Anti-Judaism in the Service of Inner-Christian Polemic: Some Unpublished Syriac Verse Homilies against Jews and Armenians

The article introduces the hitherto unpublished Syriac text of four verse homilies, attributed to Ephrem the Syrian and Jacob of Serugh, which attack such liturgical and paraliturgical practices of Armenian Christians as animal sacrifices and the use of unleavened bread. Produced in a West Syrian milieu during the Islamic period, these homilies serve as important evidence for studying the development of the anti-Armenian polemical literature among Syriac Christians and reveal the influence of anti-Jewish rhetoric on this tradition. The text is complemented by an English translation and a concise discussion.