Alternate Names
Severus Seboht; Severus Sebokt; Severus Sebukht
BornNisibis, (Syria), circa575
DiedKennesrin (also called Qinnesrin or Qenneshrê), (Syria), 666/667
Severus Sebokht was one of the leading figures of ecclesiastical, philosophical, and scientific culture of late antique Syria, although little definitive information is known about his life. Born in Persian territory at Nisibis, he left his teaching post in its famous school in 612 after a doctrinal dispute among the Nestorians. Later consecrated a bishop, he pursued a career in the Syrian Monophysite church within Byzantine jurisdiction, residing as a monk at the monastery at Kennesrin on the west bank of the Euphrates, one of the chief seats of Greek learning in western Syria. He continued to write until at least 665.
Like many of his contemporaries, Severus was bicultural, partaking of the Byzantine Greek influence on western Syrian intellectual circles while fully immersed in his own Syrian cultural milieu. He does,...
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Selected References
Brock, Sebastian P. (1984). “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning.” In Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity. Vol. 5, pp. 17–34, esp. 23–24, 28. London: Variorum Reprints. (For specialized treatment of Severus and his contemporaries.)
Gunther, Robert T. (1932). The Astrolabes of the World. Vol. 1, The Eastern Astrolabes. Oxford: University Press, pp. 82–103. (For an English version of Treatise on the Astrolabe, from Nau’s French.)
Moosa, Matti (ed. and trans.) (2000). The History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Pueblo, Colorado: Passeggiata Press, pp. 65, 108. (Originally published as I. Aphram Barsoum, Kitāb al-Lu’lu’ al-manthūr fī ta’rīkh al-ҁulūm wa-’ l-ādāb al-Suryāniyya. Hims, Syria, 1943). (Earlier treatments of Severus are now incorporated into this work, which conveniently lists and briefly discusses all of Severus’s works.)
Nau, F. N. (1899). “Le traité sur l’astrolabe plan de Sévère Sabokt.” Journal asiatique, 9th ser., 13: 56–101, 238–303. (For the Treatise on the Astrolabe.)
— (1910). “La cosmographie au VIIe siècle chez les Syriens.” Revue de l’Orient chrétien 5, no. 18: 225–254. (Assesses Severus’s contributions and surveys the contents of Paris MS Syr. 346, three quarters of which is made up of his works.)
— (1910). “Notes d’astronomie syrienne.” Journal asiatique, 10th ser., 16: 209–228, esp. 219–224. (For Severus’s explanation of lunar eclipses.)
— “Le traité sur les ‘Constellations’ écrit, en 661 [sic], par Sévère Sébokt, évêque de Qennesrin.” Revue de l’Orient chrétien 7, no. 27 (1929): 327–410; 8, no. 28 (1932): 85–100.
Neugebauer, Otto (1949). “The Early History of the Astrolabe.” Isis 40: 240–256, esp. 242–245, 251–253. (For Severus’s treatise on the astrolabe; discusses Severus’s sources and critiques earlier discussions.)
— (1975). A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. 3 pts. New York: Springer-Verlag, pt. 1, pp. 7–8; pt. 2, pp. 877–878, 1041–1042. (For a brief treatment of the relationship between Greek and Syrian astronomy and its transmission to the Islamic World and Severus’s treatise on the astrolabe.)
Pingree, David (1993). “The Greek Influence on Early Islamic Mathematical Astronomy.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 93: 32–43, esp. 34–35.
— (1994). “The Teaching of the Almagest in Late Antiquity.” In The Sciences in Greco-Roman Society, edited by Timothy D. Barnes, pp. 73–98, esp. 94–95. Edmonton: Academic Print and Publishing.
Stautz, Burkhard (1997). Untersuchungen von mathematisch-astronomischen Darstellungen auf mittelalterlichen Astrolabien islamischer und europäischer Herkunft. Bassum: Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, pp. 38–39. (Gives a concise description of the physical appearance of the instrument.)
Wright, W. (1966). A Short History of Syriac Literature. Amsterdam: Philo Press, pp. 137–139.
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McMahon, J.M. (2014). Severus Sebokht. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1260
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