Ethnic Identity dox conceptions of Christ, he describes him as ‘‘the lyre of the Spirit, who
daily refreshes with the waters of grace theethnosof theSyroi.’’^27 As we will
see in a moment, there is more than adequate anecdotal evidence to show
thatspeakersof ‘‘the Syrian language’’ could be found in the two Syrian prov-
inces, in Palestine proper and in what was now called Palestina Tertia. But
were they, or some of them, alsoreadersof the works of Ephraim (who had
died in ), works which will have been written in the distinctive Estran-
gela script which we can see in the surviving fifth-century manuscripts? Or
were readers of his writings, as preserved in the original Syriac (many were
also translated into Greek), all to be found east of the Euphrates? The proba-
bility is, as the scatter of Syriac inscriptions mentioned above suggests, that
his works, in this Syriac form, did find readers also in Syria, and perhaps
also in Palestine. Theodoret reveals similarly that he had found two hundred
copies of Tatian’sDiatessaronin use in the churches of his see of Cyrrhus,
until he brought this unorthodox practice to an end. It seems to be implied,
but not unambiguously, that these were in the Syriac version, rather than
the Greek.^28
That there were speakers of ‘‘the Syrian language’’ in these areas is beyond
doubt, and a few examples will suffice. Theodoret’s account of the monks of
SyriainhisPhilotheosHistoriagives repeated testimony to this for Euphraten-
sis and Syria, and also represents Abraames, bishop of Carrhae, but who came
originally from thechora(city territory) of Cyrrhus, as unable to understand
Greek at all.^29 For the same area, Jerome, reporting from his first trial of the
monastic life, in the desert of Chalcis in the s, makes clear that when there
he needed to use theSyrussermo.^30 It is Jerome too, in hisLifeof Hilarion, who
represents ‘‘the Syrian language’’ as being spoken both in Gaza and (but by
persons described as Saracens) at Elusa,^31 places in the province now called
Palaestina Tertia; and it is he also who describes how at the funeral of Paula
in Aelia Capitolina, psalms were sung in Greek, Latin, and theSyrus sermo.^32
His evidence tallies very well with that of the pilgrim Egeria or Aetheria,
mentioned above, who records that in Aelia Capitolina some of the Chris-
tian congregation could speak both Greek andsiriste(in Syrian), and some
only the one or the other. The bishop, however, even if he could speaksiriste,
invariably used only Greek, while a presbyter interpreted his wordssiriste.
. Theodoret,Ep.(CorrespondanceIII, ed. Y. Azéma, ).
. Theodoret,Haereticarum fabularum compendiumI, (PGLXXXIII, col. ).
. E.g., Theodoret,Hist. Rel. , ; , ; ; , ; , . Note esp. , (Abraames).
. Jerome,Ep.,.
. Jerome,Vita Hilarionis,–;,;,(Saraceniat Elusa).
. Jerome,Ep.,.