Description
In the various early Christian traditions of the life of Ephrem the Syrian, he was widely known even more for his biblical commentaries than his poetry, for which he is now so highly regarded. Only three commentaries have survived in his native Syriac, and only the Commentary on Genesis survives in a complete version. A large corpus of commentaries has survived in Armenian and all these were long considered to be genuine. A study of the Armenian Commentary on Genesis has demonstrated that at least the Old Testament commentaries were influenced by Syriac traditions based on the exegesis of Jacob of Edessa (d. 708). Thus, these commentaries rather reflect a medieval Armenian exegesis strongly influenced by Syriac traditions. The present work offers a new edition of the text of the Armenian commentaries on Exodus-Deuteronomy attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, with their first ever translation into any modern language. These volumes constitute the second of three installments of the Old Testament commentaries attributed to Ephrem the Syrian. These commentaries should be of interest to anyone interested in the history of biblical interpretation, and to those interested in the history of Syrian-Armenian ecclesiastical relations.
