Description:
Intentionally anonymous and lacking concrete details of historical and cultural setting-and for many years suspected of messalianism-this collection of thirty memre [discourses] has been long recognized as an important, yet understudied, work of the fourth century Syriac Church.
The Liber Graduum records the ups and downs of a real christian community and is not a theoretical projection. The author meanders through many themes, but always calls the readers back to the steps of Uprightness and Perfection.
Brief description: Robert A. Kitchen is a minister of Knox-Metropolitan United Church, Regina, Saskatchewan. He read for the D.Phil at Oxford in Syriac literature under the supervision of Sebastian P. Brock. With Martien F. G. Parmentier, Robert A. Kitchen translated and introduced The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber Graduum, CS 196 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 2004).