Praise of Mary

Day One

Editorial Note:

A couple years ago, I began working for a Catholic school, for my day job, and was surprised to learn that they have no official dogma on whether she died or not. Some of them believe she did not, and some of them believe she did. We Afroasiatics believe she died. This came up recently in conversation with colleagues when discussing the semantics of the words: assumption, ascension, translation et cetera. Both our traditions celebrate the extra-Scriptural story of her going up and away, in August, like the scriptural stories of the Lord Jesus, Enoch, and Elias (each case has its own context).

Many, many things have been written about her in Scripture and outside of Scripture. Of the tingz written about her outside of Scripture, I find the Praise of Mary we attribute to St. Efrem the Syrian, the Angels Praise Her, the Gate of Life attributed to St. Jared the Aksumite, and the Image of Mary rhyming poetry to be the most compelling compositions. Several people in our tradition have taken to making their own translations, but nothing has been unified and standardized, and so, I might has well have fun taking my turn to do the same during this month. I will take a stab at a stanza or two or three or more.

O blessed woman amongst women, you were appointed to be the beloved woman. You are the second inner room, appointed the holy of holies, inside which is the ark of the covenant, the ten words that were written by the fingers of the lord. He first brought us this news through iota, which is the first name of our savior Jesus Christ, who became man from you, without change, and became the conciliator of the new testament. And by the spilling of his holy blood he purified the faithful (ones) and the pure (ones) of the people.

Beg for us, holy woman!

Interpreter’s notes:

-the ten words are the ten commandments of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5

-first name is what the Ge’ez says, but first letter would be a more accurate telling of the Old Greek alphabet (which I do not know, but dabble in, many such cases, see the hyperlink)

-I went with ark of the covenant and new testament for their familiarity as turns-of-phrases in English, but covenant and testament here are both keedan in the Ge’ez, traduttore, traditore