APPROVAL

The final volume of the Sermons of SAINT EPHREM the Syrian, most wise, in Syriac and Latin, of the highest and most admirable piety, praised throughout all memory of time, which had already begun to be rendered into Latin by the distinguished man Peter Benedict of the Society of JESUS, soon interrupted by the mournful departure of the excellent Interpreter from life, has been completed in Latin translation by the Most Illustrious and Reverend Archbishop of Apamea, Stephen Evodius Assemani. To this, the same learned Assemani also applied the Prolegomena and Acts of that most holy man, now for the first time unearthed from the Vatican Nitrian Codex V, which I have read with as much care and mental pleasure as I could, especially to comply with the Most Reverend Father Nicolaus Aloysius Ridolphio, Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace. Concerning this work, I judge as follows: it had long been greatly to be desired by the patrons of Sacred letters that EPHRAEM, who had already migrated into Latium as one of those Oriental Fathers most celebrated for both sanctity and doctrine, should also become Latin. This task, taken up by the most erudite Prelate who is always attempting ever greater things, we admire as so adorned and perfect that it seems to respond abundantly to the wishes of both the very weighty judgment of the Eminent Prince, the Librarian of the S. R. E. Cardinal Quirinus—who desires to enrich the Republic of Letters with new resources of wisdom, offering itself not so much from his own as from others' storehouses—and the erudition of the learned Interpreter. Moreover, who would dare to bring EPHRAEM to justice to plead the cause of the religion which he defended with an invincible pen, or to attack his piety and Orthodoxy with even a light censure? Especially if his writings are evaluated according to the opinions and discipline of his own times. Therefore, I judge the work worthy of being made public.
Given at Rome from the Ecclesiastical College, July 26, 1743.

APPROVAL

I have attentively read the third Volume of S. EPHRAEM in Syriac and Latin, at the request of the Most Reverend Father Nicolaus Aloysius Ridolphio, Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace, and have admired the accurate method of interpretation by which the most famous man, worthy of eternal memory, the excellent Theologian of the Illustrious Society of JESUS, Peter Benedict, while he lived, and soon the Most Illustrious and Reverend D. Stephen Evodius Assemani, Archbishop of Apamea, a man most distinguished in all kinds of erudition and especially in the skill of Oriental languages, wonderfully emulating the conspicuous excellence of his countryman and the ancestral eloquence of his forebears, have completed a work most useful to the Republic of Letters with the greatest care and success. Therefore, may the Doctor of the Syrians, EPHRAEM, rendered into Latin by the efforts of such men, see the public light from the Vatican shadows, so that it may be worn by everyone's hands everywhere, and may it yield to the benefit and increase of Orthodox truth. Thus I judged, with the sounder judgment reserved for those to whom it pertains.
Rome, June 29, in the year of the restored World 1743.