Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem the Syrian on the Diatessaron

Ecclesiastical Empire or interpret the riddles which occur so constantly in the History of Dogma.

Not only so, but the stones which he throws at the Docetists a sect who believed Christ's body was an illusion, at Marcion, at Bardesanes and others are usually of the nature of replies; and the stones which had originally been thrown at his own party can often be found lying under his windows. He loves repartee, but as repartee requires, to make it intelligible, the preliminary remarks of the objector, it will be found that often, in Ephrem’s pages, there can be recognized statements which were taken ex ore dubitantium from the mouth of the doubters, or have been extracted directly from heretical works. Marcion has, indeed, perished, but some Marcionite flies (often large ones) are in Ephrem’s amber. A careful critic can often separate the two.

For example, in Ephrem’s comment on Luke xi. 27 (ed. Mösinger, p. 122), the writer expressly tells us that he is quoting Marcion, and the margin of the MS. tells us that ‘all this was said by Marcion.’ The only question then is, how much is rightly to be included under the marks of quotation. Apparently we may isolate the following words:

‘Blessed shall be the womb that bare thee.’ Marcion says “By these words they only tempted him to see whether he was born in reality. And where it is said, ‘Lo! thy mother and thy brethren seek thee’ the same thing is signified. And further he gave them his body to eat.”

The argument is that the body is a phantasm and the birth not real. For our Lord did not acknowledge the suggested relationships to mother and brethren. And Ephrem’s reply is that if our Lord had wished to deny his nativity and human nature, he would not afterwards have claimed fraternity with disciples who were but men. And by a happy retort he compares the verse in which our Lord might be supposed to say ‘Why callest thou me conceived and born’ with that other much disputed text ‘Why callest thou me good,’ from which the Marcionites were in the habit of arguing and where Ephrem and others shew great skill in refuting them.

In another passage he is arguing with those who held with Marcion that Christ appeared suddenly in the synagogue at Nazareth, or as Tertullian puts it, that he came de caelo in synagogam from heaven into the synagogue. The dispute in such cases did not turn on the question of the genuineness of the portions of the Gospel which