Stephen bar Sudayli was a

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

established in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

who flourished about the end of the 5th century AD. The earlier part of his career was passed at

Edessa Edessa (; ) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now Urfa or Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It was founded during the Hellenistic period by Macedonian general and self proclaimed king Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Sel ...

, of which he may have been a native. He afterwards removed to

, where he lived as a

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

and endeavoured to make converts to his doctrines, both by teaching among the community there and by letters to his former friends at Edessa. He was the author of commentaries on the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

and other theological works. Two of his eminent contemporaries

Jacob of Serugh Jacob of Serugh (, ; ; 452–521), also called Jacob of Sarug or Mar Jacob (), was one of the foremost poets and theologians of the Syriac Christian tradition, second only to Ephrem the Syrian and equal to Narsai. He lived most of his life as ...

(451-521) and Philoxenus of Mabbogh (d. 523), wrote letters in condemnation of his teaching. His two main theses which they attacked were: (1) the limited duration of the future punishment of sinners, and (2) the

pantheistic Pantheism can refer to a number of Philosophy, philosophical and Religion, religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arise ...

doctrine that all nature is consubstantial with the Divine essence, that the whole universe has emanated from God, and will in the end return to and be absorbed in him. The fame of Stephen as a writer, however, rests primarily on his identification with the author of a treatise which survives in a single Syriac manuscript (British Library Add MS 7189, written mainly in the 13th century), '' The book of Hierotheus on the hidden mysteries of the house of God''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sudayli, Stephen bar Christian mystics Syriac writers 5th-century Byzantine people Syrian writers Syrian Christians 5th-century Syrian people