Acts of Martyrs and Saints (Vol 2 of 7): Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum 9781463213183

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ACTS OF MARTYRS A N D SAINTS

ACTS OF MARTYRS AND SAINTS

Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum

Volume 2

Edited by PAUL BEDJAN

Introductory Material Translated by CLAUDE DETIENNE

GORGIAS PRESS

2008

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2008 The special contents of this edition are copyright © 2008 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey This edition is a facsimile reprint of the original edition published in 1890-1897.

ISBN 978-1-59333-682-0 (Set) ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-1-59333-683-7 978-1-59333-684-4 978-1-59333-685-1 978-1-59333-686-8 978-1-59333-687-5 978-1-59333-688-2 978-1-59333-689-9

(Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume (Volume

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

& GORGIAS PRESS 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standards. Printed in the United States of America

Foreword Translated by Claude Detienne We are happy today to be able to give to our brothers and friends the second volume of Lives of Saints; it is entirely devoted to our glorious forefathers, the martyrs of Persia. This collection is the most important and voluminous that was ever published. The one published in 1748 by the learned S. E. Assemani in his collection Acta SS. Martyrum Orientalium, represents only a third of the publication we have published today. We do not want to compare ourselves to the illustrious Maronite, but we allow ourselves to warn the reader that his Syriac text contains many mistakes and that his Latin translation is not quite up to the mark. A serious author who has just published a very important work has unfortunately been misled by following such an incorrect edition. Our publication is a complete revision of that work, which has been enriched by many unpublished texts. We have probably not exhausted all the riches of that genre. We know other ones that we would have liked to add to our treasure, especially in the part attributed to Maruta of Maiperkat but we had to wait. If God grants us life, we hope some day to realize that wish. However, what remains to be published seems to us less important than what we give to the public, both in worth and extent. We had to punctuate and vocalize nearly the whole book, which is very hard work without books that can guide us for that kind of undertaking. We did our best to divide the Lives in paragraphs for the reader's convenience. We also composed the headings. We called the 40 Martyrs Persian Chaldeans (uasa sfiiA) to distinguish them from the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste in Armenia, who were martyred under Licinius.

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The authors of some lives are known and their names are written at the beginning or at the end of the story they wrote, but most lives are anonymous. However, from p. 57 to p. 396, all the lives, written in a most beautiful style, are attributed to Mar Maruta of Maiperkat as we have said in a note at the bottom of p. 57, Usalo yamaSl ¿¡sai» laaiaa iiaa jujoia ¿¡saacifiia iaiyi iaoi •pa 1L.CU0. That learned writer, in charge of very important missions, traveled several times to Persia in 400, 410 and 420 A.D. Cf. Barhebraeus, Chron. Eccl. sect. II p. 45 . . lYl .C^oA ¿QOl AM Qcn ,32.3 ¿01 :jjjali3a ;"\S*n sils^jA JjJOJ.3 ;*\S*n ¿iSA^ca ;yi.-> K. ' yanaSl ¿¡sai» clival aafacla • . . . ' 1

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aj*iaal T ' Ln.^so ... mlj.: tiaaaSl n»m>1 qoi rna . J&aaouoaa ¿l^Ai» -l^o j A..1.1 ¿soLAx ¿via .IIYIN Naii Alio '.iciiiDis tiojin QOI Nocnl -ojA^u iaiUi2o iii. laal.a.»» ^"it tyit no. The Jacobite Patriarch Dionysius mentions Maruta's third travel to Persia: frVuno '.Jt>uJb& J&oacuoa NxuM '.(420 fiouca) iicna ouo ouuii . 1 >n»ia ¿¿sniVncll IrbAoM] ;ci2liacij.a ^"i** • i£>ai» Naoij.isj.i

Reading p. 394, 395 and 396, the reader will see on which sources the author drew on to write that masterpiece. Here are the books we had at our disposal to prepare this volume: 1) Assemani's Acta SS. Martyrum Orientalium, was kindly lent to us by Canon Vandamme, professor of Sacred Scripture at the Theological Seminary of Ghent. The text is

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not vocalized and is very badly punctuated. 2) two manuscript volumes (1500 pp.), copied in 1879 in Mosul and collated with an ancient parchment manuscript of the 7th or 8th century, kept in the Chaldean church of Diyarbakir. That precious work was lent to us by the Magnificent Rector of the University of Louvain, the learned orientalist Mgr. Abbeloos. The tremendous good which will be the result of our present publication, both for literature and for piety, will be due mostly to his great help. Such a sweet comfort will perfume the days of the worthy prelate and reward him for the great service he will have done to the public. Only some very rare words of that text are vocalized, generally, according to the rules of grammar. 3) The Berlin Royal Library has put at our disposal the Sachau manuscript num. 222. It is a folio of 1200 pp. written in Alqosh in 1881. We are deeply touched by such benevolent generosity. The text is not totally vocalized and its vocalization is very incorrect. 4) Mr. Salomon, priest of the "Mission" and missionary in Persia, and Mgr. Attar, former Chaldean Archbishop of Diyarbakir, sent us some manuscripts that were very useful. His Beatitude Mgr. Abolyonan, Patriarch of Babylon, gave us the Martyrdom of Mar Baboy and the Dialogue of Peter with Nero when we had the honor of seeing him in Paris last October. Those texts are generally very bad, grammatically speaking. Dr. Van Hoonacker, Professor at the University of Louvain, lent us his precious help. We thank with all our heart our friendly benefactors. As much as possible we have followed chronological order, except for the lives of Mar Behnam and Mar Kardagh, which we did not want to insert among the lives attributed to Maruta. We had to transcribe the whole text by hand to send it to the printing house. And now a word about every life or group of lives.

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1° The story of Sultan Mahdukh and his brothers was taken from the Berlin manuscript and collated with the Vatican manuscripts by our excellent friend Mr. Guidi. 2° Lives from p. 40 to p. 56 are taken from Assemani and were corrected using Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript. 3° The preliminary discourse p. 57-112 was copied from Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript and collated with the Vatican manuscripts by the helpful Mr. Guidi. We borrowed the title of the discourse from the note at its end. 4° The second discourse and the preliminary part of the first Life of St. Simon Barsabay p. 123-130 were copied from Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript and collated with the edition of Assemani and with the Berlin manuscript. 5° The Life of St. Simon Barsabay was taken from a copy that was written last year in Persia according to an ancient manuscript by Sargis of Urmia (^aoi) ¿a** aa jn^xia. It was collated with Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript. As the preamble was missing, we had a copy sent from the British Museum in London. The copy written in Urmia is due to Mr. Salomon's kindness. 6° The Martyrdom of Possi and His Daughter Martha and the Great Slaughter of Christians in the country of the Khuzis or Khuzestan are taken from Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript. 7° From p. 248 to p. 396, everything was copied from Assemani and collated with Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript. We found some lives in the Berlin manuscript, like the Lives of Tarbo, Shahdust, Thecla and Her Companions and the 40 Martyrs. We gave their variants. Mr. Guidi lent us his manuscript of the Story of Mar Milis.

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8° Mar Behnam's Story was copied from the Berlin manuscript and collated in Rome. 9° For Mar Kardagh, besides the learned publication of the Magnificent Rector of Louvain, we had before us the Berlin manuscript and another sent by Mr. Salomon. That story, true in its content, seems to have been transformed into legend by its author, whom, we may add, we do not know. 10° The Story of Beth-Slokh or Kirkuk and Its Martyrs was taken from the Berlin manuscript and collated with Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript. 11° Miharshabor's Martyrdom was taken from Assemani and collated with Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript. 12° The Story of St. James the Intercise is in Assemani, Abbeloos and the Berlin manuscript. We consulted those texts. 13° We copied the Story of Yazdin, Adorhormizd, his Daughter Anahid and Mar Pethion from Mgr. Attar's manuscript, collated with Mgr. Abbeloos'. The Reverend Father Corluy, S.J., from Louvain, published in 1888 the Story of Mar Pethion's Martyrdom alone. The content of the account is the same, but its form is very different from the story of our manuscripts. It was not possible to reproduce all the variants. However, we adopted some of them, which could throw some light on our text. To distinguish them, we put them in square brackets []. 14° Baboy's Martyrdom was given to us by His Beatitude the Patriarch of the Chaldeans and we collated it with Mgr. Abbeloos' manuscript.

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15° Mar Sava's Life was sent to us by Mr. Salomon who had it copied on the 7th of August 1890 from a copy kept carefully in the saint's church at Aurisha de Guiavar. i a i ' a iiao'la W|_ l a d ¿sjJjcis We Collated it with the Berlin copy. 16° St. Peter's Dialogue with Nero was given to us by the Patriarch. To make the comprehension of the text easier, we place here before the reader the list of the Sassanian kings who reigned in Persia from 227 A.D. to 645 A.D., i.e. 418 years. [The list appears on pp. XI-XIII.] Our most sincere thanks to those who have helped us so generously, and our best wishes for our benevolent readers. ANS-LEZ-LIEGE, the 25th May 1891, on the 30th anniversary of my priesthood.

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