On Sunday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time our Church invites us to read and reflect on a passage from the beginning of the book of Proverbs (1:1-7, 20-23) entitled "An exhortation to choose wisdom". Our treasure, which follows, is from a commentary on the Diatessaron by Saint Ephrem, deacon.
Saint Ephrem, also known as Ephrem of Syria, was born around the year 306 in the city of Nisibis (modern day Nusaybin, Turkey). In those days religious culture in the region, included polytheism, Judaism, and several varieties of early Christianity. Saint Ephraim was a prominent Christian theologian and writer who is revered as one of the most notable hymnographers of Eastern Christianity. He had a prolific pen and his writings best illumine his holiness. Although he was not a man of great scholarship, his works reflect deep insight and knowledge of the Scriptures. In writing about the mysteries of humanity's redemption, Saint Ephrem reveals a realistic and humanly sympathetic spirit and a great devotion to the humanity of Jesus.
Saint Ephrem was ordained a deacon but declined becoming a priest. He was said to have avoided presbyteral consecration by feigning madness. Saint Ephraim is venerated as a saint by all traditional Churches. He was declared a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church in 1920.
Saint Ephrem's commentary on Tatian: The Diatessaron, meaning "through the four gospels," is the name the fourth-century Church historian Eusebius gave to a collation and combination of the gospels created by Tatian, a disciple of Justin Martyr, around 170 C.E. In this work, Tatian drew on the four canonical gospels to create a single, continuous narrative of Jesus's life that eliminated repetition of parallel passages and harmonized discrepancies and contradictions. Probably written in Tatian's native Syriac, the Diatessaron is one of the earliest witnesses to the text of the gospels, drawing on a form of the Greek text circulating in Rome in the mid-second century. It probably influenced many readings in the Old Syriac version of the New Testament and enjoyed great popularity both within the Syriac- and Aramaic-speaking world and much farther afield. Not long after composing the Diatessaron, Tatian came to be considered a heretic, and by the mid-fifth century his work was finally suppressed.
Despite its enormous popularity and influence, no copy of the original text has survived, and reconstructions have necessarily drawn on translations, commentaries, and quotations. Among the most important of these was a commentary written by Ephrem of Edessa (ca. 306-373), a theologian who settled in this important center of Christianity (now Urfa in eastern Turkey).
The book of Proverbs is an anthology of collections of sayings and instructions. Many of the sayings and perhaps some instructions were composed in the monarchic period (late eleventh to the early sixth centuries). Folk wisdom and observations could surely have been elaborated and re-expressed by learned scribes: "What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed" (Alexander Pope). There can be no doubt, however, that Proverbs is sophisticated literature by talented writers, winning readers with its compelling portrait of wisdom and inviting them to see life afresh, "wisely," through its wit, originality, and shrewd observation.
The primary purpose of the book is to teach wisdom, not only to the young and inexperienced but also to the advanced. Wisdom in the ancient Near East was not theoretical knowledge but practical expertise. Jewelers who cut precious stones were wise; kings who made their dominion peaceful and prosperous were wise. One could be wise in daily life, too, in knowing how to live successfully (having a prosperous household and living a long and healthy life) and without trouble in God's universe. Ultimately wisdom, or "sound guidance", aims at the formation of character.
