TY - BOOK ID - 10614346 TI - Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches PY - 2015 VL - 55 SN - 9780520284968 0520284968 9780520960589 0520960580 PB - Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, DB - UniCat KW - Syriac Christian saints KW - Missionaries KW - Christian hagiography KW - 27 <394> KW - Christians KW - Syriac saints, Christian KW - Christian saints KW - Biography KW - History and criticism. KW - History KW - Kerkgeschiedenis--Syrië KW - History and criticism KW - Religious adherents KW - Biography&delete& KW - Syriac Christian saints - Biography - History and criticism KW - Missionaries - Middle East - Biography - History and criticism KW - Christian hagiography - History - To 1500 KW - Thomas ap. KW - Addai ap. Orientis KW - Mari ap. in Mesopotamia KW - Symeon ep. in Bêth-Arsâm KW - Iohannes ep. ev. Ephesus KW - Iacobus Baradaeus ep. Edessanus monophysita KW - Eglises syriaques KW - abgar. KW - acts of mari. KW - ahudemmeh. KW - apocryphal narratives. KW - biography. KW - byzantine. KW - christian figures. KW - christianity. KW - christians. KW - church history. KW - god and religion. KW - hagiography. KW - history of faith. KW - history. KW - india. KW - jacob baradaeus. KW - john of ephesus. KW - middle east. KW - missionaries. KW - missionary stories. KW - orthodox. KW - persia. KW - religion. KW - religious biography. KW - religious historian. KW - religious history. KW - religious scholar. KW - sacred history. KW - saint stories. KW - saint thomas. KW - saints. KW - simeon of beth arsham. KW - syriac church. KW - syriac missionaries. KW - syriac. KW - teaching of addai. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:10614346 AB - Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches analyzes the hagiographic traditions of seven missionary saints in the Syriac heritage during late antiquity: Thomas, Addai, Mari, John of Ephesus, Simeon of Beth Arsham, Jacob Baradaeus, and Ahudemmeh. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent studies a body of legends about the missionaries' voyages in the Syrian Orient to illustrate their shared symbols and motifs. Revealing how these texts encapsulated the concerns of the communities that produced them, she draws attention to the role of hagiography as a malleable genre that was well-suited for the idealized presentation of the beginnings of Christian communities. Hagiographers, through their reworking of missionary themes, asserted autonomy, orthodoxy, and apostolicity for their individual civic and monastic communities, positioning themselves in relationship to the rulers of their empires and to competing forms of Christianity. Saint-Laurent argues that missionary hagiography is an important and neglected source for understanding the development of the East and West Syriac ecclesiastical bodies: the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East. Given that many of these Syriac-speaking churches remain today in the Middle East and India, with diaspora communities in Europe and North America, this work opens the door for further study of the role of saints and stories as symbolic links between ancient and modern traditions. ER -