“Exchanging Reed for Reed” Mapping Contemporary Heretics onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith†
Christine
Shepardson
1500 Duke University Rd., Apt. B-3A
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Vol. 5, No. 1
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv5n1shepardson
Christine C. SHEPARDSON
“Exchanging Reed for Reed” Mapping Contemporary Heretics onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith†
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol5/HV5N1Shepardson.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2002
vol 5
issue 1
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.
Syriac Studies
Ephrem
anti-Judaism
Hymns on Faith
Arians
heretics
Jews
Syria
fourth-century
scripture
Christian self-definition
rhetoric
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Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith are
among the most stridently and explicitly anti-Arian of
Ephrem’s numerous polemical writings. Written in
the midst of the struggle for political and social authority
that raged between Arian and Nicene Christians, these hymns
include a complex collection of both anti-Arian and anti-Jewish
language. Close examination of these hymns will
demonstrate that Ephrem repeatedly connects Christian
‘heretics’ with Jews by mapping his opponents onto
negative caricatures of Jews in Christian scripture.
Focusing primarily on the comparison that Ephrem makes in Hymn
87 between biblical Jews who crucified Christ and contemporary
Christians who comparably threaten God’s son, I argue
that Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in these hymns should
be read primarily in light of his struggle against local
Christians rather than Jews.
Introduction
[1]
Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith are among the most
stridently and explicitly anti-Arian of Ephrem’s numerous
polemical writings.
Although there are significant problems inherent in
using the term ‘Arian’, it is difficult to identify
Ephrem’s opponents any more specifically. See
Sidney Griffith’s recent observations in S.H. Griffith,
“Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephrem’s
Hymns against Heresies,” in The Limits of
Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and
Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus, ed. by W.E. Klingshirn and
M. Vessey (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1999),
97-114; and in S.H. Griffith, “Ephraem, the Deacon of
Edessa, and the Church of the Empire,” in Diakonia:
Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer, ed. by T. Halton and
J. Williman (D.C.: CUA, 1986), 22-52; as well as Paul
Russell’s observations in St. Ephraem the Syrian
and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians (Kerala,
India: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1994).
In his detailed studies of Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith,
Edmund Beck concluded that in these hymns Ephrem argues against
‘Arianism’: “The main theme in all eighty
Hymns on Faith is the defense of the church’s teaching
over and against the innovation of Arianism” (E. Beck,
Die Theologie des heiligen Ephraem in seinen Hymnen
über den Glauben, SA 21 [Vatican City, 1949],
62). In fact, Beck elsewhere uses the nuances of his
investigation to argue for a later date for the Hymns of Faith
in comparison with the Sermons on Faith: “The composition
of the Hymns on Faith can in my opinion be rather precisely
given. That we are in Ephrem’s Edessene period is
betrayed by the inclusion of the person of the holy spirit in
the Arian argument, which many of that time treat and which is
lacking in the polemic against the Arians in the Sermons on
Faith from the Nisibene period” (E. Beck, trans. Des
Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO Syr 155/74
[Louvain, 1955], i). While the general claim of
Beck’s conclusions about the identity of Ephrem’s
opponents remains, scholars have rightfully challenged modern
uses of the terminology of ‘Arianism’ itself, since
the term includes many distinct groups, each with their own
theological tenets. For relevant scholarship and
bibliography, see R.P. Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the
Nicene Revolution, (NY: OUP, 2000); R.C. Gregg and D.E.
Groh, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation,
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981); M.R. Barnes and D.H.
Williams, eds., Arianism after Arius, (Edinburgh, 1993);
R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God:
The Arian Controversy 318-381, (Edinburgh, 1988); and J.T.
Lienhard, “The ‘Arian’ Controversy: Some
Categories Reconsidered” (TS 48 [1987]),
415-437. With regard to Ephrem’s opponents, I use
‘Arian’ in contrast to ‘Nicene’
Christianity to reflect the strongly subordinationist nature of
their theology.
Written in Syria in the midst of the
struggle for political and social authority that raged between
Arian and Nicene Christians in the decades following the
Council of Nicea, these hymns include a complex collection of
both anti-Arian and anti-Jewish language. While scholars
have traditionally read Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric as
complaints against local Jews and
‘Jewish-Christians’,
There is no reason to doubt that there were Jews
living in both Nisibis and Edessa during Ephrem’s
lifetime, and some of Ephrem’s writings do complain about
local Jewish practices (see, for example, Cruc. 19-20 in Edmund
Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Paschahymnen [de
azymis, de crucifixione, de resurrectione], CSCO Syr
248/108 [Louvain, 1964]). As a result, early scholars
assumed that all of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric was a
straightforward attack on contemporary Jews. For
examples, see Stanley Kazan, “Isaac of Antioch’s
Homily against the Jews” (OrChr 46 [1962]), 87-98;
(47 [1963]), 89-97; (49 [1965]), 57-78; J.B. Morris, Select
Works of St. Ephrem the Syrian, Library of the Fathers,
(Oxford, 1847), 396n; and E. Beck, Ephraems Reden über
den Glauben (Rome, 1953), 118-119; as well as later works
that accept and echo the conclusions of these authors (e.g., R.
Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early
Syriac Tradition [Cambridge, 1975]; S.D. Benin,
“Commandments, Convenants and the Jews in Aphrahat,
Ephrem and Jacob of Sarug,” in Approaches to Judaism
in Medieval Times, ed. by D.R. Blumenthal [Chico, CA:
Scholars Press, 1985], 135-156; and A.P. Hayman, “The
Image of the Jew in the Syriac Anti-Jewish Polemical
Literature,” in “To See Ourselves as Others See
Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late
Antiquity, ed. by J. Neusner and E.S. Frerichs [Chico, CA:
Scholars Press, 1985], 423-441). Scholars have begun to
recognize, however, that not all of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish
language can be read most fruitfully as literal attacks on
Jews. See, for example, R.A. Darling, “The
‘Church from the Nations’ in the Exegesis of
Ephrem,” in IV Symposium Syriacum, 1984, ed. by
H.J.W. Drijvers et al. [Rome, 1987], 111-121; and H.J.W.
Drijvers, “Jews and Christians at Edessa”
(JJS 36, no. 1 [1985]), 88-102. Nonetheless, the
details of the role of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in a
context of Nicene/Arian conflict have not yet been worked
out. For other relevant bibliography, as well as an
earlier discussion of Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in
this context, see C. Shepardson, “Anti-Jewish Rhetoric
and Intra-Christian Conflict in the Sermons of Ephrem
Syrus,” in Studia Patristica. Vol. XXXV, XIII
International Conference on Patristic Studies (Peeters:
Louvain, 2001), 502-507.
the combination of a
predominantly anti-Arian agenda with this anti-Jewish language
makes the Hymns on Faith key texts for investigating
Ephrem’s use of anti-Jewish rhetoric in order to engage
in a local intra-Christian struggle. A close examination
of these hymns will demonstrate how Ephrem repeatedly connects
the ‘heretics’ with Jews by mapping his Christian
opponents onto the negative caricatures of the Jews of
Christian scripture. Focusing primarily on the complex
comparison that Ephrem makes in Hymn 87 between biblical Jews
who crucified Christ and contemporary Christians who comparably
threaten God’s son, I shall argue that Ephrem’s
anti-Jewish rhetoric in these hymns should be read primarily in
light of his struggle against local Christians rather than
Jews.
Hymns on Faith
[2] Edmund
Beck and others have concluded that Ephrem’s Hymns on
Faith were most likely written after 363 C.E. in Edessa,
during the reign of the pro-Arian emperor Valens.
See above for Beck’s dating. This
dating would place the writing of the Hymns on Faith in the
context of political uncertainty for Ephrem, in the Roman
East. Except for the brief reigns of Julian and Jovian,
Ephrem found himself under the political rule of emperors
(Constantius and Valens) who actively supported
subordinationist Christians such as Ephrem’s opponents
instead of Nicene Christians.
Given the
immediacy and strength of Arian Christianity in the East during
this time, the sharpness of the anti-Arian language of Ephrem,
a vociferous proponent of Nicene ‘orthodoxy’, comes
as little surprise. Along with the anti-Arian polemic,
however, the Hymns on Faith also contain a striking
amount of anti-Jewish language. While less vitriolic than
Ephrem’s most ad hominem anti-Jewish attacks
against the “foulness of the stinking
Jews,”
Ephrem, CH 56.8 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen
Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra Haereses, CSCO Syr 169/76
[Louvain, 1957]). All quotations from Ephrem in this text
are my translations from the Syriac editions noted.
the rhetoric in the Hymns on Faith offers
a significant example of Ephrem’s use of anti-Jewish
rhetoric to attack Arian Christians.
[3]
Rhetorically, Ephrem addresses these hymns to a Christian
audience,
While it is difficult to know with any certainty
the ‘real’ and/or ‘imagined’ audience
of these hymns, Ephrem’s use of pronouns and his
rhetorical arguments do suggest that rhetorically at least he
addressed these hymns to Christians, supporting scholars’
belief that Ephrem’s hymns were performed during
Christian worship services. For a discussion of the
performance of Ephrem’s writings, see S.A. Harvey,
“Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac
Tradition” (JECS9:1 [2001]), 105-131; and K.E.
McVey, “Were the Earliest Madrashe Songs or
Recitations?” in After Bardaisan: Studies on
Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of
Professor Han J.W. Drijvers, ed. by G.J. Reinink and A.C.
Klugkist, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89 (Louvain: Peeters,
1999), 185-199.
and the specific language and criticisms that
Ephrem levels against Jews in the hymns provide him with an
effective weapon with which to argue against his Christian
opponents. In Hymn 44, for example, Ephrem sets up a
dichotomy between ‘them’, “that People”
(the Jews), and ‘us’, Christians. He writes
of the Jews [yhwdy’] that “they are not able
to live... they rejected... they have been
rejected,” and ends those observations by referring to
“a chasm between us and that
People.”
Ephrem, HdF 44.4 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen
Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO Syr 154/73
[Louvain, 1955]).
Nominally, then, Ephrem clearly delineates
between Jews, on the one hand, and Christians, on the
other. In practice, however, Ephrem spends a good part of
these hymns attempting to demonstrate that when this line is in
fact drawn, his Arian opponents land squarely on the side of
the Jews.
This is not the only collection of Ephrem’s
writings in which he marshals his arguments toward this
end. For example, he employs different methods toward a
similar goal in his Sermons on Faith (E. Beck, ed., Des
Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones de Fide, CSCO Syr
212/88 [Louvain, 1961]). See Shepardson,
“Anti-Jewish”.
Anti-Jewish/Anti-Arian Themes
[4] Many of
Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith contain examples that are
relevant to the discussion of Ephrem’s use of anti-Jewish
language in his fight against subordinationist
Christians. The majority of these scattered references
rely on biblical stories and imagery with which anti-Jewish
language is ‘proven’ through biblical prooftexting,
and through which Ephrem’s Christian opponents are
described as directly analogous to Jewish forerunners.
Ephrem’s numerous writings are replete with biblical
language, examples, and imagery. In his Hymns on Faith,
Ephrem uses a variety of Old and New Testament stories to
support his arguments, frequently comparing his opponents to
Jews who are portrayed negatively in the biblical text.
Ephrem’s easy transition between the Old and
New Testaments reflects his belief that Christian scripture as
a whole is the coherent story of salvation history.
One of
Ephrem’s favorite comparisons from the New Testament
(judging by the frequency with which it occurs in his writings)
is to condemn the Arians for their inquiring actions by
directly comparing them to the negatively-portrayed Pharisees
who challenge Jesus in the New Testament Gospel
stories.
See, for example, SdF VI; de Dom. nos. 19ff (E.
Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermo de Domino
Nostro, CSCO Syr 270/116 [Louvain, 1966)]; Virg,
13.2, 14.5 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers
Hymnen de Virginitate, CSCO Syr 223/94 [Louvain,
1962)]; and CNis 40 (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des
Syrers Carmina Nisibena, zweiter Teil. CSCO Syr 240/102
[Louvain, 1963].)
The emphasis on the verbs for searching
[bs’], seeking
[bc’], and investigating [cqb] in
Ephrem’s rhetoric is frequently an attack against Arian
Christians who, Ephrem argues, inappropriately seek to know God
through reasoned inquiry, rather than simply believing through
faith.
In HdF 87, however, Ephrem himself describes
in more detail one of the problems he has with his rivals:
“With various names indeed [Satan] clothes him, either
that of ‘creature’ or that of ‘made
thing’, while he was the Maker” (HdF 87.14).
In this case, we are left with little doubt about the general
subordinationist nature of Ephrem’s opponents.
Such is the case in Hymn 44 when Ephrem
warns his Christian audience, “Be reproved, bold ones,
and be restrained, searchers!… It was thus the People
strove with [Christ] through their questionings”.
Ephrem, HdF 44.6, 9.
This
is simply one example of Ephrem’s comparison of the
theological investigation of his fourth-century Christian
opponents to the challenging questions that the Pharisees asked
Jesus in the Gospel stories. Relying on Christians’
familiarity with (and abhorrence of) Jesus’ narrative
(‘Jewish’) opponents, Ephrem uses Christian
anti-Jewish sentiment to denounce ‘heretical’
contemporary Christian.
[5] Another
example of Ephrem’s scripturally-based anti-Jewish
charges comes in Hymn 7 of his Hymns on Faith. In
this hymn Ephrem condemns “all these who
investigated,”
Ephrem, HdF 7.7.
again connecting contemporary Arian
Christians with traditional Jewish antagonists of the Gospel
narratives. Ephrem elaborates by comparing the
investigating Christians to Herod, to the unrepentant thief
crucified with Jesus,
Lk 23:32-33, 39-43 (cf. Mt 27:38,44; Jn
19:17-18).
and to the Gospel scribes and
Pharisees:
The [thief] of the left, he disputed. His disputing cut
off his hope. The scribes disputed. They fell
with Herod who questioned him. . . . To all these who
investigated, Christ did not give himself. . . . The
Pharisees disputed, “who is this, and whose
son?” As searchers of truth, they fell from the
truth. As seekers of verity, in seeking it, they
destroyed it.
Ephrem, HdF 7.7, 9.
For Ephrem these negative examples are in direct contrast to
the Gospel forerunners of proper Christians, those who are
“innocent” to whom Christ did give
himself,
Ephrem, HdF 7.7.
those who follow the examples of the magi in
Matthew’s Gospel, who “did not dare to search
[Christ],”
Ephrem, HdF 7.7.
and the other thief in Luke’s
Gospel who “did not dispute; he believed when he did not
search.”
Ephrem, HdF 7.7 (cf. Lk 23:39-43).
In this hymn, Ephrem likens his Christian
adversaries to the Jewish New Testament villains Herod, the
scribes, and the Pharisees, and distances them from the Gentile
magi, the forerunners of true Christians. In Hymn 56
Ephrem summarizes this critique of his rivals’ disputes
about God: “Therefore both Testaments persuade us that
the faithful never disputed or investigated, for they believed
in God.”
Ephrem, HdF 56.8.
[6] In
addition to using biblical stories, Ephrem also frequently
draws comparisons between his opponents and biblical Jews by
using the same negative adjectives to describe both of them,
thereby implying a direct correlation between the two
groups. Specifically, Ephrem reiterates throughout his
Hymns on Faith his description of both Jews and Arians
as ‘blind’. In Hymn 8 Ephrem refers to the
Jews at Mt. Sinai as “the blind People,” doubly
blinded [veiled] by the veil of light surrounding Moses as well
as by his stammering,
Ephrem, HdF 8.5; Ex 34:29-35 and Ex 4:10-17.
and in Hymn 9 Ephrem compares “the
blind People” of the Jews to “you [pl.]
blind” among the Christians he accuses.
Ephrem, HdF 9.13.
Hymn 27 also
linguistically links the two groups by referring to his
opponents as a “blind assembly of
disputers.”
Ephrem, HdF 27.4.
In this case, not only are his disputing
opponents again blind, but Ephrem uses the Syriac word
knsh’ for ‘assembly’, a word that is
from the same root as knwsht’
‘synagogue’, the word that Ephrem consistently uses
to refer to a Jewish space or group instead of the synonym
cdt’ that he uses for Christians.
Through the common trait of blindness, then, Ephrem
rhetorically links his Arian opponents with the
negatively-coded errors, history, and people of the Jews.
Hymn 87
[7] Perhaps
the most elaborate conflation of Jews and Arians in all of
Ephrem’s writings, however, is in number 87 of his
Hymns on Faith. In these verses, Ephrem maps the
behavior of his contemporary Christian opponents point by point
onto the Jews from the New Testament narratives of Jesus’
Passion. Ephrem describes the former as the contemporary
equivalent to the Jews of Jesus’ time who, as described
throughout Ephrem’s writings, harassed and murdered
God’s son. While this comparison between the Jews
and Ephrem’s Christian opponents appears in several
variations throughout the Hymns on Faith, in Hymn 87
Ephrem draws a very physical connection based on the actions of
each of the two groups.
[8]
Throughout his writings Ephrem vacillates about where to place
the blame for the Jews’ actions (as described in
scripture), sometimes making the Jews themselves solely
responsible, and other times blaming Satan for manipulating
history and using the blind and foolish Jews as unwitting
minions to carry out his plans. In Hymn 87 Ephrem places
the blame on Satan, who in this construction of history
orchestrates both the Jews’ and the heretics’
reprehensible actions. While this in some way alleviates,
by removing the Jews’ agency, the vitriol that Ephrem
elsewhere pours directly onto the Jews, at the same time it
makes the Jews sinister lackeys, passive (and ultimately
passé) pawns in a Satanic drama that is played out on
the stage of human history.
[9]
According to Ephrem in this hymn, Satan had originally harbored
himself among the Jewish People, as was clear from the history
of the Jews’ destructive and ungodly behavior,
culminating with Jesus’ Passion and what Ephrem describes
elsewhere as the Jews’ murder of God’s own
son.
This accusation is frequent in
Ephrem’s writings. For only a small portion of the
numerous examples, see de Dom. nos. 5, 6; Cruc. 1, 5 and Azym.
1, 18; and CNis 67. In Hymns on Fasting 5.6 Ephrem even
accuses the Jews of killing God, not just God’s son, on
the cross (E. Beck, ed., Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers
Hymnen de Ieiunio, CSCO Syr 246/106 [Louvain,
1964]). These charges are not new with Ephrem, but
Ephrem’s rhetoric does repeatedly accuse the Jews of this
murder.
In Hymn 87, however, Ephrem claims that
after their actions during the Passion the Jews were no longer
a viable means through which Satan could secretly influence the
world, because after that time the Jews could no longer conceal
their partnership with Satan. Ephrem writes, “Satan
saw that he had been exposed in the former things, for the
spitting had been revealed, [as had] the vinegar and thorns,
nails and wood, garments and reed, and the spear that struck
him. And they were hated and revealed, and he changed his
deceits.”
Ephrem, HdF 87.16. See Appendix
A for a complete translation of this hymn.
The world’s alleged open recognition of
the Jews’ partnership with Satan forced Satan to find new
pawns through whom he could continue to influence history and
attack God. According to Ephrem, the Arians served as
Satan’s new tool after the Jews had worn out their
usefulness. Ephrem writes, “The former scribes
Satan disrobed; he clothed the later ones. The People
which had grown old, the moth and the louse gnawed it and ate
it, and they released and let it go. The moth came to the
new garment of the new peoples.”
Ephrem, HdF 87.9.
Satan
“began with the People, and he came to the peoples in
order that he might finish.”
Ephrem, HdF 87.12.
Ephrem understands that
Satan has recently changed players in his on-going effort to
corrupt, to destroy, and to fight against God. For
Ephrem, it is subordinationist Christians who are the
‘new garment’, and in that respect the new Jews,
through which Satan continues to harass God and God’s
people.
[10] In
Hymn 87 Ephrem identifies and describes his adversaries as the
replacement for the Jews through a direct comparison between
the behavior of the contemporary Christians and that of the
Jewish characters in the Gospel scenes of Jesus’ trial
and crucifixion. One by one, Ephrem maps the concrete,
literal actions of the New Testament Jews onto a figurative
characterization of the ‘heretical’
Christians’ own behavior, demonstrating to his audience
that not only do both contemporary Arians and the Jews of
Jesus’ time attack God and threaten true followers of
Christ, but that both groups in fact present precisely the same
threat. Through his rhetoric, Ephrem conflates the Arians
with the Jews blamed by Christian tradition for Jesus’
death, ‘proving’ to his audience that although the
contemporary blows may be less literal than the physical blows
with which Jesus was struck, the Arians are in fact through
their rebellious actions causing Christ to suffer a second
Passion. Ephrem writes of the Arians’ metaphorical
mimicry of the New Testament narrative, “A second Passion
did Satan want to reinstate.”
Ephrem, HdF 87.19.
Unsatisfied merely with
Jesus’ physical death, Satan continues his attack upon
Christians and God, figuratively reenacting Christ’s
Passion through the Arians’ attacks upon Christ’s
nature as well as upon Christ’s ‘true’
followers, Nicene Christians.
[11]
Ephrem begins his analogy by comparing the reed with which
Jesus was mocked and struck with the reed stylus with which the
Arians record their ‘heretical’ inquiries into
God.
The details of who mocks Jesus, and whether
or not they strike him with a reed vary in different ancient
texts of the New Testament Gospels and the Diatesseron.
At this time, however, I am simply discussing Ephrem’s
retelling of the narrative, and not trying to identify which
texts he used as a source for these details.
Ephrem writes, “Instead of that reed
that the former People gave the son to hold, [there are] later
ones who dared in their tracts to write with a reed that he
even is [only] human.”
Ephrem, HdF 87.13. In Hymns on Crucifixion 5
and 8 Ephrem also compares a reed from the Passion narratives
to reed styli, but he does so in different ways. In his Hymns
on Crucifixion, he primarily compares the reed with which the
crucified Jesus was offered a drink to the reeds with which
prophets, kings, and scribes of Israel (especially King David
as author of the Psalms) wrote against the behavior of
Jesus’ crucifiers. For example, Ephrem writes,
“David wrote with a straight staff in order that he might
shame that People who disgraced [Jesus] with that reed”
(Cruc. 8.4). Likewise, Ephrem notes, “Instead of
the one reed with which they beat [Jesus], the [many] reeds of
the scribes beat them... A thicket of reeds are the books of
the writers; they beat the crucifiers with their books”
[Cruc. V.14).
Instead of physically striking
Jesus with a reed, the heretics, Ephrem claims, deal comparable
blows against God through the tracts that they write with their
reed pens. Ephrem bemoans, “Reed for reed the evil
one exchanged against our savior.”
Ephrem, HdF 87.13.
Whereas Satan
could at one time openly strike at his enemy through the
Jews’ attacks, he must now act more subtly, striking
through the strife and falsehood espoused in the Arians’
writings. Ephrem argues that through their inquiry and
contention the Arians harm Christ in a duplication of the
actions of the Jews in the New Testament narrative.
[12]
Likewise, Ephrem also compares the “garments of various
colors” with which he claims Jesus was clothed to the
“various names” with which the Arians clothe
Christ.
Ephrem, HdF 87.14.
Again here it is Christ, rather than Nicene
Christians themselves, whom Ephrem portrays as the most direct
victim of the intra-Christian disputes. In Ephrem’s
depiction, through the inquiries of the Arians Satan reenacts
Jesus’ Passion at the hands of the Jews. Ephrem
describes a direct comparison for every detail of the Passion
narrative:
He changed the cross; a hidden cross dispute became.
And instead of nails, questions entered. And instead of
Sheol, [there was] denial... Instead of the sponge that
dropped with vinegar, he gave arrows, [i.e.,] searching, all
of which dripped with death. The gall that they gave to
him, our lord refused. Fraudulent seeking that the
bitter one gave, to fools is sweet.
Ephrem, HdF 87.19-20.
More than merely participants in a struggle to claim the
title ‘Christian’ for themselves, the Arians emerge
from Ephrem’s texts as assailants and abusers of Christ
himself, alike in every detail to the New Testament Jews whom
Ephrem blames for mocking and abusing God’s son.
[13] In
addition to the Arians’ investigating actions, in Hymn 87
Ephrem portrays the Nicene/Arian dissension within Christianity
as itself the direct outcome of Satan’s actions in
Ephrem’s lifetime, just as the Jews’ murder of
God’s son was in Jesus’ lifetime, and he describes
this intra-Christian strife as also comparable to
Christ’s Passion. Ephrem writes about Satan,
He brought in confusion instead of that blow with which
our lord was struck; and instead of spitting, investigating
came. And instead of garments, secret divisions.
And instead of a reed, contention came so that he might slap
all. Haughtiness cried out to fury its sister, and envy
and rage and pride and guile answered and came. They
took counsel against our savior, as on that day that they
took counsel when he suffered [i.e., “that day. . . of
his Passion”].
Ephrem, HdF 87.17-18.
Through this rhetoric Ephrem thus attempts to construct a
historical reality in which Arians, like the Jews before them,
become the unquestioned enemy both of God and of true
Christians.
Conclusion
[14] In
Hymn 87 of his Hymns on Faith Ephrem uses the
connections that he draws between fourth-century Arians and New
Testament Jews in order to emphasize not the depravity of
contemporary Jews so much as that of his more immediate
opponents, Arian Christians. Ephrem tars his
rivals’ image by rhetorically connecting them with the
Jews. By portraying the Arians as new Jews, as the
contemporary equivalent to, and in fact Satan’s direct
replacement for, the Jews who murdered the son of God, Ephrem
implies that the Arians are both theologically and perhaps even
physically dangerous to God and to true (i.e., Nicene)
Christians.
[15] In
his Hymns on Faith Ephrem manipulates negative Christian
depictions of and beliefs about Jews, rooted in (among other
things) the New Testament Gospels, in order to discredit his
Arian opponents. In Hymn 87 Ephrem goes to great lengths
in order to describe the Arians’ searching for the nature
of God and Christ as the figurative equivalent to traditions of
the Jews’ literal mocking and murder of Jesus.
Conflating the Arians’ verbal attacks with the abuse
portrayed in the Gospel Passion narratives, Ephrem is able
rhetorically to connect his contemporary Christian opponents
with what he portrays as the well-known and universally
despised people of the Jews. In Ephrem’s hymns,
Arian Christians found themselves in the perhaps surprising
position of being portrayed both as acting under Satan’s
control and also as attackers of Christ, the contemporary
equivalent to the (despised) New Testament Jews, and
consequently a dangerous threat to the safety and well-being of
any true Christian, as well as an affront to God.
Recognizing the boundary lines that Ephrem’s rhetoric
attempts to define and police within fourth-century
Christianity demonstrates the power that his language and
descriptions would have had within a Christian community torn
by the Nicene/Arian struggle. In his Hymns on
Faith, and especially in Hymn 87, Ephrem rhetorically
redraws social boundaries in such a way as to crystallize a
sharp distinction between two Christian communities. By
describing Arians as the contemporary equivalent of, and in
fact replacement for, the Jewish enemies of Christian lore as
Satan exchanges “reed for reed”, Ephrem replaces a
blurred line between two Christian groups with what he presents
as the unmistakable distinction between Christians and Jews,
leaving the Christian Arians firmly on the side of the
Jews.
Appendix
I translated this hymn from Edmund
Beck’s edition of the Syriac, (E. Beck, trans., Des
Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO 154
[Louvain: 1955]). Any errors are, of course, my own, but
I owe many thanks to Lucas van Rompay for his patient
assistance in working with me on this translation. I have
seen announced Paul Russell’s English translation of
Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith, but I have not yet been
able to locate a copy of his translation, so I include my own
here for the reader’s convenience (Paul Russell,
Ephraem the Syrian: 80 Hymns on Faith, Eastern Texts in
Translation 3 (Louvain: Peeters).
1. As in a contest I saw the
disputants,
children of pride, who were troubling themselves
to taste fire, to see the wind,
to touch light. They were tormenting themselves
to make divisions of the ray [of light].
Refrain: Glory be to the father, and to his son
Jesus,
and to his holy spirit.
2. The son who is more subtle than the
mind
they wanted to touch; and the holy spirit,
who is intangible, they also thought they had touched
through their questions; and the father who is never
being interpreted, they interpreted disputes about him.
3. [We have] a good model of our
faith
from Abraham, and [of] our repentance
from the Ninevites, and also [of] our expectations
from the house of Rahab. Ours are [the things] of the
prophets,
and ours [those] of the apostles. And [so] the evil one
became envious.
4. The evil habit of the evil calf
[is] from the Egyptians; the hateful sight
of the hateful image of the four faces
[is] from the Hittites; accursed dispute,
a hidden moth, [is] from the Greeks.
5. That bitter one saw orderly
things
and he perverted them; he saw hateful things
and he sowed them; and he saw hope
and he suppressed [it] and cut it off. The dispute that
he planted
indeed bore fruit that [is] a bitterness of the teeth.
6. Satan saw that truth suffocated
him
and his offshoots, and he set himself apart
and committed deceits and set snares
for faith, and he hurled into the priests
arrows of the lust for authority.
7. Over that throne they made a
contest
of who might precede. There is the one who in
secret
coveted and hid [desire to rule], and there is one who
openly
contended for it. The one acted contemptibly
and the other cunningly, and these are equal.
8. The one who is young also does not
consider
that it is not his time; and he who is old
does not reckon that [his] end draws near.
[It is] an evil tumor: elders, youth,
even children are seeking rank.
9. The former scribes Satan
disrobed;
he clothed the later ones. The People that had grown
old,
the moth and the louse gnawed it and ate it,
and they released and let it go. The moth came
to the new garment of the new peoples.
10. [Satan] saw the crucifiers, who were
rejected and
expelled as strangers. From [our Christian]
household
he made searchers; and from being worshippers
they became disputants. From the garment itself
[Satan] begot the moth, and he wrapped [it] up and placed
it.
11. He begot the louse in the storehouse
of wheat
and he sat and looked: and indeed the pure heap [of
grain]
is being corrupted, and indeed the garments of glory
are being gnawed. He mocked us,
and even we [mocked] ourselves, for we had become drunk.
12. He sowed tares, and the thicket
assaulted
the pure vineyard; he infected the flock
and leprosy spread, and sheep after sheep
became his possession. He began with the People
and he came to the peoples in order that he might finish.
13. Instead of that reed that the former
People gave the Son
to hold, [there are] later ones who dared
in their tracts to write with a reed
that he even is [only] human. Reed for reed
the evil one exchanged against our savior.
14. And instead of the garments of
various colors
in which he clothed him, he painted a designation
deceitfully. With various names
indeed he clothes him, either that of
‘creature’
or that of ‘made thing’, while he is the Maker.
15. And he had plaited for him out of
dumb things
silent thorns. Speaking thorns,
[coming] from the mind, he plaited for him with a voice
as hymns, and he concealed the brambles
within songs which were not known [before].
16. Satan saw that he had been
exposed
in the former things, for the spitting had been revealed,
[as had] the vinegar and thorns, nails and wood,
garments and reed, and the spear that struck him.
And they were hated and revealed, and [Satan] changed his
deceits.
17. He brought confusion instead of that
blow
with which our lord was struck; and instead of spitting,
investigating came; and instead of garments,
secret divisions; and instead of a reed,
contention came so that he might slap all.
18. Haughtiness cried out to fury its
sister,
and envy and rage and pride and guile
answered and came. They took counsel
against our savior, as on that day
that they took counsel when he suffered [i.e., “that
day… of his Passion”].
19. He changed the cross; a hidden
cross
dispute became. And instead of nails,
questions entered; and instead of Sheol,
[there was] denial. A second Passion
did Satan want to reinstate.
20. Instead of the sponge which dropped
with vinegar,
he gave arrows, [i.e.,] searching, all of which
dripped with death. The gall that they gave him,
our lord refused. Fraudulent seeking
that the bitter one gave, to fools is sweet.
21. And while in that time there was a
judge
against them, indeed judges
are [in the same way] against us. And instead of the
inscription,
[there are] their commands. The crown is innocent
for the priests set stumbling blocks for the kings.
22. Rather than that the priesthood might
pray
for the kingdom, that wars might cease
from humankind, perverse wars
they have taught them, for the kings have started
to struggle with their cities.
23. Our lord, reconcile the priests and
the kings,
and in one church let priests pray
for their kings, and let kings have mercy
on their cities; and let us have
inner peace in you, an outer wall._______
Notes
† I presented a version of this paper at the
annual conference of the North American Patristic Society, June
2001.
_______
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