Discerning the Many Voices of Isaac: The Author Problem in the Corpus of Metrical Homilies Attributed to Isaac of Antioch

Dr. Adam Becker

Professor of Classics and Religious Studies, New York University

There are over 150 metrical homilies commonly attributed to the fifth-century Syriac poet, Isaac of Antioch. Scholars have long known that the attribution of these works to one author was likely precarious. We learn in the sources of several Isaacs, and the style and content of the different metrical homilies vary greatly. The confusion of these various Isaacs’ works is already attested in the early manuscripts of the sixth and seventh century and it seems the absence of certainty regarding their attribution has deterred modern scholars from engaging with them. This is unfortunate because more than other Syriac poetry they are replete with significant social historical detail. In this lecture Adam Becker will provide a survey of the corpus as a whole, including a discussion of its transmission history, and discuss his own attempt to develop criteria for discerning the authorship of the different works

Date: Wednesday, March 26 2025 starting at 5pm

Location: Caldwell Auditorium, Caldwell Hall, The Catholic University of America

The event is free and open to the public. Please rsvp here. 

To request disability accommodations, contact cua-semitics@cua.edu or 202-319-5084

The lecture is presented by the generous support of an anonymous donor.

image = Damascus Syr 12 22 -2

Lending to Lazarus: Wealth, Poverty, and Death in Syriac Christian Thought

Dr. Maria Doerfler
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University

Wealth and poverty are two of the ethical topoi that most preoccupied early Christian authors. Inspired by biblical mandates, Christians wrote, preached, and otherwise sought to motivate their audiences to eschew riches, embrace privation, and provide aid for the needy. Unsurprisingly, given the New Testament’s own preoccupations, death and the literary genres that accompanied it constituted a central locus for these disquisitions. This lecture traces didactic themes surrounding materiel possessions in the context of a collection of funerary hymns ascribed to Syriac Christianity’s most celebrated writers, Ephrem “the Syrian.” Three motifs appear with particular prominence: that of wealth’s indifference, a topic apparent in a series of ekphrastic “tours of tombs”; its detriment, as evidenced by concomitant “tours of hell”; and the occasional opportunity it represented for both the deceased and their survivors. The ethical vision that emerges is, perhaps surprisingly, one of moderation: tolerance for a modicum of personal wealth, combined with an emphasis on the subject’s dependence — on divine mercy, on ecclesiastical leaders, even on the community’s poorest members.

5PM Wednesday 26th April 2023

Keane Auditorium (106 McGivney)

The event is free and open to the public. A buffet dinner will follow the lecture. 

In order to get an accurate headcount for the dinner, please rsvp here. 

To request disability accommodations, contact cua-semitics@cua.edu or 202-319-5084

The lecture is presented by the generous support of an anonymous donor.