Rediscovering The Language Jesus Spoke

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Few movies filmed in foreign languages ever become American blockbusters. Not only has The Passion of The Christ done so, it has rocketed to the top of the charts, grossing over $200 million in its first 12 days—a record rivaling Peter Jackson's Return of the King. Not bad for a movie filmed almost entirely in a language considered long dead.

Or is it? I personally know one Christian in the Chicago area who understands enough Aramaic to listen to the movie without depending solely on the subtitles—and he's not an Ivy League scholar. Originally from Iraq, he describes himself as an "Assyrian" whose mother tongue is Aramaic. According to one official website, 460,000 Assyrians now live in the U.S., 100, 000 of these residing in Chicago alone. And some Assyrian Christians have set up websites offering instruction in Aramaic for those so inclined. It's even possible to read the entire New Testament in Aramaic.

But what exactly is Aramaic, and where did it come from? How has it survived 20 centuries of turmoil and change? And what can we surmise about its future, thanks to The Passion?

Eclipsing Hebrew?

As The Passion's website notes (see "About the Production"), Aramaic was the dominant Semitic language of Jesus' time. Emerging around 1000 B.C. In several Aramean kingdoms (biblical Damascus, for example), Aramaic spread through the conquests of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires to encompass the entire Middle East, stretching from Egypt to Pakistan. In the Holy Land, Aramaic supplanted Hebrew as the language of the people sometime between 721 BC, the year Israel's capital Samaria fell to Assyrian invaders, and 500 BC, following the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon.

The return of Jews to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple did not undermine Aramaic's newfound status in Hebrew culture. Aramaic appears at times in the Old Testament, and recent evidence gathered from the Dead Sea scrolls suggests that the apocryphal book of Tobit was written entirely in Aramaic. The Gospel of Mark quotes Jesus in Aramaic several times; the best known of these may be his words on the cross—"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" or "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Judging from its renderings in Matthew and Luke, some scholars think Jesus composed the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic.

And how did the language fare after Jesus? In 1933, archaeologists discovered Aramaic inscriptions in a Jewish synagogue built around 245 AD in the Roman outpost of Dura Europos, located on the Euphrates River in modern Syria. They have since uncovered Aramaic writing in more than 20 synagogues across the Holy Land. Clearly, Jews continued to speak the language. And they did so in such numbers that Hebrew scholars felt the pressure of Aramaic competition: third-century Rabbi Yohanan insisted Jews should speak only Hebrew, as "the angels do not know Aramaic."

Not Greek or Hebrew but Aramaic

Had it been only the Jews who spoke Aramaic, it might well have passed out of common usage. Aramaic was the language of the Middle East at the time, among Jews and Gentiles alike. Inscriptions in churches across the Holy Land attest to this—scholars have even found early Aramaic copies of the Bible translated from the Greek Septuagint. Following Constantine's conversion, the church in the Holy Land used Greek more than any other language, but some of the sayings of the Desert Fathers have been discovered in Aramaic, including Athanasius's homily on the Life of Anthony.

What really ensured Aramaic's survival, though, was its usage in Edessa, Syria (modern-day Urfa, Turkey), where it had flourished for centuries. According to the historian Eusebius, an ailing king of Edessa wrote a letter to Jesus asking him to exercise his healing powers on the king's behalf. And following Christ's ascension, the apostle Thomas reputedly sent a disciple name Addai to Edessa. While there is little historical evidence to support either of these stories, it is clear that missionaries established a Christian community in Edessa within the first couple centuries A.D. Naturally, the church there assumed Aramaic as its mother tongue.

By the fourth century, Edessa was known throughout Christendom for its school of biblical studies, its showpiece church that resembled Constantinople's glorious Hagia Sophia, and its many monasteries and ascetic communities. In 489, the school moved into Persian territory, or the city of Nisibis. These "Syriac" Christians distanced themselves from their RomanÂ (or Byzantine) brothers over the Nestorian controversy, which gave them favor in the eyes of Persian rulers then fighting Rome. Consequently, Syriac Christians were able to send a large number of missionaries throughout the Persian Empire, some traveling as far away as India and China. While European Christians spoke Latin and Greek, Christians in the East conversed in Aramaic.

So why do we hear so little about Aramaic today? To put it simply, the rise of Islam and the spread of Arabic radically changed the face of the Middle East. By the ninth century, Aramaic had virtually disappeared in the Holy Land. In Syria and Persia, where Aramaic was stronger to begin with, Christians continued to speak the language in monasteries and churches even as Arabic became the "language of the street." But Islamic persecution, especially in the twentieth century, has significantly reduced the number of Christians speaking Aramaic in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. The language has all but disappeared in the land of its birth.

A Dead Language?

Today, the majority of those who use Aramaic as their mother tongue belong to the Syrian Orthodox Church, which claims between 1 and 2 million people worldwide—many in the West. Most of these use Aramaic only in their homes or churches, and second and third generation Syrian Orthodox believers run the risk of losing the language altogether. Even my Iraqi friend admits his ability to speak and understand Aramaic has deteriorated, and he cannot read or write in it. And like many expatriates, he is married to a North American who has no background in Aramaic at all.

But The Passion of The Christ seems to represent something of a modern Aramaic resurgence. A Texas musical ensemble called SAVAE has recently released a CD called Ancient Echoes, which brings Aramaic to life in sacred music. And NPR has featured programs on the history of Aramaic and its use at the time of Christ.

And what does Gibson have to say about his experience with Aramaic? "To bring a cast from all over the world to one place and have them all learn this one language gave them a sense of common ground, of what they share and of connections that transcend language." Thousands of Aramaic-speaking Christians—scattered all over the world—know just what he's talking about.

*This article draws on Sebastian P. Brock's 3-volume scholarly book series titled The Hidden Pearl (Trans World Film Italia, 2001).

Having A Hard Christmas? Jesus Did, Too

The analogy falls short. Christians believe that, unlike my father, Jesus was not simply a human messenger visiting us in our suffering. He was God-made flesh, “infinity dwindled to infancy,” as the 19th-century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote. The Christmas story tells us that therefore Emmanuel — which means “God with us” in Hebrew — is in fact with us in the whole of our actual lives, in our celebration and merrymaking, in our mundane days, and in sickness, sorrows, doubts, failures and disappointments.

Christians believe that because God himself entered humanity, humanity is being transformed even as we speak. Because God took on a human body, all human bodies are holy and worthy of respect. Because God worked, sweating under our sun with difficulty and toil, all human labor can be hallowed. Because God had a human family and friends, our relationships too are eternal and sacred. If God became a human who spent most of his life in quotidian ways, then all of our lives, in all of their granularity, are transformed into the site of God’s surprising presence.

Yet what astounds me most about the Christmas story is not merely the notion that God became a baby or that God got calluses and cavities, had fingernails and friends and enjoyed good naps and good parties. Christians proclaim today that God actually took on or assumed our sickness, loneliness and misery. God knows the depths of human pain not in theory but because he has felt it himself. From his earliest moments, Jesus would have been considered a nobody, a loser, another overlooked child born into poverty, an ethnic minority in a vast, oppressive and seemingly all-powerful empire. We have tamed the Christmas story with overfamiliarity and sentimentality — little lambs and shepherds, tinsel and stockings — so we fail to notice the depth of pain, chaos and danger into which Jesus was born.

God identifies himself most with the hungry and the vulnerable, with those in chronic pain, with victims of violence, with the outcasts and the despised. In “The Message,” a poetic paraphrase of the scriptures, the pastor and theologian Eugene Peterson translates John 1 by saying, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” When Jesus, the Word, “moved into the neighborhood,” it was not into a posh home in a cozy Christmas movie but instead into a place of hardship and sorrow.

The hope of Christmas is that God did not — and therefore will not — leave us alone. In the midst of our doubts and suffering comes a baby. This child, Christians claim, is God’s embodied response to all of our human aching. In his book “Unapologetic,” Francis Spufford writes that Christians “don’t have an argument that solves the problem of the cruel world, but we have a story.” This story is one of God moving into the neighborhood.

First Friday Devotion

"The prayer of the Church venerates and honors the Heart of Jesus . . . Which, out of love for men, he allowed to be pierced by our sins."2

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is of great antiquity in the Church. It was St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, however, who made this devotion widespread. In 1675, within the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi, our Lord appeared to her and said: "Behold this heart which, not withstanding the burning love for men with which it is consumed and exhausted, meets with no other return from most Christians than sacrilege, contempt, indifference and ingratitude, even in the sacrament of my love [the Eucharist]. But what pierces my heart most deeply is that I am subjected to these insults by persons especially consecrated to my service."3

To those who show him love and who make reparation for sins, however, our Lord made a great pledge: "I promise you in the unfathomable mercy of my heart that my omnipotent love will procure the grace of final penitence for all those who receive communion on nine successive first Fridays of the month; they will not die in my disfavor, or without having received the sacraments, since my divine heart will be their sure refuge in the last moments of their life."4

The great promise of the Sacred Heart is most consoling: the grace of final perseverance and the joy of having Jesus' heart as our sure refuge and infinite ocean of mercy in our last hour.

To gain this grace, we must:

Receive holy Communion on nine consecutive first Fridays.

Have the intention of honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of reaching final perseverance.

Offer each holy Communion as an act of atonement for offenses against the Blessed Sacrament.

Introductory Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the heart of your well-beloved Son and upon the praise and satisfaction which he offers to you in the name of all sinners; and grant them pardon when they seek your mercy. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

Reading: Jn 19:31-37

Since it was the day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

He who saw it has borne witness-his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth-that you also may believe. For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, "Not a bone of him shall be broken." And again another scripture says, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced."

Considerations5

1. Love is revealed to us in the Incarnation, the redemptive journey which Jesus Christ made on our earth, culminating in the supreme sacrifice of the cross. And on the cross it showed itself through a new sign: "One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water." This water and blood of Jesus speak to us of a self-sacrifice brought to the last extreme: "It is finished"-everything is achieved, for the sake of love. . . .

The fullness of God is revealed and given to us in Christ, in the love of Christ, in Christ's heart. For it is the heart of him in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." Were one to lose sight of this great plan of God-the overflow of love in the world through the Incarnation, the Redemption and Pentecost-he could not understand the refinement with which our Lord deals with us.

2. Let us realize all the richness hidden in the words "the Sacred Heart of Jesus." When we speak of a person's heart, we refer not just to his sentiments, but to the whole person in his loving dealings with others. In order to help us understand divine things, Scripture uses the expression "heart" in its full human meaning, as the summary and source, expression and ultimate basis, of one's thoughts, words and actions. One is worth what one's heart is worth. . . .

So, when we talk about the heart of Jesus, we stress the certainty of God's love and the truth of his commitment to us. When we recommend devotion to the Sacred Heart, we are recommending that we should give our whole selves to Jesus, to the whole Jesus-our souls, our feelings and thoughts, our words and actions, our joys.

That is what true devotion to the heart of Jesus means. It is knowing God and ourselves. It is looking at Jesus and turning to him, letting him encourage and teach and guide us. The only difficulty that could beset this devotion would be our own failure to understand the reality of an incarnate God.

3. Jesus on the cross, with his heart overflowing with love for us, is such an eloquent commentary on the value of people and things that words only get in the way. Men, their happiness and their lives, are so important that the very Son of God gave himself to redeem and cleanse and raise them up. "Who will not love this heart so wounded?" a contemplative asks in this connection. "Who will not return love for love? Who will not embrace a heart so pure? We, who are made of flesh, will repay love with love. We will embrace our wounded One, whose hands and feet ungodly men have nailed; we will cling to his side and to his heart. Let us pray that we be worthy of linking our heart with his love and of wounding it with a lance, for it is still hard and impenitent. . . ."

But note that God does not say: "In exchange for your own heart, I will give you a will of pure spirit." No, he gives us a heart, a human heart, like Christ's. I don't have one heart for loving God and another for loving people. I love Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit and our Lady with the same heart with which I love my parents and my friends. I shall never tire of repeating this. We must be very human, for otherwise we cannot be divine. . . .

If we don't learn from Jesus, we will never love. If, like some people, we were to think that to keep a clean heart, a heart worthy of God, means "not mixing it up, not contaminating it" with human affection, we would become insensitive to other people's pain and sorrow. We would be capable of only an "official charity," something dry and soulless. But ours would not be the true charity of Jesus Christ, which involves affection and human warmth. In saying this, I am not supporting the mistaken theories-pitiful excuses-that misdirect hearts away from God and lead them into occasions of sin and perdition. . . .

4. But I have still a further consideration to put before you. We have to fight vigorously to do good, precisely because it is difficult for us to resolve seriously to be just, and there is a long way to go before human relations are inspired by love and not hatred or indifference. We should also be aware that, even if we achieve a reasonable distribution of wealth and a harmonious organization of society, there will still be the suffering of illness, of misunderstanding, of loneliness, of the death of loved ones, of the experience of our own limitations.

Faced with the weight of all this, a Christian can find only one genuine answer, a definitive answer: Christ on the cross, a God who suffers and dies, a God who gives us his heart opened by a lance for the love of us all. Our Lord abominates injustice and condemns those who commit it. But he respects the freedom of each individual. He permits injustice to happen because, as a result of original sin, it is part and parcel of the human condition. Yet his heart is full of love for men. Our suffering, our sadness, our anguish, our hunger and thirst for justice . . . He took all these tortures on himself by means of the cross. . . .

Suffering is part of God's plans. This is the truth, however difficult it may be for us to understand it. It was difficult for Jesus Christ the man to undergo his passion: "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." In this tension of pleading and acceptance of the Father's will, Jesus goes calmly to his death, pardoning those who crucify him.

This supernatural acceptance of suffering was, precisely, the greatest of all conquests. By dying on the cross, Jesus overcame death. God brings life from death. The attitude of a child of God is not one of resignation to a possibly tragic fate; it is the sense of achievement of someone who has a foretaste of victory. In the name of this victorious love of Christ, we Christians should go out into the world to be sowers of peace and joy through everything we say and do. We have to fight-a fight of peace-against evil, against injustice, against sin. Thus do we serve notice that the present condition of mankind is not definitive. Only the love of God, shown in the heart of Christ, will attain our glorious spiritual triumph.

1. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church (=CCC), 667, 2664, 2665.2. Cf. CCC, 2669.3. St. Margaret M. Alacoque, Autobiography (=MMAA).4. Ibid.5. Saint Josemaría Escrivá, "Finding Peace in the Heart of Christ," 162-170, Princeton, N.J.: Scepter Publishers,1974. Footnotes used by the author in the original homily are omitted.

Rediscovering The Language Jesus Spoke