Thomas of Edessa (or Tōmā ūrhāyā;[1] died c. 540) was a theologian of the Church of the East who wrote several works in Syriac, most of them lost.

Thomas was educated in Edessa.[2] There he taught Greek to the future patriarch, Aba. He later travelled with Aba around the Roman Empire, including to its capital, Constantinople.[3] He studied under Aba at the school of Nisibis in the Persian Empire.[4] He also taught at Nisibis.[2] He may have died in Constantinople or on his return journey to Nisibis.[1]

Thomas was influenced by the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia.[2] He wrote several works, but only two survive and only one of these has been printed. ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha ascribes to him some buyyāye (hortatory discourses), a refutation of astrology, some treatises against heresy in the form of disputations and an epistolary treatise on qāle, that is, stanzaic syllabic chants.[4] His commentaries on the feasts of Nativity and Epiphany are the oldest extant examples in the genre of ʿelta (cause, explanation, etiology).[2] Only his explanation of the Nativity has been printed.[4] Cyrus of Edessa continued the work of Thomas by writing etiologies for the spring festivals.[5][6]

Editions

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  • Carr, Simon Joseph, ed. (1898). Thomae Edesseni Tractatus de nativitate Domini Nostri Christi: textum syriacum. Rome: Accademia dei Lincei.
    Reprinted as Thomas of Edessa on the Nativity of the Lord. the Syriac Studies Library, 79. Gorgias Press, 2012.

Notes

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  1. ^ a b Carr 1898, p. 7.
  2. ^ a b c d Possekel 2018a.
  3. ^ Van Rompay 2018 & Possekel 2018a; but Becker 2018 doubts that the teacher of Aba was the theologian. He has at times been confused with Thomas of Harkel.
  4. ^ a b c Becker 2018.
  5. ^ Possekel 2018b.
  6. ^ Hainthaler 2006, p. 64.

Bibliography

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