St. Ephrem & St. Augustine

St Ephrem lived just a little before St. Augustine. Augustine was born in 354 AD and St Ephrem died in 393 AD.

Consider the contrast between each one’s effort at describing God.

St. Ephrem, from TSF45 (Teaching-Songs on Faith)

Greatness would be small, were the Great contained;
Fatherhood a fraud, were He barren, too;
Isness impotent, could He not create.
He is whole in all respects:
bearing with no pain; making with no work;
dwelling in no space; wealthy with no gold.

Space does not exist great enough to enclose
Him, nor intellect sharp enough to probe.
Great in Isness, He; great in Fatherhood.
Space and mind accept defeat.
As there is no space equal to his Being,
so there is no mind equal to that Birth.

How He made a thing, when there was no thing,
intellect cannot fathom, but it's true.
How to demonstrate that it can be done?
Logic has no space for this.
Give your mind repose! Say: 'This is the way
I, by Faith, have stormed sharp Inquiry's hill.'

St. Augustine , from The Confessions:

What then is my God, what but the Lord God?
For Who is Lord but the Lord, or who is God but our God?
O You, the greatest and the best, mightiest, almighty,
most merciful and most just,
utterly hidden and utterly present,
most beautiful and most strong,
abiding yet mysterious,
suffering no change and changing all things:
never new, never old, making all things new,
bringing age upon the proud and they know it not;
ever in action, ever at rest,
gathering all things to Yourself and needing none;
sustaining and fulfilling and protecting,
creating and norishing and making perfect;
ever seeking though lacking nothing.
You love without subjection to passion,
You are jealous but not with fear,
You can know repentance but not sorrow,
be angry yet unperturbed by anger.
You can change the works You have made
but Your mind stands changeless.
You find and receive back what You have never lost;
are never in need but rejoice in Your gains,
are not greedy but exact interest manifold.
Men pay You more than is of obligation to win return from You,
yet who has anything that is not already Yours?
You owe nothing yet You pay as if in debt to Your creature,
forget what is owed to You yet do not lose thereby.
And with all this, what have I said,
my God, my Life and my sacred Delight?