EPHRAEM SYRUS (Ephraim the Syrian) (d. 373), a saint famous as a poet and commentator, was born early in the 4th century at or near Nisibis, of pagan parents. He became a ward of St. James, the famous bishop of Nisibis, was baptized and probably ordained a deacon. During the war begun by Shapur II., in which the city was thrice unsuccessfully besieged by the Persians (in and 35o), Ephraem played an important part. When Nisibis surrendered in 363, he left with other Christians, and finally settled at Edessa where he devoted himself to writing, teaching and refuting heresies. He died there probably on June 9, 373. There is no ground for the statements that he spent eight years in Egypt refuting Arianism and that he wrote the funeral panegyric on Basil, though he might well have known Basil.
Of Ephraem's many works, written in Syriac, numerous early versions in Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Aratic and Ethiopic are still extant. They include commentaries on the Scriptures, homilies and hymns. Except for the commentaries on Genesis and on a large portion of Exodus, his O.T. commentaries are accessible only in the form they had assumed in the Catena Patrum of Severus (compiled in 861) , and in quotations by later Syriac commen tators. His commentary on the Gospels is of great importance in connection with N.T. textual history, for the text on which it was based was that of the Diatessaron. Only the ancient Armenian version survives, and was published at Venice in 1836 with the commentary on the Pauline epistles (also only extant in Armenian) and other works. A Latin version of the Armenian Diatessaron commentary was made by Aucher and Mosinger (Venice, 1876). His homilies are expository, controversial and hortatory. His hymns, which greatly impressed his countrymen, deal with such subjects as the Nativity, the Epiphany, Paradise, free-will and hymns against heretics and against sceptics. Of the 72 hymns known as Carmina Nisibena, the first 20 were written at Nisibis between 35o and 363 during the Persian invasions and the remain ing 52 at Edessa between 363 and 373. The former tell us much of the incidents of the frontier war.
Ephraem had an immense reputation for sanctity. As an exegete he inclined strongly towards the Antiochene school ; as a theologian he defended Nicaean orthodoxy and regarded it as his special task to combat the views of Marcion, Bardaison and Mani. His poetry, though prolix and wearisome, possesses a certain richness of diction and skill in the use of metaphors and illustrations.
A full list of the many editions of Ephraem's works is given in Herzog's Realencyklopiidie. The most important are:—(i) the folio edition in 6 vols. (3 of works in Greek and 3 in Syriac) containing a Latin version (Rome, 1732-46) ; (2) The Commentary on Acts ed. F. C. Conybeare (1926) ; (3) the Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan ed. C. W. Mitchell, 2 vols. (1912-2I) ; Carmina Nisibena, ed. with a Latin trans. by G. Bickell (Leipzig, 1866) ; (5) Hymni et Sermones, ed. with a Latin trans. by T. J. Lamy (4 vols., Malines, 1882-1902) . Many selected homilies have been edited or translated (cf . Wright, Syriac Literature, 1894) a selection of the Hymns was translated by H. Burgess, Select Metrical Hymns of Ephraem Syrus (1853) ; further selections in Pusey's Library of the Fathers, and in The Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. See J. R. Harris, Fragments of the Commentary of Ephraem Syrus upon the Diatessaron (1895) ; F. C. Burkitt, "Ephraim's Quotations from the Gospels" in Texts and Studies, vol. 7 (Cambridge, 19•I) ; and C. Emereau, S. Ephrem le Syrien, Son oeuvre Litt. Grecque (1919) .