Syriac, a variety of Aramaic, appeared in northern Mesopotamia in the first century CE, and produced a vast literature, which was the expression of a mostly Christian culture. FLOS focused on the transformations of early Greek Christian thought in Syriac and, through Syriac, in Arabic in the first millennium CE. The aim was to analyze how the transmission of Greek Christian texts interacted with the various forms assumed by Syriac Christianity under Islamic rule. From the middle of the 7th century, Syriac Christians were confronted with the political and religious power of Islam and they increasingly had to justify their beliefs in order to valorize and preserve their cultural heritage. One way to do this was to look at the past. In the first centuries CE, Greek Christian authors had developed an articulated theological reflection, and they came to be called "Church fathers", to emphasize their role as theological authorities. Between the 4th and 8th centuries, Syriac Christians translated the writings of the "fathers" into Syriac and also produced anthologies of selected extracts from them. We call these anthologies "florilegia", collections of the "finest flowers" of Greek Christian literature. They are preserved in unique parchment manuscripts produced between 700 and 1000 CE and preserved in London and Birmingham. Under Muslim rule, Syriac Christians used these collections to outline their own theological identity, using them as an intellectual first-aid kit against the threats their religious identity was undergoing. The result of the research is twofold: we have produced born-digital critical editions of the most important florilegia, and we provided the editions with rich metadata that allow the user to understand their history and construction strategies. This is a pioneering result in two respects: because digital philology had never been applied to Syriac texts and is still rare in Eastern Christian studies; and because through these editions Syriac florilegia have been valorized for the first time as 'intellectual projects' that changed the history of Christian culture in the Medieval Middle East. Four large florilegia can now be consulted at www.florilegiasyriaca.eu.
The second purpose of the project was to understand how the religious education that Christians gained from these florilegia had an impact on the actual cultural debate. Between the 7th and the 10th centuries many Syriac Christian authors wrote theological works, often for the purpose of controversy with other Christian competitors or with Muslims; they wrote in Syriac, but also more and more often in Arabic. Our question was: did these authors use the florilegia? Did they construct their arguments with themes drawn from them? In many published or forthcoming studies, the FLOS team was able to demonstrate that this was actually the case. We also showed that our comprehension of the debates between Christians and Muslims in the early Abbasid age is strongly improved if we understand that Syriac and Arab Christians relied not only on pure dialectics to dispute with Muslims, but also on their own theological tradition, which they received especially in the form of florilegia. Our research can thus increase historical awareness for the understanding of our present. Studying the intellectual history of a Christian culture that was the first to face Islam and to equip itself for this confrontation is tantamount to realizing how the Middle East has been the place of a cultural and religious plurality that today is little perceived and threatened.
