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The Chronicle attributed to Zachariah of Mytilene is one of the
most important sources for the history of the church from the
Council of Chalcedon in 451 to the early years of the reign of
Justinian (527-565). The author who compiled the work in Syriac in
A.D. 568/9 drew extensively on the Ecclesiastical History of
Zachariah the Rhetor, who later became bishop of Mytilene and ended
up giving his name to the whole work. But Zachariah's
Ecclesiastical History, which forms books iii to vi of
Pseudo-Zachariah's work and covers the period from 451 to 491, is
just one of a range of sources cited by this later compiler. For
the period that follows, he turned to other well-informed sources,
which cover both church and secular affairs. His reporting of the
siege of Amida in 502-3 clearly derives from an eye-witness
account, while for the reign of the Emperor Justinian he offers not
only numerous documents, but also an independent narrative of the
Persian war, as well as notices on the Nika riot and events in the
West.
This translation (of books iii-xii) is the first into a modern
language since 1899 and is equipped with a detailed commentary and
introduction, along with contributions by two eminent Syriac
scholars, Sebastian Brock and Witold Witakowski.
Severos, patriarch of Antioch, was one of the most important
ecclesiastical figures of the first half of the sixth century, a
time when the reception, or not, of the Council of Chalcedon (451)
was still a matter of much dispute. As an opponent of the Council,
Severos had to flee from his patriarchal see to Egypt in 518 when
Justin came to the throne and imperial policy changed. Summoned by
Justinian to Constantinople in 536, he won over Anthimos, the
patriarch of Constantinople, but in the reaction to this unexpected
turn of events, both he and Anthimos were anathematised at a synod
in the capital and his writings were condemned to be burnt.
Regarded as a schismatic by the Greek and Latin Church, he is
commemorated as a saint in the Syrian Orthodox Church, and so it is
only in Syriac translations from Greek that the majority of his
voluminous writings are preserved. The first of the two biographies
translated in this volume was written by Zacharias, a fellow law
student in Beirut. The purpose of the work was to counter a hostile
pamphlet and it happens to shed fascinating light on student life
at the time; composed during Severos' own lifetime, it covers up to
his election as patriarch in 512; the second biography comprises
Severos' whole life, and its author, writing only shortly after
Severos' death in 538, was probably a monk of the monastery of
Qenneshre, on the Euphrates, a stronghold of Severos' supporters.
In this volume for the Translated Texts for Historians series, the
Anonymous Life of Severos is translated for the first time into
English alongside a fully annotated translation of the Life of
Severos by Zacharias scholastikos, all of which is preceded by an
introduction providing the historical setting and background.
The Sinai peninsula emerged in late antiquity as a distinct region
of the Christian holy land, identified from the fourth century
onward as the Old Testament place where the Hebrews had wandered,
Moses received the Law, and 'God's Majesty descended'. At the same
time it was part of the late Roman province of Third Palestine and
located deep in the heart of 'Saracen Country'. The historical
essay and accompanying texts in this book enable readers to explore
the particular ideals and dangers associated with this remote
political and religious frontier.
At its core are three Greek narratives previously unavailable in
English: Pseudo-Nilus' Narrations, Ammonius' Report Concerning the
Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and Rhaithou, and Anastasius' Tales
of the Sinai Fathers. Long known to historians, these narratives,
all written c. 400-650, have long been used to reconstruct
pilgrimage, monasticism, and Roman-Saracen relations in this area.
However, each poses challenging questions of date, origin, and
interpretation. In particular, Pseudo-Nilus' Narrations represents
an innovative blend of Greco-Roman (Achilles Tatius), Jewish
(Fourth Maccabees) and Christian (Gregory Nazianzene) models,
standing out as the last great example of ancient romance. Detailed
introductions and commentaries highlight unusual features and
shared problems of each text.
Readers will also find a comprehensive collection of travel
accounts and other documents written on or about the late antique
Sinai. Intended for specialists and students alike, this book makes
an original contribution to the understanding of these texts and
their place in the late antique development of the Sinai.
This fourth collection by Sebastian Brock focuses on three areas:
the christology of the Church of the East, the distinctive
phraseology of the invocations to the Holy Spirit in the Syriac
liturgical tradition, and two important early Commentaries on the
Liturgy. The inclusion of the Church of the East into ecumenical
dialogue in recent years has stimulated a renewed study of its
christology, which has often been badly misunderstood. A close
study of the formative texts of the fifth to seventh centuries
indicates that the traditional characterisation of this Church as
'Nestorian' is not only unsatisfactory, but also thoroughly
misleading. There follows a series of studies of the wording of the
many invocations to the Holy Spirit to be found in Syriac
liturgical texts. These bring to light a number of intriguing
features, some of which can be traced back to the Jewish roots of
one strand of early Syriac Christianity. Syriac also preserves one
of the earliest Commentaries on the Liturgy; dating from the fifth
century, it proved influential in all three Syriac liturgical
traditions, and was even translated into Sogdian. This short text,
and another longer work by Gabriel of Qatar (fl. c. 600), are
introduced and translated in full.
It is often forgotten that many people in Late Antique Syria were
bilingual in Syriac and Greek. The 16 articles in this volume
explore different aspects of the interaction between these two
literary cultures, exemplified in the works of two of the greatest
Christian poets and hymnographers of the period: Ephrem the Syrian
and Romanos the Melode. Among the topics covered are the legend of
King Abgar and the origins of Christianity in Edessa, Syriac texts
on the finding of the Cross, translations from Syriac into Greek
and Greek into Syriac (with specific studies on the Aristotle
commentary tradition and Hunayn's translation of Hippocrates'
Aphorisms). The volume concludes with the case of a distinctive
topos employed by Greek and Latin scribes, but whose earliest and
latest attestations are to be found in colophons of Syriac
manuscripts.
The Chronicle attributed to Zachariah of Mytilene is one of the
most important sources for the history of the church from the
Council of Chalcedon in 451 to the early years of the reign of
Justinian (527-565). The author who compiled the work in Syriac in
A.D. 568/9 drew extensively on the Ecclesiastical History of
Zachariah the Rhetor, who later became bishop of Mytilene and ended
up giving his name to the whole work. But Zachariah's
Ecclesiastical History, which forms books iii to vi of
Pseudo-Zachariah's work and covers the period from 451 to 491, is
just one of a range of sources cited by this later compiler. For
the period that follows, he turned to other well-informed sources,
which cover both church and secular affairs. His reporting of the
siege of Amida in 502-3 clearly derives from an eye-witness
account, while for the reign of the Emperor Justinian he offers not
only numerous documents, but also an independent narrative of the
Persian war, as well as notices on the Nika riot and events in the
West. This translation (of books iii-xii) is the first into a
modern language since 1899 and is equipped with a detailed
commentary and introduction, along with contributions by two
eminent Syriac scholars, Sebastian Brock and Witold Witakowski.
Severos, patriarch of Antioch, was one of the most important
ecclesiastical figures of the first half of the sixth century, a
time when the reception, or not, of the Council of Chalcedon (451)
was still a matter of much dispute. As an opponent of the Council,
Severos had to flee from his patriarchal see to Egypt in 518 when
Justin came to the throne and imperial policy changed. Summoned by
Justinian to Constantinople in 536, he won over Anthimos, the
patriarch of Constantinople, but in the reaction to this unexpected
turn of events, both he and Anthimos were anathematised at a synod
in the capital and his writings were condemned to be burnt.
Regarded as a schismatic by the Greek and Latin Church, he is
commemorated as a saint in the Syrian Orthodox Church, and so it is
only in Syriac translations from Greek that the majority of his
voluminous writings are preserved. The first of the two biographies
translated in this volume was written by Zacharias, a fellow law
student in Beirut. The purpose of the work was to counter a hostile
pamphlet and it happens to shed fascinating light on student life
at the time; composed during Severos' own lifetime, it covers up to
his election as patriarch in 512; the second biography comprises
Severos' whole life, and its author, writing only shortly after
Severos' death in 538, was probably a monk of the monastery of
Qenneshre, on the Euphrates, a stronghold of Severos' supporters.
In this volume for the Translated Texts for Historians series, the
Anonymous Life of Severos is translated for the first time into
English alongside a fully annotated translation of the Life of
Severos by Zacharias scholastikos, all of which is preceded by an
introduction providing the historical setting and background.
This collection explores how the body became a touchstone for late
antique religious practice and imagination. When we read the
stories and testimonies of late ancient Christians, what different
types of bodies stand before us? How do we understand the range of
bodily experiences-solitary and social, private and public-that
clothed ancient Christians? How can bodily experience help us
explore matters of gender, religious identity, class, and
ethnicity? The Garb of Being investigates these questions through
stories from the Eastern Christian world of antiquity: monks and
martyrs, families and congregations, and textual bodies.
Contributors include S. Abrams Rebillard, T. Arentzen, S. P. Brock,
R. S. Falcasantos , C. M. Furey, S. H. Griffith, R. Krawiec, B.
McNary-Zak, J.-N. Mellon Saint-Laurent, C. T. Schroeder, A. P.
Urbano, F. M. Young
The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (GEDSH)
is the first major encyclopedia-type reference work devoted
exclusively to Syriac Christianity, both as a field of scholarly
inquiry and as the inheritance of Syriac Christians today. In more
than 600 entries it covers the Syriac heritage from its beginnings
in the first centuries of the Common Era up to the present day.
Special attention is given to authors, literary works, scholars,
and locations that are associated with the Classical Syriac
tradition. Within this tradition, the diversity of Syriac
Christianity is highlighted as well as Syriac Christianity's
broader literary and historical contexts, with major entries
devoted to Greek and Arabic authors and more general themes, such
as Syriac Christianity's contacts with Judaism and Islam, and with
Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Georgian Christianities.
Sebastian Brock is Reader in Syriac Studies in the University of
Oxford, where he is also a Fellow of Wolfson College. He has
written extensively on Syriac subjects and served on the
translation panel which produced The Psalms: A New Translation for
Worship (1977). He is a member of the Editorial Board of
Sobornost/Eastern Churches Review, and is curator of the Mingana
Collection of Manuscripts at the Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham.
Before taking up his present position, Dr. Brock taught in the
Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham and in the
Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Cambridge.
From the semitic-aramaic spirituality of the early Church to the
Hellenized theological Vision of later centuries, the Syrian
tradition offers modern Christians an intensity, insights, and an
immediacy rare in the West.
A fitting contribution to Gorgias Liturgical Studies, Sebastian
Brock's The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition is a
sensitive and evocative treatment of an issue key to any liturgical
tradition-that of the role of the Holy Spirit in worship. With a
keen awareness of the tradition of Syrian Christianity, Brock
begins his exploration with the concept and the role of the Holy
Spirit in the Syriac Bible, symbols of the Spirit, the sources used
to glean this information, and how it ties in with the Eucharist
and Pentecost, as well as baptism itself and the subsequent
practice of anointing.
What was Joseph's reaction when he arrived home to find Mary
pregnant? How did Mary manage to persuade him that her child was
none other than the Son of God? The Syriac literary tradition had a
unique way of answering these sorts of questions raised by the
Bible. Dialogue poems (sughyotho) offer lively, thought-provoking,
and often delightful re-imaginings of Biblical events. They expand
the Biblical stories, giving the familiar characters more dialogue
and describing their inner thoughts. The collection provides five
dialogue poems featuring Mary, in Syriac original with facing
English translation.
This is an introduction, written in Syriac, to the Syriac versions
of the Bible, with chapters on the manuscript tradition, the main
editions, commentaries, and various aspects of the ways the Bible
was interpreted and used in the Syriac literary and liturgical
tradition. Originally written for a Syriac Studies course at the St
Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI), in Kottayam, India,
this new edition has been brought up to date and the bibliography
expanded.
The British Library possesses one of the most important collections
of Syriac manuscripts in the world, with large numbers dating back
to the second half of the first millennium CE. The publication of
important Syriac texts from these manuscripts has been going on for
some 180 years and still continues. The aim of the present volume
is to provide a guide to these scattered publications: following
the sequence of the shelf-marks (call numbers), for each manuscript
indication is given of what texts have been published from it. For
convenience, a concordance between Wright's Catalogue numbers and
shelf-marks is provided, along with a list of palimpsests and of
joins with manuscripts in other libraries, in particular with those
still in the Library of Dayr al-Surian in Egypt, the monastery
which was the source of over 500 manuscripts and fragments
purchased by the British Museum in the mid nineteenth century.
Although the verse homilies of Jacob of Serugh are well known to
lovers of Syriac literature, his stanzaic poetry, in the form of
madroshe and sughyotho, have been largely forgotten. This volume
contains twenty-five poems preserved in their complete form and
attributed to Jacob in old manuscripts of the sixth/seventh to
ninth/tenth century preserved today in the British Library, but
largely originating from Deir al-Surian in Egypt.
As the first volume of the Sebastianyotho series, this book
collects Sebastian P. Brock's articles related to Ephrem the
Syrian. The articles cover a wide array of topics, including a
biographical overview of the saint, an exposition of St. Ephrem's
importance for Christianity today and his relevance as a
theologian, an analysis of some of his works, and a bibliographic
guide to editions of these works. While most of the articles were
previously published, many are updated and some are published in
English for the first time.
The first ever critical edition and complete translation of the
Syriac Life of Saint Simeon of the Olives, who was an abbot of
Qartmin Monastery in Tur Abdin and a bishop of the city of Harran
in the late seventh and early eighth century AD.
This Introduction aims to provide basic guidance to important areas
of Syriac studies. The relevance of Syriac studies to a variety of
other fields is explored. A brief orientation to the history of
Syriac literature is offered, and Syriac is set within the context
of the other Aramaic dialects. A thorough discussion on important
tools (Instrumenta Studiorum) is presented; topics include
grammars, dictionaries, the Bible in Syriac, histories of Syriac
literature, bibliographical aids and relevant series, periodicals,
and encyclopedias. This Introduction should prove useful both for
the student beginning Syriac studies and for scholars working in
adjacent fields.
The Pocket Dictionary is both a convenient academic resource and a
door into the world of Modern Literary Syriac. With 13,000 entries
drawn from the major existing works, it is a practical tool for all
but the most specialized Classical Syriac texts.
Five homilies by Jacob of Sarug on women whom Jesus met: the
Canaanite Woman, the Samaritan Woman, the Hemorrhaging Woman, the
Woman Bent Double, and Jairus' Daughter.
The Martyrs of Mount Ber'ain is the poignant tale of three noble
Iranian siblings who are martyred under Shapur II. Composed in the
seventh century, it demonstrates enduring concerns of Christian
self-definition in Iran, especially with respect to the Zoroastrian
priesthood.
The fame of the martyr St. Phokas, first bishop of Sinope (on the
Black Sea) and patron of seafarers, had spread to many parts of the
Christian world by the fifth and sixth centuries. Although the Acts
of his martyrdom under Trajan were composed in Greek, the earliest
witness to them is the Syriac translation which is edited and
translated here from two early manuscripts.
In the present volume, Sebastian Brock provides an introduction and
overview of the unique themes and features of spirituality in the
Syriac tradition and includes excerpts from various texts
throughout the Syriac tradition that exhibit these features.
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