Complete Works of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Volume 3

O immortal God! If the Vatican Library in the times of Nicholas V had brought forth this excellent Edition of the wisest and most celebrated Father of the Eastern Churches—whose writings among them, as Saint Jerome testifies, held a place almost equal to the Canonical books, and which the Gallican Clergy the clergy of France once desired most earnestly as the firmest stronghold of Catholic truth (thinking nothing, however, of the Syriac text, as all hope of obtaining it had already perished)—if, I say, it had brought forth this excellent Edition, perfect in every respect (let there be no envy in the word), would You not think, MOST BLESSED FATHER, that that Pope would have seemed most blessed to himself for this one achievement alone?

He himself desired that the Poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey (to speak only of these) be rendered into Latin, and for that reason he invited Francesco Filelfo with generous stipends, so that he might apply his hand to those versions.