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The Paradox of God's Hiddenness and Accessibility in St Ephrem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Robert Murray SJ
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Abstract

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Type
Catholic Theological Association 2003 Conference Papers
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 85 , Issue 996 , March 2004 , pp. 158 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004

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References

1 I first explored this theme in ‘The Theory of Symbolism in St Ephrem's Theology’, Parole de l’Orient 6/7(Kaslik, Lebanon: 1975–6), 1–20. The best treatment of the theme is by Brock, S.P., The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian(Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian PublicationsGoogle Scholar, 1992; ISBN [pbk] 0 87907 604 0), esp. chs. 1 and 2.

2 Taken up to good effect by Vatican II in Dei Verbum, 13.

3 R. Murray, ‘The Theory of Symbolism in St Ephrem's Theology’, p. 3.

4 In R. Murray, ‘St Ephrem's Dialogue of Reason and Love’, Sobornost, incorporating Eastern Churches Review 2, 2 (1980), 26–40; this contains a translation of a teaching song (Hymns on the Church 9) in the genre of a dramatic contest which Ephrem imagines he overheard in his head, between the apophatic way (Reason) and the cataphatic (Love), disputing which is the right way of speaking about God. Love wins, appropriately, as it is the way of poetry.