The Book of Gifts [Text]

This work provides a Syriac text and English translation of writings on ascetical life by Subhalmaran, early seventh-century metropolitan of Beth Seloq, now Kirkuk in Iraq. He was a contemporary of Catholicos Gregory I, of the monastic reformer Babai the Great, and of the writer Barhadbesabba. The Syriac material, found in British Library Oriental Manuscript 6714, is there passed off as a single work, but is an editorial collection of five pieces on asceticism and one on the Last Things. This last is similar to, possibly the same as, a piece known elsewhere as being by Babai the Great. Subhalmaran's approach is biblically based, perceptive and witty. His theme is that gifts of the virtues come to those who, by conquering passions and combatting demons, live so as to acquire what is mediated through Old and New Testament ascetics and their successors from their Lord and perfecter, the Messiah.