Syllabus

THE SYRIAC FATHERS IN THE 4TH-7TH CENTURY -24812 Last update 02-04-2014 HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor) and 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: Dept. of Comparative Religion

Academic year: 3

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony

Coordinator Email: ashkelon@mscc.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Tuesday, 14:30-15:30 and by appointment

Teaching Staff: Prof Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony

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Course/Module description: The course will address several formative late antique Syriac texts.

Course/Module aims: To know and analyze important terms and religious tendencies that shaped theSyriac Christian world in late antiquity.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should beable to: to know and analyze Syriac major terms and topics relating to the self, doctrineand practice in late antique Syriac Christianity

Attendance requirements(%): obligatoy

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: seminar

Course/Module Content: in this seminar we will read and discuss the following Syriac texts in translationL 1. Aphrahat, Demostrationes VI (ed. I. Parisot, Patrologia Syriaca 1/2 (Paris, 1894,1907). On the Bnay Qyama, columns 239-312. 2. The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber Graduum, translated, with introduction byRobert A. Kitchen and Martien Parmentier (Kalamazoo, 2004). 3. John of Apamea: in Brock, The Syriac Fathers, pp. 191-196. 4. Isaac of Nineveh: Sebastian Brock, ed. and trans., Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac theSyrian): 'The Second Part,' Chapters IV-XLI, Corpus Scriptorum ChristianorumOrientalium, Vol. 554-555 (Leuven, 1995).

Required Reading: 1. Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus andThe Lives of the Eastern Saints (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 1-27. 2. Sebastian P. Brock and Susan Ashbrook-Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient(Berkeley, 1987), pp.4-26. 3. R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition(Cambridge, 1975), pp. 1-38. 4. Sidney H. Griffith, "Asceticism in the Church of Syria: The Hermeneutics of EarlySyrian Monasticism, " in: V. L. Wimbush and R. Valantasis, Asceticism (Oxford,1995), pp. 220-245.

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5. Luca Van Rompay, "Syria and Mesopotamia," In: The Oxford Handbook of EarlyChristian Studies, eds. S. Ashbrook Harvey and D. Hunter (Oxford, 2008), pp.365-381 6. S. Brock, A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature (Kottayam, 1997). 7. B. Bitton-Ashkelony, '"More interior than the lips and the tongue": John ofApamea and silent Prayer in Late Antiquity,"' Journal of Early Christian Studies 20/2(2012), pp. 303-331. 8. B. Bitton-Ashkelony, "Pure Prayer and Ignorance: Dadisho' Qatraya and the GreekAscetic Legacy," Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni (SMSR), 78/1 (2012), pp.197-223. 9. Sebastian Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (Kalamazoo,Michigan, 1987).

Additional Reading Material:

Course/Module evaluation: End of year written/oral examination 0 % Presentation 0 % Participation in Tutorials 40 % Project work 60 % Assignments 0 % Reports 0 % Research project 0 % Quizzes 0 % Other 0 %

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