Kees den Biesen, Bibliography of St. Ephrem the Syrian Giove in Umbria 2002, 383 pp. Available from Ephrem_bibliography@hotmail.com
Paul S.
Russell
Theology Department
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
January 2003
Vol. 6, No. 1
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
license has been granted by the author(s), who retain full
copyright.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv6n1prrussell
Paul S. RUSSELL
Kees den Biesen, Bibliography of St. Ephrem the Syrian Giove in Umbria 2002, 383 pp. Available from Ephrem_bibliography@hotmail.com
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol6/HV6N1PRRussell.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2003
vol 6
issue 1
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Ephrem
Bibliography
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[1] The
field of Syriac studies, which is undergoing such a period of
growth at present, is much less highly developed than the
general field of the study of Christianity in Late Antiquity.
When one recalls that Patristics, itself, is much less highly
developed than Classical Studies (a fully mature discipline),
one realizes that students of Syriac have a very long way to go
before they can enjoy the pleasure of turning to a shelf full
of dependable resources covering the entire range of their
interests. Much has been learned, but obtaining access to the
fruits of this scholarship continues to be a major
stumbling-block to the interested reader. Without the scholarly
equipment enjoyed by those involved in other areas, students of
Syriac must embark on arduous searches if they are to locate
(or establish the absence of) earlier work on a topic that has
engaged their attention. There is no standard source
comprehensive enough to provide answers for common questions
that arise with great regularity.
[2]
Sebastian Brock has done yeoman service in collecting
bibliographical information on Syriac Studies, from which we
have all benefited, but he can hardly be expected to perform
all this labor on his own, and the increase of activity in
Syriac Studies continues to make this burden heavier. Several
new journals have been founded to publish studies relating to
Syriac materials, theological and historical journals are
showing an increased level of interest (still insufficient
interest, to my mind) in including articles relating to Syriac
subjects, and the publication of a number of books and
monographs has made the field more widely recognized. Scholarly
work involving Syriac, meanwhile, continues to be published
around the world, often in sources that are difficult for many
to obtain.
[3] The
bibliographical difficulties connected with the study of
Ephraem are perhaps the most acute of those attached to any
writer of Syriac. Ephraem the Syrian is the most widely known
Syriac figure among scholars of related fields. Because of
this, his works have drawn attention from a broad range of
people, and so have begun to be studied by them in conjunction
with other authors from other language traditions, as well as
for their usefulness for scholars in related disciplines. This
is a very desirable thing for which Syriac scholars have
striven for many decades, but it means that articles relating
to Ephraem appear now in journals where they would never before
have been considered. Progress and increased recognition have
meant that Ephraem Studies have become more difficult to
follow.
[4] Kees den
Biesen has stepped into this difficult situation and offered a
volume which will certainly become a standard on the shelf and
in the hands of every student of Ephraem the Syrian. Over the
course of a number of years, at the cost of a great deal of
labor, he has gathered information on the publication of
editions of Ephraem in Syriac, on the ancient language
translations, on the translations into modern languages, and on
secondary works: articles and chapters in books, as well as
scholarly monographs. The wealth of information contained in
this book will make the study of Ephraem, and obtaining
knowledge of what other scholars have done, much easier in the
future.
[5] The
study of Ephraem the Syrian has a long and active history and
the size of this volume reflects that. den Biesen lists no
fewer than 1800 titles of various sorts in the main body of
this work. In the first part of the volume, these 1800 titles
have been organized by kind and topically into seven
sections. The first section offers references to
treatments of Ephraem in the introductions to Patristic and
Christian Theology, in encyclopedias, lexica and dictionaries,
in manuals of Patrology, Theology and in the other earlier
bibliographies. The second section in the numbering contains
sources on Ephraem’s life, the texts and translations of
them, as well as studies and biographies of the author. The
third section includes a listing of editions of Ephraem’s
works in Syriac in the main editions. Works of Ephraem in
anthologies are also included. The fourth section covers the
ancient language traditions. The fifth section deals with text
editions, translations and studies of the various works of
Ephraem. These subdivide into Madrāšē,
Mēmrē, Commentaries on the Old Testament,
Commentaries on the New Testament, prose works, Ephraem Graecus
and Ephraem Latinus. The sixth section deals with secondary
studies of the works of Ephraem arranged by topics. These
topics include, but are not limited to: general studies of
Ephraem, studies of his symbolic theology, theological
hermeneutics, his poetry, his treatment of the Diatessaron and
the text of the Bible, his exegesis of scripture, his
Christology and Trinitarian doctrine, his theology of Paradise,
his ideas of Christian life, his Mariology, his relations with
the other religions of his time, and so on. (This choice of
topics clearly reflects the trends in activity in the field.)
The seventh section relates to translations of Ephraem’s
works into modern languages. Some of these are: Arabic,
Armenian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and
Swedish.
[6] The
second and major part of the book contains the references
themselves, listed alphabetically by author or editor.
This part is also subdivided into sections: the first section
deals with the editions of Ephraem, the second with
“titles exclusively dealing with Ephrem”, the third
with “titles partly dealing with Ephrem”, and the
fourth with “titles incidentally dealing with
Ephrem”. Six appendices list the contents of the various
volumes in older, published editions of Ephraem works. These
include Assemani's great Roman edition, Overbeck’s volume
of Rabbula, Ephraem and Balai, and Lamy’s edition of
Ephraem hymns and sermons, as well as others not so well known.
These will be particularly useful for those of us who must
order most of our material from libraries at other
institutions.
[7] den
Biesen’s arrangement of his information allows the reader
to search for works by the name of a particular scholar or by
the topic the piece treats. For example, one can look for an
edition of a particular hymn of Ephraem or to see what editions
a particular scholar has produced. One can also begin
from the catalogue of Ephraem’s work and find, in the
list of his collected or single works, mention of the various
printed editions, of modern translations of the work and of
secondary studies dealing with it.
[8] One of
the most useful elements in den Biesen’s work is that he
has noted not only the translations of Ephraem published in
separate volumes of collections of translated patristic works,
but also in journal articles (including even partial
translations of works). This greatly increases the
usefulness of this work and the accessibility of Ephraem for
teachers and students. It is now possible to discover,
for example, if a particular one of the Hymns on Fasting
has been translated and where that translation may be
found. This is certain to make more young students and
scholars innocent of Syriac able to include Ephraem in their
work and reading. For an example chosen at random: on page 34,
in reference to the “Hymns on Mary”, the volume
lists Syriac texts edited by Brock, Lamy, Mingana and Rahmani;
a Latin translation by Lamy; modern translations by Rahmani,
Beck, Brock, Caraza, Ricciotti, Amann, Ortiz de Urbina and
Starowiejski; and studies by Vona and Ortiz de Urbina, each
with the title number it carries in the main listing. (It
is difficult to explain these categories to those who have not
seen the volume, but the system is briefly explained by den
Biesen on pages 17 and 18 and anyone with the volume in hand
will quickly find his way through the arrangement.) Truly this
is a mine of information!
[9] This is
not the sort of book one reads, but I have made use of this
volume over the several months since it came into my hands. I
have found it to be, thus far, accurate and dependable in all
the details of the entries I have used. Of course, a work like
this is never finished, as the forward by Sebastian Brock
reminds us, and the author has condemned himself to being the
recipient of reminders and notices of works by Ephraem scholars
for the rest of his life. Students of the work of Ephraem can
only hope that his willingness to perform this labor for us has
not been extinguished by the great effort involved in producing
the volume and that he will continue to collect the notices,
include them in his categories, and issue revised volumes
periodically into the foreseeable future.
[10] I do
not think that any serious theological library, whether of an
undergraduate college, university or seminary can allow this
volume to be left out of its collection. Its usefulness is
certain for students of Ephraem. I can only hope that
specialists in the study of other Syriac authors will feel the
challenge this volume silently offers and set themselves to
work on producing companions to it, dedicated to other figures
from the Syriac-speaking Church.