Portrait of Prophet Elijah: between Justice, Mercy and Zeal. Patristic Comparison between the Works Dedicated to the Vetero-Testament Prophet of the Saints Ephrem the Syrian and Romanos the Melodist

Portrait of Prophet Elijah: between Justice, Mercy and Zeal. Patristic Comparison between the Works Dedicated to the Vetero-Testament Prophet of the Saints Ephrem the Syrian and Romanos the Melodist

20 March 2022

The subject itself, namely the desire to sketch the portrait of the prophet Elijah from the comparative perspective of two Fathers of the Church with Syrian origins (Saints Ephraim and Romanos the Melodist), is a new one for Romanian patristic literature. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that it puts in a process of comparison two works that at first sight give the sensation of "pieces" from a Byzantine hagiographic puzzle. But these "pieces", although they have as a common element the surname of "homily", are differentiated mainly by the perspective that each author has towards his audience. What the present study aims at are two intertwining perspectives, namely: a detailed analysis of the two homilies by rendering the main elements, following at the end a moral picture of the prophet Elijah, and an indication of the similarities and differences between the two hymnographers.