On the Mother of God

Author: Jacob of Serug

Jacob of Serug was born at Curten on the Euphrates, ca 451. Very little is known of his life. He probably studied at the school of Edessa. He became a monk and priest. Early in life he began writing and is thought to have composed more than 700 homilies.

Jacob, “flute of the Holy Spirit and harp of the faithful church,” had a great love of the Mother or God. In this volume, four homilies have been chosen from the Syriac texts. The poetry is typological and rooted in Scripture. It offers, as Professor Brock notes in his Introduction, an alternative to the “liberal critical approach to the Bible” or to an excessively “fundamentalist approach.”