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Document Details :

Title: Greek and
Author(s): RUBIN, Rehav
Journal: ARAM Periodical
Volume: 15    Date: 2003   
Pages: 81-96
DOI: 10.2143/ARAM.15.0.504527

Abstract :
The evidence summed up by the author suggests that there were a significant number of Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) speaking monks in the Judean Desert monasteries, who are often identified in the historical sources as Syriac. The fact that documentary and epigraphic evidence of their presence is slight, is not surprising, as the Greek speakers, who were the dominant group in the monastic movement, exercised a complete monopoly over the movement's historical sources.
The epigraphic findings discovered in St. Firmin's and especially the obliteration of the Greek crosses and inscriptions by the CPA inscriptions and crosses, attests not only the presence of Syriac monks at the St. Firmin monastery, but strongly suggests that the monks in this Laura were divided by fierce ethnic and cultural tensions.

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