Rhetoric and Philosophy from Greek into Syriac

Dr John W. Watt, Cardiff University, UK

‘Watt’s studies offer a good complement to those of the Oxford Syriacist Sebastian Brock ... which have also appeared in the series of Variorum Collected Studies. Cumulatively Watt’s articles demonstrate how many individual aspects of Greek culture were taken up and developed in Syriac; taken together they contribute to a better understanding of the medieval Near East and show the influence which Syriac culture exercised on the budding Islamic civilisation. Addenda and corrigenda are supplied at the end of the collection, marked in the individual articles by an asterisk. This method allows the reader to bring the output of each essay up to date with more recent research, a necessary addition in view of the lengthy timespan over which the articles were written. Collectively the book provides a thoroughly absorbing read and can be emphatically recommended to all interested in the history of philosophy and culture’ [translated from German] - Oriens Christianus 102 (2019)‘Well-informed and clearly written, this collection of articles by Watt provides a very good introduction to the exploration of this little-known early stage in the course of the history of the transmission of Greek thought into Arabic’ – Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol 58, Issue 1

• Contents: Preface; Grammar, rhetoric, and the Enkyklios Paideia in Syriac; Les Pères grecs dans le curriculum théologique et philologique des écoles syriaques; Greek historiography and the 'Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite'; Eastward and westward transmission of classical rhetoric; A portrait of John bar Aphtonia, founder of the monastery of Qenneshre; Guarding the Syriac language in an Arabic environment: Antony of Tagrit on the use of grammar in rhetoric; Syriac rhetorical theory and the Syriac version of Aristotle's Rhetoric; The Syriac reception of Platonic and Aristotelian rhetoric; Syriac panegyric in theory and practice; The philosopher-king in the Rhetoric of Antony of Tagrit. From Themistius to al-Farabi. Platonic political philosophy and Aristotle's Rhetoric in the East; From Synesius to al-Farabi: philosophy, religion, and rhetoric in the Christian Orient; Syriac translators and Greek philosophy in early Abbasid Iraq; Syriac and Syrians as mediators of Greek political thought to Islam; The strategy of the Baghdad philosophers. The Aristotelian tradition as a common motif in Christian and Islamic thought; Christianity in the renaissance of Islam. Abu Bishr Matta, al-Farabi and Yahya ibn 'Adi; Addenda and corrigenda; Index