THE SECOND PREFACE

...[more learn]edly The text continues from the previous page's catchword "tius," likely completing the word "doctius" (more learnedly). than those cited above have observed.

These things concerning the style and works of Saint EPHREM had to be briefly indicated, so that the universal Church may understand the benefit with which it has been favored by you, Most Eminent Prince Referring to Cardinal Angelo Maria Quirini (1680–1755), the patron of this edition and the Cardinal Librarian of the Vatican., and that you yourself may know that no useless care has been undertaken by you in this regard; indeed, it is a work truly worthy of a Cardinal Librarian of the Holy Roman Church. For my part, while I hear from elsewhere that the immense—and for any other man, intolerable—construction of the primary Cathedral in the city over which you happily preside Cardinal Quirini was the Bishop of Brescia, where he funded the construction of the "Duomo Nuovo" (New Cathedral). is being continued with great expense and even greater spirit; and while I see here in Rome the books of Blessed EPHREM being led forth into the battle line like armored soldiers original: "cataphractos milites." Cataphracts were heavy cavalry armored from head to toe, used here as a metaphor for the strength of Ephrem's theology against heresy. against the enemies of the Church, I seem to see

Zerubbabel and Nehemiah Zerubbabel and Nehemiah were leaders who oversaw the return of the Jews from Babylonian exile and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. According to the Book of Nehemiah, the laborers worked with one hand and held a weapon in the other to defend against attackers. building the temple with one hand and holding a sword in the other. While I contemplate in this image your generosity, magnificence, and pious zeal in caring for the affairs of the Church and Religion, Most Eminent Prince, I beseech God without ceasing that He Himself may perfect your undertakings with the same success with which those men restored their Republic. May He, I pray, favor my petitions; indeed, may He graciously grant the desire of the whole Church, so that equal power and length of life may follow those great and illustrious works, worthy of you as their author, which you strive for in His service and for the benefit of His Church.