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The Debate on the Christian Faith between Timothy I and Caliph Mahdi in 781 AD
In 781 A.D., a debate on the Christian and Muslim faiths took place over a period of two days between Mar Timothy I (780-823), Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Abbasid Caliph Mahdi (775-785) in Baghdad. The record of this debate survives in an original Syriac version and later Arabic versions. This book contains the text of the Syriac version and an English translation by Alphonse Mingana. This debate is significant for a number of reasons. It provides a very early witness to the relations between Islam and Christianity. It is characterized by an open and honest sharing of ideas and beliefs that is often sadly lacking in later similar encounters, even in the present day. The participants demonstrate a high degree of respect for each other that extends to their often opposing beliefs. They tend to look for common ground but never ignore or trivialize their differences.
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The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv - Vol. 1: The Gospels in English
Isho’dad was a native of the city of Merv (currently in Turkmenistan), and became bishop of Hadatha, one of the sees belonging to the Metropolitan province of Assyria, in the mid 9th century. He wrote commentaries on most of the books of both the Old and the New Testaments and is considered one of the most important representatives of the tradition biblical exegesis of the Assyrian Church of the East. This volume contains his commentaries on the four Gospels in English.
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The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv - Vol. 2: The Acts & Epistles in English
Isho’dad was a native of the city of Merv (currently in Turkmenistan), and became bishop of Hadatha, one of the sees belonging to the Metropolitan province of Assyria, in the mid 9th century. He wrote commentaries on most of the books of both the Old and the New Testaments and is considered one of the most important representatives of the tradition biblical exegesis of the Assyrian Church of the East. This volume contains his commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles in English.
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The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv - Vol. 3: The Gospels in Syriac
Isho’dad was a native of the city of Merv (currently in Turkmenistan), and became bishop of Hadatha, one of the sees belonging to the Metropolitan province of Assyria, in the mid 9th century. He wrote commentaries on most of the books of both the Old and the New Testaments and is considered one of the most important representatives of the tradition biblical exegesis of the Assyrian Church of the East. This volume contains his commentaries on the four Gospels in Syriac.
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The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv - Vol. 4: The Acts & Epistles in Syriac
Isho’dad was a native of the city of Merv (currently in Turkmenistan), and became bishop of Hadatha, one of the sees belonging to the Metropolitan province of Assyria, in the mid 9th century. He wrote commentaries on most of the books of both the Old and the New Testaments and is considered one of the most important representatives of the tradition biblical exegesis of the Assyrian Church of the East. This volume contains his commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles in Syriac.
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Kalilah and Dimnah or The Fables of Bidpai in English
This collection of animal tales was highly appreciated by the Assyrians of antiquity. These ancient tales originate in India and were written in Sanskrit under the title of “Panchatantra” or “Five Principles”. The purpose of the stories is to teach moral values concerning friendship and harmony and the things that can come between friends and destroy harmony among them. Like other cycles of tales, they have an oral origin and the stories are embedded within stories in order to keep the interest and attention of the hearer/reader. Mar Audisho Bar Brikha relates that they were translated by the priest Bood into Syriac. An older Syriac version, made from an intermediary Old Persian version exists. A later Syriac version was made from the Arabic. From these versions, the stories were translated into many other languages and traveled around the world. This book presents a translation of the later Syriac version with a lengthy introduction detailing the many versions of the stories.
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The Book of Kalilah and Dimnah in Syriac
This collection of animal tales was highly appreciated by the Assyrians of antiquity. These ancient tales originate in India and were written in Sanskrit under the title of “Panchatantra” or “Five Principles”. The purpose of the stories is to teach moral values concerning friendship and harmony and the things that can come between friends and destroy harmony among them. Like other cycles of tales, they have an oral origin and the stories are embedded within stories in order to keep the interest and attention of the hearer/reader. This book presents the text of the later Syriac version.
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Light from the East
Light from the East was published in Chicago under the direction of Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII. This volume contains 27 out of the first 34 issues published from 1948 to 1954. Following the tragic events of August 1933, Mar Shimun was exiled from Iraq. In 1941, Mar Shimun decided to settle among the Assyrians in Chicago. Starting with the first issue, Light from the East documents Mar Shimun’s new political policy which encouraged Assyrians to be loyal citizens of the countries in which they lived. All hope of autonomy or an independent state in Iraq was given up. Along with articles about church news, history and culture, Light from the East contains very interesting articles on the events of the period, such as attempts to establish a branch of the Church of the East in Japan and notices denouncing the alleged actions of Yusuf Malek, the author of “The British Betrayal of the Assyrians”, in connection with Kurdish unrest and attempts to find a homeland for Assyrians in Brazil.
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The Book of the Cave of Treasures
The authorship of the “Book of the Cave of Treasures” is attributed to St. Ephrem or Mar Aprim the famous poet-theologian of Syriac Christianity who lived in the 4th century. However, the translator of the book into English, E. A. Wallis Budge believes that the form in which we have the book today dates to the 6th century. Like the Book of the Bee, which was also translated into English by Budge, this book intends to serve as a history of the world from Creation to the Crucifixion of Christ. Its sources include the well know biblical narratives, but it is also embellished with Jewish, Greek and Mesopotamian apocryphal material. This book contains an English translation, with copious notes and illustrations, of the Syriac text found in British Museum MS. ADD. 25875.
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The Book of the Cave of Treasures in Syriac and Arabic
This Syriac and Arabic edition of the text of the Book of the Cave of Treasures was produced by Carl Bezold and published by him in Leipzig in 1888. Budge’s English translation of 1927 was made from a single manuscript in the British Museum which he deemed superior to all other available manuscripts. However, the Syriac text of that manuscript was not reproduced in Budge’s edition. In his introduction Budge refers to Bezold’s edition as being “an eclectic text constructed from at least three manuscripts”. In fact, Bezold made use of four manuscripts, including the same British Museum manuscript used by Budge. It is unclear why Budge would refer to Bezold’s attempt at a critical edition as an “eclectic” text, but in the absence of an edition of the British Museum manuscript, Bezold’s edition is reprinted here.
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Islam and the Oriental Churches
William A. Shedd was born in Urmia in 1865. His parents were members of the American Mission to the Assyrians since 1859. He joined the Mission in Persia in 1892 and served as its head from 1904 until his death during the Assyrian Exodus in 1918. This book contains the texts of six lectures he delivered to students studying to become missionaries at Princeton during 1902-03 while he was on leave in the United States. He based his lectures on Syriac sources and provides details of the relationship between the Syriac Churches (principally the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church) and Islam. Having been born in Urmia, Shedd was practically a native speaker of modern Assyrian. Given the general antipathy of the American Mission towards the old liturgical language of the Assyrians and its literature, it is surprising to see how well versed he was in this language. Although this book is older, it remains a valuable resource on the subject.
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Faith Working by Love: as Exemplified in the Life of Fidelia Fiske
Fidelia Fiske was one of the earliest and most influential members of the American Mission to the Assyrians of Urmia. Fiske was born in 1816 and graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the first women’s college in the United States, in 1842. Although she suffered from poor health, she desired to become a missionary and arrived at Urmia in 1843. By October of 1843 she had founded a boarding school for girls in Urmia which later became known as Fiske Seminary. This was the first school for women established in Persia and it continued to function until the mass exodus of the Assyrians from Urmia in 1918. Failing health prompted Fiske to return to the United States in 1858 where she took up teaching at Mount Holyoke, her alma mater. She died in 1864. In spite of a certain amount of exaggeration typical of the accounts of the American Missionaries, this book provides many important details concerning the conditions of life of Assyrian women at the time.
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Life in Tiyari
"Life in Tiyari" was written and published by Shamasha Gewargis d'Bit Binyamin d'Ashita in Chicago in 1982. Shamasha Gewargis had a long and fruitful career in teaching and publishing in both Syriac and Assyrian. This Modern Assyrian account of the life and customs of the Assyrians of Tiyari before they were massacred and driven from their homeland during World War I preserves many fascinating cultural and historical details that are seldom found in other accounts. [Note: View the "back cover" to see the front cover of the book.]
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Doctrinae Christianae Rudimenta (Yulpana Mshikhaya)
St. Robert Francis Romulus Bellarmine (1542-1621) was a famous Jesuit theologian and writer. He was canonized it 1930 and is the patron saint of catechists in the Roman Catholic Church. He composed the short catechism that forms the main content of this book. It was translated from Latin into the then modern Assyrian dialect of Salamas in Persia (b’lishana d’hamzume d’gu athra d’Salamast”) and printed by the Propaganda Fide in Rome in 1841. Thus this small book serves as both a witness to an early and rare attempt at writing modern Assyrian by Catholics (as compared to the American Mission efforts) and as a nice example of Syriac printing of the Propaganda Press in Rome.
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Kitavona: The Assyrian Chronicle - Volume 1
Kitavona, or the Assyrian Chronicle, was an Assyrian monthly magazine published by John Baba (Aghajan Baba of Seir) in Chicago during the 1930's. Volume 1 of this edition contains a collection of 22 issues dating from June 1932 to April 1935. Each issue usually contained material both in Assyrian and in English.
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Kitavona: The Assyrian Chronicle - Volume 2
Kitavona, or the Assyrian Chronicle, was an Assyrian monthly magazine published by John Baba (Aghajan Baba of Seir) in Chicago during the 1930's. Volume 2 of this edition contains a collection of 23 issues dating from May 1935 to August 1937. Each issue usually contained material both in Assyrian and in English
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Early Christian Mystics
Early Assyrian Christians had a deep appreciation for the ascetic life. Before the destruction wrought by the Mongol conquests in the 13th and 14th centuries, numerous monasteries and convents existed in all the territories where Assyrian Christians lived. These institutions served as centers of education as well as refuges for those seeking to develop their spiritual life away from the cares and worries of everyday life. Many who entered these institutions eventually left them to continue their spiritual journey as solitaries living in remote mountains. The most famous spiritual writer of the Assyrian Church was Isaac of Nineveh, whose works have been translated into many languages and have been appreciated by Christians of all churches. In this book, Mingana provides the Syriac texts and English translations of some other spiritual writers including Dadisho Katraya, Abraham Bar Dashandad, Joseph & Abdisho Hazzaya, and Simon of Taibutheh.
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Nestorius and His Teaching
This book appeared in 1908 and is one of the first modern attempts to reexamine the theological teachings of Nestorius and the circumstances of his condemnation at the council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. Bethune-Baker made extensive use of the book written by Nestorius in his later years known as the “Bazzar of Heraclides” which had survived in a Syriac translation in a unique manuscript. This manuscript was “discovered” in the library of the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East in the 1890’s and copies were quickly made and an edition by Paul Bedjan and a translation into French by Francois Nau soon followed. A complete English translation appeared in 1925. However, it is Bethune-Baker, an Anglican scholar, who deserves the credit of being among the first to seriously study and consider whether Nestorius or the Assyrian Church ever taught what was condemned as “Nestorianism”. This work, and others that followed, laid the foundation for clearing away centuries of misunderstanding.
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The Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Nicene Creed
Theodore was born at Antioch around 350 A.D. Along with his friend from youth, St. John Chrysostom, he gave up a secular career for the ascetic life. He was ordained bishop of Mopsuestia in 392 A.D. and served until his death in 428 A.D. Theodore enjoyed a reputation as one of the foremost theologians and biblical commentators of his day. His writings became popular in the Schools of Edessa and Nisibis and therefore in the Assyrian Church of the East in general. In the Synod of Mar Sabrisho in 596 A.D., his writings and teachings received the official sanction of the Church. The Assyrian Church accords him the title of the “Interpreter”. His commentary on the Nicene Creed is the first part of a work which was written to instruct adult candidates for baptism in the Christian faith. This volume contains the Syriac text edited with an English translation.
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The Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Lord's Prayer, Baptism and the Eucharist
Theodore was born at Antioch around 350 A.D. Along with his friend from youth, St. John Chrysostom, he gave up a secular career for the ascetic life. He was ordained bishop of Mopsuestia in 392 A.D. and served until his death in 428 A.D. Theodore enjoyed a reputation as one of the foremost theologians and biblical commentators of his day. His writings became popular in the Schools of Edessa and Nisibis and therefore in the Assyrian Church of the East in general. In the Synod of Mar Sabrisho in 596 A.D., his writings and teachings received the official sanction of the Church. The Assyrian Church accords him the title of the “Interpreter”. His commentary on the Lord's Prayer, Baptism and the Eucharist is the second part of a work which was written to instruct adult candidates for baptism in the Christian faith. This volume contains the Syriac text edited with an English translation.
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