The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai #270813

The purpose of this volume is to render easily accessible to students of the history of Christian worship several liturgical documents of interest and importance which have recently been published in the East. These are four metrical discourses, or 'Homilies' written in Syriac and ascribed in the Manuscripts to Narsai, one of the pillars of the early Nestorian Church (c. 502 A.D.). A short account of Narsai, his work, and the four Homilies here translated will be found in the Introduction to this volume. Here I need only say a word about the Introduction itself.<br><br>Three of the present Homilies admit of no reasonable doubt as to their authenticity. But the first of the four which, inasmuch as it deals directly with the Liturgy proper, should be of the greatest historical importance, has been ascribed by one or two late authorities to a writer of the thirteenth century. A considerable portion of the Introduction has therefore been devoted to the necessary examination of the question of the authorship of this Homily.