Treasure-house of Mysteries: Exploration of the Sacred Text through Poetry in the Syriac Tradition (Popular Patristics Series)
Overview
Why was Cain’s sacrifice rejected, but Abel’s accepted? How did Joseph react when he came home and found Mary with child? Questions such as these served as the starting points for St Ephrem and other poets of the early Syriac tradition in these lively and highly imaginative poems where they explore the deeper spiritual meanings of the biblical text with great insight. Written with considerable verve, these narrative poems and dramatic dialogues offer the modern reader an unusual and refreshing perspective on some key passages in the Bible.
Top Highlights
“For Ephrem, both the fundamentalist and the rationalist approaches to the Bible are equally unsatisfactory and arrogant, each in its own different way: by concentrating their attention on the literal or historical meaning, they neglect another dimension, capable of much more profound meaning, which lies hidden beneath the surface meaning of the biblical text. ‘Do not merely ask the meaning of the words’, he writes, ‘for these, taken in their outward sense, can impede the real point; rather, search out their true sense and what they really refer to’ (Commentary on the Diatessaron 22:3).” (Page 29)
“and let your reputation go forth unto generations to come’.” (Page 78)
“the volition of our free will is the key to Your treasure.” (Page 24)
“and maybe He will feel disgust at her and not receive her:” (Page 193)
“See, my son, that you do not put your father under oath” (Page 78)
- Title: Treasure-house of Mysteries: Exploration of the Sacred Text through Poetry in the Syriac Tradition
- Author: Sebastian Brock
- Series: Popular Patristics Series
- Volume: 45
- Publisher: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press
- Print Publication Date: 2012
- Logos Release Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Christian poetry, Syriac
- ISBNs: 9780881414219, 15555755, 0881414212
- Resource ID: LLS:TRSRHSMYSTTRDTN
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T21:03:33Z
Sebastian Brock was born in 1938 and studied Classics (Greek and Latin) and Oriental Studies (Hebrew and Aramaic) at Cambridge University before doing a DPhil at Oxford University on the text of the Septuagint. He has taught at the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, and (from 1974 until his retirement in 2003) Oxford, where he was Reader in Syriac Studies.