Section 07: Paradise and the Feminine

Ephrem’s most celebrated poetry and his richest typology. The two files cover, first, the Hymns on Paradise — Paradise imagined as a cosmic mountain rising in ascending levels to the divine presence, the redeemed sensorium of its fragrant air, the Tree of Knowledge as the veil before the Holy of Holies, the eschatology in which the last Paradise surpasses the first, and, running through all, the robe of glory lost by Adam and restored in Christ; and, second, the feminine typology — Eve and Mary, the new Eve answering the first, the typology of the ear, the virgin earth, and Mary and the Church as bride and virgin-mother, drawn from Robert Murray’s foundational study.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father) / Syriac

Contents

File Topic
The Hymns on Paradise The 15 Hymns on Paradise (Brock’s translation); Paradise as cosmic mountain with ascending levels; the sensorium and the fragrant air (ruha); the Tree as veil before the Tree of Life; eschatology; the robe of glory
Eve, Mary, and the Church The new Eve; the typology of the ear (the Word entering through Mary’s hearing); the virgin earth and the two Adams; Mary and the Church as bride and virgin-mother; Robert Murray’s Symbols of Church and Kingdom

How to Use

  • Read The Hymns on Paradise for Ephrem’s best-known cycle and the robe-of-glory soteriology that ties his whole theology together.
  • Read Eve, Mary, and the Church for the feminine typology at the heart of Syriac theology, and its place in the drama of salvation.
  • The symbolic theology underlying both is in Section 05; Murray and the other modern scholars are surveyed in Section 09.

Cross-References