Selected Works of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Rabbula of Edessa, Balai, and Others

Our book consists of hymns on the Nativity, on the Lenten Fast, on Unleavened Bread, on the Crucifixion, and the fifteen (that is, all) hymns on Paradise. Assemani (to use the opportunity presented) in the Works of St. Ephrem in Syriac, Vol. III, pp. 562–597, presents only twelve discourses on Paradise, having followed a mutilated codex, since the later strophes of the eleventh discourse and the entire three following discourses are missing. Why Assemani did not give us the whole work in publishing these discourses, even though he mentions the Nitrian codex VII which has fifteen discourses, I for one do not see. There follows a hymn against the Emperor Julian, with which the scribe concludes the volume. We learn from the anonymous Life of Saint Ephrem that he wrote against Julian. To this passage, Assemani (Bibliotheca Orientalis I, p. 51, note) remarks: "Delegates came to Edessa... But since we do not have the complete hymn of Saint Ephrem, cited by him, we rightly suspect that those things attributed to Valens by the holy doctor were transferred by a drowsy Syrian to the times of Julian." Furthermore, we leave it uncertain whether those verses composed in seven-syllable meter and beginning with these words:

which are read toward the end of the Life, have Ephrem as their author, or if they are to be referred entirely to Julian. However, this is certain: Ephrem composed several hymns against Julian, of which ninety-five (or ninety-four?) strophes, preserved from the damage of time, we now publish for the first time.

II.

An intact, ancient codex, octavo format, double columns, clearly in Edessene script. Both the style of writing and the scarcity of points, along with a more frequent use of full script and a rarer use of word contraction with pronouns, seem to recall us to the sixth century. The codex contains, first, the discourse to Hypatius. That Saint Ephrem wrote a book to Hypatius is attested by four ancient codices,