Sargis bar Waḥle (ca. 1500) [Ch. of E.]
Monk and poet. Sargis bar Waḥle from Adharbayjān, was a monk in the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd near Alqosh, possibly around the turn of the 15th–16th cent. He wrote a lengthy metrical poem on the founder of this monastery, Rabban Hormizd, consisting of 22 tarʿe (strophes), according to the letters of the Syriac alphabet, set in end rhyme and intended to be recited on the occasion of the saint’s dukrānā. Its language is artificial and characterized by the extensive use of rare words and Greek loan words. A metrical poem on Mar Aḥa, which existed in ms. ( olim ) Diyarbakır 76, is said to have been written in a more natural style (Scher). Abūna’s and Macuch’s assumption that Sargis is also the author of ʿonyāthā on the E.-Syr. Catholicoi as well as on Rabban Khudahwi and Sabrishoʿ of Beth Qoqa is based on an erroneous interpretation of the passage on Sargis in Baumstark’s Geschichte der syrischen Literatur.
- E. A. W. Budge, The Life of Rabban Hôrmîzd and the foundation of his Monastery at al-Ḳôsh. A metrical discourse by Waḥlê, surnamed Sergius of Âdhôrbâijân (Semitistische Studien. Ergänzungshefte zur ZA 2–3; 1894). (Syr.)
- E. A. W. Budge, ‘The metrical homily on the Life of Rabban Hôrmîzd the Persian composed by Sergius of Âdhôrbâijân’, in his The Histories of Rabban Hormizd the Persian and Rabban Bar-ʿIdtâ, vol. 2.2 (1902). (ET)
- Abūna, Adab, 513–4.
- Baumstark, Literatur, 330–1.
- Macuch, Geschichte, 35–6.
- A. Scher, ‘Notice sur les manuscrits syriaques et arabes conservés à l’Archevêché chaldéen de Diarbékir’, JA 10 (1907), 387.