Syriac Christians and Popular Religion in Early Ottoman Mesopotamia

The Syriac World

The article presents the story of Ido Talay, a Syriac Christian from Midin, Tur Abdin, who served in the Turkish military in 1955–1956. The narrative in the Neo-Aramaic Ṭuroyo language was recorded in 1990 and is presented here in transcription with an English translation. It sheds light on the discrimination faced by non-Muslims during mandatory military service in Turkey. Despite humiliation, religious coercion, and physical violence, Ido maintained his Christian identity, refusing to convert to Islam. The Midin dialect spoken by Ido has a number of unique features setting it apart from other Ṭuroyo dialects. Due to the subject, the story contains a number of Turkish loanwords from the military sphere. They are listed in the appendix, together with some specific dialect terms. Also included are some difficult forms originating in the spoken text which are grammatically analysed.

This article consists of a translation and poetic analysis of Ephrem the Syrian's teaching song On Virginity 31. The Syriac text and an English translation are provided and short notes are given on the structure of the hymn. Its rhetorical and persuasive qualities are subsequently investigated with the aim of substantiating the claim that the hymn's rhetorical features such as polarities, metaphors, analogies, parallels, antitheses, allusions to scripture, and direct appeals on the audience must have had a great impact and an enduring effect on Syriac Christianity.

The article presents the editio princeps, translation, and commentary of three previously unknown compositions preserved in Syriac: On Sorcerers, Diviners and Charmers by Pseudo-Gregory of Nyssa, On Bathing in Springs and Sources by Pseudo-Basil of Caesarea, and an erotapocritic compilation drawn from the Questions of Basil and Gregory and the responsa of Jacob of Edessa to the priest Addai. Written during the Islamic period (possibly under the Abbasids), these works wage polemics against numerous customs related to popular religion among Syriac Christians, including bathing in natural water sources and various forms of divination.

Several Syriac texts of the period from the seventh to the ninth centuries were devoted to the religious challenge of Islam. A topic which emerges regularly in these texts is the so-called “‘new Jews’ theme:” Muslims and their faith were compared to the Jews and their faith by some means or other. Syriac authors resorted to anti-Jewish stereotypes from the pre-Islamic era and used these stereotypes to compromise the new religion of Islam in the eyes of their Christian readers. The similarities between Jews and Muslims regarding crucial Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation led Christian writers like Patriarch Timothy I (d. 823) to designate Muslims as “new Jews.” By comparing several Syriac texts on Islam from the period in question, the paper outlines the development of the “‘new Jews’ theme” in the Syriac Christians’ reactions toward Islam.

Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World

This article presents the unpublished Syriac text of an anonymous anti-Jewish dialogue preserved fragmentarily in the manuscript SyrHT 94 [T II B 50 = 1682] from the Berlin Turfan-Collection. The dialogue, which combines scriptural and rational polemical arguments, is an important witness to the development of the adversus Judaeos literary tradition among Syriac Christians during the Islamic period. The text is accompanied by an English translation and a brief discussion.

The article introduces the hitherto unpublished Syriac text of four verse homilies, attributed to Ephrem the Syrian and Jacob of Serugh, which attack such liturgical and paraliturgical practices of Armenian Christians as animal sacrifices and the use of unleavened bread. Produced in a West Syrian milieu during the Islamic period, these homilies serve as important evidence for studying the development of the anti-Armenian polemical literature among Syriac Christians and reveal the influence of anti-Jewish rhetoric on this tradition. The text is complemented by an English translation and a concise discussion.

This article contains the original unpublished Syriac text of the Story of the Holy Friday, an anonymous hagiographic composition that promotes an idiosyncratic form of Friday veneration, which demands that Christians refrain from work on that day completely. The text of the Story, published on the basis of manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, syr. 234, is accompanied with an English translation and discussion of its unusual message, possibly related to the early period of Muslim-Christian relations in the Near East.

The fact that Christianity during late antiquity and the Middle Ages cannot be observed from a Western perspective alone is increasingly recognized in current research. The volume under review makes an important contribution to this change of perspective since it offers insights into the literary production of one of the oldest Christian traditions that has been often overlooked in Western historiography. The churches of the Syriac traditions constituted an important branch of Christianity besides the commonly more well-known Latin and Greek traditions. During the medieval period, Syriac Christians were not only present in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East but also in India and along the routes of the Silk Road extending as far as China. For the first time, this volume, edited by four experts in the field of Syriac Studies, provides a collection of excerpts from the whole range of Syriac literature in English translation which is easily accessible, thus creating a highly valuable sourcebook for the study of Syriac Christianity.

This article presents previously unpublished fragments of the lost Syriac version of the Homilies against the Jews by John Chrysostom. The three excerpts, preserved in West Syrian collections of patristic texts, bear an important witness to the textual tradition of the Homilies and shed light on the dynamics of reception and transmission of the Greek Adversus Judaeos compositions among Syriac Christians during the early Islamic period. The texts are accompanied with an English translation and discussion.

The article explores history of the reception of anti-Jewish hagiographical traditions of Western origin among Syriac Christians during the Islamic period by focusing on the textual tradition of the Miracles of the Virgin, a Western collection of Marian legends that was translated into Arabic during the thirteenth century and later on, during the nineteenth century, into Syriac. As an illustration, Syriac text and English translation of two relevant narratives from this work are offered: the Story of a young Frankish Jew and the Story of a Jewish boy.

Review: <i>Singer of the Word of God: Ephrem the Syrian and His Significance in Late Antiquity</i>, by Sebastian P. Brock

The Syriac Peshitta Bible with English Translation: John

&#x0D; This essay focuses on one particular aspect of Jewish-Christian relations during the Sasanian period, namely various types of interaction between the two religious groups in the domain of magic. For that purpose, two distinctive bodies of textual evidence are examined: hagiographical literature produced by Syriac Christians, and Aramaic magic bowls, Jewish as well as Christian. Illuminating and complementing each other, the two corpora shed light on the dual dynamics of competition and cooperation between Jews and Christians in the field of popular religion.&#x0D;