Missionary Stories And The Formation Of The Syriac Churches

Author : Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520960580
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches written by Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-06-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches analyzes the hagiographic traditions of seven missionary saints in the Syriac heritage during late antiquity: Thomas, Addai, Mari, John of Ephesus, Simeon of Beth Arsham, Jacob Baradaeus, and Ahudemmeh. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent studies a body of legends about the missionaries’ voyages in the Syrian Orient to illustrate their shared symbols and motifs. Revealing how these texts encapsulated the concerns of the communities that produced them, she draws attention to the role of hagiography as a malleable genre that was well-suited for the idealized presentation of the beginnings of Christian communities. Hagiographers, through their reworking of missionary themes, asserted autonomy, orthodoxy, and apostolicity for their individual civic and monastic communities, positioning themselves in relationship to the rulers of their empires and to competing forms of Christianity. Saint-Laurent argues that missionary hagiography is an important and neglected source for understanding the development of the East and West Syriac ecclesiastical bodies: the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East. Given that many of these Syriac-speaking churches remain today in the Middle East and India, with diaspora communities in Europe and North America, this work opens the door for further study of the role of saints and stories as symbolic links between ancient and modern traditions.

Author : Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520284968
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches written by Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-06-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches analyzes the hagiographic traditions of seven missionary saints in the Syriac heritage during late antiquity: Thomas, Addai, Mari, John of Ephesus, Simeon of Beth Arsham, Jacob Baradaeus, and Ahudemmeh. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent studies a body of legends about the missionariesÕ voyages in the Syrian Orient to illustrate their shared symbols and motifs. Revealing how these texts encapsulated the concerns of the communities that produced them, she draws attention to the role of hagiography as a malleable genre that was well-suited for the idealized presentation of the beginnings of Christian communities. Hagiographers, through their reworking of missionary themes, asserted autonomy, orthodoxy, and apostolicity for their individual civic and monastic communities, positioning themselves in relationship to the rulers of their empires and to competing forms of Christianity. Saint-Laurent argues that missionary hagiography is an important and neglected source for understanding the development of the East and West Syriac ecclesiastical bodies: the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East. Given that many of these Syriac-speaking churches remain today in the Middle East and India, with diaspora communities in Europe and North America, this work opens the door for further study of the role of saints and stories as symbolic links between ancient and modern traditions.

Author : David A. Michelson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198836244
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Library of Paradise written by David A. Michelson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-13 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemplative reading is a spiritual practice developed by Christian monks in sixth- and seventh-century Mesopotamia. Mystics belonging to the Church of the East pursued a form of contemplation which moved from reading, to meditation, to prayer, to the ecstasy of divine vision. The Library of Paradise tells the story of this Syriac tradition in three phases: its establishment as an ascetic practice, the articulation of its theology, and its maturation and spread. The sixth-century monastic reform of Abraham of Kashkar codified the essential place of reading in East Syrian ascetic life. Once established, the practice of contemplative reading received extensive theological commentary. Abraham's successor Babai the Great drew upon the ascetic system of Evagrius of Pontus to explain the relationship of reading to the monk's pursuit of God. Syriac monastic handbooks of the seventh century built on this Evagrian framework. 'Enanisho' of Adiabene composed an anthology called Paradise that would stand for centuries as essential reading matter for Syriac monks. Dadisho' of Qatar wrote a widely copied commentary on the Paradise. Together, these works circulated as a one-volume library which offered readers a door to "Paradise" through contemplation. The Library of Paradise is the first book-length study of East Syrian contemplative reading. It adapts methodological insights from prior scholarship on reading, including studies on Latin lectio divina. By tracing the origins of East Syrian contemplative reading, this study opens the possibility for future investigation into its legacies, including the tradition's long reception history in Sogdian, Arabic, and Ethiopic monastic libraries.

Author : Daniel King
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317482115
Total Pages : 1064 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Syriac World written by Daniel King and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-12 with total page 1064 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume surveys the 'Syriac world', the culture that grew up among the Syriac-speaking communities from the second century CE and which continues to exist and flourish today, both in its original homeland of Syria and Mesopotamia, and in the worldwide diaspora of Syriac-speaking communities. The five sections examine the religion; the material, visual, and literary cultures; the history and social structures of this diverse community; and Syriac interactions with their neighbours ancient and modern. There are also detailed appendices detailing the patriarchs of the different Syriac denominations, and another appendix listing useful online resources for students. The Syriac World offers the first complete survey of Syriac culture and fills a significant gap in modern scholarship. This volume will be an invaluable resource to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Syriac and Middle Eastern culture from antiquity to the modern era. Chapter 26 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Author : Mitri Raheb
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538124181
Total Pages : 711 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East written by Mitri Raheb and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work represents the current and most relevant content on the studies of how Christianity has fared in the ancient home of its founder and birth. Much has been written about Christianity and how it has survived since its migration out of its homeland but this comprehensive reference work reassesses the geographic and demographic impact of the dramatic changes in this perennially combustible world region. The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East also spans the historical, socio-political and contemporary settings of the region and importantly describes the interactions that Christianity has had with other major/minor religions in the region.

Author : Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0567680401
Total Pages : 744 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book T&T Clark Handbook of the Early Church written by Ilaria L.E. Ramelli and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the key documents, authors and themes of Early Christian traditions, this volume traces the vital trajectories of emerging distinctive Christian identity in the Graeco-Roman world. Special attention is given to the coherent growth of Christian faith in connection with worship, alongside the crucial transformation of Christian life and doctrine under the Christian Emperors. As well as offering a chronological development of the Early Church, the book examines the interaction between Christian worship and faith. In addition, readers interested in systematic theology can refer to chapters on the roots of some significant theological notions in Christian Antiquity, also with reference to ancient philosophy. Issues addressed include: · Distinctiveness of the Christian identity during the first centuries · Diversity of communities and their theologies · Connection between faith and worship · Transition from the persecuted minority to triumphant Church with Creeds · History of early Christian thought and modern systematic theology

Author : Bronwen Neil
Publisher : Catholic University of America Press
ISBN 13 : 0813232775
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church written by Bronwen Neil and published by Catholic University of America Press. This book was released on 2020-04-10 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent decades have seen great progress made in scholarship towards understanding the major civic role played by bishops of the eastern and western churches of Late Antiquity. Brownen Neil and Pauline Allen explore and evaluate one aspect of this civic role, the negotiation of religious conflict. Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church focuses on the period 500 to 700 CE, one of the least documented periods in the history of the church, but also one of the most formative, whose conflicts resonate still in contemporary Christian communities, especially in the Middle East. To uncover the hidden history of this period and its theological controversies, Neil and Allen have tapped a little known written source, the letters that were exchanged by bishops, emperors and other civic leaders of the sixth and seventh centuries. This was an era of crisis for the Byzantine empire, at war first with Persia, and then with the Arab forces united under the new faith of Islam. Official letters were used by the churches of Rome and Constantinople to pursue and defend their claims to universal and local authority, a constant source of conflict. As well as the east-west struggle, Christological disagreements with the Syrian church demanded increasing attention from the episcopal and imperial rulers in Constantinople, even as Rome set itself adrift and looked to the West for new allies. From this troubled period, 1500 letters survive in Greek, Latin, and Syriac. With translations of a number of these, many rendered into English for the first time, Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church examines the ways in which diplomatic relations between churches were developed, and in some cases hindered or even permanently ruptured, through letter-exchange at the end of Late Antiquity.

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004445293
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Syriac Hagiography written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collective volume Syriac Hagiography: Texts and Beyond explores several late-antique and medieval Syriac hagiographical works from the complementary perspectives of literature and cult.

Author : Kyle Smith
Publisher : University of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520308395
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia written by Kyle Smith and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely believed that the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity politicized religious allegiances, dividing the Christian Roman Empire from the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire and leading to the persecution of Christians in Persia. This account, however, is based on Greek ecclesiastical histories and Syriac martyrdom narratives that date to centuries after the fact. In this groundbreaking study, Kyle Smith analyzes diverse Greek, Latin, and Syriac sources to show that there was not a single history of fourth-century Mesopotamia. By examining the conflicting hagiographical and historical evidence, Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia presents an evocative and evolving portrait of the first Christian emperor, uncovering how Syriac Christians manipulated the image of their western Christian counterparts to fashion their own political and religious identities during this century of radical change.

Author : J. Edward Walters
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1467462691
Total Pages : 589 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Eastern Christianity written by J. Edward Walters and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-18 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English translations of Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Coptic, and Ethiopic Christian texts from late antiquity to the early modern period In order to make the writings of Eastern Christianity more widely accessible this volume offers a collection of significant texts from various Eastern Christian traditions, many of which are appearing in English for the first time. The internationally renowned scholars behind these translations begin each section with an informative historical introduction, so that anyone interested in learning more about these understudied groups can more easily traverse their diverse linguistic, cultural, and literary traditions. A boon to scholars, students, and general readers, this ample resource expands the scope of Christian history so that communities beyond Western Christendom can no longer be ignored. Contributors Jesse S. Arlen, Aaron M. Butts, Jeff W. Childers, Mary K. Farag, Philip Michael Forness, John C. Lamoreaux, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Erin Galgay Walsh, J. Edward Walters, and Jeffrey Wickes.