Hymns and Sermons of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Volume 1

Through the eight following hymns, he celebrates the praises of Saint James of Nisibis and his successors Babu, Vologeses, and Abraham. From there he moves to Edessa and Haran, about which he treats up to the 35th hymn, in which the holy Seer begins to speak of Christ, Death, and the devil. He introduces Satan, demons, death, and the inhabitants of the underworld speaking among themselves and complaining about the harm brought upon them by the Lord on that night when the Lord was praying in the garden of olives. The demons suggest the killing of Jesus, but the devil, seized by fear, judges it to be full of danger. Finally, it is decided that the devil and his demons should incite Judas and the Pharisees to capture Jesus.

In the 42nd hymn, the devil laments the losses inflicted upon him by the bones of Saint Thomas. From there, the author moves to prove the resurrection of the dead against Bardesanes and Manes, which heretics he attacks with a great abundance of arguments from the Scriptures and natural phenomena up to the 77th hymn, interspersing a dialogue between Death and the devil, as to which of them is more powerful; the latter indeed boasts of his cunning, by which he induces all into sin, while the former boasts of her power, by which she overcomes all. When Death has recounted the punishments destined for the devil and his ministers, and the latter, with fear, has confessed that the end of his empire over men is approaching, the poet introduces Death reproaching men who lament about death and weep for the dead, for whom one should not weep but pray. A dialogue is established between Death and Man, to which the holy doctor puts an end by asserting the dogma of the resurrection of bodies and eternal blessedness.

Hymns on the Nativity and Epiphany.

But especially in celebrating the feasts of Christ and his divine Mother and the saints, he employs all the arts of the most tender, sweetest, and most sublime poetry. And first, indeed, dealing with the annunciation, he introduces Mary and the angel speaking: the angel announces the incarnation of the Word, the most blessed virgin gives her assent. Christ having been born, the holy Seer, with multiplied and varied songs, adores the Savior given to men in Bethlehem with the angels and shepherds, unfolds the riches of infinite mercy and goodness poured out upon men, and invites all nature to joy, singing with the heavenly spirits: "Glory in the highest," and explains and marvels at the whole mystery of the incarnation; indeed, he confesses Christ to be truly God and at the same time man, and the unity of two natures in the divine person of the Word, one divine, the other human, in this way blunting, before they arose, the errors of Nestorius and Eutyches. We have supplied from the London codices the songs that are missing in the Roman edition.