This collection of essays focusing on the Syriac ascetic tradition is dedicated to Sidney Griffith, one of the foremost scholars of Near Eastern Christianity in Antiquity. As inevitably in Festschriften, the essays range in scope and significance. Some present translations from Syriac: Joseph Amar gives a rendering of the Maronite liturgy for the vespers of the Feast of the Annunciation, and Javier Martínez provides a Spanish translation of Ephrem's Hymns on Virginity. In addition to the translation of selections from six discourses on monasticism from an unpublished manuscript, Monica Blanchard attempts to provide some biographical details for their author, a man named Mar Beh Isho‘ Kamulaya. Evidently a member of the Syriac Church of the East, he probably lived in the late eighth century and his work is mentioned in Abdisho‘ bar Berikha's catalogue. However, he has been confused with a man called Berikh Isho‘ who may have in fact been Beh Isho‘'s disciple. Blanchard also notes that Beh Isho‘'s description of the union of God and man in the fifth discourse may have been seen as problematic.

Gary Anderson discusses the meaning of the Aramaic terms peruq, “break off; redeem” and Ṣidqâ, “righteousness; beneficence” in Daniel 4:24, and whether they indeed imply in this passage that one's sins can be redeemed through almsgiving. Drawing on parallels in the period of the late First and early Second Temple, he argues that peruq is reflective of a developing discourse in which sin is seen as debt to be paid off. Michael Hollerich scrutinizes the possible sources of the Syriac Life of Athanasius of Alexandria and relates it to the broader tradition of Athanasian biography across linguistic and denominational divides.

A strange text known as the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel received two editions just over a decade ago. The first was by Miron Slabczyk, and appeared with an Esperanto translation (Apokalipso de Danielo Profeto [Vienna: Arkado eldonejo, 2000]), and the second was edited by Matthias Henze with an English translation and commentary (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). Alexander Golitzin makes the interesting suggestion that this apocalyptic work was written in an ascetic environment, since the work is found in a manuscript where the only other texts are monastic ones, by writers of the Church of the East and principally John of Dalyatha.

This hypothesis could possibly explain the lack of reference to historical events, a feature unusual in an apocalypse. The attraction of Daniel for ascetics is well-known: he and his three friends were often seen as proto-monks, as in the West Syriac writer Jacob of Serugh's memre on Daniel. However, Golitzin overlooks the motifs and vocabulary of the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel that indicate a substantial Jewish substratum, and his essay reflects a lack of awareness of Sebastian Brock's incisive review article (“Two Editions of a New Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 48/49 [2005/6], 7–18). The work is more likely to be a multi-layered work from different periods and milieus (as Henze suggests in his edition, p. 17), and so any monastic connection is only likely in the final stages of its redaction or in its reception.

Sebastian Brock's contribution, “Radical Renunciation,” convincingly demonstrates that the Syriac idea of msarrqûtâ espoused in early Syriac writing on asceticism, is directly connected to the description of Christ's self-emptying in Philippians 2:7, where the Peshitta renders Greek heauton ekenósen, “he emptied himself,” with napsheh sarreq. Though the reference in Philippians refers solely to the incarnated Son divesting himself of heavenly glory, it became a foundational text for the renunciation of worldly possessions, passions, and notions for committed believers. Brock argues that the development from the theological to the practical is linked to the concept of the greater commandments of the Gospel (as found especially in the Liber Graduum), which were advocated for those who sought to be “perfect” (gmîrê), as one aspect of imitatio Christi.

The theme of the imitation of Christ in the monastic life also comes up in Robin Darling Young's essay on the influence of Evagrius of Pontus on Philoxenus, and how he used his own view of Evagrian soteriology to correct the excesses caused by misunderstandings of Evagrius by contemporaries such as Patricius of Edessa.

Susan Ashbrook Harvey's contribution is a study of the metaphor of housekeeping in Syriac and Greek ascetic literature, which not only reflects the realities of life in Antiquity but also goes back to the motif found in the Bible, Philo, and Origen of the human body and soul as a dwelling place for God. She also notes the irony of the contrast between the often slovenly and unhygienic conditions of life for ascetics and the frequent injunctions to purify their inner selves.

The volume ends with a witty Neo-Aramaic poem written in Sidney Griffith's honor by Shawqi Talia.