Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent | Marquette University (original) (raw)

Books by Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent

JEANNE-NICOLE MELLON SAINT-LAURENT " This important study of late antique hagiography offers an e... more JEANNE-NICOLE MELLON SAINT-LAURENT " This important study of late antique hagiography offers an exciting new way to read these fascinating texts. This book is essential reading for all scholars concerned with the formation of Christian communities in late antiquity. " —Edward Watts, University of California, San Diego " Saint-Laurent establishes the vital link between the literary construction of missionary lives and their use in galvanizing communities. In this study, then, we see not only the birth of Syriac missionary literature but also the invention of the Christian Syrian orient and its early struggle for survival and legitimacy. " —Kristian S. Heal, Director of the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts at Brigham Young University Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches analyzes the hagiographic traditions of seven missionary saints in the Syriac heritage during late antiquity: Thomas, Addai, Mari, John of Ephesus, Simeon of Beth Arsham, Jacob Baradaeus, and Ahudemmeh. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent studies a body of legends about the missionaries' voyages in the Syrian Orient to illustrate their shared symbols and motifs. Revealing how these texts encapsulated the concerns of the communities that produced them, she draws attention to the role of hagiography as a malleable genre that was well-suited for the idealized presentation of the beginnings of Christian communities. Hagiographers, through their reworking of missionary themes, asserted autonomy, orthodoxy, and apostolicity for their individual civic and monastic communities, positioning themselves in relationship to the rulers of their empires and to competing forms of Christianity. Saint-Laurent argues that missionary hagiography is an important and neglected source for understanding the development of the East and West Syriac ecclesiastical bodies: the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East. Given that many of these Syriac-speaking churches remain today in the Middle East and India, with diaspora communities in Europe and North America, this work opens the door for further study of the role of saints and stories as symbolic links between ancient and modern traditions.

The second volume of the Gateway to the Syriac Saints, the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Elec... more The second volume of the Gateway to the Syriac Saints, the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica or BHSE, focuses on Syriac hagiographic texts. The BHSE contains the titles of over 1800 Syriac stories, hymns, and homilies on saints. It also includes authors' or hagiographers' names, the first and last lines of the texts, bibliographic information, and the names of the manuscripts containing these hagiographic works. We have also listed modern and ancient translations of these works.

Qadishe, or “saints” in Syriac, is a digital catalogue of saints or holy persons venerated in the... more Qadishe, or “saints” in Syriac, is a digital catalogue of saints or holy persons venerated in the Syriac tradition. Some saints are native to the Syriac-speaking milieu, whereas others come from other linguistic or cultural traditions. Through the translation of their hagiographies and the diffusion of saints’ cults in the late antique world, saints were adopted, “imported,” and appropriated into Syriac religious memory.

Each individual saint listed in Qadishe has his or her own entry. Qadishe contains biographical and historical information about these persons. Saints are listed by name and arranged alphabetically in English and Syriac. Entries are tagged according to hagiographic topoi and motifs. In this volume, we have included any persons venerated in the Syriac tradition, and we have not distinguished between “historically verified” persons and “fictive” persons. Our starting point for collecting data was J. M. Fiey’s Saints syriaques, which has 470 entries.

Under each individual entry, we have listed the saint’s name in Syriac and Roman transliterated script, as well as English and French. We have also written a brief abstract about the person. We included primary and secondary literature on him or her, as well as his or her birth, death, or floruit dates when known. We identify and list persons associated with the saint. Information on the saint is searchable by the person’s name or by the era in which he or she lived. We have also linked any references to place names associated with this person to The Syriac Gazetteer, a geographic database within Syriaca.org listing settlements and locations relevant to the Syriac world. Some of the saints in Qadishe are native to the Syriac tradition, whereas others were “imported” into Syriac from other linguistic traditions, including Greek. If they have been granted a religious commemoration (whether in text or liturgy) in the Syriac heritage, they are included in Qadishe. Qadishe includes saints whose lives have been edited, minor saints referenced in the lives of other saints, and saints who receive commemoration in liturgical calendars. The names of those saints whose lives have not yet been edited are included in Qadishe, but the descriptions describing these persons are not yet developed.

Qadishe shows scholars how hagiographic literature contains fertile areas in which to discover connections (sometimes fictive) between saints themselves or the communities and monasteries they symbolized. Hagiographers created relationships among saints to promote their communities’ prestige, antiquity, and orthodoxy. It is precisely this interconnected nature of Syriac hagiography that makes it so amenable to TEI encoding and linked data.

Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches analyzes the hagiographic traditions ... more Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches analyzes the hagiographic traditions of seven missionary saints in the Syriac heritage during late antiquity: Thomas, Addai, Mari, John of Ephesus, Simeon of Beth Arsham, Jacob Baradaeus, and Ahudemmeh. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent studies a body of legends about the missionaries’ voyages in the Syrian Orient to illustrate their shared symbols and motifs. Revealing how these texts encapsulated the concerns of the communities that produced them, she draws attention to the role of hagiography as a malleable genre that was well-suited for the idealized presentation of the beginnings of Christian communities. Hagiographers, through their reworking of missionary themes, asserted autonomy, orthodoxy, and apostolicity for their individual civic and monastic communities, positioning themselves in relationship to the rulers of their empires and to competing forms of Christianity. Saint-Laurent argues that missionary hagiography is an important and neglected source for understanding the development of the East and West Syriac ecclesiastical bodies: the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East. Given that many of these Syriac-speaking churches remain today in the Middle East and India, with diaspora communities in Europe and North America, this work opens the door for further study of the role of saints and stories as symbolic links between ancient and modern traditions.

Papers by Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent

Biblical Studies, Apr 24, 2023

Digital humanities and the Bible is an arm of biblical studies that uses computing and linked dat... more Digital humanities and the Bible is an arm of biblical studies that uses computing and linked data technologies to create tools, portals, electronic indices, digital textual editions, and digital publications for biblical research and pedagogy. The intersection of biblical studies and computing technology has transformed how scholars teach and study the Bible, its world and characters, and its interpretative history. Digital Bible scholars and theologians engage digital tools and applications in their research, teaching, and publishing. They also analyze how digital methods, databases, and visualization affect the dissemination of knowledge of the Bible. This article presents projects that elucidate how scholars can use digital tools to probe the questions of biblical studies and train scholars in the skills for studying the Bible. It includes introductory material for students and scholars new to the digital humanities. The digital scholarship addressed here is meant to help scholars recognize the size of different biblical textual corpora in the various languages of the ancient world. Collaborators in the digital humanities work across disciplinary boundaries. Biblical studies, too, which brings together theologians, philologists, historians, archaeologists, paleographers, and anthropologists, therefore, works well with the interdisciplinary nature of the digital humanities. Digital bible scholars work with librarian collections, archives, memory institutions, and the preservation of cultural heritage as this pertains to their field and the knowledge economy of the Bible: its textual history, its people and places, and its transmission.

The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings Volume 4. Christ: Chalcedon and Beyond, Edited by Mark DelCogliano, 2022

Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521) was a miaphysite (Syrian Orthodox) bishop of Serugh in Turkey, sout... more Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521) was a miaphysite (Syrian Orthodox)
bishop of Serugh in Turkey, southwest of Edessa. In
the West Syriac tradition, Jacob is the most celebrated poet-theologian
after Ephrem the Syrian and is called the “Flute of the Holy Spirit and
the Harp of the Church.”

In the first poem translated below, the Metrical Homily on the Name
“Emmanuel,” Jacob, following Matthew 1:23, interprets the prophet Isaiah’s
reference to an “Emmanuel” as foreshadowing the coming of Christ.
For Jacob the meaning of the name Emmanuel – “God is with us” –
demonstrates the prophet’s recognition of Christ’s divinity. Jacob analyzes
the name of the Lord as “Emmanuel” to show how this title predicted and
declared the reality of the incarnation. His homily is meant to instruct the
faithful on how God’s entrance into time and creation as the incarnate
Christ was a gift of love meant to restore humanity.

In the second homily, the Metrical Homily on How the Lord is Known in
Scripture as Food and Drink, Jacob teaches his congregation how scripture
and the church’s Eucharistic feast sustain the faithful. For Jacob the Old
and New Testaments contain narrative exempla of how God nourishes his
people with food and drink (1). The Eucharist is the climactic event in a
series of examples throughout sacred history that show how
God feeds his people. In much of this homily Jacob guides his congregation
on interpreting scripture and the liturgy's symbols (33). Jacob,
like most ancient Christians, did not read the Bible literally. Rather,
he searched for the symbolic and typological significance of scripture. Christology, for Jacob, is present in hidden ways in biblical narrative, and it is
the job of the poet-exegete, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to uncover its
meaning.

The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity: Reshaping Classical Traditions.Volume Edited by Lewis Ayres, Michael W. Champion, and Matthew R. Crawford., 2023

This chapter discusses gluttony and its danger to divine knowledge in the ascetical discourses of... more This chapter discusses gluttony and its danger to divine knowledge in the ascetical discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug. It analyses Philoxenos' vivid description of the monastic glutton as an inverted hagiographic narrative. It concludes with discussing Philoxenos' Eucharistic theology as a remedy to gluttony.

The Catholic Historical Review

Oxford Bibliographies, 2023

Digital humanities and the Bible is an arm of biblical studies that uses computing and linked dat... more Digital humanities and the Bible is an arm of biblical studies that uses computing and linked data technologies to create tools, portals,
electronic indices, digital textual editions, and digital publications for biblical research and pedagogy. The intersection of biblical studies
and computing technology has transformed how scholars teach and study the Bible, its world and characters, and its interpretative
history. Digital Bible scholars and theologians engage digital tools and applications in their research, teaching, and publishing. They
also analyze how digital methods, databases, and visualization affect the dissemination of knowledge of the Bible. This article presents
projects that elucidate how scholars can use digital tools to probe the questions of biblical studies and train scholars in the skills for
studying the Bible. It includes introductory material for students and scholars new to the digital humanities. The digital scholarship
addressed here is meant to help scholars recognize the size of different biblical textual corpora in the various languages of the ancient
world. Collaborators in the digital humanities work across disciplinary boundaries. Biblical studies, too, which brings together
theologians, philologists, historians, archaeologists, paleographers, and anthropologists, therefore, works well with the interdisciplinary
nature of the digital humanities. Digital bible scholars work with librarian collections, archives, memory institutions, and the preservation
of cultural heritage as this pertains to their field and the knowledge economy of the Bible: its textual history, its people and places, and
its transmission.

Syriac Treasures, edited by Armando Elkhoury and Rodrigue Constantin, 2023

English translation of Jacob of Serugh's Memra on Mor Zokhe, St Nicolas

SYRIAC ORTHODOX PATRIARCHAL JOURNAL, 2021

This article concentrates on the food theology of Syriac poet and homilist Jacob of Serugh, focus... more This article concentrates on the food theology of Syriac poet and homilist Jacob of Serugh, focusing on the themes of gluttony and gratitude in a select number of his metrical homilies.

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2018

Digital Humanities and Christianity

Journal of Church and State

Biblical Studies, Apr 24, 2023

The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings Volume 4. Christ: Chalcedon and Beyond, Edited by Mark DelCogliano, 2022

The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity: Reshaping Classical Traditions.Volume Edited by Lewis Ayres, Michael W. Champion, and Matthew R. Crawford., 2023

The Catholic Historical Review

Oxford Bibliographies, 2023

Digital humanities and the Bible is an arm of biblical studies that uses computing and linked dat... more Digital humanities and the Bible is an arm of biblical studies that uses computing and linked data technologies to create tools, portals,
electronic indices, digital textual editions, and digital publications for biblical research and pedagogy. The intersection of biblical studies
and computing technology has transformed how scholars teach and study the Bible, its world and characters, and its interpretative
history. Digital Bible scholars and theologians engage digital tools and applications in their research, teaching, and publishing. They
also analyze how digital methods, databases, and visualization affect the dissemination of knowledge of the Bible. This article presents
projects that elucidate how scholars can use digital tools to probe the questions of biblical studies and train scholars in the skills for
studying the Bible. It includes introductory material for students and scholars new to the digital humanities. The digital scholarship
addressed here is meant to help scholars recognize the size of different biblical textual corpora in the various languages of the ancient
world. Collaborators in the digital humanities work across disciplinary boundaries. Biblical studies, too, which brings together
theologians, philologists, historians, archaeologists, paleographers, and anthropologists, therefore, works well with the interdisciplinary
nature of the digital humanities. Digital bible scholars work with librarian collections, archives, memory institutions, and the preservation
of cultural heritage as this pertains to their field and the knowledge economy of the Bible: its textual history, its people and places, and
its transmission.

Syriac Treasures, edited by Armando Elkhoury and Rodrigue Constantin, 2023

English translation of Jacob of Serugh's Memra on Mor Zokhe, St Nicolas

SYRIAC ORTHODOX PATRIARCHAL JOURNAL, 2021

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2018

Digital Humanities and Christianity

Journal of Church and State

Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches, 2015

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2008

Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches, 2015

Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 2021

Journal of Early Christian Studies (forthcoming)

Book Review

Church History, 2020

Of this collection of Sunquist's essays, perhaps most interesting for historians will be those gr... more Of this collection of Sunquist's essays, perhaps most interesting for historians will be those grouped under the themes of history and missiology. There Sunquist offers stimulating thoughts on approaches to studying Asian Christianity that may be of interest to historians working closely with Asian Christian source materials to apply in their own work.

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2018

This symposium on the Greek writings attributed to St. Ephrem the Syrian (Ephrem Graecus) will ta... more This symposium on the Greek writings attributed to St. Ephrem the Syrian (Ephrem Graecus) will take place at Marquette University (Sensenbrenner Hall 104) on November 9, 2019. Speakers include Fr. Maximos Constas, Fr. Kevin Kalish, Dr. Marcus Plested, Dr. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, and Dr. Alexis Torrance. Proceedings are open to the public. For questions, email tikhon.pino@marquette.edu.

Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies, 2021

The hymns or madrashe of Saint Ephrem the Syrian are a theological treasure from the golden age o... more The hymns or madrashe of Saint Ephrem the Syrian are a theological treasure from the golden age of patristic literature. In his book Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem's Hymns on Faith, Jeffrey Wickes argues that Ephrem's Madrashe on Faith represents one of several critical bodies of theological literature to emerge in the wake of the Council of Nicaea (125). Wickes shows that Ephrem used the images, theological themes, and sacred narratives from the Bible to interpret his world for his audience and himself (128). Ephrem's madrashe gave his audience contours for creative exploration of the Bible; as a dynamic collection of texts, the Bible presented Ephrem with an imaginative texture to shape his world (4-5). The seven chapters of this book address two main topics, and the book is accordingly divided into two parts: Ephrem and the Late Antique World and The Biblical Poetics of the Madrashe on Faith. This review highlights the compelling points that Wickes' work has for scholars of ancient Christianity. Theologians articulate narratives that explain how Christological debates and disagreements caused fractions and turbulence in the fourth-century church, but the involvement of the Syriac-speaking world in these debates has at times been absent from historical accounts of this period. Wickes' book helps to fill this scholarly lacuna. He demonstrates how the religious contexts and debates about the nature of Christ and the proper approach to theology shaped Ephrem's corpus. Relatedly, Wickes invites his readers to consider how Ephrem the Syrian used the Bible to construct a literary world (1). In his poetic hymns, Ephrem introduces his audience to a dynamic biblical world and then teaches them how the Bible points to a Nicene Christ. In chapters 1 and 2, Wickes presents Ephrem's Madrashe on Faith in their late antique context, and he examines Ephrem's frequent condemnation of "investigation" in these hymns. He argues that Ephrem's distrust of the term "investigation" stems from other debates in the Mediterranean about the use of theological language to articulate the nature of God (24). Chapter 3 discusses Ephrem's conception of the Bible. Here, Wickes builds on previous scholarship on Ephrem's use of symbols in the Bible and shows how Ephrem developed "a polemic against the reading practices of his opponents and a theory of signs that destabilized the Bible's apparent meaning, and how he represented the Bible as modeling his own compositional process" (43). In chapter 4, Wickes examines Ephrem's self-presentation in his poetry, and, in chapter 5, Wickes argues that Ephrem used madrashe to link his audience to the world of the Bible. Finally, chapter 6 shows how Ephrem embeds a mélange of New Testament narratives into his hymns that work together to demonstrate the reality of Jesus' divine Sonship. Wickes successfully shows how Ephrem used the Bible to portray his world. He argues, furthermore, that the Madrashe on Faith were recited in a context of ascetic theological study. Pedagogical songs were used to debate ideas in the "blurred space between the liturgy and the classroom" (19). Wickes also brings Ephrem into relationship with other patristic authors from the Greek-speaking world and demonstrates how the Madrashe on Faith reflect Ephrem's consciousness of the Greco-Roman world around him. Wickes' careful interpretation of these hymns proves that Ephrem was aware of the debates in the fourth century about the Trinity. Ephrem's hymns celebrate biblical heroes (like Job) who avoided debates about the nature of God, and, in this way, Ephrem refutes the idea that humanity could reach a complete understanding of God's nature. Ephrem constructed "scenes in which he portrays his opponents

An English translation of the Syriac Life of St. Mary of Egypt (itself a translation from the Gre... more An English translation of the Syriac Life of St. Mary of Egypt (itself a translation from the Greek Life).

The Church and her Scriptures (ed Tkacz and Kries)

The images of the Blessed Virgin Mary are multifaceted and point to the mystery of her person and... more The images of the Blessed Virgin Mary are multifaceted and point to the mystery of her person and the splendor of her paradoxical roles in salvation history. They have inspired Christian art, architecture, hagiography, exegesis, homilies, and doctrine. While

Syriac Hagiography: Texts and Beyond (ed Minov and Ruani)

Marinis notes that the narthex, in the middle Byzantine period, was reserved not just for the pen... more Marinis notes that the narthex, in the middle Byzantine period, was reserved not just for the penitent but also for menstruating women. V. Marinis, Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople: Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 68-69. 3 See the ritual of nahire, discussed below. 4 Not every church in the Syrian Orthodox tradition has a narthex, however. I am grateful to Fr. Roger Akhrass for this information. On the architecture of Syriac churches in general, see F. Briquel Chatonnet, ed., Les églises en monde syriaque (Études syriaques 10; Paris: Geuthner, 2013).

Talks for the general public interested in work in the humanities. Talks from representatives fr... more Talks for the general public interested in work in the humanities. Talks from representatives from Philosophy, Theology, and Literature Studies.