About 650 the Nestorian Henanieshu´ wrote a treatise on logic (cf. Budge: Thomas of Marga. i. 79) and commented on John Philoponus.
The Monophysites had no great schools like the Nestorians, but their convent at Qensherin, on the left bank of the Euphrates, was a great centre of Greek studies. Its most famous product was Severus Sebokt who flourished on the eve of the Muslim conquest. He was the author of a commentary on Aristotle’s Hermeneutica of which only fragments survive, of a treatise on the syllogisms of the Analytica Priora, and of epistles dealing with terms used in the Hermeneutica and on the difficult points in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (cf. Brit. Mus. Add. 14660, 17156). In astronomy he wrote on “the Figures of the Zodiac” and on “the Astrolabe,” the former of these is preserved in Br. Mus. Add. 14538 and has been published by Sachau (op. cit.), the latter in Berlin MS. Sachau 186 and published by Nau in the Journal Asiatique of 1899.
Athanasius of Balad who became Monophysite patriarch in 684 was a pupil of Severus Sebokt, and is chiefly known as the translator of a new Syriac version of Porphyry’s Isagoge (Vatican Ms. Syr. 158. cf. Bar Hebraeus Chron. Eccles. ed. Abbeloos et Lamy. i. 287).
James of Edessa (d. 708 A.D.) also was a pupil of Severus Sebokt at the same convent, was made bishop of Edessa about 684 and abandoned this see in 688 as the result of his failure to carry out the reformation of the monasteries in his diocese: he retired to the monastery of St. James at Kaishun, between Aleppo and Edessa, but left this to become lecturer at the monastery of Eusebona, in the diocese of Antioch where “for eleven years he taught the psalms and the reading of the scriptures in Greek and revived the Greek language which had fallen into disuse” (Bar Hebr. Chron. Eccles. i. 291). Attacked by the brethren who disapproved of the study of Greek, he migrated to the monastery of Tel`eda where he prepared a revised version of the Peshitta or Syriac Vulgate of the Old Testament, finally returning to Edessa about four months before his death. His Enchiridion, a treatise on the terms used in philosophy, is preserved in the Brit. Mus. MS. Addit. 12154.
George, who became “bishop of the Arabs” in 686, was himself a pupil of Athanasius of Balad and translated the whole logical Organon of Aristotle, of which his versions of the Catagories, Hermeneutica, and Analytica Priora appear in Brit. Mus. Addit. 14659, each furnished with an introduction and commentary.
These names cover the whole period between the two schisms and the Muslim invasion and suffice to show that the Syriac speaking community continued diligent in the study of the Aristotelian logic and metaphysics, and also gave attention to medical and scientific studies. It is not exactly a brilliant or original form of cultural activity, for the most part it was only the transmission of received texts with the preparation of new translations, commentaries, and explanatory treatises, but this itself fulfilled an important function. The Muslim invasion made no change in the course of these studies: the Umayyads did not interfere with the schools and the Syriac students went their own way living a life quite apart from that of their Arab rulers. Now and then unscrupulous or angry clergy appealed to the Khalif against their fellow clergy and this was the commonest cause of interference which the historians describe as persecution. Such was the experience of Henanieshu´ who became Nestorian Catholicos in A.D. 686. The bishop of Nisibis made complaints against him to the Khalif `Abdul-Malik in consequence of which he was deposed, imprisoned, and then thrown over a cliff. He was not killed by his fall, though severely lamed; by the kindness of some shepherds he was sheltered and nursed back to health, and then retired to the monastery of Yannan near Mosul, resuming his patriarchal office after the death of the bishop of Nisibis, and holding it until his own death in 701 (Bar Heb. Chron. Eccles. Abbeloos et Lamy. ii. 135-140). Besides sermons, letters, and a biography of Dewada, he wrote an educational treatise on “the twofold duty of the school” as a place of religious and moral influence on the one hand, and of an academy of the humanities on the other (cf. Asseman BO.) iii. part I. 154 and also an “Explanation of the Analytica” (id).
Mar Abha III. became Nestorian Catholicos somewhere about 740 (133 A.H.) and produced a commentary on Aristotle’s logic (cf. Bar Heb. ii. 153).
This brings us down to the period when the Muslim world began to take an interest in these philosophical and scientific studies, and translations and commentaries began to appear in Arabic. But Syriac studies did not at once disappear and it will be convenient to enumerate briefly some of those who appeared in later times down to the age of Bar Hebraeus (d. A.D. 1286), with whom the literary history of Syriac comes to an end. In the latter part of the eighth century we find Jeshudena bishop of Basra writing an “introduction to logic.” Shortly afterwards Jeshubokt metropolitan of Persia wrote on the Categories (cf. Journ. Asiat. May-June. 1906). Hunayn b. Ishaq, his son Ishaq, and his nephew Hubaysh, with some other companions, formed the college of translators established at Baghdad by the Khalif al-Ma´mun to render the Greek and other philosophical and scientific texts into Arabic, a work to which we shall refer again; but Hunayn, who was a Nestorian Christian, was also occupied in making translations from the Greek into Syriac: he prepared, or revised, Syriac versions of Porphyry’s Isagoge, Aristotle’s Hermeneutica, part of the Analytica, the de generatione et corruptione, the de anima, part of the Metaphysics, the Summa of Nicolas of Damascus, the Commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias, and the greater part of the works of Galen, Dioscorus, Paul of Aegina, and Hippocrates. His son Ishaq also made a translation of Aristotle’s de anima, and it is significant that this treatise and the commentary of Alexander Aphr. now begins to take the most prominent place in philosophical study; the centre of interest is moving from logic to psychology. About the same time the physician John Bar Maswai (d. A.D. 857) composed various medical works in Syriac and Arabic. He, like Hunayn, was one of the intellectual group which the `Abbasids gathered together in their new capital city of Baghdad. Contemporary also were the Syriac writers Denha (or Ibas) who compiled a commentary on the Aristotelian logical Organon: Abzud, the author of a poetical essay on the divisions of philosophy, and then, after a series of minor writers on logic, Dionysius Bar Salibi in the twelfth century A.D., who composed commentaries on the Isagoge, the Categories, Hermeneutica, and Analytica; and in the early part of the following century Yaqub Bar Shakako, author of a collection of “Dialogues” of which the second book deals with philosophical questions of logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics.
The series of Syriac philosophical writers closes with Gregory Bar Hebraeus, or Abu l-Faraj in the thirteenth century A.D. whose “Book of the Pupils of the Eyes” is a compendium of logic summarising and explaining the Isagoge, and Aristotle’s Categories, Hermeneutica, Analytica, Topica, and Sophistica Elenchi; his “Book of the Upholding of Wisdom” being a summary introduction to logic, physics, metaphysics, and theology. A third work “The Cream of Science” is an encyclopædia of the Aristotelian philosophy, and this work appears also in an abridged form as the “Business of Businesses.” He was also the translator into Syriac of Dioscorus on simples, and author of a treatise on the medical Questions of Hunayn b. Ishaq, and of a work on geography called “the Ascent of the Spirit.” Although esteemed as one of the greatest Syriac authorities and for centuries holding a place of primary importance, he was in reality no more than a compiler who produced encyclopædic works dealing with the researches of his predecessors.
The great importance of the Syriac speaking Christian communities was as the medium whereby Hellenistic philosophy and science was transmitted to the Arabic world. There was no independent development in its Syriac atmosphere, and even the choice of material had already been made by the Hellenists before it passed into Syriac hands. It was now definitely established that the basis of the “humanities” was the Aristotelian logic, and that this as well as all other studies in the work of Aristotle was to be interpreted according to the neo-Platonic commentators. In medicine and chemistry the curriculum of the school of Alexandria was recognised as authoritative and this, in so far as it was based upon Galen and Hippocrates, and upon the teaching of Paul of Aegina in obstetrical medicine, was to the good: but there was a mystical side of Alexandrian science mixed up with astrology, so that particular drugs had to be taken where certain planets were in the ascendant, and such like ideas, which gave a magical tone to Alexandrian and Arabic medicine which was not for its advantage, although it must be remembered that the ready contempt formerly poured upon Arabic science as mere charlatanism is now expressed more cautiously: we are prepared to admit that very much real and valuable work was done in medicine and chemistry, although it is probable that the Egyptian obscurantism did rather tend to hinder the steady development of the sounder tradition derived from Galen and the Greek physicians.