Dawid bar Pawlos (8th/9th cent.) [Syr. Orth.]

Abbot and author or poetry and prose; wrote on theology, grammar, science.brief

Author. Born in Beth Shahaq, in the region of Nineveh , he was abbot of the monastery of Mor Sargis, on the Dry Mountain in Sinjar. A marginal note to Dolabani no. 2, states that in 785 (cf. Mingana Syr. 29 for the year) he temporarily moved with others to a monastery on the Euphrates (evidently Qenneshre ) and later brought back 170 maʿnyoto of Severus , adapting them for liturgical use in the east. The texts published by Dolabani are mainly letters, prose, and verse, in a learned style, to named correspondents; of particular interest are no. 6, on the authorship of Wisdom (Maccabean date), and no. 14 (LT in Rahmani, 44–6), on points in biblical mss., with reference to several scholars. At the end are two longer poems, on the 7 * klimata* (also ed. by Cardahi and Gottheil from different mss.), and one on the trees and plants and their symbolism (the first part is given in Qolo Suryoyo 56 [1987], 153–49). He is also author of some short grammatical works (partial ed. Gottheil), a poem on the alphabet (ed. Gottheil), a commentary on Genesis 10 (in ms. British Libr. Add. 14,620; incomplete) and a dialogue with a Melkite on the Trisagion (excerpt in BibOr, vol. 1, 518–9). The attribution to him of the 22 short poems (forming an alphabetic acrostic) published by Qarabashi cannot be correct: each poem contains only a single example of its opening letter, a type of composition, as Barsoum points out, which does not otherwise appear till the 13th cent.