Syriac Christianity

This is how we tell our own beginning.

King Abgar of EdessaEdessaAn ancient city of upper Mesopotamia. Rome took it over in 214. Its site is now Şanlıurfa, in today's Turkey.Place · pleiades.stoa.org was sick when his envoys came home from Jerusalem with news of what Jesus was doing. The king wrote Jesus a letter. He had heard, he wrote, that Jesus healed without medicines or herbs and opened the eyes of the blind by his word.

Abgar called Jesus either God come down from heaven or the Son of God, and he asked him to come and heal him. He had heard that some were seeking Jesus' life, so he offered to share his own small and beautiful city.

Jesus answered, the story says, that the work he was sent for was now finished and he was going up to his Father. After that he would send one of his disciples to heal the king, and the city would be blessed.

After the ascension Addai came, one of the seventy-two, and stayed with a Jewish man named Tobias. The story says he healed the king and preached to the city, calling it away from Nebo, Bel and Taratha to the one true God.

Before he died, Addai made Aggai leader in his place. Years after Abgar died, one of his sons had Aggai's legs broken as he sat teaching in the church. Aggai died too quickly to ordain Palut. So Palut went to Antioch and was ordained by its bishop, Serapion. Serapion had himself been ordained by Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, in the line of Simon Peter.

In November of the year 513 of the Greeks, around the year 201, the river Daisan rose against EdessaEdessaAn ancient city of upper Mesopotamia. Rome took it over in 214. Its site is now Şanlıurfa, in today's Turkey.Place · pleiades.stoa.org in the night. King Abgar stood on the great tower and watched the water by torchlight. That same hour the waters broke down the western wall and swept through the city, overthrowing the king's palace.

The Chronicle of Edessa sets down this account. It was compiled about 340 years later from the archives where the royal scribes had filed it. No bishop or believer is named in it.

One line among the losses matters most to us. "And they destroyed the temple of the church of the Christians." Whether the line is original, or was added later by another hand, is not settled. If it is original, a church building stood in Edessa to be destroyed, and that line is our earliest hard trace.

"More than two thousand men were killed in that event. The waters came upon many of them suddenly as they slept in the night, and they drowned. The city was filled with the sound of mourning."

Jacob, bishop of NisibisJacob of NisibisBishop of Nisibis from about 309. The evidence puts his death at 338 or at 350.Person, is remembered among the bishops at the great council of NicaeaNicaeaA Greek city of northwestern Anatolia, now İznik in today's Turkey. A council of bishops met there in 325.Place · pleiades.stoa.org. In the year 325, bishops from the whole world gathered there to answer AriusAriusThe man the bishops at Nicaea in 325 met to answer. Those who answered him confessed the Son as true God.Person. Our tradition holds Jacob to be one voice from our SyriacSyriacThe language of these churches. Ephrem wrote hymns in it. Aphrahat's first twenty-two letters each begin with the next letter of its alphabet.Term-speaking frontier. He stood with those who confessed the Son as true God.

Nothing survives of what Jacob said or did at the council. The lists of its signers were pieced together by later hands, and they carry his name among the assembled bishops. TheodoretTheodoretA church historian, about 393 to about 460. He told of Jacob and the gnats about a century after the sieges.Person of Cyrus, a Greek church historian of the next century, also counts him among them. No document from the fourth century itself confirms that he was there.

At home in NisibisNisibisA fortress city, Roman from 298 until 363, when it was ceded to Persia. Its site is Nusaybin, on today's Turkey–Syria border.Place · pleiades.stoa.org, EphremEphremA deacon and poet who taught the faith in hymns. He lived at Nisibis until 363 and then at Edessa, where he died in 373.Person praised Jacob as the city's wall.

The Paradise is the SyriacSyriacThe language of these churches. Ephrem wrote hymns in it. Aphrahat's first twenty-two letters each begin with the next letter of its alphabet.Term version of a book by PalladiusPalladiusA church writer who died about 430. His account of Ephrem's last year was written about 420.Person of Galatia. Its chapter on EphremEphremA deacon and poet who taught the faith in hymns. He lived at Nisibis until 363 and then at Edessa, where he died in 373.Person opens with one dream and closes with another. The Greek-based text of the same chapter has neither, and the chapter does not name the first dreamer.

The Paradise says one of the holy fathers saw a dream in which the holy angels came down from heaven at God's command. One of them held a roll written on the inside and on the outside. The angels asked each other who was fit to be trusted with it.

Some angels named one man, some another. Each time the answer was that these were holy and righteous, but not enough for this. They counted up many names of saints. At last they said that no one was fit for it except Ephrem, and they gave him the roll.

When the dreamer got up in the morning, he heard people saying that Ephrem was teaching. His words, they said, flowed from his mouth like water from a fountain. Then, it says, the old man knew within himself that the words coming from Ephrem's lips were of the Holy Spirit.

The second dream is one Ephrem himself is said to have had as a youth. A vine grew out of his tongue and filled the whole space beneath the heavens, loaded with clusters of grapes. All the birds of heaven came and ate from it. The whole time they ate, the clusters grew in number and in size.

Before dawn in NisibisNisibisA fortress city, Roman from 298 until 363, when it was ceded to Persia. Its site is Nusaybin, on today's Turkey–Syria border.Place · pleiades.stoa.org, those bound by the covenant gather for the vigil. No single morning like this was written down. This one is pieced together from separate sources, from the years before the city was handed to Persia in 363.

The covenanters are men and women who have taken the vow and stay unmarried. They walk through the dark streets from their own family houses, since there is no cloister. Among them stands the choir of the daughters of the covenant, who will raise the madrasha, the teaching hymn.

The hymn carries the teaching on its tune, stanza answering refrain, until the whole gathering holds the argument by heart. The Gospel read out is the harmony, the Gospels woven into one unbroken story.

The feast this season keeps the Lord's birth and his baptism together in one observance, as this city then did. When the light is full, the covenanters keep their fast and go back to their own households and their work in town.

EphremEphremA deacon and poet who taught the faith in hymns. He lived at Nisibis until 363 and then at Edessa, where he died in 373.Person's hymns sing that NisibisNisibisA fortress city, Roman from 298 until 363, when it was ceded to Persia. Its site is Nusaybin, on today's Turkey–Syria border.Place · pleiades.stoa.org was saved when Shapur, king of Persia, laid siege to it. They say nothing of gnats. The story of Jacob's prayer comes from TheodoretTheodoretA church historian, about 393 to about 460. He told of Jacob and the gnats about a century after the sieges.Person of Cyrus, a Greek church historian, writing about a century later. Even the siege it belongs to is unsettled, whether that of 338, 346 or 350.

Shapur's army lay against the walls, and the river had been turned against the city. In Theodoret's telling, Ephrem begged the aged bishop Jacob to go up on the wall and curse the enemy. The old man agreed and climbed into a tower, where he looked out over the numberless camp.

Then, Theodoret writes, "he called down no other curse on them than that mosquitoes and gnats should be sent against them." Clouds of them came after his prayer and drove the elephants and the horses wild, until the Persians left their camp and fled.

"As time went on, the Christians grew in number. They began to form churches, and they appointed priests and deacons." So SozomenSozomenA church historian of the fifth century. He wrote down the story of Simeon's death and an account of Ephrem's last year.Person, a Greek historian of the fifth century, opens his account of the persecution in Persia. The Magi, the priestly guardians of the Persian religion, grew deeply angry.

Simeon was bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, the royal cities of Persia, and he was accused of being a friend of the Roman emperor. King Shapur laid heavy taxes on the Christians, hoping poverty would force them to give up their faith. The year of what followed is disputed, 341 or about 344.

The tradition tells that Simeon was brought before the king in chains and would not bow down. He said he stood there now in defense of godliness and of our faith. Shapur offered him gifts, then threatened to destroy him and all the Christians. Each time Simeon refused to worship the sun or betray his religion.

As Simeon was led to prison, Usthazanes, the king's aged foster-father, rose to honor him. Usthazanes had been a Christian, but he had given way and worshipped the sun. The bishop rebuked him and turned his face away. Usthazanes then confessed himself a Christian before the king, and Shapur had him beheaded.

The next day Simeon again refused to worship the king or the sun. A hundred other prisoners were put to death that day while he watched. Simeon was killed last of all, with two aged priests of his own church.

EphremEphremA deacon and poet who taught the faith in hymns. He lived at Nisibis until 363 and then at Edessa, where he died in 373.Person's fame reached the Greek church in his own century. SozomenSozomenA church historian of the fifth century. He wrote down the story of Simeon's death and an account of Ephrem's last year.Person, a Greek historian of the next century, writes that Basil greatly admired him and was astonished at his learning. Basil later became bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. PalladiusPalladiusA church writer who died about 430. His account of Ephrem's last year was written about 420.Person of Galatia and Jerome both name Ephrem a deacon of the church at EdessaEdessaAn ancient city of upper Mesopotamia. Rome took it over in 214. Its site is now Şanlıurfa, in today's Turkey.Place · pleiades.stoa.org.

A later age built a meeting on a passage in Basil's own writings. There Basil credits an explanation of Scripture to an unnamed Syrian. He says the Syrian knew little of worldly wisdom but much of the knowledge of the Truth.

Later tradition took that Syrian to be Ephrem. Basil never names him, and he may well be another man, Eusebius of Emesa. The meeting itself is a later legend.

The later Life of Ephrem tells the story with love for both men. A vision prompted the poet to travel to Caesarea to see the great Basil. The two holy men had no common language, yet they recognized each other in the Spirit. And Basil himself, the Life says, ordained Ephrem a deacon.

The daughters of the covenant sang the madrashemadrasheTeaching hymns with stanzas and a refrain, made to be sung. The singular is madrasha.Term, our teaching hymns, in the churches of our own years. That much our own time attests.

How their choirs began is a story from the next age. Jacob of Serug told it in a verse homily around the year 500, more than a century after EphremEphremA deacon and poet who taught the faith in hymns. He lived at Nisibis until 363 and then at Edessa, where he died in 373.Person died. Only that later memory says Ephrem himself founded and led the choirs.

In Jacob's telling, the people of EdessaEdessaAn ancient city of upper Mesopotamia. Rome took it over in 214. Its site is now Şanlıurfa, in today's Turkey.Place · pleiades.stoa.org were charmed by the songs of BardaisanBardaisanA philosopher at the court of Abgar VIII of Edessa, 154 to 222. His words survive only in a student's dialogue and in Ephrem's replies.Person, a philosopher of Edessa's royal court. They were charmed as well by the songs of ManiManiHe started a new religion in the third century. His missionaries preached in the cities of these churches, in Syriac.Person, who founded a new religion. So Ephrem gathered the daughters of the covenant and taught them to sing true teaching in the same sweet forms. Through the women's voices, his teaching reached the whole city, women and men alike.

In the last year of EphremEphremA deacon and poet who taught the faith in hymns. He lived at Nisibis until 363 and then at Edessa, where he died in 373.Person's life, famine struck EdessaEdessaAn ancient city of upper Mesopotamia. Rome took it over in 214. Its site is now Şanlıurfa, in today's Turkey.Place · pleiades.stoa.org. PalladiusPalladiusA church writer who died about 430. His account of Ephrem's last year was written about 420.Person of Galatia and SozomenSozomenA church historian of the fifth century. He wrote down the story of Simeon's death and an account of Ephrem's last year.Person, a Greek historian, both tell of that year, writing a generation and more after his death. Their count of beds and the words they report come from remembered tradition.

For many years Ephrem had lived quietly in his cell, but now he left it and went to the rich of the city. He asked them why they had no pity on people dying around them, while their wealth spoiled into the condemnation of their own souls.

The rich answered that they had no one they could trust with the giving, because everyone was dishonest in such business. Ephrem asked what they thought of him, and they said they knew him to be a man of God. "Then trust me," he said. "See, on your behalf I appoint myself to take in and care for the needy."

He took their money and set up some three hundred beds in the public porches. There he nursed the starving and the sick, strangers and local people alike, and he buried those who died. When the year was over and good times returned, he went back to his cell. He died soon after, a month later in Palladius's account and a few days later in Sozomen's.