The Syrian Orthodox Church

By H.H. MOR IGNATIUS YACOUB III (1980+)

ITS EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY

This Church engaged itself in various fields of studies such as theology, music, philosophy, medicine, language, poetry, history, mathematics and astronomy, and established many important educational institutions through which it exerted its influence on the history of culture. It succeeded in graduating in its schools many remarkable scholars well-known in the East and in the West. The Arab conquerors sought their assistance to educate themselves and to translate into Arabic many Greek books on various topics, besides their wonderful works in Syriac. Their translations and writings became in the following centuries a rich and remarkable source for the Arab scholars and philosophers and through them for the western world. A quick look at the philosophic letters of Al-Kindy can convince you of how much that first Arab philosopher in the ninth century had quoted from these writings. For example, his expressions "Is, Lais, Huwayya, Qunyat and Kuthmat”. So also the Arabs adopted many of the Syriac melodies, tunes and poetical metres which were invented especially by Bardaisan, Mar Ephraim, Mar Balay and Mar Yacoub of Sroog. Moreover, the Arabic language itself was affected by Syriac. We are proud to say that one can find in these Syrian Scholars excellent treatment of some of the theories which were well accepted by the West. For example, the theory of Harder "The man is a small world", was treated by St. Ahodemeh the famous Catholicos of the East and a Martyr in the sixth Century: the theory of Galileo, the astronomer, was treated by the bishop of Edessa in the tenth century, in his book called "The cause of all causes." In this book too, we find exactly Nietzsche's theory of the super-man.

In describing the educational interest of the Syrian scholars we cannot but blame some of the orientalists who wrote of Bar Ebraya, the greatest scholar in our Church, as being of Jewish origin. In fact, his nickname "Bar Ebraya" was applied to him because he belonged originally to a village called "Ebra" which was situated on the bank of the River Euphrates, close to Malataya. Moreover, his grandfather's name was Touma (Thomas). This Christian name alone is enough to prove that he descended from an old Christian family.

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