Shortly after 500 CE, the Syriac-speaking priest and physician
Sergius of Resh'aina, who had studied in Alexandria, wrote the
first known exposition of Aristotle in a Semitic language. About
four centuries later, Abu Bishr Matta, an alumnus of the
monastic school of Dayr Qunna in Iraq, completed in Baghdad the
Arabic version of the Aristotelian Organon with translations
from the Syriac, and in a famous disputation argued the case for
Greek logic as a theory of knowledge against rival claims of
Arabic grammarians. The articles collected in this volume are
concerned with the transmission and development of the Greek
achievement among Syriac scholars of the Fertile Crescent during
these four centuries, particularly in the fields of rhetoric and
philosophy. Some range broadly over general areas, such as the
Syriac appropriation of Greek liberal education or the
educational curriculum in Syriac monastic schools, while others
focus on themes of particular interest, including the influence
of Aristotle's Rhetoric or