Re-reading the Jacob of the “Jacobites”: Heresiology and the Reception of Jacob of Serugh and Jacob BaradaeusSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/WKX22RBM/tei
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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Justin AnthonyArnwineRe-reading the Jacob of the “Jacobites”: Heresiology and the Reception of Jacob of Serugh and Jacob Baradaeushttp://syriaca.org/cbss/WKX22RBMhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/WKX22RBMhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/WKX22RBM2023Who was the Jacob of the “Jacobites”? For centuries, scholarship on the history of Syriac Christianity has claimed that Jacob Baradaeus was the Jacob of the so-called “Jacobite” Christian tradition, known more commonly in recent scholarship as the West Syrian Miaphysite Christian tradition or as the Syriac Orthodox Church, the modern descendant of this tradition. Many scholars have made this claim because they have relied on discourses of heresiology over and, at times, against the evidence of other sources, especially the discourse of West Syrian Miaphysite Christians themselves. Relying on heresiology alone to make this claim has been problematic because heresiology is oppositional and denominal discourse. To understand who the Jacob of the “Jacobites” was, this study juxtaposes discourses of heresiology with the discourse of the “Jacobites” themselves whom heresiologists opposed and whom they named “Jacobites.” This juxtaposition provides a fuller perspective on the Jacob of the “Jacobites” and, in fact, reveals another Jacob entirely—the fifth- and sixth-century Syriac poet and theologian, Jacob of Serugh. This Jacob was also significant for West Syrian Miaphysite Christians, but his significance for these Christians has been neglected out of concerns for his alleged “orthodoxy.”
By re-reading the Jacob of the “Jacobites” in the discourse of late antique and medieval heresiologies in juxtaposition with the discourse of the “Jacobites” themselves, this study provides a fuller perspective on both Jacob of Serugh and Jacob Baradaeus and, moreover, on the effects of heresiological discourse as to which Jacob was the Jacob of the “Jacobites.”
Arnwine, Justin Anthony. “Re-Reading the Jacob of the ‘Jacobites’: Heresiology and the Reception of Jacob of Serugh and Jacob Baradaeus.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 2023.
Justin Anthony Arnwine, Re-Reading the Jacob of the ‘Jacobites’: Heresiology and the Reception of Jacob of Serugh and Jacob Baradaeus (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 2023).