02-23-2013, 11:12 PM
I agree about the language here. Both the Classical allusions in Julian and the Biblical ones in Ephraim do cloud the ability to accurately disentangle fact from rhetoric. Both writers use the flood image to bolster their respective tropes to the extent that one might well question the veracity of that scene at all. However, I do find it interesting that a single incident agreed by both writers is used to bolster their own respective styles, as it were. Both can’t have made it up - unless (and here it gets interesting!) Julian is deliberately adapting a false conceit penned by Ephraim to mock the Christianisation of the imperial court under Constantius II.
Let’s look at Ephraim in more detail. The first Hymn is explicit in the references to Nisibis being flooded by the Mygdonius: passages like
3. Lo! all the billows trouble me; and Thou hast given more favour to the ark: for waves
alone encompassed it, mounds and weapons and waves encircle me. It was unto Thee a
storehouse of treasures, but I have been a storehouse of debts: it in Thy love subdued the
waves; I in Thy wrath, am left desolate among the weapons; the flood bore it, the river
threatens me. O Helmsman of that ark, be my pilot on the dry land! To it Thou gavest rest
in the haven of a mountain; to me give Thou rest also in the haven of my walls!
And
6. An ark in Thy mercy Thou didst prepare, that Thou mightest preserve in it all the
remnants. That Thou shouldest not desolate the earth in Thy wrath, Thy compassion made
an earth of wood. Thou didst empty them one into the other; Thou didst render them back
one unto the other. But my lands have thrice been filled and emptied again; and now against
me the waves rebel, to overwhelm the remnant that has escaped in me. In the ark Thou
didst save a remnant; save in me, O Lord, yea in me a leaven. The ark upon the mountain
brought forth; let me in my lands bring forth my imprisoned ones!
And
8. The flood assails, and dashes against our walls: may the all-sustaining might uphold
them! It falls not as the building of the sand, for I have not built my doctrine upon the sand:
a rock shall be for me the foundation, for on Thy rock have I built my faith; the secret
foundation of my trust, shall support my walls. For the walls of Jericho fell, because on the
sand she had built her trust. Moses built a wall in the sea, for on a rock his understanding
built it. The foundation of Noah was on a rock; the dwelling place of wood it bore up in
the sea.
However, these passages are equally open to an allegorical interpretation in which Ephraim is using the Ark surrounded by water as an image for Nisibis surrounded by war. There is a danger of reading too literally here, I think. Certainly, damming, waters, waves and war are referenced as actual events but I think it is impossible to ascertain to what extent. Was Nisibis really environed within a wilderness of sea (to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus)? Or has Ephraim conjoined a wonderful Old Testament story and the 3rd siege using dramatic license?
The success of the defenders in fighting off the Persians wrought that event into one of epic proportions such that this siege is remembered all across the Orient. Perhaps in that transmission, Ephraim’s Hymn takes on a life of its own and allegory supplants fact. Now Julian enters the fray and decides to use Classical imagery to both celebrate Constantius II’s reign and also launch a sly dig at Christian allegory. He composes his own version of the siege based perhaps on actual imperial records and incorporates Ephraim’s flood version. The result is a clear account of a Persian siege in which for four months the city is surrounded by water -
the King of the Parthians,
crossing the Tigris from the mainland, encircled
the city with dykes. Then he let the Mygdonius
flow into these, and transformed all the space
about the city into a lake, and completely hemmed
it in as though it were an island, so that only the
ramparts stood out and showed a little above the
water. Then he besieged it by bringing up ships
with siege-engines on board. This was not the work
of a day, but I believe of almost four months.
The following battle-account reads like a military report and if we accept my crazy proposition then there is no reason to doubt that the events are accurate - except that there is no ‘lake’ or ‘island’, only a part of the walls washed away.
If this is the true then Ephraim’s account is taken up and exaggerated to the extent that it becomes fact. Julian subverts it by adapting it into a Classical style replete with Trojans and Greeks and by doing so slyly mocks the Christian tendency to attribute God in everything.
Somewhere later, Heliodorus reads Julian’s 2nd Oration and incorporates both the cataphract trope and the Nisibis siege trope knowing that both are now well-known or well-read sequences. His Aethiopica now moves Christian allegory and Classical Oratory into Romance.
My partner says I need to get out more but my mum says I should stay in a lot more . . .
Let’s look at Ephraim in more detail. The first Hymn is explicit in the references to Nisibis being flooded by the Mygdonius: passages like
3. Lo! all the billows trouble me; and Thou hast given more favour to the ark: for waves
alone encompassed it, mounds and weapons and waves encircle me. It was unto Thee a
storehouse of treasures, but I have been a storehouse of debts: it in Thy love subdued the
waves; I in Thy wrath, am left desolate among the weapons; the flood bore it, the river
threatens me. O Helmsman of that ark, be my pilot on the dry land! To it Thou gavest rest
in the haven of a mountain; to me give Thou rest also in the haven of my walls!
And
6. An ark in Thy mercy Thou didst prepare, that Thou mightest preserve in it all the
remnants. That Thou shouldest not desolate the earth in Thy wrath, Thy compassion made
an earth of wood. Thou didst empty them one into the other; Thou didst render them back
one unto the other. But my lands have thrice been filled and emptied again; and now against
me the waves rebel, to overwhelm the remnant that has escaped in me. In the ark Thou
didst save a remnant; save in me, O Lord, yea in me a leaven. The ark upon the mountain
brought forth; let me in my lands bring forth my imprisoned ones!
And
8. The flood assails, and dashes against our walls: may the all-sustaining might uphold
them! It falls not as the building of the sand, for I have not built my doctrine upon the sand:
a rock shall be for me the foundation, for on Thy rock have I built my faith; the secret
foundation of my trust, shall support my walls. For the walls of Jericho fell, because on the
sand she had built her trust. Moses built a wall in the sea, for on a rock his understanding
built it. The foundation of Noah was on a rock; the dwelling place of wood it bore up in
the sea.
However, these passages are equally open to an allegorical interpretation in which Ephraim is using the Ark surrounded by water as an image for Nisibis surrounded by war. There is a danger of reading too literally here, I think. Certainly, damming, waters, waves and war are referenced as actual events but I think it is impossible to ascertain to what extent. Was Nisibis really environed within a wilderness of sea (to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus)? Or has Ephraim conjoined a wonderful Old Testament story and the 3rd siege using dramatic license?
The success of the defenders in fighting off the Persians wrought that event into one of epic proportions such that this siege is remembered all across the Orient. Perhaps in that transmission, Ephraim’s Hymn takes on a life of its own and allegory supplants fact. Now Julian enters the fray and decides to use Classical imagery to both celebrate Constantius II’s reign and also launch a sly dig at Christian allegory. He composes his own version of the siege based perhaps on actual imperial records and incorporates Ephraim’s flood version. The result is a clear account of a Persian siege in which for four months the city is surrounded by water -
the King of the Parthians,
crossing the Tigris from the mainland, encircled
the city with dykes. Then he let the Mygdonius
flow into these, and transformed all the space
about the city into a lake, and completely hemmed
it in as though it were an island, so that only the
ramparts stood out and showed a little above the
water. Then he besieged it by bringing up ships
with siege-engines on board. This was not the work
of a day, but I believe of almost four months.
The following battle-account reads like a military report and if we accept my crazy proposition then there is no reason to doubt that the events are accurate - except that there is no ‘lake’ or ‘island’, only a part of the walls washed away.
If this is the true then Ephraim’s account is taken up and exaggerated to the extent that it becomes fact. Julian subverts it by adapting it into a Classical style replete with Trojans and Greeks and by doing so slyly mocks the Christian tendency to attribute God in everything.
Somewhere later, Heliodorus reads Julian’s 2nd Oration and incorporates both the cataphract trope and the Nisibis siege trope knowing that both are now well-known or well-read sequences. His Aethiopica now moves Christian allegory and Classical Oratory into Romance.
My partner says I need to get out more but my mum says I should stay in a lot more . . .
Francis Hagan
The Barcarii
The Barcarii
