Ephrem (d. 373) is probably the best known of all Syriac writers, or at any rate of all Syriac theologians. Sometimes designated the ‘Syriac Homer’, his hymns (madrashe) in particular have been widely admired for their subtle employment of symbols in the service of his theology. It would be natural to assume, therefore, that a fair amount might be known about his life, but Joseph Amar emphasises in the introductions to these two volumes that this is not the case, and that the texts edited and translated therein will prove disappointing to a reader approaching them with that hope. However, in another way they will prove to be highly informative, namely in the picture of Ephrem created by writers of a later date and of the ideology on which that rested. The prime purpose of the work under review here is to provide accurate texts and translations of the various lives of Ephrem, but in the introductions the writer gives a useful insight into the historical and ideological origin of this Vita tradition, in addition to the necessary technical information concerning the manuscripts and recensions.

Three recensions are identified of the Vita, most fully represented in manuscripts in the Vatican (V), Paris (P) and London (L), although many other manuscripts, mostly collections of saints' Lives, contain excerpts from one or other of these recensions. Some of these latter manuscripts are quite late, but a short fragment of the sixth century in the underwriting of a tenth-century palimpsest from the monastery of St Catherine in Sinai is significant in taking the tradition back to this date. Amar's stemma presents a common source from the sixth to the tenth centuries, diverging first between V and P, with L subsequently coming down from P.

The recensions are closely related, and most incidents in the Vita are present in at least two of them, and often all three. There are, however, also differences, sometimes merely in wording, but sometimes in content. Amar has chosen not to present them as three complete texts consecutively, but to present one after another each recension of an incident, in the order P, V, L. The reader can therefore see the various renditions of each incident at a single glance, and if one or more recensions has omitted that incident. The reader who wishes to read through one recension consecutively has of course to skip over the others and keep a lookout for the appropriate siglum, but against that there is a clear advantage in having the three (or less) renditions together. Thirty-one incidents (chapters) are demarcated and entitled, sometimes further subdivided (A, B etc.), plus a proemium and colophon. Any one of them can be easily found (in either volume) through the table of contents. The Syriac text is well set out in serto script, and the English translation is clear and accurate.

In the introduction to the translation volume, the author explores the literary origins of the Vita and contrasts its picture of its hero with that of the historical Ephrem recoverable from other sources. He highlights in particular the difference between the meaning of the older Syriac iḥidayya (‘single’, celibate) applied to Ephrem and its use in the Vita as a term for a monk (‘hermit’), the tendency of the Vita to privilege Edessa over Nisibis in his activities, and the importance it gives to the (fictional) encounters between Basil and Ephrem, reflecting an ideology of episcopal control over ascetics. Over against these Amar draws attention to the earlier homily on Ephrem by Jacob of Sarug and its indications of Ephrem's close involvement with the wider life of the Church in general and the ‘Daughters of the Covenant’ in particular. In contrast to the (sparse but significant) information provided by the early Syriac references to Ephrem, Amar locates the roots of the Vita in remarks by Greek or Latin authors who knew little or nothing about the actual course of his life and activity, such as Jerome, Palladius, Sozomen, Theodoret of Cyrus and Socrates. He characterises the lifestyle of Ephrem and contemporary Syriac ascetics as ‘proto-monastic’ and comparable to Egyptian ‘urban asceticism’, while the Vita represents a rewriting of the past bringing it into line with the monastic ideal of ‘the Byzantine Imperial Church’.

The case is well made and generally convincing, and provides a valuable orientation to the texts. Questions can be raised, however, about the rather stark terms in which the author juxtaposes ‘Greek’ against ‘Syriac’, and Ephrem against ‘the dominant philosophically-based idiom of Greco-Latin authors of his day’. Naturally these differences do exist: language divisions are often associated with cultural divisions, and Ephrem's (and Jacob of Sarug's) use of symbols and verse clearly differentiates them from prose writers employing complex argumentation. But ‘Greek’ is not necessarily ‘Byzantine Imperial’, Syriac-speaking areas had many bilinguals and were by no means totally closed to Greek culture, and, as Ute Possekel (Evidence of Greek philosophical concepts in the writings of Ephrem the Syrian) among others has argued, Greek philosophical concepts may be discerned in Ephrem's writings. The need to make his central point within the limitations of an introduction may have caused the author to present a starker picture than intended, in which case his forthcoming monograph (noted in the translation volume at p. vii n. 2) on the intellectual world of Ephrem will doubtless offer him space to present his ideas more fully. But for the present work this is a marginal criticism of an edition which provides readers with a reliable text and translation and a helpful and perceptive introduction.