Syriac literature

Syriac literature is the body of writing in Syriac, a literary dialect of Aramaic that developed around Edessa in northern Mesopotamia. In its narrower sense, the term refers to literature in Classical Syriac, the learned and liturgical language of several eastern Christian traditions. In a broader sense, it can also include modern writing in Neo-Aramaic varieties associated with Syriac Christian communities. Syriac literature is especially associated with Syriac Christianity, but it was shaped by contact with Greek, Jewish, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Arabic, Armenian, and other literary cultures. Among its greatest authors include Ephrem the Syrian, Aphrahat, Jacob of Serugh, Narsai, and Barhebraeus.

The surviving corpus includes biblical translations, hymns, verse homilies, prose commentaries, hagiography, apocrypha, apocalypse, historiography, theology, canon law, grammar, philosophy, medicine, and scientific translation. It flourished from the "Syriac Golden Age" in late antiquity, through the medieval period in the Byzantine, Sasanian, and Islamic Near East. A massive revival of this literature in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries is known as the Syriac Renaissance. Syriac literature continues to be used today as a liturgical and literary language among the Church of the East, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Maronite Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Saint Thomas Christians of India.