The primary vocation of St. Ephrem was to be a teacher. Immediately after his conversion to Christianity at the age of 18 he placed himself under the tutelage of the local bishop, St. James of Nisibis, a city in Upper Mesopotamia. St. James accepted Ephrem as a pupil into his household and gave him an excellent education in Biblical studies.

The last, and most fruitful, decade of Ephrem's life was passed in Edessa, the modern Urfa, a city which not only enjoyed great material prosperity thanks to its thriving armament industry, but one which was also a vital center of Christian asceticism. Ephrem, upon his arrival here as a poor and unknown exile, resolved to follow the example of the apostles by living from the work of his hands. He therefore became an employee at the public baths, and during his free time engaged in public disputes with the infidels, to whom he preached the glories of the Christian faith. One day, not long after his arrival at Edessa, a hermit from the neighboring countryside chanced to overhear one of Ephrem's discourses, and, deeply impressed by his learning and his piety, besought Ephrem to follow him into the desert. Ephrem accordingly established himself in a cave in the hills above the city, where he proceeded to write a series of commentaries on the books of the Old Testament. These he intended to publish anonymously upon their completion, but his manuscript was stolen from him and circulated about the city. Before long, great crowds of admirers began to come out in search of Ephrem. His first impulse was to flee, but as he prepared to depart, an angel admonished him not to hide his light under a bushel. Ephrem, therefore, consented to return to the city, and quickly became head of the Schola Persarum, an episcopal school for Chistian refugees similar to that which he had conducted at Nisibis.

During the last year of his life, St. Ephrem labored in the city of Edessa to alleviate the effects of a severe famine. He was charged with the distribution of alms to the poor and with the organization of medical and other assistance to those in need. After the spring harvests had been gathered in, St. Ephrem considered his mission accomplished and retired for the last time to his cave outside the city. There he died, aged about 70, in June 373, the same year that winessed the passing of St. Athanasius.

St. Ephrem's esteem for simple, childlike faith is nowhere better illustrated than in his sequence of seven hymns on the Pearl. The Syrian term for "word" being the same as that which means "pearl," these poems celebrate Christ, the Eternal Word of God, as well as the virtue of faith, the "pearl of great price." In its silent discourse, the Pearl instructs St. Ephrem on the limitations of the human intellect. "I am the daughter of the immense sea," it declares; "I bear, enclosed in my bosom, a treasure, - the treasure of the secrets of the Ocean which engendered me. As for you, abide in the waters which it was given you to abide in; respect your Lord; do not try to sound the Ocean of the Godhead." The Pearl, in its mysterious and immaculate origin, represents the double generation of Christ in the bosom of the Father and in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In contemplating the Pearl, the poet is enlightened concerning numerous other mysteries of faith; "The brilliance of the Pearl and its unequalled splendor represented for me the superior nature (of the Son of God), whose brightness is not veiled by any shadow, and whose peace is troubled by no war. Its marvelous whiteness was also for me a symbol of the most pure body of the Lord; its nature, one and indivisible, testified that truth, likewise, is one. Yes, I beheld in it the image of the Church..."

St.Ephrem, deeply appreciative of the honor conferred upon human flesh by the Incarnation, makes no secret of his impatience with those who seek to undermine the doctrine of the hypostatic union. In language similar to that which St. Cyril of Alexandria was to use against the Nestorians in the following century, he insists on the intimate marriage of the human and divine natures in the Person of Jesus. "Praiseworthy and wise is He Who united and mixed the divinity and the humanity. The two natures, one from on high and the other from below, he mixed as do pharmacists, and became the God-man." "He was one in divinity and humanity without distinction. Believe that our humanity was spiritual in Him Who clothed Himself with a body, and that He is not two but one, from the Father and from Mary. He who divides Him in two will not enjoy Eden with Him." St. Ephrem's choice of words, however, was such as would give comfort to the Monophysites, who in a later generation attempted to deny the distinctness of the human and divine natures in Christ. "That one," writes St. Ephrem, "who was present in these circumstances was not one but rather two. There was not present only the humble nature, nor only the sublime, but two were the natures, of which one was mixed with the other, the sublime with the inferior. Therefore these two natures expressed their own thoughts, so that by the thoughts of two, men might perceive that they were two."

Because of his loving comprehension of the mystery of the Incarnation, St. Ephrem was prompt in recognizing the unique honor which pertains to Mary as the Mother of God. With great tenderness and delicacy he dramatized, in dialogues which foreshadow the mystery plays of the middle ages, the beautiful role played by Our Lady in the joyous events at Bethlehem and later at the foot of the Cross on Calvary. Observe with what gracious humility, in one of these dramas, Mary addresses the Magi who have come from the East to adore the Son of God: "My son has no armies," she says, "not legions, nor cohorts. He lies there in his mother's poverty, and you call him King!" To which the Magi reply, with a magnificent profession of faith, "The armies of your son are on high. His knights move about the heavens as stars of fire."