Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron
Overview
The Diatessaron is a prominent Gospel harmony created by Tatian, an early Christian apologist and monk. The Diatessaron was used as the standard Gospel text in the liturgy of at least some sections of the Syrian Church for possibly up to two centuries and was quoted or alluded to by Syrian writers. This volume contains the English translation of fragments from St. Ephraim's commentary on the Diatessaron, along with J. Rendel Harris' notes.
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- Introduces a standard Gospel text in the liturgy of some sections of the Syrian Church
- Contains the English translation of fragments from St. Ephraim's commentary
- Provides notes on the text by J. Rendel Harris
Top Highlights
“I have set to work to see how much of the original Syriac text may be extant in the shape of Catenae or Commentaries on the Gospel in the Syriac tongue: and the present volume will shew that a great deal is to be gathered from the Syriac commentators both for the knowledge of the Diatessaron and of Ephrem’s comment upon it.” (Page 8)
“Ephrem, himself, is a theological star of the first magnitude, and even if he should happen to be one of the worthiest representatives of Catholic orthodoxy, his windows always overlook the fields of the early unorthodox teachers, whom the Church has successively banned, but without the knowledge of whom the Church Historian cannot construct the map of the Ecclesiastical Empire or interpret the riddles which occur so constantly in the History of Dogma.” (Pages 1–2)
“The continual play upon the words iratum esse shews that the text used by Ephrem had this expression. This is the more important because, as far as I know, up to the present time, the only evidence for such a reading was the Western text (with D, d, a ff2) in Mark 1:41, where Codex Bezae has ὀργισθείς. The diffusion of this reading in Syriac as well as in Greco-Latin texts is therefore demonstrated.” (Page 6)
“And this is rendered the more necessary because the Editor of the Latin translation has not given us a scientific text; of the two copies, A and B, which he uses, one is an editorial recension made by a certain Nerses, in which difficulties have been conjecturally got rid of, and texts speculatively improved in such a way that we can only describe the work as in certain passages de-Ephremized.” (Page 7)
- Title: Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron
- Author: J. Rendel Harris
- Publisher: C. J. Clay and Sons
- Publication Date: 1895
- Pages: 101
- Christian Group: Catholic
- Resource Type: Monographs
- Topic: Eastern Orthodoxy
J. Rendel Harris (1852–1941) was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, before becoming Professor of New Testament Greek at Johns Hopkins University and at Haverford College. Harris then taught theology at Leiden University. He spent much of his career in the Near East collecting and translating rare manuscripts.