Jakob von Sarug

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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

Web links

From the Library of the Church Fathers II 6:

personal data
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