TO THE MOST HOLY AND MOST BLESSED FATHER

LEO XIII.

Behold, under the auspices of Your Holiness, the first volume of the Syriac works of Saint Ephraem comes into the public light, which until now lay hidden in the Londinian, Parisian, and Oxonian codices. Having traveled from the East and Egypt again into Europe, the illustrious doctor of the Syrians presents his hymns on the Epiphany, on the Holy Supper, and on the Crucifixion, and his sermons on the Lord, on admonition and penance, on the sinful woman, and eight others on the passion and resurrection of Christ for Holy Week, taken primarily from the Nitrian original: "Nitriensibus" — referring to the desert of Scetis in Egypt, a major source of Syriac manuscripts codices, and he places them reverently at your feet. He does so that, known by his own merit and relying upon that name of Yours—which all, even those who are separated from the true faith, venerate as the most secure protection of salvation and public peace against the attacks of socialism and nihilism—he may find worthy hospitality among all, for this volume and for those that are to follow.

For Saint Ephraem the Syrian is a man of no mediocre talent: whom Nisibis bore, Edessa had as a deacon, whom not only Easterners of every nation salute as a master, but also the Greeks, despite being most devoted to their own doctors; whom Saint Gregory of Nyssa adorned with a distinguished encomium; whom Saint Jerome, after reading the Scriptures...