Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier

Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier PDF Author: Andrew Palmer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521360265
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
Tur cAdin is a plateau skirted by the Upper Tigris in south-eastern Turkey. Syrian Orthodox Christians of Aramaic tongue still worship in its Late Antique churches. Monks converted the region and the most powerful monastery, founded in the fourth century, is still flourishing today. This book grew out of an attempt to document more fully the early history of this abbey. It aims to rediscover the practical and symbolic function of the monuments of Tur cAdin and place them in their original social context. A recurring theme is the relationship between village and monastery and, within each, between community and individual. The final chapters also contribute to our understanding of the Syrian Orthodox community under the Abbasid caliphate. A 500-page microfiche supplement contains the first editions of the Qartmin Trilogy, a monastic text to which the book refers, constantly, and the Book of Life, a unique quasi-epigraphical document of a Christian village and its will to surive.

Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier

Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier PDF Author: Andrew Palmer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521360265
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
Tur cAdin is a plateau skirted by the Upper Tigris in south-eastern Turkey. Syrian Orthodox Christians of Aramaic tongue still worship in its Late Antique churches. Monks converted the region and the most powerful monastery, founded in the fourth century, is still flourishing today. This book grew out of an attempt to document more fully the early history of this abbey. It aims to rediscover the practical and symbolic function of the monuments of Tur cAdin and place them in their original social context. A recurring theme is the relationship between village and monastery and, within each, between community and individual. The final chapters also contribute to our understanding of the Syrian Orthodox community under the Abbasid caliphate. A 500-page microfiche supplement contains the first editions of the Qartmin Trilogy, a monastic text to which the book refers, constantly, and the Book of Life, a unique quasi-epigraphical document of a Christian village and its will to surive.

The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery

The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery PDF Author: Pieter Omtzigt
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3643902689
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This is an astonishing book which reveals the importance, relevance and the wider significance of Mor Gabriel Monastery not only for the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch but also for the Christian Church worldwide. In it, the reader will find an invaluable tool to understand the situation and plight of the Syriac Christians, one of the most important and interesting minorities in the region of the Middle East out of which the Bible & Christianity sprang." -- His Holiness Ignatius Zakka Ist Iwas, Patriarch of the Syriac-Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East (Series: Geschichte - Vol. 111)

Wandering, Begging Monks

Wandering, Begging Monks PDF Author: Daniel Folger Caner
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520344561
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Get Book Here

Book Description
An apostolic lifestyle characterized by total material renunciation, homelessness, and begging was practiced by monks throughout the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Such monks often served as spiritual advisors to urban aristocrats whose patronage gave them considerable authority and independence from episcopal control. This book is the first comprehensive study of this type of Christian poverty and the challenge it posed for episcopal authority and the promotion of monasticism in late antiquity. Focusing on devotional practices, Daniel Caner draws together diverse testimony from Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and elsewhere—including the Pseudo-Clementine Letters to Virgins, Augustine's On the Work of Monks, John Chrysostom's homilies, legal codes—to reveal gospel-inspired patterns of ascetic dependency and teaching from the third to the fifth centuries. Throughout, his point of departure is social and cultural history, especially the urban social history of the late Roman empire. He also introduces many charismatic individuals whose struggle to persist against church suppression of their chosen way of imitating Christ was fought with defiant conviction, and the book includes the first annotated English translation of the biography of Alexander Akoimetos (Alexander the Sleepless). Wandering, Begging Monks allows us to understand these fascinating figures of early Christianity in the full context of late Roman society.

The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam

The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam PDF Author: David Thomas
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047408829
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
The theme of this book is the early encounters between Christianity and Islam in the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire and in Persia from the beginnings of Islam in Mecca to the time of the Abbasids in Bagdad. The contributions in this volume deal with crucial subjects of political and theological dialogue and controversy that characterized the varying responses of the Christian communities in the Byzantine Eastern provinces to the Islamic conquest and its subsequent impact on Byzantine society and history. This volume opens up new research perspectives surrounding the confrontation of Christianity with the early theological and political development of Islam. The present publication emphasizes the importance of the study of the beginnings and the foundations of the relations between the two religions.

John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow

John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow PDF Author: Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317110560
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow is one of the most important sources for late sixth-early seventh century Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian monasticism. This undisputedly invaluable collection of beneficial tales provides contemporary society with a fuller picture of an imperfect social history of this period: it is a rich source for understanding not only the piety of the monk but also the poor farmer. Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen fills a lacuna in classical monastic secondary literature by highlighting Moschos' unique contribution to the way in which a fertile Christian theology informed the ethics of not only those serving at the altar but also those being served. Introducing appropriate historical and theological background to the tales, Llewellyn Ihssen demonstrates how Moschos' tales addresses issues of the autonomy of individual ascetics and lay persons in relationship with authority figures. Economic practices, health care, death and burials of lay persons and ascetics are examined for the theology and history that they obscure and reveal. Whilst teaching us about the complicated relationships between personal agency and divine intercession, Moschos’ tales can also be seen to reveal liminal boundaries we know existed between the secular and the religious.

The Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug

The Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug PDF Author:
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0879077492
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 592

Get Book Here

Book Description
The thirteen Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug (445-523) were delivered to new monks at a monastery under his episcopal care. Written in elegant Syriac, the Discourses deal with the fundamentals of the monastic and ascetic life-faith, simplicity, fear of God, renunciation, and the struggle against the demons of gluttony and fornication. This is Philoxenos's longest work and his most popular. It avoids the strident character of his letters and commentaries that were composed to advance the anti-Chalcedonian movement. This is the first English translation of an important Syriac text since the 1894 translation, now difficult to find. The introduction to this translation of the Discourses takes into account the scholarly work done and the books and articles published about Philoxenos in the past half century. There are no other titles in English that deal with the Discourses in this depth.

Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia

Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia PDF Author: A.C.S. Peacock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317112687
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 584

Get Book Here

Book Description
Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia offers a comparative approach to understanding the spread of Islam and Muslim culture in medieval Anatolia. It aims to reassess work in the field since the 1971 classic by Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization which treats the process of transformation from a Byzantinist perspective. Since then, research has offered insights into individual aspects of Christian-Muslim relations, but no overview has appeared. Moreover, very few scholars of Islamic studies have examined the problem, meaning evidence in Arabic, Persian and Turkish has been somewhat neglected at the expense of Christian sources, and too little attention has been given to material culture. The essays in this volume examine the interaction between Christianity and Islam in medieval Anatolia through three distinct angles, opening with a substantial introduction by the editors to explain both the research background and the historical problem, making the work accessible to scholars from other fields. The first group of essays examines the Christian experience of living under Muslim rule, comparing their experiences in several of the major Islamic states of Anatolia between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, especially the Seljuks and the Ottomans. The second set of essays examines encounters between Christianity and Islam in art and intellectual life. They highlight the ways in which some traditions were shared across confessional divides, suggesting the existence of a common artistic and hence cultural vocabulary. The final section focusses on the process of Islamisation, above all as seen from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish textual evidence with special attention to the role of Sufism.

A Companion to Late Antique Literature

A Companion to Late Antique Literature PDF Author: Scott McGill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118830342
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 704

Get Book Here

Book Description
Noted scholars in the field explore the rich variety of late antique literature With contributions from leading scholars in the field, A Companion to Late Antique Literature presents a broad review of late antique literature. The late antique period encompasses a significant transitional era in literary history from the mid-third century to the early seventh century. The Companion covers notable Greek and Latin texts of the period and provides a varied overview of literature written in six other late antique languages. Comprehensive in scope, this important volume presents new research, methodologies, and significant debates in the field. The Companion explores the histories, forms, features, audiences, and uses of the literature of the period. This authoritative text: Provides an inclusive overview of late antique literature Offers the widest survey to date of the literary traditions and forms of the period, including those in several languages other than Greek and Latin Presents the most current research and new methodologies in the field Contains contributions from an international group of contributors Written for students and scholars of late antiquity, this comprehensive volume provides an authoritative review of the literature from the era.

Liturgy and Devotion in the Crusader States

Liturgy and Devotion in the Crusader States PDF Author: Iris Shagrir
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429670702
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Get Book Here

Book Description
Examining liturgy as historical evidence has, in recent years, developed into a flourishing field of research. The chapters in this volume offer innovative discussion of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem from the perspective of 'liturgy in history'. They demonstrate how the total liturgical experience, which was visual, emotional, motile, olfactory, and aural, can be analysed to understand the messages that liturgy was intended to convey. The chapters reveal how combining narrative sources with liturgical documents can help decode political circumstances and inter-group relations and decipher the core ideals of the community of Outremer. Moreover, understanding the Latins’ liturgical activities in the Holy Land has much to contribute to our understanding of the crusade as an institution, how crusade spirituality was practised on the ground in the Latin East, and how people engaged with the crusading movement. This volume brings together eight original studies, forwarded by the editors’ introduction, on the liturgy of Jerusalem, spanning the immediate pre-Crusade and Crusade period (11th-13th centuries). It demonstrates the richness of a focus on the liturgy in illuminating the social, religious, and intellectual history of this critical period of ecclesiastical self-assertion, as well as conceptions of the sacred in this time and place. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Medieval History.

Roads and Kingdoms: Two Encounters with the Nazarenes Beyond the River

Roads and Kingdoms: Two Encounters with the Nazarenes Beyond the River PDF Author: Alexei Savchenko
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004527532
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book solves the long-standing mystery of a Christian monastery near Samarkand, seen and described by two Arab travellers in the tenth century.