Jacob of Serugh
Encyclopedia
Jacob of Serugh also called Mar Jacob, was one of the foremost Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

 poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

-theologians among the Syriac, perhaps only second in stature to Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...

 and equal to Narsai
Narsai
Narsai was one of the foremost of Syriac poet-theologians, perhaps equal in stature to Jacob of Serugh, both second only to Ephrem the Syrian...

. Where his predecessor Ephrem is known as the 'Harp of the Spirit', Jacob is the 'Flute of the Spirit'. He is best known for his prodigious corpus of more than seven-hundred verse homilies
Homily
A homily is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture. In Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Eastern Orthodox Churches, a homily is usually given during Mass at the end of the Liturgy of the Word...

, or mêmrê , of which only 225 have thus far been edited and published.

Life

Jacob was born around the middle of the fifth century AD in the village of Kurtam on the Euphrates
Euphrates
The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...

, in the ancient region of Serugh, which stood as the eastern part of the province of Commagene (corresponding to the modern Turkish districts of Suruç
Suruç
Suruç is a rural district of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey, on a plain near the Syrian border 46 km south-west of the city of Şanlıurfa.The modern Turkish name “Suruç” is derived from Serugh , the pre-Islamic name for the area. The name literally means “woven” or “latticed,” and either refers...

 and Birecik
Birecik
Birecik , also formerly known as Bir and during the Crusades as Bile, is a town and district of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey, on the River Euphrates....

). He was educated in the famous School of Edessa
School of Edessa
The School of Edessa , often mistaken to be one and the same as the School of Nisibis, was a theological school of great importance to the Syriac speaking world. It had been founded as long ago as the 2nd century by the kings of the Abgar dynasty. In 363 Nisibis fell to the Persians, causing St....

 and became chorepiscopus
Chorbishop
A chorbishop is a rank of Christian clergy below bishop. The name chorepiscope or chorepiscopus is taken from the Greek and means rural bishop.-History:Chorepiscopi are first mentioned by Eusebius in the second century...

 back in the Serugh area, serving rural churches of Haura . His tenure of this office extended over a time of great trouble to the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 population of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

, due to the fierce war carried on by the Sassanian
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...

 Shah Kavadh I
Kavadh I
Kavad or Kavadh I was the son of Peroz I and the nineteenth Sassanid king of Persia, reigning from 488 to 531...

 within the Roman borders. When, on 10 January 503, the city of Amid (modern Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır is one of the largest cities in southeastern Turkey...

) was captured by the Persians after a three months' siege and all its citizens put to the sword or carried captive, a panic seized the whole district, and the Christian inhabitants of many neighbouring cities planned to leave their homes and flee to the west of the Euphrates. They were recalled to a more courageous frame of mind by the letters of Jacob.

In 519, Jacob was elected bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 of the main city of the area, Batnan da-Srugh . As Jacob was born in the same year as the controversial Council of Chalcedon
Council of Chalcedon
The Council of Chalcedon was a church council held from 8 October to 1 November, 451 AD, at Chalcedon , on the Asian side of the Bosporus. The council marked a significant turning point in the Christological debates that led to the separation of the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th...

, he lived through the intense rifts that split the Church of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, which led to most Syriac speakers being separated from the imperial communion in what was to become the Syriac Orthodox Church
Syriac Orthodox Church
The Syriac Orthodox Church; is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Eastern Mediterranean, with members spread throughout the world. The Syriac Orthodox Church claims to derive its origin from one of the first Christian communities, established in Antioch by the Apostle St....

. 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 correspondece by Paul, bishop of Edessa
Edessa, Mesopotamia
Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...

, he openly expressed dissatisfaction with the proceedings of Chalcedon.

From the various extant accounts of Jacob's life and from the number of his known works, we gather that his literary activity was unceasing. According to Barhebraeus (Chron. Eccles. i. 191) he employed 70 amanuenses and wrote in all 760 metrical homilies, besides expositions, letters and hymns of different sorts. Of his merits as a writer and poet we are now well able to judge from P. Bedjan
Paul Bedjan
Paul Bedjan was a priest of the Chaldean Catholic Church and a Syriacist and orientalist.Born in Khosrova, Persia, the son of a Chaldean Catholic family, Bedjan was enrolled a pupil at the French Lazarist School in Khosrova in 1846. On 27 October 1856, at the age of eighteen, he became a Lazarist...

's edition of selected metrical homilies (Paris 1905-1908), containing 146 pieces. They are written throughout in dodecasyllabic metre, and those published deal mainly with biblical themes, though there are also poems on such subjects as the deaths of Christian martyrs, the fall of the idols and the First Council of Nicaea
First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325...

.

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 the Monophysite doctrine which was then struggling for supremacy in the Syrian churches, and particularly at Edessa, over the opposite teaching of Nestorius
Nestorius
Nestorius was Archbishop of Constantinople from 10 April 428 to 22 June 431.Drawing on his studies at the School of Antioch, his teachings, which included a rejection of the long-used title of Theotokos for the Virgin Mary, brought him into conflict with other prominent churchmen of the time,...

.

Works

He is especially famous for his metrical homilies in the dodecasyllabic verse of which, says Bar-Hebraeus
Bar-Hebraeus
Gregory Bar Hebraeus was a catholicos of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the 13th century...

, he composed seven hundred and sixty. Of these barely one-half has come down to us, and a few only have heen published, e.g. on Simeon Stylites
Simeon Stylites
Saint Simeon Stylites or Symeon the Stylite was a Christian ascetic saint who achieved fame because he lived for 39 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo in Syria. Several other stylites later followed his model...

, on virginity
Virginity
Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...

, fornication
Fornication
Fornication typically refers to consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. For many people, the term carries a moral or religious association, but the significance of sexual acts to which the term is applied varies between religions, societies and cultures. The...

, etc., two on the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the chariot of Ezechiel He wrote the first homily (on Ezechiel's chariot) when only twenty-two years of age.

His prose writings were comparatively few. The most important besides the letters already mentioned are a letter to Paul of Edessa
Paul of Edessa
Paul of Edessa was the Monophysite bishop of Edessa. He was consecrated 510, succeeding Peter. In the first year of his episcopate Paul joined with Gamalinus, bishop of Perrha, against certain sectarians who refused the use of bread, water, and wine, except in celebrating the Eucharist...

 of 519, a letter to the pantheist Stephen Bar Sudaili published by Frothingham, a liturgy, an order of baptism, festal homilies.

Works in modern translation

  • Memre concerning the Virgin Mary
    Mary (mother of Jesus)
    Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...

     — Also —
  • Seven memre against the Jews, of which, the sixth memra takes the form of a dispute between personifications of the Synagogue
    Synagogue
    A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

     and the Church
    Christian Church
    The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...

     —
  • Memre on the dominical feasts —
  • Four memre on creation —
  • Memra on the Veil of Moses
    Moses
    Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

     —
  • Memra on Ephrem
    Ephrem the Syrian
    Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...

     —
  • Memra on Simeon Stylites
    Simeon Stylites
    Saint Simeon Stylites or Symeon the Stylite was a Christian ascetic saint who achieved fame because he lived for 39 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo in Syria. Several other stylites later followed his model...

     —
  • Prose homilies (turgame) —
  • Memre on Thomas
    Thomas the Apostle
    Thomas the Apostle, also called Doubting Thomas or Didymus was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He is best known for questioning Jesus' resurrection when first told of it, then proclaiming "My Lord and my God" on seeing Jesus in . He was perhaps the only Apostle who went outside the Roman...

     —
  • Memra on Melkizedek
    Melchizedek
    Melchizedek or Malki Tzedek translated as "my king righteous") is a king and priest mentioned during the Abram narrative in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis....

  • Letters —
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