Origins

The only reasonable consensus concerning the text’s authorship is that Syriac Menander was written by an anonymous sage who adopted the name and persona of the famous Greek dramatist Menander (fourth century bc; de Vos, “Decalogue,” 51).

It is likely that the anonymous author wrote during the third century ad (Baarda, “Syriac Menander,” 583; de Vos, “Decalogue,” 51). It is preserved in a seventh-century Syriac manuscript; another eighth- or ninth-century Syriac manuscript contains a much smaller selection of sayings (Baarda, “Syriac Menander,” 584).

Although de Vos suggests an Egyptian provenance, Baarda contends that scholars do not know enough to say one way or the other (Baarda, “Syriac Menander,” 585; de Vos, “Decalogue,” 52).

It is difficult to determine whether Syriac was the text’s original language; Baarda, de Vos, and Kirk all suggest that a Greek original might lie behind the Syriac version (Baarda, “Syriac Menander,” 584; de Vos, “Decalogue,” 52; Kirk, “Composed Life,” 170).