ʿEnanishoʿ (7th cent.) [Ch. of E.]

Monk and author.brief

Monk and author. Originally from Adiabene , ʿEnanishoʿ was a student at the School of Nisibis with his brother Ishoʿyahb (later bp. of Shenna) and with Ishoʿyahb III ( cath. 649–59) before becoming a monk at the Monastery of Mt. Izla. After traveling to Palestine and sojourning in Egyptian Scetis, ʿEnanishoʿ settled in the Monastery of Beth ʿAbe . During his travels he became enamored with Egyptian monasticism and well acquainted with Greek texts. At Beth ʿAbe, he wrote a book on philosophical ‘definitions and divisions’, a lexical tool explicating difficult terms in patristic texts, and a ‘Book of Rules for Homographs’ (Liber canonum de aequilitteris), on words having the same consonants but different pronunciations and meanings. With Ishoʿyahb III he collaborated in revising the Ḥudrā, the service book for the ecclesiastical year used by the Ch. of E. Cath. Gewargis I (ca. 660–80/1) commissioned ʿEnanishoʿ to prepare the work for which he is most famous, the ‘Paradise of the Fathers’, a massive Syriac compilation incorporating Palladius’s ‘Lausiac History’, the ‘History of the Monks in Egypt’, and numerous apophthegmata of the ascetic Fathers. The ‘Paradise’ became a standard resource for ascetic spirituality in the Ch. of E. A commentary on it was written by Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya (late 7th cent.).