Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) vs. the Immaculate Conception of Mary

Today is the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, as well as the anniversary of it being elevated to the position of a de fide dogma by Pius IX in his bull, Ineffabilis Deus.

 

It is common for some Catholics to cite Ephrem the Syrian as an early witness, if not the, earliest witness to the Immaculate Conception. As Ludwig Ott wrote:

 

St. Ephrem says: “Thou and thy mother are the only ones who are totally beautiful in every respect; for in thee, O Lord, there is no spot, and in thy Mother no stain” (Carm. Nisib. 27). (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 201)

 

However, again, when one examines the facts, we find that the Catholic Church's claims are to be found wanting at the bar of history. The following notes on Ephrem and his Mariology show that, contra Ott et al., not only is Ephrem not a witness for the Immaculate Conception, he is also a witness against the Immaculate Conception being an apostolic tradition:

 

The first apparently explicit testimony is in the Nisibene hymns of St Ephraem, a fourth century Syrian writer: “Certainly you are alone and your mother are from every aspect completely beautiful, for there is no blemish in you, my Lord, and no stain in your mother.” But there are other texts in the same author’s writings which, to put it mildly, call for subtle interpretation to maintain the doctrine—he spoke for example of Mary’s baptism. (Michael O’Carroll, CSSp, “The Immaculate Conception and Assumption of our Lady in Today’s Thinking” in John Hyland, ed., Mary in the Church [Dublin: Veritas, 1989], 44-56, here, p. 45)

 

Ephrem’s insistence on Mary’s spiritual beauty and holiness, and her freedom from any stain of sin, has led some scholars to hold that he was aware of the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and to point to him as a witness to the dogma. Yet it does not appear that our author was familiar with the problem, at least not in the terms in which it was made clear by later tradition and the dogmatic declaration of 1854. In one passage he even used the term “baptized” to indicate her Son’s saving intervention in her regard:

Handmaid and daughter

of blood and water [am I] whom You redeemed and baptized. (Hymns on the Nativity 16, 10) (Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought [trans. Thomas Buffer; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999 110)

 

O [You] Who brought forth His mother [in] another birth out of the water?. . . I am mother because of Your conception, and bride am I because of your chastity. Handmaiden and daughter of blood and water [am I] whom you redeemed and baptized. “Son of the Most High Who came and dwelt in me, [in] another birth, He bore me also [in] a second birth. I put on the glory of Him Who put on the body, the garment of His mother. (Hymns on the Nativity 16:9-11 as found in Kathleen E. McVey, trans., Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns [Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1989], 150)

 

“Second/Another birth” in the fathers is always a reference to the forgiveness of sins through the instrumentality of baptism. For Ephrem, it appears that the incarnation was Mary’s appropriation of the graces of baptism:

 

Despite Ephrem’s emphasis on Mary’s role as second Eve, here he makes it clear that that she is redeemed along with all of humankind by Christ. (Kathleen E. McVey, trans., Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns [Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1989], 150 n. 362—in Ephrem’s Mariology, Mary became “panagia” at the annunciation [as did many other Eastern Fathers]).

 

As with many early Christians, Ephrem understood John 2:4 to be Jesus rebuking Mary:

 

§4a. She said to him, My son, there is no wine here. He said to her, What is that to me and to you, Woman? What was wrong with what she said? She was in great doubt concerning his word, because there was no wine there. Wherefore [the response], What is that to me and to you, Woman? For she had perceived that he was about to perform a miracle, according to what he had said to her. [This can be seen] from what she said to the servants, Whatever my son tell you do. (Saint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes V §4a [trans. Carmel McCarthy; Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 2000], 96—Ephrem believed Mary was [1] being rebuked in John 2:4 due to [2] her doubt of Christ’s words—to doubt the words of Christ/God is sinful)

 

Ishoʿdad of Merv (~850 AD), in his own copy of Ephrem’s commentary on the Diatessaron understood Ephrem to be interpreting John 2:4 as a rebuke:

 

Mar Ephrem the great says: she had heard from him that he was about to work a miracle, and therefore he answered her when she persuaded him that the wine had failed, What have I to do with thee, woman? Certainly it is not proper for me to go to them by force, but let them all feel that the wine has failed, and let them ask to drink in order that the gift of God may be magnified in their sight. (Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron [trans. J. Rendel Harris; London: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1895], 46 [f. 252 v.])

 

The Syriac uses bakhta (lexical form: attha [“woman”]). This term in Syriac does not have a positive, but a neutral or even negative connotation.

 

Elsewhere, on Luke 1:35, Ephrem wrote:

 

He said to her, The Holy Spirit will come, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Why did he not mention the Father's name but instead, the name of his Power and the name of the Holy Spirit? Because it was fitting that the Architect of the works [of creation] should come and raise up the house that had fallen, and the hovering Spirit should sanctify the buildings that were unclean . . . He dwelt in the womb and cleansed it and sanctified the place of birthpangs and curses.(Saint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes [trans. Carmel McCarthy; Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 2000], 59 [book 1 paragraph 25])

 

On Ephrem conflating Mary (mother of Jesus) with Mary Magdalene:

 

Homily on the Lord, 49:

 

Mary anointed the head of our Lord’s body, as a symbol of the "better part" she had chosen. The oil was a prophecy of what her mind had chosen. While Martha was occupied with serving, Mary hungered to be satisfied with spiritual things from the one who also satisfies bodily needs for us. So Mary refreshed Him with precious oil, just as He had refreshed her with His most excellent teaching. With her oil, Mary indicated a symbol of the death of Him who put to death her carnal desire with His teaching. (Edward G. Mathews, Jr., and Joseph P. Amar, St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works [The Fathers of the Church 91; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994], 324)

 

Ephrem identifies Mary (and Martha) who anoints the feet of Jesus (John 12.3), with the woman mentioned in Matt 26.7 (Mark 14.3) who anointed the head of Jesus. On the fusing of Mary the mother of Jesus with Mary Magdalene see S. Brock, "Mary and the Gardener," FriO 11 (1983): 223-34; and Murray, Symbols, 146-48 and 329-3.'). (Ibid., 324 n. 247)

 

besides his poetic hymns, he wrote a commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron, where confusing Mary Magdalene with Mary the mother of Jesus (he does this very often, e.g. The Homily on Our Lord 49, Selected Prose Works: Commentary on Genesis, Commentary on Exodus, Homily on Our Lord, Letter to Publius, The Fathers of the Church, Volume 91, p. 324), he attributes to Mary, Jesus’ mother, the guilt of unbelief and doubt on the Resurrection (Michael O’Carroll, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock Pub 2000], 132-133)

 

Sebastian Brock on Ephrem’s Conflation of Mary, Mother of Jesus, with Mary Magdalene

 

Certainly, the most remarkable feature of the poem is the identification of Mary, not with Mary Magdalene (so the Greek text of John 20:1 and 18), but with the mother of Jesus; this emerges from stanza 2:

 

‘Who will show me’, she was saying.

my son and my Lord, for whom I am seeking?’

 

This is indeed a feature not unknown in the Syriac (and in Greek) tradition, for it is already found in some of Ephrem’s works and in Jacob of Serugh; it implies a biblical text omitting Magdalene in John 20:1 and 18 (thus the Old Syriac (Sinaiticus) at verse 18, and the Arabic Diatessaron).

 

This identification of the Mary of John 20 with the mother of Jesus suggests that the poem may be of considerable antiquity; since it does not seem likely that a composition of the Arab period would any longer make such an identification, the text might hesitantly be attributed to about the sixth century. (Sebastian P. Brock, "Maryand the Gardiner: An Early Syrian Dialogue Soghitha for the Resurrection," Parole de l'Orient 11 [1983]: 223-34, here, 225-26)

 

Robert Murray on Ephrem’s Conflation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus a\with Mary Magdalene nd Ephrem imputing the sin of “doubt” to the Mother of Jesus

 

One of the most curious features of Ephrem's doctrine concerning Mary as type of the Church is found in passages where he speaks of the appearance of the risen Christ to Mary Magdalen; in this context he often regards it as not the Magdalen but the Virgin to whom Christ appeared in the garden, while several times he seems to confuse them, or rather deliberately run them into one, both Maries acting together as type of the Church. This 'fusion' is not a peculiarity of Ephrem but is found in other Syrian witnesses . . . (Robert Murray, Symbols of the Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition [rev. ed.; London: T&T Clark, 2006], 146)

 

To consider further evidence in Ephrem first, in E[vangelium]C[oncordans] 2,17 the 'sword' in Mary's heart, foretold by Simeon, is interpreted as doubt that Mary would undergo, and this is explained by Magdalen's thinking that Christ was a gardener. (EC Arm. C[orpus]S[criptorum]C[hristianorum]O[rientalium] 137, Arm. 1), p. 32.14-20; tr. (SC) p. 75) On Christ's words at Cana, 'My time is not yet come', Ephrem sees that 'time' as the reunion of Christ with his mother in the garden: 'thus after his victory over Sheol, when his mother saw him, like a mother she wanted to caress him'. (EC Arm. 5.5, p. 61:12-14; tr. (SC) p. 109) In the comment on John 20: 11-17 Ephrem repeats his interpretation of the sword in Mary's heart as her doubts in the garden; as for why Jesus would not let Mary touch him, Ephrem suggests: 'Perhaps because he had delivered her to John in his place: "Woman, behold thy Son". And yet not without her was the first sign, and not without her were the first fruits from Sheol. And so, even if she did not touch him, she was strengthened by him.' (EC Syr. 21.27, Syr.) (Ibid., 329-30)