PREFACE.

we have followed. We copied the other two on the Nativity of Our Lord in London, add. 14515, 17183, 17155, and 17218.

We copied the homily on Virginity and the one on the Council of Nicaea from Overbeck, S. Ephræmi Syri opera selecta Selected works of St. Ephrem the Syrian, 384–408. We did not have another manuscript at hand to be able to collate them.

The author advances, p. 710 line 1, an error concerning the intuitive vision, which we have rectified with a note. In different passages, particularly in the homily on the Ascension, Mar Jacques teaches that before the Incarnation the angels had not seen the Son of God who was in his Father, p. 824, and that after the Ascension he rose so close to his Father that they cannot reach him, p. 830–831. If the author means that the celestial spirits cannot understand God as He is, his doctrine is very accurate; but if he claims that the angels see neither the Father nor the Son, it is an error. Apart from that, he is one of our most distinguished writers, both for substance and form. He expresses admirable thoughts on the Holy Virgin, whom he calls immaculate, p. 621, 623, and 803; on her power, p. 715–716; and on her intercession, p. 719. He speaks of St. Joseph in the most touching manner, and of his feelings toward Mary, p. 756, 805, and 806.

In the homilies on Our Lord and on the Holy Virgin that we are publishing in this volume, the subjects are repeated and the style does not always seem to be from the same writer; we are therefore tempted to believe that there is perhaps something from another author who bore the same name.