Hymn 10 on fasting by St. Ephrem the Syrian

This article offers the French translation, made by the Dominican friar Dominique Cerbelaud, of Hymn 10 on fasting by Saint Ephrem the Syrian, a Church Father of the fourth-century Syriac tradition. It is a direct translation from Syriac, accompanied by identified scriptural references. The hymn develops a typological meditation on Moses' fast on Sinai, set in parallel with the Exodus and the reception of the Law, in contrast to the idolatrous gluttony of the people worshipping the golden calf. The figure of Moses, the faster par excellence, serves as a spiritual model and type of the Christian faster. On a theological level, the hymn illustrates the Ephremic conception of fasting as inner transformation and access to a superior spiritual nourishment, of which the heavenly manna constitutes the central figure. This translation makes accessible a major liturgical and poetic text of the Syriac tradition.