Patriarch Michael the Great: Beyond his World Chronicle Abdulmesih BarAbrahem
In a recent issue of this journal1, Dorothea Weltecke of the Freie Universität Berlin presented an extended analysis on the World Chronicle of Michael the Great, the Syrian Orthodox patriarch (1166 -1199). Indeed, her thorough treatment can be viewed as a most suitable encomium to Michael on the 800th anniversary of his death next year. Weltecke not only introduces us to Michael’s magnificent work while highlighting its primary elements, but she also critically presents past and present controversial discussion among scholars on this work. Her precise analysis also sheds light on some of...
Read MoreTATIAN’S CHRISTOLOGY AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE DIATESSARON – Peter M. Head
Introduction ‘Tatian did not only re-arrange the evangelical tradition into a harmony, but when composing the Diatessaron left his fingerprints on its pages’.[1] Vööbus’ statement concerning Tatian’s Diatessaron has been reformulated recently in Petersen’s survey of research: ‘like any document created in a particular time and place, the Diatessaron reflects the theology and praxis of its locale’.[2] The aim of this article is to investigate whether christological factors played any significant role in Tatian’s composition. This issue is important for two reasons. ...
Read MoreThe roles of Mesopotamian bronze age mathematics tool for state formation and administration – carrier of teachers’ professional intellectual autonomy / Jens Høyrup
Abstract The article describes the social and cultural roles of Mesopotamian mathematics and the interplay of these roles with such patterns of mathematical thought as can be traced through the sources; it covers the period from the first formation of a genuine state, shortly after the mid-fourth millennium B.C.E., until the end of the Old Babylonian epoch, c. 1600 B.C.E. The picture presented is a historical reconstruction; little of what it asserts can be found directly in a single source. Full documentation would ask for a bibliography longer than the article. This being both impossible...
Read MoreTHE NESTORIAN CHURCH The Ancient Christians Church of Mesopotamia The Early Nestorians
Among those who had been present at the Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in support of Nestorius was Ibas, presbyter (priest) and head of the theological school of Edessa. In 435 he became bishop of Edessa and under his influence the Nestorian teaching made considerable progress. On the accusation of the so called orthodox he was deposed by the “Robber Synod” of Ephesus, but at Chalcedon in 451 was pardoned on condition of anathematizing both Nestorius and Eutyches and accepting the Tome of Leo, the bishop of Rome. He had not, however, changed his views, and this was generally...
Read MoreSome Aspects of Turco-Mongol Christianity in the Light of Literary and Epigraphic Syriac Sources§ / Pier Giorgio Borbone, Ph.D. University of Pisa *
The presence of Christians in Bactria, in present-day Northern Afghanistan, is documented already in the third century by one of the most ancient works in Syriac literature, the Book of the Laws of the Countries.1 Further expansion of Syriac Christianity in Central Asia and China2 was largely due to the initiative of the Church of the East – that is, the Christian Church of the territories once comprised in the Parthian and Sassanian empire and, later, in the Arab-Muslim one, rather inaccurately called “Nestorian.”3 Our purpose in the present paper is to bring to light some of the...
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