Syro-Phoenician

The Syro-Phoenician name belongs in scripture to one woman — a Greek by language, a Syrophoenician by race — who meets Jesus in the borders of Tyre and asks him to drive an unclean spirit out of her young daughter. Her ethnic identification is the hinge of the encounter: the request comes from outside Israel, and the granting of it comes through her own answer to Jesus' words.

A Greek, a Syrophoenician by Race

The setting is laid out at the beginning of the Markan account: Jesus has crossed into the borders of Tyre and entered a house, wishing to remain unknown but unable to stay hidden (Mr 7:24). A mother whose little daughter is held by an unclean spirit hears of him and comes and falls at his feet (Mr 7:25). Her identity is then named in the verse the umbrella collects: "Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race. And she implored him that he would cast forth the demon out of her daughter" (Mr 7:26).

The Children's Bread

Jesus' first answer holds her at distance with the order of the table: "Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs" (Mr 7:27). The woman accepts the figure and takes it one step further inside the household: "Lord, even the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs" (Mr 7:28). It is on the strength of this saying that the request is granted — "For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter" (Mr 7:29) — and when she comes home she finds the child laid on the bed, the demon gone out (Mr 7:30).