E'PECRAEM SYMUS, one of the most celebrated and prolific ecclesiastical writers of the Syrian church. Several accounts of his life have been handed down to us, but they all bear more or less such a legendary character, that the real facts to be gathered from them are but scanty. It appears, then, that Ephraem (Heb. Ephraim) was born in the early part of the reign of Constantine the great, " somewhere between the Euphrates and Tigris," most probably at Nisibis. His parents were, according to some, heathens; and Ephraem, repudiating their idolatry at an early age, had to leave their roof. Jacob, bishop of Nisibis, took care of the boy, and undertook his education. His progress in learning was so satisfactory that the bishop was soon able to make him teacher at his own school; and when in 325 A.D. Jacob went to the council of Nictea, Ephraem accom panied him thither. In 363, Nisibis was ceded by Jovinian to the Persians, and Ephraem first retired into Roman territory, then went to Anid, his mother's birthplace, and finally settled in Edessa (Orfa), where he remained until his death. He is said to have been so poor when he first arrived at Edessa, that he was obliged to take service at a public bath, but be soon became acquainted with hermits of the neighborhood, and adopted their habits; he retired into a cave near the town, and led the life of a recluse. But so great were his piety and asceticism, as well as his readiness to help the poor and tend the sick, that he was looked upon as a saint, and his day is still celebrated, at different dates, in various churches. Among his usual denominations, more especially referring to his teachings and writings, are "Prophet of the Syrians, Column of the church, Harp of the Holy Spirit," etc.; and his name is never mentioned without the " Mor" or " Mari " (Lord, My Master) being prefixed. But for all that, he had no lack of enemies. His burning zeal for preaching and converting led him to attack most fiercely almost every one beyond the pale of his peculiar creed. He spoke and wrote unceasingly against Idolaters, " Chaldees," Jews, and heretics of all kinds, especially Arians, Sabel lians, Manichteans, Novatians, etc. Towards the end of his life, he paid a visit to Basil the great, in Cappadocian Cwsarea, who could not prevail upon him to accept of any higher office in the church than a deanery, though he spared no effort to make him bishop. Returned to Edessa, he found plagne and famine raging there, and to his over exertions for the relief of the sufferers his death is attributed by some. He expired in the same year with Basil, in 378, not before having given the strictest injunctions that his burial should be of the very simplest description. With respect to the Testament which lie is reported to have dictated in his dying hour—much as it has been used for biographical purposes—we can take no notice whatever of it, as it is entirely spurious.
The visit to Basilius, unimportant as it seems, has been of very great moment. The legend which surrounds this, as all other incidents of his life, with a halo of miracle, records that the two men, although previously ignorant of each other's language, began to speak them fluently at this interview—Basilius Syriac, and E. Greek. This wonder ful circumstance first induced the learned to enter upon the question, whether E., half
of whose voluminous works are in Greek, did really understand that language; and fur ther, whether he understood any language but his own, Syriac. If lie did not, what view was to be taken of his commentaries on the Bible, of which the Hebrew and Greek texts, as well as the Septuagint and the Greek fathers, must have been a sealed book to him. There were, and are still, great differences of opinion on these points, but it is generally taken for granted now, that he did not understand any language but his own; that he made use of the common Syriac version, the Peshito; that his grammatical and linguistic notes are taken from different Syriac commentaries, and that the Greek por tion of his works consists partly of translations made from his Syriac after his death, or even during his lifetime, and partly of interpolations. Both the praise and the blame which have been indiscriminately bestowed upon him as a writer are exaggerated. His chief merit lies in the glowing fervor and the deep piety which he infused into all he wrote, more particularly into his elegiac hymns. Diction and form are poetical through out, and when not soaring into the infinite, of no mean beauty. The effect is height ened by the matchless simplicity and awing grandeur of the Syriac idiom.
We will now enumerate his principal works and their editions. Those (under his name) in Greek, consist of sermons or homilies, and treatises of an exegetic, dogmatic, and ascetic nature. Photius records that he wrote more than a thousand such sermons; Sozomenos speaks of "300 myriads;" but, as we said before, of those that have come down to us. some are spurious, and others at least suspicious. Gerhard Vossius trans 171 treatises from Greek MSS. found in Italian libraries, into Latin, and published them at Rome, 1589-98, in 3 vols. (There is but one piece in them translated from the Syriac.) They were reprinted in Cologne in 1603, 1619 (1675), and also in Antwerp, in 1619. The first Greek edition appeared in Oxford in 1709, edited from 28 Oxford MSS., by E. Thwaites. The most important of his Syriac works are, besides an infinite variety of homilies, sermons, poems, etc., his commentaries, or rather scholia, on parts of the Old Testament. Their value to us, however, is limited to their aiding us in explain ing and fixing some readings of the Peshito (see PEsurro), and in enriching our critical apparatus. That he also commented on the Gospels is certain, but no MS. has been found as yet, not even in a Greek or Arabic translation. As to the songs and prayers in the Syrian liturgy ascribed to E., they are simply composed in his manner, and betray their comparatively recent origin at the first glance. The principal edition of his works in Syriac and Greek was published in 6 vols. in Rome, under the papal authority (1732 1746).
The principal writers on E. are: Sozomenos, Mist. Eccl„ iii. 16; Assemani, Proleg. and Diblioth. Orient.; Credner, De Proph. Min. Vers. Syr. (1827); Lengerke, Comm. de Ephr. Syr, S. S. Interprete (Halle, 1828); and De Ephr. Syr. Arts Hermen., etc. (1831). Some tasteful German translations of hymns, by Ziugerle, are to be found in the Zeitschr. d. Dentschen Morgenl. Gesellsch. passim.