Friday, December 31, 2021

Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) on Mark 10:18

  

Moreover, the rich man called him good, as though favouring him, as people favour their companions with honorary titles. [The Lord] fled from that by which people favoured him, so that he might show that he had received this goodness from the Father, through nature and generation, and not [merely] in name. One only is good, [he said], and did not remain silent, but added, the Father, so that he might show that the Son he possesses is good, because he is similar to him. [The rich man] called him Good Teacher, as though one of the [ordinary] good teachers. No one is good, as you think, except one, God the Father. He said God, to show about whom he was speaking. [He said] the Father, to show that [God] could not be called Father, except on account on the Son. Because they were ready to locate many gods in heaven, he said, There is no one good except one, the Father who is in heaven. “I am not God and God, but God from God, and not good alongside good, but good from good.” That is why he said, Father. For if you hear [a judgment] about a good tree, you instantly extend the witness of goodness to its fruit also. Wherefore, just as the son of the Law had come from the Law to be instructed, he replied to him as though from the Law, I am, and there is none besides me. So too here, No one is good, except one. The two [statements] are one [in meaning], just as in Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. (Saint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes XV §2 [trans. Carmel McCarthy; Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 2000], 229-30)