In the first and only Saturday match-up of Lent Madness, we get Dueling Deacons! Alcuin of York vs. Ephrem of Edessa. With the emphasis on diaconal service we can only imagine these two standing around saying "After you." "No, after you." Nonetheless, you must decide which of these holy men will move on and which will be left to wallow in the lavabo bowl of defeat.
Yesterday Julia Chester Emery trounced Charles Henry Brent 73% to 27% in the Six-Name Showdown and will go on to face the winner of David of Wales vs. F.D Maurice. Speaking of the bracket, you may not know this but Lent Madness Bracket Czar, Adam Thomas, updates the bracket after each victory. Be sure to click the link, print it out, and/or post it on your living room wall and adore it for 24 hours before tearing it down and putting up the new one. [Please note: The Supreme Executive Committee does not generally condone the killing of trees].
You'll also notice that underneath the bracket but above the match-up calendar, Adam posts the results and a link to each completed battle. This will come in especially handy in subsequent rounds as saints advance and you want a quick biographical refresher before casting your next vote.
After today's vote is concluded, the next pairing will be posted on Monday morning as Joseph of Arimathea faces Anna Cooper. Even with a single day off, you may experience a phenomenon known as LMW (Lent Madness Withdrawal). Please stay calm; help is on the way. The "good news" is that we lose an hour of sleep this weekend so Lent Madness will return even sooner than anticipated!
Alcuin
Alcuin of York (735 - 804), deacon and later Abbot of Tours, was a Renaissance man. The Carolingian Renaissance of learning in eighth-century Europe was greatly influenced by him.
Born in Northumbria (England) and educated by a disciple of the Venerable Bede at the cathedral school at York, he became master there, expanding the school into an international center of learning, complete with a fantastic classical library. Charlemagne invited Alcuin to join his Frankish court in 781 and put him in charge of implementing widespread, radical educational reform. Schooling for everyone came under the purview of the church, and Alcuin created a liberal arts curriculum consisting of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) primarily to educate clergy, who were then required to establish free schools in their parishes. Alcuin wrote many textbooks for these schools, including a math book of river-crossing problems. Charlemagne, his wife, and sons were among Alcuin’s students.
Alcuin also established scriptoria (places for writing) throughout the empire to copy ancient manuscripts using Carolingian miniscule, a new kind of cursive writing that facilitated faster copying and standardization of letters. He may have developed new punctuation symbols too, including the previously unknown question mark. Given more time, he might have invented the emoticon. Using his techniques, much of ancient Roman literature and Greek mathematical works were thus preserved in a world threatened with destruction from repeated “barbarian” invasions. His significant moral influence over Charlemagne inspired the emperor to eventually abolish his law requiring everyone to be baptized or face execution, reasoning that forcing people into baptism wouldn’t make them Christians.
Alcuin was also a liturgical reformer, revising the lectionary and adapting the Gregorian (Roman/Italian) Sacramentary to include and preserve Gelasian (French/German) liturgies and ancient prayers. This effort expanded official liturgical resources to include saints’ feasts, the blessing of the Easter font, and other prayers, including the Collect for Purity still used today. He also standardized the text of the Vulgate (St. Jerome’s Latin Bible), which had accumulated many scribal errors over 400 years of copying. He continued developing plainchant for use in worship and re-introduced singing the Creed.
Among his theological writings is a celebrated treatise against the heresy of Adoptionism, the belief that Jesus was merely human until his baptism. Alcuin’s many extant letters are important historical sources, and his (admittedly mediocre) poems include a poignant and rather graphic lament on the Viking destruction of the holy monastery at Lindisfarne.
Collect for Alcuin
Almighty God, who in a rude and barbarous age raised up your deacon Alcuin to rekindle the light of learning: Illumine our minds, we pray, that amid the uncertainties and confusions of our own time we may show forth your eternal truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-- Penny Nash
Ephrem of Edessa
Ephrem of Edessa was a deacon, teacher, prolific poet, and defender of orthodoxy in the fourth-century church of Syria.
He was baptized as a young man and joined a covenanted Christian community in Nisibis. This community was a forerunner to monasticism. The community was a small, urban group committed to service and abstinence. At some point following his baptism, Ephrem was ordained deacon and also formally appointed to the office of teacher, which still holds great distinction for Syriac Christians.
Ephrem is thought to have attended the Council of Nicea with his bishop. He is beloved for his defense of orthodox Christianity through his composition of popular songs, a tactic he learned from the Gnostic opposition, which employed it with great success. These teaching hymns, called madrašê in Syriac, were possibly sung by all-women folk choirs and accompanied by the lyre. We do not know if there was liturgical dance to go with these hymns, but if so, the choreography is thankfully lost in the dustbin of history.
Ephrem’s writings were practical theology intended to instruct Christians during a tumultuous time of conflicting doctrine. He skillfully drew on a multitude of influences, including early Rabbinic Judaism, Greek science and philosophy, and the Persian mystical tradition. Ephrem was so admired and his writings considered so authoritative that Christian authors wrote works in his name for centuries after his death. The best known of these works is the Prayer of Saint Ephrem, still recited during fasting periods in Eastern Christianity today.
In 363, the Roman Emperor was forced to surrender his home city of Nisibis to Persia, and the entire Christian population was expelled. Ephrem moved to Edessa, where he lived for ten years. In his sixties, he succumbed to an epidemic as he ministered to its victims.
Ephrem is often called “The Harp of the Spirit.”
Collect for Ephrem of Edessa
Pour out on us, O Lord, that same Spirit by which your deacon Ephrem rejoiced to proclaim in sacred song the mysteries of faith; and so gladden our hearts that we, like him, may be devoted to you alone; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Vote!
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199 comments on “Alcuin vs. Ephrem of Edessa”
Why do we have two deacons battling each other? I am a deacon-in-training, and we don't battle each other 🙂 I want both deacons to advance. Oh well, gotta pick one.
Collect for Purity, question marks, math problems and bad poetry. I have found my patron saint...
Agreed 🙂
I'd write some bad poetry to tell you he is my Patron Saint too, but that would be over the top! Alcuin it is.
My genealogical roots in Yorkshire influence me greatly as I decide between two outstanding servants of God and God's people. Alcuin of York shone brightly in an age of darkness. His devotion to learning - especially his quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (did you see what I did there? Adding the 'Oxford comma' out of rspect?) and his liturgical reforms won me over. The nepotismic (can nepotism be rearward looking?)tipping point being his preservation of Gelasian liturgies from what is the modern-day Swiss homeland of maternal grandmother - my only roots outside of Yorkshire!
We may be cousins, Jim. Most of my roots are in Yorkshire too. That's why I chose Alcuin.
Sorry, just can not resist....the spelling of "rspect" learned from our President and not Aretha apparently.
Voted for Alcuin, but love the phrase for Ephrem: "Harp of the Spirit".
Alcuin, you had me at "free schools for everyone".
Dear SEC,
I understand why voting more than once is prohibited, but what if I vote just once for each candidate?
In saintly ambivalence,
Kathleen #hardchoice
Obviously a bunch of left-brains here. How can you not vote for "The Harp of the Spirit"?
Alcuin, for passing along the awareness that music is in the 'arithmetic, geometry and astronomy' category: It's a branch of physics, the science of sound passing through time and space. Maybe just one of those people who think it should be cut from school curricula is now a little smarter for playing Lent Madness.
Although Alcuin was the creator of the beautiful minuscule script that allowed the preservation of almost all of the West's literature, I voted Efrem. Here is one of Efrem's exquisite madrashes on the Eucharist, translated from Syriac in a way that captures its astounding beauty:
Lord, your robe’s the well from which our healing flows.
Just behind this outer layer hides your power.
Spittle from your mouth creates a miracle of light within its clay.
In your bread there blows what no mouth can devour.
In your wine there smoulders what no lips can drink.
Gale and Blaze in bread and wine: unparalleled the miracle we taste.
Coming down to earth, where human beings die,
God created these anew, like Wide-eyed Ones,
mingling Blaze and Gale and making these the mystic content of their dust.
Did the Seraph’s fingers touch the white-hot coal?
Did the Prophet’s mouth do more than touch the same?
No, they grasped it not and he consumed it not. To us are granted both.
Abram offered body-food to spirit-guests.
Angels swallowed meat. The newest proof of power
is that bodies eat and drink the Fire and Wind provided by our Lord.
(tr. Geoffrey Rowell)
Thanks for sharing this! It will become part of an upcoming class for Messiah Lutheran and All Souls Episcopal (Mechanicsville, VA). I'll be sure to note "help received." 😉
Stunning. Loved the oxymoron of bread/blows and wine/smoulders.
Beautiful, beautiful! I love Ephrem's poetry and its intense imagery...but I voted for Alcuin. Terrible choice. Thanks, Fr. Tony, for posting this.
I have to go for Alcuin. My dad was from Yorkshire, and I love York, teaching and learning, calligraphy, the collect for purity, bad and good poetry. Great write-ups for both!
Have to go with Alcuin. The collect for purity is my favorite of all. Also as a former teacher I have to stand with the one who promoted education.
This was a hard choice, and I was leaning to Alcuin, what with his educational reforms, the collect for prity, and the question mark. Then I checked the vote total, and decided it was important to honor Ephrem and the harp of the spirit. We still depend on the link between music and learning.
Alcuin invented the question mark. Where would we be without that (see!!)
Very tough choice: love everything about Alcuin (except river-crossing math problems!), but remember the first the first time I encountered one of Ephrem's hymns -- blew my socks off! Since Ephrem is clearly the underdog today, he's got my vote.
This is tough one. I'm going for Ephraim, although I know he's the under dog here.
Oh, it's Alcuin all the way! Ephrem wasn't the only one of the two with musical interests, as Alcuin restored the singing of the Creed. An intellectual and liturgical reformer, an association with dear old Bede, cleaning up the lectionary, AND the Collect for Purity. *sigh* What a guy! (And, my dear Amber, please don't insult those of us who dance! "[C]horeography... thankfully lost in the dustbin of history"? I'd loved to have seen those Syrian worshippers' dance moves!
Penny, thanks for giving Alcuin such a good write-up. He's a hero of mine for his love of learning and liturgy and he's British to boot. 🙂
Hi Perpetua! So glad you liked the writeup. I'm a big fan of Alcuin myself!
The development of plainchant and re introducing of the singing of the Creed did it for me - Alcuin.
So Alcuin blessed the Easter font. Great......better that than Helvetica.
LOL, as I love and long to actually do a good job someday of writing in the Carolingian hand.
With my middle name of Alcuin I am clearly biased in favor of the deacon from York! MAK
Had to vote for someone called " The Harp of the Spirit"!
Both deacons are a blessing on our faith. That said, I am inclined to music as it draws us together. Oh well, I have voted for the underdog but I will hold my head high, not the first time I chose the less popular.
Such a hard choice today...
Ephrom died a hard death in service to the people. He gets my vote !
Yes, and service is what deacons are all about. Exquisite poetry. Definitely right-brained vote.
As an author, theologian, and scholar who's married to a mathematician, I had to vote for Alcuin. I also had to vote for him because of the Yorkshire college kid I "adopted" at church a few years ago. He'd never forgive his American mom for not voting for another Yorkshire man. 🙂
I'm astonished at how lopsided the vote is so far today. Other days, I've found it quite easy to choose, but today's vote was extremely difficult. Each was a wonderful candidate to progress to the next round. What did I miss that I found the choice so close when the voting is not?
I agree - quite a lopsided result for two such amazing fellows - so I'm going to spittle in the Wind and vote for current underdog Ephrem.
I didn't know either one, and now I'm dazzled by their achievements. Love to sing, but appreciate Alcuin's great accomplishments.
What beautiful men and well written biographies today! Definitely a hard choice! A lovely title "Harp of the Spirit", one that touches my choir member heart (we need such a "Harp" in our age in the embattled Middle East). And a teacher's teacher with so much innovation and extension of education across the renaissance world. His work and labor echoes to our day! I must ponder a bit longer before voting.
I pray this prayer of Alcuin often from his Mass of Wisdom: "Holy Wisdom, in your loving kindness you created and restored us when we were lost: Inspire us with your truth, that we may love you with our whole minds and run to you with open hearts; through Christ our Savior. Amen" (The Saint Helena Breviary).
Another reason to vote for Alcuin (in case you needed one).
Song AND alliteration! Ephrem all the way! I would love to see the choreography.