Sobre reyes y héroes: tradición heroica y "etnogénesis" en la literatura siríaca

Abstract

Ancient Assyria was central to the formation of Christian identity in the pre-Islamic and Islamic Near East. Not only because Christian exegetes linked Assyria with the divine punishment for the sins of the chosen People. Furthermore, Assyria was a positive link with the Sacred History. Assyrian kings were also Models for an idealized Christian Monarchy. The purpose of this work will be to analyze the way in which the Christian literature in the Syriac language incorporated the kings of the biblical past, especially thoselinked to Babylon and Assyria, in salvation History. We will sustain that, unlike the romantic notion of the nation, the Christians of the Near East understood their link with the ancient kings in terms of typological connection rather than ethno-linguistic continuity.