§ 172, EPHEiEM THE SYKIAN. 949
the incarnation.' As an expositor he Las the virtues and the faults of the arbitrary allegorizing and dogmatizing method of the Alexandrians, and with all his copiousness of thought he affords far less solid profit than Chr^'sostom or Theodoret. He has left extended commentaries, chiefij in the form of sermons, on the Pentateucli (or rather on the most important sections and the tj^pical significance of the ceremonial law), on Isaiah, on th^T twelve Minor Prophets, and on the Gospel of John.* To these must now be added fragments of expositions of the Psalms, and of some of the Epistles of Paul, first edited by Angelo Mai ; and a homiletical commentary on the Gospel of Luke, which likewise has but recently become known, first by fragments in the Greek original, and since complete in a Syriac translation from the mannscripts of a Nitrian monastery.' And, finally, the works of Cyril include thirty Easter Homilies (Homiliae paschales), in which, according to Alexandrian custom, he announced the time of Easter; several homilies delivered in Ephesus and elsewhere ; and eighty-eight Letters, relating for the most part to the Nestorian controversies."
§ 173. EjphrmTn the Syrian.
i S, Ephe^m Strus : Opera omnia quae exstant Greece, Syriace, Latine, in sex tomos distributa, ad MSS. codices Vaticanos aliosque castigata, etc. : nunc priraum, snb auspiciis S. P. dementis XII. Pontificis Max, e Bibl. Vaticana prodeunt. Edited by the celebrated Oriental scholar J. S. Assemani (assisted by his nephew Stephen Evodius Assemani, and the Maronite Jesuit Peter Benedict). Eomse, 1732-'43, 6 vols. fol. (vols, i.-iii. contain the Greek and Latin translations ; vols, iv.-vi., which are also separately numbered i.-iii., the Syriac writings with a Latin version). Supplementary works edittd by the Mechitarists, Yenet. 1836, 4 \ols. 8vo. The hymns of Ephrasm have also been edited by Aug. Hahn and Fk, L, Sieffeet : Chrestomathia Syriaca sive S.
* De S. Trinitate, et de incamatione Dnigeniti, etc., torn. v. Pars i. Not to be Ci^xfounded with the spurious work De trinitate, in torn. vi. 1-35, which combata the monothelite heresy, and is therefore of much later origin.
' Tom. i.-iv.
* By Angelo Mai and R. P. Smith. See the Literature above.
* The Homilies and liCtters in torn. v. Pars iL ed. Aubert (in Migne, with addt tloDS, in torn. x,).
950 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Ephrjoini carmina seleota, notis criticis, pliilologieis, listoricis, et glossario locupletissimo illustr., Lips. 1825; and by Daniel: Tlies. bymu, torn. iii. (Lii)8. 1855) pp. 139-268. German translation by Zingeule, Die heil. Muse der Syrer. Innsbruck, 1830. English translation hj Henry Bukgkss: Select metrical Hymns and Homilies of Ephr. Syrus, transl. Lond. 1853, 2 vols. 12nio. Corap. § 114, above. II. Gbegokius Nyss. : Vita et encomium S. Ephr. Syr. (in Opera Greg. ed. Paris. 1615, torn. il. pp. 1027-1048; or in Migne's ed. of Greg. torn, iii. 819-850, and in Ephr. Op. torn. i.). The Vita per Metaphiastera; several anonymous biographies ; the Testimonia veterum and Judicia recentiorum; the Dissertation de rebus gestis, scriptis, editionibusque Ephr. Syr., etc., all in tlie first volume, and the Acta Ephriemi Syriaca auctore anonymo, in the sixth volume, of Asseniani's edition of the Opera Ephr. Jerome: Cat. vir. ilL c. 115. Sozomex: H. E. iii. c. 16; vi. 34. Theodoret: H. E. iv. 29. Acta Saxctorum for Febr. i. (Antw. 1658), pp. 67-78. Butler: The Lives of the Saints, sub July 9. W. Cave : Lives of the Fathers, &c. Vol. iii. 404-412 (Oxford ed. of 1840). Fabrioius: Bibl. Gr. (reprinted in Assemani's ed. of the Opera i. Ixiii. sqq.). Lengerke: De Ephrsamo Syro S. Scripturaa interprete, Hal. 1828; De Ephr. arte hermeneutica, Eegiom. 1831 Alsleben: Das Leben des h. Ephram. Berlin, 1853. E. Kodiger: Art. Ephram in Herzog's Encykl. vol. iv. (1855), p. 85 tf.
Before we leave the Oriental fathers, we must give a sketch of Ephrjsm or Ephr aim,' the most distingnished divine, orator, and poet, of the ancient Syrian church. He is called " the pillar of the church," " the teacher," " the prophet, of the Syrians," and as a liymn-writer " the guitar of the Holy Ghost." His life was at an early date interwoven with miraculous legends, and it is impossible to sift the tnith from pious fiction.
He was born of heathen parents in Mesopotamia (either at Edessa or at Nisibis) in the beginning of the fourth century, and was expelled from home by his father, a priest of the god Abml, for his leaning to Christianity.' He went to the venerated bishop and confessor Jacob of Nisibis, who instructed and probably also baptized him, took him to the council of N^icsea in 325, and employed hitn as teacher. He soon
• The Greeks spell his name 'Efpat/x, the Latins Epliraein.
' Tliis is the aoconnt of tlic Syriae A eta Kphraemi, in the sixth volume of flifl Opera, p. xxiii s(|i|. Hut aceonling to another account, whicli is followed by But ler and Cave, his parents were Christians, and dedicated him to God from the cradla