A short bibliography of sources on early Syriac epistemology

Childers J.W. “'Humility Begets Wisdom and Discernment': Character and True Knowing in                       Aphrahat,” in Studia Patristica: Papers presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on         Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2003, Vol. XLI, eds. F. Young, M. Edwards, and P. Parvis,                 (Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2006): 13-22; Explores the epistemic content and value of virtue,                     specifically humility,in the epistemology of Aphrahat. Proper cognitive function in this system           is reliant on the practice of virtue, and humility in particular.

Harvey, Susan A. “Embodiment in Time and Eternity: A Syriac Perspective in Theology and                         Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings, Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology, ed.             Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002): 3-22; Discusses the limits and                         possibilities of physicality, and specifically embodiment, as a conduit for knowledge, and sets a           Christian epistemology in an incarnational context.

Popovich, Justin. “The Theory of Knowledge of St. Isaac the Syrian,” in Man and God-man                         (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press Publishing House, 2008): 67-106; Comprehensive discussion             about St. Isaac's argument that the “organs of understanding” are fundamentally sick and so                 must be healed through the practice of virtue, especially humility, and must be renewed                       through faith.

Seppala, Serafim. “The Idea of Knowledge in East Syrian Mysticism,” in Studia Orientalia (2): 265-              77; argues that Syriac mystics divided knowledge between discursive and mystical knowledge,            and created a hierarchy of forms of knowledge with mystical knowledge (or, more accurately,            knowledge of God) at the top of that hierarchy.