A Note on the Text

Chapter 1

1The complete Nisibene Hymns number seventy-seven in Ephraim's Syriac corpus. What follows is the public-domain English of Rev. J. T. Sarsfield Stopford (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 13, 1898), which translates only a selection. Hymns 22–26 are lost (26 survives only as a fragment); Hymns 27–34, 43–51, and 69–77 survive in Syriac but appear only in Edmund Beck's copyrighted critical edition (CSCO 218–219 and 240–241; Louvain, 1961–63) and so are not included here. The gaps in the hymn numbering below reflect this.