Beatrice Gründler, Freie Universität Berlin
Welcome

The Transfer of Knowledge via Verses and Sayings in a Syriac and Arabic World: About the Project

Yury Arzhanov, Paris Lodron University Salzburg
Between Greeks and Arabs: Syriac Collections of Gnomic Sayings

In the Middle Ages, Syriac monasteries became new centers of learning and vehicles of transmission of Late Antique Greek science and education. Collections of moral and ethical sententiae played an important role in this process. They were used for training in grammar and rhetoric, and they contributed to the ethical education of youth. Syriac collections of gnomic sayings ascribed to Greek philosophers, poets, and rhetoricians serve as witnesses to the Syriac reception of the Late Antique system of education and at the same time of the transformation of this system in Christian monasteries.

Yury Arzhanov is the author of Syriac Sayings of Greek Philosophers: A Study in Syriac Gnomologia with Edition and Translation (Louvain 2019), in which he edits and comprehensively discusses two Syriac collections of Greek gnomic wisdom. He presents a survey of the extant gnomic ma­te­rials attributed to Greek philosophers and poets in the Syriac Tradition, and traces their pedagogical use within the community.