Section 04: The Memre and Prose

Ephrem beyond the sung hymn. The two files cover, first, the memre — the recited verse homilies in the seven-syllable “metre of Mar Ephrem” — together with his prose exegesis, above all the Commentary on the Diatessaron, the chief witness to Tatian’s lost gospel harmony, and the Commentaries on Genesis and Exodus; and, second, the Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan — the acrostic Discourses to Hypatius recovered from a single palimpsest, which preserve, in quoting the heresiarchs to refute them, direct fragments of their otherwise lost writings.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father) / Syriac

Contents

File Topic
The Memre and the Commentaries The memra (recited verse homily, 7+7 isosyllabic, “the metre of Mar Ephrem”); the Commentary on the Diatessaron (Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709; Armenian version; McCarthy’s translation); the prose Commentaries on Genesis and Exodus
The Prose Refutations The Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan; the palimpsest (B.M. Add. 14623); the acrostic Discourses to Hypatius; the preserved quotations of Marcion and Bardaisan; the Mitchell–Bevan–Burkitt edition

How to Use

  • Read The Memre and the Commentaries for the recited and exegetical Ephrem — the complement to the sung Ephrem of the madrashe.
  • Read The Prose Refutations for his sustained prose polemic and for why these texts matter to the history of heresy beyond Ephrem himself.
  • The verse polemic against the same heretics is treated in Section 06; the Genesis commentary underlies the Paradise hymns of Section 07.

Cross-References