“Exchanging Reed for Reed” Mapping Contemporary Heretics Onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith

Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith are among the most stridently and explicitly anti-Arian of Ephrem’s numerous polemical writings. Written in the midst of the struggle for political and social authority that raged between Arian and Nicene Christians, these hymns include a complex collection of both anti-Arian and anti-Jewish language. Close examination of these hymns will demonstrate that Ephrem repeatedly connects Christian ‘heretics’ with Jews by mapping his opponents onto negative caricatures of Jews in Christian scripture. Focusing primarily on the comparison that Ephrem makes in Hymn 87 between biblical Jews who crucified Christ and contemporary Christians who comparably threaten God’s son, I argue that Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in these hymns should be read primarily in light of his struggle against local Christians rather than Jews. † I presented a version of this paper at the annual conference of the North American Patristic Society, June 2001. 16 Christine C. Shepardson