ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on: For what purpose was the Cause of all Causes (CC) composed? Is encyclopaedic knowledge here really at the service of "universal religion", propagated by the enlightened spirit of an Edessene bishop pursuing religious tolerance between the different religious communities in the Near East by appealing to the rational faculties of the human mind? It also focuses on: Does there exist a connection between the objectives of the CC and the way in which encyclopaedic knowledge is organised and systematised in this work, as a consequence of which the composition received its very particular generic characteristics? But the general correspondences in literary structure and composition between the CC and the older Syriac hexaemera end. The most remarkable feature of the CC is the way in which it uses current encyclopaedic knowledge within framework of a composition of which the structure follows the lines of apologetic argumentation with the purpose to define and consolidate the communal identity.
