Syriac Sources
C ORNELIA HORN
Ancient Syriac Sources on Mary’s Role as Intercessor
INTRODUCTION Mariology is an aspect of theological inquiry and a subdiscipline of Christian dogma, to the study of which the Syriac tradition is able to make a solid contribution.1 Ideas and thoughts about Mary and her relevance in the history of Christianity are well represented and beautifully developed in texts written in Syriac, beginning already in ancient Christianity.2 The fourth- and fifth-century poets Ephraem the Syrian and Jacob of Serugh, for example, composed numerous stunning lines of reflective meditations on Mary’s role in the life of Christ. Over the course of the twentieth century, a respectable number of scholars with specialist expertise in Syriac studies, including Ignacio Ortiz de Urbina, Edmund Beck, and Sebastian Brock, have dedicated remarkable efforts to studying and making available to a modern audience through editions and translations important ancient sources that speak of Jesus’ mother in the Syriac language.3 Dominant themes in ancient Syriac mariology that have been highlighted in scholarly studies are Mary’s moth- erhood of the Son of God, her virginity, humility, reception of God’s mercy, purity, and any traces one might be able to identify of Mary being active in the work of salvation or reconciling human beings with God. The theme mentioned last is related to Mary’s role as intercessor. Yet if one defines intercession more narrowly and precise- ly as the activity of a person who intervenes with God for the needs and concerns of human beings and other creatures primarily through prayer,4 Mary’s role as intercessor as featured in early Christian texts in Syriac is not a topic that has been singled out for much sustained attention. Aspects of the relevance of such a study emerge from the perspective of comparative studies in religion. For one subset of Christian believers in the modern world, especially within the Catholic traditions, Mary’s powers and role as intercessor are of pronounced relevance. Per- haps the best-known and most frequently recited prayer to Mary within Catholicism, the “Hail Mary,” concludes with the petition that she “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” Wherever Christians recite the set of prayers known as the rosary, they repeat that request for intercession more than fifty times.5 Also at other
1 For useful introductions to historical and doctrinal dimensions of the study of mariology, see for example Hilda C. Graef, Mary: A His- tory of Doctrine and Devotion (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics; and London: Sheed and Ward, 1985); Georg Söll, Mariologie, Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte Bd. 3, fascicle 4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1978), 41–99; and Brian K. Reynolds, Porta Paradisi: Marian Doctrine and Devotion, Image and Typology in the Patristic and Medieval Periods, vol. I: Doctrine and Devotion (Taipei: Fu Jen Uni- versity Press, 2009). 2 For helpful introductions to the spirituality and world of thought of early Syriac-speaking Christians through the lens of the works of Ephraem the Syrian see Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem, revised edition, Cistercian Studies Series 124 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1992); and Kees den Biesen, Simple and Bold: Ephrem’s Art of Symbol- ic Thought, Gorgias Dissertations 26 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006). 3 Ignacio Ortiz de Urbina, “La mariologia nei padri siriaci,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1 (1935), 100–113; I. Ortiz de Urbina, “María en la Patrística Siriaca,” Scripta de Maria 1 (1978), 29–114; Sebastian P. Brock, “Marie dans la tradition syriaque,” in Lettre de Ligugé 189 (1978), 5–15, which appeared in English as “Mary in Syriac Tradition,” in Mary’s Place in Christian Dialogue, ed. Alberic Stacepoole (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1983), 182–191; and Edmund Beck, “Die Mariologie der echten Schriften Ephräms,” Oriens Christianus 40 (1956), 22–39. See also Placid J. Podipara, “La mariologia delle chiesa siro-orientale (caldea),” Studi e Ricerche sull’Ori- ente Cristiano 3 (1980), 49–63 (= “The Mariology of the Church of the East,” Christian Century 2 [1981], 165–182). 4 For helpful overviews of the place of intercession in the context of mariological thought throughout biblical and later history, see for example E. Sebald, “Fürbitte,” in Marienlexikon herausgegeben im Auftrag des Institutum Marianum Regensburg e.V., ed. Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczyk (Erzabtei St. Ottilien: Eos Verlag, 1988), vol. 2, 549–559; and Michael O’Carroll, Theotokos. A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1983), 186–189 (s.v. “Intercession, Mary’s”). 5 The recitation of the Rosary received new impetus when the late Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II added a new set of mysteries, the so-called luminous mysteries, as a fourth option for that prayer. See his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, issued on October 16, 2002. For the text in English, see &