Search results for ""author robert phenix""
JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck) The Sermons on Joseph of Balai of Qenneshrin: Rhetoric and Interpretation in Fifth Century Syriac Literature
Robert Phenix investigates the collection of twelve Syriac poetic sermons recounting the story of Joseph in Genesis 37 and 39-50. The authorship of these poems has been disputed, but this is the first study to attempt to argue from all aspects of the evidence that Balai of Qenneshrin is the author. The study then examines all of the data that can be associated with Balai: the religious environment of Qenneshrin and nearby Aleppo, Balai's connections with the "monk-bishops" of central Syria in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, particularly Acacius of Beroea/Aleppo and Rabbula of Edessa, the status of chorbishops, and the presence of Syriac speakers. Since it is argued in this study that Balai's source for the Sermons on Joseph was a Jewish text, this section also carefully examines the evidence for the Jewish community in Qenneshrin. As part of the background of the author, links between characters and the physical setting of the Sermons on Joseph and Qenneshrin are investigated. The relationship of the Sermons on Joseph to other Syriac Joseph sources and Joseph material in the Pseudepigrapha and at Qumran is discussed, followed by the question of the origin of the story, which is located in a lost Greek Jewish composition. The last section of the work examines the author's use of Hellenistic rhetoric and literary themes. The many speeches in the Sermons on Joseph reveal rhetorical arrangements that are strikingly close to the models of arrangement found in Late Antique handbooks, such as the Hermogenic Corpus. Several of these arguments are examined, as are the elaborate prefaces that introduce some of the individual Sermons on Joseph. The literary themes and motifs of the Sermons on Joseph are explored. It can be shown that some motifs known only in Syriac religious literature are employed in the Sermons on Joseph in non-religious literary contexts.
£85.21
JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck) Children in Late Ancient Christianity
Social, cultural, theological, and economic presentations of children offer important clues to understanding the development of Christianity and society in Late Antiquity. This volume brings together studies of a diverse collection of sources - patristic texts, apocrypha, medicinal treatises, hagiography, pseudepigrapha, papyri, and more - illuminating how children mediated the relationship between Christian thought and Late Antique society. The contributors address the existence of children's culture, medicine and healing of children, disability and deformed children, the economic condition of orphans, theological appropriations of children, the presentations of family relationships in Christian thought, monasticism and family obligations, early Christian response to pedophilia and the formation of Christian ethical identity, and the role of children in apocryphal texts. With contributions by: Reidar Aasgaard, Tony Burke, Carole Monica C. Burnett, Susan R. Holman, Cornelia B. Horn; Inta Ivanovska, Nicole Kelley, Chrysi Kotsifou, John W. Martens, Robert R. Phenix, Carrie Schroeder, Ville Vuolanto
£103.70
Liverpool University Press The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor: Church and War in Late Antiquity
The Chronicle attributed to Zachariah of Mytilene is one of the most important sources for the history of the church from the Council of Chalcedon in 451 to the early years of the reign of Justinian (527-565). The author who compiled the work in Syriac in A.D. 568/9 drew extensively on the Ecclesiastical History of Zachariah the Rhetor, who later became bishop of Mytilene and ended up giving his name to the whole work. But Zachariah’s Ecclesiastical History, which forms books iii to vi of Pseudo-Zachariah’s work and covers the period from 451 to 491, is just one of a range of sources cited by this later compiler. For the period that follows, he turned to other well-informed sources, which cover both church and secular affairs. His reporting of the siege of Amida in 502-3 clearly derives from an eye-witness account, while for the reign of the Emperor Justinian he offers not only numerous documents, but also an independent narrative of the Persian war, as well as notices on the Nika riot and events in the West. This translation (of books iii-xii) is the first into a modern language since 1899 and is equipped with a detailed commentary and introduction, along with contributions by two eminent Syriac scholars, Sebastian Brock and Witold Witakowski.
£34.99
