Abstract
A significant issue vexing environmental ethicists and ecological philosophers is that many environmental problems, such as pollution and climate change, seem to transcend traditional ethical categories of individual agency and autonomy. Some thinkers have proposed extending agency to the non-human or even the material, but such attempts often make it difficult to continue insisting on human responsibility or culpability for harmful actions. This chapter shows how in Syriac hymnography all of creation—human and non-human—are portrayed as deeply enmeshed with each other and even partners in dialogue, without absolving humans of responsibility for their actions. All creatures are considered to have agency and to be responsible to and for each other. The chapter concludes by suggesting some ways in which these liturgical texts might inform environmental thinking today.
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Notes
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I am grateful to Ela Tokay, currently completing a dissertation at Fordham University on ecology and the new materialisms, for many productive conversations about this issue and for very helpful feedback on an earlier draft. Especially the conclusion has been deeply informed by her perceptive comments and insightful questions.
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The literature on this topic is vast, reaching from Leopold’s classic Sand County Almanac (1949), which already attributed value and a kind of agency to the land, to many contemporary writings from a variety of perspectives (e.g. Plumwood, 2002; Bennett, 2010; Haraway, 2016; Wood, 2019; to cite just a few representative examples). For a critique see Christion (2016).
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See my critique of this tendency (Gschwandtner, 2018).
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Both Western and Eastern theologians have drawn on Eastern patristic thinkers (e.g., Bergmann, 2005; McGuckin, 2013; Meyer, 2018) or other aspects of the Orthodox tradition for an alternative worldview (e.g., Louth, 2012; Theokritoff, 2009). Another popular argument posits an Orthodox notion of the human as “priest” against such supposedly Western concepts as mastery over creation or even a stewardship model (Zizioulas, 2003; for a critique see Theokritoff, 2005).
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So far the Syriac tradition is notably absent even from the Orthodox contributions to ecology, which tend to draw on early asceticism or Byzantine patristic thinkers from the Cappadocians to Maximus. For example, while there are two references to Sufism in the collection edited by Chryssavgis and Foltz (2013), there is not a single mention of the Syriac tradition. Nor are any of the main Syriac authors, like Ephrem the Syrian or Jacob of Serug, mentioned. Sebastian Brock (1992b, pp. 164–68) has suggested that the presence of nature in Syriac literature might have ecological potential, although he does not work out in detail how that might be the case.
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See Harvey (2001, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2015, 2020). Sometimes this is mentioned in the hymns themselves, e.g. HNat.4.62–63; p. 94. (References to Ephrem’s texts are given in the standard patristic reference form by number of hymn and verse, supplemented with pagination to the translation: HNat., HJul. and HVir. in Ephrem, 1989, HPar. in Brock, 1990. References to other Syriac literature will follow the date method, employing the name of the translator.)
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The use of the term “nature” in this context is anachronistic, because there is no equivalent to the modern notion of nature (especially as separate from culture) in the ancient world. The biblical and patristic tradition speaks of the land, of “all things” or the cosmos, of creation, and so forth, but not of “nature” in our contemporary sense. In Greek, physis (nature) played an important role in the christological and trinitarian controversies in terms of ascertaining Christ’s divine and human natures. This obviously is a quite different use of the term. On the use of “nature” in Ephrem’s texts, see Beck (1949, pp. 5–22, 1953, pp. 1–20).
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It is maybe not coincidental that the most famous “reconciliation” of the four Gospels, condemned as heretical by the Byzantine and Western traditions, is the Syriac Tatian’s Diatesseron (on which Ephrem wrote an extensive commentary).
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Similarly, in the debate between gold and wheat “gold” makes various arguments about the wealth it bestows on humans while “wheat” gives a full account of the agricultural seasons from sowing to harvest, depicting both their benefits and their beauties.
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Satan says in one of the dialogue poems: “I have enshrouded the whole of creation in all kinds of evil” (in Brock, 2012, p. 231). In another context, Ephrem writes that Satan “swallowed the entire creation;/the prey filled his belly” (HNat.22.S30; p. 184).
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The association of the agricultural seasons or months of the year with salvific events is very frequent, always involving extensive spring, sowing, fruit, or harvest imagery (e.g. HNat.4.18–21, 29, 31–32, 119–122; HVir.7.2; pp. 91, 92, 98, 293).
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Although Ephrem himself was active in the urban centers of Nisibis and later Edessa; much of the Mesopotamian landscape is rural and agricultural themes are prominent in the hymns, including Ephrem’s hymns on Nisibis. Interestingly, in one poem, the city of Shechem serves as a type of creation: “Blessed are you, O Shechem,/in whom is portrayed all creation… Blessed is the creation! He Who imprinted and portrayed/the two of you, one on the other, revived [creation] in your symbol” (HVir.17.2; p. 334).
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Another often ignored element of the Syriac liturgical worldview is its intense focus on incarnation rather than the Western and Byzantine emphases on crucifixion or even resurrection. The blood, gore, and suffering imagery of other Christian traditions are practically absent from this literature (apart from some ascetic accounts).
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For a detailed commentary on the whole cycle, see Beck (1951).
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This failure of human language is a prominent theme in the Syriac literature.
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The hymn is translated in Brock (2012, pp. 51–60). The relevant verses will be indicated in the text parenthetically.
- 23.
Hymn 27 employs the Rabbinic tool of gematria to unveil the mysteries of the months in terms of numbers of the letters of the alphabet; the months are again portrayed quite actively as crying out, giving thanks, coming forward, etc. (HNat.27; pp. 211–13).
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In a hymn on heresy, the seasons of summer and winter are employed metaphorically but quite vividly to depict the life of faith as sometimes easy and fruitful and sometimes hard and painful (HJul.; pp. 221–25). In the next hymn, heresy is compared to an “ugly, dark, all-gloomy winter” when “thornbushes and tares were disgorged and sprang up” (HJul.1.10; p. 229). In the hymns on paradise, the months are portrayed as a polluted and fallen version of the glorious air and breath of paradise (HPar.X; pp. 147–53).
- 25.
Harvey stresses the importance of healing metaphors in Syriac hymnody (2006). Although she focuses on the significance of such redemptive healing for human bodies and souls, it surely extends to the healing of all of creation. It is also worth mentioning that the body and the senses are often emphasized and treated positively in the Syriac literature, although this cannot be worked out here in any detail. To give just one example: “Paradise surrounds the limbs/with its many delights:/the eyes, with its handiwork,/the hearing, with its sounds,/the mouth and the nostrils,/with its tastes and scents” (HPar.VI.3; p. 109; see also the final lines of the cycle: XV.17; p. 188). These have healing quality: “I forgot my poor estate,/for it had made me drunk with its fragrance./I became as though no longer my old self,/for it renewed me with all its varied nature./I swam around/in its magnificent waves;… I became so inebriated/that I forgot all my sins there” (HPar.VI.4; p. 110). Similarly, the dialogues between soul and body all stress their intimate and essential link. This is also affirmed emphatically in Hymn VIII of the Paradise cycle.
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Similar imagery is employed of the twelve disciples: “The Holy One caught twelve fishermen,/with them He caught the whole creation” (HNat.4.45; p. 93). In a different hymn the Church is compared to a bee who gathers sweet honey from blossoms and diffuses good smell and sweetness (HNat.28.9–10; p. 217). Christ himself is compared to a sheep, “vineshoot,” cluster of grapes, grain of wheat, and a sheaf (HNat.3.15–16; p. 86).
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Indeed, some of the debates grow quite heated. Each month tries to upstage the others. E.g., Nisan claims: “The Year is not so proud of you,/all you months, as she is of me.” The next month, Iyyar, proclaims: “Be off with you, Nisan, you have not done better than I,/put a stop to your words and come and listen to me.” (Brock, 1985, p. 193).
- 28.
Translation taken from Brock (2012, pp. 117–26) with line numbers indicated parenthetically.
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The context clearly implies that the “neighbor” is not just other humans, given the effects of Elijah’s actions are described primarily for non-human creatures.
- 30.
The earth is called a mother also in the hymns on paradise (e.g. HPar.IX.1, 12, 14; pp. 136, 140, 141). The word for spirit is feminine in Syriac (as in Hebrew) and the Spirit is often portrayed as a mother.
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Indeed, Satan repeatedly comments on Christ’s compassion (in Brock, 2012, pp. 195, 202, 228). Overall, compassion and mercy are extremely prominent themes in the Syriac literature more broadly.
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Except in the broader sense of assisting poorer countries with few resources that often bear the burden of the effects disproportionally but are not in a position to do much about them. Yet even for those cases it is unclear that blame is going to be most effective in convincing richer countries to help.
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The ritual function of repetition is crucial here as well; these hymns were heard over and over again, every year, within the liturgical cycle, thus shaping the imaginary more profoundly than would be the case for one hearing alone.
- 35.
Eastern canon law prohibits the celebration of liturgy without the presence of participants. Brock also repeatedly points to the easy move “from the collective to the individual, and from the individual to the collective” in Syriac poetry (1990, pp. 27, 70).
- 36.
Several scholars have recently argued for substantive accounts of subjectivity in eastern liturgical formation (e.g., Krueger, 2014).
- 37.
Although raza (mystery, symbol, also used for the sacraments) is the most frequent, there are several related terms such as type, image, name, form, etc. For discussions of the relevant Syriac terms and their significance, see Beck (1981), Brock (1990, pp. 41–49, 1992b, pp. 53–130, 2012, pp. 21–30), McVey (1989, pp. 41–47), Biesen (2006).
- 38.
E.g., it is said of Rahab (the prostitute who saved the Jewish spies sent by Joshua into Jericho) that “by a symbol [or mystery] she tasted the truth” (HNat.1.33; p. 68). Many other such “symbols” are listed in the hymn, all of which are taken to foreshadow and participate in the truth of their fulfillment.
- 39.
In his introduction to the hymns on paradise Brock stresses Ephrem’s “awareness of the sacramental character of the created world, and of the potential of everything in the created world to act as a witness and pointer to the Creator” (1990, p. 39). Ephrem frequently describes the Old and New Testaments and the creation as three harps that all sing of God (especially HVir.29, pp. 390–93; see also Brock, 1983). Creation does so less explicitly in words but more clearly in deeds (HVir.29.9; p. 392). God plays on the three harps and “blends their counterpoint wisely” via “signs, symbols and prototypes” (HVir.30.1; p. 394). Although the divine mystery is immeasurable, creation is an important witness to the divine and actively presents symbols or mysteries, types and images of God. In the dialogue between the two thieves crucified with Christ, one of them repeatedly argues that creation testifies to Christ’s innocence and divinity (in Brock, 2012, pp. 212, 213, 214, 217). The hymns on paradise also affirm that “both Nature and Scripture” “bear witness to the Creator” (HPar.V.2; p. 102).
- 40.
Interestingly, some ethologists have argued for the presence of ritual also in various other species, especially elephants and dolphins.
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Gschwandtner, C.M. (2022). Agency and Responsibility: Ecologically Inflected Insights from the Syriac Tradition. In: Siemens, J., Brown, J.M. (eds) Eastern Christian Approaches to Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10762-7_9
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