Section 02: The School and the City

Ephrem the teacher and the world he taught in. The two files cover, first, his work as catechist and malpana across Nisibis and Edessa and the question of his role in the school tradition — including the much-discussed “School of the Persians” / School of Edessa, where the historical teacher is held apart from the founder-figure of later legend; and, second, the Syriac Christian world itself — Aramaic-speaking, poised between the Roman and Persian empires, and theologizing (in Ephrem’s generation) before the full impact of Greek philosophy. Together they set Ephrem’s life and thought in their proper cultural and intellectual coordinates.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father) / Syriac

Contents

File Topic
Nisibis and Edessa Ephrem as malpana and catechist; teaching in verse; the School of Nisibis and its migration to Edessa; the “School of the Persians” and what can responsibly be said of Ephrem’s role in it
The Syriac Christian World Syriac as a third stream of Christian antiquity; Aramaic and the Semitic thought-world; Christianity between Rome and Persia; the pre-Hellenized, symbolic theology Ephrem represents

How to Use

  • Read Nisibis and Edessa for Ephrem’s vocation as a teacher and for the careful handling of the school tradition associated with his name.
  • Read The Syriac Christian World for the linguistic, geographical, and intellectual setting that makes Ephrem not merely a Father who wrote in Syriac but the supreme representative of a distinct way of doing theology.
  • The hymns that were the medium of his catechesis are treated in Section 03; the symbolic theology native to his world is the subject of Section 05.

Cross-References