按：关于叙利亚教会早期灵修文献的史料和基本介绍，笔者已经开了讲座《叙利亚教会早期灵修传统（讲稿+录音+视频）》。关于这些著作的译作节选，请见《叙利亚教父灵修选集系列》。本课程的选篇参考了著名叙利亚学者布洛克的译作：Brock, Sebastian P. The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life （Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1987）。
作者：多数手稿归于马加略 (Macarius)之名，但有一些也归于某位西蒙 (Symeon)，因此手稿可以称为马加略-西蒙传统；文体有些讲道集，问答体和书信。作者显然是叙利亚人，住在安提阿附近。无论如何这些著作对东方教会的灵修传统有深远影响，与巴西尔的著作有回响，影响了后期的Mark of Monk, Diadochus of Photice, Maximos the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas.
本系列译作的灵感源自于学者布洛克翻译的一本书：Brock, Sebastian P. The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life （Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1987）。笔者按其目录翻译了前几篇译作（我的翻译也参考了他的英译本），分享其中部分译作节选如下：
400首 Madrāše (‘Hymni’) 律诗，有50种不同音节模式。叙利亚原文材料大部分由E. Beck编辑在东方基督教文集中，即CSCO = Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium。据瑟罗的雅各布 Yaʿqub of Serugh，艾弗冷的诗歌交由女圣诗班的成员歌唱。包括：
教会之歌 on the Church (CSCO 198–9)
受难之歌 on the Crucifixion (CSCO 248–9)
信之歌 on Faith (CSCO 212–3)
禁食之歌 on the Fast (CSCO 246–7)
驳异教之歌 against Heresies (CSCO 169–70)
驳朱利安之歌 against Julian the Apostate (CSCO 174–5)
圣诞之歌 on the Nativity (CSCO 186–7)
尼西比人之歌 of the Nisibenes (CSCO 218–9, 240–1)
天堂之歌 on Paradise (CSCO 174–5)
复活之歌 on the Resurrection (CSCO 248–9)
无酵饼之歌 on Unleavened Bread (CSCO 248–9)
童贞之歌 and on Virginity (CSCO 222–3)
其他托名艾弗冷，但显然是后来的诗歌有：奇丁的亚伯拉罕和尤里拿•撒巴之歌 on Abraham of Qidun and Yulyana Saba (ed. Beck, CSCO 322–3); 认信之歌 on the Confessors (ed. Beck, CSCO 363–4); 神显之歌 on Epiphany (ed. Beck, CSCO 186–7)。
二，散文 Prose
创世纪和部分出埃及记注疏 Commentary on Genesis and part of Exodus (ed. R. M. Tonneau, CSCO 152–3);
四福音书注疏 Commentary on the Diatessaron (ed. L. Leloir, 1963, 1990)
使徒行传和保罗书信注疏（只存于亚美尼亚文译本）以及各位驳斥巴代桑，马西安和摩尼的著作Commentaries on Acts and the Pauline Letters which only survive in Armenian translation; various works against Bardaiṣan, Marcion, and Mani (ed. C. Mitchell and F. C. Burkitt, Prose Refutations, I–II [1912, 1921]).
三，艺术散文 Artistic prose
•论我们的主 memrā on our Lord (ed. Beck, CSCO 270–1)
•写给普布利乌的信 Letter to Publius (ed. S. P. Brock, LM 89, 1976)
论摩西在埃及行的神迹 memrā on the signs performed by Moses in Egypt (ed. Overbeck, S. Ephraemi … Opera Selecta [1865], 88–94).
Beck编辑的四册讲道 (Sermones I–IV, CSCO 305–6, 311–2, 320–1, 334–5)，只有第一册1-3，第二册1 (on Jonah and Nineveh) 和第三册的核心 (On the Sinful Woman, Luke 7)，可能第四册2属于真作。
托名之作：其他的作品都晚于艾弗冷。this also applies to memre in Beck’s further volumes, CSCO 363–4 (Nachträge) and 412–3 (on Holy Week). Only some excerpts from a collection of memre on Nicomedia survive in Syriac, but a complete Armenian translation preserves it (ed. C. Renoux, PO 37, 2–3).
艾弗冷著作的成书时间大部分都难以确定。艾弗冷有生之年就享誉希腊和拉丁传统（Epiphanius (‘Panarion’, 51.22.7: ‘the sage among the Syrians’) and to Jerome (‘On Famous Men’, 115, written in 392)）。有不少希腊文本说是艾弗冷之作，然而只要一小部分才真正属于艾弗冷（有一些甚至不是从叙利亚文翻译的）。艾弗冷的译作是从希腊文译为拉丁文，斯拉夫文和其他语言，不过亚美尼亚文是直接从叙利亚文翻译的。
K. den Biesen, Bibliography of St Ephrem (2002) provides very full coverage; subsequent studies can be located in ‘Syriac studies: a classified bibliography (2001–2005)’, ParOr 33 (2008), 325–331.
一手材料和译作
For Syr. editions, see above. There are bilingual editions of On the Nativity (Syr. with AT by J. Khoury 1994), and of 20 selected poems (Syr. with ET by S. P. Brock and G. A. Kiraz 2006). Beck’s editions are all accompanied by GT; a GT of the Commentary on the Diatessaron recently appeared as C. Lange, Ephraem der Syrer. Kommentar zum Diatessaron (FC 54.1–2; 2008). For French, Italian, and other translations, see S. Ephrem, Un poète pour notre temps (2007), 294–307. ET are as follows:
S. P. Brock, The Harp of the Spirit: 18 Poems of St Ephrem (2nd ed. 1983).
S. P. Brock, St Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise (1990).
M. Hansbury, Hymns [on the Table] of St Ephrem the Syrian (2006).
E. G. Mathews and J. P. Amar, St Ephrem the Syrian. Selected Prose Works (1994).
C. McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron (1993).
K. McVey, Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns (1989).
二手材料
E. Beck, Ephräms des Syrers Psychologie und Erkenntnislehre (CSCO 419; 1980).
T. Bou Mansour, La théologie symbolique de Saint Éphrem (1988).
S. P. Brock, The Luminous Eye: the Spiritual World Vision of St Ephrem (2nd ed. 1992; there are French, Italian, Malayalam, Romanian, Russian, and Swedish translations).
Centre d’Études et de Recherches Orientales (CERO), Saint Éphrem, un poète pour notre temps (Patrimoine syriaque, Colloque XI; 2007).
K. den Biesen, Simple and bold. Ephrem’s art of symbolic thought (2006).
S. H. Griffith, ‘Ephrem the exegete’, in Handbook of Patristic Exegesis, ed. C. Kannengiesser (2004), vol. 2, 1395–448.
C. Lange, The Portrayal of Christ in the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron (CSCO 616; 2005).
Murray, Symbols.
U. Possekel, Evidence of Greek philosophical concepts in the writings of Ephrem the Syrian (CSCO 580; 1999).
A. Shemunkasho, Healing in the theology of St Ephrem (2002).
P. Yousif, L’Eucharistie chez s. Éphrem de Nisibe (OCA 224; 1984).
