This small volume contains an edition (from Vatican ms. 117) of Jacob of Sarug’s homily “On Tamar and on the Mystery of the Church.”

In the two articles reprinted here, Dom Hugh Connolly offers an annotated English translation of two homilies from Jacob of Serugh dealing with the Eucharist (Bedjan nos. 22 and 95), as well as a short selection from homily 53.

This fascinating volume contains excerpts from four otherwise unedited (and untranslated) homilies from Jacob of Sarug on the theatre. Moss gives a substantive introduction, and then presents the texts in Syriac and in English translation.

Les Calligraphes et les Miniaturistes de l’Orient Musulman is a highly regarded exploration of the Islamic art of calligraphy. Compiled by the noted Orientalist Clément Huart, the main body of the work is dedicated to the exploration of various schools of the art form throughout history.

This volume contains an Italian translation of Jacob of Sarug’s eulogy of Simon the Stylite.

Anton Baumstark compares elements of the “old-Spanish” or Mozarabic liturgy with eastern liturgies in order to demonstrate an “oriental” influence.

This book is a translation into Arabic of The Vienna dialogue: Five Pro Oriente consulations with oriental Orthodoxy: communiqés and common declarations, edited by Rudolf Kirchschläger and Alfred Stirnemann (Horn, Austria, 1991); it contains a number of documents written by both Roman Catholic and Oriental Orthodox churchmen connected to the question of the relationship between these churches.

This book is a translation into Arabic of The Vienna Dialogue: five Pro Oriente consultations with Oriental Orthodoxy/ Middle East Regional Symposium, Deir Amba Bishoy, October 1991 (Vienna, 1991) and contains a number of articles by Roman Catholic and Oriental Orthodox churchmen connected to the question of the relationship between these churches.

Curt Peters presents the collated Arabic texts of several Gospel passages that include noteworthy variants. For each passage, Peters includes a critical apparatus with variant readings and a German translation.

Sasse’s foundational study of the early Syriac author Aphrahat is divided into three sections: Aphrahat’s life, his writings (including a study of the Armenian translation), and his biblical citations in comparison with the Peshitta.

This volume is a translation into Arabic of the papers published as part of the Pro-Oriente ecumenical consultation between members of Roman Catholic, Chaldean Catholic, Syro-Malankar and Assyrian Orthodox Churches, originally published in Vienna in 1994. Participants included both European and Middle Eastern scholars and paper topics covered a range of issues relating to both the history and theology of the Church of the East.

This book originated in Bishop Yohanna Gregorios’ dissatisfaction with the lack of a study which would show where the music of the Syrian church came from, how it was accepted in the church, the basis on which it entered the church, the regional variation in chanting traditions, and the development of church music through time.

Anton Baumstark compares selections from the Latin Te Deum hymns with eastern Eucharistic prayers in order to find evidence of eastern influence on the western liturgical tradition.

The prayer of the heart is an early Christian contemplative tradition of striking profundity and beauty. Christian authors of the Greek- as well as the Syriac-speaking world placed the heart at the center of a mystical theology that viewed the body as a God-given instrument of divine ascent and the relational setting of Christian existence as an important means of experiencing God’s abiding inner presence. This work sheds light on the Syrian church’s approach to the mystery of the divine encounter.

Fadel Mubaraka has here given us a study of the linguistic survivals of Aramaic in the Arabic dialect of the town of Sadad, in Syria, home to a large Syrian Orthodox community. Arranged alphabetically in the style of a dictionary, Mubaraka lists hundreds of different Arabic words, defines them, and then discusses their Aramaic etymology. Although the focus is on the specific dialect of Sadad, Mubaraka’s work and the words he discusses are not necessarily only to be found in this one location. This work will therefore be of great value to all interested in Arabic dialectology, the Aramaic influence on colloquial Arabic, and in the cultural history of the Levant.

This volume contains two short studies on the Diatessaron and Syriac literature. Readers who study the history of the Gospels in Syriac and their reception and use in Syriac literature will find these two studies of interest.