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Jacob of Serugh

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox saint Jacob of Serugh (Template:Langx, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; Template:Langx; Template:C. 452–521), also called Jacob of Sarug or Mar Jacob (Template:Langx),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was one of the foremost poets and theologians of the Syriac Christian tradition, second only to Ephrem the Syrian and equal to Narsai. He lived most of his life as an ecclesiastical official in Suruç, in modern-day Turkey. He became a bishop (of Batnan) near the end of his life in 519.Template:Sfn He was a Miaphysite (a form of Non-Chalcedonian Christianity), albeit moderate compared to his contemporaries.Template:Sfn

Jacob is best known for the homilies he wrote in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. He wrote in prose, as well as in 12-syllable (dodecasyllabic) meter, which he invented, and he was known for his eloquence.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to Jacob of Edessa, he composed 763 works during his lifetime. Around 400 survive, and over 200 of those have been published. The longest is about 1,400 verses.Template:Sfn By the time of his death, he had a great reputation. His works were so popular that of any author from late antiquity, only the writings of Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom survive in a greater number of manuscripts than Jacob's.Template:Sfn

His work earned him many nicknames, including "Flute of the Holy Spirit" (which also belonged to his predecessor Ephrem the Syrian), and "Lyre of the Believing Church" (in Antiochene Syriac Christianity).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian traditions of Christianity now take him as a saint.

LifeEdit

Jacob was born around the middle of the fifth century in the village of Kurtam ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) on the Euphrates in the ancient region of Serugh, which stood as the eastern part of the province of Commagene (corresponding to the modern districts of Suruç and Birecik). He was educated in the famous School of Edessa and became chorepiscopus back in the Serugh area, serving rural churches of Haura ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, Ḥaurâ). His tenure of this office extended over a time of great trouble to the Christian population of Mesopotamia, due to the fierce war carried on by the Sasanian emperor Kavadh I within the Roman borders.Template:Sfn

In 519 and at the age of 67, Jacob was elected bishop of the main city of the area, called in Syriac Baṭnān d-Sruḡ ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}). As Jacob was born in the same year as the controversial Council of Chalcedon, he lived through the intense rifts that split Eastern Christianity, which led to most Syriac speakers being separated from Byzantine communion. Even though imperial persecution of anti-Chalcedonians became increasingly brutal towards the end of Jacob's life, he remained surprisingly quiet on such divisive theological and political issues. However, when pressed in correspondence by Paul, bishop of Edessa, he openly expressed dissatisfaction with the proceedings of Chalcedon.Template:Citation needed

Literary activityEdit

Jacob's style was to write in the genres of metrical homily (mimre) and madroshe (narrative or verse poems without strophies), sugyoto (dialogue poems with an acrostic), and turgome (prose homilies for liturgical feasts).Template:Sfn

Jacob's literary activity was unceasing. According to Bar Hebraeus (Chron. Eccles. i. 191) he employed 70 amanuenses and wrote in all 760 metrical homilies, besides expositions, letters and hymns of different sorts. Jacob's style was to write in dodecasyllabic metre, dealing mainly with biblical themes, but also on the deaths of Christian martyrs, the fall of the idols and the First Council of Nicaea.Template:Sfn

Of Jacob's prose works, which are not nearly so numerous, the most interesting are his letters, which throw light upon some of the events of his time and reveal his attachment to Miaphysitism, which was then struggling for supremacy in the Syriac churches, and particularly at Edessa, over the opposite teaching of Nestorius.Template:Sfn

The Hexaemeron of Jacob of Serugh was the first Hexaemeral work (dedicated commentary to the Genesis creation narrative) to be composed in Syriac.Template:Sfn He was followed by other authors, such as Jacob of Edessa's own Hexaemeron.Template:Sfn

Political affairsEdit

Towards the end of his life, the fate of Miaphysite leaders such as himself took a turn for the worse with the accession of Justin I (r. 518–527) to the throne of the Byzantine Empire. In response to these affairs, Jacob composed two letters and they were composed in the following context. First, on March 28, 519, Justin adopted a pro-Chalcedonian text known as the Formula of Faith which had been written by Pope Hormisdas a few years beforehand, in 515. However, Paul of Edessa, the bishop of Edessa, refused to sign the text, which led Justin to lay siege to the city in November. Paul was exiled, but after forty days was allowed to be let back into the city in December. Immediately thereafter, Jacob wrote his Letter 32 to Paul. In it, he called Paul a "confessor", a title reserved for those who were persecuted but not killed for their faith. Jacob believed that Paul's refusal to sign the text was correct. After a military leader named Patricius invaded Edessa to, Jacob then composed his Letter 35 to the military leader of the city, Bessas. Bessas is praised for his faith which has helped to exalt the city. Jacob recognizes the suffering Bessas had endured for his faith as well and compares him with Abgar of Edessa, the man credited with introducing Christianity to Edessa.Template:Sfn To some surprise, aside from praising these two, Jacob also praised the faith of Justin in his letter to Paul: for allowing Paul to return to the city, by comparing him to Abgar, by describing his crown which displays features of the cross of Jesus, and more.Template:Sfn

Another affair that Jacob became somewhat involved in was during the persecutions of the Christian community of Najran under the Jewish Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas, which had caused widespread reactions in the world of Syriac Christianity. Between 518 and 521, Jacob composed his Letter to the Himyarites to help extol them for their faith and their endurance. This text is also the only extant literary composition that was sent into pre-Islamic Arabia.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Reception and memoryEdit

Sa'id bar Sabuni (d. 1095) wrote an 1106-line metrical homily in his honor, called The Vita of Jacob of Serugh, performed in order to commemorate the day of his death on November 29. Many more lives/Vitas were written for Jacob's memory, like Habib of Edessa's On Jacob of Serugh.Template:Sfn

Jacob's reputation as an author and composer also led many to write new works in his name, a famous example being the Song of Alexander.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn

WorksEdit

Jacob is famous for his metrical homilies, written in 12-syllable (dodecasyllabic) verse. According to Bar Hebraeus, Jacob composed over 760 homilies. About 400 have survived, and almost all have appeared in critical editions, primarily in the 6-volume Bedjan-Brock edition (1905–10, 2006) and the 2-volume Akhrass-Syryany edition (2017). A complete numbered list of Jacob's extant homilies was published in Akhrass 2015.Template:Sfn As of 2018, 20% of the homilies in the Bedjan-Brock edition have been translated. An ongoing translation project by Gorgias Press aims to bring his entire corpus into English.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Jacob also wrote outside of the genre of metrical homily. Jacob wrote stanzaic poetry (with 25 translated to date),Template:Sfn prose homily (8 extant),Template:Sfn and other prose works like letters.

ManuscriptsEdit

Jacob's homilies are found in a substantial number of surviving manuscripts. The earliest are from the sixth and seventh centuries, and massive manuscripts have also been recovered produced in the eleventh-thirteenth centuries containing up to two hundred of Jacob's homilies.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A distinct transmission of manuscripts of Jacob's writings also permeated monastic circles.Template:Sfn

EditionsEdit

In 1905–1910, Paul Bedjan published a 5-volume work with critical editions of 195 of these homilies. In 2006, a sixth volume was added by Sebastian Brock, which raised the number (along with contributions from Albert, Stothman, Mouterde, Alwan, etc) to 243 published homilies. Critical editions of the remaining unpublished homilies known to be attributed to Jacob, numbering around 160, were published by Roger Akhrass and Imad Syryany in 2017.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

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  • Roger Akhrass and Imad Syryany, 160 Unpublished Homilies of Jacob of Serugh, 2 vols., Damascus: Department of Syriac Studies

TranslationsEdit

Manuscripts of Jacob's homilies are also found in multiple languages beyond Syriac to which they were translated, including Coptic,Template:Sfn Georgian, Armenian, Arabic,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and Ethiopic.<ref>Witold Witakowski, “Jacob of Serug,” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Volume 3: HE-N, ed. Siegbert Uhlig (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 262–63.</ref> The number of Jacob's works translated into Arabic number over one hundred,Template:Sfn and there are over two hundred Armenian manuscripts of them that date from the twelfth to twentieth centuries.Template:Sfn

In modern-times, Behnam Sony has composed a five-volume translation of Jacob's writings into Arabic.<ref>Behnam Sony, Tarǧama min al-suryāniyya ilā l-ʿarabiyya wa-dirāsa ʿalā mayāmir al-malfān mār Yaʿqūb al-sarūǧī, 5 vols., Baghdad, [s.n.], 2003.</ref>

In European languages, Jacob's writings have been widely translated into English, German, French, and Italian.Template:Sfn

From the eighteenth century onwards, new discoveries of manuscripts of Jacob's works have sparked no less than three debates over his Christology.Template:Sfn

List of translationsEdit

Homilies on specific figuresEdit

Homilies on creationEdit

Other homiliesEdit

See alsoEdit

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ReferencesEdit

CitationsEdit

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SourcesEdit

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Further readingEdit

  • Kiraz, George (ed). Jacob of Serugh and His Times: Studies in Sixth-Century Syriac Christianity. Gorgias Press, 2010.
  • Forness, Philip Michael. Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh. Oxford University Press, 2019.

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