David Bar Paulus

David Bar Paulus

A proficient writer with a versatile style and an eloquent poet he could be considered a top-rated poet had he not used Greek terms. David was born at Beth Shahaq, in the province of Nineveh, to the family of Beth Rabban, which was dedicated to learning. He was a descendant of Beth Sabroy, the son of Abraham, David's great-grandfather. At Beth Shahaq, he studied under Moses, the teacher, at its great church (a grandfather of Moses Bar Kepha), mastering the Syriac language and becoming one of its authorities and a distinguished man of letters. Then he entered the Monastery of Khanushia, near Sinjar, where he studied Greek. Also, he became deeply versed in theological science, which was taught in the great monasteries and he was elevated to the dignity of priesthood. He is also said to have left his monastery with his disciple Zachariah and forty monks because of a misunderstanding between them and John, their bishop. They settled in a monastery west of the Euphrates. But after one year and eight months, that is, in 780 or shortly after it, they returned to their monastery.

David brought back with him the anthems of Severus of Antioch, which he had learned during that period and inserted about one hundred and eighty anthems into the Eastern Order. Then he settled in the Monastery of Mar Sergius on the Barren Mountain and became its abbot. He achieved fame for his virtue and honesty. Men of learning and letters corresponded with him. It seems that he lived long and most probably died in the second decade of the ninth century, as evidenced by his correspondence with Thomas the Stylite, who was living in 837. However, despite the fact that old chronicles do not mention him, contemporary scholars thought him to belong to the thirteenth century, until his anthology was found. Moreover, Assemani and later writers who quoted him, were mistaken in attributing to him the episcopal dignity, claiming that Bar Hebraeus in his Awsar Rose (The Storehouse of Secrets), sometimes calls him a monk and at other times a bishop. In fact, this book does not mention him at all as a bishop. However, he was counted in the Book of Life (the Mosul copy) among the saints who were monks. What remains to us of his writing is a collection of elegant phrases as well as metrical letters in the three meters. There is a single medium-sized copy of these letters in the Za'afaran library, consisting of two hundred and eighteen pages, imperfect at the beginning and at the end, transcribed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It contains sixty-six letters, of which seventy-three were exchanged between him and contemporary writers. The rest of these letters consist of metrical discourses, copies of letters to unknown addressees and eight letters addressed to him. These letters differ in theme and purpose and can be divided as follows:

• Letters of affection

• Philological letters 

• Expository letters

• Letters on dogma

• Ethical letters

• Social letters

• Ascetical letters

• Eight letters, some of which he was asked to write, 

• Seven letters were sent to him. 

• Letters written on different subjects

David Bar Paul also composed a lengthy but pleasant heptasyllabic discourse in twenty-eight pages on the trees, their fruits, kinds and qualities; a metrical letter to some Nestorians, and also a dodecasyllabic discourse. Ascribed to him are twenty-two splendid dodecasyllabic discourses on the love of wisdom and knowledge. The first contains only one instance of the letter Olaph, the second one instance of the letter Beth, etc, going through all twenty-two letters of the Syriac alphabet. However, this kind of composition was not known before the thirteenth century. He has also written two philological commentaries; one on the mutable letters and the second on how to interpunctuate and preserve the Syriac language.

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