Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia

“In this insightful book, Jeffrey Wickes shows how Ephrem wove together self-portrayal with depiction of the Nicene Christ and brought both into the constructed ‘world’ of his hymns. Persuasively presenting the internal coherence of Ephrem’s endeavor, Wickes sets the hymns into the rhetorical and poetic landscape of late antiquity and proposes a new social context for them, in ‘a blurred space between liturgy and the classroom.’”—Kathleen E. McVey, Professor Emerita of History, Princeton Theological Seminary
 
“This book proposes a new paradigm to understand the great fourth-century Syriac poet’s engagement with the Bible. Eschewing problematic concepts such as allusion and quotation, Wickes invites us to appreciate the complex ways in which Ephrem used the Bible to construct a new literary world.”—Aaron Michael Butts, Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America