Monastic Spirituality in the Syriac Renaissance: Sources for Bar Hebraeus' Mysticism
ABSTRACT
During the 12th and 13th centuries, the West Syrians produced texts of monastic asceticism in the form of monastic anthologies of spiritual teachings, ascetic instructions, as well as mystical treatises and commentaries. Gregory Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286CE) authored several texts on ascetic spirituality, texts which are characterised by their quotations and paraphrase of authorities from the Graeco-Syriac tradition, such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Evagrius Ponticus, and the Desert Fathers. Another characteristic of his spiritual texts is his use of the 7th and 8th century East Syrian mystics, particularly Isaac of Nineveh and John of Dalyatha, whose works had crossed confessional boundaries and came to be read in the West Syrian monasteries. This lecture will examine how Bar Hebraeus used this range of sources in the Ethicon and the Book of the Dove, to develop the central themes of his mysticism such as the love of God.
This lecture is organized within the framework of the ERC Starting Grant project "Reviving the Ascetic Ideal in the Eastern Mediterranean. Entangled Memories of Early Egyptian Monasticism in Medieval Syriac, Arabic and Armenian Christianity (969-1375 CE)" (RevIdEM), Grant Nr. 101078631, PI: Adrian C. Pirtea.