Saints in Syriac: A Little-Tapped Resource

Syriac provides the third largest surviving literature of late antiquity, and consequently it offers materials that are potentially of considerable interest to the historian of that period. This is especially the case with hagiography, thanks to the facility with which these texts crossed and re-crossed linguistic boundaries. Besides numerous Lives written originally in Syriac, there is a large number of translations from Greek, often surviving in manuscripts many centuries older than the earliest Greek witnesses. After this essay draws attention to some examples of Syriac hagiographical texts which are of particular interest, the possible implications of the earliest Syriac translation for the prehistory of Palladius’s Lausiac History are considered.

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