Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem's Hymns on Faith by Jeffrey Wickes

Abstract

Setting aside anemic approaches to Ephrem's biblical allusions, Wickes seeks a robust understanding of how Ephrem's biblical poetics emulate the design of the Bible: While the Bible's words and narratives form metaphors that God has arranged for the sake of an audience, the poet reshapes these same metaphors for the sake of yet another audience, rendering them parables whose new morals are manifest in the context of Ephrem's own community (62). The next three chapters consider how Ephrem reshaped biblical language in the Madrāsē on Faith to fashion the poetic self, mold his audience, and forge an antisubordinationist theology of the divine Christ. For readers of this journal who have witnessed the maturation of Syriac studies over recent decades, Bible and Poetry demonstrates once again the potential of Syriac literature to reshape and deepen our historiography of the formative centuries of Christianity.