NOTES
- Text and translation by Dom Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Fide, CSCO Vol. 154, Scriptores Syri tomus 73 (text) and Vol. 155, Scriptores Syri tomus 74 (transl.). Louvain: Durbecq, 1955.
- The focus should therefore not be on what the image conveys as a dogmatic statement, but on the way in which it serves to refute the Arian position.
- The following are accounted for from the collection Hymnen De Fide, 1955: 13,9; 22,9; 27,3: 50,2; 65,6–7; 76,1–16; 77,12–23. In Ephrem's Sermons on Faith, the same image is mentioned in number II lines 1–14, 591–592, 621–631 and 681–688.
- Beck, transl., op. cit. p. i.
- ‘Tree’ and ‘root’ seem to be used as synonyms, both refer to God the Father.
- Beck, transl., op. cit. p. i.
- Beck sees a reference to the Appolinarian strife in hymn 51, 3 f., thereby assigning the origin of some hymns in the collection to the very last years of Ephrem's life. Cf. his introduction to the translation of the hymns, p. i.
- Cf J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian doctrines, London: Adam & Charles Black, fifth edition, 1977, p. 228. The following hymn in the collection De Fide, no. 77, dwells on this point of contention in length.
- The masculine pronoun is used as a copula instead of the feminine.
- Cf S. Brock, Saint Ephrem, hymns on paradise, introduction and translation, New York: St. Vladimir's, 1990, p. 41.
- Ibid.
- Cf. also E. Beck, Ephraems Reden über den Glauben, ihr theologischer Lehrgehalt und ihr geschichtlicher Rahmen, Studia Anselmiana 33, Herder: Rome, 1953, p. 76.
- Ephrem reserves this word in the singular almost exclusively for reference to the Jews. E. Beck is of the same opinion as to the reference in this case, cf. Hymnen de Fide, transl., p. 198.
- Changing the text with B.
- Sermones de Fide, 2,31–32. Cf. the discussion by Beck in his Reden über den Glauben, 1953, p. 53.
- Cf. also the discussion by Brock in his Hymns on paradise, 1990, pp. 45–49.
- Following manuscript B.
- Beck thinks that reference is made to texts such as Is. 9:6 and Jn. 1:1. Cf. his translation, p. 199, n. 3.
- Cf. also the discussion by Beck in Ephraems Reden über den Glauben, 1953, p. 76.
- The ‘descent at the baptism’ seems to refer clearly to the baptism of Jesus. Cf. Mt. 3:13–17, Mk. 1:9–11, Lk. 3:21–22 and Jn. 1:31–34.
- With a change of the pronoun from masculine to feminine as manuscript BC has it.
- The complete 78th hymn in this cycle is used to discuss the problem of Christ's not knowing ‘that hour’.
- The Syriac word yaldâ is used, which can have the meaning of ‘offspring’, ‘child’ or ‘fruit’.