[1] Students
and teachers of Greek and Latin have long had a wide array of
tools to assist them in learning the languages and literatures
of their area of study. Original language texts with notes,
vocabularies and commentary abound and are pitched at every
level of expertise from the beginner to the professional
scholar. Students of Biblical Hebrew and New Testament Greek
have many helps in their tasks, as well, in the form of
vocabularies and readers, though their field still is more
likely to expect its students to be involved in professional
training and so does not offer the same array of help on varied
levels. How far from this has been the plight of the student of
Syriac!
[2] In
response to this gap in the materials for the study of Syriac,
Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz have published a volume that
offers students of Syriac language and literature (and their
teachers) an entry into the study of the poetry of St. Ephrem
the Syrian as well as a doorway into the whole exciting field
of Syriac Studies.
[3] The
volume contains a brief introduction offering an overview of
St. Ephrem's life and work, the transmission of his texts and
the meters in which they are composed. Then follow 20 texts,
facing an English translation, drawn from 11 of the collections
in which the works come down to us. The texts are ordered
"according to the outline of Ephrem's concept of salvation
history", which allows the volume to teach its readers another
important fact about Ephrem: that his many and varied works
were all pieces in a delicately drawn picture of reality that
is not always in step with our own. Cautious instructors will
be glad that this choice of a theological ordering will enable
them to avoid long and confusing discussions of different
modern schemes of dating Ephrem's works and students will
benefit by the push to think of Ephrem's words as he would have
done. Appendices that contain a listing of the main editions
and English translations of Ephrem's works, an index of the
Qale according to which the poems are composed and an
index of Scripture citations in the texts add greatly to the
usefulness of the volume for the private owner.
[4] Each of
the 20 texts is prefaced by an introduction that helps to
situate it in Ephrem's over-all pattern of thought, discusses
its particular meter and offers information on where it
survives in manuscript collections. Scriptural citations and
allusions are noted in the margin of the translation page and
occasional footnotes discuss obscure points and situate the
reader in Ephrem's large corpus by drawing connections that
only very wide knowledge of Ephrem's work allows. An added
voice comes from Andrew Palmer, who has offered a number of
contributions to the notes that are marked with his
initials.
[5] Many
students of Semitic languages who have also worked in Latin and
Greek find it difficult to appreciate the reluctance of Semitic
scholars to publish critical texts. The long custom of reading
the margins and the apparatus at the foot of the page along
with the base text seems one that could well be dispensed with.
This volume takes a step in that direction by moving the
authors' suggested readings into the main text. This makes the
experience of struggling through the text much more encouraging
for the student. The words he labors to read actually make
sense and can be construed successfully. Every beginning
student in Semitics knows the bitter moment of realization that
one has forgotten to replace a corrupted reading with one drawn
from a better text and hidden in the apparatus, out of sight
and out of mind. That may become less frequent if this volume's
example is more widely followed.
[6] What
does this volume offer an instructor in search of a text for a
class in Syriac or a student looking for something to read to
polish his Syriac skills? The Syriac text is printed in a
beautiful, cleanly designed serto script that has been
fully vocalized. The lines are well laid out on the pages with
ample space between them, an encouragement to reading aloud or
study. These practical details make using this volume an
exercise in language study for the student rather than a
drudgery of deciphering smeared and cramped lettering. The
translation tracks with the Syriac line by line, so each pair
of pages can be viewed on its own. The notes, which are not
found on every page, offer a variety of kinds of help. Some
seem designed to aid in teaching critical reading. Note 5 on
page 227, attached to stanza 2 of the first of the Carmina
Nisibena, is an excellent example. The translation offered
on the page above is "the deadly flood". The note offers five
other possibilities, including two different emendations. An
energetic instructor could use this note to devote a good
portion of a class meeting to approaches to analyzing the text
one sees on the page and how to draw meaning from an idiom very
different from modern English.
[7] The
primary task of those teaching Syriac studies (as opposed to
those pursuing research in the field) is always to draw more
students into the area by showing them how fascinating and
rewarding it can be. Drs. Brock and Kiraz offer support to that
endeavor in more than one way. This volume allows for an
engagement with the original text of a great early Syrian
theologian and poet. It helps the reader gain a sense of
Ephrem's theological vision of the rise of sin and working out
of salvation in the world. It demonstrates Ephrem's use of
Scripture in his writing. An interested reader, innocent of
Syriac, who read the English pages of the book from beginning
to end would learn a great deal of theology, some history and
gain a sense of a new voice from the Christian past. I think
that groups of interested lay Christians could make very
successful use of this collection as a selection for their
Bible Study or book groups. Individual hymns could certainly be
drawn into discussions based outside Syriac Studies. I think
this book should be on the shelf of every student of Syriac,
but also in parish libraries, as well as college and university
collections.
[8] I cannot
close without noting, as someone who has been involved in both
proof-reading and printing books, that this is an astonishingly
elegant and attractive book. I discovered no misprints at all
in the course of reading it with quite close attention. Only
experience can reveal the amount of effort required to produce
such a fine result. I hope that this will be the first of many
similar volumes to issue from the Brigham Young University
Press.