(b Nisibis [now Nusaybin], c309; d Edessa [now Urfa], 9 June 373). Exegete, preacher and poet. He was known by the sobriquet ‘the lyre of the Holy Spirit’. Born to Christian parents in Nisibis, he became a deacon before 338; unlike the majority of his outstanding Greek and Latin patristic contemporaries who were bishops, he remained a deacon and spent his life preaching and teaching. He left Nisibis sometime after the Persians captured it in 363, moving to Edessa where he stayed for the rest of his life, possibly establishing a theological school there. He was a figure of such immense influence that soon after his death his biography was much elaborated with apocryphal events, and his literary output was greatly expanded by spurious works. Modern scholars such as Edmund Beck and Bernard Outtier have arrived at a reliable biography, and Beck has edited all the authentic Syriac works.
Of particular interest to music historians are Ephrem's poetical works. They fall into two broad categories: mimre – homilies written in metre, that is, in lines divided into two halves of equal syllables; and madrāshe – hymns, at least some of which were probably intended for singing. The latter are usually strophic, in a variety of metres, frequently with refrains; prominent among the subjects they treat are the combatting of heresy, the praise of virginity and the celebration of principal liturgical feasts. Sozomen, the early 5th-century historian, narrated that Ephrem's hymns were written to combat the heretical hymns of Bardaisan (d 222), who had composed a book of psalms in imitation of the Hebrew Psalter and whose son Harmonius had provided the tunes. Ephrem, then, was supposed to have set his own poems to the tunes of the heretical hymns and to have had them sung by choirs of virgins. There is, apparently, at least some truth to the story: Ephrem himself mentioned the heretical hymns of Bardaisan and Harmonius, and Jacob of Serugh credibly confirms that Ephrem taught the Daughters of the Covenant, a community of devout women at Edessa, to sing his hymns.
Ephrem is generally considered to be one of the greatest Christian poets of any period or region. It has long been assumed that he exercised considerable general influence upon Eastern Christian hymnography, and in recent years a specific influence upon the kontakia of Romanos the Melodist (6th century) has been established.
E. Beck, ed.: Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium, cliv–clv, clxix–clxx, clxxiv–clxxv, clxxxvi–clxxxvii, cxcviii–cxcix, ccxii–ccxiii, ccxviii–ccxix, ccxxiii–ccxxiv, ccxl–ccxli, ccxlvi–ccxlix, cclxx–cclxxi, cccv–cccvi, cccxi–cccxii, cccxx–cccxxiii, cccxxxiv–cccxxxv, ccclxiii–ccclxiv, ccccxii–ccccxiii (Leuven,1955–79) [edn of hymns]
S.P. Brock, ed.: The Harp of the Spirit (London, 1975, enlarged 2/1983)
K.E. McVey, ed.: Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (New York, 1989)
S.P. Brock, ed.: St Ephrem: Hymns on Paradise (Crestwood, NY, 1990)
K. McVey, ed.: St Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works (Washington DC, 1994)
B. Outtier: ‘Saint Ephrem d'après ses biographies et ses oeuvres’, Parole de l'Orient, iv (1973), 11–33
H. Husmann: ‘Madraše und Seblata: Repertoireuntersuchungen zu den Hymnen Ephraems des Syrers’, AcM, xlviii (1976), 113–50
E. Beck: ‘Bardaisan und seine Schule bei Ephräm’, Le Muséon, xci (1978), 271–333
E. Beck: ‘Ephräms des Syrers Hymnik’, Liturgie und Dichtung: ein interdisziplinares Kompendium, ed. H. Becker and R. Kaczynski (St Ottilien,1983), i, 345–79
W.L. Petersen: ‘The Dependence of Romanos the Melodist upon the Syriac Ephrem: its Importance for the Origin of the Kontakion’, Vigiliae christianae, xxxix (1985), 171–85
W.L. Petersen: The Diatessaron and Ephrem Syrus as Sources of Romanos the Melodist (Leuven, 1985)
M. Lattke: ‘Sind Ephraems Madrāšē Hymnen?’, Oriens christianus, lxxiii (1989), 38–43
JAMES W. McKINNON