Religious Passions and Prayer Channeling Divine Disclosure: The Testimony of the Fourth-Century Syrian Fathers

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate what role religious emotions, passions, and prayer may play in what may be called the religion of the heart in early Syrian theology, especially in the several works of ’Aphrahaṭ, Saint Ephrem, and the anonymous collection titled the Book of Steps, all from the fourth century. In the original Syriac sources, one may see how in this vast corpus, religious emotions and prayer act as a corridor channeling the believer’s striving for the disclosure of the mysteries surrounding God. It will also be shown that while these sources advocate in unison for the heart’s function in connecting the believer with God, their respective interpretive theological contexts are different. These points are substantiated by virtue of a number of citations from the original texts.

If we want to pinpoint the historical sources of Christian mystical theology, the spiritual achievements of early Byzantine Greek philosophical theology, especially of the Alexandrian and Cappadocian strains, are rightly tagged as being foundational for the set of ideas of later, Eastern and Western, spirituality. The Cappadocian Fathers, often inspired by the Neoplatonic meta-ontology of the One, already strictly deny the cognoscibility of the divine essence while affirming its experiential accessibility for the νοῦς, the intuitive intellect, hereby providing ample ground for a mystical approach to God.1 At the same time, however, it sometimes goes forgotten that the Byzantine mystical tradition is not restricted to Greek-language sources; as a concrete example of that kind of oblivion, Karl Heussi’s (1877–1961) Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte (first edition: 1909; eighth edition 1930; eighteenth edition: 1991) may be mentioned as an authoritative monograph where Syrian theology or church history is barely considered.2 Yet, in the Syrian mystical tradition, which is the second-largest portion of Byzantine mysticism, not only the language but also the approach and the scope of topics are characteristically different from the Greek legacy. Instead of sophisticated philosophical argumentation, religious passions, and mental conditions like crying, rejoicing, penitence, rooted in the heart, take center stage here as they come paired up with such ascetic practices as solitude, fasting, abstinence, vigil, and most importantly, prayer; and a practical theology based on asceticism, virginity, evangelical poverty, and itinerant teachership largely steal the show from systematic theology.3 In this typically Syrian pattern, religious emotions, passions, and prayer play a lead role as channels of the divine self-disclosure that is realized in the mystical experience of God.

Prior to the end of the fourth century, the Syrian practical-and-mystical theological tradition is remarkably different from, and immune to, the more “logocentric” theological inquiry of the Hellene heritage: No trace of “Western” thought is found in ’Aphrahaṭ (floruit cca 430), the “Persian Sage’s” lengthy and copious discourses, and the same holds for the consciously anonymous corpus of homilies titled the Book of Steps (Ktobo’ dmasqoto’/Liber graduum, late fourth century); meanwhile, Saint Ephraim (†373), the “Harp of the Holy Spirit”, explicitly rejects the “poison of Greek wisdom” (lme’rto’ dḥekmat yawnoyo’),4 although the Syriac he uses has absorbed, by this time, a large number of non-technical Greek loanwords.5 It is only toward the end of the period of this first inimitable spiritual prosperity of Syrian theological literature that Greek sources were increasingly translated into Syriac (with the prolific polymath Sergius of Reš^cayno’ [†536] acting as a spiritus movens of the translation movement),6 influencing the original mentality of the emerging Syrian church. A first important player who catalyzed this process was the fourth-century Desert Father Evagrius Ponticus (346–399), heavily translated into Syriac perhaps already during his lifetime.7 Hence, in the present contribution, I would like to go back to the three above-named major Syriac spiritual sources of the fourth century: ‘Aphrahaṭ’s Demonstrations; the Book of Steps; and Ephraim’s Hymns on Faith, in order to gain insight into the original, Gospel-inspired Syrian religiosity, which was largely uninfluenced or even untouched by Greek thought and characteristically more Biblical in its argumentation than contemporary Greek authors, even the Cappadocians. Syrian Christian sources before the “grand generation” of the fourth century are scarce in number—there is the lengthy, apocryphal Acts of Judas Thomas,8 the beautiful Odes of Salomon,9 and the lesser-known Bardaisan10—and they are more literary and less theological in character than what was to come after them. It is hence worthwhile to turn our attention to fourth-century Syriac sources of religious practice, in which religious emotions and passions as well as prayer were a cornerstone of worship, especially pure prayer (ṣluto’ dkito’, the equivalent of the contemporary Greek καθαρὰ προσευχή), which is the product of a pure heart (lebo’ dkito’). Via these cathartic and uplifting means, the Syrian ascete, the iḥidoyo’ (“monk”) or gmiro’ (“perfect one”), could approach God and receive His mystical gifts in divine disclosure. The method of investigation is textual analysis, carried out on source texts relevant to this subject. With this method, I hope to provide insight into how the early Syriac Fathers conceived of the mystical communication between God and the believer.

1. Religious Passions, Prayer, and Mystical Revelation in ’Aphrahaṭ’s Demonstrations

As the author of a collection of 22 epistles designated in Syriac as “demonstrations” (taḥwite’),11 the fourth-century “Persian Sage” ’Aphrahaṭ is the first major non-Gnostic Christian spiritual writer in the classical Syriac tradition, and also arguably the first Christian author to write theoretically about prayer without relying exclusively on the Lord’s Prayer.12 When reading his texts, we gain an insight into the thought and practice of early Persian Christianity by a church teacher who, in line with the Syriac tradition of the time—in harmony with Ephrem and the Book of Steps—regarded purity of heart, dakyuto’ dlebo’,13 above all else, as the essence of Christian religion. The Persian Sage’s Demonstration 4—in reality, a discourse in epistolary form—concerns prayer, ṣluto’; in addition, it is beneficial in the present context to look into his Demonstration 1 (On Faith) too, as well as into Demonstration 6 (On Monks) as it expands on how prayer works.

In these discourses, ’Aphrahaṭ stands up for secret prayer recited in the purity of the heart (dakyut lebo’)—such prayer, if it is carried out in silence (šetko’) and with a quiet mind (bre^cyono’ šapyo’), qualifies as “pure prayer” (ṣluto’ dkito’). While it is true that the tranquility of the mind is a classic prerequisite of prayer—the postulation of this condition is commonplace in several Evagrian aphorisms as well, for instance, in Ponticus’ On Prayer (2; 11; 21; 34b; 82, etc.)—’Aphrahaṭ is further convinced that pure prayer has literally supernatural power (ḥaylo; see also Section 4 of Demonstration 4 and Sections 17–18 of Demonstration 1), which equals the power of pure fasting (ṣawmo’ dakyo’):14

Purity of heart is a better prayer than any prayer prayed with a loud voice, and silence, when accompanied by a calm mind, is better than a loud voice when one shouts. Now, beloved one, give me thy heart and thy mind, and hear the power of pure prayer, and see how our ancient, righteous fathers have gained glory with it in their prayer before God, and how <it> became for them a pure sacrificial gift [qurbono’]. For it was through prayer that the gifts were received, and <prayers> moreover diverted the flood, and healed barrenness, and subdued armies, and revealed mysteries [’roze’], and parted the sea, and crossed the Jordan, and have held back the sun, and stopped the moon, and destroyed the unclean, and sent down fire, and held back the sky, and pulled up out of the well, and saved from the fire, and rescued from the sea, and its power is very great—like the great power of pure fasting.

In simple, unpretentious language, the Persian Sage goes on to argue that pure prayer can even have endless power, like the prayer of Moses indeed did (ḥaylo’ daṣluteh dMuše’ dlait loh soko’, Section 7, Demonstration 4), and can be accepted by God as a pure sacrificial present (qurbono’ dakyo’), whereby prayer also develops into a kind of sacrifice:15

What shall we say now of the power of Moses’ prayer, which had no limits? For it was prayer that saved him from the hand of Pharaoh, and showed him the whereabouts of his God. And by his prayer, he brought ten plagues upon Pharaoh. His prayer also divided the sea, and made the bitter waters sweet, and shed manna, and brought up the quails, and broke the rock, and dried up water, and overcame Amalek, and strengthened Joshua, and he troubled Og and Sihon in battle, and cast down the wicked into Sheol, and turned away the wrath of God from his people, and shattered the calf of sin, and brought down the tables from the mountain, and made <Moses’> face shine.

Working also in the opposite, top-down direction, from God towards man, pure prayer also conveys divine gifts to man (baṣluto’ ’etqabalu qurbone’)—in a manner similar to how Denys the Pseudo-Areopagite (floruit cca 500), a later Syrian Greek author, represents the ending of the mind’s itinerary with an initiation into the divine mysteries, by receiving the supernatural gifts of the Trinity (On the Divine Names, part 3, chapter 1).16 For ’Aphrahaṭ, prayer is an “upward” journey—to picture how prayer operates, he utilizes the image of Jacob’s ladder leading up from the natural world to the heavens (Demonstration 4, Section 5). Finally, the closing sections of Demonstration 4 reiterate the initial demand that prayer should be executed inside the mind, in secret (Section 10: dahwaytun msaleyn bkesyo’ lkasyo’), in a kind of inner chamber (tawono’), which is the “church” of the closed mouth (’aḥid pumo’; see also Demonstration 6, Section 1 and Demonstration 1, Section 3):17

Again, our Savior taught us to pray, and said, “Pray in secret to the Hidden One; He sees all things.” <For> He said, “Go into the inner room and pray to your Father in secret, and the Father who sees the hidden will reward you.”18 And why, my beloved, did our Savior teach us when He said: “Pray to thy Father in secret when the door is shut”? I will show you this as far as I understand. For he said, “Pray to your Father in secret when the door is shut.” So it is like that, and it reveals to us the message of our Lord, “Pray in secret”, <that is>, in your heart, and “Shut the door.” And why is it that He said, “Shut the door”?—Unless it be to <close thy mouth>, that is, the temple wherein the Saviour dwelleth, as the Apostle saith, “Ye are the temples of the Lord”, who enters into thy inward man, this temple, and cleanseth it from all that is unclean, when the door, that is, thy mouth, is shut.

The interior of the human mind as a church where a prayer is secretly recited, and the human body as a clean and holy shrine where the Anointed One may sojourn, are leitmotifs found also much earlier in the Syriac Acts of Judas Thomas (Prakseis dYehuda’ T’uma’ šliḥo’, early third century, act 8, the tragic story of Migdonya’ and Kariš) as well.19 Later, in a more elaborate and systematic form, they pop up also in the Book of Steps (Homily 12), and again, in a more poetical form, in St. Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith (Hymn 20); so, they can be called a common fourth-century Syriac metaphor of spiritual life.

The mind and even the body are hence venues of a bidirectional mystical communication with God, which gives the believer access to the revelatory mysteries (’roze’) that are said to abide in the immediate vicinity of God. This channel of exchange and communion opens up by virtue of the purity of the heart, the tranquility of the mind, pure fasting (sawmo’ dakyo’), pure prayer (ṣluto’ dkito’), and a plenitude of ascetic virtues: charity (ḥubo’), alms (zedqoto’), humility (mkikuto’), virginity (btoluto’), sanctity (qadišuto’), wisdom (ḥekmto’), hospitality, simplicity, patience, magnanimity, and mourning (for the full list of religious emotions and moral excellences, see chapter 4 of Demonstration 1).

2. Religious Passions, Prayer, and Mystical Revelation in the Book of Steps

Unknown as yet to the learned Anton Baumstark,20 and first published by Roman Catholic clergyman Michael Kmosko,21 the Book of Steps (Ktobo’ dmasqoto’/Liber graduum), a familiar, late fourth-century collection of 30 (or 31)22 discourses or mimrē’, is the work of a preacher who lived in the region of the Lesser Zabo’ river (today north-eastern Iraq) and who for some reason took great care to conserve his anonymity.23 His pastoral and practical theological discourses were addressed to a community of clear-eyed and determined ascetes who strove after religious perfection: the “perfect” (gmirē’), whom the collection carefully differentiates from the “just” (zadiqē’), that is, the “ordinary” believers who live up only to the so-called “small commandments” without observing the “grand comandments” (on this very straightforward distinction, see especially Homilies 2 and 11 of the collection).

For Mimrō’ 12, then, of the church there is not one but three: the visible church (^cidto’ dmetḥazyo’) with its authoritative ecclesiastic hierarchy; the church of the heart (^cidto’ dlebo’); and the invisible celestial church (^cidto’ drawmo’),24 in which the Anointed One himself, the Mšiḥo’, celebrates the divine service:25

…since we know that the body is a hidden temple, and the heart a hidden altar for <that> worship which <is> in the spirit [dabruḥo’], let us be diligent on this public altar and before this public temple, in order that as we labor in them, we may exist forever and ever in the free great church which <is> in heaven, and on that altar which is adorned and raised up by the spirit [bruḥo’], before which angels minister, and all the saints, and Yešu^c serves as priest, and bestows blessings before them and upon them and from every side of them; and since we know that the perfect [gmire’] are immersed in Yešu^c, the Anointed One [Mšiḥo’], and are secretly purified, let us believe and trust firmly in this baptism [ma^cmudito’] that is visible—it is of the Spirit, and it atones and removes sins for the benefit of him who believes in it and is immersed in it and does good.

Before the “pure prayer of the heart” (ṣluto’ ksito’ dlebo’) can be born in the church of the heart, it must be preceded by the external, bodily tokens of baptism (ma^cmudito’), evangelical poverty (msarquto’), and virginity (btuluto’), and it is complemented by the religious emotions and practices of crying (dem^ce’, lit. “tears”), fasting (ṣawmo’), and vigil (šaḥro’). Homily 18 titled On the Tears of Prayer elaborates on several facets of the tears a Syriac monk is supposed to be habitually shedding, for sorrow or for joy:26

Understand, then, my son, what I am saying: there are tears for sorrow, and there are tears for joy, as our Lord said, “You will weep and mourn and mourn while the world rejoices, but after a time your tears will turn to joy.” So there is a man who weeps for his sins, and rightly so—as it is written, it is sorrow for God, remorse that turns him back to life; and there are people who have overcome sin, and have passed over sin, and have done good, and weep for joy, because of their love to their Lord, who did them great good, and bought them back from the bondage of death, and made them children of the free, because they humbled themselves, and kept His commandments… […]

Some people mourn for their neighbour because they love him, but are far away from him. When therefore a man is far from his neighbour, he weeps for him, either out of love or out of sorrow; but when a man sees him whom he loves, he weeps for his face, and his tears flow down his neck, and all can see that he is near to him. It is not hidden from anybody that these are tears of joy, that he weeps and sheds tears and sighs when he sees his beloved one, for he did not think he would see him. So also people who sin, and are far from our Lord and His justice, weep in sorrow, as a man who is far from his friend, and is sorrowful for him, and weeps; these also weep for their sins, because they fear the wrath of our Lord, and weep because they are pitied and forgiven by God. And when they have turned away from their sins, and are justified, they draw near to our Lord, and their tears become joy. And when they are without sin, and have been freed from sin, they weep for joy before our Lord, as when a man sees his beloved one whom he did not think he would see, and falls on his neck, and weeps over him with sighs and tears of joy.

Crying, fasting, and vigil all happen in the course of a monastic life consisting of work, the reading of Scripture, and prayer—just like for the late fourth-century Pseudo-Macarian homilies, probably also written in Mesopotamia (see, for instance, Homily 3).27 Hence, the heart as the seat of an emotional religiosity has to rely on, and cooperate with, the body (pagro’) in order that the monk may reach the stage of perfection, which implies that even the body must be wholly sanctified and function as a “hidden church” (hayklo’ kasyo’). All that, however, can only happen by virtue of the salvific, mediating intervention of the visible church, which delivers the redeeming sacraments even to the most perfect of monks.28 So, an anagogical prayer is enabled to ascend to the heavenly church only on the ground provided by the earthly institution.

Thus, in its ecclesiology, Homily 12 of the Book of Steps displays a defensive strategy regarding the visible church, and it asserts that with an elevating prayer, the purified heart is able to go on an ecstatic journey secretly, leave this world behind, and rise up to heaven.29 The bottom line is that the practical theology of the Book of Steps relies on the salvific rituals of the institutional church, as well as on the experience of religious passions, asceticism, and something very much like what has been called “ontological prayer.” Here, the monk will be able to mystically partake in the rites performed by the Savior Himself in the celestial church.

3. Religious Passions, Prayer, and Mystical Revelation in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith

The main biographical source of St. Ephrem of Niṣibis (†373), his sixth-century vita, is not historically reliable, as Sebastian P. Brock remarks;30 what is certain is that Ephrem, presumably a younger contemporary of ’Aphrahaṭ, served as a deacon in Niṣibis, a stronghold of western Syrian culture, until the city became part of the Persian Empire in 363, following the death of the Roman emperor Julian “the Apostate” (sedit 361–363). Ephrem then moved to Edessa, where he lived until his death, as recorded in chapter 40 of the Historia Lausiaca of Palladius (cca 363–cca 430).31

Now, for Mar Ephrem, the “Harp of the Holy Spirit”—who as part of a prodigious life work, also authored 87 mainly anti-Arian Hymns on Faith—the perfect prayer is accompanied by supplication to God (^cwoto’), and is born only in the heart, never leaving that place unless in the form of a confession of faith (haymonuto’, in Hymn 20).32 The heart, much like for ’Aphrahaṭ and the Book of Steps, is a spiritual organ that functions like a womb (karso’) as it brings forth the prayer internally, which in turn brings forth faith externally. Again, just like for ’Aphrahaṭ in the Book of Steps, and partially also Denys the Areopagite, the heart as a place of prayer is like an internal chamber (gnuno’) where there is complete quiet and silence (šli’ ušetqo’). Prayer should remain behind the bar of a closed mouth (which reminds us of ‘Aphrahaṭ’s “church” of the closed mouth, ’aḥid pumo’). Such “noiseless prayer”—ṣluto’ dadlo’ qolo’ or ḥaršo’ ṣluto’—is also called a “pure rogation” (bo^cuto’ mṣalalto’):33

• To Thee, my Lord, I am bringing forward my faith with a tune,
• For prayer and supplication are able
• To be conceived in the mind,
• And are also born in silence, without noise.

• The fish is conceived and born in the depths of the sea,
• And if it stays there, it will avoid the trap;
• <Likewise>, in crisp silence, in the depths of the intellect,
• The prayer gathers itself, which is not scattered.

• In one body <are> the two: Prayer and faith;
• <The one is> hidden for the hidden, <the other> public for the public:
• Prayer <is> hidden for a hidden ear,
• While faith is destined for a public ear.

• Our prayer is like a secret twig in the depths of our body,
• So it will grow and give off the fragrance of faith.
• The fragrance will also give news of the twig
• To the one who possesses the jar of perfumes.

When, in the closing lines of Hymn 20, Ephrem wishes that such a prayer would “unify” the praying person, he alludes to what he describes in the middle stanzas as the moral split of the soul caught between good and evil—a fundamentally different concept than that of the Neoplatonic unification, ἕνωσις. While prayer has this deeply intimate role of connecting the believer with God via a silent inner voice, weeping as a religious emotion is linked, in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith, not so much with a recognition of the moral corruption of human nature as it is an external sign the believer displays as they perceive the futility of the theological debates devouring the church, while a speechless adoration of the mystical, inconceivable nature of the Son goes poignantly forgotten (cf. Hymns 52, 53, 64, 68, etc.).

The agnostic leitmotiv of the entire collection of the Hymns on Faith, then, is an affirmation of the unknowability of the divine essence together with the knowability of divine bounty, and an acknowledgement that God’s infinity is His main difference vis-à-vis creation, by virtue of which He is never entirely grasped or understood but remains always elusive for the finite human mind (see Hymns on Faith 1, 2, 5, 72, 81—actually, passim). Hymn 81 specifies in clear terms that prayer is not a means of rational inquiry into the divine nature—for Ephrem, that is an Arian misunderstanding.

4. Conclusions

It strikes the reader of early Syriac mystical sources that religious passions are considered in the wider frame of faith, prayer, asceticism, and monastic life. For the Book of Steps, in regard to ecclesiastic policy, questions of the authority of church hierarchy are intertwined with the practical theology of the heart, while for Ephraim, the internal prayer of the heart and the external confession of the mouth are very closely knitted up with the query concerning Christ’s double nature in the context of the Arian controversy. His tendency to resolve complex theological issues by reticence and to refuse to discuss them on account of divine unknowability is a characteristic feature of early Syriac Christian religiosity, whose fundamental attitude is to uphold religious belief in total purity of the heart (which is the soul) and the body, in exact imitation of the earthly life of the Savior. In a similar vein, when ’Aphrahaṭ faces the challenge of formulating his confession of faith, he proposes only the most fundamental theses concerning the divine nature, emphasizing the religion of the heart.34 While all three authors worked for a community of disciples or believers they wanted to educate, and strongly accentuated the purity of the heart rather than doctrine, still they differed in tone, intellectual depth, and other-worldly vision, with ’Aphrahaṭ speaking in an epistolary manner and enumerating long series of Biblical examples; the anonymous master of the Book of Steps coming closest to a practical theological system; and Ephraim singing ecstatically the joys of Paradise, viewing them with spiritual eyes.

The Savior’s life imitated the heavenly perfection of the Father on earth, for the Savior disclosed, according to Matthew 5,48, that Ἔσεσθε οὖν ὑμεῖς τέλειοι ὡς ὁ Πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος τέλειός ἐστιν. This is the normative principle of early Syrian Christianity in its ascetic, monastic striving after perfectio, τελειóτης, or gmiruto’: Nothing less will suffice than moral perfection, which is supposed to mystically carry the believer up to the heavenly altar, where they can participate in the eternal sacrifice, enjoy the pure spiritual pleasure of Paradise (as Ephraim often proposes in the Hymns on Paradise), and receive unmediated revelation from God. Perfectio, τελειóτης, and gmiruto’ all carry the meaning of having followed through a process of development and having reached the goal. What you need in order to reach that goal is purity, dakyuto’; sanctity implying sexual renouncement, qadišuto’; and prayer, ṣluto’—systematic theology does not figure on the bucket list.35 If you are to become the church of the Holy Spirit, then scorn this world and leave it (nesbuq deyn ^colmo’ dlo’ dilan), purify and sanctify yourself down to your body, repent, cry, abstain from carnal pleasures (as much as you can—two degrees of sexual abstinence are implied by the Acts of Judas Thomas: qadišuto’, purity in a married condition, and btuluto’, virginity), fast, and pray. That is the teaching of the early Syriac Fathers for us late seekers and relapsing penitents.