“Dense with Every Kind of Fruit”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter describes the final stage in the development of East Syrian contemplative reading, the dissemination of the mature tradition across the Church of the East over the seventh century. After a review of transitional authors from this period (Shubḥalmaran and Sahdona), this chapter examines the foundational role of contemplative reading in the widely read works of ʿEnanishoʿ of Adiabene and Dadishoʿ of Qatar. The earlier of these two authors, ʿEnanishoʿ, composed the Paradise, an anthology of largely Egyptian ascetic hagiography and apophthegmata that would stand for centuries as the essential text for Syriac contemplative reading. This one-volume library offered its readers a door to “Paradise” through contemplation. The popularity of the Paradise is confirmed by its reception. Dadishoʿ of Qatar wrote commentaries to teach ascetic reading, including one on ʿEnanishoʿ’s Paradise. He taught that monks should read in the manner of the desert solitaries of Egypt. Their reading led them to depart “spiritually” from their cells to commune momentarily with God in Paradise. Dadishoʿ’s advice reveals the strength of East Syrian ascetic reading in his day. He railed against forms of reading which might divert the monk from spiritual ascent, rejecting excessive hymnody and even Antiochene exegesis. While some scholars have mistaken Dadishoʿ as advocating allegorical exegesis, this chapter reveals that he was championing contemplative reading. Indeed, in his polemics, it is Dadishoʿ who first gives a specific name to this tradition, referring to ascetic reading as “the solitary fathers’ commentary”.