Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem's Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem's Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria Adam H. Becker Christine Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem's Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria. North American Patristics Society Patristic Monographs Series 20 Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Press, 2008 Pp. xii + 191. $34.95. This is a book that needed to be written. It fruitfully synthesizes two disparate scholarly trends. The first is the historiographical transformation of Ephrem of Nisibis from an obscure, eastern, Semitic, turgid poet of little relevance to mainstream patristics into a pro-Nicene exponent of an anti-Arian Christianity akin to the fourth-century Greek fathers. The second trend concerns the increased focus over the past ten years on Jewish-Christian relations with particular attention to the social context and rhetorical function of Christian anti-Jewish literature. The latter trend is especially relevant to Ephrem because scholars have long noted the severity of his anti-Judaism. In this revised dissertation Christine Shepardson provides a brief, readable monograph, accessible to scholars of Syriac literature, patristics, and the history of late antiquity. The first chapter presents the background and context of Ephrem's works and sets the stage for Shepardson's broader argument that "Ephrem's Syriac texts demonstrate his passionate participation in the imperial theological struggles of the fourth century, as well as his relation to his Greek-speaking contemporary Athanasius" (3). In Chapter Two she places Ephrem's often vitriolic writing within the tradition of early Christian anti-Judaism, especially that of the ante-Nicene period, and then examines Ephrem's anti-Jewish language and motifs. Ephrem's rhetoric depicting Jews and Christians as clearly distinct categories, Shepardson argues, does not represent social reality, but rather is an ideological attempt to impose a binary opposition on the more blurred communal boundaries of fourth-century Nisibis and Edessa. Ephrem's claims about Jews are really about the limits of Christianity, and Shepardson rejects the claims of earlier scholars such as Edmund Beck—the modern editor of Ephrem's works—that Ephrem was responding to aggressive Jewish proselytism. She then turns to "Ephrem's Use of Scriptural History" (Chapter Three) and addresses the broader category of "Jew" developed by Ephrem through his exegesis, especially of paradigmatic [End Page 477] biblical events such as the episode of the golden calf and the Jewish rejection of Jesus. The book takes a more innovative turn in its analysis of the relationship between Ephrem's anti-Judaism and his polemic against "Arian" Christianity (Chapter Four). The "Jews" are no longer simply the actual Jews and Judaizing Christians of Ephrem's community; the category "Jew" has expanded to fit Ephrem's "Arian" Christian opponents as well. This chapter also compares Ephrem's attacks on "Arians" to those of Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and John Chrysostom, thus demonstrating the usefulness of reading Ephrem next to the fourth-century Greek fathers. In the final, brief chapter, Shepardson makes the case that Ephrem and Syriac Christianity must be removed from its isolation from the Roman Empire and early Christianity. While Shepardson's book suggests that an ideological counterposition developed in reaction to a certain social reality and yet ultimately affected that reality, she is in fact only addressing images, inasmuch as most of our evidence unfortunately consists of these highly ideological texts. Nonetheless, her presentation would have benefited from a closer look at the evidence for actual Jews in the region, which, aside from one long footnote (17–18 n. 62), she fails to do. The tenor of those scholars who argue for looking at Ephrem next to contemporary Greek authors is accurate, but it would be helpful if we had a better sense of how this "Nicene Roman Empire" was imagined by someone like Ephrem (despite 106 n. 1). Does he ever mention Nicaea? Furthermore, Ephrem's works are engaged in a deep theological mode that may help us to understand better his anti Judaism (e.g., "truth" and "symbol" in Hymns on Unleavened Bread 19 [32]; "hidden" and "revealed" [54, 90]). Shepardson is, however, more interested in the possible function of his arguments, that is, as tools for creating starker communal boundaries, than in how anti-Judaism...