According to Ephraim's biographer, his main motive for providing these hymns set to music was his desire to counteract the baneful effects produced by the heretical hymns of Bardaisan and his son Harmonius, which had enjoyed popularity and been sung among the Edessenes for a century and a half.
The introduction of Christianity was hampered by the baneful influence of a secret society called the Kakian Union, to which pagans, Mahommedans and Christians indiscriminately attached themselves; and it has several times cost the Dutch authorities considerable efforts to frustrate their machinatio
baneful הגייה עם משמעויות, מילים נרדפות, הפכים, תרגומים, משפטים ועוד