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106 Chapter Four u Ephrem, Athanasius, and the “Arian” Threat Ephrem’s intimately related narratives of Scripture and history produce an ideological framework through which he constructs the social boundaries of his fourth-century community. The anti-Jewish language of his hymns would have been a powerful tool, however, not only against Jews and Judaizers, as seen above, but also against “Arian” Christians. Sidney Griffith has clearly demonstrated Ephrem’s explicit presentation of himself and his church as part of an empire-wide Nicene Christian community.1 Like the more wellknown figure Athanasius, Ephrem was an active and vocal participant in pro1 . Ephrem’s interest in and engagement with the empire as “empire” can be seen throughout his writings, but is particularly clear in Hymns on Faith 87, his Hymns against Julian, and his Hymns on Nisibis. See the following works by Sidney Griffith: “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa , and the Church of the Empire,” in Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer, eds. Thomas Halton and Joseph Williman (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 22–52; “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” in The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus, eds. William Klingshirn and Mark Vessey (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1999), 97–114; “The Marks of the ‘True Church’ According to Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” in After Bardaisan : Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers , eds. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89 (Louvain: Peeters, 1999), 125–40. Other scholars have also begun to integrate Syriac studies into the study of Greekwriting Christians. See, for example, Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1985), 143–57; Paul S. Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian Confront the Arians (Kerala, India: SEERI, 1994); David Taylor, “St. Ephraim’s Influence on the Greeks,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 1.2 (1998) [online journal], available from http://syrcom.cua.edu/hugoye/Vol1No2/HV1N2Taylor .html (accessed 5/2/05); and most recently Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach Ephrem, Athanasius, and the “Arian” Threat 107 Nicene Christians’ struggle against subordinationist Christian theology, and his anti-Jewish rhetoric competes in a fourth-century context of political and religious turmoil surrounding questions about the nature of God’s Son.2 The anti-Jewish and anti-Judaizing polemics of both Ephrem and Athanasius define particular religious and social boundaries that serve to legitimate the truth and authority of Nicene Christianity within a context of political hostility . Just as Ephrem shapes the categories “Jew” and “Christian” out of his more complex context, by insistently conflating “Jews” and “Arians,” he and Athanasius also create definitions of (Nicene) Christian orthodoxy that exclude their “Arian” Christian opponents. Scholars of Syriac Christianity repeatedly call for an end to the isolation of Ephrem “the Syrian,” and of Syriac Christianity itself, from broader conversations about the Roman Empire in late antiquity. This chapter will show the ways in which pro-Nicene leaders Ephrem and Athanasius deployed anti-Jewish and anti-Judaizing language in similar ways against their “Arian” opponents in their efforts to make Nicene Christianity become Roman “orthodoxy.” Ephrem and Athanasius in Context Ephrem and Athanasius were born within a decade of each other as the fourth century began and they both died in 373 CE. Both grew up in the eastern Roman Empire and became active pro-Nicene supporters of an imperial Christian orthodoxy despite eastern imperial antagonism toward proNicene leaders during much of their adult lives. Likewise, they both lived in cities with significant Jewish populations, and used harsh anti-Jewish rhetoric in their struggle to define the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy. Although Athanasius’s political and ecclesiastical career was more prominent in the to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Although Russell does not address anti-Jewish or anti-Judaizing rhetoric in his comparison of these two authors, his study is nonetheless an important part of this same discussion and likewise brings Ephrem into conversation with his Greek-speaking contemporaries. 2. As noted in chapter 2, scholars have slowly begun to recognize Ephrem’s participation in these religious and imperial politics. For a recent addition to this conversation, see Ayres, Nicaea. See also these fundamental works: Griffith: “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church...

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