In his newly discovered commentary on Tatian’s “Diatessaron”
Ephraem makes no mention at all of a vow of virginity. The angel says to Mary: “Behold,
in your virginity you shall conceive a child and shall bear a son and you shall
call his name Jesus.” (Leloir, L., OBS, Saint Ephraim, Commentaire de l’evangile
Concordant, Dublin, 1963, 22) Mary replies : “How will this come about,
for behold man does not know me?” (Ibid.) The latter phrase is based on Leloir’s
Latin translation: “vir non cognoscit me.” (Ibid., 23) Thus Leloir renders the
unpointed text as an active participle pe’al which is often used in the
absolute state to express the present tense. However, Quecke has noted that the
text can be read as a perfect pe’al, thus meaning: “man has not known me.” (cfr
“Lk 1, 24 in Diatessaron,” Bib 45 [1964] 86) The entire background of
the citation lends itself more plausibly to the perfective interpretation and
indicates that Ephraem thus belonged to this tradition, even if Tatian did not understand
it in precisely that way. (cfr ibid, 87)
Although the works are of doubtful origin, (cfr Leloir, L’Evangile
d’Ephrem d’aprês éditées, CSCO 180, subs. 2, 70) Ephraem elsewhere
employs Lk 1:34 in this fashion: “man is not (has not been) known by me.” Here
it is a question of the passive participle pe’al which makes the perfective
interpretation the more likely one. However, each instance Leloir translates “virgum
non cognosco”—a translation which Quecke hesitates to accept. In one of the
three citations, a hymn for the feast of the Annunciation, the perfect tense is
alone justified because of the addition of a temporal particle. Mary says to
the angel: “’How is childbirth possible, if your husband is not seen? You have
announced a child to me, show me its father. I am the unstained virgin and man
has never been known by me.’” (Lamy, T., Sancti Ephraemi Hymmi et Sermones,
Mechlin, 1889, vol. 3, 983, 15) Though the authenticity of many of the hymns
attributed to Ephraem is contestable, (cfr Beck, “Ephäm,” LThK2
3, 928) still the testimony of a perfective interpretation indicates that such
an understanding obtained in the Syriac tradition. (John F. Craghan, Mary: The Virginal Wife
and the Married Virgin: The Problematic of Mary’s Vow of Virginity [Rome:
Gregorian University Press, 1967], 123-24)
Isaac of Antioch (d. 460-461) and James of Sarug (d.
521), representatives of the Syrian Church, sing the praises of Mary’s
unparalleled holiness. Isaac exhorts virgins to imitate Mary in her fasting; he
makes no reference to a vow of any type. “Let our virgins dedicated to God imitate
Mary, as daughters their mother; in pure fasting she received the annunciation of
the Lord of those who fast,” (Carmen XIII, S. Isaaci Antiocheni, Doctoris
Syrorum, Opera Omnia [edited by Bickell, G.], Giessen, 1873, vol 1, 272,
490-491) James of Sarug extols Mary as the one human being worthy of the divine
maternity. “She alone was humble, pure, and stainless, and it was only she and no
one else who deserved to become the Mother of God.” (Carmen I de BVM,
129-39 in Abbeloos, J.-B., De Vita et Scriptis Sancti Jacobi, Louvain-Bonn,
1867, 214) When he introduces the Annunciation scene, he does not even intimate
a vow, but follows what might also be called the Syrian tradition, that is,
understanding Mary’s question in the perfective sense. “And Mary said, ‘How
shall what you are telling me come about? How will I be fruitful since I have
never known man? You announce a son to me, but I have not had intercourse.’”
(ibid., 149-252, 226) (Ibid., 154-55)
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