Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

882 29. education in the roman empire
Eklogai exēgētikai, which covered the Octateuch and the other historical
books of the Old Testament, was read by Photius in the ninth century
(Bibliotheca, cod. 206). It no longer survives in its original form, but much of
it was absorbed into later catenae. An epitome of this great catena survives
both in Greek and in a Latin translation, while abbreviated and/or interpolated
versions of Procopius’ commentaries on Isaiah, on the Song of Songs,
on Proverbs and on Ecclesiastes also survive. A catena on the Psalms may be
the work of Procopius or of one of his pupils. Several other catenae by anonymous
compilers can plausibly be dated in the sixth century and linked with
teaching activity. 71 Many exegetical works were written in the fifth and sixth
century, including Prosper of Aquitaine’s commentary on the Psalms, which
consists largely of excerpts from Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos,
Maximus of Turin on the Gospels, the younger Arnobius on the Psalms and
the Gospels, entirely derivative commentaries on the Apocalypse by
Primasius of Hadrumetum and Apringius of Pace, an allegorical exposition
of the Song of Songs by Justus of Urgel, and a set of exegetical homilies on
the New Testament by one Luculentius. Most of these unoriginal works
arose out of the need to train the local clergy. Cassiodorus’ Expositio
Psalmorum, probably written when he was in Constantinople in 540–54, aims
a little higher. But only with Gregory the Great’s commentaries on Job,
Ezekiel and the Psalms do we find exegesis comparable in its learning and
penetration with that of Jerome or Augustine.
As has already been observed, the relations between church and school
in the Syriac-speaking world were different from those in the Greekspeaking
and Latin-speaking regions of the empire. Syriac literature was a
Christian creation, with no long tradition. Syriac schools were often
attached to churches or monasteries, and the texts which were read and
studied in them were religious. There was no sharp separation between the
teaching of literacy and the teaching of Christian doctrine. Three schools
of higher learning, which included theology as well as grammar, rhetoric
and philosophy, all taught in Syriac, were established in Edessa in the late
fourth century. In 489 the emperor Zeno closed the so-called Persian
school, which was suspected of Nestorian heresy and of pro-Persian leanings,
and expelled its teachers. Most of them made their way across the
frontier to Nisibis (Nusaybin in south-east Turkey), which had been in
Persian hands since 363, and established or perhaps reinforced a similar
school there. The statutes of the School of Nisibis, promulgated in 496
after the arrival of the refugee teachers from Edessa, describe the teaching
regime in some detail. 72 There were at one time as many as 800 students.
The course of study in theology lasted three years. Students were required
71 For a catalogue raisonné of Greek catenae cf. Geerard (1974–87) iv.185–259.
72 Vööbus (1965), especially 110–15, 147–8, 177–87, 203–9, 269–75, 282–9.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008