The Body and Its Senses in Ephrem’s Madrashe
contra haereses and Madrashe de fide: Polemics
and Epistemology
Michelle
Freeman
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2022
Volume 25.2
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
license has been granted by the author(s), who retain full
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv25n2freeman
Michelle Freeman
The Body and Its Senses in Ephrem’s Madrashe contra haereses and Madrashe de
fide: Polemics and Epistemology
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol25/HV25N2Freeman.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2022
vol 25
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pp 417-453
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
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Ephrem
Madrashe
Epistemology
Body
Senses
Perception
File created by James E. Walters
Abstract
In his vast corpus of madrashe, Ephrem sometimes makes seemingly
inconsistent valuations of the body and its senses, praising them as vehicles
for experiencing God on the one hand and degrading them as foul, lowly, and
incapable of understanding God on the other. This article compares Ephrem’s
different assessments of the body and senses in his Madrashe
contra haereses 42-44 and Madrashe de fide 27,
41, 70, and 75. It will offer a twofold solution to understanding their
conflicting views of human corporeality by attending to Ephrem’s polemical
rhetoric and epistemological underpinnings. I argue that, while Ephrem shifts
his valuation of the body and its senses in accordance with his polemical
agenda, his recognition of the body’s centrality in acquiring knowledge remains
consistent. This argument advances our understanding of the perception-centered
epistemologies of many late ancient Christians, who drew from broader Greek and
Syrian philosophical contexts.
He divided up and gave. He gave to us the earth
For the feet; he gave to us light
For the eyes; and for the ears
He gave sounds and words. In these things which he gave
He is found trustworthy in everything that he promised.
Madrasha contra haereses 43.24
Look: the senses of the sons of the High One,
Though subtle and spiritual,
Are yet insufficient.
Therefore, cease from discussion,
O dense senses of the fat body,
Causing pus to flow!
Madrasha de fide 75.26-27
Introduction
Ephrem wrote amid intense competition for an orthodox
Christian identity in fourth-century Syria. In over four hundred extant madrashe or hymns, he frequently engages in polemics
centered around the human capacity to know God, responding to various
theological opponents: Marcionites, Manichaeans, Bardaisanites, and a slew of
neo-Arian groups. As the above stanzas demonstrate, sometimes Ephrem presents
seemingly contradictory views in his mass of hymnography. In the first, Madrasha contra haereses 43, he lauds the human body as a
vehicle for experiencing God’s creation. He claims that humans come to trust in
God’s promises through their senses and the material world perceived through
them. In the second, Madrasha de fide 75, Ephrem takes a
different tack: he deprecates the body and its senses, which are too limited to
understand God. He associates the body with density, fatness, and pus, conjuring
negative and abject imagery to emphasize its distance from the divine. These
inconsistent perspectives on the body raise questions about Ephrem’s
epistemology: what role does the human body play in knowing God? What are the
body’s limits in understanding the divine? What is God’s relationship to His
material creation, including human corporeality?
This article will compare Ephrem’s assessments of the body and senses in several
madrashe from these two cycles of hymns—the Madrashe contra
haereses (McH) and the Madrashe de fide (MdF). It will offer a twofold
solution to understanding their different attitudes toward human corporeality by
attending to Ephrem’s polemical rhetoric and epistemological underpinnings. I
argue that, while Ephrem shifts his valuation of the body and its senses in
accordance with his polemical agenda, his recognition of the body’s centrality
in acquiring knowledge remains consistent.
Ephrem’s ostensibly divergent views of the body have caused scholars to produce
two different assessments of his epistemology. On the one hand, many readers
have highlighted Ephrem’s emphasis on the limited human capacity for knowing
God, who is separated from creation by a chasm that can only partially be
breached. For
the chasm and partial breaching of it, see Ute Possekel, “Ephrem’s
Doctrine of God,” in God in Early Christian Thought:
Essays in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson, Supplements to Vigiliae
Christianae 94, ed. Andrew McGowan (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 202–6; Mark J.
Mourachian, "Human Freedom in the Context of the Theological
Anthropology of St. Ephrem the Syrian," (PhD diss., Catholic University
of America, 2012), 106–23; Thomas Kathanar Koonammakkal, "The
Self-Revealing God and Man in Ephrem" (The Harp 6
[1993]), 233–43; Paul S. Russell, “Ephraem the Syrian on the Utility of
Language and the Place of Silence'' (Journal of Early
Christian Studies 8 [2000]), 30–37; Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint
Ephrem, Cistercian Studies 124 (Spencer, MS: Cistercian
Publications, 1992; orig. published Rome: Center for Indian and
Inter-Religious Studies, 1985), 26–9; Jeffrey Wickes, Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem’s Hymns on
Faith, Christianity in Late Antiquity 4 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2019), 11–42. For Ephrem’s reference to the chasm,
see MdF 69.11 and MdF
15.5. English translation of MdF in Jeffrey
Wickes, trans., St. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns on
Faith, Fathers of the Church 130 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 2015), and Syriac text in E. Beck, ed and
trans., Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de
Fide, CSCO 73 (Louvain: CSCO, 1955). I draw all English
translations of the MdF from Wickes.
According to Ephrem, humans can know God only to the extent that He has revealed
himself through symbols in nature, liturgy, and Scripture, On Ephrem’s notion of symbols
and their partial revelation in Scripture, nature, sacraments, and
Christ, see Predrag Bukovec, “Gotteserkenntnis in Ephraems des Syrers
Hymn de fide” (Saeculum 60 [2010]), 17–40;
Georges Saber, "La typologie sacramentaire et baptismale de Saint
Ephrem" (ParOr 4 [1973]), 73–91; Sidney H.
Griffith, “The Image of the Image Maker in the Poetry of Ephrem the
Syrian” (StPatr 25 [1993]), 258-69; Edmund Beck,
Die Theologie des heiligen Ephrem in seinen Hymnen
über den Glauben, Studia Anselmiana 21 (Rome: Pontificium
Institutum S. Anselmi, 1949), 23–34; Seeley Joseph Beggiana, “The
Typological Approach of Syriac Sacramental Theology” (Theological Studies 64 [2003]), 543–57; Mourachian, “Human
Freedom,” 108–29; and Koonammakkal, “The Self-Revealing God”; and Brock,
The Luminous Eye, 53–84. The classic study of
symbols in early Syriac literature, particularly that of Ephrem and
Aphrahat, is Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and
Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1975). which humans can observe
through faith, love, and madrashic paradoxes.For emphases on faith and love in Ephrem, see
Sidney Griffith, “Faith Seeking Understanding in the Thought of St.
Ephrem,” in Faith Seeking Understanding: Learning and
the Catholic Tradition: Selected Paper from the Symposium and
Convocation Celebrating the Saint Anselm College Centennial,
ed. George Charles Berthold (Manchester, NH: Saint Anselm College Press,
1991); Brock, The Luminous Eye, 43–6 and 67–84;
Charis Vleugels, “The Response to Chasm and Bridge: The Wings of Truth
and Attitude in Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on Faith” (The Harp 22 [2007]), 183–92; Mourachian, “Human Freedom,”
129–69. For a classic explanation of Ephrem’s paradoxical approach to
theology, see Brock, The Luminous Eye, 24–5.
These symbols give knowledge of God’s existence but not of the
mode or character of his being. As Jeffrey Wickes states regarding Ephrem’s MdF, Ephrem does not take issue with specific theological
doctrines per se but rather with their mode of inquiry.
To proceed with logical and grammatical methods instead of Scripture and symbols
is to arrogate an intimate knowledge of God’s hidden nature. Wickes, St.
Ephrem the Syrian, 43–6; David Bundy, “Language and the
Knowledge of God in Ephrem Syrus” (The Patristic and
Byzantine Review 5 [1986]), 9–103. Thus, most
scholars claim that Ephrem thought the limited nature of human knowledge
circumscribes human understanding of God. See especially E. Beck, Ephräms des Syrers Psychologie und Erkenntnislehre (Louvain:
CSCO, 1980), 135-47. This line of interpretation, however,
tends to focus heavily on knowledge as a cognitive, abstract experience. These
scholars refer to limited knowledge, knowledge merely of God’s existence,
faith-based inquiry, and revealed knowledge. They largely fail to engage
Ephrem’s frequent discussion of the body and perception as instruments—albeit
limited ones—of experiencing God. Beck, Die Theologie, 23–34
attends briefly to Ephrem’s sensory language in the MdF, although with little focus on the importance of
perception in knowledge.
On the other hand, Susan Ashbrook Harvey highlights Ephrem’s attention to
corporeality and the senses. Harvey proposes that, “Rather than seeing Creator
and creation separated by an unbreachable chasm, Ephrem delights in exploring
the created universe for its endless capacity to reveal its Maker” and that
“Ephrem is concerned with knowledge that is non-cognitive yet genuinely
revelatory of divine being, truth, and action.” Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “St. Ephrem on the
Scent of Salvation” (Journal of Theological
Studies 49 [1998]), 109–28. In her view, Ephrem,
along with other late ancient Christians, conceives of sensory experience as a
means of directly encountering divine revelation in nature and liturgy. In addition to n.
6, see Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation:
Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination, The
Transformation of the Classical heritage 42 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2006). Harvey’s work is part of a more
significant scholarly attempt to understand the perceptually based
epistemologies of late ancient Christians. After Christianity was legalized and
adopted by Roman imperial officials, Christians increasingly engaged the
potential of the material world as a point of interaction with the divine. In
particular, scholars have pointed to the body’s senses – sight, touch, smell,
sound, and taste – as mechanisms for knowing and experiencing God. Major analyses
include Patricia Cox Miller, The Corporeal
Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Antiquity,
Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), which labels this change in late ancient
Christian epistemology the “material turn”; Susan Ashbrook Harvey,
“Locating the Sensing Body: Perception and Religious Identity in Late
Antiquity,” in Religion and the Self in Antiquity,
ed. David Brakke, Michael L. Satlow, and Steven Weitzman
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 140–62; and Georgia
Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living
Saints in Late Antiquity, The Transformation of the Classical
Heritage 30 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). For essays
on the various late ancient Christian conceptions of the “spiritual
senses,” which in some cases were transformed or well-trained physical
senses, see Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley, eds., The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Such work is
aided by studies that highlight the physiological basis of ancient perceptual
and cognitive theories. For example, the materialist analysis of
Aristotelian perceptual theory in Deborah K. Modrak, Aristotle: The Power of Perception (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1987); the psycho-somatic emphases in Philip J. Van der
Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity:
Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health, and Disease
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); the examination of the
materiality of ancient and medieval conceptions of memory in Mary
Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in
Medieval Culture, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and the analysis of
ancient psycho-somatic dynamics of vision in A. Mark Smith, From Sight to Light: The Passage from Ancient to
Modern Optics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2015). This line of thinking proposes that many ancient
Christians had epistemologies firmly grounded in perception and corporeality.
Both of these interpretations of Ephrem’s conception of knowing God—limited
cognitive knowledge, yet rich sensory experience of his creation and
revelation—are well-founded, based on the hymns I analyze in this paper. The
varying polemical contexts of Ephrem’s madrashe generate his shifting
epistemological emphases, sometimes making his statements appear discordant. I
will address both his rhetorical situation and epistemological commitments to
analyze Ephrem’s seemingly disparate evaluations of the body introduced above.
As Ute Possekel notes, “Ephrem formulated his doctrine of God to a significant
extent with apologetic purposes in mind.” Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God,” 198.
Not only apologetic but blatantly polemical are many of his
madrashe, meant to sway listeners toward his brand of Christianity. On Ephrem’s
madrashe as a means of setting the boundaries of Orthodoxy, gaining
adherents for it, and polemicizing heretical doctrines, see Sidney
Griffith, “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephrem’s Hymns
against Heresies,” in The Limits of Ancient
Chrsitianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of
R. A. Markus, ed. William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 97–114; "The Marks of the
True Church According to Ephrem's Hymns Against Heresies,” in After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in
Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professir Han J. W. Drijvers,
eds. G. J. Reinink and Alexander Cornelis Klugkist (Louven: Peeters,
1999), 125–40; and Flavia Ruani, ed. and trans., Éphrem de Nisibe: Hymnes contre les hérésies, Bibliotèque de
L’Orient Chrétien (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2018), IX–LVI. For these
hymns as a means of instruction, see Jeffrey Wickes, “Between Liturgy
and School: Reassessing the Performative Context of Ephrem’s Madrashe” (Journal of Early
Christian Studies 26 [2018], 25-51. In the McH 42-44, the focus of the first part of my analysis,
his adversaries are Marcionites, who disparage the human body as a wicked
vessel; It
should be noted that the McH is a group of hymns
that attacks a wide range of theological opponents: Marcionites,
Bardaisanites, Manichaeans, Arians, and even Jews. In McH 42–44, however, Ephrem directs most of his attention
against Marcionite ideas. and in the MdF 27, 41, 70, 75, which I examine in the second part of my analysis,
he attacks theological “investigators,” who try to discern God’s nature. I have
chosen these particular madrashe for their focus on the body (ܦܓܪܐ) and the senses (ܪ̈ܓܫܐ), as well as for their aforementioned contrasting
perspectives on the body. Notably, the McH have
received meager scholarly attention to date, and McH 42–44 virtually none. Sustained analyses of the McH are Phil J. Botha, "The Poetic Face of
Rhetoric: Ephrem's Polemics against the Jews and Heretics in Contra
Haereses 25" (Acta Patristica et Byzantina 2
[1991]), 16–36; idem, "The Textual Strategy of Ephrem the Syrian's Hymn
Contra Haereses I" (Acta Patristica et Byzantina
15 [2004]), 57–75; Griffith, “Setting Right the Church”; idem, “Marks of
the True Church”; idem, "St. Ephrem, Bar Daysan, and the Clash of
Madrashe in Aram: readings in St. Ephrem's Hymni contra Haereses" (The Harp 21 [2006]), 447–72; idem,
"'Denominationalism' in Fourth-Century Syria: Readings in Saint
Ephraem's Hymns against Heresies,” in The Garb of
Being: Embodiment and the Pursuit of Holiness in Late Ancient
Christianity, Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought,
eds. Georgia Frank, Susan Holman, and Andrew S. Jacobs (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2020), 79–100; Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns
in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, D. C.: Catholic University
of America Press, 2008); and Ruani, Éphrem de
Nisibe, 2018. I will consider the rhetorical
situatedness of each set of hymns, allowing that Ephrem’s emphases may vary in
order to meet the practical needs of his listeners. Nevertheless, I will show
that there is an underlying epistemological assumption in these hymns that gives
their different approaches coherence: Ephrem conceives of all knowledge as
ultimately grounded in the body and perception. In addition to Harvey’s work cited above,
other serious treatments of perception in Ephrem are E. Beck, Ephräms des Syrers Psychologie, 135-47, which
discusses Ephrem’s references to corporeal eyes and the eyes of the soul
and his superficial familiarity with Stoic theories of perception and
cognition; Phil J. Botha, “The Significance of the Senses in St.
Ephrem’s Description of Paradise” (Acta Patristica et
Byzantina 5 [1994]), 28–37, which argues for a metaphorical
interpretation of Ephrem’s sensory language; Ute Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the
Writings of Ephrem the Syrian (Louvain: Peeters, 1999),
187–229, which convincingly demonstrates Ephrem’s familiarity with Greek
medico-philosophical theories of perception, particularly that of the
Stoics; and Wickes, Bible and Poetry, 84-103,
which demonstrates Ephrem’s use of visual imagery and language of sight
to instruct his audiences, rather than relying on education for
theological understanding. In his view, which conceives of a
tight unity between body and soul (or mind), For Ephrem’s conception of the tight unity
between body and soul (or mind), see Sebastian P. Brock, “The Dispute
between Body and Soul: An Example of a Long-Lived Mesopotamian Literary
Genre” (ARAM 1 [1989]), 53–64 and The Luminous Eye, 36–8; Susan Ashbrook Harvey,
Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus
and the Lives of the Eastern Saints, The Transformation of the
Classical Heritage 18 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990),
4–13; Jaehyun Kim, “Body and Soul in Ephrem the Syrian” (Syriac Studies [2002]), 79–117; and Thomas
Koonammakkal, “Ephrem’s Polemics on the Human Body” (StPatr 35 [2001]), 428–32. it is imprudent to
denigrate the body, which is humanity’s means of experiencing God’s activity. It
is also improper, however, to pursue theology to understand the nuances of God’s
being because all knowledge is derived from the body, which is limited in its
capacity to know God. In a recent article, Blake Hartung (“The
Authorship and Dating of the Syriac Corpus of Ephrem of Nisibis: A
Reassessment” [Zeitschrift für Antikes
Christentum 22 (2018)], 296–321) has described the lack of
consensus regarding the authorship of all the hymns attributed to
Ephrem. Collected in thematic cycles by later editors, scholars
acknowledge that individual hymns and stanzas that Ephrem did not author
were included in these collections. This leaves us to wonder if the
contrasting perspectives of different hymns, such as those I examine
here, indicate multiple authors. This conclusion, I believe, is
unnecessary with regard to the two sets of hymns I analyze, as this
paper will demonstrate.
Perceiving God: The Healed Human Body in MCH
42-44
In Ephrem’s McH 42-44, praise for the body and its senses
is inseparably intertwined with clever and sarcastic arguments against
Marcionite dualism. Syriac text in E. Beck, ed. and trans, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra
Haereses, CSCO 77 (Louven: Peeters, 1957). Syriac text and
French translation, whose numbering I follow here, in Domonique
Cerbelaud, trans., Ephrem de Nisibe: Hymnes contre les
heresies; Hymnes contra Julien, vol. 2 (Paris: Les editions du
Cerf, 2017). English translations of the McH have
been produced by myself and two of my colleagues, Nathan Tilley and
Maroun El Houkayem, both of Duke University. While Cerbelaud claims
Ephrem produced these hymns in Nisibis, Blake Hartung, “The Authorship
and Dating” demonstrates that our meager knowledge of the fourth-century
Syrian Christian context does not allow for precise claims about
provenance for most of Ephrem’s hymns. Ruani, Éphrem
de Nisibe, XXVI–XXVII argues that some of the hymns were
composed in Nisibis and others in Edessa. According to
Ephrem, Marcion preached that the god of the Old Testament was the creator of
the physical universe, who fashioned everything out of wicked matter (ܗܘܠܐ, Greek: ὕλη) and who “loves” the material
body; the “Stranger” God, who was present in Christ and who “hates the body,” on
the other hand, came to save humanity from the evil and sin inherent in its
corporeality. For Ephrem’s conception of the Marcionite view,
see Cerbelaud, Ephrem de Nisibe, 11–3;
Koonammakkal, “Ephrem’s Polemics on the Human Body”; Botha, “The Textual
Strategy”; and David Kiger, “Fire in the Bread, Life in the Body: The
Pneumatology of Ephrem the Syrian,” (PhD diss., Marquette University,
2009), 106–12. Cf. McH 34.15-16. For
Marcion, Christ came to heal the body of its innate lameness; Ephrem agrees that
Christ healed the body, but not, as I will show, because he thinks it was
created wicked, but because it was subsequently wounded by sin. Marcionites, he
claims, disparaged the body to such an extent that they considered it to be of
one nature with demons. See McH 43.4,17.
They denigrate the material body as a wicked and depraved vessel
as opposed to the immaterial soul, which the Stranger loves. See McH 42.3–4; This is not necessarily an accurate representation
of Marcionite views, but rather Ephrem’s rhetorical stereotype. My study
is not concerned with historical Marcionites’ beliefs but with how
Ephrem represents them. The extent of the threat that Marcionism posed
in Ephrem’s communities, or in the fourth century in general, is
unclear.
For Ephrem, Christ healed the body through his Incarnation, but not because he
thought it was created evil and sinful. How can Christ hate the body “even
though he dwells in it?” asks Ephrem.
McH 42.3. For a comprehensive study of Ephrem’s
perspective on the role of healing in salvation history, see Aho
Shemunkasho, Healing in the Theology of Saint
Ephrem, Gorgias Dissertations: Near Eastern Studies 1
(Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002). Indeed, Christ “has as
a temple the body, which he loves” and “desires that it be his habitation.”
McH 42.2, 4. Ephrem argues that Christ
would not have chosen to become incarnate in a human body if it were created
wicked and he hated it. Furthermore, he says that “With the body he would not
mingle his mysteries, if it were from the Wicked One.”
McH 43.3. While he does not conceive
of corporeality as wicked in its origins, he does admit that Christ came to heal
the body and its senses because they were worn out by past generations of humans
and thus in need of restoration to their earlier health:
If it is the case that the body is a detestable instrument
Of the detestable Wicked One: its flutes grew old,
the body’s sense organs (ܪ̈ܓܫܝ ܓܘܫܡܐ ),
and our Lord came
setting them straight. He made firm his harp,
Which he healed; he gave health to the body.
McH 43.19.
Ephrem thus vindicates human corporeality, which was not created wicked and
decrepit by God but is merely wounded and erring. Ruani, Éphrem de Nisibe, LII–LIV also reaches this conclusion.
Ephrem also proves the body’s intrinsic goodness by demonstrating that the
creator God of the Old Testament is the same God that sent Christ to heal human
corporeality; they are not distinct entities with opposing views of the body as
the Marcionites claim, but rather they both love the body. He shows this by
paralleling instances of positive, salvific activity toward the body by both the
Old Testament God and Christ. In the Old Testament, God cleanses Miryam and
Nahamon, just as Christ cleanses the ten lepers in the gospel.
McH 43.16. God created people with
eyes and hands to do good, just as Christ healed them to do good in
redemption.
McH 42.1, passim.
Moreover, just as God had Moses destroy the eyes and ears of the
golden calf to guide Israel away from idolatry, Christ heals the eyes and
ears.
McH 43.11. Because both God and
Christ positively value the body and its health, Ephrem considers it “wicked impiety” if “the Physician is more beloved
/ Than the Fashioner, / And the Surgeon more beloved / Than the Creator.”
McH 43.7. Rather, these two are the
same God doing the same work:
That is to say, the body is between the Healer
And the Fashioner. The one they have blamed,
And the other they have praised. Their works are one . . .
The work of the carpenter, the carpenter then
Is able to repair. A blacksmith, too,
Can repair the work of a blacksmith. And the Son of the Creator,
can repair the work of the Creator. Because healing, too,
Is a second creation.
McH 43.8–9.
The body is thus innately good, for God both made and continually guides it in
goodness.
In these three hymns, Christ directs his healing power primarily toward the sense
organs—the eyes, mouth, and ears—thus reorienting the human sensorium so humans
can experience and know God. Although they were worn out, “Our Lord came /
setting them straight. / He made firm his harp, / which he healed; he gave /
health to the body.”
McH 43.19. When Christ “found the
body blind” he “gave it light.” He “opened the eyes of the body, and its ears he
restored.”
McH 43.10–11. Taunting his opponents,
Ephrem sarcastically claims that “the Stranger / who hates the body, countless
deaf and tongue-tied / he healed.”
McH 43.15. It makes no sense to
Ephrem that Christ could heal the body, as he does in the gospel, if he hated
it. This positive restoration of the senses is the same as that performed by God
in the Old Testament, for
They do not indeed put new wine
In old wineskins. But he gave the senses (ܪ̈ܓܫܐ),
According to the commandments: a new ear
According to the commandment. For by the ear that has grown old
New melodies are not heard.
This is a marvel, that he gave commandments
That are not the old ones, and he gave members (ܗܕ̈ܡܐ)Possekel, Evidence of
Greek Philosophical Concepts, 188 notes that Ephrem
often uses “senses (ܪ̈ܓܫܐ)”
and “limbs (ܗܕ̈ܡܐ)
synonymously.
That are not foreign! The senses, which he healed,
Proclaim him. For even if the sounds that he gave
Are new, they are not foreign!McH 44.6–7.
In Ephrem’s view, God gave new commandments when Moses destroyed the tablets
inscribed with the Law.For this theme more broadly in Ephrem, see
Shemunkasho, Healing in the Theology of Saint
Ephrem, 109 and 181. Along with these new
commandments, he renewed the senses so that humans might improve their
relationship with God and become more familiar with him through their bodies,
which are not “foreign” to him.
That the body is not of the same nature as the demons and Satan—and therefore not
created wicked—Ephrem also demonstrates through Christ’s healing of human bodies
but not demonic ones. His account of Christ’s exorcising of the Gerasene
demoniac reduces the Marcionite argument to absurdity. Recalling how Christ sent
the demons into pigs, he says that Satan “asked for things contrary to himself,”
namely, he asked for a body with legs instead of his “lame” serpentine body.
Christ acquiesced so that the demons “might be disgraced”—sent into swine to
drown—and not, Ephrem mocks, because “Our Lord / who healed the lame, to the
serpent who is lame / in a lame body / he gave feet . . .” That is, if
Marcionites claim that demons and the human body are of the same nature, they
would be forced to give the ridiculous interpretation that Jesus was healing the
demons’ bodies by sending them into pigs. Rather, just as God “crippled the
serpent,” so Christ “drowned in the lake” the pigs possessed by the
demons.”
McH 43.1–6. Their work is the same, directed not
toward transforming innately wicked bodies, whether human or demonic, but toward
healing the wounded human sensorium alone. Ephrem further highlights the illogic
of the Marcionites’ claim by reasoning,
And if, as they have determined, one is the nature
Of the body and the demons, and our Lord healed
Its (the body’s) feet and its hands, its eyes and its ears,
And the rest of its sense organs (ܪ̈ܓܫܘܗܝ), then the whole demon
He has put in good order and made it to stand up and act impiously!
McH 43.17.
Again, Ephrem finds it ridiculous to conclude that Christ healed demons alongside
human bodies due to the supposed likeness between the human body and demons. The
absurdity of this conclusion, he feels, demonstrates the ontological distinction
between the two.
According to these hymns, the body and senses play an instrumental role in God’s
salvific plan. They are the chief means of experiencing and communicating with
God through the sacraments and Scripture. Whereas Christ gave pigs to the
demons, “His bread and blood / he gave to the body. With the body he would not
mingle / his mysteries, if they were from the Wicked One.”
McH 43.3. The Eucharistic elements
are consumed by the body, tasted by the mouth, creating a relationship between
Christ and the human recipient. He exclaims, since Jesus did not hate the body
but came to heal it, “Blessed is the one who gave / the hands with which we may
receive his body!”
McH 43.22. The salvific power of
Christ’s body and the bodily mechanism, the hands, which God fashioned for
humans to receive it in the Eucharist, exhibit the value of corporeality for
salvation. The ear, too, is “necessary,” and Christ “opened it for his words” so
that people might hear Scripture, the main source of revelation from God in
Ephrem’s view.
McH 43.20. God fashioned and healed
the human sensorium specifically in order to perceive and experience his
salvific power:
The mouth that he gave is for his bread
And for his cup; the eyes that he created
Are for his books; and for his church
He also gave the feet. And if to the Stranger
These things are useful, unbelievers are vanquished!
McH 43.25.
By God’s design and Christ’s healing, humans have a mouth and taste to partake of
the Eucharistic body and blood; they have eyes so they can see the words written
in Scripture, and they have feet to assemble at church and worship. In sum, the
body is how humans experience God’s activity in the world and attain
salvation.
Just as God modeled the body around the salvific plan, so also he constructed the
world around the human body so that the body and sense perception are, in their
very essence, beneficial for encountering God and his creation. By harmonizing
the world to human corporeality, God demonstrates the love that he and his Son
have for the body:
He divided up and gave. He gave to us the earth
For the feet; he gave to us light
For the eyes; for the ears
He gave sounds and words. In these things which he gave
He is found trustworthy in everything that he promised.
McH 43.24.
Here, Ephrem notably ascribes the source of belief to the body and creation.
Humans come to believe in God's promises by the material world and its objects
of perception—earth, light, and sound—and by the limbs and organs he gave to
experience them. He berates his opponents because, “As much as they alienate
[Him], they come to encounter / our Creator, against whom they have blasphemed,
/ although they do not perceive (ܠܐ ܪ̈ܓܝܫܝܢ
).”
McH 44.11. In other words, he attacks
Marcionites not for failing to understand some abstract doctrine about God, but
specifically for not correctly interpreting sensory input that demonstrates
God’s beneficent disposition toward human corporeality. Ephrem thus grants an
inescapably positive valuation to the body and senses as a means of experiencing
God’s activity.
It is noteworthy that in McH 42-44, Ephrem never mentions
abstract, disembodied cognition as a means of knowing God. In one instance, he
derides his opponents for trying to “represent within their minds another light”
that is not the true God, but even this statement relies on ancient theories of
perception in which physical, sensory impressions are transformed into mental
representations.
McH 44. 9. I assume throughout this paper, based
on the evidence provided by previous scholars, that Ephrem is familiar
with certain Greek philosophical theories of perception and cognition.
For the most comprehensive analysis, see Ute Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts, along with Beck, Ephräms des Syrers Psychologie; Wickes, Bible and Poetry, 12–14; and Griffith, “Setting
Right the Church of Syria.” Otherwise, Ephrem consistently
describes all encounters with God as corporeal, sensory experiences: Christ
inhabits the body, brings light to the eyes, and is consumed in the Eucharistic
elements. That is, embodied humans are capable of experiencing God’s revelation
and activity, but Ephrem does not propose that they can gain a cognitive
understanding of the divine nature. In these hymns, Ephrem’s attack on Marcion’s
disparagement of the body is founded on the notion that bodily perception is the
foremost means of encountering God.
Limited Knowledge of God: The Lowly Body in MDF 27, 41,
70, and 75
The body and senses also play a central role in Madrashe de
fide 27, 41, 70, and 75, an aspect to which interpreters have paid
little attention. In the MdF, Ephrem frequently and
consistently denounces those who “investigate (ܒܨܐ and ܒܥܐ)” and “debate
(ܕܪܫ)” about God’s nature. Based on
certain theological positions that Ephrem disputes in these hymns, most scholars
have determined that Ephrem likely aims his polemic at Arians, semi-Arians, or
Aetians.
Griffith, “Faith Seeking Understanding,” 39–41; Possekel, “Ephrem’s
Doctrine of God,” 198–202; Wickes, Hymns on
Faith, 19–48. While it is often stated that Ephrem likely wrote
these hymns when he came to Edessa and encountered Greek trinitarian
controversies, Hartung, “The Authorship and Dating” has demonstrated
that we cannot be certain. But besides their varied attempts
to determine which trinitarian doctrine he attacks, scholars are more united in
their claim that Ephrem’s MdF deride “a way of doing theology.”Quotation in Wickes, Hymns on
Faith, 46. See also Paul S. Russel, “A Note on Ephraem the
Syrian and ‘The Poison of the Greeks’ in Hymns on Faith 2” (The Harp 10 [1997]), 45–54; Vleugels, “Response
to Chasm and Bridge”; Possekel, “Ephrem’s Doctrine of God”; Francoise
Cassingena-Trevedy, "Le Rationalisme Theologique Comme Mal Radical a
travers Les Hymnes sur La Foi d'Ephrem de Nisibe," in Les forces du bien et du mal dans les premiers siecles de l'eglide:
actes du colloque de Tours, ed. Yves-Marie Blanchard, Berbard
Pouderon, and Madeleine Scopello (Paris: Beauchesne, 2010), 65–75.
Wickes argues that, much as Athanasius constructed the category
of “Arian,” Ephrem constructed the category of “investigation,” as opposed to
his own theological position, which argues for humans’ limited capacity to know
God.
Wickes, St. Ephrem the Syrian, 46.
That is, Ephrem appears to reject, at least to a certain extent, the theological
debate about God’s nature undertaken by fourth-century Greek Christian thinkers.
Unlike in McH 42-44, these four hymns from the MdF refer to the mind and its feeble attempts at
understanding, demonstrating that the target of Ephrem’s invective is abstract
theological pursuit. He complains that the soul “cannot be seen by the mind
(ܬܪܥܝܬܐ)”
MdF 70.2. and that although “minds
(ܪ̈ܥܝܢܐ) gaze” they “see themselves
instead of Him!”
MdF 27.1. The nature of the soul and
God were typical objects of investigation in trinitarian and soteriological
discussions of the fourth century, but Ephrem does not think the human mind can
come to accurate conclusions about them. Indeed, he asserts that “it is
impossible to depict in our heart / the ‘how’ of [God’s] nature that
exists.”
MdF 27.3. See Beck, Ephräms des
Syrers Psychologie, 147-59. Whereas in his McH Ephrem lauded the ability of the body to experience
God’s creation and activity, here he takes issue with theologians’ attempts to
reason about the finer details of God’s being. He explains, “‘Where’ should not
be sought out, ‘how’ not debated, / ‘why’ not mentioned, and ‘when’ not
investigated.”
MdF 41.4.
That Ephrem is talking about theology becomes most evident in the two biblical
analogies he provides. In one case, he refers to the account of Balaam and the
talking donkey in Numbers 22, focusing on Balaam’s reaction. He explains that
just like the “investigators” he loathes, “When that donkey unexpectedly spoke,
/ Balaam saw the miracle, but completely failed to marvel. / Yet as the donkey’s
mouth was rational (ܡܠܠܐ), / [Balaam] forgot
about himself and was persuaded by his Donkey.”
MdF 41.7. Balaam did not wonder at
the miracle God placed right before his eyes—a talking donkey!—but was more
concerned with the logic of the donkey’s words, just as the “debaters” of his
day miss the mystery of the Trinity for their disputes over its nature.
Likewise, he compares these theologians to the scribes in the Gospels, who
“forsook the marvel [of] the blind [whose eyes] were opened, / And stirred up an
investigation into the Sabbath and the clay.”
MdF 41.7. See also Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy, 118–43 for
a discussion of Ephrem’s comparison of Arians to the Pharisees in the
Gospels. Ephrem thus opposes theoretical discourse about God
to revelatory experience.
It is commonly acknowledged that the MdF polemicize
theological discourse, and interpreters usually highlight Ephrem’s view of the
limited human capacity for knowing God and his faith-based approach. But many
have not recognized that these hymns also degrade the body and the senses as an
extension of this polemic, deploying perceptual language in their attack.
Ephrem’s position might seem counter-intuitive to modern readers, who tend to
distinguish between mental and somatic capacities. If Ephrem despises abstract
mental exercises, what need does he have to disparage the body, which he so
profoundly praises as a vehicle for encountering God in McH 42-44? I argue that it is because Ephrem does not conceive of
cognition as distinct from the body; he thinks that the only way to gain
knowledge is through the body’s senses, just as he assumes in the McH. Therefore, to counter excessive theological
conjecture, he laments the limitations of the senses and degrades the body for
its lowliness and inability to access God.
Because Ephrem conceives of all knowledge as derived from perceptual experience,
he uses a range of sensory language in these four hymns to attack theological
discourse. As stated above, Ephrem describes minds and souls as “gazing
(ܨܕ)” and “seeing (ܚܙܐ)”;
MdF 70.2, 27.1. while this may be a
standard way to describe the action of souls, this visual terminology sets the
stage for Ephrem’s heavy engagement with perceptual language. Ephrem goes on to
lament that “natures think they see (ܚܙܝܢ)
him, whom they have never been able to see.” He believes that humans have erred
if they “think they have seen (ܚܙܘ) him in an
image.”
MdF 27.3 In these descriptions,
theology fails to account for the human inability to perceive God visually;
theologians perceive something that they think is God, but in reality, it is not
Him. Ephrem deems the investigators “blind” because they fail to perceive, for
“The blind soul, which itself / cannot see (ܬܚܙܐ): how could it gaze (ܬܨܕ)
/ upon divinity?”
MdF 70.4. In these four hymns, Ephrem
consistently refers to theological investigation as an act of seeing—or rather,
failing to see—God. For the preponderance of vocabulary related to
sight and vision in Ephrem’s MdF, see Wickes, Bible and Poetry, 84-103, especially 85-86.
Ephrem further argues that the investigators mistakenly perceived certain things
as God Himself. “Instead of Him,” he posits, “they have seen (ܚܙܝܢ) themselves and thought, lo, they had seen
(ܚܙܐܘܗܝ) him,” referring to their use of
human categories and characteristics to define God.
MdF 27.2. He states that “They have
touched (ܡܫܘ) gold and likened it to light. /
They have handled (ܓܫܘ) jewels, thinking light
was within. / They have touched everything and handled everything, / and look:
fools think they have handled the light.” Ephrem commonly uses “light” to refer
to God, and he thinks that people often perceive one thing to be God, when it is
really not Him. Even though they “stand inside the light,” they “go around
looking for it,” simply failing to perceive God who is present around them.
MdF 27.4. In this case, theological
reasoning is a misperception because the soul does not correctly interpret the
data about God that it perceives. While one could argue that Ephrem is speaking
metaphorically with this sensory terminology, Syriac views on the unity of body
and soul and Greco-Roman theories of the role of physiological perception in
cognition provide a better context with which to understand Ephrem’s
synonymization of knowing and perceiving. In particular, see Modrak, Aristotle: The Power of Perception and Philip Van der Eijk,
Medicine and Philosophy in Classical
Antiquity, 206–37 for Aristotle’s influential theorization of
perception as the basis of cognition. See Beck, Ephräms des Syrers Psychologie, 97-105 for Ephrem’s equation
of sensory knowledge and intellectual knowledge, which he thinks
indicates Ephrem’s vague familiarity with Stoic theories of cognition.
Ephrem’s continued engagement with the physiological details of perception
demonstrates his assumption that knowledge derives from the senses. Beck, Ephräms des Syrers Psychologie, 136 acknowledges
the similarity of Ephrem’s notion that perception is the basis for
knowledge with Stoicism. Whereas Beck engages Stoic theories of
cognition as points of comparison with Ephrem, my argument shows his
general familiarity with a variety of ancient theories of
perception. He attacks his opponents by appealing to the
limitations of each sense in relation to their proper sensibles. For example, he
posits that
They do not think of how they have
One sense like the light (ܚܕ ܪܓܫܐ ܐܚܝܢܗ
ܕܢܗܝܪܐ)
[While] the other senses are concealed,
And all are foreign to the light.
[The light’s] color is not tasted, its scent not smelled.
Its brightness is inaudible, and its light cannot be touched.
Only seeing is similar (ܚܙܝܐ ܠܚܘܕ ܒܪ
ܛܘܗܡܐ ):
It understands it, as a child its parent.
MdF 27.5.
Ephrem is engaging ancient theories of perception, such as that of Plato,
Aristotle, and Galen, which discuss each sense and its proper object: vision
sees color, audition hears sounds, olfaction smells scents, and so on. Plato, Timaeus 61C–68D, LCL 234, ed. and trans. R. G.
Bury (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929), 155-77; Aristotle, De Anima 2.6-11 (418a8–424a17) in LCL 288, ed.
and trans. W.S. Hett, On the Soul. Parva Naturalia. On
Breath (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), 100-35;
Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato
7.5.33, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 4:1:2, ed. and trans. Phillip De Lacy
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1980), 461. For an extensive engagement with
classical theories of perception in another Syrian author, who wrote in
Greek, see Nemesius, On the Nature of Man, 6–13,
trans. R. W. Sharples and P. J. van der Eijk (Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press, 2008). He argues that humans have only one
sense that accords with light, namely vision; the others cannot perceive light
because it is not their proper sensible, thus demonstrating the limitations of
the human sensorium. He elaborates further on the inability of the other senses
to perceive the light: “The light dwells in the mouth unperceived (ܠܐ ܪܓܫ ). / Shining, it dwells in the ear without
suffering (ܠܐ ܚܐܫܐ ). / It dwells in the hand,
yet how has [the hand] not felt it? / The nostril has not inhaled what rises up
to it.” Light—that is, God—is all around and within the human body: in the
mouth, ears, and limbs, yet it is unable to be perceived because it is not
proper to the other sense organs. If the senses cannot perceive God, then “the
mind and the heart (ܡܕܥܐ ܘܠܒܐ )—king,
commander— / And assembly of the thoughts (ܟܢܫܐ
ܕܚܘ̈ܫܒܐ)—and the soul (ܢܦܫܐ),
their dwelling, / Have failed to understand the light.”
MdF 27.6. Many ancient thinkers
considered the heart the seat of cognition, which derived thoughts and knowledge
from sensory impressions made upon the body. John I. Beare, Greek
Theories of Elementary Cognition from Alcmaeon to Aristotle
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), 326–36; Van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy, 119–38. For this idea in Ephrem, see
Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical
Concepts, 193. Like these thinkers, Ephrem considers
cognition, which takes place in the mind or soul that resides in the heart, to
be a result of perception. Therefore, if the body’s senses are incapable of
grasping God, then the mind cannot understand Him as theologians think it can.
In MdF 75, Ephrem further discusses the inabilities of
each of the five senses in light of ancient perceptual theories. He notes that
The subtlety of that light
Cannot be touched; it is not concealed
By things that hold it.
The heat from that ray
Cannot be seen by the eyes—
It is [too] fine.
It has conquered the eyes with its heat
And the hands with its subtlety,
For they cannot touch or see [it] . . .
No mouth has ever tasted
That light, nor a nose
Inhaled [its] scent.
Nor has the ear ever heard
The light’s voice, as it moves
Across creation.
MdF 75.3–8.
Even sight, the sense proper to the light, is limited because it cannot perceive
the light’s other aspects, such as its heat and fineness. For Ephrem’s understanding of
the physiology of vision, see Possekel, Evidence of
Greek Philosophical Concepts, 203-28. Each of the
senses is circumscribed in being able to perceive but one sensible aspect, but
even those aspects of God that are proper to each sense organ are too subtle for
them.
There is also the matter of the senses’ unlikeness to God. Although in some cases
Ephrem admits that sight has a likeness with God’s light, in other cases he
denies any particular sense organ’s capacity to be like God. In MdF 41, he proclaims,
Though scent, color, and taste are truly
Rarefied and subtle, and cannot be felt by the hand,
They can be understood through the senses, their close allies (ܐܚ̈ܝܢܝܗܘܢ):
One [sense] smells and another tastes.
What sense, though, is like (ܐܚܝܢܐ)
that Greatness?
Through what similar thing (ܒܪ ܛܘܗܡܗܿ )
could we approach to discuss it?
That which is unlike us (ܠܐ . . .
ܐܚܝܢܢ), or our race:
Who can seek it out? Who can investigate it?
MdF 41.5–6.
Although scent, color, and taste are perceptible to their allied sense organs,
Ephrem here denies that any sense is like God and able to perceive him. Certain
ancient perceptual theories, such as those of Aristotle and Plotinus, posited
that perception occurred because of a likeness or assimilation of qualities
between the percipient body and the perceptible object. See for example,
Theophrastus, On the Senses, which compares and
contrasts the perceptual theories of those who ascribe sensation to
“likeness (τὸ ὁμοῖον)” and those who ascribe it to “contrast (τὸ
ἐνάντιον)” [George Malcom Stratton, ed. and trans., Theophrastus and the Greek Physiological Psychology before
Aristotle (New York: MacMillan and Co., 1917)]. Aristotle, DA 2.5 (418a6-9) in Hett, ed., On the Soul, 100-01 and Plotinus Ennead
4.4.3, LCL 440, ed. and trans. A.H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2014), 144-45 also claim that sensation occurs when
the percipient sense organ becomes like to the object of perception.
Beck, Die Theologie, 24 notes the influence of
the Platonic notion that like perceives like. Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts, 197-203
also shows Ephrem’s familiarity with this aspect of ancient perceptual
theories. Thus, Ephrem offers the ontological distinction
between God and humanity to deny human perception of the divine. Theologians are
mistaken if they think that “God is like them (ܠܗܘܢ
ܕܡܐ)” such that they can perceive and thus
know Him.
MdF 27.2.
In several other instances, Ephrem denies the ability of the human senses to
perceive God because of this ontological gap. The investigators cannot “see /
that tiny glimmer before them. / Look: it has rubbed itself on them, spread its
color on them, / . . . And although they are well clothed in it, / it is far-off
in the distance, / And the weak have perceived it only by report.”
MdF 27.7. Although God is present in
the world, right before human eyes and interacting with them, people can only
indirectly see Him. In another case, he argues that just as no one can see the
inner workings of miraculous natural phenomena, God is imperceptible to humans
because he exceeds human nature:
Who has ever seen a raven mating,
Or a virgin bee consummating a marriage?
The virgin bee gives birth virginally,
And the worm brings forth alone.
A cloud, too, bears lightning gloriously,
And a sprout is manifest within a rock miraculously.
MdF 41.1.
Ephrem thought all these things were miracles of nature, impossible to
understand. Like God, their nature cannot be perceived by human senses.
Continuing his focus on this ontological distinction in MdF 70, he opens with the question, “With what eye could a thing-made
look / upon the Maker? [The eye] is a creature, / And he is the Creator.”
MdF 70.1. The chasm between Creator
and creation renders the human eye incapable of seeing God. Indeed, humanity is
so inferior to God, that “There cannot be, among creatures, / a vessel so great
that in it is contained / that Greatness. / There cannot be among minds
(ܪ̈ܥܝܢܐ) / a space capable [of containing]
that knowledge of divinity.”
MdF 70.20–1. Ephrem’s language of
mental containment likely relies on ancient theories of perception and cognition
wherein the perceiver took on the qualities of the perceptible object in their
bodies, which were then stored as images in the mind. For the influential
Aristotelian theory of perceptual images stored in the mind, see Modrak,
Aristotle, 81–132. For the ancient tendency
to attribute to memory the material capacity for containment, largely
derived from Aristotle, see Carruthers, The Book of
Memory, 18–55. He rejects that the material body
can assimilate and contain the qualities of the divine essence. Ultimately for
Ephrem, although “the senses (ܪ̈ܓܫܐ) of the
sons of the High One / [are] subtle and spiritual,” they “are weaker than the
discussion of divinity” and simply “insufficient” for knowing God fully.
MdF 75.25–6.
But Ephrem does not end his argument against theological exercise by denying the
human capacity to understand God fully through perception; he further disparages
the body more generally, given that Ephrem sees all knowledge as derived from
the body. He exhorts his audience to “Examine and see your lowly body (ܦܓܪܟ ܡܫܦܠܐ ). / Be ashamed of its intestines, all
of which are filthy (ܨܐܝܢ). / Let its defects
(ܡܘܡ̈ܘܗܝ) be your bridle, [to restrain]
your debating.”
MdF 41.8. Ephrem depicts the body as
a shameful, filthy, and broken vessel, starkly contrasting it with the sacred,
exalted God whom it is incapable of understanding. He even conjures imagery of
polluting bodily fluids to show humanity’s unfitness to examine the divine
object, exclaiming, “Cease from discussion, / O dense senses of the fat body
(ܪ̈ܓܫܐ ܥܓܪ̈ܐ ܕܦܓܪܐ ܥܒܝܐ), / causing pus to
flow!”
MdF 75.27. This approach diverges
sharply from his laudation of the healed body that can encounter God in his McH. Whereas Ephrem praises the body to attack Marcionite
dualists who disparage it, here Ephrem degrades the body to attack theologians
who attempt to know more than they can because he sees knowledge not as abstract
and disembodied but as derived from the body’s senses.
His rhetoric against the body becomes even harsher when he discusses how “the
mouth, the ears, and the nose, / three senses: they cannot sense / the three,”
speaking about the particular inability of taste, hearing, and smell to help
humans understand the Trinity.
MdF 75.6. He calls these three senses
“useless (ܒ̈ܛܝܠܝܢ)” for perceiving the light
that is God, reasoning that if these senses are useless,
Then your whole body (ܟܠܗ ܓܘܫܡܟ ) [is
useless], if the senses
Cannot meet the divinity
Hidden from all.
The three useless senses,
Along with the Trinitarian symbols
Within the sun,
Call out that they are alien
To the discussions of the Father, Son,
And Holy Spirit.
MdF 75.9–12.
As far as theological exercises go, the senses are ineffectual for trying to
understand the relationship of the members of the Trinity. Furthermore, if the
senses cannot understand God, Ephrem reasons, then the entire body—senses,
limbs, and mind—are useless, again a stark divergence from his praise of the
body’s role in encountering God in the McH.
Another variation in these hymns from the McH 42-44 is his
association of the body with Satan and demons. In the McH, Ephrem denied the affinity of natures between the human body and
the demons, insisting that even if the body had been an instrument coopted by
Satan for sin, Christ had healed it through his Incarnation. In MdF 75, however, Ephrem changes his tune and argues that
Your body’s senses can speak to us
About the spiritual senses
Of the stinking demons:
With these nostrils Legion breathes.
With these feet, the Evil One runs
Over all creation.
MdF 75.29–30.
The demons work in and through human bodies and senses, causing theologians to
propagate erroneous doctrines. Demonic entities invade not only bodies, but also
minds, as “the Evil One swarms us with his thinking / . . . His movements and
extensions becoming like our mind / and our understanding.”
MdF 41.9. Human beings, body and
mind, are subject to demonic influence and are thus unfit for theological
reasoning.
Overall, Ephrem presents a negative valuation of the human body and senses in the
MdF 27, 41, 70, and 75. Its senses misperceive, fail
to perceive, and are ultimately incapable of perceiving God’s nature, separated
by an epistemic gap, rendering the body lowly, useless, and demonically
corrupted. What makes these polemics against the body—which offer a striking
contrast to his acclaim for the body in the McH
42-44—comprehensible is Ephrem’s consistency in ascribing knowledge to bodily
perception. Because he sees perception and cognition as inseparable, he attacks
theological reasoning by noting the limits of the human sensorium.
Conclusion
Ephrem was a prolific poet who composed a vast amount of
poetry and prose in various contexts throughout his career. In his madrashe, he
weaves an intricate web of polemical invective, biblical exegesis, and
philosophical theory to instruct his audiences. Ephrem’s different approaches to
the human body and sensorium examined in these two sets of hymns can be
attributed to their different polemical situations: his contestation of
Marcionite scorn for human corporeality in McH 42-44 and
his attack on abstract theological investigation in MdF
27, 41, 70, and 75. Nevertheless, in both cases, he retains a firm commitment to
a perception-centered epistemology, primarily derived from Syrian conceptions of
body-soul unity and Greek theories of perception and cognition.
According to Ephrem, God created the material world for humans to encounter with
their bodies; he gave them bodies to experience his creation. Christ has healed
the human sensorium, worn out by sin, and thus enabled humans to experience his
activity and symbols placed in nature, Scripture, and the sacraments and thus to
achieve salvation. Yet the body also limits the human capacity to know God
fully. Humans cannot directly see, hear, touch, taste, or smell God, who is
beyond physical perception, and therefore they cannot go on to reason about his
nature. Humans can experience God’s creation and symbolic refractions within it,
but they cannot understand God himself. See n. 2. Ephrem’s approaches to
epistemology betray an underlying assumption that bodily perception is the
source of knowledge. My analysis thus contributes to scholarly efforts to
recognize the positive role of the body and the senses in many ancient Christian
epistemologies of God.
Bibliography
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