Hymns and Sermons of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Volume 1

...testifies to have been accustomed to be read in some Churches; whom all Syrians, whether Orthodox, Nestorian, or Monophysite, on account of his most eloquent sermons, most elegant poems, admirable doctrine, most skillful mind in defeating heretics, and excellent piety in ascetic writings seasoned with compunction, call the "Column of the Church," the "Sun of the Syrians," and the "Harp of the Holy Spirit." Finally, his hymns on the feasts of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the blessed and immaculate Virgin, on the saints and the departed, are sung daily in the divine offices of the Syrians.

That these works should appear under Your patronage was persuaded by more than one reason. I knew indeed my fellow citizen Gerard Vossius Borchlonius, provost of Tongeren, who—with Pope Gregory XIII either persuading or commanding—had rendered distinguished service in collecting and translating from Greek into Latin the works of Saint Ephraem, and had edited them in three folio volumes under the auspices of the supreme Pontiffs Sixtus V and Clement VIII. This papal favor soon reconciled such benevolence toward Ephraem among all that, scarcely was the first volume published, when Ephraem's sermons were worn out in everyone's hands everywhere; and in pious places and colleges of the City they were read during meals, and the Pontiffs themselves wished something from them to be read to them. But when, with Clement XI promoting the matter, there were found in the monastery of the Syrians named for the Mother of God, which still subsists today in the Nitrian desert of Egypt, most ancient Syriac codices of Ephraem containing commentaries on Scripture, hymns on the Church, on the faith against heresies, on free will, on the paradise of Eden, and on the Nativity of the Lord, and chants for the departed, and various exhortations on penance and various sermons, three most learned Maronite men, highly skilled in the Syriac language, published a new and most ample edition of the works of Saint Ephraem, again under the auspices of the supreme Pontiffs Clement XII and Benedict XIV,