Conclusions

Abstract

Abstract This final chapter suggests how the study of East Syrian contemplative reading can serve as framework for future scholarship. The chapter begins by summarizing the findings of the book as a whole in the form of answers to the questions about Syriac contemplative reading posed in Chapter 1. Next, the chapter demonstrates how the East Syrian tradition of contemplative reading offers a new historical context for the study of Isaac of Nineveh, John of Dalyatha, and other mystical authors in later centuries in the Church of the East. The chapter notes the wider legacies and implications of the East Syrian contemplative reading tradition. The works of ʿEnanishoʿ and Dadishoʿ circulated in Sogdian, West Syrian, Melkite, and Ethiopian monastic libraries where the East Syrian theology of contemplative ascetic reading was adapted to new contexts. Moreover, the East Syrian practice offers comparative insights into the closely related traditions of Latin lectio divina as well as Greek and Slavonic hesychasm. Finally, the chapter concludes by calling for other scholars to examine what this tradition could reveal about connections between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim mystical theologies in medieval Mesopotamia.