Books by Sebastian Brock

Guide to one of the most important collections of Syriac manuscripts in the world.

This Introduction aims to provide basic guidance to important areas of Syriac studies. topics include grammars, dictionaries, the Bible in Syriac, histories of Syriac literature, bibliographical aids and relevant series, periodicals, and encyclopedias.

The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian

Sebastian Brock provides an overview of Syriac literature from the second to the twenty-first century. Brock divides this overview into six historical periods, surveys the important authors and writings of each period, and provides excerpts from some important writings.

Brock provides an indispensable bibliographic resource for Jacob of Serugh scholarship. This guide lists Jacob's mimre by biblical passage and liturgical events, uplifted saints and topics, other works including prose and letters, and recommended secondary sources for further study.

What was Joseph's reaction when he arrived home to find Mary pregnant? Dialogue poems (sughyotho) offer lively, thought-provoking, and often delightful re-imaginings of Biblical events. The collection provides five dialogue poems featuring Mary, in Syriac original with facing English translation.

Dialogue poetry is a genre that began in ancient Sumer and continues in rich fashion in the Syriac tradition. Sebastian Brock has selected an edition of twenty six dialogue poems: between the Church and Zion; Joseph and Mary; Mary and the Magi; the angel and Mary; between the angel and Zachariah; death and Satan; the sinful woman and Satan;

The fame of the martyr St. Phokas, first bishop of Sinope (on the Black Sea) and patron of seafarers, had spread to many parts of the Christian world by the fifth and sixth centuries.

In the present volume, Sebastian Brock provides an introduction and overview of the unique themes and features of spirituality in the Syriac tradition and includes excerpts from various texts throughout the Syriac tradition that exhibit these features.

Jacob of Sarug (451-521) was a prolific writer of the Syriac Church and was known as "the flute of the Holy Spirit and the harp of the believing church". Sebastian Brock gives the Syriac edition of six homilies written by Jacob: on the birth of our Lord; on Palm Sunday; The text is based on an ancient manuscripts preserved in London and dated 609.

A sensitive and evocative treatment of the role of the Holy Spirit in worship. With a keen awareness of the tradition of Syrian Christianity, Brock begins his exploration with the role of the Holy Spirit in the Syriac Bible.

The History of Holy Mar Ma'in of Sinjar tells the story of a Sasanian general during the time of Shapur II (309-79) who suffered persecution after his conversion to Christianity. Brock provides the first edition ever of the Syriac text of the History of Ma'in as well as the first full translation of it.

This is an introduction, written in Syriac, to the Syriac versions of the Bible, with chapters on the manuscript tradition, the main editions, commentaries, and various aspects of the ways the Bible was interpreted and used in the Syriac literary and liturgical tradition.

Focuses on three areas: the christology of the Church of the East, the phraseology of the invocations to the Holy Spirit in the Syriac liturgical tradition, and two early Commentaries on the Liturgy. This fourth collection also contains a series of studies of the wording of the invocations to the Holy Spirit to be found in Syriac liturgical texts.

It is often forgotten that many people in late antique Syria were bilingual in Syriac and Greek. These articles explore aspects of the interaction between these two literary cultures, exemplified in the works of two Christian poets, Ephrem the Syrian and Romanos the Melode.