Pešīttā is, admittedly, the main source for East Syrian liturgical books. Its form and content were mended by a poet in ʿōnyāṯā (poetic genre), in the hymnological collection Wardā (the thirteenth century) in a historical context known as "the Syrian Renaissance". It consequently leads to the modification of the Biblical text, to poetic gradation, as well as to updating and to contextualising of the stories of the Old and New Testament in the line of the analogical life experience of the author and his listeners. The interpretation of the Biblical text in the liturgical poetry Wardā takes into consideration the historical and political development when reflecting on the impact of the rupture of the Abbasid caliphate and the impact of the Mongolian-Tatar invasion on the most important liturgical piece of the Assyrian Church of the East at the time of its last literary-cultural heyday. Symbolic imaginary is not only an important part of poetry itself, but is an articulate element of East Syrian theology, spirituality and interreligious relations in Mesopotamia.
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