There are many things to be proud of when it comes to being part of the Church of The East, but I believe one thing that makes us so unique, and such a beautiful Church full of richness in history and tradition, has to be the liturgical aspect. We have had some of the greatest theologians and authors of various historical works, along with ascetism, such as in Mar Abdisho, Metropolitan of Nisibis and Armenia, Saint Isaac of Nineveh the renowned monk and bishop, Youkhanan Bar Zo’bi, Elias of Nisibis, Babai The Great, the great doctors and theologians of the Church, and many more which are not named. I mean, just look at this description of Mar Abdisho and what he did during his life:
Who is Saint Ephrem?
One particular Saint who is revered deeply by not just our Church, but as a universally venerated Saint, is Mar Ephrem Raba, or Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Syrian being the word Suraya in the classic Syriac language). He is arguably known as the most notable hymnographer across the entirety of Christianity, and he has left a powerful impact on the daily liturgical use in the Church as his Hymns, and Qaleh (Tunes), are still in use today, in which I will later link an example of a hymn that is sang every Sunday Morning for Sloota D’Sapra (Morning Prayer) to get an insight on the poetic genius-ness that he was. (For those who follow my instagram page or are clerics in the Church, you might already be familiar with this one).
Saint Ephrem was born around the year 306 A.D in the city of Nisibis and grew up to eventually become a Deacon in the Church, which is why most of our Clerics usually refer to him as being the Patron Saint of Deacons, and why we have a small seminary here in Chicago named after him which is dedicated to raising up Deacons in the Church. He was also believed to be apart of a Proto-Monastic Syriac group of the Church called the “Sons of The Covenant” or in Syriac we would say “Bnay Qyama” (ܒܢܝ ܩܝܡܐ). This was mostly developed as a counter to Marcionism and Manichaeism which we can also find Saint Ephrem as being one of the biggest writers who wrote against their heresies, especially in the form of his madrasheh, which are essentially a type of poetry that is written in stanzas with syllabic verses which again will be demonstrated later with a hymn from him. You can read more from Saint Ephrem the way he structures his poetry in an excerpt titled “Songs and Prayers Like Incense: The Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian” by J. Barrington Bates who talks about this.
He is also very notable and credited as being the one who founded the School of Nisibis, however others also credit it to being founded by Saint Jacob of Nisibis, either way at the very least they both were considered to be the heads of the School. Later very important Syriac Saints such as Mar Narsai of Nisibis grew up and learned, and adopted a similar style of writing as Saint Ephrem, in this very school and as well became the head of the school. One day by the Grace of God I will also make a separate post about Mar Narsai and go into depth of him. This eventually became the learning center of the entire Church of The East where Theology, History, Language, Philosophy, and even Medicine were all taught. Think of it as like an early religious college/university that our forefathers would have attended.
The Hymns of Saint Ephrem
According to Kathleen McVey in which Bates cites in his book, there are hundreds of hymns surviving till this day with some being lost in history. He wrote on numerous topics such as:
- Hymns on Faith
- Hymns on Nativity
- Hymns on Paradise
- Hymns on Lent
And many more aside from this, as he was a very prolific writer, all aside from his commentaries on the Diatessaron, a 2nd Century Syriac Gospel Harmony written by Tatian the Assyrian (who later fell into heresy). An article titled “Ephraem’s ‘On Repentance’” written by T.S. Pattie cites a historian by the name of Sozomen who credits him to have written over 3 million verses. If that isn’t considered prolific than I dont know what is. I think honestly the funniest and yet coolest thing about Saint Ephrem aside from all his literature, has to be the entire motive behind this all which all stems from his opponents Bardaisan and Mani. Bates in his book cites this:
“He set his own texts to the tunes of Bardesanes,
whose metrical psalms were popular in Ephrem’s time, and still
sung until the first half of the fifth century. Bardesanes (properly
“Bar-Daisan,” 154-222 C.E.), whose Gnostic doctrine Ephrem
“strongly denounced,” earned the title of Father of Syrian
Poetry through his metrical psalms. What little is known of Bardesanes’s theology was learned mostly from its refutation in
Ephrem’s work. In retribution for Bardesanes’s heresies,
Ephrem, one historian tells us, composed new psalms based on
the same meter and with the same verse and stanza structure. In
spite of this retributive borrowing, most of Ephrem’s melodies
were, in fact, original to him, discrediting the medieval tradition
that early Christian hymn writers frequently used “secular or
pagan melodies in order to win the hearts of the people.”
So Saint Ephrem quite literally took the style of writing in which the heretic Bardaisan would write in, used it AGAINST him as a form of refutation, and on top of that I would argue even did it better lol. Imagine you come up with a style of art and someone basically steals it and uses it against you, that is essentially what Saint Ephrem did.
Now lets actually examine some hymns of his and see what it is exactly that made him so great, after all it is best to see for yourself. Here is a hymn titled “The Praise of Mar Ephrem” which I mentioned is sung every Sunday morning for prayer prior to the start of the Divine Liturgy:
The above images are taken from one of our liturgical books titled “The Book of Before and After” or in Syriac would be “Daqdam Wadwathar” (ܟܬܒܐ ܕܩܕܡ ܘܕܒܬܪ) The link is embedded above and for those who can not read syriac, do not worry for I have an english translation as well down below:
The above screenshots can be found in the book titled “East Syrian Daily Offices” By Arthur John Maclean which is also embedded as a link to page 167 of the translation.
For those who do or do not read or write assyrian, notice the red letters in the Syriac that I provided in the first screenshots. What Ephrem is doing is using those letters as the first letters to the first word of every first verse in this hymn, almost as if he is subtly trying to spell something out. It goes as follows:
ܝ – (yodh)
ܐ – (alap)
ܫ – (sheen)
ܘ – (wow)
ܥ – (ain)
ܡ – (meem)
ܫ – (sheen)
ܝ – (yodh)
ܚ – (khet)
ܐ (alap)
Which gives us the words ܝܐܫܘܥ ܡܫܝܚܐ does this sound familiar?
The above screenshots can be found on http://www.sargonsays.com/
The emphasis that I put on this as an example of the deep literature and liturgical tradition that we have in the Assyrian Church of The East is that the central form of worship is prayer itself. Writers like Saint Ephrem are perfect examples of this and how beautiful it is to be able to be apart of this Church, and pray how Saint Ephrem and the rest of the Early Syriac Fathers did. These hymns are meant to offer praise up to God, and have been carefully styled in a way so sophisticated, with tunes that accompany them, where you feel really spiritually connected to God himself. With that I will conclude this as being the first part of my series on the Assyrian Fathers of the Church of The East. God bless you all.
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