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Aramean Roots of the Syriac Name according to Dawid bar Pawlos

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"Arameans are Syriacs, and because they dwelt in Syria, that is, in the land of the inhabitants of Hama and Antiochenes, they were called Syriacs."

Author

Dawid Bar Pawlos

Dawid bar Pawlos was a learned Syriac Orthodox monk, poet, grammarian, and biblical exegete active in northern Mesopotamia during the late 8th to early 9th century. Born near Nineveh, he studied Greek on Mount Sinjar and eventually became the abbot of the Mar Sargis monastery in Sinjar. Following a monastic dispute, he spent time at a monastery on the Euphrates before returning east around 785 or 786 with 170 liturgical hymns by Severus of Antioch, which he adapted for Syriac Orthodox use. His authentic writings include a collection of over 60 letters discussing grammar, punctuation, and biblical topics, alongside unique poems on the alphabet, the seven climates of the earth, and a dialogue between the vine and the cedar. He also authored short grammatical works, a dialogue on the Trisagion against a Melkite, and the exegetical treatise About the generations of the sons of Noah, which revised earlier templates of the Genesis 10 table of nations. While later traditions falsely attributed a pseudo-cycle of 22 alphabetic wisdom poems to his name, modern analysis proves these were written much later, in the 13th century.

Item details

Date: 9th century
Language: Syriac-Aramaic
Publisher: London, British Library, MS Add. 14620, fols. 30r–30v (Minov, Sergey. "A Syriac tabula gentium from the Early Abbasid Period: Dawid bar Pawlos on Genesis 10." Christian Orient, vol. 9, no. 15, 2021, pp. 57–76)