Daniel of Salah

Danial of Salah

Daniel of Salah was known to have lived in the first half of the sixth century. Some contemporary writers, however, erroneously thought that he was born at Salah, a village in Tur 'Abdin. There was more than one town of the name of Salah, one of which was al-Salahiyya in the south of the upper Jazira, which dates back to Roman times and whose ruins could be seen near the village of Abu Kamál, Syria. 

At the beginning of his career, Daniel was an abbot of the Monastery of Salah to which his generic name, i.e., Salah, is more correctly attributed. It was during that period that he wrote a letter to the monks of the Monastery of Mar Basus in which he mentioned twelve kinds of what was called “corruption," as a result of the dispute which flared up at that time. According to the Patriarch Bahnam of Hidl and the monk David of Horns and others, he was consecrated a bishop of Tell Mawzalt shortly after the year 542. It is even mentioned in his commentary on the Psalms that he is a native of the city of Telia. 

Daniel was one of the best church dignitaries of his time in learning and in knowledge of the Holy Bible. Before he became bishop in 542, he wrote a detailed commentary on the Psalms in three volumes, each one containing fifty psalms, in answer to the request of the monk-priest John, abbot of the Monastery of Eusebius at Kafr Barta near Apamea. His commentary is purely spiritualistic and theological and he seldom quotes the fathers of the church. His style is smooth and powerful. There was a complete copy of his commentary in Hbob which has been lost; two intact copies are in the patriarchate library in Damascus and in Constantinople. Three more copies are at the British Museum, containing the first and the second volumes of this commentary and another imperfect copy is in Beirut, containing most of the first volume. This commentary was abridged by David of Horns in 1461 and of this abridgement there are copies at Bartelli, the Za'afaran's monastery, St. Matthew's monastery, Boston and Birmingham. The lengthy form of this commentary was translated into imperfect Arabic in the middle of the eighteenth century. Daniel also wrote a commentary on the book of the Ecclesiastes. This commentary was quoted by the monk Severus in his collection. We read one verse of this commentary in the Book of the Didascalia. He also wrote treatises on the plagues inflicted by God on the Egyptians. There’s no knowledge of when he was born or when he died.

Sources: 

• Patriarch Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum (2003), The Scattered Pearls, A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, Translated and Edited by Matti Moosa, New Jersey