Usual labors and the wealth of philosophy: Syriac monastic education in the fifth through ninth centuries

In 571 CE, a monk named Abraham of Kashkar wrote a new set of rules for a monastery he founded on Mount Izla in today’s southeastern Turkey. These rules, with the additions from his successors Dadisho and Babai, reshaped the monasteries of the Church of the East. The monks who inhabited them spoke and wrote in a dialect of Aramaic called Syriac, and built monasteries, churches, and schools across modern Syria, Iraq, Iran, even reaching India and China. This dissertation seeks to understand how novices trained to become monks, how monastic leaders trained their disciples, and what ways this ascetic education was like teaching at theological academies like the School of Nisibis. Comparing the experiences of students and teachers written in local histories or the biographies of saints allows us to better understand the pressures that faced monasteries and the ways that novices, older monks, and leaders like the abbot and steward managed them. The last half of this project draws on monastic theories of mind, body, and soul to explore the process of training each of these dimensions. For the training of the mind, I consider the importance of reading and recitation for a monk. Within the work of the body, I explore the processes of prayer, cycles of life, and manual labor a monk undertook to support the monastery. The last chapter explores the practices of prayer, fasting, vigil, visualization, and demonic combat as ways the monk trained their soul to achieve the goal of union with God.