The Primordial Language in Ephrem the Syrian
Yuliya
Minets
University of Alabama
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
copyright.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv25n2minets
Yuliya Minets
The Primordial Language in Ephrem the Syrian
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol25/HV25N2Minets.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2022
vol 25
issue 2
pp 313-363
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Ephrem
Cave of Treasures
Language
Commentary on Genesis
Exegesis
Tower of Babel
File created by James E. Walters
Abstract
This article contributes to the discussion on the primordial
language in the late antique Syriac tradition, specifically in the legacy of
Ephrem the Syrian (c.306–373). The important milestone is the Cave of Treasures, a pseudepigraphal historical narrative ascribed to
Ephrem but dated to the mid-sixth or early seventh century. The text
emphatically asserts the priority of Syriac over Hebrew. The idea would later
become popular among both Eastern and Western Syriac intellectuals. Some
scholars have taken it as a testimony of Ephrem’s views or an indication that
these ideas had been in circulation in his time. However, the authentic writings
of Ephrem the Syrian are surprisingly equivocal concerning the pre-Babel
language. We can partially reconstruct his views by collating the bits of
information from indirect statements in his hymns and his Commentary on Genesis.
Analyzing Ephrem’s discussion on the tower of Babel and language confusion helps
rectify the assumption that Ephrem championed Syriac primordiality.
The Cave of Treasures, a historical
narrative dated to the mid-sixth or the early seventh century, declared that
Syriac was humanity’s primordial language before Babel’s confusion of tongues
that started the process of linguistic diversification. Its author emphatically
stated that those who disagreed with such a view were wrong: “From Adam until
this time [Babel], they [people] were all of one speech and one language. They
all spoke this language, this is to say, Syriac, which is Aramaic, and this
language is the king of all languages. Now ancient writers have erred in that
they said that Hebrew was the first, and in this matter they have mingled an
ignorant mistake with their writing.” The narrator concludes that “all the
languages there are in the world are derived from Syriac, and all the languages
in books are mingled with it.”
The Cave of Treasures 24.9–11 (Su-Min Ri, CSCO
486, SS 207:186–9); tr. after: The Book of the Cave of
Treasures: A History of the Patriarchs and the Kings, their
Successors, from the Creation to the Crucifixion of Christ,
trans. E. A. Wallis Budge (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1927),
132.
This study contributes to the discussion about the primordial
language in the early Syriac tradition and specifically in Ephrem the Syrian
(c.306–373). The Cave of Treasures is an important
milestone. The dating of the text is tentative and much contested. However, the
arguments in favor of the mid-sixth- to early-seventh-century date seem most
convincing.
Sergey Minov, Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave
of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran, Jerusalem
Studies in Religion and Culture 26 (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 36-40; Sergey
Minov, “Date and Provenance of the Syriac Cave of
Treasures: A Reappraisal,” Hugoye: Journal of
Syriac Studies 20.1 (2017), 129-229. See also: Clemens
Leonhard, “Observations on the Date of the Syriac Cave
of Treasures,” in The World of the
Aramaeans, ed. P. M. M. Daviau et al. (Sheffield, England:
Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 3:255–93; Clemens Leonhard, “Die
Beschneidung Christi in der syrischen
Schatzhöhle. Beobachtungen zu Datierung und Überlieferung des
Werks,” in Syriaca II. Beiträge zum 3. deutschen
Syrologen-Symposium in Vierzehnheiligen 2002, ed. M. Tamcke
(Münster: Studien zur orientalischen Kirchengeschichte Bd. 33, 2004),
11–28; Philip Wood, “Syrian Identity in the Cave of
Treasures,” The Harp 22 (2007),
131–140. This goes with an acknowledgment that this
multilayered composition incorporated many earlier sources. It absorbed
influences from different cultural and religious contexts, while the biblical
narrative provided the principal historical frame. See, for example, the
discussion: Serge Ruzer, “The Cave of Treasures
on Swearing by Abel’s Blood and Expulsion from Paradise: Two Exegetical
Motifs in Context,” Journal of Early Christian
Studies 9.2 (2001), 251-271. The text unequivocally
asserts the priority of Syriac over Hebrew, and this idea would later become
popular among both Eastern and Western Syriac intellectuals. Among the Syrian Orthodox, the
views are attested in:
On Paradise
by Moses bar Kepha, ninth century (Moses bar Kepha,
On Paradise
(Bein. Syr. 10,
61b–62a), cited in Yonatan Moss, “The Language of Paradise: Hebrew
or Syriac? Linguistic Speculations and Linguistic Realities in Late
Antiquity,” in
Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish
and Christian Views
, ed. Markus Bockmuehl and Guy G.
Stroumsa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 128–129);
among the writers representing the Church of the East – in the
Book of Scholia
by Theodore bar
Koni, eighth century (Theodore bar Koni,
Livre des scolies: recension de Séert
2.112-114 (Robert Hespel, and René Draguet, CSCO 431, SS
187:125–128)), the anonymous Diyarbakır commentary, eighth century
(
Commentary on Genesis-Exodus (Diyarbakir 22
Manuscript)
11.7 (Van Rompay, CSCO 483, SS 205:68–9)), and
the
Commentary on Genesis
by
Ishoʿdad of Merv, c.850 (
Ishoʿdad of Merv,
Commentaries on the Old Testament
(van den Eynde, CSCO 126, SS 67:135)).
Since the author of the Cave of Treasures
ascribed it to Ephrem the Syrian in what seems to be a deliberate
pseudepigraphic strategy – i.e., using Ephrem’s name was “an essential element
of its actual author’s literary and ideological agenda” Minov, Memory
and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures, 194. –
this attribution is attested in the majority of Syriac manuscripts and has
generated a robust tradition. Therefore, some scholars have taken the discussion
of Syriac primordiality in this composition as a testimony of Ephrem’s views or
as an indication that these ideas circulated in the Syriac milieu since his
time. The possibility of the earlier date for the composition suggested
previously in scholarship became a much-cited argument. E. A. Wallis Budge, the
author of the English translation of the Cave of
Treasures, published in 1927 and based on a single manuscript from the
British Museum (Ms. Add. 25875, representing the so-called Eastern recension),
noted that even though “it is now generally believed that the form in which we
now have it is not older than the VIth century”
The Book of the Cave of Treasures, trans. E. A.
Wallis Budge, xi. and even though the attribution to this
great fourth-century Syriac poet is wrong, “if not written by Ephrem himself,
one of his disciples, or some member of his school, may have been the author of
the book.”
The Book of the Cave of Treasures, trans. E. A.
Wallis Budge, 22. In other words, Budge strongly suggested
fourth-century Ephremian connections for the original core of the composition,
while the present text took shape in the sixth century or later. The assumptions
of the wide chronological range for the date of the composition – the fourth to
the sixth century – still occasionally surface in the scholarship, often citing
Budge. See,
for example, Marilyn F. Collins, “The Hidden Vessels in Samaritan
Traditions,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the
Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 3.2 (1972),
107. Su-Min Ri, the editor of the CSCO publication of the Cave of Treasures and its French translation (1987),
again speaks about the mid-fourth century as the date of the original work,
while the final reduction is assumed to belong to a sixth-century “Nestorian”
writer.
Su-Min Ri, ed. and trans. La Caverne des trésors: Les
deux recensions syriaques, CSCO 487, SS 208 (Leuven: Peeters,
1987), xiv–xviii.
Scholars who ventured into the topic of the primordial language in
early Christian and Jewish thought often took the early date of the Cave of Treasures for granted. Josef Eskhult treats
Ephrem the Syrian as a founding figure of the entire Syriac exegetical
tradition, whose representatives opposed the hypothesis of Hebrew primordiality
and asserted this status for the Syriac language. Eskhult’s views are primarily
based on the attribution of the Cave of Treasures to
Ephrem shared by “almost all manuscripts” and the fact that the work prioritizes
Syriac so emphatically. Josef Eskhult, “The Primeval Language and Hebrew Ethnicity in
Ancient Jewish and Christian Thought until Augustine,”
Revue des etudes augustiniennes
60 (2014), 326–27, 341. Eskhult strongly suggests
that the idea of Syriac primordiality, as manifested in the Cave of Treasures, goes back to Ephrem or at least to the otherwise
undefined circle of “his Syrian successors.” He acknowledges, however, that the
passage about the consequences of the Babel confusion in Ephrem’s authentic Commentary on Genesis “leaves the question open.” The Commentary mentions that, at Babel, all people “lost
their original language, which was lost by all the nations, with one
exception.”
Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis 8.3 (R.-R. Tonneau,
CSCO 152, SS 71:66); trans.: St. Ephrem the Syrian, Selected Prose Works, trans. Edward G. Mathews and Joseph P.
Amar, ed. Kathleen E. McVey (Washington: Catholic University of America
Press, 1994), 148. But, as Eskhult notes, the text does not
specify “which nation, the Hebrew or the Syrian” preserved the original tongue.
Similarly, Milka Rubin mentions that “leaning upon two great figures, Ephraem
the Syrian and Theodore of Mopsuestia, Syriac writers are almost unanimous in
their claim that Syriac was the primordial language” and that this position “is
almost the rule amongst the Syriac writers.” Milka Rubin, “The Language of Creation or
the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiquity,” Journal of Jewish Studies 49 (1998),
322. She relies on the dubious attribution of the work to Ephrem,
the ambiguity of the corresponding passage in his Commentary
on Genesis, and the absence of direct testimony in Ephrem’s authentic
works. Moreover, she refers to later Syriac writers, starting with Michael the
Syrian (twelfth century) and ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha (late thirteenth–early
fourteenth century), who mentioned Ephrem among the supporters of the idea of
Syriac primordiality. Rubin, “The Language of Creation or the Primordial
Language,” 323. This is most likely a secondary tradition that developed
after the Cave of Treasures and was based on this
text; it does not convey authentic testimony that predates this
work.
By contrast, Sergey Minov asserts that “nowhere in his authentic
writings does Ephrem promote the idea of Syriac as the primeval language.”
Citing the same Ephrem’s passage from the Commentary on
Genesis about this enigmatic single nation – the Hebrews or the
Syrians? – that preserved the primordial tongue, he argues that “in the
fourth-century intellectual context, where Hebrew was the only attested
candidate in discussions on the primeval language, such an ambiguous statement
should almost certainly be understood as relating to this language and not, for
instance, to Syriac.” Minov, Memory and Identity in
the Syriac Cave of Treasures, 275. Minov comments on
the scholarly tendency to downplay the significance of the idea of Hebrew
primordiality among late antique Syriac writers and to anachronistically project
the post-seventh-century statements of Syriac priority back into the earlier
periods: “In fact, the only Syriac writer to affirm the primacy of the Syriac
language during this period is the author of [the Cave of
Treasures].” Minov, Memory and Identity in
the Syriac Cave of Treasures, 276.
I share Minov’s conviction that most likely Ephrem has nothing to
do with the idea of Syriac primordiality ascribed to him later. Yet, the
tendency to attribute these views to Ephrem or his disciples, attested among
some scholars, shows that a detailed analysis of relevant passages in Ephrem’s
corpus about the primordial tongue remains a desideratum.
Thus the present article aims to read Ephrem closely, contextualize his ideas in
a broader intellectual landscape of the fourth century, and explore any certain,
uncertain, and undoubtedly ambiguous testimonies of what he may have thought
about the primordial language. I hope that the deep dive into Ephrem’s
discussion on the tower of Babel and the confusion of languages will clear up
the persistent misconception that Ephrem can be taken for granted as a champion
of Syriac primordiality.
A few preliminary remarks on Ephrem’s take on languages are needed
before discussing the specific passages that mention Babel and the confusion of
tongues. On
linguistic thought in the Syriac tradition: Riccardo Contini, “Aspects
of Linguistic Thought in the Syriac Exegetical Tradition,” in Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North
American Syriac Symposium, ed. M. Doerfler, E. Fiano, and K.
Smith (Leuven: Peeters, 2015), 91–117. First, for Ephrem,
whenever the concept of “confusion” (ܒܠܝܠܘܬܐ)
is employed to describe the actions of God or any natural processes governed by
God, this is, in a way, a misnomer. Such actions and processes are only
confusing when people cannot make sense of them and comprehend the ultimate
order behind them. Any such “confusion” reveals divine providence. In one of the
Hymns Against Heresies, Ephrem argued:
The appearance of his [God’s] acts is very confusing for us,
and as if without the order, he makes [some] poor and again rich;
yet this confusion is entirely in order,
just as the stars are apparently confusing,
and yet they are in order, every single one,
and according to the [divine] command they are set. Ephrem,
Against Heresies
5.6 (Edmund Beck,
CSCO 169, SS 76:19).
Ephrem did not refer to the Babel confusion of tongues specifically
here. His primary argument is against various stripes of magicians, fortune
tellers, and astrologers. However, by extension, the description implies that
God’s intervention at Babel was a careful and premeditated process as well,
rather than an act of mixing up languages “as if without the order.” The fact
that Genesis 11:1–9 could be read and was read in this way in the Syriac milieu
is evident, for example, from Jacob of Sarug’s homily On the
Tower of Babel.
Jacob of Sarug: Homily on the Tower of Babel
,
ed. and tr. Aaron Butts (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press,
2010).
Second, the semantic range and etymology of linguistic and ethnic
names may provide an additional clue for the discussion because it helps locate
Ephrem in his contemporary cultural context. As far as we know, in his extant
works, Ephrem never mentioned Aram, who, according to the table of nations in
Genesis 10, was a son of Shem and a grandson of Noah and whose name was often
taken as an eponym for the Aramaic language and people. Ephrem, however,
occasionally referred to “Arameans” (ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ). Ephrem,
Sermons on Faith
6.139-140 and 157-158 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 212, SS
88:44–45). The term was originally a self-definition of
those we would call “Syriac speakers,” but it gradually acquired a range of
meanings beyond simply a designation of the ethnic group. With the increasing
Christianization and Hellenization of the region, Syriac-speaking Christians
chose to describe themselves as “Syrians,” while the term “Arameans” started to
function as a Syriac equivalent of Greek Ἕλληνες or τὰ ἔθνη in a Christian sense. Minov, Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures, 255–59.
It referred to “gentiles” or “nations,” as opposed to the
Hebrews/Jews, just as Beck’s note reminds us: “Das Wort ‘Aramäer’ hat im Syr.
die Bedeutung ‘Heiden’ gewonnen.” Edmund Beck, ed. and trans., Des
heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones de fide, CSCO 213, SS 89
(Leuven: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1961), 63, note 18. This secondary
meaning of the ethnonym “Arameans” referring to “heathern” or “non-Jew”
was possibly derived from the West Aramaic, probably Jewish, linguistic
tradition; see Jan Joosten, “West Aramaic Elements in the Old Syriac and
Peshitta Gospels,” Journal of Biblical
Literature 110:2 (1991), 279–280.
On the other hand, Ephrem explicitly stated that “the Hebrews [are
descended] from Heber.” Ephrem,
Against Heresies
23.5
(Edmund Beck, CSCO 169, SS 76:87–88). The
significance of this statement becomes apparent if we take into account the
wider late antique polemics about who – Heber (Genesis 10:21-25 and 11:14-16) or
Abraham ha-ʿibri (Genesis 14:13) – was instrumental in
preserving the original tongue and after whom the language and the people were
named “Hebrew.” This issue became a focal point of Jewish–Christian cultural
debate and contributed to consolidating their corresponding religious
identities. The basic meaning of Abraham’s appellation ha-ʿibri in Genesis 14:13 is “traveler,” “emigrant,” or “one who
crossed something.” Abraham was so-called since he came from native Chaldea to
the foreign land of Palestine, crossing the Euphrates river. The appellation was
also taken as the first attestation of the ethnonym “Hebrew.” Generally
speaking, those Christians who accessed the biblical text via the Septuagint
preferred the Heber eponymy because it was prompted by its rendering of the
passage Genesis 14:13 as “Abraham the traveler” (περατής) and not “Abraham the
Hebrew.”
For the Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion versions of the
Old Testament, the following edition was used: John William Wevers, ed.,
Vetus Testamentum Graecum, Auctoritate Academiae
Scientiarum Gottingensis editum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and
Ruprecht, 1974). So did the readers of Vetus Latina versions,
where transfluvialis and transitor
are attested, both referring to “crossing.” For the Vetus Latina versions, see: P.
Sabatier, E. Beuron, and R. Gryson, eds., Vetus
Latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel (Freiburg: Herder,
1949). The alternative Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible
– Symmachus and possibly Aquila – read Ἐβραῖος in this place, and likewise, in
the Vulgate, Jerome chose to translate Abram Hebraeus,
“Abram the Hebrew.” For the Vulgate, see: B. Fischer, R. Weber, and R.
Gryson, eds., Biblia sacra: Iuxta Vulgatam
versionem (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft,
1994). Yet most Graeco- and Latinophone Christians did not
suspect that the Hebrews had been named after Abraham unless they were familiar
with the Hebrew text or Jewish exegetical traditions. References to the Abraham
eponymy in the works of some non-Jewish Hellenistic historians, such as
Alexander Polyhistor of Miletus (first century BCE) and Claudius Charax
of Pergamon (second century CE), can be explained by their access to
sources informed about the Hebrew reading of Genesis 14:13. Alexander
Polyhistor referred to a certain Artapanus, who was probably a Jewish
Hellenistic historian living in Alexandria in the late third or second
century BCE. Alexander himself was in turn quoted by Eusebius of
Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel 9.18.1 (K.
Mras, Eusebius Werke 8, GCS 43). Claudius Charax,
as quoted by Stephanus of Byzantium, did not indicate his source, see
Menahem Stern, ed., Greek and Latin Authors on Jews
and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and
Humanities, 1974–1980), 2:161. By contrast, this was by far a
preferable etymology for rabbinic writers because the verses Joshua 24:2 and
24:15 suggest that the immediate ancestors of Abraham, including Heber for this
purpose, were idolaters and worshipers of other gods. Therefore, Heber is not
worthy of being an eponym for the Hebrew nation and language. Eskhult, “The Primeval
Language,” 306–9. See also: Gilles Dorival, “Le patriarche Héber et la
tour de Babel: Un apocryphe disparu?” in Poussières de
christianisme et de judaïsme antiques: Études réunies en l’honneur
de Jean-Daniel Kaestli et Éric Junod, ed. A. Frey, R. Gounelle
(Lausanne: Éditions du Zèbre, 2007), 181–201.
The Peshitta Old Testament preserves the original root of Abraham’s
appellation ha-ʿibri attested in Hebrew Genesis 14:13.
The Peshitta’s corresponding passage has ܥܒܪܝܐ, which, with certain exegetical ingenuity, could be read as
both “Hebrew” and “one who crosses” or “one who passes over.” T. Jansma, M. D. Koester, The Old Testament in Syriac, According to the Peshiṭta
Version,
Part I, fasc. 1:
Preface; Genesis–Exodus (Leiden: Brill, 1977),
24. By itself, however, ܥܒܪܝܐ unambiguously refers to the ethnonym “Hebrew” due to its
gentilic ending -aya. The significance of this
observation is that whatever the level of Ephrem’s familiarity with Jewish
exegetical traditions was, For Ephrem’s familiarity with Jewish exegetical
traditions, see: Sebastian P. Brock, “Jewish Traditions in Syriac
Sources,”
Journal of Jewish Studies
30 (1979), 212-32; Elena Narinskaya,
Ephrem,
a ‘Jewish’ Sage: A Comparison of the Exegetical Writings of St.
Ephrem the Syrian and Jewish Traditions
(Turnhout: Brepols
Publishers, 2010); Karen S. Winslow, “The Exegesis of Exodus by
Ephrem the Syrian,” in
Exegesis and
Hermeneutics in the Churches of the East: Select Papers from the SBL
Meeting in San Diego, 2007
, ed. Vahan S. Hovhanessian (New
York: Peter Lang, 2009), 33–42; Nabil el-Khoury, “Hermeneutics in
the Works of Ephraim the Syrian,” in
IV
Symposium Syriacum, 1984: Literary Genres in Syriac Literature
(Groningen-Oosterhesselen 10-12 September)
, ed. H. J. W
Drijvers, R. Levanant S. J., C. Molenberg, and G. J. Reinink (Roma:
Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987), 93-99; Tryggve
Kronholm,
Motifs from Genesis 1–11 in the Genuine Hymns of
Ephrem the Syrian, with Particular Reference to the Influence of
Jewish Exegetical Traditions
(Uppsala: Almqvist &
Wiksell, 1978); Paul Féghali, “Influence des Targums sur la pensée
exégétique d’Ephrem?” in
IV Symposium Syriacum, 1984: Literary Genres in Syriac
Literature (Groningen-Oosterhesselen 10-12 September)
, ed.
H. J. W Drijvers, R. Levanant S. J., C. Molenberg, and G. J. Reinink
(Roma: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987), 71-82;
Yifat Monnickendam, “How Greek is Ephrem’s Syriac?: Ephrem’s
Commentary Genesis as a Case Study,”
Journal of Early Christian Studies
23.2
(2015): 213-244. and although the Peshitta’s Genesis
14:13 mentions “Abraham the Hebrew,” Ephrem supported Heber’s eponymy. By the
end of the fourth century, the preference for the Heber-centered vision became
mainstream in other Christian traditions. Among early Christian writers, Theophilus of
Antioch, Hippolytus of Rome, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine,
Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, and many others asserted that the
Hebrews were named after Heber. Julius Africanus emphatically rejected
this opinion, while Eusebius of Caesarea entertained both possible
etymologies of the word “Hebrew” – from Heber and from Abraham ha-ʿibri, and though he might have preferred the
latter, he never made a decisive choice between the two; see Yuliya
Minets, The Slow Fall of Babel: Languages and
Identities in Late Antique Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2021), 122-137. This preference usually
goes “in a package” with the acknowledgment of Hebrew as the primordial tongue.
The point is not enough to claim that Ephrem shared the same opinion, but it
allows us to suggest that he might have followed the same logic.
Third, Ephrem did not identify the primordial language with the
language of God, as did most rabbinic writers of the time, who argued that
Hebrew was both. Rubin, “The Language of Creation or the Primordial Language,” 309–14;
E. Eshel and M. E. Stone, “The Holy Language at the End of the Days in
Light of a New Fragment Found at Qumran,” Tarbiz
62 (1992–1993), 169–78; Seth Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in
Ancient Palestine,” Past and Present 148 (1995):
3–47 at 12–31. Similarly to Gregory of Nyssa, who in his
anti-Eunomian polemics asserted that all languages are property of human nature
and none of them can be an attribute of God, Anthony Meredith, “The Language of God and
Human Language (CE II 195–293),” in Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium II: An English
Version with Supporting Studies: Proceedings of the 10th
International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Olomouc, September
15–18, 2004), ed. Lenka Karfíková, Scot Douglass, Johannes
Zachhuber, and Stuart George Hall (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 247–56, at
250–1; Eskhult, “The Primeval Language,” 341; Irvin M. Resnick, “Lingua Dei, Lingua Hominis: Sacred Language and
Medieval Texts,” Viator 21 (1990), 51-74 at
57–58. Ephrem also poetically addressed the problem of the
ontological gap between the nature of God and the capacity of human languages to
describe it. He pointed out that language is something that belongs to humans,
but God voluntarily made use of it to communicate with humankind and to become
more approachable:
…if he had not put on the names
of these very things, he would have been unable to speak
With our humanity. With [what is ours], he drew near to us.
He put on our names, to put on us
His way of life. Ephrem,
Hymn of Faith
31.2 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 154, SS 73:105–6); trans.: Jeffrey
Wickes,
Ephrem: Hymns on
Faith
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2015),
192.
On Ephrem’s use of the Bible: Sidney H.
Griffith,
Faith Adoring the Mystery:
Reading the Bible with St. Ephraem the Syrian
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997); Thomas
Kremer,
Mundus Primus: Die Geschichte
der Welt und des Menschen von Adam bis Noach im
Genesiskommentar Ephräms des Syrers
(Leuven:
Peeters, 2012); Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, eds. and
trans.
Ephrem the Syrian: Select
Poems(Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2006),
16; Jeffrey Wickes, Bible and Poetry in Late
Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith
(Oakland: University of California Press,
2019).
Elsewhere, Ephrem suggests that before Babel, people could
communicate with God without the mediation of a spoken tongue. He ascribed to
Moses the remark that “the Creator had been manifest to the mind of the first
generations, even up until the [generation of] the tower,” when this intimacy
was lost.
Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis proem. 2 (R.-R.
Tonneau, CSCO 152, SS 71:3); trans.: Ephrem the Syrian, Selected Prose Works, trans. Mathews and Amar,
ed. McVey, 67. Again, these observations do not help to
define Ephrem’s views on the primordial language conclusively. However, they
demonstrate that whatever the original tongue might be, Ephrem would have been
invested in a possible competition between Hebrew and Syriac for originality,
ontological power, and relative prestige, only to a degree to which both
remained inherently human languages. None of them claimed a special status of
God’s language.
The tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues appear several
times in Ephrem’s compositions. On Ephrem’s exegetical approach: Sidney H.
Griffith, “Ephrem the Exegete (306–73): Biblical Commentary in the Works
of Ephrem the Syrian,” in Handbook of Patristic
Exegesis, ed. Charles Kannengiesser, (Leiden: Brill, 2006),
1395–428; Lucas van Rompay, “The Christian Syriac Tradition of
Interpretation,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The
History of its Interpretation, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 1:612–41. In addition to
the most detailed exposition in the Commentary on
Genesis, which we mentioned above and for which the current scholarly
consensus is that it is Ephrem’s authentic work, he referred to Babel twice in
the Exegetical Sermons, once in his Hymns on Faith, Against Heresies, Hymns on Nativity,
Hymns on Virginity, and Carmina Nisibena. For
Ephrem, the biblical passage Genesis 11:1–9 clearly describes the event that led
to the multiplication of tongues and started linguistic diversity, the moment
when the primordial unilingualism of humankind turned into many languages spoken
by Noah’s grandchildren.
The Hymns on Faith is Ephrem’s longest
collection of hymns. It likely includes individual pieces and smaller cycles
written in different moments of his literary career, which may have circulated
initially independently and later became a unified whole. Blake Hartung, “The
Authorship and Dating of the Syriac Corpus Attributed to Ephrem of
Nisibis: A Reassessment,” Zeitschrift für antikes
Christentum 22:2 (2018): 296–321. The collection
most directly addresses the issues related to the fourth-century Christological
controversies. The underlying motive of many hymns in the cycle is the limits of
human knowledge regarding Christ’s divinity and how he was begotten by God the
Father. According to Ephrem, pious silence is always preferable to gratuitous
theological debate and inappropriate inquiry into divine matters. Wickes, Ephrem: Hymns on Faith, 5, 15, 19–43.
The passage in which Ephrem referred to the tower of Babel appears
in Hymn 60:
[60:11] Who will not rejoice? For if these titles
Correspond to one another – earth to Adam,
Eve to life, Peleg to division,
And Babel to confusion (for they came to confusion) –
Let us quiet the disorder. Receive in order
The threefold names!
[60:12] From Babel learn: there
Three went down and confused [the tongues], for he said, “Come (pl.)! Let us go down,”
And this no one could say to only one.
To one, [he would say] “Come (sing.)! Let us
go down.” The Evil One, with the tongues
That were confused, has babbled in our day –
[In] the Church instead of Babel. Ephrem,
Hymn
of Faith
60:11–12 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 154, SS
73:187–188); trans.: Wickes,
Ephrem: Hymns on Faith,
303–304; cited Gen.
11:7 and 11:9.
The second stanza cites Genesis 11:7. Similarly to his treatment of
the Babel episode in the Commentary on Genesis, Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis 8.3 (R.-R. Tonneau, CSCO
152, SS 71:66). Ephrem asserted that the plural imperative
form used in God’s direct speech “Come (plur.: ܬܘ), let
us go down,” refers to all three members of the Trinity who participated in the
event. Otherwise, if only the Son or the Spirit took part in this action with
God the Father, the singular form ܬܐ would have been enough. Similarly, the Commentary on Genesis stated that “neither the ancient
nor the more recent languages were given without the Son and the Spirit.” The
third instance that I am aware of in which Ephrem emphasized the plural form of
the verb “Come!” in Genesis 11:7 occurs in one of his Exegetical Sermons: “One [of the prophets] said: I heard from the
Father when he said: ‘Come, let us go down to Babel and divide languages in it
[Babel]’.”
Ephrem, Sermons II 3.298-301 (Edmund Beck, CSCO
311, SS 134:62); cited Gen. 11:7. The quotation appears in
this sermon’s intense crescendo of prophetic statements. Each starts with “One
said…” followed by yet another memorable line from the Bible or a paraphrased
reference to a biblical event. The Babel episode is not a focal point of
Ephrem’s exegetical efforts here.
The plurality of divine actors equally participating in this Old
Testament episode became important in the context of fourth-century Trinitarian
polemics. This theme diverges from the interpretation suggested just a little
over a century ago by Origen in his Homilies on Numbers
(c.245), who, following the Jewish precedents (e.g., the Hebrew Testament of Naphtali 8.6), asserted that God was
addressing angels. Origen, Homilies on Numbers
Translated by Rufinus 11 (ed. W. A. Baehrens, Origenes. Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung,
Teil 2:
Die Homilien zu
Numeri, Josua und Judices, Die griechischen christlichen
Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 29, Origenes Werke 7
(Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1921), 84); Josef Eskhult, “Augustine and the
Primeval Language in Early Modern Exegesis and Philology,” Language & History 56.2 (2013), 104; for the
Testament of Naphtali, see M. de Jonge, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical
Edition of the Greek Text, Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti
Graece 1.2 (Leiden: Brill, 1978). The remark on the Holy
Spirit became especially important in the context of the debates in the late
360s–early 370s, when several Greek writers, including the Cappadocians,
emphatically affirmed the Holy Spirit’s divinity. Wickes, Ephrem: Hymns on Faith, 40. The reading of Genesis
11:7, referring to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, soon became commonplace
in Christian exegesis across different literary and confessional
traditions.
For Greek, see: Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on
John 7 (Sancti patris nostri Cyrilli
archiepiscopi Alexandrini in D. Joannis evangelium, vol. 3, ed.
P. E. Pusey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1872), 258, line 26–259, line 1);
for Eastern Syriac: Cyrus of Edessa, Explanation of
the Ascension 4.7 (William F. Macomber, CSCO 355, SS 155:148,
lines 2–3).
Ephrem made another exciting move here. He drew parallels between
the Babelites of old and “the Evil One” of his days, babbling with confused
tongues. At first, “the Evil One” seems to allude to the devil. But the
subsequent zooming in on such specifics as “in our day” and “in the Church
instead of Babel” implies a certain unnamed human actor or actors. However,
Ephrem’s poetic language is more likely to encompass all those meanings. “The
Evil One” of the cosmic drama still speaks through the contemporary leaders of
heterodox opinions, according to Ephrem. The take-away point for our discussion
about the primordial language is that the increasing importance of the line
Genesis 11:7 in the context of the Trinitarian polemics drew away one’s
attention from the historical reading of the passage. The overwhelming focus on
theological underpinnings eclipses the potential opportunities for linguistic
speculations.
We see the same tendency among fourth-century Greek writers. Very
few voices pondered the primordial language in the period between Eusebius and
Chrysostom, probably because prominent Greek theologians of the time, such as
Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, were engaged in anti-Eunomian polemics.
As a result, they took a very different stand on languages and linguistics. For Eunomius’
writings, see: R. P. Vaggione, ed., Eunomius: The Extant Works (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1987); for Basil of Caesarea: Mark DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian Theory of Names: Christian
Theology and Late-Antique Philosophy in the Fourth Century
Trinitarian Controversy (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Among
other things, this eventually brought Gregory to reject Hebrew primordiality
altogether. He favored the idea of primordial unilingualism but refused to make
a judgment concerning the identity of the first language because of a lack of
scriptural evidence. Gregory of Nyssa, Against
Eunomius 2.264 (W. Jaeger, ed., Gregorii
Nysseni opera, vol. 1: Contra Eunomium libros
I–II continens (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 303).
According to Gregory, Hebrew was just one out of many other ethnic tongues and a
relatively recent invention: “Some of those who have studied the divine
scriptures most carefully say that the Hebrew language is not even ancient in
the way that the others are, but that... this language was suddenly improvised
for the nation after Egypt.” Gregory of Nyssa,
Against
Eunomius
2.256 (Jaeger 1:301); trans.: Stuart G. Hall, tr., “The Second Book
against Eunomius (Translation),” in
Gregory
of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium II,
ed. Karfíková, Douglass,
Zachhuber, and Hall, 116. See the discussion: Eskhult, “Augustine
and the Primeval Language,” 106; Raf van Rooy, “Πόθεν οὖν ἡ τοσαύτη
διαφωνία? Greek Patristic Authors Discussing Linguistic Origin,
Diversity, Change and Kinship,”
Beiträge zur Geschichte der
Sprachwissenschaft
23.1 (2013), 31–2; Rubin, “The Language
of Creation or the Primordial Language,” 315, 320–1.
Gregory repeated an argument employed by several Hellenistic critics of Judaism
and early Christianity. He referred to Psalm 80.6, “When they went forth from
the land of Egypt, he heard a language that he did not know,” as biblical proof
that Hebrew emerged during the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. This view was first recorded
by Manetho, an Egyptian priest and Hellenistic chronicler of the third
century BCE, and then cited by later writers including historians
Diodorus Siculus (first century BCE) and Tacitus (first and second
century CE); see: Rubin, “The Language of Creation or the Primordial
Language,” 314–15, 318; Hall, “The Second Book against Eunomius
(Translation),” 116, note 97. This scriptural passage was the
one Origen rejected, arguing for the opposite cause in his polemics against
Celsus.
Origen, Against Celsus 3.5–8 (M. Marcovich, Origenes: Contra Celsum libri VIII, Supplements
to Vigiliae Christianae 54 (Leiden: Brill, 2001)); Moss, “The Language
of Paradise,” 130, note 56; Ephrem may have shared the same
line of thought as contemporary Greek Christian writers, namely, that the
discussions about the primordial language may be superfluous and
counterproductive. Lucas Van Rompay, “Antiochene Biblical
Interpretation: Greek and Syriac,” In Book of Genesis
in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretation: A Collection of
Essays, eds. J. Frishman and L. Van Rompay (Leuven: Peeters,
1997), 103–112; Yifat Monnickendam, “How Greek is Ephrem’s Syriac?:
Ephrem’s Commentary Genesis as a Case Study,” Journal
of Early Christian Studies 23.2 (2015), 213-244; Ute Possekel,
Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts on the
Writings of Ephrem the Syrian (Leuven: Peeters,
1999). This also fits well his overall stance against unnecessary
inquiries and empty curiosity. There is one significant difference, though,
between him and Gregory. As seen in his Commentary on
Genesis, Ephrem asserted that one (unnamed) nation preserved the
original tongue after the confusion at Babel, while Gregory did not seem to
entertain such an option.
A few words need to be said about the first stanza in the quoted
passage. It presents a poetical and etymological exercise that may be
potentially helpful for discussing the identity of the primordial language.
Ephrem alludes to the names (ܟܘܢܝ̈ܐ or
ܫܡܗ̈ܐ) and their correspondence to the
things they describe. He encourages readers to rejoice, “quiet the disorder,”
and “receive in order” divine names. The controversy about the divine names fits
the stage of the Trinitarian debates in the 360s. Ancient discussions about the
correctness of names went back to Plato and his famous dialogue Cratylus and were later carried on by Hellenistic and
Jewish thinkers. Plato, Cratylus 383, 385d, 389d and elsewhere
(J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera, vol. 1 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1900)); Timothy M. S. Baxter, The
Cratylus: Plato’s Critique of Naming (Leiden: Brill, 1992);
David Sedley, Plato’s Cratylus (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003); J. Dillon, “Philo Judaeus and the Cratylus,” Liverpool Classical
Monthly 3 (1978), 37–42; Francesca Calabi, The Language and The Law of God: Interpretation and Politics in
Philo of Alexandria (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); Maren R.
Niehoff, “What is in a Name? Philo’s Mystical Philosophy of Language,”
Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995), 220–52;
David Robertson, Word and Meaning in Ancient
Alexandria: Theories of Language from Philo to Plotinus
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008); David T. Runia, “Etymology as an Allegorical
Technique in Philo of Alexandria,” The Studia
Philonica Annual 16 (2004), 101–21; David Winston, “Aspects of
Philo’s Linguistic Theory,” The Studia Philonica
Annual 3 (1991), 109–25. The main idea was that
language that can demonstrate the correspondence between words and the essence
of the things they describe is ultimately “correct.” In the Judeo-Christian
context, such a language would be the most likely candidate for primordial
status. The discussions routinely evolved around etymological and
pseudo-etymological arguments. Ephrem’s text highlights the parallels between
ܐܕܡܬܐ and ܐܕܡ (earth and Adam), ܚܘܐ and
ܚܝܘܬܐ (Eve and life), ܦܠܓ and ܦܘܠܓܐ
(Peleg and division), ܒܒܠ and ܒܘܠܒܠܐ (Babel and confusion). These parallels work
reasonably well for his Syriac.
Such etymological inquiries in biblical names were common among
rabbinic and Christian scholars who argued in favor of Hebrew’s primordiality.
For example, composers of the Genesis Rabbah readily
pointed out the linguistic correspondence between the Hebrew words for man (ʾish) and woman (ʾishah) in
Genesis 2:23 “She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.”
Midrash Rabbah Genesis (Bereshith) 18.4 (H.
Freedman and Maurice Simon, eds. and trans., Midrash
Rabbah, 10 vols (London: Soncino Press, 1983), 1:143); Moss,
“The Language of Paradise,” 127–9; Steven D. Fraade, “Before and After
Babel: Linguistic Exceptionalism and Pluralism in Early Rabbinic
Literature and Jewish Antiquity,” Diné Israel 28
(2011), 39–40; Rubin, “The Language of Creation or the Primordial
Language,” 311. The correspondence is absent both in Greek and in
Aramaic. They meant to demonstrate that the linguistic logic
of Hebrew coincides with the ontological logic of creation, i.e., the creation
of woman from man, and to confirm the unique position of Hebrew among other
idioms. This reasoning of Rabbinic scholars was taken up by Christian writers,
such as Eusebius of Emesa (c.300–359), who referred to precisely the same
argument, i.e., the ʾish–ʾishah pun from Genesis
2:23. Moss,
“The Language of Paradise,” 128; É. M. Buytaert, ed. L’héritage littéraire d’Eusèbe d’Émèse, étude critique et
historique (Leuven: Bureaux du Muséon, 1949), 37*; Bas ter Haar
Romeny, A Syrian in Greek Dress: The Use of Greek,
Hebrew, and Syriac Biblical Texts in Eusebius of Emesa’s Commentary
on Genesis (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 203–6. Moreover,
he asserted that the biblical characters before the Flood had Hebrew names (this
claim is also attested in Rabbinic literature). In his Preparation for the Gospel, Eusebius of Caesarea (c.263–c.339)
examined several biblical names in Hebrew and demonstrated that they correspond
to the essence of the things they describe. He summed up, “anyone diligently
studying the Hebrew language would discover great correctness of names current
among that people.” Eusebius of Caesarea,
Preparation for
the Gospel
11.6 (
K.
Mras,
Eusebius Werke
8, GCS 43);
trans.: Edwin Gifford, tr.,
Eusebii Pamphili Evangelicae Praeparationis
(Oxford: Typographeo Academico, 1903), 3.2:559; quotations from
Plato,
Cratylus
383A, 390A, 390D, 409D (J. Burnet,
ed.,
Platonis opera, vol. 1
(Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1900)). By contrast, just a century
later, Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393–c.466), who became the only significant Greek
Christian author of the time to argue for the Syriac alternative to the Hebrew
primordiality, Rubin, “The Language of Creation or the Primordial
Language,” 321; Moss, “The Language of Paradise,” 135–6; van Rooy,
“Πόθεν οὖν ἡ τοσαύτη διαφωνία?” 32–3; Tim Denecker, “Heber or Habraham?
Ambrosiaster and Augustine on Language History,” Revue
des etudes augustiniennes 60 (2014), 15, 28; Eskhult,
“Augustine and the Primeval Language,” 106; Ton Hilhorst, “The Prestige
of Hebrew in the Christian World of Late Antiquity and Middle Ages,” in
Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other
Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez,
ed. Anthony Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill,
2007), 782; Eskhult, “The Primeval Language,” 326; Minov, Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of
Treasures, 276–277. explicitly asked in his Questions on the Octateuch: “Which is the most ancient
language?” To answer this question, he chose a reasonably standard approach –
the etymology of biblical names such as Adam, Cain, Abel, and Noah. However, the
outcome was a bit unusual. Theodoret argued that these etymologies work best for
Syriac, not for Hebrew, as had been assumed by many Jewish and Christian
writers.
Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Questions in Genenesis 60
(John F. Petruccione and Robert C. Hill, eds. and trans., Theodoret of Cyrrhus: The Questions on the Octateuch
(Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 1:122–5);
see also note 1, p. 125. It is tempting to suggest that
Ephrem in the Hymn 60 on Faith followed the same logic.
The etymological connection between the pairs of biblical words he mentioned
works well in his native Syriac. I do not think, however, that this is what
Ephrem implied here. Considering the close relationship between Syriac and
Hebrew and the speculative character of ancient etymologies, the very attempt to
derive the biblical names solely from Syriac to the exclusion of Hebrew is
problematic.
Ephrem’s cycle of hymns Against Heresies has
been traditionally dated to the last decade of his life, the so-called Edessan
period,
Sebastian P. Brock, “Ephrem,” in
Gorgias
Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic
Edition
, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A.
Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay,
https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Ephrem
;
Kathleen E. McVey,
Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns
(New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 11; Sidney H. Griffith,
“Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephraem’s Hymns against
Heresies,” in
The Limits of Ancient
Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of
R. A. Markus
, eds. William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey
(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999), 97–114; Sidney
H. Griffith, “The Marks of the ‘True Church’ According to
Ephraem’s
Hymns against Heresies
,” in
After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in
Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Hans J. W.
Drijvers
, eds. Gerrit J. Reinink and Alexander C. Klugkist
(Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 125–40. though the most
recent discussion of their date and milieu suggests a possibility that some of
them were composed back in Nisibis prior to 363. Flavia Ruani, Éphrem de Nisibe: Hymnes contre les hérésies,
Bibliothèque de l’Orient chrétien 4 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2018),
xxvi-xxxii. The assumptions about the Hymns on
Heresies being written at the end of Ephrem’s life have been
also called into question by Blake Hartung, “The Authorship and Dating
of the Syriac Corpus Attributed to Ephrem of Nisibis: A Reassessment,”
Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 22:2
(2018): 296–321. Ephrem polemically attacks Mani, Marcion,
Bardaisan, and the like in this cycle. In hymn 5, he takes a stand against
unnamed “magicians” and “augurs”:
The confused sons of Babel confused our hearing,
In the beginning, the languages were confused inside her [Babel’s] inner
part.
Magicians and augurs within her [Babel] are confused again.
Babel, which confusions confused,
Who gives to her [Babel] his soul and his hearing,
The legion skips in him, and dances, and leaps in him. Ephrem, Against Heresies 5.16 (Edmund Beck, CSCO
169, SS 77:22).
The reference to the biblical Babel functions as an underlying
metaphor for this stanza. The confusion of tongues in Babel becomes an ultimate
archetype of all confusion, past and present. Similarly to the Hymns on Faith passage analyzed above, Ephrem compares those who were
“confused” in his time – fortune tellers, astrologers, wizards, and various
kinds of heretics – to “the confused sons of Babel,” whose languages were
confused. Interestingly enough, Ephrem speaks about their “languages” in the
plural and is not concerned with the single primordial tongue prior to the
event. Although the image of Babel as the place of confusion is central in this
stanza of the hymn, it is not especially helpful for discussing the identity of
the pre-Babel language in Ephrem.
Typology of the biblical tower of Babel, confusion, and division of
languages is rich and polysemantic. Arno Borst, Der Turmbau von
Babel: Geschichte der Meinungen über Ursprung und Vielfalt der
Sprachen und Völker, vols. 1 and 2
(Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1957–1958); Christoph Uehlinger, Weltreich und “eine Rede”: eine neue Deutung der
sogenannten Turmbauerzählung (Gen 11, 1–9) (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990). It has great potential and
can be twisted in different ways. On the one hand, it can get a positive spin
and designate something unique, spectacular, and grandiose. On the other hand,
the Babel confusion is unavoidably a story about disruption, failure, and
disaster. One can blame the devil, human sinfulness, or their passions, hubris,
and disobedience, but the overall picture is bleak. It was common for early
Christian writers to use Babel as a typos for any
biblical or post-biblical catastrophe attributed to demonic tricks or a human
error.
Yuliya Minets, “The Tower of Babel and Language Corruption: Approaching
Linguistic Disasters in Late Antiquity,” Studies in
Late Antiquity (forthcoming 2022). Additionally,
once the Pentecostal episode from Acts 2:2–12 started to be interpreted as
describing the apostles’ xenolalia, i.e., the ability to
speak actual foreign languages miraculously distributed among them, most
Christian interpreters exegetically linked it to the Babel account. As a result,
these two very distinct biblical narratives began to tell the single story about
a great cosmic drama of doing and undoing, of introducing linguistic diversity
and rendering it invalid, of the beginning of division and the restoration of
unity, which on both ends was mediated by the divine will. Cyril of Jerusalem,
Catechetical Lectures 17.17, lines 1–6 (W. C. Reischl and J. Rupp, eds.,
Cyrilli Hierosolymorum archiepiscopi opera quae
supersunt omnia (Munich: Lentner, 1848–1860), vol. 2); Gregory
of Nazianzus, Oration 41.16 (PG 36:449.33–40);
Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Penteteuch:
Gen. 2 (PG 69:80.33–45); Hilary of Poitiers, Homilies on Psalms. 136.5 (Antonius Zingerle, CSEL 22:726,
line 13); Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians 1.1
(Eph. 1.10) (PL 26:454); Minets, The Slow Fall of Babel, 200–205.
Ephrem followed the first option in one of the Hymns on Nativity. The cycle offers “a developed theology of the
incarnation and mariology in the context of a strong
anti-Jewish polemic” McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns,
12. and is “an extraordinarily rich source of early
Christian typological exegesis.” McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns,
32. In the first hymn of the cycle, Hymns 1-4 were probably added
to original Ephrems’s collection of 16 Nativity
Hymns by a sixth-century compiler, but they are, according to
Beck, undoubtedly authentic: Edmund Beck, Des heiligen
Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), CSCO 186,
SS 82 (Leuven: Secretariat du Corpus SCO, 1959), v-vi; McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, 29. he
employed a great variety of Old Testament typoi that
anticipate the arrival of Jesus. Turning to Babel, Ephrem presented “the tower
that the many built” as a symbol of “the One...[who] went down and built on the
earth the tower that reached the heaven.” Ephrem,
Hymn on
Nativity
1.44 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 186, SS
82:6).
Interestingly enough, Ephrem skipped mentioning the linguistic
phenomena that accompanied the building of the tower and the eventual
abandonment of the construction. Instead, he explored the opportunities that the
image of a single and magnificent structure offers as a metaphor (typos or symbol, ܐܪܙܐ)
for Christ and his Gospel. The identity of the primordial language is not of
Ephrem’s slightest interest here.
However, two lines later, Ephrem mentioned that “in the days of
Peleg, the earth was divided into seventy tongues; this anticipated the One who
divided the earth for his apostles through the tongues.” Ephrem, Hymn on Nativity 1.46 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 186, SS
82:6). The verse linked the Babel confusion of tongues to the
Pentecost event when the fiery tongues of the Spirit endowed each of the
apostles with the ability to speak in different languages. Thus, languages were
divided among the apostles, similarly to the division of the languages at Babel
– the typos that anticipated the Pentecostal miracle.
Ephrem explores the same imagery and typology elsewhere in his
works. In one of the Hymns on Virginity, he also
mentioned that the earth was divided into seventy languages at Babel. This
division foreshadowed another division of the earth among the apostles through
the tongues. Ephrem’s Hymns on Virginity is a
heterogeneous collection composed of several smaller cycles, each united by a
single theme and melody and several stand-alone hymns. Hymn 40, in which Ephrem
referred to Babel, is one of those individual poems. Its central themes are
praising the Lord, the people’s expectations for the Messiah in the past age,
and the current struggle against the faithless and disputers. The verses about
Babel are partially lost, and the best attempt to recover the texts yields the
following:
(R11) The High One came down and confused voices and languages
That were agreed toward harm, and he taught…
He gave the disciples the multitude [of languages]
That their truth would be as a typos…
…
(Š12) The falsehood… in it
That he considered the confusion; he scattered the people;
And he destroyed the tower … disputants;
They divided… that the truth would not be built
The tower of our salvation. Ephrem, Hymns on
Virginity 40.11–12 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 223, SS
94:141); translation is mine after: Ephrem the Syrian, Selected Prose Works, trans. Mathews
and Amar, ed. McVey, 435.
As far as we can judge, there is a tightly crafted polysemantic
system of images and their opposites – falsehood and truth; the Babelites, the
apostles, and the new disputants; the unity of faithful and scattering around of
sinners; the division of tongues at Babel and the one on the day of Pentecost;
the tower of harm and that of salvation. The rhetoric is aimed at the disputers
of the current age who behave in the same arrogant and senseless manner as the
old tower-builders at Babel. The “Most High” who punished sinful Babelites and
confused their tongues is also the one who endowed his disciples with the gift
of multiple languages. The truth that the apostles received became a promise of
the future salvation of those who separate themselves from the falsehood of
confusion and hostilities. In this complex typological network of signs and
symbols, the question of the identity of the pre-Babel language was outside
Ephrem’s exegetical framework. The image of Babel has potential for his
purposes, but its historical linguistic aspect is not his priority.
Here we should briefly comment on passages where Ephrem discussed
the Pentecost account but not the Tower account. The fragments relevant to
apostolic speaking in tongues from Ephrem’s Commentary on Acts
are preserved only in the Armenian Catenae. The
state of the composition is such that virtually everything – the attribution to
Ephrem, the language of the original, the dates of its translation, and further
editing – can be questioned. Ephrem, Fragments from Catena on
the Acts of the Apostles (tr. Frederick C. Conybeare, “The
Commentary of Ephrem on Acts,” in The Beginnings of
Christianity, Part 1: The Acts of the Apostles, ed. F. J.
Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake (London: Macmillan, 1926), 3:395–397 and
3:441). Ephrem’s Commentary on Pauline
Letters also exists only in the Armenian translation, and given the
problem of authenticity of the Armenian corpus associated with his name, this
testimony is again uncertain. Ephrem,
On Pauline Letters
1 Cor. 12–14 (ed.
S. Ephræm Syri commentarii in epistolas D. Pauli nunc
primum ex Armenio in Latinum sermonem a patribus Mekitharistis
translate
(Venice: Typographia Sancti Lazari, 1893), 72,
75, 76); see also A. F. J. Klijn, “A Note on Ephrem’s Commentary on
the Pauline Epistles,”
Journal of Theological
Studies
5.1 (1954): 76–78; Vahan Hovhanessian, “The
Commentaries on the Letters of Paul Attributed to Ephrem the Syrian
in Armenian Manuscripts,”
The Harp: A Review of Syriac and Oriental Studies
24 (2009): 311–27. Among Ephrem’s texts
preserved in original Syriac, one of the Hymns on Paradise
recounts the Pentecost event but provides little information about the
apostles speaking in tongues. Ephrem, Hymn on Paradise
11.14 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 174, SS 78:49). The phrase
“sending forth the tongues after his ascension” appears in the Hymn on Nativity 25. Ephrem, Hymn on Nativity
25.15 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 186, SS 82). However, none of
these passages indicate what the primordial language was. See also: Minets, The Slow Fall of Babel, 189–191.
The passage in which Ephrem attributed the Babel disaster directly
to demonic tricks occurs in one of his Carmina Nisibena,
a set of poems about his native city of Nisibis, the gradual maturing of its
Christian community, its bishops, and three dramatic sieges laid by the Persian
army in the 330s–350s. In poem 41, Satan speaks directly to Jesus and takes
responsibility for the construction at Babel:
I enhanced my racings with the speed,
and I overrun them. I was fighting.
The clamor of many was armor to me.
I rejoiced in the noise of people that gave me a little room,
That the vehemence of many was harsh; with the force of many
I erected the great mountain, the tower that reaches heaven.
If they were fighting against the height,
How much more they will be victorious over the one who fights on
earth. Ephrem,
Carmina
Nisibena
41.2 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 240, SS
102:32); reference to Gen. 11:4.
The devil boasted that he established “the great mountain” of the
Babel tower that stretched up to heaven as his way to mobilize the forces of
multitudes to fight for him. However, the poem’s image of the tower of Babel has
little to offer for the current discussion of the primordial language.
Interpretations of the Babel story occasionally take an unusual
turn in Ephrem’s poetical legacy, revealing some lesser-known directions of the
Old Testament exegesis. In his cycle of the Exegetical
Sermons, Ephrem suggested that three races originated from Noah –
namely, the giants, humans, and dwarfs. The giants were those who built the
tower and whose tongues were confused:
(2.476) The giants were dissolute,
When the law was not yet set,
And the Flood overflowed and drowned
The dissolute men and women.
Ten thousand voices of the law
Are crying out to us in the entrances of our ears,
And our intelligence is still not ashamed
That it would submit and learn the truth.
The giants built the edifice,
And their languages were confused.
We are erecting the mountains of sins,
And the word of our mouth continues to exist. Ephrem,
Sermons II
2. 476–487 (Edmund
Beck, CSCO 311, SS 134:50); cited Gen
11:9.
Ephrem built the dramatic contract by piling up the examples of
what had been done by the dissolute race of giants of ancient times, including
their well-deserved punishments and the eventual destruction, on the one hand,
and the continuing wrongdoings of the current generation, on the other hand. The
contrast is intensified to the highest degree because people of the present age
continue to behave senselessly, despite having the warning of the law, the
lessons of the past, and the promise of the future truth and submission.
The passage demonstrates Ephrem’s familiarity with Jewish and
Hellenistic apocryphal traditions commenting on Gen. 6:4, which tells of “the
mighty men of old” or giants, born from the marriage of “the sons of God” and
“the daughters of men.” In Gen. 10:8–9, Nimrod, who was later associated with
the tower’s construction, is named “a mighty one on the earth” and “a mighty
hunter.” The idea that there had been a certain pre-Babel race of giants was
attested in Greek historians of the Hellenistic and Roman era – in Abydenus’
now-lost History of the Chaldeans (c. 200 BCE), which
probably was derived from the history by Berossus (c. 300 BCE, Babylon), and in
Alexander Polyhistor (first century BCE, Rome). In his Chronicle and Preparation for the Gospel 9.14
and 9.17, Eusebius of Caesarea cited the opinions of Abydenus and the earliest
Hellenistic Jewish historian Eupolemus that the giants built the tower of
Babel.
Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel
9.14 and 9.17 (K. Mras, Eusebius Werke 8, GCS
43). Ephrem likely drew on the same Jewish Hellenistic
tradition when he mentioned the giants in his sermon.
With this last example, we have exhausted the list of references to
the tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues attested in Ephrem. The most
explicit discussion of the Babel episode occurs in his Commentary on Genesis, where Ephrem presented it as the termination of
the original unilingualism and the beginning of linguistic diversity. He
emphasized that “the whole earth had a single language” and that Noah’s
grandchildren “received” their tongues at Babel before being scattered
worldwide.
Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis 8.2–3 (R.-R.
Tonneau, CSCO 152, SS 71:65); Ephrem, Commentary on
Genesis proem, 5 (R.-R. Tonneau, CSCO 152, SS 71:5).
Seventy-two different nations came from seventy-two grandsons of
Noah, speaking their respective languages. As Ephrem noted, all of them, with a
single exception, lost their shared primordial tongue. Who was this exception?
Ephrem did not point to Heber and his descendants directly. His story’s
primordial language remains nameless, turning into an invitation to further
speculative suggestions. It is as if Ephrem intentionally left such a playful
remark, meaning to puzzle scholars today.
Why did he not give any further details? To start with, his Commentary on Genesis is a very peculiar document. Ephrem
probably wrote it during the last decade of his life in Edessa, where he moved
after his native Nisibis was surrendered to the Persians. In Edessa, Ephrem
encountered a wildly diverse multireligious and multiconfessional community and
saw his urgent task in supporting the orthodox cause. On the Edessene intellectual
milieu: Han J.W. Drijvers, “The School of Edessa: Greek Learning and
Local Culture,” in Centres of Learning: Learning and
Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, edited by Jan
Willem Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald (Leiden: Brill, 1995),
49–59. The exercise in reading his Commentary on Genesis reminds one of an overheard phone conversation,
in which we listen only to one interlocutor, namely, Ephrem, and should do our
best to supplement the responses on the other end, namely, those by the
followers of Bardaisan, Mani, and Marcion, with whom Ephrem debated, in a way
that would meaningfully reconstruct the rest of the dialogue. T. Jansma, “Ephraems
Beschreibung des ersten Tages der Schöpfung,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 37 (1971), 300–305; A.
Guillaumont, “Genèse 1,1–2 selon les commentateurs syriaques,” in IN PRINCIPIO: Interpretations des premiers versets de
la Genèse, Études augustiniennes 152
(Paris, 1973) ,115–32. This polemical focus explains both –
the unbalanced structure and sometimes curious content of the Commentary. Not all chapters of Genesis received equal attention. As
Edward Mathews and Joseph Amar note, “The entire first half of the Commentary on Genesis is devoted to only three pericopes:
the six days of creation; the fall of Adam and Eve; and the flood that occurred
in the days of Noah.” Edward G. Mathews and Joseph P. Amar,
“Introduction to the Commentary on Genesis,” in
St. Ephrem the Syrian, Selected Prose Works,
trans. Edward G. Mathews and Joseph P. Amar, ed. Kathleen E. McVey
(Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 60; see also
their remark in “General Introduction,”43–44 and the further discussion
in: Paul Féghali, “Les premiers jours de la Création, Commentaire de Gn.
1,1–2,4 par Saint Ephrem,” Parole de l’Orient 13
(1986), 3–30; Sten Hidal, Interpretatio Syriaca: Die
Kommentare des heilegen Ephräm des Syrers zu Genesis und Exodus mit
besondere Berücksichtigung ihrer auslegungsgeschichten Stellung
(Lund: Gkeerup, 1974). The exposition of these passages
had a greater theological significance for Ephrem and his fight against
heterodox ideas, particularly against the teaching of Bardaisan. After Genesis
4, Ephrem’s Commentary largely paraphrases the biblical
text by adding some dramatic elements to the action. Jeffrey Wickes, “Ephrem’s
Interpretation of Genesis,” St Vladimirs Theological
Quarterly 52.1 (2008), 45–65; Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “Spoken
Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9:1 (2001),
105–31. Significant
portions of the narrative are summarized or skipped over. It is the part to
which the story about the tower of Babel belongs. Since the socio-historical
implementations of the alleged starting point of linguistic diversity had little
importance for Ephrem’s opponents’ primeval history and mythological
constructions, he did not feel the need to address the passage polemically in
greater detail. Therefore, he only reported its content briefly.
Does this mean that Ephrem was outright not interested in languages
and communication? His works’ various metalinguistic remarks and comments
demonstrate that this is not the case. He typically attends to forms and modes
of expression and communication. He introduces metalinguistic remarks in his
descriptions of biblical events, even where the original scriptural passage
would not mention anything about languages. In the same Commentary on Genesis, Ephrem narrated the story of Joseph’s brothers
who came to Egypt for food during the famine in Judea (Genesis 42). Joseph
concealed his true identity and acted as a high Egyptian official. According to
Ephrem, when Joseph accused his brothers of being spies, their rebuttals
involved language issues: “They answered and said, ‘We do not even know the
Egyptian language so that, by speaking Egyptian, we might escape notice and
deceive the Egyptians. That we dwell in the land of Canaan you can learn from
our offering... That we are completely ignorant of the Egyptian language and do
not wear the garb of Egyptians also testifies to our truthfulness.’” Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis 36.4.2 (R.-R. Tonneau, CSCO
152, SS 71:101–102); trans.: Ephrem the Syrian, Selected Prose Works, trans. Mathews and Amar, ed. McVey,
189. Ephrem’s text closely paraphrases Genesis 42, which at
some point specifies that Joseph spoke Egyptian and an interpreter mediated his
conversations with the brothers (Gen. 42:23). However, Ephrem himself was
responsible for mentioning the Egyptian language as an argument against the
allegation that the visitors were spies. It is his original addition to the flow
of the biblical story – logically plausible but lacking the direct scriptural
foundation.
On Ephrem’s ways to cite the Bible: J. A. Lund, “Observations on Some
Biblical Citations in Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis,” Aramaic Studies 4 (2006): 207–220. On the importance of Joseph
in the Syriac poetical tradition: A. S. Rodrigues Pereira, “Two Syriac
Verse Homilies on Joseph,” Jaarbericht. Ex Oriente
Lux 31 (1989/1990), 95–120; Kristian Heal, “Reworking the
Biblical Text in the Dramatic Dialogue Poems on the Old Testament
Patriarch Joseph,” in The Peshiṭta: Its Use in
Literature and Liturgy: Papers Read at the Third Peshiṭta
Symposium, ed. Bas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden: Brill, 2006),
87–98.
Another fascinating insight – this time into the linguistic
situation in Paradise – occurs in Ephrem’s Commentary on
Genesis 3. Ephrem inquired into the serpent’s language while speaking to Eve
(Gen. 3:1). He considered four options: first, that “Adam knew the serpent’s own
language”; second, that “Satan spoke through [the serpent]”; third, that “the
serpent asked the question mentally, and speech was granted”; or fourth, “Satan
asked God that speech should temporarily be granted to the serpent.” Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis 2.16 (R.-R. Tonneau, CSCO
152, SS 71:34). For our discussion, it is not essential which
option Ephrem preferred, but the exceptional level of attention he paid to
linguistic codes and channels of communication is noteworthy. Ephrem
demonstrated a keen interest in tangible details and the very mechanics of
verbal interaction.
Similarly, we note unexpected remarks on languages in Ephrem’s
hymns and homilies on New Testament passages. He added, for instance, that when
Jesus healed the deaf and mute people (Mark 7.31-37) they “hear and speak
languages (plur.) they had never learned.” This was meant to anticipate the
apostolic speaking in every language. Ephrem, Homily on Our Lord
10.2, 11, 12.2 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 270, SS 116:8–10); trans. Ephrem the
Syrian, Selected Prose Works, trans. Mathews and
Amar, ed. McVey, 286–288. The relevant Gospel passages,
including the Diatessaron, do not mention anything about
languages spoken by the former mute. The detail seems to appear out of Ephrem’s
love for typological interpretation, but it also reveals that the issue of
language was permanently present in his mind. Elsewhere, Ephrem presented Jesus
as a newborn baby and then a prisoner before Herod (Luke 23:11). Jesus is silent
in all cases and yet “sang in every tongue.” Ephrem, Hymn on
Virginity 25.15 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 223, SS 94).
Jesus was the infant “in whom all our tongues were hidden” Ephrem, Hymn on Nativity 4.146 (Edmund Beck, CSCO 186, SS
82). and in whom “all tongues resided.” Ephrem,
Hymns on Unleavened Bread
13.7 (J. Edward Walters, ed.,
Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on the Unleavened
Bread
(Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2011),
54). These images are again a strong indicator of Ephrem’s
attentiveness to languages. Despite the concise character of his commentary on
the Babel episode and the utter ambiguity of his reference to the preservation
of the primordial tongue, there are multiple other examples in his works that
evidence his keen awareness of the world’s multilingualism and his constant
questioning of how languages operate. Whenever it was essential for his
multilayered typological exegesis, he never missed a chance to apply this vivid
interest in languages and communication to the biblical situations he analyzed.
The opposite, however, appears to be also true. Whenever the
biblical passage does not lend itself to typological interpretation or a
polemical cause, the purely historical or socio-linguistic reading is reported
by Ephrem, but only factually and succinctly. This seems to be the case with the
primordial language. Moreover, Ephrem’s lack of interest in the original tongue
is an indirect testimony to his siding with the mainstream Christian opinion of
the time, namely that it was Hebrew. If he had been a champion of Syriac
primordiality, he would not have missed a chance to emphasize that when he
interpreted Genesis 11. Ephrem is usually quite explicit about whatever polemics
he is engaged in, and that polemic is absent here.
One final piece of the puzzle is Ephrem’s reference to Hebrew in
the episode about Joseph and his brothers in Egypt from his Commentary on Genesis discussed above. When Joseph eventually revealed
his identity to his brothers, he started to speak to them “in the Hebrew tongue”
(ܒܠܫܢܐ ܥܒܪܝܐ).
Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis 39.2 (R.-R.
Tonneau, CSCO 152, SS 71:107). Therefore, if Joseph and his
brothers spoke Hebrew as their family language, according to Ephrem, one can
assume that their immediate ancestors, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, probably did
use this language as well. But was this the language and the nation that were “a
single exception” spared during the confusion at Babel? According to our take on
Ephrem’s thought, yes. However, the counterargument may be borrowed from
Theodore of Mopsuestia (c.350–428). Although we have only indirect and later
testimonies about his linguistic ideas,
Commentary on Genesis-Exodus (Diyarbakir 22
Manuscript) 11.7 (Van Rompay, CSCO 483, SS 205:68–9); Ishoʿdad
of Merv, Commentaries on the Old Testament (van
den Eynde, CSCO 126, SS 67:135). See the discussion about the
attribution of this opinion to Theodore of Mopsuestia: Rubin, “The
Language of Creation or the Primordial Language,” 323–325.
according to Yonatan Moss’s reconstruction, Theodore argued that Syriac was the
original tongue of humankind and that Hebrew appeared as a result of involuntary
corruption of Abraham’s native Syriac through the contact with the language of
Canaan when he moved there from Chaldea. Moss, “The Language of Paradise,”
130–5. If one imagines Ephrem following the same logic, the
remark that Joseph and his brothers spoke Hebrew does not qualify as a testimony
to the primordial language. There are, however, too many “ifs” in this scenario. First, Ephrem most likely did not follow the same
logic. Second, Theodore’s views are very uncertain. As Sergey Minov mentions,
“given the late nature of all these witnesses and the lack of unanimity on this
issue among East Syrian transmitters of the Theodoretan legacy, it seems
impossible at the present time to satisfactorily resolve the question of the
authenticity of this tradition.” Minov, Memory and Identity in
the Syriac Cave of Treasures, 277.
The remarks on the tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues in
Ephrem’s Exegetical Sermons, Hymns of
Faith, Against Heresies, Hymns on Nativity, Hymns on
Virginity, and Carmina Nisibena do not go as far
as to mention explicitly or even indirectly imply the identity of the primordial
tongue. The Babel episode often serves Ephrem as a virtually endless source of
symbols and typoi – joined in multidimensional
combinations and capable of lending themselves to different theological
arguments and poetical imagery. This paper deliberately avoids making
generalizing statements about Ephrem’s exegetical method and pigeonholing him in
terms of “allegorical” or “literal” traditions or schools but instead leans
toward the statement that Edward Mathews and Joseph Amar put so beautifully:
“His theological method, often labelled symbolic theology, is an intricate weave
of parallelism, typology, names, and symbols. In the creative application of
these tools, Ephrem displays a genius admirably suited to express the various
paradoxes of the Christian mystery.” Edward G. Mathews and Joseph P. Amar, “General
Introduction,” in St. Ephrem the Syrian, Selected
Prose Works, trans. Edward G. Mathews and Joseph P. Amar, ed.
Kathleen E. McVey (Washington: Catholic University of America Press,
1994), 48; see also: S. Muto, “Early Syriac Hermeneutics,” The Harp 11-12 (1998), 45-65; Nabil el-Khoury,
“Hermeneutics in the Works of Ephraim the Syrian,” in IV Symposium Syriacum, 1984: Literary Genres in Syriac Literature
(Groningen-Oosterhesselen 10-12 September), ed. H. J. W
Drijvers, R. Levanant S. J., C. Molenberg, and G. J. Reinink (Roma:
Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987), 93-99; on the
tradition connecting Ephrem with the School of Nisibis: Adam H. Becker,
Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The
School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique
Mesopotamia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2006).
While socio-linguistic and language-related historical speculations
seem to be tangential to Ephrem’s poetical and theological agenda, this approach
brings him close to the visions and thoughts of contemporaneous Greek writers,
primarily the Cappadocians. Like Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea, Ephrem
presented language as an attribute of human nature. In his magnanimity, God may
condescend to use any language to be more approachable to people. Ephrem’s
interest in the plurality of actors in Genesis 11:7 places him in the 360s–370s
context of the Trinitarian debates about the Holy Spirit’s divinity. He supports
the idea that the Hebrews were named after Heber, reflecting the consensus of
Christian writers on this issue. All these observations usually go together with
acknowledging Hebrew as the primordial tongue. Although Ephrem never directly
stated the primacy of Hebrew, and his speculative etymology of biblical names
works equally well for Hebrew and Syriac, he likely shared the same ideas about
the early linguistic situation. He never explicitly mentioned Syriac as the
primordial tongue, and this absence is much more telling than the fact that he
skipped over mentioning Hebrew.
It is true that authentic writings of late antique Syriac authors,
including but not limited to Ephrem the Syrian, are surprisingly equivocal
whenever it comes to the identity of the pre-Babel language. Their views can be
reconstructed only to a degree by collating the bits of information from
indirect statements. However, it is essential to disentangle this problem to
understand the genesis of the idea about the primacy of Syriac. This
tremendously powerful and unprecedented identity statement on behalf of Syriac
Christian elites attested in the Cave of Treasures and
then, from the eighth century, on different sides of the post-Chalcedonian
confessional divide. However, nowhere in his works does Ephrem seem to invest in
these polemics.
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