Jakob von Sarug
Jakob von Sarug , also Jacob von Serugh or Jacob von Batnä (* around 451 in Kurtam , † November 29, 521 in Batnae (today Suruç , Southeast Anatolia )) was a bishop and one of the most important preachers and poets of Syrian Christianity.
Life
Little is known about the life of this bishop. Jakob was born around 451 in Kurtam on the Euphrates (probably in Upper Mesopotamia). His father is said to have been a priest, and his mother suffered from sterility until conception. Jakob wrote about himself that he had studied at the Persian school in Edessa . He stayed there around the year 470. After his student years he lived as an ascetic, but was yet to Visitator appointed for the area of Haura. In 519 he was ordained bishop of Batnae (today Suruç ). He died on November 29, 521 at the age of 68 after an episcopate of two and a half years.
The Syrian Orthodox Warburg Monastery is named after him.
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Jakob von Sarug was best known for his sermons in poetry. In them he deals with the Old and New Testaments, apocryphal literature, apostles, saints, ecclesiastical festivals and the sacraments. There are also verse songs, hymns, letters and homilies in prose. Certainly some of it is not from Jacob himself, the scope of the real scriptures is disputed. In his letters on biblical exegesis he advocated a moderate allegory . In controversy with Judaism, he defended the messiahship of Jesus.
theology
Christologically , Jacob stood between Alexandrian theology and the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon . He rejected the doctrine of the two natures of Christ , which prevailed in Edessa, but did not enter into controversy about it. In his homilies , the influence of Monophysitism remained so small that Orthodoxy could later claim it for itself. The few homilies that stood in the way of this were seen as being falsified.
The formula of the two natures in one hypostasis posed great problems because the Greek terms could not be properly translated into Syriac. In Syriac the terms for nature (kyana) and hypostasis (qnoma) are mutually dependent. Therefore one could only meaningfully speak of one nature and one hypostasis or of two natures and two hypostases. But what view Jacob took is controversial. He became bishop in 518, just in the year that Emperor Justin I sought a compromise with Rome and the supporters of the Council of Chalcedon. This has often been interpreted to mean that Jacob must have been a supporter of the council. Letters in which Jacob represented an anti-Chalcedonian christology were then declared to be inauthentic. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical political situation was so confused that one cannot infer his theology from Jacob's appointment as bishop alone. In the - presumably genuine - letters to Mar Bass from the year 512, Jacob represents a Christology that is described as miaphysitic . Two natures would mean a division of Christ. One should not count the natures and string them together. Two natures lead to two hypostases for Jacob, since he regards the terms for nature (kyana) and for hypostasis (qnoma) as synonyms. It is based on the Mia-physis formula of Kyrill of Alexandria . Jacob was not a radical monophysite either. He held to the fact that Christ is full of God and full of man. He considered the Confessions of Nicaia and Constantinople to be sufficient and rejected chalcedony as an unnecessary addition. He accepted the Henoticon , Emperor Zenon's compromise formula . Jacob, on the other hand, took a clear position against Nestorius . In the tradition of Ephrem the Syrian, he praised the unfathomable nature of God and criticized the scholars who wanted to investigate the essence of God and who only fell out on different doctrines. The believer can only speak of God in images, his true nature remains unfathomable for the creature.
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- Paulus Bedjan (Ed.): Homiliae selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis IV . Leipzig 1908/1910.
- G. Olinder (Ed.): Jacobi Sarugensis Epistolae quotquot supersunt (= CSCO, Scriptores Syri; Series II, vol. 45). Paris 1937. Repr. Louvain 1965.
- Translations
- Gustav Bickell (ed.): Selected poems by the Syrian church fathers. Cyrillonas, Isaak of Antioch and Jacob von Sarug ( BKV 77), Kempten 1872.
- Simon Konrad Landersdorfer (ed.): Selected writings by the Syrian poets Cyrillonas, Isaak von Antioch and Jakob von Sarug , ( BKV 2nd series, volume 6), Kempten 1912.
literature
- Michael Hanst: Jakob von Sarug. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 1480-1482.
- Peter Nagel: Jakob von Sarug . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 4, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, Sp. 358.
- Christian Lange: Jakob von Syrus . In: Wassilios Klein (Ed.): Syrian Church Fathers. Stuttgart 2004.
- Philip Michael Forness: Preaching and Religious Debate: Jacob of Serugh and the Promotion of his Christology in the Roman Near East . Diss. Princeton Theological Seminary (Princeton 2017).
Web links
- Literature by and about Jakob von Sarug in the catalog of the German National Library
From the Library of the Church Fathers II 6:
- Poem about the language miracle at Pentecost (BKV online)
- Poem about the most blessed virgin (BKV online)
- Poem about the mass for the deceased (BKV online)
- Poem on Matth. 16, 16 (BKV online)
- Poem about Jacob's vision at Bethel (BKV online)
- Poem about the ceiling in front of the face of Moses (BKV online)
- Poem about the right robber (BKV online)
- Poem of praise to St. Martyrs Gurias and Shamonas (BKV online)
- Praise poem to Simeon the Stylite (BKV online)
- Poem about the fall of the idols (BKV online)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Jakob von Sarug |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Jacob of Serugh; Jacobus Sarugensis; Jacob of Batna |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Syrian Orthodox bishop and hymn poet |
DATE OF BIRTH | 451 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Kurtam |
DATE OF DEATH | November 29, 521 |
Place of death | Batnae, today Suruç , Southeast Anatolia |