Mar Mar, mar or MAR may refer to: Culture * Mar or Mor, an honorific in Syriac * Earl of Mar, an earldom in Scotland * MAA (singer) (born 1986), Japanese * Marathi language, by ISO 639-2 language code * March, as an abbreviation for the third mon ...

Paul (

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

''Pawla''), usually known as Paul of Edessa or Paul of Cyprus, was the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Syriac Orthodox metropolitan of Edessa who was forced to abandon his see between about 602 and 629, when it fell under the Sasanian Empire. He was an important translator of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

theological works into Syriac. He should not be confused with the Bishop

Paul of Edessa Paul of Edessa (died 30 October 526) was the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Edessa from 510 until his death with the exception of two periods of exile in 519 and 522–526. Paul was consecrated in 510, succeeding Peter. In the first year of his episco ...

who died in 526. According to

Jacob of Edessa Jacob of Edessa (or James of Edessa) ( syr, ܝܥܩܘܒ ܐܘܪܗܝܐ, Yaʿqub Urhoyo) (c. 640 – 5 June 708) was Bishop of Edessa and prominent Syriac Christian writer in Classical Syriac language, also known as one of earliest Syriac grammaria ...

, Paul fled to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

with many other bishops to escape the Sasanian invasion and occupation of Mesopotamia precipitated by the defection and rebellion of

Narses , image=Narses.jpg , image_size=250 , caption=Man traditionally identified as Narses, from the mosaic depicting Justinian and his entourage in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna , birth_date=478 or 480 , death_date=566 or 573 (aged 86/95) , allegi ...

, governor of Mesopotamia, who seized Edessa with Sasanian support in 602–03. He then fled Egypt for

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

to escape the

Sasanian conquest of Egypt The Sasanian conquest of Egypt took place between 618 and 621 CE, when the Sasanian Persian army defeated the Byzantine forces in Egypt and occupied the province. The fall of Alexandria, the capital of Roman Egypt, marked the first and most imp ...

in 618–621. At the time of his translation work on Cyprus he was described as an

archimandrite The title archimandrite ( gr, ἀρχιμανδρίτης, archimandritēs), used in Eastern Christianity, originally referred to a superior abbot (''hegumenos'', gr, ἡγούμενος, present participle of the verb meaning "to lead") wh ...

(supervisor of abbots). Paul probably came out of the monastic complex of Qenneshre. A scribal notation in a manuscript dated to 675, refers to a Syriac version of the '' Gloria in excelsis'' of Athanasius of Alexandria as "translated by Paul, according to the tradition of Qenneshre". In 623 or 624, during his time on Cyprus, Paul revised an earlier translation of the complete ''Discourses'' of

Gregory of Nazianzus Gregory of Nazianzus ( el, Γρηγόριος ὁ Ναζιανζηνός, ''Grēgorios ho Nazianzēnos''; ''Liturgy of the Hours'' Volume I, Proper of Saints, 2 January. – 25 January 390,), also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory N ...

and the ''Commentaries'' of

Pseudo-Nonnos Pseudo-Nonnus, also called Nonnus Abbas (i.e. "Nonnus the Abbot"), was a 6th-century commentator on Gregory of Nazianzus. His ''Commentaries'' consist of scholia explaining the meaning of Gregory's many allusions to Greek mythology. It was written i ...

. His edition survives in its entirety. On Cyprus, he also translated a collection of 295 hymns (''maʿnyoto'',

antiphon An antiphon ( Greek ἀντίφωνον, ἀντί "opposite" and φωνή "voice") is a short chant in Christian ritual, sung as a refrain. The texts of antiphons are the Psalms. Their form was favored by St Ambrose and they feature prominentl ...

s) by Severus of Antioch, John bar Aphtonia, John Psaltes and others. This translation, made between 619 and 629, was revised by Jacob of Edessa in 675 to make it more literal. According to Jacob's note of explanation, the hymns were "translated from the Greek tongue into the Edessene or Syriac speech by the saintly Mar Paul who was bishop of the city of Edessa, while he was in the island of Cyprus, in flight from the Persians" Paul may also be the translator of the famous pericope in the ''

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

'' (7:50–8:12) concerning the woman taken in adultery, which is not found in the earliest Syriac New Testament manuscripts of the

Peshitta The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, ...

and Ḥarqlean versions. It was attributed to a certain "Abbas Pawla" (Abbot Paul), which is generally assumed to be Paul of Edessa, although Paul of Tella, a contemporary and also an exile from the Sasanian invasion, has been suggested. At least one Syriac Orthodox liturgical calendar commemorates Paul on 23 August as "Paul, bishop of Edessa, who translated the books".

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * * {{refend 6th-century births 7th-century deaths Bishops of Edessa Syriac Orthodox Church bishops Syriac Christians Greek–Syriac translators Byzantine exiles 7th-century Oriental Orthodox archbishops 7th-century Byzantine people Syriac Orthodox Church saints