June 09 - Ephrem the Syrian, Ephrem of Nisibe or Ephrem the Syriac, born around 306 in Nisibe and died in 373 in Edessa, was a Syrian deacon and theologian of the fourth century in the region of Assyria. Based on Ephrem's hymnology, internal criticism suggests that both his parents were part of the city's growing Christian community.
Many languages were spoken in Nisibe in Ephrem's time, especially Aramaic dialects. The Christian community used the Syriac dialect. Various pagan religions, Judaism and some of the early Christian sects competed with each other to win the hearts and minds of the people. It was a time of great religious and political tension.
In 298 the Roman emperor Diocletian had signed a treaty with his counterpart in Persia, Narseh, transferring Nisibe to the Romans. The violent persecution and martyrdom of Christians under Diocletian was a vivid reminder of the Nisibe Church in the youth of Ephrem.
Jacques, the first bishop of Nisibe, was appointed in 308 and Ephrem grew up while he was leading the community. Jacob of Nisibe is recorded as one of the signatories at the first Council of Nicaea in 325. Ephrem was baptized as a young man and almost certainly entered the order of the "Sons of the Covenant," an unusual form of Syrian proto-monasticism. Jacob appointed him a teacher. He was ordained deacon, either at his baptism or later.
He began to compose hymns and write biblical commentaries as part of his educational duties. In his hymns he sometimes speaks of himself as a "shepherd of sheep", of his bishop as a "shepherd" and of his community as a "couching-place". Popular tradition sees in Ephrem the founder of the school of Nisibe, which in the following centuries was the educational centre of the Eastern Church.
In 337 the Emperor Constantine died, who had promoted Christianity in the Roman Empire. Seizing this opportunity, Chapur II of Persia began a series of attacks in northern Roman Mesopotamia. Nisibe was besieged in 338, 346 and 350, and Ephrem states that during the first siege it was Bishop Jacob who defended the city with his prayers. This bishop, for whom Ephrem had great affection, died soon afterwards, and Babu led the Church in those troubled times, filled with border skirmishes. In the third siege, in 350, Chapur diverted the course of the river Mygdonius to bring down the walls of Nisibe. The Nisibeans quickly repaired the walls while the elephant cavalry of the Persian army mired in the wet earth. Ephrem celebrated the miraculous rescue of the city in a hymn comparing it to Noah's Ark floating safely above the flood.
An important physical link to the time Ephrem lived is the baptistery of Nisibe. The inscription says that it was built in 359 under Bishop Vologese. That was the year when Chapour began to ravage the region again. The towns around Nisibe were destroyed one after the other and their inhabitants killed or expelled. The west of the Roman Empire was the object of serious concern as Constance and Julian fought for power. Finally, after Constance's death, Julian set out for Mesopotamia. He advanced in a reckless campaign towards the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, during which, overwhelmed by numbers, he was forced to retreat immediately. Julian perished on this occasion and the army elected Jovian as its new emperor. Unlike his predecessor, Jovian was a Nicene Christian. Circumstances forced him to ask Chapour for an armistice and to cede Nisibe to Persia, with the clause that the city's Christian community could leave. Bishop Abraham, the successor of Vologese, led his faithful into exile.
Ephrem found himself in the midst of a large number of refugees who had fled westward, first to Amida (Diyarbakır), and finally settled in Edessa in 363. Ephrem, in his late fifties, went back to work in his new church and continued to teach at the school in Edessa. At the heart of the Syriac-speaking world, this city was home to many rival philosophies and religions. Ephrem notes that Christians faithful to Nicene Orthodoxy were simply called "Palutians" in Edessa, after the name of a former bishop. The various sects: Arian, Marcionite, Manichean, Bardisanite and Gnostic, each proclaimed themselves as the true Church. In this confusion, Ephrem wrote a great number of hymns to defend Nicene orthodoxy. A late Syriac author, Jacob de Serough, wrote that Ephrem used all-female choirs to sing his hymns adapted to popular Syriac melodies in the forum of Edessa. After ten years' residence at Edessa, and by the time he was over sixty, Ephrem succumbed to the plague as he ministered spiritually to the sick. The most likely date of his death is June 9, 373, and he has been recognized since 1920 as a Doctor of the Church by the Catholic Church through Pope Benedict XV.
