Syriac literature

Since the publication of the long-lost Gospel of Judas in 2006, there has been a flurry of interest in canonical and noncanonical traditions about the famous betrayer of Christ. One text overlooked in this excitement is the Legend of the Thirty Pieces of Silver (Leg. Silv.), which traces the transmission of the coins paid to betray Jesus from Terah’s gift of the coins to Abraham up to Judas’s purchase of the Field of Blood in Acts 1:18-19. Leg. Silv. was a very popular text in medieval times and appears in a number of languages and forms, including Latin, Syriac, and Armenian, along with several European languages: German, English, Italian, Spanish, and Catalan. To date, relatively little work has been done on this text; indeed, there has yet to appear a formal critical edition. This paper aims to address this neglect by presenting, for the first time, an edition of the Syriac branch of the tradition. The text is extant in at least eight Syriac manuscripts, another six in Garšūnī, and it is found also incorporated into the Book of the Bee by Solomon of Basra. The paper includes also an overview of previous scholarship on Leg. Silv. and a discussion of the text’s origins and transmission.

The book covers a very complex period of the apologetic doctrine of the Orthodox Church. In this concerne, our research direction trys to follow the historical and also the dogmatical background. We had in mind the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14, 6).

This is the introduction of my released book including all arabic editorials of the magazines Kawkab Madenho, Bethnahrin and Huyodo of Naum Faiq (1868-1930). All articles were transcripted from Garshuni (arabic in syriac letters) to Arabic.

The source of the articles are the magazines of Naum Faiq: Kawkab Madenho (1910-1912 - published in Diyarbakir)), Bethnahrin (1916-1930- published in NJ/USA) and Huyodo (1921-1922 - published in NY/USA).

These works document a crucial period in the modern Assyrian history. Many article deal with the ongoing genocide in Ottoman Turkey and the Peace Conference of Paris.

More about this topic on www.abboudzeitoune.com

The word χαλκολιβανον (chalcolibanon) in Revelation 1:15, describing the feet of a visionary presence, which appears nowhere else in classical literature, is usually explained as meaning “brass of Lebanon”. Since Lebanon has never been renowned for its brass or copper, this text, from a to-be-published restoration-translation of the Aramaic Revelation, proposes an alternate reading and translation of the phrase.

L’invenzione del dialogo raccoglie una serie di testi letterari cristiani in lingua siriaca, di un genere in cui questa letteratura si distinse ed eccelse: l’innografia e la poesia piegate a esporre temi e motivi teologici, esegetici e sapienziali. Gli scritti debitamente introdotti e commentati mostrano la varietà di forme e contenuti che questi conobbero: dalla riflessione filosofica e teologica di Efrem, al ricamo narrativo ed esegetico di dialoghi immaginari tra personaggi della Bibbia o dell’agiografia, da Caino e Abele o Giuseppe e la moglie di Potifar, a Giuseppe e Maria o la peccatrice e Satana, fino ai contraddittori che in età cristiana riprendono e reinventano un genere mesopotamico antico: quello della disputa, ad esempio tra anima e corpo, tra i mesi, tra l’oro e il grano.

Indice e preview: https://www.claudiana.it/scheda-libro/alessandro-mengozzi/linvenzione-del-dialogo-9788839409577-2152.html

The Arabic paraphrase of Enn 4.8.1 seems to conflate the noetic and transnoetic accounts found in the Plotinian corpus, in order to furnish a complete depiction of the mystical life. In its own account of the ascent of the soul, the Theology of Aristotle uses terms drawn from the vocabulary of Syriac Christian ascetical and mystical literature, and appears to be aware of certain debates between various types of pagan and Christian Neoplatonism. Moreover, its treatment of pagan philosophers follows an established Patristic topos. It appears, therefore, that the use of Christian elements in the Theology of Aristotle is not minimal and accidental, but rather purposeful, relatively numerous and substantial. The conclusions reached in this essay lend additional support to the so-called Himsī hypothesis, and to Cristina D'Ancona Costa's already richly substantiated thesis that the Neoplatonism of the Ps.-Areopagitica was an important factor in shaping the Arabic adoption and adaptation of Plotinus and Proclus.

MADRID RESUMEN Una parte de la Crítica Literaria moderna considera el Corán una obra literaria propia del contexto de la Antigüedad tardía. Estudia las interacciones entre las fuentes cristianas y el Corán para descubrir las huellas que la literatura bíblica, los himnos, las homilías y los apócrifos cristianos imprimieron en él. La relación que existe entre él y la literatura siriacas demuestra que el episodio de la caída del ángel en el que aparecen los motivos del fuego y la arcilla tiene su origen en el apócrifo siriaco de La cueva de los tesoros. SUMMARY The Koran is considered by a part of modern research as a literary work typical of the Late Antiquity context. The interactions between the Christian sources and the Koran are studied to discover the traces that the biblical literature, the hymns, the homilies and the Christian apocryphal literature left on the Koran. The connection between the Koran and the Syriac literature demonstrates that the episode of the fall of the angel in which the motifs of fire and clay appear has its origin in the Syriac apocryphal story The Cavern of Treasures.

Representations of the afterlife among Christians in Syria and Iraq during the Early Islamic period, based on the critical edition of the Apocalypse of Gregory of Edessa, PhD thesis (sup. Muriel Debié), EPHE (Paris), 2 vols, 813 p., 2021

Abstract: The Apocalypse of Gregory of Edessa is emblematic of the interest of monastic and clerical circles for the fate of the soul between death and the Last Judgment in the Islamicate World. Little known today, this vision of the judgment of souls, paradise and hell, attributed to the fictional ascetic Gregory of the mountain of Edessa, was widely copied and translated throughout the Middle Ages. The first volume of the dissertation contains the history of its transmission up to modern times and the critical edition of the Arabic version. The second volume contextualises the world of the dead’s representations in Syriac and Arabic Christian literature from the late 7th to the 10th century. Crisscrossed with iconographic, epigraphic and archaeological sources, this corpus allows to trace the evolution of doctrines related to afterlife.
Preserved in 57 Arabic manuscripts, the Apocalypse of Gregory was also translated into Ge’ez in Ethiopia in the 14th century and into Syriac in Kerala (India) in the 17th century. From a literary point of view, the text reuses the Late Antique genre of the personal apocalypse, in the vein of the Apocalypse of Paul, and participates more broadly in various trends in Islamic and Middle Byzantine literature. Linked to the cycle of Lent readings, its pastoral function certainly explains its popularity. The text prescribes a series of behaviours by describing the retributions of the righteous and the punishments of sinners. The hereafter functions as an idealised projection of the earthly world: terrestrial injustices are compensated by divine justice in paradise, monopolised by Christians.
The attention given to the soul’s fate in the Apocalypse of Gregory finds an echo in the theological production of a period known as the “formation” of Islam (2nd-4th centuries AH / 8th-10th centuries AD). The advent of Islam and the intellectual emulation of the first Abbasid century pushed the ecclesiastical authorities to (re)-formulate and formalise their dogmas. From the end of the 8th century, the definition of the soul’s fate after death becomes a denominational marker: while the Church of the East advocates the doctrine of the soul sleep, the Syrian Orthodox Church defends the idea that the soul retains its consciousness after death. The doctrine of soul consciousness is used to promote funeral rites and practices related to the cult of the dead, such as commemoration and pro anima donations. The authors mobilise translations of Greek-language patristic literature, the legacy of their scholastic tradition, and philosophy developments in Iraqi scholarly circles.
This intellectual dynamism can be seen in another discourse directed against Islamic eschatology. Christian authors contrast the “spirituality” of Christian paradise with the “sensuality” of the paradise of Muslims, described as essentially carnal and materialistic. From Syro-Arabic historiography, this polemical topos will pass to Byzantium and further to the Latin West, enjoying a lasting popularity.
The polarisation between the Christian hereafter and the Islamic one allows Christian writers to justify certain Christian beliefs and practices, such as the eastward orientation of prayer (qibla) and the dressing of the mortal remains. The hereafter becomes a subject of concern and study during the Islamic period, and has significant cultural, social and economic implications for the believers.
Finally, our investigation revealed a certain cultural homogeneity among Christians in the region, mainly due to the shared literary heritage. Our analysis of the Apocalypse of Gregory, and related texts, invites scholars to break away from approaching it via the conceptual framework of rigid confessional divisions in favour of a more nuanced regional approach. In the future, the study of the networks in which the migration of texts, motifs and, sometimes people, takes place should offer a better understanding of cultural interactions in the Islamicate world.

موضوع الأطروحة : تصورات الجنة وجهنم في الفكر السرياني والعربي المسيحي (8-10 م.) انطلاقا من التحقيق في اكتشاف غريغوريوس الرهاوي

The figure of Mary, Lazarus's sister, receives an enhanced role in the Old Syriac Sinaiticus translation of the raising of Lazarus (John 11:1–46). Four readings in the Syriac translation focus on Mary and consist of additions or reelaborations of the Greek text that are not errors or misunderstandings of the original but rather the result of reading the figure of Mary in the context of the Fourth Gospel as a whole. The result is a portrait of Mary of Bethany in the Sinaiticus translation that should properly be titled "portrait of a disciple." This analysis results in a deeper appreciation of the Old Syriac translator's overall interpretation of John 11.

Od Gilgamesza do kasydy. Poezja semicka w oryginale i w przekładzie (From Gilgamesh to Qasida: Semitic Poetry in Original Version and in Translation), Księgarnia Akademicka, Kraków 2010 [471 pp.] Orientalista zwykł czytać teksty poetyckie w oryginale, względnie żmudnie się przez nie przebijać, używając dostępnych mu słowników, zazwyczaj obcojęzycznych. Zawsze cenić będzie wyżej oryginał, niezależnie od stopnia opanowania przez siebie danego języka orientalnego. Ale teksty orientalistyczne były, są i będą tłumaczone, zarówno dla orientalistów zajmujących się innymi językami niż hebrajski, arabski, akadyjski, chiński, turecki, japoński etc., jak i dla laików. Tłumaczenie tekstu akadyjskiego, hebrajskiego, syryjskiego lub arabskiego zawsze jest pójściem na ustępstwa. W przypadku tekstów poetyckich (nie tylko semickich) ideałem pozostaje wydanie dwujęzyczne: możemy zawsze porównać oryginał z przekładem. Samo tłumaczenie często nie wystarcza-coś tracimy z oryginału semickiego, pozostaje w nas uczucie niedosytu, zwłaszcza gdy w przekładzie nie oddano melodii i formy oryginału. [...] Przekłady prezentowane w niniejszej książce są naszą próbą zmierzenia się z formą i treścią tłumaczonych tekstów. Nie możemy zagwarantować, że nie złamiemy drugiego zakazu Barańczaka: "Nie tłumacz dobrej poezji na złą poezję" [...]. Interesowała nas głównie forma i postać prozodyczna: to, co najczęściej zostaje utracone w tłumaczeniu. Naśladując formę oryginału lub do niej się zbliżając, zrezygnowaliśmy z przekładu stricte filologicznego. Staraliśmy się zbliżyć do oryginału pod względem treści (niekiedy może zbyt wiernie, mimo że próbowaliśmy uniknąć dosłowności), a zarazem chcieliśmy nadać przekładowi formę poetycką.

THE CONCEPTS AND BELIEFS OF THE SAGES: JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TEXTS AND CORPORA—CONSTRUCTIONS AND CONTEXTS: REFLECTIONS UPON URBACH’S OEUVRE

This article deals with the achievements of Ephraim E. Urbach’s seminal studies of the Sages’ concepts and beliefs and of Judeo-Christian polemics in antiquity, as well as the problems inherent in any construction of concepts and beliefs out of the diverse material scattered in rabbinic literature. Following Urbach, it is demonstrated in the present article that rabbinic aggadic assertions should be read together with the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period and ancient Christian writings. However, Urbach’s assumption that the development of the Sages’ concepts and beliefs can be explained on the basis of historical events is challenged.
The first section of the article sketches Urbach’s assumptions and the reservations embedded in his enterprise aiming at the depicting the historical development of the rabbis’ beliefs and elucidating the Judeo-Christian polemic. The second section of the article investigates three rabbinic concepts discussed in Urbach’s oeuvre: (1) Gevurah; (2) Shekhinah; (3) Jerusalem that is Above. Aspects of these concepts are studied afresh and the way they are construed by Urbach is considered. It may be seen time and again that these concepts are documented prior to the historical events or situations to which they are supposedly reacting, according to Urbach and other scholars. This is not surprising, since the statements of the rabbis often reflect earlier traditions. A comparative reading of rabbinic assertions and parallels in Jewish and Christian corpora demonstrates the complex interrelationship of terminology, the resolution of internal tensions of ideas, interreligious influence, and interreligious polemics. The meaning of the transmitted traditions is often transmuted according to their contexts in the various corpora.
Published in Jewish Studies 53 (2018)

Some pieces of Syriac literary production have gained a relative popularity among the scholars, although their fate is marked with different sorts of prejudices and no clear idea about their literary specificity has been made. This is the case of the so called Syriac Julian Romance. The place in the Syriac and Byzantine hagiography and historiography as well as possible connections with Perian and Armenian traditions are discussed.

* * * now available online * * *
https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/index.html

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. In addition to the literary tradition, inscriptions and objects of art are given due consideration. The entries are accompanied by 131 illustrations, twenty of which are in color. The volume closes with maps, lists of patriarchs of the main Syriac Churches of the Middle East, and elaborate indices.

GEDSH is a collaborative project that involves seventy-six scholars from across the globe. Three of the four editors are associated with major universities in Europe and the United States: Oxford University, Yale University, and Duke University. The fourth editor is the founding director of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. GEDSH was carried out under the auspices of Beth Mardutho."

This paper is the text of a conference I gave in Dublin in 2010. My first paper dedicated to the find of the Qubbat al-khazna was published, with my late colleague prof. Paolo Radiciotti (02.10.1961-02.04.2012), as early as 2008 (see "Nea Rhome" 5). I was pleased to see how inspiring our 2008 article has been: some colleagues used it extensively in 2011.

In the year 1900, inside the Qubbat al-khazna (the Umayyad Great Mosque courtyard), an important discovery was made: there were found documents related to the very same mosque, certificates of pilgrimage to Mecca, Qur’anic fragments, Arabic and Turkish literary texts, parchment fragments in Latin language and script, as well as Latin fragments in Greek script, fragments in old French, Hebrew (also Samaritan texts), Armenian, Coptic, Syriac, Aramaic, as well as in Greek – attested both in Greek language and script and in Arabic language and Greek script. The entire ensemble of manuscripts dates back to the period spanning from the Late Antiquity to Modern times."

Cenap  Şahabettin  (1871-1934)  is  generally accepted as a part of the Servet-i Fünûn literary movement  which  was  popular  between  1896 and  1901  in  the  Ottoman  Empire.  He  is  well-known  as  a  poet  but  he  had  written  prose  as well. He worked for the Ottoman government as a high ranking executive in Arabic countries and wrote several books during his mission and ensuing  travels. Hac  Yolunda(On  the  way  to Mecca), Âfâk-ı Irak (Horizonsof  Iraq)  are  his travel  books.  He  also  published  two  travel notes under the titles of “Suriye Mektupları” (Letters from Syria) and Beyrut, Filistin ve Nablus İzlenimleri  1918 (Impressions  from  Beirut, Palestine and Nablus 1918). This article focuses mainly  on  the  abovementioned  works  of  the writer.  All  the  works  were  written  between 1896  and  1918,  and  this  period  in  the  history was quite an important one for the Middle East and  the  Ottoman  Empire  where  significant historical events occurred.    The    Ottoman Empire was coming to an end, the World War I was effecting every aspect of life and Middle East was taking a new shape. Subject matter of this  work,  as  a  result  of  the  period,  bound  to mention    modernity,    identity    policies,    and nation building discourses and practices. These works are important since they provide enough information  to  find  out  the  writer’s  attitude towards  the  local  Arabs,  his  approach  to  the common, conventional prejudices, and his own newly      created      biases.      Edward      Said’s Orientalism,  Ussama  Makdisi’s “Rethinking Ottoman  Imperialism:  Modernity,  Violence and the Cultural Logic of Ottoman Reform” and  “Ottoman  Orientalism”  and  Selim Deringil’s The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the  Legitimation  of  Power  in  the  Ottoman  Empire 1876-1909 are  the  main  works  that  used  to examine the texts in hand in details.

The use of the Greek text as an alternative to the Peshitta of the Old Testament, or as an addition to it, would seem to have been an early development, born out of necessity. When translations of Greek commentaries were made, the translators found that their own Syriac Bible was not exactly the same as the Bible the Greek exegetes were writing about. It goes without saying, however, that the Syrians also developed different opinions on the value of the various witnesses. In this paper I give a somewhat rough sketch of this development, in which I concentrate on the West Syrian side of the picture, as evidenced in an exegetical collection handed down to us in one of the manuscripts
collected by Moses of Nisibis, which found its way via Deir es-Suryan to the British Library in London, and which I call, for want of anything better, the London Collection.

Le Muséon 128 (2015), p. 381-414.

This paper deals with the ancient Armenian translations of Greek
philosophical texts (esp. the Neoplatonic corpus). Before focusing on this topic,
a broad overview on the presence of Armenian students in the Greek schools in
Late Antiquity will be presented, followed by a survey of the Armenian translations
issued from the so-called “Hellenizing school”, through which the works
necessary for learning the disciplines (artes) of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric,
and dialectic) were introduced into Armenia. The core of this article will
deal with the Neoplatonist heritage and the translatio studiorum in Armenia,
with special emphasis on the Armenian translations of the Greek commentaries
of the Neoplatonic philosopher David, who was called the “Invincible” in the
Armenian tradition. The second part of the paper will pay particular attention
to some methodological criteria that should be followed while studying such
works in Greek and in Armenian. After some information on the approach of
Classical philologists to the Armenian translations from Greek, the importance
of cross-comparison and of an interdisciplinary investigation will be stressed in
conclusion.

It is generally known that the East-Syrian poet and exegete Narsai worked as teacher of exegesis and director of the theological School of Edessa in Byzantine North-Mesopotamia. Narsai’s position as the head of the School of Edessa/Nisibis makes his writings particularly relevant for the study of religious education in the early East-Syrian tradition. The present essay focuses on the mēmrā 8 ‘On Peter and Paul’. In 1958, Paul Krüger suggested that, in this text, Narsai polemicizes against a Jewish-Christian group. The purpose of the present article is to investigate whether Krüger’s suggestion remains valid and, if so, to speculate what it can contribute to our knowledge about education processes in Narsai’s milieu.

يسعى هذا  البحث إلى دراسة تحليلية لقصيدة البائع الجوال، فمن ناحية لم تحظ القصيدة بأية دراسة سابقة، ومن ناحية أخرى تصلح القصيدة للبدء فى دراسة ومناقشة قضايا الشعر الشعر السُريانى المعاصر، واستكشاف مظاهر أصالته فى ضوء القصيدة السُريانية التراثية.
وقد أُثيرت قضية التقليد والتجديد فى الشعر السُريانى المعاصر، ولا يزال بحث علاقة الشعر السُريانى القديم بنظيره الحديث والمعاصر فى بدايته، فالدراسات العلمية لا تتعدى الرؤى الإنطباعية حول الشعر المعاصر فى العراق، ولا تتوفر رؤية شاملة أو نظرية نقدية للتجارب الشعرية فى البلدان الأخرى أو فى المهجر.