Talk:Ephrem the Syrian

Discuss

Wikipedia invariably selects the most obscure title for any person with more than one. This ranks with Jane of England. Wetman 05:18, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

All the books I have about this fellow call him 'Ephrem the Syrian'. That spelling follows the Syriac spelling more closely, even though 'Aphrem' is perhaps even more accurate to Syriac.

Some of the information in this article is based on the artificial hagiography of 'Greek Ephrem'; it would be good to seperate the two out in this article.

Gareth Hughes 21:49, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've moved 'Ephraim the Syrian' to 'Ephrem the Syrian'. I assumed that anyone who was watching that page and was interested had a chance to express a view. I'm going to work back through articles linked to the old page, so that they can be linked to the new one (it's currently on redirect). I've also got material I've been working on that should fill out the article a bit. I hope these alterations are to everyone's satisfaction.

Gareth Hughes 13:55, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Armenian tranlation of his name before it was corrupted by the Syrian Orthodox Church: "Soorp Yeprem Asori" [1] and here [2] Chaldean 10:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC) (This argument is wrong, links aren't working either. The term Asori has nothing to do with the Assyrians. If you translate the name Asori it means Syrian. Don't put false names here, since the Syriac Orthodox Church, where St. Ephrem the Syrian was a member of, called him Aramean! It is absolutely false if you believe an Armnenian translation above a Syriac.)

Synthesis/POV

"Today, Saint Ephrem presents an engaging model of Asian Christianity, which might prove a valuable source of theological insight for Christian communities that wish to break out of the European cultural mould. Ephrem also shows that poetry is not only a valid vehicle for theology, but is in many ways superior to philosophical discourse for the purpose of doing theology. He also encourages a way of reading the Bible that is rooted more in faith than in critical analysis. Ephrem displays a deep sense of the interconnectedness of all created things, which could develop his role in the church into that of a 'saint of ecology'. There are modern studies into Ephrem's view of women that see him as a champion of women in the church. Other studies have focused on the importance of 'healing' imagery in Ephrem. Ephrem, then, confronts the contemporary church as an orthodox saint engaged in a theology that is at once nonwestern, poetic, ecological, feminist, and healing."

This section of the article is very somewhat problematical, although I don't agree or disagree with the conclusions they should be cited and rewritten to reflect that they are the opinions and conclusions of reliably sourced commentators and not simply a personal point of view or original research/synthesis. Awotter (talk) 21:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The statements need to have proper citations to reliable sources. Otherwise I'd recommend removing the content. Additionally, other scholarly viewpoints should be presented. Can anyone help out with the citations? Majoreditor (talk) 21:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I left a message on the editor's page who added the section (my objections seem a little harsher on reflection than I meant, hence the strike-out) I agree that inline citations and identification of any respective pov's would help. Awotter (talk) 21:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

This looks like its drawn from Luminous Eye. It is the somewhat promotional opinion of Sebastian Brock. I agree that it needs to be referenced properly and reworded to make it clear that this is scholarly evaluation of Ephrem's potential contribution to modern theology. Thanks, Awotter, for bringing this to attention. I'll redraft it with sources. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 22:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Fake names on articles and books

With respect to scholars keep the original name of the books and articles in the references. Stop renaming them with incorrect text.--Abgarus (talk) 19:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. someone has been altering the subject's name from "Syrian" to "Assyrian" apparently without looking at what the reference sources show. Majoreditor (talk) 21:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

This is not made "without looking" . Probably done in purpose to falsify the whole page. There are many kinds of pages like this where they have included or changed from "Syrian" to "Assyrian". Abgarus (talk) Abgarus (talk) 23:47, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Against Nestorianism

Her articles and leave against the nestorian theology

External links modified

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I have just modified 5 external links on Ephrem the Syrian. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110725232948/http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Nisibis to http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Nisibis
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041205111118/http://www.anastasis.org.uk/ephrem.htm to http://www.anastasis.org.uk/ephrem.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041204212800/http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol1No2/index.html to http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol1No2/index.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041204213801/http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol2No1/index.html to http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol2No1/index.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071201111050/http://www.zenit.org/article-21141?l=english to http://www.zenit.org/article-21141?l=english

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Wiki Education assignment: Sex and Gender in Early Christianities

— Assignment last updated by Ctschroeder (talk) 18:15, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Date of death

The article lead is inconsistent with the rest of the article regarding Ephrem's date of death. 131.111.5.134 (talk) 13:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Removal of 'Language' section

I‌ have been advised to note this here.

I have removed the 'Language' section from the article, for the reason that it is unnecessary to talk about here. First, the section is called "Language", but it goes on to describe his self-identification, dedicating multiple long paragraphs for it while only speaking on the actual language in the very first sentence. I have thus salvaged all the important bits and integrated them into other paragraphs throughout the article, keeping relevant citations. Some of it was uncited altogether, so it was not included.

Moreover, the article discusses the life of Ephrem the Syrian, from a quick biography, to his influence on Christianity (especially Syriac Christianity). Ephrem's self-identification is neither controversial nor pertinent, as it is obvious that he's part of Syriac Christianity. There is no such section under, say, Cyril of Alexandria being Coptic, or John Chrysostom being Greek, or Gregory of Tatev being Armenian, etc. Ergo, it feels that the section has been shoehorned into the article where it doesn't belong.

Finally, in the same edit, I have added a "Selected works" sub-heading, which I‌ feel like is not well-formatted. I apologize for that; despite my best attempts, I cannot make it look nice (I‌ was aiming for something like this). If anyone's able to tackle that, it'd be great :) +Hogshine 20:09, 17 May 2025 (UTC)