Book contents
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- One Worlds of Byzantium
- I Patterns, Paradigms, Scholarship
- II Images, Objects, Archaeology
- III Languages, Confessions, Empire
- Thirteen Byzantine Syriac
- Fourteen Greek Identity in the Sinai
- Fifteen Patriarchs, Caliphs, Monks, Scribes, and the Byzantinization of Jerusalem’s Liturgy
- Sixteen Byzantine Judaism in Early Islamic Palestine
- Seventeen Ethiopia
- Eighteen Armenia and Byzantium
- Nineteen Byzantine Georgia/Georgian Byzantium
- Twenty Conclusion
- Index
- References
Thirteen - Byzantine Syriac
Language and Religious Community in the Middle East*
from III - Languages, Confessions, Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 October 2024
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Worlds of Byzantium
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- One Worlds of Byzantium
- I Patterns, Paradigms, Scholarship
- II Images, Objects, Archaeology
- III Languages, Confessions, Empire
- Thirteen Byzantine Syriac
- Fourteen Greek Identity in the Sinai
- Fifteen Patriarchs, Caliphs, Monks, Scribes, and the Byzantinization of Jerusalem’s Liturgy
- Sixteen Byzantine Judaism in Early Islamic Palestine
- Seventeen Ethiopia
- Eighteen Armenia and Byzantium
- Nineteen Byzantine Georgia/Georgian Byzantium
- Twenty Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
This article examines the relationship between the late antique and medieval Dyothelete Chalcedonian community of the Middle East–commonly referred to as the Melkites or Rum–and surveys the evidence for the use of Syriac by these communities. Because Melkites have more commonly been associated with the use of Greek and Arabic, an argument is made that a number of factors–among them the Monothelete/Dyothelete split in the Middle Eastern Dyothelete church, liturgical Byzantinization, and the destruction of manuscripts–have distorted more recent understandings of the relationship of this church with the Syriac language and obscured the reality that a number of medieval Melkites used Syriac for Christian purposes.
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- Worlds of ByzantiumReligion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East, pp. 404 - 437Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024