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Matthias Hinze has discerned ... Ephrem’s view of Paradise, or what Hinze nicely calls “its (theological) geography”, preparing the way for a comparison, soon, as to “sacred space”, between Paradise and Mount Sinai, and Paradise and the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem.
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The great Marian Saint and Doctor of the Church, Ephrem Syrus, has written a masterful comparison of the Fall of Adam and the madness of King Nebuchednezzar in which he also provides possible insights into the organisation of Paradise (or probably more accurately the Garden in Paradise). Much of what follows will be based upon Matthias Hinze’s account of this in his book, The Madness of King Nebuchednezzar (The Ancient Near Eastern Origins and Early History), Brill, 1999, using as his text Saint Ephrem’s hymn XIII from his cycle of Hymns on Paradise. Hinze introduces this text as follows (pp. 158-159):
In this cycle, which was most likely composed during Ephrem’s years in Edessa (363-373 [AD]), Ephrem elaborates beautifully on the biblical Paradise narrative in Gen 2-3. Rather than providing a running commentary on the Genesis account as he has done elsewhere … Ephrem chooses to meditate on various themes he deems essential for a theological understanding of Paradise, such as Paradise as sacred space (and time), Paradise and the Church, Paradise and the Spirit, etc. The entire cycle is richly embellished with biblical allusions.
Often, throughout, Ephrem refers to God as “the Good One” and “the Just One”.
Hymn XIII “is organized around a comparison of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise on the one hand and Nebuchadnezzar’s exile among the beasts of the field on the other”. In the previous hymn (XII), Ephrem had prepared the ground with his “reflection on the different nature of animals and human beings in creation”. (Hinze, P. 159):
Animals do not know guilt or shame and, having no part in the resurrection, cannot be blamed for any wrongdoing (XII.19). Adam and Eve, on the contrary, were created and bestowed with a free will, because God wanted them to win the crown of immortality. Stanza 20, the last stanza of hymn XII, articulates the moral conclusion and hence forms the transition to our hymn. “The fool, who is unwilling to realize his honorable state, prefers to become just an animal, rather than a man, so that, without incurring judgment, he may serve naught but his lust”.
This no doubt reflects the sapiential writings in the Bible which constantly contrast the wise man and the fool. The latter has allowed himself to become immersed in the lower things.
“The fool who becomes like an animal foreshadows the comparison of Adam’s and Nebuchadnezzar’s lot”, continues Hinze (pp. 159-160), “The stage is set for hymn XIII. Our reading begins with stanza 2.
....
2. In the beginning God created the creation,
the fountainhead of delights;
the house which he constructed
provisions those who live therein,
for upon His gift
innumerable created beings depend;
from a single table
does He provide
every day for each creature
all things in due measure (Ps. 145:15-16).
Grant that we may acknowledge
Your grace, O Good One.
RESPONSE: Through Your grace make me worthy
of that Garden of happiness.
3. A garden full of glory,
a chaste bridal chamber,
did he give to that king
fashioned from the dust,
sanctifying and separating him
from the abode of wild animals;
for glorious was Adam
in all things –
in where he lived and what he ate,
in his radiance and dominion.
Blessed is He who elevated him above all
so that he might give thanks to the Lord of all ….
Matthias Hinze has discerned from these two stanzas Ephrem’s view of Paradise, or what Hinze nicely calls “its (theological) geography”, preparing the way for a comparison, soon, as to “sacred space”, between Paradise and Mount Sinai, and Paradise and the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Saint Ephrem, he says:
.... conceives of Paradise as a circular mountain which circumscribes the entire world. When Cain says to Abel in the Peshitta, “Let us go the valley …” (Gen 4:8, Syriac pqatā’, the Hebrew is lacking at this point; the LXX reads εìς τò πεδíον, i.e., ‘to the field’), this implied for Ephrem that their home was on a mountain. ….
The Paradise mountain is then divided further into three concentric circles, designating three levels of sacred space. A careful reading of the Genesis narrative provides the key to understanding the distinctive qualities of these three degrees of holiness. In Gen 3:3 Eve reports to the serpent that God had commanded them not to touch the tree (Hebrew lō(̒) tigg’û bô). Hebrew nāga‘ is ambiguous and can mean either ‘to touch’, or ‘to draw near’. The ambiguity is retained in the Peshitta (Syriac lā(’) tetqarrbûn), yet the verb used in Syriac (qreb in the Ethpa.) readily lends itself to Ephrem’s interpretation, which reads the command to mean ‘to approach’, rather than ‘to touch’. The Syriac thus implies that the divine prohibition was rather strict in nature and ruled out not only the touching of, but even the drawing near to, the tree.
Hinze then reflects back to Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis, in which, he says, Ephrem offers the same interpretation (p, 161):
The tempter then turned his mind to the commandment of Him who had set down the commandment, that [Adam and Eve] were not only commanded not to eat from one single tree, but they were not even to draw near to it. The serpent then realized that God had forewarned them about even looking at it lest they become entrapped by its beauty. […]
The serpent remained silent, for it perceived immediately that Eve was about to succumb. It was not so much the serpent’s counsel that entered her ear and provoked her to eat from the tree at it was her gaze, which she directed toward the tree, that lured her to pluck and eat of its fruit…..
“The fact that Adam and Eve were forbidden even to draw near to the tree called for an explanation”, says Hinze. “In his commentary, Ephrem suggests that Eve had to be guarded from gazing at the tree simply because the tree’s beauty would have enticed her immediately into longing for the fruit – which is, after all, what happened after the serpent seduced her”. But, in his Hymns on Paradise, Ephrem provides a different explanation. And this is where the notion of “sacred space” comes in. This is in keeping with the view of some able commentators today that Genesis 1 is essentially a document of cosmic Liturgy and theophany.
Anyway, Hinze draws the comparisons between the major biblical theophanies:
The closest analogue for the divine prohibition not to draw near in the Hebrew Bible is found in passages that deal with notion of sacred space, such as the theophany at Mount Sinai, or the Divine Presence in the Temple in Jerusalem. In either case we find a tripartite structure, i.e., three concentric circles which serve as demarcations of increasing degrees of holiness organized around the divine presence in the center. God’s command to Eve not to draw near to the tree therefore had to imply that the geography of Paradise followed the same pattern. On the summit of Mount Paradise stood the Tree of Life, representing the divine presence, or the Holy of Holies, an area Adam and Eve were not allowed to enter (cf. Hymns on Paradise III.3). The Tree of Knowledge marked the demarcation line (analogous to the veil in the sanctuary; cf. III.13.17) to the next level, the slopes of the mountain. The lower slopes, finally, indicate the realm where the animals lived. Along the foothills is the fence, produced by the cherub with the revolving sword (IV.1).
Hinze now follows Adam’s progression from his initial lower place of existence unto his placement, with Eve, in what Ephrem had called in hymn XIII, the “garden full of glory, a chaste bridal chamber”, “a common epithet for Mount Paradise in Ephrem’s hymns” (pp. 161-162):
Adam, here referred to as king, was fashioned from dust, still within the lower slopes of the mountain, an area he shared with the beasts. He names the animals, as Ephrem reports in the previous hymn … and is venerated by them. Adam then discovers his need for a mate, and God creates Eve. It is at this point that Adam and Eve are separated geographically from the animals and enter the middle slopes of the garden. In the words of our hymn (XIII.3), God was “sanctifying and separating him from the abode of wild animals; for glorious was Adam in all things – in where he lived and what he ate, in his radiance and dominion”.
Ephrem is quite specific about the distinctive qualities of Adam’s and Eve’s new environ: no animals dwell here. The first human beings are thus blessed with a unique domicile, food, radiance, and dominion.
This now sets the scene for Ephrem’s comparison of Adam with another mighty king of great privileges - albeit of lesser rationality: Nebuchednezzar.
These last lines, of course, anticipate the comparison with Nebuchadnezzar, who claimed many of the same privileges.
4. The king of Babylon resembled
Adam king of the universe:
both rose up against the one Lord
and were brought low;
He made them outlaws,
casting them afar.
Who can fail to weep,
seeing that these free-born kings
preferred slavery
and servitude.
Blessed is He who releases us
so that His image might no longer be in bondage.
“At this point”, Hinze notes (p. 163), “Ephrem introduces the key hermeneutic maneuver of the entire hymn, the exegetical coordination of Adam and Nebuchadnezzar. The obvious analogies between the two kings are quickly outlined. Like Adam, Nebuchadnezzar indulged in royal splendor. Yet, both heroes proved unable to remain content with their appointed status. Becoming increasingly greedy, they grew arrogant before God. Even their swift punishments were analogous in that both were expelled into an exile among the beasts”.
[Hermeneutic. Study of the principles of interpretation]
5. David wept for Adam,
at how he fell
from that royal abode
to the abode of wild animals (Ps 49:13).
Because he went astray through a beast
he became like the beasts:
He ate, together with them
as a result of the curse,
grass and roots,
and he died, becoming their peer.
Blessed is He who set him apart
from the wild animals again.
This is so applicable to the history of humanity, and to our own time, when the majority, being too tired and apathetic to fight against the current, give up and immerse themselves completely in this world. Like so many corpses being swept along by the tsunami of modern day existence. Hinze again (P. 169). “The fate of Adam and Nebuchadnezzar directly points at, or better stated, becomes a type of our own situation. We have become so accustomed to our debased nature that God has to chastise us as well, hoping that we too repent and “beg to return to our inheritance”. Our problem, as Ephrem explains, is that we have become used to our lives “among the animals”. (XIII.10) Not only have we lost any appreciation for the glorious existence for which we were intended, we have to be redeemed against our own wills”.
[AMAIC addition]. Special Marian help is urgently needed today for that extra ‘spiritual propulsion’, to lift us up right out of the maelstrom. And Almighty God has so generously supplied such emergency assistance for us in the form of the True Devotion to Mary. And it is an easy way, so Saint Louis de Montfort tells us:
As in nature there are secrets to learn in a short time, with little trouble, and at little cost, and things that we find easy to perform; so, in the order of grace, there are secrets that can be learned without any trouble, and things that can be easily accomplished – such as emptying ourselves of self, filling ourselves with God, and becoming perfect.
Hinze continues (pp. 163-164). “The discussion returns to Adam, and a new text is introduced, Ps 49:13, “Man (Hebrew ’ādām) does not abide in (Hebrew yālîn) honor; he is like the beasts that perish.”
“Like the rabbis, Ephrem saw in the third part of the biblical canon a storehouse of interpretive tools which, once juxtaposed with a verse from the Torah, shed light on the cryptic line under consideration. Jewish exegetes read the verse from Psalm 49 as an explanation about how long Adam resided in Paradise: Adam was expelled from his elevated status in less than a day’s time. …. Ephrem chooses a different interpretation. In the Peshitta, the first half of verse 13 reads, “Man (Syriac bārnā šā’) did not take notice (Syriac ’etbayyan) … of his honor”, which Ephrem understands to imply that Adam, here understood as the individual, rather than as the collective as the Syriac would suggest, took no cognizance of his elevated status he enjoyed at the moment when God led him (and Eve) away from the animals to the next higher level on Mount Paradise. Adam was careless and forfeit his privileged status”.
“The stanza provides us with the first glimpse into the ultimate message Ephrem seeks to communicate through his comparison of Adam and Nebuchadnezzar, and to which he will return at greater length in a short moment. Like Adam, we as well are unaware of our present status. Ephrem’s goal thus is to enable us to see what we have lost, since only by discerning this loss can we appreciate what we are lacking and develop a desire to be restored.
6. In that king [i.e., Nebuchadnezzar],
did God depict Adam:
since he provoked God by his exercise of kingship,
God stripped him of that kingship.
The Just One was angry and cast him out
Into the region of wild beasts;
he dwelt there with them
in the wilderness
and only when he repented did he return
to his former abode and kingship.
Blessed is He who has thus taught us to repent
so that we too may return to Paradise.
“The parallels between the two biblical accounts are striking indeed and invite comment” says Hinze (pp. 164-165). “Adam was cast into the lower slopes of the animals where he is made to share their life and even their diet (“But your food shall be the grasses of the field”, Gen 3:18). Nebuchadnezzar, too, was sent into the wilderness, roaming the steppe like a wild animal, eating herbs and roots, and growing out his hair and nails. The punishment is justified, as Ephrem is quick to point out by referring to God as the “Just One.” Frequently throughout the Hymns on Paradise Ephrem employs the two divine attributes of Grace and Justice, also known in rabbinic literature as middat haddîn and middat harahămîn, or in Ephrem’s terminology the “Just One” and the “Good One.” For Ephrem, this rabbinic notion of God’s justice and grace is inseparably linked with the notion of the human free will”.
….
“In XIII.4 Ephrem had already stressed that both Adam and Nebuchadnezzar acted out of their free will (“Who can fail to weep, seeing that these free-born kings preferred slavery and servitude”). Once again, the paraenetic [‘Paraenesis’ is the dissemination of advice, exhortation and/or recommendation] force behind Ephrem’s remarks is unmistakable. With the Church corresponding to Paradise, every Christian is put to the test just like Adam. The test is not about the fruit of the tree, but about obedience to Christ whose fruit we may enjoy daily. …. Christians are to respond by properly using the divine gift of free will”.
Earlier in the cycle, Ephrem expresses this crucial concept as follows:
Blessed indeed is that person on whose behalf
they [i.e., the assembly of Saints] have interceded before
the Good One,
before the Just One.
Those whom the Good One loves shall be in Eden,
those whom the Just One rejects, in Sheol. (VI.19)
“Adam’s fall is final, and his transgression does not allow for repentance. In fact, Adam returned to Paradise only with the advent of the second Adam – who is, of course, Christ. …. With Nebuchadnezzar the situation is different. The monarch finds a terminus to his penance and is immediately reinstalled into his royal splendor. This, then, is the rationale for the Nebuchadnezzar episode: it provides us with a figura of our own situation. Just as Nebuchadnezzar found release from his sin through penitence, so can we”. ....
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