Syriac Literature

The life and writings of Bardaisan, "the last of the gnostics," and in some sense the father of Syriac literature and especially of Syriac poetry, have been treated in a separate article. The Book of the Laws of the Countries, which embodies his teaching, was re-edited in 1907 by F. Nau (this also in the 2nd volume of GI affin's Patrologia). Mention may here be made of the valuable edition and translation by the late C. W. Mitchell of S. Ephraim's prose refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan. Transcribed from the palimpsest B. M. Add. 14628 (1912-21).

An early Syriac document, probably of the 2nd or 3rd century, is the Letter of Mdrii son of Serapion, which was edited by Cure ton in his Spicilegium Syriacum. It is almost the only exception to the rule that all surviving Syriac literature is Christian.

By the beginning of the 4th century much progress had been made with the organization of the Christian church not only within the Roman district of Mesopotamia, but also to the east and south-east within the Sassanian empire, round such centres as Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the Tigris (near Baghdad), Karka de-Beth Selokh (modern Kerkuk) and Beth Lapat or GundeshabhOr (in the modern province of Luristan). The adoption of Christianity by Constantine as the official religion of the Roman empire had an unfortunate effect on the position of the Christians in Persia. They were naturally suspected of sympathizing with the Roman enemies rather than with their own Persian rulers. Accordingly when Sapor II. (310-379) declared war on Rome about 337, there ensued almost immediately a somewhat violent persecution of the Persian Christians, which continued in varying degrees for about 4o years. One result of this and later persecutions of the same kind has been to enrich Syriac literature with a long series of Acts of Persian Martyrs, which, although in their existing form intermixed with much legendary matter, nevertheless throw valuable light on the history and geography of western Persia under Sassanian rule.

4th and 5th Centuries.

The two most important 4th-cen tury writers—Aphraates and Ephraim—are dealt with in separate articles. The importance of the former lies in the simple cast of his religious thought, his independence of theological formulas, his constant adherence to the letter of Scripture, his quaint exegesis, and the light he throws on the circumstances of his time, especially (I) the feeling between Jews and Christians, and (2) the position and sympathies of the Christian subjects of Sapor II. The position and character of Ephraim are very

different. He is the typical exponent in Syriac of unbending Catholic orthodoxy.

Before leaving the 4th century we may mention two other writers who probably both lived on into the 5th—Balai and Cyril lona. The former was the author of a good many poems ; the longest—which is however by some attributed to Ephraim—is the work in 12 books on the history of Joseph, of which a com plete edition was published by Bedjan in 1901. Other poems of his were edited by Overbeck in S. Ephraemi Syri, etc., opera selecta, pp. 251-336; and these have since been supplemented by Zetter steen's edition of a large number of his religious poems or metrical prayers (Beitrdge zur Kenntniss der religiosen Dichtung Balais, Leipzig, 1902). His favourite metre was the pentasyllabic. Cyrillona composed a poem on the invasion of the Huns in 395.

The 5th century was a time of storm and conflict in the churches of Mesopotamia and Persia, as in other parts of the Christian world. The teaching of Apollinarius that in Christ the Divine Word took the place of the human rational soul, thus seeming to do away with his possession of a true humanity, had led to a re action by Paul of Samosata, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Nestorius of Constantinople. Though with some points of difference, they agreed in emphasizing the perma nence of the two separate natures in Christ, united but not mingled or confused, and laid stress on the reality of our Lord's human experience. One question on which great contention arose was as to the propriety of applying to the Divine nature attributes which belonged to the human nature—e.g., birth from a human mother—and vice versa. Hence the great dispute about the appli cation to the Virgin Mary of the epithet 0E0T6K03. It seems to have been the objection of Nestorius to the use of this expression which mainly led to his condemnation and deposition at the Council of Ephesus (431) under the influence of Cyril, although as patriarch of Constantinople (428-431) he had distinguished himself by his zeal for Nicene orthodoxy. New light on the theo logical position of Nestorius is to be obtained from the long-lost Book of Heraclides, a work of his own which has turned up in a Syriac version and was published by Bed jan in 1910.