Syriac Language and Literature      Syriac is the important branch of the group of Semitic languages known as Aramaic. In the time of Alexander the Great, Aramaic was the official language of all the nations from Asia Minor to Persia, from Armenia to Arabian Peninsula. It was divided into two dialects: the western, used in Palestine and Syria by the Jews, Palmyrans, and Nabateans; the eastern, spoken in Babylonia by the Jews, Mandeans, Manichaens, and the people of Upper Mesopotamia. The Syriac language, as we know it from its literature, did not spring from the dialect spoken in Syria, but from the eastern Mesopotamian dialect. When the weakened Seleucides ceased to defend the Euphrates, small independent principalities were formed in that region.      The most famous was the little Kingdom of Edessa whose capital Osrhoene was the religious centre of the country. This city also became an intellectual centre, and even then the language of its people attained great perfection. A little later under the influence of Christianity it developed considerably, and eventually became the liturgical and literary language of all the Churches from the shores of the Mediterranean to the centre of Persia. The suppleness and flexibility of this dialect and its loose and variable syntax readily lent itself to the most different constructions, and offered to Christianity a more appropriate instrument than Greek for the expression and spread of new ideas.      In Syria proper and western Mesopotamia Syriac was first used simultaneously with Greek, but after the Monophysite schism Greek gradually fell into disuse. The period from the middle of the fifth century to the end of the seventh was the most brilliant period of Syriac literature. The Moslem invasion brought about the decadence by imposing Arabic as the official language; the latter rapidly came into general use, and Syriac was no longer spoken or understood by the people, although it was upheld as a literay language for four centuries longer, and until the present time as a liturgical language. Nevertheless, the destruction was not complete; Syriac, or rather Aramaic, modified according to the laws of evolution common to all languages, is still spoken in the three villages in the neighbourhood of Damascus, in Tour Abdin (Mesopotamia, between Nisibis and the Tigris), and in Kurdistan, especially in the neighbourhood of Ourmiah. The language of this city is even in process of becoming a literay tongue, through the efforts of the missionaries (American Prostestants and French Lazarists), who print numerous works in this dialect, Bibles, text-books, and even reviews.      The works transmitted to us in the Syriac language form an essentially and almost exclusively Christian religious literature. After Latin and Greek there is none more useful to the exegete, the theologian, and the ecclesiastical historian. We know of more than 150 authors who enriched it from the fourth to the thirteenth century. The libraries of Europe and those of some eastern monasteries which are of easy access possess nearly 3000 manuscripts, containing the greater part of these works. Our short list will take only the best-known authors and the most important works. Of pagan literature there remain only a few short inscriptions, most of them funereal, and a letter from Maria bar Serapion, Stoic philosopher of Samosata, to his son, written probably in course of the third century (ed. Cureton, "Spicelegium Syr.", London, 1855). The writings of the Gnostic Bardesanes of the same period, with a Gnostic hymn inserted in the Acts of St. Thomas, form a sort of transition between pagan and Christian literature. The earliest monument of the latter is the version of the Bible called the Peschitta (simple), which is treated elsewhere (see VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE). It suffices to mention also the two oldest orthodox writers, Aphraates the Persian Sage (d. 350), and St. Ephraem, the most brilliant of the Fathers of the Syrian Church (d. 373). Among the disciples of Ephraem was Mar Aba, the author of commentaries on the Gospels and of a homily on Job; Zenobius, deacon of Edessa, who wrote treatises against Marcion and Pamphylus and a "Life of St. Ephraem"; Paulius, who possibly fell into heresy after having written against Marcion and sceptics. Abamya, a nephew of Ephraem, has been wrongly identified with Cyrillona, an unknown author who wrote in 397 a poem on the two plagues of that period, the locusts and the Huns.      The question remains: by whom, where, and when was the Greek body of knowledge transmitted to the Arabs themselves. O'Leary tells us: Greek scientific thought had been in the world for a long time before it reached the Arabs, and during that period it had already spread apoad in various directions. So it is not surprising that it reached the Arabs by more than one route. It came first and in the plainest line through Christian Syriac writers, scholars, and scientists. Then the Arabs applied themselves directly to the original Greek sources and learned over again all they had already learned, correcting and verifying earlier knowledge. Then there came a second channel of transmission indirectly through India, mathematical and astronomical work, all a good deal developed by Indian scholars, but certainly developed from material obtained from Alexandria in the first place. This material had passed to India by the sea route which connected Alexandria with north-west India. Then there was also another line of passage through India which seems to have had its beginnings in the Greek kingdom of Bactria, one of the Asiatic states founded by Alexander the Great, and a land route long kept open between the Greek world and Central Asia, especially with the city of Marw, and this perhaps connects with a Buddhist medium which at one time promoted intercourse between east and west, though Buddhism as a religion was withdrawing to the Far East when the Arabs reached Central Asia. for more information please Visit: http://www.phoenicia.org/xtiantranslateforarabs.html http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14408a.htm To reply to this article please fill up the Text Box below. Please indicate your name, and email address