The study of ancient translations existing in the Georgian language is of great significance for investigation of Georgian literature as well as the literature of those countries a monument was translated from. Due to the fact that in the course of its centuries-old history Georgian literature had close relations with Byzantine literature, it can be said that at modern stage of the development of Byzantinology scholarly research of the number of issues of the Byzantine literature has become impossible without taking into consideration Georgian sources.

Old Georgian literature is of particular importance because it contains extremely interesting and valuable information related to Byzantine authors. From this viewpoint especially rich and significant material is provided by the eleventh-century Georgian translator Ephrem Mtsire in his colophons, comments "«mtargmnelis mozrakhuli" and footnotes in which besides the data on a single Byzantine author, there is reasoning on significant issues of the Christian Greek literature.

One of Ephrem's colophons, namely translator's commentary added to his own translation of the commentaries on Paul's epistles [Ath.18:235-238] and one epistle of Cyril of Alexandria named by the translator as a source to attest the facts mentioned in it [Ath.18:238-241; Ath.39:16v-17v] provides an important material for making some issues of the history of Christian exegetics more precise, namely, when and by whom the first exegetic collection, catenae (in Latin  catenae, in Greek seirά) in which  the commentaries on biblical books written by the Church Fathers are collected, was composed; on which sources did the compiler of this collection rely; what was the form and content of the first catenae; what further change did this collection undergo; which redaction did the Georgian translators have as an original and how important are the translations preserved in the Georgian language for the history of Byzantine literature in general and particularly, for the researchers of the literary heritage of Cyril of Alexandria.

As we mentioned above, Ephrem Mtsire's colophon is attached to his own translation of the commentaries on Paul's Epistles. The manuscript which has preserved the translator's colophons containing unique bibliographical information is dated from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries and contains one part of the text of the commentaries on the epistles of Paul the Apostle [Danelia, 1982:315-318; Epistles of Paul ... 2003:310-352], namely, from the commentaries on the epistles to Hebrews - to the end [Ath.18:13-235] that is followed by translator's colophon [Ath.18:235-238], which has the following  title in the manuscript: "The evidence based on the materials collected from numerous books concerning the creation of this manuscript".

The purpose of the colophon, as it is evident from the title, is as follows: with the help of God a translator should briefly announce as to "how this book has been compiled on the basis of exhaustive commentaries" [Ath.18:235]. But before touching upon the question as to who composed the short compiling collection and how, Ephrem starts consideration of the reasons which caused the abridgment of an exhaustive exegetical composition written by John Chrysostom in which the commentaries on each chapter of the Apostolic Books by paragraphs is followed by an extensive "homily" of John Chrysostom („John Chrysostom's commentaries include extensive chapters and preaching, and are divided into numerous books" [Ath.18:235]. The Georgian scribe considers the volume of the text to be the reason of its division into several books and hence the difficulty in buying the book: "Due to the division into numerous books poor men had difficulty of buying it)" [Ath.18:235]. In his opinion, this was the reason why it became vital to abridge the Epistle explanations written by John Chrysostom at dictation of Paul the Apostle himself. The Omniscient God cared for this too in advance and a concise commentary according to John Chrysostom's extensive commentaries had been compiled not by an ordinary man but by St. Cyril the Archbishop of Alexandria to which the Cyril added the commentaries picked from the reasoning of other Church Fathers and thus collected the commentaries written for interpretation of the Apostle's word in one volume.

While reasoning as to how and what method and with the use of which sources, Cyril created his compilatory work, Ephrem Mtsire relies on the primary source, namely the Epistle of Cyril of Alexandria ("The reference to this is found in the Epistle of Great Cyril of Alexandria") [Ath.18:235], which has the following title in the manuscript "The Epistle of our Church Father, Cyril the Archbishop of Alexandria, who made commentaries on all prophetic books and wrote many other books sent to the other Bishop who asked him to write short commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle [Ath.18:238-241;Ath.39:16v-17v]. According to the title, the addressee of this Epistle of Cyril, i.e. "another Bishop" seems to be the one who ordered short commentary on Apostolic which is also confirmed by bibliographic data preserved in Ephrem's colophon: according to Ephrem, "a certain person asked Great Cyril to write short commentaries on the margins of the Acts of the Apostles in order to have the commentaries of Paul's Epistles in one book [Ath.18:236].

In his colophon the Georgian translator retells about the origin of the exegetic collection translated by him and names its compiler. While discussing this issue the source for Ephrem Mtsire is the above-mentioned Epistle of Cyril of Alexandria. According to Ephrem, "Cyril praises him (i.e. the Bishop customer) for diligence and evidences that he picked from John Chrysostom short commentaries and added the comments of other church fathers found by him in their compositions [Ath.18:235]. Ephrem underlines that the comments selected on Paul's commentaries compiled by Cyril is not his original work: "As we know from Greek, the commentaries on Paul's epistles written on the margins belong not to Cyril but, as it is said (by Cyril), in front of book, he just abridged the exhaustive commentaries written by Chrysostom and included them in this book [Ath.18:336]. This notice of Ephrem at the beginning of the Epistle of Cyril of Alexandria is based on the given discussion:  the Archbishop of Alexandria appeals to his addressee: "Greatly appreciating your diligence and strive for learning, blessed father, I obediently stepped up to thing that is difficult. Along with the epistles of St.Paul, I also decided (by your request) to write the commentaries on them to make it easier for the readers to look them up quickly. The Holy Father, John Chrysostom commented on epistles of the Apostle Paul. Besides this, I have found the commentaries on several  paragraphs written by Great Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory the Theologian and St Athanasius and picked them from their compositions, added some comments written by me, and wrote short commentaries around the word of the Apostle [Ath.18:238-239; Ath.39:16v].

It is clearly seen from this letter as to what kind of work has been done by Cyril. He compiled the commentaries on catena, i.e. the collection of commentaries on the epistles of St.Paul for which John Chrysostom's commentaries were used as main source, selected the commentaries scattered in various compositions written by Basil of Caesarea, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius of Alexandria and on some of the paragraphs he made the commentaries himself. Cyril's collection represents not only the shortening of John Chrysostom's extensive commentaries, it is a work of compiling character, i.e. that kind of catena collection (in Greek seirά) in which the commentaries on the paragraphs of the Scripture written by various authors are collected.

The compilatory Collection compiled by Cyril appeared to be written according to the rules characteristic for exegetical catena: caimena was placed in the middle of parchment paper and those of Chrysostom and other Fathers including Cyril's commentaries were on the margins. The paragraph for comment connected with special marks to the corresponding commentary. In Cyril's words, "each rendered paragraph of St.Paul's epistles is supplied with corresponding number and I denoted the commentaries with the same numbers to make a search of commentary's relation to the word easier)[Ath.18:239; Ath.39:16v].

According to Ephrem, the commentaries composed by Cyril  are written "around the commented text": "Cyril wrote the commentaries around the text on the margins in order to avoid the break of the text of Paul's epistles and by means of figures and symbols make it possible to find corresponding commentaries quickly" [Ath.18:236].

According to Ephrem's colophon, Cyril also added names of the authors for explanation, only to John Chrysostom's commentaries because the"majority of the commentaries were written by John Chrysostom, he (Cyril) did not add the name of the author but here and there where Athanasius, Basil, Gregory and his own commentaries were written, he added the names of the authors too [Ath.18:236]. Here Ephrem  makes interesting remark: "None of them but John Chrysostom managed to write the commentaries on the epistles of St.Paul so consecutively, extensively and completely and for their explanations he added to them the commentaries found in other compositions [Ath.18:236].

It is a well-known fact that Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Athanasius of Alexandria really did not provide complete commentaries of St.Paul's epistles. In their compositions we can find only the comments to separate paragraphs of the epistles. According to Ephrem, namely these commentaries appeared to be selected from the writings and attached to Chrysostom's commentaries by Cyril of Alexandria and thus the explanatory notes on Paul's epistles were written around the text, marginalia (Georg. "motkhvitad motserili", i.e. placed in the margins from the four sides of the text).  In it the whole apostolic text is surrounded with the explanatory marginalia from the four sides written by the church fathers. Unlike John Chrysostom's exhaustive or written in succession commentaries which is termed by Ephrem as Commentaries on Paul, Cyril's work which appeared to be written outside is treated by Ephrem as Paul with Commentaries: "that is why it is called not Commentaries on Paul but Paul with Commentaries [Ath.18:236].

It is known that Ephrem Mtsire was very careful concerning the translation of the titles of the book in order to make sure that the compositions of similar title would not be mixed with each other [Tvaltvadze, 2009: 22-23]. Perhaps for the same reason, he attempts to choose different title to Catena Exegetical Collection compiled by Cyril that helps the reader to differentiate from John Chrysostom's commentaries interpreted consequently and extensively, subdivided into chapters and teachings.

According to Ephrem's note, Paul with Commentaries was compiled as one book. It is the singleness of this book that Georgian translator considers one of its advantages. In his view, "It (exhaustive commentary) is better for its completeness and multiplicity of teachings but this (Paul with commentaries) is the best because short commentaries are compiled in one book [Ath.18:237)]. In his view, a short commentary can display better the essence and meaning of a word, text because in exhaustive commentaries very few people can grasp "the scattered force of word" and here St.Cyril of Alexandria collected not only the commentaries taken from John Chrysostom exhaustive commentaries on the epistle of St.Paul  and commentary on each paragraph of Paul's epistles scattered in the writings of Fathers, but he found the commentaries on some paragraphs in other writings of John Chrysostom himself and placed them in this book too. According to Ephrem, "wherever the explanation of apostolic word is found, everything was compiled here by Cyril and the varieties of flowers formed a beautiful bouquet to supply the believers with fragrance for ages and ages. [Ath.18:237]

Evidently, according to the characteristic given in the Ephrem's colophon which is agreed with the epistle of Cyril himself, the "garemotserili", "motkhviti" commentary composed by Cyril, or Paul with Commentaries is obviously Catena Collection.

The earliest exegetic catena is ascribed to the sixth century writer, Procopius of Gaza [Krumbacher,1897:210-216; Kekelidze 1973: 181-182]. According to Ephrem Mtsire's note, the first compiler of exegetical collection of catena character appears to have been Cyril of Alexandria who a century earlier than Procopius (Cyril dies in 444) compiled exegetical catena "Paul's Letters".

According to Ephrem, later editions of Paul with Commentaries compiled by Cyril also exist. In this work of his Ephrem also added the reasoning of the theologians of the following period after Cyril's death: "Some wise figures (for commentaries collected in this book) added the commentaries of the Church Fathers who live after Cyril and the authors' names are written as they are in the reliable and selected Greek originals" [Ath.18:237]. It is really known that after the 5^th century more than one Church Father made commentaries on Paul's epistles. Suffice it to mention at least the commentaries on all 14 epistles compiled by John of Damascus in the 8^th century or exegetical work of Oecumenius Bishop of Trikka, created in the 10^th century. After Cyril's death, their names are frequently found with the names of other Fathers in the text of Georgian translation of Paul with Commentaries.

According to Ephrem Mtsire, the thoughts of these Fathers after Cyril was included to that Greek manuscript of Paul's which was given to him by Greek   Klim the Monk, from the Monastery of St.Symeon as an original.

Before getting down to translating the Paul with Commentaries into Georgian, Ephrem Mtsire, as usual, conducted deep and substantial preliminary work. He obtained and studied Greek manuscripts containing the commentaries on Paul's epistles and arrived to the conclusion that there existed: a) exhaustive John Chrysostom's Commentaries on Paul; b) on the basis of this work of John Chrysostom, the commentaries written on the margins compiled by Cyril of Alexandria Paul with Commentaries  which also includes the commentaries of other Fathers and c) the redaction of Paul with Commentaries filled with commentaries made later which were chosen for valid translation and Greek originals of which were delivered to him, as Ephrem puts it, by Klim the Monk from St.Symeon Monastery "the man of wisdom and of great assistance" [Ath.18:238]. Of them the first is John Chrysostom's commentaries or Commentaries on Paul [PG.t.60-63], is the main source of catena commentaries written on the margins, compiled by Cyril of Alexandria or for Paul with Commentaries which has survived in Greek only in fragments. The fragments are available in Armenian, Syrian and Latin languages too [P.G.t.74,col.774-1026]. The redaction of the Greek text of Paul with Commentaries filled with the commentaries by the church figures, after Cyril's death has not been studied. Based on the data of Ephrem's colophon, today it can be said with confidence that this redaction has been preserved almost in complete form in Georgian translations by Ephrem Mtsire and Euthymius the Athonite. Euthymius the Athonite translated the beginning of the Paul with Commentaries (Cyril of Alexandria's epistleplaced at the beginning of the Collection commentary to the first epistle to the Romans and Corinthians (up to 8,2 paragraph). The text of the translation has been kept in the manuscript Ath.39 (16v-102r) and Ephrem Mtsire corrected it and with the preciseness typical of him, translated up to the end the Paul with Commentaries. The translation by Ephrem Mtsire has not been preserved in any of the manuscripts in its complete form, but several manuscripts have been come down to us which fill each other and support a continuous form. Hence, it can be stated that the text of Georgian translation of exegetic catenae the Paul with Commentaries in the redaction revised in the 10^th century compiled by Cyril of Alexandria has been kept in complete form. These manuscripts are: Q 1158 (XI century) which preserves the beginning of the Paul with Commentaries, epistle to the Romans and  I epistle to the Corinthians; Jer.9(XI cent.) and A 390 (XI cent.) which contain almost similar text, commentaries on II epistle to Corinthians in full, commentaries on the epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I Thessalonians. Besides this, A 390 keeps commentary on the epistles to II Thessalonians in full and to the Hebrews partially (up to 12, 15); Ath.18 (XV-XVI centuries) contains the texts and commentaries on the epistles to Hebrews (from 6, 11), to Timothy I and II, to Titus and Philemon. This manuscript is supplied with the colophon and iambus of the translator, Ephrem Mtsire and Cyril of Alexandria's epistle. Separate fragments of Ephrem's translation are kept at S 3656, H 2141, S 1172, S 1149, S 4812 and Q 831 manuscripts too [Kochlamazashvili. 1995: 27].

It is true, here and there both Georgian translations of the Paul with Commentaries lack a leaf or two, but it is obvious, even in the state it has come down to us, it is of great assistance to the scholars to restore the initial picture of the Greek original text of this composition. The importance of those data for the history of Byzantine exegetics which we have in the colophon added to the comments on the epistles of Paul is also obvious. The data provided here by Ephrem testify Cyril of Alexandria's contribution to the interpretation of the Acts of Apostles and present him as one of the first compilers of exegetical catenae.

One more fact deserves attention. Besides the commentaries on the epistles of Paul, Ephrem also translated the Commentaries of the Acts of Apostles and Commentaries on the Catholics Epistles and compiled a kind of corpus of "Apostolic commentaries" which along with the above considered colophon was supplied with his own foreword [Jer.16,2r-4v], in which one more important evidence related to this issue is kept: "The commentaries on the Acts of Apostles have been collected from numerous books but due to the lack of space there is no indication to the names of all authors. As is evidenced from the title, the majority of the commentaries belong to St. John Chrysostom and the commentaries of other Church Fathers selected by St. Cyril from numerous sources are inserted here and there" [Jer.16:4r]. There is no doubt that St.Cyril mentioned here by Ephrem is Cyril of Alexandria who compiled selected translations of the Acts of the Apostles and again as a main source he appeared to use exhaustive commentaries of St. John Chrysostom and inserted them along with the commentaries of other Fathers in the same way as while compiling Paul with commentaries. The essence of Ephrem's words is clear: the exegetical catenae compiled by St.  Cyril are again mentioned as Greek original text of commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles but, for some reason, this information is not taken into account while evaluating the work done by Ephrem in transferring the commentaries on the  of Acts of the Apostles. In connection with this K.Danelia notes: "It appears that Ephrem mainly used the commentaries of John Chrysostom (+407) and here and there he used Cyril of Alexandria's work (+444)" [Danelia, 1982:319]. The fact that Ephrem translated the composition compiled with John Chrysostom's commentaries and filled with the thoughts of other authors and indirectly John Chrysostom's exhaustive commentaries are well seen from the title of the book: "The explanations selected from the vast commentaries made by our blessed Father, the John Chrysostom patriarch of Constantinople, John Chrysostom on the Acts of Apostles which is sometimes added with short commentaries of other Church Fathers" [Jer.16:4r].  As is seen Cyril compiled not only the Paul with Commentaries but also "Acts of Apostles with commentaries" and "Catholics Epistles with commentaries" which were used by Ephrem Mtsire.

Several fragments of the translations of the Acts of the Apostles have come down to us under the name of Cyril [PG.t.74, col.758-774] and one or two pages from the translations of Jacob, I and II epistles of John and Juda [PG. t.74, col.1007-1036].  The full text of this exegetical work in Greek is not observed. We consider that the data kept in Ephrem's preface provide a solid ground to direct the study from this aspect. Although unlike the commentaries on Paul's epistles, Ephrem provides rather poor data concerning the history of compilation of commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, he does not mention those authors whose comments were used by Cyril in compilation of the Catena Collection and it is unknown to us whether he had the catena filled by other authors after Cyril's death as an original or earlier redaction of this collection , but one thing is certain, while translating the commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and Catholics Epistles, Ephrem has already used the selected Greek texts.

In our view, the comparison of the Commentaries on the Apostles translated by Ephrem Mtsire with Greek sources that is intended to be a subject of future study will give a valid answer to many questions which can be arisen in connection with this issue. The data kept in Ephrem's preface will be definitely a fine guide in this work.

This is conditioned by several factors: 1) Georgian language  preserves such compositions of Byzantine literature Greek originals of which are no longer available and can be restored only with the help of Georgian translations; 2) Georgian literature keeps such data related to Byzantine writers  which fill up a gap and throw  light on the  life and activity of these writers in a new aspect; 3) Georgian writing keeps information on the writers of whom nothing has ever been known in the history of Byzantine literature; 4) Some works of Byzantine literature transferred to Georgian literature in versions, are radically different from the original; 5)Georgians add to Byzantine literature more than one composition translated from Georgian, for example, The Wisdom of Balavar , Abukura and many others; 6) Georgians wrote original compositions in the Greek language too, for example, Euthymius Athonite wrote in Greek The Way of Solitary Life [Kekelidze, 1980:62-63].

«mtargmnelis mozrakhuli" according to Ephrem's preface is a term which compiles all kinds of commentaries made by a translator in different places of the manuscript of the translated composition: with marginal footnotes, the foreword placed at the beginning and the colophon supplied at the end of a book. [Tvaltvadze, 2009: 24-26].

Particularly, it concerns Greek original texts selected by Ephrem Mtsire for translation, their various redactions, the interrelationship of redactions, history of creating separate compositions, Greek dictionaries and book storages, compilation and design of Greek manuscripts, etc. [Tvaltvadze, 2009].

The text of the preface was published several times: first it was issued in 1988 [Tvaltvadze, 1988: 210-221; also see, Epistles of Paul.... 2003: 300-302; [Tvaltvadze, 2009: 210-212].

It was published twice: first according to MS Ath.18 [Tvaltvadze, 1995:359-361], for the second time -according to the MSs Ath.39 and Ath18 publisher E.Kochlamazashvili [Epistle of Paul... 2003: 8-11].

Translation of the 5-th century Archbishop of Alexandria Cyril's compositions into Georgian appears to be started in the 8^th - 9^th centuries (We mean "The Treasure" which had already been translated in Grigol Khandzteli's time) and the last translation was made in the 18^th century. In 1776, Philipe Kaitmazashvili and Anthony the Catholicos rendered from an Armenian source the Epistles and Lexicon of Cyril of Alexandria which are kept in the MSs A 266, A 618 [Kekelidze, 1957: 87-89].

At the beginning of the colophon Ephrem mentions that the primary source of the commentaries on the epistles of the Apostle Paul is John Chrysostom's interpretation written at Paul's dictation. To prove this he presents one data kept in "The Life of John Chrysostom" according to which John's disciple, Proclus had a vision as to how the Apostle himself was dictating to John Chrysostom the interpretation of his Epistles: "Paul stood behind him dictating and Chrysostom was writing it down [John Chrysostom ...1986:51-56].

In spite of the existence of concrete addressee, according to its purpose the Epistle of Cyril of Alexandria verified by Ephrem is an introductory letter which may appear to be placed at the beginning of exegetic work done by Cyril in the Greek original. Also, according to the data of Ephrem Mtsire's colophon, this Epistle was "written at the beginning". "This becomes known from the Epistle of Cyril of Alexandria which can be found at the beginning of this book [Ath.18:236]; the Epistle given at the beginning testifies this, underlines the author. Though in MS Ath. 18 this epistle is placed at the end and follows Ephrem's colophon, but it does not reflect the initial picture correctly which is evidenced from another Athonic manuscript [Ath.39,XI ს.] in which the Epistle of Cyril starts the texts of translations of Paul's Epistles [Ath.39:16v-17v]. Here, too, Ephrem renders true information: the Epistle of Cyril of Alexandria was really written in front of book and fulfilled the function of introduction to a collection composed by Cyril.

Names of the following expositors are indicated in the text: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, St. Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandri, Severian of Gabala, Gennadius of Constantinople, Maximus the Confessor, Germanus of Constantinople, John of Damascus, Oecumenius and Cyril himself. Of them Cyril could use some of their commentaries (those of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Eusebius of Caesarea, Methodius of Patara, Athanasius of Alexandria, Severian of Gabala), the rest of them worked and created after Cyril's death. It is clear that the appearance of their names in Paul with Commentaries was possible only after their later revision.

The word "motkhviti" is defined by Saba as "motkhviti means quadrangular" [Orbeliani Sulkhan-Saba, 1991:492; see also Abuladze 1973:264; Ezekiel... 1976: 315]. Thus, written on all four margins means quadrangular script.

It should be noted that in comparison with the Greek original of Cyril's Paul with Commentaries, the translation of it made by Ephrem is not "garemotserili" (quadrangular script) written on the four sides but "marlgatskobili" (commentaries written in succession). Ephrem, who was always in favor of exact translation of Greek original into Georgian and compilation of Georgian manuscripts according to Greek rules, in this case broke this principle by the instructions of his spiritual fathers - Saba Tukhareli and Anton Tbeli due to the fact that such kind of book was difficult for reading in churches and for rewriting and in the original around the interpreted paragraph commentaries written on the margins which linked to the text through special conventional symbols, wrote in sequence, one by one for the readers and scribers to be easier [Ath.18:237]. Ephrem states:"our monks considered it would be better".

The exhaustive commentaries on Paul's epistles were also composed by the 11th-century and later period  ecclesiastical figures, namely Theophylact Bulgarian [PG.t.124-125] and Euthymius Zigaben [PG.t.128-129], but, evidently, their writings could not have appeared in the Greek text of the Paul with Commentaries which was used first by Euthymius the Atonite and then Ephrem Mtsire as an original. Probably, Georgian translators used the later redaction of the commentaries on all 14 epistles of Paul (the second half of the 10th century) written by Oecumenios (†995) that can be evidenced by frequent mentioning of the name of Oecumenius in the Georgian translated text.

The data on the translation of the beginning of "Commentaries on Paul" (commentaries on the epistle to the Romans and Corinthians and  Cyril of Alexandria's epistle placed in front of book) by Euthymius the Athonite were provided by Ephrem Mtsire in his colophon: "Our new golden-mouth started to translate from Greek, the source of translation and founder, Saint Father and church confessor, Euthymius Mtatsmindeli, who had translated the commentaries only on two epistles and little had been left to finish it but the reason of this is known only to God" [Ath.18:235].

The text of Euthymius the Athonite's translation was published by E.Kochlamazashvili [Paul's epistles ...2003: 8-215].

However, in Georgian scholarly literature an assumption has been expressed that Ephrem's translation is his original work, fulfilled on the basis of John Chrysostom. K.Kekelidze points out that this composition translated by Ephrem represents "Ephrem's work written according to John Chrysostom" [Kekelidze, 1980:257]; In I.Abuladze's view "Ephrem translated selectively John Chrysostom's commentaries" [Acts of Apostles... 1950:013]; and K.Danelia who specially studied the translation of commentaries on Paul's epistles made by Ephrem, considers that is familiar with John Chrysostom's commentaries (as well as of other theologians but he does not translate his compositions but renders his thoughts by taking notes [Danelia, 1982: 319-325]. A basis for this conclusion is the comparison of Georgian translation with the Greek text of John Chrysostom's Commentaries on Paul which would definitely help the scholars to reveal numerous essential differences. After revealing bibliographical data kept in Ephrem's colophon an issue may be regarded as solved. In this colophon, Ephrem directly indicates to the composition used by him as original and points out that he used the manuscript of later edition of catenic "Commentaries on Paul" compiled by Cyril of Alexandria. Ephrem did not do compilation himself (collected, took notes, etc.) but used such original in which such kind of work had already been done, moreover not by an ordinary human but by St.Cyril himself. From Ephrem's colophon it is well seen that this exegetical composition is not Ephrem's original work. In our view the data kept in the above mentioned Ephrem's colophon are suffice to consider the later edition of "Paul with Commentaries" by Cyril of Alexandria as the original of the text  of Ephrem Mtsire's translation of the epistles of Paul kept in Georgian manuscripts. The follow-up study and investigation, comparison of Greek and Georgian texts should proceed just in this direction [Tvaltvadze, 1995; Epistles of Paul... 2003:294-299].

16 The Georgian translation of the commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and Catholics Epistles was published by E.Kochlamazishvili [Commentary ...2000].