the New Pantagruel

Response to Hayes on Syriac Poets

After reading Micah Hayes’ recent essay, “The Early Syriac Poets and Cognitive Science,” I would suggest that in casting light on one blind spot (St Ephrem and the Syriac tradition), Hayes has inadvertently exposed another.

Mr. Hayes contrasts the Syriac tradition–and its styles of worship and theology–with what he packages as the “European/Byzantine” tradition. The trouble comes in pairing the Protestant/Catholic with the Orthodox (“Byzantine”) tradition.

Those elements which Mr Hayes identifies as peculiar to the Syriac tradition are, in fact, present within the Orthodox tradition. Though St. Ephrem and the Semitic style of worship and theology may be new to many in the Roman Catholic and Protestant world, they are considered integral and native elements of the Orthodox inheritance. The Orthodox Church, after all, is still at home in the Middle East and among Semitic populations (under the Antioch and Jerusalem Orthodox Patriarchates, for instance).

This broad-stroke simplification (which blunts Hayes’ point) surfaces most notably when Mr. Hayes says things like the following:

It is a trait of all early Syriac writers that, unlike the Greeks [i.e. European/Byzantines] who typically seek to define God, the Semitic writers prefer to use paradox and symbolism to discuss the Unknowable.

The statement may be accurate in its description of the Syriac tradition. But the language of paradox in worship and doctrine is far from absent among the Orthodox. Mr Hayes attempts to anticipate the criticism by suggesting:

Some may think that this statement overlooks the similarity of the Greek apophatic tradition, in which God can only be defined negatively ( e.g. uncreated, invisible, etc.), and to speak positively of God (e.g. as being wise, or existing) ultimately leads to idolatry. A negative definition, however, is still a definition and is different from the metaphoric, Semitic tradition.

But even if one accepts this (rash, in my opinion) brushing aside of apophaticism, one need only walk into an Orthodox celebration of Divine Liturgy to feast oneself on a liturgy and hymnography replete with the theological language of metaphor and paradox. Definition of God, properly speaking, is simply not on the menu.

Certainly, there are other elements (some native Greek, and others through western influence) within the Orthodox tradition. But the Semitic inheritance is far from absent and was never forgotten in the Orthodox Church. After all, St. Ephrem (along with St. Isaac the Syrian and others) is one of our most honored holy fathers and we still sing his hymns to this day.

D. Ian Dalrymple