The People and the Peoples

The conflict of the early Church with Judaism found expression in a particular genre of liturgical literature, Syriac dialogue poetry of the late antique period.

In this book, Sebastian Brock provides the Syriac texts of four anonymous dialogue poems, from between the fifth and eight centuries CE, together with fully annotated English translations. Their protagonists are, respectively, Synagogue and Church, Sion and Church, Jesus and the Synagogue, Jesus and the Pharisees. These texts are fresh critical editions based on the oldest Syriac manuscripts. The author’s introduction to each poem examines their position within the context of other Syriac texts which specifically concern Judaism and Jews.

These carefully selected dialogue poems are published here together for the first time. The volume is enriched with illustrations based on some of the finest surviving illuminated Syriac manuscripts from late antiquity.