Friday, December 31, 2021

Ephrem the Syrian (306-373) on the use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15

  

[Because Israel, symbolically called “son” since Egypt, had lost its sonship through having worshipped Baal and offered incense to idols, John gave them [a title] which suited them, Race of vipers. Because these had lost that title of sonship, which had been poured over them through grace in the days of Moses, they received from John a name which was congruent with their deeds.

 

[After the Lord went down into the land of the Egyptians and had returned from there, the evangelist said, Now the true word spoken by the prophet is accomplished. He said, I will call my son out of Egypt. He also said, He will be called a Nazarene, because in Hebrew nezer means a “sceptre” and the prophets calls him a “Nazarene” because he is the son of the sceptre. Because he was brought up in Nazareth, the evangelist notes that this is like that [other prophecy], He will be called a Nazarene.

 

The prophecy was in John but the mysteries of the prophecy were in the Lord of John, just as the priesthood was in the son of Zechariah, and the kingdom and the priesthood were in the Son of Mary. The Law [came] through Moses, with the sign of the lamb and many other symbols. Amaleck, the waters rendered sweet, the brazen serpent, but the truth of [these things came[ through Jesus, our Lord. The baptism of John was higher than the Law, but inferior to [the baptism] of the Messiah, because no one baptized in the name [of the Trinity] before the time of his exaltation.

 

John went off into the desert, not to become wild there, but to render tame in the desert the wilderness of the inhabited [land]. For passion, which causes trouble like a wild beast in the midst of an inhabited [land] at peace, clams down and becomes tame when it goes off to the desert. Be convinced of this from the example of Herod’s passion. It was fierce in the midst of the inhabited land] at peace, and burned illegitimately for his brother’s wife, to the extent that [Herod] lost the mild and gentle John, who [had lived] peacefully in the desert, and had made no use of marriage, even though allowed him by the Law. The Word became flesh and lived among us, that is the Word of God, through the flesh which he assumed, lived among us. He did not say, “near us” but among us, to show clearly that it was our sake that he clothed himself with our flesh, in accordance with what he said, My flesh is food. (Saint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes III §8-9 [trans. Carmel McCarthy; Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 2000], 77-78)