This two-volume set of St. Ephraim’s refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan was a major undertaking by a gifted young scholar. Working from Syriac transcribed from the British Museum palimpsest Add. 14623, he translated the works of the saint into English. Published here in a bilingual edition, with the posthumous work being completed by A. A. Bevan and F. C. Burkitt, the resulting effort of these scholars has contributed greatly to the understanding of one of the patriarchs of Eastern Christianity in the western world. The first volume covers Ephraim’s prose discourses addressed to Hypatius and the second the discourse against Bardaisan’s Domnus, as well as three documents against Marcion, stanzas against Bardaisan, on virginity, and against Mani. This collection of the important prose works of the major figure of early Syrian Orthodoxy has been difficult to find. Now reprinted and available in English, this resource will be prized by scholars of Syriac and those interested in the controversies in the early church.

Charles Wand Mitchell (1878-1917) began his career at a lecturer at Bishop’s College University, Lennoxville, Quebec. He went on to Cambridge as Advanced Student and served as Hebrew Master at Merchant Taylor’s School, in London and was ordained to the priesthood. He was a chaplain in the military until he was killed in the First World War.