The roll call of Christian poets is mighty
impressive. Most of us are familiar with some of the Big Names of the English
language tradition, such as John Milton, George Herbert, John Donne, T. S.
Eliot, and so forth, but the tradition is much wider than this, with lesser
known writers who deserve reading. This list would include the likes of Thomas
Traherne, Christopher Smart, Elizabeth Jennings, and Jack Clemo.
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| Blind Cornish and Christian poet Jack Clemo |
Beyond the English language, you can find Christian
poets who have been influential in their own national and theological spheres,
such as the Dutchman Jacobus Revius, the French Huguenot Salluste du Bartas,
the Danish Lutheran N. F. S. Grundtvig, or the Polish Czeslaw Milosz.
One of the first biggies of Christian poetry was the
early church poet Ephrem of Syria. Ephrem lived in the 4th century and was
highly prolific (as so many church authors were back then), churning out
hundreds of texts of poems, hymns, sermons, and biblical commentary. His
writing was popular and translated into surrounding languages, such as Coptic
(Egyptian), Armenian, and Georgian (as in near Russia, not near Alabama).
One of the themes of the early church was Christ as victor, as warrior,
and Ephrem exemplifies this in some of his work. Notice in this prose
translation of some opening lines how Christ fights Death like a mighty hero:
"Death
trampled our Lord underfoot but he in his turn treated death as highroad for
his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this
means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its
own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a
loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was
powerless to prevent it.
“Death
slew him by means of the body which he had assumed; but the same body proved to
be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak
of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord,
death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was
itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.
“Death
could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell
swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot
in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he
received from the virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its
strong room and scattered all its treasure.”
The emphasis here is on hardcore doctrine (the
incarnation, the atonement, our salvation) in highly charged, exciting poetic
imagery. When we think of the tradition of Christian poetry, it is good to have
some knowledge of the English tradition, as referenced above, but it’s also
good to expand beyond that, forming an historical awareness of Christian
poetry. This is good for us for several reasons. One, it helps smash the
chronological snobbery that we are more and more enveloped by; two, it expands
our access to profound spiritual resources that can enhance our own devotional
lives.
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| Christ the Conqueror |
I’ve been trying to track down a quotation given on
numerous web pages regarding Ephrem, including Wikipedia, but haven’t found it.
The quotation is this: Ephrem is, according to one writer, “The greatest poet
of the patristic age and, perhaps, the only theologian-poet to rank beside
Dante.” — Robert Murray. I have no way of judging the truth of this, but I’m
sure one could mount such a defense of Ephrem’s importance.
Wait. There was a huge Christian church in Syria as big as anything in the West?
Well, there was. Syria was once a hotbed of vital
Christian culture, with poets and theologians of great learning influencing the
early church all over Europe and the Mediterranean. For instance, the now
relatively famous Irish monastics were in direct contact with this Syrian
Christianity, and a lot of the Celtic interlace on texts like the famous Book
of Kells derived some of their inspiration from Syriac (and Egyptian Christian)
versions and were not totally indigenous to the Irish.
So what happened to Ephrem and his ilk? What
happened to this thriving, influential branch of Christianity, and why didn’t
it hang around like the church in the West?
Well, there was this thing in the seventh century
called Islam . . . .
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| To find out what happened to the ancient Syrian church, read this. |