Syriac apocalyptic literature
Christian texts prophesizing the end of the world
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Syriac apocalyptic literature are Christian texts prophesizing the end of the world. They were written in the Syriac language, primarily during the 600s and 700s CE, a period when Christians felt they were facing an existential threat due to the rise of Islam and the fall of the Persian empire.[1][2][3] They are a subset of the Apocalypse genre and Apocalyptic literature.
By far the most famous of these works is the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. Written in the 600s, it spread widely, becoming "one of the medieval world's most popular and widely translated texts."[4]
The other Syriac apocalyptic works are the Apocalypse of John the Little (written in the 700s);[2] the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ezra (700s-1100s);[5] the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel (600s);[6] the Syriac Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem (600s); and the Syriac Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ezra.[7][3] Some scholars include the Bahira Legend, a work by a Christian monk in the 1100s or later, and the Poem on Alexander the Great, also called the Alexander Romance.[8][9]
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem refers to two pseudo-epigraphical texts, one in Syriac, the other in Latin, attributed to the church father Ephrem the Syrian.
Not all texts called Syriac Apocalypses fall into this category. For instance, 2 Baruch, also known as the Apocalypse of Baruch, is sometimes called the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (to distinguish it from 3 Baruch, the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch), but it is a Jewish apocryphal text written before 200 CE, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.