Language and Culture

Syriac began as a dialect of Aramaic, spoken in the region of Edessa early in the first century of the Christian Era.^[1] It grew quickly as both the primary vernacular and literary language of the Syrian Orient: the Roman provinces of Mesopotamia, Syria, Osrhoene, and their neighboring Persian provinces. But it became, too, the lingua franca over a much wider area of the eastern Roman frontier. It was used by traders throughout the East, in Persia and into India, and as far into the Latin West as Gaul.^[2] Over time, Syriac built an impressive cultural and literary strength in its own right.^[3] Its survival to this day in southeastern Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and parts of India has been largely due to its hold as a religious force in the liturgies of the Syriac-speaking churches. Although the Middle Ages under Islamic domination brought a serious decline in Syriac literature, apart from that for liturgical or ecclesiastical use, recent generations have brought a renewal of it once again.^[4]

Throughout its existence, Syriac has been a language in tension with other, more influential languages. Perhaps more than any other factor, this has shaped its history. It may have been spurred to full development as a reaction against its religious setting in the first century: the Jewish and pagan connotations of Aramaic and Greek facilitated Syriac's adoption as a cultural vehicle for Christianity, particularly in a geographical area where the population prided itself on the primacy of an early affirmation of the Christian faith, in contrast (or so Edessans claimed) to the

Greco-Latin realm.^[5] Indeed, Syriac has remained for the most part a Christian language, producing a primarily religious literature. Furthermore, unlike Greek, which struggled in late antiquity to reconcile Hellenic tradition and Christian context in its literary forms, Syriac developed as a Christian medium; relatively young as a literary language, it was free of the archaizing pressure exerted on Hellenic literature. Once begun, its development came quickly.^[6]

The Syrian Orient was less submissive to the ascendency of Hellenic aesthetics than the provinces of Asia Minor, in part because after the Roman conquests this area had maintained a degree of political autonomy longer than had the western provinces. Its culture represented the inheritance of the ancient Near East—Babylon, Assyria, Palestine, and influence from the Arab peninsula.^[7] During the early Christian period, Hellenism was present as a strand within this sophisticated matrix, and our earliest Christian texts from this region circulated in both Greek and Syriac versions.^[8] Hellenic philosophy appears in the theological speculations of Bardaisan of Edessa (d. 222) and in some of the heretical movements, especially Marcionism and, later, Arianism (causing Ephrem Syrus to rail against the "poison . . . of the Greeks").^[9] But it does not emerge as a dominant force until the fifth and sixth centuries. The Syrian Orient was Christianized mainly through semitic Judaism rather than pagan religion or philosophy; its religious culture continued to reflect that heritage and differed from those of the Greco-Latin churches accordingly.^[10] There was, too, a further cultural factor involved: the Syrian Orient was the trading crossroad that brought East and West together. The wealth of artistic and religious influences that mingled in this area generated a literary fertility evident in the Greek as well as in the Syriac writing produced in the eastern Roman provinces.^[11]

Thus in the syncretism of the late antique Greco-Roman world, Syriac language and culture were in a position to give as well as to take—unlike, for example, their Coptic counterparts in Egypt or the Armenians to the north.^[12] The position of Syriac was strengthened further by the growth of its own academies during the second half of the fourth century. Edessa was the first city of the Syrian Orient to gain recognition as a center of scholarship, though the school in Edessa had been transferred from its original location at Nisibis. In the fifth century, religious persecutions against the Nestorians led to the spread of Syriac schools into Persia, where they flourished perhaps most illustriously again at Nisibis.^[13] The existence of the Syriac academies was to some degree responsible for the way in which Hellenism infiltrated Syriac culture. The use of Syriac as the teaching language and the consequent task of trans-

lating Greek literature, particularly under pressure for theological dialogue, caused a gradual impact, one in which Greek gained the greater privilege in the eyes of the Syriac literati during the fifth and sixth centuries.^[14]

Despite the antipathy of Greek culture to outside ("barbarian") influences, Syriac succeeded in creating a two-way interaction. Although translations of Syriac texts into Greek are minimal compared with those in reverse, what was chosen to be translated from Syriac is important.^[15] Syriac hymnography made an early and lasting impression on Greek literature. The fourth-century hymns of Ephrem Syrus were translated into Greek during the poet's own lifetime; the form and imagery he developed probably provided the inspiration for the later Greek kontakion, especially as crafted by Romanos Melodos.^[16] Not unrelated, perhaps, was the attraction felt toward certain Syriac mystical writings, a tradition culminating with Isaac of Nineveh in the seventh century and John the Solitary in the eighth. These were translated and used in Byzantine monasteries, deeply affecting Byzantine spirituality.^[17]

But hagiography was undoubtedly the sphere in which Syriac made its greatest contribution because its legends and themes were more important than its literary forms. Influence could be exerted not through translations or aesthetic issues—both areas in which Greek was grudgingly receptive—but through the stories themselves. The legends of Euphemia and the Goth, Alexius the Man of God, Sergius and Bacchus, Cosmas and Damian, Pelagia the Penitent, to name but the obvious ones, are all examples of stories originating in the Syrian Orient (Cosmas and Damian may in fact have been Arabs),^[18] which were told and retold in a variety of versions, in numerous languages, and which sparked related motifs that flourished too.^[19]

During the fifth century, the influence of Hellenism increased in Syriac culture, language, and literature, fueled above all by the Christological disputes that broke out over the course of that century.^[20] The ensuing pressure for dialogue with the Greek theologians and with the imperial government at Constantinople led to a change in translation techniques that mirrored a larger cultural shift: the translation of Greek into Syriac became increasingly precise, with the emphasis (and thus the prestige) placed on faithfulness to the Greek text, whatever the result in Syriac. The need to interact effectively with Greek leaders and theologians created a need for Greek-educated Syrian scholars; indeed, the majority of Syriac writers and translators between the fifth and seventh centuries acquired their academic training in Greek-speaking centers.^[21]

However, the theological controversies led to more than linguistic

change. In the effort to make dialogue more effective, Syrian theologians had to gain skills in Greek intellectual disciplines. By the sixth century, many Syrians reveal marked Hellenic influence on their thought and theological dialectic; significantly, despite the continuing development of Syriac thought,^[22] the learned Greek theologian Severus of Antioch provided the "Monophysite" system on which Syrian Orthodoxy has rested ever since.^[23]

The full impact of Hellenism on the Syrian Orient can be seen during the sixth century, but the shift was not in itself destructive. The decline of Syriac language and literature came later, under Arab rule, when the linguistic similarity of the two languages surely aided the rapid adoption of the rulers' tongue.^[24] The sixth century, instead, witnessed a creative integration of Hellenic and Semitic thought: a situation that briefly shone with promise. This was the cultural juncture at which John of Ephesus wrote his Lives of the Eastern Saints , and in which his stories are set.