Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem's Hymns on Faith 9780520972599

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Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia

CHRISTIAN IT Y IN L ATE ANTIQUIT Y THE OFFICIAL B O OK SERIES OF THE NORT H A MER ICA N PATRISTICS SO CIET Y Editor: Christopher A. Beeley, Duke University Associate Editors: David Brakke, Ohio State University Robin Darling Young, e Catholic University of America International Advisory Board: Lewis Ayres, Durham University • John Behr, St Vladimir’s Orthodox eological Seminary, New York • Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Hebrew University of Jerusalem • Marie-Odile Boulnois, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris • Kimberly D. Bowes, University of Pennsylvania and the American Academy in Rome • Virginia Burrus, Syracuse University • Stephen Davis, Yale University • Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, University of California Santa Barbara • Mark Edwards, University of Oxford • Susanna Elm, University of California Berkeley • omas Graumann, Cambridge University • Sidney H. Griffith, Catholic University of America • David G. Hunter, University of Kentucky • Andrew S. Jacobs, Scripps College • Robin M. Jensen, University of Notre Dame • AnneMarie Luijendijk, Princeton University • Christoph Markschies, HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin • Andrew B. McGowan, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale • Claudia Rapp, Universität Wien • Samuel Rubenson, Lunds Universitet • Rita Lizzi Testa, Università degli Studi di Perugia . Incorruptible Bodies: Christology, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity, by Yonatan Moss . Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity, by Andrew S. Jacobs . Melania: Early Christianity through the Life of One Family, edited by Catherine M. Chin and Caroline T. Schroeder . e Body and Desire: Gregory of Nyssa’s Ascetical eology, by Raphael A. Cadenhead . Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith, by Jeffrey Wickes . Self-Portrait in ree Colors: Gregory of Nazianzus’s Epistolary Autobiography, by Bradley K. Storin . Gregory of Nazianzus’s Letter Collection: e Complete Translation, translated by Bradley K. Storin

Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith

Jeffrey Wickes

UNIVERSIT Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are sup‑ ported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.   University of California Press Oakland, California ©  by Jeffrey Wickes   Names: Wickes, Jeffrey omas, author. Title: Bible and poetry in late antique Mesopotamia : Ephrem’s Hymns on faith / Jeffrey Wickes. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identi ers: LCCN  (print) | LCCN  (ebook) | ISBN   | ISBN  (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Ephraem, Syrus, Saint, –. Hymni de de. | Hymns, Syri‑ ac—History and criticism. | Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—History— Early church, ca. –. Classi cation: LCC BR.E (ebook) | LCC BR.E W  (print) | DDC /.—dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/   Manufactured in the United States of America                       Portions of this book were previously published in ©  Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Trustees for Harvard University. Originally published in Dumbarton Oaks Papers , edited by Margaret Mullett. Portions of this book were previously published in “e Poetics of Self-Presen‑ tation in Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on Faith ,” in Syriac Encounters: Papers presented at the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, , edited by Maria Doer er, Emanuel Fiano, and Kyle Smith (Leuven: Peeters, ), –. Copyright © Johns Hopkins University Press. is article was rst published in Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): –. Reprinted with per‑ mission by Johns Hopkins University Press.

In Memory of Elsie Marjorie Tompkins

 

Abbreviations Acknowledgments Note to the Reader Introduction

ix xi xiii 

 .          .

Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith in Context



.

Investigation



  .               .

Bible, Polemics, and Language



.

e Poet’s “I”



.

Audience and the Vision of the Text



.

A Divine Son



Conclusion



Notes Bibliography Index of Bible References General Index

   



WORKS OF EPHREM

Comm. Dia. Comm. Gen. MAH MAJ MAQ MChurch MCruc MEpi MF MFast MNat MNis MPar MPas MRes MUnlB MVir SF

Commentary on the Diatessaron Commentary on Genesis Madrashe Against Heresies Madrashe Against Julian Madrashe on Abraham Qidunaya Madrashe on the Church Madrashe on the Cruci xion Madrashe on Epiphany Madrashe on Faith Madrashe on the Fast Madrashe on Nativity Madrashe on Nisibis Madrashe on Paradise Madrashe on Pascha Madrashe on the Resurrection Madrashe on Unleavened Bread Madrashe on Virginity Memre on Faith LEXICA AND ENCYC OPLEDIAS

DJBA

Michael Sokoloff. A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods. Baltimore and London: e Johns Hopkins University Press, . ix

x



GEDSH

LS

Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Edited by S. P. Brock, A. M. Butts, G. A. Kiraz, and L. Van Rompay. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, . Michael Sokoloff. A Syriac Lexicon: A Translation from the Latin, Correction, Expansion, and Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns and Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, .

  

It gives me great pleasure to thank here the many people who have helped bring this book into being. is book began as a dissertation at the University of Notre Dame. I would like to thank my director, Joseph Amar, and my two readers, Robin Darling Young and Tzvi Novick, for their generous direction and feedback throughout. e two anonymous readers for the University of California Press took the man‑ uscript seriously enough to offer substantial advice. eir criticisms have made it a far better book. Likewise, the staff at University of California Press—Eric Schmidt, Archna Patel, and Christopher Beeley—were gracious and helpful throughout the process. A number of friends, colleagues, and students have read portions of the man‑ uscript. At different stages of its development, omas Arentzen, Blake Hartung, Jacob Prahlow, and Anna Williams read the entire manuscript. Amy Alexander, Amanda Berg, Laura Locke Estes, Sarah Gador-Whyte, Scott Johnson, Yvonne Ang‑ ieri Klein, and Becky Walker read portions of the manuscript. ey all are to thank for the version it became. All errors remain my own. e Saint Louis University Department of eological Studies has been a nour‑ ishing environment in which to complete this work. I thank all my colleagues and students, especially those who read portions of this book: Peter Martens, James Red eld, Daniel Smith, and Matthew iessen (now at McMaster University). I was fortunate enough to deliver portions of this book at Brigham Young Uni‑ versity, Brown University, the Saints Cyril and Methodius Institute of Postgraduate Studies of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the University of Waterloo. e conversa‑ tions in each of these places helped me clarify my thoughts signi cantly. I thank Su‑ san Harvey, Kristian Heal, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, and Andrew Faulkner for their kind invitations to speak at these institutions. e library staff at Pius XII Memorial Library, Saint Louis University, tracked down books and articles for me and were always generous with time and advice. I xi

xii

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would especially like to thank Anthony Asberry, Ron Crown, Sergio Gonzales, Shawnee Magparangalan, and Amy Prosser. At various stages this work has been supported by fellowships from the Dumbar‑ ton Oaks Research Library and Collection, the Dolores Zorhab Liebmann Fund, and the Mellon Faculty Development grant. Portions of this book appeared in different forms in “e Poetics of Self-Presen‑ tation in Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on Faith ,” in Syriac Encounters: Papers pre‑ sented at the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, , edited by Maria Doer‑ er, Emanuel Fiano, and Kyle Smith, (Leuven: Peeters, ), –; “Mapping the Literary Landscape of Ephrem’s eology of Divine Names,” Dumbarton Oaks Pa‑ pers  (): –; and “Between Liturgy and School: Reassessing the Performa‑ tive Context of Ephrem’s Madrashe,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (Spring ): –. I am grateful to the publishers for allowing me to reproduce some of that material in these pages. The image on the cover of this book comes from a sixteenth-century manuscript currently in the Chaldean Cathedral in Mardin, Turkey. e image contains a dia‑ gram that the manuscript’s scribe has placed at the front of the book. Part of the dia‑ gram—the part written in a large red script—voices a simple scribal prayer, while the rest in a coded fashion praises the Lord whom the scribe has asked to inspire his work. e scribe’s gural representation of his prayer suggested to me another way of envisioning Ephrem’s verbal recasting of Bible, self, audience, and God. I am grateful to the Chaldean Cathedral, Mardin, Turkey, and the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, Saint John’s University, Minnesota, for the use of this image. My wife and daughters deserve more of my gratitude than I could ever articulate in this space. eir kindness and curiosity has inspired me to invest in life again and again. I hope that this book in some degree communicates the mercy and joy that they have communicated to me over the years. From a certain perspective, this book began in the summer of , a crucial time in my life, in which, among other things, I rst read Ephrem and decided to switch my undergraduate major from Music Composition to Religious Studies. I lived that summer in Mobile, Alabama, in the home of my maternal grandmother, Elsie Marjorie Tompkins. Her love, care, and support have been one of the great blessings of my life. She died in April , just before I began graduate studies. It is to her that I dedicate this book. I trust that she has found the rest that for the most part eluded her on this side of things.

   

is book represents a revised version of my doctoral dissertation. As I wrote that dissertation, I also prepared my own translation of the Hymns on Faith (madrashe d-‘al haymānûtâ), a translation that I published before revising this book. Aside from the translation, my goal in that volume was to clarify the hymns in a general way and to situate them in a speci c Trinitarian context. My goal here is to make an argument about how the Bible functioned in Ephrem’s hymns. I thus do not con‑ ceive of this volume as a companion to that one, but I do take for granted, as well as expand, some of the arguments that I made there. For example, in this book I nei‑ ther rehearse Ephrem’s life in detail nor attempt to prove the Trinitarian background to the Hymns on Faith, for that information is available in the translation volume. But I do re ect on how the Trinitarian context shaped these hymns and how these hymns operated in the life of Ephrem’s community. I have also occasionally altered the translations I offered in that volume when doing so helps to clarify a particular reading I offer here or corrects a misreading I made there. I note these changes when I make them. Finally, a note on terminology and transliteration. e Syriac term that I trans‑ late as “hymn” is madrasha (pl., madrashe). e madrasha is a Syriac genre that con‑ sists in sung metered stanzas that are accompanied by musical refrains. In modern scholarship, madrasha usually gets translated as “hymn,” because the madrashe were songs used in religious settings. Yet, as scholars have noted, “hymn,” especially in a classical context, can suggest a work that is narrowly focused on doxology. However, the madrashe—especially Ephrem’s madrashe—tend to be more pedagog‑ ically focused than classical Greek hymns. Moreover, there is a value in retaining the Syriac term madrasha so that we can avoid too easily reading our own literary categories into a Syriac literary context. For these reasons, and in spite of the book’s title, my default throughout this book is to use the Syriac term madrasha, both for the Madrashe on Faith, as well as for Ephrem’s other madrashe collections. I do also xiii

xiv

   

use “hymn,” “poem,” and “song,” terms that accurately represent certain crucial as‑ pects of the madrashe (namely, that they were sung, metered, and used in settings of religious devotion). As regards transliteration, I consistently use madrashe and memre without dia‑ critics. For all other words I use diacritics, following the same basic system I indicat‑ ed in my translation volume.

Introduction

This book examines a collection of Syriac poetry—the Madrashe on Faith (madrashe d-‘al haymānûtâ)—that emerged in response to the controversies sur‑ rounding the Council of Nicaea ( ..). It examines how the author of these poems, Ephrem the Syrian, used the Bible to build a literary world. I argue that the meanings Ephrem drew from the Bible were irrevocably entangled with the poetic self he presented, the audience for whom he presented them, and the di‑ vine Christ about whom he sang. Rather than using this body of poetry to uncov‑ er what Ephrem thought the Bible meant and thus trace a diachronic history of exegesis, I use the poems’ biblical allusions as a vantage point from which to sur‑ vey a late antique literary imagination at work. Though this book proceeds as a close reading of a single collection of poetry, it aims to bring Ephrem into broad‑ er conversations about the relationship between exegesis and literature in the world of late antiquity. Ephrem the Syrian was born in the East Roman city of Nisibis sometime in the rst decade of the fourth century and died in Edessa in . Today his birthplace stands on the border of Turkey and Syria, its inhabitants speakers of Arabic and, in some cases, modern dialects of Aramaic. In the days of Ephrem’s birth, it stood on the border of Rome and Persia, and its inhabitants spoke Syriac. Ephrem was a vo‑ luminous author, but we do not know exactly where or how he was educated. Be‑ sides the Bible, we do not know what he read. Even with the Bible, we do not know precisely how he learned to read it. In Syriac literature prior to Ephrem, there is nothing quite like the corpus he would produce. This corpus consists of more than four hundred madrashe ex‑ hibiting forty-five different metrical patterns. Ephrem also wrote metrical homi‑ lies (memre)—on Faith, on Nicomedia, on Reproof—and three extant biblical commentaries (tûrgāmê and pûššāqê, on Genesis, Exodus, and the Diatessaron). But it is the hymns—the madrashe—for which he has come to be 





known. We know little about where he learned to write them, but we do know this: they bear a close relationship to the Bible. They quote it, allude to it, imi‑ tate it, and recycle it. Within these hymns, Ephrem reflected on his own world through the lens of the Bible. His was a world immersed in religious diversity and conflict. In his works, Ephrem debated the ideas of “Manichees,” “Marcionites,” “Daysanites,” and “Jews.” Yet the ideas that most attracted his attention were those related to the subordinationist Christologies that emerged after the Council of Nicaea. At the time of that council, Ephrem was about twenty years old, living in Nisibis, rough‑ ly  miles southeast of Nicaea. His bishop, Jacob, attended the council and, we can only assume, brought its ideas back with him to the northern Mesopotamian plateau. We do not know what Ephrem or his Syriac Christian neighbors made of these ideas in the immediate aftermath of Nicaea. At least according to our surviving evidence, neither he nor anyone else commented upon them until about twenty-five years later. It was not until the s, when Ephrem began to de‑ liver his Madrashe and Memre on Faith, that a Syriac response to these controver‑ sies came into full view. This book focuses on the Madrashe on Faith, which Ephrem and his community sang in response to the theological controversies that emerged in the wake of Nicaea. Rather than examining these poems to reconstruct Ephrem’s Trinitarian theology or to trace the reception of Nicaea among Syriac-speaking Christians, I take the occasion of the Council of Nicaea and the particular controversies that fol‑ lowed in its wake as providing a context through which we can examine the inner workings of this particular set of late antique poems. Clearly, exegesis stood at the center of the Trinitarian debates. Yet, I argue that, for the most part, Ephrem’s in‑ terest lies not with the interpretation of particular verses but with the imaginative horizons within which he and his audience interpreted any biblical texts at all. It is the task of the madrashe to establish these horizons. THE BIBLE AND THE MADR ASHE

Trying to articulate the relationship between exegesis and the genre of Ephrem’s madrasha is not a simple task, and the madrasha’s formal relationship to the Bible— the question of whether the madrasha is at its heart an exegetical genre—is not easy to determine. e Syriac term madrasha (plural, madrashe) derives from the verb draš. In Babylonian Aramaic, this verb carries the primary meaning “to interpret” or, more precisely, “to interpret scripture.” Likewise, an interpreter of the Bible is called a daršan, and an exegetical school, a bêt madrāšâ—a house in which the Bible is studied. In Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the term midrash refers speci cally to an exegetical homily. Yet in Syriac, the term draš is less obviously connected to ex‑ egesis on a lexical level. In its most basic sense, draš means “to tread down,” as in “to clear a place.” On a secondary level, it acquires the meaning of “to dispute,” speci ‑ cally, in the case of Ephrem, to dispute false teachings. Indeed, the late antique ac‑ counts of the origins of Ephrem’s madrashe focus on this element of disputation





rather than exegesis. So, on a purely lexical level, the Syriac draš does not carry overt exegetical implications. Nevertheless, within Ephrem’s madrashe, biblical ma‑ terial appears on almost every page. If the goal of the madrasha is to dispute con‑ tested teachings, the Bible forms the primary tool through which the genre carries out this activity. Understanding Ephrem’s madrasha as a genre demands an assess‑ ment of how it draws upon biblical material; the madrasha’s interaction with the Bible forms an essential component of its poetics. Scholarship on the madrasha as a genre has tended to focus on its formal charac‑ teristics and historical origins. But the madrasha’s relationship to the Bible is as crucial as these formal characteristics. Ephrem’s madrashe addressed a wide variety of themes—fasting, paradise and the aerlife, virginity, Christmas, Holy Week, and Easter. roughout these works, the Bible provided the basic narrative through which Ephrem presented these themes, places, and events. In a cycle such as the Madrashe Against Julian, which sought to nd meaning in the brief reign of Julian “the Apostate” (d. ), the Bible provided the means by which Ephrem made sense of and represented these events. As Sidney Griffith has argued: [T]here is the dominant idea, taken for granted by [Ephrem], that one can only understand the phenomenon of Julian the Apostate by reference to the Christian Bible. . . . For it was [Ephrem’s] constant practice to turn to the scriptures in search of the paradigms which would allow him, through typology and prophecy, to put an acceptable Christian construction upon the events of his own time.

The process Griffith identi es here—understanding historical phenomena through the Bible’s narratives—can be applied to most of the themes that Ephrem addresses in his madrashe. Whatever he is speaking about, Ephrem uses the Bible as a tool to aid his processing and presentation of the world that he and his audience occupy. Within the Madrashe on Faith, that world, as perceived by Ephrem and presented to his audience, was one caught up in the theological and political issues spurred by the Council of Nicaea. As Griffith noted, Ephrem connected the Bible and the world through typology. But typology here should not be understood in terms of a clearly de‑ ned, explicitly Christological, and solely textual relationship between type and anti-type. Ephrem has a famously rich vocabulary for expressing the relationship of likeness between different things—rāzâ (“secret,” “mystery,” or “symbol”), ṭûpsâ (“type”), dmûtâ (“image”), ṣûrtâ (“type, depiction, form”), remzâ (“gesture,” “sign”), nîšâ (“sign,” but also “guiding principle”), and ṭab‘â (“impress”). ough this vo‑ cabulary is extensive, Ephrem does not use it systematically. In this book, following Ephrem’s own example, I use a range of terms and metaphors to signify the symbol‑ ic character he sees present in the Bible and the world. At the same time, the term “typology,” or “ guration,” conveys something especially true of Ephrem’s represen‑ tation of the Bible and the world, even if it is not a term Ephrem privileges over any other. In classical Greek, typos, like the Latin gura, is an impress—one thing that has been pressed with another so as to assume its shape, while remaining a distinct thing. is better conveys the way Ephrem uses the Bible in his poems—pressing

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biblical images onto the stuff of his world and pressing the stuff of his world back onto the Bible. LITER ARY CREATION AND PERFORMANC E

The goal of this book is to think through the madrasha’s use of the Bible in terms of literary creation and performance. Rather than viewing the Bible as a stable entity from which Ephrem drew meaning, I aim to observe the Bible as it came into being through Ephrem’s performance of it in the madrasha. Likewise, I aim to observe the madrasha’s poetic self and audience as they came into being in dialogue with the literary world of the Bible. But rst I would like to address how I understand “literary creation” and “performance.” The idea of a literarily productive reading—one that seeks to create new literary works rather than simply draw out the meaning of older ones—is helpfully articu‑ lated by Robert Alter. In Canon and Creativity, a study of the use of the Bible in three modern authors, Alter shows how the Bible, both as a series of texts and as a singular symbolic entity, functions for postbiblical authors as “a value-laden, imagi‑ natively energizing body of texts,” which helps to “make possible the novels and po‑ ems they write.” e goal, Alter suggests, is neither to exegete the Bible nor even, in many cases, engage with it on an overt level. Rather, as a body of literature that hums in the background of an author’s own literary corpus, it enables the author to make particular meanings and shape the semantic horizons of their own literary worlds. As an example of this phenomenon, Alter points to the biblical echoes at work in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! Its title alludes to a narrative from  Samuel –, which tells of the rebellion of David’s son Absalom against his father. More generally, the story represents the tension of sons toward fathers, the enduring com‑ passion of a father for his son, and the gradual diminishment of a lineage. Beyond the title, Faulkner makes no obvious allusion to the biblical narrative, but the novel’s relationship to the Bible is signaled through Faulkner’s use of a series of terms de‑ rived from the King James Bible that are out of sync with his primarily Greco-Lati‑ nate lexicon. e title, coupled with the Jacobean language, subtly signals Faulkn‑ er’s relationship to the King James Bible and guides readers to see the haunting tale of omas Sutpen through the broader lens of the rise and fall of David, and the curse on his lineage. Using these biblical resonances, Faulkner casts his novel as an epic of the tragedy of history in the American South. Faulkner’s use of the King James Bible in the genre of the novel can help us think through Ephrem’s poetic use of the Syriac Bible. Rather than speaking in terms of in uence or exegesis, Alter describes the relationship between the Bible and the novel as one of “imaginative texture.” e Bible provides Faulkner with a way to reimagine historical reality and, at the same time, invests his retelling of that reality with meanings that transcend historical particularity. If it is the case that the Bible provided Faulkner with an imaginative texture to shape his literary world, this is even more the case with Ephrem’s poetry. Ephrem depicts the Bible as an inspired





document, divinely dictated to humans and revelatory of divinity. Yet, this does not mean he nds in the Bible “a timeless inscription of xed meanings.” Ephrem presents the Bible as a exible and dynamic collection of texts that always strives to convey a reality that is ultimately beyond language. Ephrem exploits this exibility, expanding its meaning in one direction while narrowing it in another. e Bible provides an “energizing body of texts” from which Ephrem takes meanings and vo‑ cabulary, which, in turn, trigger new insights into the situations represented in his poems. Alter emphasizes the way that literary creation emerges from an engagement with the literature of the past, and he helps us think about how to understand exege‑ sis in terms of literary construction. Another way to look at this phenomenon, and one which inches us closer to Ephrem’s own authorial context, is from the perspec‑ tive of “performativity.” e eld of performance studies has grown dramatically over the last thirty years, and the term “performance” can now signify a whole host of different concepts. In this book, when I speak of Ephrem’s relationship to the Bible in terms of performance, I intend to convey two basic ideas. First, Ephrem is always bringing the realities of which he speaks—the Bible, his authorial self, an au‑ dience, and a Nicene Christ—into being through speaking about them. ese are not realities that he simply nds “in the world,” but things that he constructs through presenting them in his madrashe. Second, this act of “bringing into being” happened in a context that was quite lit‑ erally performative—Ephrem’s songs were sung before and with an audience. In the following chapter, I argue for the particularities of the performative context in which Ephrem’s madrashe arose, a context that was not always liturgical but also connected to smaller, ascetic study circles. Here, I want to emphasize the impor‑ tance of this performative context by drawing on the ideas of ritual theorist Cather‑ ine Bell. Bell argues that when texts are performed, whether theatrically or ritually, the texts are “framed” to indicate their distinction from the realm of routine life. is “framing” signi es itself to the audience through a range of acts that operate on “multiple sensory levels, usually involving high visual imagery, dramatic sounds, and sometimes even tactile, olfactory, and gustatory stimulation.” In the case of Ephrem’s madrashe, certain of these framing techniques are lost to us, but the madrashe still betray their presence. All the madrashe that I study in this book bear melodies, showing that they were sung. ey are all metered and divided into stan‑ zaic form, clearly setting them apart from everyday speech. ey each have refrains, showing that the audience participated in their performance. e poet also inter‑ acted with his audience in strong, emotional language. Occasionally, the madrashe reference ritual acts such as partaking of the Eucharist and baptism, and were likely accompanied by the uses of water, bread, and wine. Bell suggests that by distancing a performed text from the everyday world, that text could then represent the world to its audience in ways that both con rmed their expectations of the world but also transformed it. From this perspective, to say that Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith used the Bible to bring a literary world into being is simply to say that Ephrem’s madrashe acted per‑





formatively. Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith took the stuff of different worlds—of the Bible, on the one hand, and of a fractured fourth-century post-Nicene world, on the other hand—and performed an imaginative world in which the two spoke to one another in coherent, meaningful ways. e performative world of the Madrashe on Faith was one in which the Bible found its meaning, particularly in dialogue with Ephrem’s own audience and community. In turn, that audience and community found their meaning in dialogue with the madrashe. THE PL AN OF THIS B O OK

This book explores the relationship between the Bible and Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith, and is divided into two parts. In part one, I lay the groundwork for the chap‑ ters that follow by establishing the broad late antique context within which the Madrashe on Faith emerged. In part two, I examine the way Ephrem constructed a symbolic world in the madrashe, out of the Bible. Chapter  situates Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith within its late antique context. I address the collection itself, its relationship to Greco-Roman culture broadly, and the performative context it manifests. Chapter  traces the idea that binds the con‑ tent of the Madrashe on Faith, namely, the poems’ repeated condemnation of “in‑ vestigation.” is chapter further places Ephrem in his late antique context by show‑ ing how his understanding of “investigation” re ected debates occurring elsewhere in the fourth-century Mediterranean. At the same time, by connecting Ephrem’s re‑ ception of late antique theological ideas to his reading of the biblical text, this chap‑ ter also begins to articulate Ephrem’s biblical poetics. Chapter  examines how Ephrem conceived of the Bible in view of his poetic use of it. As I argue throughout the book, Ephrem used the Bible to shape the world that he and his audience occupied. But he also presented the Bible in a way that excluded his opponents’ reading of it and made his own creative use imitative of the Bible’s own inner workings. is chapter connects Ephrem’s biblical poetics to one of the primary arenas of modern scholarly treatment of him, namely, his symbolic theolo‑ gy. But here I take his well-known love of symbols and connect this to his creative use of the Bible. In his poems, by developing a polemic against the biblical practices of his opponents, on the one hand, and a theory of signs that destabilized the Bible’s apparent meaning, on the other, Ephrem represented the Bible as a book always me‑ diated through a particular community and set of reading practices. Chapters , , and  detail distinct ways in which Ephrem used the Bible to shape himself and his world. In Chapter , I examine Ephrem’s construction of a poetic self through the words and images of the Bible. By using the biblical metaphor of the lyre, tracing a range of biblically based economic vocabulary, and presenting the oc‑ casion of his poetry through the lens of the wedding at Cana, Ephrem defended his role as a public theological speaker. He presented himself as reticent in his speech and as an instrument of the divine—an instrument anchored in the biblical text. At the same time, he presented his poetic self through the lens of sinful or marginal biblical characters to cra a rhetoric of humility.





Chapter  articulates the way Ephrem connected his audience and the characters of the Bible in the single world of the madrasha. is mimesis between audience and Bible emerged primarily in a series of biblical pastiches, in which Ephrem wove together a range of biblical terms around a single rhetorical argument. Chapter  analyzes Ephrem’s rewriting of Gospel narratives to depict Christ as unambiguously divine. By focusing on the theophanic scenes of the New Testament, Ephrem posit‑ ed the name “Son” as revelatory of Christ’s divine status. By weaving together New Testament accounts of Christ’s miracles and his condescension, Ephrem presented them as the single acts of the one divine Son.



Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith in Context

is book studies the way that the poems collected in the Madrashe on Faith use the Bible to represent the poet’s world. e integrity of the literary body that stands at the heart of this book, however, deserves further discussion, as does the context of these poems within the late antique world. In this chapter, I rst address questions of literary unity and dating related to the Madrashe on Faith. I then engage the question of Ephrem’s relationship to the Greco-Roman world. Finally, I piece to‑ gether a plausible performative context for these poems, arguing that the Madrashe on Faith emerged primarily not in liturgical settings but in those of study. DATING THE MADR ASHE ON FAITH

e Madrashe on Faith is a collection of eighty-seven poems, drawing on thirteen different melodies and meters. It is a massive collection—the largest ascribed to Ephrem by far. It rst appears as a unit, along with eleven others, in manuscripts dating to the h and early sixth centuries. Given that Ephrem died in , this puts more than a century between his death and the manuscripts that contain the Madrashe on Faith. As Ephrem composed no extant prologues to accompany any of his individual madrashe or the larger collections, it is not clear how those of the h and sixth centuries relate to the poems that Ephrem composed and delivered in the fourth century. He could have edited them himself or together with his disciples, or instructed his disciples on how to collect his poetry aer his death. His disciples could also have edited the poems independently, or the process could have devel‑ oped organically in the context of memorization, repeated liturgical use, and addi‑ tion. All these options, as well as various combinations of them, are possible. In spite of these uncertainties of transmission, the Madrashe on Faith, unlike many of the other h- and sixth-century madrashe cycles, represents a fairly clear‑ ly uni ed collection from start to nish. e poems display a consistent rhetorical 



’     

argument and develop a precise lexicon with which to articulate it. Ephrem may not have compiled this material himself and, as Blake Hartung has rightly warned, we must be careful not to envision the Madrashe on Faith (or any other of the col‑ lections) as akin to singular treatises composed by the poet himself. At the same time, there is no reason to assume that Ephrem did not compose them in response to a consistent set of issues. As we have already stated and will develop further in the following chapter, the poems in the Madrashe on Faith bespeak the particular concerns of the Trinitarian controversies of the mid-to-late fourth century. Beyond that loose chronological identi cation, however, it is difficult to date them precisely given the collection’s compilational character. If, as I argue in the following chapter, the collection as a whole bears the in uence of Aetius and Eunomius, then a date in the s seems most likely. is is what Edmund Beck initially proposed, and I see no reason to challenge it on the whole. Yet, given the complexities of transmission, coupled with Ephrem’s tendency to refer to historical events in extremely cryptic ways, it is entirely possible that material dating to before  survives in the collec‑ tion. Within the late antique world, the Madrashe on Faith can be contextualized in two broad ways. First, the poems suggest Ephrem’s general awareness of a GrecoRoman cultural context that spanned the late antique world. Second, they suggest that they arose and developed in contexts of study and theological discussion. e latter context further connects them to other pedagogical and ascetic movements in the late antique world. EPHREM’S GREC O-ROMAN C ONTEXT

Ephrem lived in two cities during his life, both within the broader colonia of the Ro‑ man Empire called Osrhoene. e Aramaic culture of the Eastern Roman Empire in which he lived and died was marked by the in uence of Greek language, litera‑ ture, and art. ough, to the best of our knowledge, Ephrem wrote exclusively in Syriac, he was surrounded by this Greco-Roman culture. In this book, I under‑ stand Ephrem to have been participating in a broader late antique Mediterranean culture, which, as it relates to Ephrem, can be identi ed as “Greco-Syriac.” On the one hand, this position can be taken for granted, as the earliest Syriac literary cul‑ ture—the literary culture that preceded Ephrem’s own literary output—clearly was marked by a de nite connection to that of the Greeks. As we will show below, Ephrem re ected this culture in certain obvious ways. More speculatively, we would expect that Ephrem—as an educated and proli c author, as well as the deacon for a bishop in a prominent Mesopotamian town—would have known at least some Greek language. Yet on the other hand, some scholars read Ephrem away from this Greco-Roman context. And, indeed, we must admit that Ephrem sits strangely with respect to Greek culture. Unlike the platonically tinged dialogue of the Book of the Laws of the Countries, or the romantic and Greco-novelistic character of the Acts of omas, Ephrem’s madrashe do not have any obvious precedents in Greek literature. In ad‑

’     



dition, none of his madrashe exist in Greek translation at all, much less suggest the kind of immediate Greco-Syriac translation activity in the Odes of Solomon and Acts of omas. On the level of language, Aaron Butts has recently shown that the Syri‑ ac lexicon of Ephrem’s Prose Refutations—arguably his work most indebted to Greek literature—bears less evidence of interaction with the Greek language than authors writing before him. Further, Yifat Monnickendam, in the course of arguing for Ephrem’s relationship to Greco-Latin exegetical traditions, concludes that if Ephrem did know any Greek, he did not know it well. This evidence suggests that Ephrem did not know Greek in any substantial way. Some scholars have combined this fact with certain statements in Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith to suggest that its author was, in fact, decidedly opposed to Greek culture. The source for this interpretation derives from a few lines, the most unambiguous of which reads, “Blessed is the one who has not tasted the bile of the wisdom of the Greeks.” Coupled with Ephrem’s apparent ignorance of the language, this condem‑ nation of so-called Greek wisdom may indeed suggest an active dislike of “Greek” on Ephrem’s part. Yet, as Sebastian Brock himself has noted, the phrase “wisdom of the Greeks” (ḥekmtâ d-yawnāyê) finds an exact parallel in Athanasius, where it polemi‑ cally characterizes pagan thought. A similar characterization appears in Alexander of Alexandria’s correspondence regarding Arius, where he accuses “Arians” of affirm‑ ing “the impious doctrine of the Greeks.” Brock thus suggests that Ephrem’s use of the phrase refers not to “Greek culture and learning as a whole,” but to an overly di‑ alectical style of theology that elsewhere Ephrem associates with Aetius. Certainly this seems to be the case, but this recognition has more immediate consequences for our discussion. Ephrem’s condemnation of the “wisdom of the Greeks” does not re‑ flect a general anxiety toward Greek culture as a whole. Rather, the fact that Ephrem dismisses his opponents’ thought as “Greek” represents a polemical move especially characteristic of contemporary Greek literature . Thus, while evidence suggests that Ephrem did not know the Greek language, we cannot say that he was unaware of ideas that had their origins in Greek literature and culture, or that he was in any way adversarial to Greek language and culture. In fact, if we momentarily move away from the speci c question of the language and style of the madrashe, Ephrem, in fact, appears quite receptive to, and re ective of, ideas that emerged in Greek cultural contexts. Ute Possekel has traced a range of ideas through Ephrem’s corpus that clearly emerged in Stoic, Aristotelian, Platonic, and Pythagorean circles. Monnikendam has argued that even Ephrem’s Comme‑ natry on Genesis, long seen as a work primarily conversant with Judaism, betrays an awareness of exegetical debates that arose among Greek and Latin speakers. More‑ over, as Beck observed as early as the s, and as I will demonstrate throughout this book, Ephrem knew the fourth-century Trinitarian debates quite well. I will ar‑ gue in the next chapter that Ephrem’s emphasis on the unknowability of God re‑ ected theological trends current in Antioch in the s. I have argued elsewhere that between his Memre on Faith and Madrashe on Faith, we can see Ephrem wrestling with core Eunomian ideas and potentially reacting to their development. ese ideas developed among Greek-speaking writers, and so Ephrem’s engagement



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with them represent, ipso facto, an engagement with Greek culture. Ephrem him‑ self appears not to have known Greek, but his engagement with these issues suggests his close interaction with people who did. We can clearly see from the Madrashe Against Julian that he was aware of certain developments in Antioch. Given that our evidence shows the presence of a robust Greco-Syriac literary culture in Edessa, it is likely that participants in this culture transmitted these ideas to Ephrem, and Ephrem responded to them in his own idiomatic Syriac verse. In the cases of certain philosophical, Trinitarian, or exegetical ideas, we can clearly identify Ephrem as receiving and developing concrete concepts that had as their origin ideas in Greek-speaking literature. Yet, there are further ways that we can read Ephrem as participating in a broader late antique literary culture, one which need not be de ned as primarily Greek or Syriac, with one language culture passively receiving the other. In chapter , I suggest that we can think of Ephrem’s presentation of self as akin to Greco-Roman prosopopoia. In chapter , I suggest that we can read his presentation of the visuality of the biblical text as a kind of ekphra‑ sis. roughout his corpus, moreover, Ephrem’s repeatedly develops arguments a minore ad maius. In none of these cases do I think sufficient evidence exists to prove his knowledge of the progymnasmata, and I do not see Ephrem parroting lit‑ erary practices developed elsewhere. Rather, I draw parallels to these literary prac‑ tices more immediately associated with Greco-Roman rhetorical culture to suggest his participation in a broad late antique literary culture. Scott Johnson, in his study of the presence of Greek language among Eastern Christians, has argued that scholars of Greek literature should attend not only to Greek as it was practiced in the central cities of the Roman Empire, but as it came to be received among nonGreek speakers, at the borders and beyond the Roman and Byzantine empires. Following Johnson’s lead, I would suggest that we can begin to think of Ephrem’s madrashe as relevant to scholars of late antique literary culture writ large, one in which a multiplicity of languages and styles merged to create new hybrid genres. COMMUN IT Y AND PERFORMANCE

I have argued that Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith forms a uni ed body of poetry that emerged, for the most part, aer  .. e material found within this collection manifests a unique Syriac literary idiom but also suggests a poet thoroughly im‑ mersed in the late antique world. I turn now to uncover the performative context of the Madrashe on Faith. Whereas scholars have primarily associated Ephrem’s madrashe with liturgical contexts, I argue that the Madrashe on Faith developed pri‑ marily for contexts of study. Having identi ed this context, I then suggest how it connects Ephrem to literary movements elsewhere in the late antique world.

Ephrem’s Madrashe: A Liturgical Genre? In the past twenty- ve years scholars have increasingly stressed the public and litur‑ gical setting of the madrashe as a key to their rhetorical function. Following Peter

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

Brown, who called them the “equivalent of the urban rhetoric of John Chrysostom,” scholars have presented the madrashe as “public events” designed to “win the alle‑ giance of the Syriac-speaking populations” to the Nicene Orthodoxy of the Roman Empire. In Christine Shepardson’s interpretation, Ephrem’s decidedly public works craed an audience that “le his church services each week prepared to see a world” that embraced Nicaea and forbade “Christians to celebrate the Jewish passover.” is emphasis on the public, liturgical role of Ephrem’s madrashe has rightly emphasized their status as musical and catechetical works, shaped by and responding to their audience, in both their form and their content. But it has also presented the madrashe corpus as more monolithic than it is in actuality. While a collection such as the Madrashe on Unleavened Bread likely arose in a liturgical con‑ text, the poetry compiled in the Madrashe on Faith rarely indicates its function in explicitly liturgical settings and instead suggests its Sitz im Leben as a blurred per‑ formative space between liturgy and study circle. Ephrem himself tells us little about the context in which he performed his madrashe. e slightly later Syriac Memra on Mar Ephrem by Jacob of Sarug can help us somewhat, as can the sixth-century Syriac Life of Ephrem. Jacob’s Memra on Mar Ephrem was probably composed sometime before , in connection with the feast of Ephrem, which fell on the rst Saturday in Lent. From a historical per‑ spective, the short Memra on Ephrem is astonishing in its placement of women’s choirs at the center of Ephrem’s communal ministry, and Jacob devotes much of the memra to a theological justi cation of their existence. In this poem, Ephrem’s women are “teachers among the congregations” (malpānyātâ da-knûšātâ, line ). ey “sing praises with their madrashe” (line ). To the extent that Jacob anchors this poetic performance in a speci c liturgical context, it is that of the Paschal feast (lines –): re ective of the women musicians in Exodus :–, Ephrem’s choirs sing at the feast of Pascha to proclaim the new order that Christ has ushered in. Aside from noting Ephrem’s general institution of women’s choirs, and their spe‑ ci c performance in the feast of Pascha, Jacob provides no speci c details with which to reconstruct the liturgical use of the madrashe. Yet Jacob also suggests a very basic division between Ephrem’s types of teaching: he taught to proclaim the resurrection (lines –) and he taught to defeat here‑ sies (lines – and –). Interestingly, when Jacob speaks of Ephrem’s proclamation of the resurrection, he speci es the liturgical context—that of the Paschal feast. But when he speaks of Ephrem’s anti-heretical activity, he does not specify a liturgical context. Rather, he says that Ephrem “led women down to the doctrinal disputes” (ʼaḥet l-neššê l-darrâ d-malpānûtâ, line ). Jacob provides no more detail about these “doctrinal disputes,” but his language suggests some other performative context than that of the liturgy. The early sixth-century Life of Ephrem provides some further insight into the performative context of Ephrem’s madrashe. In the Life, Ephrem’s career as a poet does not appear until chapter thirty. ere we are told that, aer traveling to Egypt to meet Abba Bishoi and Cappadocia to meet Basil, Ephrem returned to Edessa, only to nd it deep in the mire of heresy. Within the Life, Ephrem becomes aware of



’     

the danger of heresy when he stumbles upon a book of the teachings of Bardaisan and hears the catchy tunes constructed on their basis. e Life then states: Seeing these heresies, and recognizing that their entire doctrine was foul, the blessed one feared that innocent sheep would be captivated by their alluring sounds (bnāt qālê maḥtaḥtâ). Aglow with the radiance of the Holy Spirit, he armed himself against them. . . . He took the arrangement of the melodies and songs (nsab leh haw mlaḥmûtâ d-qālê w-qînātâ) and mixed into them the fear of God, and offered to his hearers an antidote at once agreeable and wholesome.

Echoing Jacob’s portrait, the Life says that Ephrem taught these madrashe to the daughters of the covenant, combining choir practice with more general catechesis. ese daughters of the covenant, the Life continues, would gather in the church each morning and evening to learn the madrashe, and would sing them in the litur‑ gy, at martyr shrines, and in funeral processions: He appointed teachers (ʼaqîm b-hên malpānyātâ) among all the daughters of the covenant who regularly came to the holy, catholic church, and taught them madrashe. Evenings and mornings they would gather in church before the service (tešmeštâ). And at the martyrs’ shrines (b-bêt sāhdwātâ) and in funeral proces‑ sions (b-lwayyātâ ‘nîdê) they would sing.

While the Life as a whole clearly distinguishes liturgical from nonliturgical per‑ formative contexts, this passage suggests a blurring of these boundaries, as well as the boundaries between the liturgical and the pedagogical. e Life alleges that Ephrem would meet with the daughters of the covenant every morning and evening “before the service” (tešmeštâ) to teach them the songs that they would perform. It alleges, further, that Ephrem would appoint “teachers” (malpānyātâ) among these women. is offers a different way to imagine the context of the madrashe, in which the division between classroom and liturgy blurs. e Syriac Life and Jacob’s memra both point to contexts in which women were taught madrashe as part of a larger project of catechesis. In Jacob’s memra, this is connected to “doctrinal disputes.” In the Syriac Life, this is identi ed as preliturgical catechesis. Neither of these sources provide speci c details about the performative contexts they identify. But these two points cohere with the evidence of Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith, as well as compara‑ tive evidence from the Eastern Mediterranean for contexts of liturgy and study.

Liturgy and Study in the Madrashe on Faith Before turning to the performative context of Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith, it will be helpful to show that some of Ephrem’s madrashe obviously do derive from liturgical contexts. For the sake of clarity, we can chart the madrashe’s relationship to the liturgy using three basic criteria. First, and most important, what I would call a “liturgical madrasha” will typically reference a liturgical feast that we know existed in the fourth century. Second, a liturgical madrasha will draw on biblical lections connected with a feast. ird, a liturgical madrasha will repeatedly refer to liturgi‑

’     



cal rituals, primarily baptism and the Eucharist. While these criteria are by no means foolproof, they do allow us to speak clearly about what we mean when we call a madrasha “liturgical.” Using these criteria, it immediately becomes apparent that a number of Ephrem’s madrashe can indeed be considered “liturgical.” ose in the Madrashe on Unleav‑ ened Bread consistently refer to a well-attested, fourth-century liturgical feast (East‑ er) and base themselves on underlying scriptural lections (either a Passion narra‑ tive, the Passover and Exodus narratives from Exodus, or both). All exhibit very simple meters and syntax, and have as one of their core themes a critique of ritual practice. Similarly, those in the Madrashe on Nativity consistently indicate their use in a service for the Nativity and are replete with allusions to scriptural lections. Ephrem even playfully hints that his audience might be hearing MNat  while struggling to stay awake during a festal vigil (MNat :–). is evidence suggests that these madrashe were written for contexts of festal liturgy. References to baptismal or eucharistic services are more difficult to chart, be‑ cause Ephrem came to rely heavily on shared ritual practices in his polemics with subordinationist Christians. He thus references these rituals in madrashe that oth‑ erwise appear nonliturgical. For example, in MF , Ephrem speaks in passing against those Christians who have “divided” the baptismal font and have “strayed from that Greatness . . . into which they were baptized.” Within this poem, however, baptism features tangentially, and so it is difficult to argue on the basis of this single reference that the Madrashe on Faith arose in a liturgical context. In a poem such as MF , however, the Eucharist provides the central object of the poet’s re ection. It is thus entirely reasonable to imagine that it functioned within some sort of Eu‑ charist service. On the basis of this quick survey, we can see that some of Ephrem’s madrashe likely occupied liturgical contexts. Yet, unlike the material collected in Ephrem’s Madrashe on Unleavened Bread and Madrashe on Nativity, or like the eucharistic or baptismal madrashe scattered through his corpus, most of Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith never allude to liturgical celebrations, never reference what appear to be un‑ derlying scriptural lections, and do not appear to have accompanied eucharistic or baptismal gatherings. Of the eighty-seven madrashe that make up the collection, only three focus speci cally on liturgical topics—poems  and  both re ect upon the Eucharist, and poem  re ects on baptism. Another twenty-two madrashe ref‑ erence liturgical feasts or practices in tangential or ambiguous ways. Of these twen‑ ty-two madrashe, twelve refer tangentially to baptismal or eucharistic practices as a way of polemicizing against variant Christological ideas. e remaining eight sim‑ ply embed references to the Church, baptism, or the Eucharist in an ambiguous way. This leaves sixty-two of the collection’s eighty-seven madrashe that never refer to liturgical feasts, rituals, or actions even in the most tangential or ambiguous of ways. Liturgy simply does not factor into the content of these madrashe. What they do contain, however, is a preoccupation with topics that suggest contexts of study and discussion. roughout the Madrashe on Faith, for example, Ephrem concerns him‑



’     

self with debates over philosophical ideas. He engages in twisting discussions of the nature of the soul and re ections on how this relates to human knowledge of God. He assesses what we can and cannot know about the nature of God, and develops complex metaphors to articulate the shared substance of the Trinity. He articulates a philosophically indebted cosmology and psychology. In general, rather than re‑ ecting on liturgical feasts and lections, many of the Madrashe on Faith proceed through a speculative re ection on the natural world. Ephrem ends most of these madrashe with doxological exclamations and ultimately doubts human ability to arrive at a complete understanding of God. Yet, this doxological apophaticism re‑ veals an understanding of debates about metaphysics and epistemology taking place elsewhere in the fourth-century Mediterranean. In spite of his repeated warnings against investigation, these madrashe betray his community’s interest in these spec‑ ulative issues. Alongside the madrashe’s concern with philosophical issues, they likewise en‑ gage in readings of biblical passages that were debated in the context of the fourthcentury Trinitarian controversies, but which have no clear relationship to the devel‑ oping lectionary. MF  focuses speci cally on how one should interpret Proverbs :, and generally on how one should read the Bible as a whole. Ephrem engages in a similar anti-subordinationist reading of Mark : in MF . Both Proverbs : and Mark : became, in the course of the fourth century, texts that authors worked through to argue against the Son’s inferiority to the Father. Unlike Ephrem’s exegesis of the Passion narrative in the Madrashe on Unleavened Bread, or prophetic passages in the Madrashe on Nativity, here Ephrem works through pas‑ sages discussed and debated elsewhere in polemical treatises but does so in musical form. Likewise, in MF , he constructs a dense argument for reading Genesis  and  as evidence for the Trinity. In these madrashe, Ephrem uses the genre to engage his audience in academic and pedagogical discussions of problematic texts. As I ar‑ gued in the introduction, Ephrem’s discussion of these fourth-century problem pas‑ sages by no means sits at the heart of the Madrashe on Faith’s use of the Bible. Nev‑ ertheless, his occasional discussion of them suggests the quasi-philosophical, non‑ lectionary-based contexts in which these discussions took place. As with Ephrem’s concerns with philosophical ideas, this evidence, combined with the absence of liturgical cues, suggests the madrashe’s connection to an environment of philosoph‑ ical and exegetical debate. The “us” to which Ephrem repeatedly refers in these madrashe seems to have been one deeply invested in teaching roles within the community. Often in these nonli‑ turgical madrashe, he reflects on the place of teaching and teachers generally. The root y-l-p—“to learn,” or, in its Pael form, “to teach”—appears in the Madrashe on Faith approximately seventy-five times. The abstract noun yûlpānâ, “teaching,” ap‑ pears thirty times. Using this language, Ephrem constructs teaching as a reified ob‑ ject, granted only by God: “Turn to me your teaching, for I have sought to avert my‑ self, / but I see that I have harmed myself. My soul gains nothing / Except through converse with you. Glory to the study of you (šûbḥâ l-hegyānāk)!” MF  appears to speak to students who will then compose their own songs to teach others:

’     



Measure your words, O blameless voices (qālê d-lâ met’adlîn). Measure and sing songs undisputed, That your song, my son, may be a delight To the servants of your Lord, and your Lord repay you. Do not sing damage to humanity. Do not, through discussion, divide those who are united. Do not place a sword—that is, investigation— Among the simple, who have believed simply.

MF : similarly engages those who are themselves engaged in teaching and debate: Speak what is pro table and explain the teaching. Interpret what is bene cial and discuss what builds up. Question the deniers and repudiate the cruci ers. Investigate their Bible and refute their arguments. Teach innocence, increase simplicity, And bring ignorance to enlightenment.

In both of these examples, Ephrem is concerned that those who teach others not engage them in controversial topics—that the teaching be profitable and bene‑ ficial. This points to the likelihood that the poems in the Madrashe on Faith are engaged in a process of educating those who will educate others. Beyond that, however, Ephrem’s eschewal of what he calls “investigation” forms one of the most consistent, and one of the most interesting, themes of the Madrashe on Faith. It is a theme that I treat in depth in the following chapter. Here, however, it can help us further think through the use of the madrashe as tools for teaching. From one per‑ spective, Ephrem’s apparent pessimism about the limits of the pursuit of knowl‑ edge seems an odd feature for a work engaged in a program of pedagogy. However, we can read these condemnations not as an attempt to shut down intellectual in‑ quiry but instead to shape rhetorically the community that hears and sings them. Ephrem encourages his students to engage in an educational process with a full understanding of what can and cannot be known. By marking these limits, he can then guide them through a reading and discussion of the very ideas he, from a cer‑ tain perspective, demeans. The poems in the Madrashe on Faith connect to the church’s developing liturgi‑ cal cycle in only the most tangential of ways. Instead, they suggest a blurred space between liturgy and classroom, in which pedagogical songs were used to debate difficult philosophical ideas, engage problematic and controversial biblical passages, and re ect on the role of teaching and teachers. Within this context, the Bible formed the primary lens through which Ephrem engaged his audience. e Syriac Life of Ephrem imagines the madrashe within a liturgical context but also hints at a blurred space that might have resembled a study circle or protoschool. It is in such a context that I suggest the Madrashe on Faith emerged. Yet de ning the implied set‑ ting of a “school” is not straightforward. It is almost certain that no formal school, of



’     

Edessa or Nisibis, existed in Ephrem’s time. However, comparative evidence for literary communities elsewhere in the fourth-century Mediterranean, as well as slightly later evidence for the use of poetry in the School of Nisibis, reveal contexts in which poetry functioned pedagogically. is material can help us further envi‑ sion the context of study in which the Madrashe on Faith developed. It can also help us better place Ephrem in a wider late antique context.

The Madrashe on Faith in Late Antique Literary Contexts Ephrem was likely a member of the unique Mesopotamian ascetic group known as the bnay/bnāt qyāmâ (“the sons/daughters” or “children of the covenant”). e most speci c discussion of this community comes not from Ephrem but from his older contemporary Aphrahat (d. ca. ). As best we can tell, the “children of the covenant” was a loosely organized ascetic community that developed among Syriacspeaking Christians. ese “covenanters” privileged decidedly ascetic behaviors— fasting, sleeplessness and vigilance, poverty, and chastity. e community consisted of men and women, a fact that Aphrahat’s Demonstrations makes clear. As both Aphrahat and Ephrem suggest, the members of the community established their own living arrangements. e evidence of these sources suggests that the social makeup of the community—where and when they met, how they were organized, and who oversaw such things—was not precisely structured. ough Ephrem never speci cally identi es himself as a “son of the covenant,” he prizes the same ascetic virtues that Aphrahat hails in his Demonstrations. Moreover, if we place the wit‑ nesses of Aphrahat and Ephrem within the larger context of third- and fourth-cen‑ tury Greco-Syriac literature—the Book of the Steps, the homilies of Pseudo-Macar‑ ius, the earlier Acts of Judas omas, and the Pseudo-Clementines—we get the dis‑ tinct impression that ascetic communities formed a crucial part of the broader makeup of Syriac Christian culture. Scholars readily acknowledge the ascetic character of early Syriac Christianity, but the trend has been to read Ephrem subtly away from it—to state all the things Ephrem’s community did not do: they did not ee the world, take formal vows, wear special clothes, or live in isolated communities. Yet an unintended consequence of reading Ephrem away from later ascetic ideals has been to read him away from the small, ascetic circles within which his Madrashe on Faith developed. ere is much about Ephrem’s circle that we do not know, but one of its most obvious characteris‑ tics is nevertheless rarely identi ed: Ephrem’s circle was literary. Regarding Aphra‑ hat, Adam Becker has argued that his corpus “must have come from a literate con‑ text in which the work of a homilist and the scriptural learning it entailed were not uncommon.” Certainly this can be applied to Ephrem’s circle as well: it was en‑ gaged in writing, reading, discussing, teaching, and singing; it was a circle for which he wrote line aer line of sophisticated song. Much of this song, as we have seen, dealt with particularly bookish themes—philosophical ideas, dense exegeses of problematic passages, and exhortations to value but know the limits of learning. Be‑ cause of the particularly bookish content of many of the madrashe, we can think of

’     



this small circle neither as the local parish nor as some kind of protomonastery, but as a protoschool, gathered to learn and pray. e small gatherings of iḥîdāyê (“single ones”), qaddîšê (“holy ones”), and btûlātâ (“virgins”) read, sang, prayed, discussed, and wrote. e ideals of their life were ascetic, but their asceticism was carried out in especially literary ways. Scholars have speculated that Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis functioned as a school text. The Commentary on the Diatessaron attests to this scholastic ac‑ tivity on an even more immediate level—it is a school text, both in the sense that it was written for a study circle, and it was added to by the students for whom it was written. In this work we can see Ephrem’s study circle in action—reading and discussing his ideas and amending them in organic ways. We can add to these school texts Ephrem’s Prose Refutations, a collection of memre that discuss the ideas of Plato and the Stoics, among others. But the bookish character of Ephrem’s writings extends to his madrashe as well. The Christological ideas artic‑ ulated in the Madrashe on Faith reflect similar ideas being discussed in Antioch during the last decade of Ephrem’s life. With the evidence of the Madrashe on Faith, we can see Ephrem’s circle as one that communicated with thinkers and writers throughout the Mediterranean, and articulated responses in Syriac poetry and song. Reading Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith as emerging not only in liturgical services for popular audiences but also in smaller, ascetic, literary circles renders him a more coherent part of the fabric of Mediterranean religious life in the second half of the fourth century. In communities in Rome, Egypt, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Cappado‑ cia, other gures were likewise imagining new patterns of communal life and using literature as one of the primary modes of articulating this communal identity. We may compare his experimental study setting to that of Gregory Nazianzen, for whom poetry, study, and liturgy also overlapped. In On His Own Verses, Gregory makes clear that in writing Christian verse he aimed to construct entertaining, oc‑ casionally musical, poems that would attract the attention of young people: I wished to present my work To young people—especially those who enjoy literature— As a kind of pleasant medicine, An inducement that might lead them to more useful things, Skillfully sweetening the harshness of the commandments (For a taut bowstring also needs to be relaxed). Perhaps you are willing to give this a try? If nothing more, ese verses can be a substitute for songs and lyre-playing.

Gregory’s lines clearly echo Christian justi cations for the use of music in liturgy. Yet, Gregory is not constructing liturgical songs to compete with pagan songs, but paraliturgical poetry for sophisticated literary circles. On the basis of these lines, both Cecilia Milovanovich-Barham and Frederick Norris have argued that Gregory intended at least some of his verse to be sung—that, as Norris puts it, we have in portions of the Poemata Arcana a “poetic, musical catechism.”



’     

Gregory wrote these poems late in his life, aer retiring to his Cappadocian es‑ tate to live out his own ideal of the Christian life. roughout Cappadocia during the second half of the fourth century, we see concrete debates about how Christian communities should structure themselves—as circles of intellectual aristocrats (Gregory Nazianzen), as ecclesiastically monitored ascetics (Basil), or as working communities who have rejected the privileges of aristocracy (Macrina and Eu‑ stathios of Antioch). My concern is not with Cappadocian communities per se. Rather, the Cappadocian experiments reveal something instructive about commu‑ nal life at the time: not only in Mesopotamia but throughout the Mediterranean the structures of communal life were still up for debate. Scholars have long noted com‑ pelling parallels between Ephrem and the Cappadocians. In this case, they all share a tendency to carry out debates about communal life and learning through literature. Gregory Nazianzen constructed his community through poems, Basil through rules and letters, and Gregory of Nyssa through the Life of Macrina. ese works were not written for the population gathered in basilicas on Sundays but for experimental communities orienting their daily lives around prayer and study. Unlike the Cappadocians, Ephrem spent his life working in urban contexts. Moreover, while the Cappadocians’ family structures played such a crucial role in the shape of their communities, we know little about Ephrem’s family background. But his madrashe engaged in many of the same tasks as the works of his Cappado‑ cian colleagues and at roughly the same time—a time when the relationship be‑ tween ecclesiastical structures and ascetic communities were hotly debated, and when both scholastic institutions and liturgical services were taking a more con‑ crete shape. Literature played a crucial role in these debates and developing institu‑ tions. So as with emerging Cappadocian communities, we can reimagine Ephrem’s madrashe not simply as liturgical songs but as works of literature written, in part, for small literary-ascetic communities, at a crucial moment in the development of Christian communal identity in the empire. In the context of the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem re ected on these issues through the pages of the Bible. In addition to drawing out these scholastic aspects of Ephrem’s ascetic context, comparative evidence also shows how it articulated its identity in pedagogical modes, with poetic literary forms. Becker’s study of the School of Nisibis com‑ pellingly demonstrates the preponderance of such pedagogical modes of thought within Syriac Christian culture. is pedagogical key is sounded out even in the earliest Syriac sources, the Peshitta, which consistently represents Israelite leaders as teachers of the people. Becker notes, too, that Ephrem understands salvation and revelation in primarily pedagogical terms. In the later School of Nisibis, Becker also notes a subtle but persistent blurring of the boundaries between liturgy, poetry, and pedagogy. For example, the eighth Canon of Narsai insists that all students must participate continually in “writing, reading (hegyānâ), interpretation . . . and choral reading” (qeryānâ d-sî‘ātâ). e perspective given by this canon is that scholastic and liturgical duties overlapped. Becker con rms this in his general dis‑ cussion of the school. As he notes, the mpashqānâ—“exegete”—not only studied and taught the Bible, he also led the choir (sî‘tâ). is role is spelled out in the

’     



Cause of the Foundation of the Schools, as it describes the career of Narsai: “[T]hat blessed man led the assembly for a time of twenty years, while daily leading the choir and giving interpretation” (.–). Becker identi es the picture given here as one that witnesses “the con ation of scriptural meaning and liturgical ac‑ tion.” is con ation or blurring was achieved, moreover, at least until the sixth century, through the use of verse forms. It was precisely the verse memre that served both a liturgical and an exegetical function. Becker notes that in the course of the sixth century, poetry came to be replaced by prose in the schools, and this dichoto‑ my is also re ected, as we have seen, in the portrait of the madrashe in Ephrem’s Life. But in the h century, it was the verse memre that functioned as the school genre par excellence. Ephrem’s madrasha engaged his community in a similar process of prayer and study, song and exegesis. Rather than imagining Ephrem’s madrasha as akin to a homily preached in a large urban basilica, we can think of it as a dynamic text, able to function as a communal, liturgical song in a Paschal feast, but also to engage literary-ascetic communities, immersed in technical theological debates, in a unique form of doxological pedagogy. Against this backdrop, we can see Ephrem presenting the Bible to his audience in the Madrashe on Faith. In contexts of study, Ephrem re ected on the Bible itself, his own role as poet, the religious identify of his audiences, and the divinity of Christ. Yet, one idea, more than any other, united the contents of the Madrashe on Faith. It is to that idea that I now turn.



Investigation

is chapter looks at the primary theological idea that lends the poems in the Madrashe on Faith their unity, the idea that God cannot be understood by human interrogation, and that the theological controversies of the fourth century emerged because of attempts at interrogation of the divine. Yet it is not only that this idea provides the collection with its theological and lexical unity. Tracing Ephrem’s artic‑ ulation of the idea also shows the way his poetry ltered the world through the lens of the Bible. In this chapter, I rst argue that we can situate the poems’ condemna‑ tion of theological debate in the intellectual landscape of Antioch and Mesopotamia of the s as a response to the theological ideas developed by Aetius and Eu‑ nomius. I then argue that Ephrem takes the language and theological ideas that he uses to respond to Aetius and Eunomius from the Bible. In the Madrashe on Faith’s emphasis on “investigation,” therefore, we can see its particular melding of the Bible and the world. EPHREM’S L ANGUAGE OF INVESTIGATION

In Ephrem’s First Discourse to Hypatius—one of his few prose works—he refers brie y to an idea common in his writings. He is addressing the New Testament scene in which Peter attempts, but fails, to walk on water (Matt. :–). Peter’s experience reminds Ephrem of the intellectual drowning that overtakes a person who seeks to transcend the limits of human knowledge. e latter represents a much worse situation: “In the waves of the sea [only] bodies sink, but in the waves of investigation, the mind sinks or is delivered.” In his English translation of the passage, C. W. Mitchell capitalizes the term b‘ātâ, “Investigation.” His intuition is a good one, even though I do not follow it in this book. Within Ephrem’s corpus, the terms b‘â and bṣâ, both of which can translate as “to investigate,” signify much more than simple questioning, more than basic intel‑ 





lectual curiosity. While Ephrem certainly allows for a positive interpretation of in‑ vestigation in certain circumstances (as indicated above by the reference to being delivered), the term far more frequently represents a near blasphemous activity—a human claim to know and incessantly discuss things that only God can know. Alongside bṣâ and b‘â , Ephrem also refers frequently to draš (“to debate”), ‘qab (“to discuss”), and šʼel (“to question”) to signify this illicit inquiry. Both as a series of terms, and as a theological idea, “investigation” resonates within the Bible as well as within the fourth-century world of Ephrem and his audi‑ ence. Literarily, as a collection of Syriac terms, “investigation,” “debating,” and “dis‑ cussing” lend a literary coherence to Ephrem’s works, especially the Madrashe on Faith. Ephrem’s speci c language acquires its meaning from a variety of contexts— contexts within his literary works themselves, and contexts outside of those works, both literary and social. A term like bṣâ, “to investigate,” has a history of usage that lies outside Ephrem’s own employment of the term, both predating and concurrent with it. Inevitably, on some level, Ephrem’s “investigation” is shaped by these exter‑ nal worlds, the one in which Ephrem actually lived, wrote, and spoke, and the liter‑ ary world (primarily biblical) upon which he drew for inspiration. At the same time, as Ephrem embedded bṣâ and its connected vocabulary within his corpus, these terms acquired a particular meaning that could alter and ultimately transcend that of the term as it existed outside the literary work. It is the meaning that arises out of the relationship of these two worlds—of the Bible, of the madrashe—that this book seeks to uncover. This book argues that to understand the role of the Bible within Ephrem’s madrashe, one must understand the poetic context in which his use of the Bible is embedded. “Investigation,” both as an idea and as a collection of vocabulary, lends theological and literary coherence to the Madrashe on Faith. is idea and these terms, in turn, shape the way Ephrem reads the Bible within these poems. On a most basic level, Ephrem’s emphasis on investigation leads him to divide biblical characters into two general groups—those who investigated and those who did not. At the same time, however, the Bible offers him the heroes and villains that he di‑ vides along his own rhetorical lines. And they offer not only broad outlines, but also speci c language and narrative shape. Likewise, on a micro level the Bible provides him with basic terminology for humans, for the natural world, and for God. But why is this language of investigation so important for Ephrem? From where does it come, and how does it resonate with the language of the Bible? While schol‑ ars have oen noted the importance of this language for Ephrem, there has been lit‑ tle attempt to explain why this language. Most scholars have associated the lan‑ guage with Ephrem’s polemics against anti-Nicene subordinationists. And while the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies provide a context for this language, this context does not explain how the language functions within Ephrem’s corpus or how it resonates exegetically with the Bible. In what follows, I situate the language of investigation within Ephrem’s corpus and argue for points of comparison with the Trinitarian debates emerging to the west of Ephrem. I then suggest that the rhetori‑ cal power of this language within Ephrem’s poetry comes from its relationship to the





Bible as much as from its historical context. Ephrem draws on this particular lan‑ guage and its broader resonance within the Bible, and in so doing creates a relation‑ ship of likeness between his madrashe and biblical discourse. “IN VESTIGATION” IN EPHREM’S MADR ASHE

Among the vocabulary that Ephrem develops to denote “investigation,” ve terms predominate: bṣâ, b‘â, draš, ‘qab, and šʼel. I translate two of these terms, bṣâ and b‘â, as “to investigate.” Draš I translate as “to debate,” ‘qab as “to discuss,” and šʼel as “to question.” ree basic aspects of this vocabulary immediately strike the reader. First, these ve terms dominate the theological lexicon of the Madrashe on Faith. e terms bṣâ and b‘â stand at the heart of that text, occurring almost  times. (For this reason, I typically refer to the broader phenomenon to which all these terms refer simply as “investigation.” I intend this to be inclusive of other terms such as “debating” and “discussion.”) Draš and ‘qab occur almost  times each. e least common of these terms, šʼel, still occurs more than  times. Altogether,  of the  madrashe in the collection draw on this vocabulary. As a point of com‑ parison, the terms haymen, “to have faith, or belief ” and haymānûtâ, “faith, or be‑ lief ” occur only about  times in the entire corpus of the Madrashe on Faith. It is no surprise, then, that a nineteenth-century Syriac-Latin edition called the work not Madrashe on Faith (following the title that the manuscripts themselves give), but contra Scrutatores, “Against the Investigators.” e work’s polemic against these unnamed “investigators” and the ambiguous “investigation” in which they engage far outweighs its privileging of “faith” or any other theological concept. The second immediately noticeable aspect of “investigation” is that Ephrem leaves it relatively unde ned. Never does he explicitly outline the activity that counts as investigation. In poem :, speaking to the Lord, he says, “Your appear‑ ance was not greater / than only the weak, / nor investigation into you hidden [from only them].” And ve stanzas later he writes, “You are near and far, / and who can arrive at you? / Investigation’s (b‘ātâ) reach / cannot come to your side.” We can infer from these passages that “investigation” refers to some sort of illicit inquiry into the divine. But what does this inquiry entail? At what point does licit inquiry become illicit? Ephrem does not explicitly say. Nor does he identify in historical terms the purveyors of this investigation. When he does associate persons with it, he speaks exclusively in biblical terms. Bib‑ lical villains investigated (the scribes at poem :, and the Pharisees at :), as did otherwise virtuous characters in moments of moral collapse (omas at :, and Abraham at :). For the most part, however, biblical heroes studiously avoided debate (Noah and Abraham in poem , and Daniel in :–). Third, this language tends to cluster around statements regarding the divine es‑ sence and the Father’s begetting of a Son. Poem : condemns “whoever pre‑ sumes to investigate the womb / of the Essence more powerful than all.” In :, Ephrem chastises those who, rather than seeking divine healing, “investigate [the Lord’s] nature and his birth.” Poem  concludes with the command to “cease from

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the investigation of [his] begetting.” ough with less frequency, we see this outside the Madrashe on Faith as well. In Madrashe on Virginity :, Ephrem pronounces a blessing on the one who does not “debate (draš) about [the Lord’s] begetting.” Because of this association of investigation with issues of divine begetting, most scholars have suggested that this language developed, at least in part, in response to the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies. is association certainly seems ac‑ curate. Insofar as Ephrem de nes investigation concretely, he oen does so with ref‑ erence to these issues of divine begetting. A couple of passages outside the Madrashe on Faith make this point strikingly. In On the Church , probably written during the reign of Julian (–), Ephrem remembers fondly the reigns of Constantine (d. ) and Constantius (d. ), but bemoans the Christian behavior of his present time. Prior to the reign of Julian, he writes, “our mouth went crazy and attacked our Creator. / [Sitting] in the shade, we made war through our discussions (b-‘ûqqābayn).” is localizes the idea of “discussion”: it refers concretely to the controversies that followed the Council of Nicaea and preceded the reign of Julian “the Apostate.” Here, Ephrem interprets Julian’s reign as divine punishment for precisely this behavior. An even more striking use of the language of investigation occurs in Ephrem’s Madrashe Against Heresies. Outside of the Madrashe on Faith, the vocabulary de‑ noting investigation occurs most frequently in those madrashe. On the whole, his use of this language in the Madrashe Against Heresies is unremarkable. While the poems clearly represent investigation as a negative activity, they rarely focus on the idea at any length. However, in the few cases where Ephrem does develop a more precise use of the language, he clearly has these Trinitarian issues in mind. is can be seen most strikingly in the third Madrashe Against Heresies. The majority of that poem argues against what Ephrem presents as the polythe‑ ism of Marcion and Bardaisan. In the rst seven stanzas, he accuses them of apply‑ ing the name “Being,” t only for the one God, to created beings, thus affirming a multiplicity of gods. Ephrem says that “they perpetually put God’s name on / the idols that they have worshiped” (MAH ::–). Yet in :, this argument takes a surprising turn. Because of their tendency to multiply deities, Ephrem writes, Mar‑ cion and Bardaisan willingly, and to their credit, acknowledge that the Son of God is divine. At this point, the object of Ephrem’s polemic shis. He writes: [MAH :] Who would not confess this True Son, Especially since, look: tares proclaim his birth? Let us be shamed by the deniers who do not deny his birth! Who would not weep and repent Upon seeing the outsiders who believed without investigating? Look at those inside who were not satis ed, to the point of madness!

Understanding the polemic in this passage demands, first, that we understand Ephrem’s distinction between “outsiders” (barrāyê) and “insiders” (gawwāyê). As Sid‑ ney Griffith has shown, by “outsiders”—a group Ephrem here refers to initially as “tares”—Ephrem denotes religious groups that, while using Christian symbols, have no

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formal relationship to Ephrem’s own ecclesial body. Though Ephrem will identify a host of such “outsiders,” within the Madrashe Against Heresies he is focused primarily on followers of Bardaisan, Marcion, and Mani. “Insiders,” in contrast, refer to those groups who have, or have had, some formal relationship with the Church, but who have, from Ephrem’s perspective, set themselves outside of it because of errant teach‑ ings. Within the Madrashe Against Heresies, Ephrem’s subordinationist opponents form by far the most common “insider.” In this passage, Ephrem is clearly writing against these subordinationists. They are the “insiders” who, Ephrem argues, refuse to “confess this True Son.” Up to this point, the language of investigation has been absent in this poem. Yet here, when Ephrem shifts from a polemic against Bardaisan and Mani to one against Arius, the language of investigation appears. This material from the Madrashe Against Heresies, coupled with the language’s presence in the Madrashe on Faith, suggests that, in Ephrem’s mind, the language of investigation connects closely with his anti-subordinationist concerns. While he does apply the language to other polemical opponents, he does so far less, and with language that is much more general. And even within the Madrashe Against Here‑ sies, when he uses the language of investigation in a concrete manner, he does so with these subordinationist opponents in mind. is suggests that, for whatever rea‑ son, Ephrem came to emphasize “investigation” as a uniquely anti-subordinationist tool; that his emphasis on investigation arose in conjunction with his awareness and commitment to rebutting subordinationist ideas. Because Ephrem rarely mentions speci c persons or events, it is difficult to know how he developed this particular emphasis on language in connection with the Trinitarian controversies. We can affirm that Ephrem uses this language most fre‑ quently in his anti-subordinationist works. And we can affirm that the language does not appear to be common in Syriac literature prior to Ephrem, at least not with the same weight Ephrem gives it. But why does Ephrem use this language? From where does it come? As with most ideas in Ephrem’s corpus, it is difficult to construct a strict genealo‑ gy. Even where we can construct a loose genealogy, this does not explain why or how Ephrem is borrowing a particular idea. With the language of investigation, rather than arguing for a hard and fast process of influence, I suggest that we can point to two contexts of which Ephrem was aware, and in which this language also appears— the context provided by the Trinitarian controversies and that provided by the Bible. With respect to the former, Ephrem’s language of investigation helps us connect him to the broader late antique world, while still indicating his unique voice within it. We see this unique voice emerging with respect to the latter context, as well, as he shaped the world of theological controversy through the pages of the Bible. THE C ON TEXT OF EPHREM’S “INVESTIGAT ION”

Historically speaking, Ephrem’s emphasis on “investigation,” “debate,” and “discus‑ sion” sits at the intersection of two developments in the late antique world. On the one hand, his insistence on God’s transcendence of human discourse marks a key

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point in the development of an apophatic theology that would come to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean landscape, but whose core ideas can be traced back to the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, this language of investigation re ects the particular Christian culture that emerged in the fourth century, following the con‑ version of Constantine (ca. ). In , Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to deal with debates about the divinity of Christ. Yet, far from settling dis‑ agreements, this initial council bred only more councils, a number of which were convened between  and , each offering variant ways of dealing with the fall‑ out from Nicaea. What resulted was a culture of debate, one about which Gregory of Nyssa comically remarked: Everywhere in the public squares…people would stop you and discourse at ran‑ dom about the Trinity. If you asked something of a moneychanger, he would be‑ gin discussing the question of the Begotten and the Unbegotten. If you questioned a baker about the price of bread, he would answer that the Father is greater and the Son is subordinate to Him. If you went to take a bath, the Anomoean bath at‑ tendant would tell you that in his opinion the Son simply comes from nothing.

Within Ephrem’s madrashe, this language of investigation emerged as a speci ‑ cally anti-subordinationist discourse. But following Nicaea, a variety of theological positions developed, running along a spectrum from outright subordination of the Son to the Father, to an absolute insistence on the essential unity of the two. How do we situate Ephrem’s anti-subordinationist language on this spectrum? While ad‑ mitting the difficulty of answering this question with absolute certainty, I neverthe‑ less argue that his particular polemics against investigation resonate with two move‑ ments in and around Antioch in the mid-fourth century. Connecting him to these movements can also help us think more generally about Ephrem’s relationship to Greco-Roman culture. In poem : of the Madrashe Against Heresies, Ephrem once mentions a cer‑ tain “Aetius.” Aetius was a controversial philosopher and theologian in and around Antioch in the s and s. His most prominent disciple and able interpreter was Eunomius (also in Antioch in the s and s). Aetius wrote his main work, the Syntagmation, in . Roughly a year later, Eunomius wrote his Apology, with the aim of expanding and interpreting the thought of Aetius. At the heart of Eu‑ nomius’s thought lies the idea that through precise language about God, one can come to know God absolutely. Eunomius identi ed the term “Unbegotten” as the proper name of God—the name that referred to his substance. is meant that one who was begotten—that is, the divine Son—could not be considered divine in the same way as God himself (the Unbegotten). It is hard to read Eunomius through a lens other than that fashioned by his most vocal opponents: the Cappadocians and John Chrysostom, writing in the s to the s. In their writings, in addition to critiquing Eunomius’s theological ideas, they came to criticize his theological and literary style—terse, opaque, and obsessed, from their perspective, with excessive argumentation. In three anti-Eunomian treatises that postdate Ephrem by almost a decade—Gregory of Nazianzen’s Oration  (), Gre‑

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gory of Nyssa’s Against Eunomius (), and, especially, John Chrysostom’s On the Incomphrensibility of God, homilies – ()—these general polemical concerns co‑ alesced into a much broader critique against Eunomius’s claim to know more about God than humanly possible. These writers cast a shade upon Eunomius: he was a philosopher rather than a theologian; he sought knowledge rather than adherence to faith; he liked to argue and used words in a way that invited controversy. Ephrem’s repeated condemnation of investigation nds a clear parallel in these Greek condemnations of Eunomius. And beyond just the emphasis on investiga‑ tion, much in Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith resonates with this anti-Eunomian con‑ text. Like Eunomius and his Cappadocian colleagues, Ephrem’s Christology focuses on divine names and the relationship of those names to the divinity they represent. Ephrem critiques his opponents for privileging nonbiblical names, a critique Basil would level against Eunomius and his privileging of “Unbegotten.” And while Ephrem never directly references the term “Unbegotten,” his constant identi cation of the Son as “begotten” may represent a polemic against the insis‑ tence on the name “Unbegotten” by Eunomius. Perhaps most importantly, Eu‑ nomius’s teacher Aetius is the one gure from this controversy, besides Arius, that Ephrem mentions by name. Ephrem’s notion of “investigation” developed in a theological culture—of which Eunomius is the best representative—that privileged debate and argumentation, and put forward the idea that, through this argumentation, one could obtain intimate knowledge of God. The ideas of Eunomius and Aetius were common in Antioch in the s, the same time Ephrem was performing his poems in Edessa, roughly  miles to the northeast, separated by a well-traveled road. Ephrem need not have known Aetius’s and Eunomius’s works in detail to form a general conception of their ideas. As I argued in chapter one, the bilingual culture of Edessa would have made Ephrem’s access to these Greek ideas relatively easy, even if he could not read the texts himself. Thus, as we construct a fourth-century theological backdrop against which to set Ephrem’s notion of “investigation,” Eunomius’s argumentative insistence on the knowability of God forms one likely point of orientation. In scholarship since the s, this has been the most commonly assumed polemical target. Yet, it is helpful to remember that the Cappadocians were not the only fourthcentury gures in the Eastern Mediterranean who emphasized the danger of theo‑ logical discussion in the context of the Trinitarian debates. Ephrem’s mistrust of theological debate also resonates generally with the “Homoian” movement of midfourth-century Antioch, as that movement has been reconstructed by Hans Bren‑ necke. “Homoian,” a Greek term meaning “like,” refers to the tendency of these thinkers to eschew the Nicene language of ousia and speak of the relationship of the Father and Son in terms of “likeness” rather than in terms of essence (ousia). Bren‑ necke identi es the movement as operating around the Eastern Mediterranean in the late s and best represented by the Councils of Rimini (), Seleukia (), and Constantinople (), each of which enjoyed the patronage of the emperor Constantius. In addition to their eschewal of the language of ousia, Brennecke ar‑ gues that these Homoians demonstrated a strong mistrust of theological specula‑

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tion, an emphasis on biblical language as sufficient for theological discourse, zeal against anything redolent of “paganism,” and a close connection to the emperor Constantius. Ephrem, in varying degrees, exhibits all of these characteristics. In his Madrashe on Faith, he consistently speaks of the relationship between Father and Son in terms of “likeness,” and at no point does he describe them as “consubstantial” (Syriac, bar kyānâ or bar ʼîtuteh, translating the Greek homoousios). While he does not intend this language of likeness to suggest a radical subordination of the Son to the Father, he does clearly want to avoid ousia language. He also criticizes theological lan‑ guage that takes key terms from outside the Bible. Further, in his Madrashe Against Julian, Ephrem strongly criticizes paganism, and in both that work and the Madrashe on Nisibis, he praises Constantius. Most prominently, as we have seen, Ephrem’s mistrust of theological speculation forms a cornerstone of his anti-subor‑ dinationist thought. In trying to contextualize Ephrem’s polemics against investigation within the fourth century, I suggest that both of these movements were formative. Chronologi‑ cally, Ephrem was delivering his Madrashe on Faith at about the same time that Eu‑ nomius and Basil were active in Antioch and Cappadocia. But it seems likely that his theological proclivities were already formed generally by the theological culture of the “homoians.” What I want to emphasize is that, from the perspective of Ephrem’s polemic against investigation, the two formative in uences work together. From the Homoians, I would argue that Ephrem acquired a general mistrust of the‑ ological debate. at general mistrust was then speci cally rei ed in response to Eunomius’s insistence that humans could know God in essence. IN VESTIGATION AND THE BIBLE

There is yet one more piece that we can add to this puzzle. Ephrem’s epistemological views were shaped by the Mediterranean theological culture in which he developed, but they were also shaped literarily through the pages of the Bible. is book traces the way that Ephrem’s poetry merged the world of the Bible with that of his own fourth century. We can see this merging in the very rhetoric that binds the Madrashe on Faith. Ephrem’s polemic against investigation re ected the theological culture of fourth-century Antioch, but Ephrem articulated and poeticized his mis‑ trust by constructing a speci c lexicon that emerged from the Bible. I examine the relationship between the Bible and Ephrem’s anti-investigative language rst by looking at his use of the discourse of nature, and then by looking at his replication of anti-investigative discourse located within the Bible.

Investigation, Bible, and Nature I initially suggested three basic aspects of the language of investigation as it appears in Ephrem’s madrashe. e language occurs frequently (especially in the Madrashe on Faith), is not discursively de ned, and tends to cluster around discussions of di‑

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vine begetting. Here I can add a fourth characteristic: Ephrem oen compares in‑ vestigation into the natural world (or, more generally, the world of created things) to investigation into the divine. By establishing this relationship between the two, Ephrem traces a connection between the rhetoric of the Bible and that of his poems. Typically, Ephrem combines the investigation of the natural world and the inves‑ tigation of divine begetting in a single re ection. Poem ::– reads: Look: the sun has revealed Everything to the whole eye. Nothing which [the sun] has concealed even in part Can [the eye] investigate. [e sun] has revealed everything to [the eye], But [the eye] is unable to investigate [the sun]. Your concealed birth has revealed A hundred times more than the sun. Who will gaze upon your brightness?

Between the natural world, represented here by the sun, and divine begetting, there is an ascending hierarchy. Rather than expressing the relationship between the two anagogically—that is, that through the contemplation of the lower, humans can ar‑ rive at some understanding of the higher—Ephrem connects them negatively. He insists that if humans cannot understand the created world, they could not possibly understand its Creator. is type of argument is foundational to the Madrashe on Faith’s presentation of investigation. Generally speaking, Ephrem re ects on nature pedagogically in these poems, as he does throughout his corpus. His re ection on nature is typically directed toward this type of rhetorical argumentation. Alongside this negative argument, however, he will occasionally articulate the relationship positively: just as nature betrays a particular ordering, so there is a certain order through which one can proceed to investigation. In his rhetorical use of nature, Ephrem imitates similar arguments in the Bible. Perhaps the most famous example of this sort of a rhetorical use of nature appears in Job –, a passage upon which Ephrem draws frequently. In Job , the Lord poses a series of questions to Job, the bulk of which concern natural phenomena: how did the earth come to be? How is the sea contained? Where does death dwell, and what does its dwelling place look like? ese questions continue more or less unabated until chapter , at which point they elicit their intended response: Job admits that he understands very little, either of the Lord or even of his creation. Ephrem alludes to this particular scene in MF :: God came To Job in judgment. He asked him (šaʼleh) of revealed things And with his questioning (šûʼʼālâ) silenced him. If Job was unable To speak of revealed things,

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Who will presume to demand The hidden things of the Firstborn? Do not presume, O weak one! Job, famous for [enduring] castigations, Was overcome by questions (šûʼʼālê).

Here, “revealed things” refers to the natural phenomena addressed in Job, while “hidden things” refers to the theological matters at issue in the fourth century. e root šʼel, “to question” (from which derives šûʼʼālâ, “question” or “questioning”) oc‑ curs three times in this single passage, and frequently throughout the Madrashe on Faith. It also appears prominently in Job : and :. rough this shared lan‑ guage, Ephrem draws a connection between the rhetoric of his poem and that of Job. In so doing, he brings the authority of the biblical book to bear on his argu‑ ment. But he also creates a literary space in which the world of the Bible and his own world exist in a relationship of likeness—the two speak with a uni ed voice. In MF , Ephrem constructs another argument from nature, again similar to that found in Job –. He concretely alludes to the latter narrative only once, in the eighth stanza. ere he asks, “Who has seen and investigated the Behemoth on dry ground, / or the Leviathan in the sea” (::–)? While this reference to the se‑ ries of questions that span Job :–: stands as the only concrete biblical refer‑ ence in this stanza, it is preceded by a series of questions that undoubtedly intend to evoke the biblical scene. ese, however, are not quoted from Job but are invented by Ephrem: Who has investigated the earth? ough its measurement can be observed, It stretches out without measure. From where have ears [of corn] produced Whole harvests? Date-palms, sweetness? Grapes, wine? Olives, oils? From where have blossoms brought colors and fragrances, Along with spices (MF :)?

None of these questions have exact parallels in Job –, but they all sound remi‑ niscent of that divine monologue. By referring two stanzas later, in MF :, to the characters discussed in Job :–:, Ephrem connects the questions he is ask‑ ing to those which the Lord asks Job. Yet it is signi cant that he does not simply quote or rephrase the biblical questions. Rather, he writes his own questions to evoke the biblical text, and then signals the connection through his concrete refer‑ ence to the Leviathan and the Behemoth. On the basis of that reference, his audi‑ ence can locate his nonbiblical questions as emerging from that book—as imitative of it. But unlike the book of Job, Ephrem does not seek to condemn human investi‑ gation into the divine in general. Rather, Ephrem takes Job’s general argument and directs it toward the speci c controversies in which his own audience is involved: “How much more hidden,” he asks, “is the Child of the Lord of all? Who could ex‑ plore the great / womb of his begetter?”

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Passages such as MF : and :, in which Ephrem connects his understanding of investigation and nature to a very speci c biblical passage, are rare. More oen he provides loose echoes—a clustering of vocabulary that evokes speci c passages from the Bible. It is difficult to classify Ephrem’s relationship to these passages in terms of “in uence” or “exegesis.” Rather, by evoking biblical arguments about na‑ ture through speci c terms, Ephrem fosters a relationship of likeness between the Bible and his madrashe. MF  begins with a litany of heavenly and earthly phenomena—lightning, rays of the sun, earthquakes, storms, oods (:); medicine, wine, spices, sleep, and food (:). All are enlisted to ask a basic question: if these things, though created, are so powerful and awe-inspiring, how could someone hope “to investigate the Consuming Fire” that created them (::)? All of this natural language has prece‑ dent in the Bible, yet there is no single passage upon which Ephrem appears to be drawing. is changes two stanzas later when Ephrem embeds a concrete allu‑ sions to Wisdom :. MF : reads: The Good One, therefore, who has arranged for us (takkes) Weights, scales, and measures (metqālê kîlê ʼâp mûšḥātâ), So we can approach created things through order (l-ṭaksâ), To accept their aid in measure (b-kîlâ): e One greater than all surely has not given himself for them to approach Him with measure (ba-mšûḥtâ), yet without order (d-lâ ṭaksâ)! How would he order all (ṭakkes kul) And not order (lâ takkes) his investigation for investigators?

We can compare this passage with Wisdom : (with linguistic parallels in italics): “But everything is established according to measure (b-kîlâ). According to weight and scale (b-ṭaksâ wa-b-metqālâ) you have placed them.” Beyond these linguistic paral‑ lels, the two passages cohere in their broad sense: both depict the world as a place that God has ordered to enable humans to arrive at knowledge of him. Ephrem expands this sense in MF  and rewrites it to demonstrate the proper shape of investigation. Here his interest is not in the complete incomprehensibility of nature. Rather, he ap‑ peals to an idea of divinely inspired natural order, through which one can proceed to an understanding of divinity. Taking this language from Wisdom, he suggests the possibility of a legitimate “investigation,” one that follows a natural order. Poem : is similar: These things are easy for those who know [them], but difficult for the simple: e work of crasmen, the fabric of the wise; Weaving and craing, sculpture and ornament; Treatises and calculations, weights and measures Which humans have discovered through wisdom, Measuring the earth and weighing the waters.

On the basis of this description of the wise man, Ephrem then asks in ::

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Given that the simple cannot investigate the wise… How much further is the wisdom of the wise behind The Creator of all in his wisdom? How mad they are!—who hope to discuss and investigate The nature of the Creator, the Son of the Maker!

For Ephrem, the categories of “created” and “nature” are synonymous, so that all the activities he here mentions fall under the category of “natural.” His picture of the wise man is one that is redolent of similar descriptions in Proverbs and Sirach, though he does not concretely refer to those passages. As elsewhere (though dif‑ ferent from the previous example), Ephrem’s argument is negative, forbidding inves‑ tigation into the divine: as the simple cannot understand the wise, neither can the wise understand the Creator. To what extent does Ephrem explicitly draw on the Bible in this passage? Within :, Ephrem seems to embed two allusions: to Exodus : and Isaiah :. ese allusions, however, are sparse, and dispersed throughout the stanza. The allusion to Exodus : appears in lines two and four of :, in the words “the work of crasman” (‘bādâ d-ʼûmmānê), “the ne linen of the wise” (zqûrâ daḥkîmê), and “calculation” (ḥûšbānê). As a whole, Exodus  does not concern itself with the ideal wise man but details for the Israelites the materials needed for the adornment of the tabernacle. In the verse to which Ephrem alludes, Moses tasks two men, Bezʼalel and Ohoʼliab, with the construction of the tabernacle. Ephrem takes this description and uses it to describe the ideal wise man. Ephrem couples this allusion to Exodus : with a second allusion, this one to Isaiah :. In the latter verse the prophet, while declaring the glory of the Lord, asks a series of rhetorical questions. In a way similar to Job , these questions aim to demonstrate the meekness of humanity in comparison with the divine: Who has measured the waters (ʼakîl mayyâ) in the palm of his hand, or has marked off (mšaḥ) the heavens with a span? Who has measured (ʼakîl) the dust of the earth (ʼar’â) with his st, weighed (tqal) the mountains in a scale (b-metqālâ), or dirt in a balance?

Ephrem’s use of this verse appears in lines  and . e term “weights” (kîlâ) derives from the same root (k-w-l) that translated “measured” (ʼakîl) in the above transla‑ tion. And “measures” (mšûḥātâ) derives from the same root (m-š-ḥ) that translated “marked off ” in the above translation. Line —“measuring the earth and weighing the waters”—represents a mash-up of several terms from the verse: mšaḥ (“to mea‑ sure”), tqal (“to weigh”), and “waters” (mayyâ). Why does Ephrem draw on these two passages? The Isaiah passage is more obvious: Ephrem’s general rhetorical aim is to construct a distance between humanity and God. This is precisely what the questions in Isaiah aim to demonstrate. Somewhat ironically, however, Ephrem uses these same characteristics—to measure the earth and weigh the waters—to demonstrate what a sage can do through knowledge. In poem :, howev‑





er, he inverts this rhetoric in a way that resonates with Isaiah : and argues that even though the wise man can do marvelous things, the Creator is still higher. The Exodus passage is intriguing, because, from a certain perspective, it seems irrelevant to Ephrem’s argument. e language is not taken from a passage that deals with nature, but one that deals with temple worship. However, it is entirely possible that Ephrem is taking this language from the Bible simply because it is bib‑ lical. Based on his use of biblical language, it is clear that Ephrem prefers to incorpo‑ rate biblical language into his poem, regardless of the narrative context of that lan‑ guage within the Bible. is practice has the effect of merging the discourse of the Bible with that of his madrashe. In this case, his use of biblical language need not depend upon semantic likeness. e importance of the language lies in the fact that it comes from the Bible, regardless of what it means. Yet, his use of this Exodus pas‑ sage may run deeper. Given that the context of his quotation of Exodus comes in a passage that describes the ritual adornment of the temple, Ephrem may intend to suggest that the wise man is the one who puts his abilities toward the glori cation of God rather than the investigation of God. In these passages, Ephrem creates a relationship of likeness between the Bible and the idea of investigation as it is articulated in his madrashe. rough allusion, quotation, and expansion, Ephrem builds his own rhetorical presentation of investi‑ gation out of that found in the Bible. On one level, their message is the same: in the passages upon which Ephrem draws, the Bible uses the opacity of nature to make an argument about the greater opacity of the divine. Yet, on another level, Ephrem ex‑ tends this argument to the particularities of his own community: the God whose opacity nature reveals is precisely the God who has begotten a Son, yet whose beget‑ ting cannot be investigated. Ephrem has thus taken these particular fourth-century issues and recast them through the much larger lens of the Bible. Within the madrashe, Ephrem’s arguments, as well as the precise language he uses to make those arguments, merges with the arguments and language of the Bible.

Investigation, Bible, and God So far I have suggested two broad contexts for Ephrem’s use of investigation: the fourthcentury theological controversies and biblical traditions that posit the opacity of nature as an argument for the greater opacity of the divine. Neither of these contexts, however, alert us to the precise biblical usage of the language itself (with the exception of Job’s use of šʼel). And Ephrem himself does not help us in finding these biblical antecedents: never does he reflect on the significance of the terms that he uses to delineate this theo‑ logical enterprise; never does he quote biblical passages in connection with this lan‑ guage. However, if we trace the use of three of Ephrem’s terms—bṣâ, b‘â, and ‘qab— throughout the Peshitta, a compelling picture emerges. Aside from a few passages where bṣâ carries a positive valence, bṣâ, b‘â, and ‘qab tend consistently to convey an activity in which God engages, with the inner lives of humans as its object. That is, God investigates humans rather than the other way around. Insofar as humans are able to investigate, it is only because they have acquired wisdom and thus act with their





highest faculties. This biblical argument, articulated primarily through the use of bṣâ, b‘â, and ‘qab, resonates entirely with the use of the language in the Madrashe on Faith. The idea of investigation as an activity that belongs properly to God appears fre‑ quently in Wisdom literature and the prophetic books. In the opening verse of Psalm , the Psalmist exclaims, “O Lord, you have investigated me (bṣaytān[y]) and known me,” and repeats this at the end of the Psalm (v. , “Investigate me, O God, and know my heart”). e book of Jeremiah states simply, “I, the Lord, search the heart and test the inmost parts (bāṣê lebbâ w-bāḥar kûlyātâ)” (Jer. :). Proverbs : suggests the possibility of human investigation but only into the hu‑ man subject, and only using the human soul: “e lamp of the Lord is the breath of humans. It investigates all interior rooms” (bāṣyâ kullhôn tāwānê d-karsâ). Within the book of Job, outside of those passages we have already discussed, the language of investigation is slightly more complicated, but still con rms our general picture. In Job :, one of Job’s friends, Eli’phaz, nishes his lengthy speech with a con dent proclamation: “is we have investigated (bāṣeyn), and so announce it: you should recognize [its truth].” Eli’phaz is con dent in the substance of his speech —he believes he has investigated the matter and uncovered its truth. But as the read‑ er knows, his con dence is comically misplaced, and the use of bṣâ, “to investigate,” is ironic. In claiming to investigate, Eli’phaz claims a perspective accessible only to God. Following his friend’s assertion, Job delivers a scathing rebuke to his friends, asking them, “Will it go well for you when he [i.e., God] investigates you” (d-bāṣê lkôn) (Job :)? Similarly, in Wisdom :, the author tells his addressees that the Lord “will investigate your thoughts” (maḥšabātkôn mebṣê). is association con‑ tinues in the New Testament: Romans : refers to God as “he who searches the hearts of men (māʼeš dên lebwātâ),” and in  Corinthians : identi es the Spirit as the one who “investigates everything, even the depths of God” (rûḥâ gêr kulmed‑ dem bāṣyâ ʼâp ‘ûmqaw[hy] d-ʼallāhâ). In the few cases where the Peshitta uses this language to describe human ways of knowing positively, it describes knowledge that can be obtained only by the wise. In Proverbs :–, the addressee (“my son”) is told that if one “seeks [wisdom] (teb’îew[hy]) like silver, and investigates it (tebṣîew[hy]) like a treasure,” then it will bring knowledge of God. In Job :, Job reminisces on his former days of blessed‑ ness—how people sought him out for the wisdom of his counsel. In those days, he says, “I would investigate (ʼebṣê) their ways.” Job, that is, had divine-like insight into humans. In Sirach :, the author advises his listener (again, “my son”) to “Exam‑ ine (bdaq) and investigate (bṣâ) and seek (b‘â) [wisdom] and you will nd [it].” Ec‑ clesiastes seems to play with this tradition. In the rst chapter, the author claims that, “I applied my heart to investigate (l-meb‘â) and understand through wisdom all that is under heaven.” He then admits, however, “this is an evil concern the Lord has given humans with which to concern themselves.” These books suggest a theological tradition according to which “investigation,” signi ed by the Peshitta translators primarily with the verb bṣâ (but also b‘â and ‘qab), referred to an activity belonging rightfully to God and available only to cer‑ tain humans, and only in limited contexts. All of this language coalesces most



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provocatively in  Ezra. e date of  Ezra in Syriac has not been the subject of much scholarly study. e earliest Syriac manuscript derives from the late sixth or early seventh century, and it is difficult to tell whether this represents its debut in Syriac or if it was known before then. Ephrem appears never to quote the book outright or refer to it explicitly. Yet, it is in  Ezra that Ephrem’s language of investi‑ gation nds its most precise parallels. The most compelling scenes that utilize Ephrem’s language of investigation ap‑ pear in chapters , , and . e book  Ezra  begins with an apocalyptic se‑ quence, in which the seer is told of the future desolation of the earth (vv. –), fol‑ lowed by the seers own questioning of the Lord’s judgment regarding this coming desolation (vv. –). It is here that we nd a concatenation of Ephremic language. In verse , an angel appears to Ezra to explain why the Lord will desolate Israel. In a move reminiscent of Job , the angel does not offer Ezra an answer but yet anoth‑ er question: “Do you love [Israel] more than his Maker does?” To this Ezra responds (v. ), “No, my lord, but because of my grief I have spoken…. for I seek (bā‘ê-nâ) to understand the decree of the judgment of the Most High. And I search for some‑ thing of his judgment” (w-ʼe‘aqqeb meddem men dîneh). Ezra has thus asked for an insight—an insight born of investigation—which belongs properly only to God. In response, then, the angel tells him (v. ), “You cannot” (that is, investigate this mat‑ ter) (lâ meškaḥ ʼa[n]t). Here, then, we have two of Ephrem’s preferred terms for in‑ vestigation, and they are used by Ezra to signify his own desire for divine knowl‑ edge, a knowledge that the angel then denies him. In  Ezra :, a similar picture is offered. Chapter  concludes an extensive vi‑ sion scene, from which Ezra awakes “in great perplexity of mind and in great fear” (:b). He blames this state on his spirit’s investigation: “Behold,” he says, address‑ ing himself, “you have brought this upon me because you investigate the ways of the Most High (m‘aqqeb-ʼa(n)t ʼûrḥāteh da-mraymâ).” He then asks the “Most High” for strength. Note here that Ezra does not ultimately claim that he should not have in‑ vestigated, only that “perplexity…and great fear” emerged within him as a result. is suggests the gravity that accompanied the behavior. Finally,  Ezra  contains an extensive apocalyptic vision sequence, followed by an interpretation of that sequence. However, the interpretation leaves out a crucial detail: the explanation of a mysterious man, presumably the Messiah, “coming out from the sea.” In :, Ezra asks the Most High to explain this mysterious man. e Most High refuses, and says, “Just as no human can investigate and nd or know what is in the depths of the sea (ʼaykannâ d-lâ māṣê ʼnāš d-nebṣê w-neškaḥ ʼaw ned‑ da‘ meddem da-b-‘ûmqaw[hy] d-yammâ), so no human among those who are on the earth can see my son or those who are with him.” Here we have a fascinating group‑ ing of Ephremic language and ideas. First,  Ezra uses the sea as a metaphor for di‑ vine incomprehensibility, just as Ephrem does throughout the Madrashe on Faith. Second, in the language he uses to describe this incomprehensibility—no one can investigate—there appears Ephrem’s exact term for investigation. Finally, it is pre‑ cisely the “son” of the Most High that Ezra cannot investigate. For Ephrem, of course, it is the begetting of the Son of God that is inscrutable to humans.

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

In verse  of this same chapter, this prohibition on investigation gets mollified slightly. The “Most High” explains the dream sequence to Ezra, “because,” as the text tells him, “you have forsaken your own ways and have concerned yourself with mine, and have investigated things related to my law (ʼaylên da-d-nāmûsâ ʼennên b‘ayt).” So, Ezra cannot investigate the mysterious son, but he can investigate the things related to God’s law. This is remarkably similar to Ephrem’s view of investigation: Ephrem con‑ demns any kind of investigation related to the Son but admits that some investigation is permissible, if carried out in certain ways, with certain objects. Altogether, this makes for a compelling portrait. “Investigation” refers primarily to a divine activity through which deep knowledge of human behavior is acquired. In some cases, humans can engage in this divine task but only in pursuit of wisdom, and only a select few. Even here, however, there are limitations. Ezra is told that he cannot investigate the son. e author of Ecclesiastes seeks only “what is under heaven,” not what is above. e Lord confounds Job, in chapters –, with pre‑ cisely a litany of things that lie under the sun. In Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith we see replicated this biblical discourse surrounding investigation. CONCLUSION

For Ephrem, investigation marks a behavior allowable only in very particular in‑ stances. One can investigate things that are revealed—things that lie “under the sun” and within the text of the Bible. Ephrem’s opponents, however, in trying to uncover the mechanics of God’s begetting of a Son, have transgressed this hidden-revealed boundary and are now seeking what cannot be found. And even with that which is revealed, Ephrem is cautious. Surely he would concur with the author of Ecclesi‑ astes: “is is an evil concern the Lord has given humans with which to concern themselves.” Investigation uni es the discourse of the Madrashe on Faith. Ephrem’s polemic against “investigation” developed alongside his anti-subordinationist polemic, but it also developed in concert with the Bible, building upon the Bible’s own theological rhetoric. In the very unifying theme of the Madrashe on Faith, we can see Ephrem’s biblical poetics at work: investigation resonates equally in the theological culture of the fourth century and in the pages of the Bible. In interacting with the Bible, Ephrem is always mediating it to his audience, and mediating between his audience and the Bible. He is always fashioning the Bible in light of his audience, and his au‑ dience in light of the Bible. In investigation—in the very theme that unites the Madrashe on Faith—we see this process at work. Investigation is an idea that takes shape equally in the world of the fourth century and in the world of the Bible. The concept of the Bible itself is, of course, not straightforward. While we can speak with some con dence about Ephrem’s biblical versions, this is only part of the story. “e Bible”—as a body of documents that have come to be seen as sacred—is always a theoretical concept, always in a process of being constructed for a particu‑ lar audience. So what does Ephrem think the Bible is? How does he construct this body of texts for his particular audience?

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Bible, Polemics, and Language

My goal in this chapter is to uncover Ephrem’s Bible—not the physical text upon which he drew, but the text as he imagined it and wove it into his literary body. I ar‑ gue that Ephrem represented the Bible as a symbolic document always constructed through its use by a particular community and set of reading practices. In the rst section, I look at the names that Ephrem gave to the Bible and how his imaginative portrayal of it functioned in its fourth-century context. I then look at how he devel‑ oped a polemic against the reading practices of his opponents and a theory of signs that destabilized the Bible’s apparent meaning, and how he represented the Bible as modeling his own compositional process. EPHREM’S SYMB OLIC BIBLE

Ephrem constructed his Bible in a fundamental way through the names he gave it. Within the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem most frequently refers to the Bible as ktābê (“books”), a term that denotes not individual parts but the work as a whole. While he never de nes this whole, he predicates quotations from the Old and New Testa‑ ments upon this single term. “e books” perform the role of active subject. ey “depict the Son” (MF :), “li the understanding” (MF :), “show forth” the “nature of the Lord of all” (MF :), “call out” (MF :), “give witness” (MF :), and “seal” the truth (MF :). Ephrem further calls “the books” “true,” “able to be interpreted” (pšîq) (MF :), and “holy” (MF :). Only occasionally does Ephrem refer to the Bible as the singular ktābâ, “the book.” is is especially com‑ mon when he couples it with references to the natural world. While ktābê does not indicate any speci c part of the Bible, Ephrem does use a more speci c terminology. He refers to the Bible as consisting in “Two Testaments,” which he also calls the “Old” and “New Testament.” Analogous to the division be‑ tween the “Old” and “New Testament,” Ephrem occasionally refers to the Bible sim‑ 

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, ,  

ply as “the Prophets and Apostles,” with the former apparently signifying the “Old Testament,” and the latter the “New Testament.” Ephrem also refers to the “law” (nāmûsâ) and “Torah” (ʼûrāytâ). With both terms, he clearly intends to indicate the Old Testament generally, but it is difficult to tell if these terms have any more spe‑ ci c signi cance for him. He also uses the term sbartâ, “Gospel,” to refer—though not exclusively—to the physical book. Beyond identifying these concrete names, uncovering Ephrem’s conception of the Bible becomes a more complicated task. It is difficult to reconstruct his hermeneutics. He rarely makes general statements about the Bible or speaks straightforwardly about how it should be interpreted. Any such data that he does provide appears in the midst of dense, oen polemical passages, but Ephrem con‑ sistently conceives of the Bible as malleable and multivalent. “e books” can be in‑ terpreted differently in different contexts; Ephrem at times encourages a variety of interpretations. As he writes in an o-quoted passage from his Commentary on the Diatessaron, “if the words had [only] one aspect, the rst interpreter would nd it, and all [his] listeners would have neither the toil of seeking nor the rest [that comes] from nding.” Yet so as to incite this pleasurable toil on the reader’s behalf, God, through various authors, has constructed the Bible so that its meanings are many layered, always shiing, ever new. In Ephrem’s corpus, the reader’s pleasure is only one cause of the Bible’s multiva‑ lence. In Ephrem’s overtly polemical works, he rarely interprets disagreements about the Bible’s meaning so positively. For example, in his Madrashe Against Here‑ sies, Ephrem developed a polemic directed speci cally against Marcionite use of the Bible. Ephrem poetically criticized Marcion for “severing [Christ’s] words like limbs” and praised the Church for having received the complete text of the Bible. In the Madrashe on Faith, writing primarily against subordinationist Christians, Ephrem imagined a different Bible. Unlike with the “Marcionites,” Ephrem shared with the various Christian groups that debated the legacy of Nicaea a number of as‑ sumptions about the sacred text. As Khaled Anatolios has pointed out, regardless of their speci c perspectives on the relationship between Father and Son, these groups all shared a canon, held the books in that canon to be authoritative, and assumed the books’ divine provenance. Yet, as Frances Young has also pointed out, the wide-ranging fourth-century disagreements about the Trinity almost always took the form of debates about the meaning of the Bible. Ephrem could assume that he and his subordinationist opponents held the same basic textual starting point—their Bible was shared. However, in his presentation of the Bible with respect to these subordinationist opponents, Ephrem was faced with an uncomfortable sameness. He and his opponents shared a Bible, but, from Ephrem’s perspective, drew wildly different conclusions on its basis. In response to their shared literary starting point, Ephrem craed a symbolic world within which he literarily represented the Bible. He constructed this imagined Bible in two prima‑ ry ways. First, he poetically built a world within which his opponents’ “misreadings” could be placed. In this world, the Bible’s meaning was obvious yet always missed by Ephrem’s opponents. ese opponents, and their relationship to the Bible, were

, ,  

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placed as characters in this literary world. Second, Ephrem constructed a world within which he and his community related to the Bible as a cryptic document—its meaning always expanding and slightly hard to determine. In addressing his oppo‑ nents, Ephrem insisted that the Bible was simple, but they missed its meaning. In addressing his allies, he insisted that the Bible was cryptic, because it truly repre‑ sented the God who transcended human understanding. EPHREM’S ANTI-SUB ORDINATIONIST BIBL E

One of the ways Ephrem represented the Bible in the Madrashe on Faith was by cre‑ ating a dramatic picture of its relationship to his opponents. While he was con‑ cerned with some of their misreadings of the text, he spent far more time creating dramatic scenes involving what he took to be his opponents’ misuse of the Bible. ese dramatic scenes can be divided into three types: scenes in which he portrays his opponents and allies as abandoning the Bible’s language; scenes in which he por‑ trays his opponents as obfuscating a book that is, in itself, clear; and scenes in which he embeds his opponents within a broader genealogy of misreading.

Abandoning the Books In his polemics against subordinationist Christologies, Ephrem occasionally does focus upon what he identi es as speci c misreadings of particular biblical verses. For example, in MF  he alludes to subordinationist readings of Proverbs :. Ac‑ cording to Athanasius, this verse had become a veritable subordinationist proof text, and Athanasius himself constructed what would become the standard proNicene rebuttal, namely, that the verse referred to Christ as “creature” with respect to his human begetting not his divine begetting (as Arius purportedly took it). Ephrem obviously knew this exegetical tradition and alluded to it in MF :. Yet this approach to biblical disagreements features minimally in Ephrem’s broader polemic against his opponents’ use of the Bible. Rather than focusing on speci c misinterpretations, Ephrem broadly critiqued his opponents and his allies for using in their theological discourse language not taken from the Bible. In voic‑ ing this broad accusation, Ephrem almost certainly had in mind two terms, ho‑ moousios (“consubstantial,” Syr., bar kyāneh), and agennêtos (“unbegotten,” Syr., d-lâ yaldâ). e term homoousios elicited criticism during the fourth century because it never appeared in the Bible as a term to describe the divinity of Christ. is criti‑ cism appeared in authors who otherwise supported the Nicene cause, among whom was Ephrem. e term agennêtos derived from the works of Aetius and Eunomius. Basil had criticized Eunomius for building a theological system on a divine name (agennêtos) that appeared nowhere in the Bible. As the polemics of the Madrashe on Faith make clear, Ephrem was aware of both of these movements and against both of them he leveled the same claim. The content of Ephrem’s polemic rested on the conviction that Trinitarian dis‑ course should derive its key phrases from the Bible. But he articulated this position

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, ,  

by craing short poetic scenes, full of pregnant language, in which both he and his opponents featured as characters. In MF :, Ephrem depicted himself encoun‑ tering such misuses of the Bible: I have never wandered aer humans Saying like them, “I have seen that they call Our Savior other names that are unwritten.” I have le what is unwritten and proceeded through what is written, Lest on account of those unwritten things, I should destroy the written things.

Ephrem’s accusation is clear: insofar as someone names Christ using terms from outside the Bible, that person risks destroying the Bible’s way of speaking about Christ. Ephrem implies a stark contrast between the Bible’s God-given names for Christ and the humanly constructed language of his opponents. He articulates this accusation in two ways. First, he constructs a terse image in which he presents himself as faithful and unnamed “humans” as unfaithful (whether willfully or oth‑ erwise). Second, he builds this image through language that subtly depicts his op‑ ponents as unthinking victims of theological whimsy. As a whole, the stanza juxta‑ poses the firmness of biblical language with the negative fluidity of human language. The verb here translated as “to wander” (ṭāp) has a basic meaning of “to oat,” from which the noun “ ood” (ṭûpānâ) is derived. e key concept connecting these meanings, which leads to the sense of “wandering,” is the idea of an object being un‑ able to withstand the forces acting upon it. Ephrem’s phrase “I have never wandered aer people” bears this sense of lazily oating along without active thought. Ephrem’s language depicts one who is not simply lost but is thoughtlessly wandering at the behest of external forces. By using ṭāp to describe a fairly basic theological idea—the idea that nonbiblical language can be used to adequately arrive at ideas of God—Ephrem sketches an image of his opponents being moved erratically toward something not of their own choosing. e overtones of ooding, moreover, com‑ municate the seriousness of the state that Ephrem depicts. Much more than simply stating his disapproval of divine names deriving from outside the Bible, Ephrem’s language builds an un attering and dramatic portrait of those who would utilize such names. inking of this scene in terms of his overall construction of the Bible, Ephrem here portrays his opponents as thoughtlessly driing away from it, yet with language that subtly suggests approaching danger. A crucial part of this portrait, of course, is that Ephrem presents himself as standing in an ideal relationship to the Bible. Ephrem counters the passive move‑ ment of his opponents with his own course toward “what is written.” While the verbs “to leave” (šbaq) and “to go forth” (npaq) are common, they nevertheless ex‑ press a clearly active movement, especially when juxtaposed with ṭāp (“to wander”). Rather than merely stating his position on biblical language, Ephrem depicts an imaginative scene in which he and his opponents stand in relationship to the Bible. Within this scene, he draws clear lines between those who actively latch onto the

, ,  



Bible (with himself as exemplar) and those who passively abandon it. e Bible’s purpose in this represented world is obvious. As Ephrem writes in the following stanza, “the Bible (ktābê) has uncovered” the “Lord of all.” Ephrem actively latches onto the Bible in this capacity, while his opponents dri dangerously away. The Bible stands at the center of MF : as a document that reveals God by providing a lexicon with which humans can speak about God. Ephrem positions himself and his opponents in relationship to this book. In the stanza that follows, Ephrem expands this picture, so that the Bible becomes more than just a lexicon for theological discourse. Rather, by linking the Bible with the natural world, Ephrem renders it a concrete entity that provides spiritual life in the same way that the nat‑ ural world provides physical life: The waters he created and gave to the sh for their use. e Bible he inscribed and gave to humans as an aid. e two testify to one another: if the sh pass beyond e boundary of their path, their jerking is painful. And if humans pass beyond the boundary of the Bible, eir dispute becomes deadly.

In this passage Ephrem takes an ambiguous, abstract entity—the Bible and its meaning—and represents it as something concrete and obvious. In reality, Ephrem’s opponents—those who constructed theological systems that depended in various ways on using language that did not appear in the Bible—had arguably not aban‑ doned it. Eunomius’s short treatises are replete with biblical allusions, and Athana‑ sius—champion of the Nicene homoousios—would offer a rigorous defense of how the nonbiblical homoousios ensured the integrity of the Bible. In representing the Bible through the analogy of the sh’s relationship to water, Ephrem constructed this ambiguous situation through imagery that rendered it clear and concrete. In these two stanzas, Ephrem uses metaphoric language to represent himself, his opponents, and the natural world in relationship to the Bible. MF  expands this metaphoric representation. As in poem , Ephrem draws on spatial, physical metaphors to represent the Bible as a concrete, unambiguous entity: Who has ever been crazy enough to look around without light, Investigate without shining, or explore without brightness? Yet the foolish scribes have gone out from the Bible To wander around in a wasteland. ey have neglected the Testament— e way of the kingdom. Its mile markers are the prophets, Its abodes the apostles.

In this stanza Ephrem articulates three metaphors to build a complex portrait of his opponents’ use of the Bible. e rst is that of someone who tries to explore the darkness without light. is metaphor gives way to the related notion of wandering around in a wasteland. Finally, Ephrem settles on a picture of someone who has wandered off a clearly demarcated path. e “scribes”—a biblically derived poetic term for his opponents—wander through this metaphoric landscape. Ephrem de‑



, ,  

picts their movement out from the Bible with the same language that he used in MF : to depict his own adherence to it. Whereas there he presented himself as will‑ fully clinging to its words, here the “foolish scribes” evidence the same active and intentional movement away from the Bible. Moreover, whereas his opponents in poem  found themselves passive participants in an unintentional dri away from the Bible’s harbor, here “the scribes” intentionally chart a course away from its safe‑ ty. e latter is represented as cultivated land in which one can dwell in peace. As with the metaphor of sh and water (MF :), Ephrem’s language in this passage casts the Bible as an obvious, life-giving entity, with clearly demarcated lim‑ its. Ephrem articulates a position according to which biblical language amounts to something as simple as using light in the darkness or walking along a path with clearly de ned road signs. e opposite—theological discourse without biblical lan‑ guage—is not only chaotic and aimless (like wandering in a desert) but is portrayed as actually difficult to choose—a choice not to carry a light, not to stick to a clearly marked path through a harsh landscape. Again, in a context in which his communi‑ ties’ relationship to the Bible was anything but clear, Ephrem uses language that at‑ tributes to his position an apparently undeniable clarity and simplicity. Ephrem’s articulation of the relationship between Bible and theological lan‑ guage is relatively simple, and it is easy enough to ground historically. Respond‑ ing to the use of a couple of key nonbiblical terms on opposite sides of the contro‑ versy—the Nicene homoousios and the Eunomian agennêtos—Ephrem insists that theological discourse must root itself in biblical language. In order to voice this basic theological position, Ephrem constructs an imaginative world in which he and his opponents relate to the Bible in dramatic terms. In these passages, he rep‑ resents the Bible as life-giving, simple, and clearly defined. He represents his op‑ ponents as a group that has either drifted away from the text unwillingly or aban‑ doned it willingly.

Peaceful Books, Troubled Readers In MF , Ephrem argued against theological discourse that was insufficiently root‑ ed in the Bible. In MF , the poem under investigation in this section, he makes a subtler critique, but one which is rich in its poetic presentation. Again he presents the Bible as existing in parallel to the natural world and uses this natural language to represent the book as a concrete and life-giving entity. Ephrem takes aim in MF  against the religious leaders of his own day. is polemic recurs throughout the Madrashe on Faith but is voiced most blatantly in a different poem—MF :. ere, apparently in reference to imperial interventions in ecclesiastical affairs, Ephrem writes: The crown is absolved, For priests have placed stumbling blocks before kings.

The precise historical background to this passage is debatable. Sidney Griffith and Andrew Palmer took it in reference to Valens’s mistreatment of pro-Nicene Chris‑

, ,  



tians in Edessa, while Edmund Beck saw it as representing Ephrem’s more general stance toward ecclesiastical politics following Nicaea. While I tend towards Beck’s reading, the two positions are not mutually exclusive. What is interesting to me, in‑ stead, is the way in which Ephrem uses the Bible to address these controversies in a cryptic way. In so doing, he presents them as deeply connected to his community’s use of the Bible. MF  is a complex poem. Ephrem roots his critique of the religious leaders of his own day in a reading of Ezekiel , which likewise criticizes the religious leaders of its time. Yet Ephrem rewrites this passage from Ezekiel by connecting it to lan‑ guage about the natural world and about the community’s ritual life. By connecting Ezekiel, the natural world, and the sacraments of Eucharist and baptism, Ephrem builds a subtle and scathing critique of his opponents: From the words written About the humbling of the Creator’s Son, Debaters have come to believe that he is a creature, And have stirred up the spring. Upon stirring up investigation through their controversies, ey have turned and given to drink from the waters their feet stirred up. And though the teaching is clear, ey have drunk the dregs of its clarity.

Ephrem depicts the Bible as a clear “spring” that his opponents have sullied through misinterpretation and then forced others to “drink” by further promulgating these misinterpretations. is rst stanza marks the beginning of an allusion to Ezekiel :– that echoes through the next six stanzas of this poem, before Ephrem refers to it explicitly in MF :. e allusion in this stanza is to Ezekiel : (shared vocabulary is italicized in the translation): MF ::– … And they have stirred up (dalḥûh) the spring. Upon stirring up (w-kad dalḥûh) investigation through their controversies, ey have turned and given to drink from the waters their feet stirred up (w-ʼaštî[w] mayyâ da-dlaḥ reglayhôn). Ezekiel : And the rest of your pasture you trample with your feet (reglaykôn). You drink the water (mayyâ šātîn ʼa[n]tôn), and stir up (dālḥîn ʼa[n]tôn) what is le over with your feet (reglaykôn).

Ezekiel  accuses the “shepherds of Israel” of taking care of themselves and ignor‑ ing their sheep. By subtly echoing Ezekiel’s condemnation, Ephrem can level these words against the pastors of his own day without stating the criticism outright. In



, ,  

Ephrem’s case, the abuse of power is explicitly exegetical: these “debaters” corrupt the text of the Bible through misinterpretation and render it to their congregation in such an impure state. The passage from Ezekiel enables Ephrem to cast the Bible as a source of life and to criticize those whose job is to dispense this source of life. In the poem’s fourth stanza, Ephrem expands the metaphor by connecting the language of “spring” to language of the Eucharist, so that reading is represented, by comparison, as a sacra‑ mental practice: [:] O font of wonder, Clear and yet stirred up on both sides! It is entirely clear to those who are clear, Who, by its clear drink, are puri ed. Yet to those who are stirred up, it is stirred up, because they are stirred up, Like something sweet, which is [nevertheless] bitter to those who are sick. Truth is stirred up among the contentious, Like something sweet [given] among the sick. O Lord, heal our sickness, So that with health we may hear what concerns you!

This term “font” (mabbû‘â) occurs elsewhere in the Madrashe on Faith in a clearly eucharistic setting. Within Ephrem’s lexicon, “font” can function as a general Christological title, but it can also refer to any source from which teachings come. is particular passage extends the semantic range of the term to the Bible, while at the same time maintaining the eucharistic echo. Applied to both the Eucharist and the Bible, the metaphor of the font evokes dif‑ ferent modes of divine embodiment simultaneously, albeit with different referents taking prominence at different times. e body of the Bible is still the primary ref‑ erent, but “font” enables Ephrem to connect the audience’s sense of reading to their sense of euchariastic reception. As the poem proceeds, the “font” metaphor shis to refer not only to the Bible and the Eucharist, but also to nature. At :, Ephrem states, “ose outside [i.e., the Church] look upon nature, / which is all stirred up (dlîḥ) on account of Adam.” Yet, whereas it is Adam’s sin that has lent to nature a disordered façade, it is theological controversy that “has troubled the book” (:). Ephrem draws this out in :, and now quotes Ezekiel : outright: Ezekiel foresaw is all-disturbing debate And this all-troubling controversy When he rebuked the shepherds: “My sheep have grazed the pasture your heels have trampled. ey have turned and drunk the waters your feet have troubled!” Look at the words [of Ezekiel] and look at [these] acts! e proud have troubled creation!

, ,  



Having hinted at the passage from Ezekiel for forty-eight lines, Ephrem here ‑ nally lands rmly in his source. While his primary focus has been on the Bible and its misreading, Ezekiel’s language enables him to weave a broader tapestry and situ‑ ate misreading within it. e subordinationist readings of the Bible, which he ac‑ cuses his opponents of promoting, become akin to interpretations of nature that both he and his audience deem heretical. At the same time that he levels this cri‑ tique against his opponents, he uses ritual language to recast reading as a sacra‑ mental act for his audience. Ephrem situates himself in the midst of this poetic discourse. Still incorporating Ezekiel’s language, he concludes the poem with another subtle critique of his own hierarchy: “rough a clear shepherd, give me to drink / from the clear stream of books!” In identifying the Bible as a source from which a clear stream ows, Ephrem continues the connection between reading and ritual ceremony, and again draws on metaphors that present the Bible as a simple, concrete reality, which has nevertheless been rendered unclean through debate.

Genealogies of Misreading Ephrem accuses his opponents of promulgating theological discourse shorn of bib‑ lical language and of misinterpreting the biblical terms they do use. He clothes both of these accusations in poetic language, using metaphors that present the Bible as a concrete and unambiguous book. In addition to these speci c accusations, he also constructs a genealogy of misreading, carried out by biblical villains, within which he places his opponents’ present misreadings. Ephrem uses these biblical antago‑ nists to present his opponents as approaching the Bible with doubt and mistrust— looking upon the pages that give life and nding only errors. In MF : and , Ephrem writes: [:] From that Old Testament, let us learn How the children of truth listened to him with a love of discernment. ey believed [truth’s] giver and affirmed its writer, While the children of error listened to every aid With an ear for controversy and mouths for derision. [Yet] they who mocked him have been rejected. [:] erefore, the two Testaments instruct us at the faithful have never debated or discussed (lâ draš[w] w-lâ ‘qab[w]), For they have believed in God. But the scribes and the crooked Debaters (dārûšê) never keep silent. e Books are full of peace, But they are full of rage. eir debating (drāšhôn) has aged them And their rust consumes them.

In the last three lines of this stanza, Ephrem repeats his accusation that though “the Books” are “full of peace,” the “scribes and debaters” have approached these peaceful texts with anger and mistrust. Ephrem’s precise accusation against these de‑ baters is less clear than in the passages we have already examined. He does not accuse



, ,  

them of nonbiblical discourse or obvious misinterpretation. Rather, his accusation here is of a more ideological nature. As Christine Shepardson has shown in connec‑ tion to his anti-Jewish rhetoric, Ephrem aimed first to demonize Jewish behavior (taking New Testament scribes and Pharisees as typical), and then to conflate rhetori‑ cally his opponents with these literarily constructed Jewish villains. In making these accusations, Ephrem is not focused on the meanings these readers draw from the text. Rather, his goal is to present their approach to the text in a particularly negative light. By coupling New Testament scribes and “debaters” (the symbolic name he applies to his contemporaries), Ephrem casts his opponents as parallel to those who challenged Christ in his own lifetime. Ephrem has merged the symbolic world of the Bible with his own contemporary world. In his madrashe, New Testament scribes and “debaters” engage in a timeless task of hermeneutic mistrust. The scribes and Pharisees of the New Testament function as a recurring metaphor through which Ephrem presents this type of hermeneutic mistrust. More generally, he likens his opponent to a lawyer or a prosecutor (b‘el dînâ) when faced with the biblical text. In MF , he echoes New Testament language to depict his opponent as a type of legal prosecutor: For whenever his own hearers of truth Are surrounded by him in love, they do not take his words to court. But those who are craily divided lie in wait for his utterances— eir hateful controversy is like a prosecutor.

While lacking any speci c borrowing of terminology, this characterization echoes several New Testament presentations of scribes and Pharisees. According to Ephrem, his opponents’ hermeneutic mirrors the prosecutorial manner evidenced by Christ’s opponents in his own earthly lifetime. In the following stanza, Ephrem identi es the Pharisees and scribes more obviously: Our Lord spoke, the luminous rejoiced, e gloomy grew afraid, the innocent heard and believed, And the cunning heard and debated: “How can this one Give his body to us?” eir debating has cheated them From the medicine of life. Let it not cheat us also— Our debating—so that we do not believe!

Here Ephrem embeds a quotation from John :. Yet whereas the Johannine text presumes a eucharistic context, Ephrem, as in MF , applies this eucharistic lan‑ guage to the process of reading. Rather than debating Christ in the esh, as did “the cunning” in Christ’s lifetime, Ephrem’s opponents debate with the text. As a result of this debating, they are robbed of its healing properties. Ephrem’s argument here is not against a concrete misuse of the Bible. Rather, by tracing a parallel between his opponents’ reading of the Bible and these biblical vil‑ lains’ response to Christ, Ephrem creates an ambience around their use of the Bible. The concrete nature of these readings is almost irrelevant. Rather, what matters is the way that, in Ephrem’s presentation of them, they pursue such readings. In a context of

, ,  



debate about the Bible and its Trinitarian ramifications, Ephrem’s argument would have been powerful precisely because of this ambiguity. As he presents it, any discur‑ sive activity could be presented as “debating” and thus uncharitable and argumenta‑ tive. Moreover, by making these claims within his Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem makes an implicit claim about his own use of the Bible. His is an ideal use, even if only be‑ cause it is not characterized by those failings of which he accuses his opponents.

The Images of an Anti-Subordinationist Bible Ephrem develops a series of metaphoric ways of portraying his opponents’ use of the Bible: they promote a theological discourse stricken of biblical language, they confuse otherwise clear books through misreading, and they stand within a geneal‑ ogy of willful mistrust of the Bible. Taken together, these portraits work together to produce a conglomerate picture of a culture of misreading. rough these portraits, Ephrem does not counter the concrete misreadings that his opponents are promul‑ gating. Rather, he builds a series of dramatic scenes that aim to construct a particu‑ lar narrative of the Bible and its readers. While Ephrem never explicitly trumpets his own reading as in any way ideal, his presentation of this narrative of his oppo‑ nents’ misreading inevitably has an effect on the perception of the readings present‑ ed in his own madrashe. By comparison, these negative portraits imply that his dis‑ course is steeped in the Bible’s language, states its meaning clearly, and stands within a decidedly different genealogy of reading. SYMB OLS AND THE L ANGUAGE OF THE BIBL E

In the scenes we have examined, Ephrem has focused on the Bible’s misunderstand‑ ing and misuse rather than on its accurate interpretation. However, in other places in the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem does articulate a system for nding meaning in it. In representing a correct understanding of the Bible, Ephrem constructs it as a transcendent document, full of mysterious signs that stretch human comprehen‑ sion. In this section, I argue that Ephrem’s view of biblical language undergirds his actual use of the Bible, and that this performatively acts out his theology of it. He presents the Bible as a collection of signs that God and, by extension, biblical au‑ thors, have arranged to convey particular meanings to particular audiences. In turn, Ephrem presents himself as imitative of this act of divine authorship, further ar‑ ranging the Bible’s signs to convey new meanings to his particular audience. Similar to Ephrem’s anti-investigative stance, Ephrem’s notion of divine names developed in response to the Trinitarian controversies. But this theological devel‑ opment, which led Ephrem to emphasize God’s transcendence and unknowability absolutely, shaped the way he saw and used the Bible. In response to the Eunomian idea that language could reveal the divine absolutely and exhaustively, Ephrem came to view the Bible’s language as deeply metaphorical. is meant, on the one hand, that its meaning always had to be held with a sort of reverent uncertainty. On the other hand, it meant that Ephrem could play with the Bible—he could shape its



, ,  

words and meanings within his poetry. As Shinichi Muto has articulated it, Ephrem presented himself as engaging in a gathering of symbols that began initially with Christ’s own semiotic act. Ephrem’s builds his sense of the Bible’s meaning by focusing on the divine names within it. Over the last decade, scholars have argued that Ephrem’s theory of names sits at the center of his theology writ large. Much of this literature has offered a first-level organization, cataloguing, and analysis of the passages in which he addresses divine names. If there is one way in which my approach dif‑ fers from these studies, it is that I take Ephrem’s theology of names to have been rhetorically articulated. That is, I would argue that our understanding of his the‑ ology of names must always be connected to the way he uses language and to the way he thinks through and presents his own poetic reuse of the Bible. My sense of the rhetorical force of Ephrem’s view of language builds upon three ideas: first, scholars have pointed to Ephrem’s articulation of a basic “chasm” between the Creator and the creation as an essential component of his view of language; sec‑ ond, scholars have emphasized Ephrem’s linking of the Bible and the natural world; third, scholars have interpreted Ephrem’s view of biblical language in terms of sacrament. I first outline these ideas and then address Ephrem’s view of language in connection to his biblical poetics.

Language, Nature, and Sacrament At a most basic level, Ephrem’s understanding of language in relationship to God is wrapped up with his idea of a radical “chasm” (petḥâ) that separates God and cre‑ ation. As Ephrem sees it, language operates within the realm of what is created, yet the object of theological discourse—God—lies outside the created realm. The very possibility for humans to speak about God always depends upon the fact that God has transgressed this “ontological gap” in order to manifest God’s self to humans. For our purposes, the particularly linguistic aspect of Ephrem’s view of the ontological gap has two important consequences. First, this gap between divinity and humanity leads Ephrem to emphasize the instability of language. Second, because the Bible provides the primary paradigms for human speech to and about God, it demands that Ephrem situate his own poetic God talk in a very clear relationship to the Bible. Yet, as Ephrem understands it, the Bible is already connected to the natural world in crucial ways. Robert Murray and Kathleen McVey have articulated the way Ephrem sees the world of the Bible and the world of nature as together bespeaking shared semantic content. As Ephrem presents the idea in the Madrashe on Virgini‑ ty :, God, upon creating the world, “adorned it with his images,” so that it would organically bear witness to divine life. When Moses authored the Torah, he was not given a new set of signs whole cloth but took nature’s already divinely in‑ fused images and rearranged them to bespeak further God’s presence in the world. Ephrem’s idea here, as pointed out by both McVey and Murray, is that a divine order underlies both the world of nature and the world of the Bible. is means that in addition to interpreting natural objects (for example, the olive) in a theological way,

, ,  



Ephrem can contemplate historical phenomena, such as the rise of Julian “the Apos‑ tate,” as a manifestation of divine providence. With respect to biblical signs, Ephrem’s position also implies that the Bible as a whole functions within the realm of created objects—that it is composed of natural, created signs that have simply been rearranged in a particular way by particular, di‑ vinely inspired, authors. In this respect, Murray insists that, for Ephrem, the Bible operates within the world of created things yet functions as a “special interpreter” of that world and its history. Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis offers a quasi-histori‑ cal explanation for how this has developed. He explains that when God initially created the world, humans had an innate grasp of basic monotheistic principles. Over time, however, humans lost their grasp of the one God and began to construct their own multiple gods. It is within this context of God forgotten that Moses emerged on the literary scene. In constructing the Torah, he was reconstructing the world so that it would once again bespeak the truth of its Creator. He was, quite lit‑ erally, representing the world in a book. This account suggests a nuanced relationship between the Bible and the world. On the one hand, Ephrem conceives the world as possessing the innate, God-given capacity to convey knowledge of God. On the other hand, because humans have lost sight of this divine content, authors (with Moses operating as the prototype) must rewrite the world, reshaping its images to convey the world’s core content. So, the Bible emerges out of nature but as a representation of nature. In turn, Ephrem him‑ self mimics this process of biblical authorship, as he rearranges and represents the Bible’s signs (themselves already the product of nature’s rearranged signs). Whereas Moses represented the world in a book, Ephrem refracts that biblical world back onto the world he inhabits. Though Ephrem viewed the Bible as standing within the realm of created things, he still expressed a very exalted view of biblical language. In fact, he pressed certain biblical signs—especially divine names—to the point that they seemed to transcend the created order from which they arose. Frances Young has argued that, in this capacity, Ephrem’s view of biblical language can be termed “sacramental.” For Ephrem, the words of the Bible emerged from nature as divinely infused signs and thus offered a “sacramental vehicle of truth, permitting the expression of eternal Be‑ ing in a temporal narrative which is luminous.” Biblical signs, though forming part of the created order and thus ontologically distant from the God Ephrem uses them to speak about, genuinely conveyed the divine Creator to which they pointed, in a close, but not exhaustive way. The idea that the Bible emerged as a representation of divinely infused signs, and that signs—both natural and biblical—can bear witness to what is uncreated even as they remain within the realm of the created, helps us grapple with the biblical poetics that emerge in the Madrashe on Faith. Within this collection, Ephrem’s focuses his discussion of language primarily on the way Christological titles relate to the divine Christ to whom they refer. Yet, by examining his view of biblical language, we can think more broadly about his understanding of his own poetic use of language.



, ,  

Language in the Madrashe on Faith Throughout the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem identi es biblical names according to two categories. On the one hand, names that apply to God absolutely he terms “true” (šarrîrâ), “accurate” (ḥattîtâ), “perfect” (gmîrâ), or “holy” (qaddîšâ), and sometimes simply by the noun “name” (šmâ). On the other hand, names that apply to God in a metaphorical and temporary way, he terms “borrowed” (šʼîlâ) or “transitory” (‘ābûrâ), and sometimes simply by the noun “title” (kûnāyâ). At its most basic, this distinction between different types of names enables Ephrem to ar‑ gue that biblical passages that appear to present Christ as inferior to God be taken as metaphoric, while at the same time attributing some absolute, if not entirely literal, value to biblical names such as “Father,” “Son,” “Begotten,” and “Begetter.” Ephrem’s understanding of biblical names as “borrowed” stands within a theo‑ logical tradition that can be called “accommodationist,” according to which biblical language is taken to represent God’s accommodation to human ideas. In this view, God uses terms that are ill-suited to God if taken literally, but which, if understood correctly, function pedagogically. us, the Bible’s reference to God’s “ears” show that God hears humans; references to his “eyes” show that God sees humans. God’s borrowing of human language arises from a desire to communicate God’s self to humanity. As a result of this desire, God diminishes himself to the level of hu‑ man tongues. Within the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem’s discussion of names begins in :–. Because divine naming involves a crossing of a categorical border—between that which “makes” and “is made”—Ephrem’s begins his treatment of names with a general statement of the necessary distinction between “the Maker” (‘ābûdâ) and “what has been made” (‘bādâ): “The Maker cannot / be compared to what has been made” (MF :). Nevertheless, “the Maker” has accepted precisely this im‑ possible comparison and thus the distance between the two has been overcome: “The Lord, in his love, wishes / to confer his names (šmāhaw[hy]) upon that which he had made” (:). Humans were thus given names that in reality belong to God alone: “Priests and kings, according to grace, / put on Your titles (kûnāyāk), / and Moses and Joshua, your names (šmāhayk).” Such a gift in‑ evitably invites the “comparison” that Ephrem has already deemed impossible. Ephrem articulates this fully in MF :: Merciful is the Lord, Who has put on our names Even to the point of humbling himself And being depicted as a mustard seed. He has given to us his names; He has taken from us our names. His names have made us great; Our names have made him small.

, ,  



An exchange thus follows God’s linguistic act. God allows humans the ability to use his names, and, through their use, these names “make [humans] great.” Alongside human magni cation, God accepts linguistic diminishment, taking up names that “make him small,” yet which render God palpable to humanity. The Bible appears in these passages as comprising a series of metaphors through which God has humbled himself. Rather than exhausting the God whom it reveals, the Bible’s linguistic signs metaphorically represent a God who always means more than any reader could comprehend. Insofar as its words cannot fully convey the reality to which they refer, the Bible emerges in Ephrem’s presentation of it as a deeply metaphoric book, as always trying to convey more than it can. It contains names that, though opaque to God’s true being, God has taken on so as to be com‑ prehensible. At the same time, the Bible’s words are dynamic, in that they “raise the understanding” (MF :) beyond itself. For Ephrem, the words of the Bible provide a place in which God can dwell and through which human understanding can as‑ cend to God. This has important consequences for how we understand Ephrem’s notion of the Bible, especially in its relationship to the poetry he writes. As Ephrem presents it in these passages, the Bible is not a stable entity whose meaning can be isolated and ar‑ ticulated with any finality. Its words and images, rather, represent limited containers of a meaning that transcends them. Semantically, the Bible’s deepest meaning lies be‑ yond human capacity to grasp. Though there is a correlation between the Bible’s words and the God who uses these words in a revelatory way, these words are also rhetorical—they are meant to reveal God partially but also to move an audience to‑ ward particular convictions and away from certain sorts of discourse. In this sense, the Bible can be conceptualized as offering a series of words that the biblical authors, under divine inspiration, have assembled and dictated to convey particular meanings to particular audiences. This idea of the Bible’s own make up is reflected in Ephrem’s use of it: mimicking the divine arrangement present in the Bible, his task is to re‑ assemble these words to convey further meanings while remaining cognizant of the impossibility of exhaustively conveying the God about whom the poet speaks. Even as Ephrem argues for the Bible’s semantic instability, he continues to articu‑ late this idea through decidedly concrete, bodily metaphors. is language suggests the “two incarnations” that Sebastian Brock has identi ed as characteristic of Ephrem’s thought. For example, in :, Ephrem writes: Let us give thanks to him who has put on the names of body parts: He has named for himself ears, to teach that he hears us. He has designated for himself eyes, to show that he sees us. He has only put on the names of things. ough in his essence he has neither anger nor regret, He has put on their names for our weakness.

In Ephrem’s MAH :, he states that Christ “clothed himself with real limbs,” and, in MF :, simply that he “put on a body [from Mary] and went forth.” That expression parallels the way Ephrem speaks of the Bible here, suggesting that he thinks of God’s



, ,  

revelation in the Bible and God’s revelation in Christ’s body as existing on a continu‑ um. Both represent points at which the immaterial God has focused human attention on material objects. In MF , Ephrem refers only to God’s biblical body, identifying the Bible’s bodily images of the divine as “names.” Here, too, God uses these names pedagogically. Rather than revealing divine life, the names reflect aspects of that life in a way that is palpable to humanity in its limited state. Ephrem depicts God as one who has taken on human limitation so that hu‑ mans can be ushered into divine life. Because of this, the physical letters of the Bible become quasi-containers of divinity—examples of divine embodiment. This view of the Bible, in which it communicates a God who is ultimately incommuni‑ cable, shapes the way Ephrem uses the Bible in his poems. The poet’s goal is not simply to exegete the Bible, to draw out its meaning. Rather, Ephrem continues the process of rearrangement, bringing forth ever new meanings, ever new reflec‑ tions of God. Because all the Bible’s images refer to a single divine entity, seem‑ ingly unrelated texts can be placed alongside one another, enabling the reader a glimpse, however dim, of the God whose “body parts” they represent. Ephrem articulates this in MF :: He wishes to teach us two things: that he is and that he is not. In his love, he made faces, so that his works could gaze upon him. But lest we be damaged, and think, “at is him,” He changed from image to image to teach us at he has no image.

The divine portrait emerges in the conglomeration of these images, appearing in all but exhausted by none. Ephrem’s poetic representation of the Bible consequently becomes an effort to place these images of an ever-shiing God. Re ecting this view of the Bible’s make up, Ephrem uses biblical texts in a way that levels their literal chronological and spatial bearings, allowing different points of emphasis to emerge in different literary settings. In his madrashe, Ephrem mimics the Bible’s own com‑ positional process, rewriting and reshaping its words, to convey, yet again, the God whom the Bible depicts. We can see the consequences of Ephrem’s view of the Bible in a stanza that is em‑ bedded in a poem devoted to the life of Christ: It is written that the good Lord repented and grew weary, For he clothed himself in our weakness. He also clothed us In the names of his Greatness. Fools have seen what belongs to us And have thought that it belonged to Him—that which was from us. (MF :)

Read in isolation, this stanza’s reference to the weariness of the “good Lord” could indicate either Christ’s incarnate body or the biblical body of the Old Testament. e madrasha in which this stanza is found develops as a poetic retelling of the life of Christ, but the initial line of this stanza—that “the good Lord repented and grew weary”—complicates the picture. e text’s editor, Beck, took this a reference to

, ,  



Christ’s human life, nding here an allusion to John :, where it is said that “Jesus was weary from the labor of the journey” and uses the same term for “weary” (l’â) that Ephrem uses here. Yet, in Isaiah :, God speaks and applies this verb to him‑ self: “I am weary of bearing [your new moons and feasts].” When we also take into account Ephrem’s reference to the Lord’s repenting (also line ), the Isaian prove‑ nance of this passage seems more likely: the phrase the “Lord repented” (ʼettwî) has no New Testament parallel but is found repeatedly in the Old Testament. Given that both of these descriptions have Old Testament parallels, whereas only one (“the Lord…grew weary”) has a New Testament parallel, it makes the most sense to read the rst line as a reference to Old Testament anthropomorphisms. In and of itself, this is nothing remarkable, except for the fact that Ephrem de‑ votes the seven stanzas preceding this one entirely to Christ’s earthly ministry. In the midst of a poetic re ection on the earthly life of Christ, Ephrem shis without warning to a description of “the Lord” that draws entirely on Old Testament lan‑ guage. At the same time, his reference to the Lord’s weariness uses language that loosely echoes New Testament descriptions of Christ, so that the precise biblical al‑ lusion cannot be decisively identi ed. In reworking the Bible in this way, Ephrem re ects his own perceptions of its inherent structure: in the Bible, God has used hu‑ man signs and human authors to construct a book that will communicate God to humanity. Ephrem furthers this divine-human act by taking the Bible’s signs—those of both the Old and New Testaments—and leveling them so that both equally con‑ vey the one, incarnate God. Ephrem’s depiction of biblical language as metaphorical emphasizes its multiva‑ lence and plasticity. In Ephrem’s use of it, the Bible is constantly destabilized, its words expanding and diminishing to accommodate the poet’s evocation of the dis‑ junction between God and humanity. Yet, alongside Ephrem’s insistence on the var‑ iegated and shiing nature of biblical language, he articulates a concomitant view of biblical language as “true.” In contrast to his emphasis on the Bible’s semantic insta‑ bility, Ephrem posits these true names as providing a place of hermeneutic stability within the Bible. While Ephrem hints at the distinction between true and borrowed language throughout the Madrashe on Faith, it is in poem  that he rst literally articulates their difference. Before introducing the distinction in :, the rst stanza offers a summary statement on the meaning of biblical names: His names teach you how and what you should call him. One has taught you that He is, another that he is Creator. He has shown you that he is Good, and he has explained to you that he is Just. He is also named and called Father. e Bible has become a crucible. Why does the fool quarrel? Test in his crucibles his names and his forms.

This metaphor of the “crucible” (kûrâ) occurs frequently in Ephrem’s writings in ref‑ erence to an event, place, or thing that tests one’s faith. By calling the books a “cru‑



, ,  

cible,” Ephrem envisions them as a self-contained place in which the Lord’s true names can be distinguished from those that are borrowed. In this respect, he presents reading as a process of testing and discerning the proper category of a given name. Here Ephrem identifies “He is,” “Creator,” “Just One,” and “Good One” as true names. Elsewhere, in MF :, he will add “King,” “God,” and “Judge” to the list. Despite offering this litany of diverse true names, Ephrem’s main concern throughout the Madrashe on Faith is with the names “Father,” “Son,” “Begetter,” and “Begotten,” and any borrowed names (such as “creature”) that could take prece‑ dence over these. Similarly to other fourth-century polemicists, Ephrem suggests that these true names apply metaphorically to creatures and literally to God: For whenever He has called us by His own name “King” It is true for Him and a simile (dûmyâ) for us. And whenever, again, He has called Himself by the name of his works, It is natural (kyānâ) for us, and a title (kûnāyâ) for Him. (MF :)

This provides us with the background of MF :, in which Ephrem rst men‑ tions the distinction between true (here, “perfect and accurate”) and borrowed names: He has names perfect and accurate (gmîrê wa-ḥtîtê), And he has names borrowed and transient (šʼîlê wa-‘ābûrê). He has quickly put them on and quickly taken them off. He has regretted, forgotten, and remembered. And as you have affirmed that he is both just and good, Affirm that he is Begetter and believe that he is Creator.

Ephrem hints at the aniconic shiing which is the rightful character of God’s bor‑ rowed names, names that he rapidly adorns and removes. Such movement marks God as the one who “has no image” (MF :). Yet here this iconoclastic reading of biblical names nds balance when juxtaposed with this idea of true names—names such as “Good,” “Just,” “Creator,” and, most importantly, “Begetter.” In his presenta‑ tion of biblical meaning, Ephrem places these true names at the center. In MF :, he argues that their denial would result in a complete collapse of the reader’s ability to draw any coherent meaning from the bible: Be mindful of his perfect and holy names (šmāhaw[hy] gmîrê wa-qdîšê). If you deny one of them, they all y off and away. ey are bound one to one another, and they bear everything. Like the pillars of the earth— Water, re, and air—if one did not exist, Creation would fall. (MF :).

If, following MF :, the books are the crucible in which divine names must be tested, the consequences of misreading are dire, resulting in the collapse of human ability to derive any accurate sense of God. Between his emphasis on true and bor‑ rowed names, two paths emerge in the way Ephrem presents his audience’s relation‑

, ,  



ship to the Bible. In referencing borrowed names, Ephrem insists on an instability between the Bible’s words and the Lord whom these words signify. e true names offer a possibility for a stable center within this disjunction. As Ephrem presents it, when God “borrows” names, the Bible’s meaning can be as unstable as necessary so as to draw the listener ever beyond herself. ese true names provide some anchor within this constant movement. This dual focus on true and borrowed names is clear throughout the Madrashe on Faith. On the one hand, God borrows human language, but, from a human per‑ spective, this borrowed language is always shiing under the weight of divinity. On the other hand, in the midst of this semantic shiing, there are “true” names, which transcend their apparent origin in human speech (where, it turns out, they are but metaphors) and become genuine, impermeable signs of divine life.

The Bible’s Poetics and Ephrem’s Biblical Poetics In distinguishing the Bible’s “true” and “borrowed” speech, Ephrem is clearly mak‑ ing a theological distinction. It is, however, one that has obvious literary conse‑ quences. Whether biblical language consists in God’s metaphoric representation of himself in human language or human representation of itself in divine language, the language contained within the Bible is nevertheless essentially metaphoric with re‑ spect to what it signi es. As a result, there is a disjunction between biblical language and the reality that stands behind it. God is not really a mustard seed (MF :) but depicts himself as one for the sake of human comprehension. Humans, moreover, are not really “priests” or “kings” (MF :), but are allowed to use those divine terms for their own good. e Bible is thus not a document in which its signs and their referents align in a one-to-one manner. In fact, Ephrem does not say exactly how they align. Rather, its nouns and narratives are metaphoric representations of something that is essentially beyond the reader’s power to grasp—beyond even the language’s ability to communicate. On one level, Ephrem envisions the “true” names as providing a relative semantic peace in the midst of this linguistic riot. Yet any semantic order that they do pre‑ serve is tenuous. Ephrem never articulates the means by which they preserve it or even outlines exactly what they do mean. While the presence of these words in New Testament theophanic scenes and their resonance with Proverbs : lend them a cumulative rhetorical force, Ephrem does not assign them concrete semantic con‑ tent. From a literary perspective, and in terms of Ephrem’s understanding of how biblical discourse works, the two types of terms amount to much the same thing. To humans, “true” names are metaphors because the one to whom they truly apply, and the way in which they apply, cannot be comprehended. Rather than revelations of an essential meaning, they are more like nontransient no trespassing signs, demar‑ cating only the point beyond which knowledge and understanding cannot go. “Bor‑ rowed” names, likewise, are metaphors, because they are simply garments that God has temporarily put on but which will inevitably be taken off again. rough this ambiguous space the poet walks, pressing meanings in different directions depend‑



, ,  

ing upon the needs of the audience. In MF :–, Ephrem presents the interpreter as an herbalist, wandering through a garden, mixing and matching to construct the appropriate concoction. rough this metaphor, Ephrem’s casts the relationship be‑ tween poet and Bible as one that demands exibility and creativity. The remainder of this book moves from this examination of Ephrem’s presenta‑ tion of the Bible’s poetics to a study of Ephrem’s own poetic representation of the Bible. In this chapter I have tried to show that the Bible is already wrapped up in Ephrem’s own poetic world. e world of the Bible and the world of his poetry are already intermingled. Ephrem’s use of the Bible is forged within a polemical context, and much of his self-conscious re ection upon it takes the form of accusations against his opponents. He accuses his opponents of abandoning biblical language, of generally misunderstanding the Bible, and constructs a genealogy of debate about divine words, within which he argues they stand. In each of these portraits, Ephrem uses concrete metaphors to depict the Bible as a simple and unambiguous docu‑ ment, from which his opponents have stubbornly departed and to which he and his own audience remain faithful. In his identi cation of different types of language within the Bible, Ephrem opens up more explicit connections between his views of the Bible and his own use of it. Because the Bible is thoroughly metaphoric and arranged toward rhetorical ends, Ephrem can rearrange its narratives to further this compositional process, en‑ abling the Bible to speak to his own context. On a purely lexical level, Ephrem never applies the language of “borrowing” to his madrashe, and, in fact, it is rare that the language he uses to describe the Bible overlaps with the language he uses to describe them. Yet, if we move from this purely linguistic and intentional level, and simply observe the phenomenon of Ephrem’s reading, what emerges is a biblical poetics that parallels the mechanisms he nds at play in the Bible’s composition. While the Bible’s words and narratives form metaphors that God has arranged for the sake of an audience, the poet reshapes these same metaphors for the sake of yet another au‑ dience, rendering them parables whose new morals are manifest in the context of Ephrem’s own community. We turn now to examine the three primary ways in which Ephrem reshapes the Bible in the Madrashe on Faith: to represent himself, his audience, and Christ.



The Poet’s “I”

In this chapter, I look at Ephrem’s poetic “I” from four broad perspectives. In the rst part, I argue that Ephrem’s “I” emerged as a symbolic character within the imaginative world of the Madrashe on Faith. In the second and third parts, I trace two metaphoric ways that Ephrem articulated his poetic self. e metaphor of gi and exchange positioned Ephrem as a mediator between divinity and humanity, and his poetic body as deriving ultimately from God. Likewise, the metaphor of the lyre provided Ephrem with a way to root his poetic self in the Bible, while at the same time depicting himself as merely an instrument placed willingly before divinity. In the fourth part, I turn from these macro-metaphors to the way Ephrem compared himself as poet to speci c biblical characters and events—a series of New Testament women, Noah, and the wedding at Cana. A SYMB OLIC “I”

Ephrem’s madrashe speak with a distinct and dramatic rst-person voice. More than forty-three of the eighty-seven Madrashe on Faith poems contain rst-person references. In this respect, they are not unique in Ephrem’s corpus. Most oen, these rst-person utterances occupy a single stanza within a poem, and, as such, can be seen as “framing devices” that prepare his audience to hear the poems in a certain way. In presenting itself to the audience, Ephrem’s poetic “I” speaks with remark‑ able speci city and emotion. e nal stanza of MVir  provides a particularly poignant example: Who has buried my weak self beneath relentless waves? As the waves of oil have lied me up, they have given me Christ’s story. Christ’s waves have struck me and given me the symbols of oil. Look: waves crash against waves. I am stuck in the middle!





 ’ “”

Like Simon I say, “Pull me out, Lord, like Simon! See how the great waves weary me!” And pity rescues the one who is weak. (MVir :)

This stanza concludes a set of four poems in which Ephrem re ects upon the olive and its oil as symbols for Christ. Here, at the poems’ conclusion, he presents him‑ self as overwhelmed by all that he has found—overwhelmed by the very poem he has delivered. Ephrem’s “I” exudes emotion and specificity, but does not reveal a historical biography. He is largely reticent about the details of his own life. One line per‑ haps suggests he was raised Christian, another that he was a deacon. But these lines read like the gnomic statements of a poet or the intentionally crafted state‑ ments of a rhetorician, and offer no historical specificity. More often, as in MVir :, Ephrem’s “I” makes sense only as a character within the symbolic world of the poem—responding to and building upon the world he himself has articulated, and functioning within the literary universe he has constructed. In this sense, we can think of Ephrem’s “I” as reflective of the Greco-Roman rhetorical technique called prosōpopoia, “speech in character” or “invented speech.” Ephrem’s goal is not to reveal a historical self but to use his poetic “I” to articulate theological ideas and build an emotional weight in readers’ experi‑ ence of the text. In its representation of a type of poet, Ephrem’s “I” operates similarly to that of the sixth-century poet Romanos. As Derek Krueger has argued, Romanos’s “I” also does not reveal a biography but serves to model for its audience a para‑ digmatic Christian piety. In the case of Ephrem, however, the boundaries of this piety, as well as the persona of the poet, are shaped by the poems within which he speaks. And the poems, along with the “I” that operates within their imaginative world, arose as a product of real historical circumstances, engaged with real debates about the propriety of speech about God. The specific piety that the Madrashe on Faith articulates is one in which theological speech is dis‑ couraged and brought under suspicion. Ephrem’s “I” operates, in a sense, as a kind of cultural performance. The “I” represents to its audience the anxieties surrounding theological speech, and aims to defend its own speech and model appropriate speech. The Bible provided Ephrem with the lexicon for articulating this “I” in the midst of this particular historical situation. In its words and narratives, Ephrem found the images with which to cra his identity as a poet and present it to an audience. In the process, the Bible and the audience came to meet in the poem itself. As Ephrem used the Bible to negotiate his identity as poet, his poems became a place where the Bible was mediated to his audience, and his audience was mediated to the God of the Bible. is particularly biblical “I”—this biblical self—emerged in a number of ways, through biblically located metaphors that echoed throughout the corpus, the interpretation of biblical parables and verses, and the identi cation of the poetic self with biblical characters.

 ’ “”



AN  EC ONOMIC “I”

Ephrem depicts his poetry as resulting from a divine-human transaction. e sine qua non of this transaction as Ephrem presents it is the incarnation. e incarnation renders Ephrem’s speech possible and forms the primary content of that speech. Ephrem structures his “I” with reference to the divine-human exchange manifest in the incarnation. His articulation of it in economic language weaves together seam‑ lessly God’s acting in the incarnation and the human response to this act, manifest in the process of giving. In this respect, two foci obtain in Ephrem’s presentation of the economics of the incarnation. First, this language enables him to explain how the incarnation saves humanity, and second, it helps him explain how the incarna‑ tion establishes a structure of human giving to God as salvi c. His own poetic gi is situated within this larger structure of giving. Ephrem uses a variety of economic terms in his poems, the most common of which are “gi” (mawhabtâ), “treasure” (gazzâ), “treasure-keeper” (gezzabrâ), and “debt” (ḥāb), and this language is explicitly combined with the speaker’s “I” in ve of the Madrashe on Faith (, , , , and ). Ephrem rst uses economic language to address himself in :: May your faith be Rennet in my thinking. May it gather my dispersed mind From discussing and wandering (‘ûqqābâ w-pahyâ). I will knock, Lord, at your door, at you might drop down to me, as alms, Your gi, which unexpectedly Will come and enrich my poverty. ough I am in debt ten thousand talents You make me a creditor So that I lend you what belongs to you.

The connection between economic language and poetic speech is not explicit here. e rst economic terms appear in lines seven and eight. Echoing Matthew : (“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will nd, knock and it will be opened to you”), Ephrem asks for the Lord to reveal his “gi” (mawhabtâ), which will over‑ come his “poverty” (ṣrîkûtâ). Ephrem then invokes Matthew :– but changes the narrative in subtly signi cant ways. e biblical parable tells of a king who for‑ gives his slave a debt of “ten thousand talents.” Once forgiven, however, the slave de‑ mands the immediate repayment of one hundred talents owed to him by someone else. When that person cannot repay it, the slave has him thrown into jail. Eventual‑ ly, the king nds out what the slave has done, revokes his initial forgiveness, and throws him into jail. e moral of the story is clear: the Lord has forgiven humanity in immense ways, and humans must do likewise. Ephrem’s dependence upon this parable is manifest in his claim to “be in debt ten thousand talents.” e phrase “ten thousand talents” is taken verbatim from

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Matthew , and the verb ḥāb, “to be in debt,” appears eight times in the Syriac ver‑ sion of Matthew’s brief narrative. On one level, then, Ephrem is claiming a status analogous to the parable’s villainous character. Yet, on another level, Ephrem has distanced himself from that character, and in two important ways. First, while he uses the verb ḥāb in line  (“ough I am in debt…”), he initially refers in line eight not to his “debt” but to his “poverty” (ṣrîkût[y]), so that he merges two anthropolog‑ ical models (humanity in debt, and humanity in poverty). Second, and more impor‑ tant, Ephrem reverses the second half of the story: whereas in the parable the newly forgiven slave mercilessly demands what someone else owes him, Ephrem responds to the divine gi by imitating the Lord’s generosity, becoming an image of that gen‑ erosity. Read alongside the biblical text, Ephrem’s poem reshapes this narrative to negotiate the ambivalence of his role as poet. By initially associating himself with a villainous biblical character, he eschews any claims to righteousness. Yet by revers‑ ing the narrative’s conclusion, and imitating divine generosity where his quasi-ex‑ emplar did not, Ephrem claims authorial virtue. What is not immediately clear from this passage, however, is that Ephrem is de‑ picting himself as poet—that what he claims to lend refers to the actual content of his poem, as opposed to a giving of literal alms. Here we need to examine the stanza more carefully. As a whole, the stanza breaks down into three parts. Lines –, in which Ephrem asks for “faith” to deliver him from “debating and wandering,” estab‑ lish the basic meaning of the passage. Lines – then rephrase this basic message using economic language. Ephrem says that the Lord’s “gi” (of “faith”) will enrich his “poverty” (a poverty which manifests itself in “debating and wandering”). e nal three lines restate the rst eight and explain the consequences of Ephrem’s re‑ ceipt of this divine gi: on his own, Ephrem is “in debt ten thousand talents,” yet be‑ cause God has given him the gi of faith, he, suddenly rich, can lend to others (al‑ beit what belongs ultimately to the Lord). Part of the economic metaphor is clear: “gi” stands for “faith,” and “poverty” stands for “debating and wandering.” But what about the actions that follow from these gis? What is it that Ephrem lends? Gary Anderson has suggested a plausible interpretation. Addressing a passage three stanzas earlier (MF :), Anderson takes Ephrem to be referencing literal alms. Noting the connection between “faith” and “lending,” Anderson writes, “Ephrem believes that the one who makes a loan to God through almsgiving is not simply doing a human work; he is making a public testimony to his faith.” us, God gives Ephrem “faith,” which enables him to give literal money to others, an act that builds faith within them. Anderson is certainly correct that Ephrem sees his lending as emerging from and testifying to his faith. Elsewhere Ephrem describes literal almsgiving in very similar language. Yet, on the terms of MF : alone, it makes more sense to see Ephrem’s use of the language of almsgiving as a metaphorical way of presenting his own poet‑ ry. If, within the argument of MF :, the “gi” of “faith” overcomes the “poverty” of “debating and wandering,” we would expect the nal component—lending—to continue this abolishment of “debating and wandering.” We would further expect this “lending” to represent the vehicle by which Ephrem administers “faith.” is, in

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turn, raises a question of how Ephrem understands “faith.” Here we should note that Ephrem does not juxtapose “faith” with “lack of faith,” but with “debating and wan‑ dering.” Of course, within the Madrashe on Faith, “debating and wandering” repre‑ sents the particular activity of Ephrem’s subordinationist opponents. Given this, “faith,” as the opposite of “debating and wandering,” refers not to an abstract convic‑ tion that some invisible thing is in fact true, but represents instead a very particular, anti-subordinationist confession. So, what is the activity by which Ephrem lends this faith? It is his poem. “Faith” is thus the divine gi that Ephrem receives, but poetry is the vehicle through which he lends this faith to others. Here, “faith” functions as the means by which Ephrem delivers his poem, but also as the content of that poem. Stating this, even in metaphorical language, makes serious claims for the poem that Ephrem is deliver‑ ing, as well as for the one who is delivering it. e poem emerges as nothing less than the product of divine inspiration, and it is precisely through the poet that this divine gi comes to others. e poet himself is the creditor, who now holds the Lord’s gi, and it is his responsibility to mediate this to others. Given Ephrem’s denigration of theological speech, this represents a bold claim. But Ephrem tem‑ pers it by drawing on the parable of the wicked servant. As a poet standing before an audience, Ephrem uses this narrative to underscore his humility, but he rewrites its ending to underscore his authority. He presents himself as standing in front of an audience only because the Lord has overcome his poverty and forgiven his debt. At the same time, he emphasizes his role as the Lord’s creditor. Yet even here the metaphor is ambiguous. ough he calls himself creditor, if he is following his di‑ vine exemplar, his poetry participates in a process of asymmetrical giving. His role is only to give and ask that his audience do the same for others. ere is no men‑ tion of audience repayment to him. The connection between these economic metaphors and Ephrem’s own poetic project is implicit here in MF :, but it is made explicit elsewhere in the Madrashe on Faith. Poem  begins, You dictated, my Lord, “Open your mouth and I will ll it.” Look: the mouth of your servant is opened to you, together with his mind. Fill it, Lord, from your gi So that I might sing your song according to your will!

In terms of economic language, Ephrem uses only the noun “gi” (mawhabtâ), the same noun used in :, but the connection between this gi and the song that fol‑ lows is stated outright. Because Ephrem’s mouth has been lled with the gi, he can thus “sing [the Lord’s] song in accordance with [his] will.” In this passage, as op‑ posed to the last, Ephrem presents himself neither as debtor nor as poverty-strick‑ en. Here, his poem and its petition for inspiration begin with a line taken from Psalm :, which Ephrem quotes verbatim: “Open your mouth and I will ll it.” By quoting this psalm, Ephrem anchors his poetic delivery in a biblical command, reading the line almost as a prophecy that his poem ful lls. He is not taking up this authorial project of his own accord but is simply responding to God’s command,

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penned through David in the Psalms. e poem that follows develops as an out‑ pouring of this divine gi. Ephrem takes this language up again in the concluding stanza of poem : “As I worship withhold your gi / and as a deposit keep it in your treasury, so that you may return it to us again” (::–). e conclusion of the poem is thus consum‑ mate with the Lord’s cessation of his gi of divine inspiration. is divine gi, refer‑ enced in the poem’s opening and concluding stanzas, frames the poetic contents as a product of that gi. Moreover, Ephrem introduces a new idea at the poem’s conclu‑ sion: because he has used this gi well—he has sung to the Lord, rather than debat‑ ed—it can now become a deposit in the Lord’s treasury. ere it will collect interest, enabling Ephrem to draw from it when he next needs to compose a song. This idea of heavenly interest is similar to one Ephrem articulates in another col‑ lection, the Madrashe on Abraham Qidunaya. e latter comprises een madrashe devoted to the fourth-century Edessan ascetic Abraham Qidunaya. In MAQ :, Ephrem presents Abraham’s economic activity as emerging in response to the divine command to love God and neighbor: “Two glorious commands—to love your neighbor and your God—/ you joined together as if with a yoke.” is dual focus on God and the other proves, in :, to be mutually ful lling: You obeyed insofar as you acted. You acted in order to lend. You lent in order to believe. You believed in order to receive. You received in order to reign.

Abraham’s actions proceed in a descending and reascending pattern. He acts to prove his obedience; through his act of “lending,” he acquires belief; because of his belief, he “receives”; and his “reception” leads to his stature in the heavenly kingdom. Ephrem leaves the language in this stanza intentionally ambiguous so as to evoke a duality of meanings. e verb “to lend,” ʼawzep, has an explicitly economic reso‑ nance (that is, to lend money) and usually implies a loan that will collect interest. is resonance of interest explains the rather obscure phrasing of line —“you acted in order to lend.” e idea is that Abraham’s action was motivated in part by recog‑ nizing that his deed would accrue interest; by lending, he would make money. e object of his lending is equally le unstated because it is two-fold. As the stanzas that follow make clear, he gives “alms and prayers” to those in need, but this func‑ tions also as a gi to God, through which Abraham can build a heavenly credit. Ephrem articulates this in MAQ :: Look: everywhere your alms and prayers are like a loan. Look: they enrich those who receive them, but to you they return e principal and the interest that you have lent.

In response to God’s command to love the other, Abraham offers alms and prayers. In this symbiotic relationship, Abraham’s prayers and alms provide wealth for those

 ’ “”

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who receive them, but they also accrue heavenly interest for Abraham, who will car‑ ry his wealth with him beyond the grave (MAQ :). In comparing Ephrem’s articulation of his poetic identity with his description of Abraham’s virtue, we can see a compelling difference. Whereas Abraham Qidunaya’s giving builds up his own inner treasure, Ephrem’s poetic gift (itself an outpouring of divine gift) builds up a communal treasure that he and his audience can draw upon in the future. Given the study context in which the Madrashe on Faith emerged, this, too, is a performative gesture. Ephrem models for his audience the appropriate pos‑ ture of a theological poet and exhorts them to mimic his pose. Throughout the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem’s primary concern is that his poetry be “faithful”—that it remain clear of “debating and wandering,” as Ephrem phrases it in :. This “faithful poetry” acts as the content of the gift that Ephrem asks for here and elsewhere. Ephrem asks the Lord to keep this gift within a treasury, acquiring interest, so that he, and through him, his audience, in their own poetry, may draw upon it in the future. Ephrem’s use of the Bible in the articulation of a speci cally economic identity can be seen most clearly in the twenty- h madrasha, which offers a rst-person re ection on public theological speech. Here Ephrem negotiates precisely what di‑ vine inspiration means for his poems, and this is made explicit from the beginning: [MF :] O that someone would give me a little breath of the spirit! Not for prophecy—this would be a request for death— But that I might be able to proclaim the glory Of him who is greater than all, with my poor tongue.

According to this stanza, Ephrem’s speech is divinely inspired, doxological (even though the object of his words transcends those words), but speci cally not prophetic. Ephrem negotiates through these protestations the complex relationship between authority and humility that Derek Krueger has identi ed as characteristic of the late ancient author and that arises in Ephrem’s case through his concerns with poetry and theological speech. Affirming the meagerness of his spiritual portion (“a little breath of the spirit”), he nevertheless eschews any claims to prophecy and juxtaposes his “poor tongue” with the greatness of that which it aims to glorify (rather than discuss, investigate, or debate). At the same time, granting all these caveats, it is his speech that is inspired and which demonstrates doxology. As poem  proceeds, Ephrem draws upon two types of metaphors—economic and natural. e economic metaphors affirm that the poem is inspired, while the natural ones negotiate how the speaker’s freedom can be preserved alongside this acknowledged divine inspiration. Ephrem states the connection between economic metaphors and poetic speech in the second stanza: [:] Without the very gi of that Greatness, Mouths could not distribute from its treasures. Yet, with its key they are opened— Its treasure, before its treasure-keepers.

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 ’ “”

There is no ambiguity here: the “gi” that “Greatness” gives enables “mouths” to ac‑ cess divine treasures and distribute the goods held there. is “gi” represents the ability to speak—“Glory to the gi of speech in the mouth of orators,” Ephrem ex‑ claims in the following stanza—and the distribution of this divine gi represents the speaker’s poetic act. Here, moreover, Ephrem references a concept alluded to in :, that of “creditor” or, as it is articulated here, “treasure-keeper.” By receiving the gi that enables him and his audience, through him, to open the treasure, they be‑ come its guardians. ough subtly articulated, the meaning is clear: Ephrem and his audience, to the extent they mimic his process of poetic speech, stand as privileged keepers of the teachings that they articulate in song. Within poem , this economic language disappears through stanzas – but reemerges in stanzas –. Moreover, whereas in : Ephrem merely alluded to the idea of interest, in : he makes the concept explicit. In the stanzas leading up to it, Ephrem has referenced Zacchaeus (Luke :–) as an example for Ephrem’s own ef‑ forts to reach the Lord: “May the example of Zacchaeus, who grew up, instruct me. / In you his shortness grew tall and he rose up to come to you” (:). Ephrem’s choice of Zacchaeus as an example for his own effort to speak about the Lord resonates on two levels. First, Zacchaeus—humbled by appearance and by past failings—serves as a per‑ fect example of the “humble boldness” so characteristic of Ephrem’s poetic “I.” Second, Zacchaeus is a character whose story has a particularly economic bent in that he is ini‑ tially guilty of a kind of theft but repents by giving away even more than he has taken. Yet, it is precisely in Ephrem’s use of this economic exemplar that the particulari‑ ties of his own project emerge. Aer reworking the Zacchaeus narrative in :– , Ephrem turns in : to his own request for doxological speech, built upon this biblical exemplar: May your gi call out also to me, as to Zacchaeus. Not because I have divided [my] riches like him, Lord (ʼepalleg neksê badmûteh mār[y]), But because I have hastened—even me— To return your money with interest!

The phrase “divided [my] riches” (ʼepalleg neksê) is a near quotation of Luke :, where, having repented of his past economic duplicity, Zacchaeus tells the Lord that he will give “a division of [his] riches to the poor” (pelgût neksay yāheb-[ʼ]nâ l-me‑ skinê). Strikingly, Ephrem distinguishes himself on this point, drawing attention to his own particular understanding of the language of almsgiving. As he presents it, he has not given away his riches, as has Zacchaeus. Nevertheless, his admission of what he has done is cloaked in economic language, the literal meaning of which he has just denied. So what, precisely, does Ephrem mean in his claim “to return [the Lord’s] money with interest”? In Ephrem’s typically elusive style of biblical allusion, this line invokes another biblical narrative—the parable of the talents (Luke :–)—which, within Luke’s Gospel, follows the Zacchaeus narrative immediately. e allusion becomes clear‑ er in the following stanza:

 ’ “”



[:] Consider this: when he gave his money to the merchants, He showed us that without his abundance there is no commerce, Just as without His gi, there is no true praise.

In the Lukan parable, a nobleman, before setting out on a journey, gives ten pounds to ten slaves, and instructs them to “do business with these [pounds] until I come back” (Luke :). When the nobleman does return, he nds that two of his slaves have made more money with their initial gi (one has made ten pounds, an‑ other ve), while one servant has, out of fear of his severe master, simply held tight to the single pound. Ephrem does not borrow any vocabulary from this parable, but the allusion to returning the Lord’s money with interest (::) and to an unspeci‑ ed “he” who “gave money to the merchants” (::) suggests that this is the nar‑ rative to which Ephrem alludes. Moreover, in affirming that “without / his gi, there is no true praise,” Ephrem connects this parable to his own doxological poet‑ ry: reading backwards to MF::, we can now take Ephrem’s claim that he has returned the Lord’s “money with interest” as a reference to his own poetic speech. As Ephrem presents it, the Lord has provided him with the gi of poetic inspiration, on which he can collect interest by “lending” this poetry to his audience. By rewriting this biblical material, Ephrem negotiates his role as theological poet. In MF : he maps himself onto a straightforwardly villainous biblical char‑ acter, and in poem  he refuses to claim even the virtue of Zacchaeus. In MF : he frames his poetic speech as a mere response to a divine command, and through‑ out poem  he downplays its import. In all of these examples, moreover, he situates the Lord’s gi at the origins of his speech. At the same time, in each of these pas‑ sages, Ephrem clearly claims an exemplary status for his poetry. In MF :, he be‑ comes the creditor who lends divine inspiration to the audience. In MF :, he makes a deposit in the Lord’s bank, from which his audience can draw in the future. In MF :, though he tries to mollify the claim, he nevertheless presents his poem as the product of divine inspiration. By drawing on images of divine inspiration yet simultaneously claiming poetic insufficiency, Ephrem makes a case for his poetic speech in an environment in which he also seeks to limit theological speech. THE POET AS LYRE

Alongside the language of gi and exchange, the “lyre” (kennārâ) forms the most common biblically located metaphor with which Ephrem refers to himself and his poetry. Within Ephrem’s late antique context, the “lyre” was commonly attested in literature and art. Griffith suggests that Ephrem’s poems were themselves accom‑ panied by the lyre. A passage such as MF :, in which Ephrem petitions the Lord to “sing…on [his] lyre,” would make sense if Ephrem were actually accompa‑ nying his poems with that instrument. However, at MAH :, in an interpretation of the wedding at Cana, Ephrem says that the story’s “new wine” (John :) indi‑ cated a new kind of marriage song, in which the “instruments of song” gave way to

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the “full vessels of speech.” is passage resonates with similar Greek polemics against instruments in the church’s music and suggests that Ephrem’s lyre language should not be taken as a literal indicator of the musical setting of his madrashe. As we will see below, the language of the lyre within Ephrem’s corpus functions metaphorically, which makes it difficult to use the material to piece together a real musical context. Moreover, the metaphoric uses of “lyre” are clear, regardless of the performative context that may or may not have accompanied them. Within the Madrashe on Faith, the metaphor of the lyre articulates Ephrem’s self-presentation in two primary ways. First, the metaphor enables Ephrem to sit‑ uate his poetic project as imitative of David’s Psalms, and, by extension, as in con‑ tinuity with the Bible. Second, the metaphor allows Ephrem to present his poetry as divinely inspired (and thus authoritative) yet marked by human limitation (and thus expressive of humility and restraint). Both functions of the metaphor can be contextualized more broadly within Ephrem’s theological and discursive contexts as revealed by the Madrashe on Faith. Put most simply, its poetry aims to discour‑ age theological speech and encourage silence and doxology. Given this, Ephrem’s presentation of himself always functions as an apology for the very fact that he speaks. The metaphor of the lyre offers this apology by connecting his poetic voice to the Davidic Psalms and finding ways to balance claims of divine inspiration and human frailty.

Ephrem, David, and the Bible Within the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem’s presentation of himself as “lyre” does not emerge as an exegesis of a speci c biblical passage but evokes generally the picture of David as psalmist. In his MAH , Ephrem had also presented Bardaisan as modeling his madrashe on David’s Psalms. Yet Ephrem did not critique this aspect of Bardaisan’s madrashe per se but criticized him for imitating David for reasons of self-promotion. us, despite its connection with Bardaisan, Ephrem linked his own poetry to David but in subtle ways. For example, at MF :, Ephrem writes: Blessed is the one whose lyre has played the songs David played: Revealed things, without debating (d-lâ metdaršā), and hidden things, without investigation (d-lâ metbāṣyān).

Though Ephrem posits the Psalms as ideal songs, the quality that he identi es as the basis for their exemplarity—that they treat only revealed things—re ects entirely the concerns of the Madrashe on Faith. Rather than claiming David as an exemplar outright, Ephrem presents David’s Psalms as doing exactly what he claims his madrashe are also doing. In MF , Ephrem again links his own poetry to David’s but in a subtle way. In MF :, before invoking David as model, Ephrem uses the metaphor to objectify his own poetry—to present it as, in some way, independent of his human agency:

 ’ “”



Sing, Lord, on my lyre, everything that is bene cial: With sound words, let us sing for perfection, With pure [words] for the virgins, And with simple [words], let us sing for the simple.

Having articulated this three-fold character of the madrasha, Ephrem then in MF : indicates this aspect as imitative of David: [:] David’s lyre sang three times: With strings exalted, it sang your divinity; With [strings] in the middle, it sang your humanity; With weak [strings], it sang about your death!

Even here Ephrem nds a way to connect his poetic project to David’s Psalms while at the same time distancing his poetry from them. Whereas David’s “lyre” sang prophetically of Christ in three modes, Ephrem’s three modes all relate to his own audience; in none does he speak directly of God. He thus cites David as an exem‑ plar, while situating his own poetic aims as signi cantly less ambitious than his. Only once, in MF :, does Ephrem link the madrashe to David’s own utterances outright: Do not sing to God in a backwards way…. Sing like David to the Son of David: Call him “Lord” and “Son,” like David.

Here, however, Ephrem still does not claim David as an exemplar for his own poetry but exhorts his audience to imitate David in their own singing. In these passages, Ephrem uses the metaphor of the lyre, especially in its connection to David, to sug‑ gest an ambience of association between his own poetry and the Davidic Psalms. The metaphor of the lyre links Ephrem’s poetry to the Psalms of David. It also enables him to present his poetry in terms of instrumentality. Like the metaphors of “tongue,” “mouth,” and “pen”—all of which Ephrem used to speak of himself in his role as poet—the metaphor of the lyre downplayed Ephrem as authorial agent and instead presented him and his poems as passive instruments of the divine. When, in MF :, Ephrem exhorts the Lord to “sing, on [his] lyre, every bene cial thing,” he presents his madrashe as emerging from the Lord not from himself. He stands passive to the process. Yet, even as Ephrem claimed himself as merely an instrument of the divine, he also wanted to eschew a mantic model, in which a divinity would simply take over and speak through him. rough the language of the lyre, Ephrem was able to present his poems as divinely inspired but limited by the particularities of his own speech.

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 ’ “”

Lyre, Controversy, and the Image of the Poet The metaphor of the lyre presented Ephrem’s poetry in relationship to David’s psalmody and helped him claim poetic inspiration in a self-effacing way. e broad‑ er context of his use of the metaphor concerns the general dynamic surrounding theological speech in the fourth century. In this respect, Ephrem seemed to draw on the metaphor of the lyre especially when he spoke about theological controversy as a way of defending the very existence of his poetic speech. It is helpful to remember here that Ephrem did not sing alone but with a choir. at performative context bi‑ furcated his poetic identity in a complex way, in that he could exhort his choir as an entity that existed independently of him, even as it sang the words he himself com‑ posed. For example, in MF :, he writes: [.] Lyre, cleanse yourself from controversy! Do not let pride sound its own will within you. Do not let arrogance chant within you With its songs, for it is utter ruin.

We can take “lyre” in this passage as referring to Ephrem’s own poetic voice but also as the choir who would then respond, “e earth sings glory to you, for it has been redeemed in you!” Similarly, at :, he exhorts his “lyre”: Stand up straight and sing—no controversy! Cleanse the rust from your songs and sing for us—no hidden things! Be a disciple of all revealed things And without fear speak of beautiful things.

Ephrem’s madrashe brought theological speech under suspicion but at the same time served as examples of it. From this perspective, we can read the lyre language as preparing his audience to hear his poetry as doxology. Catherine Bell discusses how rituals bene t from framing devices, which signify the content of the ritual it‑ self as distinct from everyday life. e lyre language provides just such a frame. As Ephrem begins and ends these poems by condemning a discourse that engages in debating, he performatively frames the content of his poetry as distinct from the type of theological speech that he wishes to condemn. EPHREM’S MIMETIC “I”

The language of gi and exchange and the metaphor of the lyre extend throughout Ephrem’s corpus. By connecting these metaphors with the Bible, Ephrem establish‑ es a resonance between his poetic corpus and the corpus of the Bible. ese metaphors, since they are connected with the Bible in only loose ways, also enable him to bring together a series of biblical words, verses, and narratives and articu‑ late his poetic self in biblical terms. Elsewhere in his corpus, Ephrem shapes his po‑ etic “I” by representing and reshaping very particular biblical narratives, events, and characters.

 ’ “”



An Assembly of Women The tenth MF has been titled by Sebastian Brock as “A Hymn on the Eucharist.” is title is certainly accurate, but the rst six stanzas function more basically as a didactic petition for the inspiration to speak at all and, more speci cally, to speak about the Eucharist. Ephrem uses the narratives of the Canaanite woman, the hem‑ orrhaging woman, and the so-called sinful woman as exempla for his own petition to speak. Poem  begins: [:] You dictated, my Lord, “Open your mouth and I will ll it.” Look: the mouth of your servant is opened to you, together with his mind. Fill it, Lord, from your gi So that I might sing your praise, according to your will! [:] Your story has steps of every size, for every person. To the lowest step I approach, though I presume. Your begetting is sealed within silence: Whose mouth will presume to rush toward it?

In : and , Ephrem petitions the Lord to enable him to sing praises about the Lord’s “story” or “narrative” (taš‘îtâ), a story which, he tells us, has “steps of every size, for every person,” the lowest of which he himself will approach. From one per‑ spective, Ephrem here cras a very basic rhetoric of humility. He does this, however, not through a simple statement of his own humility but by relying upon and shaping an already dramatic biblical scene, within which he positions himself as a character. e portrait begins in the rst two stanzas of poem . Following from there, the rst two lines of : contain a second-person address to God, and then, in the last two lines, Ephrem shis to speak about himself—petitioning the Lord to enable him to deliver the poem he is already delivering. It is in this context that he aligns him‑ self with the biblical narrative: Though your nature is one, its interpretations are many (kad ḥad hû kyānāk pûššāqaw[hy] saggî]in); [ere are] things (šarbê) exalted, intermediate, and even lowly. On the lowly side, like a crumb (partûtâ), Deem me worthy to gather the particles (netrâ) of your wisdom.

Ephrem begins by stating his lowly state outright. He then signals the biblical narra‑ tive as a way of dramatizing this lowliness but also as a way of placing his poetic self within the biblical text. e allusion here is minimal, lacking any explicit quotation of the narrative upon which Ephrem draws or the use of any relevant proper nouns. Rather, Ephrem borrows only a single noun—“crumb”—which he quotes in line , and then uses “particles” as a synonym in line . is is enough, though, to establish the connection between his poem and the biblical narrative to which he alludes, namely, that of the Canaanite woman. In that story, preserved in both Matthew and Mark, a woman comes to Jesus and asks him to heal her demon-possessed daughter. At rst he snubs her, reminding her that he ministers only to the chil‑



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dren of Israel, and likens his healing to bread reserved only for his children (the Is‑ raelites), whereas she, as a Gentile, is but a dog. e woman accepts the metaphor and furthers it, begging only to eat “the crumbs (partûtê) that fall from the table of [the dogs’] master.” Though Ephrem invokes this narrative through one noun only, the semantic shape of his poem and the biblical narrative coalesce. Semantically, the story res‑ onates within Ephrem’s poem on three levels. In : (albeit still ve stanzas away), Ephrem will begin to speak about the Eucharist. e fact that here he draws upon a biblical narrative that mentions bread enables him to foreshadow this eucharistic theme, as well as, in retrospect, recast the begging woman from the biblical story as an exemplum of appropriate eucharistic reception. Second, and more important for our purposes, Ephrem uses this pericope to negotiate his own voice within the poem. From one perspective, poem  finds Ephrem doing a rather presumptuous thing, given the censure he repeatedly makes of theological speech. In : he has clearly asked for divine inspiration and implicitly presents the poem that follows as a product of such inspiration. Yet, immediately following this bold request, he has protested his own lowliness, depicting God, or speech about God, as a staircase, and himself as gingerly step‑ ping onto the lowest step. Thematically, the first stanza exemplifies Ephrem’s po‑ etic boldness (potentially, his presumption), while the second exemplifies his hu‑ mility. The third stanza, then, where he first alludes to a biblical narrative, com‑ bines the two. It is a narrative of a Gentile woman who demands something from a Jewish man and, surprisingly, garners his blessing. Ephrem’s invocation of this narrative enables him to justify his claim of inspired status for his poem. But it also enables him to dramatize the biblical narrative, insofar as he rewrites it as a plea for poetic inspiration. On a third level, Ephrem uses this biblical narrative to dramatize his own experi‑ ence of God and to construct an image of God by way of an image of himself experi‑ encing God. e biblical narrative enables him to cast the relationship between himself and God not only as one of low (Ephrem) to high (God), but also of lack to excess. e poem results from this divine excess descending onto the poor poet. Ephrem draws this out in the opening and concluding lines of this third stanza, identifying the divine nature as one that inspires a variety of interpretations (MF ::). Nevertheless, though the nature is manifest in a variety of interpretations, Ephrem positions himself beside only the lowliest (MF ::–). MF : then concludes: “Deem me worthy to gather the particles of your wisdom.” e “parti‑ cles” of line four gloss the “interpretations” of line . By reading the particles that “fall from the master’s table” as a metaphor for the endless interpretations that de‑ pict the one divine nature, Ephrem transforms this image of poverty—the image of the begging woman, onto which Ephrem has mapped himself—into an image of ex‑ cess. e crumbs are no longer the lowest but the most numerous. This image of excess comes out more fully in MF :. ere Ephrem exclaims, “A small drop of your explanations for the earthly (taḥtāyê), my Lord, / is a ood of interpretations (tûrgāmê).” A similar emphasis closes this tenth poem. Here, again

 ’ “”



alluding to the passage from Matthew, Ephrem begs the Lord to “withhold [His] gi,” because “my lap has become full of the crumbs (netrâ) of your crust; / ere is no place le in my garment” (MF :). By reading his own plea for poetic inspira‑ tion through the lens of the Canaanite woman, Ephrem can emphasize, at the same time, his humility alongside the divine glut that his poem represents. And like the metaphor of the lyre, by morphing the language of the biblical crumbs with the in‑ spiration that gives birth to his poetry, Ephrem places his poetry on a continuum with the Bible—he looks like the Canaanite woman, and his poem emerges through the same process by which she procured the Lord’s blessing. Twice more in these opening stanzas Ephrem alludes to himself, and both times he adds a new biblical image to that of the Canaanite woman. e overall dramatic effect of his self-presentation depends on the compilation of these three images. Sig‑ ni cantly, he begins MF : by refusing to claim John the Baptist as an exemplum. Instead, he takes upon himself the image of the woman who anointed Christ’s feet with ointment and tears, and, in MF :, the image of the woman with the issue of blood who touched Christ’s garment and was healed. His references to these two women run together across the two stanzas: [:] For if John, that great one, called out, “I am unworthy of the straps of your sandals, my Lord,” en like the sinful woman, I will take refuge In the shadow of your garment, dwelling inside of it. [::–] And like her who was afraid and then took heart when she was healed, Heal my fearful trepidation and let me be heartened by you. From the side of your garment I will be brought (ʼetyabbal) To the side of your body, that I might declare it (ʼešta’‘êw[hy]) in accordance with my strength.

As with the earlier reference to the Canaanite woman, the manner in which Ephrem here alludes to these two narratives is incredibly minimalistic. In :, he refers simply to “the sinful woman” (ḥaṭṭāytâ) and states that, like her, he will take refuge “[i]n the shadow of your garment.” The term ḥaṭṭāytâ (“sinful woman”) is used in the Syriac versions of Luke : to describe the woman who anointed Christ’s feet with ointment and tears. Yet, none of the Syriac versions of the story mention “garment.” Instead, they say that the woman “stood behind him, at his feet.” What we have here, then, is a dramatic, even ekphrastic, rendering of the scene, in which the text’s simple detail that she “stood behind him, at his feet” is represented as her taking refuge “in the shadow of [his] garment.” But through this slight rewriting, Ephrem merges this story of the sinful woman with yet an‑ other New Testament woman. In the rst line of :, Ephrem shis his allusion to the story of the so-called he‑ morrhaging woman, in which the main character is miraculously healed when she secretly touches Christ’s garment in the midst of a crowd. Initially, Ephrem does not mention the word “garment” in his allusion to her, instead allowing its echo



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from the previous stanza (where it is supplied to the biblical text) to linger. e two images are thus connected by the single term “garment,” which is then reiterated in the third line of :. In three stanzas, Ephrem builds his own poetic persona by melding these three exempla: the Canaanite woman who seeks healing for her daughter; the sinful woman who anoints Christ’s feet; and the woman with the flow of blood, healed by Christ’s touch. All three of these narratives involve women who, in addition to gen‑ der, are marginalized by either ethnicity or moral standing. All three come to Christ in an audacious manner but of necessity and humility. In the stories of the Canaanite woman and the woman with the flow of blood, the text says that they “worshiped” Christ, while the sinful woman performs an act of adoration. All three receive heal‑ ing of sins. Iconically, too, all three women assume humble bodily postures, thus ex‑ ternally indicating their internally humble disposition, as well as becoming visual depictions of Ephrem’s constant juxtaposition of high (God) and low (human). Nevertheless, a key difference between Ephrem’s appropriation of these three stories is how the metaphors of excess function. In his reading of the Canaanite woman, Ephrem exploits the ambiguity of the image of the crumbs falling from the table. On one level, by emphasizing the obvious sense of the crumbs, he read them in the humblest of terms, as leover food t only for a dog. On that level, the crumbs provide him with a language to underscore his own humility. Yet, on anoth‑ er level, having accessed the image at its lowest, he shis the metaphor of crumbs, stressing not its lowliness, but its abundance. In that case it becomes a metaphor for the excess of God’s abundant interpretations—interpretations out of which Ephrem builds his own poetry. It is only in his allusion to the Canaanite woman that Ephrem speci cally draws out this theme of excess. Strikingly, it is the only one of these three narratives where that excess is not suggested in the story. e theme of excess does come out in the narratives of the sinful woman and the hemorrhaging woman. In the story of the sinful woman, her adoration of Christ is excessive, marked by ex‑ pensive perfume and her own profuse weeping. e theme of excess is even more pronounced in the story of the hemorrhaging woman. ere her claim on Christ— the effect of her touching him—is so intense that it provokes Luke to say that Jesus perceived that “power (ḥaylâ) had gone forth from him.” Arguably, Ephrem has taken the theme of excess present in the narratives of the sinful woman and the he‑ morrhaging woman and read it back into the narrative of the Canaanite woman. By melding the language of these different narratives, they appear within Ephrem as types of one another, all put to the service of his rhetorical end. These three New Testament women provide Ephrem with a means to underscore his own humility but also to argue for the divinely given power of his poem. His posture as poet is as one placed before the biblical text, recipient of it only at its low‑ est, but nding its crumbs lled with divine power. Within his poem—a work both lowly and exalted—Ephrem merges these distinct biblical women with one another but also with himself. ey become types of one another, and he, rewritten in the pages of his own writing, becomes a type of them.

 ’ “”



The Wedding at Cana In MF , Ephrem represents the event of his poetry as a replaying of the New Tes‑ tament story of Jesus’s miracle at Cana. He is rst Mary, who petitions her son to make wine from water, and then the water itself, transformed and poured into the ears of his audience. e New Testament story, found in John , appears eleven times in Ephrem’s corpus (including the Madrashe on Faith). Interestingly, four of the times that he draws on the narrative he uses it to address the issue of Christian speech. Yet nowhere in his corpus does the parable so in ltrate the setting of his poem as it does here in MF . Structurally, this short poem re ects upon the narra‑ tive in half its stanzas (:–). In these, Ephrem uses the scene of the wedding at Cana to provide an imagined setting for the delivery of his poem. As seen so far in this chapter, Ephrem used biblical characters, language, and metaphors to fashion a distinct poetic “I.” On the one hand, he claims before his au‑ dience undeniable poetic power and authority. On the other hand, he presents his poems as simple acts of devotion, or even, in his use of New Testament women, des‑ peration, born out of his own in rmity. In these examples, Ephrem’s poetic “I,” while melding with the Bible, has been situated rmly before his audience. Perched between divinity and humanity, between the Bible and audience, he speaks to them, and does so with authority. In MF , as Ephrem reads the scene of the wedding at Cana, there are striking differences with what we have already seen. First, in MF , Ephrem is drawing upon a biblical scene rather than a particular biblical character or set of metaphors. Second, because he is not drawing on an ambiguous biblical character (such as Zac‑ chaeus or the sinful woman), his self-portrait, while still re ecting the ideals of humble authority, re ects these ideals in distinct ways. Finally, here Ephrem is pre‑ senting himself through a representation of his whole community, at the center of which he nevertheless sits. us, rather than standing in prayer before God and au‑ dience, here Ephrem sits in the midst of the assembly, asking for his speech to be transformed as a part of that whole context. Poem  begins: [:] I have invited you, Lord, to a feast of madrashe. e wine—a discourse of praise—has run out in our feast. e one whose vessels are full of good wine is invited. Fill my mouth with your song!

Ephrem’s invocation of the biblical scene is initially terse. e Syriac of John :– reads, “And on the third day, there was a wedding feast…. And Jesus and his disci‑ ples were invited to the wedding feast.” e words in the rst line of Ephrem’s poem that connect to John :– are “invited” and “feast,” but Ephrem uses synonyms for both of these. In John :, “invited” is ʼetqrî (literally, “to be called”), and in Ephrem it is zammen (“to invite”). “Feast” is meštûtâ in John, whereas Ephrem uses the word ḥlûlâ. Ephrem’s substitution of these synonyms cannot be explained simply in terms



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of meter, because the biblical language would have met the poem’s metrical needs. Rather, Ephrem’s use of ḥlûlâ, “feast,” likely has an interpretative function. is term appears in Matthew :, where it describes the eschatological wedding banquet. In MF :, Ephrem references Matthew :–—the parable of the king’s feast— and substitutes ḥlûlâ for Matthew’s meštûtâ. In his use of ḥlûlâ, Ephrem represents the wedding scene of John , as well as the setting of his poetry, in subtly eschato‑ logical terms. The appeal of substituting John’s passive “they were invited” (ʼetqrî) with the ac‑ tive “I have invited” (zammentāk) is more obvious. By offering this active invitation, the poet situates himself —and, through him, his audience—squarely within the biblical narrative. e poet invokes the Lord’s presence on the assembly, merging his poetic self with the unnamed party who initially invites Christ to the wedding and with Mary who actively petitions Christ to change the water into wine. By subtly in‑ serting his active voice into the text’s passive voice, Ephrem recontextualizes his poem, and the gathering for which it was composed, as a replaying of the Lord’s rst —and already attested—miracle. As in the previous examples, Ephrem plays a cen‑ tral mediating role between the Lord and the assembly. Here, however, it is not just his speech that he seeks to be transformed but the whole context for the delivery of that speech. The connection to John  becomes clearer in the second line of :, as Ephrem begins to embed John’s specific vocabulary. In John :, the reader is told, “the wine had run out” (wa-ḥsar hwâ ḥamrâ). Using the same words for “had run out” (ḥsar) and “wine” (ḥamrâ), Ephrem more clearly evokes the wed‑ ding at Cana, presenting his poetic assembly as a replaying of that biblical event. Only now it is not literal wine that is needed but “a discourse of praise” (mêmar šûbḥâ). Line three continues the association, taking two more terms from John :– (ʼaggānê, “vessels,” from John :, and ḥamrâ ṭābâ, “good wine,” from John :). MF : reuses the same Johannine vocabulary as :—”wine,” “vessels”—and further glosses the particular “wine” for which Ephrem asks: “this is speech-endowed wine, which begets praise. / This wine has begotten praise / among drinkers, who have seen a marvel!” The absence of a first-person reference in this stanza underscores the particularly communal nature of Ephrem’s petition. It is typical of Ephrem’s exegetical style to allude to a narrative elusively be‑ fore finally indicating it outright. In the second chapter, we saw this with his use of Ezekiel  in MF . We see a similar approach here. In the first two stanzas of this poem, Ephrem has evoked the biblical narrative through vocabulary whose origin is recognizable if not explicit: he uses two synonyms (“feast,” ḥlûlâ; “invited,” zammen) and three terms taken directly (“wine,” ḥamrâ; “has run out,” ḥsar; and “vessels,” ʼaggānê). In :, Ephrem finally anchors the poem explicitly in its biblical source by offering a terse narration of the story: “It was right that at someone else’s feast / you filled six vessels with good wine.” The line clearly connects Ephrem’s words to the biblical narrative to which he has subtly allud‑ ed. But even in this simple renarration, the consequences for Ephrem’s poetic

 ’ “”



identity are manifest. Rather than glossing the story in the third person, Ephrem voices this brief narration as a direct address to the Lord. This summary enables him to nuance his initial petition and further the link between his assembly and the biblical text. Having articulated for his hearers these basic narrative details —“you filled six vessels with good wine”—he rewrites his own context as a fur‑ ther playing out of this initial wedding feast: “In this feast, instead of vessels, / Lord, fill a myriad of ears with delight!” In so thoroughly emphasizing the role of his audience and the need for their ears to be transformed, Ephrem’s voice in MF  is strikingly different from what we have seen previously. Whereas before his emphasis has been solely on his own plea for inspiration, here he emphasizes his audience’s need for inspiration. Still, his po‑ etic voice sits at the center of this inspired assembly. We can see the privileged role of that voice in the poem’s connection with John . In MF :, Ephrem petitions the Lord to “ ll a myriad of ears with delight.” e audience, then, will receive the water transformed into wine, poured out by the Lord. But it is Ephrem himself—his poetic words—that parallels the biblical water. His words, mundane on their own, have been transformed and now nourish his audience like the miraculously formed wine of John . The biblical text thus provides a metaphor through which he and his audience can conceptualize the poetic event. Ephrem initiates the event by petitioning the Lord to come to the feast and to transform it, like water into wine. Following the biblical narrative, he initially plays an active role— rst as host of the feast, then as Mary, goading him toward a miraculous act. Responding to this “invitation,” the Lord—in the biblical text and in the poem—takes action, pouring water into vessels. At this point, Ephrem’s own place in the metaphor shis. He is no longer the active agent (the host or Mary) but entirely passive; water is transformed and poured into vessels—the ears of his audience. By casting himself, nally, in terms of passivity, Ephrem strikes the pose characteristic of his poetic self. On the one hand, he stands at the center of the poem; it is his language that the Lord transforms and pours into the ears of his listeners. But, on the other hand, through the biblical images he bor‑ rows, he represents his authorial role in entirely humble terms—as mundane water, transformed through no virtue of its own.

Noah and Ephrem’s Poetic Guilt MF  is the shortest poem in Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith, and it is also the only poem entirely devoted to a single biblical character. e previous two poems ad‑ dressed—MF  and —begin with clear rst-person statements and slowly build in biblical allusions before Ephrem nally connects his poetic “I” to a speci c bibli‑ cal text. Poem  works in the opposite direction. e poem begins as a simple re‑ ection on the narrative of Genesis : How glorious was Noah, who by comparison outweighed All the children of his generation! When they were weighed with justice

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 ’ “”

They were found wanting in the scale. One soul righted the scale With the weapons of modesty. ey sank down in the ood, Weighing too little in the balance. But chastity and honor Were lied up in the ark. Glory to the One who delighted in it!

The poem continues through ve stanzas to re ect on Noah and his ark as a sign of the cross and a symbol of Torah. It is only at the poem’s conclusion that Ephrem nally situates himself within this poetic retelling: Look: my mind has wandered, for it has fallen into the terrible Flood of our Savior! Blessed is Noah: though His ship—his ark—sailed through the ood, He himself was calm. Lord, may my faith become A ship for my weakness. Look: fools are drowning In the depth of your disputation (‘ûqqābāk)! Praises to your child!

Ephrem situates his poetic “I” on the boundaries of the biblical narrative. His open‑ ing confession places him rmly outside the ark, drowning among those “found wanting in the scale” (:). e verb that Ephrem uses for “wandered” (phâ) com‑ monly denotes a particular kind of errant wandering—wandering from the right path—though it does not always have a negative connotation. In MF :, he again connects the verb with the ark but this time positively. Re ecting on a pearl, he says, “It became larger to me / than the ark, so that I roamed around (phêt) inside it.” Here, at the conclusion of MF , he re ects on the intellectual roaming that he has undertaken in this poem—pressing the Genesis narrative to draw ever more mean‑ ing from it—and he nds that he has wandered off the ark and fallen into the “terri‑ ble / ood of our Savior.” Ephrem’s poetic voice occupied an ambiguous place in fourth-century Mesopotamia. Ephrem was deeply critical of the culture of theological debate that developed aer Nicaea. Yet he voiced these criticisms through the medium of his own public, theological poetry. In this poem, Ephrem’s admission of poetic guilt— to have fallen into the ood on account of his own intellectual wandering—serves as a framing device that distances him from the negative associations he and his audi‑ ence carry regarding theological speech. By performatively claiming what he fears, he makes a literary confession—one that assumes repentance. Repentance here is very concrete: it means claiming faith, a faith that is the opposite of “disputation.” is faith becomes a ship on which Ephrem can nd salvation. In this stanza, Ephrem initially emphasizes his own wandering. But from his imagined place outside the ark, drowning in the ood, he remembers Noah—calm as his ark carried him through the ood, trusting in the ark to save him. Remem‑ bering Noah, Ephrem gestures toward claiming him as an example—gestures to‑ wards presenting himself, in his poetic role, as another Noah. But he gestures only. In asking that his faith be a ship to carry him and his poetry, he chooses his words carefully. Noah was buoyed not just by any ship but by “his ark” (kewwêlâ). Ephrem’s faith serves the same purpose, but it is a ship (ʼellpâ) that carries him, not

 ’ “”



an ark. ough he initially admits to having fallen into the ood, he claims just enough of the righteousness of Noah to draw himself up, look around, and see that “fools are drowning / In the depth of your disputation” (‘ûqqābāk). Yet he gestures to his audience that, because of his faith, because of his praise, he is no longer among them. CONCLUSION

In his construction of a poetic self, Ephrem used the Bible to articulate a humble boldness. By drawing on economic metaphors rooted in biblical narratives, Ephrem presented himself as, on the one hand, poverty-stricken and in need of relief but, on the other hand, a broker of poetic inspiration, meted out to his audience. rough the metaphor of the lyre, he attached his poetic self to David and expressed the in‑ strumentality of himself as poet, a set of wood and string played by the Spirit. e Canaanite woman, the sinful woman, and the hemorrhaging woman provided him with humble exempla who nevertheless became recipients of the Lord’s excessive healing. rough the narrative of the wedding at Cana he cast himself as active—as host, as Mary—but also passive, in that his speech was like mundane water, trans‑ formed into wine through no virtue of its own. And through the story of Noah, he situated himself between the ood and the ark—at rst drowning in the former, then clinging to a version of the latter. In all of these examples, Ephrem depicts himself and his poetry as existing on a continuum between the Bible and his audience. He rewrites the biblical scenes and narratives in light of his own concerns as poet. But, in articulating his poetic voice, he brings himself and, through him, his audience into the Bible, weaving his narra‑ tive into its narratives, and creating an imaginative space where text and audience meet. Ephrem’s poems become that imaginative space. e drama of his poetic self merges with the Bible’s own drama; his poetic self represents and rewrites the narra‑ tives of the ood, the wedding at Cana, and the trials of marginalized New Testa‑ ment women. In this sense, Ephrem uses the Bible to do something—to construct an image of self, and to process that self before an audience. Ironically, he processes this self in a body of poetry that aims to censure theological discourse. From this perspective, the poetic “I” operates both as exemplar and as framing device, to sig‑ nal to the audience the legitimacy of the words contained in the poems.



Audience and the Vision of the Text

Soon aer Ephrem’s death, the genre of the madrasha came to be associated closely with the arena of liturgical performance. As I argued in chapter one, some of his madrashe certainly suggest their origin in liturgical performance, but many others do not. Most of the Madrashe on Faith seem to have been composed for small groups engaged in lives of asceticism and study, and for occasions not obviously connected to liturgical events. Yet to say that the poems were not always performed in liturgical contexts is not to say that they were not performed before, and with, an audience. ese are still texts marked by a dialogical style—they are texts that betray the presence of an audience. From the collection’s very rst stanza, Ephrem speaks to some unseen other, and he continues to do so throughout the collection. He refers to his audience as “my brothers” or “my son,” asks them rhetorical questions, voices strict commands, and places himself beside them in rst-person plural re‑ ections. e recipients of these exhortations, questions, and commands—the “we” to whom, and with whom, he sang—are unknown to us in speci c detail. Like Ephrem’s “I,” the “you” of the Madrashe on Faith reveals not a historical audience but an ideal one. ese poems structure this ideal audience and build exempla onto which the real audience can map itself. Within the Bible, Ephrem found the material with which to construct this ideal audience. Ephrem rewrote the lives of biblical characters as a drama for his audience to behold and directed them to locate them‑ selves in his poetically reconstructed biblical scenes. Yet, while we cannot move simplistically from the “you” that Ephrem addresses to the socio-historical audience that actually heard these madrashe, there is a historical setting within which this constructed audience resonates. As we have argued throughout this book, the poems collected in the Madrashe on Faith emerged in the shadow of the Trinitarian controversies. In these poems, Ephrem negotiated the con‑ tours of these controversies as they took shape around Antioch in the s. Moreover, as I argued in the first chapter, the Madrashe on Faith most likely formed texts com‑ 

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

posed for settings of study, where they performatively acted out a right relationship to the Bible in the context of the Trinitarian controversies. As a whole, the Madrashe on Faith concern themselves with condemning investigation. In this chapter, we see Ephrem rewrite biblical narratives as dramatic scenes of investigation, before and within which he situates his audience. The audience that emerges differs from poem to poem. Sometimes he finds in the biblical scenes direct analogues—sometimes heroic, sometimes villainous—in which he exhorts the audience to see itself. At other times, he merely constructs the text as a spectacle for them to look upon as outsiders. In all these poems he brings the Bible to life for his fourth-century audience. This chapter seeks to uncover how Ephrem shaped the biblical text in light of his audience, and how, in turn, he situated his audience before and within that biblical text. I examine this phenomenon by looking at a particular set of poems—MF , , , , and . These madrashe are unique within the collection both in terms of their compositional technique and in the way they situate the audience with respect to their content. Compositionally, these poems compile a series of characters taken from throughout the Bible and unite them around a single argument a minore ad maius (though the particular content of the argument varies from poem to poem). Within these poems, Ephrem describes these biblical characters using visual and emotional language; he asks his audience to look upon the characters and respond to what they see. What they observe in the biblical text before them, however, is a world invested with the same values that Ephrem insists his audience adopt. It is one in which biblical characters stand before God with the choice to investigate or express awe and wonder, and in which the consequences of that choice play out in dramatic ways. In order to contextualize these ve poems, I rst look at the element of visuality that develops throughout Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith and upon which he draws in his construction of these compilation poems. I suggest that we can see in Ephrem’s presentation of the text an analogue to the Greco-Roman practice of ekphrasis. e analysis of the poems follows and proceeds in two distinct parts. For each poem, I rst analyze its rhetoric and compositional structure, and then the way the poem situates its audience with respect to the biblical text. My aim is not only to think through Ephrem’s construction of his audience but also to reveal the uniqueness of these compilation poems. I conclude this chapter by re ecting in broad terms on the Madrashe on Faith’s construction of an ideal audience. EKPHR ASIS AN D THE TEXT

There is a noticeable emphasis on visuality in Ephrem’s madrashe, which Edmund Beck first drew attention to in . His study of Ephrem’s psychology and epistemol‑ ogy showed that Ephrem conceived of knowledge in terms of sight. Sidney Griffith developed Beck’s insights, arguing that vision provided one of the primary metaphors for Ephrem’s conception of the relationship between humanity and God. So thor‑ oughly immersed are Ephrem’s works in the language of visuality, Griffith argued, that we should think of the poet not simply as a proponent of a “symbolic theology” but as developing an “iconic theology,” in which poems profile as “verbal icons.”



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More recently, Ute Possekel has shown the degree to which Ephrem’s ideas on visuali‑ ty reflect broader Greco-Roman conceptions of sight and vision. The language of sight and vision also formed one of the primary ways that Ephrem spoke to his audience about the biblical text. Within the Madrashe on Faith, the verb ḥzâ (“to see”) occurs in  different stanzas. e verb ḥār (“to look”) oc‑ curs in  different stanzas. is explicit language of seeing can be connected to Ephrem’s broader representational lexicon, much of which is visual in nature. Ephrem’s repeated commands to his audience to look upon the subjects about which he speaks, and his tendency to speak of these subjects in visual terms, lends the Madrashe on Faith a consistently visual ambience. Ephrem gives us no sense that his lexicon of visuality arose in response to ac‑ tual works of art. As Griffith notes, his only reference to literal images appears in a passage in which he condemns Mani’s creation of an illuminated manuscript. Yet we can think about his presentation of the biblical text in visual terms as akin to the Greco-Roman practice of ekphrasis. As Ruth Webb has argued, in antiq‑ uity, an ekphrastic speech was simply one that was so richly descriptive that it en‑ abled one to “see” the object being described. As Michael Roberts articulates it, the goal of ekphrasis was “to turn [the rhetor’s] hearers…into spectators.” Ac‑ cording to Quintillian, the rhetorician would do this by concentrating on the dis‑ tinct parts of a source narrative and retelling this narrative by focusing on “a larg‑ er number of details,” to the point that one could create the “impression of ex‑ haustivity.” Ephrem’s presentation of the biblical text as a visual object resembles this prac‑ tice. e poet xes his attention on small narrative scenes within larger biblical books and presents these scenes as objects for his audience to look upon. He de‑ scribes the scenes using emotional language and asks his audience to imagine them with a sense of awe and wonder. Yet, the quote from Quintillian also highlights one way Ephrem’s vivid speech differed from that of Greco-Roman rhetoricians. While his speech sought to create the text as a visual object and used emotional lan‑ guage to heighten the scene’s vividness, Ephrem’s visual descriptions of biblical scenes did not delight in detail. According to the handbooks, an ekphrasis should x upon, and endlessly expand, minute narrative details. But Ephrem’s depiction of the biblical texts, while using the language of visuality and emotion, reveled in minimalistic allusion and extreme compression. In craing the text as an object for his audience to behold, he stripped individual narratives of all extraneous detail, so that otherwise distinct biblical stories and characters came to bear close relation‑ ships to one another, as well as to the audience for whom they were rewritten. e extreme compression of Ephrem’s descriptive scenes lends them a unique character among late antique instances of visual description. TEXTUAL IMAGES

Ephrem connects his audience members to the biblical text by focusing their atten‑ tion on biblical characters and depicting these characters using visual language.

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

They enter his madrashe in a number of ways. At times, Ephrem places before his audience a biblical character in a single stanza, or a quick succession of biblical characters in a single stanza, to make a rhetorical point. For example, he references Jonah in the middle of MF , a poem about the relationship between faithful speech and silent prayer: “Jonah prayed silently…. / But the Exalted One heard. To him, silence is shouting” (:). Ephrem draws Jonah into this otherwise nonbibli‑ cal poem as a type, providing a brief narrative anchor. In this instance, Ephrem ref‑ erences biblical characters in a single stanza set in an otherwise nonbiblical poem. Ephrem also weaves together multiple characters across successive stanzas, so that a single poem comes to function as a mosaic of distinct biblical scenes. Exam‑ ples of this style of poetry are found throughout his corpus. Within the Madrashe on Faith, he links biblical characters across the whole of the poem, as in MF , , , , and . In each of those poems, Ephrem cras biblical scenes as a way of dis‑ couraging investigation and encouraging his audience to look upon the world of the Bible with awe and wonder. Poems , , and  share the same meter and melody, and exist as part of a distinct subset within the Madrashe on Faith that runs from poems  to . We do not know whether Ephrem intended these three poems to be read together, but as they sit within the collection, they clearly function as a unit. On a basic compositional level, they all consist in compilations of biblical characters, but they also develop in logically coherent ways. MF  draws entirely upon New Testament characters, MF  upon Old Testament characters, and MF  brings together characters from both and incorporates nonbiblical exempla taken from the natural world. e idea of theo‑ phany—of God appearing in, as well as transcending, visible forms—connects the three, though in a loose way. It forms the centerpiece of MF , introduces and con‑ cludes MF , and introduces MF , before disappearing thereaer. MF  runs sixteen stanzas and integrates material taken from the Bible and the natural world to argue that investigation must proceed according to a proper order. It sits in a series of madrashe that extends from poems  to  and which all share the melody “God in his mercy.” MF  is a thirteen-stanza poem that re ects gen‑ erally on the unknowability of God and argues against those who think theological education could allow them to know God completely. e poem sits in a subcollec‑ tion that extends from poems  to  and bears the melody “Take comfort in the promises.” BEHOLDING THE FLESH: MF 7

Poem  begins with a urry of rhetorical questions, all of which underscore the in‑ ability of Ephrem’s audience to investigate God: Who has strayed from himself, Ignorant of his own thought, So that he declares the nature of the Firstborn? Who can investigate the Lord of natures,



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In whose hand natures exist? The one who investigates him Cannot [even] investigate his own nature. Thus, by his very self he is rebuked. For, without comprehending himself, How could he comprehend his Lord?

The madrasha proceeds, beginning in stanza , as a presentation of the transfigured Christ, focalized through a series of New Testament characters who look upon him. Before Ephrem depicts the incarnate Christ, he first insists that God is utterly transcen‑ dent (stanza ), yet his appearance in the flesh has significantly ameliorated his divine glory (stanzas  and ). This tension between Christ’s full glory and Christ’s glory cov‑ ered in flesh sits at the heart of the poem. Ephrem shifts between two perspectives on this problem of divine embodiment. From the perspective of the New Testament char‑ acters, Christ’s clothed glory enables the biblical characters to sustain a vision of him but also allows certain characters—for example, the scribes, Herod, and the wicked thief—to dismiss him. Ephrem’s audience, however, views Christ with dramatic irony. They know what the biblical characters themselves do not. Because Christ’s glory is more fully revealed to them than it was to the biblical characters, they see a Christ more obviously deserving of worship but also more terrifying to behold. The poem reconstructs the Gospel text as a series of visions of Christ and asks its audience to behold Christ through the gaze of these New Testament characters. As the audience looks through the eyes of the biblical characters, Ephrem builds for them a mosaic uni ed by a continuous argument a minore ad maius, which de‑ pends both upon their distance from the world of the New Testament text, as well as their ability to enter into it. Stanza  articulates the poem’s central image: He bent down and covered his gaze (ḥzāyeh) Behind a veil of esh. By the dawning of his light All the Jordan was illumined. When he shone even a little on the mountain, ose that the Apostle considered e three pillars Trembled and swayed in terror. According to the measure of their power, He offered them a glimpse Of his hidden glory.

This single image, fusing the biblical scenes of Christ’s baptism and trans guration, and drawing as well on language from Galatians, presents a Christ whose glory is held back—barely—by the esh with which he has covered himself. In the eight stanzas that follow, Ephrem incorporates four more scenes from Christ’s life: his walking on water (MF :), his birth (MF :–), his meeting of the children (MF

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

:), and his cruci xion (MF :–)—and brings together a range of characters to behold these Gospel scenes. We can divide the characters that populate this poem into three groups. Christ, who is looked upon, functions as the central gure. e poem’s heroes (both human and nonhuman) look upon Christ and express awe- lled devotion: the sea (MF :), the disciples in the boat on the sea (MF :), the Magi (MF :–), the good thief (MF :), the children (MF :), the star at Christ’s birth (MF :), the Spirit (MF :), and the Centurion whose faith Christ praised (MF :–). e poem’s vil‑ lains are those who look upon Christ and respond by debating: the other thief (MF :), Herod (MF :), Satan (MF :), the scribes and Pharisees (MF :), and, iron‑ ically, the apostle omas (:).

The Audience in the Text We can think of MF  as composed of a series of rewritten biblical scenes onto which Ephrem maps his audience primarily as viewers. At the center stands a Christ whom Ephrem composes by drawing primarily on four scenes from the Gospels. On either side, devotees and detractors ank this Christ. Ephrem brings his audi‑ ence into this text rst by depicting its world as an object to be viewed with awe. In MF :, Ephrem says that the apostles who witness Christ trans gured “tremble and shake with terror.” He extends this emotional reaction to the natural world in the stanza that follows. e sea, seeing Christ walking upon it, shakes and offers itself to him. Ephrem says that those who witnessed this were “astonished” by Christ. In MF :, the Centurion is said to have “marveled.” Ephrem uses this language to con‑ struct the world of the text as one before which his audience must stand in awe. He also instructs his audience to nd themselves within this terrifying world. In poems : and , Ephrem emphasizes Christ trans gured and focalizes the trans g‑ ured Christ through characters who beheld him with awe, through whose eyes the audience must also look. In MF :, Ephrem shis his focus from Christ trans g‑ ured to the behavior of the characters beholding him. He then, for the rst time, ad‑ dresses his audience directly: “Come and marvel at [the Magi], / who saw the king humbled / and neither debated nor discussed!” It is with these words that Ephrem introduces his audience to the Magi and directs them to connect themselves with these characters: You, too, seek the Firstborn. When you have found him on high, instead of convoluted discussion, open your treasures before him, and offer to him your works.

Ephrem constructs his audience’s behavior as imitative of the Magi. Within the Gospel narrative, they are to locate themselves in the narrative of the Magi. In MF :–, the Centurion provides a second lens through which the audi‑ ence is to see itself. Like the Magi, he functions as an outsider within the Gospel



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text. A representative of the Roman government, he approaches Christ and asks for the healing of his daughter (Matt. :–). Christ agrees to accompany him to heal her, but the Centurion refuses him and tells him that if he merely speaks, she will be healed. Ephrem brie y recounts this narrative and then exhorts his audience: “Since in our day we cannot impede / his physical entrance, / impede…his investigation!” In MF :, he asks them to compare the Centurion to omas, whom he holds up as a negative example of investigation. “e Lord praised [the Centurion],” Ephrem tells the audience, but “rebuked” omas. omas serves as an ambiguous hero. He is undoubtedly virtuous in the eyes of Ephrem’s audience, but demonstrates the frailty of virtue and the danger of investigation. In this poem, it is the marginal characters—those who act with devotion and occupy minimal roles within the bib‑ lical text—who provide refuge for Ephrem’s audience. In poem , Ephrem constructs a scene for his audience to look upon and asks them to locate themselves in only two of the characters—the Magi and the Centuri‑ on. ere is signi cance here even in the characters that Ephrem does not invite his audience to emulate. Consistently, he never encourages them to emulate the Gospel’s obvious heroes—certainly not Christ, but not the apostles either. ere is an assumption that the audience operates at a distance from them. Likewise, he rarely maps them onto obvious villains. e latter operate as static others, serving to exemplify clearly illicit boundaries. Ephrem consistently locates his audience be‑ tween these overt heroes and villains. THE IN VISIBLE SCENE OF INVESTIGATION : MF 8

If we think of the Madrashe on Faith as instances of ekphrasis, in which Ephrem de‑ picts biblical scenes in visual terms, poem  functions as something of a failed ekphrasis—a poem that repeatedly calls its audience to look upon what it, in fact, cannot see. e tension between visibility and invisibility is introduced in the poem’s very rst lines, in which Ephrem asks his audience to look upon the gure of Moses, while emphasizing their inability to do just that: Oh the appearance (zîwâ) of Moses Upon which no one could look! e spectators were unable to look upon mortals. Who will presume to look upon the awesome life-giver of all? If the splendor of a servant possessed this strength, Who will gaze upon his Lord? Mount Sinai, when it saw him, Smoked and burned before him!

As Andrew Hayes has noted, while the scene of Moses’s transfiguration (Exod. ) recurred throughout Ephrem’s corpus, it functioned uniquely within the

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

Madrashe on Faith and Memre on Faith. In this poem, Moses, frozen in the scene of his veiling at the foot of Mount Sinai, is taken as an image of Christ in his ineffability. Poem  unfolds in three distinct scenes. In each, Ephrem interacts with his bibli‑ cal source material in different ways. In scene one (stanzas –), Ephrem constructs Moses as a type of divine invisibility, one understood not as the absence of physical form but as an appearance too powerful for humans to behold. e central image— that of Moses’s trans gured, yet veiled, face—comes from Exodus . Ephrem but‑ tresses this narrative with other scenes from Exodus—Moses’s ascent to Mount Sinai (Exod. ), his entry into the tent of meeting (Exod. :), and his stuttering (Exod. :). Compositionally, Ephrem’s construction of Moses is similar to his con‑ struction of Christ in poem , in that he builds a picture of a single character by drawing together different moments in that gure’s textual biography. Scene two, stanzas –, draws upon ve distinct Old Testament passages, from which it culls ve distinct scenes—that of Korah and his rebel band, who were de‑ stroyed for trying to usurp the Aaronic priesthood (stanza , drawing upon Num. ); the sons of Aaron, who offered “strange re” (stanza , drawing upon Lev. ); Uzzah, who was struck down by the ark (stanza , drawing upon  Sam. :–); Uzziah, who was punished for burning incense unlawfully (stanza , drawing upon  Chron. ); and the Philistine god Dagon, who was dismembered solely by proximity to the ark (stanza , drawing upon  Sam.  and ). Ephrem places these narratives on a broad typological spectrum, which assumes that illicit speech about God is the reality of which Old Testament ritual transgression was but a shadow. ough these characters are all drawn from different places in the Bible, their stories are united by shared themes (ritual transgression and divine punish‑ ment) and vocabulary (e.g., re, censer, and ark). All the stories involve characters who encounter the ark, or the holy of holies in which it is contained, and face de‑ struction as a result. In scene three (stanzas –), the poem shis back to the theme of vision but now offers examples of virtuous seeing. Ephrem rst sets before his audience’s eyes the Jordan River, which “saw / the ark and was divided.” en, in stanzas –, Ephrem creates a composite portrait of Daniel, drawn from three different scenes in the Bible—Daniel’s vision of the four beasts (stanza , drawing upon Dan. ), the appearance of an angel following that vision (stanza , drawing upon Dan. ), and Daniel’s conversation with Gabriel, following the last vision (Dan. –). In these three stanzas, Ephrem retells these stories to offer a portrait of Daniel in which his virtue lies in his refusal to investigate hidden things.

The Audience in the Text On a surface level, poem  concerns itself with the inability to look upon holy things and the inability to enter certain spaces on account of their contact with what is holy. ese narratives of visual and physical trespass stand as metaphors for the trespasses of theological speech that Ephrem repeatedly demands that his audience



      

monitor. Speaking to that audience, and alluding to the curtain that marked the boundary of the holy of holies, Ephrem equates vision and speech explicitly in poem :: “Let quiet and silence be for you a curtain, so that you do not glare at [God’s] splendor” (:). Here, speech, vision, and space are intermingled in Ephrem’s direct address to the audience. By reading speech, vision, and space to‑ gether, Ephrem can present Old Testament narratives involving vision and the tres‑ passing of sacred boundaries as warnings against the speech of his audience. His Bible thus becomes a particularly anti-subordinationist book. In rewriting these scenes, Ephrem brings the biblical world before his audience in dramatic terms. e audience watches as Mount Sinai sees the Lord and “smokes and burns before him” (MF :). Ephrem reminds his audience of the fear with which Old Testament characters approached the holy—the fear with which priests entered the holy of holies, and the sheer terror provoked by the burning of the sons of Aaron (MF :, ). He reminds his audience that the Jordan River, when it saw the ark, was so overcome with awe and fear that it ed backward (MF :, ). He tells them that when Daniel saw “one of the watchers,” he was too terri ed even to speak (:). Ephrem reconstructs these Old Testament scenes of encounter with the holy as sites of terror. By representing the biblical text as one that inspires awe, Ephrem tacitly reconstructs his audience’s own relationship to the text and strives to create in them a sense of awe as they look upon its narratives. Unlike poem , in which Ephrem located his audience alongside the Magi and the Centurion, poem  puts forth no biblical characters for its audience to imitate. Ephrem speaks directly to his audience in this poem four times (stanzas , , , and ), and all take the form of negative commands. In :, he warns his audience to protect themselves with “quiet and silence,” lest they try to “glare at [the Lord’s] splendor.” In :, , and , he voices similar warnings to his audience—“Let there be no investigation among us!” Nor do the poems function mimetically. Poem  be‑ gins with a re ection upon Moses, whom the audience cannot even behold, much less imitate, and it closes with a three-stanza presentation of Daniel, whose behavior is depicted as virtuous but whom Ephrem never strictly commands his audience to emulate. Unlike poem , into which the audience enters through the Magi and the Centurion, here they stand on the outside looking in. Yet, there is some subtlety here. ree of the ve scenes of villainy present char‑ acters whom Ephrem sees as unambiguously evil—Korah and his rebel band (:), the sons of Aaron with their “strange re” (:), and the Philistines with their god Dagon (:). Within the biblical text the other two villains, Uzziah and Uzzah, err simply out of overzealousness. Ephrem’s presentation suggests that they occupy a more ambiguous space for him, too. In the case of the rst two outright villains— Korah and the sons of Aaron—Ephrem gives no command but simply asks rhetori‑ cal questions. But with Uzziah and Uzzah, Ephrem speci cally tells his audience not to act as had they. ough subtle, this move displays Ephrem’s construction of a place for his audience between heroism and villainy. Uzziah and Uzzah, in that they fail out of misplaced zeal, provide a type that he connects to his audience.

      



HIDDEN QUESTIONS: MF 9

Poems  and  build scenes of transgression and worship by compiling a range of biblical characters and linking them through shared vocabulary, emotional lan‑ guage, and a consistent argument a minore ad maius. In both of these poems, the theme of investigation lingers at the margins. In poem , Ephrem gives it his full at‑ tention. He concluded poem  by asking his audience, “Who is t to investigate [the Firstborn]?” MF  picks up this theme in its rst two lines: “Investigation was up‑ right, / but it has changed in our generation.” In the poem that follows, Ephrem col‑ lects biblical characters who model a stance toward investigation that is either ap‑ propriate (the Jordan River, Noah’s sons, Ezekiel, and the prophet Zechariah), inap‑ propriate (Ham and Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist), or ambiguous (Job). Ephrem’s argument in this poem is clear. Nevertheless, MF  is loosely struc‑ tured and the characters he brings into the poem are less obviously connected to one another than those he referenced in poems  and . All the characters in poem  derived from the Gospel. e characters of poem  derived from throughout the Old Testament but were connected within the Bible, even if some of these connec‑ tions were more overt than others. Poem  incorporates Old Testament and New Testament characters; oscillates freely between heroes, villains, and ambiguous characters; and concludes with four stanzas that contain no biblical characters at all. Ephrem skips from Noah’s sons (Gen. ), to Job (Job –), to Ezekiel (Ezek. ), to Zechariah the prophet (Zech. ), to Zechariah the father of John the Baptist (Luke :–). Each character comes from a different book of the Bible, and none is linked narratively to it. Nevertheless, Ephrem nds within these diverse stories a commonality that connects them to one another and to the rhetoric of his poem. With the exception of the narratives invoked in the rst stanza, all provide the poet with scenes in which humans encounter God or a divine representative and are asked a question that they cannot answer. These scenes of divine-human interaction are introduced through the unexpect‑ ed linking, in stanza , of the Jordan River’s eeing before the ark (drawing on the language of Ps. :) and Noah’s sons response to Noah’s drunkenness (Gen. ): Investigation was upright, but it has changed in our generation. Call out and investigate who the Child is, do not investigate “how” [he is]. e Jordan ed and turned back to honor the ark. You search and enter in, so that you dishonor Greatness. e upright turned backwards so they would not look upon Noah, so they would rebuke the rash [one].



      

Ephrem makes these two narratives unexpected gures of one another, united by their characters’ shared response to the holy. But Ephrem’s presentation of Noah’s drunken body as a sign of the holy takes some exegetical maneuvering. Ephrem be‑ trays no interest in defending Noah’s drunken state but strips him of all narrative details besides his hiddenness—a nameless character that should remain hidden. Literarily, Ephrem compresses the narrative of Genesis  to focus solely on its se‑ mantic components, incorporating into his retelling only character names and basic descriptive actions. Its message is also generalized. In Ephrem’s retelling, the story merely presents an episode in which a person (Ham, whom Ephrem does not name) trespasses a forbidden boundary. Ephrem retains enough of the particularities of the Genesis  story to make it recognizable to his audience, but he also generalizes it enough to make it applicable to that same audience. In so doing, he reads against the obvious sense of the bibli‑ cat text. Genesis  assumes that in spying Noah’s naked body, Ham has trespassed physical and spatial boundaries. Ephrem evokes the notion of trespass, but removes its physical and spatial moorings, rendering it a completely notional trespass. In Ephrem’s retelling, Ham does not represent one who goes where one should not or sees what should remain hidden. Rather, he stands in for the one who speaks of things that should remain unspoken, and reveals, through language, things which should remain (discursively) hidden. Just as in poem , Ephrem converts the text’s morality of vision and space to one of speech. The scene of vocal trespass, craed through a melding of two otherwise unrelat‑ ed biblical narratives, introduces the theme that links the characters that appear in stanzas –. Ephrem brings Job, Ezekiel, Zechariah (Old Testament), and Zechari‑ ah (New Testament) as testimonies to this argument. Ephrem builds his picture of Job from a scene in which God bombards him with an array of questions about the inner workings of the natural world, and Job admits his own ignorance of the an‑ swers God seeks (Job –). Unlike in his retelling of Genesis , Ephrem does not need to convert the moral of that episode in Job from a physical to an intellectu‑ al realm. Yet Ephrem has still removed Job from the con nes of the narrative of the Bible and has placed him instead within the rhetorical context of his own poem. e Job of this poem, like omas in poem , is an ambiguous character—righteous in the eyes of the audience but frozen in the single moment, a failure in Ephrem’s rep‑ resentation of him. e two characters that follow—Ezekiel in : and Zechariah the prophet in :—underscore this ambiguity. Both are lauded for their refusal to question God, a virtue seen particularly in comparison with Job. ough they tri‑ umph where Job fails, they are united to Job in their shared settings. All three are paused in Ephrem’s poem in scenes of encounters with the divine. In the Bible, these similarities are only incidental. Nevertheless, Ephrem identi es these similarities, draws them out, and places the distinct stories in a mimetic relationship with one another. Zechariah (:–), the father of John the Baptist, connects phonologically and orthographically to the Zechariah of :, but conceptually offers the poem’s most obvious example of illicit questioning. In Ephrem’s introduction of the character, he

      



emphasizes his investigation: “Zechariah the priest / asked in order to investigate.” However, as with Job, and as with omas in poem , Ephrem assumes that Zechariah functions in an exemplary role for the audience. Yet, by presenting Zechariah as an investigator—in this case, an investigator who will then repent— Ephrem can underscore his audience’s greater inability to question. And so he tells them: If the high priest was punished because he discussed… the birth and conception of the preacher [i.e., John], [there is] shaking, fear, and terror, if someone presumes to investigate the begetting of the Lord of all!

The Audience in the Text Poem  speaks directly to the audience in the rst line, mapping them onto the vil‑ lainous character of Ham, who looked upon his father’s naked body. Using the sec‑ ond-person plural pronoun, Ephrem exclaims, “You search and enter in, / so that you dishonor Majesty.” In :, Ephrem tells them: “ey [i.e., Noah’s other sons] walked backwards / to hide what was revealed. / You turn to investigation to reveal what is hidden.” In poem  and, to a slightly lesser degree, poem , Ephrem tried to carve out a middle space for his audience between the heroic and the villainous. Here, however, they are unambiguously mapped onto biblical villains. In fact, in MF :, even the villainous “People” (the term with which Ephrem refers to Jews) refuse to investigate where Ephrem’s own audience does. ese accusations come to a head in MF :, where Ephrem turns directly to his audience and exclaims: “ough you [were] united, / you have become entirely divided, / for you have come to investigate / the nature that cannot be investigated.” Not all of MF ’s characters are villainous. Job eventually admits that he can‑ not understand the Lord, whereas Ezekiel and Zechariah never claimed to under‑ stand. Yet, these heroes offer little hope for Ephrem’s audience. The only possible exception to this appears in stanzas –, where Ephrem portrays the New Testa‑ ment Zechariah, a character who, in the biblical text, “investigates” but then re‑ pents. Yet, Ephrem’s portrait of Zechariah is unflinchingly condemnatory. Ephrem says that Zechariah, in questioning the angel, “testified that he had de‑ stroyed / the faith of his heart.” Ephrem connects Zechariah’s destroyed faith to his own audience: “Everyone who / questions in any way / shows by his question / that he had not previously believed.” While there is a subtlety to the way Ephrem connects his audience to the characters of the Bible in MF  and , that subtlety is absent here. In its divergence from the tone of poems , , and , Ephrem constructs the bib‑ lical text as one that must be viewed as an object inspiring awe and even terror. In this way, all three of these poems construct the Bible similarly for the audience.



      

SICKN ESS UNTO DEATH: MF 28

Ephrem began poem  by re ecting on Moses’ veil (Exod. ), which he took to rep‑ resent a boundary between what was hidden (Moses’ face) and what was revealed (the veil itself). In turn, Moses and his veil stood as a shadowy representation of the Creator (representing that which is hidden) and the created (representing that which is revealed). Rhetorically, Ephrem’s goal was to present theological bound‑ aries as re ective of natural boundaries—both as written into the very fabric of life. roughout the Madrashe on Faith, this idea of boundaries and their natural ap‑ pearance form one of the primary ideas that Ephrem impresses upon his audience. He presents the Bible and the world as everywhere manifesting such boundaries, so that he can ultimately underscore the notional boundary between humans and the Father’s begetting of a divine Son. MF  articulates the theme of boundaries and their presence in the Bible and the world by interweaving examples from both, all to the end of convicing the audi‑ ence of its own inability to understand divine matters. With twisted and even bro‑ ken syntax, Ephrem weaves these ideas into the very rst stanza of the poem: If watchers, lightning, and rays [of the sun], as well as earthquakes, storms, and oods (which, as things made, are akin to one another) are this dreadful When they act violently against our weakness…. Yet if these servants who serve [God] fear even Adam, whom they also serve, Who will presume to look upon at force in whose power all exists?

The sixteen-stanza poem that follows breaks neatly into two parts. In stanzas –, Ephrem places before his audience a series of natural images that conveys the bound‑ ed nature of reality. In stanzas –, he makes this same argument by drawing togeth‑ er a range of biblical scenes. He first references the cherub outside Paradise, which he connects to the signs that marked the boundary of Sinai. (Both appear in stanza , and both serve to unite the natural and biblical portions of the poem.) From there, Ephrem portrays the leprosy of Miriam (stanzas –, drawing on Num. ), the lep‑ rosy of Gehazi (stanza , drawing on  Kings :–), the ritual transgression of Uzziah (stanza , drawing on  Chron. :–), Korah and his band of rebels (stanzas  and , drawing on Num. ), and Aaron’s sons (stanza , drawing on Lev. :–). Ephrem weaves these scenes together to produce for his audience a uni‑ fied biblical scene of boundaries and the punishment that follows their trespassing. While Moses appears only at the margins of poem , it is thematically similar to poem  in that Moses’s special relationship to God, and the punishment that follows a challenge to this relationship, stands as a central issue. Miriam occupies three stanzas in this second part of the poem and functions as its central character. While stanzas –, with first natural and then biblical examples, argue for the basic idea of the bounded nature of reality, Miriam introduces scenes in

      



which characters fail to observe these boundaries. She thus serves as the entry point for the audience, the primary character at whom they are prompted to look. Ephrem bases his portrait of Miriam on Numbers , in which Miriam and Aaron (to whom Ephrem alludes but never mentions by name) criticize Moses for marrying a Cushite woman, and then use that specific critique to challenge the singularity of his prophet‑ hood. The two complain in Numbers :, “Has the Lord only spoken with Moses? He has spoken with us, too!” In response to the challenge, the Lord appears to Miriam and Aaron in a pillar of cloud and explains to them the special relationship he has with Moses. Upon his departure, Miriam finds herself leprous. Ephrem’s introduction of this narrative in : is typically terse: Miriam, because she spoke against the humble one, her lips wove for her a garment of leprosy.

Numbers  provides Ephrem with his base narrative, but he incorporates material from two other biblical scenes to esh out Miriam’s character—Exodus :, in which Miriam rescues Moses from the river, and Exodus :, in which she returns him to his mother so she can nurse him: Her love for the infant over owed in the waters. On dry ground she ooded the heart of Pharaoh’s daughter, So that the child [i.e., Moses] who oated… nourished even his mother. (MF::–)

These two narratives clearly emphasize Miriam’s goodness, and Ephrem builds the case further. He reminds his audience that she was a prophetess and pulls in Leviti‑ cus : to make the point that, since Miriam was his elder, Moses should have re‑ spected her. As with omas in MF  and Job in , Ephrem constructs Miriam as a virtuous character but only to underscore the gravity of her misdeed. e composite portrait conveys a simple message to the audience. ey are not as virtuous as Miri‑ am, and yet the one whom they aim to investigate transcends even Moses. The portrait of Miriam occupies three stanzas (MF :–). In :, Ephrem adds to this initial portrait by introducing a second narrative to underscore the themes of authority, investigation, and divine punishment. is character, Gehazi, offers another case of leprosy: Gehazi, too, mocked and was mocked. He deceived the heart of his master, and was exposed.

Ephrem moves from this character as quickly as he announces him and obscures the rationale for Gehazi’s inclusion (that is, the leprosy that he comes to share with Miriam). The biblical narrative ( Kings ) suggests a way to understand Ephrem’s rea‑ soning. In the narrative, Elisha heals a leper—Na‘aman—who in return offers Elisha a gift, which the prophet refuses. As Na‘aman leaves, Gehazi—Elisha’s servant—follows him and takes the refused gift. When Gehazi returns, his deed is revealed, and Elisha curses him with the very leprosy from which Na’aman has been cleansed. All of this backstory in Ephrem’s retelling; he alludes to none of it save the name “Gehazi.”



      

Gehazi introduces several characters we have already encountered: Korah, the sons of Aaron, and Uzziah (MF :–), who appeared in a similar form in MF . eir inclusion here suggests that they may have formed a set “ritual transgression” piece in Ephrem’s mind. Yet the characters also connect organically to the scene Ephrem builds in this poem. Uzziah, like Miriam and Gehazi, suffered leprosy be‑ cause of his ritual trespass, but in a particular spatial context—that of the Temple. is shared setting unites Gehazi to the characters that follow, that is, Korah and Aaron’s sons. With their introduction, however, Ephrem’s poem moves from leprosy to the death that both Korah and Aaron’s sons suffered: The two hundred that presumed to become priests, Against them re…burned. It [also] consumed the sons of Aaron, Who brought in strange re like a harlot.

Ephrem concludes the poem on a somber note, linking the strange re that con‑ sumed Aaron’s sons with “true knowledge,” which, he warns his audience, “has been aroused by abominable investigation.”

The Audience in the Text Ephrem’s construction of this poem sets a clear scene before his audience, and it is one outside of which they stand looking in. e biblical scenes are craed poetically, subtly weaving together a range of characters who are distinct in the text but united in Ephrem’s presentation of them. Ephrem connects his audience to the characters using consistently emotional and visual language. Poem  manifests more direct appeals to the audience than any of the other poems with which we have dealt. As is typically the case, Ephrem begins the poem with a rhetorical question that binds to‑ gether vision, knowledge, and theological speech: Who will presume to look upon that force in whose power all exists?

Ephrem repeats similar questions in stanzas , , and . e poem also repeatedly commands its audience to “look!”: the particle hâ opens stanzas –, and . In stanza , moreover, Ephrem leans into a repeated string of hâ commands, beginning four of the stanza’s lines with the same exhortation. At :, he commands his audi‑ ence to “look…at [God] alone,” even as he problematizes this very gaze. Ephrem introduces the narrative of Miriam with another command to “look!” As he xates on the intensity of her suffering, made all the more poignant because of her manifest goodness, he exclaims, “Look! Wonder, marvel, terror!” Ephrem never invites his audience to compare themselves to Miriam. Instead, she forms an exam‑ ple that they can only behold with awe as they contemplate their own lesser state. Ephrem reminds them of this in stanza : If the Exalted One…punished

      



[Moses’] sister… Who will examine the Child of that Greatness The Son of whose womb is a consuming re, By whom lightning and tongues are ignited?

It is only in stanza , when Ephrem approaches the narrative of Uzziah, that he connects his audience to a speci c character, and he does so in the form of a nega‑ tive command: “Do not touch what belongs to [God] lest you perish!” For the most part, however, the audience stands outside the drama of the text. e biblical scenes are vividly depicted for them to behold with awe rather than scenes in which they can participate. is poem functions very differently than one such as MF , in which Ephrem clearly locates his audience in the characters of the Magi and the Roman Centurion, but similarly to MF . In this poem, the audience nds no heroes onto whom they can map their behavior, only negative exempla that they are to avoid. e villains are given as a warning, a gruesome scene on which the audience looks. At the same time, the scenes of biblical villainy are always connect‑ ed to the audience through the repeated condemnation of “investigation,” an activi‑ ty which, Ephrem warns his audience, always sits too close at hand. ere is thus a dark irony in his distancing of the audience from these biblical villains. ough he never accuses them of acting like Korah or the sons of Aaron, he repeatedly casts investigation as far worse than what these Old Testament villains effected. In a sense, then, the poem carries a very real threat that errant theological speech— whatever it might look like in reality—will bring with it a punishment worse than leprosy, worse even than death. EDUCATION AND INVESTIGATION: MF 47

All of the poems within the Madrasche on Faith suggest as their context the de‑ bates that followed the Council of Nicaea, especially as they came to be reified around Antioch in the s. Many of them, as well, suggest their origins in con‑ texts of study. MF , however, reflects these concerns in a particular way. Ephrem seems to be concerned with people who are flaunting education as a pre‑ requisite for theological insight. We can combine this general emphasis on the supreme value of education with the use in this poem of the word qaṭṭîn, “subtle” (MF :), the same term Ephrem uses to describe Aetius in MAH :. Indeed, in this poem Ephrem seems to have in mind a particular person as the object of his polemic. He never names this person, but it could be that he speaks of Aetius or someone within his community whom Ephrem takes to be guilty of the same theological style. The rst ve stanzas of MF  re ect generally on the limits of human knowl‑ edge, drawing primarily on natural metaphors. Beginning in MF :, and continu‑ ing through MF :, Ephrem cras a pastiche of biblical characters in which he emphasizes their acquisition of worldly wisdom, coupled with their ability to know the limits of that wisdom. Unlike all of the poems we have looked at so far, Ephrem



      

does this exclusively by constructing a troika of heroes—Moses (stanza , drawing upon no speci c biblical narrative), Daniel (stanzas  and , drawing upon Dan. :–:), and Paul (stanza , drawing upon Acts :–). is is the only com‑ pilation poem in which Ephrem used no biblical villains. While this poem is compelling in the way that it speaks to its audience, its com‑ positional and exegetical underpinnings are very straightforward. Ephrem praises Moses, Daniel, and Paul for recognizing human inability to comprehend divine matters, in spite of having acquired learning in the world. Ephrem draws upon no biblical narrative in his portrait of Moses and, instead, refers generally to traditions of Moses’s education in Egypt, which he set aside when he composed the Torah. Ephrem anchors his portrait of Daniel in the rst two chapters of that book, but in its generality his portrait is similar to that of Moses. Ephrem does not reference any educational background for Paul but, instead, drawing upon Acts , highlights his ability to outwit “the presumptuous ones.”

The Audience in the Text The use of exclusively biblical heroes in poem  is not the only way in which it is unique. It also uses visual language sparingly. Only once, in MF :, does Ephrem command his audience to “look.” Yet, the poem is compelling in the way it situates its audience with respect to the biblical text. As with MF  and , Ephrem again situates his audience outside of the text. In MF : and , he exhorts them to mar‑ vel at the baffling nature of the created world, and in response to “worship the Cre‑ ator.” But then, beginning in MF :, he xes his attention on a singular “you,” whom he asks sarcastically: Perhaps the apostles, who did not dispute, were too simple? Moses will rebuke you for he was educated yet stripped away…Egyptian wisdom And composed the truth simply with revealed things.

In this case, the audience is strangely absent. Or rather, they look on as Ephrem constructs a scene in which this unnamed “you” and the biblical heroes meet in competition. Ephrem continues in this mode in stanzas  and : Daniel was educated, too, and learned in Babylon wisdom you cannot glean…. Yet since he knew that he was human He asked [only] about what was human and glori ed Greatness.

In :, Ephrem switches to the third person, as he describes “the presumptuous one” who “has forgotten his nature—that he is human.” In its singular emphasis on a “presumptuous one” who seems distinct from the whole of the audience, this poem forms a unique example. In the poems we have examined so far, Ephrem’s references to the audience have localized it as guilty of investigation, or at least potentially so. But in this poem, he objecti es the person, either through the use of the second-

      



person singular (in stanzas  and ) or through the third-person singular (in stanza ). is makes it difficult to locate the audience in the poem and with respect to the biblical text. e biblical characters do not function as exempla but instead show the limits of knowledge and rebuke a singular gure who has failed to recognize such limits. In this poem, too, Ephrem situates the audience outside of the text’s drama. Even that move, however, suggests how he constructs his audience. Ephrem uses the text’s characters, and the singular gure whom they rebuke, to lead his audience to imagine their own limited understanding and to cra themselves and their learning in terms of humility. FIN DING THE AUDIENCE IN THE TEXT

This chapter has examined ve different madrashe in which Ephrem weaves biblical characters and his audience into a single imagined space. He presents this space us‑ ing visual language and asks his audience to look upon the biblical scenes he retells. Occasionally Ephrem nds for his audience particular allies in the biblical text— characters onto whom he instructs the audience to map themselves. ese charac‑ ters—the Magi, the Roman Centurion, and the good thief—all operate as marginal gures within the biblical text but nevertheless overcome their marginality to act in heroically virtuous ways. In presenting these characters as analogues to his own au‑ dience—characters in whom they can nd their place in the biblical text—Ephrem constructs that audience in ways very similar to the ways he constructs his poetic self. Just as Ephrem found characters through whose lives he could present his poet‑ ic self in terms of both virtue and humility, so here he fashions his audience in terms of this same dynamic. Yet, these poems are populated not only by characters onto whom the audience can map themselves but also from whose behavior they should ee. Of the twentyfour biblical characters who appear in these poems, ten function as outright villains. ere is some exibility in the way Ephrem situates his audience vis-à-vis these villains. For example, Ephrem does not, for the most part, associate his audi‑ ence with these characters. Rather, they offer a sort of gruesome spectacle upon which the audience can look but whose behavior remains foreign to their own. Yet, there is some ambiguity here. Ephrem always presents these villains as modeling be‑ haviors against which the audience must be warned, but it is not always clear how the audience relates to them. For example, in poem : Ephrem rst presents the behavior of Aaron’s sons, and then asks his audience: Who will escape the great re which has entered the church? Strange investigation! In the church there is investigation which discusses revealed things. ere is no investigation of hidden things.



      

In lines such as these, Ephrem does not accuse his audience of carrying out this “strange investigation,” but he does clearly see its presence in their community broadly. In this case, while Ephrem does not immediately map them onto Aaron’s sons, he uses Aaron’s sons to provide a genuine warning for them. His use of these characters is also ambiguous in that he seems to identify differ‑ ent types of villains. In his presentation of “unambiguous villains”—for example, Ham, Korah, Aaron’s sons, the Pharisees, and scribes—Ephrem never addresses his audience in the second person. ese villains always remain spectacle for them. However, in poem , when he addresses Uzzah, a character who behaved with good intentions but acted dishonorably nevertheless, Ephrem warns his audience: Do not honor what is holy in a way not commanded you.

In the very fact that he warns his audience not to do what Uzzah has done, Ephrem brings his audience closer to this villain than he does with Korah or Aaron’s sons, who stand as static “other.” If Ham, Korah, Aaron’s Sons, Pharisees, and scribes act as static villainous others, characters such as Uzzah stand closer to the audience, modeling a much subtler, dynmaic behavior. Ephrem also creates an ambiguous space between the biblical text and his audi‑ ence in his presentation of what we might call “ironic villains”—omas, Job, Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist), and Miriam. With these characters, Ephrem depends upon the audience’s shared recognition of them as heroes, yet he rhetorically freezes them in moments of moral failure. Generally speaking, in Ephrem’s presentation of himself and in his construction of his audience he is al‑ ways caught in a tension between commanding virtue but evoking humility. ese “ironic villains” help him to construct this ambiguous moral space. e audience knows that they are heroes—that ultimately they have been preserved in the com‑ munity’s memory as such—but by focusing on their moments of moral failure, Ephrem can remind his audience of how far they themselves stand from true virtue. ese characters enable him to condemn investigation while reminding his audi‑ ence how easy it would be for them to engage in such behaviors. Ultimately, Ephrem uses these “villains”—outright and ironic—to raise the stakes of investigation. In the case of the outright villains, he does this by depicting the terrible punishments that followed from transgressive behavior and by attempt‑ ing to persuade the audience that their investigation into the divine Son (rather than merely into the shadows that pre gured him) will reap punishments far worse. In the case of the ironic villains, he does this by persuading them of how easy it would be for them to engage in investigation—how near to them it sits. Within these poems, Ephrem does cra portraits of outright, unambiguous he‑ roes—Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah the Prophet, Paul, and Noah’s good sons. Inter‑ estingly, however, Ephrem never commands his audience to emulate them. Oen he uses these characters to condemn the behavior opposite theirs. For example, aer citing Ezekiel as an example of noninvestigation, he asks:

      



Who will presume to investigate a question that is concealed from all and manifest to one alone?

Ephrem relates his audience to these characters rst by setting them up as models of noninvestigation and then by reminding the audience of the dangers of investiga‑ tion. But in these poems he never simply commands the audience to emulate these heroes. All of this bespeaks Ephrem’s continued aim to situate his audience before the biblical text in a place of humility. For the most part, Ephrem draws portraits of vil‑ lains, upon whom his audience can look and contemplate their own nearness to moral failure. Ephrem’s outright heroes offer models of unambiguous virtue, but Ephrem does not map the audience onto them simply. Rather, he uses these occa‑ sions of heroism to warn them, yet again, against investigation. Similarly, his por‑ traits of “ironic villains”—heroes whom he freezes in moments of moral failure— remind them of the ease with which one can fall into investigation. It is only the marginal heroes in whom he unambiguously exhorts the audience to nd itself. In all of these cases, Ephrem uses the text to create an imaginative world upon which his audience can look and through which it can contemplate itself. In the cas‑ es of these rewritten biblical scenes, Ephrem’s concern is not with the Bible’s mean‑ ing in and of itself, but with how the narrative can be used to help the audience con‑ template its own moral horizons. As I argued in chapter one, it seems likely that Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith developed in contexts of study. e collected poems make it clear that a goal of Ephrem’s pedagogy was to engage his audience in discus‑ sions of theological issues relevant to them but in a way that fostered a deep sense of the limitations of theological discussion. As we have seen in this chapter, Ephrem warns them against investigation by representing biblical scenes as parabolic reen‑ actments of failed investigation. In these portraits Ephrem not only censures inves‑ tigation, but he also constructs the Bible as a mirror of their own world, upon which he urges them to look with awe. In these poems, in which Ephrem rewrites biblical narratives as dramatic scenes to behold with awe and wonder, we can see him form‑ ing his audience in relationship to the text through which they carried out their the‑ ological study.



A Divine Son

e poems collected in Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith are recognized as the best rep‑ resentation of his anti-subordinationist thought. Delivered over the course of the mid-to-late fourth century, they stand, along with his Memre on Faith, as our earli‑ est witness to the reception of Nicaea among Syriac-speaking Christians. While scholars have increasingly noted and focused upon what once seemed like the pe‑ ripheral aims of Nicaea—its reorganization of church structure, its distinction of Christian from Jewish liturgical practices—the council’s reinterpretation and codi ‑ cation of teachings about Christ nevertheless fostered a signi cant shi in Christo‑ logical discourse. Indeed, while the relationship of the Madrashe on Faith to Nicaea is not always clear, the poems’ theological character is unmistakable. ey are not particularly concerned with church order or with demonizing Jews and their ritual practices. Instead, they engage in a rhetorical and dramatic presentation of, on the one hand, those who stand at odds with the Nicene condemnation of Arius and, on the other hand, a Christ who is impervious to the investigations that result in subor‑ dinationist Christologies. e previous chapter traced the poetic means by which Ephrem constructed his audience with respect to the Bible. In this chapter, I exam‑ ine the ways in which Ephrem used the Bible to present Christ as beyond investiga‑ tion and, thus, of the same order as the Father. Yet a theme that has emerged throughout this book is that while Ephrem’s recep‑ tion of Nicaea certainly had theological rami cations, it also shaped his literary aes‑ thetics. It led him to a particular view of the Bible and a particular way of represent‑ ing it. His anti-subordinationist thought formed the ways in which he presented his poetic identity and structured his audience with respect to the biblical text. In turn‑ ing to look at his representation of the biblical Christ, we see that this, too, had liter‑ ary consequences. Whereas we might expect to nd in this material abstruse meta‑ physical arguments about Christ’s divinity, such arguments are, for the most part, absent. Indeed, one of the more compelling aspects of the Christology of these po‑ 

  



ems is that Ephrem does not affirm the divinity of Christ through philosophical ar‑ guments but through a dramatic representation of New Testament scenes of his life. In much the same way that Ephrem structured himself and his audience through the biblical text, he also structured Christ by rewriting the narratives of the Gospel and representing them in the texture of his madrashe. Ephrem’s use of these narrative materials offers a different perspective on the de‑ velopment of theological rhetoric in the fourth century. In Ephrem’s poems, the di‑ vine Christ emerges neither through metaphysical language nor through exegetical debates about speci c problematic passages. Rather, Ephrem constructs this divine Christ through the dramatic representation and weaving together of the narrative scenes of the Gospels. Like his binding of various Old Testament stories to con‑ struct a composite image of biblical villains, Ephrem brings together diverse and disjointed scenes from the Gospels to depict a uni ed and obviously divine Christ. Whereas the details of his life in those writings are contradictory and difficult to in‑ terpret, Ephrem erases the texts’ gaps and ambiguities and melds together Gospel scenes to create a clear picture of Christ as the unambiguous Son of the heavenly Father who comes to earth as its rightful caretaker. Yet, not only does this process of representing the Gospel material have rami ‑ cations for the development of Christian discourse, it also enables us to cra a more comprehensive portrait of Ephrem’s biblical poetics. Similarly to the biblical materi‑ al that Ephrem uses to construct his theological foes, allies, audience, and self, these represented Gospel scenes offer insights into the intersection of exegesis and rhetoric in Ephrem’s madrashe. As a collection of poems, the Madrashe on Faith sought to add clear boundaries to a theological and social situation that lacked them. is process of boundary craing—between God and self, self and communi‑ ty, and community and others—took biblical narratives and characters as its raw materials. ese narratives were retold as parables, the morals of which aided this process of boundary craing. Ephrem read his rhetorical aims into the Bible. However, acknowledging the presence of rhetoric in Ephrem’s exegesis is not sufficient. His rhetorical reading of the Bible depended upon a nuanced and careful interaction with the texts into which this rhetoric was being read. Ephrem’s interac‑ tion with them betrays consistent characteristics. He strips narratives down to their basic formal elements—heroes, villains, proper names, and basic actions. is mini‑ malistic way of receiving biblical narratives allowed him to recontextualize them within his own madrashe. As a result, the narratives that appear in his poems looked much like they do in their original biblical contexts—the names were the same, and the general narrative movement was the same. But Ephrem rehoused them in a completely different context—a literary one, itself set within that of a par‑ ticular fourth-century audience and performative context. Two stanzas that retell scenes from the life of Christ show how this works. We have already seen in chapter four Ephrem’s use of the narrative of Zacchaeus as a way of dramatizing his petition for poetic inspiration. In MF :, we nd Ephrem drawing upon this narrative again. Here, however, he uses it to construct an image of Christ:



  

Who has reached out to that which is greater than him, Without wing for his weak soul, To come to the great height of the Humble One? He bowed down to Zacchaeus. e short one, in the height Of a tree dwelt. And the High One, by his grace, Walked beneath him.

In the Lukan narrative, Zacchaeus’s short stature is read pragmatically. It merely prohibits him from seeing Christ and necessitates that he climb a tree to do so. e fact that Christ walks beneath him also bears no particular importance: it results simply from the fact that he is walking on the ground, while Zacchaeus is resting in a tree. Yet Ephrem’s reading of this narrative is ltered through his own presentation of the Bible as a record of God’s “bowing down” (rken), a condescension seen in the words of the Bible but culminating especially in Christ’s taking of a body. Much of Ephrem’s reading of the scenes of Christ in the New Testament t this pattern. He reads and represents these scenes as momentary yet dramatic pictures of divine condescension, and in so doing draws upon consistent exegetical strategies. For ex‑ ample, the Zacchaeus narrative is stripped down to, and frozen on, the single mo‑ ment when Christ walks by Zacchaeus, while the latter is perched in a tree. All the other narrative action—both internal (the deeds of Zacchaeus’s past and his curiosi‑ ty about this miracle worker) and external (Christ’s entry into Jericho and his and Zacchaeus’s movement through the crowd)—is ignored. is single moment is then represented within the madrasha as a momentary picture of Christ’s cosmic conde‑ scension. By rewriting the Zacchaeus narrative in this way, Ephrem removes the complexities of the Gospel’s presentation of the life of Christ. e latter becomes, instead, a series of scenes that attest to Christ’s divinity. Alongside Ephrem’s typical emphasis on the Bible as a picture of God’s “bowing down,” and his representation of biblical passages so that they depict this conde‑ scension, he more commonly represents the scenes of Christ’s life so that they be‑ come narrative demonstrations of Christ’s true name (that is, “Son”). While we see this especially in his reading of the baptismal and trans guration scenes, poem : draws on another episode from Christ’s life: The all-knowing Lord asked the demon about his name—what it was. And he did not deny the name of the de led demon, just as none of the demons denied his name. e scribes were ashamed and called our savior a creature, but the demon scorned them for he is the Son of God.

The narrative that Ephrem draws upon in this stanza appears in each of the synoptic Gospels, though Ephrem’s version of the story is closest to Mark and Luke. In the biblical narrative, Christ, having come “to the country of the Gadarenes,” is immedi‑ ately met, according to Luke, by a man “in whom there was a demon” (Luke :). Similarly to his reading of the Zacchaeus narrative, Ephrem focuses on a tiny portion

  



of the overall narrative—only the exchange between Jesus and the possessed man. This brief exchange, as it interests Ephrem, consists in only two questions. The demo‑ niac asks Jesus, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God” (v. ), and Jesus, before exorcising the demon, asks in return, “What is your name” (v. )? In his representation, Ephrem reverses the order of the interrogation, referring first to Christ’s question (which appears second in the Gospel narrative), and then, in the third and fourth lines, to the demon’s initial question, which Ephrem takes as evi‑ dence of its recognition of Jesus’ true identity. Through this reversal, Ephrem is able to apply the language of Jesus’s question—“what is your name?”—to the demon’s orig‑ inal question, thus rendering the demonic question a confession of Jesus’s true name. Though the “scribes” have no part in the Gospel narrative, and nowhere in the Gospel do they identify Jesus as “creature,” Ephrem introduces them here and makes that ac‑ cusation. In the context of fourth-century debates about Christ as “creature,” the de‑ monic confession reveals Christ’s true identity and offers a tool for negative compari‑ son: the demon recognizes Jesus’s true identity, even as the “scribes” deny it. Ephrem builds this anti-subordinationist confession through a subtle manipula‑ tion of the Bible’s own words. e language is still that of the Bible, but Ephrem has reshaped it to make it speak again in the fourth century. In neither of these scenes does Ephrem’s reading go against the grain of the text. He preserves the basic sense of the respective passages and, in broad terms, re ects their overall shape. However, in order to use these episodes to make his broader argument, he isolates particular scenes from their larger narratives (within a single pericope, a chapter, or an entire Gospel), and restructures them within the context of his madrashe. ere they be‑ come testimonies to Christ’s divinity. This book has looked at the various ways that Ephrem rewrote biblical texts in order to craft the particular literary world of the madrashe. I have examined Ephrem’s biblical construction of investigation, Bible, self, and audience. In this final chapter, I examine Ephrem’s biblical construction of Christ as divine. My aim is to show that Ephrem’s anti-subordinationist theology led him to make par‑ ticular literary choices in his interaction with the Bible. The chapter proceeds in three parts. I look first at Ephrem’s representation of the scene of Christ’s baptism and transfiguration, which Ephrem reads repeatedly as a testimony to the priority of the name “Son.” In Ephrem’s reading of these scenes, he eschews the narrative structures in which they are embedded and rewrites them as unambiguous antisubordinationist proof texts. I then examine two individual madrashe, poems  and . These two form further examples of the “compilation poems” I examined in chapter five. Here, however, they construct portraits of Christ as divine but in compellingly different ways. In MF , Ephrem continues to manifest his concern with the theme of Christ as “Son” but focuses less on issues related to divine nam‑ ing and instead draws a thematic picture of divine sonship. With this theme in mind, Ephrem melds together several Gospel scenes to demonstrate Christ’s care for his divine father’s creation. MF  moves away from the issue of Christ’s son‑ ship and returns to the familiar defense against subordinationist readings of the Bible, focusing upon the scene of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.



  

In these three sections Ephrem evidences three modes of interacting with the Bible and, by extension, three ways of constructing Christ as divine and treating the problem of divine condescension. The first section, in which I treat Ephrem’s reading of the scene of Christ’s baptism and transfiguration, provides an example of Ephrem’s exegesis at its most minimalistic. He is interested only in uncovering Christ’s true name—Son—in the Bible; all other biblical data is shorn away. In the two sections that follow, Ephrem compiles a series of biblical scenes in a way that is similar to the compositional technique seen in the preceding chapter. Aside from this overlap in compositional technique, MF  and  represent two different modes of interacting with biblical scenes. In MF , Ephrem uses various scenes of Christ to trace a the‑ matic portrait of his divine sonship. In poem , Ephrem weaves together scenes from throughout the Old and New Testaments, brought together on the basis of shared language, to present an imagistic defense of Christ’s humanity. THE BIBLICAL NAME OF CHRIST

When we look at Ephrem’s representation of the life of Christ within the Madrashe on Faith, the scenes of Christ’s baptism and transfiguration provide the Gospel narratives upon which he draws more than any other. Despite his consis‑ tent attention to these stories (especially the baptism), he betrays little interaction with the biblical text of the scene. He does not identify any exegetical difficulties nor does he quote any but the narrative’s most essential language. Rather, as we saw with the Zacchaeus episode above, Ephrem strips the narrative down to a sin‑ gle iconic moment—the moment at which a “voice from heaven,” or “the cloud” in the scene of the transfiguration, proclaims Christ “my beloved Son.” Shorn of any excess narrative movement, these theophanic scenes become proof texts for Ephrem’s repeated arguments for the rectitude and prominence of the name “Son.” This polemical insistence on the name “Son” can be read within the context of the debates, within the eastern Mediterranean of the s and s, about the prop‑ er name of God. Yet Ephrem’s argument varies from those debates in important ways. Most predominantly, whereas gures such as Aetius and Eunomius were con‑ cerned with the name “Father” and “Begetter” (and whether these could be taken to refer to God’s essence), in these passages Ephrem never emphasizes the name “Fa‑ ther” and—surprisingly—rarely identi es God as “Begetter.” Rather, by emphasiz‑ ing the name “Son,” Ephrem implies a recognition of the name “Father” over “Unbe‑ gotten.” As a polemic against those who would read the Bible in a subordinationist way, or as a springboard for theological debate, Ephrem’s concern was not to argue about the speci c inner workings of the Trinity but to shut down an obviously sub‑ ordinationist pattern of naming. His reading of the baptismal and trans guration scenes functions as a tool in this process. We can see Ephrem’s melding and narrowing of these scenes in almost every passage he devotes to them. Before looking at some of these, however, it will help to provide the Syriac text of the verse that Ephrem draws upon—Matthew : (the

  



scene of baptism) and Matthew : (the scene of the trans guration). For the Syri‑ ac text of Matthew :, I rst provide the readings from Codex Curetonianus (C) and Codex Sinaiticus (S), which are identical but differ from the Peshitta. I then give the Peshitta version: Matthew :: w-qālâ ʼeštma‘ men šmayyâ d-ʼâmar leh ʼa(n)t hû ber(y) w-ḥabbîb(y) d-bāk ʼeṣtbît (C, S) (“And a voice was heard from heaven saying to him, ‘You are my Son and my Beloved. In you I am well pleased.’ ”) w-hâ qālâ men šmayyâ d-ʼāmar hānaw ber[y] ḥabbîbâ d-beh ʼeṣṭbît (P) (“And behold, [there was] a voice from heaven saying, ‘is is my beloved Son. With him I am well pleased.’ ”) Matthew : w-qālâ-[h]wâ men ‘nānâ d-ʼāmar hānaw ber[y] ḥabbîbâ d-beh ʼeṣṭbît. leh šma‘[w] (P) (“And there was a voice from the cloud saying, ‘is is my Beloved Son. With him I am well pleased. Hear him!’ ”) Commentary on the Diatessaron : meṭṭul hānâ nahreh qālâ ʼallāhāyâ men šmayyâ d-hānaw ber[y] w-ḥabbîb[y] (“On this account, a divine voice from heaven illumined him [saying], ‘is is my Son and my Beloved.’ ”)

That Ephrem has shorn the baptismal scene of any narrative or semantic content beyond that provided by this single verse can be seen throughout the instances in which he uses it. I provide only a selection of examples here to make the point. e rst relevant allusion occurs in poem :: Blessed is the one, my Lord, who has become worthy of calling you, with great love, “Beloved Son” (brâ ḥabbîbâ) just as God, your begetter, called you.

This brief stanza introduces a poem built entirely around this “blessed is the one” formula. It is followed by two more praises of those who call Christ “Son” in imita‑ tion of the “the Spirit” (in :) and “the Apostles and the Prophets” (in :). Upon looking at the relationship between this stanza and the scene of the baptism in the synoptic Gospels, the rst thing one observes is that there is almost no dependence upon the narrative outside of this single scene. ere is no mention of John or the disputes regarding his worthiness to baptize Jesus, or even the descent of the “spirit in the form of a dove.” Ephrem is entirely focused upon the Father’s identi cation of Christ as “Beloved Son.” Moreover, whereas in the synoptic Gospels the speaker of these words is identi ed only as “a voice,” Ephrem identi es the owner of the voice as “God, your begetter,” thereby making the anti-subordinationist polemic all the more obvious. e baptismal scene has become more or less a proof text for the appropriate naming of Christ. This manner of reading the scene is characteristic of the Madrashe on Faith. We see it again in poem ::



  

From the Father learn the Son. For if the begetter is akin to creatures, it is found that also his Son is a companion to creatures. But if the Father is a stranger [to them], is his fruit akin [to them]? Were he far from him he would say, “He is not my Son” (law ber[y] hû). But when he calls out, He is [my] Son (brâ hû), he has silenced the controversy.

Ephrem here provides a little more depth to his understanding of the importance of the names “Father” and “Son.” In Ephrem’s view, the similarity of the names demon‑ strates a similarity of relationships to the created order. In this reading, the Father’s proclamation at Christ’s baptism functions to demonstrate that the Son is like the Father rather than like the created order. On an exegetical level, this passage further con rms Ephrem’s terse reading of the baptismal scene. As in MF :, Ephrem sup‑ plies the language of “begetter” and erases any ambiguity about the speaker of the text’s cryptic “voice.” As in :, the baptismal scene has been represented solely as an anti-subordinationist proof text. We have already seen in these two texts that Ephrem represents the words the baptismal scene in different ways: in :, Ephrem quoted the words as brâ ḥabbîbâ (“the beloved son”), and in : as brâ hû (“he is the Son”). is tendency continues throughout this material. In : we nally nd the pronoun “my” (ber[y]) (which is present in each of the synoptic Gospels) and Ephrem also glosses the scene with the topographical descriptor “at the Jordan River”: Presumptuous it is to call you by a name foreign to the one Your Father called you. For he called you only, “My Son” at the Jordan River.

Later, at MF :, Ephrem will use the phrase “this is my son” (hānaw ber[y]), which is identical to the Syriac of Matthew :. Nevertheless, Ephrem’s varying manner of quoting the text stands not as evidence that can be used to determine his Gospel version. Rather, Ephrem has focused on these one or two words from the baptismal scene—brâ (“son”), ḥabbîbâ (“beloved”)—and is entirely comfortable cit‑ ing them in a variety of ways. Another aspect of Ephrem’s reading of the scene is that he merges it with the basic Christian baptismal formula and, thereby, with the baptismal practices of his own community, which would have been shared with non-Nicene communities. This connection enables Ephrem to double his polemic: not only do the Father’s words at Christ’s baptism demonstrate the rectitude of the name Son, the baptismal practices of various Christian groups support the name as well. In :, Ephrem writes: Who can deny the three names whose hovering rst ministered at the Jordan? It is true that in the names in which your body was baptized, behold, bodies have been baptized. And though very many

  



are the names of the Lord of all, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we clearly baptize. Praises to your greatness!

Ephrem only alludes to the baptismal scene, and his allusion uncovers a slightly different emphasis than we have so far seen. In referencing the “three names” that ministered at the Jordan, Ephrem identi es the scene as an act of the Father, Son, and Spirit. As he says in MF :, Christ’s humanity is baptized by “the Father, with his voice, the Son with His power, / and the Spirit with her hovering.” In this inter‑ pretation, Ephrem is able to meld the biblical scene of the baptism with his bap‑ tismal practices and those of his audience. Ephrem reads the text and the ritual to‑ gether so that both demonstrate the rectitude of the name Son. Finally, while the baptism and trans guration scenes are by far the predominant proof texts Ephrem uses in his argument about the name “Son,” he does draw on an‑ other less well known scene—that of the Centurion’s confession at the cruci xion. As he references this scene, he interacts much more with the narrative and its spe‑ ci c terminology. In MF :, he writes: Because the guard—he of the division called Centurion—guarded [Christ] so closely, at the words of our Savior, who cried aloud to his Father the last of all words, and shook the earth below and darkened the sun above, [the Centurion] too cried out and sealed that He is the Son of God (brâ hû d-ʼallāhâ).

The narrative to which Ephrem refers appears in each of the synoptic Gospels (Matt. :, Mark :, and Luke :). In his use of the verb nṭar, “to guard,” and in mentioning the earth shaking, Ephrem’s retelling of the story re ects Matthew. From this one verse, Ephrem’s madrashe repeats only the proper noun “Centurion,” an exact quotation of the Centurion’s confession (“He is the Son of God”) and the verb nṭar (“to guard”). e latter word, nṭar, becomes the basis for Ephrem’s initial identi cation of the gure as “guard” (nāṭûrâ), though that term does not appear in the biblical text. Ephrem also draws upon the scene prior to the Centurion’s confession, in which the earth shakes. In describing the event, Ephrem uses the same verb—ʼazî‘, “it shook”—as Matthew, though he has taken Matthew’s phrase “the earth was shaken” (ʼar‘â ʼettzî‘at) and made Christ the active subject of ’azî’, “to shake.” Ephrem thus slightly rearranges the scene so that Christ’s voice becomes an active agent, causing the earthquake that follows. Likewise, whereas Matthew : says that, at the scene of Christ’s cruci xion, “darkness came over the whole land,” Ephrem renders “dark‑ ness” (ḥeššûkâ) in its verbal form—“to make dark” (ʼaḥšek), with Christ as the sub‑ ject of the activity. Especially in the latter detail, this represents a signi cant rewrit‑ ing of the chronology of the scene. Whereas in Matthew the darkness is present be‑ fore Christ speaks, in Ephrem’s retelling Christ’s words cause the darkness. Ephrem thus places the event chronologically aer Christ’s words. Whereas in the Gospel account the natural phenomena happen concurrently with Christ’s cruci xion,



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Ephrem has rewritten this chronology so that Christ’s speech act decisively affects the natural world. Despite this much more extensive reworking of the details of the narrative, Ephrem’s rewriting suggests the same hermeneutic tendency that we have al‑ ready identified. Even as he rewrites the text’s temporal arrangement, his focus is primarily on the Centurion’s confession of Christ as “Son of God.” At the same time, Ephrem’s polemical reading of this scene is noticeably different from his reading of the baptismal and transfiguration scenes. First, he incorporates much more of the vocabulary of this episode, suggesting a closer interaction with the actual vocabulary than he betrayed in his reading of the scenes of the baptism and transfiguration. Second, in his depiction of the Centurion, through whose eyes he focuses his audience on the Crucifixion, he rewrites the scene as a whole in a significant way. In Ephrem’s retelling, Christ is represented as active in a way that is absent from the biblical account. The Centurion’s con‑ fession, moreover, is taken not as a simple expression of awe but as an affirma‑ tion of “son” as a divine name. These passages rewrite the Gospel scenes of the baptism, trans guration, and cruci xion so that they all unambiguously demonstrate the primacy of the name “Son” precisely as a divine name. Ephrem’s interaction with the text of the baptism and trans guration is especially minimalistic. He focuses only on the lexical details that interest him, and he resituates these details in the broader literary and theologi‑ cal context of the poem. His incorporation of the material from the cruci xion is more expansive, focusing on the character of the Centurion, and incorporating some of the narrative detail from that scene. At the same time, his rhetorical aim— to demonstrate the primacy of the name Son—is the same. In his rewriting of each of these scenes, Ephrem resituates the biblical material in the context of his madrashe. In turn, the madrasha comes to function as a rewritten Gospel, which now unambiguously bespeaks the truth of the name “Son” against Ephrem’s subor‑ dinationist opponents. In discussing Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis, R.  B. Ter Har Romeny notes how Ephrem incorporates the Genesis text into his commentary so that it “can be read as a narrative in its own right” and “without a Bible at hand.” In the case of Ephrem’s poetic recasting of these biblical confession scenes, we see him operating in an almost completely different manner. In his presentation, Ephrem’s tendency is to strip away the Bible’s narrative shell almost entirely so that one could not piece together that narrative on the basis of Ephrem’s rewriting itself. Yet his overarching literary goal in these madrasha is surprisingly similar to his goal in the Commentary on Genesis. In both, the literary work itself forms a complete lens through which the original narrative can be read. ere is a sense that the biblical text must be read through Ephrem’s rewritten version, even if those rewritten versions look very dif‑ ferent from one another. We see yet another style of rewritten Gospel in MF . In this poem, Ephrem brings together Gospel scenes not to demonstrate the priority of the name “Son” but to depict Christ as acting toward creation as its rightful caretaker.

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

A DIVIN E CARETAKER

Ephrem’s use of the baptismal and transfiguration scenes provides him with a proof text in his argument for the priority of the name “Son.” This emphasis on Christ’s proper name occupies Ephrem throughout much of the Madrashe on Faith, and it is not only the baptismal material that he uses to reflect upon the name. MF  is a thirteen-stanza poem that presents Christ as “Son” of the “heav‑ enly king” and polemicizes against those who would reject this position. Ephrem does not reflect upon the name “Son” itself but constructs a portrait of Christ as cosmic son of the equally cosmic king. Ephrem links diverse biblical scenes throughout this poem, but my primary interest is in the first five stanzas. In these, Ephrem constructs a universalist portrait of Christ into which he embeds the spe‑ cific language of the Bible. In so doing, Ephrem crafts his madrasha as a ritual text. Catherine Bell has described the way ritual texts embed a representation of the world that is coherent in a way that the world is not. Similarly, in this poem, Ephrem has constructed a singular narrative into which he embeds particular, iso‑ lated scenes from the Gospel. Ephrem’s rewriting of these Gospel scenes takes place in two ways. First, the poet melds several distinct scenes into a unified literary work. Second, he unites them within the madrasha using language that is universal in its implications. Ephrem refers to the Father as “the heavenly king” and depicts the Son as having “descended to the earth” from his realm. Once on earth, the creation recognizes the Son as its divine Creator. In incorporating the biblical material into the intro‑ ductory stanza of this madrashe and in building this universalist scene of divine condescension, Ephrem uses the lexicon and thought world of the madrasha to represent the biblical scenes rather than taking their language into his literary form. For example, in reference to Christ’s walking on water, he says, “the sea be‑ came his mount.” In reference to Christ’s ascent into heaven, he says, “the air [be‑ came] his chariot.” These metaphoric descriptions are certainly rooted in the Bible, but Ephrem transmutes them into a universalist idiom, so that they clearly indicate the Son’s heavenly origins. In the second stanza, Ephrem begins to incor‑ porate the actual language of the biblical text. Yet it is brought into a madrasha that has already established its own way of presenting and speaking about Christ in relationship to heaven and earth: In the way he was ministered to, he taught whose Son he was. At the time of his abasement, the watchers descended and ministered to the Son of their splendid Lord. And just as if [it were] a maidservant, he commanded creation. e world, like a servant, he led with a gesture, like his begetter, Whose silence leads all.

The rst two lines of this stanza are obscure but seem to allude to Matthew :. at passage occurs just aer Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness, in which, aer Satan departs, the text says, “angels came and ministered to [Jesus].” e nal



  

three and a half lines of this stanza echo Jesus’s calming of the storm (Matt. :– ), though the language is ambiguous and lacks any concrete biblical referents. Ephrem has reworked both of these biblical narratives so that they present Christ as master of creation. By focusing on the brief allusion in Matthew : to the an‑ gels’ care of Jesus, Ephrem highlights this moment and renders explicit its meaning within his madrasha. His reading is built upon terse allusions to two biblical scenes. is allusive style coheres with his general tendency to draw out these minute scenes from the biblical portraits of Christ in order to make broad theologi‑ cal arguments. rough this rewriting, Ephrem represents the New Testament as a book that testi es to the divinity of Christ—a divinity that Ephrem does not state outright or de ne in concrete terms, but cras by emphasizing and weaving togeth‑ er these different scenes into the poetic world of the madrasha. Similarly, in MF : Ephrem does not incorporate any speci c language from the biblical text but expands the metaphor of son and king so that Christ becomes “master” and humans become the “sons of his house.” Ephrem uses this occasion to articulate a general hermeneutic stance for passages in which Christ appears to be‑ have in a way unbe tting divinity: Because he is the master he has exalted the sons of his house. Fools have made themselves crazy, falling down de led. But he descended again and lied them up from their de lement. Error erred when it saw our dirt on his clothes. Knowledge alone knew that he had approached the de lement in order to cleanse it.

By offering this general guideline for understanding the “dirt on his clothes” (a metaphoric way of speaking about biblical scenes that appear to subordinate Christ), Ephrem reasserts a hermeneutic that undergirds the whole of the Madrashe on Faith. In Ephrem’s view, the Bible offers a picture of Christ as Lord of creation who has come as its savior. Up to this point, this poem has balanced reiterations of this general hermeneutic stance (in stanzas  and ) with representations of particu‑ lar scenes (in stanza ). In the fourth stanza, Ephrem incorporates three more bibli‑ cal narratives in the same allusive fashion: From his care let it be understood that he is the son of the king, Since, as a good heir, he took pains over his father’s house. He saw the servant who was lying down (rmê) and stood him in health. He saw the handmaid who was cast down and rebuked her fever. He saw the bread that was running out and lled the sons of his house. ey gave thanks to the one who sent him.

Ephrem enlists three biblical narratives to buttress the metaphoric presentation of Christ as divine caretaker—the healing of a man cast down (Matt. :– or John :–), the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Matt. :–), and the feeding of the multitudes (Matt. :– and John :–). Ephrem’s language hints at his par‑ ticular sources, but the references are so allusive that they are very difficult to un‑

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

cover. He has clearly incorporated the biblical language in such a way that renders the narratives of a piece with the already present universal language of this madrasha. But it is clear that he has drawn on speci c biblical sources. Ephrem embeds a rst narrative in line . His language—“He saw the servant who was lying down, and stood him in health”—is ambiguous. Ephrem appears to have in mind a speci c scene but uses no proper nouns or particularly distinctive vocabulary. Edmund Beck identi es here an allusion to Matthew :–, which recounts the narrative of a paralyzed man whose friends brought him to Christ for healing. In Matthew :, the man is described as “a paralytic, lying down” (mšaryâ kad rmê), a phrase that provides a potential antecedent for Ephrem’s phrase “He saw the servant who was lying down” (rmê). Yet Ephrem’s words also echo a scene that Beck does not identify —the scene of the healing at the pool of Bethesda recounted in John :–. e latter passage uses similar language to identify an assembly of sick people who “were cast down (rmên hwaw) in great sickness” (v. :). e story concerns Jesus’s healing of one of these sick people, who is likewise identi ed as “cast down” (rmê, v. :). Ephrem’s reference to “health” (ḥûlmānâ) also seems to echo John :–, in which Jesus asks the sick man whether he wishes to be healed (tetḥlem) and, at the story’s conclusion, affirms that he “was healed.” is analysis indicates that Ephrem has a speci c source in mind. But literarily he has obscured the concrete references by rendering the passage in such ambiguous language. Given the gener‑ al ambience of poem , in which Ephrem seeks to declare broadly that the “Son” of “the heavenly king” has come to earth as its caretaker, this style of allusion works. Both narratives involve Christ’s healing of the sick and so both bolster Ephrem’s portrait. His language invokes the two narratives simultaneously so as to create the composite portrait of Christ as divine caretaker. Following this ambiguous allusion, which seems to meld the distinct healing scenes of Matthew :– and John :–, Ephrem then embeds two narratives in a more obvious way. He first refers to the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, which appears in each of the synoptic Gospels, though Ephrem’s retelling of the narra‑ tive looks very similar to the version from Matthew. In this narrative, Jesus sees the woman lying down with a fever, touches her, and, as the biblical text phrases it, “the fever left her.” Ephrem rewrites this scene subtly. Though the language of the madrasha makes its source clear, Ephrem does not refer to any of the charac‑ ters in the narrative, referring instead only to the “handmaid who was cast down.” Yet what is more relevant to the broader Christological portrait that this poem constructs is that Ephrem presents Christ as actively rebuking the woman’s fever. This slight change—from the Bible’s “and the fever left her” to Ephrem’s “he re‑ buked her fever”—places Christ unambiguously as the active agent in the woman’s healing. As such, it further builds Ephrem’s portrait of Christ as divine caretaker. In alluding to the healing of the paralyzed man and the healing of Peter’s moth‑ er-in-law, Ephrem has brought together two narratives that in the Gospel text are similar though not connected in any obvious way. ematically, they represent two



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healing scenes. Both identify Christ as “seeing” and the sick person as “lying down” (rmê / ramyâ). Ephrem repeats the verbs “to see” (ḥzâ) and “lying down” (rmâ) in his retelling of both. Ephrem links these narratives in the service of his own rhetori‑ cal argument, but, in constructing that argument, he chooses passages that are al‑ ready similar to one another. Ephrem’s task in reading these narratives and render‑ ing them coherent within the rhetorical framework of his own poem depends upon his ability to identify their similarities while erasing their differences. In his retelling, Gospel scenes that already appear gurally related, even if not connected in the Gospel account, become explicit gures of one another in the madrasha. From there, a gural relationship is created between the various biblical scenes and Ephrem’s own madrashe. “Seeing” connects both of the narratives that Ephrem draws upon in this stanza. e blind man (or the paralytic) “sees” Christ, as does Peter’s mother-in-law. Ephrem uses this same verb to connect to the nal narrative that is embedded in this stanza, that of the feeding of the multitudes. Ephrem says that Christ saw that the bread was running out.” Ephrem’s poetic representation of this narrative draws on only two of the source’s terms—“bread” (laḥmâ) and “to be full” (sba‘). Here again, Ephrem changes the text slightly to represent Christ as an active agent. Rather than saying that the multitudes “were full” (sba‘) aer Christ fed them, Ephrem says that Christ “made them full” (sabba‘). is deepens Ephrem picture of Christ as divine caretaker of the earth. In the madrasha, Ephrem has made linguistic and theological choices to render these three narratives—the two healings and the feeding of the multitudes—as a single testimony to Christ’s divine status. eologically, he has made Christ the ob‑ viously active subject of all these scenes, subtly manipulating the biblical language to do so. In turn, that portrait of Christ as active subject underwrites the broader universalist character of this madrasha, in which Christ stands as the cosmic repre‑ sentative of the heavenly king. Linguistically, Ephrem has used intentionally am‑ biguous language to evoke multiple biblical scenes and has merged the language of those scenes with his own madrasha. In the case of the narratives we have just ex‑ amined, he introduced all of them through the activity of “seeing” ( rst the blind man/paralytic, then Peter’s mother-in-law, then Christ himself). In his representa‑ tion of the narrative of the feeding, Ephrem said that the bread “had run out” (ḥsar). is verb does not occur in any of the biblical scenes of the feeding, but it does oc‑ cur in the narrative of the wedding at Cana. His use of the verb here serves to fore‑ shadow the narrative to which he next turns. The narrative of the wedding at Cana (John ) occupies MF :: Who would not love the lover of humans since he is mingled and mixed with them? His handmaid became his servant. ey invited him, and he did not look down upon it. He went to a [wedding] feast, and gladdened it with his greatness. He set down his gi, wine in vessels, for the treasure of his kingdom

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

Walked along with him.

While Ephrem clearly draws upon the biblical scene of the wedding at Cana, he uses this to further his representation of Christ as divine caretaker. eologically, Ephrem presumes that the Christ who acts at the wedding exists at some distance from creation—he is the “lover of humans,” who nevertheless “mingled and mixed” with humanity. Ephrem incorporates the narrative of the wedding into this broader narrative of Christ’s care for humanity. In so doing, he takes the language of the bib‑ lical text and applies it to the narrative of divine condescension that the poem artic‑ ulates. For example, the line “gladdened with his greatness” clearly refers to the host’s exclamation about the quality of the wine in John :. Yet, in this poem, the speci c reference reverberates generally in reference to humanity’s reception of the divine Son’s mingling with them. Aer this h stanza, the rhetoric of the poem shis from an emphasis on Christ’s divine caretaking to a familiar polemic against those who do not recognize his divine origins. e poem continues to merge the language of the Bible with the particular rhetoric of the madrasha. But these ve stanzas enable us to see how Ephrem melds the language of Bible and poem, and the theological rami cations of that melding. In poem , Ephrem has articulated the theme of Christ’s “sonship” and solicitude for creation from four biblical angles. In :, he articulated Christ’s general lordship over creation; in :, he presented the angels’ ministering to Christ as evidence of his relationship to his Father; in : and , he drew upon four miracle scenes (two of which were healings, and two of which utilized the miracu‑ lous transformation of food and drink) to demonstrate Christ’s care for his Father’s “house.” All of these stanzas together represent a biblical picture, uni ed within Ephrem’s poem, of Christ as Lord. Broadly speaking, we can say two things about Ephrem’s representation of Christ and the biblical text in this poem. First, as regards his Trinitarian theology, poem  provides an example of the way in which Ephrem strives to articulate the particular relationship between Father and Son without using the language of Nicaea or refer‑ encing Nicene debates in any obvious way. Ephrem’s never refers to the nature of the Father or the Son and never re ects on Christ’s relationship to the Father outright at all. Instead, he constructs a universalist narrative in which Christ dwells properly in the realm of the Creator, and then descends, on behalf of the Creator, to care for the created realm. In the construction of this narrative, Ephrem affirms that Christ be‑ longs properly to the realm of the Creator, and not that of creatures, yet that he has overcome this “chasm” to care for human creation. Ephrem thus articulates a basi‑ cally Nicene position but he does it in a unique literary idiom. Poem  has its own universalist narrative structure, and it is one into which Ephrem brings the particular narratives of the New Testament. In so doing, he be‑ trays some consistent exegetical moves. While he incorporates the language of vari‑ ous biblical scenes, he does so in an ambiguous way. I would argue that this is inten‑ tional. For example, when in : he refers to someone who was “lying down” with‑ out specifying who, I would argue that Ephrem intends to evoke the New Testament

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healing scenes generally, and, in particular, both the scene of the paralytic and the scene of the blind man. Ephrem also consistently rewrites these scenes so that pas‑ sive actions—“the fever le her,” “the bread had run out”—are rendered in the active voice, with Christ as the subject. is further emphasizes the theological message that Christ descends from heaven on behalf of the Creator to care for creation. Fi‑ nally, Ephrem represents these passages in language that makes them gures of one another within the madrasha. Christ attends to a “servant who was lying down” and a “handmaid who was cast down.” ese two characters “see” him and, in turn, he “sees” the multitude in need of food. In the latter case, Ephrem says that “the bread had run out,” and the phrase “had run out” links the narrative to the scene of the wedding at Cana. By making these little shis in the biblical text as he brings it into the poem, Ephrem rewrites the text so that both poem and Bible speak together in with a uni ed voice. THE HUMBLE CHRIST

MF  is an eleven-stanza poem that re ects generally on the life of Christ and speci cally on Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. As I have argued previously, much of the Madrashe on Faith developed in nonliturgical settings of study. MF , however, develops as a re ection on the events of “Palm Sunday.” Given the presence of this liturgical feast in the fourth century, it is likely that this madrasha was composed for that occasion. Here, then, we see Ephrem operating in a liturgical mode but in the context of a feast that he interprets in light of the Trinitarian controversies. Literari‑ ly, this poem is similar to MF  in its establishment of a broad poetic narrative into which it incorporates speci c biblical narratives. Yet, whereas that poem focused upon Christ’s heavenly origins, poem  focuses on Christ’s having “put on a body.” The material addressed so far has shown Ephrem’s insistence on the priority of the name Son, and, more generally, his development of the theme of Christ’s sonship. In the passages we have examined, Ephrem has rearranged and melded various scenes so that the Gospel itself is restructured as a single testimony to Christ as “Son.” In poem , Ephrem, though reflecting upon Christ, neither mentions the name “Son” nor emphasizes Christ’s sonship in any way. Yet, his rhetorical aim—to show Christ’s unity with the Father and solicitude for creation—is the same. He restructures Old and New Testament material to argue against subordinationist interpretations of par‑ ticular New Testament scenes. Christ’s entry into Jerusalem becomes a locus for Ephrem to reflect upon divine humility writ large. Literarily, the biblical scene pro‑ vides him with an opportunity to scan the biblical corpus and rewrite it as a single tes‑ tament to Christ’s divine condescension. In this poem we can see clearly Ephrem’s ex‑ egetical imagination at work, as narratives and lexical details trigger new narratives and lexical details, all of which are combined in the madrasha. The rst three stanzas of poem  establish a basic theological dichotomy, and they do so without drawing upon any speci c biblical narratives. In :, Ephrem asserts that Christ “put on a body from Adam and from David” in order to over‑ come the shame which the body had acquired at the hands of the “Evil One.” In

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

:, he juxtaposes the image of Christ as “the sustainer of all,” who, nevertheless, “at the meager table / of Joseph and Mary has grown up.” In : he articulates a paradox, according to which divine majesty dwelt in the “womb of Mary” and pos‑ sessed a “mortal father,” while remaining the “one who gives life to all.” These rst three stanzas portray Christ as “the great one” who has taken on “meagerness,” “shame,” and “humility” to “conquer” these very things. ese three introductory stanzas establish the themes of the poem that follows. In poem :, with these themes in mind, Ephrem turns to his central biblical scene, that of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on a foal. e scene becomes in Ephrem’s retelling a portrait of divine condescension with anti-subordinationist overtones: He mounted a lowly foal and hid his victory in its lowliness. Riders of horses and chariots are subdued and conquered. David conquered valiant battle lines yet a tender wife humbled his strength.

Ephrem alludes to the entry into Jerusalem in the rst line only. “Foal” (‘îlâ) and “to mount” (rkab) appear in each of the Gospels, but Ephrem’s allusion to the foal’s “lowliness” (šeplâ) suggests the prophecy that is embedded in Matthew (though both Matthew and Zechariah—upon which Matthew draws—use a different term, makkîk, “humble”). e relevant line, Matthew :, reads: “Say to the daughter of Zion: ‘Lo, your king comes to you, humble (makkîk) and mounted upon a donkey (rkîb ‘al ḥmārâ), and on the foal of an ass (‘îlâ bar ʼattānâ).” ough Ephrem uses šeplâ (“lowly”) instead of makkîk (“humble”), he has clearly xed on this detail from the biblical scene, even anticipating it in : where he likewise used špal, “to be lowly,” to denote the humility Christ took upon himself in taking a body. e vocab‑ ulary that Ephrem takes from Matthew—“to mount” (rkab), “donkey” (ḥmārâ), “foal” (‘îlâ), and “ass” (ʼattānâ)—structures the poem that follows, as Ephrem uses it to piece together the diverse narratives out of which the poem is made. Already in this rst stanza, Ephrem’s interaction with the Bible is noteworthy. His allusion to Matthew occupies a minimal amount of the stanza (the rst line only) and draws only a few words from that line. He focuses on a single detail from the narrative—the “lowly foal”—and interprets it as iconic of divine humility. e stanza as a whole seeks to defend the fact that Christ rode a foal rather a horse. us, having alluded to the New Testament narrative in the rst line, Ephrem offers what appears to be a general statement about “riders of horses,” according to which the latter, though exalted for a time, experience an inevitable humbling. This general defense of Christ’s mode of transportation gives way to a second biblical narrative, which demonstrates the point Ephrem has made in this second line. Ephrem alludes to David’s defeat by a “tender wife” but does not specify the narrative to which he refers. Edmund Beck takes this as an allusion to  Samuel :–, the narrative of Bathsheba and David, but Ephrem takes no language from that narrative. As the poem progresses, it will seem instead that Ephrem has in mind Abigail, the wife of Nabal ( Sam. ). He ends this stanza, however, on an ambiguous note, and switches to a different narrative entirely. is ambiguous allu‑

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sion thus lingers, foreshadowing the poem’s later developments and allowing Ephrem to evoke two narratives at once. Poem : builds around two nouns—‘îlâ (“foal”) and rākšâ (“horse”)—both taken from Matthew. ematically, the stanza concentrates on humility and arro‑ gance. As the poem continues in : and Ephrem draws in more biblical material, he emphasizes texts that share lexical links with :: An ass spoke and recognized that she was an ass. Her master, likewise, she recognized as her master. Who is so educated that he cannot distinguish a created creature from its Creator? (MF :)

This short stanza appears somewhat randomly in the poem as it has developed. Ephrem seems to have dried from his original theme, even though the nal line rebuts his subordinationst opponents. But the logic of the stanza within the poem depends upon its use of the language of Matthew, albeit here developed without any obvious allusion to the Gospel. From the initial “foal,” to the horses of David, we come now to Balaam’s ass (ʼattānâ). e term “ass,” which Ephrem takes from Num‑ bers , also occurs in Matthew : (from which the earlier scene of the entry is taken), though Ephrem did not quote it there. Nevertheless, this looks like an exege‑ sis inspired by concordance: the presence of “ass” in Ephrem’s initial narrative (from Matthew) triggers the narrative from Numbers, which he then recounts and ts into the structure of the poem. Within the biblical text, the narrative of Balaam’s ass occupies the entirety of Numbers  but Ephrem focuses only on verses –. In its biblical telling, the narrative is elaborate and lengthy, yet Ephrem has whittled it down dramatically. Neither the ass’s master, Balaam, nor any of the character names from Numbers  are mentioned. Ephrem signals the narrative by alluding to the action of its unusual central character—a talking donkey. By stripping the story of any extraneous narra‑ tive material, Ephrem seamlessly weaves it into his poem about Christ. Ephrem’s representation of the story’s moral re ects the concerns of his own poem rather than those of the biblical narrative. e biblical story showcases God’s ability to thwart an unblessed mission, when Balaam goes on a military journey without ful lling the Lord’s preconditions for that journey. e Lord then performs the miracle of “opening the ass’s mouth” to explain to Balaam why he cannot pro‑ ceed. Ephrem mentions the initial miracle—“the ass spoke”—but the moral he draws from it is clearly his own. e only place in the narrative that gives ground to such an emphasis is in the ass’s insistence, in its speech to Balaam, that it is his don‑ key. Upon the basis of this small detail, Ephrem nds in this story evidence of the ass’s understanding of its subservience to its master. His polemic against those who cannot distinguish Creator and created is based on this aspect of the narrative ap‑ plied analogously. It is helpful here to trace how Ephrem has moved from Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey to this Old Testament narrative of a talking donkey. Ephrem began : with a terse one-line allusion to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem (“He

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

mounted a lowly foal and hid his victory in its lowliness”). e latter provides, from Ephrem’s perspective, a humble scene. While the only noun that Ephrem takes from the New Testament scene is “foal” (‘îlâ), the prophecy that Matthew quotes in that scene also uses the noun “ass” (ʼattānâ). is noun has clearly triggered in Ephrem’s mind the story of Balaam’s ass—one of the more famous Old Testament narratives involving that animal. On this lexical basis, Ephrem moves to the narrative of Bal‑ aam’s ass, but retains, even if initially only in the background, an echo of the initial theme—Christ’s humility. In turn, while humility is more or less absent from the actual biblical scene of Balaam’s ass, Ephrem nds in that narrative precisely this moral point, which he bases on the donkey’s recognition of its proper place vis-à-vis its master. e polemical conclusion to this stanza—“Who is so educated that he cannot distinguish / A created creature from its Creator”—makes sense when one considers Ephrem’s two guiding compositional principles: the theme of humility and the equine vocabulary. These two guiding principles—lexical and thematic—continue in :– and re‑ connect to the “tender wife” introduced two stanzas earlier: And if Nabal was punished for his brash speech— An insolent man (mṣa‘rānâ) who opened his mouth savagely, for he made David the great king small and named him among the servants— What fool would be like Nabal?

Though he used David as a negative example in poem :, Ephrem reintroduces him here as a hero, drawing upon a narrative from  Samuel . As with Ephrem’s presentation of the Balaam narrative, the one in Samuel is quite lengthy and compli‑ cated, but the poet focuses on just a few details. Ephrem does not identify Nabal be‑ yond his name and characterizes him generally as brash and insolent. Nevertheless, Ephrem’s terse allusion assumes knowledge of the general shape of the narrative. That narrative is worth recounting brie y. In  Samuel , Nabal is a powerful and wealthy man whose shepherds King David has treated kindly. King David sends messengers to Nabal to remind him of this fact and asks him for a gi in return. Na‑ bal responds negatively, insisting that he knows neither David nor his messengers. David does not take the rebuke well. Initially, he declares war on Nabal, but before he can attack, Nabal’s wife Abigail offers David the gi he initially sought and begs him not to take offense at her husband’s “insolence” (mṣa‘rānûtâ). David accepts the gi, but Nabal is so humiliated by his wife’s behavior that he dies on the spot. e story then concludes with David marrying the newly widowed Abigail. Ephrem situates the proper name Nabal at the front of this stanza with no introduc‑ tion as if the narrative follows logically from the narrative of Balaam’s ass. Ephrem’s characterization of Nabal as “an insolent man” (mṣa‘rānâ) does reflect Abigail’s own characterization of her husband, as expressed in  Samuel :. And Ephrem’s state‑ ment that Nabal made David “one of the servants” reflects an ironic reference to the distinction made throughout  Samuel  between Nabal and his servants.

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Ephrem’s seamless movement from the Balaam narrative (in :) to the narra‑ tive of Nabal (:) gives the impression that the two have some connection to one another, yet the connection is not at all obvious. e two narratives derive from dif‑ ferent places in the Bible and share no characters or obvious language. Moreover, while Ephrem traces a coherent theme between the two—the theme of master and servant and the need for recognizing one’s rightful place in that relationship—the prominence of this theme depends primarily upon Ephrem’s creative importation of it into the narrative. Yet a closer inspection of  Samuel  reveals striking parallels to earlier material in the madrasha. On the most obvious level, of course,  Samuel  connects to poem : through its secondary character, David. In :, the stanza in which Ephrem rst alluded to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, Ephrem also said that David was disgraced by his behavior toward a “tender wife.” As we noted, Beck assumed that Ephrem referred to Bathsheba, but Ephrem’s incorporation of Nabal suggests he actually has in mind Abigail. Ephrem does not mention Abigail by name anywhere in poem . But it is her characterization of Nabal as insolent that Ephrem here echoes. Moreover, in the interactions between David and Abigail in  Samuel  we see the same equine vocabulary that Ephrem uses in this madrasha. Abigail sends gis to David loaded on donkeys ( Sam. :) and she rides a donkey to meet him when she convinces him to turn aside from his planned battle (:). is might suggest, then, that Beck’s identi cation of the “so wife” of : as Bathsheba is mis‑ taken and that the phrase actually refers to Abigail. Yet given what we have already seen in this chapter, I would argue that Ephrem here evokes both references. e initial reference in : to “so wife” evokes the more famous narrative of David’s affair with Bathsheba, an act that resulted in Uriah’s murder and Solomon’s birth. Yet, by then subtly bringing in the narrative of Nabal and (implicitly) Abigail, Ephrem adds another piece to this biblical mosaic. Ephrem lets the ambiguity of the concrete referent remain as a way to bring multiple narratives and resonances into the madrasha. Ephrem devotes one more stanza to Nabal but uses the character to bring his au‑ dience into the poem and remind them of the controversies at hand. He xates on a question that Nabal asks in  Samuel :: “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse”? Nabal’s question, taken out of the biblical context and restated in that of Ephrem’s fourth century, functions as a prototype of investigative speech. ese words provide Ephrem with a path back toward his initial Christological focus: Who then is the fool who would be like Nabal? Flee, my brothers, from his tongue and from his death! For it was not the son of Jesse that his mouth disgraced but the Son of David!

From : to , Ephrem has thus come full circle, returning to the image of the disgraced Christ, with Nabal functioning as the proto-investigator. Likely delivered in the context of Palm Sunday, this madrasha builds a biblical mosaic through con‑

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cordance that singularly and dramatically speaks against those who read the biblical narratives in subordinationist terms. CONCLUSION

Like Ephrem’s poetic self, and the audience to which he spoke, Ephrem’s Christ emerged through a nuanced and poetic reading of the Bible. In this chapter, I have looked at the New Testament material that Ephrem represented to create a particu‑ lar image of Christ as divine Son. e rst two sections examined two ways in which Ephrem created this picture. Ephrem read the baptism and trans guration scenes by focusing on small textual details and removing these from their broader narrative contexts. He also offered a rereading of various New Testament narratives to portray Christ as the caretaker of the ather’s earthly realm. In the nal section, we examined Ephrem’s portrayal and defense of Christ’s condescension and the partic‑ ularly lexical means by which he defended this condescension. In these materials we can see the literary carrying out of Ephrem’s theological con‑ victions. In chapter three I argued that Ephrem’s commitment to a basic Nicene Christology bore literary fruit. Put most simply, his conviction was that Christ stood on the divine side of a chasm separating divinity and humanity. Literarily, this shaped the way he viewed the Bible. The Bible manifested a God who always transcended the writings that revealed him, yet allowed himself to be represented in those limited fig‑ ures. Ephrem’s commitment to reading the Bible through this theological prism changed the way Ephrem thought about and presented the Bible in his madrashe. In this chapter we have seen the literary ramifications of Ephrem’s theological commit‑ ments from a different perspective. In the cases I have examined here, Ephrem took the ambiguous literary materials of the New Testament—materials he already ac‑ cessed through the rewritten text of the Diatessaron—and rewrote them so that they unambiguously testified to the truth that God was beyond humanity but had mani‑ fested himself to humanity. In a late antique context that saw the New Testament writ‑ ings codified and yet rewritten, Ephrem’s madrashe demonstrate yet another of the ways late antique authors negotiated New Testament material. Through his reading of these scenes from Christ’s life, Ephrem rewrote the New Testament books in which this life was housed. Whereas the Gospel accounts of Christ’s life were inevitably ambiguous and open to many interpretations, Ephrem restructured them as simple and singularly focused testaments to Christ’s divinity and incomprehensibility. In his reading of the scene of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, he drew upon the whole gamut of biblical literature to construct a defense of Christ’s mounting of a donkey. Literarily, the biblical poetics underlying Ephrem’s presenta‑ tion of Christ are very similar to those underlying his presentation of self and audi‑ ence. In all these cases, Ephrem rewrote the Bible as a terse, yet unambiguous document.

Conclusion

e poems collected in Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith represent some of the many unique pieces of literature that emerged aer the Council of Nicaea and in the wake of the conversion of Constantine. is period has long been seen as one of intense change in Christian history. ese changes were manifest in the visible spaces that marked the empire, in the rituals that Christians practiced, in the ways theology was organized and managed, and in the literature that Christians produced. e coun‑ cil that Constantine convened—the Council of Nicaea—would bear fruit in the Mediterranean world long aer the fourth century. In its canonization of a particu‑ lar way of speaking about Christ, it would shape Christological discourse for the next millennium at least. Its precedent of an imperially supported Christianity would also live on, especially in the Byzantine Empire. At the eastern margins of the empire and into Persia, Nicaea would become a standard for all subsequent theolo‑ gy as well. Indeed, in the Christological controversies that erupted in the h centu‑ ry, northern Mesopotamian Christians spoke against Chalcedon precisely on the grounds that it had abandoned and tried to usurp the place of Nicaea. Ephrem would have been about twenty years of age when his bishop, Jacob, trav‑ eled to and from the Council of Nicaea. It is one of the great ironies of Ephrem’s cor‑ pus that he, on the one hand, never mentioned that council by name but, on the other hand, seems to have absorbed it so deeply into his way of understanding God and the world. In this sense, the poems collected in Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith and the the‑ ological ideas he articulated within them very much developed in the shadow of Nicaea. The council loomed and found its way into the interstices of his literary body. But one never senses that Ephrem saw himself as a “Nicene” theologian in the sense that he aimed to defend the theology of that council or even to articulate that theolo‑ gy in concise and clear ways. Rather, the radical subordination of Christ to God the Father stirred Ephrem’s imagination so that he read the Bible differently. His effort to affirm the transcendence of Christ shaped the way he thought about the Bible and the 

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

world. This book has tried to examine that place in Ephrem’s poetry where theologi‑ cal controversy and the Bible met. I have argued that Ephrem processed these contro‑ versies, for himself and his audience, through the pages of the Bible, in the literary context of the madrasha. Ephrem sublimated the stuff of his world—the ideas, the texts, and political events—into a corpus of late antique poetry. As Ephrem was cutting his teeth on the theological ideas affiliated with Nicaea, the Bible was also playing a key role in the broader religious culture of the Eastern Mediterranean. Philosophers and rhetoricians in Antioch and Cappadocia were x‑ ating on biblical names and using the biblical text as a tool for theological specula‑ tion. In Egypt and Palestine, monks were reciting the words of the Bible in commu‑ nal and personal prayer as a tool that united them with the divine in very real ways. In more educated Greek and Latin circles, poets were rewriting the words of the Bible in the meters of classical antiquity. Between Palestine and Persia, the Rabbis were using the biblical text as the infrastructure for the towering Talmuds that would come together in the following centuries. The fourth century was indeed a fruitful time for religious and literary life in the Mediterranean and its hinter regions. In this context of Christological and biblical debate, Ephrem produced a poetic corpus as impressive as any that survives from the late antique world. e poems he wrote were deeply immersed in the world in which they came into being. Ephrem was fully aware of the theological and literary trends developing in the broader Mediterranean world. His literary medium, more‑ over, functioned as a pedagogical genre. In its effort to shape a community pedagog‑ ically, Ephrem engaged in scholarly activities similar to those developing in com‑ munities throughout the broader Mediterranean. The largest of his madrashe cycles—the Madrashe on Faith—re ected in a poignant way these three foci of Christian theological re ection—Christology, exe‑ gesis, and education—and did so through the genre of poetry. In this book, I have tried to trace these points of orientation and have argued that they reveal something about Ephrem as a reader and as a poet. Ephrem’s manner of interacting with the Bible was productive. His madrasha was not a commentary or a homily. In the madrashe, Ephrem represented a world in which the Bible and the particularities of the fourth century met in a relationship of likeness. We see this rst in the very rhetoric that gives the Madrashe on Faith their co‑ herency, namely, their repeated condemnation of “investigation.” is language cer‑ tainly developed in response to the fourth-century Christological debates and, espe‑ cially, the culture of debate that played out in Antioch in the s. At the same time, the lexicon of investigation that Ephrem developed appears to have emerged from within the Syriac Bible. Ephrem used the resonances of the language of investigation to make a critique of his opponents. He argued that they were engaging in a form of discourse accessible only to God and were, in turn, subjecting God to that very discourse. If Ephrem drew upon the Bible to produce the rhetorical lexicon that undergird‑ ed the Madrashe on Faith, he then refashioned the Bible as a whole in view of this rhetoric. While Ephrem never constructed a theoretical treatise about the Bible, the

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

poems in the Madrashe on Faith betray a consistent way of imagining the Bible and arguing for a particular way of interacting with it. He chastised his opponents for building theological arguments on nonbiblical bases and complained that they ap‑ proached the text with suspicion and mistrust. He argued that the Bible always meant more than it appeared to mean and saw biblical language as deeply metaphorical. Obvious metaphors he identi ed as “borrowed.” But even their oppo‑ site—so-called true names—had a metaphorical aspect. ey were “true” only for a God always beyond the human capacity to grasp. I suggest that this way of viewing the Bible—as full of meanings that could never be exhausted and which shied de‑ pending upon their readers—undergirded Ephrem’s own use of the Bible. For Ephrem, the Bible provided a lexicon with which to name the wonder of a God be‑ yond human grasp and a world in which that God was always manifest. e madrashe became the place where Bible and the world—reshaped and rewritten in light of the audience—stood together. Chapters four, ve, and six traced three ways in which Ephrem directed his poet‑ ic exegesis—toward the construction of a self, an audience, and Christ. In his struc‑ turing of a self, Ephrem consistently rewrote the Bible to nd appropriate models for his own poetic project. He articulated a performative “I” that negotiated the irony of his position as a proli c poet-theologian and rhetorician who nevertheless decried extensive words about God. To negotiate this ambiguous position, he drew on a range of symbols and metaphors. He found and developed an economic lan‑ guage within the Bible to present himself as broker between God and humanity. He latched onto psalmic associations of David with the lyre to present himself as stand‑ ing in a Davidic lineage, as well as to underscore his own instrumentality. Finally, he subtly wrote his poetic “I” into biblical narratives, nding a space for himself among the Bible’s marginal heroes. In craing a poetic “I,” Ephrem accessed the Bible through its marginal charac‑ ters. In constructing an “ideal audience,” he likewise found marginal places to situ‑ ate that audience. He exhorted his audience to emulate the Magi, characters that within the biblical text emerged from outside the Roman Empire and offered gis humbly and without extensive narrative attention. He also constructed the Bible as a visual scene and instructed his audience to look upon it with awe. is effort further suggests the pedagogical setting of these poems. Ephrem also rewrote the narrative scenes of the New Testament to produce a picture of an unambiguously divine Christ. Ephrem did this in three ways. First, he read narrative scenes in which biblical characters confessed Christ as “Son” as testi‑ monia that united the whole of the New Testament text. Second, he rewrote New Testament scenes in a general, universalist idiom, into which he embedded particu‑ lar narrative details. Finally, he developed an exegesis by concordance, following the trail of biblical words to construct an apology for divine condescension. In constructing these portraits of Ephrem’s poetry and his Bible, my aim has also been to show that Ephrem’s was a unique voice within the late antique literary world, yet at the same time thoroughly reflective of that world. Like other poets in the late antique world, Ephrem’s unique aesthetics can be off-putting at first, especially when

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viewed through a classical lens. Yet Ephrem, in many ways like the Latin poets con‑ temporary with him, focused on the emotional development of single biblical pas‑ sages while often eschewing larger narrative structure. Ephrem also, like the rhetoricians especially associated with the Eastern Mediterranean, developed a stylis‑ tic bravado full of shifts and exclamations to an audience, a style that finds itself at home in a world that valued big speeches intended to impress diverse audiences. Ephrem’s madrashe emerged exegetically, but in their use of the Bible they conceived of themselves as forging a link to the past and claiming that past as his community’s own. Ephrem’s Madrashe on Faith reveals a late antique poet negotiating his world through the lens of the Bible. His is a unique voice, and his corpus is one that de‑ serves to be taken into account in studies of late antique literature generally. In this book, I have tried to guide the reader through one large piece of that corpus, one that is uniquely situated in its broader late antique world. In the poems collected in the Madrashe on Faith, Ephrem immersed himself in the world of the Bible and pre‑ sented a rewritten Bible to his audience. From the world of books, he brought forth his own literary world.

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NOT E TO T H E  R E A DE R

. Jeffrey T. Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, ). . Wickes, St. Ephrem, –. . One consistent change I have made is that whereas my translation rendered ktābê literally as “books,” I have here used the more readable “Bible.” roughout this volume, unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. . See M. Lattke, “Sind Ephraems Madrāšē Hymnen?” Oriens Christianus  (): –. Given the hymns’ pedagogical focus, Andrew Palmer suggests calling them “teaching songs.” See “e Merchant of Nisibis: Saint Ephrem and His Faithful Quest for Union in Numbers,” in Early Christian Poetry: A Collection of Essays, ed. J. den Boe and A. Hilhorst (Leiden: Brill, ), –. . See Wickes, St. Ephrem, xi. I N T RODU C T ION

. André de Halleux (Saint Éphrem le Syrien,” Revue éologique de Louvain  []: –) and Bernard Outtier (“Saint Éphrem d’après ses biographies et ses oeuvres,” Parole de l’Orient  []: –) offer the classic modern treatments of Ephrem’s biography. For recent English accounts of the life, see Joseph  P. Amar, “Ephrem, Life of,” in GEDSH, ; Amar and Edward G. Mathews, St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works,Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –); Kathleen E. McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (New York: Paulist Press, ), –. . Syriac, like Arabic, is a Semitic language. It is a dialect of Aramaic, which Jesus spoke in rst-century Palestine. On the Syriac language, see Aaron M. Butts, 

 

“Syriac Language,” GEDSH, – and Sebastian Brock, An Introduction to Syriac Studies (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ), –, –. . Ute Possekel presents a compelling portrait of how Ephrem might have been educated (Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian, CSCO Subsidia  [Louvain: Peeters, ], –). She suggests that he likely received an initial catechetical education from his bishops in Nisibis. Moreover, given the extensive “Hellenization” of the Near East, there may well have been primary and secondary schools of the Greco-Roman type in Nisibis. Regarding Ephrem’s biblical text, he appears to have used the Peshitta version of the Old Testament and the Diatessaron version of the New Testament, though he knew the separate Gospels as well. e scholarship on both of these bodies of literature is extensive, but see, on the Old Testament Peshitta, R. B. ter Haar Romeny and C. . Morrison, “Peshitta,” GEDSH, –; Michael Weitzman, e Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); and Romeny, “Hypotheses on the Development of Judaism and Christianity in Syria in the Period aer  ..,” in Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu?, ed. H. van de Sandt (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ), –. On the Diatessaron, see Sebastian Brock, e Bible in the Syriac Tradition (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, ), –; Christian Lange, “Ephrem, His School, and the Yawnaya: Some Remarks on the Early Syriac Versions of the New Testament,” in e Peshitta: Its Use in Literature and Liturgy: Papers Read at the ird Peshitta Symposium, ed. R. B. ter Haar Romeny (Leiden: Brill, ), – . See also the (albeit outdated) F. C . Burkitt, Ephraim’s Quotations from the Gospel (Cambridge: e University Press, ). On Ephrem’s awareness of the separate Gospels, see Matthew Crawford, “e Fourfold Gospel in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies , no.  (): –. On the difficulties in using Ephrem’s works to arrive at the biblical text that stands behind them, see Jerome A. Lund, “Observations on Some Biblical Citations in Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis,” Aramaic Studies , no.  (): – and Lukas Van Rompay, “Between the School and the Monk’s Cell: e Syriac Old Testament Commentary Tradition,” in Peshitta, ed. Romeny, –. . To some extent, of course, this depends upon accidents of transmission. eoretically, a Syriac author of Ephrem’s caliber could have preceded him. Indeed, Sebastian Brock suggests as much: “[T]he great variety of poetic forms that he employs with such facility suggests that behind him lies a long tradition of Syriac poetry” (“Syriac and Greek Hymnography: Problems of Origins,” Studia Patristica  []: –). Ephrem himself tells us that Bardaisan and Mani wrote madrashe before him. But among what remains, there is nothing that compares with the size and sophistication of Ephrem’s corpus. Likewise, Laura Lieber argues that especially the Madrashe on Faith “constitute a genre that is unattested in Jewish or Samaritan poetry from the same period” (“Scripture Personi ed: Torah as Character in the Hymns of Marqah,” Jewish Studies Quarterly  []: ). She suggests, however, that the Madrashe on Nativity “re ect a more narrative. . .theology,” which is “more overtly akin to [Samaritan and Jewish] liturgical poems”

 

(p. ). For a survey of Aramaic poetry that provides context for the poetic culture that did precede Ephrem, see A. S. Rodrigues Pereira, Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c.  ...–  ..): Selected Jewish, Christian, and Samaritan Poems (Assen: Van Gorcum and Comp., ). On the origins of the genre, especially in connection with Bardaisan and Mani, see Kathleen E. McVey, “Were the Earliest Madrāšē Songs or Recitations?” in Aer Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers, ed. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta  (Louvain: Peeters, ), –. On early Syriac literary generally, see Brock, “e Earliest Syriac Literature,” in e Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. F. Young, L. Ayres, and A. Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), – and David Taylor, “e Syriac Tradition,” in e First Christian eologians: An Introduction to eology in the Early Church, ed. G. R. Evans (Oxford: Blackwell, ), –. On Syriac poetry more broadly, see Brock, “Poetry,” in GEDSH, – and Brock, “Poetry and Hymnography (): Syriac,” in e Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. S. A. Harvey and D. Hunter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. . e text of the Memre on Faith was critically edited by Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones de Fide,CSCO  (Louvain: Secrétariat du CSCO, ), with an accompanying German translation (CSCO ). Beck also made it the subject of a very brief book, Ephraems Reden über den Glauben: Ihr eologischer Lehrgehalt und ihr Geschichtlicher Rahmen (Rome: Herder), . e Memre on Nicomedia survive only in Armenian but are thought to be authentic (see David Bundy, “Bishop Vologese and the Persian Siege of Nisbis in  ..: A Study in Ephrem’s Mēmrē on Nicomedia,” Encounter  []: – and Bundy, “Vision for the City: Nisibis in Ephrem’s Hymns on Nicomedia,” in Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice [Princeton: Princeton University Press, ], –). ey were edited, with an accompanying French translation, by Charles Renoux, Éphrem de Nisibe, Mēmrē sur Nicomédie,Patrologia Orientalis  (Turnhout: Brepols, ). e three Memre on Reproof have been critically edited (Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones I, CSCO / [Louvain: Secrétariat du CSCO, ]), but not well studied. Ephrem’s Commentaries on Genesis and Exodus were edited by R. M. Tounneau, Sancti Ephraem Syri in Genesim et in Exodum Comentarii, CSCO / (Louvain: L. Durbecq, ). e Commentary on Genesis, in particular, has been the subject of extensive scholarly study. See most recently omas Kremer, Mundus Primus: Die Geschichte der Welt und des Menschen von Adam bis Noach im Genesiskommentar Ephräms des Syrers, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ). e Commenary on the Diatessaron survives in fragmentary form in Armenian and Syriac, and has been critically edited by Louis Leloir in three volumes: Saint Ephrem: Commentaire de l’évangile concordant; Version arménienne, CSCO  (Louvain: L. Durbecq, ); Saint Ephrem: Commentaire de l’évangile concordant; Texte syriaque (Manuscript Chester Beatty ), Chester Beatty Monographs  (Dublin: Hodges Figgis, ); and Saint Ephrem: Commentaire de l’évangile concordant; Texte syriaque (Manuscript Chester Beatty ), Folios additionels, Chester Beatty Monographs a (Louvain: Peeters,

 

). e Commentary on the Diatessaron has been recently studied in detail by Christian Lange, e Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ). Lange concludes that the Commentary on the Diatessaron is a composite work, compiled from “ ‘authentic’ Ephraemic pieces and ‘non-authentic’ pieces from hands later than that of Ephraem himself ” (Portrayal of Christ, ). . On the religious world of late antique Mesopotamia, see the classic essays of Hans J. W. Drijvers, East of Antioch: Studies in Early Syriac Christianity (London: Variorum Reprints, ) and Drijvers, History and Religion in Late Antique Syria (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, ). See, more recently, Lukas Van Rompay, “e East (): Syria and Mesopotamia,” in e Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. S. A. Harvey and D. Hunter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. . While Ephrem’s polemics recur throughout his various works, he primarily articulates his polemics against “Manichees,” “Marcionites,” and “Daysanites” in the Madrashe Against Heresies, ed. Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen Contra Haereses, CSCO / (Louvain: L. Durbecq, ), and in the Prose Refutations, ed. Charles W. Mitchell, St. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, vol. : e Discourses Addressed to Hypatius, Text and Translation Society a (London: Williams and Norgate, ) and Mitchell, St. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, of which the Greater Part has been Transcribed from the Palimpsest B. . add. ., vol. : e Discourse called “Of Domnus” and Six Other Writings, comp. A. A. Bevan and F. C. Burkitt, Text and Translation Society b (London: Williams and Norgate, ). e Prose Refutations have not been the subject of extensive scholarly study, though on Ephrem’s polemics against Mani and Bardaisan, see recently Robert Morehouse, “Bar Dayṣān and Mani in Ephraem the Syrian’s Heresiography” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, ), and, on Manichaeism, Flavia Ruani, “Les controverses avec les manichéens et le development de l’hérésiologie syrique,” in Les controverses religieuses en syriaque, ed. Flavia Ruani, Études Syriaques  (Paris: Geuthner, ), –. On Ephrem’s Madrashe Against Heresies, see Sidney Griffith, “e orn Among the Tares: Mani and Manichaeism in the Works of St. Ephraem the Syrian,” Studia Patristica  (): –; Griffith, “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” in e Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique ought and Culture in Honor of R. . Markus, ed. W. E.Klingshirn and M. Vessey (Ann Arbor, MI: e University of Michigan Press, ), –. Ephrem’s most focused polemics against the “Jews” appear in his Madrashe on Unleavened Bread, also edited by Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Paschahymnen CSCO / (Louvain: Secrétariat de CorpusSCO, ). Ephrem’s Jewish polemics have been extensively studied by Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press), . On anti-Jewish polemic as a backdrop to the Madrashe on Nativity, see Kathleen E. McVey, “e Anti-Judaic Polemic of Ephrem Syrus’ Hymns on the Nativity,” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental

 

Judaism, and Christian Origins, ed. H . W. Attridge, J. J. Collins, and T. H. Tobin (New York: University Press of America, ), –. . For an account of the Trinitarian controversies, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian eology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –; John Behr, Formation of Christian eology, vol. : e Nicene Faith, part  (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ), esp. –; R. P. C. Hanson, e Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: e Arian Controversy, – (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ), –; and Manlio Simonetti, La Crisi Ariana nel IV secolo, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum  (Rome: Augustinianum, ). . Jacob of Nisibis is listed among the attendees of the council. See Ernest Honigmann, “La liste originale des Pères de Nicée,” Byzantion  (): – and Hubert Kauold, “Griechisch-Syrische Väterlisten der frühen Griechischen Synoden,” Oriens Christianus  (): –. Emanuel Fiano has recently offered a thorough examination of the evidence for the Trinitarian controversies in fourthcentury Edessa (“e Trinitarian Controversies in Fourth-Century Edessa,” Le Muséon  []: –). While Fiano admits that the evidence is piecemeal and difficult to interpret, he nevertheless concludes that, at the very least, it suggests Edessa’s full integration into the “wider theologico-ecclesial net of Syria and the East” (p. ). . On Ephrem’s theology in relationship to the Trinitarian controversies, see Peter Bruns, “Arius—hellenizans?—Ephräm der Syrer und die neoarianischen Kontroversen seiner Zeit,” Zeitschri für Kirchengeschichte  (): –; Fiano, “Trinitarian Controversies,” –; Lange, Portrayal of Christ, –; Ute Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God,” in God in Early Christian ought: Essays in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson, ed. Andrew B. McGowan, B. E. Daley, and T. J . Gaden (Leiden: Brill, ), –; Paul S. Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the eologian Confront the Arians (Kerala, India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Center, ), –; and Jeffrey Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –. . In this sense, we could say that the “Trinitarian controversies” merely provide a Sitz im Leben for this material. My interest is not, per se, in the history of the doctrines that emerged in the wake of this council. . Frances Young has written that “[t]he writings of Athanasius make it absolutely clear that the Arian controversy was about exegesis” and that “the scriptures seem to have had a key role in the debate from the beginning” (Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture,  [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ], ). See also Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, –. . In only four places in the Madrashe on Faith does Ephrem explicitly address biblical passages that were commonly associated with the Trinitarian controversies: MF , which treats Proverbs :, and MF –, which treat Matthew :. On these, see Lange, Portrayal of Christ, , –; Paul S. Russell, “Ephrem and

 

Athanasius on the Knowledge of Christ,” Gregorianum , no.  (): –; and Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, –. . DJBA, –. . DJBA, –. . On the genre of midrash, see Hermann L. Strack and Gunter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ), –. . See the Wisdom of Solomon :, “ey walked through an uninhabited wilderness, and pitched their tents where it had not been cleared” (d-lâ drîš). For lexical meanings in Syriac, see LS, . As Kathleen E. McVey notes, the Syriac verb draš also does not have any obvious musical rami cations (“Were the Earliest Madrāšê Songs?,” ). . See the Peshitta of Acts :, “He disputed with the Jews” (draš-[h]wâ ‘am yāhûdāyê). . e earliest Syriac account of the life of Ephrem, Jacob of Sarug’s Memra on Mar Ephrem, says that Ephrem composed his madrashe for women, so that they could give glory for the resurrection (lines –) and dispute heretical ideas (lines –) (A Metrical Homily on Holy Mar Ephrem by Mar Jacob of Sarug, ed. Joseph P. Amar, Patrologia Orientalis , no.  [Turnhout: Brepols, ], – and –). As I have argued elsewhere, Ephrem’s prose biographical tradition intentionally separated Ephrem’s exegetical work from his polemical work. It relegated the former to the genre of the commentary and the latter to the madrasha. On this, see Jeffrey Wickes, “Between Liturgy and School: Reassessing the Performative Context of Ephrem’s Madrāšê,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): –. . See Edmund Beck, “Ephräms des Syrers Hymnik,” in Liturgie und Dichtung: Ein interdisziplinäres Kompendium; Gualtero Duerig annum vitae septuagesimum feliciter complenti, vol. , ed. H. Becker and R. Kaczynski (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, ), –. e earliest scholarly treatments were particularly interested in the in uence of the Syriac madrasha on Greek hymnography. See Wilhem Meyer, “Anfang und Ursprung der lateinischen und greichischen rythmischen Dichtung,” in Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittelateinische Rythmik (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, ), –. Kathleen E. McVey argues that before Bardaisan the madrasha was a literary genre, which Bardaisan himself “transformed…into song” (“Were the Earliest Madrāšê Songs?,” ). . For a brief listing of Ephrem’s madrashe, see Joseph Amar, “Ephrem, Life of,” in GEDSH, . More extensively, see Sebastian Brock, “A Brief Guide to the Main Editions and Translations of the Works of Saint Ephrem,” in Saint Éphrem: Un poète pour notre temps (Antélias: Centre d’Études et de Recherches Orientales, ), – and Kees den Biesen, Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian (Umbria: selfpub., ). . Sidney Griffith, “Ephraem the Syrian’s Hymns ‘Against Julian’: Meditations on History and Imperial Power,” Vigiliae Christianae , no.  (September ): –.

 

. e literature on Ephrem and early Christian typology is extensive. I will deal with some aspects of this literature in chapter three. Note here the long tradition of situating Ephrem in terms of “Alexandrian” and “Antiochian” styles of exegesis: Bertrand de Margerie, “La poésie biblique de Saint Ephrem exégète syrien (–),” in Introduction à l’histoire de l’exégèse, vol. : Les pères grecs et orientaux (Paris: Éditions de Cerf, ), –; Nabil el-Khoury, “Hermeneutics in the Works of Ephraim the Syrian,” Orientalia Christiana Analecta  (): –; and Shinichi Muto, “Interpretation in the Greek Antiochenes and the Syriac Fathers,” in e Peshitta: Its Use in Literature and Liturgy; Papers Read At the ird Peshitta Symposium, ed. R. Bas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden: Brill, ), –. While standing within this general tradition, Carmen Maier has recently taken a more nuanced approach to the Antiochian-Alexandrian debates and resituated Ephrem within that scholarly discussion (“Poetry as Exegesis: Ephrem the Syrian’s Method of Scriptural Interpretation Especially as Seen in His Hymns on Paradise and Hymns on Unleavened Bread” [PhD diss., Princeton eological Seminary, ]). Maier argues that there is a “reciprocal hermeneutic” in Ephrem’s writings, in which he interprets both the Bible and his audience in light of one another. She uncovers this at work in the Madrashe on Paradise and Madrashe on Unleavened Bread. ere has also been the related effort to situate Ephrem’s exegesis with respect to his understanding of symbols (though not necessarily with respect to broader Greco-Roman reading trends): Louis Leloir, “Symbolisme et parallélisme chez Saint Ephrem,” in A la recontre de Dieu: Mémorial Albert Gelin (Lyon: Editions Xavier Mappus, ): –; Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, rev. ed. (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, ); Murray, “e eory of Symbolism in St. Ephrem’s eology,” Parole de l’Orient / (): –; and Muto, “Early Syriac Hermeneutics,” e Harp – (): –. T. Bou Mansour (La pensée symbolique de Saint Ephrem le Syrien [Kaslik, Liban: Université Saint-Esprit, ]) interpreted Ephrem using language taken from Gadamer. . For an attempt to systematize this language, see Bou Mansour, Pensée symbolique, –. Shinichi Muto insightfully connects Ephrem’s own exegesis with his understanding of the divine use of symbols: “[I]t is Christ Himself who gathered His own symbols, and it is He, in turn, who lets Ephrem gather them and speak about them” (“Early Syriac Hermeneutics,” ). . On the physical resonances of gura, see Erich Auerbach, “Figura,” in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ), –. . Similarly, Carmen Maier suggests that Ephrem “creates a reciprocal hermeneutic between the biblical text and his own context” (“Poetry as Exegesis,” ). . When I speak of Ephrem’s Bible as “coming into being,” I am not speaking of the formation of the canon. Rather, I intend to indicate the sense in which any text is always coming into and out of being through a community’s use of it. In the Madrashe on Faith, we see this “coming into and out of being” in response to a

 

particular set of theoretical and practical issues. In suggesting that Ephrem’s Bible is not a stable, objective entity but always an object brought into being through his performance of it, I am drawing upon the theories of language as performative, on which, see below. But these ideas are equally re ected in theories of reader-response criticism. See the classic studies of Stanley Fish, Is there a Text in this Class? e Authority of Interpretative Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ) and Wolfgang Iser, e Act of Reading: A eory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: e John Hopkins University Press, ), esp. ch. . . Robert Alter, Canon and Creativity: Modern Writing and the Authority of Scripture (New Haven: Yale, ), , emphasis mine. . Robert Alter has further traced the relationship between Absalom! Absalom! and the King James Bible in Pen of Iron (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), –. . Alter (Pen of Iron, ) points to the terms “blessing,” “curse,” “land,” “seed,” “ esh and bone,” and “blood” as examples of the Jacobean language Faulkner brings into his otherwise Greco-Latinate lexicon. In Pen of Iron, he notes just how far Faulkner’s style is from that of the King James Bible. As Alter describes it, Faulkner displays a “fondness for stylistic extravagance and for stretching the lexical limits of the English language,” and a syntax which is “spectacularly hypotactic, spinning out . . . in complicated coils that allow nothing like the orderly march of independent clauses and parallel statements that characterize biblical writing” (pp. –). Given this distance of Faulkner’s style from that of the Bible, seen in both lexicon and syntax, it makes his dependence upon these terms taken from the King James Bible all the more stark. Alter traces out the above terms at greater length in Pen and Iron, –. . Alter, Pen and Iron, –. . On this, see chapter three. . In emphasizing the performative nature of these poems, I am particularly indebted to the work of Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Derek Krueger, and Laura Lieber on the performative dimensions of late antique liturgical poetry. Harvey has looked at this phenomenon primarily as it relates to women’s choirs in the Syriac world. See Harvey, “Performance as Exegesis: Women’s Liturgical Choirs in Syriac Tradition,” in Inquiries Into Eastern Christian Worship: Acts of the Second International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, ed. Basilius J. Groen and Steven Hawkes Teeples (Leuven: Peeters, ), –; Harvey, Song and Memory: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, ), –; and Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” Patrologia Orientalis , no.  (): –. Krueger has studied the phenomenon of subjectivity in a range of Greek liturgical genres in Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ). Lieber has, in a number of articles, traced the performative and exegetical elements of piyyut. See esp. Lieber, “e Rhetoric of Participation: Experiential Elements of Early Hebrew Liturgical Poetry,” Journal of Religion  (): –; Lieber, “Telling a Liturgical Tale: Storytelling in Early

 

Jewish Liturgical Poetry,” Zeitschri für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte , nos. – (): –; and Lieber, “eater of the Holy: Performative Elements of Late Ancient Hymnography,” Harvard eological Review , no.  (): –. . e eld of performance studies began in the mid-twentieth century among social scientists who began to think of everyday life through the lens of the theater. From there the idea developed of culture as a performance, one in which a society’s views of itself are refracted and rei ed through certain cultural rituals. See Jon McKenzie, “Performance Studies,” in e Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary eory and Criticism, ed. M. Groden, M. Kreiswirth, and I. Szeman (electronic version). Among ritual theorists, the extent to which cultural performance can be taken to represent a society’s view of itself to itself, and the extent to which it can challenge a society’s view of itself, is a live issue. On this, see Catherine Bell, Ritual eory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. More generally, see Philip Auslander, eory for Performance Studies: A Student’s Guide (New York: Routledge, ), –; Tracy C. Davis, ed., e Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –; and Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, nd. ed. (New York: Routledge, ), –. . On the performativity of language in liturgical studies, see Joseph J. Schaller, “Performative Language eory: An Exercise in the Analysis of Ritual,” Worship  (): –. is aspect of “performativity” draws upon the linguistic theories of J. L. Austin, How to do ings with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ) and Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, ). . Bell addressed performance theory both in Ritual eory, Ritual Practice and in Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. . Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, . For a clear articulation of these performative elements in the context of Ephrem’s madrashe, see Maier, “Poetry as Exegesis,” –. . Unlike the refrains in Romanos’s kontakia, which are built into the syntax of the poems, Ephrem’s refrains stand syntactically independent of the stanzas. Moreover, the different madrashe manuscripts oen manifest different refrains for single madrashe. is could suggest that the refrains postdate Ephrem’s life. More likely, given their perennial attestation, it suggests that the refrains always formed a exible element in the performance of the madrashe, one which easily morphed in performative contexts. For a thoughtful re ection on refrains in Romanos’s kontakia, see omas Arentzen, “Voices Interwoven: Refrains and Vocal Participation in the Kontakia,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik  (): –. . On this point, Bell further suggests that ritual and performance aim “to reduce and simplify [the world] so as to create more or less coherent systems of categories that can then be projected onto the full spectrum of human experience” (Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, ).

 

CHA P T E R 1 . E PH R E M’S M A DR ASH E ON FA I T H I N  C ON T E XT

. e Madrashe on Faith is found complete in BM Add.  (th–th c.) and Vat. Syr.  (dated to  ..). Portions of the Madrashe on Faith are found in Vat. Syr.  (dated to  ..) and BM Add.  (dated to  ..). On these manuscripts, see Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO  (Louvain: L. Durbecq, ), iiiii and Sebastian Brock, “e Transmission of Ephrem’s madrashe in the Syriac Liturgical Tradition,” Studia Patristica  (): –. e other madrashe collections found among these early manuscripts are MAH, MAJ, MChurch, MCruc, MFast, MNat, MNis, MPar, MRes, MUnlB, and MVir. On the transmission of Ephrem’s madrashe collections, see the classic studies of Brock, “Transmission”; A. de Halleux, “Une clé pour les hymnes d’Ephrem dansle ms Sinai syr. ,” Mus  (): –; de Halleux, “La transmission des hymnes d’Ephrem d’aprés le ms Sinai syr. ,” Orientalia Christiana Analecta  (): –; and B. Outtier, “Contribution a l’étude de la préhistoire des collections d’hymnes d’Ephrem,” Parole de l’Orient – (–): –. Recently, Aaron M. Butts has argued compellingly for a new approach to these manuscript collections. Butts notes that aer the sixth century, Ephrem’s madrashe begin to circulate in a piecemeal fashion. is breaking up of the older collections was not random but represented a speci c way of receiving Ephrem in a post-Chalcedonian Syriac environment. Butts writes: “[T]he changes we see in the transmission of Ephrem’s hymns around the sixth century, when we cease having complete hymns and start having only excerpts, serve as evidence that Ephrem was no longer entirely acceptable theologically to post-Chalcedonian Syriac Christians” (“Manuscript Transmission as Reception History: e Case of Ephrem the Syrian [d. ],” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  [Summer ]: ). My argument for the emergence of Ephrem’s poems in contexts of study may suggest another reason for the madrashe’s later piecemeal circulation: as the madrasha became a strictly liturgical genre it made less sense to preserve and transmit those madrashe that were not explicitly connected to events on the liturgical calendar. . e h- and sixth-century madrashe collections oen contain smaller “subcollections”—groups of madrashe internally united by melody, meter, and sometimes title, number, and even theme. e clearest example of one of these internally embedded subcollections can be seen in MF –. ese ve madrashe are given their own title—e Madrashe on the Pearl—and their own colophon —“e [Madrashe] on the pearl are complete.” It may be the case that these subcollections represent earlier versions of the h- and sixth-century collections, but we cannot know for certain. Blake Hartung argues that these subcollections manifest the earliest editorial layer of the larger hymn cycles and should thus be our entry point into studying Ephrem. See Hartung, “e Authorship and Dating of the Syriac Corpus attributed to Ephrem of Nisibis: A Reassessment,” Zeitschri für Antikes Christentum , no.  (): –.

 

. e apocryphal Testament of Ephrem, in which Ephrem, upon his deathbed, delivers a metered discourse to his disciples, contains no reference to the collecting of his madrashe. See Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones IV, CSCO / (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, ), – (Syriac text) / – (German translation). . Sidney Griffith says that “[a]er Ephraem’s lifetime, his followers and admirers collected his madrāšê and continued to use them for both liturgical and instructional purposes; they began to arrange them into thematic compilations” (“St. Ephraem, Bar Dayṣān, and the Clash of Madrāšê in Aram: Readings in St. Ephraem’s Hymni contra Haereses,” e Harp  []: –). Christian Lange thinks Ephrem compiled the collections himself (e Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron, CSCO Subsidia  [Louvain: Peeters, ], ). Likewise, Sebastian Brock suspects that at least some of the cycles derive from Ephrem himself (“Poetry and Hymnography []: Syriac,” in Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. S. A. Harvey and D. Hunter [Oxford: Oxford University Press, ], ). On these questions, however, see Hartung, “Authorship and Dating,” which argues that “the cycles postdate Ephrem and were assembled by editors for purposes not necessarily correlating with Ephrem’s own” (p. ). . See initially Jeffrey Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –. I use this terminology as a window through which to observe Ephrem’s theological context and biblical poetics in chapter two of this book. . Hartung, “Authorship and Dating ,” –. . Moreover, none of the interpretations I offer below depends upon the structure of the Madrashe on Faith as it develops across the collection as a whole. . See Emanuel Fiano, “e Trinitarian Controversies in Fourth-Century Edessa,” Le Muséon  (): –; Lange, Portrayal of Christ, –; and Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, –. . Beck, Hymnen de Fide, –. Clearly, however, he does take the work to derive from aer  (see p. ). . In his study of the Commentary on the Diatessaron, Christian Lange takes a general scholarly tendency to read Ephrem’s works loosely in connection with his biography and develops a strict chronological interpretation of these works (Portrayal of Christ, –). In Lange’s view, not only can we divide Ephrem’s life into three distinct periods—a period at Nisibis (–); period of relocation (–); and a period at Edessa (–)—we can map most of Ephrem’s authentic works onto these periods in fairly clear ways. Lange’s assignment of the works to different historical periods, however, seems to me to depend upon faulty assumptions. For example, he argues that the Memre on Nicomedia must date from soon aer , because Ephrem’s tone of lamentation suggests that “the memory of the catastrophe was still fresh” (p. ). But certainly Ephrem, like any skilled orator, was capable of articulating great pathos regardless of his personal connection to the events about which he spoke. In other places, Lange’s reasoning is simply not clear

 

to me. For example, he dates the Memre on Faith to Nisibis, because Ephrem “argues against ‘Arians’ and Jews at Nisibis,” but does not specify what about those memre suggests a Nisibene rather than an Edessan context. See also Hartung, “Authorship and Dating ,” esp. –. . e literature is extensive, but see Fergus Millar, e Roman Near East,  —  (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ), –. . For recent surveys and analysis, see Aaron M. Butts, Language Change in the Wake of Empire: Syriac in its Greco-Roman Context, Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic  (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, ), – and Scott F. Johnson, ed., Languages and Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Greek, e Worlds of Eastern Christianity, –  (Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, ), –. See the classic studies of Sebastian Brock, “Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria,” in Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, ed. A. K Bowman and G. Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ) –. Fergus Millar has perhaps written most extensively on the topic of Greek and Syriac in late antiquity. I do not try to replicate his bibliography in its entirety here (for this, see Butts, Language Change, and Johnson, Languages and Cultures). For a sampling of his arguments, see esp., on the early period, Millar, “Greek and Syriac in Edessa and Osrhoene,  –,” Scripta Classica Israelica  (): –; Millar, “Greek and Syriac in Edessa: From Ephrem to Rabbula ( –),” Semetica et Classica  (): – ; and Millar, Religion, Language, and Community in the Roman Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). For the period aer Chalcedon, see Millar, “e Evolution of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the Pre-Islamic Period: From Greek to Syriac?” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (Spring ): –. For a critique of Millar’s views, see Johnson, Languages and Cultures, – and – . . e question of whether Ephrem wrote anything in Greek is not entirely closed, but it is very unlikely that he did so. Two fairly recent works—Ephrem Lash, “Metrical Texts of Greek Ephrem,” in Ascetica, Gnostica, Liturgica, Orientalia, ed. M . F. Wiles and E. J. Yarnold, Studia Patristica  (Leuven: Peeters, ), – and Trevor Fiske Crowell, “e Biblical Homilies of Ephreaem Graecus” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, ), esp. —offer initial analyses of early Greek prose and metrical works that bear the name of Ephrem, and which seem conversant with Syriac poetic styles, though not necessarily with the authentic works of Ephrem. e one exception here is the Ephrem Graecus homily “On the Prophet Jonah and on the Repentance of the Ninevites,” which exists in very similar Greek and Syriac versions. See Crowell, “Biblical Homilies,” – and André de Halleux, “A propos du sermon éphrémien sur Jonas et la pentitence des Ninivites,” in Lingua Restituta Orientalis: Festgabe für Julius Assfalg, ed. R. Schulz and M. Görg (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz, ), –. On the question of Ephrem’s knowledge of Greek, see below. . Bardaisan’s Book of the Laws of Countries (ca.  ..), though written in Syriac, mimics Greek dialogue forms and betrays an acquaintance with Greek philosophical ideas. e Odes of Solomon (early second century ..) and the Acts of

 

Thomas (second/third century) are attested in both Greek and Syriac versions very early on, rendering it impossible to discern which came rst, and, more importantly, suggesting a context of close Greek and Syriac interaction. On a linguistic level, Aaron Butts has recently shown that Greek rst manifests itself in Aramaic as early as the rst millennium. By the third century C.E., “the Aramaicspeaking inhabitants of Syria and Mesopotamia had already been in contact with the Greco-Roman world and its Greek language for more than half a millennium” (Language Change, –). On the level of art, a mosaic of Orpheus with a Syriac inscription is attested in  .. See Ute Possekel, “Orpheus Among the Animals: A New Dated Mosaic from Osrhoene,” Oriens Christianus  (): –. On the Syriac inscription, see John F. Healey, “A New Syriac Mosaic Inscription,” Journal of Semitic Studies  (Autumn, ): –. Note, too, that Orpheus is one of the only classical gures to which Ephrem alludes (MNis :, Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Carmina Nisibena, CSCO  [Louvain: Secrétariat de CorpusSCO, ], ). . Fergus Millar argues that, to the extent Syriac-speaking bishops communicated with Greek-speaking bishops in the Roman Empire, they would have carried out this communication in Greek. See Millar, “Greek and Syriac in Edessa and Osrhoene,”  and , where he states this generally, and Millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under eodosios II (–), Sather Classical Lectures  (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), –, where he applies this speci cally to the ecumenical councils. On this point, see also Johnson, Languages and Cultures, . . is scholarly tendency, and the related bibliography, has been thoroughly traced by Ute Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ), –. We can think of the views as running on a spectrum from those who would simply cite Ephrem as an example of a Syriac author who knew no Greek to those that would see Ephrem as antagonistic to Greek culture as a whole. For an example of the former, see Brock, “Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria,” –. For an example of the latter, see Peter Bruns, “Arius—hellenizans?—Ephräm der Syrer und die neoarianischen Kontroversen seiner Zeit,” Zeitschri für Kirchengeschichte  (): . . Even the Commenatry on Genesis, while closer perhaps to Greek biblical commentaries, is sui generis. See omas Kremer, Mundus Primus: Die Geschichte der Welt und des Menschen von Adam bis Noach im Genesiskommentar Ephräms des Syrers, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ),  and Lukas Van Rompay, “e Christian Syriac Tradition of Interpretation,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, vol. : From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until ), ed. M. Saebø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), –. . Not to mention works that arose just aer Ephrem’s death, such as BL Add. , , a Syriac Codex from  that contains exclusively Syriac translations of Greek works. As Aaron Butts states, this manuscript attests to the fact that by  there existed in Edessa a “well-developed translation program from Greek into

 

Syriac” (Butts, Language Change, ). Such a program does not develop suddenly. On this manuscript and its relevance for Greek and Syriac in Edessa, see Millar, “Greek and Syriac in Edessa,” –. . Butts makes this observation in service of a larger argument that Greek and Syriac language were already in close contact by the second century. Certainly, his argument is persuasive. But the point still stands that “the early third-century Book of the Laws of Countries contains a higher concentration of Greek loanwords than the equally philosophical Prose Refutations by Ephrem, which stems from the latter half of the fourth century” (Language Change , ). . She writes, “[T]hese two cases do not indicate that Ephrem knew Greek. His inadequate translation may actually indicate the opposite: Ephrem did not properly translate these Greek exegetical comments because of his likely unfamiliarity, or at least insufficient familiarity, with Greek.” See Yifat Monnickendam, “How Greek is Ephrem’s Syriac? Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis as a Case Study,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): . While I am inclined to agree with Monnickendam’s conclusions regarding Ephrem’s knowledge of Greek language, her argument for Ephrem’s relationship to Greco-Latin exegetical traditions, at least in the two examples she studies, is less convincing to me. She argues that Ephrem develops exegetical arguments that, for linguistic reasons, would only make sense if he were aware of Greek and Latin exegetical problems. Aside from the fact that her connection of his exegesis to Greek and Latin gures appears somewhat circuitous (for example, Jerome, who writes aer Ephrem’s death, becomes the primary depository for the traditions represented by his reading of Gen. :), in both of the examples she provides, Ephrem’s exegesis seems to arise either from ambiguities in the Peshitta text itself (in the case of Gen. ) or in the ambiguity of the Syriac language (in Gen. ). . In “Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria,” , Sebastian Brock suggests that Ephrem’s ignorance of Greek re ects his provenance from Nisibis, a town whose “Christian community…was predominantly Syriac-speaking,” a Greek inscription on a baptistery notwithstanding. Elsewhere, Brock implies that Ephrem’s ignorance of Greek re ected his social background. Noting “a ourishing bilingual culture at Edessa,” he nevertheless says that the culture “le only a minimal mark on Ephrem himself, and in all probability it was the preserve of only the upper echelons of Edessene society” (Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning,” in East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. N. G. Garsoïan, T. F. Mathews, and R. W. omson [Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, ]), . . is is stated most dramatically by Peter Bruns, who argues that Ephrem opposed “everything Greek in theology” (“Arius—hellenizans?” ). . e Madrashe on Faith twice more references the “Greeks” in terms that are arguably condemnatory. In MF :, Ephrem identi es “accursed disputation” as “the hidden worm (sāsâ) of the Greeks.” In MF :, he retells Paul’s visit to Athens (Acts :–) and names Athens “the mother of the Greeks.” Ephrem calls the Athenians “presumptuous ones” who “spit up the medicine of life.” He also says that

 

Paul was “subtler” then the Athenians, a statement he clearly intends ironically, given that this quality of being “subtle” (qaṭṭîn) is one he associates with Aetius (MAH :). e evidence here is less clear, but it seems reasonable to read Ephrem as intending to link “the Greeks” with these behaviors. . See Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation,” . Paul Russell takes the phrase in reference to “upper classes” in Nisibis and Edessa who were “much enamored with Greek philosophy” (“A Note on Ephraem the Syrian and ‘the Poison of the Greeks’ in Hymns on Faith ,” e Harp , no.  []: –). . “Letter to Alexander of Constantinople,” English translation by Andrew S. Jacobs in Christianity in Late Antiquity, – ..: A Reader, ed. Bart Ehrman and Andrew S. Jacobs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), . . Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation,” . . Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts. . ough see my comments above. Elsewhere, Monnickendam notes that, in his legal terminology, Ephrem shows his dependence upon non-Greek Jewish legal traditions (“Articulating Marriage: Ephrem’s Legal Terminology and Its Origins,” Journal of Semitic Studies , no.  []: –. . Jeffrey Wickes, “Mapping the Literary Landscape of Ephrem’s eology of Divine Names,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers  (): –. ere I note that in the Madrashe on Faith Ephrem never grounds his theology of divine names in a divine ontology. However, he does do so repeatedly in the Memre on Faith. I argue that he intentionally took this aspect of his thought from Aetius and Eunomius and developed it in the Memre on Faith in what he perceived as an orthodox direction, but then abandoned it in light of critiques of Eunomius. . In characterizing these debates as distinctly “Greek” debates, I do not mean to imply that they re ected an abstract “Greek” mode of thought, as something distinct from a “Semitic” mode of thought. For a classic dismantling of such juxtapositions from the perspective of biblical studies, see James Barr, e Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. eologically, I also do not mean to imply that because Greek speakers developed these ideas they had some sort of monopoly on their interpretation, as if Ephrem’s particular receptions of these ideas, because he was a non-Greek speaker, should somehow be relegated as second class. In this case, I use the word “Greek” merely to indicate that these debates arose and developed in regions that were primarily Greek speaking, and that they migrated (in a way that could almost be described as simultaneous) from Greek to other languages (e.g., Syriac, Coptic, and Latin). . In MAJ :–, Ephrem refers to Julian’s transfer of the body of the martyr Babylas and the subsequent burning of the Temple of Apollo. See Kathleen E.McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (New York: Paulist Press, ), –. . To the best of my knowledge, Ephrem’s use of this line of rhetoric has not been studied, with the exception of one reference in Edmund Beck, Die eologie des hl Ephraem in seinen Hymnen über den Glauben, Studia Anselmania  (Rome: Ponti cium Institutum S. Anselmi, ), , in reference to MF :. On this argument among Christians and Jews in late antiquity, see Elizabeth Clark, Reading

 

Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), –; David Daube, “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric,”  Hebrew Union College Annual   (): –; and David Stern, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ), –. . ough Ute Possekel suggests that the Nisibene educational system “may well have been modeled aer Graeco-Roman education,” given how Hellenized the city was by Ephrem’s time (Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts, ). . Regarding the appearance of invented speech in Syriac literature, Susan Harvey says that “[w]hat we see in Syriac hymns and verse homilies is the utilization of rhetorical and narrative features familiar in the larger hellenized culture of the Roman Empire…articulated through the particular genius of Syriac poetical forms” (“Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in the Syriac Tradition,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  []: ). . Johnson argues, “[S]cholars of other eastern Christian languages…have a major role to play in de ning the study of Greek in the East. Furthermore, it is increasingly clear today that a Hellenist writing a history of Greek literature in the late antique and Byzantine worlds will need to have ready access to more ancient languages than just Greek and Latin” (Languages and Cultures, ). . For a similar approach applied primarily to piyyut, but with cross-linguistic late antique hymnography in mind, see Laura Lieber, “eater of the Holy: Performative Elements of Late Ancient Hymnography,” Harvard eological Review , no.  (): –. . Portions of the following appear in Jeffrey Wickes, “Between Liturgy and School: Reassessing the Performative Context of Ephrem’s Madrāšê,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): –. . See Griffith, “St. Ephraem, Bar Dayṣān and the Clash of Madrāšê,” . For Brown’s comparison of Ephrem to Chrysostom, see his e Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, ), . Regarding the public nature of the madrashe, Joseph Amar says that Ephrem’s “liturgical compositions were public events in the church in his day” (e Syriac Vita Tradition of Ephrem the Syrian, CSCO  [Louvain: Peeters, ], xii). . Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy, –. Shepardson does not addresses Ephrem’s performative context outright. But her interpretation assumes that the madrashe are shaping the religious horizons of the general population of late antique Nisibis and Edessa. When she speaks speci cally of the Madrashe on Pascha, her interpretations make sense, because, as I would argue, they were performed liturgically. At the same time, her monograph draws equally on the Madrashe on Faith, which, I would argue, were, for the most part, not performed liturgically. is manner of speaking collapses and makes monolithic the madrashe’s performative context but ignores the diversity of the madrashe corpus itself and the biases of the biographical tradition that informs us of their performance.

 

. See Joseph P. Amar, A Metrical Homily on Holy Mar Ephrem by Mar Jacob of Sarug, Patrologia Orientalis , no.  (Turnhout: Brepols, ), –. On this homily, see also Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant: Women’s Choirs and Sacred Song in Ancient Syriac Christianity,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies  (): –. . On this aspect of the memra, see Kathleen E. McVey, “Ephrem the kitharode and Proponent of Women: Jacob of Serug’s Portrait of a Fourth-Century Churchman for the Sixth-Century Viewer and Its Signi cance for the Twenty- rstcentury Ecumenist,” in Orthodox and Wesleyan Ecclesiology, ed. S. T. Kimbrough (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ), –. . Ch. A. is chapter is only attested in two manuscripts—P and D. is quotation is from P. is translation is based on Amar, Syriac Vita Tradition, . . Ch. A, ms D. is quotation is adapted from Amar, Syriac Vita Tradition, –. . Given that the Bible would be read in liturgical as well as scholastic settings, a madrasha that focuses on the Bible cannot be considered liturgical based upon that fact alone. Rather, its use of the Bible must be combined with some other liturgical element, for example, festal references, or references to ritual actions. . ese criteria admittedly do not allow us to locate madrashe within the services of the daily office, but there are not really criteria that would allow us to do so. Perhaps we could trace references to Psalms, or references to times of days, or the lighting of lamps in the evening, but this would leave us on very speculative ground. . MUnlB , , , , , , , and  evidence an underlying reading from Exodus. MUnlB , , , , , , , and  evidence an underlying reading from a Passion Gospel. . at is, these madrashe indicate that members of Ephrem’s congregations were attending Jewish Passover services alongside Christian Paschal services and seek to dissuade them from doing so. On this aspect of the Madrashe on Unleavened Bread see Shepardson, Anti-Judaism, . e meter of MUnlB – is + / + / +. e meter of MUnlB – is + / +. . See, for example, Madrashe on Nativity , which draws on Matthew’s genealogy, and messianic prophesies from the Old Testament. . A caveat: I obviously do not mean to imply that these documents lack any references to the Bible, but that the references to the Bible do not anchor the madrashe as scriptural lections generally do, and as the underlying scriptural lections do in the speci c cases of the Madrashe on Unleavened Bread and Madrashe on Navitivity. . For example, MF  re ects upon the coherency of the Old and New Testaments, and the equal glory of the divine Father and Son. As one piece of this argument, in : Ephrem exclaims, “Great is the disgrace to the ree, / If someone is baptized with borrowed names.” In this line, Ephrem argues that using a Trinitarian baptismal formula while denying the equal divinity of the Father and the Son represents a contradiction. e madrasha as a whole, though, does not concern

 

itself with baptism and thus presents little evidence that it was performed in connection with a baptismal service. For the most part, these polemical references to liturgical practices invoke baptism: see MF :, ; :; :; :; :; :; :; :; :; :; and :. For a use of the Eucharist for the same polemic, see MF : and :. . MF  presents itself as a scene of heavenly worship, and twice references the birth of Christ. Andrew Palmer has argued that MF  and  “seem to imitate the two parts of the anaphora” of Addai and Mari (“e Fourth-Century Liturgy of Edessa Re ected in Ephraim’s Madroshe  and  on Faith,” in e Eucharist in eology and Philosophy: Issues of Doctrinal History in East and West from the Patristic Age to the Reformation, ed. István Perczel, Réka Forrai, and György Geréby [Leuven: Leuven University Press, ], ). His argument is interesting but very speculative. MF , , and  use language that sounds vaguely eucharistic, but which is difficult to place precisely. MF  and  do not use liturgical language but do present themselves as the uni ed song of the Church. MF  repeatedly uses the language of “font” in a way that means equally to invoke baptism, Eucharist, and the Bible. Finally, MF : references baptism in a non-polemical way. . MF . . On the kinds of questions one can ask regarding divine nature, see MF ; :; :; :; :–; :–; :; :; :–; :; :; :–; :; :; :; :; :; and :. On Trinitarian metaphors, see especially MF . . On the cosmology, see MF :, and on psychology—speci cally, memory —see MF . . See MF :–; :–; ; :–; :–; :–; :; ; :–; :–; :–; and :. . For a recent summary of the fourth-century development of the lectionary, see Andrew B. McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and eological Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ), –. On the particularities of the Syriac lectionary system, see Willem Baars, New Syro-Hexaplaric Texts (Leiden: Brill, ); F. C. Burkitt, e Early Syriac Lectionary System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ); K. D. Jenner, “e Development of Syriac Lectionary Systems: A Discussion of the Opinion of P. Kannookadan,” e Harp , no.  (): –; and Pauly Kannookadan, e East Syrian Lectionary: An Historico-Liturgical Sudy (Rome: Mar oma Yogam, ). . On the use of the verses in the debates, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian eology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), . . For a helpful summary of the importance of “teaching” in Ephrem’s overall corpus, see Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts, –. . MF :. . See Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts, –. Her question does not relate to the school per se, but to the context within which Ephrem himself was educated. She speculates that it was some sort of circle built around the bishops of Nisibis, along with some sort of secondary school in Nisibis.

 

. e literature on the “children of the covenant” is immense. See George Nedungatt, “e Covenanters of the Early Syriac-Speaking Church,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica  (): – and Robert Murray, “e Exhortation to Candidates for Ascetical Vows At Baptism in the Ancient Syriac Church,” New Testament Studies  (): –. For a more recent discussion of older literature, as well as a nuanced assessment of the terminology involved, see Sidney Griffith’s “Asceticism in the Church of Syria: e Hermeneutics of Early Syrian Monasticism,” in Asceticism, ed. V. L. Wimbush and R. Valantasis (New York: Oxford University Press, ), –. . Aphrahat’s sixth Demonstration (“On Covenanters”) speaks to this community most immediately. See Adam Lehto, e Demonstrations of Aphrahat, the Persian Sage (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ), –. . Demonstration , for example, rst addresses men who might be tempted by women, and then turns to advise celibate women not to live with celibate men. . Regarding Aphrahat, his tirade against celibate woman and men living together suggests they had some freedom in how to structure their living arrangements. Ephrem similarly suggests the absence of communal living structures in MPar :, where he refers to a widow who lives alone “in a lonely house.” . at is, fasting and vigilance (MF :), chastity (MAH :), poverty (MNis :), and virginity (MPar :, MAH :–, MNis :). . On the Book of Steps, see Kristian S. Heal and Robert A. Kitchen, Breaking the Mind: New Studies in the Syriac “Book of the Steps” (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –. On Pseudo-Macarius, see Columba Stewart,“Working the Earth of the Heart”: e Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to   (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). On the place of the Acts of Judas omas within early Syriac Christianity, see Hans  J. W. Drijvers, “Apocryphal Literature in the Cultural Milieu of Osrhoëne,” in Apocrypha: Le Champ des Apocryphes . La Fable Apocryphe, ed. P. Geoltrain, E. Junod, and J. C. Picard (Turnhout: Brepols, ), –. On the Pseudo-Clementines in the context of late antique Syria, see Nicole Kelley, Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: Situating the Recognitions in Fourth Century Syria (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ), –. . See, for example, Sebastian Brock, St. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns on Paradise (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ), – and Joseph Amar, “Byzantine Ascetic Monachism and Greek Bias in the Vita Tradition of Ephrem the Syrian,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica  (): –. is approach takes its root in the formative studies of Edmund Beck, in which he distinguished the authentic and inauthentic works of Ephrem on the basis of a “monastic” lexicon that emerged in the spurious works. See especially his “Asketentum und Monchtum bei Ephraem,” Orientalia Christiana Analecta  (), – and “Ein Beitrag zur Terminologie des altesten syrischen Monchtums,” Studia Anselmiana  (): –.

 

. Adam H. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: e School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ), . . Robert Murray remarks: “What the course of studies was like in the fourth century, we can doubtless imagine best from Ephrem’s ‘Exegetical Commentary’… on Genesis” (in Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, rev. ed. [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, ], ). . Lange, Portrayal of Christ, –. . See especially Ephrem’s “Against Bardaisan’s ‘Domnus,’” in St. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations, :– (English) and :– (Syriac). . Jerome’s “Letter to Eustochium” counsels Julia Eustochium to construct her spiritual life through reading (translation in e Principal Works of St. Jerome, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, nd ser., vol. , ed. Philip Schaff [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, ], ). In Egypt and Jerusalem, Evagrius’s letters depict a community carrying out theological debates through reading and writing (see especially letters , , , , and , which relate to the Origenist controversy, in Wilhelm Frankenberg, Euagrius Ponticus [Berlin: Weidmannsche buchhandlung, ]). On disputational communities in Antioch, see Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), ch. . . is translation is altered from Gregory of Nazianzus, Autobiographical Poems, ed. Carolinne White (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), . . See the material collected in James McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), esp. –. . Cecilia Milovanovic-Barham, “Gregory of Nazianzus: Ars Poetica (in suos versus: Carmen ..),” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): –; Frederick Norris, “Gregory Nazianzus’ Poemata Arcana: A Poetic, Musical Catechism?” Union Seminary Quarterly Review , nos. – (): –. . On this period of Gregory’s life, see John A. McGuckin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ), –. . On Basil, Macrina, and Eustathios, see Philip Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), –. . Paul Russell has compared Ephrem and Gregory Nazianzen (St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the eologian Confront the Arians [Kerala, India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Center, ]); Sebastian Brock has compared Ephrem to Gregory of Nyssa, e Luminous Eye: e Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, ), –. See, more generally, David Taylor, “St. Ephraim’s In uence on the Greeks,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies , no.  (): –. . Becker, Fear of God, –. . Becker, Fear of God, – . Becker, Fear of God, –.

 

. English translation in Becker, Fear of God, –. Syriac text is provided in e Statutes of the School of Nisibis, ed. Arthur Vööbus (Stockholm: ETSE, ). . Becker, Fear of God, . . Becker, Fear of God, . . Becker, Fear of God, . . Becker, Fear of God, . CHA P T E R 2 . I N V E ST IG AT ION

. I take this language of “melding” from Kevin Kalish’s study of late antique Greek poetry and poetics. See his “Greek Christian Poetry in Classical Forms: the Codex of Visions from the Bodmer Papyri and the Melding of Literary Traditions” (PhD diss., Princeton University, ). . C. W. Mitchell, St. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, vol. ; e Discourses addressed to Hypatius, Text and Translation Society a (London: Williams and Norgate, ), vi (English). Syriac text in S. Ephraemi Syri, Rabulae Episcopi Edesseni, Balaei Aliorumque: Opera Selecta, ed. J. J. Overbeck (Oxford: Clarendoniano, ), . As this passage suggests, Ephrem does envision some positive role for investigation, though his assessment is overwhelmingly negative. But see, on the positive, poems :– and :. . More commonly, Ephrem uses the term bṣātâ, which I also translate as “Investigation.” . Put most simply, investigation can be rendered licit insofar as it sets “revealed things” (galyātâ) as its object. Bible, nature, and the body of Christ represent the primary realms of the revealed. However, Ephrem is far more concerned with mistaken attempts to investigate that which is “hidden” (kasyâ). For him, the realm of the hidden is constituted primarily as the inner life of the Trinity, especially the way in which God begot a Son. See Sidney Griffith, “Faith Seeking Understanding in the ought of Saint Ephrem the Syrian,” in Faith Seeking Understanding, ed. G. C . Berthold (New York: St. Anselm College Press, ), –. . For a fuller treatment of Ephrem’s extensive lexicon of investigation, see Jeffrey Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ) –. For a different treatment of these issues, one which is much more concerned with a systematic reconstruction of Ephrem’s theology, see Kees den Biesen, Simple and Bold: Ephrem’s Art of Symbolic ought (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ). . ough this history, outside of the Bible (on which, see below), is invisible to us. e term does not gure prominently in the Syriac literature that predates Ephrem. . e discussion that has been most helpful for me in thinking through this aspect of Ephrem’s language has been that of the musicologist Richard Taruskin. In his book De ning Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), –, he distinguishes between “syntactic” symbols, which refer to and resonate within the artistic work itself, and “semantic”

 

symbols, which point to the world outside of the artistic work. In the case of Ephrem’s lexicon for investigation, the terms would have a certain “syntactic” meaning, which would be acquired from his literary body. But that “syntactic” meaning would be shaped as well by the terms’ “semantic” meanings, which would be acquired from the use of those terms outside of Ephrem’s literary works. . For example, Ephrem will refer to humans simply as “dust,” a term that ultimately derives from Genesis :. But aside from his use of that simple word, he connects “dust,” to the biblical text in no obvious way (see, for example, MF :, :, :). He will also refer to God as “consuming re,” a term that derives from Deuteronomy : and :, but which, again, Ephrem connects to the biblical source in no obvious way (see MF :). And he will refer to heaven or sky as “heaven and the highest heaven,” a term that occurs, inter alia, in  Kings : and Psalms :. In each of these cases, Ephrem has clearly taken a term from the Bible to name some other thing. In none of these cases does the biblical name accomplish something that any other noun would not. But it is clearly Ephrem’s preference to use biblical language to name things outside or transcendent of the Bible. . Note that I am not here talking about the ideas that lie behind this language. Den Biesen (Simple and Bold) does a ne job of unpacking these ideas in a theologically sophisticated way. His concern is not with the lexicon itself. . David Bundy suggests a more general anti-Arian and anti-Manichaean context for the language (“Language and the Knowledge of God in Ephrem Syrus,” e Patristic and Byzantine Review , no.  []: –). With the exception of the philosophical-theological analysis of Den Biesen, Simple and Bold, discussion of Ephrem’s language of investigation tends to be either descriptive or aimed at establishing historical context. See Edmund Beck, Die eologie des hl Ephraem in seinen Hymnen über den Glauben, Studia Anselmania  (Rome: Ponti cium Institutum S. Anselmi, ), ch. ; Peter Bruns, “Arius—hellenizans?—Ephräm der Syrer und die neoarianischen Kontroversen seiner Zeit,” Zeitschri für Kirchengeschichte  (): –; Griffith, “Faith Seeking Understanding”; Ute Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God,” in God in Early Christian ought: Essays in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson, ed. Andrew B. McGowan, B. E. Daley, and T. J. Gaden (Leiden: Brill, ), –; Paul Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the eologian Confront the Arians (Kerala, India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Center, ), –; Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –. Each of these authors highlights important aspects of Ephrem’s condemnation of investigation. None, however, investigate the biblical resonances of the language itself. . From the root b-‘-y, “to investigate,” Ephrem further derives bā‘ûyâ, “investigator,” and b‘ātâ, “investigation.” From b-ṣ-y, also translated as “to investigate,” Ephrem derives bāṣûyâ, “investigator” and bṣātâ, “investigation.” In its various forms, b‘â occurs roughly  times, and bṣâ roughly  times. . From draš, “to debate,” Ephrem also uses drāšâ, “debate” and dārûšâ, “debater.” From ‘qab, “to discuss,” he uses also ‘ûqqābâ, “discussion.”

 

. irty-three times in its verbal form (šʼel) and  times in its noun form (šûʼʼālâ, “question,” or “questioning”). . is vocabulary is missing entirely only in hymns , , , , , , , , , , and . . J. S. Assemani, ed., Sancti Patris Nostri Ephraem Syri Opera Omnia quae exstant graece, syriace, latine, in sex tomos distributa (Rome: Vatican, –). . See Beck, Die eologie; Bruns, “Arius—hellenizans?”; Griffith, “Faith Seeking Understanding”; Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God”; Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the eologian, –, and Shepardson, AntiJudaism, –. . On the Church is a single hymn which stands as a preface to the Madrashe Against Julian (Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Paradiso und Contra Julianum, CSCO  [Louvain: Secrétariat de CorpusSCO, ], –). It should not be confused with Ephrem’s cycle, On the Church, which consists in  hymns (Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Ecclesia, CSCO /[Louvain: Secrétariat de CorpusSCO, ]). . I do not mean to imply that these controversies ceased once Julian came into power, just that, in this particular context, Ephrem presents them that way. . e term bṣâ occurs thirteen times, b‘â occurs sixteen times, draš occurs forty times, ‘qab occurs eleven times. ese numbers have been generated by the Oxford–BYU Syriac corpus (www.syriaccorpus.org). . See MAH : and ; :, , and ; :; :; and :. In each of these cases, Ephrem refers to investigation (or its connected vocabulary) in a single passage, without explication. . Ephrem takes the term “tares” (zîzānê) from the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. :–), and it becomes one of his favorite identi ers of heretical opponents. See Sidney Griffith, “e orn among the Tares: Mani and Manichaeism in the Works of St. Ephraem the Syrian,” Studia Patristica  (): –. . “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephraem’s Hymns Against Heresies,” in e Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique ought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus, ed. W. E . Klingshirn and M. Vessey (Ann Arbor: e University of Michigan Press, ), , –. . As “outsiders,” Ephrem also identi es followers of Valentinus, Quq (at MAH :–), as well as Sabbatians and Chaldeans (at MAH :). See Griffith, “Setting Right the Church,” . . In MAH :, Ephrem says that these insiders “received ordination from our church, / And some of them even subscribed / to the faith that was prescribed / at the illustrious synod” that is, presumably, Nicaea. See Griffith, “Setting Right the Church,” –. . We see the same phenomenon in MAH :–. MAH  and , moreover, while they do not address anti-Arian issues directly, use language redolent of the Madrashe on Faith.

 

. See MAH :, ; :; :; and :. e language appears without negative connotations at MAH :, :, :, and :. . Using biblical parallels, we can make guesses about the Greek equivalents to Ephrem’s language of investigation (e.g., zēteō, exichneuō, dokimazō, ereunaō, and etazō). But, based on a TLG search, none of these terms appears with any signi cance in the Greek literature contemporary with him. . at is, certain terms, such as b‘â and ‘qab, are simply common Syriac terms. But while they appear in Syriac literature prior to Ephrem, the authors of those works do not impart any special signi cance to them. is is something of an argument from silence, as we do not have much Syriac literature prior to Ephrem with which to compare him. But given that none of the Syriac literature we do have develops this anti-investigative lexicon at all, there is at least good reason to suspect Ephrem is not simply borrowing it from an earlier source or intellectual tradition but is developing it himself. . A good point of comparison would be Sebastian Brock, “Jewish Traditions in Syriac Sources,” Journal of Jewish Studies , no.  []: –, which argues for parallels between ideas and exegetical traditions that appear in Ephrem’s Commenatry on Genesis and which appear in the Targumim. Brock does not try to argue for speci c borrowings one way or the other but says that the parallels suggest a shared exegetical culture. See also omas Kremer, Mundus Primus: Die Geschichte der Welt und des Menschen von Adam bis Noach im Genesiskommentar Ephräms des Syrers, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ), – and – . . For example, in the theophanies of Exodus :– and Job –. e term “apophatic” rst appears, and would come to be associated with, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. On the history of Dionysius in Syriac, see Emiliano Fiori, “e Topic of Mixture as Philosophical Key to the Understanding of the Divine Names: Dionysius and the Origenist Monk Stephen Bar Sudaili,” in Nomina Divina: Proceedings of the Colloquium Dionysiacum, Prague, – October , ed. L. Kar kova and M. Havdra (Fribourg: Academic Press, ), – and Fiori, “Mystique et liturgie entre Denys l’Aréopagite et le Livre de Hiérothée: Aux origins de la mystagogie syro-occidentale,” in Les mystiques syriaques, ed. A. Desreumaux (Paris: Geuthner, ), –. For a basic introduction, see Andrew Louth, e Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys, reprint ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). . On the culture of debate that took shape during the fourth century, see Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), esp. chs. four and ve, and Averil Cameron, Dialoguing in Late Antiquity (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, ). . De deitate lii et spiritus sancti et in Abraham, Greek text in Gregorii Nysseni Opera, vol. .; Sermones, pars III, ed. Ernestus Rhein and Friedhelm Mann (Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, ), , lines –.

 

. See Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian eology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), , – and John Behr, e Formation of Christian eology, vol. ; e Nicene Faith (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ). . See Emanuel Fiano, “e Trinitarian Controversies in Fourth-Century Edessa,” Le Muséon  (): –; Christian Lange, e Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ), –; Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God,” –; Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the eologian –; Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, –. . On the following, see also Jeffrey Wickes, “Mapping the Literary Landscape of Ephrem’s eology of Divine Names,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers  (): –. . See omas A. Kopeck, A History of Neo-Arianism,  vols. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, ); Richard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius: e Extant Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ); and Kopeck, Eunomius of Cuzicus and the Nicene Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). . For text and translation, see Lionel Wickham, “e Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean,” Journal of eological Studies  (): –. I have used this translation, with some modi cations. . On the relationship of Aetius and Eunomius to Ephrem, see Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God.” Eunomius would later write an Apology for the Apology (Vaggione, Eunomius: Extant Works), but it was written ca. –, aer Ephrem’s death. . On Basil’s response to Eunomius, see Mark DelCogliano and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, St. Basil of Caesarea: Against Eunomius, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ). See also the study of DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian eory of Names: Christian eology and Late-Antique Philosophy in the Fourth Century Trinitarian Controversy, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianiae  (Leiden: Brill, ). . Gregory Nazianzen writes, “ese people I speak of have versatile tongues, and are resourceful in attacking doctrines nobler and worthier than their own. I only wish they would display comparable energy in their actions: then they might be something more than mere verbal tricksters, grotesque and preposterous wordgamesters….” (Frederick Williams, trans., On God and Christ: e Five eological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ]). e earliest treatise against Eunomius is actually Basil’s, from ca. –  (DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitze, St. Basil of Caesarea), but Basil does not emphasize Eunomius’s “investigative” rhetoric as later authors will, nor does he lean so heavily on an argument from God’s unknowability. . On Ephrem’s theology of names generally, see T. Koonammakkal, e eology of Divine Names in the Genuine Works of Ephrem, Mōrān Ethō  (Kerala, India: SEERI, ); Corrie Molenberg, “An Invincible Weapon: Names in the Christological Passages in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith XLIX–LXV,” in Symposium Syriacum V, ,Orientalia Christiana Analecta , ed. R. Lavenant (Rome:

 

Ponti cium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, ), –; and Robert Murray, “e eory of Symbolism in St. Ephrem’s eology,” Parole de l’Orient  (– ): –. On parallels with the Cappadocians on names, see Beck, Die eologie,  n.  and  n.  and Beck, Ephräms des Syrers: Psychologie und Erkenntnislehre CSCO Subsidia  (Leuven: Peeters, ), –. I develop this further in chapter three. . On Basil’s critique of the unscripturality of Eunomius’ “Unbegotten,” see Behr, Nicene Faith, –. For a similar critique in Ephrem, see MF : and the discussion in Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, –. . at is, rather than simply arguing against the divine name Eunomius saw as essential—Unbegotten—he provocatively calls Christ “Begotten” to emphasize as a mark of divinity the very name Eunomius took to signify Christ’s subordinate status. . He mentions “Aetians” once, in MAH :. . Griffith, “Faith Seeking Understanding,” –; Bruns, “Arius— hellenzians?” –; Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God,” ; Paul Russell, “An Anti-neo-Arian Interpolation in Ephraem of Nisibis’ Hymn  on Faith,” in Studia Patristica , ed. E. Livingstone (Louvain: Peeters, ), –; and Russell, “Ephrem the Syrian on the Utility of Language and the Place of Silence,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): . . Hans Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer: Der Osten bis zum Ende der homöischen Reichskirche (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ). . Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer. . Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer, –. . See Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, – . Lewis Ayres (Nicaea and Its Legacy, ) says that, in using language of “like,” and “like according to the Scriptures,” Homoians intended a “clear subordination” of the Son to the Father. However, Brian Daley has a more positive assessment of their motivations (“e Enigma of Meletius of Antioch,” in Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Joseph T. Lienhard, ed. R. J. Rombs and A. Y. Hwang (Washington, DC: e Catholic University of America Press), –. It is clear that Ephrem, in avoiding language of essence, did not intend to imply subordination of the Son to the Father. . See Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, –. I discuss this in detail in the following chapter. . e critique of paganism runs throughout the Madrashe Against Julian. e praise of Constantius appears in MAJ , and in MNis . Note also Ephrem’s critiques of the “wisdom of the Greeks” in MF : and :, a criticism that may also re ect his anti-pagan zeal. . Christian Lange situates Ephrem in the Trinitarian debates in a slightly different way. First of all, he divides Ephrem’s Memre on Faith and Madrashe on Faith, situating the former entirely in Nisibis and the latter entirely in Edessa. He associates the Memre on Faith with the “Dedication Synod” of Antioch (), based on Ephrem’s emphasis on the three qnômê of God, his eschewal of the ousia

 

language of Nicaea, and a general lack of awareness of Nicaea (Lange, Portrayal of Christ, –). He sees the Edessan period as signaling a new embrace of Nicaea on Ephrem’s part (based on the allusion to the Council in MAH :) and, generally, a greater connection to events in Antioch (based on the apparent reference to divisions among the “Arians” in MAH :). Yet, as he notes, Ephrem still does not use Nicaea’s language of homoousios in this period. He suggests that this tension— an embrace of Nicaea with a continued hesitancy toward the council’s key term— re ects Ephrem’s place in the compromise that emerged between the “homoousians” and “homoiousians” aer . is rapprochement would give rise to the “pro-Nicene” party, among which Lange would count Ephrem. Lange therefore suggests we associate Ephrem with the homoiousian community attached to Meletius of Antioch, a commitment that also would have aligned him with Basil (Portrayal of Christ, –, esp. –). I am largely sympathetic to Lange’s conclusions. My interpretation differs in two ways. First, my interest here is in the context of Ephrem’s speci c anti-investigative language. For whatever reason, Lange does not mention this aspect of Ephrem’s works in his reconstruction of Ephrem’s place in the Trinitarian controversies. Yet, when we focus speci cally on this antiinvestigative language—language that has as much to do with rhetoric and epistemology as it does theology—Ephrem pro les somewhat differently than when we focus on his Trinitarian doctrines (which is Lange’s primary approach). Second, as stated earlier, I am uneasy with Lange’s tendency to divide Ephrem’s works according to a strict Nisibis–Edessa chronology, and his tendency to read Ephrem as providing an unproblematic window onto events as they happened (see, for example, his interpretation of MAH :; Portrayal of Christ, ). . Interestingly, Ephrem never appears to draw a distinction between the world of nature and the world of technology and society. While the bulk of his natural language refers to organic and cosmic material, he seamlessly incorporates societal and technological images into this otherwise “natural” discourse. In MF :, he tells us that the ordering of nature mirrors the ordering of the divine realm. en, as an example of this natural ordering, he states: “Rank passes on rank, / all the way up to the crown.” us, in Ephrem’s presentation of it, royal society provides an example of an ordering that is “natural.” . is is not to say that Ephrem never suggests an anagogical relationship between the two. See MF :–, where nature provide positive evidence for the way God gives speech to those who wish to praise God. . For example, MF :. . On Job’s use of the rhetoric of nature, see Brian  R. Doak, Consider Leviathan: Narratives of Nature and the Self in Job (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ). For an intriguing comparison between the view of nature re ected in Job and that re ected in  Ezra, see Ithamar Gruenwald, “Knowledge and Vision: Towards a Clari cation of Two ‘Gnostic’ Concepts in Light of eir Alleged Origins,” Israel Oriental Studies  (): –. . In both cases it uses an identical formula to introduce a new round of divine questioning of Job: “Gird up your loins like a warrior! I will question you (ʼašʼelāk)!

 

Make known to me!” . at is, all of these terms appear in the Bible but there is no way to make the argument that Ephrem is intentionally invoking any particular biblical passage. . I would like to thank Amy Alexander for suggesting this allusion to Wisdom :. . See, for example, Proverbs , , and  and Sirach , , and . On the role of this wise man in ancient biblical interpretation, see James Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ), –. . Bezʼalel and Ohoʼliab are described in this way (Exod. :): “He has lled them with wisdom of heart (ḥekmat lebbâ), to make everything (l-me‘bad kul): working, manufacturing, craing (ʼûmmān), and depicting, with red dye and purple and ne linen; with dyed garments and fabric (zqûrâ)—makers [who can] make anything—even conceivers of things conceived.” e rst phrase that Ephrem takes from this verse, “the work of crasmen” (‘bādâ d-ʼûmmānê), echoes the use of the verb ʼûmmān and the repeated use of ‘bad. e next phrase, “fabric of the wise” (zqûrâ da-ḥkîmê) borrows the word zqûrâ, "fabric,” and the root ḥ-k-m, “to be wise,” from the opening declaration that God lled them “with wisdom of heart” (ḥekmat lebbâ). Ephrem’s reference to “calculations” (ḥûšbānê) probably derives from the nal reference to “conceivers of things conceived” (metḥašbay maḥšabbātâ). . See also Sirach :, “e height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, the abyss, and wisdom—who can investigate them?” . “In a scale” (b-metqālâ) does not occur in this particular hymn, but Ephrem uses it elsewhere in similar fashion (e.g., MF :, :, :–, and :). . Within the Bible, draš does not seem to carry the negative connotations that Ephrem ascribes to it. . On the use of bṣâ to describe a positive behavior, see Deuteronomy :, Sirach :, and Matthew :. . For a similar idea, see also Amos : and Zephaniah :. . Literally, “all the rooms of the belly.” . In Job :, Job accusingly asks God why he “investigates (‘qab) my debts and my sins, even though you know that I am innocent.” . Here the Peshitta of Romans : uses māš, a term Ephrem uses to denote investigation thirty-nine times and, in the negative, to denote God as “unable to be investigated” seven times. . e manuscript is Milan, Ambrosian Libr., MS B. , and the text of  Ezra is contained on fols. a –b. See e Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, Part IV, fasc. : Apocalypse of Baruch and  Esdras, ed. R. J. Bidawid (Leiden: Brill ), ii. ere is an extensive bibliography on this manuscript. Philip Forness surveys this bibliography, and argues that the manuscript was produced by a seventh-century community that was also reading and producing historical chronicles. See Forness, “Narrating History through the Bible: A Reading Community for the Old Testament Milan Bible (Ambrosian Library, B.  inf.),” Le Muséon , nos. – (): –. On the textual history

 

of  Ezra generally, see Michael E. Stone, Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra (Minneapolis Fortress Press, ), –. Hindy Najman, in her study of  Ezra, privileges this Syriac manuscript. See Najman, Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –. As far as I have been able to tell, no one has identi ed any citations of  Ezra in fourthcentury Syriac literature, but neither has there been an exhaustive search for them.  Ezra is apparently quoted in Apostolic Constitutions. .. and ... ough the Apostolic Constitutions are later than Ephrem, they derive from the Antiochene region with which he elsewhere attests close familiarity. My aim in this section is not to investigate the presence of  Ezra in Syriac per se but to account for the particularity of Ephrem’s anti-investigative language. I have found  Ezra to be the text most helpful in suggesting a parallel to his language, a parallel that certainly existed in the fourth-century world, but which we admittedly cannot be sure that he knew. CHA P T E R 3 . BI BL E , P OL E M IC S , A N D  L A NG UAG E

. See, for example, MF :. . “Old Testament” appears in MF :, and “New Testament” in MF :. In MF :, he refers to “the Testament of Moses.” . See, for example, MF :. . e term ûrāytâ, “Torah,” only occurs once and in a context where Ephrem is speaking of the fu llment of Old Testament symbols. Nāmûsâ, “Law,” occurs more frequently, and with a wider range of meanings. It can refer generally to Jewish law, or to that part of the Old Testament that has been ful lled in Christ, or simply to laws which everyone observes. . In MF :, for example, it refers to a physical book. . ere are some very good studies that do try to piece together his hermeneutics. Perhaps the best remains Sidney Griffith, Faith Adoring the Mystery: Reading the Bible with Saint Ephraem the Syrian, Pere Marquette eology Lecture (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, ). See also Nabil el-Khoury, “Hermeneutics in the Works of Ephraim the Syrian,” Orientalia Christiana Analecta  (): –; and Shinichi Muto, “Early Syriac Hermeneutics,” e Harp –  (): –. . See Sebastian Brock, e Luminous Eye: e Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, ), –; Muto, “Early Syriac Hermeneutics”; and Robert Murray, “e eory of Symbolism in St. Ephrem’s eology,” Parole de l’Orient – (–): –. . Comm. Dia. :. . On his polemics against Jews and their “misreadings” of the Bible, see especially Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ). . See MAH :–.

 

. Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea:e Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ), –. . Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ), . . See Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, , and Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian eology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), . . “All of this smallness which is in the Books, / is ful lled in the humanity of our Savior.” See also MF –, where Ephrem address subordinationist readings of Matthew :. . See Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy on the “Dedication” Council of Antioch (p. –) and Young, Biblical Exegesis, . See also Hans Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer: Der Osten bis zum Ende der homöischen Reichskirche. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ), –. On Ephrem’s suspicion of the term, see MF : and Jeffrey Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –. . See John Behr, e Formation of Christian eology, vol. ; e Nicene Faith (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ), – and Mark DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian eory of Names: Christian eology and Late-Antique Philosophy in the Fourth Century Trinitarian Controversy, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianiae  (Leiden: Brill, ). . Note also, for example, MPar :, where Ephrem admits to asking a nonbiblical question but which was answered by taking recourse to the Bible: “I enquired into this, too, / whether Paradise / was sufficient in size / for all the righteous to live there. / I asked about what was unwritten (d-lâ ktîb), / but my instruction came from what is written (b-da-ktîbān).” Cf. also MF :. . e verb for “I should destroy” is ʼawda‘, a rst-person imperfect verb. Regretfully, I mistakenly took this as a third-person masculine perfect verb in my translation (see Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, ). . MF :. . MF :. . On the extent of Eunomius’s use of the Bible, see the index to Richard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius: e Extant Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). On Athanasius’ defense of the unscripturality of homoousios, see Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, –. . MF :. . e decisiveness of npaq(w) in MF : can be juxtaposed with the indecisiveness of ṭāp (“to wander”) in MF :. In the latter instance, Ephrem highlights those who simply wander aimlessly aer errant ideas. In the former, Ephrem depicts his opponents as very decisively choosing errant ideas. . See also MF :: “Women fall upon women, / men upon their friends, and priests upon kings.” See also SF :: “Since priests have fallen into debating, look: kings are thrown into war. / War outside [of the church] has vanished, for war inside is so strong.”

 

. See Sidney Griffith, “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire,” in Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer, ed. T. Halton (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), ; Andrew Palmer takes this even further and suggests that the last three stanzas of MF  “can be read as a tactful appeal to Valens” (“e Prophet and the King: Mår Afrem’s Message to the Eastern Roman Emperor,” in Aer Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers, ed. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta  [Louvain: Peeters, ], ). Edmund Beck takes MNis – in reference to this same period (Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Carmina Nisibena, CSCO  [Louvain: Secrétariat de CorpusSCO, ], iv). But in his commentary on MF :, he sees this passage simply as representing a general aspect of Ephrem’s response to the Trinitarian controversies (see Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO  [Louvain: L. Durbecq, ],  n. . Christian Lange does not address this passage, but, like Beck’s reading of MF :, takes SF : in a general sense (e Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron, CSCO Subsidia  [Louvain: Peeters, ], ). On Valens role in Edessa, Emanuel Fiano reminds us, “e extent and general signi cance of Valens’ intervention in ecclesial matters is debated, and it is hard to establish what exactly it might have meant for Edessa” (“e Trinitarian Controversies in Fourth-Century Edessa,” Le Muséon  []: ). . Literarily, this is similar to Ephrem’s use of the Bible in MF . At MF : he rst alludes to Deuteronomy :, but he does not actually quote it until :. . See MF :. . See MF :, :–, and :. . Regarding Ephrem’s Eucharistic theology, Joseph Amar says that Ephrem utilizes a “ exible and oen complex exchange of images” that allow “the Eucharist to be viewed from seemingly paradoxical vantage points simultaneously” (“Perspectives on the Eucharist in Ephrem the Syrian,” Worship  []: ). On Ephrem’s view of the Eucharist generally, see Pierre Youssif, L’Eucharistie chez Saint Ephrem de Nisibe,Orientalia Christiana Analecta  (Rome: Ponti cium Institutum Orientale, ). . In articulating a speci c link between the Bible and the natural world, Ephrem is also making a subtle critique of his opponents’ habits of reading. In his MAH :–, Ephrem insists upon the inherent order of the natural world and critiques those, such as “Manichees,” who read the world’s disorder as providing evidence for a duality of divine beings. is is a critique that would have resonated strongly with Ephrem’s opponents, who undoubtedly would have shared Ephrem’s critique of “Manichees.” Ephrem draws upon this shared idea to critique his opponents’ reading practices. By connecting subordinationist readings of the Bible with Manichean readings of nature, Ephrem argues that his own antisubordinationist reading of the Bible is as obvious as his subordinationist opponents’ reading of the natural world. If they can “read” the world as good, in spite of evidence to the contrary, should they not be able to read the Bible as

 

evidencing the divinity of the Son, in spite of passages that seem to suggest his subordination? . Instead of the “your feet” (reglaykôn), as it appears in Ezekiel :, Ephrem supplies “your heels” (‘eqbayhôn), which suggests a pun with ‘ûqqābâ, “discussion.” . Christine Shepardson has extensively treated the anti-Jewish aspects of Ephrem’s use of biblical villains in Anti-Judaism and Christianity Orthodoxy and “ ‘Exchanging Reed for Reed’: Mapping Contemporary Heretics onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies , no.  (): – . Shepardson argues that in his anti-subordinationist writings, Ephrem presents New Testament villains as “proto-Arians.” He does this not by identifying them as “Arians” outright (a term he uses only once), but by constructing a particular antiArian lexicon—the lexicon of investigation—and using it to describe New Testament villains. By using this anti-subordinationist language to describe them, Ephrem’s “maps” contemporary Arians onto the biblical antagonists of Christ, becoming literarily constructed “proto-Arians.” . Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy, esp. chs. three and four. . See MF :, :, and :. On this, see Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy, –. . e term b‘el dînâ does appear in Matthew : and Luke :, but Ephrem does not seem to be taking it from there. For the more general characterization, see Matthew : and Luke :. . Ephrem nearly quotes the Peshitta, only making changes for metrical reasons: MF :: ʼaykan mṣâ hānâ / pagreh d-nettel lan John :: ʼakannâ meškaḥ hānâ pagreh d-nettel lan l-mêkal . See Edmund Beck, Die eologie des hl Ephraem in seinen Hymnen über den Glauben, Studia Anselmania  (Rome: Ponti cium Institutum S. Anselmi, ), –; T. Koonammakkal, e eology of Divine Names in the Genuine Works of Ephrem, Mōrān Ethō  (Kerala, India: SEERI, ), –; Ute Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God,” in God in Early Christian ought: Essays in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson, ed. Andrew B. McGowan, B. E. Daley, and T. J. Gaden (Leiden: Brill, ), –; and Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, –. . Muto, “Early Syriac Hermeneutics,” . Sebastian Brock suggests a similar idea in St. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns on Paradise (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ),  and Luminous Eye, –. See also MF :: “Run, my brothers, and collect all the images with us! / Look how many there are for our mouths to depict! / Come and take delight in our discoveries!” . ere is an extensive literature treating Ephrem’s understanding of names. Much of the literature has focused on lending coherence to Ephrem’s theory of names, tracing the relationship between his theory of names and his theory of symbols, and situating both within a literary and historical context. Robert Murray’s classic article, “e eory of Symbolism in St Ephrem’s eology” (Parole de l’Orient – [–]: –) still offers the most succinct orientation to these issues. Murray organizes Ephrem’s use of symbols in three ways—symbols (or

 

“types”) that come from the Bible, those that come from nature, and their cohesion in his overall sacramental theology. Recently, omas Koonammakkal has exhaustively catalogued Ephrem’s references to divine names and situated this within Ephrem’s broader theology of the “chasm” between Creator and created and the divine descent into created language (eology of Divine Names). In a more speci c study, Corrie Molenberg (“An Invincible Weapon: Names in the Christological Passages in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith XIX–LXV,” in Symposium Syriacum V, , ed. René Lavenant, Orientalia Christiana Analecta  [Rome: Ponti cium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, ], ) offers some historical antecedents for Ephrem’s theories of names, noting parallels to Plato’s Cratylus, Albinos’s Didaskalion, and the Stoics. Edmund Beck, too, notes parallels with Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, and Clement of Alexandria (on Gregory, see Die eologie,  n.  and  n. ; on Gregory, Basil, and Clement, see Ephräms des Syrers: Psychologie und Erkenntnislehre, CSCO Subsidia  [Leuven: Peeters, ], –). Tanios Bou Mansour (La pensée symbolique de Saint Ephrem le Syrien [Kaslik, Liban: Université Saint-Esprit, ], ) distinguishes Ephrem generally from “la théologie cappadocienne.” My own attempt to enter into these debates can be found in Wickes, “Mapping the Literary Landscape of Ephrem’s eology of Divine Names” (Dumbarton Oaks Papers  []: –), where I point to parallels in the Gospel of Philip, Aphrahat, Aetius, and Eunomius. e following develops some of the material that rst appeared there. . Here I am sympathetic to the approach of Kees den Biesen, Simple and Bold: Ephrem’s Art of Symbolic ought (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ), –, who suggests similarly that we cannot distinguish Ephrem’s literary medium—poetry— from the theology that he articulates in that medium. e two are mutually informing. My argument here is that we cannot separate Ephrem’s view of the Bible’s language from his own poetic use of that language. . Brock, Luminous Eye, –; Koonammakkal, eology of Divine Names, –. . Kathleen E. McVey, “Ephrem the Syrian,” in e Early Christian World, Volume II, ed. P. E. Esler (London and New York: Routledge, ), –; Murray, “eory of Symbolism,” –. . MVir : (Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Virginitate, CSCO  [Louvain, ], –). See also MVir :, where Ephrem says that nature witnesses to the “two harps” of the Old and New Testament. . MPar :: “Moses wrote (ktab) the creation of nature into his book [i.e., Genesis], / so that both nature and the book would witness to the Creator” (Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Paradiso und Contra Julianum, CSCO /, SS / [Louvain: Secrétariat de CorpusSCO, ]). . McVey, “Ephrem the Syrian,” –; Murray, “eory of Symbolism,” – . . On Ephrem’s theological reading of the olive, see MVir –. McVey, “Ephrem the Syrian,” –. . Murray, “eory of Symbolism,” .

 

. Ephrem, Comm. Gen., prologue,  (translation in Joseph Amar and Edward G. Mathews, St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works, Fathers of the Church  [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ], –). On this reading of the origins of the Bible, see also Lukas Van Rompay, “e Christian Syriac Tradition of Interpretation,” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, vol. : From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until ), ed. M. Saebø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), . . Ephrem presents this process as beginning aer the Tower of Babel and accelerating once the Israelites were in Egypt (Amar and Mathews, St. Ephrem the Syrian, ). . MPar : (quoted above) can be taken to evidence Ephrem’s belief in a dual process of revelation, in which God concurrently reveals himself in the Bible and in nature. rough these two sources, in turn, humanity can acquire divine knowledge. Certainly, this re ects Ephrem’s use of biblical and natural material. But Ephrem’s account in the Commentary on Genesis suggests a slightly different way of reading MPar :, one which calls the symmetry of Bible and nature into question. Note the rst two lines of MPar :: it is because Moses has inscribed creation—has written it into his book—that Ephrem and his audience can then locate in it symbols of the Creator. Ephrem’s “nature” must rst be located in a book, before it can be found in the world. . Speci cally, the “true” names of which we will speak below. . Young builds her argument by drawing on a paradigm constructed by Northrop Frye, who suggested two phases in the historical development of language. According to Frye, the rst stage is marked by a view of language in which linguistic signs exhaustively convey that to which they point—sign and signi ed are completely merged. Frye suggests a second view according to which signs still accurately convey the thing to which they point, but nevertheless stand distinct from it as a metonym. Young, without necessarily endorsing Frye’s historical schema, argues that it provides a helpful heuristic for thinking through Ephrem’s understanding of language, in which he can be seen to stand at a point between the two “historical” stages. See Young, Biblical Exegesis, –. Young draws on Northrop Frye, e Great Code: e Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, ), esp. –. . Young’s interpretation is similar to that articulated by Sebastian Brock, who suggests that, in the ancient world, “a symbol actually participates in some sense with the reality it symbolizes, whereas for most people today the term ‘symbol’ tends to imply something essentially different from the thing it symbolizes” (Brock, St. Ephrem the Syrian, ). . MF :; :; :; :; :; :; :; and :. . MF : and :. . MF :–. . MF :. . See MF :. . MF :; :; :, ; :; :, ; and :.

 

. MF :. . MF :. See, though, :, where kûnāyâ and šmâ are synonymous. As far as I know, no one has suggested an origin for Ephrem’s use of the term šʼîlâ (“borrowed”) to denote human names applied to God. Given Ephrem’s abundant use of economic metaphors in other contexts of theology, it seems to me likely that this term has an economic resonance. As we will see in the following chapter, Ephrem emphasizes God’s condescension to humanity in economic terms, depicting him as poor and a beggar. Connected to this, then, would be the idea that God “borrows” human names, mimicking human need, to make himself comprehensible to humanity. . Within the Christian tradition, the classical exposition of this can be found in Origen’s On First Principles, bk. . Stephen D. Benin (e Footprints of God: Divine Accommodation in Jewish and Christian ought [Albany: State University of New York, ], esp. chs – and –) surveys the development of an accommodationist theology from Justin through the Rabbis. ough he does address Ephrem, he deals there only with what he calls the “negative” side of accommodation, namely, the idea that the Jewish law arose in order to accommodate Jewish propensity toward disobedience. For this notion in Philo, see M. Tzvi Novick, “Perspective, Paideia, and Accommodation in Philo,” e Studia Philonica Annual  (): esp. –. . e place of accommodation within Rabbinic thought is outside the scope of this book, but there are interesting parallels between Ephrem’s understanding of accommodation and that attested in Rabbinic sources. See Benin, Footprints, – . . Interestingly, Ephrem only uses the language of borrowing when addressing anthropomorphisms. When addressing language which is obviously metaphorical, or which is simply not offensive, his tone is much less defensive (see, e.g., MF :). . e term ‘bādâ refers in its basic sense to the process of making. Michael Sokoloff notes that it can also come to refer to the thing that has been made, that is, meaning, inter alia, “thing,” or “creature” (LS ). I have taken it in this passage in the latter sense. . Here we nd an instance in which kûnāyâ (“name” or “title”) is clearly used to denote “true” names and is synonymous with šmâ. As for Ephrem’s statement that “Moses and Joshua” put on the Lord’s names, the names “Jesus” and “Joshua” are, of course, identical in Syriac. e reference to Moses probably has Exodus : in mind, where the Lord tells Moses that he will be Aaron’s “God.” . On this line, see Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian,  n. . . In MF :, Ephrem likens God to the sun, and the Bible to its far dimmer rays. Just as humans cannot look upon the sun but only observe things illumined by it, neither can humans look upon, or speak about, God. Rather, God is manifest through the dim language of the Bible. . Brock, St. Ephrem the Syrian, . See also Muto, “Early Syriac Hermeneutics,” –. . On this metaphor, see also Brock, Luminous Eye, –.

 

. Elsewhere, he will merge the two, shiing seamlessly between God’s two “bodies.” See, for example, MF :–, where he uses “names” (šmāhê), “form” (ʼeskimâ), and “images” (demwātâ) interchangeably. . In MF :, he references the same idea, but in a way that suggests that he has the Isaian passage in mind: “And though they walk around, he called himself ‘wearied.’ ” is would make no sense as an allusion to John :, where Jesus himself is walking around. . Genesis :; Numers :;  Samuel :, ; ; and  Samuel :. . Two of the classic articles on Ephrem’s theology of names did not treat this aspect of Ephrem’s thought: David Bundy, “Language and the Knowledge of God in Ephrem Syrus,” e Patristic and Byzantine Review , no.  (): – and Murray, “eory of Symbolism,” –. Sebastian Brock does not address the distinction in St. Ephrem the Syrian, but in Luminous Eye, –, he offers a thorough treatment of the idea. . Ephrem here evokes the divine name of Exodus :. On the importance of the divine name for Ephrem, see Koonammakkal, eology of Divine Names, – . . e “crucibles” are Bible and nature. . For example, in Ephrem’s MAJ :, he refers to the Roman–Persian war as a crucible, testing the strength of one’s faith. . See esp Athanasius’s Orations against the Arians :– (K. Metzler and K. Savvidis, eds., Athanasius Werke, vol. , pt. , fasc.  [W. de Gruyter: Berlin and New York, ]). . On Ephrem’s conception of the elements of the universe, see Ute Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian, CSCO Subsidia  [Louvain: Peeters, ], –. . As far as I have been able to tell, the only linguistic overlap between the two involves Ephrem’s use of the noun ‘ûdrānâ, “bene t, aid,” or “help.” e latter term appears in Ephrem, for the most part, in two guises. Predominantly, Ephrem describes the incarnation as having been undertaken for human “bene t.” Occasionally, however, Ephrem applies this same word to his own madrashe, typically within petitions for inspiration. us, for example, the very rst hymn ends with Ephrem petitioning God, “May I learn bene cial speech.” Ephrem’s poems, then, continue the therapeutic process which the Bible begins. CHA P T E R 4 . T H E  P OET ’S “I”

. I take the concept of “framing devices” from Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, rev. ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, ), –. . On his potential Christian upbringing, see MAH :, “In the way of truth was I born, even if my childishness did not recognize [it],” and MVir :, “Your truth was in my youth; your truth is in my old age.” And on his diaconate, see MAH :, “O Lord, let the labors of your herdsman (‘allānâ) not be despised.” But these

 

statements are difficult to classify biographically. In addition to their metaphoric language (does “herdsman” refer speci cally to a diaconal office?), they each could be interpreted in a variety of ways. See Jeffrey Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –. . Ruth Webb criticizes the way we tend to read poetry as more “personal” and “sincere,” whereas with genres such as rhetoric we are willing to assume an artistically craed persona (“Poetry and Rhetoric” in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period  ..–.. , ed. S. Porter [Leiden: Brill, ], – ). But as Webb notes, in classical antiquity, both poetry and rhetoric were “rhetorical” in that they are directed toward an audience. I would argue something similar is at work in the way scholars tend to focus on Ephrem’s rst-person statements only insofar as they are thought to reveal something about his biography. . As Carol Newsom has articulated it with respect to the Qumran community, “subjectivity, no matter how natural it feels to an individual, is not natural but rather belongs to the sphere of the symbolic. It is a matter of representation” (e Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran [Leiden: Brill, ], ). is is to say that Ephrem’s “I” does not represent the historical “Ephrem,” but a voice that emerges speci cally within the symbolic space of the hymn. Using the language of Wayne Booth, we can think of Ephrem’s “I” as representing the poems’ narrator, whereas the implied author would represent that unnamed “self ” that emerges subtly from this collection as a whole. See Wayne C. Booth, e Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), –. . On prosōpopoia in Syriac literature, see Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): –. Also helpful is J. A. Harrill, “Paul and the Slave Self,” in Religion and the Self in Antiquity, ed. D. Brakke, M.  L. Satlow, and Steven Weitzman (Bloomington, ), –. Harrill bases his study of Paul on a classic article by Krister Stendahl (“e Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Harvard eological Review , no.  (): –), which notes that the guilty conscience that speaks in Romans :– is remarkably out of sync with other autobiographical statements within the Pauline corpus. On this basis of this insight, Harrill argues that we should view the “I” of Romans  as a ctional “I”—representative of a character Paul has constructed to make an argument. While Ephrem’s “I” is as literarily constructed as Paul’s, I would argue that it is nevertheless remarkably in sync with the rest of his corpus. Just as the Madrashe on Faith asks questions about faith, presumptuous debate, and the limits of speech and the knowledge of God, the self that speaks within these hymns is one always poised on the brink of saying too much but nally withdrawing into appropriate silence, or simply confessing his sin of wordiness. . Derek Krueger, Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ), –. Sarah Gador-Whyte calls this processs “auto-ethopoeia” (“Self-

 

Construction: ‘Auto-Ethopoeia’ in Romanos’ Kontakia,” Cultural (Re)constructions, Melbourne Historical Journal , no. , special issue (): –. . F. Cassingena-Trevedy, “Les ‘confessions’ poétiques d’Éphrem de Nisibe,” Le Muséon , nos. – (): –, offers a helpful cataloguing of Ephrem’s rstperson references. . While there is no extensive treatment of Ephrem’s economic language, several scholars have noted its existence in particular contexts. Gary Anderson reads Ephrem’s economic language as of a piece with a wider tendency of Aramaic language to conceive of sin and righteousness in economic terms (Sin: A History [New Haven: Yale University Press, ], –]). Sidney Griffith notes the preponderance of economic metaphors in the Madrashe on Julian Saba, and attributes this to the centrality of trade to Edessan life (“Julian Saba, ‘Father of the Monks’ of Syria,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  []: –). Andrew Hayes offers a close study of the economic language of the Madrashe on Abraham Qidunaya in Icons of the Heavenly Merchant: Ephrem and Pseudo-Ephrem in the Madrashe in Praise of Abraham of Qidun (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ), – and –. Blake Hartung connects the language to Ephrem’s conception of sin and death, and suggests that the economic language re ects broader Mediterranean ways of envisioning the divine-human relationship in terms of patron and benefactor (“ ‘Stories of the Cross’: Ephrem and His Exegesis in Fourth-Century Mesopotamia” [PhD diss., Saint Louis University, ], –). . On the incarnation as the piece that holds all of Ephrem’s theology together, see Kathleen E. McVey, “Ephrem the Syrian,” in e Early Christian World, Volume II, ed. P. E. Esler (London and New York: Routledge, ), –. . is term occurs in a variety of contexts throughout the Madrashe on Faith. I note here only the passages where Ephrem uses it in conjunction with rst-person speech: MF :; :, ; :, , , , ; :; :, . . Passages where it occurs in conjunction with rst-person speech: MF :; :, ; :; :, ; :, . . In conjunction with rst-person speech: MF :; :; :. . In conjunction with rst-person speech: MF :, :, :. A huge lexicon develops based on the centrality of the metaphor of “treasure.” us, he refers to the “key” which opens the Lord’s treasure (ʼaqlîdâ, :), “to steal” (i.e., from the treasure) (gnab, :), “debt” (gu‘lānâ, :; :), “to lend” (ʼawzep, :), “money” (kespâ, :, ), “to grow rich” (‘tar), “wealth” (neksê, :), “to repay” (pra‘, :; :), “capital” (qarnâ, :), “interest” (rebîtâ) (:), “coffers” (sîmātâ, :, :, :), “to borrow” ( š’el, :), “commerce” (taggûrtâ, :), and “merchant” (taggārâ, :; :). In addition to these obviously economic terms, he uses some that are not primarily economic, but have economic resonances in some contexts, namely, “to increase” (ʼawsep, :), “pro t” (yûtrānâ, :), “plate (of a balance)” (kappâ, :), “scale” (massattâ, :), “to return” (pnî, :, :), “to open” (ptaḥ, :), “to empty” (sraḥ, :), and “to suffer damage” (ʼatekk, :). . Ephrem writes, “Give thanks to the One who brought a blessing / and received from us prayer. / Since the Venerable One came down to us, / he has made

 

worship ascend from us. / Since he gave divinity to us, / we have given humanity to him. / As he brought a promise to us, / we have given faith to him—/ that of Abraham, his friend. / Since we lent him alms, / Let us demand it back again (MF :, emphasis mine). See Anderson, Sin, . . Anderson, Sin,  (emphasis mine). . Most notably, MAQ :. . Psalm :. . On the development of this idea in antiquity, see Anderson, Sin, –. . e authenticity of these hymns has been debated. Andrew Hayes has recently argued convincingly that at least the rst ve hymns are authentic (Icons of the Heavenly Merchant, –). On the particular madrasha cited here, see also Anderson, Sin, – and Hayes, Icons of the Heavenly Merchant, –. . e derived word ʼîzeptâ means “loan” or “debt.” . See MF  and . . Derek Krueger, Writing and Holiness: e Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ), –. . See also MF :, “Your treasure is sweet, and we are your guard.” . Luke :–. . Gary Anderson argues that alongside the emergence of a notion of sin as “debt” there develops the notion of “credit” as virtue, and as particular people as capable of embodying such virtue (Sin, –). Zacchaeus clearly represents this idea of the holy man: his sin is of a particularly economic kind, but so is his redemption, worked out through giving his goods to the poor. . I am grateful to Carl Griffin for pointing out to me that this reading of Zacchaeus is strikingly unique even within Ephrem’s corpus. He shows this by comparison with the portrait of Zacchaeus in Cyrillona. See his “Cyrillona’s On Zacchaeus,” in Bountiful Harvest: Essays in Honor of S. Kent Brown, ed. A. C. Skinner, D. M. David, and C. Griffin (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, ), –. . In the Commentary on the Diatessaron, the Zacchaeus narrative is followed by the narrative of the blind man from Jericho (Luke :–) (Comm. Dia. :). e parable of the talents is only alluded to in the Commentary on the Diatessaron. . e noun which translates “merchants” is taggārê. It does not appear in the parable of the talents. (Luke : refers to ‘abê, “servants”) In fact, according to George Kiraz’s Computer-Generated Concordance to the Syriac New Testament (Leiden: Brill, ), taggārâ appears only once in the New Testament, in the parable of the “pearl of great price” (Matt. :ff). But note also MF :, in which Ephrem unambiguously refers to this parable and uses the same term, “merchants.” . e connection to audience is made even more explicit, albeit without economic language, in MF :, where Ephrem states, “Dough is unable, without the gi / of leaven, to share its tastes.” Here, Ephrem’s mundane speech is the dough which, when combined with the “leaven” of divine inspiration, can become bread for his audience.

 

. On this metaphor, see Andrew Palmer, “ ‘A Lyre without a Voice’: e Poetics and the Politics of Ephrem the Syrian,” Aram , nos. – (): –. . Palmer, “Lyre without a Voice,” offers a helpful summary of the various attestations of the metaphor prior to Ephrem. Especially interesting is the attestation of an Edessene Mosaic, datable to  .., in which Orpheus holds a lyre (Palmer, “Lyre Without a Voice,” ). ere is also the well-known passage in Odes of Solomon :– (albeit using qîtārâ), in which the Odist writes, “As the [wind] moves through the harp (qîtārâ) / and the strings speak, / so the Spirit of the Lord speaks through my members, / and I speak through his love.” It is noteworthy that whereas the Odist retains the distance between himself and the “lyre” (suggesting through the use of “as” that it is only a metaphor), Ephrem collapses this distance, and refers to himself simply as “lyre.” . Sidney Griffith, “St. Ephraem, Bar Dayṣān and the Clash of Madrāshê in Aram: Readings in St. Ephraem’s Hymni contra Haereses,” e Harp  (): . . On Greek polemics against musical instruments, see James McKinnon, e Temple, the Church Fathers, and the Early Western Chant (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, ); Egon Wellesz, “Words and Music in Byzantine Liturgy,” Music Quarterly , no.  (): –; Johannes Quasten, Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian Antiquity, trans. Boniface Ramsey (Washington, DC: National Association of Pastoral Musicians, ); and J. A. Smith, Music in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, ). . In only one place does Ephrem anchor his presentation of David as hymnic exemplar in a speci c biblical passage: “us, do not sing to God in a disordered way, / instead of [singing] praise, lest you go astray and sing wickedness. / Sing like David to the Son of David / and call Him ‘Lord’ and ‘Son,’ like David” (MF :). is passage cites Psalms : as evidencing the kind of ordered hymnody that the Madrashe on Faith aim to promote. On the presence of “lyre” in the Bible, Palmer notes that the term appears forty-one times in the Hebrew Bible (“Lyre without a Voice,” –). In Ephrem’s corpus more broadly the term can be used exibly in connection with a range of gures. In MF :, Ephrem refers to the “lyres” of the angels. Outside the Madrashe on Faith he also depicts Adam, Moses, Mary, and the prophets as playing a lyre. On this, see Palmer, “Lyre Without a Voice,” as well as Robert Morehouse, “Dueling Lyres: Prophets and Heretics as Instruments in Ephraem of Nisibis” (unpublished paper, delivered at SBL ). I am grateful to Robert Morehouse for sharing with me a copy of this paper. . MAH :: “[Bardaisan] wanted to look to David—to be clothed in his beauty, / to be praised like him. / He too composed one hundred and y / psalms. My brothers, he abandoned [David’s] truth/ And imitated [only] his number. David never sang / the songs of the deniers. eir lyre lies….” On this passage, see Griffith, “St. Ephraem, Bar Dayṣān, and the Clash of Madrāšê,” and Kathleen E. McVey, “Were the Earliest Madrāšē Songs or Recitations?” in Aer Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J.  W. Drijvers, ed. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta  [Louvain: Peeters, ], –.

 

. See Psalms :; Matthew :; Acts : . Cf. Psalm : . On this issue of instrumentality, see Morehouse, “Dueling Lyres.” . See MF :, quoted above. . As we noted in chapter one, there is no way to be certain whether these speci c refrains re ect later tradition or go back to the time of Ephrem. But it is certainly the case that there was some refrain in his time. . e previous stanza, MF :, makes it clear that he still speaks to the lyre. e rst line reads: “For you, lyre, are living and speech-endowed!” . Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, . . He offers an English translation in Brock, A Hymn on the Eucharist (Hymns on Faith, no. ) (Lancaster: J. F. Coakley, ). See also Robert Murray’s translation, “A Hymn of St Ephrem to Christ on the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, and the Sacraments,” Eastern Churches Review , no.  (): –. An earlier version of the material that follows can be found in Jeffrey Wickes, “e Poetics of Self-Presentation in Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on Faith ,” in Syriac Encounters: Papers presented at the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, , ed. Maria Doer er, Emanuel Fiano, and Kyle Smith (Leuven: Peeters, ), –. . Matthew :–; Mark :–. e story is only alluded to in Comm. Dia. :. See also MPar :, where Ephrem uses this same narrative to refer to himself. . In :, Ephrem indeed protests: “To the lowest step I draw near, though I presume.” . On these polarities in Ephrem’s thought, see Phillipus Botha, “Antithesis and Argument in the Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian,” Hervormde Teologiese Studies  (): – and Botha, “e Structure and Function of Paradox in the Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian,” Ekklesiastikos Pharos  (): –. See also Kees den Biesen, Simple and Bold: Ephrem’s Art of Symbolic ought (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ), –. . e verb Ephrem uses for “to declare” (ʼešta’‘î) is the same verb used in Isaiah :, “Who shall declare his generation?” In MF : Ephrem takes this to refer to the Son’s generation, and he assumes the question is rhetorical—that no one can declare his generation. Arguably he here echoes the verse, but it is the Son’s body —the locus of what is revealed—that he declares, rather than his divine generation. . Similar stories are found in Matthew :–, Mark :–, and John :–, but only the Lukan version identi es the woman as ḥaṭṭîtâ. On the sinful woman in Syriac literature, see Scott F. Johnson, Jacob of Sarug’s Homily on the Sinful Woman, Texts from Christian Late Antiquity  (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ), – and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “Why the Perfume Mattered: e Sinful Woman in Syriac Exegetical Tradition,” in In Dominico Eloquio / In Lordly Eloquence: Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert Louis Wilken, ed. P. Blowers et al. (Grand Rapids., MI: Eerdman’s, ), –. . ere are versions preserved in Mark :– and Luke :–. e story appears as well in Comm. Dia. :–. ere is nothing in the present allusion to

 

suggest that Ephrem drew on one particular biblical version (and this portion of the Commentary on the Diatessaron is preserved only in Armenian). Note that the Peshitta of Mark and Luke use different terms for garment than Ephrem (Mark uses lbûšâ and Luke, mānâ), but Ephrem’s term—naḥtâ—is paralleled in Codex Curetonianus. . is is a compelling notion when connected to Shinichi Muto’s idea (“Interpretation in the Greek Antiochenes,” ) that, while Ephrem has no term parallel to the English term “meaning,” ḥaylâ (“power”) carries a very similar sense. Reading Luke in Ephremic terms, we can see this moment (when, at the woman’s touch, Christ’s power goes out from him) as a hermeneutic moment: Ephrem, reading the narrative of Christ giving his power to this woman, similarly takes this divine power / meaning (ḥaylâ), mediated through the text, and performed before an audience. . MVir :, :–; MAH :, :; MChurch :–; :; MAQ :; MEpi :; MNat :, :. e story of the wedding at Cana appears in Comm. Dia. :–. . In MAH :, he uses the narrative to distinguish Christian speech from pagan song. In MAH :, he reads the narrative as indicating Christ’s approval of marriage and suggests that the wine poured into different cups at the wedding symbolizes the divided speech of the Marcionites. Finally, in MAQ :, in a move almost identical to what we see in MF , he reads the transformed water as a symbol for his own hymnic speech. . Metrically, while meštûtâ does carry one more syllable than ḥlûlâ, Ephrem’s addition of the preposition l- to ḥlûlâ means that it is also vocalized with three syllables (la-ḥlûlâ), and thus this substitution cannot be explained metrically. . “…e bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast” (bêt ḥlûlâ). . On a more general level, Ephrem favors marital imagery when speaking of heaven. See MF : and :. See also Sebastian Brock, e Luminous Eye: e Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, ), –. CHA P T E R 5 . AU DI E NC E A N D  T H E  V I SION OF T H E  T E XT

. e rst two lines of the collection speak clearly to an audience: “In place of that all-vivifying sign which the Teacher-of-all has set before us, / is presumptuous generation of ours has established a new faith.” . He refers to “my brothers” at :, :, :, :, :, :, :, :, :, :, :, and :. “My son” appears at :, :, , :, :, :, :, , :, :. Once (:) he refers to “my beloved” (plural). His questions and commands appear on almost every page. An example of a question: “How do you presume to meditate upon the birth of that Knower-of-all” (MF ::)? An example of a command: “Do not honor what is holy / in a way not commanded you” (MF ::–)!

 

. e role of the audience in early Christian homilies has increasingly become a topic of focus for scholars. Ramsay MacMullen has argued that homilies were attended and understood primarily by elite males (“e Preacher and his Audience [ –],” Journal of eological Studies  []: –). Wendy Mayer has granted MacMullen’s position as a plausible reading of John Chrysostom’s homiletic material but warns against making a simplistic move from the rhetoric of the homilies to the reality that lies behind them. See Mayer, “Female Participation and the Late Fourth-Century Preacher’s Audience,” Augustinianum  (): – and “Who Came to Hear John Chrysostom Preach? Recovering a Late FourthCentury Preacher’s Audience,” Ephemerides eologicae Lovanienses , no.  (): –. See also the essays collected in Mary Cunningham and Pauline Allen, eds., Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics (Leiden: Brill, ). In a Syriac context, Philip Forness has applied these discussions of audience and homily to Jacob of Sarug, but argues that, because the memre lack much in the way of audience cues, it makes more sense to analyze the audiences implied by their transmission (see Forness, “Preaching and Religious Debate: Jacob of Serugh and the Promotion of his Christology in the Roman Near East” [PhD diss., Princeton eological Seminary, ]). ese re ections are helpful in thinking through Ephrem’s audience and performative context, but only to a point. Unlike Chrysostom, we know little about the geographic and physical spaces in which Ephrem performed his madrashe. Regarding gender, we have, in the case of Ephrem, the unique testimony to the madrashe’s performance by women. And unlike Jacob, Ephrem’s madrashe do suggest a live audience, both in the presence of refrains and in the madrashe’s continued reference to that audience. Nevertheless, Aaron Butts has recently shown the fruit that a study of the manuscripts of Ephrem’s madrashe can yield in regards to later audiences (“Manuscript Transmission as Reception History: e Case of Ephrem the Syrian [d. ],” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  [Summer ]: –). . Note the similar phenomenon that Laura Lieber observes in piyyut. e piyyut, she argues, collapses the distance between the gures depicted in the biblical text and the audience: “the biblical stories become experiences rather than narration, events that the listeners witness through the power of poetic rhetoric” (Lieber, “e Rhetoric of Participation: Experiential Elements of Early Hebrew Liturgical Poetry,” Journal of Religion  []: ). . Georgia Frank has also sought ways to nd the “audiences” of late antique poetry. She has analyzed the way sensory language in Romanos’s kontakia enabled the audience to nd themselves in New Testament texts. See Frank, “Romanos and the Night Vigil in the Sixth Century,” in A People’s History of Christianity, vol. : Byzantine Christianity, ed. D. Krueger (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ), –. . Carmen Maier has studied a similar phenomenon in Ephrem’s MPar and MUnlB. See Maier, “Poetry as Exegesis: Ephrem the Syrian’s Method of Scriptural Interpretation Especially as Seen in His Hymns on Paradise and Hymns on Unleavened Bread” (PhD diss., Princeton eological Seminary, ), –.

 

. Edmund Beck, Ephräms des Syrers: Psychologie und Erkenntnislehre, CSCO Subsidia  (Leuven: Peeters, ), –. . Sidney Griffith, “e Image of the Image Maker in the Poetry of St. Ephraem the Syrian,” in Studia Patristica  (Leuven: Peeters, ), –. . Griffith, “Image of the Image Maker,” . . Ute Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ), –. . It oen repeats in single stanzas. . On this lexicon, see the introduction. . Nor in the fourth century is this unique to Ephrem. Georgia Frank notes the preponderance of visual metaphors in John Chrysostom: “e Image in Tandem: Painting Metaphors and Moral Discourse in Late Antique Christianity,” in e Subjective Eye: Essays in Culture, Religion, and Gender in Honor of Margaret R. Miles, ed. R. Valantasis (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, ), –. See also Frank, “Death in the Flesh: Picturing Death’s Abode in Late Antiquity,” in Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art and History, ed. C. Hourihane (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, ), –. On exegesis as portraiture in Chrysostom’s reading of Paul, and in Pauline interpretation more generally, see Margaret Mitchell, e Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, ), esp. –. . Mitchell, Heavenly Trumpet, –. e passage appears in Ephrem’s “Fih Discourse to Hypatius” (C. W. Mitchell, St. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, vol. : e Discourses Addressed to Hypatius, Text and Translation Society a [London: Williams and Norgate, ], –). is passage is interesting because in it Ephrem does not condemn Mani’s construction of images per se, and he articulates what will become one of the primary Christian defenses of religious art, namely, that they function pedagogically for the illiterate. On the late antique context of this argument more generally, see Robin Jensen, “Pictures and Popular Religion in Early Christianity: Art as the Bible of the Illiterate?” in e Subjective Eye: Essays in Culture, Religion, and Gender in Honor of Margaret R. Miles, ed. Richard Valantasis (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, ), –. . e literature on ekphrasis is extensive, but I have found especially helpful G. Downey, “Ekphrasis,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum  (): –; Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination, and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical eory and Practice (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, ); Webb, “Imagination and the Arousal of the Emotions in Greco-Roman Rhetoric,” in e Passions in Roman ought and Literature, ed. S. Morton Braund and C. Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –; Webb, “Picturing the Past: Uses of Ekphrasis in the Deipnosophistae and Other Works of the Second Sophistic,” in Athenaeus and His World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire, ed. D. Braund and J. Wilkins (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, ), –; and Webb, “Poetry and Rhetoric,” in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period  .. – ..

 

, ed. Stanley Porter (Leiden: Brill, ), esp. –. See also Jas Elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), esp. ch. . On ekphrasis in late antique literature that is not obviously dependent upon the progymnasmata, see Laura Lieber, “eater of the Holy: Performative Elements of Late Ancient Hymnography,” Harvard eological Review , no.  (): –. . eon’s Progymnasmata de ned ekphrasis as “a descriptive speech which brings the subject matter vividly before the eyes” of the audience (eon, Progymnasmata, .). is “vividness” of a speech was spoken of in terms of enargeia. See Webb, “Picturing the Past,” . See also Ruth Webb, “Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: e Invention of a Genre,” Word and Image  (): –. . Michael Roberts, e Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, ), . . Roberts, Jeweled Style, –. . In using visual language to foster this sense of awe, Ephrem also resembles the method developed by eodore of Mopsuestia in his catechetical homilies. Daniel L. Schwartz argues that we can think of eodore’s presentation of the liturgy in terms of ekphrasis. According to Schwartz, eodore reinterpreted liturgical acts as depictions of the biblical life of Christ and then aimed to make the audience feel as if they were beholding those events. See Schwartz, Paideia and Cult: Christian Initiation in eodore of Mopsuestia, Hellenic Studies Series  (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, ), –. . Roberts, e Jeweled Style, –. . In terms of comparative literature, it is interesting to read Ephrem’s constant compression of biblical narrative alongside Erich Auerbach’s comparison of Homer’s Odyssey and the binding of Isaac (Gen. ), as articulated in “Odysseus’ Scar.” Auerbach argues that, whereas the Odyssey always externalizes the characters’ internal world, Genesis  revels in minimalistic detail and internal states le unexpressed (Mimesis: e Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. W. R. Trask [Princeton: Princeton University Press, ], esp. –). ere is something similar in the way Ephrem presents biblical characters for his audience to look upon. He typically focuses on very particular details of the characters as they are manifest in the text but does not develop these details in exhaustive ways. is is noticeably different, of course, from the way slightly later Syriac authors whom Susan Ashbrook Harvey has studied approached the biblical text (see Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  []: –, esp., in comparison with Ephrem, –). . Within the Madrashe on Faith, he does this in seventeen different poems: : (Abraham), :– (good thief and hemorrhaging woman), :– (Joseph and wife of Pharaoh), : (Jonah); : (Abraham); :,  (Moses); : (Isaiah); : (Uzziah); : (Balaam’s ass); :- (Tamar, Moses, Elijah, John); : (Moses); : (Ezekiel); : (Tower of Babel); :– (Moses, John, Daniel); : (Moses and Mt. Sinai); : (Noah); : (Lazarus).

 

. See, for example, MNat , in which he offers a litany of Old Testament gures who looked for the coming Christ. . ere are three exceptions here. First, there are two compilation poems that focus primarily on Christ. I treat these two in chapter six. Second, MF  also compiles various biblical characters, but I have le it out of this chapter because its tone is so different from those examined here. With a voice that is consistently ameliatory and muted, Ephrem calls on his audience to imitate the biblical characters together. . e melody is “On the birth of the rstborn.” All the madrashe in this subset feature eleven-line stanzas, consisting in variations of ve and six syllable lines. . All of these madrashe have eight-line stanzas, and a meter of +++++++. . MF  also bears this melody. All these madrashe have six-line stanzas, and a meter of + / + / + / + / + / +. . Laura Lieber notes the tendency of late antique hymnographers to reduce the distance between the text and the audience’s own world (“Rhetoric of Participation,” ). Certainly that is oen characteristic of these poems. Yet, as we see here, and as will be shown in several of these poems, Ephrem also emphasizes the distance between text and audience but in a surprising way: Ephrem situates his audience as closer to the divine world that the Bible depicts than the biblical characters themselves. . In the language of “gaze,” Ephrem plays with the ideas of seeing and being seen. e following stanzas present scenes in which biblical characters look upon Christ. ey are able to do so, as Ephrem understands it, because he has covered his divine self and thus made himself visible to humans. Yet, these scenes are introduced by saying that Christ covered his “gaze,” not his “appearance.” As Ephrem presents it, the onlookers are shielded not from Christ’s appearance but from Christ’s gaze. e idea of Christ’s gaze being the foundation of any human ability to gaze upon him parallels Ephrem’s understanding of investigation (see chapter one). Both—seeing and understanding—are properly divine activities, in which humans can participate, but which they can never claim as their own. For a similar idea, see MF :, where Ephrem says that if God merely looks at the angels, they tremble. Note, too, that, following the apparent logic of the poem, rather than Ephrem’s logic of divine vision, I translated “gaze” as “appearance” in Jeffrey Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), . . Ephrem takes this title of Peter, James, and John from Galatians :. . From a compositional perspective, Ephrem has pieced together discrete biblical scenes in a way that is reminiscent of Christian art from the same period. Robin Jensen notes that fourth-century Christian funerary art represents narrative scenes from the Bible in a way that is “episodic rather than continuous” (“Compiling Narratives: e Visual Strategies of Early Christian Visual Art,” Journal of Early Christian Studies  no.  []: ). Like Ephrem, the sarcophagi allude to biblical narratives in a highly minimalistic way, in which one or two biblical gures—Daniel

 

and a lion, for example—evoke an entire narrative. ese single images are then compiled with other images, evoking other stories, so that a single sarcophagus may draw upon several distinct biblical narratives, each evoked through minimal visual allusions. Jensen argues that these Christian sarcophagi “present an assortment of fragmentary references to different biblical stories, each one signifying its source narrative through a single, emblematic gure” (“Compiling Narratives,” ). Like the sarcophagi, Ephrem alludes to biblical narratives using extremely terse language giving his listeners only enough information to identify the key part of the story. . Andrew Hayes notes that, overall, Moses functioned in Ephrem’s corpus as a model for ascetics, by signaling spiritual nourishment, divinization, and eschatological transformation. In the Memre on Faith and the Madrashe on Faith, however, he serves as a type of the ineffability of Christ (Hayes, “e Trans guration of Moses: A Survey and Analysis of St. Ephrem’s Interpretation of Exodus , no. ,” Oriens Christianus  []: –). As Sebastian Brock has shown, MF  provided Jacob of Sarug with the primary source through which he read Exodus . See Brock, Jacob of Sarug’s Homily on the Veil on Moses’ Face, Texts from Christian Late Antiquity  (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, ), –. . R. Roukema notes that, aer the third century, Christian writers came to see Exodus  through the lens of  Corinthians, and thus to associate both with Jewish incomprehension of Christ (“e Veil over Moses’ Face in Patristic Interpretation,” in e Interpretation of Exodus: Studies in Honor of Cornelis Houtman, ed. R. Roukema [Leuven: Peeters, ], –). Yet Hayes notes that whereas this is true for Greek patristic readings of the narrative, Ephrem tended not to couple his anti-Jewish polemic with readings of Exodus  (“Trans guration of Moses,” ). Indeed, in MF  Ephrem never concretely refers to  Corinthians. ere are certainly similarities between the way Ephrem and  Corinthians read Exodus . Both proceed as arguments a minore ad maius. In both, Moses functions as a shadow upon which Christ has shown light. Both of their arguments depend upon this typological distinction—that with Christ, something clearer and more luminous than Moses has come. Yet Ephrem never references the  Corinthians passage outright and, for all their similarities, there are also intriguing differences. For example, Ephrem’s way of constructing the scene of Exodus  is noticeably different from that of  Corinthians. Ephrem buttresses his reading of the former with several other Old Testament scenes. is lends his reading a distinctive exegetical character, so that his argument emerges as he eshes out a biographical portrait of Moses based on various biblical scenes. Also, Ephrem’s concern is not with the written Torah (“the dispensation of death”) versus the law written on the heart (“the dispensation of the Spirit”), as is the concern in  Corinthians. Rather, Ephrem is concerned with vision itself. e inability of the biblical audience to sustain a vision of Moses serves as a type of the inability for Ephrem’s own audience to look upon, or speak about, God. By using vision as a metaphor for speech, Ephrem rephrases the central question of the Madrashe on Faith in terms given by Exodus .

 

. e ve scenes are prefaced, in stanza , with a general statement of the sanctity of the holy of holies. Ephrem reads its sanctity as offering but a shadow of the holiness of “the power that dwelt inside of it” (::). On these scenes, see also Wickes, St. Ephrem, –. . Whereas in scene  Ephrem used “vision” as a metaphor for speech, here he uses ritual spaces as a metaphor for speech, marking these villainous attempts to transgress sacred space as akin to his own audience’s tendency to misspeak. . is stanza opens with a reference to Psalms :—“e Jordan saw the ark and was divided…it ed back”—a verse Ephrem already drew upon in the previous madrasha and upon which he will draw again in madrasha . Psalm : is itself rewriting a scene from Joshua , in which the Israelites cross the Jordan river into the promised land. e Psalmist merges this scene with the crossing of the Red Sea from Exodus . So, in drawing on Psalm , Ephrem is using a biblical text that is already rewritten. Ephrem himself is only interested in the crossing of the Jordan—only there does the ark play a role—so he reshapes the Psalmist’s language to eliminate references to the Red Sea crossing. . See Wickes, St. Ephrem, . . e inability to look upon holy things and the inability to enter holy spaces are connected in Ephrem’s mind: a person or thing (such as Moses or the ark of the covenant) becomes trans gured when they enter a sacred space. . For example, “If the priesthood of Aaron was this dreadful, / how much more dreadful is the Lord of priests?” . For example, Korah is ushered into the poem through his narrational connection to Moses. He then introduces the series of ritual transgressions, all of which are thematically connected to him. . In his Commentary on Genesis, Ephrem exonerates the patriarch by arguing that his “drunkenness was not from an excess of wine but because it has been a long time since he had drunk any wine” (Comm. Gen. :). On ancient interpretations of Ham’s act, see James Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ), –. . In her characterization of ritual and performance, Catherine Bell notes that both aim “to reduce and simplify [the world] so as to create more or less coherent systems of categories that can then be projected onto the full spectrum of human experience” (Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, rev. ed. [Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, ], ). In this sense, Ephrem’s “stripping down” of the Genesis narrative represents his rereading of a very particular Near Eastern narrative so as to apply it to a very different context. . In Ephrem’s use of this passage, we nd two forms of the root šʼel, “to ask”— šʼel (“to ask”) and šûʼâlâ (“questioning”). is verb derives from Job : and :, in which, when God commences his questioning of Job, he commands him: “Gird up your loins like a warrior, and I will question you” (ʼešʼalāk). On Ephrem’s use of this passage, see also chapter two.

 

. Ephrem’s presentation of Ezekiel as evidencing a holy reticence creates a problem in the text that Ephrem resolves exegetically. In chapter , Ezekiel is set down in the midst of “a valley…full of bones.” e Lord asks him, “O son of man, will these bones live” (: )? To this, Ezekiel responds simply: “You, O Lord of Lords, know.” In the biblical text, Ezekiel’s response to the Lord suggests that the Lord alone knows the answer, and that Ezekiel himself does not. Of course, by Ephrem’s time, the scene in the valley of the dry bones would have supported a belief in the resurrection of the dead, and, speci cally, would have been seen as a type of the resurrection of Christ. Yet, rather than letting Ezekiel’s apparent ignorance challenge Christian exegetical assumptions, Ephrem shapes this ignorance as a testament of Ezekiel’s humility, situating it poignantly within the rhetorical shape of the Madrashe on Faith. As Ephrem presents it, Ezekiel knew the answer to the Lord’s question, but “he did not presume to say what he knew.” Zechariah also functions as a model of holy ignorance, and Ephrem builds this image exegetically. In Zechariah , an angel presents the prophet with a vision of temple objects, set beside olive trees. Zechariah describes what he sees to his angelic guide, and then asks, “What are these, my Lord” (v. , mānâ ʼennôn hālên mār[y])? Ephrem’s use of this short narrative begins with the fact of Zechariah’s questioning, but connects it lexically to the previous stanzas by replacing the text’s “he replied and answered” (‘nêt w-ʼemrat) with the familiar šʼel (here without any apparently negative valence). Following Zechariah’s question to the angel in :—“What are these?”—the angel responds “Do you not know what these are”? Ephrem chooses to omit Zechariah’s response to the question—“I do not know, my Lord”—but clearly reads Zechariah’s negative reply as a testament to his humility. Decontextualized from the biblical book, Zechariah thus becomes another means of exemplifying the rhetoric of the Madrashe on Faith. Cast together, these three characters—Job, Ezekiel, Zechariah—further Ephrem’s rewriting of the Bible as a complete testimony to this dramatic struggle between silence and investigation. . ough on the connections between Zechariah and Ezekiel, see D. Nathan Phinney, “Life and Writing in Ezekiel and First Zechariah,” in Tradition in Transition: Haggai and Zechariah – in the Trajectory of Hebrew eology, ed. Michael H. Floyd and Mark J. Boda (New York: T&T Clark, ), – and Lena-So a Tiemeyer, “Zechariah’s Spies and Ezekiel’s Cherubim,” in Tradition in Transition, –. . Ephrem’s use of Miriam in this madrasha is intriguing. Christine Trevett has argued that Miriam tends to show up in early Christian literature in instances where women’s roles are up for debate or female authority is speci cally being denied (“Wilderness Woman: e Taming of Miriam,” in Wilderness: Essays in Honour of Frances Young, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah [London: T&T Clark, ], –). Given that Ephrem’s madrashe were performed, at least some of the time, by women’s choirs, Miriam’s inclusion may suggest a similar sort of rhetoric. However, two factors recommend against this reading. First, the troika of villains that will appear later in the madrasha—Korah, Aaron’s Sons, and Uzziah—all seem to function for Ephrem as ways to critique bishops and priests. So, Ephrem’s polemic in this

 

madrasha seems to be against the behaviors of certain authority gures, not against gures who are illegitimately claiming authority. It may be the case, though, that this madrasha does have a speci cally female audience as its target. If that is the case, though, I would understand Ephrem to be critiquing their practice of a particular theological style, not their claim of certain positions of authority. On Miriam in the Rabbis, see also Devora Steinmetz, “A Portrait of Miriam in Rabbinic Midrash,” Prooexts , no.  (): –. . Ephrem’s initial allusion to this narrative relies on a word play between “Gehazi” gḥzy and “to mock,” bzaḥ. e second line does allude to the speci c language of the biblical text in an interesting way. In the Peshitta of  Kings :, Elisha asks Gehazi, “Did my heart not reveal [it] to me when the man came down from his chariot to meet you,” (lebb[y] ḥawwyan[y] kad naḥteh gabrâ men markabteh l-ʼûra’āk). is is certainly the source of the poem’s second line (“He deceived the heart of his master”). . Interestingly, Ephrem here refers to the characters as “two hundred,” even though the text identi es them as two hundred y, as does Ephrem himself in MF :. . Compare the very similar exhortation, also in connection with Uzziah, in MF :: “Do not honor what is holy / in a way not commanded you!” . Note the rst line of MF ::: “Know that pride motivates your controversy.” e “you” here is singular. . e picture of Moses as educated certainly does not begin with Ephrem and derives from Moses’s upbringing in a royal Egyptian household. On Moses’s “education,” see Kugel, Traditions of the Bible, . Interestingly, Ephrem does not comment on Moses’ education at all in the Commentary on Genesis. . Intriguingly, the episode upon which Ephrem draws (Acts :–) begins by stating that Paul’s philosopher opponents “debated with” him (dāršîn), but the word “to debate” (draš) does not appear in this stanza or in the entire madrasha. Instead, Ephrem uses a range of other vocabulary to denote the phenomenon—bṣâ (:, , , , ), b‘â (:, ), š’el (:, ), and ‘qb (:, , , , ). . “Look at Daniel!” . e Pharisees (MF ), scribes (MF ), the condemned thief (MF ), Herod (MF ), Korah and the rebel band (MF , ), Aaron’s sons (MF , ), Uzzah (MF ), Uzziah (MF , ), Noah’s sons (MF ), and Gehazi (MF ). . Ephrem repeats this warning using very similar language in MF :: “Do not touch what belongs to him, lest you perish.” . Moses forms an interesting case. In MF  he does not really function as a model. Rather, Ephrem uses him—like Christ in MF —as a gure upon whom the audience can look but whom they cannot comprehend. However, in Andrew Hayes’s analysis of Moses in the rest of Ephrem’s corpus, he does seem to function as something of an ascetic model (“Trans guration of Moses”). . Elsewhere in the Madrashe on Faith he does do so, but in ambiguous ways. For example, in MF :, he asks “Who would not imitate those fathers / who believed simply? ey neither investigated nor discussed.” He goes on to present

 

brief portraits of Noah, Abraham, and Moses. However, while he begins the poem by asking his audience to emulate these gures, when he actually presents them, he does so in a way that distances them from the audience. He begins the stanza on Noah by asking, “Who could comprehend Noah’s immense silence” (MF ::)? Similarly, Abraham: “Who would look upon Abraham and not be silent” (MF ::)? Moses, moreover, functions as an ironic villain: “Who would not be threatened by Moses? When he slipped / only a little… / … he was forbidden to enter / the Promised Land” (MF::–)? In stanza , Ephrem does offer a general moral lesson on the basis of these characters: “e two Testaments instruct us / that the faithful never debate or discuss.” But, aer the rst line of the poem, he never speci cally exhorts them to imitate these gures. CHA P T E R 6 . A  DI V I N E S ON

. Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian eology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ); John Behr, e Formation of Christian eology, vol. : e Nicene Faith (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ). For two examples in which scholars of Syriac have viewed the legacy of Nicaea in terms other than Nicaea, see G. A. M Rouwhorst, Les Hymnes Pascales d’Ephrem de Nisibe: Étude, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianiae (Leiden: Brill, ), – and Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), esp. –. . is is not to say that Ephrem never mentions ritual or social practices. ere are statements in the poems regarding baptismal practices, but these construct arguments on the basis of shared baptismal practices (see, however, MF :–, which seems to reference single immersion baptism). Likewise, Ephrem’s criticism of bishops suggests a concern with church order but not in any precise way. MF  is the only piece within the Madrashe on Faith with a clear and sustained anti-Jewish polemic (see Christine Shepardson, “ ‘Exchanging Reed for Reed’ ”: Mapping Contemporary Heretics onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies , no.  []: –). . On Ephrem’s Trinitarian theology, see Christian Lange, e Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron, CSCO Subsidia  (Louvain: Peeters, ), esp. –. My interest in this chapter is not in Ephrem’s christology per se, but on the way his anti-subordinationist emphases shaped his literary representation of Christ. . ough see, for example, MF –. . My approach in this chapter is shaped by the approach of Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: e Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), esp. ch. , where she argues for a new style of representation which emerged in light of, and beyond, the fourth century. Moreover, the third chapter (“Stories People Want”) of that book still offers

 

perhaps the best insights into the signi cance of narrative as it relates to the overall shape of early Christian discourse. . Narrative, as M. M. Bakhtin has highlighted, is inevitably a messy business, leaving a lot open to interpretation. See “Epic and Novel: Toward a Methodology for the Study of the Novel,” in e Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, ), –. We can think of Ephrem’s re-presentation of the Gospel as seeking to eliminate this messiness and ambiguity. . Matthew :–, Mark :–, and Luke :–. In Matthew there are two “demoniacs,” whereas there is only one in Mark and Luke. Ephrem seems to re ect this in his telling of the story. Mark, however, refers to the demon as an “unclean spirit” (v. , rûḥâ ṭanptâ), whereas Luke (and Ephrem re ects this) refers simply to šîdâ. Within the Commentary on the Diatessaron, Ephrem alludes to this narrative (:) but does not discuss it at length. . ese basic details appear in each of the synoptic accounts of the baptism (Matt. :–; Mark :–; Luke :) and in the trans guration (Matt. :; Mark :, and Luke :). e phrase is also quoted in Comm. Dia. :. Ephrem’s representation of these details does not provide enough evidence to suggest a dependence upon one particular version over another. Given the early development of hymnody for the feast of eophany (which was almost certainly connected to Nativity), the baptismal pericope is one Ephrem, as well as his audience, almost certainly would have known. . We should note how different Ephrem’s use of the baptismal scene is outside of the Madrashe on Faith. In the Sermo de Domino –, for example, Ephrem emphasizes the scene of the baptism as the place where Christ deposited the “robe of glory,” and from which those baptized can procure it. is is, in fact, his most common emphasis when dealing with Christ’s baptism. See Georges Saber, La théologie baptismale de saint Ephrem (Kaslik, Liban: Université Saint-Esprit, ). In the Madrashe on Faith, however, this theme does not appear at all. e scene is entirely read as evidence for the priority of the name “Son.” . As will become obvious in the discussion of these verses, it is almost impossible to determine on their basis which version Ephrem is using. e quotation in Comm. Dia. :, albeit only extent in Armenian, and quoted in an indirect way, appears identical to the Peshitta of Matthew :: da ē ordī īm sīrelī. e synoptic parallels to Matthew : are Mark : and Luke :. Mark : reads w-qālâ-[h]wâ men šmayyâ ʼa[n]t hû ber[y] ḥabbîbâ bāk ʼeṣṭbît (Peshitta) (“And [there was] a voice from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son. With you I am well pleased.’ ”). Luke : reads w-qālâ-[h]wâ men šmayyâ d-ʼāmar ʼa[n]t hû ber[y] ḥabbîbâ d-bāk ʼeṣṭbît (Peshitta) (“And there was a voice from heaven that said, ‘You are my Beloved Son. With you I am well pleased.’ ”) However, the material below oen combines “Son” and Beloved,” as it is found in the Peshitta of Matthew :. . Codex Curetonianus just has ʼeštma‘ (“was heard”) instead of hwâ (“there was”). e Markan and Lukan versions are identical, except that they do not keep

 

the words “With him I am well pleased” (Mark : and Luke :). Codex Sinaiticus of Luke : has “chosen” (gabyâ) intead of “beloved.” . See also Comm. Dia. :, where the Syriac text is identical to :. . On the possibility of interpolations in this poem, see Andrew Palmer, “Interpolated Stanzas in Ephraim’s Madroshe III–VII on Faith,” Oriens Christianus  (): –. . Little can be read into Ephrem’s use of the emphatic brâ without the pronoun, as he uses it with the pronoun elsewhere. . On anti-Arian rhetoric derived from baptismal practices, see Rowan Williams, “Baptism and the Arian Controversy,” in Arianism aer Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Controversies, ed. Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, ), . . is translation differs slightly from my translation in St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), . . Matthew : reads, šarrîrâʼît hānâ breh hû d–ʼallāhâ, “Truly, this one is the son of God.” While in Mark : the Centurion declares (v. ) hānâ gabrâ breh-[h]wâ d-ʼallāhâ, “is man was the Son of God,” in Luke : he says hānâ gabrâ zaddîqâ-[h]wâ, “is man was innocent.” Ephrem only alludes to this scene in his treatment of the cruci xion in Comm. Dia. :. . He takes “centurion,” “to guard” (nṭar), “out loud” (b-qālâ), “to shake” (zā‘), “earth” (ʼar‘â), and “to become dark” (ḥšak) from the scene of Matthew . . Note the similarity to Ephrem’s use of the Bible in MF : and : he rewrites the scene of Christ’s walking on water so that the water responds actively to Christ. . R. B. ter Haar Romney, A Syrian in Greek Dress: e Use of Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac Biblical Texts in Eusebius of Emesa’s Commentary on Genesis, Traditio Exegetica Graeca  (Louvain: Peeters, ), –. . Carmen Maier, building upon Jacob Neusner’s concept of a “base verse” and an “intersecting verse,” suggests that within the madrashe Ephrem typically identi es a “base narrative,” which functions as a template as he “constructs subsequent narrative layers” (“Poetry as Exegesis: Ephrem the Syrian’s Method of Scriptural Interpretation Especially as Seen in His Hymns on Paradise and Hymns on Unleavened Bread” [PhD diss., Princeton eological Seminary, ], –). She conceives of this as akin to Greek theoria, in which each new narrative layer indicates a higher, or more spiritual, interpretation of the base narrative. It is somewhat unclear whether Maier’s “base layer” refers to a biblical text or the narrative that the poem itself seeks to construct, into which it embeds narratives taken from the Bible. at said, her analysis is helpful in leading us to think through the different narrative layers at work in a given madrasha. In the case of this one, I would take the “base narrative” to be Ephrem’s own: the divine Father and Creator has a Son who comes to creation in order to represent the Creator and care for creation. e actual biblical narratives are taken up into this “base narrative.” . Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, rev. ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, ), –.

 

. See also Comm. Dia. :, which, albeit preserved in Armenian, appears to re ect the text of Matthew. . Note here the difference between Ephrem and Matthew: by alluding to the Elijah narrative, Matthew’s rhetorical point is to place Christ in a typological relationship with him, thus arguing that Christ is the new Elijah, or has even superseded Elijah. For Ephrem, this scene unambiguously bespeaks the relationship between Father and Son. . Ephrem treats this scene in Comm. Dia. :–. . Edmund Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen auf Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide,CSCO  (Louvain: L. Durbecq, ),  n. . Paralleled in Mark :– and Luke :–. See also Comm. Dia. :–. . e story is also addressed in Comm. Dia. :–, but there it omits verse , “When Jesus saw him lying there….” . e word ʼetḥlem is preserved only in the Peshitta. e Sinaiticus and Curetonianus read tehwê šarrîr, “to be made whole.” . While Ephrem identi es this person as ‘abdâ, “servant,” the syllable count would have allowed him to use either Matthew’s mšaryâ, “paralytic” or John’s gabrâ, “man.” His use of “servant” suggests two interpretations: rst, it is possible that Ephrem has used the non-speci c “servant” (‘abdâ) so as to invoke both of the narratives—the healing of the paralytic from the synoptics, and the healing of the sick man at Bethesda from John. Another possibility is that, given the polemical context of this madrasha, Ephrem’s identi cation of the man as “servant” may simply intend to emphasize Christ’s divine power over things made. . Matthew :–, Mark :–, and Luke :–. . is is implied in the Matthew :, where it says that “he touched her hand, and the fever le her.” Ephrem simply eliminates the distance between the two steps. . Matthew :–, Mark :–, Luke :–, and John :–. See also Comm. Dia. :–. Ephrem’s allusion to this scene does not suggest one version over another. . Ephrem interacts with the narrative of the wedding at Cana in concrete ways, incorporating some of its basic vocabulary—meštûtâ (“feast”), as well as the phrase ḥamrâ b-ʼaggānê (“wine in vessels”). . For an analysis of the biblical allusions in this second half of the poem, see Jeffrey Wickes, “Out of Books, A World: e Scriptural Poetics of Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on Faith” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, ), –. . On the feast in the fourth century, see J. F. Baldovin, “e Empire Baptized,” in e Oxford History of Christian Worship, ed. G. Wainwright and K. B. Wester eld Tucker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. . He begins the stanza with an athletic metaphor: “With the weapons of a vanquished athlete, our Lord conquered.” . e term ḥîṣûtâ (“strength”) also has the sense of “abstinence.” . Matthew :–, Mark :–, Luke :–, and John :–. . See also Comm. Dia. :–. e same term makkîk appears in Comm. Dia. :.

 

. Comm. Dia. : reads “Rejoice daughter of Zion, for your king comes to you righteous and humble” (makkîkâ). is is closer to Zechariah : (“rejoice,” dûṣ, and “righteous,” zaddîqâ, both derive from there). . In thinking about exegesis by concordance, I have been helped especially by John Alford’s study of quotations in Piers Plowman; see Alford, “e Role of the Quotations in Piers Plowman,” Speculum , no.  (): –. . e proper name Nabal is coupled with the verb bla‘—“to be swallowed up,” or “punished”—which is Ephrem’s own addition to the story (the Peshitta has “to smite,” mḥâ). But Ephrem’s substitution is motivated by the similarity of bla‘ to the name Nabal (n-b-l). CONC LU SION

. On architecture, see Sarah Bassett, e Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ). On material culture generally, see Robin Jensen, “Material Evidence (): Visual Culture,” in e Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. S. A. Harvey and D. Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. On literature, see Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: e Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, ). On liturgy, see J. F Baldovin, “e Empire Baptized,” in e Oxford History of Christian Worship, ed. G. Wainwright and K. B. Wester eld Tucker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –. As Baldovin notes, however, the extent to which the fourth century marked a radical change from what came before can be overstated. He emphasizes the way in which, prior to the fourth century, Christians already conducted elaborate rituals, oen in public spaces. . On Nicaea as a touchstone for later Syriac Christians, see David A. Michelson, e Practical Christology of Philoxenus of Mabbug (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). On the picture of Constantine among Syriac Christians, see Kyle Smith, Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia: Martyrdom and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity (Oakland: University of California Press, ). . Ephrem, of course, seems to allude to the council in MAH :. Yet he never mentions the name of the council outright, and in his madrashe never uses its controversial term homoousios (bar kyānâ). is term does show up in his Commentary on Genesis, on which see Jeffrey Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith, Fathers of the Church  (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ),  n. . . See chapters one and two. . Douglas Burton-Christie, e Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ) . On Latin paraphrases, see Wolfgang Kirsch, Die Lateinische Versepik des . Jahrhunderts, Schrien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Antike  (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, ). On Nonnus and Apollinaris in Greek, see Andrew Faulkner, “Faith and Fidelity in Biblical Epic: e Metaphrasis Psalmorum, Nonnus, and the eory

 

of Translation,” in Nonnus of Panopolis in Context: Poetry and Cultural Milieu in Late Antiquity, ed. K. Spanoudakis (Berlin: De Gruyter, ), –. . David W. Halivni, e Formation of the Babylonian Talmud, trans. J. Rubenstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). . Blake Hartung powerfully articulates just how signi cant Ephrem’s poetic corpus is within the context of other late antique poets. See Hartung, “e Authorship and Dating of the Syriac Corpus attributed to Ephrem of Nisibis: A Reassessment,” Zeitschri für Antikes Christentum , no.  (): –. . Here we can think of the quote by F. C. Burkitt: “Ephrem is extraordinarily prolix, he repeats himself again and again, and for all the immense mass of material there seems very little to take hold of ” (Early Eastern Christianity [London: J. Murray, ], ). Michael Roberts argued for a similar tendency to read late antique Latin poetry as representing a decline in literary standards (e Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity [Ithaca, NY: Cornell, ], –). . Roberts notes that Cyprianus Gallus, in the Heptateuchos, focuses on the rst seven books of the Bible in a way that is “oen dictated by his notion of the poetic” (Jeweled Style, ). In the case of Cyprianus, the breastplate of Aaron receives extensive treatment because a poetic rewriting of it enabled him to highlight his particular aesthetics, in which he ornately developed minimalistic gures. Ephrem’s aesthetics are very different. Ephrem clearly privileges small scenes retold with great emotion. But Ephrem’s tendency to focus selectively on small moments within broader narratives, and for these choices to be motivated by his particular aesthetics, is very similar. . On this general tendency of late antique homiletics, typically associated with Chrysostom, Antioch, and the in uence of the second sophistic, see the speci c study of the catechetical homilies of Daniel Schwartz, Paideia and Cult: Christian Initiation in eodore of Mopsuestia, Hellenic Studies Series  (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, ). . On this aspect of late antique rhetoric, see “e Power over the Past,” in Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire, –. On this element in Ephrem speci cally, see Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), –.

 

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Strack, Hermann L., and Gunter Stemberger. Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, . Taruskin, Richard. De ning Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays. Prince‑ ton: Princeton University Press, . Taylor, David. “St. Ephraim’s In uence on the Greeks.” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies , no.  (): –. ———. “e Syriac Tradition.” In e First Christian eologians: An Introduction to e‑ ology in the Early Church. Edited by G. R. Evans, –. Oxford: Blackwell, . Tiemeyer, Lena-So a. “Zechariah’s Spies and Ezekiel’s Cherubim.” In Tradition in Transi‑ tion: Haggai and Zechariah – in the Trajectory of Hebrew eology. Edited by Michael H. Floyd and Mark J. Boda, –. New York: T&T Clark, . Trevett, Christine. “Wilderness Woman: e Taming of Miriam.” In Wilderness: Essays in Honour of Frances Young. Edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah, –. London and New York: T&T Clark, . Vaggione, Richard Paul. Eunomius: the Extant Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, . ———. Eunomius of Cuzicus and the Nicene Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, . Van Rompay, Lukas. “Between the School and the Monk’s Cell: e Syriac Old Testament Commentary Tradition.” In e Peshitta: Its Use in Literature and Liturgy; Papers Read at the ird Peshitta Symposium. Edited by R. Bas ter Haar Romeny, –. Leiden and Boston: Brill, . ———. “e Christian Syriac Tradition of Interpretation.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Vol. , From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until ). Edited by M. Saebø, – . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, . ———. “e East (): Syria and Mesopotamia.” In e Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. Edited by Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David Hunter, –. Oxford: Oxford University Press, . Webb, Ruth. "Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: e Invention of a Genre.” Word and Image  (): –. ———. Ekphrasis, Imagination, and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical eory and Practice. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, . ———. “Imagination and the Arousal of the Emotions in Greco-Roman Rhetoric.” In e Passions in Roman ought and Literature. Edited by S. Morton Braund and C. Gill, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . ———. “Picturing the Past: Uses of Ekphrasis in the Deipnosophistae and Other Works of the Second Sophistic.” In Athenaeus and His World: Reading Greek Culture in the Ro‑ man Empire. Edited by D. Braund and J. Wilkins, –. Liverpool: Liverpool Univer‑ sity Press, . ———. “Poetry and Rhetoric.” In Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period  B.C. –A.D. . Edited by Stanley Porter, –. Leiden: Brill, . Weitzman, Michael. e Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .

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Wellesz, Egon. “Words and Music in Byzantine Liturgy.” Music Quarterly , no.  (): –. White, Carolinne. Gregory of Nazianzus: Autobiographical Poems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . Wickes, Jeffrey T. “Between Liturgy and School: Reassessing the Performative Context of Ephrem’s Madrāšê.” Journal of Early Christian Studies , no.  (): –. ———. “Mapping the Literary Landscape of Ephrem’s eology of Divine Names.” Dumb‑ arton Oaks Papers  (): –. ———. “Out of Books, A World: e Scriptural Poetics of Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on Faith.” PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, . ———. St. Ephrem the Syrian: e Hymns on Faith. Fathers of the Church . Washing‑ ton, DC: Catholic University of America Press, . Wickham, Lionel. “e Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean.” Journal of eological Stud‑ ies  (): –. Williams, Frederick. On God and Christ: e Five eological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, . Williams, Rowan. “Baptism and the Arian Controversy.” In Arianism aer Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Controversies. Edited by Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams, –. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, . Young, Frances. Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, . Youssif, Pierre. L’Eucharistie chez Saint Ephrem de Nisibe. Orientalia Christiana Analecta . Rome: Ponti cium Institutum Orientale, .

    

Genesis

Deuteronomy





:

n





:

n

:  :  

 n. 

:



:

n n

 n.  , 

Joshua

 n. 



Exodus

n

 Samuel

:



:

n

:





–

:

n

:

n



n

 Samuel :–



:–



–



:–

n

:

n

 :

, n, 

 Kings :

n

Leviticus :



 Kings 

Numbers  : 

:– 

:

 



  n

    

 Job

Amos :







:

:



Zephaniah

:



:

–

–, , , , 

n

n

Zechariah Psalms



:

n

:

n

:

n, n

:

n

 :

:– :

:–

n

:



:

n

:– n  , , , n

:

n n

n

:– :– :–

Ecclesiastes

: 

Isaiah : :



:–

n  n n , n –

:–

n

:

–

:–



–

:

n

 n. 

:

n; n

: Jeremiah :

n , n

:





–, n

:– :–

:

n

:

n



n

Matthew

 :

, n



Proverbs 

:

 

 n

:



:

n

Ezekiel  : 

–,  n , n

Daniel :–:

Mark :–

n

:

n

:–

n

:–

n



:–

n





:–

n





:–

n

–



:–

n

    

:

n

:–

:–

n

:

: :– :

 n

 , n

:–

n

:–

n

, n Acts

Luke :–



:

n

:

n

:

nn,

:

n

:–

n

:–

n

:–

n

: :– : :– :– :

n  n

:

n

:–

n

:–



:–

n

:– :

 , n n , n

John 

Romans :– :

n , n

n n; n n

:





:

:–



 Corinthians :



Galatians :

n

 Ezra  : 

  –

Sirach :

n

, n



n

:–





:–



:

:–

n

:

, –, 



n , n n

 

‘qab (“to discuss”), –, –, , n,

Arius, , , , , ; “Arianism,” n,

n, n, n

n, n, n, n, n,

 

n

Aaron, , n, n, n; sons of

ark of the covenant, –, n, n

–, –, –, n, n

Athanasius, , , , n, n,

Abba Bishoi, 

n

Abigail, wife of Nabal, 

 

Abraham, n, n, n

b‘â (“to investigate”), b‘ātâ, “Investigation,” –

Acts of omas, , n, n

, –, n, n, n

Adam, , , , n

Balaam, , n

Aetius, , , , , n; relationship to

Baptism, , , , n, n, n,

Ephrem , , , , n, n,

n; of Christ, , –, ,

n; Syntagmation, 

nn,

Alexander of Alexandria, 

Bardaisan, –, , n, n, n,

Alexander of Constantinople, n

n

almsgiving, , 

Basil, , n; and Eunomius, , , n‑

angels, , , , n, n; Gabriel, ;

n,, n; in Life of Ephrem, ; the‑

before God, n, ministering to Jesus,

ology of, , n, n

, ; outside Paradise, 

Bathsheba. See David

Antioch, , n, n; Dedication Syn‑

begotten: in Ephrem, , , , ; in Eu‑

od, n; exegesis and homiletics,

nomius, –, n, n

n, n; theology of –, , ,

bnay/bnāt qyāmâ (“children of the covenant”),

, , , 

, , n, n

Aphrahat, , n, n, n

Book of the Laws of the Countries, 

apocalyptic, 

Book of the Steps, , n

apophaticism, , , n

bṣâ (“to investigate”), –, –, n,

Arabic, , n

n, n, n

Aramaic, –, n, n, n

Byzantine Empire, , , n



  

Canaanite woman, , , 

Commentary on Genesis, , , , n,

Canon of Narsai, 

n, n; biblical gures, n,

Cause of the Foundation of the Schools, 

n; educational setting, ; and other

Centurion: at the cross, –, n; heal‑

exegetical traditions, , n, n,

ing of daughter –,  Christ/Jesus: anointing of feet, ; baptism of,

n Commentary on the Diatessaron, , , ,

, –, , nn,; body of, n;

n, n, n; and biblical interpre‑

calming of the storm, ; and the demoni‑

tation, , ; biblical narratives, n,

ac, –; divinity of, , , , , ,

n, n, n, nn,; and

n, n; earthly ministry, ; entry

biography of Ephrem, n; educational

to Jerusalem, –; feeding of the multi‑

setting, 

tude, ; incarnation and birth, –,

Constantine, , , , n

–, n; language of, n;

Constantius, , , , n

miraculous healings, –, , –,

cosmology, , n

n; and Moses, , n, n‑

Council of Nicaea: and Constantine, ; and

n,; Passion and cruci xion of, –,

Ephrem, , , ; reception of, –, ,

, –, n; prophecy and ful l‑

, , , , , n; among Syriac

ment, , n, n; resurrection and

Christians, n; theology and language

Pascha, , n, n; and the

of, , , n

scribes/Pharisees, ; as son, –, –

 

, ; temptation of, ; trans guration

Dagon (Philistine god), –

of, –, ; walking on water, –, ,

Daniel, , –, , , n, n

, n; wedding at Cana –, ,

David: and Christ, –; family of, , –

n; and Zacchaeus, –. See also

; and lyre of the Psalms, , –, ,

Christology; subordinationism/anti-subor‑ dinationism; Trinitarian controversies Christmas, 

, nn, Daysanites, , n Discourses to Hypatius, , n, n,

Christology: and the Bible, , , , , – , , , n, n, n;

n draš (“to debate”), –, –, n, n,

Christological titles, , ; of Ephrem, ,

n

, , , , n; Ephrem’s rejec‑

 

tion of subordinationism, , , –, ,

Easter. See Paschal Feast

n, n; homoousios, , , –

economic language, , –, , , n,

, n, n, n; Marcion’s Christology, ; and Nicaea, , , , ,

n, n Edessa, ,  n. , n; and Ephrem, ,

; polemics and debates, , , ; and

, , n; literary culture, , n,

typology , n. See also Christ/Jesus;

n, n; school of, ; and Trini‑

subordinationism/anti-subordinationism;

tarian controversies, , n, n,

Trinitarian controversies Codex Curetonianus, , n, n, n

n education: in ascetic contexts, ; bêt madrāšâ (exegetical school), ; educational context

Codex Sinaiticus, , n, n

of the Madrashe on Faith, , –, ,

Commentary on Exodus, ,  n. 

n; Ephrem as teacher, ; Ephrem’s

  

works as school texts, ; Greco-Roman

, ; divine-human transaction, –;

education, n; and liturgy, –,

as Father/Begetter, , , –, n;

n; of biblical authors, , n; of

glori cation of, ; language about, , ,

Ephrem, , , n, n; pedagogical

; names of, , , –, , ,

function of the names of God, , ; peda‑

n; theophany, , , , , n,

gogical function of nature, ; pedagogical

n; unknowability of, , , –, ,

goal of Madrashe on Faith, ; pedagogy in Syriac theology, –; and religious art,

n Gregory Nazianzen, –, , n,

n; school of Edessa, ; school of Nis‑

n, n, n

ibis, , –, n, n; teachers,

Gregory of Nyssa, , –, n, n

–, n; and the (un)knowability of

 

God, , –, –; women as teach‑

hemorrhaging woman, , –, , n

ers, –

holy of holies, –, n

Egypt, , , , , n, n

Holy Spirit, , , , , , n; lyre of

ekphrasis, , –, –, n, n, n

, n  

Eli’phaz, 

Isaiah, n

Elisha, , n

 

epistemology, , , n

Jacob (of Nisibis), , , n

Eucharist, , , –, –, nn,,

Jacob of Sarug, –, n, n, n,

n Eunomius: and Aetius, , , –, , n; Apology, ; “Eunomian(s),” ,

n Jerusalem, , , –, –, n Jews, , n; anti-Jewish rhetoric, , ,

; opponents, –, ,  n. , n‑

n, n, n, n, n,

n,, n; theology of, –, , ,

n; language and literature, , n;

n, n; use of Scripture, ,

law and legal traditions, n, n,

n

n; liturgical practices, , ,

Eustathios of Antioch, , n Exodus, narrative of, , , n, n,

n Job, –, , n, n, n,

n

n; as ironic villain, ; and rhetori‑

Ezekiel, n, n, n; critique of religious leaders, –; and investigation,

cal use of nature, –, –, n John Chrysostom: and Eunomius, –;

–, 

rhetoric of, , n, n, n,

 

n

fasting, , , n

John the Baptist, , , , 

 

Jonah, , n, n

Gabriel. See angels

Jordan River, , –, –, n

Gehazi, –, n, n

Julian the Apostate, , , n, n;

Gerasene demoniac, , n

Madrashe Against Julian, , , , n,

God: and the Bible, –, –, , n,

n

n; and creation, ; divine investiga‑

 

tion, –, –, n, n; divine

Korah, –, , –, , n, n,

law, ; divine transcendence, , , ,

n

  

Latin, , , , n, n, n;

n

edition of the Madrashe on Faith, ; ex‑

Memre On Nicomedia, , n, n

egetical traditions, , n; paraphras‑

Memre On Reproof, , n

es, n

Mesopotamia, , , n, n; commu‑

Lent, 

nal life, , ; and Ephrem, , ; theolo‑

leprosy, –

gy, 

Life of Ephrem, , 

metaphysics, 

liturgy, –, n, n,  n. ,

mimesis, , , , 

n; Jewish liturgical practices, ,

Miriam, –, , n

n; and Madrashe, , , –, ,

Moses, , n, n, n, n,

, n, n, n; performative

n; building of tabernacle, ; educa‑

dimensions, n, n; and the

tion of, ,  n. ; and Miriam, , ;

school of Nisibis, –

as model for ascetics, n, n; and

lyre, , , n, n–, n; ken‑

Torah, –, n, n, n;

nārâ, ; metaphor of , , –, , 

trans guration of –, , n,

 

n

Macrina, , n

Mount Sinai, –, , n

Madrashe on Abraham Qidunaya, –,

 

n, n, nn, Madrashe on the Church, , n, n,

Na‘aman,  Nisibis: and Ephrem, –, n, n,

n

n, n; Madrashe on Nisibis, ,

Madrashe on Epiphany, n

n, n, n, n, n;

Madrashe on the Fast, n

populations of, n, n, school of,

Madrashe on Nativity, –, n, n, n, n, n, n

, , n Noah, , , n, n; ark of –;

Madrashe on Paradise, n, n, n‑

and investigation, ; sons of, –, ,

n,, n, n, n, n

n

Madrashe on Pascha, n

 

Madrashe on the Resurrection, n

Osrhoene, 

Madrashe on Unleavened Bread, n,

 

n, nn,, n, n; anti-

Palestine, , n

Jewish polemic, n; liturgical context,

Paschal feast, , , , , n

, ; Passion Narrative, 

Passover, , , n

Magi, –, , , , 

Paul, , , n, n, n, n

Mani, , , n, n, n;

pedagogy, , , , 

“Manichees,” , n, n, n Marcion, –, ; “Marcionites,” , , n, n Mediterranean, , , ; communal life in, ; comparative evidence, , ; debates across, , , ; and Ephrem, , ; the‑ ology of , , , n Memre on Faith, , , n, n, n; and Trinitarian debates, , , , n,

Persia, , , , n Peshitta, , n, n, n, n, n; Ephrem’s use of, n, n, n, n, n; language of in‑ vestigation, –, n; pedagogical aspects,  Peter, the apostle, , –, n Pharisees and scribes, , –, , –, , , n

  

Plato, , , n

theophany. See God

Poemata Arcana, , n

theory of names, , n

polytheism, 

Thomas (apostle), , –, , 

progymnasmata, , n, n

Torah, , –, , , n, n

Prose Refutations, , , n, n,

transgression, , , , , n

n

Trinitarian Controversies, n; and biblical

prosōpopoia (“invented speech”), , , n

interpretation, –, , ; and the Cap‑

Pseudo-Clementine, , n

padocians, –; in Edessa, n;

Pseudo-Macarius, , n

Ephrem’s Trinitarian eology, , , ,

psychology, , , n

, n, n, n; the “Homoian”

 

movement, –, n; and liturgy,

qnômê, n

; Madrashe on Faith in the context of

 

Trinitarian controversies, –, , –,

Rabbis, , n, n, n

–, n, n, n; and theo‑

Repentance, 

ry of divine names, . See also Christ/Je‑

Resurrection, , n, n

sus; Christology; subordinationism/anti-

revelation, , , n

subordinationism

Romanos, , n, n

Turkey, 

 

 

sacrament, , –, –, n. See also baptism; eucharist

Uzzah, –, , n Uzziah, –, , –, n, n,

salvation, , , n

n

Satan, , , 

 

šʼel, “to question,” –, , , n,

virginity, , , , n; Madrashe on Vir‑

n, n

ginity, , , –, n, n,

soul, , , , 

n, n

Stoics, , , n

 

subordinationism/anti-subordinationism: and

Wedding at Cana, , , , n–,

the Bible, , –, , –, –,

n; and Christ as divine caretaker,

, n; and Ephrem’s polemic, ,

–; Ephrem’s poetry as a replaying of,

, , –; and Ephrem’s Trinitarian

–, 

language, , n, n, n; and

women, , –, , n, n; daugh‑

Eunomius, n; and language of inves‑

ters of the covenant, , ; women’s choirs,

tigation, –, ; and the Madrashe

–, n, n, n

Against Heresies, ; and ritual practices,

 

; subordinationist Christologies and

Zacchaeus, –, , –, n, n,

Nicaea, , , . See also Christ/Jesus; Christology; Trinitarian controversies   Talmud,  Theodore of Mopsuestia, n

n Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist), – ,  Zechariah (the prophet), –, , , nn,