Presents the insights of St. Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh, two of the earliest representatives of the theological world-view of the Syriac church.

This fourth collection by Sebastian Brock focuses on three areas: the christology of the Church of the East, with the argument that the traditional characterisation of this Church as 'Nestorian' is not only unsatisfactory, but also thoroughly misleading; the distinctive phraseology of the invocations to the Holy Spirit in the Syriac liturgical tradition, hearkening back to Jewish roots; and two important early Commentaries on the Liturgy.

The special cultural circumstances of the emergence of a Syriac-speaking Church—before the onslaught of Greek hegemony—engendered the peculiar traits of thought and expression to be found in early Syriac sources. It is some of these idiosyncrasies mainly pertaining to trinitarian theology, christology and hermeneutics—that this volume unearthes.

To Train His Soul in Books explores numerous aspects of this rich religious culture, extending previous lines of scholarly investigation and demonstrating the activity of Syriac-speaking scribes and translators busy assembling books for the training of biblical interpreters, ascetics, and learned clergy.

Originally delivered as one of the St. Margaret's Lectures for 1904, the contents of this booklet are focused on aspects of the Syriac-speaking Church. Extracted from Burkitt's book Early Eastern Christianity, the third lecture concerns the theology of Eastern Christianity. Burkitt provides a brief survey of the work of Aphraates, Philoxenus of Mabbug, Ephraim the Syrian, and Rabbula.