ABSTRACT
In late antiquity Syria was an area of extraordinary artistic and literary creativity: the modern visitor stands breath-taken before the ruins, whether it be of Palmyra, or of Qal‛at Sim‛an. The literary remains are equally impressive, though less accessible, being written in both Greek and Syriac. The very fact, however, that the literary culture of Syria in this period was bilingual perhaps provides a clue towards answering the question, why should Syria have witnessed this outburst of energy in the creative arts? As far as literature is concerned, one might suggest that this was at least in part due to the meeting of, and interaction between, two great literary cultures, Greek and Aramaic, the latter revitalized by the adoption of Syriac (the Edessene dialect of Aramaic) as the literary vehicle for Aramaic-speaking Christianity. The product of this creative activity proved to be particularly influential in two areas of Christian literature, liturgy and poetry: the Syrian, or “Antiochian” origins of the great Byzantine liturgical tradition are well known, while on the Syriac side, liturgical texts in this language reached India (where they are still in use) and even China. In the case of poetry I have in mind, as far as Greek poetry is concerned, primarily that which innovates metrically, abandoning the old classical metres for the new principles of syllabism and homotony: here it is the great poets of Syria and Palestine, men like Romanos, Cosmas of Jerusalem, Sophronios, John of Damascus and Andrew of Crete (but originally also of Damascus), on the Greek side, and Ephrem, Jacob of Serugh, Narsai on the Syriac, whose names and influence stand out in the annals of eastern Christian poetry and hymnography.
