Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies

The “Book of Wardā” is a collection of hymns used for the liturgical year. The majority of the hymns are attributed to Gīwargīs Wardā; other hymns belong to different authors beside anonymous ones. This study focuses on the historical and theological aspects of Gīwargīs Wardā’s poetry. Historical events can be traced in some of his hymns, especially those that occurred during the invasion of the Mongols. He describes the situation of his people in particular and of the country in general, which shows a lot of similarity in feelings and thoughts with other Muslim poets who were also witnessing the same catastrophes in Iraq. As for his theological views, it is known that Gīwargīs Wardā was condemned in the Synod of Diamper in 1599 for his “Nestorianism”. This study is an attempt to analyze the Christological views found in the Book of Wardā. Surprisingly, he does not use the famous formula known as “Nestorian” which is: “Two natures, two qnōmē in one person”, for him it is enough to say: Two natures in one person. But we cannot judge him as a systematic theologian since he is a creative poet, and he uses the theological terms freely, not being too strict with the meaning. The beauty of his poetry comes out when he creatively gives unusual epithets for Christ, such as “Death of the death”, “Son of Mortality,” and “The Temple of the Trinity”. Besides this, when one reads his hymns, the musical combinations of the words and the simplicity of the meanings can be felt, and this makes one wonder whether the poet had a certain knowledge of music. This study is also an encouragement to revive many of his hymns hitherto left aside while few of them are found in the liturgical book, the Ḥūḏrā, used in the Ancient Church of the East, in the Assyrian Church of the East, and in the Chaldean Church.

Pourquoi Isaac de Ninive ? Et pourquoi le thème du combat chez lui aujourd’hui ? Avec Isaac et grâce à l’expérience qu’il avait vécue, nous pouvons apprendre à renouveler en nous le courage, la persévérance, la foi et l’espérance en fixant nos yeux sur la victoire réalisée par le Christ notre Sauveur et notre Vainqueur. La victoire, en effet, est promise à ceux qui persévèrent dans la lutte, en s’abandonnant à la Divine Providence. Voilà comment il explique cela à ses disciples : « Qu’y a-t-il de plus faible qu’une goutte d’eau ? Et cependant, par la durée et la constance, cette goutte est en mesure de percer une pierre et de fissurer profondément de durs rochers. Il en va de même pour l’ouvrage ascétique lorsque celui-ci est constant ; même s’il semble insignifiant : grâce à son assiduité, il fait accroître un immense trésor » (II/ 1, 29.). Les écrits d’Isaac sont une véritable source à laquelle nous pouvons recourir pour étancher notre soif, aussi bien humaine que spirituelle. Ses écrits peuvent nous donner la force de résister dans la foi, l’espérance et la charité. Pour Isaac, il y a un temps pour se battre, un temps pour se défendre et un autre pour échapper. Alors avec lui, nous apprenons ce qu’est le combat spirituel et comment nous pouvons combattre en apprenant toutes les stratégies et les techniques de la lutte spirituelle. Nous avons essayé de donner par la figure d’Isaac un remède efficace aux problèmes de notre monde qui est assujetti aux nouvelles technologies, au bruit, à la consommation, à la guerre, à l'égoïsme, etc. Remède composé d’armes avec lesquelles nous pouvons construire et ne jamais détruire, surtout avec l’arme de la miséricorde. À travers ce livre, nous avons noté que les problèmes de l’homme du troisième millénaire ne sont pas seulement sociaux, économiques, politiques et psychologiques, mais aussi spirituels. Un extrait de ses discours pourrait être suffisant pour comprendre l’essentiel de toute sa pensée sur le combat spirituel : « Pourquoi nous avons abandonné la source (la fontaine) de la vie et la mère de la connaissance, et nous nous sommes laissé égarer par ce qui est terrestre et par les choses qui sont pour nous, chez nous et parmi nous, et nous sommes jetés jour et nuit en des batailles, des luttes et des combats avec les pensées, les passions, les souvenirs et leurs provocations. Alors que nous avons la possibilité (l’opportunité, la circonstance ou l’occasion) de ne pas lutter, dans le fait de passer vers Dieu » (II/ 10, 26).

This book explores the somatic hymns – Mälkəʿ – addressed to saints of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Churches, their origin and development, and transmission and use in the present day. This vast and hitherto untapped collection of hymns are an important source for an accurate understanding of the Church’s spirituality and liturgy.

Questions concerning sacred spaces and their relationship to ritual is of interest to historians of religion and others as well. How sacred spaces emerge and are constructed and what relationship they have to rituals are some of the areas that are dealt with in this study in relation to Syriac Orthodox liturgy. The purpose of this study is to create a better understanding of how the Sedrō of Entrance has been practiced in earlier periods and architectural contexts and to investigate what role the entrance rite may have had in constructing the sanctuary as sacred space and the worshipping community as church. The Sedrō of Entrance is a prayer employed during the rite of entrance into the altar in Syriac Orthodox Eucharistic liturgy. This study uses ritual theory to frame the rite of entrance and studies the intersection of ritual text, action and place. Two research questions are addressed: a) How is the rite of entrance into the altar, in the Syriac Orthodox liturgy, performed during the 9th-13th centuries? b) How does the rite of entrance construct the sanctuary as sacred space and the worshipping community as church? The study builds on historical material, manuscripts from the 9th to the 13th centuries, architecture, and other historical textual material. The rite of entrance is framed with ritual theory. Theological analysis is also used to support the ritual theory. The themes of the dissertation include, among others, the relationship between ritual process, ritual place, and the ritual body. It also explores the role of language in the ritual process.

A collection of papers dedicated to Prof. Rifaat Ebied in recognition of his seminal contributions to Semitic Studies. The broad range of topics, covering Christian-Muslim relations, Biblical studies (Old and New Testament), Syriac, Mandaic and the Christians of Iraq reflects his input either by way of scholarly publications or by his supervision of doctoral students and opening of new fields.

In the present work, De Syrorum Orientalium Erroribus, Auctore P. Francisco Ros S.I.: A Latin-Syriac Treatise from Early Modern Malabar (1586), Antony Mecherry S.J. brings to the fore a recently identified sixteenth-century treatise on ‘Nestorianism’ written by Francisco Ros S.J. (1559–1624), a Catalonian from the Jesuit province of Aragón, who successfully promoted the mission praxis of accommodatio primarilyamong the Saint Thomas Christians of early modern Malabar in South India. This newly discovered first treatise composed by Ros, a Latin missionary, represents the initial phase of his mission as a polemicist in the making, who read the Syriac sources of the Church of the East found in Malabar, through a Catholic theological lens. In addition to exploring the underlying conflicts emerged out of an unprecedented encounter of apparently unlike theological and liturgical identities in the same mission field of early modern India, this book provides the readers with a historiographical critique against the backdrop of which the author presents his analysis of the Rosian treatise.

This book collects systematically all the personal names found in Old Syriac sources in such a way as to enable them to be dealt with from a structural and lexical point of view and compared with other corpora of Aramaic personal names as well as Hebrew and Arabic names. As far as possible, the personal names of the new finds of unpublished inscriptions discovered recently are included. Thus, this study covers all the personal names which are found in the Syriac corpus so far. The book fills a significant gap in scholarship, since there are dedicated works on Palmyrene, Hatran and Nabataean personal names, but no such work exists for early Syriac (i.e. pre-Christian Syriac) personal names.

Beth Qaṭraye, Syriac for “region of the Qataris,” is a term found in Syriac literature referring to the region of north-eastern Arabia, including modern-day Qatar and Bahrain, from the fourth to the ninth centuries. Beth Qaṭraye was an important cultural, linguistic and religious crossroads in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period, when it produced a number of important East-Syriac authors. Scholarship has so far only focused on these Syriac authors and their writings rather than other aspects of Beth Qaṭraye. This volume presents and analyzes information on the pre-Islamic and early Islamic historical geography and toponyms of the Beth Qaṭraye region as well as newly discovered vocabulary from a language referred to as Qaṭrāyīth (“in Qatari”) used by its inhabitants. Based on analysis of this new data, Mario Kozah argues that Qaṭrāyīth is in fact a local Arabic dialect transliterated using Syriac letters. Thus, Qaṭrāyīth consists mostly of Arabic vocabulary (as well as a few Syriac and Pahlavi loanwords), and maintains mainly Arabic with some Syriac grammatical structures and lexical influence. As such, it constitutes the oldest documented Arabic vernacular from the seventh-century Arabian Peninsula, revealing a language in rapid transformation. The volume also includes a special chapter on the islands of the Gulf region according to Muslim sources by Saif Al-Murikhi and a unique reconstruction of the lexicon of Ḥenanishoʿ bar Seroshway (ca. 900) by George Kiraz.

The year 652 marked a fundamental political change in the Middle East and the surrounding region. On this date the Sasanid Empire collapsed and the major part of the Byzantine dominion in the East was lost to the hands of Muslim Arabs. The conquests of the Arabs were followed by deep cultural, social and religious changes that affected the life of the populations in the seized territories. An important and contemporary source of the state of the Christian Church at this time is to be found in the correspondence of the patriarch of the Church of the East, Išū‘yahb III (649–659), which he wrote between 628 and 658. This books discusses Išū‘yahb’s view of and attitudes toward the Muslim Arabs. Although his view of the Muslim Arabs has been a subject of discussion by many scholars, there are still questions to be clarified about his attitudes towards the Muslim Arabs, especially with regard to the chronological development of his views, the issue of the dating of his letters and their chronological arrangement, as well as the identification of literary sources that he relied upon in portraying the Muslim Arabs.

This book investigates the formation of the Jewish cultural profile of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church (EOTC), arguing that it was formed after the sixth century CE through gradual and complex socio-politico-cultural processes, which spanned many centuries. To this end, it employs historical and literary evidence to (re)examine the religious profile of the pre- and post- fourth century CE Aksumite kingdom, and probes the robust cultural developments of the empire in the sixth century in order to highlight the existence of a ‘Jewish/Judaeo-Christian’ identity. Aksum’s relationship with Jews across the Red Sea and its potential impact on the later development of Ethiopia’s Jewish culture is examined, particularly during the Zagʷe era, for which scant but important historical evidence is provided. Afework demonstrates that the impact of indigenous culture, coupled with the steady growth of a ‘Judaic’ heritage of the church, beginning in the sixth century, was accompanied by the emergence of an ‘Israelite’ and ‘Solomonic’ ethos. The translation of some of the works of ‘Church Fathers’ in and after the fourteenth century further augmented this impact. The Jewish cultural heritage, particularly, was fully developed and shaped during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is epitomised by the series of debates about the place of Sabbath and the further theologising and contextualising efforts regarding the ‘Judaic’ elements of the EOTC.

This book examines the function and development of the cult of saints in Coptic Egypt, focusing primarily on the material provided by the texts forming the Coptic hagiographical tradition of the early Christian martyr Philotheus of Antioch, and more specifically, the Martyrdom of St Philotheus of Antioch (Pierpont Morgan M583). This Martyrdom is a reflection of a once flourishing cult which is attested in Egypt by rich textual and material evidence. This text enjoyed great popularity not only in Egypt, but also in other countries of the Christian East, since his dossier includes texts in Coptic, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Arabic.

Cyriacus of Tagrit was patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch between 793 and 817 under the Abbasid Caliphate, a turbulent and divided period in the history of his church in the Middle East. This work, for the first time, collects together and provides a critical edition and annotated English translation of all of his extant and accessible writings. The book focuses on his major composition, The Book on Divine Providence.

Cyriacus of Tagrit was patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch between 793 and 817 under the Abbasid Caliphate, a turbulent and divided period in the history of his church in the Middle East. This work, for the first time, collects together and provides a critical edition and annotated English translation of all of his extant and accessible writings. The book focuses on his major composition, The Book on Divine Providence.

The Syriac Orthodox Church experienced a revival of writing and theological insight during the 11th – 13th centuries known as the Syriac Renaissance. Authors like Bar ʿEbroyo, Michael I Rabo (Michael the Great) and Dionysios Bar Salibi authored their own original works and translated Greek and Arabic writings into Syriac. However, then as now, grand ecclesiastical plans sometimes fell short of real life application. This time period was also a significant one in secular history, with Crusaders, Muslims, and Mongol khans battling for control of the Middle East. After scouring the available Syriac chronicles from the Syriac Renaissance, Peter Kawerau has summarized both the stated ideals and lived realities of ecclesiastic structures and interactions between Syriac-speaking Christians and their neighbors of other traditions and faiths. Most of the information here comes from Bar ʿEbroyo's and Michael I Rabo's chronicles, although other sources are referenced as well. Peter Kawerau (1915–1988) was a German scholar of church history, focusing on the eastern churches. He studied theology at the Universities of Wroclaw and Berlin. In 1949, after World War II, he earned his doctorate at the University of Göttingen, with this book being a version of his dissertation. He did his Habilitationsschrift in 1956 at Münster. He would go on to teach at the University of Marburg where he founded the Ostkirchen Institut. His corpus includes works on Protestant, Syriac, African, and Byzantine church history. This work was part of his Habilitationsschrift and originally published in 1955 with an updated edition in 1960. This translation, based on the 1960 edition, updates some of the language used and makes this work available to English speaking students, scholars, and interested laity.

This is the first English translation of the two apologetic works by the 9th-century East Syrian theologian ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī. The Book of the Proof and The Book of Questions and Answers were written to defend Christian beliefs in the face of Muslim criticism. ʿAmmār's defense of the authenticity of the gospels, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the Incarnation, the death of Christ by crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ, and the nature of the afterlife, formed the first systematic theology in Arabic written in dialogue with Muslim thinkers of his time. This English translation should enable global readers to appreciate the depth of engagement of this virtually unknown theologian with his Islamic context, and to provide them with assistance in relating to the concerns that Muslims have today with Christian beliefs and practices.

ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī (d.c. 850) was the first Christian to write a systematic theology in Arabic, the language of the Muslim rulers of ʿAmmār’s Middle East. This study of his two works that were only discovered in the 1970’s seeks to analyse the way he defends Christian beliefs from criticism by Muslims over the authenticity of the Gospels, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the Incarnation, the death of Christ by crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ, and the nature of the afterlife. ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī wrote his theology in dialogue with Muslim thinkers of his time and his work offers guidance to Christians in today’s world who live in Islamic contexts in how to relate Christian convictions to a Muslim audience.

The theotokias are prayers dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God (Theotokos). In the early fourteenth century, the Patriarch of the Coptic Church, Ibn Qiddis, composed and paraphrased – in Coptic – the Theotokias. His work has only survived in a single manuscript. This book introduces the author, John Ibn Qiddis, his liturgical, pastoral, and literary activities, and the Coptic language of his time, followed by the texts and an English translation.

Moshe Bar Kepha was a prolific writer of the ninth century. His writings reflect various aspects of West Syriac theology, ecclesiology, and apology. His literary legacy links the earlier Syriac exegetical tradition (beginning with Ephrem) with the Syriac 'Renaissance' of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. His use of sources crosses Christian confessional boundaries in such a way that his works are tinged with aspects of Syriac exegesis from both East and West Syriac traditions. Moshe Bar Kepha is the first Syriac exegete to comment on every verse of the Gospel rather than treating one episode after another. In his Commentary on Luke, the Muslim-dominated context in which Moshe lived is clearly evident in the background, and his aim is to fortify the credibility of the Christian faith and the validity of Christian doctrines for his readers. Along with the Commentary’s rich apologetic content, the text is a gold mine, preserving earlier Syriac patristic interpretations from the fourth century onward.

Is monastic profession in the West-Syriac tradition a “second baptism”? A relationship clearly exists between the two rites of initiation in the West-Syriac tradition: the monastic profession and baptism. Aydin examines these two rites of initiation, comparing their external structures, common imagery and theological themes, and reveals that the monastic rite closely parallels, or even is modeled upon, that of baptism. Mor Polycarpus Edip Aydin explores the idea of monastic profession as a “second baptism,” or rather, the realization of what the gift of the Spirit at baptism really implies. An extensive Appendix contains Syriac texts with English translations pertaining to the Syriac rite of monastic profession, with relevant commentaries by Syriac Fathers from the 6th to the 10th centuries.

A long-awaited and essential tool for the study of one of the earliest texts of the Christian Apocrypha and an important text in Syriac literature, theology, and history.

The book addresses the history of Syrian Orthodoxy during a critical juncture of its history that spans the late Ottoman period and treads well beyond to witness remarkable revival, indeed renaissance. The work uniquely utilizes over 6000 uncatalogued and unpublished archival documents that were made available for it.

Cyrillona (fl. 396) was a younger contemporary of Ephrem the Syrian whose work has been celebrated as comparable in both beauty and its significance for our understanding of early Syriac Christianity. This study reassesses conventional claims about the author’s identity, date, and the constitution of his corpus. It introduces each of Cyrillona’s five surviving poems and examines their poetic form and genre, structure and rhetorical features, and critical questions of text, interpretation, and theology.

This volume offers an array of theological and sociological studies on Family, Love, and Marriage in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. As new ways of understanding these institutions and concepts emerge in a modern society, this compilation sponsored by the Sophia Institute of Eastern Orthodox Studies incorporates a revisiting of biblical and Patristic understandings as they are received in the wider Orthodox Christian perspective.

A detailed study of a cycle of fourth-century liturgical poems, in Syriac, dedicated to a great pioneer of the Syriac ascetical tradition. Hayes analyzes its various portraits of the saint, shaded differently by Ephrem and his later imitators.

The Ecclesiastical History of Bar Hebraeus is an important source for the history of the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East. It deserves to be widely read, but has never before been fully translated into English. David Wilmshurst, a noted historian of the Church of the East, has now provided a graceful and accurate English translation of the Ecclesiastical History, with the aim of winning this important text the readership it deserves. Wilmshurst's elegant translation is complemented by a well-informed and helpful introduction, several pages of maps and a comprehensive index of places and persons.

The Syriac writers of Qatar have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This anthology seeks to redress such an underdevelopment by providing new material in English translation with accompanying Syriac and Garshuni editions to encourage further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies. It includes the work of some of the most prominent scholars in this field.

The book presents a full documentation of the Old Uigur texts of the Church of the East known from several places of Central Asia, mainly Bulayık and Kurutka in the Turfan oasis, as well as Xaraxoto, from the 10th to 14th century.

Studies in Eastern Orthodox monastic life and culture. Part 1 is devoted to New Testament, Patristic, and Byzantine foundations of eastern monastic theory, and Part 2 is comprised of contemporary reflections on Orthodox monastic life.

The Syriac writers of Qatar themselves produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century, but they have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This volume seeks to redress this underdevelopment by setting the standard for further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.

Severus of Antioch is by far the most prolific and well known theologian of the non-Chalcedonian churches. Although his life and writings came to our knowledge in Syriac, gaining him the title “Crown of the Syriac Literature,” many texts relating to his life and works survived in the Coptic and Copto-Arabic tradition, as well as a number of other texts that were traditionally attributed to him. This book provides an analysis of these texts as well as a discussion of the veneration of Severus of Antioch in the Coptic Church.

At the request of Diodorus, bishop of Tyre, Epiphanius of Salamis produced this exegetical treatise on the gemstones in the High Priest's breastplate. The oldest Christian work on gemstones, the the author deals with the stones according to their appearance and their medical benefit as well as their attribution to the twelve tribes based on Christian exegesis. Only extracts of this work are preserved in Greek. This volume provides the important – but hereto unconsidered – Armenian text with a German translation and commentarial annotations, as well as an English introduction.

In this volume, a reprint of his 1966 monograph, H. J. W. Drijvers investigates the life and teachings of Bardaisan of Edessa, determining his place in the religious and cultural life of Edessa in the second half of the second century of the common era.

This volume contains papers from the First International Congress on Eastern Christianity held in Córdoba, Spain, November 2005. The encounter of medieval Christian writers with several linguistic traditions through the Middle Ages produced one of the most important branches of Middle Eastern literature. This encounter not only changed the nature of the respective writings throughout time, but also influenced considerably the development of the legacies transmitted by the writers and the scholars of various Eastern Christian churches.

Despite having been written over a century ago, the 3rd edition of Rubens Duval's History of Syriac Literature remains one of the best - and most readable - introductions to Syriac literature. This edition provides the first English translation of the work, translated by Olivier Holmey.

An extensive account of the life and works of Barhebraeus based on the latest research. It includes an appendix containing a comprehensive list of bibliographical references and manuscripts relating to Barhebraeus.

Kassia the Nun offers a unique glimpse into ninth-century Byzantium in the only woman whose works were included in the corpus of liturgical hymns. This volume explores Kassia’s thought on Christology, on gender, and on monasticism itself. It provides readers with an opportunity to know this woman of remarkable intellect, wit, and piety by drawing primarily on her own words. Kassia’s is one of the only female voices from ninth-century Byzantium and this volume accordingly examines her reflections on gender in the context of her society and concludes that she represents a perspective that might be described as feminist.

A sensitive and evocative treatment 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 role of the Holy Spirit in the Syriac Bible. A striking aspect of this tradition is the imagery used for the Spirit, including: compassionate mother, fire, olive oil, as well as the more common image of dove. Brock also summarizes commentaries and other literature on the baptismal rite, touching on Syriac literature and works translated from the Greek.

This volume provides an analysis of a late fifteenth century document, a hitherto unpublished narration of the life and accomplishments of Yūḥanun Bar Šay Allāh, a fifteenth-century Syriac Orthodox Patriarch. It includes considerable unique historical information, shedding light on the history of the Syriac community in relation to other communities. It also supplies descriptions of events that brought important changes to the Syriac Church in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt.

The contributors have tried to reconstruct the mingling of two cultures, Greek and Italian, in sixteenth century Venice. This is examined through the medium of a single intricately carved wooden cross, executed by a Greek carver, with adaptations suitable to a member of the Latin church. We can identify the carver who made the cross and make some speculations about his life, and how he and his art are reflective of this hybrid culture. This type of cross seems to be for personal, rather than liturgical use, and it seems to be intended for private meditation on the Passion.

Saint Macarius the Egyptian’s (c. 300–390) virtue and spiritual exploits gave rise to various tales and sayings. These were recounted, some hundred years later, in hagiographical form, and were then disseminated in various languages of the Christian Orient, including Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Greek, and Georgian. This book presents a rare study of a text, taking into account its transmission in multiple languages, accompanied by newly re-edited Coptic and Syriac versions of the Life. This book also provides a commentary on the life of the “historical Macarius”, as well as the Life seen as a literary, hagiographical, work.

The authors present a detailed philological and linguistic comparison of two versions of The Prayer of Manasseh. Combing state-of-the-art computational tools together with traditional philology, the texts are compared at all linguistic levels, from their vocabulary up to their discursive structure, with a special emphasis on their morphology and syntax. The results are revealing not only for the question of the relationship between the two versions, but they also illuminate various debates pertaining to Syriac syntax.

This book is the second part of a comprehensive work of classification and identification of the Maronite manuscripts of Aleppo, offering the first detailed record and description of the 250 Arabic-Karshuni manuscripts. The material is helpfully categorized according to the area of particular concern to each work: Bible, Biblical Commentaries, Patristic works, Theology and Spirituality, Philosophy, Sciences and History, Controversies and Apologies, Councils and Law, Hagiographies, Synaxaries, Homilies and Rituals. The book includes also 100 images and full indices of titles, personal names, subjects and places.

Linked by a common geography and claim to the true religion, Christians and Muslims had a long history of interreligious discourse up to the Crusades. These faith communities composed texts in the form of dialogues in light of their encounters with one another. This book surveys the development of the genre and how dialogues determined he patterns of conversation. Each chapter highlights a thematic feature of the literary form, demonstrating that Christian and Muslim authors did not part ways in the first century of Islamic rule, but rather continued a dialogue commending God’s faithful believers.

A collection of studies on the Syriac sixth century writer Jacob of Sarug by a team of international scholars, including Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Sebastian P. Brock, Sharbil Iskandar Bcheiry, Khalid Dinno, Sidney Griffith, Mary Hansbury, Amir Harrak, George A. Kiraz, Edward Matthews, Aho Shemunkasho, and Lucas Van Rompay.

In the Ottoman Empire, Syriac communities kept their own baptismal books, marriage, funeral and other records and many of these can be found in various libraries, churches, monasteries in the West and East. The Syriac Garšūnī manuscript found in the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Mardin contains several lists of different subjects that go back to the late period of the Ottoman Empire. These lists, published here for the first time with annotations, are an important historical source for the social, economic, cultural and religious history of the Near East during the 19th century.

Among the earliest known sources from the Persian Church, the 4th-century Demonstrations of Aphrahat reflect a form of Christianity much closer to its Jewish roots than contemporary Western forms. Their mix of ascetic instruction, polemic against Judaism, and theological reflection provides an invaluable glimpse into this otherwise poorly documented period.

Jacob of Edessa was a seventh century polymath who witnessed the coming of Islam. In this collection of papers, specialists discuss the life and works of this figure with emphasis on the cultural landscape of the seventh century. Contributors include Sebastian P. Brock, Richard Price, Andreas Juckel, Alison Salvesen, Theresia Hainthaler, Amir Harrak, and Khalid Dinno.

The account of the Martyrs of Najran has hitherto been known only through the Greek and the Syriac textual tradition, but this book offers an analysis of the original Arabic account to provide information about the most important details, and for identifying the original text of the Arabic version. A comparative study of the contents and structure of the tragic events which took place in the South Arabian city of Najran as they were narrated in the Arabic recension contained in the MS Sinaitic Arabic 535.

The Bodleian Library in Oxford currently holds an unpublished historical document in Syriac containing precious historical information about the ordination of bishops, priests, monks, and deacons. Bcheiry gives the text and translation, and focuses on the importance of the data found in this historical list which he compares with other historical data found in other sources.

This monograph presents an unpublished historical resource in the form of a register of dues collected for the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate during the second half of the nineteenth century. Bcheiry provides the original text, an English translation, and an extensive socio-economic study.

This comprehensive study offers a critical, comparative analysis of the sources available on Bardaisan and a reinterpretation of his thought. The study highlights the profound points of contact between Bardaisan, Origen, and their schools; the role of Plato’s Timaeus and Middle Platonism in Bardaisan’s thought, and Stoicism. Bardaisan’s thought emerges as a deeply Christian one, depending on the exegesis of Scripture read in the light of Greek philosophy. Positive ancient sources present him as a deacon or even a presbyter, as an author of refutations of Marcionism and Gnosticism, and as a confessor of the faith during persecution.

The Malabar Independent Syrian Church is the smallest of the jurisdictions into which the St Thomas Christian community is divided today. It has, however, played a crucial role in the development of the Syrian Churches, whose stories can not be told without it. The present work shows how the bishops of this tiny, one-Diocese Church, now largely forgotten, once stood at the centre of the events that shaped the present ecclesiastical situation.

The main purpose of the book is to demonstrate that as early as the first phase of his activity (386-393 AD), Augustine did make use of some Origenian works, and that basic elements of his early theology were derived from the Alexandrian master.

This study provides an English translation of the texts for initiation in the Byzantine tradition, drawing on early manuscripts of the euchology and the typikon of the Great Church (Hagia Sophia). This includes texts for the enrollment of children in the rites of the eighth and fortieth days, catechesis and prayers during Lent, final preparations, including consecration of Chrism and the rites of apotaxis and syntaxis on Good Friday, Baptism at the Easter Vigil, postbaptismal rites and rites of closure, and provisions for the other baptismal feasts.

Twenty-four contributions on matters dealing with Byzantine and Oriental lands, people, and cultures through different perspectives, including history, maritime trade, documents, travelers, and art. These essays trace the history of the relations between the Greeks and the peoples of the Middle East from Late Antiquity up to the seventeenth century.

Origen’s construal of the Bible as a textual incarnation of the Word encourages an assimilationist interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures as a proto-Christian gospel. Although in partial agreement with this thesis, this study suggests a non-assimilationist reading of Origen’s biblical exegesis.

Iraq has been a centre of Syriac Christianity for almost two thousand years. This volume of collected papers from the Christianity in Iraq I-V Seminar Days (2004-2008) explores the Christian heritage of Iraq, highlighting the churches’ innate ability to transcend barriers of language, culture, ethnicity and religion.

Common Heritage, Divided Communion examines the various religious and secular events related to the Council of Chalcedon (451) and the so-called “Monophysite” schism. It includes a detailed overview and analysis of contemporary Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox ecumenical efforts to re-establish ecclesial communion.

This work explores the points of contact, as well as the differences between the distinct notions of divine embodiment developed by Maximos the Confessor (580-662), one of the greatest Greek Fathers, and Tsong kha pa (1357-1419), arguably the most important thinker in the history of Tibetan Buddhism. Both authors developed a spiritual theology where natural contemplation and the practice of the virtues are invested with a transformative value and are construed as a response to a cosmic intelligence, which sustains the universe, but also becomes manifest in history.

The observation that scholarly work on the Bible is of little use to theologians is the starting premise for this volume. As a possible solution to this impasse, the contributors explore the potential insights provided by a distinct tradition of biblical interpretation that has its roots in both the patristic School of Antioch and in the Syriac Fathers, such as Ephrem and Jacob of Sarug, and which has survived and developed in the Churches of the Antiochene Patrimony, such as the Maronite and Syriac.

A substantial Festschrift for Sebastian P. Brock, this volume contains 34 essays from a variety of scholars across the field of Syriac studies. The breadth of the submissions illustrates the multiplicity of approaches taken in contemporary Syriac studies, and while no overall limitations were set for the contributions, a lively interest in Jacob of Serug remains evident. No scholar in this discipline will want to miss this important collection that represents the latest in serious exploration of the world of Eastern Christianity in Late Antiquity.

The Maronite Library of Aleppo is one of the most important collections of manuscripts in Syria. This catalogue gives the first detailed description of the Syriac manuscripts, also containing images and indices of titles, personal names, subjects and places.

Gigineishvili’s study is a comprehensive exposition of the philosophical system of twelfth-century Georgian Christian Neoplatonist philosopher Ioane Petritsi. Petritsi translated and commented on Proclus’ "Elements of Theology." The translation needed the creation of a philosophic language—a medium for transmitting the extravagant philosophic ideas into Georgian—which Petritsi effectively achieved. Petritsi both explains intricacies of Proclus’ thought and tries to prove the basic affinity between the Platonic and the biblical traditions. Gigineishvili exposes the entire system of Petritsi’s thought on a background of ideas of Proclus, other Neoplatonists, and of the Church Fathers.

A popularly-written study of the biblical roots of the Eastern Orthodox Church’s mystical understanding of the knowledge of God. This unique study brings together the best of contemporary exegesis with the tradition of Eastern Christianity and illustrates the biblical roots of the Eastern Church's understanding of grace as the energy of God. The book presents, in lay terms, the shape for an Orthodox biblical theology for the 21st century and will be of interest to all Christians for whom the Bible is divine revelation and for whom tradition continues to be creative.