SYRIA C
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SYRIAC
use of them in various liturgical functions, such as
funerals and marriage celebrations.
Simple hymns without refrain are called teshbuhti (glorifications); the name cala (voice) is given to the hymns in which each strophe is preceded by a sen- tence (metrical or not) expressing a thought in con- formity with that of the strophe. It is in a manner an invitation from the first choir to which the second replies by strophe, e. g.: —
First choir: Open to me the gates of justice.
Second choir: Open to us. Lord, the great treasure,
(strophe of four verses). First choir: And I will enter to praise the Lord. Second choir: At the gate of thy mercies (etc.,
strophe of four verses).
Sometimes the strophes are interspersed with ver- sicles from the Psalms.
The hymns in the Jacobite Office which conclude the part known as sedra and replace the short prayers of the Nestorian Office are called ba'utha (prayer, re- quest) . Most hymns of this class are in pentasyllable verses and are the work of the poet Balai (d. about 4.50). They show great simplicity of thought tand language and consist of two strophes, generally of six verses each, sometimes of four, as for example: —
During forty days Moses fasted on the mountain: And with the splendour of its light His countenance shone.
During forty days Ninive fasted:
And the Lord was appeased, And annulled the sentence.
Instead of the ba'utha occasionally occurs a metri- cal composition called seblala (stairs), which are facti- tious arrangements of verses borrowed from various sources and arbitrarily arranged by those who co-or- dinated or revised the Offices, and are of no assist- ance in the study of Syriac hymnody. The sagithd is less frequently replaced by the augllha, a canticle in the form of a dialogue which recalls the " Victimae pas- chali" of the Roman Missal. All the poems of this kind known to us are of Nestorian origin, and are probably the work of Nanses. They are uniformly constructed with an introduction and a dialogue; the introfluction is composed of from five to ten strophes of four heptasy liable verses; the dialogue between two jjersons or two groups of persons contains forty- four strophes (twenty-two for each interlocutor) sim- ilar to those in the prologue and forming an alphabetic acro.stic. These compositions of rather lively meas- ure are stamped by a certain grace. The subject is adapted to the feast of the day; thus in the canticle for ChrLstmas the dialogue is between the Blessed Virgin and the Magi; for the Annunciation, between Clabriel and Mary; for the feast of the Syrian Doctors, between Cyril and Nestorius, etc. These three kinds of hymns correspond to the three subjects which form their usual theme, praise, prayer, and instruction, but as has been said the last-named was chiefly imparted by the mimre.
Extensive study of Syriac hymnody would show whether there is any relationship between it and Byzantine hymnii<ly, an hypothesis which lias had as many oppiincnts as defenders; l)Ut tins study has not yet been attrini)trd, and it is an unilcrtiiking fraught with dilficulties, owing to the small number of docu- ments published in satisfa<-tory condition. Indeed the knowledge of hymns supplied l)y editions of the liturgical books of IJniat Cliakleans, Syrians, or Ma- ronites is in.adequate for the reasons indicated above. The works of St. Ephraem which contain a large
number of them (authentic or apocryphal) have not
been critically edited. The Nestorian Breviaries
which have most faithfully preserved the ancient
te.xts have never been printed and MSS. are rare,
wliile the collections of hymns apart from hturgical
books are few and have not been sufficiently studied.
(a) Studios. — Cardahi, Liber thesauri de arte poetica Syrorum (Rome, 1875); Martin, De la metrique chez les Syriens (Leipzig 1879); Lamy, On Syriac Prosody (London, 1891); Mayer, Anf- (jang und Urspruny der lafeinischfn u'ld griech. rythmiscken Dich~ tung (Munich, 1885); Gbimme, Der Strophenbau in den Gedichten Ephraems (Fribourg, 1S93); refuted by Brockelnunn in Zeitsch. der deuisch morg. Oesellschaft, LII, 402; Dtjval. Notes sur la poisie syriaque in Journ. asiat., II (1897), 57; Zingerle, Har- fenkldnge von Libanon (Innsbruclt, 1840); Idem, Das syrische Festbrevier aus Libanons Gdrten (Villengen, 1846); Denzinger, Ritus orientalium (Wiirzburg, 1863), Bickell, Ausgewdhlte gedichte der syrischen Kirchenvdter (Kempten, 1872); Maclean, East Syrian Daily Offices (London, 1894).
(b) Editions. — For the liturgical books of the Syrians see Bickell, Conspectus rei Syrorum litterarim (Munich. 1871); Nestle. Litteratura syriaca (Berlin, 1888), §3; for the works of St. Ephraem see Ephraem, bibliography; other editions; AssE- MANI, Codex liturgicus (Rome, 1749-66);' Zingerle. Zeitschr. d. morg. Geselsch, (1865), 730; Spueth in Daniel, Thesaurus hymnologicus. III (Halle, 1856); Overbeck, S. Ephraemi syri
. . Balaci aliorumque opera selecta (Oxford, 1865); Deutsch, Edition dreier syrischen Lieder (Berlin, 1895); Sachau, Uber die Poesie in der Vfilksprache der Nestorianer (Berlin, 1896); FoLKMANN, Ausgewdhlte nestorianische Gedichte von Giwargis Warda (Kii chain, 1896); Feldmann, Syrische Wechsellieder von Narses (Leipzig, 1896); Zetterstein, Beitrdge zur Kenntnis der religiosen Dichtung Balai's (Leipzig, 1902); Hilgenfeld, Au^^ gewdhlte Gesdnge des G. Warda (Leipzig, 1904). Some hymns by various authors are in Manna, Morceaux choisis de litterature aramienne (Mosul, 1901), and in Klabuna dpartuii (Ourmia, 1898).
J. B. Chabot.
Syriac Language and Literature. — Syriac is the most important bnuich of the group of Semitic lan- guages known as Aramaic. In the time of Alexander the Great, Aramaic was the official language of all the nations from Asia Minor to Persia, from Armenia to the Arabian Peninsula. It was divided into two dia- lects: the western, used in Palestine and Syria by the Jews, Palmyrans, and Nabateans; the eastern, spoken in Babylonia by Jews, Mandeans, Manichseans, and the peoples of Upper Mesopotamia. The Syriac lan- guage, as we know it from its literature, did not spring from the dialect spoken in Syria, but from the eastern Mesopotamian dialect. \Vlien the weakened Seleu- cides ceased to defend the Euphrates, small inde- pendent principahties were formed in that region. The most famous was the little Kingdom of Edessa whose caiiital Osrhoene was the religious centre of the country (cf. R. Duval, "Hist. d'Edesse", Paris, 1893). This city also became an intellectual centre, and even then the language of its people attained great per- fection. A httle later under the influence of Chris- tianity it developed considerably, and eventually be- came the liturgical and literary language of all the Churches from the shores of the Meihterranean to the centre of Persia. The supjilenes.s and flexibility of this dialect and its loose and \-:irial)]e syntax readily lent itself to the most tlifTcrcnt ccmstructions, and offered to Christianity a more appr(ii)ri:i,te instrument than Greek for the expression and s]H-ead of new ideas. In Syria proper and western Mesopotamia Syriac was first used simultaneousl\- with Greek, but after the Monophysite schism Greek gratlually fell into disuse. The period from the middle of the fifth century to the end of the seventh was the most bril- liant period of Syriac literature. The Mussulman in- vasion brought about the decadence by imposing Arabic as the official language; the latter rapidly came into gener:il use, and Syriac was no longer spoken or understood by the people, although it was ujiheM:vs:i literary language for four centuries longer, and until the present time as a liturgical language. Nevertheless, the destruction was not complete; Syri:i,c, or r;i.ther Aramaic, modified according to the laws of evolution common to all languages, is still spoken in three viflages in (he neighbourhood of Damascus, in Tour Abdin (Mesopotamia, between
