Letter of the Archimandrites of Arabia

The Letter of the Archimandrites of Arabia, dated to 570 AD, is a Syriac Monophysite declaration of faith signed by 137 monastic leaders in Roman Arabia. Addressed to Jacob Baradaeus and other Monophysite bishops, the letter intervenes in Christological disputes in opposition to Tritheism. Written in Greek, it survives today in Syriac translation, in a corpus of Monophysite texts from southwest Syria compiled in the late sixth century, known as the Documenta Monophysitarum. The same collection of letters also has a letter containing the response of Jacob. The Letter of the Archimandrites is the most well known document from the Documenta Monophysitarum, and reveals a large rural zone across Roman Arabia dotted with churches and monasteries that were well-connected to the Arab leaders in this time. The letter is an important source for pre-Islamic Arabian Christianity.

Geography and provincial context

The Letter of the Archimandrites contains considerable information about the geographic distribution of monasteries in Roman Arabia, and the relationship between these monasteries and Roman administrative provinces and networks of Ghassanid influence. Scholarly views range from whether the letter reflects a coherent ecclesiastical "province of Arabia," Ghassanid political patronage, or a looser religious network that was not confined to conventional political boundaries. A recent study by Jacob Ashkenazi finds that the villages mentioned in the letter that can be identified were primarily located in Batanea, with only a few on the western fringes of Trachonitis (the Ledja) and the Hauran. According to these findings, Batanea emerges as the core zone of the monastic landscape reflected in the letter.