almost every section there is a work on dogma, and every section closes with moral teachings: “Life’s lessons”.

We have attempted to select prayers of which each has unique content. The attentive reader will readily recognize this in spite of all of the apparent similarities in their form as prayers. But even those who find the prayers monotonous should not find this boring reading, just as people who love to pray do not find it boring to repeat “Lord, have mercy” or “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner” countless times.

In presenting this Psalter it is our sincere wish that everyone who opens it may find in it something for which his spirit yearns, be it instruction or contrition, inspiration or solace.

May the Lord grant this to all of us through the prayers of our Holy Father Ephraim the Syrian.