Section 05: Theology of Symbol

The heart of Ephrem’s theology. The two files cover, first, his vision of reality as a web of symbols (raze) that really participate in the spiritual realities they signify — nature and Scripture as God’s two witnesses, and the “robe of names” by which the infinite God condescends to clothe Himself in human language; and, second, his critique of the rationalist “investigators” who would probe and define the divine nature — the impassable chasm between Creator and creature, the right ordering of a mind that may investigate the revealed but must not pry into the hidden, and Brock’s “luminous eye,” the inner eye of faith by which the hidden God is rightly perceived.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father) / Syriac

Contents

File Topic
Types and Symbols The raza/symbol as participation; nature and Scripture as the two witnesses (Hymns on Paradise 5.2); the “robe of names” — God putting on human language (Hymns on Faith 31); perfect vs. borrowed names; the Incarnation as the supreme symbol
Against the Investigators The impassable chasm between Creator and creature; the critique of the rationalist “investigators” (the Arians); not anti-intellectualism but right limits; Brock’s “luminous eye” / the eye of faith

How to Use

  • Read Types and Symbols for the central concepts of Ephrem’s symbolic theology, the foundation of everything else in his thought.
  • Read Against the Investigators for the negative and positive sides of his epistemology of God — the chasm that forbids investigation, and the eye of faith that receives revelation.
  • These themes culminate in the Hymns on Paradise and the robe of glory, treated in Section 07; they undergird the orthodox confession of Section 06.

Cross-References