The HexaemeronofJacob of Serugh is a 6th-century text composed in the genre of Hexaemeral literature. As such, it offers a commentary on the Genesis creation narrative, and it is the first writing of this type to appear in the Syriac language.[1] There was some precedent in the Commentary on GenesisbyEphrem the Syrian, but this was not a Hexaemeron. Likewise, there is no evident influence of a potential Syriac translation of the HexaemeronofBasil of Caesarea on Jacob's work. Jacob dedicated a separate homily for each day of the creation week.[2]
Jacob's traditionalist mode of exegesis follows the School of Antioch. He may have learned this tradition during his training in Edessa (located in modern-day Turkey). As such, he believed in the literal interpretation of the creation week, such as in the progressive creation of things in the order of days as opposed to the notion of simultaneous creation advocated by others like Augustine of Hippo.[3]
Jacob opens his poetic homily with a prayer asking God to give him the ability to write about something that is beyond human speech. Jacob insists that God is the creator of all things and that creation occurred ex nihilo.
For Jacob, the first day involved the creation of the elements out of which God would go on to create with in the succeeding days, beginning with the still formless Earth and the darkness.[4] When describing God's works during the second days, Jacob distinguishes between two verbs used in the narrative: brʾ and bdʿ or: to create versus to make. Genesis 1:1, referring to the creation of the heavens and the Earth (and in general, matter and the elements) ex nihilo, uses the first verb and signifies God's rule as Creator. The second verb is used afterwards, on the second day to the sixth, signifying God's role as a 'Workman' who molds the created materials to produce additional forms and structures. When humans are eventually made in the sixth day they represent a microcosm of the universe, being composed of the same elements (earth, water, fire, and air) that the universe as a whole is. The beauty and perfection of the human is also indicative of the creation of the universe. The creation of Eve and the first blessed couple is what also caused jealousy in the devil who reacts by causing humans to rebel. Therefore: the sixth day also represents the fall of Satan and his hosts.[5]
Alongside others in the Syriac tradition, such as Ephrem the Syrian and Narsai, Jacob did not believe that God needed the creation: "when He had no need for it, He created them [creatures], and magnified them, as He was great, with beauties of their natures".[6]
The firmament was created in the second day in Genesis. Jacob invoked the popular architectural symbol of describing a domed church as representing a microcosm of the cosmos. Jacob believed that the cosmos corresponded, symbolically, to a two-storey building where a firmament separates the waters above from the waters below to create a dwelling place for mankind:[7]
The firmament came to exist in the middle of the waters on the second day,
As the Lord commanded it by a gesture of His creativity,
And it became a limit between the waters for the waters above.
And it became a shelter [mtaltha] for this dry place beneath.
And it became a tent [maikna = Tabernacle] for the pounded depth of the whole world,
And in its shadow dwells and rests the entire Creation.
It became the ceiling [tatlldl] for the great house of humankind,
That the gesture of the Deity built from nothing.
It became like a vault [kaphtha] that hangs and stands without foundation,
And not columns but a gesture supports it.
Likewise, Jacob partook in the debates concerning the meaning of the references to the pillars of the firmament. Basil of Caesarea, in his own Hexaemeron, took this to be a reference to God's power. In the fourth century, the Syriac Christian Aphrahat asserted that the firmament stands "without pillars". Jacob followed this position, also explicitly asserting that the firmament stood by God's power without foundation. Jacob's homilies on the subject appear to have influenced the same position in its appearance among both an anonymous mid-6th century hymn praising the beauty of a church dedicated to Saint Sophia in Edessa, and in the Quran.[8][9]
