J. F. Coakley - Böcker

In the years before the First World War the Church of England maintained a mission of help to the Assyrian Church of the East (popularly known as the Nestorian Church) in its then homeland, a corner of eastern Turkey and north-western Persia. The mission's ideal was to restore this body to its ancient vitality and its place as an independent branch of the true church. The mission faced many problems. At home there was the difficulty of justifying the support of a `heretical' church. In the field, the confidence of the Assyrians proved difficult to gain, especially in competition with other missions: French Catholic and American Presbyterian. Still, it had notable accomplishments. Some of the missionaries were scholars, like A. J. Maclean, who edited and printed the ancient Syriac liturgies of the Church for the first time. Others were diplomats, like W. A. Wigram, who laboured to establish a basis for intercommunion between the two churches. Archbishop Benson, the founder, strictly ruled out any proselytizing to the Anglican church, and in this respect his Assyrian mission stands scrutiny in modern eyes.

Thomas of Edessa flourished as a teacher at the School of Nisibis, an important Christian intellectual centre in sixth-century Persia. He accompanied the later patriarch Mar Aba on his travels around the Mediterranean and followed him to Nisibis. Thomas's only surviving writings are two lectures in Syriac ('Explanations') on the feasts of the Nativity and Epiphany. These discourses were later incorporated into a collection of Explanations of the Feasts covering the whole ecclesiastical year.This volume presents an edition of Thomas of Edessa's Syriac text of Nativity and Epiphany, accompanied by a facing-page English translation. These discourses, with the editors' introduction and notes, elucidate Thomas's place in the theological development of the Church of the East. He is the earliest author after Narsai to draw extensively upon the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, but earlier Syriac traditions are also reflected in his work, and his Christology is not yet the doctrine characteristic of Babai and later East Syriac authors.

T. H. Robinson's Paradigms and exercises in Syriac Grammar was first published in 1915 to meet the need for 'something of an elementary nature which should be of value to the student who takes up Syriac for the first time'. Since then, the book has met this need for generations of students. The fifth edition of 2002 remains the grammar of choice for many teachers of Syriac classes as well as for students learning by themselves. The present revision, drawing on ten more years of university teaching experience and students' comments, clarifies some of the grammatical explanations and exercises. Improvements to the fonts and a larger format make for easier reading. As before, the West Syriac script and grammatical tradition are followed in the body of the lessons, and appendices introduce reading in the other (estrangela and Eastern) scripts. The book remains a plain and friendly introduction to this important language.