Jacob of Sarug’s Homily on the Sinful Woman

This edition of Mar Jacob of Sarug's (d. 521) homily on the sinful woman who anoints Jesus at the banquet – widely identified in the west as Mary Magdalene – focuses on the theme of weeping which Jacob describes as the dominant characteristic of repentence. For him, the sinful woman is the example of true Christian contrition. The volume constitutes a fascicle of The Metrical Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug, which, when complete, will contain the original Syriac text of Jacob's surviving sermons, fully vocalized, alongside an annotated English translation. "Recognized as a saint by both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians alike, Jacob of Sarug (d. 521) produced many narrative poems that have rarely been translated into English. Of his reported 760 metrical homilies, only about half survive. Part of a series of fascicles containing the bilingual Syriac-English editions of Saint Jacob of Sarug’s homilies, this volume contains his homily on the Sinful Woman. The Syriac text is fully vocalized, and the translation is annotated with a commentary and biblical references. The volume is one of the fascicles of Gorgias Press’s The Metrical Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug, which, when complete, will contain all of Jacob’s surviving sermons"-- TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION TEXT AND TRANSLATION APPENDIX: ROMANOS AND THE SYRIAC VERSE TRADITION ON THE SINFUL WOMAN ABBREVIATIONS WORKS CITED INDEX