Syriac Christianity under Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Rule

G.J. Reinink

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781138375710
• eBook ISBN: 9781000939163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The articles in this volume are concerned with the literary responses of the Syriac communities in the Middle East to the drastic political changes of the 7th and 8th centuries, in particular the Persian occupation of the eastern provinces of Byzantium under Khusrau II, and the Islamic conquests and Umayyad rule. Several studies discuss the influential Syriac works concerning Alexander the Great written shortly after AD 628, which present the Byzantine emperor Heraclius as a new Alexander; attention is given to their polemical and propagandistic functions, and to their influence on early apocalyptic texts which respond to the Arab conquests and 'Abd al-Malik's religious propaganda at the end of the 7th century. Other studies deal with the beginnings of Syriac apologetic literature in response to early Islam, discussing texts of the first decades of the 8th century. The remaining articles focus on the religious controversies in the East Syrian community in connection with the increasing political influence of the Syrian Orthodox in Persia by the end of the 6th and the beginning of the seventh century, and the after-effects of Syriac anti-Islamic apologetics in a medieval encyclopedic text.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• I ‘Edessa grew dim and Nisibis shone forth’: the School of Nisibis at the transition of the sixth-seventh century Centres of Learning. Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. J.W. Drijvers and A.A. MacDonald (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 61). Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1995
• II Babai the Great’s Life of George and the propagation of doctrine in the late Sasanian empire Portraits of Spiritual Authority. Religious Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian Orient, ed. J.W. Drijvers and J.W. Watt (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 137). Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 1999
• III Die Entstehung der syrischen Alexanderlegende als politisch-religiöse Propagandaschrift für Herakleios’ Kirchenpolitik After Chalcedon. Studies in Theology and Church History Offered to Professor Albert van Roey for his Seventieth Birthday, ed. C. Laga, J.A. Munitiz and L. van Rompay (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 18). Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek/Peeters, 1985
• IV Pseudo-Ephraems “Rede über das Ende” und die syrische eschatologische Literatur des siebenten Jahrhunderts ARAM 5: 1&2. Oxford, 1993
• V Pseudo-Methodius and the Pseudo-Ephremian ‘Sermo de Fine Mundi’ Media Latinitas. A collection of essays to mark the occasion of the retirement of L.J. Engels, ed. R.I.A. Nip, H. van Dijk, E.M.C. van Houts, C.H. Kneepkens and G.A.A. Kortekaas (Instrumenta Patristica 28). Turnhout: Brepols, 1996
• VI Alexander the Great in seventh-century Syriac ‘apocalyptic’ texts Byzantinorossica 2. Saint-Petersburg, 2003
• VII Paideia: God’s design in world history according to the East Syrian monk John bar Penkaye The Medieval Chronicle II. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, Driebergen/Utrecht July 1999, ed. E. Kooper. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2002
• VIII Pseudo-Methodius und die Legende vom römischen Endkaiser The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. W. Verbeke, D. Verhelst and A. Welkenhuysen (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia Series 1/Studia 15). Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988
• IX Ps.-Methodius: a concept of history in response to the rise of Islam The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East I. Problems in the Literary Source Material, ed. A. Cameron and L.I. Conrad (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam I). Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1992
• X Der edessenische “Pseudo-Methodius” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 83. München, 1990
• XI The Romance of Julian the Apostate as a source for seventh century Syriac Apocalypses La Syrie de Byzance à l'Islam VIIe-VIIIe siècles, ed. P. Canivet and J.-P. Rey-Coquais. Damas: Institut Français d'Etudes Arabes de Damas, 1992
• XII Early Christian reactions to the building of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem Xristianskij Vostok 2 (8). Saint-Petersburg/Moscow, 2001
• XIII The beginnings of Syriac apologetic literature in response to Islam Oriens Christianus 77. Wiesbaden, 1993
• XIV Die Muslime in einer Sammlung von Dämonengeschichten des Klosters von Qennešrīn VI Symposium Syriacum 1992, ed. R, Lavenant (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 247). Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1994
• XV The lamb on the tree: Syriac exegesis and anti-Islamic apologetics The Sacrifice of Isaac. The Aqedah (Genesis 22) and its Interpretations, ed. E. Noort and E. Tigchelaar (Themes in Biblical Narrative 4). Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 2002
• XVI An early Syriac reference to Qur’ān 112? All those Nations... Cultural Encounters within and with the Near East. Studies presented to Han Drijvers at the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday by colleagues and students, ed. H.L.J. Vanstiphout with the assistance of W.J. van Bekkum, G.J. van Gelder and G.J. Reinink (COMERS/ICOG Communications 2). Groningen: Styx, 1999
• XVII Communal identity and the systematisation of knowledge in the Syriac “Cause of all Causes” Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, ed. P. Binkley (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 79). Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1997
• Addenda and Corrigenda
• Index