Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya
author: Sebastian P. Brock
source date: 2011
edition published: 2016-09-22-16:00
availability: Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya

https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Dadisho-Qatraya http://syriaca.org/bibl/156 147 http://syriaca.org/person/434 [person] [Monastic author. [brief]]

(late 7th cent.) [Ch. of E.]

Monastic author. Originating from Beth Qaṭraye (like Isḥaq of Nineveh ), he was later associated (again, like Isḥaq) with the Monastery of Rabban Shabur. Nothing further is known of his life. His surviving writings consist of a learned Commentary on the Asceticon of Isaiah of Scetis ; a Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers, compiled by ʿEnanishoʿ ; a treatise on Stillness (šelyā), concerning the monastic practice of retreats for seven weeks in solitude; a Letter to Abkosh, also on Stillness, and various short texts concerning the spiritual life. The Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers was translated into Sogdian (only a fragment survives), Arabic, and Ethiopic. There is also a fragment of his Commentary on Abba Isaiah in Sogdian.

Primary Sources

F. Del Río Sánchez, Los cincos tratados sobre la quietud (shelya) de Dadishoʿ Qatraya (Aula Orientalis Supplement 18; 2001). (Syr.)
R. Draguet, Le commentaire du livre d’Abba Isaïe (logoi I–XV) par Dadišoʿ Qaṭraya (VIIe s.) (CSCO 326–7; 1972). (Syr. with FT)
A. Guillaumont and M. Albert, ‘Lettre de Dadishoʿ Qatraya à Abkosh sur l’Hesychia’, in Mémorial A-J. Festugière, ed. E. Lucchesi and H. D. Saffrey (1984), 235–45. (Letter to Abkosh)
A. Mingana, ‘Early Christian Mystics’, Woodbrooke Studies 7 (1934), 70–143 (Syr.), 201–47 (ET). (‘On Stillness’; the earlier edition by Bedjan, at the end of his Mar Isaacus Ninivita, 601–28, does not give the full text)
N. Sims-Williams, The Christian Sogdian Manuscript C2 (1985), 78–86. (Sogdian fragment)
An edition of the Commentary on The Paradise of the Fathers is in preparation by D. Phillips.

Secondary Sources

L. Abramowski, ‘Dadisho Qatraya and his Commentary on the Book of Abbas Isaiah’, Harp 4 (1991), 67–83.
R. A. Kitchen, ‘Dadisho Qatraya’s Commenatry on Abba Isaiah: the Apophthegmata Patrum connection’, StPatr , vol. 41 (2006), 35–50.
N. Sims-Williams, ‘Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya’s Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers’, AB 112 (1994), 33–64.
M. Tamcke, ‘Theology and practice of the communal life according to Dadisho’, Harp 4 (1991), 173–88.
W. Witakowski, ‘Filekseyus, the Ethiopic version of the Syriac Dadisho Qatraya’s Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers’, Rocznik Orientalistyczny 59 (2006), 281–96.

Sebastian P. Brock