Ephrem the Syrian, prolific theologian and poet

[LawrenceRaymond]

Ephraem, of Edessa, was a very eminent Syrian writer. He died A.D. 373. Joseph Simon Asseman devotes 140 folio pages to extracts from his writings, and to comments on them. They are in the same Syriac dialect in which the Peshito is written. Dr. Westcott (on Canon, p. 238) says, " Ephrem treats the version in such a manner as to prove that it was already old in the fourth century." {Keep in mind that this is the same Dr. Westcott of the highly controversial Westcott & Hort Greek revision} He continues.... One of Ephrem's similes will show the beauty of his style, and though it does not prove that he believed the New Covenant Peshito to have divine authority, yet his constant use of it seems to imply that he was referring to it when he spoke of the New Covenant as a harp, the notes of which have been played by the finger of God, He said, " Praise be to the Lord of all, who framed and fitted for himself two harps, those of the Prophets and of the Apostles ; but it is the same finger which has played upon the two, the different notes of the two covenants." (Joseph Simon Asseman's Bibliotheca Orientalis, volume I., page 103.)