Shroro

The Syriac Orthodox Christian Digest - April, 2005

The Magnificent God

by Mike Wingert

Limited in our own thinking, human beings cannot fully comprehend the incomprehensible. God, who is the strongest and most abounding of all things, cannot be placed in confines nor limited. In his hymns on faith, St. Ephraim chants:

Whoever is capable of investigating,
Becomes the containter of what he investigates;
A knowledge which is capable of containing the Omniscient
Is greater than Him,
For it has proved capable of measuring the whole of Him.
A person who investigates the Father and Son is thus greater than them!
Far be it, then, and something anathema,
That the Father and Son should be investigated,
While dust and ashes exalts itself!
(Hymns on Faith 9:16)

Dr. Sebastian Brock, in his book The Luminous Eye shows us that St. Ephraim is not necessarily chastising any investigation and thereby promoting blind faith; rather, St. Ephraim is expounding on the futility of the finite creature attempting to know the infinite Creator. Dr. Brock the cites this portion of St. Ephraim’s hymns on faith:

There is intellectual enquiry in the Church,
Investigating what is revealed:
The intellect was not intended to pry into hidden things.
(Hymns on Faith 8:9)

Such is to say that God, in His infinity, is ultimately a mystery. No amount of finite human minds put together can logically equal that which is infinite. Nevertheless, we’re given glimpses of the infinite through revelation, through the incarnation of the Word of God (Jesus Christ), and through acts which mimic the nature of God. Ultimately, this is what theology is: study of the divine.

Without delving into countless details and examples, one can look at the subtle ways in which we express and cherish the Infinite One, or put another way, the Magnified God. Magnification is a simple concept; it means, to make something bigger. If one takes a magnifying glass and holds it above text, our perception of the text grows larger. With God it is the same. St. Mary the Yoldath Aloho (Bearer of God) exclaims in the first chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel narrative, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” (A similar hymn is also chanted by Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1-10)

Some may ask, “is the Yoldath Aloho making God bigger?” Certainly not, it is irrational to say that the infinite grows bigger than infinity. Sometimes in contemporary English, the words “soul” and “spirit” become interchangeable, yet in Syriac-Aramaic, these words are distinguished. When St. Mary says “my soul” the word is “nafshi,” which is equivalent to the Greek term “psychos.” This Greek term, also meaning mind, can be found in English words such as “psychology,” the study of the mind. As we see with the example of the magnifying glass, the text itself does not grow larger, but the experience of the text does. Such is the same with St. Mary’s comments. The state of her soul magnifies God for the world—we can learn so much about the Lord through by her example.

Through language, we also experience God’s magnificence. If one compares the Aramaic word for God with the Hebrew, one will notice a slight difference:

Aramaic: Aloho
Hebrew: Alohim

In older Aramaic, the plural of a noun is formed by adding the "im" suffix. Over time, Aramaic speakers gradually dropped the mem (letter M), so the plural in Aramaic would sound like: Alohe.

So as you can see, the Hebrew honors the plurality of God in that God cannot be limited to a finite space/time. God is magnified beyond all space and time, and this plural usages honors that.

Other words which honor and remind us of their magnificense are:

Life: Haye (sometimes pronounced Hayo, though still spelled as a plural) in Aramaic or Hayim in Hebrew. Life in the Oriental mind, is not viewed as something simply tangible, but as something experiential. Life is fully of experiences; how can one limit it?

Water: Maye (sometimes pronounced Mayo, though still spelled as a plural) in Aramaic or Mayim in Hebrew. Is it possible to have one water? Water, like God, is a magnified substance.

Like the following words display, we too need to let the state of our souls magnify God. Since God's nature does not change, it is necessary for us to let Him be magnified by our faith, and our deeds.