The Catholicos mar Aba I is a prominent personality in the history of 6th century Christianity. His origins, conversion, travels, teaching and governance raise issues about the cultural life of the Syriac churches in Late Antiquity. The knowledge of his intellectual policy, never studied with a monographic approach, can only be acquired through the analysis of different sources. Mar Aba was also a promoter of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s commentary tradition in East Syrian schools. Unfortunately, only few traces of his teaching at the School of Nisibis are still extant. However, although all his commentaries are lost, a certain number of his explanations are included in late exegetical collections, as for example in the biblical commentaries of Isho‘dad of Merv. A comparation of this syriac material with the record of Mar Aba’s teaching expressed in Greek Cosmas Indicopleustes’ Christian Topography can clarify in what form and by what method his writings have been originally composed and transmitted.

                             
Dr. Vittorio Berti  Ph.D. (2006, University of Padua)
Doctoral thesis on the cultural policy of the East Syrian Patriarch Timothy I (780-823). Research fellow at the Department of History of the University of Padua from 2007 to 2010; research fellow at the Theology Faculty of University of Zurich since june 2011 to September 2012; currently research fellow at the Department of Humanities at the University of Roma 3 since June 2014.
                 

Kontakt: Dr. Emiliano Fiori, embfiori[at]gmail.com