This volume deals with the part on practical philosophyin Barhebraeus's "Butyrum sapientiae" or" Cream of Wisdom." The practical philosophy in this large encyclopaedia of Aristotelean thinking in this Syriac language consists of three books: Ethics, Economy and Politics.
The books of Ethics and Politics have been edited, translated and commented upon for the very first time in this publication.
These books are unique and probably the only specimens of its kind, surviving in the Syriac language and literature.They were written at the end of Barhebraeus's life (1285/86) during a period in which the Syriac language had been rapidly losing ground to Arabic and was to almost disappear as a living language not long after the author's death.

N. Peter Joosse, Ph.D. (1997) in Theology/Semitic Languages and Cultures, Free University of Amsterdam, is Senior Research Fellow at Leiden University. He has published extensively on Arabic, Persian and Syriac topics, including several contributions to the oriental Diatessaron tradition.