Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (Volume 5) 9781463214104

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Volume 5 (2002)

HUGOYE JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute GENERAL EDITOR George Anton Kiraz, Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Sebastian Brock, University of Oxford Sidney Griffith, The Catholic University of America Amir Harrak, University of Toronto Susan Harvey, Brown University Mor Gregorios Y. Ibrahim, Mardin-Edessa Publishing House Konrad Jenner, The Peshitta Institute of Leiden University Hubert Kaufhold, Oriens Christianus Kathleen McVey, Princeton Theological Seminary William Petersen, Pennsylvania State University Mar Bawai Soro, Angelicum Pontifical University Lucas Van Rompay, Duke University TECHNICAL EDITOR Thomas Joseph, Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Kristian Heal, Brigham Young University EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Thomas Buchan, Drew University

HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES (ISSN 1097-3702) Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (ISSN 1097-3702) is published semiannually (in January and July) online at http://www.bethmardutho.org and annually in-print. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is a publication of BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE. Copyright © 2002 by BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE. The Syriac word hugoye, plural of hugoyo, derives from the root hg‚ ‘to think, meditate, study’; hence, hugoyo ‘study, meditation’. Recently, hugoye became to be used for ‘academic studies’; hence, hugoye suryoye ‘Syriac Studies’. SUBSCRIPTIONS Members: All members of The Friends of BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE receive the journal as a benefit of membership. Dues are $60 for individuals, and $30 for students (enclose photocopy of student ID). Members also receive Mardu, the Institute’s newsletter. Membership is open to individuals only. Non-members: Institutions may subscribe to the journal and Mardu, the Institute’s newsletter, at $110. Back issues are at the rate of the current year. Prepayment is required for shipment. All subscriptions and address changes should be sent to BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE, 46 Orris Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. Fax. +1 732-6990342. NOTE FOR CONTRIBUTORS Submission guidelines and instructions are found on the Hugoye web site at http://www.bethmardutho.org (click on the Hugoye icon). NOTE TO PUBLISHERS Copies for review should be sent directly to the Book Review Editor at the following address: Mr. Kristian S. Heal, Hugoye Book Review Editor, Brigham Young University, Stadium East House - METI, Provo, UT 84604. ADVERTISEMENTS Rates: $250 full page; includes a business-card size advertisement in Mardu for one year, and a listing in all e-mail announcements for one year. To place ads, write to the subscription address above. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.

CONTENTS TO VOL. 5, NO. 1 A Bibliographical Clavis to the Corpus of Works attributed to Isaac of Antioch.............................................................................3 Edward G. Mathews, Jr........................................................................

“Exchanging Reed for Reed”: Mapping Contemporary Heretics onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith .......15 Christine C. Shepardson ........................................................................

The Image of the Infant Jesus in Ephrem the Syrian.............35 Paul S. Russell ......................................................................................

Some Basic Annotation to The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church And Its Ancient Aramaic Heritage, I-III (Rome, 2001) ..............................................................................................63 Sebastian P. Brock ................................................................................

PUBLICATIONS AND BOOK REVIEWS ...................... 113 CONFERENCE REPORTS.................................................. 129

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CONTENTS, VOL. 5, NO. 2 IN MEMORIAM ..................................................................... 165 The Dispute between The Cherub and the Thief .......................... 169 Sebastian P. Brock ................................................................................ The Bema in the East Syriac Church In Light of New Archaeological Evidence .................................................................... 195 Marica Cassis........................................................................................ Syriac Writings and Turkic Language according to Central Asian Tombstone Inscriptions ..................................................................... 213 Wassilios Klein ......................................................................................

BRIEF ARTICLES .................................................................. 225 Thecla in Syriac Christianity .............................................................. 225 Catherine Burris & Lucas Van Rompay .......................................... A Syriac Inscription From Deir Al-Surian ...................................... 237 Matthew J. Martin ................................................................................ Deir al-Surian (Egypt):........................................................................ 245 Karel C. Innemée & Lucas Van Rompay ........................................

PUBLICATIONS AND BOOK REVIEWS ...................... 265 CONFERENCE REPORTS.................................................. 277

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Volume 5 (2002)

Number 1

HUGOYE JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 5:1, 3-14 © 2002 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CLAVIS TO THE CORPUS OF WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO ISAAC OF ANTIOCH EDWARD G. MATHEWS, JR. TUNKHANNOCK, PA

ABSTRACT The corpus of extant Syriac works which are attributed to Isaac of Antioch have barely begun to be studied. There are no critical editions and the secondary literature is sparse at best. This little Clavis is a simple catalogue of work-to-date on this corpus.

PREFACE [1]

The fifth-century Syriac writer, generally known in the scholarly world as ‘Isaac of Antioch’, is one of only very few Syriac authors to whom tradition has accorded the appellation ‘the Great’. Even Ephrem the Syrian, with whom medieval Syrian writers often associate Isaac, is never so dubbed. In the manuscript tradition, however, Isaac is far more often given the simple designation ‘teacher’ (Syr. malfônô), or even ‘teacher of the Syrians’. The Jacobite Patriarch John bar Shushan (†1073) considered the works of Isaac sufficiently numerous and edifying that he made an attempt to bring them all into a single collection. Unquestionably, Isaac should be numbered among the most prolific of Syriac 3

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writers; his works, mostly mêmrê with a few madrāshê, have still not been collected or sorted out, but those that are known number considerably more than two hundred.1 Yet, as nearly every student of Syriac knows, there remains the problem of who Isaac was or, more precisely, ‘how many’ Isaac was. It is commonplace in the sparse secondary literature on Isaac to cite a letter of Jacob of Edessa to John the Stylite, one of his favorite correspondents, in which Jacob responds to John’s query concerning the identity of Isaac, by enumerating three Isaacs who lived during the course of the fifth century, and to say that it is the works of these three Isaacs that constitute the corpus of works that scholars generally attribute to Isaac of Antioch. Yet, Robert Murray may be closer to the mark when he opts not to attempt to “solve the problem of how many writers shelter under the name of Isaac of Antioch.”2 As a single example, scholars have already noted that there are a number of works that are variously attributed to Isaac and to Ephrem, a division already reflected in early editions of these two authors (see below). Despite the great number of works attributed to Isaac, however, there has been embarassingly little work done on this corpus. Much less than half of the works have been edited at all, and then only on the basis of few and late manuscripts (see editions, below). This corpus has been accorded equally meager treatment in modern scholarly research; very little has been done to sort out the corpus and there has been almost no attempt to try to discover the identity, or identities, of the author or authors whose works are included in this corpus. A decade and a half ago now, Sebastian Brock noted that the state of the works of Isaac, along with those of Narsai and Jacob of Sarug, was “indicative of the underdeveloped state of Syriac studies”.3 In the time since Brock’s article appeared, only a very few works of Narsai and Jacob have appeared in new editions or translations, but only a very secondary works that deal with anything from the Isaac corpus.4 This little See E.G. Mathews, Jr., “The Corpus of Isaac of Antioch: An Overview of its Contents,” forthcoming. 2 R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom (Cambridge 1975), 36. 3 S.P. Brock, “The Published Verse Homilies of Isaac of Antioch, Jacob of Serugh, and Narsai: Index of Incipits,” JSS 32 (1987) 279. 4 A decade later Brock reiterated his plea in S.P. Brock, “Syriac Studies in the Last Three Decades: Some Reflections,” in VI Symposium 1

Isaac of Antioch: A Bibliographical Clavis

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Clavis constitutes, I hope, the very first attempt at rectifying this state of affairs.5 Readers of this journal will quickly note that the organization of the material below owes a great debt to the extremely clear and orderly presentation of Dirk Kruisheer and Luk Van Rompay in their Bibliographical Clavis to the Works of Jacob of Edessa, which appeared in the very first issue of Hugoye.6 Due to both the contents of the Isaacian corpus and the relatively smaller secondary literature, I was able to simplify the categories somewhat from theirs. The list of studies below was also compiled, for pre-1960, on the basis of C. Moss, Catalogue of Syriac Printed Books and Related Literature in the British Museum (London 1962) and I. Ortiz de Urbina, Patrologia Syriaca (Rome 1965). For subsequent years I, like Syriac scholars everywhere, am indebted to the bibliographies of Sebastian Brock published in PdO 4 (1973) 393-465, 10 (1981-1982) 291-412, 14 (1987) 289-360, 17 (1992) 211-301. These four bibliographies have now been collated together and published in book form in S.P. Brock, Syriac Studies. A Classified Bibliography (1960-1990) (Kaslik 1996). Subsequent to these, S.P. Brock, “Syriac Studies 1990-1995. A Classified Bibliography,” PdO 23 (1998) 241342 has appeared; it is presumed—even hoped—that another installment for 1996-2000 should appear in one of the next volumes of Parole de l’Orient. I have made every attempt both to check all these earlier entries and to bring them as up-to-date as possible. Following Kruisheer and Van Rompay, I have also provided references to the standard handbooks and encyclopedias, which were necessarily not included in the previously mentioned Syriacum 1992, ed., R. Lavenant (OCA 247; Rome 1994) 28; shortly after this article A. de Halleux, “Vingt ans d’étude critique des églises syriaques,” in The Christian East: Its Institutions and its Thought. A Critical Reflection, ed. R.F. Taft (OCA 251; Rome 1996) 155, speaks of the corpus of Isaac as “un complexe littéraire encore mal débrouillé.” 5 Other projects are also already in progress in conjunction with the newly established series Eastern Christian Texts (ECT) at Brigham Young University. It is hoped that editions of most of the ascetical works as well as a catalogue of all the works attributed to Isaac will appear within the next couple of years. Other editions are also in the planning stages. 6 D. Kruisheer and L. Van Rompay, “A Bibliographical Clavis to the Works of Jacob of Edessa,” Hugoye 1.1 (1998), (http://www.bethmardutho.org/hugoye).

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bibliographies. Likewise, I have not included catalogues of manuscripts. I hope to provide a revised checklist of incipits in a future issue of this journal; this will comprise a glimpse of a complete catalogue of Isaac’s works in manuscript collections that is also currently in preparation. Unlike Kruisheer and Van Rompay, I did not have the advantage of a symposium on Isaac, and as a consequence the following list suffers from the great disadvantage of having been compiled by one person—and one who is clearly not Sebastian Brock. Thankfully, George Kiraz offered the possibility of submitting this bibliography to Hugoye, whose electronic medium will easily allow emendations of omission and/or reparation, and of any other sort of necessary improvement to the present work. I, therefore, kindly proffer a similar invitation to readers of this journal, to send in any corrections, additions, or any other sort of helpful remark, all of which I will be happy to include and to acknowledge in future updates to a bibliography that I hope will begin to grow with greater rapidity than heretofore.

ABBREVIATIONS BA BKV CSCO GCS GDFI JSS JTS LM MGH OC OCA OKS PdO PO RTFR TG TU ZfS

Byzantina Australiensia Bibliothek der Kirchenväter Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium Greichischen Christilichen Schriftsteller Giornale critico della filosofia italiana Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Theological Studies Le Muséon Monumenta Germaniae Historica Oriens Christianus Orientalia Christiana Analecta Ostkirchliche Studien Parole de l’Orient Patrologia Orientalis Rivista trimestrale di studi filosofici e religiosi Theologie und Glaube Texte und Untersuchungen Zeitschrift für Semitistik

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I. GENERAL STUDIES AND PRESENTATIONS A. SECTIONS IN INTRODUCTORY WORKS AND HANDBOOKS Assemanus, J.S. Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana I (Rome 1719) 207b-234b. Wright, W. A Short History of Syriac Literature (London 1894) 51-54 [and see index]. Mann, J. Al-muruj al-nuzhiah I (Mosul 1901) 163-176. Duval, R. La littérature syriaque (Anciennes littératures chrétiennes 2; Paris 1907) 14, 337-339. Baumstark, A. Die christlichen Literaturen des Orients, I. Einleitung. I. Das christlich-aramäische und das koptische Schrifttum (Sammlung Göschen; Leipzig 1911) 103. Baumstark, A. Geschichte der syrischen Literatur (Bonn 1922) 63-66. Bardenhewer, O. Geschichte der Altkirchlichen Literatur IV (Freiburg im Bresgau 1924) 402-407. Chabot, J.-B. Littérature syriaque (Paris 1934) 33-35. Hatch, W.H.P. An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts (Boston 1946) 148, 150, 153, 161. [sample manuscript pages from Isaac’s works] Baumstark, A. “Aramäisch und Syrisch”, in Semitistik (Handbuch der Orientalistik III.2-3; Leiden 1954) 174. Barsaum, Aphraam I. Kitaab al-lu‚lu‚ al-manthuur fii taariikh al-‛uluum wa‚l-aadaab al- suryaaniyya (Aleppo 19562; Glane 19874) 263-264. [Eng. tr., in Barsaum, Aphraam I. The History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, tr., Matti Mousa (Pueblo 2000) 84-85] Ortiz de Urbina, I. Patrologia Syriaca (Rome 19652) 100-102. Abouna, A. Adab al-lughat al-aramiyya (Beirut 1970) 92, 202-204. Assfalg, J. and Krüger, P. Kleines Wörterbuch des Christlichen Orients (Wiesbaden 1975) 148-149. Albert, M. “Langue et littérature syriaques”, in M. Albert et al., eds., Christianismes orientaux. Introduction à l’étude des langues et des littératures (Initiations au christianisme ancien; Paris 1993) 347.

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Brock, S.P. A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature (Moran ‚Eth‚o; 9; Kottayam 1997) 41-42. Bettiolo, P. “VI. Letteratura Siriaca,” in A. di Berardino, Patrologia V. Dal Concilio di Calcedonia (451) a Giovanni Damasceno (†750): I Padre Orientali (Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum; Genoa 2000) 458-459. B. ARTICLES IN DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS Nestle, E. art. “Isaak von Antiochien”, Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 7 (18802) 162-163. Ball, C.J. arts. “Isaacus Antiochenus”, “Isaacus (35)”, Dictionary of Christian Biography III (1880) 295-296, 297. Bardenhewer, O. art. “Isaak von Antiochien”, Wetzer und Welte’s Kirchenlexikon, oder Encyklopädie der katholischen Theologie und ihrer Hülfswissenschaften 6 (1889) 940-941. Nestle, C.E. art. “Isaak von Antiochien”, Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 9 (19003) 437-438. Petit, L. art. “Isaac d’Antioche”, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 8 (1924) 8-10. Rücker, A. art. “Isaak von Antiochien”, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 5 (1933) 610-611. Ortiz de Urbina, I. arts. “Isacco”, “Isacco di Amida”, “Isacco di Antiochia”, “Isacco di Edessa”, Enciclopedia Cattolica 7 (1951) 232. Krüger, P. art. “Isaac von Antiocheia”, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 5 (19602) 772. Janin, R. art. “Isacco”, Bibliotheca Sanctorum 7 (1966) 920-921. Graffin, F. art. “Isaac d’Amid et Isaac d’Antioche”, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 7 (1971) 2010-2011. van Esbroeck, M. arts. “Isacco di Amida”, “Isacco di Antiochia”, “Isacco di Edessa”, Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità cristiane 2 (1984) 1828-1829. Borengässer, N.M. art. “Isaak von Antiochien”, Marienlexikon 3 (1991) 317-318.

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Talbot, A.-M. art. “Isaac of Antioch”, Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 2 (1991) 1013. van Esbroeck, M. arts. “Isaac of Amida”, “Isaac of Antioch”, “Isaac of Edessa”, Encyclopedia of the Early Church 1 (1992) 416 [transl. and rev. of arts. “Isacco di Amida”, “Isacco di Antiochia”, “Isacco di Edessa”, Dizionario Patristico]. Bruns, P. art. “Isaak von Antiochien”, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 5 (19963) 607. Aubert, R. arts. “Isaac d’Amid”, “Isaac dit l’Ancien”, “Isaac d’Antioche”, “Isaac d’Edesse”, “Isaac le Grand”, Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 26 (1997) 74-75, 80, 82. Bruns, P. art. “Isaak III (von Antiochien)”, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 18 (1998) 931-945. C. GENERAL WORKS AND REFERENCES Duval, R. Histoire politique, religieuse et littéraire d’Édesse jusqu’à la première croisade (Paris 1892) 161. Jugie, M. Theologia dogmatica christianorum orientalium V. De theologia dogmatica nestorianorum et monophysitarum (Paris 1935) 376. Vööbus, A. History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient. A Contribution to the History of Culture in the Near East I (CSCO 184; Louvain l958) 155-156, and passim. Vööbus, A. History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient. A Contribution to the History of Culture in the Near East II (CSCO 197; Louvain 1960) passim. Downey, G. A History of Antioch in Syria: From Seleucus to the Arab Conquest (Princeton 1961) 479-480. Segal, J.B. Edessa, ‘The Blessed City’ (Oxford 1970) 168-169 [and see index]. Murray, R. Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (London 1975) 36, 41 [and see indices]. Drijvers, H.J.W. Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (Etudes préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire romain, 82; Leiden 1980) 3637, 97, 158, 185.

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Vööbus, A. History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient. A Contribution to the History of Culture in the Near East III (CSCO 500; Louvain 1988) 82-94, and passim. D. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES AND MATERIAL FOR IDENTIFICATION OF ISAAC/S Hallier, L. Untersuchungen über die Edessenische Chronik (TU 9.1; Leipzig 1892) 17-18, 114, 151 (text). Brooks, E.W. ed., Chronica Minora II (CSCO 3; Louvain 1960) 217. Bidez, J. and Hansen, G.C. eds., Sozomenus Kirchengeschichte (GCS 50; Berlin 1960) 301, 361-362, 375. Parmentier, L. and Scheidweiler, F. eds., Theodoret Kirchengeschichte (GCS 44; Berlin 1954) 272. Richardson, E.C. ed., Gennadius, Liber de Viris Inlustribus (TU XIV.1; Leipzig 1896) 84. Hansen, G.C. ed., Theodoros Anagnostes Kirchengeschichte (2d ed., GCS Neue Folge, Bd. 3; Berlin 1995) 75. Mommsen, T. ed., “Marcellini v.c. comitis chronicon ad a. DXVIII continuatum ad a. DXXXIV. Additamentum ad a. DXLVIII,” in Mommsen, T. Chronica minora saec. IV. V. VI. VII. II (MGH 11; Berlin 1894) 87. See also Croke, B. The Chronicle of Marcellinus: A Translation and Commentary (BA, 7; Sydney 1995) 23, 95. Chabot, J.B. ed., Incerti Auctoris Chronicon Pseudo-Dionysianum Vulgo Dictum I (CSCO 91; Louvain 1927) 39, 193. Brooks, E.W. ed., Historia Ecclesiastica Zachariae Rhetori vulgo adscripta I (CSCO 83; Louvain 1919) 103. Brière, M. ed., Les homiliae cathedrales de Sevère d’Antioche dans le traduction syriaque de Jacques d’Édesse (PO 29.1; Paris 1960) 204 [708]. Jacob of Edessa, “Letter to John the Stylite on various questions”. The relevant section is edited and translated in Bedjan, iv-vi, and in Lamy IV, 362-363 (full citations below). [A new edition of all Jacob’s letters is in preparation by J.J. Van Ginkel]

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Anonymous, “De S. Isaacio Confessore Abbate Constantinopoli” in Acta Sanctorum (Editio novissima, curante Joanne Carnandet; Paris and Rome 1866) MAI 7.243-255. Chabot, J.B. ed., Chronique de Michel le Syrien IV (Paris 1910) 185 [Syr.]; II (Paris 1901) 36 [transl.]. Abbeloos, J. and Lamy, T.J. eds., Gregorii Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum I (Louvain 1872) 165-166. Wensinck, A.J. Bar Hebraeus’s Book of the Dove, together with some chapters from his Ethikon (Leiden 1919) 124.

II. SURVEY OF ISAAC’S WORKS A. EDITIONS I. EDITIONS OF COLLECTED WORKS

Bedjan, P. ed., Homiliae S. Isaaci Syri Antiocheni I (Paris 1903). [67 mêmrê] Bickell, G. ed., Sancti Isaaci Antiochi Doctoris syrorum opera omnia, syriace, arabiceque primus edidit, latine vertit I-II (Gissae 1873-1877). [21 mêmrê and 16 madrāshê] Lamy, T.J. ed., Sancti Ephraem Syri Hymni et Sermones I-IV (Mechlinia 1882-1902). [contains a number of mêmrê that are also attributed to Isaac: II.313-333 (=Bedjan, 408-420), II.393-426 (Baumstark, 65 n.4, attributes this to Isaac), III.133-188 (Baumstark, 65 n.4, attributes this to Isaac), IV.147-185 (=Bedjan, 49-70), IV.207-215 (Ms. Ming. Syr. 190, ff. 124v attributes this to Isaac), IV.225-239 (=Bedjan, 36-44), IV.241261 (=Bedjan, 13-24), IV.453-461 (Ms. Br. Lib. Add. 14612, ff. 84v attributes this to Isaac)] it is also likely that others in this volume belong to Isaac. II. EDITIONS OF INDIVIDUAL WORKS

Moss, C. “Isaac of Antioch, Homily on the Royal City,” ZfS 7 (1929) 295-306. Kazan, S. “Isaac of Antioch’s Homily against the Jews,” OC 45 (1961) 30-53.

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B. TRANSLATIONS I. ENGLISH

Moss, C. “Isaac of Antioch, Homily on the Royal City,” ZfS 8 (1932) 61-72. Kazan, S. “Isaac of Antioch’s Homily against the Jews,” OC 45 (1961) 30-53. II. FRENCH

Feghali, P. “Isaac d’Antioche, poème sur l’incarnation du Verbe,” PdO 10 (1981/1982) 79-102. [= Bedjan, 789-800; Bickell I, 224] Feghali, P. “Isaac d’Antioche, une hymne sur l’Incarnation,” PdO 11 (1983) 201-222. [= Bedjan, 712-725; Bickell I, 54-78] III. GERMAN

Bickell, G. Ausgewählte Gedichte der syrischen Kirchenväter, Cyrillonas, Baläus, Isaak v. Antiochien und Jakob v. Sarug, zum ersten Male aus dem Syrischen übersetzt (BKV; Kempten 1872) 109-191. [Bedjan, 789-800 (=Bickell I.2-24), 712-725 (=Bickell I.54-78), 815-821 (=Bickell I.294-306), 158-170 (=Bickell I.250-274), 171-180 (=Bickell I.274-294)] Landersdorfer, P.S. Ausgewählte Gedichte der syrischen Dichter, aus dem Syrischen übersetzt (BKV 6; Munich 1913) 101-248. [Bedjan, 789800 (=Bickell I.2-24), 805-815 (=Bickell I.32-48), 712-725 (=Bickell I.54-78), 800-804 (=Bickell I.24-32), 621-641 (=Bickell II.236-266), 454-468 (=Bickell I.178-204), 539-566 (=Bickell II.266-352), 815-821 (=Bickell I.294-306), 158-170 (=Bickell I.250-274), 171-180 (=Bickell I.274-294), 145-152, 153-158] Krüger, P. “Der dem Isaac von Antiochien zugeschriebene Sermo über den Glauben,” OKS 1 (1952) 46-54. [= Bedjan, 655-664] IV. ITALIAN

Furlani, G. “Tre discorsi metrici d’Isacco d’Antiochia sulla fede,” RTFR 4 (1923) 257-287. [= Bedjan, 800-804, 789-800, 712-725; Bickell I, 24-32, 2-24, 54-78]

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Furlani, G. “La Psicologia d’Isacco d’Antiochia,” GDFI 7 (1926) 241-253. [= Bedjan, 399-408] C. STUDIES Koch, H. “Isaac von Antiochien als Gegner Augustinus,” TG 1 (1909) 622-634. Krüger, P. “Die mariologischen Anschauungen in den dem Isaak von Antiochien zugeschriebenen Sermones. Ein dogmengeschichtlicher Beitrag,” OKS 1 (1952) 123-131. Krüger, P. “Gehenna und Scheol in dem Schrifttum unter dem Namen des Isaak von Antiochien. Ein dogmengeschichtlicher Beitrag zur Eschatologie der ältesten Zeit,” OKS 2 (1953) 270279. Kazan, S. “Isaac of Antioch’s Homily against the Jews,” OC 46 (1962) 87-98; 47 (1963) 89-97; 49 (1965) 57-78. Klugkist, A.C. “Pagane Brauche in den Homilien des Isaak von Antiocheia gegen die Wahrsager,” in Symposium Syriacum 1972 (OCA 197; Rome 1974) 353-369. [re: Bedjan, 821-830 (=Bickell II, 204-221); Bedjan, 830-837 (=Bickell II, 221-237); Lamy II, 393-426] Brock, S.P. “The Published Verse Homilies of Isaac of Antioch, Jacob of Serugh, and Narsai: Index of Incipits,” JSS 32 (1987) 279-313. Klugkist, A.C. “Die beiden Homilien des Isaak von Antiocheia über die Eroberung von Bet Hur durch die Araber,” in IV Symposium Syriacum 1984: Literary Genres in Syriac Literature, ed., H.J.W. Drijvers, R. Lavenant, C. Molenberg, and G.J. Reinink (OCA 229; Rome 1987) 237-256. [re: Bedjan, 821-837; Bickell II, 204-237] Mathews, E.G., Jr., “’On Solitaries’, Ephrem or Isaac?” LM 103 (1990) 91-110. [re: Bedjan, 49-70; Lamy IV, 147-185] Mathews, E.G., Jr., “The Rich Man and Lazarus: Almsgiving and Repentance in Early Syriac Tradition,” Diakonia 22 (1988-89) 89-104. [re: Bedjan, 112-127]

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AbouZayd, S. “Isaac of Antioch on Learning and Knowledge,” in VI Symposium Syriacum 1992, ed., R. Lavenant (OCA 247; Rome 1994) 215-220. [re: Bedjan, 1-12] van Esbroeck, M. “The memra on the parrot by Isaac of Antioch,” JTS 47 (1996) 464-476. [re: Bedjan, 737-788; Bickell I, 84-174] Greatrex, G. “Isaac of Antioch and the Sack of Beth Hur,” LM 111 (1998) 287-291. [re: Bedjan, 821-837; Bickell II, 204-237]

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 5:1, 15-33 © 2002 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

“EXCHANGING REED FOR REED” MAPPING CONTEMPORARY HERETICS ONTO BIBLICAL JEWS IN EPHREM’S HYMNS ON FAITH† CHRISTINE C. SHEPARDSON DUKE UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith are among the most stridently and explicitly anti-Arian of Ephrem’s numerous polemical writings. Written in the midst of the struggle for political and social authority that raged between Arian and Nicene Christians, these hymns include a complex collection of both anti-Arian and anti-Jewish language. Close examination of these hymns will demonstrate that Ephrem repeatedly connects Christian ‘heretics’ with Jews by mapping his opponents onto negative caricatures of Jews in Christian scripture. Focusing primarily on the comparison that Ephrem makes in Hymn 87 between biblical Jews who crucified Christ and contemporary Christians who comparably threaten God’s son, I argue that Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in these hymns should be read primarily in light of his struggle against local Christians rather than Jews.

I presented a version of this paper at the annual conference of the North American Patristic Society, June 2001. †

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INTRODUCTION [1]

Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith are among the most stridently and explicitly anti-Arian of Ephrem’s numerous polemical writings. 1 Although there are significant problems inherent in using the term ‘Arian’, it is difficult to identify Ephrem’s opponents any more specifically. See Sidney Griffith’s recent observations in S.H. Griffith, “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephrem’s Hymns against Heresies,” in The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus, ed. by W.E. Klingshirn and M. Vessey (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1999), 97-114; and in S.H. Griffith, “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire,” in Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer, ed. by T. Halton and J. Williman (D.C.: CUA, 1986), 22-52; as well as Paul Russell’s observations in St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians (Kerala, India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1994). In his detailed studies of Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith, Edmund Beck concluded that in these hymns Ephrem argues against ‘Arianism’: “The main theme in all eighty Hymns on Faith is the defense of the church’s teaching over and against the innovation of Arianism” (E. Beck, Die Theologie des heiligen Ephraem in seinen Hymnen über den Glauben, SA 21 [Vatican City, 1949], 62). In fact, Beck elsewhere uses the nuances of his investigation to argue for a later date for the Hymns on Faith in comparison with the Sermons on Faith: “The composition of the Hymns on Faith can in my opinion be rather precisely given. That we are in Ephrem’s Edessene period is betrayed by the inclusion of the person of the holy spirit in the Arian argument, which many of that time treat and which is lacking in the polemic against the Arians in the Sermons on Faith from the Nisibene period” (E. Beck, trans. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO Syr 155/74 [Louvain, 1955], i). While the general claim of Beck’s conclusions about the identity of Ephrem’s opponents remains, scholars have rightfully challenged modern uses of the terminology of ‘Arianism’ itself, since the term includes many distinct groups, each with their own theological tenets. For relevant scholarship and bibliography, see R.P. Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution, (NY: OUP, 2000); R.C. Gregg and D.E. Groh, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981); M.R. Barnes and D.H. Williams, eds., Arianism after Arius, (Edinburgh, 1993); R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381, (Edinburgh, 1988); and J.T. Lienhard, “The ‘Arian’ Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered” (TS 48 [1987]), 415-437. With regard to Ephrem’s opponents, I use ‘Arian’ in contrast to ‘Nicene’ Christianity to reflect the strongly subordinationist nature of their theology. 1

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Written in Syria in the midst of the struggle for political and social authority that raged between Arian and Nicene Christians in the decades following the Council of Nicea, these hymns include a complex collection of both anti-Arian and anti-Jewish language. While scholars have traditionally read Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric as complaints against local Jews and ‘Jewish-Christians’,2 the combination of a predominantly anti-Arian agenda with this anti-Jewish language makes the Hymns on Faith key texts for investigating Ephrem’s use of anti-Jewish rhetoric in order to There is no reason to doubt that there were Jews living in both Nisibis and Edessa during Ephrem’s lifetime, and some of Ephrem’s writings do complain about local Jewish practices (see, for example, Cruc. 19-20 in Edmund Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Paschahymnen [de azymis, de crucifixione, de resurrectione], CSCO Syr 248/108 [Louvain, 1964]). As a result, early scholars assumed that all of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric was a straightforward attack on contemporary Jews. For examples, see Stanley Kazan, “Isaac of Antioch’s Homily against the Jews” (OrChr 46 [1962]), 87-98; (47 [1963]), 89-97; (49 [1965]), 57-78; J.B. Morris, Select Works of St. Ephrem the Syrian, Library of the Fathers, (Oxford, 1847), 396n; and E. Beck, Ephraems Reden über den Glauben (Rome, 1953), 118-119; as well as later works that accept and echo the conclusions of these authors (e.g., R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition [Cambridge, 1975]; S.D. Benin, “Commandments, Convenants and the Jews in Aphrahat, Ephrem and Jacob of Sarug,” in Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times, ed. by D.R. Blumenthal [Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985], 135-156; and A.P. Hayman, “The Image of the Jew in the Syriac Anti-Jewish Polemical Literature,” in “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity, ed. by J. Neusner and E.S. Frerichs [Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985], 423-441). Scholars have begun to recognize, however, that not all of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish language can be read most fruitfully as literal attacks on Jews. See, for example, R.A. Darling, “The ‘Church from the Nations’ in the Exegesis of Ephrem,” in IV Symposium Syriacum, 1984, ed. by H.J.W. Drijvers et al. [Rome, 1987], 111-121; and H.J.W. Drijvers, “Jews and Christians at Edessa” (JJS 36, no. 1 [1985]), 88-102. Nonetheless, the details of the role of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in a context of Nicene/Arian conflict have not yet been worked out. For other relevant bibliography, as well as an earlier discussion of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in this context, see C. Shepardson, “Anti-Jewish Rhetoric and Intra-Christian Conflict in the Sermons of Ephrem Syrus,” in Studia Patristica Vol. XXXV, XIII International Conference on Patristic Studies (Peeters: Louvain, 2001), 502-507. 2

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engage in a local intra-Christian struggle. A close examination of these hymns will demonstrate how Ephrem repeatedly connects the ‘heretics’ with Jews by mapping his Christian opponents onto the negative caricatures of the Jews of Christian scripture. Focusing primarily on the complex comparison that Ephrem makes in Hymn 87 between biblical Jews who crucified Christ and contemporary Christians who comparably threaten God’s son, I shall argue that Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in these hymns should be read primarily in light of his struggle against local Christians rather than Jews.

HYMNS ON FAITH [2]

[3]

Edmund Beck and others have concluded that Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith were most likely written after 363 C.E. in Edessa, during the reign of the pro-Arian emperor Valens.3 Given the immediacy and strength of Arian Christianity in the East during this time, the sharpness of the anti-Arian language of Ephrem, a vociferous proponent of Nicene ‘orthodoxy’, comes as little surprise. Along with the anti-Arian polemic, however, the Hymns on Faith also contain a striking amount of anti-Jewish language. While less vitriolic than Ephrem’s most ad hominem anti-Jewish attacks against the “foulness of the stinking Jews,”4 the rhetoric in the Hymns on Faith offers a significant example of Ephrem’s use of anti-Jewish rhetoric to attack Arian Christians. Rhetorically, Ephrem addresses these hymns to a Christian audience, 5 and the specific language and criticisms that Ephrem 3 See above for Beck’s dating. This dating would place the writing of the Hymns on Faith in the context of political uncertainty for Ephrem, in the Roman East. Except for the brief reigns of Julian and Jovian, Ephrem found himself under the political rule of emperors (Constantius and Valens) who actively supported subordinationist Christians such as Ephrem’s opponents instead of Nicene Christians. 4 Ephrem, CH 56.8 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra Haereses, CSCO Syr 169/76 [Louvain, 1957]). All quotations from Ephrem in this text are my translations from the Syriac editions noted. 5 While it is difficult to know with any certainty the ‘real’ and/or ‘imagined’ audience of these hymns, Ephrem’s use of pronouns and his rhetorical arguments do suggest that rhetorically at least he addressed these hymns to Christians, supporting scholars’ belief that Ephrem’s

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levels against Jews in the hymns provide him with an effective weapon with which to argue against his Christian opponents. In Hymn 44, for example, Ephrem sets up a dichotomy between ‘them’, “that People” (the Jews), and ‘us’, Christians. He writes of ̈ the Jews [‫ ] ܘܕ ܐ‬that “they are not able to live… they rejected… they have been rejected,” and ends those observations by referring to “a chasm between us and that People.” 6 Nominally, then, Ephrem clearly delineates between Jews, on the one hand, and Christians, on the other. In practice, however, Ephrem spends a good part of these hymns attempting to demonstrate that when this line is in fact drawn, his Arian opponents land squarely on the side of the Jews.7

ANTI-JEWISH/ANTI-ARIAN THEMES [4]

Many of Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith contain examples that are relevant to the discussion of Ephrem’s use of anti-Jewish language in his fight against subordinationist Christians. The majority of these scattered references rely on biblical stories and imagery with which anti-Jewish language is ‘proven’ through biblical prooftexting, and through which Ephrem’s Christian opponents are described as directly analogous to Jewish forerunners. Ephrem’s numerous writings are replete with biblical language, examples, and imagery. In his Hymns on Faith, Ephrem uses a variety of Old and New Testament stories to support his arguments, frequently comparing his opponents to Jews who are hymns were performed during Christian worship services. For a discussion of the performance of Ephrem’s writings, see S.A. Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition” (JECS 9:1 [2001]), 105-131; and K.E. McVey, “Were the Earliest Madrashe Songs or Recitations?” in After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J.W. Drijvers, ed. by G.J. Reinink and A.C. Klugkist, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89 (Louvain: Peeters, 1999), 185-199. 6 Ephrem, HdF 44.4 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO Syr 154/73 [Louvain, 1955]). 7 This is not the only collection of Ephrem’s writings in which he marshals his arguments toward this end. For example, he employs different methods toward a similar goal in his Sermons on Faith (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones de Fide, CSCO Syr 212/88 [Louvain, 1961]). See Shepardson, “Anti-Jewish”.

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portrayed negatively in the biblical text.8 One of Ephrem’s favorite comparisons from the New Testament (judging by the frequency with which it occurs in his writings) is to condemn the Arians for their inquiring actions by directly comparing them to the negatively-portrayed Pharisees who challenge Jesus in the New Testament Gospel stories. 9 The emphasis on the verbs for searching [‫]ܒ ܐ‬, seeking [‫]ܒ ܐ‬, and investigating [ ] in Ephrem’s rhetoric is frequently an attack against Arian Christians who, Ephrem argues, inappropriately seek to know God through reasoned inquiry, rather than simply believing through faith.10 Such is the case in Hymn 44 when Ephrem warns his Christian audience, “Be reproved, bold ones, and be restrained, searchers! … It was thus the People strove with [Christ] through their questionings”.11 This is simply one example of Ephrem’s comparison of the theological investigation of his fourth-century Christian opponents to the challenging questions that the Pharisees asked Jesus in the Gospel stories. Relying on Christians’ familiarity with (and abhorrence of) Jesus’ narrative (‘Jewish’) opponents, Ephrem uses Christian anti-Jewish sentiment to denounce ‘heretical’ contemporary Christian. Another example of Ephrem’s scripturally-based anti-Jewish charges comes in Hymn 7 of his Hymns on Faith. In this hymn Ephrem condemns “all these who investigated,”12 again connecting contemporary Arian Christians with traditional Jewish antagonists Ephrem’s easy transition between the Old and New Testaments reflects his belief that Christian scripture as a whole is the coherent story of salvation history. 9 See, for example, SdF VI; de Dom. nos. 19ff (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermo de Domino Nostro, CSCO Syr 270/116 [Louvain, 1966)]; Virg, 13.2, 14.5 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Virginitate, CSCO Syr 223/94 [Louvain, 1962)]; and CNis 40 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Carmina Nisibena, zweiter Teil. CSCO Syr 240/102 [Louvain, 1963].) 10 In HdF 87, however, Ephrem himself describes in more detail one of the problems he has with his rivals: “With various names indeed [Satan] clothes him, either that of ‘creature’ or that of ‘made thing’, while he was the Maker” (HdF 87.14). In this case, we are left with little doubt about the general subordinationist nature of Ephrem’s opponents. 11 Ephrem, HdF 44.6, 9. 12 Ephrem, HdF 7.7. 8

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of the Gospel narratives. Ephrem elaborates by comparing the investigating Christians to Herod, to the unrepentant thief crucified with Jesus,13 and to the Gospel scribes and Pharisees: The [thief] of the left, he disputed. His disputing cut off his hope. The scribes disputed. They fell with Herod who questioned him … To all these who investigated, Christ did not give himself … The Pharisees disputed, “Who is this, and whose son?” As searchers of truth, they fell from the truth. As seekers of verity, in seeking it, they destroyed it.14

[6]

For Ephrem these negative examples are in direct contrast to the Gospel forerunners of proper Christians, those who are “innocent” to whom Christ did give himself,15 those who follow the examples of the magi in Matthew’s Gospel, who “did not dare to search [Christ],” 16 and the other thief in Luke’s Gospel who “did not dispute; he believed when he did not search.” 17 In this hymn, Ephrem likens his Christian adversaries to the Jewish New Testament villains Herod, the scribes, and the Pharisees, and distances them from the Gentile magi, the forerunners of true Christians. In Hymn 56 Ephrem summarizes this critique of his rivals’ disputes about God: “Therefore both Testaments persuade us that the faithful never disputed or investigated, for they believed in God.”18 In addition to using biblical stories, Ephrem also frequently draws comparisons between his opponents and biblical Jews by using the same negative adjectives to describe both of them, thereby implying a direct correlation between the two groups. Specifically, Ephrem reiterates throughout his Hymns on Faith his Lk 23:32-33, 39-43 (cf. Mt 27:38, 44; Jn 19:17-18). Ephrem, HdF 7.7, 9. 15 Ephrem, HdF 7.7. 16 Ephrem, HdF 7.7. 17 Ephrem, HdF 7.7 (cf. Lk 23:39-43). 18 Ephrem, HdF 56.8. 13 14

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description of both Jews and Arians as ‘blind’. In Hymn 8 Ephrem refers to the Jews at Mt. Sinai as “the blind People,” doubly blinded [veiled] by the veil of light surrounding Moses as well as by his stammering, 19 and in Hymn 9 Ephrem compares “the blind People” of the Jews to “you [pl.] blind” among the Christians he accuses. 20 Hymn 27 also linguistically links the two groups by referring to his opponents as a “blind assembly of disputers.”21 In this case, not only are his disputing opponents again blind, but for ‘assembly’, a word that is Ephrem uses the Syriac word ‫ܐ‬ from the same root as ‫ܐ‬ ‘synagogue’, the word that Ephrem consistently uses to refer to a Jewish space or group that he uses for Christians. instead of the synonym ‫ܬܐ‬ Through the common trait of blindness, then, Ephrem rhetorically links his Arian opponents with the negatively-coded errors, history, and people of the Jews.

HYMN 87 [7]

[8]

Perhaps the most elaborate conflation of Jews and Arians in all of Ephrem’s writings, however, is in number 87 of his Hymns on Faith. In these verses, Ephrem maps the behavior of his contemporary Christian opponents point by point onto the Jews from the New Testament narratives of Jesus’ Passion. Ephrem describes the former as the contemporary equivalent to the Jews of Jesus’ time who, as described throughout Ephrem’s writings, harassed and murdered God’s son. While this comparison between the Jews and Ephrem’s Christian opponents appears in several variations throughout the Hymns on Faith, in Hymn 87 Ephrem draws a very physical connection based on the actions of each of the two groups. Throughout his writings Ephrem vacillates about where to place the blame for the Jews’ actions (as described in scripture), sometimes making the Jews themselves solely responsible, and other times blaming Satan for manipulating history and using the blind and foolish Jews as unwitting minions to carry out his plans. In Hymn 87 Ephrem places the blame on Satan, who in this Ephrem, HdF 8.5; Ex 34:29-35 and Ex 4:10-17. Ephrem, HdF 9.13. 21 Ephrem, HdF 27.4. 19 20

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construction of history orchestrates both the Jews’ and the heretics’ reprehensible actions. While this in some way alleviates, by removing the Jews’ agency, the vitriol that Ephrem elsewhere pours directly onto the Jews, at the same time it makes the Jews sinister lackeys, passive (and ultimately passé) pawns in a Satanic drama that is played out on the stage of human history. According to Ephrem in this hymn, Satan had originally harbored himself among the Jewish People, as was clear from the history of the Jews’ destructive and ungodly behavior, culminating with Jesus’ Passion and what Ephrem describes elsewhere as the Jews’ murder of God’s own son.22 In Hymn 87, however, Ephrem claims that after their actions during the Passion the Jews were no longer a viable means through which Satan could secretly influence the world, because after that time the Jews could no longer conceal their partnership with Satan. Ephrem writes, “Satan saw that he had been exposed in the former things, for the spitting had been revealed, [as had] the vinegar and thorns, nails and wood, garments and reed, and the spear that struck him. And they were hated and revealed, and he changed his deceits.”23 The world’s alleged open recognition of the Jews’ partnership with Satan forced Satan to find new pawns through whom he could continue to influence history and attack God. According to Ephrem, the Arians served as Satan’s new tool after the Jews had worn out their usefulness. Ephrem writes, “The former scribes Satan disrobed; he clothed the later ones. The People which had grown old, the moth and the louse gnawed it and ate it, and they released and let it go. The moth came to the new garment of the new peoples.”24 Satan “began with the People, and he came to the peoples in order that he might finish.”25 Ephrem understands that Satan has recently changed players in his This accusation is frequent in Ephrem’s writings. For only a small portion of the numerous examples, see de Dom. nos. 5, 6; Cruc. 1, 5 and Azym. 1, 18; and CNis 67. In Hymns on Fasting 5.6 Ephrem even accuses the Jews of killing God, not just God’s son, on the cross (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Ieiunio, CSCO Syr 246/106 [Louvain, 1964]). These charges are not new with Ephrem, but Ephrem’s rhetoric does repeatedly accuse the Jews of this murder. 23 Ephrem, HdF 87.16. See Appendix A for a complete translation of this hymn. 24 Ephrem, HdF 87.9. 25 Ephrem, HdF 87.12. 22

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on-going effort to corrupt, to destroy, and to fight against God. For Ephrem, it is subordinationist Christians who are the ‘new garment’, and in that respect the new Jews, through which Satan continues to harass God and God’s people. In Hymn 87 Ephrem identifies and describes his adversaries as the replacement for the Jews through a direct comparison between the behavior of the contemporary Christians and that of the Jewish characters in the Gospel scenes of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. One by one, Ephrem maps the concrete, literal actions of the New Testament Jews onto a figurative characterization of the ‘heretical’ Christians’ own behavior, demonstrating to his audience that not only do both contemporary Arians and the Jews of Jesus’ time attack God and threaten true followers of Christ, but that both groups in fact present precisely the same threat. Through his rhetoric, Ephrem conflates the Arians with the Jews blamed by Christian tradition for Jesus’ death, ‘proving’ to his audience that although the contemporary blows may be less literal than the physical blows with which Jesus was struck, the Arians are in fact through their rebellious actions causing Christ to suffer a second Passion. Ephrem writes of the Arians’ metaphorical mimicry of the New Testament narrative, “A second Passion did Satan want to reinstate.” 26 Unsatisfied merely with Jesus’ physical death, Satan continues his attack upon Christians and God, figuratively reenacting Christ’s Passion through the Arians’ attacks upon Christ’s nature as well as upon Christ’s ‘true’ followers, Nicene Christians. Ephrem begins his analogy by comparing the reed with which Jesus was mocked and struck with the reed stylus with which the Arians record their ‘heretical’ inquiries into God.27 Ephrem writes, “Instead of that reed that the former People gave the son to hold, [there are] later ones who dared in their tracts to write with a reed that he even is [only] human.”28 Instead of physically striking Jesus Ephrem, HdF 87.19. The details of who mocks Jesus, and whether or not they strike him with a reed vary in different ancient texts of the New Testament Gospels and the Diatesseron. At this time, however, I am simply discussing Ephrem’s retelling of the narrative, and not trying to identify which texts he used as a source for these details. 28 Ephrem, HdF 87.13. In Hymns on Crucifixion 5 and 8 Ephrem also compares a reed from the Passion narratives to reed styli, but he does so 26 27

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with a reed, the heretics, Ephrem claims, deal comparable blows against God through the tracts that they write with their reed pens. Ephrem bemoans, “Reed for reed the evil one exchanged against our savior.”29 Whereas Satan could at one time openly strike at his enemy through the Jews’ attacks, he must now act more subtly, striking through the strife and falsehood espoused in the Arians’ writings. Ephrem argues that through their inquiry and contention the Arians harm Christ in a duplication of the actions of the Jews in the New Testament narrative. Likewise, Ephrem also compares the “garments of various colors” with which he claims Jesus was clothed to the “various names” with which the Arians clothe Christ. 30 Again here it is Christ, rather than Nicene Christians themselves, whom Ephrem portrays as the most direct victim of the intra-Christian disputes. In Ephrem’s depiction, through the inquiries of the Arians Satan reenacts Jesus’ Passion at the hands of the Jews. Ephrem describes a direct comparison for every detail of the Passion narrative: He changed the cross; a hidden cross dispute became. And instead of nails, questions entered. And instead of Sheol, [there was] denial… Instead of the sponge that dropped with vinegar, he gave arrows, [i.e.,] searching, all of which dripped with death. The gall that they gave to him, our lord refused. Fraudulent seeking that the bitter one gave, to fools is sweet.31

in different ways. In his Hymns on Crucifixion, he primarily compares the reed with which the crucified Jesus was offered a drink to the reeds with which prophets, kings, and scribes of Israel (especially King David as author of the Psalms) wrote against the behavior of Jesus’ crucifiers. For example, Ephrem writes, “David wrote with a straight staff in order that he might shame that People who disgraced [Jesus] with that reed” (Cruc. 8.4). Likewise, Ephrem notes, “Instead of the one reed with which they beat [Jesus], the [many] reeds of the scribes beat them… A thicket of reeds are the books of the writers; they beat the crucifiers with their books” (Cruc. V.14). 29 Ephrem, HdF 87.13. 30 Ephrem, HdF 87.14. 31 Ephrem, HdF 87.19-20.

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More than merely participants in a struggle to claim the title ‘Christian’ for themselves, the Arians emerge from Ephrem’s texts as assailants and abusers of Christ himself, alike in every detail to the New Testament Jews whom Ephrem blames for mocking and abusing God’s son. In addition to the Arians’ investigating actions, in Hymn 87 Ephrem portrays the Nicene/Arian dissension within Christianity as itself the direct outcome of Satan’s actions in Ephrem’s lifetime, just as the Jews’ murder of God’s son was in Jesus’ lifetime, and he describes this intra-Christian strife as also comparable to Christ’s Passion. Ephrem writes about Satan, He brought in confusion instead of that blow with which our lord was struck; and instead of spitting, investigating came. And instead of garments, secret divisions. And instead of a reed, contention came so that he might slap all. Haughtiness cried out to fury its sister, and envy and rage and pride and guile answered and came. They took counsel against our savior, as on that day that they took counsel when he suffered [i.e., “that day… of his Passion”].38

Through this rhetoric Ephrem thus attempts to construct a historical reality in which Arians, like the Jews before them, become the unquestioned enemy both of God and of true Christians.

CONCLUSION [14]

In Hymn 87 of his Hymns on Faith Ephrem uses the connections that he draws between fourth-century Arians and New Testament Jews in order to emphasize not the depravity of contemporary Jews so much as that of his more immediate opponents, Arian Christians. Ephrem tars his rivals’ image by rhetorically connecting them with the Jews. By portraying the Arians as new Jews, as the contemporary equivalent to, and in fact Satan’s direct replacement for, the Jews who murdered the son of God, Ephrem implies that

38

Ephrem, HdF 87.17-18.

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the Arians are both theologically and perhaps even physically dangerous to God and to true (i.e., Nicene) Christians. In his Hymns on Faith Ephrem manipulates negative Christian depictions of and beliefs about Jews, rooted in (among other things) the New Testament Gospels, in order to discredit his Arian opponents. In Hymn 87 Ephrem goes to great lengths in order to describe the Arians’ searching for the nature of God and Christ as the figurative equivalent to traditions of the Jews’ literal mocking and murder of Jesus. Conflating the Arians’ verbal attacks with the abuse portrayed in the Gospel Passion narratives, Ephrem is able rhetorically to connect his contemporary Christian opponents with what he portrays as the well-known and universally despised people of the Jews. In Ephrem’s hymns, Arian Christians found themselves in the perhaps surprising position of being portrayed both as acting under Satan’s control and also as attackers of Christ, the contemporary equivalent to the (despised) New Testament Jews, and consequently a dangerous threat to the safety and wellbeing of any true Christian, as well as an affront to God. Recognizing the boundary lines that Ephrem’s rhetoric attempts to define and police within fourth-century Christianity demonstrates the power that his language and descriptions would have had within a Christian community torn by the Nicene/Arian struggle. In his Hymns on Faith, and especially in Hymn 87, Ephrem rhetorically redraws social boundaries in such a way as to crystallize a sharp distinction between two Christian communities. By describing Arians as the contemporary equivalent of, and in fact replacement for, the Jewish enemies of Christian lore as Satan exchanges “reed for reed”, Ephrem replaces a blurred line between two Christian groups with what he presents as the unmistakable distinction between Christians and Jews, leaving the Christian Arians firmly on the side of the Jews.

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APPENDIX33 1.

As in a contest I saw the disputants, children of pride, who were troubling themselves to taste fire, to see the wind, to touch light. They were tormenting themselves to make divisions of the ray [of light].

Refrain: Glory be to the father, and to his son Jesus, and to his holy spirit. 2.

The son who is more subtle than the mind they wanted to touch; and the holy spirit, who is intangible, they also thought they had touched through their questions; and the father who is never being interpreted, they interpreted disputes about him.

3.

[We have] a good model of our faith from Abraham, and [of] our repentance from the Ninevites, and also [of] our expectations from the house of Rahab. Ours are [the things] of the prophets, and ours [those] of the apostles. And [so] the evil one became envious.

4.

The evil habit of the evil calf [is] from the Egyptians; the hateful sight of the hateful image of the four faces [is] from the Hittites; accursed dispute, a hidden moth, [is] from the Greeks.

5.

That bitter one saw orderly things and he perverted them; he saw hateful things and he sowed them; and he saw hope and he suppressed [it] and cut it off. The dispute that he planted indeed bore fruit that [is] a bitterness of the teeth.

33 I translated this hymn from Edmund Beck’s edition of the Syriac, (E. Beck, trans., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO 154 [Louvain: 1955]). Any errors are, of course, my own, but I owe many thanks to Lucas van Rompay for his patient assistance in working with me on this translation. I have seen announced Paul Russell’s English translation of Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith, but I have not yet been able to locate a copy of his translation, so I include my own here for the reader’s convenience (Paul Russell, Ephraem the Syrian: 80 Hymns on Faith, Eastern Texts in Translation 3 (Louvain: Peeters).

“Exchanging Reed for Reed” 6.

Satan saw that truth suffocated him and his offshoots, and he set himself apart and committed deceits and set snares for faith, and he hurled into the priests arrows of the lust for authority.

7.

Over that throne they made a contest of who might precede. There is the one who in secret coveted and hid [desire to rule], and there is one who openly contended for it. The one acted contemptibly and the other cunningly, and these are equal.

8.

The one who is young also does not consider that it is not his time; and he who is old does not reckon that [his] end draws near. [It is] an evil tumor: elders, youth, even children are seeking rank.

9.

The former scribes Satan disrobed; he clothed the later ones. The People that had grown old, the moth and the louse gnawed it and ate it, and they released and let it go. The moth came to the new garment of the new peoples.

10.

[Satan] saw the crucifiers, who were rejected and expelled as strangers. From [our Christian] household he made searchers; and from being worshippers they became disputants. From the garment itself [Satan] begot the moth, and he wrapped [it] up and placed it.

11.

He begot the louse in the storehouse of wheat and he sat and looked: and indeed the pure heap [of grain] is being corrupted, and indeed the garments of glory are being gnawed. He mocked us, and even we [mocked] ourselves, for we had become drunk.

12.

He sowed tares, and the thicket assaulted the pure vineyard; he infected the flock and leprosy spread, and sheep after sheep became his possession. He began with the People and he came to the peoples in order that he might finish.

13.

Instead of that reed that the former People gave the Son to hold, [there are] later ones who dared in their tracts to write with a reed that he even is [only] human. Reed for reed the evil one exchanged against our savior.

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14.

And instead of the garments of various colors in which he clothed him, he painted a designation deceitfully. With various names indeed he clothes him, either that of ‘creature’ or that of ‘made thing’, while he is the Maker.

15.

And he had plaited for him out of dumb things silent thorns. Speaking thorns, [coming] from the mind, he plaited for him with a voice as hymns, and he concealed the brambles within songs which were not known [before].

16.

Satan saw that he had been exposed in the former things, for the spitting had been revealed, [as had] the vinegar and thorns, nails and wood, garments and reed, and the spear that struck him. And they were hated and revealed, and [Satan] changed his deceits.

17.

He brought confusion instead of that blow with which our lord was struck; and instead of spitting, investigating came; and instead of garments, secret divisions; and instead of a reed, contention came so that he might slap all.

18.

Haughtiness cried out to fury its sister, and envy and rage and pride and guile answered and came. They took counsel against our savior, as on that day that they took counsel when he suffered [i.e., “that day… of his Passion”].

19.

He changed the cross; a hidden cross dispute became. And instead of nails, questions entered; and instead of Sheol, [there was] denial. A second Passion did Satan want to reinstate.

20.

Instead of the sponge which dropped with vinegar, he gave arrows, [i.e.,] searching, all of which dripped with death. The gall that they gave him, our Lord refused. Fraudulent seeking that the bitter one gave, to fools is sweet.

21.

And while in that time there was a judge against them, indeed judges are [in the same way] against us. And instead of the inscription,

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[there are] their commands. The crown is innocent for the priests set stumbling blocks for the kings. 22.

Rather than that the priesthood might pray for the kingdom, that wars might cease from humankind, perverse wars they have taught them, for the kings have started to struggle with their cities.

23.

Our lord, reconcile the priests and the kings, and in one church let priests pray for their kings, and let kings have mercy on their cities; and let us have inner peace in you, an outer wall.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barnes, M.R. and Williams, D.H. eds. Arianism after Arius. Edinburgh, 1993. Beck, E. Ephraems Reden über den Glauben. Rome, 1953. Beck, E. Die Theologie des heiligen Ephraem in seinen Hymnen über den Glauben SA 21. Vatican City, 1949. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Carmina Nisibena, zweiter Teil. CSCO Syr 240/102. Louvain, 1963. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra Haereses. CSCO Syr 169/76. Louvain, 1957. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide. CSCO Syr 154/73. Louvain, 1955. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Ieiunio. CSCO Syr 246/106. Louvain, 1964. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Virginitate. CSCO Syr 223/94. Louvain, 1962. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Paschahymnen (de azymis, de crucifixione, de resurrectione). CSCO Syr 248/108. Louvain, 1964. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermo de Domino Nostro. CSCO Syr 270/116. Louvain, 1966. Beck, E. ed. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones de Fide. CSCO Syr 212/88. Louvain, 1961.

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Beck, E., trans. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide. CSCO Syr 155/74. Louvain, 1955. Benin, S.D. “Commandments, Convenants and the Jews in Aphrahat, Ephrem and Jacob of Sarug.” In Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times. Ed. by D.R. Blumenthal. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985: 135-156. Darling, R.A. “The ‘Church from the Nations’ in the Exegesis of Ephrem.” In IV Symposium Syriacum, 1984. Ed. by H.J.W. Drijvers, et al. Rome, 1987: 111-121. Drijvers, H.J.W. “Jews and Christians at Edessa.” JJS 36, no. 1 (1985) 88-102. Griffith, S.H. “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire.” In Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer. Ed. by T. Halton and J. Williman. D.C.: CUA, 1986: 22-52. Griffith, S.H. “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephrem’s Hymns against Heresies.” In The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus. Ed. by W.E. Klingshirn and M. Vessey. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1999: 97-114. Hanson, R.P.C. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381. Edinburgh, 1988. Harvey, S.A. “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” JECS 9:1 (2001) 105-131. Hayman, A.P. “The Image of the Jew in the Syriac Anti-Jewish Polemical Literature.” In “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity. Ed. by J. Neusner and E.S. Frerichs. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985: 423-441. Kazan, S. “Isaac of Antioch’s Homily against the Jews.” OrChr 46 (1962) 87-98; 47 (1963) 89-97; 49 (1965) 57-78. Lienhard, J.T. “The ‘Arian’ Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered.” TS 48 (1987) 415-437. McVey, K.E. “Were the Earliest Madrashe Songs or Recitations?” In After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J .W. Drijvers. Ed. by G.J.

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Reinink and A.C. Klugkist. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89. Louvain: Peeters, 1999: 185-199. Morris, J.B. Select Works of St. Ephrem the Syrian, Library of the Fathers. Oxford, 1847. Murray, R. Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition. Cambridge, 1975. Paul R. Ephraem the Syrian: 80 Hymns on Faith. Eastern Texts in Translation 3. Louvain: Peeters. Russell, P.S. St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians. Kerala, India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1994. Shepardson, C. “Anti-Jewish Rhetoric and Intra-Christian Conflict in the Sermons of Ephrem Syrus.” In Studia Patristica. Vol. XXXV, XIII International Conference on Patristic Studies. Louvain, Peeters, 2001: 502-507. Vaggione, R.P. Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution. NY: OUP, 2000.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 5:1, 35-61 © 2002 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

THE IMAGE OF THE INFANT JESUS IN EPHREM THE SYRIAN PAUL S. RUSSELL MOUNT ST. MARY’S COLLEGE

ABSTRACT This paper examines passages in which St. Ephrem the Syrian makes use of the image of Jesus Christ as an infant child. It demonstrates that he uses this tool to support his full picture of the Incarnation, including both a stress on a fully divine Divinity and on a fully human humanity. This study also makes clear that Ephrem imagines that the experience of the Divine Word in being incarnate has close affinities with the common human experience we all share. This has an interesting effect on his picture of how the incarnation figures in the working out of human salvation. Ephrem’s view of the Incarnation is shown to be imaginatively full, making use of the subjective as well as the objective elements in human life and nature.

INTRODUCTION [1]

Christology is an area of Christian teaching that can be most clearly evaluated at certain critical points. A careful examination of a thinker’s presentation of the Crucifixion, the Incarnation or the miracle working of Jesus in the Gospels serves to cast into high relief his treatment of the difficulties inherent in constructing a coherent theological treatment of Jesus. Whether it is by historical accident or because of the shock of meeting the Divine face-to-face

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as a human among humans, the history of Christian christological thinking is one of writers either proclaiming and defending a picture of Jesus that credits Him with an internal duality of nature or of their denying that duality in some particular. Since this contrasting pair of tendencies helps locate where the fault lines in Christian theological treatments of Jesus will be found, it is not surprising that so much attention has been paid to how patristic authors treat these cruces. An opportunity for making paradigmatic choices confronts the theologian in the infancy of Jesus, which provides a vivid moment for contrasting the two natures of Christ, since human nature at this time of life is at its most passive and dependent, rendering the gulf between Creator and created in Jesus even wider than it usually appears. It is that strand: the infancy, in Ephrem the Syrian’s discussions of Jesus that I would like to attempt to trace in this essay. While many writers, especially of our own age, seem to skate lightly over this period in the life of Jesus, those from any period of Christian history who tackle it head-on often reveal the true tenor of their convictions. I have never forgotten the shock I felt on reading for the first time Cyril of Alexandria’s aggressive treatment of the nativity scene: Neither do we say that the flesh was converted into the divine nature, nor surely that the ineffable nature of God the Word was debased and perverted into the nature of flesh, for he is unchangeable and unalterable, ever continuing altogether the same according to the Scriptures: but we say that the Son of God, while visible to the eyes, and a babe and in swaddling clothes, and still at the breast of his Virgin Mother, filled all creation as God, and was seated with his Father. For the divinity is without quantity and without magnitude and without limit. 1

1 Cyril of Alexandria, Epistle XVII (Third Letter to Nestorius) 70 a-b. Translation on page 302 in Creeds, Councils and Controversies Documents illustrating the history of the Church, AD 337-461, J. Stevenson (new edition revised by W.H.C. Frend) London: SPCK 1989. The Greek text of the letter is found at PG LXXVII.105-122. This passage is, theologically at least, an echo of a famous earlier piece of Athanasius’ On the Incarnation (sec. 17) “For he was not, as might be imagined, circumscribed in the body, nor, while present in the body, was

The Image of the Infant Jesus in Ephrem the Syrian [3]

[4]

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There are few writers in the history of Christian thought who are as clear and combative as Cyril, and few who know their own minds as well. Still, his use of the juxtaposition of the infant human child with unlimited divinity to make the incarnational paradox as acute as possible shows us how the infant Jesus can serve as a window into the mind of a Christian theologian treating that Gospel scene. As part of an on-going examination of Ephrem’s christological construct, I would like to see what tracing this theme in his writings will show us about his christological convictions and the manner in which he chooses to express them. We have no treatise, hymn or sermon of Ephrem’s to read that focuses directly on this topic.2 In the writings that survive, and have been identified as being his, Ephrem makes use of the infant Jesus only as a support or parallel to other points he wishes to put forward. Because of the scattered and brief character of his comments on this theme, I think it best he absent elsewhere; nor, while he moved the body, was the universe left void of his working and providence; but, thing most marvelous, Word as he was, so far from being contained by anything, he rather contained all things himself; … thus, even while present in a human body and himself quickening it, he was, without inconsistency, quickening the universe as well …” (trans. at 70-71 in Hardy, Christology), but I did not meet that earlier writing, myself, until after having seen Cyril’s letter, so it is from Cyril that my interest in this aspect of Christology stems. 2 As one of the anonymous readers for Hugoye noted, many of the passages this paper discusses come from the collection called Hymns on the Nativity. These works do not, however, focus on the image of the infant Jesus. They seem to me to be a group of hymns that center on discussion of the Incarnation, which explains the appearance in them of Nativity scenes pertinent to this paper. The Hymns on the Nativity, as McVey says, are characterized by their theological focus: “The central theological theme of the Hymns on the Nativity is Ephrem’s understanding of the incarnation as the miraculous and paradoxical self-abasement of God out of love for humankind.” (Hymns, 30) My interest in this paper is in the use Ephrem makes of one particular image to express his conviction that this “miraculous and paradoxical selfabasement” was real and must be held to firmly and fully for Christianity to be correctly understood. Not all Christian writers who hold to the full divinity of the Son are comfortable with His full, personal involvement in human life as Jesus. Ephrem’s desire to hold together these two convictions is, I think, the central element of his Christology.

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to treat them systematically according to the following three headings: 1. passages describing the infant Jesus as a human being. 2. passages describing the infant Jesus as Divine.3 3. passages focusing directly on the theological meaning of the infant Jesus.

[5]

I am well aware of the danger we court in systematizing the works of early Christian authors anachronistically, but if we keep that pitfall in mind, I think this approach will prove to be helpful as we attempt to pull together the scattered pieces that express a picture in Ephrem’s mind that is never fully articulated in any single place. It is worthy of note that Ephrem makes theological use of the infancy of Jesus any time he refers to it in his writings. I have found no appearance of the infant Jesus in Ephrem’s works that does not use that image to make a point. This seems to indicate a belief on his part that this image of Jesus is one that not only has the power to figure in a theological argument, but is even an image that has such strong inherent theological weight that it cannot be passed over in silence.

THE INFANT JESUS AS A HUMAN BEING [6]

Here, the image of the infant Jesus is emphatic, in that the passage depends on the picture of Jesus living as an infant child for its effect. The Lord of David and Son of David hid His glory in swaddling clothes. His swaddling clothes gave a robe of glory to human beings. 4

3 I have argued elsewhere for Ephrem’s insistence on the reality of the two natures, so I will treat that point as a settled fact. cf. Paul S. Russell, “A First Look at the Christology of Ephraem the Syrian” Symposium Syriacum VII, ed. René Lavenant, SJ, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 256 Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale 1998, 107-115. 4 Hymns on the Nativity 5.4. Translation found on page 106 in Ephrem the Syrian Hymns, translated and introduced by Kathleen E. McVey New York: Paulist Press 1989 (hereafter called “McVey”). Syriac text at Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), herausgegeben von Edmund Beck Louvain: 1959 CSCO 186, page 46. See Sebastian

The Image of the Infant Jesus in Ephrem the Syrian

[7]

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The opening contrast of “Lord of David” with “Son of David” sets up the dual meaning of the swaddling clothes in these lines. Just as the same child is both a descendent of the great king of Israel and is his Lord, so are the swaddling clothes both a sign of helpless infancy and a means for the infant’s active saving of the human race. What might have been merely evidence of weakness and passivity has become, instead, a means of active salvific action on the part of the Son. The infant Jesus thus shows us the saving paradox of the Incarnation in a clear and striking manner: the presence of the Divine nature makes the helplessness of the baby active in the salvation of humans while still leaving the helplessness unchanged. The careful reader will notice, too, that by making the focus of the contrast of nature the swaddling clothes, Ephrem has turned the attention of the listener to the detail that will serve to set up the starkest disjunction possible between the human and the Divine in Jesus. This same gulf is emphasized again in the following passage, which describes the presentation of Christ in the Temple in The Gospel according to St. Luke.5 Because Simeon was able to carry in his weak arms the very majesty that created things cannot endure, he knew that his weakness was strengthened by the power he carried. At the same time Simeon, with all creatures, was invisibly being lifted up by the all-prevailing power of the Son Himself. This is amazing, that while a weak man was visibly carrying the power that gave him strength, that power was invisibly carrying the one who carried it. Majesty made itself small so that those who held it could endure it.6

Brock, “Clothing Metaphors as a means of theological expression in Syriac tradition”, XI in Studies in Syriac Christianity Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company 1992, for a discussion of this image of the “robe of glory” in Syriac Christian writers. cf. also Sebastian Brock, “The robe of glory: A biblical image in the Syriac tradition,” The Way, vol. 39 no. 3 (July 1999), 247-259. 5 Luke 2:25-35. 6 Homily on Our Lord, sec. 51. Translation found on page 327 in St. Ephrem the Syrian Selected Prose Works, translated by Edward G. Mathews, Jr. and Joseph P. Amar, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press 1994 (hereafter called “Mathews”). Syriac text at pages 48-

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[8]

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This meditation on the Bearer-of-All being small enough to be carried by Simeon shows Ephrem again playing on the passivity of the powerful and the paradox of Incarnation. Ephrem’s centering the listener’s attention on the most powerful aspect of the Son vis á vis the created world: His identity as its Creator and Sustainer, makes the care Simeon seems to exercise for, and the control he wields over, the baby Jesus as incongruous as possible. As with the swaddling clothes of the manger scene, this passage shows Ephrem plucking a detail out of a scriptural infancy scene and building his theological point and paradoxical contrast upon it. It should be clear how effective an interpretive method this is for the thinker who chooses his scriptural passages with care. The theological point flows out of and, in the mind of the listener, becomes integrated with the details that Ephrem uses. Surely, many of his audience must have had his interpretation recur to their minds when they had these scenes recalled to their attention in the future. It is reasonable to think that Ephrem fully intended his interpretation to take its place as part of the scriptural scene in the memories of his listeners. In the next passage, Ephrem centers his use of the image on a more abstract quality of the incarnate Son: His identity as God’s word. Blessed is the Babe who rules Majesty with His silence Because the speech-endowed had angered Him.7

The unusual character of Jesus’ infancy is shown here in two ways: one relating to His human nature and the other to His divine nature. His human nature is clearly out of the ordinary in Ephrem’s mind, in that Jesus’ silence does not render Him helpless, as one might expect. Instead, it is the beings created with the power of speech who have gotten their talkative selves in trouble by

49 in Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermo de Domino Nostro, herausgegeben von Edmund Beck Louvain: 1966 CSCO 270. 7 Hymns on the Nativity 21.10, translation on page 175 in McVey, (altered by the present author). Syriac on page 106 in CSCO 186. Also, Hymns on the Nativity 4.146-155. McVey, 100; Syriac pp. 38-39 in CSCO 186. I have altered McVey’s version to make clear that the creatures with speech have angered the Babe Who rules with silence.

The Image of the Infant Jesus in Ephrem the Syrian

[9]

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misusing that ability for speech.8 The silent baby wields power over His talkative elders through the very means of His silence. The divine nature of Jesus experiences the Incarnation by entering that silent state that might seem to be the exact opposite of His nature as the Logos. This contrast of the silent baby with the creatures who are endowed with speech serves to remind Ephrem’s listener that the incarnate Son is stepping completely out of His realm when He becomes one of us: from being the One Who is the source of all speech and thought, He must now be subjected to the inappropriate chattering of His own creations, which does not always please Him. The Divine Son’s birth as a human being carries with it inconveniences that Ephrem is quick to point out as evidence of the absurdity of such an event. The Divine action credited to the human baby Jesus in the above citation is reinforced by Ephrem in the next stanza (11), where he says: Put to shame was the Evil One who became king and plaited a diadem of deceit. Like God, he set his throne on the inhabited earth. The Babe in a manger cast him from his power. 9

[10]

The baby is lying in the manger (surely a reminder of His humble station in life) yet He still can quash the Devil’s pretensions without leaving His appointed place. The humble baby acts as Divine Ruler. Powerlessness exercises power over the Evil One whom humans struggle in vain to drive away. Both the humanity and uniqueness of Christ are emphasized in this contrast. In addition to that quotation from Hymns on the Nativity 21.10, which shows that Ephrem thought of Jesus as being, literally, an “infant”, that is, a child too young to speak, there are also passages

8 Hymns on Faith 15 discusses this theme, which is quite prominent in Ephrem. cf. Paul S. Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians, Kottayam, India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute 1994, 22-29, for a brief discussion of where he thinks the proper bounds of theological speaking and silence lie. cf. also Paul S. Russell, “Ephraem the Syrian on the Utility of Language and the Place of Silence” Journal of Early Christian Studies 8.1 (Spring 2000), 21-37. 9 Translation, McVey 175, Syriac at 107.

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in which Ephrem speaks of Jesus as a suckling baby,10 a weaned child,11 in which he speaks of Jesus’ small physical size12 and talks of His relations with Mary as paralleling those of Eve with Adam. This last point holds a special interest, since it shows his willingness to consider Jesus as a human being, that is, a participant in the category of human beings: a member of the human race. As Ephrem himself puts it: He was cheerful among the infants as a baby; 13

and, perhaps more strikingly: Behold the Lord of Joseph on a humble lap.14

Ephrem is perfectly willing to imagine Jesus as a child among children, which might have been precisely the aspect of His childhood to upset a Nicene thinker who wished to support the idea of Jesus’ natural uniqueness among human beings. It is interesting to see that Ephrem shows no signs of finding Jesus’ status as a small child threatening to his ideas of Jesus’ uniqueness. This degree of comfort with placing Jesus among children as one of them argues for Ephrem’s acceptance of a broad view of the Incarnation, one that is not limited to the abstract questions of “nature” and “person” but also extends to the mundane details of human life.15 Hymns on the Nativity 18.12, 161 in McVey, 93 in CSCO 186. Also, Hymns on the Nativity 4.149, 153, 184, 185, McVey pp. 100 + 102, CSCO 186, 39 + 42. 11 Carmina Nisibena 4.4, translation by Rev. J.T. Sarsfield Stopford, B.A. at 172 in NPNF (sec. ser.) Vol. 13 Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company 1989 (reprint). Syriac text, at 14 in Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Carmina Nisibena, herausgegeben von Edmund Beck Louvain: CSCO 218 1961. 12 Hymns on Faith 32.14. Syriac text page 109 in Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, herausgegeben von Edmund Beck Louvain: CSCO 154 1955. Translation in Paul S. Russell, Eighty Hymns on Faith of St. Ephraem the Syrian forthcoming from Peeters Press: Louvain. 13 Hymns on the Nativity 4.197, McVey 103, CSCO 186, 43. 14 Hymns on Virginity 32.4, 404 in McVey, 118 in CSCO 223. 15 Some argued against the Council of Nicea by holding that the Son must be less than equal in Divinity to the Father because no fully Divine being could enter the created world. Defenders of Nicea sometimes chose to counter this by striving to protect the Divine Son while incarnate by 10

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It would be wrong, however, to think that the picture of the contrast inherent in Jesus’ nature is limited, in Ephrem’s mind, to one involving that of an unremarkable humanity with a full divinity. Ephrem regards Jesus’ human characteristics as evincing His special character as well. In the Carmina Nisibena, Ephrem speaks of Jesus’ exceptional human qualities as being present from His birth:

limiting the degree to which He was said to be affected by contact with the world [“he was in the crucified flesh impassibly making his own the sufferings of his own flesh”, as Cyril of Alexandria asserts in his Third Letter to Nestorius (Translation found at 351 in Hardy, Christology) or, more crudely, in Athanasius’ extended treatment of the Incarnation and the scriptural passages illuminating it in his Third Oration against the Arians, sec. 31, where he notoriously used the metaphor of a worker and his tool to describe the relation of God the Son to His human nature: “… afterwards, for our sakes He became man, and ‘bodily’, as the Apostle says, the Godhead dwelt in the flesh; as much as to say, ‘Being God, He had His own body, and using this as an instrument, He became man for our sakes.’” (trans. at 410 in NPNF IV, sec. ser.). Nicenes might also choose to stress the uniqueness among human beings of the relationship of the physical self (the humanity) of the Son to His spiritual self (the Divinity), as Athanasius does in his On the Incarnation: “For being himself mighty, and artificer of everything, he prepares the body in the virgin as a temple unto himself, and makes it his very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling.” (Sec. 8, translation at 62-63 in Hardy, Christology)]. While none of these ideas necessarily diminishes what its author allows as far as the fullness of the Incarnation is concerned, I think that they are instructive as indicators of philosophical, theological and, possibly, devotional qualms about speaking of the Divine as taking Its place in the created realm. Against this backdrop of what seems, to me, to be quite general reluctance to place the incarnate Christ in the midst of ordinary human life, Ephrem’s willingness to speak cheerfully of the ordinariness of the incarnate Christ’s infancy makes me think that his acceptance of the idea of Incarnation has seeped very far down into his mind. This openness to intimacy between the Divine and the created world seems, to me, to argue for a level of comfort with incarnation that was quite unusual among early Christian authors whose works survive. (I would also place alongside this reluctance Arius’ desire to protect the inviolability of the fully Divine Father and Nestorius’ desire to keep ontological distance between the Divine Son and the human experiences of Jesus—though that is material for two monographs in itself and cannot be pursued here.)

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Paul S. Russell Even while He was an infant, He was a teacher of the sons of men, by the splendour that was upon Him … … … He was a help in His childhood, to every one that saw Him; He was a prophet to them that knew Him, from the day when He entered into the world, He was a helper of mankind by His excellencies. 16

Two aspects of this picture interest me: 1. a christological picture that makes explicit mention of extraordinary human capabilities in Jesus offers its holder a kind of flexibility that a straight Divine/human contrast does not.17 That is, a Nicene thinker who holds this view, confronted by a theological problem or a perplexing passage in a gospel, is not left with a stark choice between explaining how Jesus figures at that moment as the fully divine Son of God or the completely normal human Jesus, he also has left himself the freedom to argue that Jesus is showing signs of enjoying extraordinary human characteristics. Thus, he has a larger selection of exegetical and christological tools in his belt than others of his conviction might possess. I hope that further study will reveal examples of how Ephrem imagines this human capacity of Jesus can be seen at work. 2. The explicit crediting of Jesus with unusual human abilities seems to me to be evidence of confidence on Ephrem’s part in the possibility of speaking freely of Jesus’ humanity as having special qualities without that serving to inhibit his insistence on the presence of a real divine nature, also. 16 Carmina Nisibena 35.13. Translation at 194-195 in NPNF (sec.ser.) 13, Syriac at 5 in CSCO 240. 17 Leo’s Tome has always seemed to me an unsuccessful attempt to express his position because of the constraints inherent in his trying to set up a contrast too starkly along the lines of the distinction of the natures in Christ. My wider reading in Leo’s works, by no means yet complete, has reinforced the impression that this idea that he should attribute anything out of the ordinary in Jesus’ life to His divine nature is the source of some degree of christological awkwardness for Leo.

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I think this is evidence of the fact that Ephrem feels no competition between the human and divine natures in Jesus. He is willing to evaluate each as seems best to him without being afraid that too much credit offered to one might threaten the fullness or reality of the other. [12]

[13]

The resultant combination of mundane human characteristics, unusual (but still wholly human) qualities and true Divinity would seem to be a fruitful starting point for a Nicene exegete approaching the task of explaining the gospel stories. Ephrem’s long-time activity as a commentor on, and teacher of, biblical literature may well be one source of this conscious openmindedness. These references to the infant Jesus are not elaborate, certainly, most of them arising in passing rather than serving as the focus of a full exposition of their content, but I would suggest that they are adequate to show that Ephrem imagines the infant Jesus as living the normal human life of an infant child, at least as far as outward appearances and sensible 18 experiences are concerned. Ephrem’s mixing Jesus in with other children as he speaks of Him shows this, to my mind. I also think that the mention of Jesus in the lap of Joseph is indicative of a degree of comfort with Jesus’ babyhood unusual in a Patristic author. For a writer to make many references to Jesus in the arms of Mary, His especially venerated Virgin Mother, would not have the impact of one reference to Jesus bouncing in the lap of Joseph, His pious and exemplary, but comparatively ordinary, step-father. Since the New Testament never speaks of Joseph holding Jesus, this picture, unlike Ephrem’s mention of Simeon in the Temple, is the product of Ephrem’s own mind. His willingness to imagine Jesus being treated as an infant child by more humans than comprise the short list of those mandated by Scripture, and apart from the insulating touch of the Blessed Virgin Mary, surely argues for real acceptance of the reality of Jesus’ infancy.19 I mean this in the Platonic sense of all experiences that are available to any of the human senses, as opposed to those of a purely spiritual or intellectual nature. 19 To my ears, the continuing elevation of the status of Mary in the minds of many during the course of the history of the Church seems like an unconscious attempt to insulate the passive, infant Jesus from the 18

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Against the background of that human reality, we must recall Ephrem’s picture of the silent infant ruling the heavenly hosts and the baby in the manger casting down the Devil.20 This same person who was “among the infants as a baby” was also, as a baby, exercising divine powers no human could enjoy. The contrast of these two pictures is deepened by Ephrem’s attribution of both categories of action to the same Babe rather than to different natures or spheres of action of the same person. In other words, Ephrem has spoken of the infant Jesus as a human being in a manner designed to heighten the incarnational paradox rather than to lessen it. Habitual readers of Ephrem will not be surprised by this conclusion.

THE INFANT JESUS AS DIVINE [15]

An examination of the passages in which Ephrem describes the infant Jesus while emphasizing His divine nature makes clear one of his central christological convictions. The manner in which Ephrem’s ideas about the infant Jesus are expressed in these lines shows, in my opinion, that Ephrem wishes to emphasize that the Divine Son was present in a personal way in Jesus. I mean “personal” here in the sense of ‘as an individual’ or ‘in a way that involves Him personally’. This is shown clearly, for example, in Ephrem’s assertion that, while Simeon goes through the motions of presenting the baby Jesus to God in the Temple according to the Jewish Law (Luke 2:21-35), it is, in actuality, Jesus Who is presenting Simeon to God.21 The point is stressed by being made again in the following section of the same work, and the passage there, which was quoted above in paragraph 7, clearly envisions personal presence and personal divine action by the Divine Son as Jesus, rather than a vaguer idea of a divine presence in, or divine involvement with, the human baby. Jesus, a human person, is presenting Simeon, his fellow. The two of them are present together in the Temple before the face of God.

world into which He was born. However that may be, Ephrem shows no urge to soften the incarnational paradox in that way. 20 Hymns on the Nativity 21. 10 + 11. 21 Homily on Our Lord, sec 50, trans. 325 in Mathews, Syriac at 47 in CSCO 270.

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The same idea of the Divine Son being Himself involved as an individual seems to be present in the next section of The Homily on Our Lord, already quoted above, as this brief excerpt shows: … while a weak man was visibly carrying the power that gave him strength, that power was invisibly carrying the one who carried it. 22

[17]

Ephrem makes full use of the shock value of attributing to the helpless human infant, Jesus, powers and actions completely out of step with that passive stage of human life in order to bolster and highlight his conviction of Jesus’ unique person and nature as containing both full human and full divine realities.23 Only if both these things were true of Jesus could Simeon carry Jesus while Jesus also, in another sense, carries him. Thus, Ephrem usually introduces the divine nature of Jesus into a scene involving the infant Christ in order to set up a contrast with His humanity. The introduction of thoughts of the divine nature of Christ into Ephrem’s mind when he is considering the infant Jesus seems to call forth these emphatic contrasts. Thus, in one hymn, he says …In a manger the Lord of the universe reclined for the sake of the universe.24

This tendency even displays itself in the words coming from the mouths of characters in the scriptural scenes, as when Ephrem has the shepherds in the stable, in a strikingly paradoxical comment, say to Jesus: …You are the newborn Who is older than Noah and younger than Noah, who pacified all in the ark.25

see note 5 above. cf. also Hymns on the Nativity 21.10 + 11, quoted above. 24 Hymns on the Nativity 5.3, McVey 106, 46 in CSCO 186. 25 Hymns on the Nativity 7.7, McVey 116, 57 in CSCO 186. The second article of the Nicene Creed, that concerning the Son, shows this trait of offering a string of facts about the same person (the incarnate Son) linked by the pronouns that begin the different clauses. Athanasius, Against the Arians III.29 shows this tendency (and also quotes Phil 2:6-8, a prominent scriptural support for this way of speaking). Gregory Nazianzen Ep. 101.177b (PG XXXVII), Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity 9.14, and Leo I 22 23

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In his following this train of thought, Ephrem’s delight in placing together things that normally would oppose each other and in finding outrageous ways to express the duality of Jesus is clear. This is not evidence merely of a desire to shock his listeners, however, but rather marks the first step in the development of an important theme in Ephrem’s work. Ephrem focuses on the contrast between humanity and divinity, between the extreme helplessness of the new-born human and the limitless power of the fully Divine Son of God, in order to impress that duality of natures in Christ on the mind of his listener. Ephrem is not delighting in apparent absurdities for their own sakes, but is providing, instead, a building block for the final and most important aspect of his use of this image. It is the religious or practical meaning of this juxtaposition of natures that most strongly appeals to Ephrem’s imagination and explains his interest in the infant Jesus. Ephrem is not nearly as interested in talking about what the infant Jesus is in the abstract as he is in talking about how the image of the infant Jesus can shed light in practical ways on the life of the believer.

THE MEANING OF THE INFANT JESUS [18]

The primary result of the presence in the created world of God the Son as the infant Jesus, in Ephrem’s mind, was to make the Divine present to human beings in a new way. This is clearly indicated in the passage from The Homily on Our Lord, section 51, quoted above in paragraph 7. When Ephrem says: “Majesty made itself small so that those who held it could endure it.”, we can hear not only his idea of the result of the Incarnation, but also of its purpose. The gulf which had existed between God and Creation, which is a strong theme in Ephrem’s writings and which he believed to be clearly described in Scripture,26 has been bridged so effectively by Ep. 28 (The Tome) sec 4, all take this approach. Examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. 26 Exod 33:20, in the words of God, no less, seems to rule out direct personal contact between Himself and human beings. For Ephrem’s ideas about the ontological gulf between the Divine and all else, see Thomas Koonammakkal, “Ephrem’s Imagery of Chasm” 175-183 in Lavenant, Symposium Syriacum VII. See also Paul S. Russell, St. Ephraem and St. Gregory, 121-144. This gulf is a recurrent theme in the theologically rich collections called The Hymns on Faith and The Sermons on Faith.

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the Son’s Incarnation that, not only can humans come into the direct presence of God, but they can even pick the Son up and carry Him around!27 This is not only true of Jesus after His human birth. Ephrem also speaks of Jesus, while He is still in the womb of Mary, in a way that emphasizes this new close contact and what it means for Divine-human relations and proximity. The Power that governs all dwelt in a small womb. While dwelling there, He was holding the reins of the universe. His Parent was ready for His will to be fulfilled. The heavens and all the creation were filled by Him. The Sun entered the womb, and in the height and depth His rays were dwelling. He dwelt in the vast wombs of all creation. They were too small to contain the greatness of the First-Born. How indeed did that small womb of Mary suffice for Him? It is a wonder if … sufficed for Him. Of all the wombs that contained Him, one womb sufficed: [the womb] of the Great One Who begot Him. 28

The image here is clearly one of the Divine Person entering into the created world and taking up residence in it, instead of merely suffusing it with His presence or presiding over it, as the Divine had done before that change. This dwelling in the midst of Creation, as a part of it, makes God the Son close to, and available to, the surrounding creatures in a way that was not possible before. The presence of the Son here is a “personal” one that involves Him as a complete whole. The contrast between the insight this expresses and that expressed by, for example, Theodore of Mopsuestia when he speaks of the divine nature in Christ indwelling the humanity by “good pleasure” (ευδωκια, eudokia)29 is Homily on Our Lord, sec 51, quoted above. Hymns on the Nativity 21.6-7, McVey 174-175, 105-106 in CSCO 186. Hymns on the Nativity 12, McVey 133-135, also speaks of Jesus in Mary’s womb. 29 This famous passage is available in English in J. Stevenson (ed.), Creeds, Councils and Controversies, 291-294 and Documents in Early Christian 27 28

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very great. Ephrem imagines the Son entering into the created world as a person in it, while Theodore’s idea seems to be that the Son has drawn close enough to creation to associate Himself with it, but not in a manner that commits Him to it holistically, beyond what He desires at any moment. This new situation is a radical departure from what Ephrem understood to have been the previous relationship between God and Creation, and Ephrem is convinced that this Divine entry into Creation has begun a new era as far as the breadth of the horizon open to human beings is concerned. The infancy of Jesus provides a starting point for Ephrem’s discussion of these new possibilities because it offers such striking evidence of this new closeness. Ephrem holds that the Son’s birth reveals truths about Him.30 The different births that He underwent during His existence mark and make possible the different categories of existence in which He participates and the different roles that He is able to play. When Ephrem says that Jesus dazzled understanding by [His] birth that shone forth from eternity from the hidden womb (31.1)

and that He has given life to the creation by [His] birth that took place openly from a womb of flesh (31.1),

he is making clear that these different births inaugurate, or connect to, different spheres of activity appropriate to Jesus’ different natures. Thus, in Ephrem’s mind, His human birth from Mary is one of a pair with Adam’s generation in important ways, 31 and Jesus’ birth can also be twinned with His death on the Cross. 32 Both of these connections require that Ephrem imagines that the humanity Jesus displays is at least congruent with that displayed by the rest of humankind. More than just throwing up contrasts between Jesus and the rest of human nature to make theological Thought, M. Wiles and M. Santer Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975, 57-61. The original text can be found at Theodore of Mopsuestia On the Incarnation, VII, 1293-1297 in H.B. Swete (ed.), The Minor Epistles of St. Paul, vol. 2. 30 Hymns on Virginity 31.1, 398 in McVey, 113 in CSCO 223. 31 Commentary on the Diatessaron II.2 +3, 60 + 61 in McCarthy. 32 Hymns on Faith 4.2.

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points, Ephrem also wants to make use of the fact that Jesus is a man among His own kind and can fittingly be classed with the rest of us. This multi-directional use of Jesus’ humanity (that is, both to connect Him to us as one of us, as well as to connect human nature and the created world to the Divine) is further evidence of Ephrem’s ready acceptance of the full reality of Jesus’ human nature that we noted above. Thus, some of the meaning of the image of the infant Jesus for Ephrem lies in its ability to shed light on the larger history of the life of Christ among human beings and of the history of God’s relations with human beings. In that sense, the infant Jesus could properly be described as ‘typical’ or ‘iconic’ in the mind of Ephrem. Rather than viewing this stage of Jesus’ life as something awkward over which he would like to skate lightly, Ephrem sees in the image of the infant Jesus support for some of his most central christological convictions. The infant Jesus, then, takes His place toward the center of Ephrem’s christological understanding rather than on its periphery. An indication of this is found in Ephrem’s speaking of salvation as stemming from the infant Jesus as well as the adult. Ephrem does not only speak of Christ on the Cross as being the Savior; in his mind, it is also appropriate to say this of the baby Jesus. It was He, the Infant of days, that could appease, O Lord, the Ancient of Days. 33

The contrast of “the Infant of days” with “the Ancient of Days” may distract us from this fact of the infant being described as mediator. This role must hinge, logically, on Jesus’ enjoyment of the duality of natures and His consequent ability to serve as a bridge over the gulf between God and the world. Because the bridge is created only by the Son’s incarnation, the infant Jesus would naturally attract this sort of comment from Ephrem. He would be likely to reflect on that aspect of the Incarnation with reference to the Christ child since the gulf being bridged is a prominent piece of Ephrem’s mental furniture, so bypassing it is an important change in the ontological order of things. This way of speaking should make us aware of the fact that Ephrem’s Carmina Nisibena 4.7, 172 in NPNF (sec.ser.) 13, Syriac at 15 in CSCO 218. 33

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christological thought is very strongly incarnation-centered, to the point that he is able to see salvation in the Incarnation itself as well as in the work of Christ on the Cross.34 An interesting example of Ephrem both placing Jesus in the midst of humans for our consideration and of his desire to point out that that same Jesus is more than merely human can be found in his contrasting Jesus with Augustus Caesar, a savior of a more mundane sort. Ephrem describes the difference between the gifts of Augustus to the world and those Jesus offered, as follows: In the years of that king, who is called ”Radiance”, our Lord shown forth among the Hebrews, and “Radiance” and “Dawn” came to rule: a king on earth and the son on high. Blessed be His power! In the days of the king who enrolled people for the poll tax, our Savior descended and enrolled people in the Book of Life. He enrolled [them], and they enrolled Him. On high He enrolled us; on earth they enrolled Him. Glory to His name! 35

Ephrem’s decision to pluck details out of the birth narrative that allow him to contrast Christ enrolling people in the Book of Life with Caesar’s taxation bureaucracy is another example of his preference for the most extreme contrasts between the Divine and human elements in the life of Jesus, even beyond those relating to Jesus’ own duality. The strength of Ephrem’s identification of Christ’s salvific role with the infant Jesus is shown in the fact that, not only does he step back to look at the larger picture of salvation history when considering the newborn child, but he also is willing to delve into the humble details of the manger scene and find salvation expressed in them. That is, Ephrem does not step out of the story of the infant Jesus to make his theological points; he makes use of that tale in a way that shows that he finds it supportive of his christological convictions rather than embarrassing to them. 34 This is an idea he shares with Athanasius, cf. On the Incarnation, sec. 54, e.g. 35 Hymns on the Nativity 18.1-2, 159 in McVey, Syriac at 91 in CSCO 186.

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Ephrem draws from these scenes centering on the infant Jesus both high and abstract theological points (Hymns on the Nativity 5.3, quoted above in paragraph 17) as well as grasping at background details of the stories to set forth the same duality in Christ he wishes to stress (as in his use of the Roman census as a counterpoint to the Book of Life in Heaven). The starting point of his interpretation is the contrast of the humanity of Jesus with His divine nature. This is true with all these scriptural passages, and of his use of the moments in the life of the baby Jesus that he conjures up out of his mind, as he does with Jesus sitting in Joseph’s lap. This emphasis is clear in the following passage, where Ephrem speaks of the swaddling clothes of the baby in the manger as the means of offering salvation to human beings. Behold of Bethlehem, David the king clothes himself in fine white linen. The Lord of David and Son of David hid His glory in swaddling clothes. His swaddling clothes gave a robe of glory to human beings. 36

Later in the same hymn Ephrem shows again how he values the human birth of Jesus as a moment of salvific importance. This one day, The [most] perfect in the year, alone opens this treasure house. 37

This reinforces the importance of the act of Incarnation in Ephrem’s theological schema, which we have noted before, placing emphasis again on its salvific nature. These lines help the reader understand, also, the theological valuation Ephrem places on the new connections the Incarnation opens between God and the world. This connection does not only offer comforting closeness to God for creatures or an easy flow of information from God to the world, it is a link that makes divine salvation available to us. The Incarnation is, then, a connection with the most important practical results of any that a religious view of life could imagine. If Ephrem wishes to stress the importance of the Divine/human connection, the infancy of Jesus provides a particularly attractive opportunity: it contains all of the potential for a discussion of the union of Divine 36 37

Hymns on the Nativity 5.4, 106 in McVey, Syriac at 46 in CSCO 186. Hymns on the Nativity 5.8, 107 in McVey, Syriac at 47 in CSCO 186.

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and human that any stage of the life of Christ would provide, but, because Jesus is physically inactive during His infancy, that period helps the writer avoid being distracted by the problem of explaining actions that seem to contain both Divine and human elements. The field is clear to focus directly on the union of God and the Creation. Ephrem takes full advantage of this chance to speak of the effects of the union, itself, on the human predicament. Elsewhere, he is happy to dwell specifically on the saving actions of Jesus,38 but in his use of this image he wishes to make clear the impact the entry of God in the world has, in itself. The following passages deserve careful consideration as examples of Ephrem’s desire to stress the dual nature of Jesus, since they make clear that Ephrem appreciates the utility of the infant Jesus as a tool for teaching this point of Christian thought to Christian congregations. Mary bore a mute Babe though in Him were hidden all our tongues. Joseph carried Him, yet hidden in Him was a silent nature older than everything. The Lofty One became like a little child, yet hidden in Him was a treasure of Wisdom that suffices for all. He was lofty but He sucked Mary’s milk, and from His blessings all creation sucks. He is the Living Breast of living breath; by His life the dead were suckled, and they revived. Without the breath of air no one can live; without the power of the Son no one can rise. 38 The healing of the woman with an issue of blood (Luke 8:41-48 and parallels) is the spur for an extended reflection on Jesus’ natures and His healing abilities and how these two things are intertwined. English translation at 129-144 in Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on the Diatessaron. An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS. 709 with Introduction and Notes by Carmel McCarthy, Oxford University Press for the University of Manchester 1993; Syriac (with facing Latin translation) at 88-111 in Saint Éphrem Commentaire de l’Évangile Concordant Texte Syriaque (Manuscrit Chester Beatty 709) Folios Additionels, Dom Louis Leloir, OSB Louvain: Peeters Press 1990. Though this work is not universally agreed to come from Ephrem himself, it is considered to come from a near associate, at least, and this treatment is so involved and extended that it seems all but certain that it must come from Ephrem’s teaching if not from his pen.

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Upon the living breath of the One Who vivifies all depend the living beings above and below. As indeed He sucked Mary’s milk, He has given suck—life to the universe. As again He dwelt in His mother’s womb, in His womb dwells all creation. Mute He was as a babe, yet He gave to all creation all His commands. For without the First-Born no one is able to approach Being, for He alone is capable of it. 39

[25]

The homely details of a baby’s life, particularly that most obvious and recurrent one: feeding at the breast, are used to make clear to the listeners how each moment of Jesus’ babyhood contains its own odd duality. The baby Jesus appears to be dependent on those around Him, yet the truer dependence is that which they have on Him. Every time we care for a baby each day, Ephrem wants this image of the dependent Creator to recur to our minds so we can remember again what the Incarnation really means and the anomalies it produced. The reactions of Jesus’ human parents are also put forward by Ephrem as showing us important theological truths. Joseph caressed the Son as a babe. He served Him as God. He rejoiced in Him as in a blessing, and he was attentive to Him as to the Just One—a great paradox! With rival tones Mary was aglow. She, too, sang: “Who has granted to the barren one to conceive and give birth to the One [Who is also] many, to the small [Who is also] great, 39 Hymns on the Nativity 4.146-156, 100-101 in McVey, Syriac at 38-39 in CSCO 186. Hymns on the Nativity 4, 5 + 11 provide much material of interest along these lines and would repay reading in full with this question in mind. In an age of theological, especially christological, controversy, teaching doctrine at a relatively high level to laity becomes a necessary activity in a way that is not true during more settled periods. This is a likely explanation for the high level of Christian discourse in the Fourth and Fifth centuries as opposed to that of more settled times.

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[26]

This is a touchingly human family scene, centered, as human families are, around the new born child. Only in the valuation of the child expressed by the parents does this family betray its unique quality, and only in that aspect does its theological message lie. Here, the Divine Son is truly shown living as a human baby with His parents, while still being, and being known as, the Creator and Sustainer of the world. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Ephrem’s understanding of the meaning of the infancy of Jesus is the fact that he takes the personal presence of the Son so seriously. Far from approaching the question of the manner of the Son’s identity with Jesus as a philosophical problem or a doctrinal crux, he seems to view it as an experience that was deeply (and holistically) personal for the Son, and one that has deeply personal effects for God’s own sense of His connection with human beings. So Ephrem can say to the Son: Have mercy, O Lord, on my children! In my children call to mind Thy childhood, Thou Who wast a child! Let them that are like Thy childhood, be saved by Thy grace! 41

Thoughtful consideration of this passage makes clear that Ephrem understands the infancy (and Incarnation) of the Savior not as mechanically working out the necessary steps toward our salvation, nor as a pleasingly clear case-study of christological truths, but as a real break-through in the inter-personal relations of God with humans. After the childhood of Jesus, Ephrem finds that he can appeal to God for mercy on the basis of their shared experience of childhood! Nothing could be more complete or holistically

40 Hymns on the Nativity 5. 16 + 19, 108 in McVey, Syriac at 48 + 49 in CSCO 186. These lines are characteristic of the Syriac tradition’s expansion of biblical scenes to include more detail than the text provides. This may be the result of the influence of Jewish Targumic and Midrashic traditions of exegesis. Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9.1 (Spring 2001), 105-131, contains many examples of this. (Note 9, p. 106, provides references to writings that deal with this tendency.) 41 Carmina Nisibena 4.10, 172 in NPNF (sec.ser.) 13, Syriac at 15 in CSCO 218.

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personal than this effect of the idea of God becoming a human being. This must be the fullest understanding of the Incarnation possible, for it goes far beyond insisting that God the Son be understood to have entered personally into the created realm and speaks of Him as having gone through the experiences of human life in a way comparable to our own. In other words, Ephrem does not just insist that God the Son made Himself present for the normal events of a human life, he also believes that these experiences drew forth from Him the same sort of reactions that they do from us. How else could he call on the Son’s memory of childhood in the hopes of awakening mercy through stirring up nostalgia? This is, indeed, an understanding of Jesus that proclaims His real humanity, for it envisions a humanity that is both external and formal, as well as internal and experiential. Jesus, on this pattern, not only enjoys both divine and human nature, but His divine nature experiences the human nature as a human experiences it, not just in the midst of human beings.42 So, in the end, it seems that Ephrem finds in the image of the infant Jesus two principal lessons. 1. Since the bridging of the gulf between God and the world was the making of the salvation of mankind, the Incarnation itself can be called salvific, and since the gulf was bridged most spectacularly and completely during the infancy of Jesus when, even among human beings, Jesus was naturally humble and passive, the infancy of Jesus provides a special opportunity for emphasizing and meditating on this miraculous self-humiliation. Thence does the manger become a place of salvation in Ephrem’s mind along with the Cross on Calvary. 2. If the involvement of God in the world is the result of the Incarnation, then the more complete and absorbing that involvement was, the more complete and effective was its A possible analogue would be that of an adult playing a game with children, participating with them and following the same rules, while inwardly thinking of other things and engaging in an adult interior life, as opposed to the picture Ephrem seems to support, according to which the adult would experience the game as the children do, with complete selfinvolvement and no thought for anything else. 42

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[29]

The full, personal involvement of the Divine Son in human experience thus offers a very special kind of bridging of the gulf between Creator and creature: one that reaches beyond mere presence, or even ontological identification, to the more mysterious, but perhaps more unifying, level of personal empathy. If God the Son, after His human life as Jesus, can look back on that time in the world in a manner congruous with our own reminiscences, that, perhaps more than anything else, puts Him among us as one of us human beings. This is the point at which Ephrem’s christological use of the image of the infant Jesus moves beyond supporting a Nicene conviction in the full divinity of the Son and His full human nature, and begins to depict the Incarnation in a way that imagines a human experience of life for the Son much like our own. Since this possibility was one that Nicene Christians seemed to have shied away from imagining, 43 Ephrem’s happy embrace of it is unusual, at least. It seems to show some parallel between his thoughts and those of modern Christians who speak of Jesus’ significance as stemming from His own human experience.44 43 e.g., Cyril of Alexandria, with whom we began, speaks thus: (Third Letter to Nestorius, 72a, translation at 304 in Stevenson, Creeds) “We confess also that the very Son, which was begotten of God the Father, and is the only-begotten God, though being in his own nature impassible, suffered for us in the flesh, according to the scriptures, and was in his Crucified Body impassibly appropriating and making his own the sufferings of his own flesh.”, which, whatever else it may be, is not a description of the experience of being incarnate that accords much with the common human experience of life, at least as I have lived it. 44 This must be the instinct lying behind reflections such as: “Can a Male Savior Save Women?”, the Antoinette Brown Lecture for Women in Ministry, delivered by Kwok Pui-lan of Harvard Divinity School at the Vanderbilt Divinity School Chapel, March, 2001. See the web site

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Ephrem sees in the infant Jesus both clear evidence of the two natures coexisting in one Person, as the Nicene writers were coming to speak of, but also another, deeper understanding of what the Incarnation must have meant to Him Who experienced it. Turning those two points over in his mind will help the modern reader see the Incarnation, at least to some degree, through Ephrem’s eyes. It is a picture that helps us understand why Christology looms so large in his theological understanding. What could be big enough to cast into the shade this image of the Judgeof-All bouncing on the knee of Joseph and being crooned to by His mother? Those scenes cast long shadows in Ephrem’s imagination. Would not the recollection of personal experience make that Judge more ready to view with indulgent understanding the faults of His fellows whose lives He knew from the inside out, from birth to death, not as an eye-witness and companion, but as One Who, Himself, knew all these moments as His own? Ephrem was convinced that it would. It is the picture in his mind of the real human experience of the Judge of All that stands out as the source of his hope for salvation. If God the Son really knows, Himself, what it is to be a human, Ephrem thinks, surely He will look on us with indulgence when the time for Judgement comes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY TEXTS OF EPHREM’S WORKS Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Carmina Nisibena, herausgegeben von Edmund Beck. Louvain: CSCO 218 1961. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, herausgegeben von Edmund Beck. Louvain: CSCO 154 1955. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), herausgegeben von Edmund Beck. Louvain: 1959 CSCO 186. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermo de Domino Nostro, herausgegeben von Edmund Beck. Louvain: 1966 CSCO 270.

http://www.tennessean.com/ sii/01/03/10/03206475.shtml. Many other examples of the same concern could be discovered.

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Saint Éphrem Commentaire de l’Évangile Concordant Texte Syriaque (Manuscrit Chester Beatty 709) Folios Additionels, Dom Louis Leloir, OSB. Louvain: Peeters Press 1990. TRANSLATIONS OF EPHREM’S WORKS Carmina Nisibena 4.4, translation by Rev. J.T. Sarsfield Stopford, B.A. at 172 in NPNF (sec. ser.) Vol. 13. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company 1989 (reprint). Eighty Hymns on Faith of St. Ephraem the Syrian, Paul S. Russell forthcoming from Peeters Press: Louvain. Ephrem the Syrian Hymns, translated and introduced by Kathleen E. McVey. New York: Paulist Press 1989. Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on the Diatessaron, An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS. 709 with Introduction and Notes by Carmel McCarthy. Oxford University Press for the University of Manchester 1993. St. Ephrem the Syrian Selected Prose Works, translated by Edward G. Mathews, Jr. and Joseph P. Amar. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press 1994. SECONDARY WORKS Brock, Sebastian. “Clothing Metaphors as a means of theological expression in Syriac tradition”, XI in Studies in Syriac Christianity. Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company 1992. Brock, Sebastian. “The robe of glory: A biblical image in the Syriac tradition,” The Way, vol. 39 no. 3 (July 1999), 247-259. Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Edward R. Hardy. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press 1954. Harvey, Susan Ashbrook “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9.1 (Spring 2001), 105-131. Koonammakkal, Thomas. “Ephrem’s Imagery of Chasm,” Symposium Syriacum VII ed. René Lavenant, SJ. Orientalia Christiana Analecta 256 Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale 1998, 175-183.

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Pui-lan, Kwok. “Can a male savior save women?,” The Antoinette Brown Lecture for Women in Ministry at the Vanderbilt Divinity School Chapel, March, 2001. [ http://www. tennessean.com/ sii/01/03/10/03206475.shtml ] Russell, Paul S. “A First Look at the Christology of Ephraem the Syrian” Symposium Syriacum VII, ed. René Lavenant, SJ. Orientalia Christiana Analecta 256 Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale 1998, 107-115. Russell, Paul S. St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians. Kottayam, India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute 1994. Russell, Paul S. “Ephraem the Syrian on the Utility of Language and the Place of Silence,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 8.1 (Spring 2000), 21-37. Stevenson, J. (new edition revised by W.H.C. Frend), Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents illustrating the history of the Church, AD 337-461. London: SPCK 1989. Wiles, M. and Santer, M. Documents in Early Christian Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 5:1, 63-112 © 2002 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

SOME BASIC ANNOTATION TO THE HIDDEN PEARL: THE SYRIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND ITS ANCIENT ARAMAIC HERITAGE, I-III (ROME, 2001) SEBASTIAN P. BROCK UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD [1]

[2]

The three volumes, entitled The Hidden Pearl. The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Ancient Aramaic Heritage, published by TransWorld Film Italia in 2001, were commisioned to accompany three documentaries. The connecting thread throughout the three millennia that are covered is the Aramaic language with its various dialects, though the emphasis is always on the users of the language, rather than the language itself. Since the documentaries were commissioned by the Syrian Orthodox community, part of the third volume focuses on developments specific to them, but elsewhere the aim has been to be inclusive, not only of the other Syriac Churches, but also of other communities using Aramaic, both in the past and, to some extent at least, in the present. The volumes were written with a non-specialist audience in mind and so there are no footnotes; since, however, some of the inscriptions and manuscripts etc. which are referred to may not always be readily identifiable to scholars, the opportunity has been taken to benefit from the hospitality of Hugoye in order to provide some basic annotation, in addition to the section “For Further Reading” at the end of each volume. Needless to say, in providing this annotation no attempt has been made to provide a proper

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[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Sebastian P. Brock

bibliography to all the different topics covered; rather, the aim is simply to provide specific references for some of the more obscure items. Volume I, The Ancient Aramaic Heritage (by S.P. Brock and D.G.K. Taylor) covers the first millenium BC and (for Palmyra, Petra, Hatra and pre-Christian Edessa) continues up to the third century AD). Contents: ch. 1, Introduction; ch. 2, Aramaic among the languages of the Middle East; ch. 3, The Aramaic scripts and the history of the alphabet; ch. 4, The Aramaean Kingdoms; ch. 5, Religion and Culture; ch. 6, Aramaic as the official language of the Achaemenid Empire; ch. 7, The aftermath of Alexander’s conquests: Aramaic in the Hellenistic period; ch. 8, Relics of Aramaic literature from the first millennium BC. Volume II, The Heirs of the Ancient Aramaic Heritage (by E. Balicka-Witakowski, S.P. Brock, D.G.K. Taylor, and W. Witakowski) opens with Palestine in the 1st century AD and continues as far as the Middle Ages. Contents: ch. 1, Introduction; ch. 2, Aramaic in Palestine at the time of Jesus and in the early centuries of Christianity; ch. 3, Let the inscriptions speak: the evidence of Jewish Aramaic and Christian Syriac, 4th to 7th century; ch. 4; The flowering of the Aramaic literatures (Jewish, Samaritan, Mandaean, Manichaean, Christian Palestinian, Syriac); ch. 5, The Syriac Christian tradition; ch. 6, The spread of Syriac Christianity; ch. 7, The Arts: architecture, wall painting and manuscript illustration; ch. 8, The art of the scribe. Volume III, At the Turn of the Third Millennium: the Syrian Orthodox Witness (by S.P. Brock and W. Witakowski). Contents: ch. 1, Introduction: the modern heirs of the Aramaic heritage; ch. 2, The Churches of the Syriac tradition; ch. 3, The Syrian Orthodox people in the twentieth century; ch. 4, The Syrian Orthodox presence worldwide; ch. 5, The people and their language: cultivating Syriac; ch. 6, Twentieth-century writing in Syriac; ch. 7, The wider significance of the Syriac tradition; ch. 8, In retrospect: a glance back to the past (Syriac historical writing; a mini-dictionary of Syriac authors, 3rd-20th century); ch. 9, The Bible in Syriac. The authors of the different sections were as follows: Vol. I: ch. 3, DGKT ; ch. 8, DGKT (with some additions by SPB); the remainder, SPB. Vol. II: ch. 4, Mandaeans, Manichaeans, WW; Christian Palestinian Aramaic, DGKT; ch. 6, DGKT; ch. 7, EB-W

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(with some additions by SPB); the remainder, SPB. Vol. III: ch. 8, Syriac historical writing, WW; the remainder, SPB.

NOTES TO VOLUME 1: THE ANCIENT ARAMAIC HERITAGE ABBREVIATIONS: Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars secunda (Paris, 1889-). Cooke Cooke, G.A. A Text-Book of North Semitic Inscriptions (Oxford,1903). Cowley Cowley, A. Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford, 1923). Drijvers-Healey Drijvers, H.J.W. and Healey, J.F. The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene (Leiden, 1999). Fitzmyer-Kaufman Fitzmyer, J.A. and Kaufman, S.A. An Aramaic Bibliography. Part I, Old, Official, and Biblical Aramaic (Baltimore, 1992). Gibson Gibson, J.C.L. Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, 2, Aramaic Inscriptions (Oxford, 1975). Grayson Grayson, A.K. Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, I-II (Toronto, 1991, 1996). KAI Donner, H. and Röllig, W. Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, (3 vols, Wiesbaden, 1964). Kraeling Kraeling, E.G. The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (New Haven, 1969). PAT Hillers, D.R. and Cussini, E. Palmyrene Aramaic Texts (Baltimore, 1996). Porten-Yardeni Porten, B. and Yardeni, A. Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, I, Letters (Winona Lake, 1986); II, Contracts (1989); III, Literature, Accounts, Lists (1993); IV, Ostraca and Assorted Inscriptions (1999). p. 6. F. Rosenthal, ‘Aramaic studies during the past thirty years’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 37 (1978), 81-82. CIS

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p. 8. Poseidonius, quoted in Strabo, Geography, I,34; XVI.4.27. pp. 8-9. R. Steiner, ‘Why the Aramaic script was called “Assyrian” in Hebrew, Greek and Demotic’, Orientalia 62 (1993), 80-82. p. 11. PAT 0278 of AD 242 (see caption to p. 138b). pp. 13-14. The table is adapted from that given by J. Huehnergard, in Anchor Dictionary of the Bible 4 (1992), 157. p. 15. For the classification of Aramaic dialects adopted here, see J.A. Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean. Collected Aramaic Essays (Missoula, 1979), chapter 3, and S. Kaufman in Anchor Dictionary of the Bible 4 (1992), 173-178. p. 18b. Sefire: KAI 222A, lines 21-28, = Gibson, no. 7 (p. 28ff); Fitzmyer-Kaufman B.1.11. p. 19a. Sinzeribni: KAI 225 = Gibson, no. 18 (p. 95f); FitzmyerKaufman B.1.16. p. 19b. From the temple of Atargatis/al ‛Uzza, Petra; see P. Hammond and others, ‘A religio-legal Nabataean inscription from the Atargatis/Al-‛Uzza temple at Petra’, Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 263 (1986), 77-86. Aretas IV’s 37th year would fall c. AD 28. p. 20b. Kh. Al As‛ad and M. Gawlikowski, The Inscriptions in the Museum of Palmyra. A Catalogue (Palmyra/Warsaw, 1997), no. 78. p. 21a. J.A.Fitzmyer and D.J. Harrrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts (Rome, 1978), A22. p. 21c. Paris Sab./Mand. 1 (E. Tisserant, Specimina codicum orientalium (Bonn, 1914), pl. 40). p. 22a. Florence, Bibl.Med. Plut.I.56; E. Hatch, Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts (Boston, 1946), pl. 34. p. 22b. British Library, Add. 14548 (Tisserant, Specimina, pl. 28). p. 22c. Vatican Syr. 19 (Hatch, Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts, pl. 198. p. 23a. Published by H. Pognon, Inscriptions sémitiques de la Syrie et de la Mésopotamie et de la region de Mossoul (Paris, 1907), no. 54.

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p. 23b. Unpublished inscription, apparently seen in Jubb ‛Addin. The original photograph shows slightly more text, and the following can be read: [‫] ܐ‬

‫ܒ ܕ‬ ‫ܕܒ ܕ ܐ‬ [‫]ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܐܐ‬ ‫ܘ‬ ‫ܘܬ‬ ‫ܘܬܪܬ‬ ‫ܕ ̈ܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܒ‬ ‫] [ ܐ ܣ‬ ‫[ܪ ܐ‬ ]

‘The sinner Shawil, nominally a monk, wrote it in the year one thousand and five hundred and eighty two of the Greeks in the days of [Me]letios the [patri]arch’. G 1582 = AD 1270/1; probably the Melkite patriarch of Antioch is intended, though according to V. Grumel, La chronologie (Paris, 1958), the patriarch at this time was Euthymios I (c.1258-1274). p. 24b. Published by J. Jarry, ‘Inscriptions syriaques et arabes inédites du Tur ‛Abdin’, Annales Islamologiques 10 (1972), p. 209 (pl. LV, no. 6). pp. 39-40. See annotation to II, pp. 261-262. p. 42a. Tel Fekheriye: A. Abou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil, A. Millard, La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne (Paris, 1982); Fitzymer-Kaufman B.2.2. p. 42b. Zakkur: KAI 202A = Gibson, no. 5 (p. 6ff); FitzmyerKaufman, B.1.6. p. 44a. Kilamuwa: KAI 24. p. 44b. Barrakab: KAI 216 = Gibson, no. 15 (p. 89ff); FitzmyerKaufman, B.1.14. p. 45a. Sefire: KAI 222A, lines 2-13, = Gibson, no. 7 (p. 28ff). p. 48a-b. See I. Ephal and J. Naveh, ‘Hazael’s booty inscriptions’, Israel Exploration Journal 39 (1989), 192-200.

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p. 61. Tiglath-Pileser I: Grayson, I, pp. 23, 37. p. 62. NurAdad: Grayson, I, p. 149. // Muqurru: Grayson, I, p. 150. // Booty from the foot of Mt Kashiari: Grayson, I, p. 150. p. 63. Matiatu: Grayson, I, p. 209. For the topography, see M. Liverani, Studies in the Annals of Ashurnasirpal II. 2, Topographical Analysis (Rome, 1992), 35-36, 43-44, 57-58, 106. // Fragment in Adana museum: see J.D. Hawkins, ‘The Babil stele of Assurbanipal’, Anatolian Studies 19 (1969), 111-120. // Amme Ba`li, Bit Zamani: Grayson, I, p. 261. // Assyrian brutality: Grayson, I, p. 201. p. 65. Hadadyis`i: see on p. 42a. p. 66. Ahuni: Grayson, II, p. 91; Kilamuwa: see on 44a. p. 67. Sefire: see on 18b. // Melqart: KAI 201 = Gibson no. 1 (p. 1ff); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B1.1. // For the identity of Barhadad’s father, see W.T. Pitard, ‘The identity of the Bir Hadad of the Melqart stele’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 272 (1988), 3-21, and E. Puech, ‘La stèle de Bar-Hadad à Melqart et les rois d’Arpad’, Revue biblique 99 (1992), 311-334. p. 68. Adadidri and Irhuleni: Grayson, II, p. 47. // Zakkur: see on 42b. p. 69. Tel Dan: A. Biran and J. Naveh, ‘An Aramaic stele fragment from Tel Dan’, and ‘The Tel Dan inscription: a new fragment’, in Israel Exploration Journal 43 (1993), 81-98, and 45 (1995), 1-18. p. 70. Shalmaneser III: Grayson, II, p. 60. // Adadnirari III: Grayson, II, p. 213. Hazael’s booty: see on p. 48. p. 71. Tiglath-Pileser III: H. Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III (Jerusalem, 1994), p. 79. p. 73. Barrakab: KAI 218 = Gibson, no. 17 (p. 93); FitzmyerKaufman, B.1.14. p. 77. Deir Alla: J. Hackett, The Balaam text from Deir Alla (Chico 1984); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.1.19. p. 82: Taba: KAI 269 = Gibson, no. 24 (p. 120ff); FitzmyerKaufman, B.3.f.18.

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pp. 83-84. Si‚gabbar and Sinzeribini: KAI 226, 225 = Gibson, nos. 19, 18 (p. 93ff). p. 85a. G.R. Driver, Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford, 1957), Letter 7 = Porten Yardeni I, A6.10; FitzmyerKaufman, B.3.b.1. p. 85b. A.H. Sayce and A.E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri Discovered at Assuan (London, 1906), plate C [Cowley 9](= Porten-Yardeni, B2.4). p. 85c. KAI 260; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.5.13. p. 86a. M. Heltzer, in O.W. Mascarella (ed.), Ladders to Heaven. Art Treasures from Lands of the Bible (Toronto, 1981), no. 170. p. 86b. KAI 229 (Teima, 2). Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.4.21. A helpful overview of the Aramaic inscriptions of Teima is given by A. Lemaire, ‘Les inscriptions araméennes anciennes de Teima’, in H. Lozachmeur (ed.), Présence arabe dans le Croissant fertile avant l’Hégire (Paris, 1995), 59-72. p. 89. Horace, Epistles, II.1, lines 156-7. // ‘Aramaization of Assyria’: H. Tadmor, ‘Aramaization of Assyria’, in H.J. Nissen and J. Renger (eds), Mesopotamien und seine Nachbarne, I.2 (Berlin, 1982), 449-470; cp. also A.R. Millard, ‘Assyrians and Aramaeans’, Iraq 45 (1983), 101-108; and the remarks of A. Lemaire: “Today we know that this [Neo-Assyrian Empire] was actually an Assyro-Aramaean empire, and that the Aramaic language played the role of a lingua franca in political and trade relations to the west of this empire” (in his ‘Aramaic literature and Hebrew literature’, in M. Bar-Asher (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Hebrew and Aramaic (Jerusalem, 1988), p. 12). // Documents from Asshur: F.M. Fales, Aramaic Epigraphs on Clay Tablets of the Neo-Assyrian Period (Rome, 1986). // Asshur ostracon: KAI 233; FitzmyerKaufman B.2.13. Multi-racial state: J.N. Postgate, ‘Ancient Assyria—a multi-racial state’, Aram 1:1 (1989), 1-10. // Naqi‚a/Zakutu: on her see S.C. Melville, The Role of Naqia/Zakutu in Sargonid Politics (Winona Lake, 1999). p. 90. Bukan: A. Lemaire, ‘Une inscription araméenne du VIIIe siècle avant J-C trouvée à Bukan (Azerbaijan iranien)’, Studia Iranica 27 (1998), 15-30. // Luristan inscription: Gibson, no. 11 (p. 57f); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.6.1 // N. Postgate: Aram 1:1 (1989), p. 9.

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p. 91. Adon: KAI 266; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.3.a.5. p. 94. Zakkur: see above, on p. 42b. // Deir Alla: see above, on p. 77. // Philo, Life of Moses, I, 264-265. pp. 94-95. Sinzeribni and Si‚gabbar: see on pp. 83-84. p. 95. Baal Harran: see on p. 73. Temple of Nabonidus at Harran rebuilt by Nabonidus: see C.J. Gadd, ‘The Harran inscriptions of Nabonidus’, Anatolian Studies 8 (1958), 35-92, esp. p. 59. // ‘Doomsday Book’: F.M. Fales, Censimenti e catasti di epoca neo-assira (Rome 1973); also F.M. Fales and J.N.Postgate, State Archives of Assyria XI (Helsinki, 1995), 121-145. p. 96. Seal of Baraq: P. Bordreuil, Catalogue des sceaux ouest-sémitiques inscrits (Paris, 1986), no. 85 (p. 75f). // Seal of Barrakab: F. von Luschan, Ausgrabungen aus Sendschirli, V, Die Kleinfunde (Berlin, 1943), p. 73 and plate 38b. // Seal of Nurshi: Bordreuil, Catalogue, no. 86 (p. 76). // 36 Aramaean women singers: F.M. Fales and J.N. Postgate, State Archives of Assyria VII (Helsinki, 1992), p. 32. // 40 Aramaean sweets: Fales and Postgate, State Archives, VII, p. 150. p. 97. The illustration gives part of Asoka’s Greek-Aramaic bilingual (for which see p. 128). // A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago, 1948), p. 480. p. 98. Arsham Archive, Letter 7 (see on p. 85a). p. 99. Darius inscription: Porten-Yardeni, III, C2.1; FitzmyerKaufman, B.3.c.2. // Memorandum to Bigvay: Porten-Yardeni, I, A4.9 [= Cowley, no. 32]; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.3.c.4. p. 100. Ananiah’s marriage contract: Porten-Yardeni, II, B3.3 [= Kraeling, no.2]; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.3.c.8. pp. 100-101. Mibtahiah: quotation is from Porten-Yardeni, II, B2.3 [= Cowley 8]; marriage with Eshor, Porten-Yardeni, II, B2.6 [= Cowley 15] (Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.3.c.7). p. 102. Donations to temple of Yahu: Porten-Yardeni, III, C3.15 [Cowley 22]. // Greek fleet (Ahiqar palimpsest): quotation is from Porten-Yardeni, III, C3.7 (pp.94-95). // Hermopolis Letters: quotation from Letter 2 = Gibson, no. 27.ii (p.132ff), and PortenYardeni, I, A2.2; Fitzmyer-Kaufman B.3.b.1.

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p. 103. Qedar: Gibson, no. 25 (p. 122f). // Carpentras stele (Taba): see on p. 82. Tayma (Salmshezeb): KAI 228 = Gibson, no. 30 (p. 148ff); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.4.4. p. 104. Pasigu Shahru (= Tayma, 20): see Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.4.14. // Inscription from Bahrain: M. Sznycer, in Syria 61 (1984), 109-118 (Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.4.27). // Inscription from Failaka: M. Sznycer, in Y. Calvet and F-F. Salles (eds.), Failaka (Lyon, 1986), 273-280. // Seal of Elnathan: N. Avigad, Bullae and Seals from a Post-Exilic Judean Archive (Qedem 4; Jerusalem 1976), no. 5 (plate 6). // Seal of Shulamit: Avigad, Bullae and Seals, no. 14 (plate 15). // Inscription from Beersheva: J. Naveh, in Y. Aharoni, Beer-Sheba, I (Tel Aviv 1973), 79-82 (no. 5); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.1.37. // Ostraca from Arad: Y. Aharoni, Arad Inscriptions (Jerusalem, 1981), p.155 (no. 5); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.1.36. p. 108. Inscription of Maniku, Nabataean text: J.T. Milik, in Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 21 (1976), 143-151; Greek text: M. Sartre, Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, 21, (Jordanie, IV; 1993), no. 54; (also in J.F. Healey, The Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions of Mada‚in Salih (Oxford/Manchester, 1993), p. 243). p. 109. Published by P. Hammond, ‘Ein nabatäisches Weiherelief aus Petra’, in Die Nabatäer (Bonn/Köln, 1981), 137-141. p. 110a-b. Cooke, no. 94, on which see J.T. Milik, in Revue biblique 66 (1959), 555-560. p. 110c. Published by F. Zayadine, ‘Recent excavations at Petra’, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 26 (1982), 366-367. p. 112. Cooke, no. 97. p. 114. CIS ii, 465. p. 121. Wadi Daliyah papyri: see F.M. Cross, ‘Samaria Papyrus 1’, in Erez Israel 18 (1985), 7*-17*; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.1.39. p. 122. Kerak: J.T. Milik, ‘Nouvelles inscriptions sémitiques du pays de Moab’, Liber Annuus 9 (1958/9), 330-358; FitzmyerKaufman, B.1.44. // Gözne: KAI 259 = Gibson, no. 34 (p. 154); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.5.7. // Tarsus: KAI 261 = Gibson, no. 35 (p. 155). // Syria grammata: Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 7.3.15; 7.5.31; 19.9.6 (used by Nabataeans, 312 BC); Diodorus Siculus, Histories, 19.23. // Themistokles: see C. Nylander, ‘Assyria grammata.

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Remarks on the 21st Letter of Themistokles’, Opuscula Atheniensia 8 (1968), 119-136. p. 123. Funerary inscription of Artimas: KAI 262. // Xanthos trilingual inscription: A. Dupont-Sommer, ‘L’inscription araméenne’, in H. Metzger (ed.), Fouilles de Xanthos, VI, La stèle trilingue de Létôon (Paris, 1979), 129-178; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.5.14. // Sardis bilingual inscription: KAI 260; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.5.13. // Daskyleion: Gibson, no. 37 (p. 157f); FitzmyerKaufman, B.5.5. p. 124. Murashu archive: M.W. Stolper, Entrepreneurs and Empire: The Murashu Archive, the Murashu Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylon (Leiden, 1985); Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.2.22. // Persepolis tablets: R.A. Bowman, Aramaic Ritual Texts from Persepolis (Chicago, 1970); Fitzmyer-Kaufman B.6.3. pp. 125-6. Aramaic in Ptolemaic Egypt: quotation from PortenYardeni, III, C3.29; Fitzmyer-Porten, B.3.f.42. p. 126. Jerusalem ostracon: F.M. Cross, ‘An Aramaic ostracon of the third century B.C.E. from excavations in Jerusalem’, Eres Yisrael 15 (1981), 67*-69*. // Inscription of Zoilos: A. Biran, Israel Exploration Journal 26 (1976), 202-206. // Khirbet Kom ostracon: L.T.Geraty, ‘The Khirbet el Kom bilingual ostracon’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 220/1 (1975/6), 55-61. // Coins of Alexander Jannaeus [for “rather than”, read “as well as”]: A. Kindler, Coins of the Land of Israel (Jerusalem, 1974), nos. 9-10 (Aramaic and Greek; on some undated coins Greek and Hebrew are used). // Maresha marriage document: E. Eshel and A. Kloner, ‘An Aramaic ostracon of an Edomite marriage document from Maresha dated 176 B.C.E’ [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 63 (1994), 485-502. p. 127. Uruk text in cuneiform script: see Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.2.29. // Inscription of Adad-nadin-ahe: CIS ii 72; FitzmyerKaufman, B.2.27. // Inscriptions from the Gulf: see E.Puech, ‘Inscriptions araméennes du Golfe’, Transeuphratène 16 (1998), 3155; J. Healey and H. Bin Seray, ‘Aramaic in the Gulf: towards a corpus’, Aram 11/12 (1999/2000), 1-14. // Ruwafa inscription: J.T. Milik, ‘Inscriptions grecques et nabatéennes? de Rawwafah’, in P.J. Parr and others (eds.), ‘Preliminary Survey in N.W. Arabia, 1968, Part II: Epigraphy’, Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London 10 (1971), 54-58. (A recent discussion of this important

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inscription is given by M.C.A. Macdonald, ‘Quelques reflexions sur les Saracènes, l’inscription de Rawwafa et l’armée romaine’, in H. Lozachmeur (ed.), Présence arabe [see on p.86b], 93-101). p. 128. Asoka’s inscription in Aramaic and Greek: KAI 279; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.6.8. His inscription in Aramaic and Prakrit: E. Benveniste and A. Dupont-Sommer, in Journal asiatique 254 (1966), 437-465; Fitzmyer-Kaufman, B.6.9. p. 129. Ostraca from Nisa: see M.L. Chaumont, ‘Les ostraca de Nisa: nouvelle contribution à l’histoire des Arsacides’, Journal asiatique 256 (1968), 11-35. // Armenia, inscription of king Artashes: A. Périkhanian, ‘Les inscriptions araméennes du roi Artachès’, Revue des études arméniennes 8 (1971), 169-174. // Extraction of fish from Lake Sevan: KAI 274-5. // Silver bowl from Sissian: Perikhanian, ‘Inscription araméenne gravée sur une coupe d’argent trouvée à Sissian (Arménie)’, Revue des études arméniennes 8 (1971), 5-11. // Inscription from Garni: see J. Naveh, ‘The North Mesopotamian Aramaic script-type in the late Parthian period’, Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), 293-304, esp. 297. p. 130. Armazi script: see C. Tsereteli, ‘The Armazian script’, in T. Mgaloblishvili (ed.), Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus (Richmond, 1998), 155-162. // Inscription of Serapitis: KAI 276. // Inscription of Mihrdat: F. Altheim and R. Stiehl, ‘Die zweite (aramäische) Inschrift von Mcheta’ in their Die aramäische Sprache unter den Achaimeniden, III (Frankfurt, 1963), 243-261. // Petra: for the inscription with the name RQMW, see J. Starcky, ‘Nouvelle épitaphe nabatéenne donnant le nom sémitique de Petra’, Revue biblique 72 (1965), 95-97. p. 131. Nabataean legal documents: cp. J.A. Fitzmyer and D.J. Harrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts (Rome, 1978), no. 64; some further papyri await publication p. 132. Ibn Wahsiya: see T. Fahd, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, III (new edition; Leiden, 1971), 363-365. // Inscription of 36 BC: R.N. Jones and others, ‘A second Nabataean inscription from Tell eshShuqafia, Egypt’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 269 (1988), 47-57. // Tomb inscription from Mada‚in Salih: J.F. Healey, The Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions of Mada’in Salih (Oxford/Manchester, 1993), no. H.9 (p. 123). // Pasael: J.T. Milik and J. Starcky, ‘Inscriptions récemment découvertes à Petra’,

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Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 20 (1975 ), 111-130 (p. 112). p. 132-3. msgd: J. Cantineau, Le Nabatéen, II, Choix de textes (Paris, 1932), 17-18. // Ruhm [read Ruhu] son of Maliku: Cantineau, Le Nabatéen, II, 16 = CIS ii 182. p. 133. Inscription from the ‘year of the three Caesars’: CIS ii 963. // Latest Nabataean inscription: F. Altheim and R. Stiehl, Die Araber in der Alten Welt, V.1 (Berlin, 1966), p. 306 and plate 54; the date is either July/August 355 or July/August 356. // Namara inscription: text (e.g.) in J. Bellamy, ‘A new reading of the Namarah inscription’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (1985), 31-51; discussion in I. Shahid, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century (Washington DC, 1984), 31-53. // ‘Venice of the Sands’: E. Will, Les Palmyréniens. La Venise des sables (Paris, 1992). // Oldest Palmyrene inscription: PAT 1524 [where read “44 B.C.”]; a convenient list of dated Palmyrene inscriptions can be found in D.G.K. Taylor, “An annotated index of dated Palmyrene Aramaic texts”, Journal of Semitic Studies 46 (2001), 203-219. // “King of kings and Restorer of the Orient”: PAT 0292. p. 134. Tariff: PAT 0259. // Inscription of 279/280: Kh. As‛ad and M. Gawlikowski, ‘New honorific inscriptions in the Great Colonnade of Palmyra’, Annales Archéologiques de Syrie (1986/7), 164171 (esp. pp.167-168). p. 135. Inscription of AD 258: PAT 0291. // Inscription of AD 271: PAT 0293. // Inscription of AD 199: PAT 1378. // Inscription of AD 157: PAT 1403. // Symposium rules: PAT 0991. // Tesserae: R. du Mesnil du Buisson, Les tessères et monnaies de Palmyre (Paris, 1962). // Inscription of AD 32: PAT 1347. // Inscription of AD 175: PAT 0260. p. 136. Animal sanctuary of Allat: see p. 146 for illustration of lion and gazelle; PAT 1122. // Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess, 14. // Inscription of AD 251: PAT 1911. // Inscription of Shalmat: PAT 1488. // Inscription from South Shields: PAT 0246. // Dynasty of Emesa: see C. Chad, Les dynastes d’Émèse (Beyrouth, 1972). p. 137a. PAT 2690. p. 138b. PAT 0278.

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p. 140. PAT 0286. p. 141b. PAT 1812. p. 146. See on p.136. p. 147.PAT 1802. p. 151. Hatra inscription no. 106. p. 152b. Hatra inscription no. 228. p. 153. Inscription of Sanatruq I: Hatra inscription nos. 367-369. // Inscription of AD 237/8: Hatra inscription no. 35. // Inscription on statue of Ebu, daughter of Gabalu: Hatra inscription no. 30. p. 154. Inscription of AD 151/2: Hatra inscription no.343 (similar content in no. 281, illustration on p. 170b). // Bardaisan: see R. Degen, ‘A note on the law of Hatra’, Annali, Istituto Orientale di Napoli 27 (1977), 486-490. // Inscription of AD 214: B. Aggoula, Inscriptions et graffites araméennes d’Assour (Naples, 1985), no. 27e. // “Edessa, mother of all the cities of Mesopotamia”: the title occurs in P. Mesopotamia A of AD 240. // Adme: see A. Harrak, ‘The ancient name of Edessa’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51 (1992), 209-214. // Inscription of AD 6: Drijvers-Healey, As55 (D1). p. 155. Inscription of AD 201/2: Drijvers-Healey, As16(D32). // Kings of Edessa: for recent discussion, see M. Gawlikowski, ‘The last kings of Edessa’, in R. Lavenant (ed.), Symposium Syriacum VII (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 256; 1998), 421-428; A. Luther, ‘Elias von Nisibis und die Chronologie der edessenischen Könige’, Klio 81 (1999), 180-198; L. van Rompay, ‘ Jacob of Edessa and the early history of Edessa’, in G.J. Reinink and A.C. Klugkist (eds.), After Bardaisan. Studies in Honour of H.J.W. Drijvers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89; 1999), 269-285; T. Gnoli, Roma, Edessa e Palmira nel III secolo (Pisa/Rome, 2000); and S.K. Ross, Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE (London, 2000). p. 158. Inscription of Shebat AD 165: Drijvers-Healey, As36(D23). // Inscription of Adar AD 165: Drijvers-Healey, As29(D16). // Aptuha mosaic: Drijvers-Healey, Am2(D45). // Phoenix mosaic: Drijvers-Healey, Am6(D49), dated AD 235/6 (illustrated below, p.176a). // Orpheus mosaic: Drijvers-Healey, Am7(D50), dated

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AD 228 (illustrated below, p.176b). // Orpheus mosaic of AD 194: illustrated below, p. 177. // Achilles mosaic: Drijvers-Healey, Cm3 (and plate 66); illustrated in vol. II, p. 42a. // Briseis mosaic: Drijvers-Healey, Cm4 (and plate 67). For the mosaics with Greek mythological scenes and Syriac inscriptions, see now J. Balty and F. Briquel-Chatonnet, ‘Nouvelles mosaiques inscrites d’Osrhoène’ Monuments et Mémoires publiés par l’Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres 79 (2000), 31-72. p. 158-9. Mosaic with Zeus and Hera: Drijvers-Healey, Cm11 (and plate 72). p. 159. Serrin: see J.Balty, La mosaique de Serrin (Osrhoène) (Paris, 1990); illustration in Vol. II, p. 23a. // Prat malka: Drijvers-Healey, Bm1 (and plate 60). // Mosaic with ‘My lord Abgar’: DrijversHealey, Am10; illustrated below on p. 175. // Syriac legal documents of 240s: Drijvers-Healey, Appendix 1 (pp. 232-248); the Greek documents (some with signatures of witnesses in Syriac script) are edited by D. Feissel and J. Gascou in Journal des Savants 65 (1995), 65-119; 67 (1997), 3-57; and 70 (2000), 157-208. p. 161ff. A helpful overview can be found in A. Lemaire, “Aramaic literature and Hebrew literature: contacts and influences in the first millennium BCE”, in M. Bar Asher (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Hebrew and Aramaic (Jerusalem, 1988), 9-24. p. 162. Ahiqar: Porten-Yardeni, III, C1.1. For the later texts of Ahiqar in Syriac and other languages (including Modern Syriac), see A-M. Denis, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique, II, (Turnout, 2000), 993-1038. The standard edition of the Syriac, by J.R. Harris, has been reprinted a number of times, including P.Y. Dolapönü, Ahiqar sofro w-hakimo (Mardin, 1962; 2nd edition, Mor Ephrem Monastery, Glane/Losser, 1981). The Modern Syriac version was edited (from Berlin, Sachau 339) by M. Lidzbarski, Die neu-aramäischen Handschriften der Kön. Bibliothek zu Berlin (Weimar, 1896; repr. Hildesheim, 1973), I, 1-77 (text); II, 1-41 (tr.). p. 164. Uruk tablet: J. van Dijk, ‘Die Inschriftenfunde’, in H. Lenzen (ed.), XVIII vorläufiger Bericht über die…Ausgrabungen in UrukWarka (Berlin, 1962), 39-62. // Demotic fragments: Ed. K.T. Zauzich, in H. Franke and others (eds.), Folia rara W.

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Voigt…dedicata (Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Suppl. 19; Wiesbaden, 1976), 180-185. p. 165. Trier mosaic: see M. Küchler, Frühjüdische Weisheitstraditionen (Göttingen, 1979), 352-355. // ‘Mariam, daughter of Ahiqar’: see H. Candemir and J. Wagner, ‘Christliche Mosaiken in der nördlichen Euphratesia’, in S. Shahin, E. Schwertwein and J. Wagner (eds.), Studien zur Religion und Kultur Kleinasiens I (Leiden, 1978), 216-217. // Aramaic text of Tobit: ed. A. Neubauer, The Book of Tobit (Oxford, 1878). // Qumran fragments of Tobit: 4Q196-200, ed. by J. Fitzmyer, in J. Vanderkam (ed.), Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 19 (Oxford, 1995). p. 166. Tale of Hor: Porten-Yardeni, III, C1.2. p. 170b. Hatra, inscription 281 (see on p. 154). p. 173. Drijvers-Healey, Am8(D51). p. 174. P. Mesopotamia A (see p. 159). p. 175. Drijvers-Healey, Am10; see p. 159. p. 176. See on p. 158. p. 177. Unknown provenance; sold in New York in the winter of 2000/2001 (I am most grateful to Adam Becker for notifying me of this), and now in Dallas Museum. p. 178. Drijvers-Healey, Am4(D47). p. 183a. Ahiqar: E. Sachau, Aramäische Papyrus und Ostraka aus einer jüdischer Militärkolonie zu Elephantine (Leipzig, 1911), Tafel 47, col. 1. p. 186. Solomon of Bosra, Book of the Bee: ed. E.A.W.Budge, ch.XV, p. 20. // Ethiopic translation: a translation (by E. Isaac) can conveniently be found in J.H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, I (Garden City NY, 1983), 1-89; critical edition of Ethiopic, with translation by M.A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, I-II (Oxford 1978). // Aramaic fragments of Enoch: ed. J.T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford, 1976). p. 188. Book of Giants: Vermes, 516-517. p. 189. Genesis Apocryphon: Vermes, 448-459. The Aramaic texts, with German translation, of this and the other Aramaic texts from

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Qumran, can also readily be located in K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (Göttingen, 1984), with Ergänzungsband (1994). p. 190. Aramaic translation of Job: Vermes, 433-438. // New Jerusalem: Vermes, 568-570. // Testament of Levi: Vermes, 534527. p. 191. Prayer of Nabonidus: Vermes, 573. // Darius: Vermes, 578-579 (for a fuller translation, with the mention of Ushay, see K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer, Ergänzungsband (Göttingen, 1994), 113-117). p. 192. Testament of Qahat: Vermes, 532-533. // ‘Book which Michael spoke’: Vermes, 523. // Fragment mentioning ‘son of God’: Vermes, 576-577. p. 193. Aramaic psalm parallel to Psalm 20: see, for example, Z. Zevit, ‘The common origin of the Aramaicized prayer to Horus and of Psalm 20’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 110 (1990), 213-228. p. 200. For Chapter 7, the following could now be added: J. Taylor, Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans (London, 2001), and J.F. Healey, The Religion of the Nabataeans (Leiden, 2001).

NOTES TO VOLUME II: THE HEIRS OF THE ANCIENT ARAMAIC HERITAGE. ABBREVIATIONS: Beyer 1984 Beyer 1994 BL Fitzmyer-Harrington

Beyer, K. Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (Göttingen, 1984). Beyer, K. Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer, Ergänzungsband (Göttingen, 1994). British Library. Fitzmyer, J. and Harrington, D. A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts (Rome, 1978).

p. 6. Inscription of 1218: K. Erdmann, Das anatolische Karavansaray des 13. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1961), no. 18 (pp. 65-66). // Minister of the Sultan of Iconium: Bar Hebraeus, Chronicle (ed. Bedjan), p. 262

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(tr. Budge, p. 233) (he was evidently a Syrian Orthodox deacon). For evidence of Aramaic still being spoken by Jews in Palestine in the 9th-10th century, see N. Allony, in Leshonenu 34 (1969/70), 8891. p. 12. Constantine and Helen, Gospel Lectionary of 1227 (see p. 237). p. 14. Inscription of Yehohanna: Beyer 1994, p. 206. // Inscription of Abba: Fitzmyer-Harrington, no. 68; Beyer 1984, p. 347; it is remarkable that this Aramaic inscription is written in the PalaeoHebrew script. p. 15. Inscription of Helena/Sadan: Fitzmyer-Harrington, no. 132; Beyer 1984, p. 343. // Ossuary of Sapphira wife of Simeon: Fitzmyer-Harrington, no. 147; Beyer 1984, p. 342. // “He had it closed…”: Beyer 1994, p. 207 (who, however, takes the first word as a proper name, Sakar). // Qorban inscription: FitzmyerHarrington, no. 69; Beyer 1984, p. 344. Beit Qarnayim ostraca: A. Yardeni, ‘New Jewish Aramaic ostraca’, Israel Exploration Journal 40 (1990), 130-152 (Ostracon 1, p. 132). // Masada ostracon: Y. Yadin and J. Naveh, Masada, I, The Aramaic and Hebrew Ostraca and Jar Inscriptions (Jerusalem, 1989), no. 554; Beyer 1994, p. 212. p. 16. Letters of Simeon bar Kosiba: Fitzmyer-Harrington, nos. 5360; Beyer 1984, pp. 350-352; Beyer 1994, pp. 213-222. p. 22. Published by E.Puech, ‘L’inscription christo-palestinienne d’Ayoun Musa (Mont Nebo)’, Liber Annuus 34 (1984), 319-328; Beyer 1994, p. 271. p. 23a. See on Vol. I, p. 159. p. 23b. See on p. 33, below. p. 24. See on p. 33, below. p. 25. Babatha documents: Fitzmyer-Harrington, nos. 61-63; Beyer 1994, pp. 166-184; in general, see A.J. Salderini, ‘Babatha’s story’, Biblical Archaeology Review 24:2 (1998), 28-37, 72-74. // Babatha’s marriage document: Y. Yadin, J.C. Greenfield and A. Yardeni, ‘Babatha’s ketubba’, Israel Exploration Journal 44 (1994), 75-101. p. 28. Inscription of AD 244/5: J. Naveh, ‘Al psephis va-even (Jerusalem, 1978), p. 127.

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p. 29. Naaran synagogue inscription: Fitzmyer-Harrington, no. A3; Beyer 1984, p. 392. // Hammat Gadara: Fitzmyer-Harrington, no. A28; Beyer 1984, p. 385. // Hammat Tiberias: FitzmyerHarrington, no. A30; Beyer 1984, p. 386. // Jericho: FitzmyerHarrington, no. A34; Beyer 1984, p. 388. // En Gedi: FitzmyerHarrington, no. A22; Beyer 1984, p. 364; illustration in Vol. I, p. 21a. p. 30. Wedding in Egypt: C. Sirat and others, La Ketouba de Cologne (Opladen, 1986); Beyer 1994, p. 244-247. p. 31. Zoar inscriptions: Beyer 1994, p. 240-241; several further ones have recently been published by J. Naveh in Tarbiz 64 (1995), 477-497; by S. Stern, in Tarbiz 68 (1999), 177-185; and by H.M. Cotton and J.J. Price, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 134 (2001), 277-283 (Aramaic and Greek). // Aramaic poem on papyrus: ed. J. Yahalom, in Tarbiz 47 (1978), 173-184; for fragments of the same poem from the Cairo Geniza, see M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1999), 82-92, and English translation in A.S. Rodrigues Pereira, Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c.100 BCE–c.600 CE) (Assen, 1997), 398-401. p. 32. Theodoret, Questions on Judges, 19. // Inscription of AD 389: Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie II, no. 555. // Inscriptions from Tel Bica: published by M. Krebernik, ‘Schriftfunde aus Tell Bica 1990’, Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 123 (1991), 41-57; see also G. Kalla, ‘Christentum am oberen Euphrat. Das byzantinische Kloster von Tall Bica’, Antike Welt 30:2 (1999), 131-142. Life of John of Tella: ed. E.W. Brooks, in CSCO, Scr. Syri 7-8 (1907). // Inscription mentioning bishop Peter: see A. Harrak, ‘Notes on Syriac inscriptions’, Orientalia 64 (1995), 110-119. p. 33. Inscription of AD 493: published by E. Puech, in Liber Annuus 38 (1988), 267-270, plates 9-10 (the 3rd and 9th lines have been misread: in line 3, read dhyl, and in line 9, read Mar(y) Hanina; and the first letter of line 2 should be read as shin, not qoph); for the monastery of Beth Mar Hanina, see E. Honigmann, Evêques et évêchés monophysites d’Asie antérieure au VIe siècle (CSCO Subs.2, 1951), 191-192 (his Life, by Jacob of Serugh, is in BL Add. 17174, ff. 145r-151v). // Inscription of AD 504: published by R.C. Steiner, ‘A Syriac church inscription from 504 CE’, Journal of Semitic

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Studies 35 (1990), 99-108. // Inscription of 536 (mosaic): unpublished (evidently in a private collection); the text reads:

‫ܐܐ‬ ‫ܬ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܘ ܒ‬ ‫ܘܐܪܒ‬ ‫[ ܘ‬sic] ‫ܒ ܒ ܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܝ‬ ‫[ ܒ‬for‫ܘܪܢ ]ܒ ܢ‬ ‫ܒܘ‬ ‫ܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܕ ܝܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܕ ܒ ܕ ܐ ܐܬܬ‬ ‫>