Hymn on Unleavened Bread XVII
1. Nisan that renews every plant
could not revive the aged People.
Refrain: Blessed is he who rejected the People and their matza
Since their hands were defiled with precious blood!
2. For when the People went forth they bore
leaven of idolatry along with matza.
3. In Egypt Moses forbade them to knead yeasted dough
together with(1) his matza. (Exod 12.15)
4. By this means he taught them not to hide
Egyptian leaven within their mind.
5. Matza is a symbol of the bread of life;
those of old ate the new mystery.
6. Moses disclosed the symbol of the One who renews all
and gave it to gluttons who craved flesh.
7. Meat from the earth weighed them down –
their mind stooped to greed.
8. The earthly ones ate heavenly manna (Exodus 16 etc.)
They became dust on the earth through their sins
9. Spiritual bread flew lightly away
The Gentiles soared up and settled in the midst of Paradise.
…
14. Matza’s nature is heavy
Symbolising the People that cannot fly.
15. Elijah ate from the pitcher and jug (1 Kings 17.14)
the light symbol that flew through the air
16. It was not a Daughter of Jacob who provided the symbol:
Elijah ate it through that Daughter of the Gentiles (i.e. the widow of Zarephath)
17.If the [mere] symbol of [Christ’s] bread made [Elijah] fly like that (2 Kings 2.11)
How much more may it transport Gentiles to Eden?
Notes on this hymn:
(1) Reading ‘am for the edition’s ‘oq.
Note the opposition of People (= Jews) to the Peoples (Gentile Christians).
Ephrem frequently uses paradox and contrast for effect, e.g. heavy—light, old—new, earthly—heavenly/spiritual, manna—Eucharistic bread.
Another feature of all his hymns (anti-Jewish or not) is the emphasis on symbol or mystery, for which he uses the Persian loanword raza.
Hymn on Unleavened Bread XVIII
[….]
Refrain: Give thanks to the Son who gave us his body
In place of that matza that he gave the People.
3. For see, there is fresh pasture in Nisan
— the ox prone to goring eats it (Exodus 21.19)
4. And when the People ate that matza
They gored the Son with a spear in Nisan (John 19.34).
5. In new pasture the ass grows fat
Like it the People ‘waxed fat and kicked’ (Deuteronomy 32.15).
6. If fresh food really brings benefit
a beast is better than that People!
7. A beast is superior to them too, because they are reproached through it:
Unlike it, they do not know their master (Isaiah 1.3)
8. A serpent sheds its skin and is made new;
however often the People sheds its exterior, inside they grow old.
9. See how the People refresh their outward appearance
While in their heart dwells deadly poison.
10. For [the People] resembles the first serpent
Who deceived us by giving us deadly fruit.
11. For see, they offer us some of their matza
To become a deadly drug within us.
12. O aged People who by matza
and leaven alike make the fresh stale!
13. O matza that little by little
draws those who eat it towards the infidels!
14. In fresh matza they secretly offer
the old leaven of unbelief.
15. Moses hid a sign of the Son
Within that matza, like an elixir of life.
16. [Christ] rinsed the elixir from the matza
and gave it to Judas [Iscariot] as a deadly drug (John 13.26)
17. So whoever takes some of that matza
takes the lethal drug of [Judas] Iscariot!
Notes on this hymn:
The People, Ephrem’s contemporaries the Jews, are compared to animals in Scripture: to a goring ox, a complacent and recalcitrant ass, to a domestic animal that does not know its Master, and finally to the serpent in Eden (Genesis 3), origin of evil and death in the world.
Ephrem does not deny that Jesus himself ate matza at the Last Supper before his crucifixion (stanza 16), but he argues that by giving it to his betrayer, Judas Iscariot, Jesus marked the end of Passover as a salvific feast. It has no more utility, and in fact is now deadly, whereas the Eucharistic bread is the medicine of life (see the earlier hymns above).
Hymns on Unleavened Bread XIX
1. The True Lamb rose and broke his body
for the perfect ones who ate the Passover Lamb.
Refrain: Glory to Christ who by his body
Brought an end to the People’s matza along with the People.
……………………
5. The wicked People who desire our death
enticingly offer us death through food.
6. The tree that Eve saw was desirable
And matza is just as desirable.
7. But from that lovely tree was revealed death:
death is concealed in fine matza.
8. Although the dead lion was very unclean
its bitterness offered sweetness (Judges 14.9)
9. In a bitter lion there was fine honey (Judges 14.9)
In sweet matza, a deadly poison!
10. Angels longed for that unleavened bread
that Sarah baked, because it symbolised [Christ] (Genesis 18.6).
……………..
11. Loathe matza, brethren!
It signifies Iscariot.
12. Again, flee from matza, brethren!
Its purity harbours a stench.
13. For the ‘putrid name’ that Moses wrote (Exodus. 32.25 in Syriac)
lies in matza’s wholesomeness
14. The People craved garlic and onions (Numeri 11.5)
their matza reeks along with their food.
15. Elijah took bread from unclean ravens (1 Kings 17.6)
Because he knew that it was pure.
16. Don’t take that matza, brethren,
from the People with blood-spattered hands
17. Lest some of that filth in which their hands are steeped
should cling to that unleavened bread.
18. Even if meat is clean, no one eats
from what’s been sacrificed, since it’s defiled.
19. How much more unclean is matza,
kneaded by hands that killed the Son!
20. It’s an abomination to take food
from a hand defiled with animal blood.
21. Who would take anything from the hand
utterly defiled with the prophets’ blood?
22. My brethren, don’t eat the matza of the People
– deadly poison – together with the elixir of life
23. For the blood of the Messiah is present, mixed into
the People’s matza and our Eucharist
24. Anyone who takes it in the Eucharist takes the elixir of life:
Anyone who eats it with the People takes a lethal drug
25. For that blood of which they cried, ‘Let it be upon us!’ (Matthew 27.25)
is mixed into their feasts and their Sabbaths.
26. Whoever joins in their feasts
he too becomes spattered with the blood.
27. The People that did not eat pork
is a blood-stained pig.
28. Flee from it, keep your distance as it shakes itself
lest it stain you with a spattering of the blood.
Notes on this hymn:
The second line of the refrain is highly alliterative: baṭṭel pṭir ‘ama ‘ameh d-‘ama. This kind of stylistic device, coupled with Ephrem’s vivid use of imagery, was an important factor in his success as a poet.
Ephrem states clearly that the Jews carry the blood-guilt of Christ’s death and that those Christians who associate with them become defiled too.
Stanza 18 refers to the early Christian prohibition on eating meat sacrificed to idols (Acts 15.28-29; cf. the allusions to anxieties over eating meat in Romans ch 14).
Stanza 27 invokes two of the greatest sources of religious pollution, from a Jewish point of view: pigs and blood. (However, archaeologists note evidence that pork was not eaten in Syria other than by Roman soldiers stationed there, so the abhorrence of pigs may have been a common cultural feature shared by local Christians.) The crude imagery ends the hymn with an exhortation to keep one’s distance from Jews in order not to share that pollution.
Carmina Nisibena LXVII
1. Come, let us hear Death rebuking the People
whose sword was even crueller to the righteous than Death!
Refrain: Praise to you, who by your sacrifice made amends for our reproach
Your death was substituted for all our own deaths,
that he might raise all alive!
2. [Death speaks:] æIt wasn’t Death who crucified Jesus, but the People!
How much hatred, then, the People showed, since they hated more than I did!
3. ‘They threw Jeremiah into that muddy pit (Jeremiah 38.6)
but I honoured his bones in Sheol.
4. ‘They hurled stones at Naboth like a dog, (1 Kings 21.14)
how much better am I, who have never battered even a dog!
5. ‘The Hebrew women ate their children during famine (Deuteronomy 28.53; 2 Kings 6.26-29; Jeremiah 19.9; Lamentations 2.20; 4.10; Ezekiel 5.10)
Sheol is better because she delivered them back painlessly.
6. ‘She gave back the widow’s son through Elijah (1 Kings 17.17-24)
and the Shulamite’s darling through Elisha (2 Kings 4.18-37)
7. ‘The greedy Hebrew women ate their children;
Sheol yielded up the dead and learned to fast decently!
8. ‘Sheol is not really Sheol, but just an image.
Jezebel who devoured the righteous is the true Sheol:
9. ‘She killed the prophets and sons of the prophets, and threw them aside (1 Kings 18.13; 19.1-9 etc.)
Elijah fled to heaven from her frenzy (2 Kings 2)
10. ‘How many deaths were there among the people for one death?
How many Sheols for the one that was there?
11. ‘Samaria and Jezreel her daughter, the house of Israel,
and Zion and Jerusalem her sister, the house of Judah.
12. ‘The prophets and righteous in Judah and Israel
Were drowned in these two abysses.
13. ‘So why is Sheol alone hated,
since there are many things more hateful then she?
14. ‘I hate the Jewish dead!
I loathe their bones in Sheol.
15. ‘If only there was a way I could get rid of their bones
from Sheol, for they make the place stink!
16. ‘By the Holy Spirit, I’m astonished at how long I’ve dwelt
among a People who smell as rank as their way of life!
17. ‘Onions and garlic are the heralds of their deeds — (Numeri 11.5)
The mind of that filthy People resembles their food.’
18. By the prayer of all who knelt and worshipped your Father,
have mercy on your worshipper who abused your love!
19. From Hebrews and heathens as well as from angels,
be there glory to you, and glory through you to your Father!
20. Instead of me being a mouthpiece for Death who has no mouth,
May the Son whose whole being is mouth, take my voice to his Father!
Source. Jewish/non-Jewish Relations – Between Exclusion and Embrace – Translated by Alison Salvesen. Taken from Beck, Edmund. (1964) Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Paschahymnen (de Azymis, de Crucifixione, de Resurrectione) CSCO 248, SS 108. Louvain, Peeters Press. (There is a German translation by Beck in the accompanying volume.).