La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19)

P. : Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024.

Academic editor: Minov S., A. Croq

The vast majority of Syriac sources that have come down to us came from the ecclesiastical and scholarly elite. It was therefore natural for Syriac studies to focus primarily on the doctrines and normative practices promoted by these authors. Within this field of study, another historiographical vein has focused on magic and the occult sciences. The adjective ‘popular’, understood in its two meanings of ‘widespread’ and ‘relating to the people’, is applied here to the notion of religion in order to offer another angle of vision: through texts as well as frescoes, graffiti and magical objects, the authors shed light on the religion of a little-known world, that of ordinary Christians in the Syriac tradition. People such as women and peasants, who were often illiterate and therefore excluded from learned ecclesiastical culture and therefore largely neglected by contemporary researchers, nevertheless come to life in the chapters of this volume. The various contributors demonstrate that ‘illiterate’ did not mean ‘ignorant’ and that ‘popular’ did not necessarily rhyme with ‘subversive’. Instead, a different relationship to the written word, to piety and to supernatural powers emerges from an examination of sources that are often unpublished or under-exploited. Lastly, rituals that were sometimes on the fringes of the liturgy of the institutional churches are studied here, such as certain funeral rites, magical practices and different types of ritual.

Chapters

Syriac Written Charms: from Functions to Types

Lyavdansky A., , in: La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19).: P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024. P. 405–429.

This paper purports to open a new direction in the study of Syriac charms. It is still welcome to publish hitherto unedited manuscripts, but it is more important to classify and typologize these texts. The objective of this paper is to present one of the possible ways to classify Syriac charms. This classification is primarily ...

Added: November 17, 2024

The Cult of Saints and Popular Religion among Syriac Christians: First Soundings

Minov S., , in: La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19).: P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024. P. 247–272.

This contribution offers a preliminary survey of the diverse contexts and means through which veneration of saints among Syriac Christians interacted with the lives of ordinary believers, influencing their religious practices and worldviews, and, in turn, undergoing changes as a result of their agency. However, given the scarcity of regional and period-specific studies on the ...

Added: November 19, 2024

The Discourse of Magic and Polemic against Popular Religion in Syriac

Minov S., , in: La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19).: P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024. P. 307–348.

In what follows, I provide a description of the contours of the magical discourse in relation to popular religion, as evidenced in the corpus of textual sources produced by Syriac Christians. Initially, I offer a brief excursus into the vocabulary and taxonomy of magic and divination in Syriac. This is followed by the main section, ...

Added: November 19, 2024

Popular Religion, Magic and Divination among Syriac Christians: Select Bibliography

Minov S., , in: La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19).: P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024. P. 431–447.

The publication provides a comprehensive bibliography on popular religion, including magic and divination, among Syriac Christians. ...

Added: November 19, 2024

Keywords: религиоведение, народная религиозность, religious studies, сирийская литература, сирийское христианство, Syriac christianity, people’s religious beliefs, религиозные и магические практики, Syriac literature, Syriac charms, magical practices

Publication based on the results of: From Antiquity to Modernity: epistemology and conceptualization of the development of the material and spiritual cultures of the East (2024)