Prof. Emidio Vergani (Pontifical Oriental Institute, Italy)

The Reception of Nicaea in Syriac: The Church of Nisibis and Ephrem

This article deals with some institutional aspects and others related to the confession of faith that characterised the Church of Syria-Mesopotamia in the 4th century, after Nicaea (325) and before the Synod of Mar Isaac in 410, which received its canons: the figure of the bishop, the norms of ecclesiastical life, the Church and the Empire, and the symbol. We will therefore attempt to examine the earliest reception of the Council in the Syriac tradition, focusing on the texts of Ephrem, one of the most prolific and ingenious interpreters of the Church of Nisibis, which would later be designated as one of the metropolitan sees of the Church of the East at the beginning of the fifth century, at the Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon itself.

Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Emidio Vergani is associate professor of Patrology, History and Syriac Language at the Pontifical Oriental Institute (Rome). Born in Gorgonzola (Milan) in 1959, he obtained a classical high school diploma in 1978 and graduated from the University of Milan with a thesis in the History of Christianity (1986), becoming a professor of Literature. He spent time studying under André de Halleux (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1990–91) and Sebastian Brock (Oxford, 1991–92), and, in 1995, he obtained a Doctorate of Research in Religious History with a thesis, discussed at Rome’s Sapienza University, on the Syriac exegesis of Dn 3 (supervisors: André de Halleux†, Franco Bolgiani and Pierre-Maurice Bogaert). Since 2000/01 he has been teaching Syriac language at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, of which he has been associate professor since 2006/07. Secretary of the Syriac Section (2009–14) and of the Classis Orientalis (2014–19) of the Ambrosian Academy, he was co-editor of the Proceedings of the Meetings on the Christian East of Syriac tradition I–VI (Milan, 2003–12) and of Orientalia Ambrosiana 1–5 (Milan, 2012–16). He took part in the organizing and scientific committee of the Symposium Syriacum XII, editing, with Sabino Chialà, the Proceedings in Orientalia Christiana Analecta 311 (Rome, 2022). In 2024–25 he was appointed to teach a course on Eastern Christianity at the Catholic University of Milan. He has published studies in particular on Ephrem and the Ambrosian Syriac manuscripts. With Manuel Nin, he edited the following translations published by the Ambrosian Centre in Milan: Efrem il Siro, La restituzione del debito: Melodie e istruzioni sul Digiuno (2011); «In modo bello e ammirabile»: Testi su Maria di Efrem il Siro e Severo di Antiochia (2014); «La preghiera è il nostro ornamento»: Una scelta di testi siriaci (IV–VII secolo) (2017); and, La rugiada della risurrezione: Storia e Natura negli Inni di Nisibi, In Appendice un Inno (unico) sulla Chiesa (2024).

Publications and Works

- “Il sinodo di Mar Isaac (410): appunti e alcune linee di indagine,” Cristianesimo nella storia: ricerche storiche esegetiche teologiche 38, no. 3 (September-December 2017): 655–72. - “La Miscellanea Assemani della Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Due mēmrē Sulla fede (il primo intestato a Efrem),” in Between the Cross and the Crescent: Studies in Honour of Samir Khalil Samir SJ on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, edited by Željko Paša, Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2018 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 304), 395–418. - “Paradox and Prayer in Ephrem the Syrian,” The Harp 35 (2019): 65–77. - “Reception history and annotations on the Ambrosian Peshitta (e.g. colophons, marginalia),” in Gli studi di storiografia: Tradizione, memoria e modernità, edited by Alba Fedeli, Rosa Bianca Finazzi, Claudia Milani, Craig E. Morrison, and Paolo Nicelli, Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 2019 (Orientalia Ambrosiana, 6), 401–09, 411–24. - “La natura creata e il fuoco escatologico: L’esegesi di Dn 3 nel corpus efremiano, mēmrē e commentari,” Parole de l’Orient 46 (2020): 95–149. - “Fratrum corona: Il termine “fratelli” nei madrāšē di Efrem di Nisibi († 373),” Laurentianum 64 (2023): 3–22. - “The Exegesis of Dan 2 in Jacob of Sarug: The Memra on the Dream of Nebuchadnezzar,” The Harp 39 (2023): 365–84. - “Efrem e l’ombra del potere politico,” in Cristiani e potere: Sondaggi tra antichità ed epoca contemporanea, edited by Marco Settembrini, Turin: Claudiana, 2024 (Nostro tempo, 169), 87–105. - “Traduzioni e fortuna di ʿAbdīshōʿ in latino: qualche linea di indagine,” in Christianity, Islam, and the Syriac Renaissance: the Impact of ʿAbdīshōʿ Bar Brīkha, Papers collected on His 700th Anniversary (1318–2018), edited by Salam Rassi and Željko Paša, Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2024 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 316), 233–46.