The soul is Your bride,

Today is Pentecost Sunday, a time in which we celebrate the coming of the Spirit. Today I am celebrating the creative spirit we can discover in what is a little-known part of our Christian tradition: the vision and the poetry of St. Ephrem. I am particularly intrigued by his writing because it is part of the same Syriac Christian tradition that the Odes of Solomon come from.

The Odes of Solomon: early Syriac Christian poetry from the late first or early second century CE. These odes are unique, beautiful, evocative and moving. The Syriac Christian tradition in general, and the Odes of Solomon in particular, refer to the Holy Spirit in feminine terms, though the scholars who originally translated the text into English used the masculine pronoun because they simply could not believe that anyone would refer to the spirit as a "she!" St. Ephrem also refers to the Spirit in feminine pronouns.

(One of the interesting things that I discovered at the last Westar meeting was that Syriac Christianity traditionally incorporated a women's chorus as part of worship. Many of Ephrem's hymns were composed for women's chorus. He was known for encouraging women to lead worship in this manner at a time when most of the Orthodox Christian churches were telling women to keep silent in church.)

St. Ephrem: fourth century theologian poet

Not much biographical data. Probably born around 306 CE and died in 373. He lived most of his life in Nisibis (on the border between southeast Turkey and northeast Syria) and served as a deacon and teacher in the local church. He eventually ended up in Odessa (about a hundred miles further west) where he would play a major role in organizing relief efforts for the poor during a famine.

In St. Ephrem's writings we find orthodox concepts enlightened by the heart of a poet. Rather than definitions and dogmas, Ephrem preferred paradox and symbolic language that evoked an experience of the sacred. He did not express his theology in a systematic form, but preferred a more fluid and dynamic form of expression. In this sense, he was typical of Syriac Christianity which does its theology through poetry. This is a form of Christianity that is, in many ways, closer to the Jewish faith of Jesus than to other forms of Christianity which were more heavily hellenized.

Sebastien Brock tells us that Ephrem,

At the heart of Ephrem's approach is the recognition that anything we say about God is always about our experience of God and can never define or place limits upon God's being. Though at times Ephrem does speak of God's essential being, for him this is always experienced in a hidden and subjective way. In all of this there is an attitude of wonder and love within his writings that belies the orthodoxy of some of his beliefs.

Ephrem also rejected a literal approach to scripture and thought that to take scripture literally is both dangerous and a sign of ingratitude for the mystery that is God. Ephrem writes,

Ephrem realized that there could be many possible interpretations of scripture for those who see with the eye of faith. Indeed, the wealth of meanings inherent within scripture is so great that any one individual is incapable of taking them all in. Ephrem writes,

In another text Ephrem reiterates that scripture is only one limited way in which the sacred is revealed to us:

It is also important to note that for Ephrem, God was revealed both in scripture and in nature. These were two main witnesses to God. Both the Bible and the natural world were vehicles for symbolizing the Divine. In sync with this is Ephrem's positive view of the body which is embraced, even honored, as being the location of God's incarnate presence.

There are many interesting and evocative themes that Ephrem touches upon in his writings. I would like to quickly mention a few of them before moving into one in particular.

First, there is the theme of love, both Divine Love and human love, that we encounter throughout his work. God's love is always seeking to draw forth and evoke an ever greater response of love on our part. At one point, Ephrem even honors the human response of love towards God when it becomes presumptuous. He writes,

You may get a kick out of knowing that the Syriac term employed here to describe this impudent love that pleases God is huspa, better known to those familiar with Yiddish slang as chutzpah, the brazen cheek!

Another theme I find intriguing in Ephrem's writing is the use of fire imagery as a positive metaphor for the divine presence in the world. Indeed, fire is used right alongside the term spirit as modes of divine self-expression. In the canonical gospels Jesus speaks about baptizing with fire and Spirit. Ephrem picks up on that when at one point he speaks both to and about Christ saying:

Earlier in this same hymn Ephrem speaks of the Divine presence that can be found in the Eucharist as both Spirit and Fire.

I can not help but to hear echoes of that saying of Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas, "I have come to cast fire upon the world, I'm guarding it until it blazes." Ephrem clearly saw that fire ablaze in the ritual of Holy Communion. Might he also have seen it in the Pentecost story of the tongues of fire that blazed above the disciples as they received the Holy Spirit? Fire represented, among other things, God's acceptance of our offering and sacrifice. While it's force may be destructive, for those who live by faith it is life-giving, transforming and sanctifying.

Let's move on to a theme that was very popular in early Syriac Christianity: Christ as the Bridegroom. This particular image or metaphor had been used long before the first century by the Hebrew prophets who talked about Yahweh's relationship to the people Israel in terms of marriage. There is much in Jewish literature that was written over the centuries reflecting on this image of God as either husband or bridegroom and the people or the soul as God's beloved. Perhaps Ephrem was just picking up on a popular theme in his day.

I find all this particularly intriguing because some of the non-canonical gospels pick up on this theme in a way that implies an actual ritual sacrament called the bridal chamber which scholars have been unable to figure out with any detail or specificity.

Ephrem uses the language of betrothal to speak of God's relationship with Israel and God's relationship with the Church. In the latter case, Christ becomes the bridegroom who is revealed at his baptism in the Jordan. Ephrem will then use this image in his understanding of Christian baptism which is a ritual of renewal and new life in which the individual is betrothed to Christ. In much of this Ephrem moves rather freely back and forth from the individual to the collective. He also invokes the story from the Gospel of John of the wedding feast at Cana. In one of his hymns, Cana speaks;

Ephrem uses this image of the bridal chamber as a metaphor for the union of the soul with God in general and in particular as a symbol for prayer. Implicit in this is the call to wakefulness and Ephrem at times refers to Christ as the Wakeful One who summons us to be awake. Yet here we are also confronted with one of the many paradoxes in which seeming contradictions are held together in tension. There is both the bridal chamber of the heart, which is a symbol for prayer; private and often silent, and there is the wedding feast which is a symbol for faith; public, communal, and filled with song and praise. One, prayer, shuns public display that would take one out of the inner depths of one's soul. While the other, faith, overflows in a public display of lavish gratitude, wonder and inclusivity.

Indeed, in the writings and poetry of St. Ephrem we truly have a banquet. We have the opportunity to enliven our understanding of Christian faith by recovering a neglected part of our tradition, one that may actually be closer to the faith of Jesus than many of the doctrines and creeds which have claimed to represent Christianity over the centuries. In the heart of this poet we discover a deep wellspring of one person's inner experience of the sacred, and an invitation to drink from the well that springs within our own soul as well. May this banquet nourish our faith, inspire our creativity, and open our hearts to life and love.

As honey drips from the honeycomb of bees

And milk flows from the woman who loves her child,

So goes my hope to you, my God.

As a fountain bursts with water,

My heart bursts through my lips

With gratitude for you, my God.

My tongue is sweet from conversing with you.

I feel the anointing when I sing your songs.

My face beams when praising you.

My spirit is overflowing with your love

And my soul is shining.

Whoever is reverent will trust in you

And come to wholeness in you.

Whoever trusts in you has life eternal and abundant

And cannot be corrupted.

Hallelujah!