Syriac literature

Syriac literature is literature written in the Syriac language, the classical Middle Aramaic which evolved in Assyria during the 5th century BC, the names Syria and Syriac originally being later derivations of Assyria. The majority of classical Syriac literature is of a Christian religious nature.

The earliest Christian literature in Classical Syriac was biblical translation, the Peshitta and the Diatessaron. The 4th century is considered to be the golden age of Syriac literature. The two giants of this period are Aphrahat, writing homilies for the Assyrian church in the Persian Empire, and Ephrem the Syrian, writing hymns, poetry and prose for the church just within the Roman Empire. The next two centuries, which are in many ways a continuation of the golden age, sees important Syriac poets and theologians: Jacob of Serugh, Narsai, Philoxenus of Mabbog, Babai the Great, Isaac of Nineveh and Jacob of Edessa.

With the advent and spread of Islam throughout the Middle East the process of hellenization of Syriac, which was prominent in the sixth and seventh centuries, slowed and ceased. Syriac entered a silver age from around the ninth century. The works of this period were more encyclopedic and scholastic, and include the biblical commentators Ishodad of Merv and Dionysius bar Salibi. Crowning the silver age of Syriac literature is the thirteenth-century polymath Bar-Hebraeus.