Simple and Bold: Ephrem’s Art of Symbolic Thought 9781463236335

Citation preview

Simple and Bold

Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 26

In this series Gorgias publishes monographs on Christianity and the Church Fathers in the early centuries of the Christian era. Gorgias particularly welcomes proposals from younger scholars whose dissertations have made an important contribution to the field of patristics.

Simple and Bold

Ephrem’s Art of Symbolic Thought

Kees den Biesen

9

34 2014

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2014 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2014

‫ܘ‬

9

ISBN 978-1-4632-0388-7

ISSN 1935-6870

Reprinted from the 2006 Gorgias Press edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

For Catherine

                 Because it does things easily, simplicity resembles God who easily creates everything.

 !"   # " $ %& '   (  Blessed is he who gave humankind the powerful weapon of boldness! Ephrem the Syrian

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface.................................................................................................... IX

PART 1. APPROACHING EPHREM Introduction ............................................................................................3 1. The Discovery of Symbolical Theology .....................................7 1.1. Beginnings..........................................................................................9 1.2. Images...............................................................................................22 1.3. Symbols ............................................................................................33 1.4. Concepts...........................................................................................41 2. The Literary Vehicles of Symbolical Theology .....................47 2.1. Text and Dialogue...........................................................................49 2.2. Polarity, Paradox and Symbolism.................................................51 2.3. Antithesis and Argument...............................................................62 2.4. Rhetorical Argumentation and Anti-Judaism.............................69 2.5. Rhetorical Argumentation and the Arian Controversy ............77 2.6. Polarity, Morality and Mystagogy.................................................85 Some Conclusions and Reflections................................................91

PART 2. WORD AND SILENCE Introduction ........................................................................................103 3. Between Word and Silence ........................................................109 3.1. Prologue .........................................................................................111 3.2. First Round ....................................................................................118 3.3. Short Halt.......................................................................................128 3.4. Second Round ...............................................................................130 3.5. Agreement......................................................................................140 3.6. Epilogue..........................................................................................142 V

VI

SIMPLE AND BOLD

4. The Complementary Nature of Word and Silence .............147 4.1. The Dilemma and Its “Solution” ...............................................148 Impurity and Loss, Mercy and Enrichment...............................148 A Grateful Word and a Wise Silence ..........................................152 Contemplation of the Unlimited..................................................155 The Gift of Silence and Speech....................................................161 Word and Silence: Gifts of Life, Gifts of Christ.......................169 4.2. The Helpful Word ........................................................................174 Comparisons that are Words of Life...........................................175 A Helpful Word and a Discerning Silence .................................180 4.3. Word and Silence, the Revealed and the Hidden ....................187 Prayer and Faith..............................................................................187 Speaking about the Revealed, Silence about the Hidden .........194 Some Conclusions .............................................................................201

PART 3. SYMBOL AND INTELLECT Introduction ........................................................................................207 5. The Gift of the Word and the Intellect ...................................211 5.1. Audacity, Simplicity and the Nature of Knowledge................214 To Go or Not to Go......................................................................215 Again Fear and Love......................................................................218 Audacity, Boldness and Sound Propriety ...................................223 Simple-mindedness, Deep Investigation and Discernment ....227 Simplicity, Subtlety and Intelligence............................................235 5.2. The Word, Free Will and the Image of God............................247 The Authoritative Word................................................................249 Anthropological Intermezzo ........................................................255 The Paradoxes of Authoritative Free Will .................................260 5.3 Human Knowledge and Limits ...................................................268 Knowing and Unknowing.............................................................270 The Power of the Limited.............................................................274 6. The Intelligence of Symbolic Thought..................................279 6.1. Ephrem the Agnostic ...................................................................281 6.2. Ephrem the Anti-Greek...............................................................287 6.3. Ephrem the Anti-Arian................................................................293 6.4. Ephrem the Apophatic ................................................................308

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VII

EPHREM THE ARTIST WITH WORDS Insight and Initiation ...........................................................................322 Symbolic Thought and Sacred Ritual................................................324 Symbolic Thought Now......................................................................330 ———— Selection of Texts ..............................................................................335 Teaching Song on the Church 9.................................................................335 Teaching Song on Faith 38.......................................................................341 First Discourse for Hypaius.....................................................................344 Index of Quotations..........................................................................365 Index of Syriac Terms......................................................................373 Bibliography 1. Ephrem’s Works ..............................................................................393 2. Other Texts.......................................................................................397 3. Cited Studies and Consulted Reference Works ..........................398 Index of Authors ................................................................................431

PREFACE Ephrem the Syrian, relegated to obscure times and distant lands by the caprices of history and the distortions of human perception, has slowly been moving from fourth-century Mesopotamia to the forefront of studies in early Christian literature. Historical and theological research into this fascinating author has, until recently, been severely conditioned by a number of factors. Perhaps the most important of these is the supposed cultural divide between the Greek East and the Syrian Orient and the concomitant dichotomy between learned Hellenistic philosophy and primitive Semitic poetry. Another factor lies in a certain negative attitude towards Syriac theology in general that reveals itself, for example, in the polemical terms with which certain Syriac traditions have traditionally been labeled.1 And finally there is the widespread image of Ephrem as the orthodox yet obscure theologian hailed by these peculiar Syriac traditions as their earliest and greatest authority. Since the 1970s, however, a steadily increasing number of scholars have acknowledged Ephrem’s stature as a poet and theologian who occupies a unique position in the history of Christian literature and thought and deserves to be taken much more seriously. In all of Christianity, no one has ever produced a poetical oeuvre as vast and influential as Ephrem’s and few have formulated a theological world vision as artistic, intelligent, and fully human. With this study, I aim to explore the literary, intellectual and theological mechanisms at work in Ephrem’s writings. In doing so, I try to answer an apparently simple question: This Ephrem the Syrian, what is he really all about? It goes without saying that the 1

Many modern authors still employ terms like “monophysite” and “duophysite,” “Jacobite” and “Nestorian,” without realizing how biased and historically objectionable these are.

IX

X

SIMPLE AND BOLD

answer presented here does not relate to the contents of his writings, which are so diverse and multifaceted that only a gigantic work somewhat similar to the Enciclopedia Dantesca would do them justice. This study concerns the overall configuration of what Sebastian Brock has termed Ephrem’s “spiritual world vision,” and seeks to trace the dynamism of its literary, intellectual and theological construction. It is an opportune time now to publish a study like this, while Christians from various churches and many scholars alike are celebrating the seventeenth centenary of Ephrem’s birth. Syriac studies in general are flourishing, several new academic societies for Syriac studies have been founded in recent years, and Ephrem certainly shares in the growing interest Syriac Christianity is currently enjoying. From 2000 to 2004 no less than fifteen articles exclusively dealing with Ephrem have been published yearly, which is quite remarkable. 2 Earlier this year, two large conferences exclusively dedicated to Ephrem brought together a great number of international scholars who are contributing to two ample volumes of more than twenty studies each.3 One of the most salient and significant aspects of these conferences was the intertwining of perspectives. Specialists in various areas of early Syriac literature are ever more aware of each other’s work and eager to effectively contribute to an interdisciplinary integration of viewpoints, readings and findings. Questions and answers, previously asked and given within restricted areas of interest and perception, are being reviewed from new and additional perspectives to reap original and innovative answers. Certain considerable gaps in our knowledge are tentatively being filled and untrodden roads are being opened that arouse lively interest and enthusiasm.

2

Since I self-published my Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian in 2002, the number of titles dealing with Ephrem, in one way or another, has increased by some 230 to a total of more than 2040 at the time of writing. 3 The proceedings of first conference, St. Éphrem, poète pour notre temps, (Aleppo, May 11-14) will be published by the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Orientales (Antélias, Lebanon) as volume 11 of its Patrimoine Syriaque series. The proceedings of the second conference, Colloque international Ephrem le Syrien (Ligugé, June 7-9), will be published by the Société d’Études Syriaques (Paris) in its Études Syriaques collection.

PREFACE

XI

These converging avenues of research also raise new questions, especially in the field of methodology. The time seems ripe to attempt a critical review, evaluation and integration of various approaches to Ephrem along with their often contrasting perceptions of the value of his thought. In this study, therefore, I try to integrate the work of a great variety of scholars who have all contributed to a better knowledge and deeper understanding of Ephrem. This, inevitably, makes for a long and winding exploration and for intense and patient reading. It also accounts for the great number of footnote references which, as Joseph Campbell pointedly remarks, might indicate a lack of personal vision.4 Even though I wait until the end of the book before explicitly and fully proposing my own vision on Ephrem, I hope the reader will be aware throughout this book that its diverse and sometimes disparate elements are all meant to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the nature and merits of Ephrem’s thought.

NATURE AND PLAN OF THIS STUDY This study began as an analysis of the rhetorical function and theological relevance of the polarity between “word” and “silence” in the works of Ephrem. This polarity is part of his favorite imagery and it has, therefore, a certain literary importance. Yet it also constitutes the intellectual tool with which he resolves one of his greatest concerns, that is, the question of the nature of religious language and theological research. In earlier, unpublished research, I categorized and briefly analyzed Ephrem’s use of the binomial melltā-šetqā, “word-silence,” in a variety of contexts.5 Not only did it prove to be an important key to Ephrem’s self-understanding as a theologian; it also turned out to articulate the correlations between his doctrines on creation, revelation, and God. The authenticity of the Christian discourse on God is, in fact, based on a fine balance between word and silence. This balance enables us to speak about God within the limits of knowledge with which we were created. Moreover, a carefully measured discourse on God mirrors God’s own word in Scripture, since word and silence correspond to the two dimensions of revelation, that is, “the 4 5

Pathways to Bliss, p. 11. Cf. the introduction to Part 2.

XII

SIMPLE AND BOLD

hidden” (kasyā) and “the revealed” (galyā). We speak about what is revealed, but keep silent about what remains hidden. Thus every word about God, in theology as in revelation, stands out against a background of mystery and is, therefore, inextricably associated with silence. With respect to language, like in other ways, revelation is the very foundation of theology. Yet revelation itself refers to an even more fundamental relationship between word and silence, that is, the relationship between “the Silence” (šelyā) or “Silent One” (šalyā) and his “Word” (melltā). Originally, I simply meant to explore these themes more thoroughly, yet my way of reading Ephrem, somewhat different from the majority of Ephrem studies, raised some important methodological issues that called for a different approach. As a student, my way of interpreting Ephrem was quite intuitive, yet it quickly became more conscious thanks to a few extraordinary teachers who profoundly influenced my approach to Ephrem and to patristics and theology in general: Fr. Hans van der Laan o.s.b., my teacher in architectural theory, liturgical form and analogical thought;6 Fr. Basil Studer o.s.b., my professor of patristics at the Istituto Patristico ‘Augustinianum’ at Rome; 7 and, through their studies in Ephrem, Fr. Robert Murray s.j. and Dr. Sebastian

6

See especially his Play of Forms, but also Architectonic Space. Van der Laan (1904-1991) developed not only “the most complete and coherent treatise on the nature, purpose and meaning of architecture that has ever been attempted” (Padovan, Architecture, p. 4), but also “a wide-ranging vision on the relationship between nature, art, and religion” in which he gives “a completely new definition of the relationship between Christian faith and the world, on the basis of an extremely rare balance, in his own person, between the artist, the thinker, and the religious man” (Play of Forms, Preface by Kees den Biesen, pp. VIII and XI). I believe Ephrem to have been a similar kind of person, able to develop a deeply human vision based on art, in his case, the art of the word. 7 In 1989-1991, Studer gave, among others, some particularly memorable classes about “Deus” and “Christus” in Augustine, in which he taught his students how to integrate a precise reading of texts with an autonomous reflection on their contents. He used to say that there are few philologists and historians able to genuinely reflect on a text and few philosophers and theologians able to correctly read one—a provocative statement that is more true than one would perhaps like to admit.

PREFACE

XIII

Brock. 8 I came to know and understand Ephrem as an author whose writings require an interdisciplinary approach rarely found in patristic studies. It appeared appropriate and also more interesting to limit the thematic scope of this study and pay special attention to methodological and hermeneutic questions. There are three related issues in particular that guide my research. First, the scarcity of studies that go beyond an analyticaldescriptive approach in order to give a genuinely theological evaluation of Ephrem’s works. Second, the general inability of Western theologians to appreciate the specific intelligence of the analogical mode of thought that is at work in Ephrem’s writings. And third, the lack of clarity in Ephrem studies with regard to the relationship between literary form and theological content. These three issues are discussed in Part 1, Approaching Ephrem. Chapter 1 considers the first two issues, Chapter 2 the third. The methodological principles developed in Part 1 are then applied and exemplified in Part 2, Word and Silence, which studies the function of the polarity between melltā and šetqā in Ephrem’s madrāšē.9 Chapter 3 analyses a single fundamental text, Chapter 4 an ample choice of related texts. Part 3, Symbol and Intellect, raises this examination to a more conceptual level. Chapter 5 discusses a long prose text and analyses Ephrem’s use of polarity as a means of literary articulation and conceptual definition. Finally, Chapter 6 contains a systematic evaluation of the theological relevance of Ephrem’s symbolic thought. When I speak of “symbolic thought,” “symbolical theology” or simply “thought,” I mean Ephrem’s particular way of thinking, not the contents of his writings nor the doctrine they contain. In this study, therefore, I do not analyze Ephrem’s writings from the point of view of the history of Christian doctrine nor am I particularly interested in tracing his sources or in comparing him with 8

In particular Brock’s ‘Poetic artistry’ and Luminous Eye, and Murray’s ‘Theory’. Murray’s article inspired me to write ‘Teologia’ and the more elaborate ‘Spreken’; all three articles include a translation of TSChurch 9 (the text analyzed in Chapter 3), and it is in them that the present study has its origin. 9 For a description of the literary form of the madrāšā and a discussion of its possible origins, see Beck, ‘Hymnik’ and McVey, ‘Madrāšē’.

XIV

SIMPLE AND BOLD

contemporary or later authors.10 Rather, I attempt to integrate historical, linguistic, philosophical, theological and liturgical perspectives into an overall evaluation of the specific qualities of Ephrem’s mode of thought. In all of this, no attempt is made to achieve a strictly logical coherence. Rather, this study proceeds in a phenomenological way, developing organically along the lines of Ephrem’s texts themselves. The nature of Ephrem’s thought is thus that no historical or systematic exposition can really do it justice. Reading Ephrem is not a matter of learning or erudition, even though it requires a great deal of knowledge. Rather, we are dealing with the art of language and symbolic thought that, like all art, requires a real initiation. Reading Ephrem is an art in itself.

PART 1: APPROACHING EPHREM Studies in Ephrem are presently undergoing a period of considerable growth, just like Syriac studies in general; yet in comparison to the wider field of patristic studies, they are still far from reaching a certain methodological maturity.11 While philological, historical and comparative studies are predominant and continue to make important contributions to our understanding of Ephrem’s writings, genuine theological studies are few and far between—which is the first of my concerns here. Part 1 contains, therefore, a discussion of the most important research done on Ephrem during the past sixty years and focuses mainly on methodological issues. It tries to answer the question of how we can best approach this fourthcentury theologian and poet. Chapter 1, The Discovery of Symbolical Theology, shows that it is not exactly helpful to judge Ephrem’s teachings and terminology according to the standards of, for example, traditional catholic theo10

Overall, earlier sources present very little material relevant to the present study. A few fragments from the Odes of Solomon and Aphraha’s Demonstrations have been included here in order to offer at least a few points of comparison. Occasionally, I also point out certain topics that would become very important in later Syriac traditions. 11 In accordance with current usage, I distinguish between “method” as one specific form of procedure and “methodology” as a wider system that combines various methods within one specific area of research. Instead of “methodology,” I often prefer the less formal “approach.”

PREFACE

XV

logy, as e.g. Edmund Beck has done. Neither is it enough to make an inventory of his use of specific symbols, as quite a few publications of the 1960s and 1970s did, nor even to abandon the constraints of conventional Western logic and follow the analogical movement of his thought. Tanios Bou Mansour has convincingly argued that Ephrem’s writings can only be properly interpreted by a theological reflection that duly takes all of these elements into account, but at the same time transcends them by its own creative thought. He calls Ephrem’s mode of thought “penser à partir du symbole” and adds that only those who are able to think symbolically, will have a chance of understanding Ephrem. In this respect, Bou Mansour’s La pensée symbolique de saint Ephrem le Syrien constitutes a landmark study that up until now no one has adequately responded to. These methodological considerations lead to a second question: How does Ephrem’s symbolical or analogical thought relate to human intelligence? Until recently, nobody has made a clear distinction between “theological poetry” and “symbolical theology.” The early Christian use of comparisons, analogies, paradoxes and symbols—commonly referred to as “poetic” and “symbolical” language—is considered to be a literary feature whose theological relevance is rather limited. Ephrem’s symbolism is, therefore, often seen as a didactic or artistic presentation,12 as “theological poetry” that must be skipped over in order to reach his so-called “real” thought—and it comes as no surprise that some have concluded that there is no genuine thinking at all behind his imagery. Yet Ephrem develops a specific form of theology that considers the analogical mode of thought as the only appropriate way to interpret reality from a religious point of view. In articulating his vision of God, humanity and the world, Ephrem makes use of the manifold techniques and procedures of language not just as literary means of expression that produce “theological poetry,” but, first and foremost, as a set of hermeneutic tools that allow him to develop what we have come to call “symbolical theology.” Interestingly, recent studies have shown Ephrem to be well acquainted 12

According to Griffith, “both ancients and moderns are agreed that his [Ephrem’s] genius lay in the skill with which he was able to present his religious thought in almost flawless Syriac verse” (‘Image’, p. 258; the italics are mine).

XVI

SIMPLE AND BOLD

with certain Greek philosophical concepts and able to develop a genuinely rational line of thought.13 It is, therefore, paradoxical that Ephrem studies have underestimated for so long both the intelligence of his symbolism and the power of his conceptual reasoning. A full grasp of Ephrem’s thought, both in its analogical and logical form, is impossible if one ignores the literary vehicles that shape and express that thought. This is the third of my concerns and the topic of Chapter 2, The Literary Vehicles of Symbolical Theology. Since the late 1980s, Phil J. Botha has been doing ground-breaking work in this field. He is the first scholar to apply to Ephrem’s theology the extremely helpful distinction between logical demonstration and rhetorical argumentation as two different ways of reasoning, each with its own goal. The first directly addresses an opinion considered to be wrong and tries to disprove it; the second makes use of the disjunctive and conjunctive powers of antithesis in order to distance the audience from error and strengthen its adhesion to orthodoxy. In Ephrem’s view, the interplay of the countless polarities present in Scripture, nature and human life gives us some sense of the primary polarity between the Creator and the created, between the unlimited and the limited, between eternity and time. It is crucial to realize that this polar structure of reality is not only the basis of Ephrem’s symbolism, but also of his rhetoric. His use of polarities is not only theological, in the sense that he represents the invisible through symbols from the visible order or the eternal through symbols from the temporal order. It also has a rhetorical function, and he actually constructs a great part of his theological symbolism in function of his rhetoric. A theological analysis that wishes to have a foundation in Ephrem’s texts themselves should, therefore, include a proper understanding of these texts as documents written by a master in the art of expression and persuasion.

PART 2: WORD AND SILENCE In order to better understand the rhetorical and theological function of polarity in Ephrem’s written art, I analyze, in Part 2, the binomial melltā-šetqā and related polarities on the basis of carefully 13

A revealing example of the rational way in which Ephrem analyzes his opponents’ doctrines and highlights the contradictions they contain is found in Hypaius 3, see Mitchell, Hypatius, pp. 66:36-77:44.

PREFACE

XVII

selected passages from the madrāšē. This analysis gradually moves from images to concepts and prepares the first Chapter of Part 3, which expands this literary approach into a more comprehensive and systematic reflection on Ephrem’s use of polarity.14 Chapter 3, Between Word and Silence, discusses Teaching Song on the Church 9 that is the best introduction possible to the theme. This “dialogue of reason and love,” as Robert Murray has called it, establishes that word and silence are inextricable. Neither an agnostic silence nor an audacious word embodies the right attitude towards the divine mystery. Only a speaker who is bold as well as wise overcomes the first and avoids the latter, by allowing silence and word to set each other the right measure. Word and silence then become what they are truly meant to be, a gift of Christ. Chapter 4, The Complementary Nature of Word and Silence, presents a variety of texts that put this dynamic union of word and silence in a wider perspective and allow us to gradually pass from all kinds of images to concepts. Ephrem argues that what is at stake here is the right understanding of limits. Instead of agnostically identifying ourselves with the limits of our created condition and professing complete ignorance with respect to God, or, by contrast, audaciously rejecting all limitation in order to grasp the Unlimited, we truly come into touch with God through the paradoxical union of word and silence. As we will see, the unlimited is accessible to us precisely in and through our limitations, and not as a result of their (impossible) elimination.

PART 3: SYMBOL AND INTELLECT The long, meandering reading of all these texts aims at illustrating and refining the methodology developed in Part 1 and leads to some significant conclusions with respect to the way Ephrem expresses his thought. At the same time, it prepares Part 3, Symbol and 14

Han Drijvers proposed to address the question of literary form and content in early Syriac literature through a study that abstains from theory and focuses on a specific literary corpus (‘Solomon’, p. 124). In a baffling salto mortale, then, his analyses jump from conceptual patterns to poetical forms, which they simply reduce to didactic means of teaching. Contradictions of this kind show that we can never question and articulate our presuppositions in reading texts without properly dealing with literary or hermeneutic theories.

XVIII

SIMPLE AND BOLD

Intellect, which develops a more comprehensive reflection on the way Ephrem defines his terminology and constructs his thought. In Chapter 5, The Gift of the Word and the Intellect, I explore the first part of the First Discourse for Hypaius which constitutes an epistemological treatise that serves as an introduction to the whole set of five Discourses for Hypaius. In its imagery and way of reasoning this prose text is close to the madrāšē and, therefore, comprehensible only thanks to the previous examination (in Chapters 3 and 4) of the highly ramified imagery and analogous mode of thought of the madrāšē. Yet this treatise has a truly systematic character and reveals a quality of thought which is only rarely pointed out and appreciated by scholars. At the same time, it employs a whole set of polarities—expressed through antitheses like fear vs. love, audacity vs. boldness, simple-mindedness vs. simplicity, subtlety vs. intelligence—which represent genuine theological categories and express a way of reasoning that thwarts any attempt at an easy conceptual reduction that might seem intellectually more satisfying. Not by chance, Ephrem has often been said to be paradoxical, contradictory, or agnostic. Such critique usually reveals an all too rational approach that reduces human intelligence to the conceptual, seriously misinterprets Ephrem, and not even conceives of the possibility of symbolic thought. This is the topic of Chapter 6, The Intelligence of Symbolic Thought, in which a number of unambiguous assessments of the merits and demerits of Ephrem’s approach to theology are evaluated. The consecutive portraits of Ephrem as thinker and theologian gradually become more positive and culminate in Bou Mansour’s magnificent exposé in La pensée symbolique de saint Ephrem le Syrien. The findings of all previous Chapters effectively converge in the criteria I use for this evaluation. Such is, in fact, the structure of the book: both Parts 1 and Part 2 end with conclusions that summarize their findings, propose some reflections, and prepare the next Part. This forward movement continues in Part 3, where it at the same time returns to the beginning in Part 1: in effect, Chapter 5 corresponds to Chapter 2, and Chapter 6 to Chapter 1. Chapter 2 contains a general analysis of the literary construction of Ephrem’s thought, the findings of which are applied to a specific text in Chapter 5 on the basis of the preceding Chapters 3 and 4. Likewise, Chapter 1 contains a general methodological evaluation of Ephrem studies, which prepares the

PREFACE

XIX

theological evaluation of the most important of those studies in Chapter 6 on the basis of the whole of Chapters 2 to 5.

EPHREM THE ARTIST WITH WORDS Concluding the line of thought developed throughout this study, I finally formulate my own overall understanding of Ephrem as a writer and thinker. Here I draw a portrait of Ephrem as an author whose literary production reveals symbolic thought to be nothing less than an art that is rooted in ritual and initiation. In my view, our difficulty in understanding Ephrem is due to two related factors: our inability to appreciate any form of intelligence different from rational thought and our tendency to underestimate the tremendous power of language and of art in general. Theology seems to have suffered from a typical Western superiority complex and has far too long looked down upon “primitive” authors such as Ephrem, surmising that whatever quality it could discern was a matter of either uncompromising orthodoxy, accomplished poetics, or unconscious performance. In reality, we have only just begun to perceive and appreciate Ephrem’s art of symbolic thought. Ephrem is indeed an accomplished poet, yet his specific form of orthodoxy employs the art of language in such a way as to surpass the clarity of well-defined terminology and logical demonstration with the clarity of a more comprehensive and superior form of intelligence. The intelligence at work in Ephrem’s symbolic thought fosters a cognitive process that goes far beyond the formulation of a doctrinal belief system. Through the evocative power of the art of language, Ephrem’s symbolical interpretation of the world sets in motion a heuristic process that is rooted in the human psyche and aims at the initiation of both the individual and the community into the mystery of God and life. The true space for this process is the celebration of the liturgy, which calls upon the transforming powers of all the arts to represent the very essence of life in ritual forms that initiate us into life’s mysteries. In the final analysis Ephrem’s art of symbolic thought is “simple and bold,” as the title of this book says. The simplicity, pšiutā, of symbolic thought consists in the discernment, puršānā, with which it chooses the middle road between too little and too much knowledge, that is, the only road to authentic understanding

XX

SIMPLE AND BOLD

and real redemption. In Ephrem’s view, “the mind is without limit, since its reach extends even unto God who cannot be delimited.”15 Only the simplicity of symbolic thought empowers the human intellect to act with the boldness, aiputā, that is needs to reach the understanding and redemption that it is meant to obtain.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book was written over a period of seven years, during which it endured several long interruptions and the vicissitudes of an odyssey that led from the Netherlands to Ireland, Egypt and, finally, Italy. It is thanks to the continuous support of my wife Catherine that I have had the chance to write this book. She has edited the whole manuscript and greatly helped me to articulate my thoughts in clear and plain English. It is with gratitude that I dedicate this book to her. For a long time I had wanted to write a book about Ephrem, when I was offered the possibility to do preparatory work for a dissertation at the Institute for Eastern Christian Studies in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 1997. My gratitude extends to Dr. Herman Teule and Dr. Adelbert Davids for their scientific assistance and to all the faculty and staff for their friendship. In the course of writing this book, I came to realize how much I owe to two eminent scholars in Syriac studies, Fr. Robert Murray, s.j. (Heythrop College, London) and Dr. Sebastian Brock (Oriental Institute, Oxford). Ever since I started reading Ephrem twenty-five years ago, their publications were a constant source of inspiration and insight. Time and again, Fr. Murray’s publications opened the eyes of my intuition for valuable avenues of research that only now I see converging in this book. Dr. Brock’s studies always provided me with a point of reference in my efforts to articulate a coherent understanding of Ephrem’s symbolic thought. A special word of thanks goes to Fr. Tanios Bou Mansour (Université du Saint-Esprit, Kaslik) and Dr. Phil Botha (University of Pretoria) whose extremely valuable work has been a great source of insight. They have allowed me to put into words intuitions and convictions that I otherwise might not have articulated as clearly as I wished. Their work has not yet been absorbed by Ephrem studies 15

Hypaius 4, Mitchell, Hypatius, 116:43-47.

PREFACE

XXI

and I hope this book may help to make their work more widely known and appreciated. At the end of the journey, several studies of Dr. Susan Ashbrook Harvey (Brown University, Providence) greatly inspired me. She has opened up new horizons for research and formulated insights that helped me to better formulate my overall understanding of Ephrem. Many thanks are due to colleagues who kindly provided me with copies of their publications, explained their ideas, or helped me in other ways: Fr. François Cassingena-Trévedy, o.s.b. (Institut Catholique, Paris), Fr. Sidney Griffith (Catholic University, Washington), Edward G. Mathews (Scranton), Kathleen E. McVey (Princeton University), Andrew Palmer, Ute Possekel (Princeton University), Alphons S. Rodrigues Pereira (The Hague), Paul S. Russell (Anglican Theological Seminary, Berkeley), Alison Salvesen (Oriental Institute, Oxford), Christine C. Shepardson (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) and Emidio Vergani (Pontifio Istituto Orientale, Rome). A special word of thanks is due to Fr. Vincent Mistrih o.f.m. and his confrères at the Franciscan Center for Oriental Christian Studies in Mousky, who warmly welcomed me into their peaceful oasis of study in the midst of medieval Cairo’s hustle and bustle. Finally I wish to thank a few dear friends whose affection and lively interest has never failed me: Rob and Heleen De Bruïne, Theo and Louise Malschaert, Gerrit and Vera Mimpen, Myriam Schretlen-Wubbe and sister Marcella Troosters o.c.s.o.

XXII

SIMPLE AND BOLD

NOTES For reasons of space, I use a simple system of abbreviations for the text editions and studies that I quoted, cf. the Bibliography on pp. 393-430. All translations from the Syrian and Armenian are my own. If a translation is inspired by an existing translation, this is indicated in a footnote. Quotations from the Syriac are given in transliterations that do not claim to have philological exactness, but serve the sole purpose of showing how I vocalize and interpret the texts.16 The texts quoted in this book are all taken from what are generally considered to be Ephrem’s authentic works. The only text not included among the sources is the Commentary on the Diatessaron, as it is considered to be a work that, at least in its present form, constitutes a compilation from the hand of one of Ephrem’s disciples.17 Since my interest here is in methodological and theological matters, I do not exploit all the textual material available; only Part 2 is based on an extensive analysis of relevant texts. References to specific Syriac terms, poetic themes or theological concepts can undoubtedly be completed with many more instances. Ephrem’s madrāšē and mēmrē are usually referred to as “hymns” and “sermons” respectively. Andrew Palmer has replaced these all too vague terms with “teaching song” and “verse homily,” using TS and VH as abbreviations.18 I have adopted this terminology when I speak about individual texts; otherwise I usually prefer to use the Syriac terms.

16

Throughout the text double quotation marks are used; single quotation marks are used only to indicate translations of specific Syriac terms. 17 Only a few references to CommDiat have been included. 18 ‘Single human being’, §§ 1 & 5. See Cassingena-Trévedy, ‘Hymnographie’, pp. 5-7, and the considerations on pp. 324-329.

INTRODUCTION Whoever spends some hours reading Ephrem’s madrāšē for the first time, is likely to get the impression of entering a labyrinth of words, images and half-unveiled meanings in which it is easy to loose one’s way or simply get terribly bored. For a modern reader, accustomed to a world of thought and image that also in religious matters is predominantly analytical and functional, Ephrem’s exquisite analogical way of thinking and writing is rather daunting. Gerard Rouwhorst points out that the assiduous reader cannot fail to discover the particular order which reigns in the apparent chaos of symbols and images, 1 while Paul Russell emphasizes that Ephrem’s thought is far more accessible to us than that of many other early Christian authors precisely thanks to the repetitive character of his madrāšē.2 To others, however, the wealth of images by means of which Ephrem expresses his thought might seem the cover-up for a lack of depth. They consider Ephrem’s thought as elusive or, when they judge it against Western standards of rationality, even non-existent. The relationship between literary form and theological thought in Ephrem’s writings, that is, the relationship between his so-called “poetic” language and the thought it expresses and develops, is, in fact, an issue of considerable complexity that has led scholars to adopt completely different positions. Statements like J.B. Segal’s, that Ephrem’s work “shows little profundity or originality of thought” while “his poems are turgid, humourless, and repetitive,”3 contrast sharply with Sebastian Brock’s view that “poetry can prove to be an excellent medium for creative theological

1

Rouwhorst, Efrem, p. 17. Russell, ‘St. Ephraem’, p. 83. 3 Segal, Edessa, p. 89. 2

3

4

SIMPLE AND BOLD

writing” and that “Ephrem’s writings still retain a great freshness and immediacy for the modern reader.”4 One of the aims of this study is to gain a thorough understanding of the interaction between form and thought in Ephrem’s works. His way of writing and thinking is based on a methodology that combines literary art and theological argumentation not just for reasons of didactic convenience or rhetoric excellence. In Ephrem’s works, figures of speech like parallelism, antithesis and paradox are much more than mere tropes. They are, as Rouwhorst puts it, the “grammar” of Ephrem’s theology and the very “code” gives us access to the dynamics of his thought.5 Unlike certain theological traditions of Western Christianity, which over the centuries developed a strong bias towards philosophical terminology and rational thought, Ephrem considers any attempt to encapsulate the truths of Christian faith in fixed formulae and dogmatic definitions as inadequate and risky. In his view, such a kind of language simply misses the point, since it is neither able nor meant to do what seems a contradiction in terms, that is, to speak about the Unspeakable. He, by contrast, develops a form of theology which is pre-eminently “poetic,” in the sense that it exploits the means and strategies of the art of the word in such a way that it respects the limits of human understanding, the inaccessibility of God’s mystery, and, as we shall see, the silence which puts the human word in the right perspective. In his writings, the clarity of well-defined terminology and logical demonstration— commonly considered to be the hallmark of human intelligence and certainly not foreign to Ephrem—is subordinated to the clarity of a different, more comprehensive and superior form of intelligence. In this respect, Ephrem’s mode of thought shows great similarities to Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of symbolism.6 4

Brock, Luminous Eye, p. 161. For a short but interesting reflection on the fact that Ephrem has been “so little appreciated, indeed actually denigrated” in the English-speaking world, cf. his ‘Poetic artistry’, pp. 21-23. 5 Rouwhorst, Efrem, p. 19. 6 This was first pointed out by Murray in ‘Theory’, p. 3. In Pensée symbolique, Bou Mansour gives a number of significant quotations from Ricoeur, which give some idea of Ephrem’s proximity to Ricoeur. Some of Bou Mansour’s considerations are discussed in Chapters 1 and 6, yet this issue certainly calls for further exploration.

INTRODUCTION TO PART 1

5

There are few studies that delve into the principles and structure of Ephrem’s theology. Most authors exploring themes with a theological dimension limit themselves to a descriptive approach that locates Ephrem within a wider textual or historical context, but does not enter into any real literary or theological analysis. Over the last two decades, however, scholars have become more aware of the density and complexity of Ephrem’s thought, and it seems time has come to search for an interdisciplinary approach that is able to do justice to his multifaceted and multilayered writings. Before we start to explore the dynamic of Ephrem’s rhetoric and symbolism through the prism of the binomial “word and silence” in Part 2, it is therefore convenient to first present a discussion of the research that has been done into Ephrem from a methodological point of view. This will show clearly what is at stake here. The first Chapter, The Discovery of Symbolical Theology, shows how in the course of the twentieth century Ephrem’s particular form of theology came to be defined as “symbolical.” After a short synopsis of research done up to the early 1970s (1.1. Beginnings), Ephrem’s symbolical vision is first described by means of images introduced by Robert Murray and Sebastian Brock (1.2. Images). The next section briefly analyzes the fundamental characteristics of Ephrem’s symbolism on the basis of the work of Tanios Bou Mansour (1.3. Symbols). Finally, this picture of Ephrem’s symbolic thought is complemented by a short presentation of his use of Greek philosophical concepts and modes of thoughts as uncovered by Ute Possekel (1.4. Concepts). The second Chapter, The Literary Vehicles of Symbolical Theology, shows how symbolical theology can only exist thanks to a specific kind of language—a fact which Ephrem studies never took into due account until Phil Botha began publishing his invaluable analyses of Ephrem’s madrāšē in the late 1980s. Chapters 1 and 2 lead to the conclusion that we can properly interpret Ephrem and reflect on his thoughts only on two conditions: first, we need to distinguish between rational and symbolic thought and to understand the specific qualities of the latter in Ephrem’s writings; and second, we need to understand and appreciate the literary and rhetorical techniques these writings employ.

CHAPTER 1

THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY Ephrem’s theology is often called “symbolical” or “poetical” and, as such, it is considered to be unequalled in the history of Christianity. Only the “mystical” theology of Dionysius the Areopagite and the “poetical” theology of Dante’s Divina Commedia come anywhere close to it. Epithets like “symbolical” and “poetical,” though commonly used, are not as self-evident as might seem; as a matter of fact, most authors use these terms without properly defining them. We will try to establish here in what sense they can be used in order to describe or define Ephrem’s theological methodology. The authors that contributed the most to our understanding of the theological foundations of Ephrem’s thought are André de Halleux, Sebastian Brock, Robert Murray and Tanios Bou Mansour. De Halleux’s ‘Mar Éphrem théologien’ (1973), Brock’s ‘World and Sacrament in the writings of the Syrian Fathers’ (1974) and ‘The poet as theologian’ (1977), and Murray’s ‘The theory of symbolism in St. Ephrem’s theology’ (1975) and ‘Der Dichter als Exeget: der hl. Ephräm und die heutige Exegese’ (1978) were brilliant and at times visionary articles that, perhaps for the first time ever, revealed the tremendous power of Ephrem’s theological vision. Murray’s classic Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (1975, 22004) was the first work to give an in-depth analysis of early Syriac symbolical theology on the basis of a single complex of related themes, in which Ephrem prominently features. 7

8

SIMPLE AND BOLD

De Halleux’s ‘Saint Éphrem le Syrien’ (1983) gave an erudite summary and brilliant interpretation of modern research into Ephrem, while Brock’s The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St. Ephrem (1985, 21992) formulated a synthesis of Ephrem’s thought that made Ephrem accessible to the general public. The most profound and challenging study about Ephrem is La pensée symbolique de saint Ephrem le Syrien by Tanios Bou Mansour (1988). It is a philosophical-theological work inspired by the hermeneutics developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer, which focuses on the interaction between text and reader. Connecting Ephrem to the Antiochene tradition, Murray had already pointed out that after many centuries of failed attempts, it is at last possible to rightly appreciate the hermeneutics of this tradition thanks to the new scientific tools developed by Carl Gustav Jung, Paul Ricoeur and Gadamer.1 Bou Mansour is the first scholar to avail of some of this innovative armamentarium in his approach to Ephrem, especially of Ricoeur’s reflections on symbolism. Different but not less ground-breaking is Ute Possekel’s Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian (1999), which once and forever disposes of the myth of Ephrem’s independence from Hellenistic influences and of the purity of his “Semitic theology.” All these authors published during the last quarter of the twentieth century, a period that witnessed a great flourishing of Ephrem studies and marked a considerable leap of quality. In order to better appreciate their manifold contributions to our understanding of Ephrem’s theology, we will first briefly take a look at the achievements of earlier scholarship.2 It goes without saying that the following is no more than an attempt to establish some of the main lines along which Ephrem studies have developed. The incredibly rich and complex textual sources and the abundance of publications dealing with Ephrem in a variety of ways certainly deserve a more thorough treatment.

1

‘Dichter’, p. 485. Cf. below, pp. 27f. On the following pages I refer to a great number of publications that are not mentioned elsewhere in this study. In order not to overload the list in section 3 of the Bibliography, I simply refer to their numbers in my Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian, abbreviated BES. 2

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

9

1.1. BEGINNINGS Edward Thwaites’ S. Ephraim Syrus, Graece e codicibus manuscriptis Bodleanis (1709) is the first edition of writings attributed to Ephrem, preceded only by Ambrogio Traversari’s Latin translation of a small number of Greek texts (printed in the late fifteenth century) and Gerard Vossius’ translations in Sancti Ephraem Syri opera omnia quotquot Graece inveniri potuerunt (1589-1598).3 Syriac texts attributed to Ephrem first became known thanks to Joseph Simeon Assemani’s Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-vaticana (1719), which listed all such writings preserved in manuscripts acquired by pope Clemens XI (1700-1721). In the six volumes of Sancti Patris nostri Ephraem Syri opera omnia, these texts were published by his friend Pierre Mobarak and his nephew Étienne Awad Assemani (1737, 1740 and 1743), while Assemani himself edited a great number of Greek texts (in 1732, 1743 and 1746).4 The first half of the nineteenth century saw a second important edition of texts attributed to Ephrem, that is, the four volumes of Armenian texts published by the Venetian Mechitarists in Srboyn Efremi xorun suri matenagrut‘iwnk‘

3

Cf. den Biesen, Bibliography, pp. 351-356 and 357-359 respectively for an overview of the works published by Vossius (1577-1649) and Thwaites (1667-1711). The work of Traversari, also known as Ambrosius Camaldulensis (1386-1439), saw a large number of editions, cf. BES 190-201. See also Brock, ‘Changing faces’, pp. 70-73, and the appendix on pp. 79f. 4 Cf. Melki, ‘Bilan’, pp. 16-17, and Brock, ‘Changing faces’, pp. 74f. For the Maronite scholar Yūsūf Sim‘ān al-Sīm‘ānī (1687-1768) and his nephew Isafān ‘Awād (1707-1782), cf. Rizk, ‘Assemani’ and Atiya, ‘Assemani’. Cf. den Biesen, Bibliography, pp. 351-374, for the contents of the Opera Omnia. The first two volumes of Greek texts contain an improved edition of the texts published by Thwaites, along with a retouched version of Vossius’ translations; at the end of the second and in the third volume, Assemani added unknown pieces with his own translation (cf. Hemmerdinger-Iliadou, ‘Manuscrits’ and ‘Doublets’). Ever since, only some fifteen new texts of Ephraem Graecus have been discovered (cf. Heid, ‘Predigten’ and ‘Ephraem’). Phrantzolas has re-edited most of Ephraem Graecus in his seven-volume work, {?F\@L }+ND"\: J@Ø GbD@L +D(", which includes a modern Greek translation and some unpublished texts. Few Greek texts have been translated, cf. Lash, Saint Ephrem and ‘Sermon’. In Schriften, Strothmann established Macarius/Symeon as the author of eight Greek texts attributed to Ephrem.

10

SIMPLE AND BOLD

(1836), which would always remain rather rare and inaccessible, also for lack of any translation.5 In the second half of the nineteenth century, Ephrem’s work in Syriac started to be edited in a more or less scientific way, especially by J. Joseph Overbeck, Gustav Bickell and Thomas Joseph Lamy. 6 Overbeck’s Sancti Ephraemi Syri, Rabulae episcopi Edesseni, Balaei aliorumque opera selecta, (1865) is still the sole edition of several of Ephrem’s writings, among which feature the first two Discourses for Hypaius. In S. Ephraemi Syri Carmina Nisibena (1866), Bickell published the collection of madrāšē that, after his Latin translation, is still known as the Carmina Nisibena. Lamy published no less than four volumes of mostly newly discovered texts in Sancti Ephraem Syri Hymni et Sermones (1882-1902), which supplemented Assemani’s three Syriac tomes.7 In the same period there also appeared the first, mostly German, monographs on Ephrem, most notably A. Haase, S. Ephraemi Syri theologia (1869), C. Ferry, S. Ephrem poète (1877), Caspar Eirainer, Der hl. Ephräm der Syrer: Eine dogmengeschichtliche Abhandlung (1889), Hubert Grimme Der Strophenbau in den Gedichten Ephräms des Syrers (1893), M. Treppner, Ephräm der Syrer und seine Explanatio der vier ersten Kapitel der Genesis (1893) and J. Hamlyn Hill, A Dissertation of the Gospel Commentary of S. Ephraem (1896).8 Most of these studies made indiscriminate use of any text attributed to Ephrem. A number of short studies discussed various aspects of Ephrem’s works 9 and several encyclopedias included lemmas on 5 See den Biesen, Bibliography, pp. 381-383, for an overview with translations of the titles. A few other early editions of Armenian texts: Šuši, BES 153 (1838) and the 13th century exegetical anthology compiled by George Skewrac‘i, BES 74 (1839). 6 See respectively BES 128 and pp. 375-376, BES 42, and BES 101 and pp. 377-380. Other editions of Syriac texts: Zingerle, BES 167-169 (18691878), Bedjan, BES 34 & 35 (1887 & 1891), Bensly, BES 40 (1895) and Haffner, BES 81 (1896). 7 Cf. Melki, ‘Bilan’, p. 18. Taking into consideration such significant activities in the Syriac field, it is an mystery why Assemani’s edition of Ephraem Graecus was not included in Jean-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Graeca. 8 Respectively BES 493, 209, 834, 527, 477, 431, 520, 972 and 553. 9 E.g. Geiger, BES 488 (1867), Gerson, BES 491 (1868), Nilles, BES 769 (1882), Lamy, BES 644-648 (1885-1897), Martin, BES 698 (1887) and Parisot, BES 816 (1891).

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

11

Ephrem, some of which are still worth consulting, like A. Sevestre’s in Dictionnaire de Patrologie (1859).10 Several manuals of early Christian literature included Ephrem, 11 while his writings and thought were also discussed in the first histories of Syriac literature like Bickel’s Conspectus rei Syrorum literariae (1871), William Wright’s A Short History of Syriac Literature (1894), and Rubens Duval’s La littérature syriaque (1897).12 Ephrem’s works were being translated into various Western languages, predominantly into Russian,13 and the first attempts were made to detect his presence in Armenian, Coptic, Latin and Slavonic traditions.14 Georg Mösinger’s translation of the Armenian version of the Commentary on the Diatessaron, in Evangelii Concordantis expositio facta a Sancto Ephraemo (1876), deserves special mention, as this made the work available for the first time to a wider circle of researchers. The theological studies of this period are not particularly interesting, not only because of their weak textual basis, but also because their authors, as de Halleux has pointed out, 15 had mainly apologetic concerns and interpreted Ephrem on the basis of later dogmatic developments—not unlike authors of later times, as we will see. During the first decades of the twentieth century, Ephrem was studied from different points of view. In the field of the his10

See Hoffmann, BES 1299 (1831-1836), Pétin, BES 829 (1850), Pérennès, BES 825 (1851), Sevestre, BES 931 (1859), Chevalier, BES 1175 (1877-1883), Payne Smith, BES 822 (1880), Zingerle, BES 1058 (1886), Lamy, BES 645 (1890) and Le Camus, BES 654 (1899). 11 E.g. Villemain, BES 1605 (1849), Charpentier, BES 1174 (1853), Alzog, BES 1069 (1877), Nirschl, BES 1434 (1881-1885), Schmid, BES 1517 (1885) and Zabharnalean, BES 1635 (1889). 12 Respectively BES 1108, 1630 and 1226. 13 Anonymous, BES 450 & 451 (1821 and onwards), Zingerle, BES 1050-1057 (1830-1876), Waibel, BES 1015 (1838), Morris, BES 743 (1847), Sokolov, BES 941 (1848-1853; reprint 1993), Burgess, BES 355 & 356 (both 1853), Martin, BES 697 (1880), Macke, BES 684 (1882), Archangelskij, BES 206 (1890), Nevski, BES 768 (1891), Denisov, BES 415-417 (1894), Muretoc, BES 745 (1896), Smirnov, BES 940 (1896) and Gwynn, BES 1273 (1898). 14 Armenian: Mösinger, BES 737 (1876), Mekhitarists, BES 436 (1893) and Zabharnalean, BES 1635 (1889); Coptic: Budge, BES 50 (1886-1887); Latin: Caspari, BES 54 (1890); Slavonic: Franko, BES 69 (1896). 15 ‘Saint Éphrem le Syrien’, p. 343.

12

SIMPLE AND BOLD

tory of Syriac literature, the most important work is undoubtedly the irreplaceable Geschichte der syrischen Literatur by Anton Baumstark (1922).16 Relatively new were the studies in the field of New Testament textual criticism like Francis Crawford Burkitt’s St. Ephraim’s Quotations from the Gospel (1901), that for the first time ever developed certain criteria for establishing the authenticity of texts attributed to Ephrem on the basis of the age of the manuscripts and the type of biblical quotations. 17 There appeared some new trustworthy editions of Syriac, Greek and Armenian texts, especially Charles Wand Mitchell’s still indispensable S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaian (1912 & 1921) and the texts published by Ignatius E. Ra mani.18 Theological studies were mostly dedicated to Ephrem’s Mariology, in particular Ludwig Hammersberger’s short study, Die Mariologie der ephremischen Schriften: Eine dogmengeschichtlichte Untersuchung (1938). 19 Other scholars studied Ephrem’s commentaries on the Old Testament and his treatment of specific New Testament themes,20 his ecclesiological and sacramental doctrines,21 and his ascetical views.22 Also studies 16

See Baumstark, Geschichte, and also: Burkitt, BES 1161 (1904), Scher, BES 1515 (1912-1913), Tixeront, BES 1571 (1920), Assemani, BES 1078 (1933), Baraum, BES 1086-1087 (1934), Chabot, BES 1173 (1934) and Steidle, BES 1937 (1937). 17 See Burkitt, BES 358, and also authors like Conybeare, BES 379 (1902), Hjelt, BES 1298 (1903), Schäfers, BES 918 (1917), Euringer, BES 461 (1922) and Molitor, BES 741 (1938). 18 Cf. BES 135 (1904), BES 136 (1906) & BES 139 (no date). For Ra mani and Mitchell, cf. Melki, ‘Bilan’, pp. 19-21. For other Syriac texts, see e.g. Duval, BES 64 (1901); for Greek texts, cf. Mercati, BES 118 (1915) & BES 119 (1920); for Armenian texts, cf. Akinian, BES 4 (1921), Murat, BES 124 (1927-1932) and Sarkissean, BES 144 (1934). 19 See BES 532, Jugie, BES 1317 (1926), Bover, BES 306 (1927) and Ginnetti, BES 492 (1931). 20 Lamy, BES 646 (1893) & BES 648 (1897-1898), Holzmeier, BES 1301 (1922), Merk, BES 730 (1923) and Devreesse, BES 1209 (1935-1936). 21 Tyskiewicz, BES 974 (1927), De Ceuster, BES 390 (1931), Hobeika, BES 556-558 (1926-1939), Dölger, BES 421 (1936) and Krüger, BES 638 (1942). 22 Apart from Connolly, BES 377 (1907) and Stufler, BES 948 (1914), most studies dedicated just a few pages to Ephrem, cf. Hausherr, BES 1290 (1933) and Schiwietz, BES 1516 (1938).

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

13

in Ephraem Graecus made some progress, the most important being Silvio Mercati, Studi sulle versioni greche di Efrem Siro (1905-1906), and Casimir Émereau, S. Ephrem le Syrien: Son œuvre littéraire grecque (1918). 23 The first general introduction to Ephrem was Giuseppe Ricciotti’s S. Efrem Siro: Biografia, Scritti, Teologia (1925), an apologetic presentation that tried to raise interest in Ephrem from both Catholic and Protestant theologians. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed an ever increasing number of theological studies. The most prominent field was again that of Mariology, where Edmund Beck’s ‘Die Mariologie der echten Schriften Ephräms’ (1956) was the first study based on texts of undoubted authenticity.24 Ephrem’s ascetical views were being studied extensively by Arthur Vööbus, especially in the second volume of his History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient (1960), although his attribution of certain texts to Ephrem was (and still is) rejected by most scholars.25 Ephrem’s exegesis too kept drawing attention, in particular his Commentary on Genesis, published by R.-M. Tonneau in 1955.26 Progress was also made in the study of Ephrem’s presence in the Armenian 27 and Georgian 28 traditions. As for Ephraem 23

See respectively BES 723 and 432, and also Haidacher, BES 1275 (1905) & BES 1276 (1906). Dünsing, BES 62 & 63 (1906) and Kokowzoff, BES 98 (1906) were the first to deal with Palestinian-Aramaic translations of Ephraem Graecus (cf. Desreumaux, ‘Ephrem’), while Iljinskij, BES 92 (1909), Heffening, BES 86 (1927) and Perazde, BES 1464 (1930) were among the first to study Ephrem’s presence in respectively the Slavonic, Arabic and Georgian traditions. 24 See BES 230, and also Jouassard, BES 1316 (1949), Krüger, BES 639 (1952) & BES 640 (1954), Vona, BES 1007 (1953), Ortiz de Urbina, BES 783 (1954), Müller, BES 1407 (1955), Fernandez, BES 476 (1957-1958), de Moor, BES 407 (1959) and Graef, BES 1258 (1963). 25 See Vööbus, BES 1000-1004 (1955-1960), Beck, BES 228 (1956) & BES 231 (1958), and Gribomont, ‘Monachisme’. For a discussion of the authenticity of the ascetical TSAbrQid, cf. Botha, ‘Theological progress’. 26 Tonneau, In Genesim et Exodum. See Bravo, BES 309 (1951), Levene, BES 1357 (1951) & ‘Exegesis’ (1957), Jansma, BES 1307 (1958) and Smitmans, BES 1535 (1966). 27 Lyonnet, BES 1368 (1951), Mariès, BES 1376 (1952) & BES 688 (1954), Akinian, BES 5 & 7 (1953-1957), Leloir, BES 105 (1953-1954), Mariès, BES 689 (1956) & BES 690 (1957), Gelineau, BES 489 (1960), Graffin, BES 495 (1961), Mariès & Mercier, BES 115 (1961), Froidevaux, BES 482 (1963), Garitte, BES 73 (1969) and Egan, BES 66 (1968). See

14

SIMPLE AND BOLD

Graecus, from the many studies published by Demokratia Iliadou it became clear that this enormous corpus of texts presents almost insurmountable problems, while its theological importance is rather small.29 Finally, also Ephraem Latinus was further explored.30 The major feat of the 1950s and 1960s was the publication of Ephrem’s Syriac oeuvre by Edmund Beck. In 1955, after having written the first theological monographs with a secure textual basis, Beck set out to edit and translate all of Ephrem’s madrāšē and mēmrē, including some texts of uncertain authenticity and a few spurious texts—a huge undertaking that forever links his name to Ephrem.31 His 19 editions in 38 volumes of the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium finally provided researchers with a comparatively reliable text, while Beck at the same time refined Burkitt’s criteria of authenticity, adding criteria that concerned the formal or stylistic characteristics of a text and others that related to their contents.32 A variety of studies appeared that no longer took Mathews, ‘Armenian literary corpus’ for a synopsis of the work done, and still to be done, on the Armenian Ephrem; for other recent publications, cf. den Biesen, Bibliography, § 11. 28 Imnaišvili, BES 93 (1953), Abuladze, BES 1 (1955), Tarchnišvili, BES 1791 (1955), Garitte, BES 1244-1246 (1956-1957), Šanidze, BES 142 (1959) and Kirchmeyer, BES 609 (1960), Imnaišvili, BES 94 (1963-1966) and Garitte, BES 71 (1967) & BES 72 (1969). 29 Cf. BES 89, 537-547, 566 & 611, also Tomadakis, BES 966 (1957). Geerard, Clavis Patrum Graecorum, gives a virtually complete overview of Ephraem Graecus. For an evaluation of the corpus, cf. de Halleux, ‘Saint Éphrem’, pp. 338-343; recent studies include Taylor, ‘Ephraim’s influence’, Lash, ‘Metrical texts’ and ‘Greek writings’, Bakker, ‘Origin’, and Bakker & Philippides, ‘Lament’. Ephraem Graecus in Slavonic translation is currently being studied by Iglika Vassileva, who is writing a doctoral dissertation at the Institute for Eastern Christian Studies in Nijmegen: Saint Ephrem the Syrian Transmitted and Transmuted in Greek and Slavonic: Aspects of the Reception of the Sermo Asceticus of (ps.-)Ephrem the Syrian in the Slavonic World. For other studies on Slavonic texts attributed to Ephrem, cf. den Biesen, Bibliography, § 14. 30 For a convenient overview, cf. Brock, ‘Changing faces’. Also, den Biesen, Bibliography, § 15. 31 Wilhelm Nyssen calls Beck’s translations “one of the greatest 20th century translations” (Beck, Ephräm, p. 7). Cf. Melki, ‘Bilan’, pp. 23-41. 32 Beck made little use of early Syrian Orthodox liturgical manuscripts. Slim, ‘Hymne I’, and Gribomont, ‘Tradition’ were able to recover lost

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

15

interest in Ephrem as a source of historical information on dogmatic, ascetical or liturgical topics (as has been the main trend in the first half of the century), but as an author worth being studied on his own merit.33 Especially the theme of “Paradise”34 and the newly discovered Syriac text of the Commentary on the Diatessaron35 raised quite a bit of interest. By the time Beck was bringing his edition of Syriac texts to a close, at the beginning of the 1970s, studies in Ephrem had started to truly flourish and gained considerable

texts in these manuscripts, whose value is evaluated by Brock in ‘Transmission’. My Bibliography includes a full list of all published Syriac texts, their ancient versions and modern translations (pp. 29-72), and also a list of some 75 works of Ephraem Graecus (pp. 72-92). See Brock, ‘Brief guide’, for an earlier overview of all editions of Syriac texts, and Melki, ‘Bilan’, pp. 46-88, for a discussion of their authenticity. 33 See e.g. Hausherr, BES 1293 (1959), Widengren, BES 1017 (1960), Teixidor, BES 955-957 (1961), Leloir, BES 660-663 (1961), Kazan, ‘Isaac’ (1962), Murray, BES 746 (1963), BES 1409 & 1410 (1964), Cramer, Engelvorstellungen (1965), Möllers, BES 736 (1966), Saber, Théologie baptismale (1974) and Martikainen, BES 693-696 (1974-1983). Purely historical research in Ephrem has ever since shifted in particular towards the history of the religions of his times; see Drijvers, BES 1218-1221 and 1702-1711 (1966-1985); also Ort, BES 1440 (1967), Jansma, BES 1309 (1969), Ehlers, BES 1714 (1970), Beck, BES 1098-1100 (1978) and Camplani, ‘Bardesane’ (1998). 34 Ortiz de Urbina, BES 784 (1955), Cothenet, BES 1694 (1960), Lavenant, BES 652 (1960) & BES 653 (1968), Séd, ‘Hymnes sur le Paradis’ (1968), Boustani, BES 304 (1974), Féghali, BES 470 (1979-1986) & 473 (1997), Fracea, BES 481 (1974), Yousif, BES 1021 (1975-1976), Kronholm, Motifs (1978), Schmidt, ‘Typologien’ (1989) and Brock, Hymns on Paradise (1990) & Luminous Eye (1992). 35 Cf. Melki, ‘Bilan’, pp. 22-24. After Leloir published the Syriac text of CommDiat (Commentaire, 1963), an increasing number of studies were dedicated to this particular text: see e.g. Leloir, BES 667 (1964) & 668 (1966), Birdsall, BES 272 (1965), Kodjanian, BES 1331 (1967), Gribomont, BES 509 (1983), Beck, BES 252, 257, 258 & 260-262 (1983-1993), de Halleux, BES 398 & 402-404 (1991-1993) and McCarthy, BES 710-714 (1991-1996). Recently, Christian Lange has dedicated several studies to this text, above all his dissertation The Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron (2005). See also his earlier articles ‘Study’, ‘Descent’ and ‘View’.

16

SIMPLE AND BOLD

depth.36 In fact, most of the ground-breaking articles mentioned at the beginning of this Chapter belong to the years 1973-1978 in which it was possible, for the first time ever, to express a global yet well-founded opinion about Ephrem’s theology. ———— In the next section, we will turn our attention to these important articles. At this point, it is useful to assess the methodological merit of earlier research and especially to weigh up Beck’s contribution to our understanding of Ephrem’s theology. Ephrem was for a long time approached as a distinctive oriental author whose works provided useful information on a variety of topics, but whose thought was too obscure to be interesting. This was due to particular theological concerns that were predominantly apologetic and fixated on finding compelling arguments. It was also, and perhaps even more so, a result of Ephrem’s extensive use of symbolism, which was in stark contrast with the contemporary theological mode of thought. The proliferation and progress of studies on the Christian Orient gradually led to a more appreciative approach towards Ephrem’s writings, whose poetical qualities were finally receiving the recognition they deserved. Ephrem’s intellectual qualities, however, were not yet included in that appreciation. In fact, the difference between “theological poetry” and “symbolical theology” seems to have eluded most scholars. While many lauded the beauty of Ephrem’s poetry, few perceived the depth of his theology. As a matter of fact, even up to fairly recent times, hardly any scholar made a clear distinction between the theological use of symbols that is a common feature of early Christian literature and in which Ephrem is a unique master, and a specific form of theology that considers symbolism to be the only appropriate linguistic and intellectual means to interpret reality from a religious point of view. Thus even as recent as 1973, de Halleux interpreted Ephrem’s use of images and symbols as a “formal aspect” made up of “symbolical procedures of expression 36

Roncaglia published the first bibliography in ‘Essai’, supplemented by Samir’s ‘Compléments’ (1973). In 2002, I self-published my Bibliography, initially a by-product of previous research at the Istituto Patristico ‘Augustinianum’ in Rome (cf. the Introduction to Part 2), but then an independent project on which I worked from 1990-2001.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

17

and style.” Separating theological substance from literary form, which he considered secondary with respect to the doctrine that is being articulated, he concluded that Ephrem adopts poetry as the verbal expression of his theology because it is “the least imperfect way” of proclaiming the mystery of salvation. 37 In this respect, there would be little to distinguish Ephrem from any other early Christian author except for the much-lauded stylistic features of his writings. As we will see, Ephrem uses poetical language (also in a prose text like the First Discourse for Hypaius) not just as a literary means of expression that produces “theological poetry,” but first and foremost as a hermeneutic tool which develops a theological vision of God, humanity and the world that can be called “symbolical” and, even when it is formulated in prose, “poetical.” The discovery and appreciation of this symbolical theology and its specific use of language is indeed a recent achievement. ———— Edmund Beck contributed little to this discovery. His early trilogy on the Teaching Songs on Faith, the Teaching Songs on Paradise, and the Verse Homilies on Faith, was the first attempt ever to gain understanding of Ephrem’s theology on the exclusive basis of the Syriac text of unquestionably authentic writings. 38 Beck’s works on the Teaching Songs on Faith and Verse Homilies on Faith follow the classical scheme of catholic systematic theology (dogmatic terminology, doctrine on God, Christology, anthropology, et cetera) and try to 37

‘Mar Éphrem’, p. 37 (1973). This is, as Vergani puts it, reducing Ephrem’s poetry to an exterior and purely formal shell, “un semplice involucro, una specie di scorza tutta formale e esteriore” (‘Efrem’, p. 80). For a useful overview of de Halleux’s articles on Ephrem, cf. Bou Mansour, ‘André de Halleux’, pp. 23-29. See also Brock, ‘Contribution’. 38 Respectively Die Theologie des hl. Ephraem in seinen Hymnen über den Glauben (1949), Ephraems Hymnen über das Paradies (1951), and Ephraems Reden über den Glauben (1953), that preceded the editions of TSFaith, TSParadise and VHFaith in respectively 1955, 1957 and 1961. Both Molenberg and Bruns remark that these studies were based on out of date text editions (respectively ‘Christological passages’, p. 191, and ‘Arius hellenizans?’, p. 22), but that is not correct; Beck worked with all the manuscripts that were available to him at that time and was thus already preparing his text editions.

18

SIMPLE AND BOLD

establish and analyze Ephrem’s dogmatic doctrines through the comparison and interpretation of text fragments. The study of the Teaching Songs of Paradise respects the poetic form of the composition by taking on the form of a continuous commentary, but it too focuses on the dogmatic elements that can be distilled from the texts and that, in these madrāšē, mostly belong to the fields of anthropology and eschatology. Essentially, Beck’s method consists in putting a great variety of texts side by side, in order to establish the precise nature of Ephrem’s dogmatic views and terminology according to the standards of traditional catholic theology. This approach tends to reduce Ephrem’s writings to a source of “authorities” or “testimonies” (“Belegstellen”39), whose theological value and usefulness it then determines on the basis of contemporary criteria of clarity, logic and coherency. From 1953 to 1993, Beck published a long series of articles in which he analyses particular images, theological terms and liturgical themes in Ephrem writings.40 These articles reveal his truly impressive acquaintance with the texts and contain a wealth of information, yet they also reveal the same fragmentary and aprioristic approach. Beck certainly lacked a sense for Ephrem’s analogical way of thinking and therefore risked to oversee its dynamism, zest and beauty.41 Georges Saber was the first to point out, in 1974, that it is not appropriate to try to fit Ephrem’s doctrines in contemporary theological models. Instead of searching for rigorous logic and terminological clarity, one should rather investigate “la caractéristique de son expression théologique et le but qu’il définit pour ses écrits.” And instead of loosely connecting similar text fragments and disre39

“...das Ziel der folgenden Arbeit [ist] die Darstellung der dogmatischen Anschauungen Ephräms durch Interpretation und Zusammenordnung der Belegstellen...” (Theologie, p. 3). This does not differ from Ricciotti’s presentation, 25 years earlier, of the “testimonianze che ho qui raccolte da S. Efrem sui punti più delicati della teologia cattolica” (S. Efrem Siro, p. XI). 40 Cf. den Biesen, Bibliography, pp. 143-147 & 252, where 7 monographs and almost 40 articles are listed; cf. also Haering, ‘Bibliographie’. 41 For one such instance where Beck completely misunderstands Ephrem, see my comments on his analysis of TSFaith 20 (in ‘Glaube’) in Chapter 4.3. In ‘Cristological passages’, Molenberg gives a few examples of how Beck’s approach affected his translations of Ephrem.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

19

garding their context, it is important to situate them “dans le mouvement propre de la pensée de notre auteur.” 42 Saber explicitly refers to Beck’s assessment of the theological quality of Ephrem’s writing, which, Saber claims, was adopted by most scholars: “Tous souhaiteraient chez lui … plus de clarté et de précision; si ces qualités n’y sont pas, la faute est rejetée souvent sur son talent de poète dont le théologien ne put s’en débarrasser.”43 Symbolism and poetry were generally considered to be obstacles rather than the key to authentic theology. In his analysis of Ephrem’s symbolical terminology in La pensée symbolique de saint Ephrem le Syrien, Bou Mansour gives a fundamental critique of the method used by Beck in ‘Symbolummysterium bei Aphraat und Ephräm’ and ‘Zur Terminologie von Ephräms Bildtheologie’.44 Beck’s hypothesis—and Bou Mansour’s main focus here—is the interchangeability or synonymity of terms like rāzā, upsā, dmutā, almā and urtā (‘symbol’, ‘type’, ‘image’, ‘portrait’ and ‘picture’). This hypothesis, also adopted by most scholars, is based on the fact that such terms frequently occur next to each other or even as corresponding elements in a parallelism, so that the assumption of their near-identity in meaning seems justified. There are even a few texts that, beyond any stylistic technique, treat terms like rāzā and upsā as identical and thus seem to confirm Beck’s view that Ephrem tends to confuse a symbol with what it symbolizes and a type with its antitype. 45 Bou Mansour shows, 42

Théologie baptismale, pp. X-XI. Saber briefly explores Ephrem’s theological method in his third chapter that is discussed below. 43 Ibid. p. 21. 44 See pp. 23-71: ‘Étude des concepts syriaques’, also published separately in ‘Étude’, and his concluding remarks on pp. 119-120. On pp. 2325, Bou Mansour gives a short overview of earlier research, pointing to Beck’s ‘Symbolum-mysterium’ (1958) and Leloir’s Doctrines (1961) as the first studies that explored the terms on a conceptual level, “le premier dans leur signification théologique, le second au niveau de la méthode” (p. 25). Bou Mansour evaluates only Beck’s contribution. 45 Cf. Bou Mansour’s remark on p. 30 and the inaccurate note 19, where he probably refers to ‘Symbolum-mysterium’, p. 30: “...diese Vertauschbarkeit ... dieses Ineinander von Symbol und Symbolisiertem,” and ‘Terminologie’, p. 270: “Diese wiedersprüchliche Verwendung der Termini wird wohl dadurch möglich gemacht, daß Symbol und Symbolisiertes, Bild und Abbild aufs engste zusammengehören und zwar

20

SIMPLE AND BOLD

however, that Ephrem can only be interpreted correctly by taking into account the various nuances that such terms acquire within the overall context of his thought. In substance, he shows that when a rāzā, a upsā and a dmutā point to the same or to a similar reality, they each do so in a specific way which is determined by the subtle nuances that Ephrem gives them in each single instance. Beck is not exactly sensitive to such nuances.46 In his examination of Ephrem’s favorite image of Christ’s Incarnation—lbeš pagrā, “he put on the body like a garment”47—Bou Mansour criticizes Beck for simply juxtaposing it with other expressions or terms, rejecting it as unclear, and preferring the supposedly clearer terms alāhutā, ‘divine nature’, and nāšutā, ‘human nature’, as a better basis for an analysis of Ephrem’s Christology. Bou Mansour shows that the image of putting on a garment is not at all ambiguous nor in need of a clarification by means of abstract terms in order to become orthodox: “Une image est riche en tant qu’image et parce qu’elle est une image. La tentative de l’expliciter conceptuellement ne doit ni la supprimer ni la déprécier.”48 Another trait of Beck’s approach is to be found in his more extensive monographs, where he often takes as a starting point patristic authors like Tertullian or the Cappadocians, so as to compare Ephrem with them and thus establish the distinct charac-

so sehr, daß upsā und rāzā ... wechselseitig ebensogut das Bild wie das Abbild besagen können.” See also note 108 on on p. 39. 46 In ‘Symbolum-Mysterium’, p. 37, Beck concedes no more than this: “Die Synonymität schließt das Verbleiben einer Sonderbedeutung nicht aus.” In ‘Terminologie’, p. 264, he e.g. speaks of “nur eine dreifache rhetorische Variierung für ein und dieselbe Sache,” both in the case of seprē, ktābē and nāmōsā (‘Books’, ‘Scriptures’ and ‘the Law’) as in that of “die ihnen zugeordnete Dreiheit von matlā, upsā und tellālā [‘parable’, ‘type’ and ‘shadow’], die alle drei in dem Begriff Symbol aufgehen.” Bou Mansour, Pensée symbolique, p. 52, wisely prefers to talk about “des similitudes de sens”; further on, he refers to the polysemous nature of the symbol in order to reinforce his argument (p. 119). 47 According to Brock, Luminous Eye, p. 39, Ephrem here follows “the earliest Syriac translation of esarkothe, ‘He became incarnate’, in the Nicene Creed.” 48 Pensée symbolique, p. 235.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

21

ter of Ephrem’s theology.49 This approach places Ephrem within a wider historical context and yields many interesting parallels, as well as striking differences, with other early Christian writers. It moreover gives a clearer understanding of the complexity of certain theological views and the quite diverse exegetical, philosophical and rhetorical instruments and techniques these views are based upon. Yet, Beck’s main concern is to establish what Ephrem’s theology is worth in terms of terminological precision and logical cogency, and it comes as no surprise that he often finds fault with Ephrem. Also here he sets text fragments side by side in a rather superficial way, as Ute Possekel writes: “Beck predominantly cites passages from Greek and Latin authors which more or less resemble Ephrem’s statements, but he rarely engages in the difficult task of actual comparison and interpretation.”50 Those of Beck’s studies that will be discussed here in more detail present hardly more than preliminaries and annotations to Ephrem’s thought, instead of the real analysis they purport to contain.51 A proper theological appreciation of Ephrem’s texts, in fact, rarely results from an exclusively historical or comparative analysis of his terminology, dogmatic concepts and imagery. Although such studies are indispensable and sometimes truly enlightening, they run the risk of severely misunderstanding and misrepresenting Ephrem’s thought. Due to a conspicuous methodological inadequacy, a work like Beck’s Ephräm des Syrers Psychologie und Erkenntnislehre simply overlooks the very dynamics of Ephrem’s theologizing, his highly sophisticated mastery of poetics, and his refined and amazingly coherent vision of human and divine reality.

49

See e.g. Psychologie (1980), passim; Trinitätslehre (1981), pp. 1-24 and 117-120, and Dōrea (1984), pp. 56-81. 50 Evidence, p. 5. 51 Cf. the discussion of specific instances on pp. 79, 216f. (where other comments on Beck’s methodology by Bou Mansour are quoted), 236f., and in Chapter 6.1. Many of Beck’s conclusions prove to be quite off the mark.

22

SIMPLE AND BOLD

1.2. IMAGES It is above all by attentively tracing the intricate pattern of Ephrem’s imagery that one gradually discovers his deceptively simple theological framework and its literary vehicles. The foundation of Ephrem’s theologizing consists of two complementary Christian axioms: on the one hand, there is an absolute difference between the triune Creator and creation, while, on the other hand, all of created reality constitutes a potential revelation of God that is waiting to be perceived. Robert Murray illustrates this by means of a figure with a horizontal and a vertical axis intersecting at their centre. In this figure, the vertical axis represents the ontological distance between Creator and creation, while the horizontal axis expresses the distance in time between the original and the final Paradise. The cosmological axis runs from “below” to “above” and represents the dimension of space with the symbolism of nature as revelation of God; the historical axis runs from “before” to “after” and represents the dimension of time with the symbolism of typology as revelation of God. The point of intersection represents the Incarnation of Christ who, as God made human and the alpha and omega, encompasses both dimensions of space and time and constitutes the total and final revelation of God.52 This figure adequately illustrates the tensions inherent in Ephrem’s theology—tensions which he effectively puts into words by means of a variety of images that refer to binomials like above and below, hidden and revealed, eternal and mortal, holy and sinful, shadow and fulfillment, temporary and lasting, et cetera. In essence, each of these polarities embodies the primordial polarity between Creator and creation and expresses the mysterious nature of God’s self-revelation to the human being. All in creation is therefore image or symbol of the Creator, in the sense that in it and through it the Invisible is seen, the Unknowable known, and the Omnipresent and Eternal experienced within the limits of space and time. The language that expresses all these revelatory relationships between the limited and the Unlimited is “symbolic lan52

Murray, ‘Theory’, pp. 7-9; also in ‘Dichter’, pp. 487f. Christ’s central place in history was studied by Féghali in a dissertation of 1979 that remained unpublished, cf. the short presentation of his work in ‘Protologie’. Most of the dissertation was subsequently incorporated in Origines (1997).

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

23

guage,” while the theology that articulates this vision of God, man and world is “symbolic theology.” From Ephrem’s perspective, as from that of any Christian at any given time in history, Christ is present in the Church and in the individual Christian’s life first and foremost through the sacraments of pre-baptismal unction, baptism and Eucharist. 53 The celebration of the liturgy, therefore, constitutes the locus theologicus par excellence, since its sacramental symbolism provides the ultimate key to both natural symbolism and biblical typology.54 This sacramental view of the world is by no means confined to Ephrem, but common to early Christian writers and fundamental to our understanding of patristic theology.55 In ‘World and Sacrament in the writings of the Syrian Fathers’, Brock gives ample evidence of Ephrem’s understanding of the world as a complex sacramental reality which only symbolic language can express adequately. This symbolical interpretation and representation of reality does not constitute an elaborate system of Christian notions and definitions which one intellectually adheres to, nor is it an amorphous kind of thinking that expresses itself in ambiguous imagery that eludes analysis and confrontation. Rather it is a sophisticated means of 53

TSHeresies 27:3,6-7 enumerates these sacraments in their liturgical order: “The sign of the oil and of baptism, the breaking of the bread and the cup of redemption” (Beck, Hymnen contra Haereses, p. 109). Cf. Brock, Luminous Eye, pp. 90-97 (baptism) and 99-114 (Eucharist); Brock, ‘World and Sacrament’, passim; also Bou Mansour, Pensée symbolique, pp. 343-377 (baptism) and 378-406 (Eucharist), and Brock, Spirituality, pp. 60-83. The two most extensive studies in this field are Saber, Théologie baptismale and Yousif, L’Eucharistie. 54 Cf. den Biesen, ‘Spreken’, pp. 14-18; Saber, ‘Typologie’, pp. 82-89, and Théologie baptismale, pp. 28-29. In ‘Theory’, p. 4, Murray acknowledges that one of Ephrem’s terms for “symbol,” rāzā, is common to these three areas of his symbology. Yet, by disconnecting “the fundamental principles of Ephrem’s theological language” from “the sacraments” as two separate topics (ibid.), he fails to appreciate the latter’s fundamental importance for the first. In ‘Dichter’, p. 488, he only adds that the Church points to Christ “durch Erinnerung und Proklamation.” 55 Cf. Schneider, ‘Wesen’: “Kosmische und heilsgeschichtliche Symbole erlangen nach der patristischen Theologie im Kulte der Kirche jene Wirklichkeitsdichte, auf die hin sie angelegt sind” (p. 157); “Als Symbol werden Schöpfung und Geschichte in die sakral-kultischen Handlungen der Kirche einbezogen” (p. 159).

24

SIMPLE AND BOLD

perceiving and expressing interrelated aspects or layers of reality which the reader imaginatively and intelligently incorporates in his own vision of faith. For that reason, Murray introduces a second figure: a circle which represents the chronological sequence of historical time, with at its centre “the meditative eye of faith” looking out in all directions and reaching the meta-historical or cosmic dimension through the contemplation of the various stages of the history of salvation. 56 This meditative eye of faith is what Brock, with Ephrem’s own words, calls “the luminous eye” (‘aynā šapitā) that beholds “an infinitely exciting world” thanks to “the symbols, types and analogies” that are latent in both Nature and Scripture.57 For the luminous eye, they all are “windows, or rather, just peepholes, to ‘Truth’.”58 The immanence in time of the transcendent God implies a liturgical hodie, a single point both within and outside of linear time, to which all moments of ordinary time converge—a concept that is not only characteristic of Christianity, but common to many religions. Brock emphasizes the importance of this “sacred or liturgical time” in Ephrem’s theology, more specifically in his doctrine on the sacraments and on Christ’s descent into the underworld. 59 Since God is also immanent in space, we can fur-

56

‘Dichter’, pp. 488f. This circular depiction of time is not meant to indicate a cyclical concept of time, but points to the fact that every event in time (from protological to eschatological Paradise) is equally accessible to the eye of faith and equally capable of transferring it to the ontological and meta-historical dimensions of space and time. For Murray’s identification of this eye with the Antiochene theoria, cf. below, pp. 27f. 57 See Luminous Eye, pp. 71-74 and 79-80 (also Spirituality, pp. 44-46). The expression ‘aynā šapitā occurs e.g. in TSFaith 3:5,1, TSFast 1:3,3 and TSChurch 11:4,3 (cf. also TSFaith 67:8,2). In TSParadise 1:4,1 and 6:16,1 Ephrem uses the expression ‘aynā d-re‘yānā, ‘the eye of the mind’; in TSFast 1:5,6 he speak of ‘aynā ksitā, ‘the hidden eye’, and in TSChurch 34:3,10 of lebbā šapyā, ‘the luminous heart’. Cf. Botha, ‘Cleansing’; Beck, Psychologie, pp. 141-147; Schmidt, ‘Auge’, pp. 41f.; and pp. 85f. below. 58 Brock, Luminous Eye, p. 49. 59 In ‘Poet’, p. 245-248. CF. Brock, ‘Poetic artistry’, pp. 25-26; Luminous Eye, pp. 29-30 & 92; Murray, ‘Dichter’, p. 489 and Teixidor, ‘Descente’, p. 39. For an comprehensive studie of Ephrem’s views on Christ’s descent into Sheol, see Thomas Buchan’s recent work Christ’s Descent.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

25

thermore speak here of “sacred space,” of a liturgical hic, in which the whole of creation comes together. ———— This is the ultimate sense of one of Ephrem’s most quoted statements: “Anywhere you look, his symbol is there; and wherever you read, you will find his types. For by him were created all creatures, and he engraved his symbols upon his possessions.”60 “Anywhere” (b-kul duk) and “wherever” (aykā) refer to the whole of creation and the whole of Scripture respectively.61 Every aspect of creation, including the world of human culture, and every moment in history is a sacrament of Christ, and thus constitutes a distinct and unique revelation of Him who encompasses all of space and time and constitutes a single hic et hodie. God’s revelation is an ongoing process that starts with one’s initiation in baptism, is continuously nourished by the Eucharist, and is meant to affect every single moment of one’s individual life. Brock calls this “a continuous metanoia, … ceaselessly striving to make sacred and historical time effectively one.”62 Taken thus in its broadest sense, the notion of “sacrament” is expressed in Syriac by means of a whole set of more or less techni60

TSVirginity 20:12,1-4 (Beck, Hymnen de Virginitate, p. 70). For qenyānē, ‘possessions’, cf. Koonammakkal’s remarks in ‘Self-revealing God’, pp. 245-246. See also below, p. 316 and note 121. 61 According to Russell, Ephrem ascribes different “levels of dependency” to the language of Scripture and nature’s “secondary representations” (St. Ephraem and St. Gregory, p. 32). Since “even God cannot engage in successful natural theology” because of nature’s insufficiency, only Scripture supplies “the proper means to describe God”; only “with Scripture as a guide” can nature be “a useful adjunct” (pp. 46-47), able “to clarify the content of Scripture” (p. 59). This contrast between nature and Scripture, however, is non-existent since “the Bible, as a work of God in human imagery and language, is a part, as well a special interpreter, of the whole world and its history,” as Russell himself quotes from Murray’s ‘Theory’ (p. 42, n. 6). Bou Mansour shows that, for Ephrem, nature and Scripture constitute a unity and employ the same kind of symbolical representation; Scripture is only superior to nature in as far as it reveals the Trinity and Christ, which does not imply any intrinsic imperfection of nature (Pensée symbolique, pp. 121-129). 62 ‘Poet’, p. 247.

26

SIMPLE AND BOLD

cal terms, but especially through the word rāzā, that is usually, like in the above quotation, translated with “symbol.” Since creation— that is, time and space and all they contain—is by its very nature symbolic, the only appropriate way (and not, as is often being said, the least inappropriate way) to reflect and speak about the mystery of God and human salvation is called “symbolical theology.” This theology employs a set of intellectual and linguistic tools which set one free to explore the mysteries of faith on one’s own initiative, not impeded but rather stimulated by the clear and subtle dogmatic views that constitute its foundation. 63 Doctrine is not meant to monopolize or manipulate the believer’s intelligence and imagination by means of a system of abstract notions and thus preclude independent reflection and wisdom based on experience. It is meant to facilitate and guide a personal and communal heuristic process, the outcome of which is always a gift of God that transcends whatever form of human control, either personal or ecclesial. Brock draws attention to an important aspect of this heuristic process, where he writes that Ephrem’s intention is to offer an abundance of types and symbols that “are meant to serve as ‘possible models’.” In offering such models of interpretation, Ephrem not just creates an opportunity “to make meaningful, and give insight into, some aspect of a mystery that cannot be fully comprehended by the human intellect.”64 He also teaches a way of seeing, reading, imagining, thinking, and contemplating—trying to inspire others to set out on their own voyage of discovery. In this sense, he is a master who, through his own works, demonstrates a way of exploring and understanding that others should practice on their own.65 It is important, again, to realize that the subjective appropriation of this approach—which comprises both a general vision and a specific modus operandi—is made possible by the objective, dogmatic foundations of symbolism, whose only raison d’être consists in facilitating the personal intellectus fidei. In fact, Ephrem’s understanding of the investigation and interpretation of nature, 63

Cf. Ephrem the Artist with Words, pp. 324f. ‘Poet’, p. 245. 65 See e.g. TSVirginity 20:12,1-4 (quoted above), CommDiat 1:18-19, Publius 1-2, TSParadise 5:1-5, etc. The last text reveals Ephrem’s sheer joy and pleasure at practicing symbolical theology. 64

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

27

Scripture and human life is characterized by an acute sense of its purpose, that is, it is meant to advance and nourish each individual’s life of faith. This soteriological dimension is of fundamental importance as it determines our personal appropriation of objective truth and links it to morality and everyday life.66 This feature is common to most of patristic theology, whose reflections on the Trinity and Christ are always motivated by the question of human salvation. ———— Ephrem’s biblical exegesis is one of the major expressions of his symbolical world view and, evidently, exegetical studies in Ephrem have been abundant.67 Initially, the perspective of these studies was mostly limited to questions concerning Ephrem’s place in the history of early Christian exegesis and the influences, especially Jewish, that can be traced in his biblical commentaries. Fundamental in this respect are Nicolas Séd, ‘Les hymnes sur le Paradis de saint Éphrem et les traditions juives’ (1968), Sten Hidal’s Interpretatio Syriaca. Die Kommentare des hl. Ephräm des Syrers zu Genesis und Exodus (1974) and Tryggve Kronholm’s Motifs from Genesis 1-11 in the Genuine Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian (1978).68 It was once more Robert Murray who opened up valuable avenues for further research, especially in ‘Der Dichter als Exeget: der hl. Ephräm und die heutige Exegese’ (1978). Like other authors of that moment,69 Murray sees Ephrem as an full-fledged exponent of the Antiochene exegetical tradition—an interpretation that would be increasingly questioned by later studies. Yet Murray adds that Ephrem’s exegesis follows a specific method whose principles are genuinely philosophical and derive from the larger context of 66

Ephrem expresses this concept first of all by means of the notion of “helpfulness,” which is discussed in Chapter 4.2. 67 Cf. den Biesen, Bibliography, §§ 259-260. Cf. Griffith, ‘Ephraem the Exegete’, for an excellent introduction. 68 Cf. also Gerson, ‘Kommentarien’ (1868), Levene, ‘Exegesis’ (1955), Kowalski, ‘Rivestiti’ (1982), Féghali, ‘Influence’ (1987), Poirier, ‘Sermon’ (1989) and Anderson, Genesis (2001). 69 See Leloir, Commentaire, pp. 30 & 40 (1966), Hidal, Interpretatio Syriace, pp. 32-34 & 139 (1974), El-Khoury, Interpretation, p. 24 (1976) Kronholm, Motifs, p. 26 (1978). Already Gerson, ‘Kommentarien’, p. 21 (1868).

28

SIMPLE AND BOLD

his symbolical theology. His exegesis is just one example of a more comprehensive hermeneutic exercise and can only be correctly interpreted within this wider theological context.70 A few years later, de Halleux resolutely moved beyond the paradigm of the contrast between Alexandrian and Antiochene hermeneutics, stating that neither one corresponds to Ephrem’s language: “Wie üblich is die Sprache Ephräms weder die des pseudowissenschaftlichen Naturalismus der antiochenischen Exegese noch diejenige des idealistischen Allegorismus der alexandrinischen Schule, sondern die einer Symbolik, die geeignet ist, paradox die Realitäten einer heiligen Geschichte auszudrücken, die gleichzeitig transzendent und immanent in der Erfahrung des Gläubigen ist.” 71 As we already saw, Brock further pointed out that the interpretation of the Bible is one of the functions of the ‘aynā šāpitā, replacing the often invokes, but extraneous Antiochene 2,TD\" with one of the notions Ephrem himself develops in the context of his symbolic world view.72 According to Sinichi Muto, who further developed this insight, the distinction between Alexandrian and Antiochian exegesis reduces Ephrem “either to ‘an unskilled Antiochene’ or else to ‘a less developed Alexandrian’.” Only an examination of Ephrem’s understanding of the hermeneutic process “in the modern philosophical sense of the word” will shed some light on the way he understood the so-called literal, historical, allegorical or typological interpretations of the Bible.73 On the basis of Ephrem’s use of the terms puššāqā and turgāmā, ‘explanation’ and ‘interpretation’, Muto draws a picture of Ephrem’s symbolic world vision that basically

70

Thus, while Ephrem’s exegetical attitude is “perhaps the most beautiful expression of Antiochene exegesis,” it is at the same time “a function of his symbolical world view” (p. 486), which Murray illustrates with the two figures discussed above. See already his ‘Theory’, p. 5: “The Bible, as a work of God in human imagery and language, is a part, as well as a special interpreter, of the whole world and its history.” 71 ‘Ephräm der Syrer’, p. 299 (1984). 72 Cf. above, p. 24; also Luminous Eye, pp. 46-49. 73 ‘Early Syriac hermeneutics’, p. 43f. (1998).

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

29

corresponds to the one drawn by Murray and Brock, but stays within Ephrem’s own perspective.74 Muto considers the human “interpretation” to be “an interpretation of an interpretation” in the sense of a temporal sequence. God first takes the initiative to reveal or “interpret” himself by means of symbols, and the human interpretation follows as an interpretation of “what God has already interpreted Himself.”75 This is too simplistic, for in Ephrem’s view God’s self-revelation in both creation and Scripture is not just of a temporal, but first of all of an ontological order. It is inscribed in the symbolical structure of reality itself as a potential revelation that awaits the actual discovery by the human luminous eye, of which it is the ontological basis. The history of revelation is identical with the history of the human reception of that revelation. As a consequence, the multiplicity of meanings of the words of the Bible does not in the first place depend on “the multiplicity of the perspectives of the interpreters,” as Muto maintains. Also in this respect, the infinite richness of the symbolic dimension of the Bible, like that of creation, belongs to the ontological order and awaits to be discovered by an unlimited variety of human perspectives. 76 The symbolic interpretation of the Bible is part of the symbolic thought that creatively constructs an “interpretation” that is made possible by, and corresponds to, the symbolic structure of the Bible itself. The richness of this hermeneutic process, grounded in symbolical reality and discovered and expressed in as many ways as there are human beings, is reflected in the polysemous nature of language. In the Commentary on the Diatessaron 7:22 Efrem writes about the polysemous language of the Bible:77 74

Ibid. pp. 45-49. Muto’s exposition does not draw on earlier studies in this domain, which might be the reason that it is not always really clear. 75 Ibid. p. 46. 76 Ibid. pp. 48 & 50-51. 77 Leloir, Folios additionels, p. 106. Sala quotes this and another famous passage from CommDiat (1:18-19) to point at the “anxiety of influence” with which Ephrem is overcome when faced with the Bible (‘Traces’, pp. 255-256, quoting the title of a book by literary critic Harold Bloom). According to Sala, Ephrem has “the acute feeling of a late-comer in front of a text already read” and, as the younger poet, has to face the struggle

30

SIMPLE AND BOLD If the words would have only one perspective (parōpā), the first interpreter would find it, and the other hearers would have no toil in their investigation nor pleasure in their finding. But all the words of our Lord have their images (urātā), and each one of the images has its many members (hadāmē), and each one of these members has its own character (ab‘ā) and shape (eskim). And each person hears in accordance with his capacity and interprets in accordance with what is being given to him.

This text is full of what appear to be technical terms and Muto stresses the point, that while Ephrem seems to speak here of “the endless plurality of ‘senses’ of a word,” these “senses” are not the same as univocal “meanings.” Every word presents itself in many different ways, for its has various faces (parōpē), that is, different images or aspects (urātā) that “are not the word itself but truly represent something of it.” One could say that Ephrem distinguishes between the specific denotation of a word, that is, the object or concept it univocally refers to, and the many connotations it invokes thanks to its associative power or aylā, in Ephrem’s terms. Moreover, each of these images or aspects has its own members (hadāmē), that is, the various parts of which it consists and which each have their individual character (ab‘ā) and shape (eskim). Thus, as concept “tree” stands for a single reality. As image, however, “tree” can indicate a variety of things, while it also has different parts—roots, branches, leaves and fruits, each with its own form and appearance—each of which can also signify many different things.78 Ephrem’s symbolical vision is essentially a single, ongoing process of association: “For Ephrem, to interpret the words in the Bible is to find relations between the thing referred to by the word and other things which may or may not be referred to by other words in the Bible.” Interpretation is not about defining the meaning of a word, but about grasping the intrinsic power (aylā) of a with the old poets. He “overcomes this inhibition” by drawing this portrait of Scripture’s infinite richness. To me, however, Ephrem’s overall sense in describing Scripture’s wealth of symbols seems to be the deeply felt enjoyment of an accomplished artist rather than the apprehension of a competitor worried about being original. 78 Muto, ‘Early Syriac hermeneutics’, pp. 52-53. Aphraha uses similar, but less sophisticated terminology in Dem XXII:26, see ibid. pp. 55f.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

31

word which, through its own manifold aspects and parts, points to the possible meanings of other words that have their own aspects and parts.79 Although he does not further reflect upon its literary, intellectual and theological implications, Muto’s analysis of this heuristic process is of the greatest importance for our understanding of Ephrem’s symbolic thought. Muto pointedly concludes that Syriac exegesis is essentially different from the “uniformity-oriented” Alexandrian hermeneutics with its one-dimensional primacy of the spiritual as well as from the “duplexity-oriented” Antiochene hermeneutics with its two-dimensional system of the historical and the spiritual. Syriac hermeneutics is “multiplicity-oriented,” since it consists of a three-dimensional system of multiple, interconnected images. And this system is nothing else than Ephrem’s symbolism, “since everything in the world itself is already ‘spiritual’ in a certain sense, being a symbol of the spiritual reality.”80 In Chapter 6.4 we will see that Muto’s analysis of the interrelatedness of all symbols and of all the words with which Ephrem constructs his symbolical vision of reality, perfectly corresponds to Bou Mansour’s considerations about Ephrem’s so-called “open concepts.”81 There is a telling difference between Ephrem and his older contemporary Eusebius of Emessa (ca. 300 – ca. 359, one of the founders of the Antiochene exegetical tradition. Eusebius clearly distinguishes the interpreter from the reader and he is mainly interested in the the sense intended by the author. For Ephrem, in contrast, every reader is an interpreter and it is the text’s meaning for the reader that is important. Ephrem considers “no particular interpretation valid for anyone at any time,” because biblical interpretation is part of a much wider heuristic process.82 ———— Along the lines of the above, ever since the 1970s Ephrem studies developed an approach to Ephrem that can perhaps best be termed “descriptive-analytical” and which has been adopted by most scholars. Murray’s classic Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in 79

Ibid. p. 53. Ibid. pp. 57f. 81 See p. 318. 82 Muto, ‘Hermeneutics’, pp. 213f. 80

32

SIMPLE AND BOLD

Early Syriac Tradition (1975) was a pioneering work that set some crucial methodological standards and greatly influenced subsequent studies. Addressing the lack of critical research into the literary forms and imagery of early Syriac theology, Murray undertook a theological interpretation of fourth century writers that concentrates on “one of the richest fields in early Syriac literature, that referring to the Church.” In the case of authors that express their thoughts symbolically, even well-intentioned theologians conduct a work of interpretation that runs the risk of misrepresentation on account of their own presuppositions; Murray calls an earlier scholar’s extreme methods altogether horrifying. Interpreters of the early Syriac authors, therefore, “must ‘listen to them’ to discover their theology (or theologies)” if they wish to avoid imposing “a pattern alien to their thought” that derives from their own logicdriven Western mindset. In order to respect the particular way in which an author like Ephrem orders his thoughts, “the interpreter must try to expound his subject-matter and show the relationships within it” by collecting, ordering and comparing all references to a certain theme and all the symbols and images applied to it.83 Symbols of Church and Kingdom was soon followed by a number of studies that dealt with a variety of themes and consequently presented distinctive characteristics, but were nevertheless close to Murray’s descriptive and analytical approach. This is especially true of general philosophical and theological studies like Nabil ElKhoury’s Die Interpretation der Welt bei Ephraem dem Syrer. Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte (1976) and Jouko Martikainen’s Das Böse und der Teufel in der Theologie Ephraems des Syrers. Eine systematisch-theologische Untersuchung (1978) and Gerechtigkeit und Güte Gottes. Studien zur Theologie von Ephraem dem Syrer und Philoxenos von Mabbug (1981). Sebastian Brock’s The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St. Ephrem (1985) further developed Murray’s methodology. Different from Murray’s comparative approach, Brock limits himself strictly to Ephrem in order to “extract and distil … the essence of his thought and its basic structures and underlying presuppositions” and give a comprehensive presentation of his thought and 83

Symbols, pp. 1-3. In the main part of his book, Murray surveys his materials according to New Testament themes; in the second, much shorter part, he attempts to establish some lines of influence from earlier Christian, Gnostic, Jewish and even earlier Mesopotamian sources.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

33

vision. In order to “avoid imposing upon Ephrem categories that are foreign to his way of thinking” one should “allow his own writings to dictate the choice of subjects to be treated.” 84 Before discussing central theological themes like the “names” of God and “the robe of glory” and related imagery, Brock first focuses on Ephrem’s fundamental theological concepts and premises, which provide the key to an appropriate understanding of his symbolical approach to a perceptive understanding and presentation of the Christian faith. While it undoubtedly avails of Murray’s insights into the symbolic-poetic mechanisms of early Syriac theology, The Luminous Eye thus reveals itself to be closer to a systematic theological appraisal of Ephrem’s achievements. The first author to move into the area of theological reflection was Tanios Bou Mansour. He opened up this new area of Ephrem studies with his long article ‘La liberté chez saint Éphrem le Syrien’ (1983-1985) and then with La pensée symbolique de saint Éphrem le Syrien (1988). Amazingly, this monumental work is almost completely absent from more recent studies into Ephrem and it has never adequately been responded to. This explains, perhaps, why more recent works like Paul Féghali, Les origines du monde et de l’homme dans l’oeuvre de saint Ephrem (1997), Paul Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians (1994), Aho Shemunkasho, Healing in the Theology of St Ephrem (2004) and Thomas Buchan, “Blessed is He who has brought Adam from Sheol”: Christ’s Descent to the Dead in the Theology of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (2004), all belong to descriptive-analytical research type.

1.3. SYMBOLS The clue to a right understanding of Ephrem’s theology is, as Brock suggests, its actual dynamic nature, through which it continually invites us “to move on beyond the outer garment of words to the inner meaning and truth to which they point.”85 Ephrem’s words do not allow us to focus on their logical content, but force us to follow their analogical movement. Consequently, one should 84

The Luminous Eye, p. 21. Brock, Luminous Eye, pp. 160f., where he paraphrases TSChurch 28:17, “It is not at the clothing of the words that one should gaze, but at the power hidden in the words.” See TSParadise 11:4-8 for a similar invitation. 85

34

SIMPLE AND BOLD

not so much look for, or even expect to find, analytical subtlety and logical coherence. Instead, one should strive to uncover and appreciate the specific rhetorical and intellectual tools that Ephrem uses to interpret reality. The most important concept that captures both this interpretation and its verbal expression is of course that of “symbol.” Saber was the first contemporary scholar to repudiate the rationalistic bias against Ephrem’s writings.86 The poetic form of these writings, he says, was certainly inspired by the call for “une théologie populaire” that met the needs of “un peuple poétique comme celui de la Syrie.”87 The poetical nature of their contents, however, derives from strictly theological principles of which modern theologians often have little sense.88 In Ephrem’s view, all of reality— both in its dimensions of space and time—is essentially symbolical in structure and constitutes a single “ordre de connaissance de Dieu à travers le monde visible.”89 This is also, and even more true of the liturgical hic et hodie that incorporates and, at the same time, transcends this order of knowledge by effectively uniting us with God on an existential level. Saber still exploits the supposed divide between early Syriac tradition and mainstream Greek theology in order to demarcate “cette théologie araméenne qui n’est autre que celle de la Bible”90 and his short presentation of Ephrem’s natural and typological symbolism can certainly not be compared to Bou Mansour’s comprehensive and meticulous analyses throughout La pensée symbolique de saint Ephrem le Syrien. Yet, Saber was the first who clearly described the symbolical nature of all of reality and the the86

Cf. above, p. 19. Théologie baptismale, pp. 22-23. 88 Bruns for example draws a clear line between Aithalla’s sober and terminologically precise expositions and Ephrem’s “popular Orthodoxy” that captured “the hearts of the simple believers” through its sweeping poetic power. He even calls this “die sprachliche und theologische Differenz zwischen dem gebildeten Episkopat und den Vertretern der Mönchskirche” (‘Aithallas Brief’, pp. 70 and 53; cf. note 113 on p. 87). Bruns’ understanding of Ephrem’s theology is discussed in Chapter 6.2. 89 Théologie baptismale, p. 27: “cette connaissance peut se définir comme la découverte des références du monde visible à Dieu qui s’exprime et se révèle à travers les réalités du monde terrestre.” 90 Ibid. p. 24. 87

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

35

ology that intellectually perceives and poetically expresses the innumerable analogical relationships present in this reality. This specific perspective explains why Ephrem’s approach to understanding and insight is more comprehensive than analytical.91 In a reaction to de Halleux’s statement that Ephrem, with respect to human freedom, refuses to give a rational proof of its existence,92 Bou Mansour remarks that it depends on one’s definition of “rational” whether this can be rightly said of Ephrem or not. He proposes a definition according to which “rational” can be seen, among other possibilities, as the capacity to grasp with a single direct act of perception what is real and absolute as opposed to what is apparent and inessential. In this sense, says Bou Mansour, Ephrem’s teaching on free will is “pas loin d’être profondément rationnelle.”93 Bou Mansour explains that instead of approaching free will as an abstract concept that has to be rationally untangled, Ephrem tries to capture it both in its tangible manifestations and through its contrasting opposites. According to Bou Mansour, he thus avoids “toute limitation à la raison raisonnante” without ever excluding the cogito.94 In this respect, Ephrem’s approach has a certain affinity with the phenomenological method, “qui cherche moins à expliquer et à valoriser qu’à saisir l’être dans ses apparitions,” with the result that his notion of the “truth” of free will refers to its existential reality rather than to its abstract essence.95 Ephrem does not hypostasize thought as separate from existential reality in order to exploit it for a rational explanation of this reality; he sees human intelligence as a wide-ranging set of faculties that is able to seize and appreciate something in the totality and complexity of its existence. Thus, for Ephrem, our understanding of free will is not some abstract notion that is based on insight into the human essence, but the result of an existential reality that imposes itself on

91

This is how Bou Mansour puts it : “Une démarche plutôt compréhensive qu’explicative” (‘Liberté’, p. 27). 92 ‘Mar Éphrem’, p. 52. 93 ‘Liberté’, p. 20. 94 Ibid. p. 20. 95 Cf. ibid. pp. 4-5. See below, pp. 253f.

36

SIMPLE AND BOLD

our thought. Bou Mansour describes this movement as “un accès de la conscience à l’être grâce au don de l’être lui-même.”96 Thus, when Ephrem speaks about God’s free will, he is not deducing an abstract concept from certain dogmatic principles. Bou Mansour shows how Ephrem, in different polemical contexts, distinguishes between several ways in which the mystery of God’s free will manifests itself. God is free in his transcendence, he is free in creating the world and he freely redeems humankind—and each of these instances reveals a different aspect of his free will. This proves, according to Bou Mansour, that truth is always known through a form of mediation, because of which “toute vérité est une vérité située et historique.”97 ———— Ephrem’s understanding of a symbol can best be described against this background.98 A symbol is not just a means for comprehensibly or eloquently expressing an idea, but one of the principal forms in which reality presents itself to human understanding.99 Referring to contemporary research into epistemology and symbolism, Bou Mansour distinguishes a symbol from a simple sign. A symbol is a composite sign in which a primary, obvious or commonly accepted meaning indicates or suggests a second meaning. Different from, for example, a sign or allegory, whose signifying function is based on convention and whose signifier and signified are only related temporarily within the context of that function, the essential feature of the symbol is the indissoluble link between the signifier and the signified. This link constitutes the symbol’s binary structure. The relationship between the signifier and the signified can best be defined as analogical and is generally considered to be so strong, that Gadamer even defines it as “a metaphysical connec96

Ibid. pp. 21f. Cf. ibid. p. 154. 98 The following considerations are mainly based on Pensée symbolique, pp. 11-19, where Bou Mansour describes four essential features of a symbol, and pp. 71-120, where he traces these features in Ephrem’s works. 99 This point is often not understood by modern scholars, who tend to reduce the notion of “symbol” to a simple “image.” Ephrem’s symbolism is often evocative and compelling, but its expressiveness represents much more than just a writer’s ability to paint words. 97

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

37

tion between the visible and the invisible.” 100 This obviously reminds us of the crucial role of the binomial “hidden and revealed” (kasyā w-galyā) in Ephrem’s thought. Bou Mansour in fact concludes that one passes here from “la conception du symbole comme document ou signe de reconnaissance au symbole comme signe-mystère,”101 that is, to Ephrem’s rāzā that indeed indissolubly links kasyā and galyā. A symbol is always in danger of being subjected to some kind of reduction, especially to the deformation into a concept—which is precisely the idolatry of the conceptual that Ephrem refutes in his anti-Arian polemics and from which, as we will see, certain approaches to Ephrem are not entirely free. The reduction of thought and knowledge to the logic of reason and univocal definition annihilates the symbolical structure of reality on which authentic insight is based. According to Ephrem, the invisible can only be reached indirectly, that is, through the symbolical dimension of the visible. This implies that the visible is, first of all, perceived in a non-symbolical way, since the symbolization process would otherwise have no foundation. Thus, if language is deprived of its analogical power, all there remains are abstract terms without any depth or width. Bou Mansour therefore concludes: “Le symbole apparaît ainsi comme linguistique et métalinguistique, en perpétuelle tension entre une immanence et une transcendance.”102 The second essential feature of a symbol is its polysemous nature, that is, the coexistence of various potential meanings within one and the same symbol. This polysemy is based on the primary sense of a word and manifests itself in the transition from one meaning to another, following “ce que Ricoeur a appelé la ‘logique de la correspondance’, qui consiste à déceler des affinités de sens entre différentes réalités.”103 Rennet, for instance, is used in curdling milk for cheese and can therefore suitably symbolize the unifying force of faith both in the individual Christian’s mind and in the Christian

100

Wahrheit und Methode, p. 69. Pensée symbolique, p. 13. 102 Ibid. p. 15. 103 Ibid. The quotation is from Ricoeur, ‘Parole et symbole’, in Le symbole, ed. J.E. Menard (Strasbourg, 1975), pp. 142-161. 101

38

SIMPLE AND BOLD

community’s life.104 Some symbols refer to a double primary sense, like, for example, light that both illuminates and warms. Thus light can symbolize the Son whose doctrine illumines humankind as well as the Spirit whose warmth loosens the disciples’ tongues at Pentecost. 105 While the binary structure of the symbol expresses the polarities that constitute reality, its polysemous character unleashes the “force génératrice de sens,”106 that is, the heuristic process that discovers ever new ways of giving sense and meaning to this reality. By way of example Bou Mansour analyses the polysemy of sun and light, womb, yeast, road, oil and pearl in Ephrem’s works, reaching the conclusion that his symbolism is nothing less than “une symbolique de la connaissance” since it corresponds to the very nature of reality and creates the conditions that are indispensable for human knowledge to arise.107 A third fundamental aspect of a symbol is its temporality, which in Ephrem’s case means that a symbol only exists within the context of the history of salvation. A symbol does not just span the distance between the limited and the unlimited and between the visible and the invisible, it also mediates between historical time and the proton and eschaton that are outside of time. This implies that it is neither an “archaeological” expression of the past nor a pure reflection of the present, but a form of mediation between past, present and future that makes the temporal comprehensible thanks to its orientation towards its metahistorical “beginning” and “end.” Thus the mythological recollection of the proton is not just a manifestation of the timeless archetype of Paradise Lost, but introduces us here and now to an eschatological perspective of renewed fullness of life in Paradise Restored. The distinction between various stages in the history of salvation clearly marks moments of transition, in which a temporary 104

See p. 189, note 134 for several examples of the first meaning, and CommDiat 8:5 (Leloir, Folios additionnels, p. 117) for the second. 105 See e.g. TSFast 5:10, TSBread 1:15 and TSFaith 74:20-21. 106 Pensée symbolique, p. 78. 107 Ibid. pp. 78-94. After this conclusion, Bou Mansour interrupts his discussion of the four essential features of a symbol in Ephrem’s works for a broad presentation of his “apophatism,” which the opening of the first chapter (ibid. p. 23) lists among the elements that define the symbol. This intermezzo on pp. 94-103 is discussed in Chapter 6.4, pp. 308ff.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

39

symbol is “abolished” or rather “accomplished.” This dialectic progression, however, cannot be reduced to a simple linear evolution. Christ is both source and fulfillment of time and therefore present at every single moment in time, not just as the final truth announced by all the symbols, but also as their eternal foundation that precedes all of history. “Ainsi, l’«archéologie» paraît comme en tension continue vers une eschatologie qui la réalise, et l’eschatologie comme une réalité toujours présente depuis l’«archéologique» jusqu’à l’accomplissement ultime.”108 Symbols are therefore never static, as they continuously emerge from their eternal source and reach for their eternal fulfillment. Finally, Bou Mansour discusses a fourth vital aspect of a symbol, that is, the way it is recognized. He considers the recognition of the symbol to be a question that modern philosophy has not resolved. Some authors emphasize the power of vision of the subject, but most maintain that a symbol is recognized thanks to the revealing power of the symbol itself. Ricoeur explains that the movement that passes from the literal meaning to a symbolical meaning can not be objectified, as it is, and always remains, rooted in an existential experience: “C’est en vivant dans le sens premier que je suis entraîné par lui au-delà de lui-même: le sens symbolique est constitué dans et par le sens littéral, lequel opère l’analogie en donnant l’analogue.”109 Bou Mansour considers this to be a one-sided view as it does not define the role of the subject’s horizon, which is constituted by the tradition in which the subject is immersed. In Ephrem’s view, we are able to see the invisible via the visible thanks to the Christian tradition that literally and figuratively opens our eyes. The “eye” that perceives the symbol is, obviously, the luminous eye of the mind, which not only is spiritual in nature, but also “un esprit éduqué par un enseignement supérieur qui, par sa

108

Ibid. p. 103. On pp. 107-111, Bou Mansour resumes his answer to Beck’s critique of Ephrem’s illogical use of type and antitype (cf. above, p. 19, note 45). He also addresses de Halleux, who integrated Beck’s thesis of the interchangeability of terms like rāzā, upsā and dmutā with a onesided concept of time as a purely linear progression (‘Saint Éphrem, p. 346). 109 Le conflit des interprétations. Essai d’herméneutique (Paris, 1969), p. 286, quoted in Pensée symbolique, p. 18.

40

SIMPLE AND BOLD

puissance transformatrice, crée un regard nouveau.”110 This eye can be called “the eye of faith,” since “faith is the eye that sees the invisible.”111 Faith’s insight and discernment are the opposite of the scrutinizing look of those who are unable to understand the symbolical structure of reality. Such persons reduce reality to its outer manifestation and interpret symbols and images either in a literal or in a purely metaphorical sense, subjecting the divine and the human to an exhausting and totally unproductive rationalization.112 Yet even this does not exhaust Ephrem’s understanding of the working of symbolism. Faith can open our eyes, not only because it objectively corresponds to the symbolical structure of the world but also, and in the first place, because we ourselves are created to God’s likeness and made to know God precisely through the process of symbolization. Faith’s step from the visible to the invisible is only possible “parce que cet invisible a été accordé à l’homme dans un don préalable à toute saisie existentielle.”113 Thus, Ephrem acknowledges not only the existential foundation of symbolism (to which Ricoeur’s considerations seem to be limited), but also the revealing power that the symbol is objectively endowed with and the crucial importance of a horizon of values that precedes every symbolical interpretation. Most importantly, he provides this uniquely comprehensive vision, with its epistemological, historical, liturgical and soteriological dimensions, with a solid ontological foundation: “Pour Ephrem, la reconnaissance du symbole n’est possible que parce que le symbole est un moment de 110 Bou Mansour, Pensée symbolique, p. 116. Cf. TSParadise 6:2,1: “the mind that is spiritual” (hawnā d-ruānā hw), and 6:25,1-2: “through love and doctrine, both mixed with truth (b-ubbā w-yulpānā kad mzig b-hōn quštā), the mind can grow and become rich with new things” (Beck, Hymnen de Paradiso, pp. 19 and 25). 111 TSChurch 24:2,1: haymānutā gēr itēh ‘aynā āzit kasyātā (Beck, Hymnen de Ecclesia, p. 52). See also TSChurch 38:2,4-5 where Ephrem says that we need faith as our eye in order to perceive the healing acts and great deeds performed by Jesus (haymānutā ‘aynā tehē lan). Cf. Possekel, Evidence, pp. 205-228, for a discussion of Ephrem’s understanding of human eyesight, which is close to Plato’s theory of the luminous nature of the eye and always underlies his visual imagery. 112 Bou Mansour, Pensée symbolique, pp. 112-114. 113 Ibid. p. 118.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

41

l’être, parce que Dieu, l’homme et le monde se présentent dans une structure symbolique.”114 In conclusion we can say that, through his hermeneutic approach, Bou Mansour has given great intellectual depth to Murray’s and Brock’s interpretation of Ephrem’s symbolism. On the basis of considerations like the ones summarized here, Bou Mansour actually analyzes all the essential elements of Ephrem’s symbolic vision—from creation and Trinity to Incarnation and church, from anthropology to eschatology—along the general lines set out by both scholars. Most of his considerations exceed the scope of this study. I have limited myself to a critical discussion of Bou Mansour’s methodology in Chapter 2.1, to a parallel critique of his interpretation of an important anthropological theme in Chapter 5.2, and to a presentation of his extremely important conclusions about the specific intellectual quality of Ephrem’s symbolic thought in Chapter 6.4.

1.4. CONCEPTS All the emphasis on Ephrem’s analogical way of thinking does not imply that he was unable or unwilling to use abstract concepts or logical argumentation. Already in 1980, Robert Murray questioned the established idea that the earliest Syriac authors, Aphraha and Ephrem, were “untainted” by any direct Hellenistic influence. 115 Kathleen McVey followed with the assertion that “many philosophical presuppositions and literary forms analogous to those of Greek Christian theological literature” are to be found in Ephrem’s works,116 while Corrie Molenberg was the first to point out some 114

Ibid. p. 119. Cf. ‘Rhetoric’, p. 79. Such “romanticism … neglects the degree to which the entire area where Syriac literature came to flower had for centuries been penetrated by hellenistic cultural influence, in ways not resisted by linguistic barriers.” Murray also draws attention to “another dichotomy which is under reconsideration, namely that between ‘hellenistic’ Judaism and its counterpart, however called, of a supposedly more purely ‘semitic’ character” (ibid.). 116 McVey, Ephrem the Syrian, p. 4 (1989). In ‘Ephrem’s understanding’, McVey points to “some principles of interpretation rooted in later Platonism” (p. 128) that Ephrem has in common with Origen. At times Beck had pointed out the presence of Stoic ideas in Ephrem; yet he a priori re115

42

SIMPLE AND BOLD

tangible evidence that Ephrem was indeed familiar with Aristotelian and Stoic categories. 117 In 1993, Susan Ashbrook Harvey suggested that Ephrem’s Prose Refutations, with respect to the literary production of early Syriac tradition, “represent a mode of discourse closer to Greek philosophical tradition, but a rigorous philosophical base nonetheless underlies even Ephrem’s poetic work, though this has rarely been acknowledged by scholars.”118 At the same time, Thomas Koonammakkal was the first to dedicate a short, but little convincing study to “Greek wisdom” in Ephrem, which led him to the conclusion that Ephrem made use of “some vague and apparently second-hand knowledge of a few isolated philosophical notions.”119 Ute Possekel tackled this important issue in her pioneering work, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian (1999). Through an assessment of Ephrem’s appreciation of human knowledge and a comparison of some of his terms and notions with corresponding concepts in Greek philosophical literature, she shows that he was quite different from, for example, the uneducated monk and anti-Greek theologian from the lower classes that Peter Bruns claims he was.120 Since her most important source is the collection of Prose Refutations in which Ephrem discusses the cosmologies of Marcion, Mani and Bardaian, Possekel chooses to focus on a number of cosmological themes like the four elements, atrā (“space”), and the asōmāā (“incorporeals” or mental concepts). For lack of evidence, the question of Ephrem’s sources remains hypothetical and Possekel’s study is therefore limited to establishing the extent to which Greek philosophical concepts are present in Ephrem’s writings.

jected the possibility of any direct influence, suggesting that some of these ideas reached Ephrem by means of Bardaian. According to Possekel, Beck ignored how important such and other Greek concepts were for Ephrem (Evidence, pp. 191-192). 117 ‘Invincible weapon’ (1989). See below, p. 302, note 73. 118 ‘Feminine imagery’, p. 113, n. 5. 119 ‘Greek wisdom’, p. 176 (1994). 120 Cf. Bruns, ‘Arius hellenizans?’, pp. 50 and 53; Bruns’ views are discussed in Chapter 6.2. In Evidence, pp. 1-8, Possekel gives a useful overview of the different positions assumed by a variety of scholars.

1. THE DISCOVERY OF SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY

43

While most of Possekel’s investigations are of little immediate importance to us here, the results of her terminological and conceptual comparisons are of great importance for a more balanced appreciation of Ephrem’s theology and its intellectual merits. On the following pages I will briefly discuss her findings. Close parallels between Ephrem’s use of kyānā and qnōmā and the various meanings of respectively NbF4H and ßB`FJ"F4H in Greek philosophical texts suggest a direct influence, especially from Stoic philosophy.121 As for specific concepts, Ephrem’s views on the nature of the four elements and on the human body as consisting of fire, air, water and earth are similar to those of other early Christian authors like Aristides and Athanasius and directly derive from the presence, in his intellectual environment, of popular views of medical writers and Stoic philosophers. 122 Moreover, Ephrem’s rejection of Bardaian’s cosmogony involves a discussion of the atomist theory, which is “more diverse and more sophisticated than that of many of his Greek and Latin colleagues,”123 who mostly drew their knowledge from philosophical handbooks. In particular, Ephrem draws on Aristotelian and Stoic arguments that even Augustine, who was quite familiar with the Epicurean version of the theory, was not aware of. Furthermore, Ephrem’s discussion of “space” (atrā) in Against Bardaian’s “Domnus” is a genuine philosophical refutation of the concept of space as a corporeal and measurable entity. His understanding of the Stoic notion of space in particular is so accurate as to suggest his direct knowledge of a Stoic treatise or handbook.124 Also his long discussion of the notion of “incorporeals” (asōmāā) in the same treatise makes extensive use of Greek philosophical sources. Here he explicitly criticizes Bardaian for not being able to distinguish between Platonic and Stoic teachings, referring to an otherwise unknown treatise On Incorporeals by the second-century 121

Ibid. pp. 59-78. See especially pp. 87-88, 93-97 and 108-112. 123 Ibid. p.126. 124 Ibid. pp. 145-154. Possekel discusses a similar case on pp. 183-184. Bruns, ‘Aithallas Brief’, p. 50, finds the same doctrine in the Letter of Aithallah. For a comprehensive discussion of the connection between qnōmā and atrā with respect to God’s transcendence, cf. Bou Mansour, ‘Liberté’, pp. 132-136. 122

44

SIMPLE AND BOLD

Platonist Albinus as his source of information. “Being far from politicising against Greek culture, Ephrem here presents himself as learned in Greek thought and able to differentiate between the teachings of the Hellenistic philosophical schools.” 125 This does not alter the fact that his understanding of the Platonic doctrine is quite deficient. By contrast his presentation of the Stoic definition of “incorporeals” (asōmāā) is accurate, and, especially in his discussion of the incorporeity and immeasurability of the line, he is able to develop his own philosophical thought.126 Overall, concludes Possekel, “Ephrem’s use of Greek philosophy is predominantly Stoic, but also eclectic—like that of many other early theologians and late antique philosophers.”127 Ephrem rarely labels the Hellenistic concepts he uses as yawnāyā, ‘Greek’, nor does he explain their importance, which shows to what degree they had become part of the Syriac intellectual culture of his times. Brock had already pointed out that Ephrem’s “ekmtā d-yawnāyē is the exact equivalent of Athanasius’ º F@N\" Jä< {+88Z