Narsai


Narsai was one of the foremost of Assyrian/Syriac poet-theologians, perhaps equal in stature to Jacob of Serugh, both second only to Ephrem the Syrian. He is the most important writer of the Assyrian Church of the East, in which he is known as the 'Harp of the Spirit'. Although many of his works are likely lost, around eighty of his mêmrê, or verse homilies are extant.

Life

Narsai was born at ‘Ain Dulba in the district of Ma‘alta in the Sassanid Empire. Being orphaned at an early age, he was raised by his uncle, who was head of the monastery of Kfar Mari near Beth Zabdai. Narsai spent ten years as a student at the School of Edessa, and later returned there to teach, eventually becoming head of the school. Perhaps in 471, Narsai left Edessa after disagreeing with the city's bishop Cyrus. With the help of his friend Barsauma, who was bishop of Nisibis, Narsai re-established the School of Nisibis. When his former school was ordered closed by Zeno in 489, it seems that many of his faithful staff and students came to join Narsai in Nisibis. Evidence from the first Statutes of the School of Nisibis, drafted in 496, shows that Narsai was still alive, and he must have been a venerable old teacher in his nineties. Narsai died sometime early in the sixth century and was buried in Nisibis in a church that was later named after him.
All of Narsai's extant works belong to the distinctive Syriac literary genre of the mêmrâ, or homily in verse. He employs two different metres — one with couplets of seven syllables per line, the other with twelve. The mêmrê were designed to be recited in church or religious school, and each one being an exposition of a particular religious theme. The later Syriac writer Abdisho bar Berika of Nisibis suggests that Narsai wrote 360 mêmrê in twelve volumes along with prose commentaries on large sections of the Old Testament and a book entitled On the Corruption of Morals. However, only eighty mêmrê remain, and none of his prose works.

Works