Nestor Kavvadas: Chrysostomic Trajectories: The Homilies on John in Syriac Exegesis from Lazaros of Beth Qandasa to Dionysios bar Salibi

Even taking into account John Chrysostom’s unchallenged, universal authority in Eastern Christianity, it appears quite remarkable that his Homilies on the Gospel of John, and not Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on the same Gospel, are the one major source of the earliest Miaphysite Syriac Commentary on John, written in the 8th century by the scholar Lazaros of Beth Qandasa. In this Commentary, which remains unpublished, Lazaros sometimes reproduces, in exact translation or paraphrased, whole pages of Chrysostom’s homilies in a row, especially on the critical scenes of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. However, Lazaros often makes significant modifications, adjustments and additions, recasting thus the Chrysostomic source material. And it was for the most part this recasting by Lazaros of Beth Qandasa that was received, reproduced and remodelled by later West Syrian Commentaries, from Moshe bar Kepha down to Dionysios bar Salibi, leaving a distinct Chrysostomic imprint on the West Syrian exegesis of such critical loci for Miaphysite Christology as were the last chapters of the fourth Gospel.