Hymns and Sermons of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Volume 1

humanity, he sighs, he weeps, and emits cries of the greatest pain and sadness, and introduces all of creation and the angels mourning the death of Christ on the cross; but at the same time he consoles himself by considering the salvation of men brought about from it, their sins blotted out by divine blood, the human race redeemed and reconciled with God, the new covenant sanctioned in the blood of the lamb, the underworld despoiled, and Christ triumphing over death by his glorious resurrection and sealing the faith with the stamp of divinity.

Hymns on the Blessed Virgin.

The most pious prayers of Ephrem to the Blessed Virgin Mary, edited long ago from Greek codices, are well known. We have extracted very many hymns to the most holy mother, although for the most part they are truncated, from the Syriac liturgical codices. In these most tender and sweet songs, the holy Seer proclaims Mary to be entirely immaculate, the mother of God, and ever-virgin; therefore, he invokes her patronage with fervent prayers and filial confidence.

Hymns to the Saints.

Similarly, he invokes in many hymns the patronage of the saints reigning in glory with Christ, he adorns their festivals and memory with the most beautiful encomia, and proclaims that their bones, being beneficial in many ways, should be honored with due veneration. In this matter, he condemned the doctrines of the innovators twelve centuries before they were born. The London codices provided us with fifteen hymns on Abraham of Qidun, twenty-three on Julian Saba, two on the Maccabees, and others on confessors and martyrs. There are also hymns in the liturgical codices called "scales," which make memory of the Blessed Mother of God, the martyrs, the dead, the cross, and the resurrection at the same time, concerning which there will be speech in its proper place.

These things certainly had to be said in general about the writings of blessed Ephrem so that the benevolent reader might understand what reasons have impelled me to the labor which I now offer to him. I had learned, specifically, from the catalogue of the British Museum prepared with much labor and knowledge by the distinguished W. WrightW. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1870-1872., as well as from the catalogue of the Parisian Library completed by the care and erudition of the distinguished D. ZotenbergZotenberg, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts of the National Library, Paris, 1874., and from the catalogue of the Bodleian Library which the most learned Payne Smith editedPayne Smith, Catalogue of the Syriac Codices of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1864., that many works of Saint Ephrem were still hidden in the Syriac codices of these Libraries, which had not yet seen the light. Therefore, thinking that I would be doing a thing profitable to both religion and letters if I published all the works of Ephrem I could collect from everywhere, at the urging of friends and learned men, I betook myself to Paris in the year 1878 and