Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Ministries of Song is a tour-de-force study of the power of women’s liturgical singing in late antique Syriac Christianity. Extending women’s religious participation beyond the familiar roles of female saints and nobles, Syriac churches cultivated a flourishing but often-overlooked tradition of women’s sacred song. Susan Ashbrook Harvey brings this music to life as she uncovers the ways these now-nameless women performed a boldly sung teaching ministry and invited congregations to respond aloud. By exploring their ritual agency, Harvey demonstrates how these choirs helped to shape the formative ethical and moral ideals of their congregations and communities. Women’s voices, both real and imagined, enriched the ritual and devotional lives of Syriac Christians daily and weekly, on ecclesial and civic special occasions, in sorrow or joy, with authoritative theological significance and social and political resonance. Arguing for the importance of liturgy as social history, Harvey shows us how and why women’s voices mattered for ancient Syriac Christianity and why they matter still.

Susan Ashbrook Harvey is the Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of Religion and History at Brown University, specializing in Syriac and Greek Christianity of the late antique and Byzantine eras. She is author of Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination.