‘Abdīšō‘ of Gazarta, the first literate of the Chaldean Church: Poems dedicated to the Popes of Rome

Abstract

The paper discusses Syriac verse texts from the Ottoman period which are connected with the history of the Chaldean (East Syriac Uniate) Church. They were composed by ‘Adbīšō‘ of Gazarta, the second patriarch of the new Church (1555–1570), an outstanding literate, whose legacy has been significantly neglected by researchers. The pieces discussed in the present paper typify their very early samples epitomizing the beginning of this literary tradition that was connected with the name of ‘Adbīšō‘ of Gazarta. They were devoted to the Popes of Rome, with whom the young Chaldean Church had intensive contacts and whose supremacy it was in the process of acknowledging. Until recently, scholars have lacked access to most of the numerous textual corpora of this Church; as a result, research on these manuscripts had been confined to their catalogue descriptions, printed in the early–20th century. Although they have never been an object of detailed study so far, the short pieces discussed here, composed on various occasions, contain important evidence for both the history of Syriac literature and the history of the Christian Churches in this region. The names mentioned in the poems can be easily identified, which would serve to date the texts to certain periods of ‘Adbīšō‘’s Church career. The present paper is the first attempt of a detailed study and a critical edition of his poems dedicated to the Roman Catholic Popes.