Between Liturgy and School: Reassessing the Performative Context of Ephrem's Madrāê
Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373) wrote in a variety of genrescommentaries, verse and prose homilies, and stanzaic songs, called madrāê. The bulk of his corpus consists in madrāê. While these works are generally assumed to have occupied a liturgical context, this assumption is based in large part on a b...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
[2018]
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| In: |
Journal of early Christian studies
Year: 2018, Volume: 26, Issue: 1, Pages: 25-51 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Ephraem Syrus 306-373
/ Hymn
/ Liturgy
/ Didactic poetry
/ Performance (Linguistics)
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| IxTheo Classification: | KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity RC Liturgy RF Christian education; catechetics |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373) wrote in a variety of genrescommentaries, verse and prose homilies, and stanzaic songs, called madrāê. The bulk of his corpus consists in madrāê. While these works are generally assumed to have occupied a liturgical context, this assumption is based in large part on a biographical tradition that was written after Ephrem's death, and that has come to be seen as problematic in many ways. Certain of Ephrem's cycles do connote liturgical settings, but others lack any such clues. This paper argues for a reassessment of the performative context of Ephrem's madrāê. It looks, first, at the external literary witness to the liturgical performance of Ephrem's madrāê, and shows how the picture of Ephrem presented in the biographical tradition has come to dominate our view of the madrāâ's performative context. It then turns to Ephrem's madrāê themselves, and argues that they suggest a blurred performative space between liturgy and study circle. It fleshes out this blurred performative space by examining comparative early Christian evidence for the use of songs in educational settings. It concludes by suggesting ways that this re-reading of Ephrem's madrāê contributes to the broader field of early Christian studies. |
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| ISSN: | 1086-3184 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of early Christian studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/earl.2018.0001 |