27 I: Mara Nicosia (Universiteit Gent), Syriac monastic schools and the teaching of rhetoric

Abstract

This talk is organized in three parts: the first section addresses the cursus studiorum offered in the Syriac-speaking Late Antique world, with a specific focus on the organization of monastic schools, their staff, and their relationship with the “wisdom of the Greeks” that was taught between their walls; the second part, on the other hand, revolves around the rhetorical teaching specifically, and puts together the extant scanty sources in order to reconstruct what the rhetorical teaching probably looked like in Syriac Christian schools. The third and last section focuses on the figure of the monk and teacher of rhetoric Antony of Tagrit (second half of the 9^th cent.), who is the author of the only extant Syriac handbook of rhetoric.