St Ephrem the Syrian

A deacon who refused all higher office, Ephrem served the church of Nisibis on the Persian frontier until the city was ceded to Persia in 363, then settled in Edessa, teaching, writing, and singing. He is the greatest poet of the early Church: hundreds of his hymns survive — on faith, on Paradise, on the Nativity — teaching theology through paradox and image rather than argument, and he trained choirs of women to sing them, putting doctrine on the lips of the whole congregation. His metrical homilies and biblical commentaries earned him the title 'Harp of the Holy Spirit,' and his influence flowed into Greek, where many works circulated under his name (not all authentically his). The Lenten prayer 'O Lord and Master of my life' is attributed to him. In his last year, during famine and plague in Edessa, he organized relief for the starving and died serving the sick.