Ephrem’s Fourth-Century Syria

Having submitted to more direct Roman control in the third century, eastern Syria was thereafter subject to many of the same historical currents as the rest of the eastern empire: it experienced the growing influence of Christian groups, the vacillation of changing emperors' religious and political sympathies, and the rhetorical construction of an imperial Christian culture. As Christianity, and its struggle to define orthodoxy, became a powerful force in the empire, Syriac church leaders such as

Ephrem (c. ad 306-73) became active participants in Roman Christianity’s development. Through the course of the fourth century, Christianity acquired an imperial voice, and Syriac Christians discovered thereby a way to connect their local communities with what they claimed to be universal tropes of‘‘church’’ and ‘‘empire.’’ While Syria maintained unique texts and practices, Ephrem tried to forge his community’s singular self-understanding into a more general notion of imperial ‘‘orthodoxy.’’ This was not, however, a case of simple substitution. Rather, the local identity and imperial ‘‘orthodoxy’’ were developing in creative conversation with each other. Fourth-century Syria cannot plausibly be understood without bridging the supposed chasm between Syrian religious discourse and contemporary discussions of Greek (and Latin) theology and politics. Historians have sometimes overlooked or underplayed local differences elsewhere in the empire, in order to allow a more vivid description of an imperial norm. In the case of Syria, the tendency has been reversed: normative aspects have too often been erased in order to highlight difference. We would benefit from a more tempered analysis, alert to the way in which imperial narratives of orthodoxy had to cope, face to face, with local difference.

Ephrem was a prolific writer and poet. His hymns, commentaries, and other writings not only tell us much of what we know about fourth-century Syriac Christianity, but also served as a model for later Syriac writers. They are an invaluable resource in a discussion of Syria’s history, both for what his writings reflect about his own time and for how their poetic legacy influenced the writers of later centuries. They provide compelling evidence that fourth-century Syria showed both regional diversity and imperial Roman influence; and, as mentioned, Ephrem himself idealized the homogeneity of those characteristics, especially the bond between his own culture and his hope for a pro-Nicene Christian empire.

Late antique Syria would not be ‘‘Syrian’’ without its thriving religious diversity. Other late antique Roman cities displayed a comparable wealth of religious diversity; but the distinctive mix of Jews, Manichees, Marcionites, and Bardaisanites alongside other Christians and pagans made Syria unique. Eastern Syria’s geographical location between Palestine and Babylon, and Syriac’s linguistic relation to Aramaic (and Hebrew), created an environment in which Syriac Christianity, in eastern Syria and in Aphrahat’s Persian home, developed a closer contact with contemporary Judaism than was possible in most other places. Ephrem’s fourth-century texts share some exegetical motifs and strategies with those of his contemporary rabbinic counterparts, and his insistent anti-Judaizing pleas that his congregants flee from and not eat unleavened bread, suggest interaction, and even overlap, between some of those who attended his church and some of those who attended local synagogue festivals (Ephrem, Hymns on Unleavened Bread 19). Without connecting fourth-century Syriac Christianity with Baur’s shadowy ‘‘Petrine’’ Jewish-Christianity, the visible local continuity and linguistic accessibility of Judaism does appear to have facilitated contact between some Syrian Christians and Jews. It was in response to precisely such associations that Ephrem deployed his imperial rhetoric, striving to link Syria with Greek Christian narratives of imperial orthodoxy (Griffith 1999b).

Other authors wrote against one or another of Ephrem’s opponents: Augustine against the Manichees, for example (August. C. Faustum). But those opponents were gathered in a unique mix in the Syrian sphere, and were notably successful through the fourth century. Ephrem wrote vitriolic treatises against Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan (Discourses against Hypatius I-V, Against Marcion I-III; Against Bardaisan’s ‘‘Domnus’’; Against Mani), and famously complained that ‘‘orthodox’’ Christians were called “Paltitians” after their early leader Paliit, possibly because the name ‘‘Christian’’ already belonged to others (Ephrem, Hymns against Heresies 22. 5-6; Bauer 1996: 21-4). Just as Egypt was associated with Gnosticism, and fourth-century North African history was colored by the Donatist controversy, late antique Syria was home to Jews, Manichees, Marcionites, Bardaisanites, pagans, and pro-Nicene Christians. This complex amalgam highlights Syria’s unique character, especially when combined with the textual distinctiveness of the Peshitta and the popularity, at least until Rabbula’s episcopacy, of the Diatessaron, which was a harmonization of the New Testament gospels attributed to the Syrian Tatian.

But Syria’s religious diversity marked it out as not only different from but also continuous with the eastern empire. Ephrem’s writings against Arians, Anomeans, and Homoian Christians demonstrate his active engagement with precisely the opponents that other eastern pro-Nicene Christians addressed in the fourth century (for details, see Griffith 1986; Shepardson 2002, 2008). That Ephrem represented a Christianity that was comprehensible to contemporary Christian leaders who were themselves more firmly within (or in fact creating) ‘‘orthodoxy’’ is evident from the rapid translation ofhis works into Greek, from Epiphanius’ reference to Ephrem within a fewyears of his death (Epiph. Adv. haeres. 51. 22. 7), and from Jerome’s description of him not much later (Hieron. De vir. ill. 115). Christian authors such as Palladius, Sozomen, and Theodoret also wrote about Ephrem, demonstrating that knowledge of his Syriac writings and his life quickly spread across linguistic and geographical boundaries (Palladius, Lausiac History 40; Sozom. Hist. eccl. 3. 16; Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 4. 29). Ephrem helped to place Syria firmly within the empire, a factor to be taken into account if we are to acquire any persuasive understanding of Syriac particularities.

But as it transcended its own immediate context, Ephrem’s Syriac Christianity still maintained a local flavor. This was particularly evident in its practice of asceticism. Asceticism was becoming popular throughout the empire, but varied locally nevertheless. Syria’s ascetic history combined a growing list of severe forms of individual asceticism, such as that of Simeon the Stylite (d. ad 459), along with the history of a celibate community within the congregation. Early Syriac literature refers to the bnay/bnat qyama (the sons/daughters of the covenant), a title that appears to have been connected with a vow of celibacy. Modifying Arthur Voobus’s suggestion that celibacy was a requirement for baptism in early Syriac Christianity (Voobus 1951, 1961), Susan Ashbrook Harvey has recently shown both the limits of our knowledge about these covenanters and the uniqueness of the practices that they espoused, including Ephrem’s famous female choirs (Harvey 2005).

This brief survey of Ephrem’s career demonstrates the complex symbiosis that late antique Syria maintained with its western neighbors. The details of its religious diversity reflect a Syrian individuality, but Ephrem’s pro-Nicene anti-Homoian arguments exemplify continuity with his Greek-speaking contemporaries. The covenanters form a particularly Syrian detail of early Christian asceticism, while the growth and influence of asceticism more generally show continuity with the rest of Roman Christianity. The Syriac language creates a regional distinctiveness, just as Berber does for North Africa and Coptic does for Egypt. The Odes of Solomon, the Liber Graduum, and Ephrem’s poetry stand outside the Greek and Latin canon of church writings, and thus Syriac authors and the content of Syriac texts may appear foreign in the otherwise familiar Roman world. The overlay of Latin and Greek, however, as well as the early translation of texts and ideas to and from Syriac, creates some common ground. Ephrem’s fourth-century Syria was delightfully unique but intelligible to, and in touch with, the larger Roman Empire. It is only by remembering both halves of this truth that we can begin to see both Syria and the Roman Empire more clearly.