Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (volume 8): 2005 [2011] 9781463214142

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HUGOYE JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

Volume 8 2005 [2009]

HUGOYE JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute GENERAL EDITOR George Anton Kiraz, Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute / Gorgias Press EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Sebastian P. Brock, University of Oxford Sidney Griffith, The Catholic University of America Amir Harrak, University of Toronto Susan Harvey, Brown University Mor Gregorios Y. Ibrahim, Mardin-Edessa Publishing House Andreas Juckel, University of Münster Hubert Kaufhold, Oriens Christianus Kathleen McVey, Princeton Theological Seminary Wido T Van Peursen, The Peshitta Institute of Leiden University Lucas Van Rompay, Duke University ONLINE EDITION EDITOR Thomas Joseph, Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Kristian Heal, Brigham Young University PRINTED EDITION EDITOR Katie Stott, Gorgias Press

HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES (ISSN 1937-318X) Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is a publication of BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE. Copyright © 2009 by GORGIAS PRESS and BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE. The Syriac word hugoye, plural of hugoyo, derives from the root hg‚ ‘to think, meditate, study’; hence, hugoyo ‘study, meditation’. Recently, hugoye became to be used for ‘academic studies’; hence, hugoye suryoye ‘Syriac Studies’. SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscription requests should be addressed to Gorgias Press, 180 Centennial Ave., Suite A, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. Subscriptions may be made online at http://www.gorgiaspress.com. Back issues are available. NOTE FOR CONTRIBUTORS Submission guidelines and instructions are found on the Hugoye web site at http://www.bethmardutho.org. NOTE TO PUBLISHERS Copies for review should be sent directly to the Book Review Editor at the following address: Mr. Kristian S. Heal, Hugoye Book Review Editor, Brigham Young University, Stadium East House - METI, Provo, UT 84604. ADVERTISEMENTS Rates: $250 full page; includes a listing in all e-mail announcements for one year. To place ads, write to the subscription address above.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.

TABLE OF CONTENTS HUGOYE 8:1 In Memoriam David J. Lane (1935-2005) by George A. Kiraz .........................3 J.P.M. van der Ploeg O.P. (1909-2004) by Lucas Van Rompay .............................................................................................9 Papers Methods of Instructing Syriac-Speaking Christians to Care for the Poor...........................................................................13 Nancy A. Khalek The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai ...................................27 Karla R. Suomala Jacob of Edessa’s version of Exodus 1 and 28.........................41 Alison Salvesen Brief Article Recent Books on Syriac Topics...................................................59 Sebastian P. Brock Book Reviews..........................................................................................65 Conference Reports .............................................................................103 Project Reports .....................................................................................111

HUGOYE 8:2 Papers Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant ..............................125 Susan Ashbrook Harvey Septuaginta and Peshitta.............................................................151 Andreas Juckel Nisibis as the background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian† ...........................................................................................179 Paul S. Russell Book Reviews........................................................................................237

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Volume 8 2005 [2009]

Number 1

HUGOYE JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES A Publication of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute

IN MEMORIAM

DAVID J. LANE (1935-2005) GEORGE A. KIRAZ BETH MARDUTHO: THE SYRIAC INSTITUTE

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Just a few weeks back, the community of Syriac scholarship heard about the untimely death of one of its foremost scholars, David John Lane. David had arrived in India on January 5 on a routine visit to the St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI). On January 10, he had a cardiac arrest and was admitted to the hospital; he passed away at 9:50 PM. David Lane’s autobiography, which he prepared for SEERI, is found below. He will be remembered by all of us for his scholarship, but also for his interest in Syriac not only as an academic subject, but as a living heritage. The funeral service took place at 2:30 pm on Friday, January 14, at the church situated in the SEERI campus and the burial followed at the cemetery of the Malankara Catholic Church at Kalathipady near Kottayam. The service was presided over by Mar Cleemis of Tiruvalla (Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, and SEERI’s President), Thomas Mor Themotheos (Syrian Orthodox Church), and Thomas Mar Koorilose (Syro-Malankara Catholic Church). Fr. M.P. George of the Malankara Orthodox Seminary led the chanting in Syriac and in Malayalam. Other priests, mostly David’s students, from the various other traditions took part. The service was attended by ca. 200 people. It is only fitting that Fr. David received burial rites according to the West Syriac rite of the Order of Burial of Priests. His body was vested with the priestly garments. The service concluded with the traditional zuyoḥo, a farewell ceremony exclusive to deacons and priests. The body was carried by priests to the altar and placed facing East. A priest represented Fr. David in chanting “Phush bashlom—Farewell, O holy altar.” The rest of the priests responded, “zel bashlom, Depart in peace, O honorable priest.” The farewell continued, - Farewell, O holy Church. - Depart in peace, O modest priest.

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George A. Kiraz - Farewell, O holy bishops. - Depart in peace, O pious priest. - Farewell, O heads of the churches. - Depart in peace, our beloved father. - Farewell, O heads of the monasteries. - Depart in peace, our blessed father. - Farewell, O noble priests. - Depart in peace, O venerable priest.

The priests then carried Fr. David to the entrance of the church where his body was placed facing West. The priest representing Fr. David chanted, - Farewell, O modest deacons. - Depart in peace, O faithful priest. - Farewell, O clergy. - Depart in peace, our just father. - Farewell, O beloved ones and friends. - Depart in peace, our righteous father.

Fr. David’s body was then taken to the North side of the church to say his farewell to all dwellers. - Farewell, O monastery and its dwellers. - Depart in peace, O teacher of truth. - Farewell, O city and its inhabitants. - Depart in peace, O eminent priest. - Farewell, O fellow mortals. - Depart in peace, O ascetic father.

Finally, Fr. David’s body was taken to the South side of the church for his final farewell.

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- Farewell, O Church and its children. - Depart in peace, O preacher of truth. - Give me peace and may you live in peace. This peace [that you give me] is henceforth forever. - Depart in peace, O brother and beloved one. May our Lord receive you in the blessed mansions. May Christ, Who took you away, make us worthy to see you in the new life that will shine forth from heaven. Glory to you, O Jesus our Savior, in Whose hands is death and Whose will is life.1

David left many unfinished works behind. His opus magnum, the edition and translation of Shubkhalmaran’s Book of Gifts, which will 1 The Syriac text is taken from Book of the Order for the Burial of the Clergy According to the Ancient Rite of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, tr. by Archdeacon Murad Saliba Barsom, 2003, pp. 121-124.

David J. Lane (1935-2005)

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be published in CSCO, is not yet at the proof stage. The proofs will be corrected by Andrea Schmidt. David had also almost finished writing an introduction to a forthcoming facsimile edition of the East Syriac Ḥudra based on the Thrissur manuscript of 1598. It is hoped that his writings can be recovered. It is our obligation to dedicate this issue of Hugoye in memory of David John Lane, scholar, malphono, mentor, and friend to many of us. It only remains for us to say, zel bashlom, malphono ṭarqo.

DAVID JOHN LANE (1935-2005), AN AUTO BIOGRAPHY [1]

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David Lane was born in 1935, in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, into a family in which grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncle were all school-teachers.2 Wartime and family circumstances led him to being educated at 9 different schools before going to Hurstpierpoint College, a Church of England boarding school for ‘the middle class,’ where a vocation to the priesthood was identified and nurtured. After two years’ army service with the Royal Signals, which took him to Egypt for a year, he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, to read Theology. Encouraged by one of Britain’s leading Hebrew scholars, Sir Godfrey Driver, he went on to read a second undergraduate degree, Oriental Studies (Hebrew with Aramaic and Syriac). He learned Syriac under L.H. Brockington, the reviser of the much-used Robinson’s Syriac Grammar. Of great value for his work in New Testament and Syriac was being introduced to Mishnah and Jewish medieval commentaries by Dr. David Patterson, later the founder and Director of Oxford’s Centre for Hebrew Post-Biblical Studies. From there he went as a student for priesthood to the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield (just a few miles from his birthplace). While there he won, by examination, the Oxford University HallHoughton Syriac Prize. Instead of completing a second year at Mirfield, he was asked by the Community of the Resurrection to go to their seminary, Codrington College, Barbados, West Indies. There he found himself teaching New Testament and Greek, and

2 This autobiography was prepared by David Lane for the St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI), Kottayam, where he had been engaged in academic work when he passed away. This was submitted for publication in Hugoye by Rev. Fr. Jacob Thekeparampil of SEERI.

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later being Director of Studies. He was made a deacon in Barbados, May 1962, and ordained priest in December that year. In 1965 he returned to the UK, and for a year was assistant priest in a parish in Oxford. Then he went to Pembroke College Oxford as Associate Chaplain, and was awarded the Kennicott Hebrew Fellowship. This enabled him to begin work on the Peshitta of the Old Testament, again with encouragement of Sir Godfrey Driver. It also began a very fruitful association with the Peshitta Institute in Leiden, then directed by Professor P.A.H. de Boer. Incidentally while at Pembroke he had the chance of teaching Syriac to a slim young Indian, Deacon George, who stayed with the Cowley Fathers. That Deacon George is now Geevarghese Mar Ivanios. 1967 saw Lane as a tutor at St. Stephen’s House, an Anglican seminary in Oxford, where he continued University teaching in elementary Hebrew, tutored theology students from many colleges, and continued work on Peshitta Qoheleth. He retained a connection with Pembroke College as its Lecturer in Theology. In 1971 Lane was invited to go as an Assistant Professor in Near Eastern Studies in the University of Toronto. This began a major period of Syriac activity: for the Leiden Peshitta Qoheleth had been finished, and a revision of John Emerton’s Wisdom of Solomon and Song of Songs followed, to be joined by work on Leviticus. For two summers he was a Visiting Professor at the Peshitta Institute, assisting with the edition of Genesis and Exodus, and with I and II Kings. The Leviticus work produced the Leiden Peshitta edition of that book, and a monograph which took Peshitta studies out of simple text criticism of the Old Testament into the wider field Syriac church history and liturgy, suggesting the theme of the second Leiden Peshitta Symposium, ‘The Peshitta as Translation.’ His published work to this point enabled Oxford University to award him the degree of Bachelor of Divinity: in Oxford this degree (based on publications) is of a higher standard than, and senior to, a D.Phil. In 1976 came his first participation in the Symposium Syriacum at Chantilly, also Dr. Jacob Thekeparampil’s first, though it was at the 1980 Symposium at Goslar that they first properly met. At Goslar, too, he was among the group of Syriac scholars whom the Indian bishops approached with the idea of SEERI. Although a tenured Associate Professor, in 1983 Lane accepted an invitation to join the staff of his old seminary, the College of the

David J. Lane (1935-2005)

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Resurrection. There he became Director of Studies, then VicePrincipal, and in 1990 Principal. He was also an Honorary Lecturer in Old Testament at the University of Leeds. With the encouragement of the Community of the Resurrection, of which he is an Oblate member, he completed his work on the Peshitta, and then began work on Syriac Fathers, especially Shubhalmaran, 7th century metropolitan of Kirkuk. Participation in the European Symposia continued, and from 1990 participation in the SEERI Symposia also. Articles and book reviews were asked for and produced, but the most important Syriac activity was his increasing involvement with SEERI when its Director invited him to come as a guest Professor for the Syriac MA classes recently begun at SEERI under the aegis of Mahatma Gandhi University. In fact, since retirement from the College of the Resurrection in 1997 Lane’s whole time has been given to Syriac affairs, so that this, his 70th year, sees the publication in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (CSCO) of the two volumes (Syriac text and English version) of Shubhalmaran’s Book of Gifts, a notable addition to the range of Syriac ascetic writings currently available. More recently there has been work on Jacob of Sarug’s verse homilies. However, through the years there has been time for priestly activity in the way of taking services and preaching, and for associations with parishes in Toronto and Cambridge. There has also been some little time for interests in railways and gardening: his photographs of British steam railways have appeared in journals and in books on railway history; literary interests led him to be President of the Sir Walter Scott Club of Toronto. He is currently on both the local and national committees of the Scottish Rock Garden Club, with a special interest in the alpine crevice plants known as auriculas their leaves are like the little ears of bears. They are small and beautiful in detail, and bred by humans: appropriate for someone whose early interest was in textual variants and the taxonomy of manuscripts. [David Lane passed away on Sunday, the 9th Jan. 2005 during his visit to SEERI (St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute), Kottayam, Kerala, India.]

J.P.M. VAN DER PLOEG O.P. (19092004) LUCAS VAN ROMPAY DUKE UNIVERSITY

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On August 4, 2004, a few weeks after celebrating his ninety-fifth birthday, Father Johannes P.M. van der Ploeg passed away peacefully in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Father van der Ploeg, a Dominican, was professor of Old Testament and Semitics at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (now Radboud University) from 1951 until 1979; and, since his consecration by H.H. Patriarch Tappouni in 1963, a chorbishop of the Syrian-Catholic Church. In the field of the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls Father van der Ploeg published a number of important studies and translations. With A.S. van der Woude and B. Jongeling he coauthored the editio princeps of the Aramaic Job Targum from Qumran (1971), and in the Netherlands and Belgium his Vondsten in de Woestijn van Juda served for decades as a reliable guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was first published in Dutch in 1957 and was often revised and reprinted; it was translated into English in 1958 (The Excavations at Qumran. A Survey of the Judaean Brotherhood and Its Ideas) and into German in 1959. Syriac Christianity constituted a third important focus of Father van der Ploeg’s academic work. In his later life his many contacts with the Syrian Christians of Southern India gave him the opportunity to pursue his Syriac interests. This is expressed eloquently in the title of the Festschrift that was offered to him for his seventieth birthday: Von Kanaan bis Kerala (eds. W.C. Delsman, J.T. Nelis, J.R.T.M. Peters, W.H.Ph. Römer, and A.S. van der Woude; Alter Orient und Altes Testament 211; 1982). Father van der Ploeg’s Syriac work can be traced back, however, to a much earlier period in his life. His interesting book on Oud-Syrisch Monniksleven, “Old-Syriac Monastic Life” (Leiden, 1942), written and published during wartime, never received the attention it deserved. It was not meant to be a history of Syriac monasticism; the author intended merely to present “some critical observations and a short explanation of the origins of monastic life 9

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in Syria, along with a brief sketch of Syriac, more particularly EastSyriac, monasticism as it existed for centuries, following the reform introduced by Abraham of Kashkar” (Preface, p. ix). While Thomas of Marga, Isaac of Niniveh, and Bar Hebraeus are the most prominent frequently quoted authors, several other texts, Syriac and Greek, are used and referred to as well. A number of important questions are dealt with in a clear and elegant style, enlivened with anecdotes and personal observations. A final section discusses monastic life of the present-day Syrians. The Syrian Orthodox, with their monasteries in Tur Abdin, Jerusalem (Mar Markos), and Iraq (Mar Mattay) are singled out as the only community to have preserved, uninterrupted, the tradition of early Syriac monasticism (p. 97). An appendix contains the Dutch translation of Rabban Gabriel’s address to the monks of the Monastery of Rabban Cyprian (from Thomas of Marga’s Book of Governors, ed. E.A. Wallis Budge, I, 376-379). Although Father van der Ploeg’s book is much more limited than Jules Leroy’s Moines et monastères du Proche-Orient (1958; published in English as Monks and Monasteries of the Near East, 1963—Gorgias Press reprint, 2004) or A. Vööbus’ History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient (1958-1960), it can still serve nowadays as a useful introduction for interested laypeople and students. Widely used and well-known among Syriac scholars is Father van der Ploeg’s book on The Christians of St. Thomas in South India and their Syriac manuscripts (Placid Lecture Series 3; Bangalore, 1983), which is the product of many years of work in Kerala and in Europe. While the focus is on the preserved manuscripts—many of which are analyzed or briefly described, often for the first time—the author’s interest extends to the religious, literary, and cultural history of the various Christian communities. The first chapter provides a historical survey, followed by an overview of the various categories of manuscripts (chapter 2). Chapter 3 lists a number of important libraries in Kerala and provides descriptions of the main manuscripts. Chapter 4 is devoted to manuscripts copied in Kerala, but presently held in European libraries (Rome, Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, Leiden, and Amsterdam). In spite of its limitations (and the tantalizing incompleteness of many a description!), this book, carrying the clear mark of the author’s personal approach and dedication, is a unique contribution to the uncovering and study of Kerala’s rich manuscript treasures.

J.P.M. Van der Ploeg O.P. (1909-2004)

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Following Van der Ploeg’s publication, the work was picked up by various other scholars, but another publication of similar breadth and erudition has not yet appeared. One of the texts briefly described in his 1983 book became the subject of an independent publication, which appeared eight years later: The Book of Judith (Daughter of Merari) (Môrân ’Ethô Series 3; Baker Hill, Kottayam, 1991). It includes a facsimile edition, with English translation and notes, of the text of the deuterocanonical (or apocryphal) book of Judith as found in an 18th c. manuscript, preserved in the library of the Malankara Catholic archbishop at Trivandrum (see The Christians, 87-88). The text is neither Peshitta nor Syro-Hexapla. Father van der Ploeg recognized its importance and with his publication made it available for further research. Even if Syriac was not always at the center of Father van der Ploeg’s academic work, Syriac scholars should be grateful for his distinctive contributions to the field and for his strong commitment to Syriac Christian culture in the Middle East and in India. May he rest in peace!

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 8, 13-25 © 2005 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

METHODS OF INSTRUCTING SYRIAC-SPEAKING CHRISTIANS TO CARE FOR THE POOR A BRIEF COMPARISON OF THE EIGHTH MĒMRĀ OF THE BOOK OF STEPS AND THE STORY OF THE MAN OF GOD OF EDESSA NANCY A. KHALEK FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE

ABSTRACT This essay is a brief comparison of the renunciation of material possessions in the eighth mēmrā of the fourth-century Book of Steps (Liber Graduum) and the sixth-century Story of the Man of God of Edessa. The figures of the Upright and the Perfect in the anonymous Book of Steps exhibit striking correlations with the characters presented in the Story of the Man of God. Analysis of this homily and hagiography provide insight as to the pedagogical mechanisms within, and instructional usefulness of each text.

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Instructing Christians to care for the poor is a common theme in the Syriac tradition.1 Texts in the form of homilies, poems, or 1 An extended version of this essay was written for a seminar on Poverty and Charity in Late Antiquity instructed by Peter Brown at Princeton University. Credit and special thanks are also due to Professor

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hagiographies employ various pedagogical strategies for the purpose of preaching, expounding upon, or demonstrating the value of charity. Two sources which represent the didactic qualities of such instruction are the sixth-century Story of the Man of God of Edessa and the eighth mēmrā of fourth-century Book of Steps (Liber Graduum), which is titled “On One Who Feeds all of His Possessions to the Poor.” The former is a hagiographical text while the latter is one short portion of the well-known anonymous collection of thirty mēmrē.2 By comparing these ostensibly disparate sources, it is possible to find striking correlations in their instructions to care for the poor. I have chosen to compare these two texts for simple and straightforward reasons. First, it is well known that the anonymous author of the Book of Steps divides the Christian community into two main groups, the Upright (kēnē ) and the Perfect (gmīrē ).3 Collectively, the mēmrē in the Book of Steps enumerate the duties Robert Doran of Amherst University for all of his extremely helpful comments on many aspects of this paper. 2 It is worth mentioning at the outset that while I shall not address the issue here, discussions of the Book of Steps usually include analysis of the debate over whether there is a Messalian affiliation with the text. For a concise summary of this debate, see Columba A. Stewart, Working the Earth of the Heart: The Messalian Controversy in History, texts and Language to AD 431, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). References to the eighth mēmrā of the Book of Steps in this essay are to the M. Kmosko 1926 critical edition in PS III. For the sake of convenience, I shall also use Kmosko’s system for division of the text of mēmrā 8 into five sections. All references will cite the mēmrā number, followed by the column number and line numbers. A complete English translation of and introduction to the Book of Steps by R.A. Kitchen ad M.F.G. Parmentier is forthcoming from Cistercian Publications. For the purposes of excerpts cited here, I use my own working translation. 3 On the division of the Christian community into these categories, see R.A. Kitchen, “Conflict on the Stairway to Heaven: The Anonymity of Perfection in the Syriac Liber Graduum,” (Symposium Syriacum VII, Uppsala 1996; Orientalia Christiana Analecta 256, 1998) 211-220. See also Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: The Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, (The Transformation of Classical Heritage 33; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) esp. 106-112 and finally, Antoine Guillaumont, ‘Situation et signification du « Liber Graduum » dans la spiritualité syriaque’ in Symposium Syriacum 1972, 311-322.

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and character of these groups with respect to many issues, among them poverty and charity. Mēmrā eight is one homily which exclusively addresses Christians who renounce material wealth to varying degrees. It also lays emphasis on the voluntary aspect of giving away material possessions for the sake of the Lord. Our second text, The Story of the Man of God of Edessa, is a parable enjoining Christians to care for the poor and glorifying the example of a saint whose most significant deed was the fact that his severe poverty was voluntary. Set in the late fourth and early fifth century, this hagiography likewise conveys the import of maintaining the needs of the poor and indigent, this time in the form of a moral lesson. Searching these sources for common motifs, especially in relation to poverty and charity, yields useful information for increasing our understanding of each text.

THE BOOK OF STEPS, MĒMRĀ EIGHT [3]

According to the Book of Steps, how a community member functions depends upon whether or not one is Upright or Perfect. The Perfect are characterized by a total renunciation of material wealth and a complete reliance upon the charity of others for material sustenance. Charity in the Book of Steps thus has two dimensions: it is favorable to give charity as an act of benevolence (which simultaneously constitutes a renunciation of a portion of one’s wealth), and it is favorable to receive charity if the condition under which one receives it is the pursuit of Perfection. Provision of such charity is, in turn, the obligation of the Upright.4 In return for giving the Perfect their sustenance, the Upright benefit from the teaching and prayers of the Perfect, who comprise a valuable spiritual asset for the community as a whole. References to this symbiotic relationship are numerous in the Book of Steps.5 The eighth mēmrā, which is short and seemingly non-descript, provides a simple formula for activities incumbent upon the Upright on the basis of Matthew 25:35-36; feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, healing the sick and visiting the D. Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, 108-109, n 111. For another discussion of the exchange of actual for spiritual merchandise, see Adam Becker, “Anti-Judaism and Care for the Poor in Aphrahat’s Demonstration 20,” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 10 (2002) esp. 311-12. 4 5

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imprisoned. Wealth is permitted for the Upright only if they use it for the welfare of others. Put simply, the Upright maintain the social needs of others.6 That the Perfect are in need of support is a theme throughout the Book of Steps. Mēmrā eight concisely summarizes the circumstances under which the Perfect retains no possessions, and “has no place on earth to lay his head.”7 Instead he “contemplates what is in the heavenly Jerusalem, and is focused there on the Lord.”8 Daniel Caner’s recent work illustrates that the instruction to care for the masses of the poor which is directed towards the Upright in the Book of Steps also refers to assisting the impoverished Perfect. A system of reciprocity between Upright and Perfect, whereby material support is exchanged for the spiritual assets conferred upon the community by the Perfect is clear elsewhere in the Book of Steps.9 That the Perfect could resemble the everyday poor is a theme in mēmrā twenty, where one such Christian is described as “begging food and clothing like a poor person.”[10 The relation between Upright and Perfect as one of giving and receiving charity is explicit in mēmrā three, which reports that the Upright must also support “those who have no possessions or profession, who apply themselves wholly to the teaching of our Lord.”11 Thus, when we read the term “the poor” in the Book of Steps, we should bear in mind both types of recipients of charity. Corresponding to each category of recipient, charity in the Book of Steps thereby has both an inherent and a potentially reciprocal value. A. Guillaumont, ‘Situation et signification’ 311-322. 8: 193, 20-21. 8 8: 193, 6-7. 9 Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, 109. On the parallels between the relationship of the Upright and the Perfect and that of the Manichaean “Elect” and “Auditor” see Jason Beduhn’s The Manichaean Body, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) especially pp. 27ff. Beduhn cites the Latin Tebessa Codex which expounds upon these categories in Manichaean doctrine and states: “These two grades…support each other and whoever has abundance of anything shares it with the other; the Elect with the Auditors from their heavenly store… and the Auditors with the Elect [from their terrestrial wealth].” 10 ibid. 110, n 120. 11 ibid. 111, n 129. 6 7

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In keeping with this hypothesis and therefore in spite of its title, the actual masses of the poor make no substantive appearance in this mēmrā, which primarily communicates the difference between the Upright and the Perfect while assuring the Upright of their salvation and encouraging the pursuit of perfection through daily spiritual advancement. In this sense the eighth mēmrā is both a presentation of a scheme and an exhortation. While the station of the perfect is stressed as vastly superior to that of the Upright, the mēmrā contains numerous reminders of the dignity of the Upright, who are always assured of their status, their eventual salvation and impending reward. In the first section of mēmrā eight we read: “If you know the Truth, that Truth will set you free;” even though the free are not perfect, as soon as they know the truth they are liberated from lying and enslavement to sin and they shall become Upright, and they shall not come into judgment.”12 The first section also outlines what was noted above as characteristic of the active ministry of the Upright: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and the imprisoned. This is the only mention of society’s have-nots in the entire mēmrā. They serve only to illustrate the basic duties of the majority of the members of the community. The relative status of the Upright is noted at the end of this section, where the author notes that the Upright are on a path to salvation and that through daily persistence they may attain the Perfection that is beyond acts of charity. In this opening section of the mēmrā, we are also confronted by an apparent contradiction. The Apostle Paul claims that giving up all worldly possession is of no benefit if one does not possess love, yet Jesus tells his apostles that the reward of one who gives even a cup of water to another shall not be lost. The entire homily serves to reconcile these two views by imposing the scheme of “Upright versus Perfect” onto the text. Paul was referring to the formula for Perfection, while Jesus was expounding on the active aspects of Christian ministry performed by the Upright. The author reconciles this contradiction in the following excerpt from section two: But how did the Apostle say that these things are nothing?13 He also said, “If I should give my body to

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8:192, 7-12, cf. John 8:32. Here “these things” refers to charitable deeds.

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Nancy A. Khalek be burned and love is not in me, I am nothing.”14 For what indeed is that thing which is better than all things for which the Apostle longs? The Lord said “Whoever gives his cheek to the one who strikes him and is patient, he shall come to Perfection, if he loves and prays for whoever strikes him.” Is it that the Apostle negates the words of our Lord? God forbid! No, he does not negate them. Rather, he builds upon them. The Apostle does not say that the words are not fitting, rather, something great he puts there.15 Namely [the Apostle is talking about]16 one who feeds all he has to the poor for the sake of God, and is emptied out as He commanded him, and he renounces all things but that humble love is not in him, who is compassionate to his murderers and who washes the feet of his enemies and who considers all people as if they are greater than he,17 and who gazes upon the heavens and not the earth, and in his mind contemplates what is in the heavenly Jerusalem, and is focused there on the Lord.18

Thus the explanation of this apparent paradox is that “the thing for which the Apostle longs” is to attain a state of spiritual advancement whereby one loves and prays for one’s enemies. It is in this section that we first encounter the term “msārrqūţā,” ‘emptying out.’ This is designated as a great commandment, and indicates the complete renunciation of wealth, stability, and family life. In order to perfectly fulfill the great commandment, msārrqūtā must be accompanied by makkīkūtā, ‘humility.’ Without “humble love,” renunciation is not meaningless, but it is insignificant when compared to the fulfillment of the great commandment as performed by the Perfect Christian. Interestingly, Perfect love is 1Cor13:3. Meaning, he gives the words a greater meaning. 16 I have inserted this phrase in square brackets, as it is my best rendering of the meaning of this section where we see a continuation of the theme of differences between the Upright and the Perfect. What follows is a long list of attributes of the one who possesses “humble love”, (the Perfect) which in turn is personified, adding a degree of vagueness to the description. 17 Cf. Phil 2:3. In general, this excerpt recalls themes in Phil. 2:5-8, where Christ humbled Himself as he took on the “form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” 18 8: 192, 15-8:193, 9. 14 15

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personified in the remainder of this section, in an elaborate description of what a Perfect should embody. The disparity between Upright and Perfect is reiterated in the beginning of section three, which is also the section that best highlights the difference between material renunciation and interior spiritual advancement. The author notes that it is possible to renounce all possessions on behalf of the Lord and still not achieve perfect humility: For it is possible that men give all they possess and become needy on earth for the sake of the Lord, yet not arrive at that humility. For they love as much as they are loved, and they are humble to some men and they are not humble to everyone. And on account of that they are much less than one who comes to complete love. For he who does not become humble, is not being perfected, and he who is not humbled is much less than the Perfect ones.19

[9]

[10]

Thus this sermon summarizes, in a simplified form, the Book of Step’s schematic for levels of spiritual advancement as effected by gradations of the renunciation of wealth. The Upright do charitable works, and the Upright who are advancing towards Perfection renounce possessions, but with varying degrees of humility and love for others. Once those degrees are surpassed, the Upright achieves Perfection, and is humbled to all. Overcoming obstacles to perfect humility is the process by which one is perfected. In section five, we read a summation of the relative worthiness of the Upright and the Perfect: And also there are those men who left behind all they possessed for the sake of the Lord and who love Him, and are compassionate towards Him, but there is not in them that love that loves God and Human Beings. And because they loved the Lord, He reveals to them the mysteries that are in the heavens, and all knowledge of faith, yet they do not understand the height and the depth and the latitude and the longitude that (perfect) love comprehends. Rather, they understand the mysteries and all the knowledge that is in faith.20

In the passages presented thus far, the key issue is the voluntary nature of the renunciation of wealth. In the proto19 20

8:196, 1-10. 8:197, 18-8:200, 1.

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monastic world of the Book of Steps, neediness alone could not comprise Uprightness. The volition with which one became needy and the degree of his accompanying humility determined the status of the believer. Caner aptly observes that “the Book of Steps describes not so much a monastic community or even a single, unified ascetic elite as a reciprocal relationship that loosely binds spiritually advanced ascetics to other Christians.”21 The excerpt above elucidates an aspect of such spiritual advancement in a manner typical of the Book of Steps: while it points towards those who “left everything,” that is who renounced wealth for the sake of the poor, it is nonetheless a reference to the Upright and not to the Perfect, as the mēmrā goes on to clarify that Perfection is characterized by complete humility and abasement in addition to the renunciation of wealth.22 The lines cited above, which open the concluding section of the mēmrā, simultaneously reassure and encourage the Upright.23 The fifth and final section of this mēmrā reiterates the theme of having knowledge of faith without comprehending perfect love. It exhorts the Upright to seek perfection by emphasizing the vast superiority of that station to all others, but likewise continues to stress that the life of the Upright is not without its reward. In this short, at first non-descript homily, some essential themes of this unique strand of earliest Syriac asceticism are encapsulated. It is above all an instructional text, reminding the community of its obligations, its character, and its impending salvation. It is aimed primarily at the Upright who are involved in an active, practical ministry aimed at serving the needs of the indigent Perfect, while it idealizes the Perfect whose inner life and spiritual advancement surpass the ordinary world of giving and taking. It remains to see the Upright Christian who ministers to the poor in action, as a character in an inspiring and motivational story.

Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, 111. In this mēmrā we read that the Perfect “reckons sinners greater than he, while he is not anxious all day, and does not have a place to prop his head on the earth.” See 8: 193, 19-21. 23 For a discussion of the possibility of an Upright attaining Perfection with respect to those stations in terms of Adam and the Fall, see Aleksander Kowalksi, Perfezione e Giustizia di Adamo nel Liber Graduum (Rome: Orientala Chrsitiana Analecta 232, 1989). 21 22

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The Story of the Man of God of Edessa provides precisely that sort of motivational parable.

THE MAN OF GOD OF EDESSA [13]

[14]

The history of this hagiographical text is complicated and somewhat convoluted. The Story of the Man of God, a sixth-century anonymous saint’s life became conflated with the Life of Saint Alexis in the early Middle Ages.24 In 1889, Arthur Amiaud published his research on Syriac manuscripts relating to Saint Alexis, whereupon the Man of God narrative was shown to be an earlier story to which the material relating to Saint Alexis was added. My hypothesis is that the story of The Man of God is a parable aimed at encouraging devotional behavior in a manner which is thematically consonant with the Upright Christian’s as outlined in the Book of Steps. It is not a typical hagiography, however, in that it is sparing in its use of miracles to embellish the narrative, and is essentially unadorned by extensive biblical quotation, even in cases where obvious references virtually spring to mind. As such, the story is a clear and simple pedagogical tool, which must have resonated in its function as a parable for those to whom it was read. 25 The Syriac version of the narrative of the Man of God is set during the lifetime of the Bishop Rabbula, who presided over the Church in Edessa from 412-436 CE. The manuscript dates to the sixth century, whereas the story itself bespeaks an earlier milieu. The basic plot of the Story of the Man of God is that the son of wealthy parents rejects the ostentatious life, and wife, that his noble birth afford him. He leaves home on his wedding day and boards a ship headed for Edessa where he proceeds to live as an anonymous and pious poor person, devoted to nearly constant prayer and refusing to reveal his identity until compelled to do so by an oath

See Arthur Amiaud. La légende syriaque de saint Alexis, l’homme de Dieu, (Paris: Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des hautes etudes, 1889) and forthcoming from Cistercian Publications, a comparison of the Syriac and Greek versions of the story of the Man of God in an essay by R. Doran. 25 Dr. Doran has kindly provided me with a manuscript of his upcoming publication on the issue of the life of The Man of God as a parable, where he explores some of these issues in greater detail. 24

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made by a church custodian.26 This kind of uprooting and dislocation is an essential aspect of the story, in that it is the main cause of the deep fissure between the Man of God’s past and his ascetic life. Upon discovering the worldly nobility of the Man of God, the custodian wishes to reveal the secret, and promises not to only at the urgent request of the Man of God. The protagonist then falls ill and passes away in a hospital for the poor. After his death, the custodian notifies Bishop Rabbula and divulges the Man of God’s true identity. Seeking his remains in a cemetery for the poor, the Bishop and the custodian are only able to find the rags worn by the old man. In remorse mixed with inspiration, the Syriac version of the story relates Rabbula’s resolution to care for the poor, with the added warning that one could never be sure that precisely such a holy person was not in their midst. Rabbula asks, “Who knows whether there are many like this saint, who delight in abasement, nobles to God in their souls, but not recognized by humans because of their physical abasement?”27 Rabbula thus demonstrates a particular response to the presence of the poor and indigent. It is noted that he subsequently suspended all other activities and building projects to devote himself completely to the care of the needy. The potential presence of such hidden treasure troves of spiritual excellence is explicitly acknowledged by Bishop Rabbula. As such, poor people like the Man of God provided the community, which in turn is represented in the story by the figures of the Bishop and the custodian, with a clear mechanism for Christian action in the form of charity.28 Thus the Story of the Man of God is both a parable and a story about tests, and as a pedagogical tool it thereby serves two instructional purposes. First, those who hear the story should be inspired by the hero’s bravery, devotion and pious behavior. Second, like Rabbula, they should be inspired to modify their own In his forthcoming publication, cited above, Robert Doran also notes similarities between the Man of God narrative and the life of John Calybite. 27 Amiaud, La légende syriaque, appendix, 9. 28 It is well worth remembering that the Life of Alexander Akoimetos tells us that before he was a Bishop, Rabbula gave up all material possessions and devoted himself to a life of severe asceticism. See Caner’s appendix in Wandering, Begging Monks, 261-263. 26

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behavior towards the poor. The performance of such charitable acts is, according to The Story of the Man of God, informed by the two sentiments expressed by Bishop Rabbula: a desire to help the poor and indigent, and a suspicion that a holy man in the guise of a beggar was always in one’s midst. This theme obviously alludes to the words of Christ in Matthew 25:35-36, the same verses that open our mēmrā in the Book of Steps.29 Parallels between the Perfect and the Man of God are also evident. For example, the Man on God was an heir to great wealth, but rejected it. He was “joyfully separated from his country, for he yearned and was pressing in his position to be enrolled and recognized in the Jerusalem which is above.”30 The Perfect likewise “contemplates what is in the heavenly Jerusalem, and is focused there on the Lord.”31 Both opt for a life of severe poverty, and rely upon others for material support. Both represent a spiritual asset for the Christian community, as the Book of Steps makes clear and as Rabbula explicitly states at the end of The Story of the Man of God.32 The similarity between the Perfect and the Book of and the Man of God is ultimately bolstered by the similitude of both figures as pedagogical characters. We should remember that perfection is an ideal to which Upright Christians aspire. When Bishop Rabbula and the custodian marvel at the remarkable sacrifices made by the Saint in his life of voluntary poverty we have two parallels for Upright Christians on the path to perfection. For example, our author tells us: From then on, that custodian, although he had been doing his work, improved himself through severe practices. He trained his body more than previously until even his appearance bore witness to his practices, as he told himself, “If that one who lived in great

On the relationship between the Man of God legend and the Life of Rabbula, see Hans Drijvers, “The Man of God of Edessa, Bishop Rabbula, and the Urban Poor, Church and Society in the Fifth Century,” JECS 4 (1996) 235-248. The argument put forth by Drijvers asserts that both texts are propaganda tracts aimed against Rabbula’s rival and successor, Hiba. 30 Amiaud, La légende syriaque, appendix, 2. 31 8: 193, 8-9. 32 Whether this asset is exploited for political purposes is another matter, see Drijvers, op. cit. 248. 29

24

Nancy A. Khalek luxury does these things, what should we wretches do to receive our redemption?”33

[18]

The custodian and Bishop Rabbula are as impressed by the austerity of the life of the Man of God as they are by the voluntary renunciation of wealth and physical abasement undertaken by the Man of God. If we wish to round out our understanding of Upright Christians aspiring towards or transitioning into a life of Perfection, the examples of Rabbula and the custodian, on account of their reflection and reactions, are useful models.34

CONCLUSION [19]

[20]

Throughout the Book of Steps, and in capsule form, in the eighth mēmrā of that collection, the position of the Upright with respect to the Perfect is clear. They are to support the efforts of the elect who in turn provide a spiritual asset for the community. A key aspect of perfection in the Book of Steps is the combination of voluntary poverty with extreme physical and social abasement. This renders the Perfect identical to the masses of the poor, to beggars, to precisely the persona we see adopted by the Man of God. The Story of the Man of God is a hagiographical manifestation of the intended message of this mēmrā, with the Man of God in the role of the Perfect Christian who voluntarily renounces all worldly goods and who also resembles an anonymous poor person in spite of his high spiritual and social status. In this hagiographical text, through the figures of the custodian and Bishop Rabbula, listeners were reminded that providing for the poor was incumbent upon them in part because of the inherent value of giving, and in part because of the potential greatness of the recipient.35 The Man of God himself was every man’s Christian hero. He presented a challenge in that he represented the potentially hidden member of the spiritual elect in the guise of a poor person to Amiaud, La légende syriaque, appendix, 7. On the figure of Rabbula as a “paradigm of action” see Susan A. Harvey, “The Holy and the Poor: Models from Early Syriac Christianity,” in The Eye of a Needle: Judeo-Christian Roots of Social Welfare, ed. Emily Albu Hanawalt and Carter Lindberg (Clarksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1994) 43-66. 35 The author of the Liber Graduum makes another reference to just such a possibility in 25.6, col. 745. 33 34

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whom someone like the Upright Christian should minister. As a pedagogical tool, the figure of Man of God was, in short, a benevolent boogeyman; ever-present in the back of one’s mind, and lurking, as a test for those around him, in every crowd of beggars huddled on the street. In these two short, disparate and somewhat elusive texts, a comparison of common motifs serves to flesh out and broaden our potential understanding of each.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Amiaud, A., La légende syriaque de saint Alexis, l’homme de Dieu, (Paris: Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des hautes etudes, 1889). Beduhn, Jason, The Manichaean Body, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) Becker, Adam, “Anti-Judaism and Care for the Poor in Aphrahat’s Demonstration 20,” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 10 (2002) 305-327. Caner, D., Wandering, Begging Monks: The Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, (The Transformation of Classical Heritage 33; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Drijvers, Hans, “The Man of God of Edessa, Bishop Rabbula, and the Urban Poor, Church and Society in the Fifth Century,” JECS 4 (1996) 235-248. Guillaumont, A., ‘Situation et signification du « Liber Graduum » dans la spiritualité syriaque’ (Symposium Syriacum 1972) 311322. Harvey, Susan A, “The Holy and the Poor: Models from Early Syriac Christianity,” in The Eye of a Needle: Judeo-Christian Roots of Social Welfare, ed. Emily Albu Hanawalt and Carter Lindberg, (Clarksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1994) 43-66. Kmosko, M., ed., Liber Graduum (Patrologia Syriaca 3; Paris, 1926). Kowalksi, Aleksander, Perfezione e Giustizia di Adamo nel Liber Graduum, (Rome: Orientala Chrsitiana Analecta 232, 1989). Kitchen, R.A. “Conflict on the Stairway to Heaven: The Anonymity of Perfection in the Syriac Liber Graduum,” (Symposium Syriacum VII, Uppsala 1996; Orientalia Christiana Analecta 256, (1998) 211-220. Stewart, C.A., Working the Earth of the Heart: The Messalian Controversy in History, texts and Language to AD 431, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 8, 27-39 © 2005 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

THE COLLOQUY OF MOSES ON MOUNT SINAI WHERE SYRIAC CHRISTIANITY MEETS ISLAMIC SPAIN AND AFRICA BETWEEN THE 16TH AND 19TH CENTURIES KARLA R. SUOMALA LUTHER COLLEGE

ABSTRACT In 1891, Isaac Hall published a Syriac dialogue that blends elements of Exod 19-34 in which Moses ascends Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah, and spends 40 days and nights with God. This dialogue between God and Moses incorporates legal and ethical issues, as well as explores issues of God’s origin and nature. The text seems to have no other counterparts in Syriac literature, but has parallels in four other manuscript traditions: 1) Arabic Christian, 2) Ethiopian Christian and Falasha, 3) East African Muslim, and 4) Spanish Muslim. This paper will explore those parallels, and investigate the possibility of a common source.

[1]

During the course of my dissertation research on Moses and God in dialogue in post-biblical literature,1 I came upon a Syriac dialogue, “The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai,” published by

K. Suomala, Moses and God in Dialogue: Exodus 32-34 in Postbiblical Literature (New York: Peter Lang, 2004). 1

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Isaac Hall.2 The dialogue is set on Mt. Sinai and is loosely based on Exod 19-34. In this dialogue between Moses and God, Moses asks rather simple, straightforward questions. To each of the questions, God provides a response. Hall could not provide a date or setting for the text, although he speculated that it might have some connection to the East Syriac liturgical tradition. He notes that the text he received from a contact in Urmia in 1889 was part of a manuscript that also contained “The Story of Arsenius King of Egypt.” This manuscript, along with two others that contain “The Colloquy,” is held by the Houghton Library at Harvard University.3 As part of his description of “The Colloquy,” Hall points to the close connection between the Syriac and Arabic Christian manuscript tradition by noting the existence of three additional Karshuni versions.4 Graf demonstrates that “The Colloquy” is in fact well attested in Christian Arabic traditions, particularly Karshuni, and he suggests that the material in these manuscripts has Syriac origins.5 Most of the mss in this group are dated to the 16th and 17th centuries although there are at least four can be dated to the 15th century. One of the mss is dated as late as the 19th century.

I. Hall, “The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai,” Hebraica 7:3 (1891), 161-177. For the most recent bibliographical information on this manuscript tradition, see A. M. Denis, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénisitque I (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 467-468, and J.-C. Haelewyck, Clavis apocryphum veteris testamenti (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), 94-95. 3 A. Desreumaux, “Un manuscript syriaque de Téhéran contenant des apocryphes,” in Apocrypha. Revue International des Littérature Apocryphes 5 (1994), 137-164, describes a Syriac ms in the Issayi 18 collection, and M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, Syriac Manuscripts in the Harvard College Library: A Catalogue, Harvard Semitic Studies 23 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. 1979), lists syr. 89, syr. 90, and syr. 166, the last being the ms to which Hall referred. 4 I. Hall, 161-162. 5 G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur I, Studi e Testi 118 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944), 207-208, provides a full listing of Arabic Christian manuscripts. See also G. Troupeau, Catalogue des manuscrits arabes chrétiens I (Paris: Biliotheque nationale, 1972), mss 213, 275, 286, 5072. 2

The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai [3]

[4]

[5]

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The Syriac “Colloquy,” with respect to both form and content has no clear parallels within the Syriac literary tradition,6 the wider Christian tradition,7 or even the classical Islamic tradition. At first glance, it would appear that there are parallels between “The Colloquy” and the numerous dialogues between Moses and God in rabbinic literature. However, upon closer examination, aside from the dialogue form, the content and the style of “The Colloquy” does not correspond to any of the rabbinic dialogues.8 Is this text simply an anomaly? How can we account for it, given the lack of precedent in Jewish, Christian and Muslim literature? Interestingly, there are parallels, but not necessarily where one might expect to find them. In addition to the Syriac Christian manuscripts (including those in Arabic), dialogue texts with similar content and structure are found among: 1) Ethiopian Christians and Jews (Falashas), 2) Muslims of Mozambique (or perhaps Kenya), and 3) Spanish Muslims. Steven Kaplan has recently connected this Syriac text to both the Ethiopian Christian as well as Falasha traditions. He has published a translation of the Ge’ez version, Nagara Muse, of this dialogue, part of the Falasha corpus of literature which was received from the Ethiopian church with very few revisions.9 There are at least four manuscripts—three in the Faitlovich collection, and one in a private collection. The manuscripts include dates: two of them contain the years 1757/58 and one records 1754/55. 6 S. P. Brock examines Moses traditions and their origins in Syriac literature up through the Middle Ages in “Some Syriac Legends Concerning Moses,” Journal of Jewish Studies 33 (Spr-Aut 1982), 237255. There are no dialogues between God and Moses that appear in among these legends. In addition, there are no parallels in Brock’s examination of Syriac dispute poems or dialogue hymns, both of which are more stylized in form. See S. P. Brock, “Dialogue hymns of the Syriac Churches,” Sobernost 5 (1983), 35-45, and “Syriac dispute-poems: the various types,” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 42, ed. G. Reinink and H. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Department Orientalistiek, 1991), 109-19. 7 The Arabic Christian manuscripts do not really present us with a parallel or a separate traditionin that they are so closely connected to the Syriac “Colloquy” and may in fact be based upon the Syriac. 8 K. Suomala, 91-153. 9 S. Kaplan, Les Falashas (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1990), 97-105.

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Another dialogue that appears connected to this group also originates in Africa. The Swahili Epic of Moses (Utenzi wa Musa) is considered among the first literary works discovered in northern Mozambique. Tentatively dated to the late nineteenth century, the text may have been written in Kenya. It is fairly close in length to the Syriac and Ge’ez texts, about 330 stanzas, and is written in the Utenzi poetic form. One of the three versions of this text found in a copy book by discovered by Prof. Eugeniusz Rzewuski of Warsaw University was translated by Jan Knappert.10 Not finding specific precursors in either the Christian or Jewish literary traditions, I turned to Islamic biblical legend and commentary. As it turns out, there is a rather substantial manuscript tradition of dialogue texts involving Moses and God in sixteenth century Spain. These texts form part of the body of aljamiado and morisco literature—material written or transmitted by Spanish Muslims in Spanish with Arabic characters. The aljamiado period really only lasted for little more than a century, concluding in 1609, at which point a large portion of the population fled Spain for North Africa. These dialogues are dated not later than 1609, when the last of the Moriscos fled Spain. In these manuscripts there are direct parallels to the Syriac, Ge’ez, and Swahili dialogues— both in form and in content—although theologically they are closer to the Swahili text. There are three manuscripts at la Real Academia de la Historia in Spain that contain these dialogues—Gay. T. 19, 8, and 13.11 These dialogue texts are linked by form and content. The question and answer format or what in linguistic terms is called an adjacency pair (a completed verbal unit, i.e., a question and its answer, a request and its performance, a statement and a response) dominates each dialogue. In these dialogues, the central conversation partners are God and Moses, although characters such as Iblis and angels also make appearances and contribute to the dialogues. With respect to content, the questions that Moses asks fall into three categories: 1) those that pertain to ethical, moral, and ritual 10 J. Knappert, “Ritual and Creed in Moses’ Conversation with God,” in Windows on the House of Islam, ed. J. Renard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 78-84. 11 A. Vespertino Rodríguez, Leyendas Aljamiadas y Moriscas sobre Personajes Bíblicos (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1983).

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issues, 2) those that reflect a desire to know more about the nature and origin of the Divine, and 3) those that pertain to final judgment and redemption. In the first category, each of the texts, to differing degrees, emphasizes care for the poor and the orphans, proper treatment of parents, burial rites and responsibilities, consistent prayer, avoiding anger, slander, oppression, bringing about peace, and honoring the neighbor. An example of concern about proper ritual occurs in each text when Moses asks God about a reward for the person who digs a grave: Syriac And Moses… said, He that digs the grave of a departed brother believer, what is his reward? And God said to him, I will clothe him with a robe of the light of my divinity, and I will pardon him [his] sins.12

Ge’ez [Moses asks] What will you give to the one who digs a grave for his brother in the faith? [God responds] I will write his name in the Book of Life with the prophets the apostles, the martyrs and the saints.13 And I will place him in the Garden [paradise]…14 Swahili The digger of graves will live in heaven. The one who buries his mother with love will live in a palace in paradise.15

aljamiado

[10]

[Moses asks] What will the reward be for the one who buries the deceased? [Allah responds] I will prepare for him a palace in paradise.16

The general pattern found in these examples is one where Moses inquires as to the reward for a particular behavior (in other cases, he asks about the punishment), and God generally responds with a specific compensation—sometimes in this world, sometimes in the hereafter, and occasionally in both. The questions are short, and God’s responses are equivalent in length, if not slightly longer. I. Hall, 172. Clear allusion to the Christian base text, presumably the Syriac, of this dialogue. 14 S. Kaplan, 99 (translation is mine). 15 J. Knappert, 81. 16 A. Vespertino Rodríguez, 215-216. 12 13

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In the texts above, the only text that does not indicate Moses’ question is the Swahili, which tends to have fewer questions from Moses and longer monologues on God’s part covering a wider area of issues. It appears as if Moses’ questions are implied in the Swahili text, and the material takes on the character of a summary of the conversation between God and Moses. Very frequently in the four textual traditions under examination, the rewards and punishments are similar. For example, the only text above which does not specify paradise as part of the reward is the Syriac, but it does indicate “a robe of the light of my divinity.”17 A typical example of where the four traditions do agree on rewards is when Moses wants to know what the one who walks with or carries the bier of the dead will receive. In each text, either sins or debts or both will be forgiven. A further ritual concern has to do with prayer. Interestingly, the Syriac and Ge’ez texts include rewards for those who pray at all of the appointed times throughout the day—in the evening, during the night when people sleep, before dawn, and at the third, sixth and ninth hours. The aljamiado and Swahili texts aren’t as specific, for example: aljamiado [God asks] Moses, do you want me to hear and respond to your prayers? [Moses] said, Yes, Lord. [God responds] Then pray at night when people sleep.18

Swahili [God says] Make your prayers numerous at every hour.19

The aljamiado texts indicate other times for prayer throughout the day, corresponding to Islamic practice, although they are not every three hours as found in the Syriac and Ge’ez texts, which reflect Christian practice.20

I. Hall, 172. A. Vespertino Rodríguez, 188-189. 19 J. Knappert, 80. 20 Apparently the Falasha community did not adjust the prayer times, even though they considered themselves practicing Jews. It may be that because there is such overlap between Christian and Jewish practice in Ethiopia, the Falashas saw no need to make changes. 17 18

The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai [13]

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Concern for the ‘other’ is a key theme in all of these texts; whether it be parents, neighbors. widows, orphans, the hungry, the poor, a large part of the conversation between God and Moses has to do with these groups of people and their proper treatment. Each of the texts under study is very explicit, and some of them add significant detail in differentiating between these groups. A poor person, for example, might not have money, or clothing, food or shelter, or even friends. The Swahili text, though perhaps the least expansive, provides a good summary of the content found in each of the texts. Here God tells Moses to “respect your neighbor, be generous to the poor and to the orphans, and live in peace with all people,” indicating proper behavior, and then concludes with positive reinforcement, “I will reward you later.”21 The second category of questions reflects Moses’ desire to know more about the nature and origin of the Divine. For example, in each tradition Moses wants to be able to see God, very much like Exod 33:18-20, where Moses says “‘Show me your glory, I pray.’ And he said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you…But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.’” In the aljamiado texts, Iblis actually tempts Moses to ask this question. Syriac [Moses says] I beg you that I might see you with my eyes? [God responds] You are not able to see me, Moses. [Moses persists, saying] If I see you, I will tell the children of Israel that I have seen God, and I will speak the truth with them. [God commands] Arise, pray, O Moses.22

Ge’ez [Moses says] O Lord, can I see you with my eyes? [God responds] O Moses, I will let you see me so that you can justly say that you have seen God who is above the water. Moses pray and demand to see me.23 Swahili [Moses says] My Lord! I wish to see you! [The narrator explains that] Moses saw what seemed like a valley of J. Knappert, 84. I. Hall, 176. 23 S. Kaplan, 104. 21 22

34

Karla R. Suomala bright light. He fainted again…he heard hundreds of angels calling him: Moses! You have sinned! The Lord cannot be seen! And Moses felt as if the mountains were crumbling and the earth was sinking away.24

aljamiado

[Moses says] Now show me yourself so that I might see you. [Allah responds] …O Moses, son of Imran, you have asked for a mighty thing… O Moses, you cannot see me.25 [Moses says] O my Lord, let me see your face. … [Allah responds] O Moses you cannot see me. [Moses persists] My Lord, as I hear your word [voice?] let me see your face because my community doubts.26

[15]

[16]

The Swahili and aljamiado texts indicate that as a result of this request, the earth quakes and Moses faints for up to three days, at which point he is revived by God and his senses are restored. At the outset, God tells Moses in the Syriac, the Swahili and the aljamiado texts that this request cannot be granted. In the Syriac text, however, God finally allows Moses a glimpse of heaven, and in the aljamiado text, Moses faints when he sees a glimpse of God’s grandeur. In the Ge’ez text, Moses sees God’s presence but cannot perceive what is before him. Following this line of questioning, Moses also asks God in each of the texts where God lives or where God is, and where God was prior to the creation of the universe. The Syriac, Ge’ez, and aljamiado texts all have a similar progression of questions and answers: 1) Lord, are you near or far? God responds by saying that God is both above and below everything, and that God dwells in every place; 2) What is your clothing and your food? God responds variously; in the Syriac, for example, God says that the tears of sinners are food, and the praises of angels and the repentance of humans is clothing; 3) How did you exist before you created heaven and earth? God says that God resided with the holy throne; 4) What kind of throne was it? Where were you before the throne? Who was bearing the throne? Again, God answers these questions to various degrees in the dialogue texts. 5) O Lord, do you sleep? In each text we learn that God does not sleep, and God provides a J. Knappert, 79. A. Vespertino Rodríguez, 170. 26 Ibid, 197. 24 25

The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai

[17]

[18]

35

parable to illustrate the point. The Swahili text is again probably the least expansive in this area, not asking as many questions but containing more of a summary of the questions asked in the other traditions. The third category of questions is addressed by all of the traditions except the Ge’ez text, which does not deal with a final judgment or redemption. The Syriac, the Swahili and the aljamiado traditions, however, connect Adam to both Moses and the contemporary audience being addressed. The Syriac text points to the redemption of Adam from Gehenna through Jesus Christ, and the restoration of Adam and his descendants to the Garden of Eden. O Moses, this is the word between me and your father Adam: After five thousand five hundred years I will descend to deliver him, and will pay his debts and sins; and I shall receive mocking, and spitting upon my face, and they shall fix nails in my hands and feet, and put on my head a crown of thorns, and smite me with a spear, and kill me; and they shall bury me, and I shall rise from the grave after three days; and I shall ascend to heaven and take up with me Adam and his children, and make him inherit the kingdom of heaven.27

The aljamiado and Swahili texts, in contrast, point to numerous Adams with a final human Adam who is the ancestor of Moses as well as all human beings. Because this human Adam sinned, and was expelled from the Garden, all humans must die. These two traditions emphasize, however, that Allah will be with believers who follow his will which is encompassed in the five pillars of Islam. After that, Confessor, I created Adam, who would rule the jinns and make them his subjects. Listen carefully: this is not your Adam who was your ancestor, it was not the same person. This Adam lived for a thousand and ten years, then I took him away and replaced him with another king of the jinns. Many years later I created the human Adam and his wife, Eve. All their descendants will die at an unknown time, so remember to repent your sins daily, keep the fast in Ramadan…28

27 28

I. Hall, 177. J. Knappert, 84.

36

Karla R. Suomala

The aljamiado texts provide further detail on the Adams that were created. In conversation with Moses, Allah says: …I created a man whose name was Adam, and he lived ten thousand years; he was not one of the angels, or a human, or even a jinn. After that I created another Adam, and still later another Adam, and yet another Adam, until I created ten thousand Adams. Each one lived ten thousand years. …and then after [Iblis] disobeyed me, and descended to earth, I created your father Adam and he lived one thousand years.29

[19]

Overall, these texts also reflect some differences, primarily in the area of content. The religious bent of the authors of the Syriac, Swahili, and aljamiado texts becomes clear within just a few lines of each text with the exception of the Ge’ez text. Since the Ge’ez is so close to the Syriac text, it is not as easy to tell that it was used in a Falasha community. The aljamiado and Swahili texts mention Muhammed often, and Allah even commands Moses to pray for Muhammand and fellow Muslims. In both of these textual traditions, Moses becomes jealous of Muhammed, who has not even been born yet, and desires to know more about this man for whom he must pray. Moses asks Allah, “Who is Muhammed, O Lord, that I cannot approach you with saying a prayer for him?”30 While the Islamic texts are not polemical against either the Jewish or Christian communities, the Syriac text concludes with a strong anti-Jewish polemic: …I will scatter [the Jews] through creation, and take from them the priesthood and the kingdom and the prophecy, and give them to be stained black, so that they shall be as dogs hated of every one.31

The Ge’ez text, which is otherwise so close to the Syriac, but represents Ethiopian Jews, logically does not include the polemic. [20]

Another interesting difference between the Syriac and the other texts in this tradition is with the nature of the prohibitions that Moses and God discuss. While in the Swahili and aljamiado texts, God prohibits fornication, the Syriac text goes into some

A. Vespertino Rodríguez, 179. Ibid, 174. 31 I. Hall, 177. 29 30

The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai

[21]

[22]

37

detail about male sexual activity with boys, beasts or other men.32 There are explicit punishments indicated for the different types of sexual activity, as well as directions as to how one might atone for these sins. One wonders where the impetus arose for such an extensive discussion on this subject which is entirely absent from the other traditions. Based on this preliminary discussion, it seems clear that these texts have a common source, although it is not clear what that source is. The Syriac, Ge’ez, and Swahili texts all look as if they relate in some way to a larger tradition, such as the one represented in the aljamiado tradition. At this point there are three fairly extensive aljamiado dialogues, and they contain almost every feature found in the later texts discussed here. Did the Moriscos in Spain originate this Moses tradition? It does not seem likely, given the condition of the community in the sixteenth century.33 These Spanish Muslims were a remnant of the former Islamic population in Spain, and they were fighting a loosing battle against persecution, exile or assimilation. The texts themselves show a people who had lost their Arabic language skills, but had not gained literary Spanish proficiency in their place. The Arabic words in the texts are often used improperly, or are completely misunderstood. The author or authors did not seem to have a grasp of either Spanish or Arabic grammar. Finally, among the texts dealing with biblical characters or themes, there are very few original compositions. Most of the ideas in the aljamiado texts can be traced back to Medieval Islamic literature, commentary, or hadith material. To date, I have not encountered a tradition in medieval Islamic texts which closely matches the material in this grouping. Obvious places to start would be commentators like Al-Kisai and Al-Ṭabari, but neither contains Moses material that is similar in form or content to these dialogues. This does not mean, however, that such an “ur-tradition” does not exist in Islamic literature. In even a cursory examination of these texts, it becomes clear that the concerns addressed are very close to those found in the Quran itself and in the hadith material—especially the emphasis on proper treatment of the poor, the hungry, orphans, widows, parents, the Ibid, 173. L. Lopez-Baralt, Islam in Spanish Literature: from the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. A. Hurley (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 171-189. 32 33

38

[23]

Karla R. Suomala

oppressed, and the dead, along with a great deal of attention on prayer, lending money, associating with righteous people, and sexual behavior. In addition, the reward/punishment schema is found throughout the Koran—particularly in relation to salvation or damnation, which are central issues in these texts. Given the fact that “The Colloquy” is widely attested in Christian Arabic, one might investigate connections between the Arabic mss and the Islamic traditions. Interestingly, there are no such Muslim dialogues in Arabic. It is clear that the authors of the aljamiado texts did not know Arabic very well, if at all, and that even their Spanish lacked polish. Since there are no other examples of this type of dialogue in Christian literature, and the dialogues in Jewish literature don’t really correspond in terms of style and content,34 it is possible that these dialogues have all been influenced by some earlier, and fairly prominent, Islamic Moses tradition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brock, S.P., “Some Syriac Legends Concerning Moses,” Journal of Jewish Studies 33 (Spr-Aut 1982), 237-255. —. “Dialogue hymns of the Syriac Churches,” Sobernost 5 (1983), 35-45. —. “Syriac dispute-poems: the various types,” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 42, ed. G. Reinink

Jewish tradition might have had some influence on the questions dealing with God’s nature which is an important theme in rabbinic and especially medieval Jewish literature. Unfortunately, the specific questions that Moses poses in these texts are not found in either corpus. The only passages that come close are those in Numbers and Deuteronomy Rabbah which talk about the possibility of God eating. The Rabbis conclude that God does not eat. Another group of midrashic passages deal with whether or not God sleeps—very much like the passages under study here—and the Rabbis conclude that God does not sleep either. A few rabbinic passages deal with where God resides in heaven and provide descriptions of the throne. Exodus Rabbah 23:13, for example, incorporates the image found in the Syriac text that God’s throne is borne by four angels in the forms of a human, an eagle, a lion, and a bull. Beyond these slight similarities in theme, however, there is nothing specific that connects these four textual traditions to Jewish literature of either the rabbinic or medieval period in any substantial way. 34

The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai

39

and H. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Department Orientalistiek, 1991), 109-19. Denis, A.M., Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénisitque I (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2000). Desreumaux, A., “Un manuscript syriaque de Téhéran contenant des apocryphes,” in Apocrypha. Revue International des Littérature Apocryphes 5 (1994), 137-164. Goshen-Gottstein, M.H., Syriac Manuscripts in the Harvard College Library: A Catalogue, Harvard Semitic Studies 23 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ., 1979). Graf, G., Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur I, Studi e Testi 118 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944). Haelewyck, J.-C., Clavis apocryphum veteris testamenti (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998). Hall, Isaac, “The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai,” Hebraica 7:3 (1891), 161-177. Kaplan, Steven, Les Falashas (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1990). Knappert, Jan, “Ritual and Creed in Moses’ Conversation with God,” in Windows on the House of Islam, ed. J. Renard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 78-84. Lopez-Baralt, Luce, Islam in Spanish Literature: from the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. A. Hurley (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992). Suomala, Karla, Moses and God in Dialogue: Exodus 32-34 in Postbiblical Literature, (New York: Peter Lang, 2004). Troupeau, G., Catalogue des manuscrits arabes chrétiens I (Paris: Biliotheque nationale, 1972). Vespertino Rodríguez, A., Leyendas Aljamiadas y Moriscas sobre Personajes Bíblicos (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1983).

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 8, 41-58 © 2005 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

JACOB OF EDESSA’S VERSION OF EXODUS 1 AND 28 ALISON SALVESEN UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

ABSTRACT1 At the end of the seventh century and into the beginning of the eighth, the Syriac Orthodox scholar Jacob of Edessa produced his own Syriac version of the Old Testament. According to the colophons of the extant manuscripts, this was explicitly a combination of the Syriac and Greek textual traditions. This is in fact borne out by a close study of Jacob’s versions of Samuel, Genesis and Exodus. However, it is less obvious what criteria Jacob used for the inclusion or exclusion of the different strands available to him, including the Peshitta, the Syrohexapla, and different recensions of the Septuagint. This paper examines two very different passages in the book of Exodus from the unpublished manuscript of Jacob’s version of the Pentateuch.2

[1]

By the end of the seventh century the Greek tradition of Scripture was well known among the Syriac churches, and in the West, it was particularly influential. The “separated” gospels in the Old Syriac and Peshitta forms had of course first been translated from Greek. The Philoxenian and Harklean versions of the New Testament 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the IX Symposium Syriacum in Kaslik, Lebanon, September 2004. 2 I am grateful to the Peshitta Institute, Leiden, for lending me a microfilm of this manuscript, Bibliothèque Nationale 26.

41

42

[2]

Alison Salvesen

were revisions of the Syriac to reflect the Greek original text more closely. In contrast, the Peshitta Old Testament had been translated from Hebrew (and Aramaic), but the loss of the knowledge of Hebrew in the Syriac Church coupled with the dominance of the LXX in the Greek-speaking world, meant that revisions of the Old Testament were made towards the Greek, not the Hebrew. Thus there may be traces of a Philoxenian version of the Old Testament,3 but much more importantly there is the Syrohexapla, translated in 615-17 by Paul of Tella at the Ennaton in Egypt, from Origen’s revised text of the LXX in the Hexapla.4 The Syrohexapla attained real importance in the Syriac churches, and readings from it were cited even in the Church of the East by the commentators of the eight and ninth centuries, such as Isho’dad of Merv.5 Driving this production of Syriac scriptural versions reflecting the Greek texts was the great influence of Greek Christianity in the spheres of politics, theology and general culture. This influence also resulted in an enormous number of translations of commentaries and exegetical works from Greek into Syriac.6 The obvious Notably in the margin of the eighth century Ambrosian SyroHexapla to Isa 9.6 (A.M. Ceriani, Monumenta sacra et profana ex codicibus praesertim bibliothecae Ambrosianae tom. VII. Codex Syro-hexaplaris Ambrosianus, photolithographice editus (Milan: J.B. Pogliani, 1874), folio 176r. For another, anonymous, revision based on the Greek, see S.P. Brock, “Mingana Syr. 628: A folio from a revision of the Peshitta Song of Songs” (JSS 40 [1995]), 39-56. 4 See A.G. Salvesen, “Hexaplaric Sources in Isho‘dad of Merv”, in The Book of Genesis in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretation, ed. J. Frishman and L. Van Rompay. TEG 5 (Louvain: Peeters, 1997), 229-53. 5 See S.P. Brock, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition. SEERI Correspondence Course (SCC) on Syrian Christian Heritage I (Kottayam, Kerala: SEERI, 1988), 20-23. However, perhaps the statement on the version of Jacob of Edessa, that Jacob “undertook another translation from Greek, but also keeping some elements from the Peshitta” should now be nuanced, at least with regard to the versions of Genesis, Exodus and Samuel. 6 On the increasing prestige of Greek learning among Syriac-speakers, see S.P. Brock, “Towards a history of Syriac translation technique”, III Symposium Syriacum, ed. R. Lavenant. OCA 221. (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1983), 4-5, and idem, “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning” in East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the formative period. Dumbarton Oaks 3

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

[3]

43

problem with bible commentaries translated from Greek was the type of biblical text they cited: adjusting the citations to the Peshitta form, as the first translations did, often meant that they did not match the author’s exegesis which was based on the LXX text. Reproducing in Syriac the LXX form of the original Greek commentary meant presenting the reader with a bible quotation to which they were unaccustomed, and thus the interpretation would be less convincing.7 However, the increasing use of Scripture revisions towards the Greek by such versions as the Philoxenian and Syrohexapla no doubt made Syriac readers more familiar with the Greek tradition of Scripture, and to some degree they must have accepted certain Greek readings alongside those of the Peshitta. Nevertheless, there is also evidence that Greek aroused mixed feelings among Syrians loyal to their native traditions and bible versions. Notably, although the monks of Eusebona had fetched Jacob of Edessa from Kaisum in order to revive the teaching of Greek Scripture, he was attacked by some of the brothers who hated “the Greeks,” and this is how he ended up at Tel ‛Ada, where he produced his revision of the Old Testament.8 Given this hostility in certain quarters, and the existence of the Philoxenian and Syrohexapla versions, why did Jacob want to produce yet another version of the Old Testament that, according to some colophons was revised according to the Syriac and Greek traditions? For instance, the colophon at the end of 1 Samuel9 says that the First Book of Kingdoms was “corrected from the different Symposium 1980, eds. Nina G. Garsoïan, Thomas F. Mathews, and Robert W. Thomson (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard University, 1982) 17-34. 7 S.P. Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning” in East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the formative period. Dumbarton Oaks Symposium 1980, eds. Nina G. Garsoïan, Thomas F. Mathews, and Robert W. Thomson (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard University, 1982) 18. 8 Gregorii Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, ed. J.B. Abbeloos and T.J. Lamy (Louvain: Peeters, 1872) I, cols. 291-3. 9 A.G. Salvesen, The Books of Jacob in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa. MPIL 10 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999): edition p.90 and translation p.67.

44

[4]

Alison Salvesen

traditions, namely from that of the Syrians and those of the Greeks.” Since it is in the singular, the tradition of the Syrians can only refer to the Peshitta and not the Syrohexapla, which may even be included among “those of the Greeks,” perhaps alongside the Lucianic recension whose influence is clear in Jacob’s version of Samuel.10 However, the wording of the colophon at the end of Numbers differs slightly: “It was corrected from the two traditions, from that of the Syrians and from that [note the singular] of the Greeks.”11 Perhaps the Syrohexapla and the LXX texts were regarded as co-terminous in this case, or perhaps the writer was being imprecise. The date and place of the version given by each manuscript is the same, 1016 AG, i.e. 705 CE, in the monastery of Tel ‛Ada. Though small portions of the surviving manuscripts of Jacob’s biblical version were already being reproduced and studied more than two centuries ago,12 there is much work still to be done. At present the most work has been done on Jacob’s version of Samuel, for which there is a detailed study and also an edition of

R.J. Saley, The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa. A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions. MPIL 9 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998), 19-38. 11 Bibliothèque Nationale 26, folio 339. 12 J.D. Michaelis, Orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek 18 (1782) 180183 [Gen 49.2-11]; C. Bugati, Daniel secundum editionem LXX. interpretum ex tetraplis desumptum (Milan, 1788), xi-xvi, 150-151, 157-158 [Gen 11.1-9; Gen 49.2-11; Dan 1.1-6; Dan 9.24-27; Sus 1-6] (reprinted in J.B. Eichhorn, Allgemeine Bibliothek 2 [1789] 270-293); A.M. Ceriani, Monumenta sacra et profana II/1 (Milan, 1863), x-xii [Gen 4.8-16; Gen 5.21- 6.1]; A.M. Ceriani, Monumenta sacra et profana, V/1 (Milan, 1868) 812; 21-23; 25-38 [Isa 28.1-21; 45.7-16; 46.2-49.25]; L’Abbé Martin, “L’Hexaméron de Jacques d’Édesse” (Journal Asiatique (8ème sér.) 11 [1888] 155-219; 401-90; A. Hjelt, Études sur l’Hexaméron de Jacques d’Edesse, notamment sur ses notions géographiques contenues dans le 3ième traité (Helsingfors: J.C. Frenckell, 1892) [Gen 1.9-10]; M. Ugolini, “Il Ms. Vat. Sir. 5 e la recensione del V.T. di Giacomo d’Edessa” (OrChr 2 [1902]), 412-413 [Ezek 7.1-13]; M.H. Gottstein, “Neue Syrohexaplafragmente” (Biblica 37 [1956]) 162-183 [1 Sam 7.5-12; 20.1-23, 35-42; 2 Sam 7.1-17; 21.1-7; 23.13-17]; W. Baars, “Ein neugefundenes Bruchstück aus der syrischen Bibelrevision des Jakob von Edessa” (Vetus Testamentum 18 [1968]), 548-554 [Wis 2.12-24]. 10

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

[5]

45

the text.13 A particular desideratum would be a complete edition of Jacob’s version of the Pentateuch. This is preserved in a single manuscript, Bibliothèque Nationale Paris 26. Until someone is able to take on such a large project, it may be legitimate to take soundings of the individual books.14 Jacob’s version of Genesis has already received a limited amount of attention, but the rest of Jacob’s Pentateuch has been largely passed over. The biblical book of Exodus includes quite disparate material, covering narrative, legal prescriptions, and the description of the Tabernacle. I have chosen two different passages for analysis. The first example, taken from the story of the bondage of the Israelites in chapter 1, is illustrative of Jacob’s general approach elsewhere (it can hardly be termed a method).

EXOD 1.8 -21 (FOLIOS 108 COL. A-109 COL. A) ‫ܪ ܆ ̇ܗܘ ܕ ܐ ̇ ܥ ܗܘܐ‬ ‫ܓ ܐ ܘܬ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ̈ܒ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܒܐ܇‬ ‫܇‬ ‫ܢ‬ ‫ܐ‬ .

‫ܐ ̇ ܬܐ‬ ‫ ܗܐ‬.

̇

‫ܕ‬

݂ ‫ܘܐ‬

8 9

. ̇ ‫ ܬܘ ܗ‬10 ݂ ‫ܕ ܐ ݂ ܓ ܢ܇ ܘܐ ܝ ܕ‬. ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫̈ܒܒ ܇ ܘ ܐ ܕܐ ݂ ܒ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܬܘ ܢ ܐܦ ݂ܗ ܢ‬ .‫݂ ܢ ܐܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ ̈ ܐ ̈ ܐ ܒ ݂ ̈ ܐ ܕ ܒ ܘܢ ̇ܘ‬ ݂ ‫ ܘܐ‬11 ̈ ‫̈ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܒ‬ ‫ܒܐ ܢ‬ ݂ ‫ܘܢ‬ ݂ ‫ܐ ܢ ܒ ̇ ̈ܒ ܐ ܘ‬ ‫̇ ܒ‬ ‫ܘ ܐܘܢ ̇ܗܝ ܕܐ‬ ‫ܘܡ ܘ‬ ‫ܢ܆‬

13 M.H. Gottstein, “Neue Syrohexaplafragmente”(Biblica 37 [1956]), 175-183, R.J. Saley, The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa. A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions. MPIL 9 (Leiden:E.J. Brill, 1998), and A.G. Salvesen, The Books of Jacob in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa. MPIL 10 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999). 14 Sylvestre de Sacy, “Notice d’un manuscrit syriaque, contenant les livres de Moïse”, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, vol. IV (Paris 1798-99) 648-668. For a description of the manuscript, see the catalogue of H. Zotenberg, Manuscrits orientaux. Catalogues des manuscrits syriaques et sabéens (mandaïtes) de la Bibliothéque Nationale (Paris 1874) 10. See also A.G. Salvesen, “The Genesis Texts of Jacob of Edessa: a Study in Variety” in Text, Transmission, and Tradition: Studies on the Text of the Peshitta and its Use in the Syriac Tradition, Festschrift for Konrad Jenner, eds. R. B. ter Haar Romeny and W. van Peursen (MPIL 14; Leiden: 2006), 177-88.

46

Alison Salvesen

‫ܗܘܘ܆‬ ‫ܡ ̈ܒ‬

‫ܘ ܐ ܕ‬ ‫ܘܗ ܐ‬ . ‫ܐ ܐ‬ ̇ ‫ܘ‬ ‫ܬܐ܆‬ ‫̈ܪ ܐ ̈ܒ ܐ ܐ ܒ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ ܘ‬ ̈ ̈ ‫ ܒ ܐ ܘܒ ܒ ܐ‬.‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ ܒ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ‬ ‫ܘ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܒܐ ܕ‬ ‫̇ܒ ܐ ܕ ܐ܇ ܒ‬ ‫ܘܒ‬ .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ̇ ̇ ̈ ‫݂ ܐ ܕ ܒ ܐ܇ ܗ ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܐܕ ܪ‬ ݂ ‫ܘܐ‬ .‫̇ ܕܐ ܬܐ ݂ ܐ‬ ‫ܨܐ ܪܐ܇ ܘ‬ ̈ ‫ܗܘ‬ ‫ܒ ܐ܇‬ ‫ ܐ ܝܕ ̈ ܢܐ‬. ݂ ݂ ‫ܘܐ‬ ̈ ̈ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܐ ܢ܆ ܘܐܢ ܕ ܐ ܘܐ ܐ ܘܗܝ܆ ܗܘ ܢ‬ ‫ܐ ܕܒ‬ ̈ .̇ ‫ܗܘ‬ ݂ ݂ .‫ܗܝ‬ ݂ ‫ ܘܐܢ ܒ ܐ‬. ̇ ̈ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ܆ ܘ ܐ ݂ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ݂ ‫ܘܕ‬ ݂ ‫ܕ‬ ̈ ̈ ݂‫ܕ ܪ ܆ ܘ‬ .‫ܗܘܝ ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ݂ܒ ܬ‬ ݂ ‫ܘ ݂ ܐ ̇ ܐ ݂ ̈ ܐ ܘܐ‬ ̈ ݂ ‫ܗ ܐ܇ ܘܐ‬ .‫̈ ܐ ܕ ܐ‬ ̈ ‫̈ܪ ܐ܇‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܐ ܗܘܐ ܐ‬. ‫ܢ‬ ‫݂ ̈ ܐ‬ ݂ ‫ܘܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܕ ̈ ܐ‬ ݂̈ ‫ ܘ ܐ‬. ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ̈ ‫̈ ܐ ̈ ܢ‬ . ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܗ ܐ܆ ܘ ݂ܓܐ‬ ‫ܕ ݂ܒ‬ ‫ܘܐ ـܐܒ ܐ ܐ ̈ ܐ‬ . ݂ ‫ܐ ܘܬ‬ ‫̈ܒ ܐ܀‬ ‫̈ ܐ ܐ ܐ܆ ݂ܒ‬ ݂ ‫ܘܗܘܐ ܕ ܕ‬ ݂ [6]

‫ܘܢ܆ ܗ ܐ ܬ‬ ‫̈ܪ ܐ܇‬ ‫ܘܢ‬

݀

‫ܒ ܗܘܘ ܘ‬ ݂ ‫ ܘ‬.‫̇ ܓ ܗܘܘ‬

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Italics indicate the use of identical Syriac wording to that in the Syrohexapla; bold font indicates material that has been translated directly from LXX. Plain type indicates close proximity to the Peshitta text. 8. But a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9. He said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more numerous and stronger than us.” 10. “Come, therefore, let us act wisely towards them, lest they increase, and whenever war befalls us they also be joined to our enemies, and when they make war on us they leave our land.”15 11. They appointed evil ruling officers over them, to enslave and humiliate them with works and treat them badly (=LXX ἵνα κακώσωσιν). They built fortified cities for Pharaoh, 15

Margin: “and fight us and go up from the land” = Peshitta.

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

[7]

47

Pithom, Ra’amsis and On, which is Beth Shemesh (=LXX ἡλίου πόλις).16 12. As much as they enslaved and humbled them, thus they grew stronger, and to such a degree they were increasing that the Egyptians wearied of the children of Israel. 13. The Egyptians were oppressing and enslaving the children of Israel with cruelty.17 14. They embittered (= LXX κατωδύνων) their lives with hard labour, with clay and with bricks and with all types of agricultural work, with every slavery with which they enslaved them by force (= LXX μετὰ βίας). 15. The king of Egypt said to the midwives of the Hebrews, of whom the name of one was Zephora (= LXX [Σεπφωρά]) and the name of the other was Pu’a,18 16. He said to them, “Whenever you are assisting the Hebrew women to give birth, you see when they kneel to give birth, and if it is a male, kill him, and if it is a female, preserve her.” 17. The midwives feared God, and they did not do as the king of the Egyptians commanded them. They saved the males. 18. The king summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this deed and kept alive the male children?” 19. The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Not as the Egyptian women are the Hebrew women, because they are lively.19 Before the midwives come in to them, they give birth.” 20. God treated the midwives well because they did this deed, and the people increased and grew very strong indeed. 21. It happened that since the midwives feared God, he made houses for them/they made houses for themselves. Compared with the situation in other passages in Jacob’s versions of Samuel, Genesis and Exodus, much of the additional material Jacob uses seems to be from the Syrohexapla rather than translated directly from LXX as is often the case elsewhere, for Margin: “Heliopolis” = Syh. Margin: “by force” = Syh. 18 The order of names is in accordance with the Greek tradition, and also with the Peshitta MS 5b1. 19 Jacob preserves the wordplay of the Peshitta, “midwives”, “keep alive” and “lively”, which is lost in Greek and thus in Syh also. 16 17

48

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[9]

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instance in Samuel.20 Jacob has effectively expanded the story recounted in the Peshitta, while preserving the Peshitta’s wordplay on ‘midwives,’ ‘keeping alive,’ and ‘lively.’ The latter is a feature only partly present in the Hebrew and not at all in the LXX and Syh versions (it is actually an inner-Aramaic feature found only in the Peshitta and Targums). Aside from that, the reason for Jacob’s alterations to his base text of the Peshitta is not clear His approach seems rather casual, in fact, and probably was. In this particular passage his aim seems to be to include as much information as possible from the two traditions, Greek and Syriac, in order to fill out and expand the account. There seems to be no more scientific explanation (in the modern text-critical sense) for changing this particular passage than the one of expanding and including more material in the account. We might have expected Jacob to explain or defend his version somewhere. However, nowhere in Jacob’s work is there an explicit comment from Jacob on what his general criteria are for choosing some readings and not others from the Greek, or Syrohexapla, and whether they replace or only expand on what the Peshitta provides. The colophons mentioned above are too vague in the information they provide about his working methods. One feature of Jacob’s version in both Samuel and the Pentateuch is the provision of marginal notes that give an alternative reading from the other tradition than the one included in his main text. There are also several scholia in both manuscripts that elucidate specific names or problems in the text. Thus in the course of Exodus 28 there is an extensive scholion that sheds some light on Jacob’s procedure in one particular passage. It occurs between verses 30 and 31, and occupies most of the top half of a page before the text of the chapter resumes. The subject of the scholion is the high priest’s breastpiece and ephod, and it immediately follows the passage in Jacob’s version that deals with these very items. The purpose of the scholion is to draw attention to the confusion that has arisen in the text (i.e. that of the Peshitta) concerning the proper terminology for the items called pedta and perisa. The scholion is positioned between Jacob’s version of Exod R.J. Saley, The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa. A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions. MPIL 9 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998), 19-38, 118-22. 20

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

49

28.30 and 28.31, at the top of folio 164, and occupying over one third of the page. Thus it is a prominent and deliberate note that the scribe has written before continuing on with the biblical text. Perhaps the scholion appeared in the autograph of the manuscript, or perhaps it was added from a collection of Jacob’s scholia that was circulating separately.

[10]

‫ܥ܆ ܕ ܕܬܐ ܕ ܐ ܙ ܪ ܘ ̈ܓ ܐܐ ܒ ̈ ܬܐ ܗ‬ ‫̇ܙܕܩ‬ ̇ ‫܇ ܕܐ ܐ ܐ ܘܗܝ ܬܐ܇ ܘܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ܇‬ ‫ܕ ܬܐ ܘܕ‬ ̇ ‫ܒܒ‬ ‫ܐ ̇ܗܘ ܕܕ ݂ ̈ ܐ‬ ‫ܬܐ‬ ‫ܐ܇‬ ‫ܐ ܘܗܝ‬ ̈ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܒ ܒ‬.‫ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ ܐ ̇ܗܘ ܕܐ ܒ ܬ̈ܪܬ‬ ݂ ‫ܕ‬ ̈ ‫ܗ܇‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܒ ܐ ̇ܗܝ ܕ ̇ܒ ܗܘܐ‬.‫ܬܐ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ̈ ̈ ‫ܗ‬ ‫ܬ̈ܪܬ‬ ‫ܓܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܐܕ‬ ‫ܕܒ ̇ ܐ ܗܘܐ ܬܪܬ‬ ̇ ‫̈ ܐ܇ ܘܒ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܕܕ ݂ ̈ ܐ ܕܬܪܬ‬ ‫ܗܘ ̇ܗܘ‬ ݂ ‫ܐ ܗܘܐ ܐܦ‬ ‫ܐ ̈ ܗܝ܀‬ ̈ ̇ ‫ܐܕ‬ ‫ܬ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ܆‬ ‫ܐ ܬ ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܗܐ ܕ‬ ‫ܬ‬ ‫ ܘ ܗܝ‬.‫ܓ ܢ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܕܕ ̣̈ ܐ ܘ ܐ‬ ‫ܬ ̈ܪ ܐ܇‬ ‫ ̇ܗܘ ܕ‬.‫ܘܕ ܐ ܘ ܪܐ‬ ‫ܗܘܐ܆ ܓ ܐ ܐܘ‬ ‫̇ܗܘ ܕ ܬ ܒ ܐ ܕ ܐ ܐ ܕ܆‬ ‫ܐܗ‬ .‫ܐ ܘ ̣ ܐ‬ ‫̈ ܬܐ‬ ‫ ܘܒ ܒܐ ܕ‬.‫ܐܘܗܝ ̈ܪ ܐ܆ ܒ ܒ ܐ ܕܐ܆ ܒ ܒ ܬܐ‬ .‫ܬܐ‬ ‫ܐ܃ ̇ ̣ ܒ ܐ ܕܐ ܐܘ‬ ‫ܐ ܝ ܕܐ ܕܘ ܐܒ ܪ‬ ̇ ‫ܐ ܗܘ‬ ‫ܒ ܐ ܘ‬ ‫܆‬ ‫ܬ̈ܪ ܘܢ ܐ ܗܘܐ‬ ݂ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ ܐ ܕܘ ܐ ܕܐ‬ ‫ܐܕ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܕ ܐ ܗܘܐ ܒ ̇ ܆ ܘ ܐ‬ ‫ ܕ ̣ ܐ ܓ ܆ ܕ ܘ ܒܐ ܕ ܬ̈ܪ ܘܢ ̣ ܐ ܐ ܕܐ‬.‫ܬܐ‬ ‫ܐܘ‬ ‫ ܗܪ ܐ ܕ ܒ ܒܐ ܗ ܐ ܕ‬.‫ܬܐ‬ ‫ܐܘ‬ ̣ ‫ܐ܇ ܐ ܐ ܕ‬ ̈ ‫ܐ܇ ܘ‬ ‫ܘ‬ ‫ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ ̣ܒ ܬܪ ܘܢ܇‬ ‫ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ ܒ ܒ ܐ ܒ̣ ܐ ܪ ܐ‬. ‫ܘ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܐܕ‬ ‫̈ ܐ ܕܬ‬ ̇ ̇ ‫ܐ ܗܘ ܕ ܒ ܐ܇‬ ̣ ‫ܒ ܒ ܐ ܗ ܐ ܕ ܬܐ܇ ܕ‬ ‫ܐ ܓ ܢ‬ ‫ܐ ̇ܗܘ ܕܕ ܐ܇ ܘ‬ ‫ܕܥ‬ ‫ܐܕ‬ ‫ܐ ܘܗܝ‬ ̇ ‫ܘܕ ܐ ܘ ܪܐ܀‬ ‫ܐܘ‬ ̣ ‫ܐ܇ ܗܘ ܕ ܗܝ ܬ‬

“One should know that many have erred not a little over these terms pedta and perisa, being unaware of what a pedta is and what a perisa is. While sometimes they call ‘pedta’ the perisa of the judgments that is borne on the priest’s breast and contains the twelve gems, at other times they use the term ‘pedta’ for the kebinta with which the priest covered (kabben) his shoulders, and in which were the two emeralds on both his shoulders at the front, and to which was also bound the perisa of judgments of the twelve gems. This perisa is called by the Hebrews an ephod, but by the Greeks ‘word of judgments,’ and in Greek is pronounced ‘logion.’ On it was placed the Revelation or Sign, and Truth [i.e. δήλωσις and ἀλήθεια], which are written ‘Light and Perfection’ by the Syrians.

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Therefore, from that term pronounced ‘ephod’ by the Hebrews, the Syrians call it sometimes ‚ephoda and at other times pedta. In the book of Kingdoms, when David says to Abiathar the priest, ‘Bring me the ephoda (i.e. the pedta)’,21 the priest had two items to bear, the kebinta and the perisa that was attached to it, and it is unknown which of them David referred to as ephoda/pedta. For it seems that he called the combination of the two an ephoda/pedta. But here, in this book of Exodus, where God commands Moses to make both of them, namely the kebinta and the perisa, and the words of the account of each of them are known, an unfortunate and perplexing confusion has been created by this term pedta which was set down instead of the term kebinta, since it [the pedta] is the name indicating the perisa of judgment, being called logion i.e. ‘Word,’ the item on which was placed the Sign and Truth.” Though the scholion is hardly remarkable in itself, Jacob may be punning on the Syriac words for “error,” “making a mistake” and “ephod” (note that he retained the word play in Exodus chapter 1). Jacob gives the Hebrew, Greek and correct Syriac words for the breast-piece, and the Greek and Syriac words for the Urim and Thummim, and refers to the passage in 1 Sam 23.9 where David asks Abiathar to bring the ephod to him. As might be expected, Jacob’s version of the biblical passage that immediately preceded this scholion accords completely with Jacob’s definition of the correct usage of the terms perisa and kebinta. Jacob’s version also diverges from the confusing terminology of the Peshitta, which uses pedta and ḥusaya for the same item, and he rejects the Syrohexapla’s use of pedta. ‫̇ ܒ ܐ ܓ ̣ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ̈ ܐ܆‬ ‫̈ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ܁‬ ‫ ܘܬ ̣ ܒ‬22

‫ܪ‬

.‫ܕܕܗܒܐ ܕ ̣ ܐ‬ ‫̈ܪ ܐ ܕܕܗܒܐ ܕ ̣ ܐ܆ ܘܬܐ‬ ‫ܐ܁ ܬ̈ܪ‬ ‫ ܘܬ ̣ ܒ‬23 ‫ܐ܆‬ ‫ܘܗܝ ܕ‬ ‫ܬ̈ܪ‬ ‫ܐ ܢ ̈ܪ ܘܢ ̈ܪ ܐ‬ ‫̈ܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܓ ̈ ܐ ܕܕܗܒܐ ܒ ̈ܪ‬ ‫ ܘܬܪ ̣ ܐ ܬ̈ܪܬ‬24 ̇ ‫ܐ܆‬ ‫ܘܗܝ ܕ‬ ‫ܬ̈ܪ ܘܢ‬

21 Jacob’s own version of this phrase in 1 Sam 23.9 (as also 23.6) uses the word ‚ephod. However, he uses pedta in 1 Sam 22.18 “priests bearing the linen ephod”, and kebinta to describe the location of Goliath’s sword, hidden behind the ephod (1 Sam 21.10). At 2 Sam 6.14 Jacob has ‚esṭla, perhaps because David was not a priest.

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

‫ܬܐ ܪ ܐ ܢ‬ ̈ ‫̇ܗ ܕ ܒ ܐ܇‬

̈ ‫ܓ‬ ‫ܪ ܐ ܢ‬

‫ܘ ̈ܪ ܘܢ ̈ܪ ܐ܆ ܕܬ̈ܪܬ‬ ̈ ‫܆‬ ‫ܬܐ܆ ܘܬ‬ ‫ܒ ̈ܪܬ‬ ̇ ̈ ̈ ‫ܒ ܐ‬ .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܬ̈ܪ‬ ‫ܐ ܢ‬ ‫ܘܬ ̣ ܒ ܬ̈ܪ‬ ̣ ‫̈ܪ ܐ ܕܕܗܒܐ܆ ܘܬ‬ ‫̇ܗ ܕ ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܗ ̇ܗܝ ܕ ܒ‬ ‫ܐ܇‬ ‫ܘܗܝ ܕ‬ ‫ܓ ܀‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܬ̈ܪܬ‬ ‫̈ܪ ܐ ܕܕܗܒܐ܆ ܘܬ ̣ ܐ ܢ‬ ‫ܘܬ ̣ ܒ ܬ̈ܪ‬ ̈ ̈ ̇ ‫ܐ‬ ‫̣ܐ ܇‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫܇‬ ‫̇ܗ ܕ ܒ ܐ‬ ̇ ̇ .‫ܗ ܐ ܕ ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܒ ܕܒ ̣ ܇‬ ̇ ̈ ̈ ‫ܗ ܕ ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܬ ܙ‬ ‫ܐ܆‬ ‫ܙ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘ ̇ ܒ ܗܝ‬ ̇ ‫ܗ ܐ ܕ ܒ ܐ܆ ܕ ܐ‬ ‫̣ ܘܐ‬ .‫̇ܐ‬ ‫ـܐ ܕܬ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܒ ܐ܀‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘܐ ̇ܒ ܘ‬ ̇ ‫ܘ ܘܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܕܕ ̣̈ ܐ‬ ‫̈ ܐ ܕ̈ܒ ܐ ܐ ܒ‬ ‫ܐܗܪܘܢ‬ ̇ ‫ܕ ܐ܇ ܕܘ ܐ ܡ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫܇ ܐ ܕ ܐܠ ܒ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܆‬ ‫ ܘ ܘܘܢ‬.‫ܐ ܕܕ ̣̈ ܐ ܓ ܐ ܘ ܪܐ‬ ̣ ‫ܘܬ‬ ‫ܠ‬ ‫ ܘ‬.‫ܐ‬ ‫ܕ ܐ ܡ‬ ‫ܕܐܗܪܘܢ܁ ܐ ܝ ܕ ̇ ܐܠ ܒ‬ ‫ܡ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ ̇ ܐܠ‬ . ‫ܐ ܕܒ ̈ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܐܗܪܘܢ‬ ‫ܐ ܒ ܙܒ ܀‬ [13]

‫ܐ܆‬

51 25 26 27 28 29 30

(Underlining indicates material that is unparalleled in existing witnesses to the Peshitta, Syrohexapla or LXX, and thus is apparently unique to Jacob’s version in that particular place.)

EXOD 28.22-30 22. You shall make upon the perisa22 paired chains, braided work of pure gold. 23. You shall make for the perisa23 two clasps of pure gold and you shall bind the two clasps to the two sides of the perisa. 24. You shall lay the two braids of gold in the two clasps on the two sides of the perisa. 25. and the two ends of the two braids you shall tie to the two settings. You shall fasten them on the shoulders of the kebinta,24 opposite its face in front. The same word appears in the Peshitta of this verse. LXX has λόγιον and Syh pedta. The underlying Hebrew word is ḥoshen, NRSV “breast piece”. 23 Here and in the next two occurrences in this verse the Peshitta uses the term ḥusaya, which is most confusing. Jacob, Syh and LXX all maintain their equivalents from the previous verse. 22

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26. You shall make two clasps of gold and place them on the two sides of the perisa, on the edge that is opposite the edge of the kebinta, inside. 27. You shall make two clasps of gold and place them on the two shoulders of the kebinta beneath, squarely [= Syh] opposite its face, opposite its seam above the girdle25 of the kebinta. 28. He shall attach the perisa by its links, to the links of the kebinta by a blue thread, to be over the girdle of the kebinta, lest the perisa move and come apart [= Syh] from the kebinta. 29. Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the perisa of the judgments upon his breast, when he enters the place of [= Syh] the sanctuary, as a memorial before God continually. 30. And you shall place upon the perisa of judgements the Revelation and the Truth [= Syh]26, and they shall be on Aaron’s breast whenever he enters the place of (= Syh) the sanctuary before the Lord. And Aaron shall bear the iniquity of the children of Israel on his breast, when he enters before the Lord always [= Syh]. Ultimately, while preserving the Peshitta as a base text, Jacob uses the Greek LXX as a guide to the items, rendering λόγιον as perisa and ἐπωμίς as kebinta. It should be noted that Exod 28.2328 does not appear in the Old Greek (meaning the oldest stratum of the Septuagint) of Exodus, since the original Greek form was probably translated from a Hebrew Vorlage that was shorter than the one behind the present Hebrew Masoretic Text. These particular verses were added to the church’s LXX by Origen from a later translation, probably that of “Theodotion,” in order to represent what appeared in the current Hebrew text.27 They appear 24 The Peshitta uses the term pedta in each case where Jacob employs Syh’s kebinta, which itself follows LXX έπωμίς. 25 hemyana: the word is the same in the Peshitta. LXX has μήχανωμα and Syh metaqnuta. The Hebrew word is ḥesheb, translated as “decorated band” in NRSV. 26 I.e. the Urim and Thummim. 27 J.W. Wevers, Text History of the Greek Exodus MSU XXI (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 9, 125; K. G. O’Connell,

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

[15]

[16]

53

in the Syrohexapla, because it was translated from Origen’s LXX text, but there they are marked by a series of asterisks in the right hand margin to indicate that they had been added in by him.28 Jacob would have understood only that Origen had corrected the LXX against the Hebrew text, and that therefore he should include those passages. Jacob omits (or never knew) the material that appears as vv. 24, 25/(29) in Wevers’ edition.29 These verses also appear in Lagarde’s text of the Syrohexapla and are marked with the obelus, but in the Midyat manuscript of the Syrohexapla (SyhT) they occur unmarked He may have left it out deliberately because it was obelized by Origen as not being in the Hebrew, but this cannot be proved. The Peshitta, on the other hand, follows MT very closely, but is inconsistent with its use of equivalents for Hebrew ḥoshen. It uses perisa for ḥoshen in vv.22,282, 29, 30, but ḥusaya in vv.232, 24, 26. It is such confusion in the Peshitta that Jacob was primarily setting out to correct or adjust in this particular passage, with the help of the Greek tradition. We have confirmation of this in the scholion appended to this section in ch.28. His aims here are therefore in contrast to his procedure in the first passage from Exodus chapter 1, where the motive seemed to be solely to expand on what the Peshitta provided, using material from the Greek directly or via the Syrohexapla. Looking at the passage in more detail, Jacob has made several minor alterations, such as changing the imperative verbs to the second person singular indicative of the Greek and Syrohexapla. He has also changed the Hebraistic verbs δώσεις and hab, adapted them to the context and replaced them with his own words ‘bind’ and ‘tie.’ The phrase “And Aaron shall bear the iniquity of the The Theodotionic Revision of the Book of Exodus: a contribution to the study of the early history of the transmission of the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972); cf. also D. Fraenkel, “Die Quellen der asterisierten Zusätze im zweiten Tabernakelbericht Exod 35-40,” in Studien zur Septuaginta- Robert Hanhart zu Ehren aus Anlaß seines 65. Geburtstages. eds. D. Fraenkel, U.Quast, and J.W. Wevers. MSU XX (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 140-86. 28 SyhT misplaces the asterisks so that they run beside vv.24-29. 29 J.W. Wevers, with U. Quast, Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum, II, I. Exodus.(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 320.

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children of Israel on his breast” in the last verse is very curious. The use of ‘iniquity’ (‛awla) is unprecedented in the Peshitta, Syrohexapla and LXX at this point. All three witnesses have ‘judgment’ or ‘judgements.’ The reading is very clear in the manuscript of Jacob’s version. Scribal error through association with another similar passage has to be ruled out, since there is to be no other place in the Bible, in Syriac or Greek, that has quite this combination of words— especially with ‛awla—that could lead a scribe to make an unconscious error. One can only conclude that it is deliberate, and that Jacob extrapolated the idea of iniquity from the idea of judgement. It is not unknown for Jacob to add his own glosses to the biblical text, but this is probably the most striking instance I have come across in his version of Genesis or Exodus.30 Overall, the structure and most of the terminology in these verses, apart from that concerning the perisa and pedta, remain recognisably those of the Peshitta. The passage reflects more care and attention than Jacob often gives to the text of his own version. It is notable that there are several, rather briefer, scholia in the manuscript on other items in the Tabernacle account such as the hangings of the court of the Tabernacle,31 the order of the gems on the high priest’s breast piece,32 the turban,33 the settings,34 how much 20 oboloi are worth.35 In Jacob’s version of Samuel he rewrote 1 Samuel 21 very carefully: this passage about David asking The nearest similar expressions in a comparable context occur in Lev 22.16 “they shall bear upon them the iniquity and sins”, and Num 18.1 “bear the iniquity of the sanctuary… bear the iniquity of your priesthood”, also Ezek 4.5,6 “you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel”. But it is hard to see how these passages could have caused an unconscious error in Jacob’s version of Exod 28.30. Exod 28.38, which occurs close to the passage under discussion, has the phrase “Aaron shall bear the sins of the holy things” in both the Peshitta and Jacob’s version of Exod, but the use of “sin-offerings” seems to exclude it as a possible influence. 31 At the bottom of folio 161 column a, in the middle of Exod 27.16, where the column has been left one line short to accommodate it. 32 At the bottom of folio 163 column a, where two lines have been left to accommodate it. 33 Towards the bottomof folio 165 column a, where the scholion has been inserted into the biblical text. 34 On folio 162, added in the bottom margin. 35 In the bottom margin of folio 169 column a (to Exod 30.13). 30

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

55

for the shewbread from the priest at Nob also concerns priestly activity,36 and it is tempting to speculate that Jacob was rather interested in vestments and rules for the sanctuary. It should go without saying that in his scholia in Exodus Jacob is only concerned with the sense of passage and what all these items were: there is no attempt to use typology or allegory, and his approach is solidly historical and literal.

CONCLUSION [18]

In contrast to the findings of Goshen Gottstein and Baars, who believed that Jacob’s version was an eclectic combination of the Peshitta and Syrohexapla,37 it is very clear in these two passages from, Exodus that whether Jacob was expanding a particular passage or correcting details, Jacob’s text base was certainly the Peshitta. Furthermore, he preferred to add to the Peshitta base text rather than make major changes, unless it was inadequate or confusing. Importantly, it also appears that on the whole he avoided depending too much on the Syrohexapla, preferring to make his own renderings of words directly from the Greek.38 Perhaps Jacob thought the kind of text he had created would appeal to those who disliked the Syriac style of the Syrohexapla and the way in which it completely ignored the wording of the Peshitta. Maybe Jacob’s version also enabled its readers to connect with Greek exegesis without abandoning their native Syriac scripture. The result of Jacob’s work was or create a kind of hybrid that amplified and clarified both the Peshitta and Greek texts of

36 See A.G. Salvesen, “An edition of Jacob of Edessa’s version of Samuel” in Symposium Syriacum VIIum, ed. R. Lavenant, S.J., OCA 256 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1998),13-22. 37 M.H. Gottstein, “Neue Syrohexaplafragmente” Biblica 37 (1956) 162-83, compared some texts in Samuel with the Syrohexapla, and in passing with the LXX and Peshitta. W. Baars, “Ein neugefundenes Bruchstück aus der syrischen Bibelrevision des Jakob von Edessa” VT 56 (1968) 548-554, compared the fragments of Jacob in Wisd with the Syrohexapla and the Peshitta. 38 Note that these findings are in line with those of S.P. Brock, The Recensions of the Septuaginta Version of I Samuel. Quaderni di Henoch 9 (Turin: Silvio Zamorani, 1996), 26-27.

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Scripture, and from a purely exegetical viewpoint it could even be considered to be superior to either tradition on its own.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbeloos, J.B. and T.J. Lamy (eds.) Gregorii Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum. Tom. I. Louvain: Peeters, 1872. Baars, W. “Ein neugefundenes Bruchstück aus der syrischen Bibelrevision des Jakob von Edessa.” Vetus Testamentum 18 (1968): 548-54. Brock, S.P. “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning.” In East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the formative period. Dumbarton Oaks Symposium 1980, ed. Nina G. Garsoïan, Thomas F. Mathews, and Robert W. Thomson. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard University, 1982. 17-34. — “Towards a history of Syriac translation technique,” III Symposium Syriacum, ed. R. Lavenant. OCA 221. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1983. 114. — The Bible in the Syriac Tradition. SEERI Correspondence Course (SCC) on Syrian Christian Heritage I. Kottayam, Kerala: SEERI, 1989. — “Mingana Syr. 628: A folio from a revision of the Peshitta Song of Songs.” JSS 40 (1995): 39-56. — The Recensions of the Septuaginta Version of I Samuel. Quaderni di Henoch 9. Turin: Silvio Zamorani, 1996. Bugati, C. Daniel secundum editionem LXX. interpretum ex tetraplis desumptum. Milan: 1788. Ceriani, A.M. Monumenta sacra et profana, II/1. Milan: 1863. — Monumenta sacra et profana, V/1. Milan: 1868. — Monumenta sacra et profana ex codicibus praesertim bibliothecae Ambrosianae tom. VII. Codex Syro-hexaplaris Ambrosianus, photolithographice editus. Milan: J.B. Pogliani, 1874. Eichhorn, J.B. Allgemeine Bibliothek 2 (1789): 270-293. Fraenkel, D. “Die Quellen der asterisierten Zusätze im zweiten Tabernakelbericht Exod 35-40,” in Studien zur SeptuagintaRobert Hanhart zu Ehren aus Anlaß seines 65. Geburtstages. eds.

Jacob of Edessa’s Version of Exodus 1 and 28

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D. Fraenkel, U.Quast, and J.W. Wevers. MSU XX. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990. 140-86. Gottstein, M.H. “Neue Syrohexaplafragmente.” Biblica 37 (1956): 162-183. Hjelt, A. Études sur l’Hexaméron de Jacques d’Edesse, notamment sur ses notions géographiques contenues dans le 3ième traité. Helsingfors: J.C. Frenckell, 1892. L’Abbé Martin, “L’Hexaméron de Jacques d’Édesse.” Journal Asiatique, 8ème sér., 11 (1888): 155-219; 401-90. Michaelis, J.D. Orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek 18 (1782): 180183. O’Connell, K. G. The Theodotionic Revision of the Book of Exodus : a contribution to the study of the early history of the transmission of the Old Testament in Greek. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. de Sacy, S. “Notice d’un Manuscrit syriaque, contenant les livres de Moïse.” Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale IV (1798-99): 648-668. Saley, R.J. The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa. A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions. MPIL 9. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998. Salvesen, A.G. “Hexaplaric Sources in Isho’dad of Merv,” in The Book of Genesis in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretation, ed. J. Frishman and L. Van Rompay. TEG 5. Louvain: Peeters, 1997. 229-53. — “An edition of Jacob of Edessa’s version of Samuel” in Symposium Syriacum VIIum, ed. R. Lavenant, S.J., OCA 256. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1998. 13-22. — The Books of Jacob in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa. MPIL 10. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999. — “The Genesis Texts of Jacob of Edessa: a Study in Variety,” in Text, Transmission, and Tradition: Studies on the Text of the Peshitta and its Use in the Syriac Tradition, Festschrift for Konrad Jenner, eds. R. B. ter Haar Romeny and W. van Peursen (MPIL 14; Leiden: 2006), 177-88. Ugolini, M. “Il Ms. Vat. Sir. 5 e la recensione del V.T. di Giacomo d’Edessa.” OrChr 2 (1902): 412-413. Wevers, J.W. Text History of the Greek Exodus MSU XXI. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992.

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Wevers, J.W., with U. Quast, Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Exodus. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991. Zotenberg, H. Manuscrits orientaux. Catalogues des manscrits syriaques et sabéens (mandaïtes) de la Bibliothéque Nationale. Paris, 1874.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 8, 59-63 © 2005 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

BRIEF ARTICLE

RECENT BOOKS ON SYRIAC TOPICS PART 8 SEBASTIAN P. BROCK UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

[1]

[2] [3]

[4]

The present listing continues on from previous listings in the first number of Hugoye for the years 1998-2004. Reprints are not included (for some important ones, see http://www.gorgiaspress.com). 1996 D. D. Benjamin (ed.), Ktaba d-turgame w-rushma d-ṭaksa damshammshane wad-bim ‛am soghyatha (Chicago). 2000 n.a., Ṭekso d-‛upoyo d-rishay kohne, d-kohne wda-mshamshone [Syriac and Malayalam] (Devalokam, Kottayam: Malankara Orthodox Church Publications). Ishaq bar Mushe Mzizaḥoyo, Ktobo da-zmirotho d-qinotho d-qurobo alohoyo ak ‛yodo d-‛idto suryoyto triṣat shubḥo d-Antyukya (Gütersloh: the editor). 2001 G. Baldanza, La metafora sponsale in S.Paolo e nella tradizione liturgica siriaca. Studi (Bibl. Ephemerides Liturgicae, Subsidia 114). H.G. Blersch, La colonne au carrefour du monde. L’ascension de Siméon, premier stylite (Spiritualité orientale 77: Abbaye de Bellefontaine). J. Hatem, Recherches sur les christologies maronites (Paris: Geuthner). 59

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A. Köver, I. Lukács, M. Pesthy, Mozes bar Képha. Paradicsomkommentár (Budapest: Magyar Könyvklub). [Introd. and Hungarian tr. based on Harvard Syr. 112]. 2002 X. Jacob, A.G. Calonghi, Les chrétiens du Proche Orient après deux millénaires. Les vicissitudes des communautés chrétiennes du Proche Orient des débuts du Christianisme à la fin du IIme millénaire (Torino: Terrenia). 2003 Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum (tr. M. Moosa), The Scattered Pearls. A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences (2nd revised edition, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). Mar Julius Çiçek (ed.), Oṣar Roze, Pushoqo d-kuloh ṣurat ktob d-‛atiqto kit wda-ḥdato, sim wa-mpashaq l-yodu‛tono rabo Mor Grigorios Yuḥanon Mapryono d-Madenḥo d-metida‛ Bar ‛Ebroyo (Monastery of St Ephrem, Holland: Bar Hebraeus Verlag). R.Y. Ebied, A. Van Roey, L.R. Wickham, J. Noret, Petri Callinicensis patriarchae Antiocheni tractatus contra Damianum, IV. Libri tertii capita xxxv-l et addendum libro secundo (Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca 54; Turnhout: Brepols). I.I. Ica Jr. (introd. and tr.), Sfântul Isaac Sirul. Cuvinte catre singuratici. Partea II-a recent descoperita (Sibiu: Deisis). N. Iskander, Beth Gazo according to the School of Edessa (Damascus: Sidawi Printing House). C. and F. Jullien, Les Actes de Mar Mari (CSCO 602-3, Scr. Syri 2345). — Aux origines de l’église de Perse: les Actes de Mar Mari (CSCO 604, Subsidia 114). F. Kanichikattil, Divine Liturgy in the Vision of Narsai (Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications). E. Loosley, The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in fourth- to sixthcentury Syrian Churches (Patrimoine Syriaque 2; Kaslik: Parole de l’Orient). B. Pouderon, M-J. Pierre, B. Outtier, M. Guiorgadze, Aristide, Apologie (Sources chrétiennes 470; Paris: du Cerf). N. Semaan, La preghiera vespertina feriale nella tradizione Siro-Antiochena. Testo critico, storia e studi con traduzione italiana dei testi (Bibl. Ephemerides Liturgicae, Subsidia 127). A. Tronina and M. Szmajdzinski, Wprowadzenie do jezyka syryjskiego (Studia Biblica 6; Kielce: Verbum).

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2004 M. Albert, Les Lettres de Jacques de Saroug (Patrimoine syriaque 3; Kaslik: Université Saint-Esprit). [French translation] P. Allen, C.T.R. Hayward, Severus of Antioch (London: Routledge). W. Baum, Shirin: Christian—Queen—Myth of Love (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). [Tr. of German original, 2003.] D. Benjamin (ed.), Ktaba da-Qdam wad-Batar ‚a(y)k taksa d-dayra ‛elayta (Chicago). F. Briquel Chatonnet, M. Debié, A. Desreumaux (eds.), Les inscriptions syriaques (Études syriaques 1; Paris: Geuthner). S. Chialà, Isacco di Ninive. Discorsi ascetici. Terza collezione (Magnano: Monastero di Bose, Edizioni Qiqajon). [Italian tr.] B.M. Chirathilattu, Prayers and Fasts according to Bar Ebroyo (AD 1225/6-1286). A Study of the Prayers and Fasts of the Oriental Churches (Münster: LIT). E. Cruickshank Dodd, Medieval Painting in the Lebanon (Wiesbaden: Reichert). S. de Courtois (tr. V. Aurora), The Forgotten Genocide. Eastern Christians, the Last Aramaeans (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). [Tr. of Le génocide oublié, 2002). S. de Courtois, Les derniers Araméens. Le peuple oublié de Jésus ([Paris]: Le Table Ronde). [Photographs, Tur ‘Abdin]. H. Dogan, Hymns of the Syriac Church (Moran Etho Series 21; Kottayam: SEERI). I. Emlek, Mysterienfeier der Ostsyrischer Kirche im 9. Jahrhundert: die Deutung der göttlichen Liturgie nach dem 4 Traktat eine anonymen Liturgieerklarung (Münster: LIT). R.F. Ferreira, Símbolas Cristianos en la Antiqua Siria (Patrimoine syriaque 4; Kaslik: Université Saint-Esprit). [In Spanish and Arabic]. S.E. Güler, Urfa tarihi/A History of Urfa (Ṣanliurfa Dersanesi Kültür Yayinlari 1; Sanliurfa). L. Hage, Précis of Maronite Chant (Bibliothèque de l’Université SaintEsprit de Kaslik 46). [English tr. of Précis de chant maronite, 1999] P. Hofrichter, P. Wilflinger (eds.), Syriac Dialogue. Sixth Non-Official Consultation on Dialogue within the Syriac Tradition (Vienna: PRO ORIENTE).

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C. Kaniamparampil, A Concise Syriac-English Dictionary (Moran Etho Series 19; Kottayam: SEERI). G.A. Kiraz, The Syriac Alphabet for Children (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). R.A. Kitchen and M.F.G. Parmentier, The Book of Steps. The Syriac Liber Graduum (Cistercian Studies Series 196; Kalamazoo). W. Klein (ed.), Syrische Kirchenväter (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). M. Moriggi, La lingua delle coppe magiche siriache (Quaderni di Semitistica 21; Firenze: Dipartimento di Linguistica). R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom. A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). [Revised edition, with new first chapter]. M. Pazzini, Lessico concordanziale del Nuovo Testamento Siriaco (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Analecta 64; Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press). N.A. Pedersen, Demonstrative Proof in Defence of God. A Study of Titus of Bostra’s Contra Manichaeos. The Work’s Sources, Aims and Relation to its Contemporary Theology (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 56; Leiden: Brill). B. Puthur (ed.), Studies on the Anaphora of Addai and Mari (Kochi: L.R.C. Publications, Mount St. Thomas, Trikkakara P.O.). S.D. Ryan, Dionysius bar Salibi’s Factual and Spiritual Commentary on Psalms 73-82 (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 57; Paris: J. Gabalda). M-J. Steve, L’Ile de Kharg. Une page de l’histoire du Golfe persique et du monachisme oriental. I, Archéologie et environnement (Recherches et Publicat-ions; Paris). J. Tabet, Beth-Gazo Maronite Add. 14.703. Troisième volume: chants pour la Résurrection (Collection Sources liturgiques Maronites 4; Kaslik: USEK). H. Takahashi, Aristotelian Meteorology in Syriac: Barhebraeus, Butyrum Sapientiae, Book of Mineralogy and Meteorology (Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus 15; Leiden: Brill). M. Tamcke (ed.), Syriaca II. Beiträge zum 3. deutschen SyrologenSymposium in Vierzehnheiligen 2002 (Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchegeschichte 33; Münster: LIT). B. Varghese, West Syrian Liturgical Theology (Aldershot: Ashgate).

Recent Books on Syriac Topics

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P. J. Williams, Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels (Texts and Studies III.2; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). The following items might also be noted: 1. ‘Syriac Studies: a classified bibliography (1996-2000)’ has appeared in Parole de l’Orient 29 (2004), 263-410. 2. The first number of a new periodical whose coverage includes Syriac appeared in 2004: Collectanea Christiana Orientalia (CCO), published jointly by the Universidad de Córdoba and CEDRAC (Université Saint-Joseph). ISSN 1697-2104; distributer: Pórtico Librerías, S.A., PO Box 503-50081 Zaragoza, Spain (email: [email protected]).

BOOK REVIEWS Martin Tamcke, ed. Orientalische Christen zwischen Repression und Migration. Beiträge zur jüngeren Geschichte und Gegenwartslage. Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 13. Münster, Hamburg, and London: LIT-Verlag, 2001. Pp. 210. ISBN 3-8258-5472-8. Paperback. Euros 17.90. REVIEWED BY CORNELIA B. HORN, SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

Upon the initiative of Dr. Helga Anschütz and since their sixth meeting held in Hamburg in 1999, the annual assembly of the German-speaking Working Group Middle East (Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient = DAVO) includes a panel on issues that are of relevance for the study of the Christian Orient in contemporary times. The volume under review presents a selection of papers delivered at the sixth annual meeting, as well as papers presented at the seventh annual meeting, held in Mainz in 2000. One of the stated interests of the annual panel is to highlight the study of the modern-day situation of Oriental Christians in the “diaspora” in the West. This emphasis is pursued more or less explicitly in about half of the twelve papers printed in the book. Subsequent meetings of the same group have seen a continued interest in this initiative. The spectrum of Eastern Christian cultures, countries, and languages represented in these articles ranges from examples taken from Georgia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, to examples taken from Israel/Palestine and Egypt. Many of the papers included in the volume constitute reports on work in progress. In some instances the contributions summarize studies that have been presented in fuller form in other places. In general, the book is written to be accessible to a broader audience. Two contributions to the volume focus on Christianity in the Caucasus. The first paper in the collection considers Protestant influences on Christianity in that area. In connection with work done for a dissertation on German-speaking, Protestant missionaries from Basel (Switzerland) and Hermannsburg (Germany) to colonies of German-speaking settlers in Georgia in the nineteenth century, Andreas Groß (“Mission und Endzeiterwartung in Katharinenfeld,” pp. 9-16) discusses 65

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theological developments affecting life in the village of Katharinenfeld during that time period. His main interest focuses on the impact, that the expectation of an imminent beginning of the end-times had on baptismal practices among the colonists as well as on separatist initiatives, including a planned migration to Jerusalem led by Anna Barabara Spohn and reigned in by military control and lack of divine support. By far the longest article in the book is a contribution by Martin Tamcke (“Arnim T. Wegners ‘Die Austreibung des armenischen Volkes in die Wüste’—Einführung zum unveröffentlichten Vortragstyposkript vom 19. März 1919 in der Urania zu Berlin,” pp. 65-135). As an expert on Arnim Wegner’s role as eye-witness to the Armenian Genocide at the end of World War I., Tamcke provides the editio princeps of Wegner’s type-written manuscript for a lecture he delivered on March 19, 1919, at the Urania in Berlin, a lecture that turned its audience of Germans, Armenians, and Turks violent towards one another by way of a graphic depiction of atrocities committed against Armenians on their deportation from their homes in Armenia / Eastern Turkey. The edition, or rather the de facto exact reproduction of the manuscript, is intended to allow the reader some direct insight into Wegner’s way of working on a text (so Tamcke, p. 73, fn. 9). It seems that a photo reproduction of the manuscript could have served the same purpose. Comments in English added to the manuscript at a later point in time reveal Wegner’s intentions of eventually publishing an English translation of the text. Tamcke’s introduction to the material supplies helpful immediate historical context to the tensions Wegner experienced as well as created with his decision to speak up on the Armenians’ fate, for which Germans were partially responsible in Wegner’s view. Four papers treat questions pertaining more immediately to Syriac-speaking Christians. Shabo Talay (“Die Christen in der syrischen Ğazīre [Nordostsyrien],” pp. 17-30) describes the development and settlement process of Syrian and Armenian Christians in the province of Ḥasake in north-eastern Syria with its center in Qamishly. Independent of the more recent military and political developments in the neighboring country of Iraq, which have made life more difficult for Christians in this region of the Middle East, Talay’s report, written prior to the American invasion of Iraq, highlights three points. The increasing agricultural and

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economic difficulties caused by the lack of rain in the region, the decline in business relationships with Turkey and Iraq because of a deterioration of political stability, as well as the population growth among Kurds and Muslims in the region emerge as the three main factors that prompt those Christians from the region who can afford it to emigrate to the West. Addressing related issues in the same region, Wolfgang Schwaigert, a Protestant pastor from Württemberg, (“Die Partnerschaft zwischen dem evangelischen Kirchenbezirk Blaubeuren und der syrisch-orthodoxen Metropolie Djazira wa’l-Furat/Hassake in Nordostsyrien,” pp. 31-37), shares news about an innovative and thus far unheard of ecumenical partnership established between the Protestant ecclesiastical district of Blaubeuren in southern Germany and the Syrian-Orthodox metropolitan district of Djazira wa’l Furat in Ḥasake, north-eastern Syria. The collaboration was initiated through personal encounters and initially focused on the establishment of an ecumenical, interreligious, and educational center in Tell Wardiat. The partnership continues on, furthering mutual contacts through visits, through studying the theological traditions and languages of the respective partners, through supporting financially those in the diaspora who wish to return to Syria, as well as through encouraging projects in the humanitarian realm. The explicit aim of this ecumenical partnership is to strengthen and enable Christians to remain settled in this region in Syria. Helga Anschütz is the author of two further papers on aspects of the contemporary situation of Syriac-speaking Christians. The first shorter paper (“Die Überlebenschancen der syrischen Christen im Tur Abdin/Südosttürkei und im Irak,” pp. 39-42) addresses factors that evaluate the long-term prospects of a Christian presence in the regions of the Tur Abdin, south-eastern Turkey, as well as in Iraq. While Anschütz, also writing before the US invasion of Iraq, still had positive expectations for the Christian presence there, her analysis of the situation in the Tur Abdin is less promising. Restrictions regarding the exercise of Syriac language instruction for children, the discrimination of young men from the Syriac-speaking Christian community in military service, and repeated acts of forced expropriations of real estate property of Christians, as well as the gentrification of the Syrian-Christian population in the homeland and a desire on the part of Christians in the Tur Abdin to join family members who have reached a status

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of financial security in the West are key reasons that continue to contribute to the depopulation of the Christian landscape in southeastern Turkey and to draw people to move westward. This tendency only intensifies a behavior that already characterizes the life of those who have gone into the diaspora. They suffer from a sense of loss of their roots and identity and they compensate for this by placing all their hopes in the acquisition of material goods. In her second contribution (“Die Auswirkungen von Aktivitäten westlicher Missionare, Wissenschaftler und Hilfsorganisationen auf die ostsyrischen Christen im Orient und in ihren neuen Heimatländern,” pp. 137-143), Anschütz reconsiders the impact of the work of Catholic and Protestant missionaries, western scholars, and Christian as well as humanitarian relief organizations on the fate of the East Syrian Christian community both in the Middle East and in the diaspora. The activities of none of the three types of groups is seen as a blessing for the community. Werner Arnold (“Volksglaube bei den Aramäern in Ma‛lūla,” pp. 145-165) reports on progress made in connection with research towards a collaborative, ethno-geographic monograph on the West Aramaic-speaking village of Ma‛lūla. Based on interviews Arnold conducted with the villagers, he presents a summary of their beliefs in saints and demons and characterizes their convictions regarding vows, the evil eye, magic, and the protection against evil. Arnold’s decision to include numerous excerpts in German translation from responses he received in his interviews leaves the reader with the impression of a close, almost personal encounter with many of his interviewees. Michael Marten (“Representation and th century Lebanon—Scottish and American misrepresentation in 19 Protestant missionaries in conflict,” pp. 167-183) contributes the only article not written in German. Based on archival research in Scotland and the US, his paper examines the founding of the Lebanese mission of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland (FCS) in the 1870s. The heart of his article is a presentation of differences of perception and self-representation that are found in the reports of British and American observers of the 1869/1870 visit of Alexander Duff (convener of the Foreign Missions Committee of the FCS) and John Lumsden (representative of the interdenominational Lebanon Schools Committee) to Protestant schools in Beirut and throughout Lebanon. Alexander Duff, for

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whom “the key element in mission work was the school” (p. 174), did not perceive any reasons for possible conflict with already established missionary and educational activities of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Syria. The Americans, however, represented in Marten’s discussion through the views of D. S. Dodge and H. H. Jessup, felt that the Scottish visit was an intrusion into territory that was already established both as an area of American missionary influence and as a region in which a reformed/Protestant Syrian church presence had taken root. Although Duff and Lumsden had misrepresented American views in their reports to their own constituencies, in the end, the American side agreed to and generously collaborated with the de facto establishment of the presence of the FCS in Lebanon. From the American perspective, the goal of attracting Muslims to the Christian faith was better served by Protestant Christians acting in unison with one another than by furthering an image of quarrelling and divisiveness among Christians, an impression too familiar to Muslims, who according to Marten’s assessment of American voices (p. 183) had witnessed for centuries the struggles, schisms, and splits of Latin and Greek Christians. Two papers are dedicated to the study of Christians and the Christian church in Israel/Palestine. Drawing from his demonstrated expertise on the history of the Christian Church in the Holy Land, Friedrich Heyer (“Die Arabisierung der Kirchen im Heiligen Land,” pp. 43-52) presents a helpful overview of the process of acceptance of Arabic as the language used in liturgical celebrations as well as of communication in everyday affairs by Christians in the Holy Land. Building upon the work of Sidney H. Griffith for the early period of the process of Arabicization of the Christian communities starting in the 8th and 9th centuries, Heyer carries his discussion through to the end of the 20th century. It is of interest to note that while from the early 18th century the upper echelons of the ecclesiastical hierarchy actively promoted the use of Arabic in the liturgy by having printing-presses mass produce liturgical texts in Arabic, most parishes resisted that move, despised the Arabic texts, and preferred to copy by hand the liturgical texts in Syriac for use in their liturgical services (p. 45). This resistance to Arabic linguistic influence on the inner life of the church is in contrast to popular aspirations towards securing access for Arabicspeaking native Christians of the Holy Land to positions of

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influence and power within the church hierarchy as well as within the economic and political sphere of public life in Palestinian society. For the modern period, Heyer helpfully highlights the initiatory role of the Maronite Butrus al-Bustani in the rise of Arab Nationalism, the ascendancy and role of the Latin patriarch Michel Sabbah, of the Orthodox publisher Hanna Siniora, the Orthodox professor and politician Hanan Ashrawi, as well as of the representatives of Protestant churches united in the Middle East Christian Council of Churches. Paul Löffler (“Zur Lage palästinensischer Christen heute,” pp. 53-63) analyzes the modern-day situation of Palestinian Christians in their home country. To the factors more frequently recorded in the scholarly literature, Löffler adds what he calls the “factor of attraction,” which is noticeable in the aspirations of young Palestinian Christians. Having received a quality education at Christian schools, which emphasized Western values and perspectives on life, these young people are among the top group of potential and successful emigrants to the West. In a second section, Löffler highlights the relationship between Palestinian Christians and the problem of the Palestinian secular authorities: he sees as positive the relations of Palestinian Christians to them, and briefly emphasizes the influence of “Palestinian liberation theology” and “contextual theology” as instruments that move Christians in Palestine to reformulate their reservations towards Israel as well as their rejection of Israeli oppression against Palestinians. Löffler dedicates the final part of his presentation to a discussion of aspects of the inner structure of the Christian Palestinian community. While he notes that in more recent times the number of mixed marriages between Christians of different denominational backgrounds has increased, he also observes that the pressures of secularization manifest themselves in the hardening of denominational boundaries, a phenomenon that can be observed more widely in the Christian Orient in recent years. In the “Holy Land” of Palestine, however, this factor takes on a special character because of the proportionally larger presence of non-native, western Christian denominations, which heighten the fear of estrangement from their traditions among indigenous Christians. A fuller discussion of ecumenical efforts on the local level could have balanced the picture drawn in this article.

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The volume concludes with two papers that treat Coptic Christianity in Egypt and abroad. Michaela Köger (“Die Mittwochabendveranstaltungen von Papst Shenouda III in Kairo,” pp. 185-199) analyzes the role of Pope Shenuda III as chief pastor and theologian in a global church. In particular, Köger focuses here investigation on aspects of Shenuda’s pastoral-theological concern and strategy displayed and pursued in his weekly, two-part meetings with Coptic laypeople in Cairo. In the first half of these meetings the Pope answers questions raised by the audience on biblical and theological issues as well as on issues pertaining to the practical aspects of the life of the Christian in the modern world. The second half is dedicated to a 45-minute-long sermon on theological issues, spirituality, or on the aspects of the practical side of the religious life. The systematic use of the internet as well as of electronic data recording to spread collections of the “questions and answers” have helped Pope Shenuda develop and maintain a personal and direct rapport in his role as key pastor of the Coptic Church. In the year 2000 and under the editorial leadership of Archbishop Mar Gregorius Johanna Ibrahim of Aleppo, the SyrianOrthodox Church published a two-volume reedition of a tenvolume collection of Shenuda’s answers to questions posed to him throughout the years. Wolfram Reiss (“Die Koptisch-Orthodoxe Kirche an der Wende zum 21. Jahrhundert: Von einer Nationalkirche zu einer internationalen christlichen Konfession,” pp. 201-210), whose dissertation studied the Sunday-School movement in the Coptic Church, presents data that updates Otto Meinardus’s discussion (“The Coptic Church towards the End of the 20th Century: From a National to an International Christian Community,” EkTh 12 [1993], 431-472) of the impact of the emigration of Copts into the Western diaspora on the structures of the Coptic church. Reiss’s scant narrative frames tabular listings of data on the global spread of the Coptic Church and lists ways in which contacts are being established and strengthened between the mother Church in Egypt and the parishes and dioceses in the diaspora. Reiss clearly sees emigration as a factor that positively contributed to the strengthening of the Coptic Church worldwide. In his conclusion, he remarks, “the Coptic-Orthodox Church has not yet faced the questions posed by the scientific criticism of religion, by the Enlightenment, and by modern, scientific theology,” but instead still displays “a rather fundamentalist

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approach to the Bible, and adamantly adheres to a belief in Marian apparitions even in modern times, to an excessive cult of [venerating] relics, to patriarchal and hierarchical structures, as well as to a firm fixation of [traditionally defined] gender roles” (p. 210). This conclusion appears not only to describe the author’s perception of the church, but also seems to reflect a Eurocentric and uncontextualized perspective. Given that several of the contributions are working-papers, some of the results and conclusions can only be preliminary. That preliminary quality is also reflected in occasional typos in the book (e.g., p. 67, l. 18: drop the second “aus”), inconsistencies in translating Arabic book titles into German in otherwise wellstructured bibliographies (p. 198), or inconsistencies in the transliteration of foreign names within a single article (e.g., “Schenute” vs. “Shenoude,” pp. 204 and 210). The level of bibliographical documentation likewise varies from article to article. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that interest in contemporary aspects of research pertaining to the Christian Orient is being cultivated among both senior and junior scholars in Europe, here primarily from among Protestant traditions. Also it is worth replicating an approach that attempts to integrate more fully and more prominently studies of the Christian Orient into the wider context of Middle and Near Eastern Studies. Establishing and promoting regular panels for the study of contemporary issues affecting Syrian Christians in the Americas within the framework of the North American Syriac Symposium and for the study of the Christian Orient at the annual meetings of the Middle East Studies Association of North America may very well be worthwhile initiatives.

Mathunny John Panicker. The Person of Jesus Christ in the Writings of Juhanon Gregorius Abu’l Faraj Commonly Called Bar Ebraya. Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 4. Münster, Hamburg, and London. LIT-Verlag, 2002. Distributed in the US by Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick and Piscataway, N.J.). Pp. 239. ISBN 3-8258-3390-9. Euros 30.90. REVIEWED BY CORNELIA B. HORN, SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY

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Responding to a perceived one-sided rapprochement between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches at the expense of the Assyrian Church of the East, which took place at Chambésy, Switzerland, in 1990, Wolfgang Hage repeatedly has called attention to the timely relevance of Gregory Barhebraeus (A.D. 1226-1286).1 One may agree with him that this universally respected and appreciated leader of the Syrian Orthodox church is to be considered as an early model of how one may respectfully engage in dialogue with representatives of other Christian denominations, in Barhebraeus’s case both the “Chalcedonians” and the so-called “Nestorians,” without condemning either of the two as heretics. Just prior to the publication of the book here under review, Karl Pinggéra explored in outline the historical development of Barhebraeus’s Christology by focusing on three texts: a) Barhebraeus’s treatise On the Incarnation, which constitutes the fourth treatise of his main speculative theological work, the Candelabra of the Sanctuary, as well as b) Barhebraeus’s Letter to the Catholicos of the Church of the East, Mar Denḥā I, who held office from 1265 to 1281, and c) chapter four of the more spiritually and mystically oriented Book of the Dove.2 It is to be warmly welcomed that with Dr. Mathunny John Panicker, a member of the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church who now teaches at the seminary in See Wolfgang Hage, “Ecumenical Aspects of Barhebraeus’ Christology,” The Harp 4.1-3 (1991), 103-109; and idem, “Chambésy 1990 und zwei syrische Stimmen aus dem Mittelalter,” in Trinitäts- und Christusdogma. Ihre Bedeutung für Beten und Handeln der Kirche. FS für Jouko Martikainen, eds. Jobst Reller and Martin Tamcke, Studien zur orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 12 (Münster, Hamburg, and London: LIT-Verlag, 2001), 9-20. 2 See Karl Pinggéra, “Christologischer Konsens und kirchliche Identität. Beobachtungen zum Werk des Gregor Bar Hebraeus,” Ostkirchliche Studien 49 (2000), 3-30, see also there p. 5, fn. 11. 1

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Kottayam, one of Barhebraeus’s own spiritual descendents engages this same line of ecumenically motivated inquiry into thirteenthcentury Christology. Panicker’s study, a dissertation accepted at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, situates Barhebraeus’s life and work against the political and religious background of Muslim, Byzantine, Crusader, and Mongol conquests and interactions from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries on the one hand and ecclesiastical developments within the Syrian Orthodox church at the time on the other. In some places the reader may come to conclusions that differ from those Panicker reached regarding individual aspects of Barhebraeus’s biography. A case for Barhebraeus’s Jewish origins, for example, made on the basis of his father’s name, Aaron, combined with the information provided in the Karshuni inscription over his gravesite in the monastery of Mar Mattai, where Gregory and his brother Barsauma are identified as “children of Hebrew? (Ebro ?)” (p. 29, fn. 55) may be judged as stronger than the case made for deriving Barhebraeus’s name from the adjective ‛ebrāyā, a word itself derived from the noun ‛ebrā (“seashore,” “crossing”) (see p. 29). Likewise, Panicker’s dismissal of Budge’s suggestion that Barhebraeus’s mother may have been of Arab extraction (pp. 29-30) appears to rest solely on a presumed equation of Arab with Muslim and neglects the equally likely alternative identification of Arab with Christian; that this is not Panicker’s thought throughout his work becomes clear from p. 207. This reviewer nevertheless appreciates Panicker’s generally ample documentation for and presentation of disagreeing positions, which allow one actively to engage the material and formulate one’s own conclusions in the process. Panicker concludes his first chapter by providing a helpful and sufficiently detailed classification and brief description of Barhebraeus’s written works. The categories of exegesis, liturgy, theology, philosophy, canon law, history, grammar, science (mathematics, astronomy, and medicine), and poetical and literary productions show Barhebraeus as a man of truly renaissance-style expertise. In chapter two, Panicker discusses Barhebraeus’s general methodology which he uses throughout his work and thus also when presenting his Christological thought. The spectrum of Barhebraeus’s sources is remarkable, ranging from Scripture, the Church Fathers, and synodal acts and canons, to historical works,

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texts by pagan philosophers, and works of Islamic authors, primarily the eleventh-century al-Ghazali, to whom Barhebraeus is indebted in his later, more mystical works, and the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi, to whom Barhebraeus refers in his treatise On the Incarnation. Key to Barhebraeus’s methodological approach to Christology, as Panicker highlights, is that although the author is “convinced that his own christological formula is the orthodox one” (p. 49), in his list of the thirty “very dangerous heresies” at the end of the treatise On the Incarnation, he does not include the “Chalcedonians and Nestorians.” Rather, these two groups belong for Barhebraeus to those who “only dispute over the definition of the union (in Christ), because all of them agree in the doctrines of [the] Trinity and of the preservation of the natures out of which Christ was made, without change and mixture” (pp. 49-50; modified; see also p. 206). In his discussion of Barhebraeus’s methodology, Panicker, moreover, emphasizes that Barhebraeus submitted himself to a principle of selection of prooftexts from patristic authors that was in accord with this conciliatory spirit. Thus, Barhebraeus did not “cite a Father as an authority to confirm his position against those who do not accept him as their Church Father” (p. 55). Cyril of Alexandria, for example, is only cited against Chalcedonians, but not against members of the Church of the East, as Panicker points out. Likewise, Barhebraeus also applied that same principle in situations of interreligious relevance. Views of Jews or Muslims that challenged the possibility of the incarnation are not countered by citations from church fathers, given that these authorities are not accepted by the respective dialogue partners. Panicker argues for Barhebraeus’s originality on the basis of the thirteenth-century author’s conscientious and astute handling of the patristic evidence. The ecumenical and interreligious dimensions of Barhebraeus’s approach seem equally illustrative of his religious and political sensitivity and invite further investigation. In chapters three and four (pp. 65-170) Panicker paraphrases and summarizes the argument of the treatise On the Incarnation. The main concern of chapter three of Panicker’s study is the question of the possibility of the incarnation. Presenting in its first half the positions of ancient christological heretics, including the lesser known Nepos the Egyptian (p. 75) and “Oudi of Edessa” (p. 78), the second half of chapter three rephrases Barhebraeus’s response

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to objections raised against the incarnation on the basis of rational arguments (pp. 85-95), as well as those raised by Jews (pp. 95-101) and by Muslims (pp. 101-120). Chapter four focuses on the question of the mode of unity of the natures in Christ. Its first part consists of an exposition of the range of terms (ousia, ithutho, iyo, kyono, qnumo, parsupho, yuqne, tuphso, methbarnshonutho, methbasronutho, iḥidoyutho, and naqiphutho) and their definitions that are crucial to how Barhebraeus formulated his Christology (pp. 121-131). This discussion as such is helpful and to be welcomed. Yet unfortunate misspellings (missing “t” in “sought” [p. 121]; “word” instead of “world” [p. 125, fn. 430]; “Shemeon” instead of “Senoun” [p. 129]) as well as imprecise or awkward expressions (“Ousia is a Greek word, which is used in Syriac either ousia or ithutho to correspond to it.” [p. 122]), that were not removed from the study or corrected before publication, have the effect of distracting the reader’s attention through a displayed lack of precision and attention to details, so necessary in foundational sections like this one. The second, main part of chapter four is divided into three sections in which Panicker lays out how Barhebraeus responded to objections raised by Dyophysites (not “Duophysites” [p. 131]) (pp. 131-153), Eutychians (pp. 153-158), and the followers of Julian of Halicarnassus (pp. 158-169). The length of the discussion devoted to those two last parties over and against which “Chalcedonians and Nestorians” can agree with Barhebraeus reveals that the author of the treatise On the Incarnation had an interest in finding and defining common ground between himself and those whom he did not identify as heretics, the “Chalcedonians and Nestorians,” by characterising their shared opponents. This reviewer also notes especially the continued relevance and broad scope of the question of Theopaschism discussed between Chalcedonians and Syrian Orthodox Christians in the thirteenth century (pp. 149-152), given that already during the time of the immediate aftermath of Chalcedon in the context of Syria-Palestine this question appears to have played not the only but a decisively contributing role in the self-definition of anti-Chalcedonian identity. Both in chapter three and in chapter four Panicker helpfully embeds quotations of key passages in his discussion. While the range of church fathers, whom Panicker references in explanations in his footnotes, includes the classical Greek patristic authorities

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like Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, and others, not surprisingly the two most audible voices are those of Severus of Antioch and Philoxenus of Mabbugh, the first only slightly outweighing the latter. A short discussion of this selectivity could helpfully have been included in the study. Chapter five consists of a systematic presentation of Barhebraeus’s Christology. This section also includes the presentation of Christological statements from Barhebraeus’s biblical commentaries (pp. 113, and 185-191). In his conclusions, Panicker accepts, though with some hesitance, the designation “diplophysitism” (not “diplophysetism;” p. 203) as the appropriate description of the characteristic feature of Barhebraeus’s Christology. This term, as Panicker acknowledges, was introduced into the discussion by Hage in 1991 (see Hage, “Ecumenical Aspects,” 106). Panicker sees that for Barhebraeus “Jesus Christ is one double nature.” That Barhebraeus’s expression here differs from Severus of Antioch’s ύπόστασις σύνθετος,3 is a point which Panicker does not develop. In his conclusions, Panicker also accepts “miaphysite” as a fitting term to characterize Barhebraeus’s position (p. 207, fn. 739). In his general conclusions following chapter five (pp. 205-212), Panicker highlights especially the harmonious relations between Barhebraeus and the respective incumbents of the office of Catholicos of the Church of the East, as well as the respect in which Barhebraeus was held by Muslims. For Panicker, Barhebraeus lived out the ideal of ecumenism by holding on to the right belief of his own church and at the same time reaching out and communicating across the boundaries of denominations. Using the formula of the “one incarnate nature of God the Word,” Barhebraeus admitted, as Panicker sees it, that this “formula was not enough to conserve the faith in its fulness” (p. 208). He held on to it, since he thought it was better than what others had to On this term, see Joseph Lebon, Le monophysisme sévérien. Étude historique, littéraire et théologique sur la résistance monophysite au concile de Chalcédoine jusqu’à la constitution de l’Église jacobite (Louvain: Excudebat Josephus van Linthout Universitatis Catholicae Typographus, 1909), 319322; and Joseph Lebon, “La christologie du monophysisme syrien,” in Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 1: Der Glaube von Chalkedon, ed. by Aloys Grillmeier and Heinrich Bacht (Würzburg: Echter-Verlag, 1951), 425-580, here 272-277. 3

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offer. Nevertheless, he worked on the assumption that all three groups, Chalcedonians, Oriental Orthodox, and the Church of the East, professed the same truth of the faith in Jesus Christ. Thus, according to Panicker, Barhebraeus’s example forcefully mandates to establish “an immediate dialogue in Christian charity, patience, and openmindedness” (p. 211; modified) also with the Church of the East on the basis of the shared common faith in Christ. It is praiseworthy that Panicker’s work provides the Englishspeaking scholarly audience with convenient access to Barhebraeus’s Christological thinking, at least in its earlier phase, before the thirteenth-century theologian became Maphrian of the East,4 or at most during his first year in office (Panicker, The Person of Jesus Christ, 37). Yet one has to bemoan problems of accuracy in the use of language, even problems with basic grammar (e.g., subject-verb agreement [numerous times, e.g., p. 22]; hypercoristic grammatical forms [“slained” instead of “slain;” p. 37]; confusing punctuation; tenses; misuse of or omission of necessary prepositions; etc.) and expression (see example cited above, to which others, e.g., on p. 207, could be added), which are almost to be expected in a work composed in English by a non-native speaker of English, under the direction of non-native speakers of English in Italy, and published under the direction of non-native speakers of English in a publishing house in Germany. Unless copy-editing of such works is entrusted to the hands of language professionals or native speakers, improvement of the linguistic quality of such works, which immediately influences their effectiveness of communication among an English-speaking audience, is not achievable. While being aware of the increasing costs of producing books in the field of Christian Oriental studies, this reviewer suggests a) that this question should be taken seriously in order to improve the quality and presentation of research results in the field of Christian Oriental studies, and b) to foster closer international collaborations between native and nonnative English-speaking scholars in the field, whatever their level of documented achievement may be, who may be willing and open to proofread a work before it goes to print. These comments are not On the dating of Barhebraeus’s On the Incarnation, see H. Koffler, Die Lehre des Barhebräus von der Auferstehung der Leiber, OCA 81 (Rome, 1932), 33-40; and Pinggéra, “Christologischer Konsens,” 6. 4

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meant to suggest that the author of a given work does not also share the burden of responsibility for accuracy of his own work. In the present case, simple typographical errors (e.g., “Angles” instead of “Angels” [p. 36], or the homophonic confusion exemplified by “inhabitance” instead of “inhabitants” [p. 23, fn. 10]), can be caught by the eye of the attentive reader, native or non-native speaker. Also note that the abbreviation “CHABOT, ‘Deux textes’” (e.g., pp. 110, 111, 117-119 and in the bibliography) is misleading and should read “NAU, ‘Deux textes.’” Moreover, it is necessary to comment on the scope of discussion of the subject matter presented in the book. The title of Panicker’s study leads one to expect a comprehensive and exhaustive treatment of Barhebraeus’s Christology. Yet although the author collects and summarily evaluates Christological statements also from Barhebraeus’s biblical commentaries, the clear focus and perspective of the analysis of Barhebraeus’s Christology is determined by material gathered from the thirteen-century theologian’s early work, the Candelabra of the Sanctuary. This, moreover, entails that Barhebraeus’s explicit conviction of the superiority of his doctrinal position, which shaped his thinking during those early years more so than later on, constitutes the basis for Panicker’s presentation, despite all references to ecumenical efforts. These two structural and systematic limitations of Panicker’s study prevent the book under review from being comprehensive and exhaustive in its treatment of the subject matter. Panicker refers merely in passing to the Letter to Catholicos Denḥā (pp. 45 and 206). He notes that this letter is “[a] christological and historical treatise” (p. 45). Yet his study never explores the Christological content of this work any further, thus lacking in comprehensiveness at least in this instance. Pinggéra’s discussion of the Letter to Catholicos Denḥā, on the other hand, has suggested and convincingly demonstrated that there is a connection between a group’s theological, even Christological, identity, and that same group’s view of church history. While Barhebraeus’s main Christological statements in the Letter to Catholicos Denḥā do not differ from those in the Candelabra of the Sanctuary, in its second half, the Letter consists of a presentation of the early history of the Christian church in Persia, from its beginnings into the sixth century. Very great emphasis is laid on Barsauma of Nisibis’s

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efforts, beginning with the Synod of 486, to introduce and sustain a dyophysite Christology of Antiochene flavor among the faithful in Persia. In this process, Barsauma’s support of “Nestorianism,” according to Barhebraeus’s presentation in the Letter, went hand in hand with furthering the moral decline of the bishops by allowing them to marry. Barhebraeus emphasizes that before Barsauma entered the Persian realm, no one there had ever heard of the twonature teachings. Situating his opponent’s Christology in a concrete, and therefore also historically and geographically limited context, Barhebraeus manages to present his own theological positition not only as the earlier, and therefore as the orthodox one, but also as that of the oikoumenē. To what extent such a claim to global presence can still be open to “ecumenical” tolerance would have to be questioned. Moreover, Panicker clearly knows of and cites a passage from Barhebraeus’s later work, which demonstrates the significant, even radical shift in the maphrian’s attitude to Christological disputes and controversies. In his concluding pages, Panicker quotes a passage from the Book of the Dove, likely written after 1279, that has Barhebraeus confess that he had become

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“convinced that these quarrels of Christians among themselves are not a matter of facts but of words and denominations. For all of them confess our Lord to be wholly God and wholly man without mixture, without confusion or mutation of natures. This bilateral likeness is called by some nature, by others person, and by others hypostasis. So I saw all Christian people, notwithstanding these differences, possessing one unvarying equality. And I wholly eradicated the root of hatred from the depth of my heart and I absolutely forsook disputation with anyone concerning confession” (p. 208; modified).

Yet in his subsequent comments, Panicker draws no consequences from such a dismissal of the relevance of “disputation with anyone concerning confession.” Instead, he reverts to a characterization of Barhebraeus as confessing Cyrillian dogma (p. 208), in line with Severus of Antioch, representative of “the faith of the early undivided Church” (p. 209), for whom “[t]he Nestorian interpretation of union by will and love alone is not acceptable” (p. 209), and who “rejects the Duophysetic [sic] formulas” (p. 209). When Panicker explains that Barhebraeus knew

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that “Chalcedonians and Nestorians” did not “intend to affirm” what their formulas express and therefore saw no need to “call them heretics” (p. 209), he limits Barhebraeus’s overall position to that held in his On the Incarnation. Panicker fails to see here Barhebraeus’s change of mind prompted by a deepening of mystical insights into his religion through contacts with both Syrian mystical writers and Muslim philosophers like al-Ghazali and expressed in the Book of the Dove, a position, which indeed makes him a model of ecumenical dialogue “not yet fulfilled” (p. 210). The deeper reason for this oversight or neglect, which in the end affects Panicker’s ability to see true ecumenical potential and power in the theologian he is studying, is the limitation of not giving sufficient space and consideration to the intrinsic connectedness between theological formulations and their conditioning by historical developments, including developments and radical changes in an individual’s perception of his faith over time. Future studies of Barhebraeus’s Christology will benefit from being able to expand further on the handy building-blocks which Panicker’s systematic theological study of Barhebraeus’s earlier Christology contributes to the foundation.

Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, revised edition, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2004, Pp. xvi + 395. Paperback, $60.00 REVIEWED BY ROBERT A. KITCHEN, KNOX-METROPOLITAN UNITED CHURCH

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Many of us grew up with this book in its first incarnation, and are indebted to the way Fr. Robert Murray has shaped our thinking and constructed our categories about things Syriac. For many a topic in Syriac patristics, one needed to go back to Symbols of Church and Kingdom in order to see what Murray had thought. A lot has happened and changed in the 30 years since the Cambridge University Press first edition, and Murray takes pains to note the progress. The body of the text remains largely intact, while the introduction is where Murray’s and Syriac scholarship’s development is reflected. New bibliographical references since 1975 abound, being marked by #. This being the first book on Syriac patristics that I read in the mid-1970’s, I approached reading it again “as if for the first time.” That did not turn out to be such an easy task, for just as when one rereads a classic of world literature, like Don Quixote or Moby Dick, it is revealing and humbling to see how little you then knew and how little you remember. Murray amends the original paragraph of his “Introduction” by noting that Syriac scholarship has advanced greatly since 1974, yet there are still miles to go. The scope of the book remains the Syriac literature and historical developments prior to the fifth-century schism, focusing primarily upon the works and imagery of Aphrahat and Ephrem. Above all, the environment in which Murray does his investigations is the Biblical imagery and exposition of the Syriac tradition. Numerous scholars have essayed short introductions to the history, culture, and literature of the Syriac-speaking church, and Murray’s contribution retains its position as one of the most lucid, as well as most comprehensive. One area he recognizes needing revision is the problematic origins of Christianity in Syriac-speaking areas. Whether Edessa is “the main cradle of Christianity in the whole Syriac language area” remains the first question. Murray has rewritten this section, noting the subsequent contributions of Sebastian Brock, Hans Drijvers, J. B. Segal, and Michael Weitzman. 82

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In his first edition, Murray had adopted the hypothesis that Adiabene was the first cradle. However, the lack of any extant Christian Syriac other than Edessene, as well the force of Weitzman’s conclusions on the origins and the development of research on the Syriac Old Testament have led Murray back to Edessa. Adiabene was favoured in some circles because of the witness of the disputed Chronicle of Arbela. Summarizing the back and forth debate, especially J. Assfalg’s and J. M. Fiey’s rejections of its authenticity, Murray is generally convinced by P. Kawerau’s new edition and verification of the text. Murray recognizes significant adjustments must also be made with regards to the status of the Syriac Old Testament, now escorted into a new era by the Leiden Peshitta Institute. Turning away from the so-called “targumic” theories regarding the provenance of the Peshitta, Murray asserts the influence of Michael Weitzman’s work. Weitzman believes that Jews initially translated the Syriac Old Testament for Jews, in which the translation reflects a gradual moving away from cultic and ritualistic emphases to those grounded in prayer, faith and charity. This move perhaps opened the door towards Christianity. Weitzman believes that the argument for Edessa as the place of origin is stronger than for any other locale. Nevertheless, the possibility of a “double origin” is still there; but for the time being, Edessa is the place to start. The study of encratism and other forms of sexual asceticism has not remained static since the first edition. Murray amends slightly his perspective on the forerunners of Syriac asceticism: Bardaisan, Quq and Tatian. Likewise, his treatment of the bnay qyāmā (“sons of the covenant”) benefits from further research, including his own, into this important, but enigmatic ascetical institution. Murray turns to the previous debate regarding the liturgical elements surviving in Aphrahat’s seventh demonstration. Aphrahat’s baptismal ceremony is “a call to holy war,” leading to focus on the senses and functions of the Qyāmā and the īḥīdāyē (“solitary ones”). He finds support in the recently edited Cambridge Genizah targum fragment that interprets Joshua’s second circumcision in a similar fashion to Aphrahat. The early relationship between Judaism and the Church in the Syriac regions is rehearsed. Anti-Judaism polemics in Aphrahat and

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Ephrem derive from concerns about Christians reverting back to Judaism. This leads back to the place of the Bible, particularly the composition of the Syriac Bible, the Peshitta, and then the Diatessaron as the Bible of his primary authors. The increase in the study of Syriac liturgy likewise is such that Murray can do little more than summarize. Key to the discussion are the multivalent uses of the word rāzā (“mystery”), which is Murray’s title word, also rendered “symbols.” The important role of the various Christian schools is reviewed: first Nisibis, then Edessa, and finally back to Nisibis. The hierarchy and life of these schools, Murray observes, were not far removed from the structures and patterns of contemporary Jewish academies. The third section of the introduction, “The Literature and the Writers,” is limited to the works and authors Murray will treat in the main part of his book. Still, that gives the reader an excellent overview on the important literary works of the early classical period. Murray begins with a fuller perspective on the Odes of Solomon, informed now by the critical edition of M. Latke, the French translation of M.-J. Pierre, and numerous new studies on the Odes, their nature and their provenance. He is now willing to concede a bilingual (Syriac/Greek) origin in the Syro-Palestinian region, but is sticking by the conclusion that the Odes are not gnostic, and may be an early Christian wisdom collection. Murray has rewritten his introduction to Ephrem, adjusting and amending subtly his prior observations. In particular, he offers kudos to Sebastian Brock’s monograph, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Cistercian Publications: Kalamazoo, MI, 1985), for its contributions to Ephrem’s use of rāzā/symbols in his theological method, Ephrem’s “spiritual world vision.” Murray too has added a significant article—“The Theory of Symbolism in Saint Ephrem’s Theology,” Parole de l’Orient 6-7 (1975-76). Murray has not withdrawn his earlier praise of Ephrem as the greatest poet of the patristic age, even standing alongside Dante as a theologian-poet. Murray recognizes that some works, while not written by their ascribed author, nevertheless contribute important language and symbolism to his project. His focus is not upon an author, but the milieu and the period, i.e., the Mēmrē on the Blessing of the Table, and

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the anti-Marcionite Explanation of the Gospel. Other authors and works are noted—Cyrillona, Marutha of Maipherqat, the History of Nicaea, and the Liber Graduum (The Book of Steps). Murray’s comments on the latter text remain a seminal analysis of the importance, place, and spirit of the enigmatic text. The book is divided into three units: (1) the introduction to the Syriac Church and the literature focused upon in this study; (2) seven chapters describing in detail the recurrent symbolic and typological themes found in the Biblical interpretation and imagery of Aphrahat, Ephrem and other authors and texts; (3) a long concluding essay, “In Search of the Sources” (Part II), that traces the traditions and roots of the Syriac exegesis and imagery he has described. The second and third units are largely unchanged from the first edition, although Murray appends to each chapter and to Part II additional notes that are primarily supplemental bibliography. Murray treats each theme in a narrative style imitative of much of Syriac exegesis itself. He describes the theme, then weaves citations and discussions of the principal and other relevant authors throughout the chapter. The discussion is not linear as much as it is circular, going around and around, witnessing to the variety of ways the topic is approached. There is a dizzying amount of material to be absorbed, but one of Murray’s best tools is his set of three tables in the Appendices on “Testimonia that the Gentiles have Replaced the ‘Nation’,” “Christ the Stone or Rock,” and “Titles of Christ” (pp. 350-363). One almost takes for granted the graceful efficiency of Murray’s innumerable translations of Aphrahat, Ephrem, and so many others, rendering vividly the poetry of these types and symbols. Following is a summary of the central chapters surveying these wide ranging types and symbols. Chapter 1, “The Nation and the Nations,” follows the typological employment of the Church (the Nations) becoming the successor and replacement of Israel (the Nation) in salvation history. Aphrahat and Ephrem are the primary writers, with Isaac of Antioch contributing several important passages. Murray finds it regretful that Ephrem expresses open enmity towards the Jews, though Aphrahat still understands himself in dialogue with the synagogue.

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Chapter 2, “The Body of Christ,” switches to the symbolic appropriation of the human body of Jesus to express the development of the Church. Searching for a sense of a “corporate personality” uniting the Church, Murray is disappointed that Aphrahat and Ephrem never seem to perceive such a selfawareness. The paucity of discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church is of concern as well. The typology of Christ as the Second Adam is the most striking, found primarily in Ephrem’s Commentary on the Diatessaron. Chapter 3, “The Vineyard, the Grape and the Tree of Life.” Linking the symbolism of Christ as the Vine of John 15 with Isaiah’s vineyard imagery, early Syriac authors played heavily, yet ambivalently on words. Especially was this the case with the Diatessaronic choice of karmā, “vineyard,” that enabled our primary authors and Cyrillona to demonstrate both the rejection of Israel, as well as the continuity of the Church through Christ, the grape in the cluster. Chapter 4, “The Church, Bride and Mother,” draws together familiar themes at play throughout Biblical and patristic literature, that is, the Church as the Bride of Christ, the Bridegroom, and images extending from it. Feminine typology is very evident in Syriac literature, as witnessed in Ephrem’s depiction of Mary as the Second Eve, the fusing of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene as proclaimers of the resurrection, and the Church as Mother in Aphrahat and especially in the Liber Graduum. A personal typology is attached to the bishop as the spouse or bridegroom of the Church in the stead of Christ. Again, there are things that Murray does not see adequately represented in these symbols. Despite the emphasis upon feminine roles, a full understanding of marriage is not really there, though Murray allows for the reticence towards the institution in a church so invested in sexual asceticism. Chapter 5, “Titles Shared by Christ and other Apostles or Bishops.” Of the titles of Christ there is seemingly no end. Murray’s 10-page table lists over 130 titles and names, utilizing The Acts of Judas Thomas as the base for the list. Reiterating that his intention is to correlate the names and titles of Christ to the function of the Church, Murray places many other examples aside for another study. Befitting such a large field of examples, Murray offers the broadest and most in depth survey of the book. Ephrem,

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Aphrahat, Cyrillona, Marutha, the Macarian Homilies only begin the census. Searching for a cohesive Syriac ecclesiology amidst all the names is an elusive quest, for these are employed largely in devotional and liturgical modes, rather than theological. Moreover, Murray keeps pointing out that the multiplication of these names almost certainly owes its legacy to Babylonian, even Sumerian, traditions, as well as Jewish midrashic sources. Chapter 6, “The Rock and the House on the Rock.” As with the singularity of karmā in Chapter 3, here kēphā, “rock,” is the Syriac word that ties together the Church, Christ and the Apostles. Syriac authors did not limit themselves to Matthew 16:18 for symbolism, drawing upon a number of Peshitta Old Testament texts that utilized kēphā. Kēphā became a functional title for Peter in Aphrahat and Ephrem similar to the way certain passages emphasized the Hebrew roots of the name Jesus (Joshua) to mean “Saviour.” The House on the Rock (Matthew 7:24-25) is the other primary symbol/typology for Christ and the Church. Christ is the Architect, a title originally denoting God, now shared with Christ and the Apostles. Ephrem contrasts the Church with the Tower of Babel, eventually transforming the Church into the Tower that really leads to heaven. Chapter 7, “The ‘Pilgrim Church’ and Its Fulfilment.” The term “pilgrim church” is adopted by Murray from the Second Vatican Council to refer to the Church’s eschatological vocation, a theme comfortable to early Syriac Christianity. Indeed, concern over the Last Things consumes so much energy that seldom is the Church in this world and time mentioned. Murray spends significant energy on the 12th mēmrā of the Liber Graduum because of its unique depiction of the relationship between the visible, earthly church and the heavenly church. The 12th mēmrā is translated in full, the first translation into English of any part of the Liber Graduum until recently. A point of tension and conflict for the fourth- and fifthcentury Church lay in the individualistic asceticism of the Sons of the Covenant (bnay qyāmā) that rarely saw or expressed itself as active in the visible Church. The focus of these ascetics was upon reentering the eschatological paradise, rather than being involved in the concerns of the local church.

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The third section of the work, “In Search of the Sources,” is Murray’s most significant. After identifying and describing the symbols and types utilized in early Syriac literature, Murray labours here to excavate one level deeper to the literary sources behind the rāzē. Jewish midrashic and targumic traditions are noted first, while the contributions of the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Great Church are searched for antecedents and common perspectives. Frequently, Aphrahat and Ephrem witness to universally held ideas, though it is apparent that these were independently conceived. The opportunities for our Syriac writers to have directly borrowed from their western contemporaries are minimal, if not doubtful. Nevertheless, Murray is quick to observe the cases in which the Syriac writers took a different path along the way. The more problematic realms of Gnostic and nebulous Judeo-Christian perspectives, along with assorted apocryphal writings, are scoured for origins and allusions. Although the narrative of this book flows gracefully, this is not a quick read. Murray deals with complex layers of tradition and a variety of hermeneutics that tempt him—by his own admission— to lead the investigation from time to time a little far afield. His discussion of the images and exegesis of many authors needs to be digested slowly. Sometimes one has to neglect the larger picture in order to absorb the witness of a particular author or text. There are no pretensions to a definitive completeness. In his own words, Murray is “sitting lightly” for others to add more evidence and potentially reinterpret the many facets of this study. Gratitude is due to Gorgias Press for providing the opportunity to reissue and renew this work. Unfortunately, technical constraints prevented a thorough updating of the book, so despite the new material Murray has added to the text and bibliography, many readers will know of an additional article or book treating the topic at hand. Hopefully, eventually, someone will revisit these themes and provide us with a new “Murray.” That will be no mean accomplishment.

Stephen Desmond Ryan, O.P., Dionysius Bar Salibi’s Factual and Spiritual Commentary on Psalms 73-82. Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 57. Paris, J. Gabalda et Cie, 2004. Pp. xix + 251. ISBN 2-85021156-4. € 35.00. REVIEWED BY LUCAS VAN ROMPAY, DUKE UNIVERSITY

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Dionysius bar Salibi, one of the central figures in the Syriac cultural and literary “Renaissance” of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, has received much attention from Syriac scholars as well as from Syrian-Orthodox Christians who kept his name and legacy alive up to the present day. Many of Dionysius’ writings, however, are so vast and their transmission so complex that they have defied scholarly attempts to produce critical editions and studies. Dionysius’ biblical commentaries pose their specific problems. For several biblical books two or three different commentaries exist, while the underlying biblical texts have been identified as either Peshitta or Septuagint (or Syro-Hexapla). In the absence of scholars willing to devote their whole lifetime to studying and publishing the entire corpus of Dionysius’ commentaries, numerous limited studies of individual commentaries, or parts thereof, were undertaken throughout the twentieth century— mainly in academic theses and dissertations (which often remained unpublished)—thereby causing a fragmentation of the field. As for the textual tradition, a great number of manuscripts have been located and identified, through the efforts of Arthur Vööbus and, more recently, Gabriel Rabo. Unfortunately, many of the Middle Eastern manuscripts are not easily accessible or are available in the West only in unsatisfactory microfilm copies. At first sight, Stephen Ryan’s monograph, devoted to the interpretation of only ten psalms (Pss. 73-82), seems to add just one more publication to the fragmented field of the study of Dionysius’ biblical interpretation. This first impression, however, proves to be wrong. This study has much more to offer! Due to its broad and comprehensive approach, its thoroughness, and its rigid methodology, we are in fact dealing with an exemplary piece of work, which sets new standards for future research on Dionysius. The two introductory chapters (“The Life and Work of Dionysius Bar Salibi” and “Previous Studies on the Biblical Commentaries”) provide an excellent survey of existing scholarship, commenting on an impressive number of studies, 89

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many of which—as mentioned above—did not lead to official publications. Chapter Three addresses the distinction between “factual” and “spiritual” interpretation, terms that are often used to characterize the double or multiple commentaries that exist for each biblical book. While Dionysius himself uses the terms sucronoyo and ruḥonoyo, the distinction is not always very rigid and commentaries are regularly described—by him or by later scribes— as “factual and spiritual” (at the same time) or “mixed” (mfattko). While for some biblical books the factual commentary is longer than the spiritual one, for other books it is the non-factual commentary (i.e., “spiritual,” “mixed,” or “factual and spiritual”) that is longer. This raises the question of the interrelationship and the hierarchy between the two types. Ryan argues that the original layout of Dionysius’ commentaries was in synoptic columns, a layout preserved in two early manuscripts (Z = Mardin Orthodox 67, between the 12th and the 14th centuries, and R = Mardin Orthodox 66, probably 1189 AD). Parallels for this bipartite, or tripartite, layout may be found in Michael the Great’s Chronicle, in which the materials are organized in three columns, devoted, respectively, to ecclesiastical history, civil history, and mixed materials—see particularly Dorothea Weltecke, “Originality and Function of Formal Structures in the Chronicle of Michael the Great,” Hugoye 3/2 (July 2000), and Ead., Die «Beschreibung der Zeiten» von Mor Michael dem Grossen (1126-1199) (CSCO 594 / Subs. 110; Louvain, 2003), 163-178. Just as the ecclesiastical history in the case of Michael, Dionysius’ spiritual commentary, deemed of greater importance, was originally placed in the “superior,” i.e., right hand column. Basing themselves on, and partly misled by, some of Dionysius’ own comments, previous scholars often assumed that the factual commentaries were based mainly on the Peshitta, while the spiritual commentaries had the Septuagint, or the SyroHexapla, as their basis. Ryan shows this assumption to be wrong. The high concentration of Syro-Hexapla quotations in the mixed commentary of Pss. 1-26 is due entirely to the fact that this section, as indicated by Dionysius himself, was copied from the Psalm Commentary of Andrew of Jerusalem, supposedly of Greek origin. In other parts of his work, in both the factual and non-factual commentaries, Dionysius used the Peshitta primarily. The limited number of quotations close to the Greek (and often explicitly

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referred to as “Greek” or “Seventy”) must have been part of Dionysius’ borrowings from Greek sources. Most of them are unrelated to the Syro-Hexapla. This brings us to the question of Dionysius’ sources, which is discussed in Chapter Four. Dionysius himself explicitly mentions “the work of Andrew, the priest of Jerusalem,” which he used in his mixed commentary of Pss. 1-26, and “Athanasius and Daniel and Zurco the Nisibene,” authors used from Ps. 27 onwards. While a detailed analysis of all the data on Andrew and Zurco does not lead to an identification of these authors, we are on firmer grounds with Athanasius (of Alexandria) and Daniel (of Ṣalaḥ). Ryan argues that the long Syriac form of Athanasius’ Commentary on the Psalms was known to Dionysius, while contacts with the short version may also be detected (both versions were published by R.W. Thomson, in CSCO 386-387 / Syr. 167-168, 1977). As for Daniel of Ṣalaḥ, Dionysius’ commentary shows correspondences with the longer version of Daniel’s commentary (in the process of publication by David Taylor) as well as with an abbreviated edition of this work, often attributed to Daniel “of Tella,” and possibly posterior to Dionysius. In addition to Moshe bar Kifo, whose “Introduction to the Psalms” Dionysius himself may have incorporated into his own work, one other important source for Dionysius’ factual commentary—not acknowledged by him!—can be identified, namely the ninth-century East Syrian commentator Ishocdad of Merv (published by C. Van den Eynde in CSCO 433434 / Syr. 185-186, 1981). Dionysius’ dependence on Ishocdad had been established as early as 1902 by G. Diettrich (Išôcdâdh’s Stellung in der Auslegungsgeschichte des Alten Testaments) and is now further substantiated by Ryan. Chapter Five deals with the manuscript tradition. Nine manuscripts—five preserved in Western collections and four in the Middle East—were used for the edition. Nine more manuscripts, mostly of a recent date, were discarded or could not be accessed. As appears from the stemma, three Mardin manuscripts (all three from Deir ez Za‛faran) emerge as the primary witnesses: mss. Z and R (mentioned above) as well as ms. A (Mardin Orthodox 69); R and A go back to the same (lost) Vorlage (Y). The three manuscripts all seem to belong to the 12th-14th centuries. Ryan explains in great detail his editorial method, which aims at establishing an eclectic text, choosing “the best text for each

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reading, assigning the other readings to the apparatus” (p. 107). In this process, ms. P (= Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Syr. 66, AD 1354—an indirect descendant of R) serves as “a reference text.” The reason for not working from a clear base manuscript (in which only the obvious errors and omissions would have to be corrected) is that ms. Z, the obvious candidate, was available only in a defective microfilm (preserved in the Vööbus Collection at the Institute for Syriac Manuscript Studies, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago). Chapter Six is the most substantial part of the book, offering the critical edition, and translation of Pss. 73-82. The factual commentary is presented first (p. 110-143), followed by the mixed commentary (p. 144-211). The latter normally is longer than the former, while within the mixed commentary of Ps. 74 two successive explanations are presented. Parallels to the long and short versions of Athanasius, to Daniel of Ṣalaḥ, and to Ishocdad of Merv are indicated in the translation, while footnotes provide textual comments as well as further references to authors such as Evagrius Ponticus, Severus of Antioch, and Hippolytus of Rome. The juxtaposition of the two commentaries for each psalm clearly illustrates Dionysius’ different approaches in each of them. At the same time, we see Dionysius at work, incorporating earlier tradition and building upon it, in order to create his own synthesis. Apparently in an attempt to compensate for the analytical and dissecting approach of most of the book, in a brief concluding chapter (p. 212-223) Ryan sketches the broader contours of Dionysius’ Psalm exegesis, putting him in conversation with major interpreters of the Christian (Western) and Jewish tradition. Returning for a moment to the text edition, we should point out that the choice for Psalms 73-82 was dictated by the existence of an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation on Psalms 1-72, submitted by Marjorie Helen Simpkin at the University of Melbourne in 1974 and consulted by Ryan. It is to be hoped, of course, that such a major work as Dionysius bar Salibi’s Psalm Commentary, will soon be available in full, and not just in bits and pieces, in different states of accessibility. From this perspective, it is to be regretted that the present edition could not be based on the best manuscripts, thus inaugurating a homogeneous edition of the whole work. Isn’t it sad that Western scholars have to turn to poor and deteriorating

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microfilms, made several decades ago, rather than being able to consult the manuscripts themselves? These remarks by no means detract from the very fine quality of Ryan’s edition and annotated translation. A very few minor suggestions are offered here. • P. 40 (in the quotation from Dionysius’ introduction to the factual commentary on the Psalms): the translation “occasions” for celloto (“their factual sense and their occasions,” i.e., of the psalms) conceals the fact that we are dealing with a technical term, reflecting the Greek hypothesis. Perhaps “themes” or “subjects” would be a better translation. • The translation of metyadcono is problematic throughout the volume. The following translations are presented: p. 28, first paragraph: “mystical” (commentary); p. 144, line 7: “spiritual” (Israel); p. 158, line 7: “metaphorical” (“metaphorical darkness or iniquity of idolatry”); p. 170, line 4: “mystical” (Israel); p. 172, line 6: “suprasensual” (beings); p. 190, line 7: “mystical” (nourishment) [tursoyo metyadcono is explained a bit further: “angels are not fed or purified or illuminated by anything else other than knowledge and revelations and the observance of the divine will,” which indicates that an intellectual process is involved]; p. 198, line 4: “mystical” (peoples). In all these instances a translation would be required that does justice to the basic meaning of “understanding” (even if different levels of understanding are involved). “Intellectual” would have been an acceptable translation in most, if not all, of the above passages. • P. 122: the Greek and Hebrew quotations of Ps. 76:10 [LXX 75:11] would deserve some explanation. While for the Greek quotation Dionysius may have been inspired by Ishocdad, he did not take over Ishocdad’s actual reading (which agrees with the Syro-Hexapla). Dionysius’ rendering of the Greek heortasei as tecbed cido “it shall make a feast” (vs. ncadced in Syro-Hexapla and Ishocdad) may reflect a non-Syro-Hexaplaric or pre-Syro-Hexaplaric reading in one of Dionysius’ sources. • P. 174, line 10: if man is taken not as the interrogative pronoun, but as representing Greek men, there is no reason

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to regard the text as corrupt: “And there is no consoler, i.e., as for consolation, I did not find one in this world.” (Athanasius’ text, quoted on p. 175, note, seems to confirm this, as it has the opposition man—dên) • P. 208, line 6: wouldn’t the addition of men be required after da-glizin “deprived of the true Father”? In conclusion, Stephen Ryan is to be congratulated with the publication of this well-written, carefully presented, and almost impeccably printed monograph on a significant work by a major Syrian-Orthodox author. He has critically surveyed the whole field of research on Dionysius and laid the groundwork for important future contributions, by himself as well as by others.

Nabil Matar (ed. and tr.). In the Lands of the Christians, Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xlviii + 229. $23.95. REVIEWED BY LINDA WHEATLEY-IRVING, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

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In the Lands of the Christians, by Nabil Matar1 offers the first English translations of four seventeenth-century travel narratives originally written in Arabic. Of special importance to students of Middle Eastern history is the fact that these texts are about travel to the countries of Europe and South America, while readers of Hugoye will find particularly interesting the selection by Ilyas b. Hanna alMawsuli, a Chaldean Catholic priest (later, bishop) of Baghdad. In this review, I wish to focus first on Matar’s introductory essay, which views the travel writings of Ilyas b. Hanna and the other authors from the perspective of current academic historical and Middle East studies. Secondly, I wish to look at Ilyas b. Hanna’s narrative more closely, and suggest another possible way of contextualizing his travels.2 The collection opens with a substantial essay, introducing the travel narratives and explaining why the theme is of interest. At thirty-five pages and almost one hundred endnotes, it reads like the outline of a course that I would love to take. Matar specifically confronts a notion espoused most strongly by Bernard Lewis and in turn cited by many others, namely that Muslims of the Middle Ages were completely lacking in “curiosity” towards Europeans.3 The response of the late Edward Said, who suspected 1 Nabil Matar is Professor of English and department head of Humanities and Communication at the Florida Institute of Technology. His other works include Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (New York, 1999) and Islam in Britain: 1558-1685 (Cambridge, 1998). 2 The work of Ilyas b. Hanna al-Mawsuli has recently been given another translation; c.f. Caesar E. Farah, An Arab’s journey to colonial Spanish America: the travels of Elias al-Musili in the seventeenth century (New York, 2003). Unfortunately this study came to my attention too late to be incorporated into this review. 3 Matar, Lands, p. xiv, citing Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York, 1983), p. 299 [sic; probably p. 297 was intended]. A professor emeritus of Princeton University, Lewis is a prolific author of academic and popular works on Islam and the Middle East, and has been

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that Lewis’ book was written as a riposte to his own Orientalism published just a few years earlier, was to wonder how Lewis could feel that knowledge about Europe was “the only acceptable criterion for true knowledge.”4 Matar’s response is to fill in the silence from which Lewis and his followers argue. The theme of exploration and travel writing is already quite familiar to students of the early modern to modern history of the Middle East and elsewhere; however, Matar argues that his Arab authors can be distinguished from the bulk of contemporary, European-based travel writers: The travelers did not frame their encounter with the Europeans within the “particular myths, visions and fantasies” that characterize many (if not necessarily all) European texts. The Arabic travel accounts cannot therefore be approached through the theoretical models with which European accounts have been studied by writers as different as Stephen Greenblatt, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak. They belong to a tradition that is different not only in its history but in its epistemology: the travelers were not harbingers of an Islamic imperialism compelled to alterize and to present, in the words of Mary Louise Pratt, the “redundancy, discontinuity, and unreality” of the Christians. Rather, they wrote empirical accounts about Europe with the same precision that many of their coreligionists used to describe their journeys within the world of Islam, and in the case of the Christian travelers, within the world at large. Furthermore, and unlike the European travelers who used classical or biblical sources as their guides, the Arabs did not have previous models with which to compare or contrast Europe and America. They went with an open mind and a clean slate. And even when a traveler such as al-Ghassani went with anger and antipathy—repeatedly denouncing the nasara for having expelled his forefathers and coreligionists from Spain—he still admitted, on the first page of his account, that he had kept himself open to the wonders and innovations of the nasara. (p. xxxii, nn. 75-77.) a prominent advisor on Middle Eastern affairs to successive American federal administrations. 4 Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered,” p. 351, in Alexander Lyon Macfie (ed.), Orientalism: A Reader (New York, 2000), pp. 345-61. Originally published in F. Barker, P. Hulme, M. Iverson and D. Loxley (eds.), Literature, Politics and Theory (London, 1986), pp. 210-29.

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One might question the “open mind and clean slate” of Matar’s authors, since it is axiomatic in literary studies today that no author ever “starts from scratch.” However, it is impossible not to notice the difference in tone between the selection of travel narratives that Matar presents, and many of those discussed by Mary Louise Pratt, which were written in the mid-eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.5 But here, as Matar admits, the issue of timing is crucial: “The seventeenth century visitors belonged to an Islamic society that appeared as powerful and as wealthy as the society of Europe. Neither Muslim nor Christian was put on the cultural or historical defensive during his European journey.”6 Similarly, it would be anachronistic to suppose that the recollections of a Briton traveling or living in the Ottoman world in the seventeenth century would be characterized by the imperialism of the nineteenth century.7 In the seventeenth century, attitudes and boundaries had not hardened. Matar’s particular topic—Arab (or Muslim, or Ottoman subject; it almost does not matter) knowledge of Europe and Europeans—can easily be seen to be a response to a larger theme, represented in both academic and non-academic works, whereby the achievements of peoples of the Islamic world are held up to those of Europe’s, and found lacking. A very brief search in the library netted the next two examples of responses. Perhaps a more popular sub-theme is the purported decline of mediaeval Islamic science, especially astronomy. In a lengthy review of Toby E. Huff’s The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West (Cambridge University Press, 1993), the historian of science George Saliba notes how this decline (once argued to have been well under way in the early twelfth century) keeps having to be pushed later and later in time, as scholars start to read new manuscripts and process their findings.8 Closer to Matar’s own Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London and New York, 1992). 6 Matar, Lands, p. xxxv. 7 C.f. Daniel Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire, 1642-1660 (Seattle and London, 1998), pp. 3-12. 8 Saliba, “Seeking the origins of early modern science?” [review article]. Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1999):139-52. Also deflated is the often concurrently held notion that the decline in Arabic science is due to the oppressive force of Islam: the 5

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topic, Ahmad Dallal has written on Muslims’ “curiosity” and knowledge of Jews (particularly in Yemen), from the early modern period to the early nineteenth century.9 He notes that it is a commonplace even in relatively recent works for scholars to assert that Muslims had no positive interest in Jews and Jewish learning, thereby ignoring the large corpus of (predominantly Shi’ite Yemeni) jurisprudence and Muslim Torah scholarship.10 With so much archival material only now being made available to scholars, and so much more still under wraps, arguments that depend upon absence or paucity of evidence seem like a risky venture academically speaking, quite apart from any other goal the author may wish to advance. The manuscript sources for the travels of Priest Ilyas b. Hanna al-Mawsuli, written in Arabic, are very interesting in their own right.11 One in the “Syriac Bishopric in Aleppo” contains the travel narrative in the first hundred pages, followed by over two hundred pages of translations from European authors on the discovery of America, and a fifty-five page account of the visit of an Ottoman ambassador to France. This manuscript forms the basis of Antoine Rabbat’s 1906 edition, which has been recently reprinted. The other manuscript, British Library Oriental MS 3537, omits the ambassador’s visit. From the narrative we learn maddeningly little about Ilyas b. Hanna al-Mawsuli himself, a Chaldean Catholic priest whose travels took him away from Baghdad to live in Paris, Spain, and South America and Mexico for a period of fifteen years. The first seven years of his travels were spent in Europe, and this period is only covered briefly (pp. 51-6). While in France, he visited King Louis XIV and his brother the Duke of Orleans, remaining in Paris for eight months and acting as a translator into Turkish for correspondence between the king and Sultan Mehmed IV. He then visited Spain, and was granted permission to celebrate mass before reknowned astronomer Ibn al-Shatir (d. 1375) was a timekeeper at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and a number of his contemporaries and followers “were religious scholars in their own right” (pp. 147-8). 9 Ahmad Dallal, “On Muslim curiosity and the historiography of the Jews of Yemen.” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1999):77-112. 10 Ibid., pp. 88-90, nn. 65-79. 11 Matar, Lands, p. 48.

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the child King Carlos II and his mother the regent. When he was told to request anything he desired in return, he consulted with his friends and, rather against his better judgment, asked for “a permit and an irrevocable order to visit the West Indies.”12 He sailed from Cadiz on February 12, 1675. His goal was the city of Lima, Peru, whose minister was a man whom he had met in Spain. He remained there one year before receiving permission to go to “the mountains of silver.” Ilyas b. Hanna’s narrative of his travels in South America and Mexico (pp. 57-104) has a number of recurrent themes—the clerics, monasteries and churches he visited (where he often celebrated mass in Syriac for his fellow Catholics), observations about the Indians and how they were treated by the Spaniards, the number of times he fell seriously ill and was saved by the Virgin, and remarks about landscape, climate, and flora and fauna. But it is his travels through the mining regions of Peru and Bolivia that receives the most sustained treatment (pp. 67; 73-88). The bulk of this section is taken up by descriptions of visits to primarily silver, but also gold and mercury mines, processing centers and mints. He visited at least thirteen such operations, and made detailed observations of their location, size and especially their processing techniques. He even bought gold (p. 67) and some silver dust (p. 82). The narrative is rather quiet as to why Ilyas b. Hanna visited these places (at considerable trouble and cost to his health), and Matar does not hazard a guess. I can only note that the priest’s intense interest in mining overlapped with a period of crisis in the Ottoman coinage supply in the later seventeenth century.13 This crisis had its roots in the sixteenth century, when silver pouring into Europe from the South American mines entered the Ottoman lands as coinage, by the later part of the century in the form of the European groschen (Ottoman kuruş), forming an increasingly popular currency alongside the Ottoman silver akçe. Ultimately, the Ottoman state silver mines in the Balkans could not compete with this cheaper source, and the mines were virtually closed by the 12 Matar, Lands, p. 56. The West Indies, India, and Yenki Dunia (the New World) seem to be used almost interchangeably. The care taken by Spain to restrict access to her American colonies is well known. 13 C.f. Sevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge UK, 2000), Ch. 8-10, pp. 131-71.

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1640s. But the influx of silver was more than matched by outflows, and the seventeenth century (not unlike the later sixteenth century) was marked by a series of debasements in the akçe, accompanied by counterfeiting. This led to currency substitution and hoarding; sources for Ottoman coinage dried up to the point where, from the mid-1650s to the mid-1680s, the minting of new gold and silver coinage in Istanbul was primarily to provide for ceremonial usage. During the reign of Mehmed IV (1648-87), only seven mints at most produced the akçe and para. But the European currency that was substituted for Ottoman had a curious feature—in the mid-seventeenth century, it was mainly copper, with a silver wash. This currency was called luigini, and it reached its peak usage between 1656 and 1669. Minted by French, Italian and Dutch merchants, it was not legal in its places of origin, but was made under contract, specifically for the Ottoman market. Both observers of the era and many modern scholars have been scandalized by this debased coinage, but, as Pamuk notes, the Ottoman empire was at war with Venice over Crete, and “debased coinage was better than no coinage.”14 The story of Ottoman currency continues with the end of the war with Venice and the currency reforms beginning in 1669, the minting of copper coinage for a brief period starting in 1688, and finally the minting of the new kuruş starting in 1690. American silver production had been in decline since 1670, to a degree that made the Anatolian and Balkan mines viable again, and these were the sources for the new kuruş. The priest Ilyas b. Hanna’s travels in South America from 1676-1681 thus took place within a period of considerable economic turmoil revolving around silver. As to why he stayed in South America for six years, this seems to have been connected to some commercial expectations, partly unfulfilled because his friend the minister of Lima was dismissed during his stay. After several years the minister successfully refuted the charges against him, but was not reinstated. At this juncture, the priest left for Mexico, where he remained for a number of months before sailing for Spain. It seems that he continued in service to the Church of Rome, where he died and was buried in 1693.15 Ibid., p. 154. Matar, Lands, p. 106, citing I. IU. Krachkovskii, Tarikh al-adab aljughrafi al-‘Arabi (Cairo, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 701-6. 14 15

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In focusing on only one of Matar’s four travel narratives, I have omitted much of interest. Readers of the book will learn of religious debates held over the dinner table, a man struggling with his feelings for a beautiful young woman, a man on a diplomatic mission who is welcomed into the bosom of a French family, and much else. These are some of the intimate and often light-hearted moments in narratives that were assembled in response to a rather serious academic issue: that of Arabic speakers’ interest in, and knowledge of Europe and Europeans. Part of the importance of this issue lies in the ease in which it can be politicized. Both the larger issue and the individual seventeenth century authors have been well served by Professor Matar.

CONFERENCE REPORTS Christian Art and Identity in Medieval Syria. Qara, Dair Mar Yakub-The “Museum Fragments,” Damascus, May 20-22, 2004. ANDREA SCHMIDT, UNIVERSITÉ CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN

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An international conference on Syriac wall paintings was held from 20 to 22 May 2004 in Damascus. It was organized by Mat Immerzeel (Paul van Moorsel Centre for Christian Art and Culture in the Middle East, University of Leiden), Andrea Schmidt (University of Louvain) and Stephan Westphalen (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin-Damascus). The participants convened in the German Goethe-Institut in the Sharia Malki which is located in the same building as the German Archaeological Institute. The conference was supported by donations of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung (Germany), the German Archaeological Institute (Berlin), the Oriental Institute of the University of Louvain and the pioneer project on Syriac Christianity of the Leiden University. The main interest of the symposium was focused on the newly restored Syriac-Melkite monastery of Saint James (Dair Mar Yakub) near the village Qara in the Qalamun Mountains. Together with Saydnaya, Ma‛lula and Yabrud, this village, situated of approx. 95 km to the northeast of Damascus, is among the most ancient Christian centres in the Qalamun. Since 1999 the German Archaeological Institute in Damascus under the directorship of St. Westphalen was engaged in the restoration of the wall paintings dating from the 11th and 13th century which had been discovered in the church of the monastery. Twenty-two fragments of the church were already removed from the walls in 1970 and had been kept in the museums of Damascus and Dair ‛Atiye. Except for two fragments, which are part of the exhibition in the National Museum in Damascus, the fragments of Dair ‛Atiye have been now returned to Dair Mar Yakub which is inhabited by a newly founded convent of eight nuns. A. Schmidt cooperated with the restorers investigating the history of Qara from the 5th to the 20th century. The results of these research studies carried out between 1999 and 2004 were discussed in a broader assessment of Christian wall paintings in Southern Syria (Dair Mar Musa, Ma‛arrat Saydnaya), Lebanon (Qadisha Valley) and Egypt (Dair al-Surian). Another 103

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subject of the conference was the cultural identity of the Christian minorities in Syria and its cultural and sociological background. The conference thus brought together the practical skills of restorers with the distinguished analysis of art historians and experts in Byzantine, Syriac and Arabic studies. The conference was opened the evening before with a reception in the courtyard of the Netherlands Institute for Academic Studies in Damascus situated in the old town of the city near Bab Sharqi. Mat Immerzeel (Leiden) delivered a lecture about a very popular subject in medieval church decoration in Lebanon and Syria—that of the equestrian saint (Holy horsemen and templar’s banners.) He specially focused on the role of the crusader’s art in the contacts with indigenous christians. After him, Bas Snelders (Leiden) spoke about the origin and the unusual Asiatic style of a Syriac liturgical fan from the 13th century once belonging to the Syrian monastery in Wadi Natrun which is now preserved in the collection of the Musée Royal de Mariemont in Belgium (The flabellum from Dair al-Surian, a unique liturgical object from the 13th century). He discussed arguments in favour of Mongolian influence in the iconographic representation of the Mother of God with child. Next day the sessions were opened by the historical section of the symposium. Klaus-Peter Todt (Mainz) spoke about Greek Orthodox Christians in Southern Syriac in the period of the crusaders. He focused on the reestablishment of the authority of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch during the Byzantine reconquest of Southern Syria (969-1084) and the renewal of Melkite institutions during this period. The question of the use of liturgical languages in the patriarchate of Damascus—Greek or Syriac—was broached too. Dorothea Weltecke (Göttingen) explored the social conditions in medieval Syriac christianity (Living during the so-called Syrian Renaissance—observations and questions). She pointed out conflicts between rich and poor, church dignitaries and lay elite or aspects of cross confessional relations in a multi-religious society. On the other hand she stressed that the common perception of “Renaissance,” as it was defined by A. Baumstark and P. Kawerau, must be redefined on the basis of a more comprehensive research. Baas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden) discussed the complex terminology which is generally used to define the identity of Syriac christians and its sometimes inconsistent religious and ethnic implications

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(From religious association to ethnic community—Identity formation among the Syrian Orthodox). He illustrated his theoretical approach with examples from Syriac historiography (John of Ephesus, Jacob of Edessa, Michael the Syrian), Biblical exegesis (Jacob of Serug, collection of Simeon, Dionysius bar Salibi) and art. The afternoon session was focused on Syriac wall paintings. Mat Immerzeel read a paper on the Syrian wall paintings of Dair al-Surian. Erica Cruikshank Dodd (Victoria, BC) questioned in her paper the problem of what exactly the Syrian style is (The Syrian Style at Dair Mar Musa). She explained her concepts in analysing frescos from Dair Mar Musa near Nebek and from the Qadisha Valley in the hinterland of Byblos und Tripoli. Together with the Wadi Qadisha, the Qalamun area is among the territories in which a local style marked the paintings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries at most. On this occasion Andrea Schmidt (Louvain-la-Neuve) presented to the audience Dodd’s wonderful illustrated book which just came out from the printing press: Medieval Painting in the Lebanon (Sprachen und Kulturen des Christlichen Orients. 8), Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag 2004, X, 450 pp. Nada Hélou (Antelias) presented a sample of her collection of slides concerning the symbolic meaning of church decorations in Lebanon (Le décor des absides dans les églises du Liban). Then the third session of the day concentrated specifically on Qara. Aida Kaplan (Louvain-la-Neuve) who is working on a doctoral thesis about the nomenclature and development of Syriac writing systems, talked about the graphic character of a Syriac inscription which had been found on the southern wall of the church in Dair Mar Yakub; she placed it into the broader frame of palaeographic analysis (Le graffito syriaque de Qara: analyse paléographique). Stephan Westphalen and Andrea Schmidt (Göttingen—Louvain-la-Neuve) presented the results of their recent research in the monastery Mar Yakub (Historical evidences and wall paintings of Qara, Dair Mar Yakub). Originally known in antiquity as Goaria, Qara is mentioned as a Melkite Episcopal residence and Suffragan of the Metropolis of Damascus for the first time at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, where it is referred to as ‘Chonochora.’ Apart from that almost nothing is known about the bishopric in the first millennium. The most information—names of churches, bishops, scribes, and other persons in Qara—is furnished by colophons from the 12th century on in Melkite liturgical manuscripts from the Qalamun. We also know that Qara was

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exclusively inhabited by Melkite Christians until the middle of the thirteenth century. St. Westphalen reconstructed the original location of the wall paintings preserved in the Syrian museums and the murals found in situ in the church. He discussed the question of a local ‘Syrian Style’ in Qalamun comparing the paintings of Mar Musa (Syriac-orthodox monastery) with that in Mar Yakub (Syriacmelkite monastery); he came to the conclusion that the ‘Syrian Style’ in the 12th-13th century was not related to any specific confession. The medium of wall painting was not used to express theological differences. A complete catalogue of the murals in Dair Mar Yakub and the discovered Syriac and Greek inscriptions, as well as the history of the monastery are published in the forthcoming book: A. Schmidt—St. Westpahlen, Christliche Wandmalereien in Syrien. Qara und das Kloster Mar Yakub. Mit Beiträgen von S. Brock, M. Immerzeel und Ch. Strube, (Sprachen und Kulturen des Christlichen Orients. 13), Wiesbaden 2004 (in print). The paper of Mat Immerzeel (Leiden) related to the fragmentary Wall paintings in the chapel of the Prophet Eliah at Ma‛arrat Saydnaya which have been recently discovered and restored by him. His investigations are included in the above mentioned book. The excursion next day brought all participants to Qara (the mosque of the village, formerly the St. Nicholas church; Mar Sarkis church; monastery Mar Yakub); to the monastery Mar Musa near Nebek and to the chapel of Eliah in Macarrat Saydnaya in order to get acquainted with the specific conservation problems of the murals. The restorers explained the different methods of their work and emphasized the problems that last. In the evening there was a reception in the old damascene house of the Cultural Attaché of the German embassy which has a splendid view of the illuminated Umayyad mosque. Representatives of the Austrian, Belgian, Danish, Dutch and Swiss institutions and embassies in Damascus had been also invited. The third day of the conference was wholly dedicated to the practice of mural conservation. There was an interesting exchange of techniques and methods by the experts. Ewa Parandowska (Cairo-Warsaw) explored which kind of techniques had been used for restorations in Sudan and elsewhere (Roman and Christian wall paintings from Syria, Egypt and Sudan Conservation solutions). Wolfgang Frey from the society of protections of monuments (Berlin) presented a paper on the possibilities and problems of relocating

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removed frescos on the walls. He illustrated his speech by examples of removed and re-installed wall paintings of the 19th century in the “Neues Museum” in Berlin. The conference concluded with a round table discussion on further conservation work which has to be done in the church of Dair Mar Yakub. The participants engaged in a keen debate on the 22 fragments which had been removed in 1970 from the walls and which are now in a very crumbled state. How to restore them and where to preserve them? Does it make sense to relocate them in the church or should they be given to a museum? Present at the discussion were also the superior of Mar Musa, Father Paolo dall’Oglio, the abbess of Mar Yakub, Soeur Agnes de la Croix, and the doyen of the faculty of art of the university of Damascus, Elias Zayat. In the afternoon all participants were honoured by a cheerful reception by the Syriac Orthodox patriarch Mar Ignatius Zakka Iwas in his new residence in Macarrat Saydnaya. The director of the patriarchal library, Father Hazail Soumi (Paris-Damascus), gave us a vivid report about the history and composition of the Syriac manuscript collection in the patriarchate (Histoire du fond des manuscripts syriaques du patriarcat syriaque-orthodox à Damas). He is actually engaged in a systematic reorganisation of the manuscript collection and its cataloguing. Therefore the library with the manuscript collection was closed. But as a compensation he showed us digitized photos of some of the most interesting and beautiful manuscripts which attracted the attention of the scholars. At the end of the day H. Soumi gave the participants a tour of the new patriarchal library which has been well organised by him.

The Bible of Edessa, Towards a New English Translation of the Syriac Bible, Leiden, 2 August 2004 WIDO VAN PEURSEN, LEIDEN UNIVERSITY

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From 1 to 6 August 2004 the city of Leiden hosted the XVIIIth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT). Part of this congress was a seminar entitled ‘The Bible of Edessa: Towards a New English Translation of the Syriac Bible.’ The conveners of this seminar were Bas ter Haar Romeny and Wido van Peursen. The project to prepare a new English translation of the Peshitta was launched in the late nineties by the Peshitta Institute, Leiden. The first seminar devoted to theoretical, practical and editorial questions involved in this project was held in 1999 (see Hugoye 2/2 [1999].) The aim of the seminar at the IOSOT conference was to reconsider the editorial decisions that were the outcome of the first seminar and to reflect on the theoretical issues underlying the translation. The programme of the seminar consisted of two parts. The first part contained three papers on the textual basis of the English translation, linguistic aspects of the translation, and the way in which the reception history should be accounted for in the annotations. The second part contained two papers by people who had already made much progress in their translation and could tell from experience what problems are encountered. This was followed by a general discussion, based on the article ‘The New English Annotated Translation of the Syriac Bible (NEATSB): Retrospect and Prospect’ by K.D. Jenner et al., which appeared in Aramaic Studies 2/1 (2004) 85-106. Bas ter Haar Romeny presented the first lecture of the seminar. He discussed the textual basis of the English translation. In 1999 it had been decided that the BTR text of the Leiden Peshitta edition would be the basis of the translation, ‘though only in the perspective of a well-founded text-critical and text-historical evaluation.’ At first sight this decision was an unequivocal choice to take the main text of the edition as the source of the English translation, but the added remark about the text-critical evaluation left open the possibility that variants containing text-critically preferable readings could end up in the main text, with the BTR readings given in an apparatus. Ter Haar Romeny argued for the latter option. The most important reasons in his argument were the 108

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fact that the Leiden edition is not a critical edition (its initiator P.A.H. de Boer emphasised over and again that the main text should only be consulted together with the critical apparatus) and the observation that the editors of the Peshitta volumes display different policies regarding variant readings to be included in the main text. The second lecture, by Wido van Peursen, dealt with the linguistic issues of NEATSB. From the very start of the NEATSB project, those involved in it believed that linguistics should play a prominent role in the project. The main reason was the peculiar situation that NEATSB is a translation-of-a-translation, in which Syriac is both target language (of the Peshitta) and source language (of the English translation). Van Peursen’s paper illustrated how linguistic considerations can contribute to the preparation of the translation, taking as an example linguistic and text-critical issues in the field of clause combination. The third lecture, by David Taylor, focused on the commentary on the book of Psalms by Daniel of Ṣalaḥ. In the 1999 seminar it had been decided that ‘significant information about the reception history’ should be included in the annotations. Taylor discussed the information that the commentary by Daniel of Ṣalaḥ on the Psalms, the earliest Syriac commentary on this book (from 542 CE), can provide for establishing dated readings and developmental stages of the Peshitta text, and the information it gives about early Syriac interpretation. David Shepherd presented the first paper in the second part of the seminar. In his translation of the Peshitta of Job he found a clear tendency to diverge from the word order found in the Hebrew text. In Job 2:5, for example, the Hebrew ‘bone and flesh’ has been translated in the Peshitta with ‘flesh and bone.’ This reversal of the word order occurs in other places as well and may be due to the fact that the translators were familiar with the expression ‘flesh and bone’ in the New Testament (Luke 24:39). Gill Greenberg, the NEATSB translator of Jeremiah, gave the second paper in this part of the seminar. The Massoretic Text of Jeremiah uses a number of words related to ‘evil’ and ‘wrongdoing.’ The Peshitta employs another set of words for this semantic field. However, the correspondences between the Hebrew and the Syriac are very diverse and, it seems, inconsistent. This raises the question of what the English translator should do: should he or she feel free

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to render them with those English words for ‘wrongdoing’ that are most appropriate to the context, or be more consistent in the translation of the Syriac words. Two other lectures during the IOSOT conference, although not scheduled in the NEATSB seminar, were devoted to the Peshitta as well. One was by Craig Morrison, who translates Samuel in the NEATSB project, and the other by Herry van Rooy, the NEATSB translator of Ezekiel. Morrison discussed the relationship of the Peshitta of 2 Samuel with 1 Chronicles. There are some indications that the translator or a later copyist of the Peshitta of 2 Samuel borrowed from either the Hebrew or Syriac text of 1 Chronicles. Because of the overall independent character of the Syriac translations of 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, even in those cases where the Hebrew text is difficult, Morrison argued that the borrowing occurred not at the time of translation but during the transmission. Herry van Rooy discussed the Peshitta of Ezekiel 1. His paper addressed three issues: inner-Syriac variation, the relation between the Peshitta and the Massoretic Text, and the relation between the Peshitta and the Septuagint. The Peshitta follows the Hebrew text rather closely and can be characterised as a ‘relatively verbatim translation,’ even in those cases where the Septuagint shows divergent readings.

PROJECT REPORTS Digitization of Syriac Books and Other Holdings at The Catholic University of America MONICA J. BLANCHARD, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

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This past year The Catholic University of America Libraries, in cooperation with Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, and Brigham Young University’s Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts (ISPART), digitized some of the Syriac materials (books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other documents) at CUA. This was part of Beth Mardutho’s larger venture to establish an Internet digital library of e-books for Syriac studies: eBeth Arké: the Syriac Digital Library. It also was part of a related venture for a Web-based Eastern Christian Reference Library by Brigham Young University. Between March and August 2004 the CUA team scanned 669 Syriac materials, for a total of 85,389 images, including 53,745 tiff images in black & white, greyscale, and color, as well as 31,644 color jpeg images. Scanned materials include 17th-early 20th century liturgical, theological, historical, and hagiographical works, as well as grammars and dictionaries. The groundwork for the CUA Syriac digital project began in June 20, 2001 when representatives of CUA, BYU, and Beth Mardutho met to discuss digital library initiatives. I was asked to serve as the local CUA project manager. There were two initial stumbling blocks. The university’s Syriac collections are extensive, but they are largely uncataloged and not easily accessible. Also, Mullen Library, which houses the Syriac collections, was scheduled for a major building renovation. Project office space was not available. The first task of the CUA Syriac Digital Project was to make a bibliographic survey of the Syriac collections. Fr. Matthew Streett, a doctoral candidate in Biblical Studies at CUA, was appointed Project Bibliographer. He compiled a 400 page online bibliography of Syriac materials in the Semitics/ICOR library (035 Mullen), the main repository for CUA’s Syriac holdings. This bibliography became an important selection tool and finding aid. 111

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In January 2004 space suddenly became available in Mullen Library. Beth Mardutho and BYU rearranged their scanning priorities to take advantage of a five month window of opportunity (March-August, 2004) for the Syriac Digital Project. The first Beth Mardutho imaging workstation began operation at CUA on March 6, followed on March 22 by the BYU imaging workstation, and on April 24 by a second Beth Mardutho imaging workstation. The Project shut down on August 15, when renovation work resumed in the building. Beth Mardutho and BYU provided the equipment, the initial training, and the funds for staff hired at CUA. CUA provided local project management, office space, and the Syriac resources. A staff of 15 technicians was assembled from the CUA Libraries, the School of Library and Information Science, and from graduate academic departments and programs with an interest in Syriac (Semitics, Early Christian Studies, Biblical Studies, Medieval and Byzantine Studies. Volunteers from the Syriac Church communities also helped. Technicians with Syriac and Arabic language skills entered metadata information in Arabic and Syriac into the Beth Mardutho metadata database; they also dealt with pagination and bibliographic issues in these languages. Technicians with library skills worked with fragile and valuable materials requiring special handling. All the student technicians had good computer skills and an eye for detail—these proved to be the most important job assets. Two of the technicians, Jonathan Loopstra (for Beth Mardutho) and Diana Jill Kirby (for BYU), served as quality assurance heads. Both had previous quality assurance experience. The CUA team established work flow patterns and scanning procedures for the project. The team also prepared basic operations manuals which may be helpful for other institutions participating in eBeth Arké.

BYU-CUA Eastern Christian Research Library KRISTIAN S. HEAL, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

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A great number of essential Syriac texts are not readily available to scholars, even in some of the world’s great research libraries. In order to remedy this situation, Brigham Young University has joined with The Catholic University of America to undertake a joint project to produce an on-line research collection for Syriac studies. What follows is a report of the work carried out so far. For further details please consult the project website (http://cpart.byu.edu/ECRL).

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT [2]

This project aims to build an Eastern Christian Research Library (the Library) of key editions and instruments de travail published before 1930. The Library is primarily intended to be a resource for scholars engaged in textual and manuscript research in the major Eastern Christian languages. The Syriac section of the Library will be populated first, under the editorship of Dr. David Taylor.1 Because of its focus, the Syriac section will include only a fraction of the literature published on Syriac studies before 1930. The Library is therefore intended to complement and support Beth Mardutho’s more comprehensive eBethArké project (http://www. bethmardutho.org/ebetharke).2

SYRIAC SECTION-PHASE 1 [3]

Dr. Taylor has set the basic parameters of the Syriac section and drawn up a preliminary bibliography of volumes for inclusion (see project website). Renovations to CUA’s Mullen Library created an opportunity in the summer of 2004 to begin populating the library with rare and important works. The richness of the Syriac holdings at CUA cannot be overestimated, nor can the kindness and The Coptic section, under the editorship of Dr. Janet Timbie, is in its early stages. Pending available resources, it is hoped that the Library we expand to include Armenian, Christian Arabic, Ethiopic, and Georgian sections. 2 BYU and CUA are library partners of eBethArké and are actively supporting this important initiative. 1

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competence of the collection’s distinguished librarian, Dr. Monica Blanchard. Under her direction, and with the help of competent student workers, 157 individual titles were scanned over a relatively brief period. Images at CUA were captured on a Zeutschel Omniscan 10000 TT color book scanner tethered to a Windows PC, with a second PC used for proofing and data backup, which was done on DVD. The Zeutschel imaging system is the best of its kind, capable of producing very high resolution scans with high color accuracy, yet with a minimum of stress to the book or manuscript. Images were captured at 600dpi, resulting in (e.g.) a 70 megapixel image for a two-page capture of a 9”x11” book. The next stage is to make the images accessible. Images are being cropped, rotated, and resized in post-processing and prepared for delivery as one of BYU library’s online collections. The collection will be freely accessible to all. The books will be mounted on the web and made accessible through the ContentDM image delivery system. The unprocessed and processed images will also be archived by the library for future usage. The first phase of the Syriac collection will be made available over the course of the next year. Preference will be given to high demand items. The state of the collection will be recorded on the project website and announced periodically via the Hugoye mailing list. We hope this will be a useful resource and benefit scholars working in the field.

Vatican Syriac Manuscripts, Volume 1 KRISTIAN S. HEAL, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

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This report marks the publication on DVD-ROM of a collection of thirty-three electronic facsimiles of Syriac manuscripts from the Vatican Library. Further details, including how to order the DVDROM are available at the project’s website (http://cpart.byu.edu/Vatican).1

BACKGROUND [2]

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This project is focused on the Syriac manuscripts of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, a collection that extends to over 850 manuscripts, including the collection of 181 formerly at the Borgian Museum.2 The collection began to grow significantly in the early 18th century. Pope Clement XI encouraged a number of successful missions to Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East to acquire manuscripts. Through the efforts of Elias Assemani, his cousin J. S. Assemani, and Gabriel Eva, some of the most significant of all surviving Syriac manuscripts were acquired in this period. In 1999 Mar Bawai Soro, a bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East, began discussions with the Vatican Library to make their Syriac collections more accessible both to scholars as well as to the communities who produced these texts. Mar Bawai approached Brigham Young University to be a partner in the project, a proposal that was eagerly received. The idea of a pilot project was formulated by the parties and a contract between BYU and the Vatican Library was signed in early 2000. The manuscript photography was undertaken in two phases, one in June 2000 and another in April 2002.

An interim report for this project was published in “The Digitizing of Selected Syriac MSS in the Vatican Apostolic Library,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies vol. 3, no. 3 (2000). The project began under the direction of Dr. E. Jan Wilson. 2 For further bibliography on the Vatican Library’s Syriac collection see, A. Desreumaux and F. Briquel-Chantonnet, Répertoire des Bibliothèques et des Catalogues de Manuscrits Syriaques (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1991). 1

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REPORT [4]

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The project was formulated with the kind assistance of academics working in the field of Syriac studies and was carried out with direction from a small advisory group (Professor Sidney Griffith, Professor Samir Khalil and Mar Bawai Soro (Assyrian Church of the East)). Dr. Sebastian Brock made an initial assessment of the collection, which resulted in a list of especially significant manuscripts (Appendix 1 below). From this list, Mar Bawai Soro selected 28 for a pilot project, which was later supplemented by 5 additional manuscripts. The project proposal was originally modeled on BYU’s Dead Sea Scrolls database. This database gives precedence to a searchable transcription of the scrolls and includes both the images and corresponding translations in the final product. Plans were therefore made to transcribe the manuscripts, and two teams were put in place, one for manuscripts written in the East Syriac script and one for manuscripts written in the Estrangelo and Serto scripts. This proved to be a not altogether appropriate model and a new approach was formulated as will be discussed below. The photography was undertaken in two stages. In both stages we were able to set up a controlled studio environment, including camera stands, full lighting sets and back-up systems. The first stage of photography (June 2000) was undertaken using a Kodak MegaPlus camera with an array of 2x3k, producing 6 megapixal images. These grey-scale images were stored immediately after capture on Mitsui Gold CDs. The archival copies are in TIFF format and are approximately 6 megabytes each. A second set of these CDs was made on returning to BYU. In the second stage of photography (April 2002) we used a Canon EOS 1D, which captured full color 4 megapixal images. These images were also archived in uncompressed TIFF format, with each image being approximately 25 megabytes in size. In the two stages of photography we captured a total of 14,700 images, which occupy 196 CD-ROMS, with a total archival data size of 117,600 megabytes. One manuscript alone, Vatican Syriac 117, required 50 CD-ROMS to produce the archival copy. Further to the conventional photography we also undertook a series of tests using Multi-Spectral Imaging on Vatican Syriac 110, 114, 117, 147, 252, and 586. Thus far these tests have produced no beneficial results, though further analysis of the data is underway.

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All digital photographs require processing. Furthermore, the uncompressed images were prohibitively large to view easily, so some compression was necessary. We opted for JPEG compression at a rate of 50%. We considered this to be optimal, since it produced a significantly smaller image with very little degradation of image quality. An initial stage of processing was necessary prior to compressing the images. In most cases the manuscripts were captured in a double page opening. We therefore cropped all of the images down to a single page and ran each image through a series of adjustments in Adobe Photoshop; a process that was successfully automated. The images were then brought into the Adobe PDF format for presentation. Further image manipulation is possible, though we did not consider the necessary expenditure of time to be prudent. Scholars who wish to undertake more sophisticated manipulation of particular manuscripts can request copies of the uncompressed images. After a number of meetings with digital projects specialists at the BYU library, it was determined that the Adobe PDF format would be the best format to deliver the images. Though initial plans had pointed towards the use of BYU’s own WordCruncher program as the best finished format, it quickly became clear that such an approach was impractical. A number of other image-only solutions were considered, but each of these proved less desirable than Adobe PDF. The advantages of the PDF format are numerous. In particular, because Adobe PDF was designed to view continuous documents and books, it reproduces an environment that is familiar to readers. One can navigate easily between pages, magnify the images, and arrange the screen in such a way that the images may be viewed simultaneously with other programs. It is also becoming a standard document format in both a business and academic context, with many libraries delivering documents in this format. Also, the Adobe Reader is freely available and constantly being improved by the developer. In order to make a number of PDF files available on the same DVD, we designed and developed a simple interface which runs immediately on inserting the disc. This interface includes an overview of the project and a table of contents. The table of contents contains links to thirty-three PDF files. Each of these files contains an electronic facsimile of a single Vatican manuscript. The

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PDF files are identified by the manuscript number and a brief description. When the file opens, the first thing shown is an index to the manuscripts prepared on the basis of the existing catalogs. To these basic entries we have added references to editions and standard reference works that have been published subsequent to the original catalog entry. Each entry in the index also serves as a hyperlink. Clicking on an entry immediately takes one to the place in the manuscript to which that index entry refers. Also, for ease of reference we have included the original catalog entry immediately after our index.

GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF THE PROJECT [13]

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This project has been undertaken over a four year period. During that time the objectives of the project have shifted and settled. The initial project description was modeled on our successful Dead Sea Scrolls project and focused on the utility of searchable transcribed texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls database contains about 1300 images, many of which contain only fragmentary texts. This project involves a corpus ten times that size. In addition to the difference in size and concomitant feasibility of such a project, there was the question of desirability and optimal presentation. It soon became clear from consultation with other scholars that the most needed result from this project was a usable set of images from the manuscripts. In other words, scholars wanted electronic facsimiles. There is of course a great desire for a database of searchable texts, but such a project needs to be organized along the lines of a discrete corpus of a single author, and based on critical editions rather than on an eclectic collection of manuscripts. We have therefore reconfigured the project to actively meet the needs of the field, and intend to re-purpose the extensive transcription work that we have undertaken. Not only have our objectives been clarified, but we have also seen the technological landscape entirely shift. When we began this project, we used specialist industrial grey-scale digital cameras. In the intervening years, this equipment has been thoroughly superceded. The second stage of photography used the best available professional color digital SLR. This camera has also been superceded several times over. Though technology will of course continue to improve, we think we have now reached the stage where the available technology will produce images of an optimal

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quality. It is also clear that we will only want to take color images in future projects and that it may be desirable for some of the manuscripts to be re-imaged in color. Nevertheless, with respect to the necessary technology this is a highly propitious time to continue this important project.

APPENDIX 1 Significant Syriac Manuscripts in the Vatican Library Prepared by Sebastian Brock Items in italic are included in Volume 1. Biblical manuscripts 1. Vat. Syr. 1: Pentateuch, 928/9 A.D. 2. Vat. Syr. 12: Gospels, 548 3. Vat. Syr. 13: Gospels, 736 4. Vat. Syr. 14: Gospels, 956 5. Vat. Syr. 16: New Testament, 13th Cent. 6. Vat. Syr. 18: John, Harklean, + Gospel lectionary, 1481 7. Vat. Syr. 19: Christian Palestinian Aramaic Gospel lectionary, 1030 8. Vat. Syr. 20: Melkite Gospel lectionary, 1215 9. Vat. Syr. 21: Melkite Lectionary for Acts and Epistles, 1162 10. Vat. Syr. 22: Lectionary for Epistles (written in India), 1301 11. Vat. Syr. 23: Syriac-Arabic Lectionary for Epistles, 12th century 12. Vat. Syr. 24: OT lectionary, 13th century 13. Vat. Syr. 152: OT, Masora, 979/80 14. Vat. Syr. 266: NT, 7th cent. 15. Vat. Syr. 267: Harklean Gospels, 8th cent. 16. Vat. Syr. 268: Harklean Gospels, 859 17. Vat. Syr. 273: Gospels, 7th cent. 18. Vat. Syr. 274: Gospels, 10th cent. 19. Vat. Syr. 275: Acts, Epistles, 1192 20. Vat. Syr. 278: Melkite lectionary, 9th cent. 21. Vat. Syr. 279: Melkite Gospel lectionary, 1141 22. Vat. Syr. 470: NT, 12th cent. 23. Vat. Syr. 471: NT, 1224 24. Vat. Syr. 510: NT, 11th cent. 25. Vat. Syr. 525: Gospel lectionary, 7th cent.

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26. Vat. Syr. 532: Acts, Epistles, 13th cent. 27. Vat. Syr. 556: Gospel lectionary, 13th cent. 28. Vat. Syr. 559: Gospel lectionary, 1220 with illuminations 29. Vat. Syr. 622: Gospels written in gold letters, 1298 30. Barbarini or. 2: Pentaglot psalter, 14th cent. 31. Barbarini or. 3: Gospel lectionary, 13th cent. 32. Borgia Syr. 14f-k: Gospel lectionary, 1254, with illuminations 33. Borgia Syr. 169: Gospel lectionary, 16th cent. With illuminations 34. Borgia Syr. 117: Masora NT, 1014 Literary Texts * indicates manuscript contains unpublished material. 35. Vat. Syr. 37: *Lives of Saints 36. Vat. Syr. 93: *John of Apamea, 9th cent. 37. Vat. Syr. 100: *John of Dara, 19th cent. 38. Vat. Syr. 103: (*)Catena Severi 39. Vat. Syr. 104: Athanasius, 564 (*Timothy Alex.) 40. Vat. Syr. 105: Gregory of Nazianzus, Iambics, 7th cent. 41. Vat. Syr. 106: *Gregory of Nyssa, 8th cent. 42. Vat. Syr. 107: *John Chrysostom, hom. on John, 8th cent. 43. Vat. Syr. 108: Peter of Callinicum, 8th cent. 44. Vat. Syr. 109: *Abba Isaiah etc. 692 45. Vat. Syr. 110: Ephrem, Comm. Genesis, 523 46. Vat. Syr. 111: Ephrem, Hymns on Church etc. 522 47. Vat. Syr. 112: Ephrem, Hymns on Paradise, 551 48. Vat. Syr. 113: Ephrem, Hymns on Faith, 552 49. Vat. Syr. 114: *Jacob of Serugh, verse homilies, 523 50. Vat. Syr. 115: *Jacob of Serugh, verse homilies, 7th cent. 51. Vat. Syr. 116: (*)Jacob of Serugh, verse homilies, 857 52. Vat. Syr. 117: *Jacob of Serugh, verse homilies, 12th/13th cent. 53. Vat. Syr. 118: *Jacob of Serugh, verse homilies, pre-12th cent. 54. Vat. Syr. 119: *Isaac of Antioch, verse homilies, 1210 55. Vat. Syr. 120: *Isaac of Antioch, verse homilies, 6th cent. 56. Vat. Syr. 121: *Mark the Hermit 57. Vat. Syr. 122: *Mark the Hermit, Basil, 769 58. Vat. Syr. 123: *Gregory of Cyprus etc. 8th cent. 59. Vat. Syr. 124: Isaac of Nineveh, 14th cent. 60. Vat. Syr. 125: Isaac of Nineveh 61. Vat. Syr. 126: Paradise of the Fathers, 1223 62. Vat. Syr. 127: Canons of Councils

Project reports 63. Vat. Syr. 135: *Philoxenos etc. 7th/8th cent. 64. Vat. Syr. 136: (*)Philoxenos 6th cent. 65. Vat. Syr. 137: Philoxenos, 564 66. Vat. Syr. 138: Philoxenos, 581 67. Vat. Syr. 139: Severus, Philalethes etc, 8th cent. 68. Vat. Syr. 140: Severus, against Julian, 528 69. Vat. Syr. 141: Severus, Cathedral homilies (tr. Jacob of Edessa) 70. Vat. Syr. 142: *Severus, Cathedral homilies (tr. Paul), 576 71. Vat. Syr. 143: *Severus, Cathedral homilies (tr. Paul), 563 72. Vat. Syr. 144: John, Arbiter etc. 73. Vat. Syr. 145: Elias, *Socrates Eccl. Hist., Zecharias Rhetor Eccl. Hist. 9th/10th cent. 74. Vat. Syr. 146: (*)John Maro, Liber Fidei, 1392 75. Vat. Syr. 147: *Moshe bar Kepha etc. 1234 76. Vat. Syr. 148: Ps. George of Arbela, Liturgical commentary, 1267 77. Vat. Syr. 151: (*)Timothy II, On Sacraments, 1613 78. Vat. Syr. 152: *Jacob of Edessa, on biblical names, 980 79. Vat. Syr. 154: *George, Com. Matthew, 10th cent. 80. Vat. Syr. 157: Isho’yahb III, Letters, 10th cent. 81. Vat. Syr. 160: Life of Symeon the Stylite, *Acts of Persian martyrs, 474, 10th cent. 82. Vat. Syr. 161: *Acts of Persian martyrs 83. Vat. Syr. 162: Ps. Dionysius of Telmahre, Chronicle, 932 84. Vat. Syr. 163: Chronicle of Edessa 85. Vat. Syr. 165: Thomas of Marga, Monastic history, 1663 86. Vat. Syr. 189: *John of Dalyatha, 11th cent. 87. Vat. Syr. 191: *Ibn Sina, Syriac tr. 88. Vat. Syr. 192: *Medical 89. Vat. Syr. 194: *Grammatical works, 1246 90. Vat. Syr. 251: *Jacob of Serugh, homilies, 7th cent. 91. Vat. Syr. 252: Jacob of Serugh, homilies 92. Vat. Syr. 253: *Homiliary, 8th cent. 93. Vat. Syr. 254: *Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, pre-932 94. Vat. Syr. 255: Severus, pre-932 95. Vat. Syr. 256: *Severus, Cathedral homilies, 6th cent. 96. Vat. Syr. 283: *Comm. Matthew and John, 860 97. Vat. Syr. 284: *Comm. Epistles, 9th cent. 98. Vat. Syr. 367: Isaac of Nineveh, 8th cent. 99. Vat. Syr. 368: *Homiliary, 8th cent.

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100. Vat. Syr. 369: *Homiliary, 7th cent. 101. Vat. Syr. 464: Ephrem, Isaac, Jacob of Serugh, 1234 102. Vat. Syr. 467: *Life of Hoseph Busnaya, 1186 103. Vat. Syr. 506: *Athanasius Abu Ghalib, 1927 (from an old MS) 104. Vat. Syr. 509: *Monastic texts, 1928 (from an old MS) 105. Vat. Syr. 560: Canon law, 8th cent. 106. Vat. Syr. 581: *John of Dara, 1917 (from an old MS) 107. Vat. Syr. 586: *Questions and answers on Aristotle, Categories, 13th cent. 108. Vat. Syr. 623: *Melkite Monastic texts, 886 109. Vat. Syr. 627: *Fragment of Homiliary, 9th/10th cent. 110. Vat. Syr. 628: *Fragment (1f) of Lifeof Abraham Qidunaya, 7th cent. 111. Vat. Syr. 629: *Gregory of Cyprus, 12th cent. Liturgical texts

112. Vat. Syr. 42: East Syriac Euchologion, 1202 113. Vat. Syr. 51: West Syriac Pontifical of Michael the Patriarch, 12th cent. 114. Vat. Syr. 53: Melkite Euchologion

115. Vat. Syr. 59: West Syriac funeral services, 1266 116. Vat. Syr. 60: West Syriac funeral services, 13th cent. 117. Vat. Syr. 61: East Syriac funeral services, 13th cent.

118. Vat. Syr. 68: West Syriac Beth Gazza, 1465

119. Vat. Syr. 78-82: Melkite Menaia, 12th/13th cent.

120. Vat. Syr. 83: East Syriac Hudra, 1537/9 121. Vat. Syr. 92: Funeral services, 823 122. Vat. Syr. 95: Seblatha, 13th cent. 123. Vat. Syr. 539: Husoye, 10th/11th cent.

124. Borgia Syr. 13: Melkite Euchologion, 12th cent. 125. Borgia Syr. 60: East Syriac Beth Gazza

126. Borgia Syr. 133 II: Seblatha, 13th cent. 127. Borgia Syr. 159: West Syriac anaphoras, 1295 128. Vat. Syr. 527: Canticles, 6th cent. (2 folios)

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 8, 125-149 © 2005 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

REVISITING THE DAUGHTERS OF THE COVENANT WOMEN’S CHOIRS AND SACRED SONG IN ANCIENT SYRIAC CHRISTIANITY SUSAN ASHBROOK HARVEY BROWN UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT1 The Daughters of the Covenant held a distinctive office in Syriac Christianity, notable (and possibly unique) for its public ministry of sacred music performed for liturgical purposes in civic churches. Syriac tradition ascribed the establishment of these choirs of consecrated virgins to Ephrem Syrus. Jacob of Serug’s Homily on St. Ephrem presents these choirs as modeling soteriological as well as eschatological significance for the larger church community. This paper examines the context and content of what these choirs sang, in order to assess what authority this ministry carried for the ancient Syriac churches, and to suggest possible social implications.

1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Syriac Symposium IV, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey, July 2003; at the Center for Early Christian Studies, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, Feb. 2004; and to the Brown Seminar on Culture and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean, March 2004. I am grateful to participants in these occasions for constructive conversation and helpful suggestions, and above all to Joseph P. Amar and Sidney H. Griffith.

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Among modern scholars, one of the best known characteristics of ancient Syriac Christianity is the institution of the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant, the Bnay and Bnat Qyama. Apparently originating in the third century CE, the office was characterized by vows of celibacy, voluntary poverty, and service to the local priest or bishop. Members were supposed to live separately with others of the same office, or with their families. The office appears to have been wide-spread in Syriac-speaking territories both east and west by the fourth century.2 The early fourth century Acts of the Edessan Martyrs Shmona and Guria note that Daughters of the Covenant were being specially targeted, along with priests and deacons, for public torture and execution during the Diocletianic persecution, attesting their public prominence.3 The Acts of the Persian Martyrs shortly thereafter recall similar treatment of Daughters of the Covenant during the persecutions of Shapur II.4 Among the first group of Demonstrations written by Aphrahat the Persian Sage in 337 is the renowned Demonstration 6, on the Members of the Covenant.5 The treatise is a lengthy exhortation addressed particularly to the men of that group on the importance of maintaining their vows of celibacy, and on the eschatological 2 G. Nedungatt, “The Covenanters of the Early Syriac-Speaking Church,” OCP 39 (1973), 191-215, 419-44. At their earliest, the Daughters of the Covenant may be similar to consecrated virgins (the subintroductae, or canonicae) elsewhere in the Roman Empire, prior to the emergence of monasticism as an institution. For these, see Susanna Elm, ‘Virgins of God’: the Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). 3 Shmona and Guria, sec. 1, sec. 70; F. C. Burkitt (ed. and trans.), Euphemia and the Goth with the Acts of the Martyrdom of the Confessors of Edessa (London: Williams and Norgate, 1913). 4 E.g., Martha the daughter of Posi; Tarbo and her maidservant; Thekla, Danaq, Taton, Mama, Mezakhya and Anna, of Karka d-Beth Slokh; Abyat, Hathay, and Mezakhya, from Beth Garmay; Thekla, Mary, Martha, and Emmi, of Bekhashaz. All these are identified by name as Daughters of the Covenant, but more are indicated by the texts. See the episodes collected in Sebastian P. Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 63-82. 5 Aphrahat, Dem. 6, D. I. Parisot (ed.), Aphraatis sapientis persae demonstrationes, in PS 1, R. Graffin (ed.) (Paris, 1894), 241-311; J. Gwynn (trans.) in Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 13: 362-75.

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significance of those vows. In the fifth century, evidence increases with references from canonical legislation, historical chronicles, homiletic and hagiographical literature all contributing to form a picture of a church office of men and women actively engaged in civic ecclesiastical activity, in terms that rendered it quite distinct from the contemporaneously developing monastic movement. Indeed, monasticism did not replace this office. References continue certainly until the tenth century and more rarely into the middle ages.6 On closer examination, however, evidence for the office of Covenanter is frustratingly thin. References may abound, but they are often only that: passing mention that Members of the Covenant were included in an incident. Most frustrating of all, at least for the historian of women, is that the majority of references to this office specifically refer to the men—the Sons of the Covenant. These are the primary addressees and concern of Aphrahat’s Demonstration 6 in the fourth century; they are the primary target of Rabbula’s canonical legislation in the fifth century, and they are the most frequently mentioned in historical texts. If we want to understand this office as it was exercised by women, we have precious little with which to work. Given the elusive nature of the evidence, recent scholarship— notably by Robert Murray, Sidney Griffith, and Naomi KoltunFromm—has focused on understanding the nature of the vow that underlay the office, and the perceived meaning or role of the Members of the Covenant within the larger congregation of Christian believers.7 From a different vantage point, other scholars, 6 S. A. Harvey, “Women’s Service in Ancient Syriac Christianity,” in Mother, Nun, Deaconess: Images of Women According to Eastern Canon Law, Eva Synek (ed.), Kanon 16 (Egling, 2000): 226-41. 7 Robert Murray, “Circumcision of the Heart and the Origins of the Qyama,” in After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honor of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers, G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist (ed.), Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89 (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 201-11; Sidney H. Griffith, “‘Singles’ in God’s Service: Thoughts on the Ihidaye from the Works of Aphrahat and Ephraem the Syrian,” The Harp 4 (1991), 145-59; idem, “Monks, ‘Singles,’ and the ‘Sons of the Covenant’: Reflections on Syriac Ascetic Terminology,” in Eulogema: Studies in Honor of Robert Taft, E. Carr et al. (ed.), Studia Anselmiana 110/ Analecta Liturgica 17 (Rome: Centre Studi S. Anselmo,

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including Joseph Amar, Kathleen McVey, and myself, have drawn attention to an important but little considered aspect of the work of the female members of this office: that of the liturgical choirs of the Daughters of the Covenant.8 For one thing we do know is that Daughters of the Covenant were charged with the task of singing psalms and various kinds of hymns in certain liturgical celebrations of the civic churches. This practice contrasted sharply, for example, with the normal pattern of Greek and Latin civic churches to the west. These areas permitted women’s singing in convent choirs, to be sure. But with the possible exception of Ambrose’s cathedral in Milan, women’s voices were excluded from choral participation in civic liturgical celebration.9 In other words, one of the most visibly 1993), 141-60; Naomi Koltun-Fromm, “Yokes of the Holy Ones: The Embodiment of a Christian Vocation,” Harvard Theological Review 94 (2001), 205-18. 8 Joseph P. Amar, “A Metrical Homily on Holy Mar Ephrem by Mar Jacob of Serug,” PO 47 (1995), 5-76; idem, The Syriac “Vita” Tradition of Ephrem the Syrian (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1988); Kathleen McVey, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), p. 28; eadem, “Ephrem the Kitharode and Proponent of Women: Jacob’s Portrait of a Fourth-Century Churchman for the Sixth Century Viewer,” (Forthcoming); S. A. Harvey, “Women’s Service;” eadem, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9 (2001), 105-31. 9 Or so we assume. Eusebius, HE 7. 30.10, cites women’s choirs as one of the reasons for Paul of Samosata’s expulsion from Antioch, but the problem was perhaps not the women’s choirs so much as that the hymns they sang were in honor of Paul himself. Cyril of Jerusalem, Procat. 14, exhorts that women should keep absolutely silent in church; but he is speaking about catechumens preparing to receive baptism. It is not clear to me that the passage precludes choirs (although scholars have assumed it does). Ambrose, Explan. Ps. 1.9, mentions women’s singing positively, directly taking issue with the Pauline admonition that women must keep silent in church (1 Cor 14:34); he advocates the singing of psalms as beneficial for all people. Nonetheless, the references to women’s choirs that we have, e.g., in the Cappadocian Fathers, are to convent choirs of women monastics: consider Basil of Caesarea, Letter 2, and Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina. See Johannes Quasten, “The Liturgical Singing of Women in Christian Antiquity,” Catholic Historical Review 27 (1941), 14965; idem, Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian Antiquity, Boniface Ramsey (trans.), (Washington: National Association of Pastoral Musicians,

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concrete forms of public ministry conducted by the Daughters of the Covenant was that of sacred music, performed in the congregational gatherings of the larger church community, male and female, ordained and lay. In this study, I would like to consider what we know about this musical ministry of the Daughters of the Covenant, and what the implications of that ministry may have been for the public place of women in late antique Syriac Christianity.

SINGING WOMEN [4]

[5]

The first explicit reference we have for the liturgical singing of the Daughters of the Covenant comes in the fifth century Rabbula Canons.10 Canon 20 of this collection assigns the Daughters of the Covenant the mandatory task of singing the Psalms and especially the doctrinal hymns (madrashe) of the church. Further, canon 27 requires the Daughters of the Covenant to observe the worship services of the church, including the daily offices, together with the other clergy and the Sons of the Covenant. Other canons of this collection prohibit the clergy and Sons of the Covenant from requiring non-religious services of the Daughters of the Covenant (e.g., housekeeping or weaving), and restrict the social and economic activities available to these women. Canons 12, 15, and 19 call for village and town churches to provide the economic support necessary for poor Sons and Daughters of the Covenant, thereby safeguarding their liturgical duties on behalf of the church community. It is interesting to note that the liturgical role assigned to the Daughters of the Covenant, of psalmody and singing the madrashe, granted these women a more central function in the ritual life of the Christian community than that accorded deaconesses or widows at this time. Church orders and canon collections of the period severely limit the devotional activities of widows, confining 1983), 75-86. An extremely useful collection of translations of the relevant primary sources (Greek, Latin, and some Syriac) may be found in James McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 10 “The Rules of Rabbula for the Clergy and the Qeiama,” Arthur Vööbus (ed. and trans.), Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Legislation Relative to Syrian Asceticism, PETSE 11 (Stockholm: ETSE, 1960), 34-50.

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them largely to prayer practices in their homes or in churches. Deaconesses were accorded more socially substantive duties. They were allowed to visit and instruct female catechumens and women who were ill; they assisted at the baptism of women, and were charged with keeping order in the women’s sections of the churches during liturgies. However, their ministry was clearly marked as one by women, for women.11 By contrast, the role of civic liturgical singing placed the Daughters of the Covenant in the midst of the entire worshipping community. Around the same time the Rabbula Canons were collected, the Synod of 410 was convoked by Maruta of Maipherqat for the Church of the East in Persia. Among the canons of this Synod, a number address the importance of cultivating the order of the Members of the Covenant particularly in the villages, to provide a pool for clergy and to assist in the maintenance of a devotional life for the churches in sparsely populated regions.12 Further canons clarified the ordering of women’s ministry: “It is the will of the general synod that the town churches shall not be without the order [taxis] of sisters” (canon 41).13 The Daughters of the Covenant were to be under the direction of a superior chosen from among them and made a deaconess for service at baptisms; under her supervision, they were to be instructed in Scripture and in psalmody. These canons appear to have been widely used among western and eastern Syriac communities, and similar instructions are found in the sixth century canons attributed to John of Tella (Iohannan bar Qursos).14

Sebastian P. Brock, “Deaconesses in the Syriac Tradition,” in Woman in Prism and Focus: Her Profile in Major World Religions and in Christian Traditions, P. Vazheeparampil (ed.) (Rome: Mar Thoma Yogam, 1996), 205-18; A. G. Martimort, Les Diaconesses. Essai Historique, Bibliotheca “Ephemerides Liturgicae” Subsidia (Rome, 1982), esp. 21-54, 165-70; C. Robinson, The Ministry of Deaconesses (London: Methuen, 1898), esp. 169-96; Harvey, “Women’s Service.” 12 A. Vööbus, The Canons Ascribed to Maruta of Maipherqat and Related Sources, CSCO 439-40, Scr. Syr. 191-2 (Louvain, 1982). 13 Trans. in Vööbus, Canons Ascribed to Maruta, 72. 14 Canons of Iohannon bar Qursos, 27, A. Vööbus (ed. and trans.), The Synodicon in the West Syrian Tradition, CSCO 367/8, Scr. Syr. 161/2 (Louvain 1975). 11

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An example of the situation envisioned here is the case recorded by John of Ephesus in the sixth century, of the holy man Simeon the Mountaineer.15 Wandering the eastern borders between Roman and Persian territory as a recluse, Simeon stumbled on a remote, widely scattered semi-nomadic community that had no apparent Christian presence. Immediately Simeon set about evangelizing and baptizing the villagers, building a church, and establishing a canonically governed ecclesiastical life for the people. One of his first tasks was to round up the children, lock them inside the church (under the pretense of giving them special gifts!) and tonsure them as Sons and Daughters of the Covenant. When some families protested, their children were struck dead in divine punishment. But those who remained in their new office, Simeon instructed in a special school in scripture and psalmody, and “thenceforward loud choirs were to be heard at the service.” As the years went by, these children grew to become “readers and Daughters of the Covenant, and they were themselves teaching others also.” Thus Simeon did not fear his old age and approaching death when the time came, for through these Members of the Covenant the Christian life of the villagers would continue in proper order.16 It is often the case, however, that Syriac writers refer to virgins singing psalms or hymns without explicitly identifying them as Daughters of the Covenant. Whether this is due to a pragmatic flexibility of terminology, or to diversity of ecclesiastical practice— or simply to a looser mode of institutionalization than characterizes later practice—is unclear. Scholars have tended to read all references to consecrated virgins as indicating Daughters of the Covenant; perhaps the terms could be inclusive of all “virgins” who might participate, including the young unmarried girls who were not necessarily dedicated to life-long celibacy. In his hymns, Ephrem Syrus (d. 373) occasionally refers to choirs of women, apparently consecrated virgins, singing his compositions. For example, in Hymns on Nativity 4: John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, ch. 16, E. W. Brooks (ed. and trans.), PO 17 (Paris 1923), 229-47. The incident is discussed in S. A. Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis. John of Ephesus and the ‘Lives of the Eastern Saints’ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 95ff. 16 John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, ch. 16, PO 17: 246f. 15

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Susan Ashbrook Harvey May the chant of chaste women please You, my Lord, May the chant of the chaste women dispose You, my Lord, To keep their bodies in chastity.17

Similar references are sprinkled throughout subsequent Syriac hymnography.18 In a homily on the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, Jacob of Serug (d. 521) presents Mary exhorting a women’s choir to song: Let all the multitude of virgins praise Him with wonder, Because the great savior shines forth from them to the whole world. Let the voice of the young women be lifted up in praise, Because by one of them, behold, hope is brought to the world.19

[9]

Ephrem and Jacob are in fact the most important sources for our understanding of the Daughters of the Covenant as liturgical singers. Perhaps the most cautious reading would be to see a certain melding of traditions that becomes settled in the sixth century. In the passage I just quoted, Jacob purports to speak in the voice of the Virgin Mary as she addresses her cousin Elizabeth. Her words summon forth the women’s choirs who would come to sing the hymns assigned by the canonical sources. It is from Jacob that we have our most extensive description of these choirs, which he does not name as Daughters of the Covenant. In his panegyric homily in commemoration of Ephrem,20 Jacob claims that Ephrem himself had founded the Ephrem, Hymns on Nativity 4. 62b-63; K. McVey (trans.), Ephrem: Hymns, 93. 18 Sebastian P. Brock, Bride of Light: Hymns on Mary from the Syriac Churches (Kottayam, Kerala: SEERI, 1994), 11. 1, p. 42; 9. 1, p. 38; Jacob of Serugh, Select Festal Homilies, Thomas Kollamparampil (trans.) (Rome: CIIS, 1997), Hom. Nat. 3.27-8, 353; trans. pp. 112, 127. 19 Jacob of Serug, On the Mother of God, Mary Hansbury (trans.) (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), Homily 3, at p. 83. 20 Amar, “Metrical Homily.” Jacob claims Ephrem founded these choirs because the heretics, especially the Bardaisanites, had been successful at spreading their teachings through hymns. As to why Ephrem 17

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choirs of consecrated virgins. Jacob defends the tradition, boldly citing sacramental authority for the justification of women’s choirs in the church: by one baptism are men and women cleansed, he declares, and from one eucharist do they receive. Christ offers one salvation for all people, male and female, therefore all are free to sing God’s praise. Jacob further argues from Eve-Mary typology, that where Eve had closed the mouths of women in shame, Mary had opened them in glory. According to Jacob, Ephrem had founded these choirs explicitly to instruct the congregation of Edessa in right doctrine. Roughly contemporary with Jacob’s discussion of Ephrem, the Syriac Vita Ephraemi (6th century) identified these women’s choirs specifically as composed of the Daughters of the Covenant, whom Ephrem convened for the morning and evening services in the church at Edessa and at the memorial services of saints and martyrs.21 Both depictions are notable for their emphasis on the instructional role these choirs played in educating the larger Christian community in matters of orthodoxy and heresy. Jacob, in fact, frankly names the women in these choirs malpanyatha, teachers.22 The term Jacob uses is the feminine form of malpana (masc. Teacher), one of the most revered titles in Syriac tradition, indicating not only the teaching of the Syriac language, but further, its proper (doctrinal) understanding.23 Its application to women, chose women’s choirs for this task, Jacob does not say. In the cultural coding of the ancient Mediterranean world, however, the female virgin body was the premier image for perfection, purity, and intactness. Perhaps the female virgin could thus most effectively image the presentation of true doctrine precisely as teaching that was perfect, pure, and intact from any external (unholy) penetration. Heresy was often likened to harlotry by early Christian writers; see, e.g., Virginia Burrus, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol in Alexander, Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Jerome,” Harvard Theological Review 84 (1991), 229-48. The images of Wisdom and Folly from Proverbs 8-9 provide a Biblical background for such gendered imagery. 21 Amar, The Syriac “Vita” Tradition of Ephrem the Syrian, 158f. (Syriac), 298f. (trans.). 22 Amar, “Metrical Homily,” v. 42, pp. 34-5. The passage is quoted and discussed further below. 23 Teaching, especially of sacred doctrine, is in fact a primary theme of Jacob’s Homily on Ephrem as a whole: Amar, “Metrical Homily,” p. 19. As Jesse Margoliouth points out, malpana was also a term used to

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especially with respect to religious instruction, is startling. According to the Vita, Ephrem trained the Daughters of the Covenant to sing a variety of hymnography: doctrinal hymns (madrashe), antiphons (‘ounyatha), and other kinds of songs (seblatha and qinyatha). To these melodic forms, the Vita continues,

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[Ephrem set words] with subtle connotation and spiritual understanding concerning the birth and baptism and fasting and the entire plan of Christ: the passion and resurrection and ascension and concerning the martyrs. … [W]ho would not be astounded nor filled with fervent faith to see the athlete of Christ [Ephrem] amid the ranks of the Daughters of the Covenant, chanting songs, metrical hymns, and melodies!24

According to the Vita Ephraemi, then, the Daughters of the Covenant were trained to sing on matters explicating the entire salvation drama, as well as the devotional life of Christians, and about the saints—almost the exact list of topics expressly forbidden for widows to teach about in the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum!25 But thus, by the sixth century, the Syriac practice of women’s choirs and the musical ministry of the Daughters of the Covenant had received the unequivocal authority of Ephrem as founding father. The musical ministry of the Daughters of the Covenant was further confirmed at the East Syriac Synod of Mar George I in 676, where Canon 9 identifies the most important work of these women as the chanting of the Psalms at the offices of the church, as well as the singing of hymns in funeral processions (but not at the cemetery), at the memorial services for the dead, and at vigil

designate the great doctrinal figures of Syriac tradition, such as Ephrem and Jacob. J. Payne Smith (Mrs. Margoliouth), A Compendious Syriac Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903; repr. 1976), 278. Compare, also, the use of the term in A. Vööbus (ed. and trans.), The Statutes of the School of Nisibis, PETSE 12 (Stockholm: ESTE, 1962). 24 Amar, The Syriac “Vita” Tradition of Ephrem, 158f. (Syriac), 298f. (trans.). 25 Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum, Ch. 15; A. Vööbus (ed. and trans.), The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, Vol. 1, CSCO 401-2, Scr. Syr. 175-6, and Vol. 2, CSCO 407-8, Scr. Syr. 179-80 (Louvain, 1979).

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services.26 After the seventh century, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between the offices of deaconess and Daughter of the Covenant, whose roles and functions seem eventually combined into a skeleton of their earlier duties. In the ninth century, ps-George of Arbela states (rather grumpily) that congregations must endure women’s choirs because the women represent the Egyptians and Babylonians, under whose domination the Israelites were kept enslaved: the faithful must not forget the role of humiliation in the divine dispensation.27 In the Middle Ages, the term Daughter of the Covenant appears to have become synonymous with “nun”.28 However, there is a poignancy in the witness offered by one late manuscript giving a service of ordination for deaconesses in which the terms “deaconess” and “chantress” are used interchangably.29 Perhaps we might see this as a lingering memory of the importance of the choirs of the Daughters of the Covenant in the liturgical life of the larger church community—choirs whose function was not simply to sing the responses (as in the Testament of Our Lord, 40), nor only to chant the Psalms, but further, to instruct the congregation through hymnography in the substance and form of right belief.

26 As discussed in Martimort, Les Diaconesses, 54. The text is ed. and trans. in J. B. Chabot, Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de Synodes Nestoriens (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902), 221-2 (Syr.), 486 (Fr.). 27 As cited by Juan Mateos, Lelya-Sapra: Essai d’interpretation des matines chaldeennes (Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1959) at p. 408. Is there here a pun on bart qyama for bart qaina, alluding to the story from the Syriac Cave of Treasures, Ch. 11-12, where the Daughters of Cain seduced the Sons of God with their singing? Su-Min Ri (ed. and trans.), La Caverne des Trésors les deux recensions syriaques, CSCO 486-7, Scr. Syr. 207-8 (Louvain, 1987). The episode is especially emphasized in the East Syriac recension. I am indebted to Serge Ruzer for this suggestion. 28 E.g., canon 19 in the ninth century collection of Isho’ bar Nun; Vööbus (trans.), The Canons Ascribed to Maruta, 192. 29 Brock, “Deaconesses,” 213-6, where he provides a translation of the service.

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TEACHING WOMEN [13]

What did the Daughters of the Covenant sing? Elsewhere, I have been trying to address this question.30 It is, I think, crucial to consider the types and forms of hymnography sung by these choirs in liturgical settings, for the civic churches.31 I sketch the issues in summary fashion here, but I hope their significance will be clear, in light of the kind of evidence we have just been considering. Syriac Christianity has always placed enormous weight on the instructional role of the liturgy—on the liturgy as the primary teaching context of the church.32 Two areas of the liturgy were explicitly utilized for this purpose: homilies (mimre) and hymns (madrashe). The madrashe were the most important form of hymn used for this purpose, but not the only one; and madrashe themselves were of varied kinds. One of the favorite types of teaching employed by Syriac homilists and hymn writers was the presentation of biblical stories in imaginatively elaborated form, starting from the base of a biblical text and re-telling the story through the eyes—and especially through the imagined words—of its characters.33 The rhetorical technique of imagined speech, sometimes in the form of soliloquies and sometimes in dialogue with other biblical characters, was an often used and brilliantly Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence;” eadem, “On Mary’s Voice: Gendered Words in Syriac Marian Tradition,” in The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography, Patricia Cox Miller and Dale Martin (ed.) (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 63-86. 31 Milos Velimirovic, “Christian Chant in Syria, Armenia, Egypt, and Ethiopia,” New Oxford History of Music, Vol. 2: The Early Middle Ages to 1300, Richard Crocker and David Hiley (ed.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 3-9; McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 92-5; Heinrich Husmann, “Syrian Church Music,” in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Stanley Sadie (ed.)(London & Washington DC: Grove’s Dictionary of Music, 1980), Vol. 18: 472-81. 32 E.g., Kathleen McVey, “Were the Earliest Madrase Songs or Recitations?,” After Bardaisan, Reinink and Klugkist (ed.), 185-99; H. J. W. Drijvers, “Solomon as Teacher: Early Syriac Didactic Poetry,” in IV Symposium Syriacum 1984, H. J. W. Drijvers, R. Lavenant, C. Molenberg, and G. J. Reinink (ed.). Orientalia Christiana Analecta 229 (Rome 1987), 123-34. 33 Detailed discussion in Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence.” 30

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engaged aspect of Syriac homiletic and hymnographic instruction. Among the vast corpus of such texts surviving to us (by Ephrem, Jacob of Serug, Narsai, and the whole host of anonymous authors and composers), a sizeable portion present the stories of biblical women: Sarah the wife of Abraham, Tamar, Potiphar’s Wife, the Widow of Sarepta, the Virgin Mary, the Sinful Woman who anointed the feet of Christ with her tears (in Syriac tradition, not to be confused with Mary Magdalene). In the hands of Syriac writers, this meant composing long and sometimes elaborate speeches and dialogues for female characters whom the Bible made important, but who in their scriptural texts were silent or barely granted brief comments. Major theological themes were addressed through this means, as well as matters of social and religious tension.34 These different literary forms were performed in liturgical settings in a variety of ways, each carrying different ritual significance. The madrashe—such as Ephrem’s Hymns on the Nativity, in which Mary’s voice is a frequent and extensive feature of the hymns—were often sung by women’s choirs. Some madrashe were stanzaic with a refrain; the male leader (Ephrem) may have sung the stanzas, and the women’s choirs the refrain, or the choirs may have sung the stanzas and the congregation the refrain. Sogyatha, dialogue hymns, were sung antiphonally, apparently by both male and female choirs. These often presented a biblical story through an imagined dialogic exchange between the characters (Sarah and Abraham, Mary and the Archangel Gabriel or Joseph, the Sinful Woman and Satan). In these cases, the woman’s voice was sung by the women’s choir. The verse homilies (mimre), by contrast, would have been chanted by the male preacher. In the case of Jacob of Serug’s homilies on Mary, for example, these would include long passages of Mary’s imagined speech, but presented through the intoned voice of the male homilist. Certainly it is crucial to read and interpret these texts with consideration of their literary forms and constraints (meter, strophes, stanzas, responses; the presentation of narrative, exegetical exposition, speech in 34 Important new work is now being done particularly on Greek homiletics and the reception by congregations, that raises helpful questions for the Syriac material. See, e.g., Mary Cunningham and Pauline Allen, eds., Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998).

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monologue or dialogue). Yet I would argue that it is equally critical to consider the performative requirements of the composer’s chosen form, and how performance would have shaped presentation. What was said in an imagined dialogue, in the retelling of a biblical story, in the recalling of a saint’s holy life (as in Jacob’s homily on Ephrem), was qualitatively changed by who said it, from what narrative perspective, in what ritual context, and with what performative features. In performance, Syriac hymns and homilies differed in the degree to which they were inclusive of women’s voices in the ritual context of their presentation. In content, they also differed in where and when they located the voices of female characters. Ephrem often elided biblical past and historical present, locating women’s sacred speech from the mythic (biblical) past in the midst of the gathered congregation in its present worship. The dialogue hymns performed women’s voices as liturgical drama, setting women’s voices in high relief; yet these hymns placed their voices within specific narrative moments of the church’s salvation story, as characters from a past event. A homilist such as Jacob of Serug would enclose women’s voices within the clear boundaries of narrated story and right interpretation, and within that narration construct the socially and culturally appropriate constraints on female speech. Intoned in the spaces of civic ritual through the mediation of a male priest, these words would then be echoed by the ritually authorized and ritually contained voices of women’s choirs.35 I suggest that these different modes of performance all contributed substantially to the teaching presented through the story at hand. Women’s voices imagined and real were necessary to that teaching. How were those voices heard?

REDEEMING WOMEN [16]

The only extensive discussion we have of these women’s choirs is found in Jacob of Serug’s homily on Ephrem. Indeed, the space alone that Jacob allots to the matter is striking: in a panegyric composed a century or more after the great saint’s death, nearly one third is devoted to women’s choirs and their singing, 47

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Harvey, “On Mary’s Voice.”

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couplets out of a possible 187. His discussion merits closer scrutiny.36 In contrast to other panegyrical homilies that Jacob composed on saints—for example, his homilies on the Edessan Martyrs Shmona, Guria, and Habib, or the one on Simeon the Stylite—this one contains virtually no narrative of the saint’s life. Instead, Jacob praises Ephrem for his extraordinary skill as hymnographer, dwelling at length on the unparalleled beauty and profundity of his theological teaching. Amidst this general exaltation of Ephrem’s craft, Jacob claims that Ephrem founded choirs of women where there had been none. Ephrem was initially prompted to do so, Jacob says, because in the task of composing hymns and homilies adequate for teaching God’s truth, he realized the eschatological significance of women’s participation. 40. Our sisters also were strengthened by you [O Ephrem] to give praise, For women were not allowed to speak in church. [cf. 1 Cor 14:34] 41. Your instruction opened the closed mouths of the daughters of Eve; And behold, the gatherings of the glorious (church) resound with their melodies. 42. A new sight of women uttering the proclamation (karuzutha); And behold, they are called teachers (malpanyatha) among the congregations. 43. Your teaching signifies an entirely new world; For yonder in the kingdom (of heaven), men and women are equal.

According to Jacob, then, Ephrem’s choirs do more than proclaim that with Christianity a new era has dawned for humanity. They enact that new dispensation by the very fact that they include female as well as male voices. The use of these choirs 36 I will follow the translation in Amar, “Metrical Homily.” I give the verse numbers as they are in the text; in Amar’s edition, these passages come from pp. 35-65.

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is startling: despite the Pauline admonition for women’s silence, Ephrem presents his church with “a new sight of women uttering the proclamation.” Nor does Jacob pull punches here. The term he uses is karuzutha, the Syriac equivalent for kerygma. These women sing the full doctrinal proclamation of the church. Rightly so, then, are “they called teachers among the congregations.” Here is his term malpanyatha; by Jacob’s reckoning, these women sing the very teaching by which Christianity exists, by which salvation has come. So dramatic is the act of women in this role, that Jacob declares it images “an entirely new world.” In Jacob’s account, just as men and women are equal in the heavenly kingdom to come, so, too, is that kingdom imaged and anticipated in the Syriac liturgy with its male and female choirs. Jacob’s defense of Ephrem then moves from eschatology to typology. Moses had led the Hebrew women in song at the crossing of the Red Sea, summoning them to celebrate the deliverance of the Hebrews from the Egyptians. So, too, did Ephrem lead the Syrian women in hymns to celebrate the deliverance of humanity from the powers of sin and death. Omitting Miriam’s role in the biblical account, Jacob presents both men as liberators who declare a new freedom of worship for women. For Jacob, Ephrem’s action is a logical result of sacramental mandate, for men and women participate in salvation by the same means, first by baptism, then by the eucharist. He portrays Ephrem calling the women to song: 105. You [O women] put on glory from the midst of the waters like your brothers, Render thanks with a loud voice like them also. 106. You have partaken of a single forgiving body with your brothers, And from a single cup of new life you have been refreshed. 107. A single salvation is yours and theirs (alike); why then Have you not learned to sing praise with a loud voice?

Unequivocally justified by the sacramental practices of the church, Ephrem’s choirs themselves represent a further typological fulfillment, soteriological in its impact. For Eve had closed the

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mouths of women in shame by her disobedience at the Fall. But the Virgin Mary opened them again, loosening their bonds, opening the closed door of their tongues, and restoring the voices of women.

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112. Because of the wickedness of Eve, your mother, you [O women] were under judgment; But because of the child of Mary, your sister, you have been set free. 113. Uncover your faces to sing praise without shame to the One who granted you freedom of speech by his birth.

By just such exhortations, Jacob declares, did Ephrem establish the women’s choirs, granting them the responsibility of chanting “instructive melodies” (qale d-malpanutha). And by such melodies were the efforts of the heretics laid low, as the church triumphed in orthodoxy through the “soft tones” of the women (vv. 114, 152). Jacob’s justification of Ephrem’s establishment of the women’s choirs is fourfold: eschatological, typological, sacramental, soteriological. So formidable is his effort, in fact, that Kathleen McVey has argued for reading this homily as a defense of women’s choirs in the wake of an ecclesiastical attack on their validity— whether from Greek churches to the west (Antioch?), or from rivalries within Syriac doctrinal circles locked in fierce debate at the time.37 But we simply cannot know. Greek sources are as silent on these Syriac choirs as were Greek women in their liturgies. In Syriac churches, the women’s choirs have continued to the present day, although Jacob’s homily is rarely remembered.38 We are left, then, with something of a puzzle: how to account for these women’s choirs of the Daughters of the Covenant, and indeed, for Jacob’s extraordinary defense of them. One other ancient source presents a fairly similar understanding of the significance of male and female choirs: Philo of Alexandria’s account of the Therapeutae, in his treatise On the Contemplative Life. Philo describes this philosophical community and McVey, “Ephrem the Kitharode and Proponent of Women.” Women’s choirs are commonplace still among the Syriac Orthodox churches. However, Archbishop Cyril Aprem has told me that the choirs are now criticized as being the result of pernicious influence from secular western feminism! 37 38

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its utopian (or eschatological) existence at some length. Towards the end of the treatise, in section 8, he explicitly mentions the women of the community, “aged virgins” committed as eagerly as the men to the perfect philosophical life of devotion to God. Every seven weeks, Philo says, the men and women gather for a festal banquet, the men sitting on the right and the women on the left (section 9). Following the food, instruction on the scriptures is given by the president (section 10). When the teaching is complete, first the president and then the entire community join in song. In two choirs, the men and women sing sacred hymns all night, of many kinds, of different rhythms, sometimes with clapping or dancing. Here, too, is the typology of the singing at the Red Sea recalled, and Miriam as prototype for the leader of the women’s choir, along with Moses for the men. “Modeled above all on this (the singing at the Red Sea),” Philo states, “the choir of the Therapeutae, both male and female, singing in harmony, the soprano of the women blending with the bass of the men, produces true musical concord. Exceeding beautiful are the thoughts, exceeding beautiful are the words, and august the choristers, and the end goal of thought, words, and choristers alike is piety.”39 It is possible that Jacob knew of Philo’s text. Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History was available in Syriac in the sixth century, and Bk. 2, 16-7 presents a “filtered” account of Philo on the Therapeutae.40 But the descriptions diverge as much as they resonate. Even without the disputed question of whether or not the Therapeutae existed as an historical community, Philo’s account represents the ideal philosophical collective—an elite community, living apart from mundane society. Jacob’s description of the women’s choirs presents an idealized justification for the practice, to be sure. But the practice, as attested not only in Jacob David Winston (Trans.), Philo of Alexandria: The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and Selections (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 41-57, at pp. 567. The Greek is edited with translation by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker in Philo: Works 9:112-69, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941). 40 I owe the phrase and the reference to Anne Seville, and I am grateful for both. The text is translated in William Wright and Norman McLean, The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, in Syriac (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898). 39

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but in dozens of canonical sources, was to be found in every Syriac-speaking village, town, and city of late antiquity, enacted in the civic churches of the collected populus. It offered a vision of the ideal, enacted in the midst of the ordinary. Very little evidence has survived to us regarding the preChristian, indigenous religions of the Syrian Orient that continued into the Christian period.41 We know the names and sometimes the symbols of deities, and occasionally titular offices. But of practices, we know almost nothing. Suggestive models can sometimes be drawn from Greek traditions to the west, however. In her book Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece, Eva Stehle discusses the significance of ancient Greek civic choruses, both male and female, in terms that help to illuminate the issues of women’s choirs in the ancient Syriac churches.42 She argues that civic choruses through their performances in religious festivals provided the embodied expression of the city itself. As such, their role was to vindicate and affirm civic order as just, good, and worthy of admiration (even devotion). The capacity for this expression lay in the chorus’ ability to reflect and model the community’s most idealized selfunderstanding. Reflection, oriented to the past, was offered by the chorus’ presentation of the city’s sacred past: the great events by which it was formed and bonded into a community under the gods’ protection. Modeling, in turn, was oriented toward the future: by the harmony and beauty of their performance, the chorus represented the community in its ideal form. Gender was essential to the work of these choruses, since male and female choirs performed these tasks in distinct, differentiated ways. It is helpful, I think, to consider the role of women’s choirs in the Syriac churches in these terms. Indeed, Jacob of Serug had stressed the eschatological significance of women’s choirs as signs of the resurrected life to come. Scholars have given much attention to the capacity of holy women in late antiquity to attain high levels of spiritual authority Fundamental studies are H.J.W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980); Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC – AD 337 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); and Steven K. Ross, Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE (New York: Routledge, 2001). 42 Eva Stehle, Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in its Setting (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 41

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among the general populace, and to serve as spiritual teachers and counselors.43 The model of holy woman as authoritative spiritual teacher is, however, founded on a pattern of direct, even personal instruction by a mentor to a devotee. The teaching performed by the Daughters of the Covenant differed substantially from this model, both in kind and in nature. The content of their teaching was not the revealed wisdom of a holy individual, but rather the stated, collectively identified corporate doctrines of the church. These choirs through the madrashe represented to the Christian congregation the affirmed, authorized teachings they held in common. Moreover, as liturgical choirs, these women taught by their very performance the substance of their teaching: women as well as men received eschatological hope through sacramental practice. For the societies of the ancient Mediterranean, religion was the fundamental means of identity and order. In religious rituals, the community could see itself constituted and sustained, renewed and confirmed, time and again. So, too, in ancient Christianity. In his Hymns on Easter, Ephrem exhorts the church to offer fitting worship to God in these terms: Let us plait a magnificent crown for [Christ our Lord]… The bishop weaves into it His biblical exegesis as his flowers; The presbyters their martyr stories; The deacons their lections, The young men their alleluias, The boys their psalms, The virgins their madrashe, The rulers their achievements, And the lay people their virtues.

43 In Greek tradition, one thinks of Macrina, the sister of Gregory of Nyssa; Gorgonia, sister of Gregory of Nazianzus; Melania the Elder and Melania the Younger; and especially Syncletica among the Desert Mothers of Egypt. In Syriac tradition, strong examples would be Febronia of Nisibis; Mary, Euphemia, and Susan from John of Ephesus’ Lives of the Eastern Saints; and Martyrius’ depiction of Shirin. For these, see Brock and Harvey, Holy Women.

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Blessed be the One who has multiplied victories for us.44

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Here, in splendid array, is the ancient Syriac church in glory. Essential to it is the place of the women’s choir: distinct, separated, included in the proper order, excluded from the clergy, yet uniquely the source of doctrinal truth: of right Christian faith. I suggest that we, as historians, have something more to learn here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Amar, Joseph P. “A Metrical Homily on Holy Mar Ephrem by Mar Jacob of Serug.” PO 47 (1995): 5-76. — idem. The Syriac “Vita” Tradition of Ephrem the Syrian. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1988. Aphrahat. Demonstration 6. D. I. Parisot (ed.), Aphraatis sapientis persae demonstrationes, in PS 1, R. Graffin (ed.), (Paris, 1894),

Ephrem, Hymns on Easter 2:8-9; Sidney Griffith (trans.), cited McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, pp. 93-4. The Syriac is edited by Edmund Beck, CSCO 248, Scr. Syr. 84. Compare Jacob of Serug, Hom. Against the Jews, 7. 529-42, Micheline Albert (ed. and trans.), Jacques de Saroug, Homélies contre les Juifs, PO 38 (1976), at pp. 216-7: And voices upon voices crowd around [Christ] from every side, The speaking of the gatherings and congregations which surround him. The voice of the nations who clap their hands to give praise, And the voice of the handmaids grouped in choirs to make a joyful noise. The voice of the churches who sing praise with their harps, And the voice of monasteries who make a joyful noise to him with their alleluias. The voice of priests who consecrate him with the gentle waving of their hands, And the voice of saints who bless him in every place. The voice of men who sing praise with their tongues, The voice of women who exalt him with their madrashe. The voice of children who repeat before him […] The voice of teachers (rabbone) who set their knowledge in array before him. For praise of the Father, the Son wakens all creation. Anathema to any who does not love the Son of God. (My trans.) 44

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241-311. J. Gwynn (trans.) in Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 13: 362-75. Brock, Sebastian P. “Deaconesses in the Syriac Tradition.” In Woman in Prism and Focus: Her Profile in Major World Religions and in Christian Traditions. P. Vazheeparampil (ed.), Rome: Mar Thoma Yogam, 1996, 205-18. — idem. Bride of Light: Hymns on Mary from the Syriac Churches. Kottayam, Kerala: SEERI, 1994. — idem, and Susan Ashbrook Harvey. Holy Women of the Syrian Orient. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Burkitt, F. C. (ed. and trans.). Euphemia and the Goth with the Acts of the Martyrdom of the Confessors of Edessa. London: Williams and Norgate, 1913. Burrus, Virginia. “The Heretical Woman as Symbol in Alexander, Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Jerome.”Harvard Theological Review 84 (1991): 229-48. Chabot, J. B. (ed. and trans.). Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de Synodes Nestoriens. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902. Cunningham, Mary, and Pauline Allen, eds. Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998. Drijvers, H. J. W. “Solomon as Teacher: Early Syriac Didactic Poetry.” In IV Symposium Syriacum 1984. H. J. W. Drijvers, R. Lavenant, C. Molenberg, and G. J. Reinink (ed.). Orientalia Christiana Analecta 229 (Rome 1987), 123-34. — idem. Cults and Beliefs at Edessa. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980. Elm, Susanna. ‘Virgins of God’: the Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Griffith, Sidney H. “‘Singles’ in God’s Service: Thoughts on the Ihidaye from the Works of Aphrahat and Ephraem the Syrian.” The Harp 4 (1991), 145-59. — idem, “Monks, ‘Singles,’ and the ‘Sons of the Covenant’: Reflections on Syriac Ascetic Terminology.” In Eulogema: Studies in Honor of Robert Taft. E. Carr et al. (ed.), Studia Anselmiana 110 / Analecta Liturgica 17 (Rome: Centre Studi S. Anselmo, 1993), 141-60. Harvey, Susan Ashbrook. Asceticism and Society in Crisis. John of Ephesus and the ‘Lives of the Eastern Saints.’ Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

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— eadem. “Women’s Service in Ancient Syriac Christianity.” In Mother, Nun, Deaconess: Images of Women According to Eastern Canon Law. Eva Synek (ed.). Kanon 16 (Egling 2000), 22641. — eadem. “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9 (2001). 105-31. — eadem. “On Mary’s Voice: Gendered Words in Syriac Marian Tradition.” In The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography. Patricia Cox Miller and Dale Martin (ed.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, 63-86. Husmann, Heinrich. “Syrian Church Music.” In New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Stanley Sadie (ed.). London 1980. Vol. 18, 472-81. Jacob of Serugh. Select Festal Homilies. Thomas Kollamparampil (trans.). Rome: CIIS, 1997. — idem. On the Mother of God. Mary Hansbury (Trans.). Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998. — idem. Jacques de Saroug, Homélies contre les Juifs. Micheline Albert (ed. and trans.). PO 38 (1976). John of Ephesus. Lives of the Eastern Saints. E. W. Brooks (ed. and trans.). PO 17-19 (1923-5.) Koltun-Fromm, Naomi. “Yokes of the Holy Ones: The Embodiment of a Christian Vocation.” Harvard Theological Review 94 (2001), 205-18. Martimort, A. G. Les Diaconesses. Essai Historique. Bibliotheca “Ephemerides Liturgicae” Subsidia. Rome, 1982. Mateos, Juan. Lelya-Sapra: Essai d’interpretation des matines chaldeennes. Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1959. McKinnon, James. Music in Early Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. McVey, Kathleen. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns. New York: Paulist Press, 1989. — eadem. “Were the Earliest Madrase Songs or Recitations?” In After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honor of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist (ed.). Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89 (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 185-99.

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eadem. “Ephrem the Kitharode and Proponent of Women: Jacob’s Portrait of a Fourth-Century Churchman for the Sixth Century Viewer.” (Forthcoming). Millar, Fergus. The Roman Near East 31 BC—AD 337. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Murray, Robert. “Circumcision of the Heart and the Origins of the Qyama.” In After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honor of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist (ed.). Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89 (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 201-11. Nedungatt, George. “The Covenanters of the Early SyriacSpeaking Church.” OCP 39 (1973), 191-215, 419-44. Philo. On the Contemplative Life. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker (ed. and trans.). In Philo: Works 9:112-69, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941. David Winston (Trans.). Philo of Alexandria: The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and Selections. New York: Paulist Press, 1981, 41-57. Quasten, Johannes. “The Liturgical Singing of Women in Christian Antiquity.” Catholic Historical Review 27 (1941), 149-65. — idem, Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian Antiquity. Boniface Ramsey (Trans.). Washington: National Association of Pastoral Musicians, 1983. Robinson, C. The Ministry of Deaconesses. London: Methuen, 1898. Ross, Steven K. Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE. New York: Routledge, 2001. Ri, Su-Min (ed. and trans.) La Caverne des Trésors les deux recensions syriaques. CSCO 486-7, Scr. Syr. 207-8 (Louvain, 1987). Smith, J. Payne (Mrs. Margoliouth). A Compendious Syriac Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903; repr. 1976. Stehle, Eva. Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in its Setting. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Velimirovic, Milos. “Christian Chant in Syria, Armenia, Egypt, and Ethiopia.” In New Oxford History of Music, Vol. 2: The Early Middle Ages to 1300. Richard Crocker and David Hiley (ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, 3-9.

Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant

149

Vööbus, Arthur (ed. and trans.). Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Legislation Relative to Syrian Asceticism. PETSE 11. Stockholm: ETSE, 1960. — idem (ed. and trans.). The Canons Ascribed to Maruta of Maipherqat and Related Sources. CSCO 439-40, Scr. Syr. 191-2 (Louvain 1982). — idem (ed. and trans.). The Synodicon in the West Syrian Tradition. CSCO 367/8, Scr. Syr. 161/2 (Louvain 1975). — idem (ed. and trans.). The Statutes of the School of Nisibis, PETSE 12. Stockholm: ESTE, 1962. — idem (ed. and trans.). The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac. Vol. 1, CSCO 401-2, Scr. Syr. 175-6. Vol. 2, CSCO 407-8, Scr. Syr. 179-80. Louvain, 1979. Wright, William, and Norman McLean (trans.). The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, in Syriac. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 8, 151-177 © 2005 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

SEPTUAGINTA AND PESHITTA JACOB OF EDESSA QUOTING THE OLD TESTAMENT IN MS BL ADD 17134 ANDREAS JUCKEL UNIVERSITY OF MÜNSTER

ABSTRACT The Old Testament quotations in the margins of Ms BL Add. 17134 (the Hymns of Severus Antiochenus translated by Paul of Edessa and revised by Jacob of Edessa) derive from Jacob himself and reflect the beginnings of his Old Testament revision completed during the last years of his life. The Peshitta text of the quotations is improved and often substituted by renderings of the Septuagint. This paper presents 207 verses in two sections (of 41 and 21 items) according to their derivation from the Peshitta or the Septuagint.

1. INTRODUCTION [1]

In 1910/11 E.W. Brooks published1 the Syriac version of ‘The Hymns of Severus of Antioch and Others,’ originally translated by Paul of Edessa between 619/29, and revised by Jacob of Edessa in 674/75.2 Based on the two extant manuscripts3 of Jacob’s revision E. W. Brooks, Jacob of Edessa. The Hymns of Severus of Antioch and Others (PO 6.1 and 7.5; Turnhout, 1910/1911). 2 On this translation and its revision see A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur mit Ausschluß der christlich-palästinensischen Texte (Bonn, 1922), 190 and 253; R. Duval, La littérature syriaque. Des origines jusqu’ à la 1

151

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Andreas Juckel

(Ms BL Add. 17134 and Add. 18816), Brooks’ edition is a typographical master-piece by the meticulous presentation of Ms BL Add. 17134 and of its revisional features. This manuscript substantially gives the text of Paul’s translation and carefully denotes the revisional alterations Jacob introduced to it inter lineas or by red ink.4 In a note on fol. 75rv Jacob explains the reason and the method of his revision for which he used Greek manuscripts, and gives the date A. Gr. 986 (A. D. 674/75) for his work:5 […] and they [scil. the hymns] have been with great care and industry corrected and compared with the Greek manuscripts with all possible accuracy by me the poor and sinful Jacob the industrious,6 in the year nine hundred and eighty-six of the Greeks […] and with all the carefulness in my power I have distinguished between the words of the doctor [i. e., Severus] and those that were added by the same Mar Paul in order that the number of rhythmical divisions might be equal when the words are pronounced, on account of the brevity and succinctness of the expressions of this Syriac language in comparison with the Greek language,

fin de cette littérature après la conquête par les arabes au XIII siècle (Paris, 1907/Amsterdam, 1970), 317-18; W. Wright, A Short History of Syriac Literature (London, 1894/Piscataway, 2001), 135 and 149; J.-B. Chabot, La littérature syriaque (Paris, 1934), 86; I. Ortiz de Urbina, Patrologia syriaca (Rome, 1965), 173 and 180; F. Nau, ‘L’Araméen chrétien (Syriaque). Les traductions faites du grec en syriaque au viie siècle,’ RHR 99 (1929) 26365. 3 W. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum Acquired Since the Year 1838, 1 (London, 1870/Piscataway, 2004), 330-339 (no. ccccxxi) and 339-340 (no. ccccxxii). A facsimile of Ms Add 17134 in 3 (London, 1872/Piscataway, 2004), plate v. 4 Brooks puts Jacob’s corrections inter lineas in the notes; the words and single letters that Jacob painted red, are represented by Estrangelotype to distinguish them from Paul’s text in Serto-type, and by italics in the translation. 5 Syriac text by W. Wright, Catalogue 1, 336-37; text and translation by Brooks, The Hymns of Severus (PO 7,5), 801-02. 6 The identification of ‘Jacob the industrious’ with Jacob of Edessa was rejected by F. Nau, ‘Notice sur un nouveau manuscript de l’Octoechus de Sévère d’Antioche, et sur l’auteur Jacques Philoponus, distinct de Jacques d’Édesse,’ JA 12 (9è série, 1898), 346-51; but later he accepted the identification (F. Nau, ‘Les traductions,’ 264 note 1).

Septuaginta and Peshitta

[2]

153

by writing the words of the doctor [i. e., Severus] in ink, and writing those that were added in red paint (shrikÒn); while the words which the translator altered, for the same reason, inserting one expression in place of another, in order that the measure of the period might agree with the rhythm of the Greek words, I have written for you in small, fine letters above the same groups of words between the lines, in order that you may easily know how they stand in the Greek whenever you wish to do so; and how the proofs and testimonies from the scriptural words of the Holy Scriptures in the hymns themselves run, without variation and without addition or diminution’ (Brooks’ translation in PO 7.5 page 801/02).

Impressed by this note and by the actual presence of the revisional features it describes, W. Wright suggested Ms Add. 17134 to be an autograph7 of Jacob and took the date A. Gr. 986 as the date of the manuscript itself. Brooks in the preface of his edition, however, rejected Wright’s suggestion by declaring that the second manuscript Add. 18816 often gives a ‘better’ text than Ms Add. 17134. A check of the readings rejected by Brooks indeed gives an idea about a certain inferiority of Ms Add. 17134 to Ms Add. 18816. The text is slightly corrupted by scribal errors and orthographical mistakes,8 which reflect the process of transmission and can hardly be ascribed to Jacob himself. As Ms Add. 17134 can Wright, Catalogue 1, 338: ‘The reasons for supposing that this manuscript is an autograph of the famous Jacob, bishop of Edessa, are 1. The antiquity of the volume. 2. The character of the handwriting, which is not regular enough for that of a professional scribe. 3. The absence of any indication of another scribe. 4. The care with which the specifications contained in the note, fol. 75a, have been adhered to throughout the whole volume, thus giving it an entirely different character and appearance from those of such copies as Add 18816 […]. 5. The transcription in full, on the upper and lower margins, of all the passages of Scripture referred to in the hymns. 6. The general accuracy with which the Greek proper names and other words are written in Greek letters; and the correctness with which they are represented in Syriac characters […].’ 8 F. Nau gives a different (and certainly wrong) interpretation: ‘Il semble préférable de dire que le scribe du seconde manuscript [i.e., Add. 18816] a simplifié et parfois corrigé le premier [i.e., Add. 17134] qui resterait ainsi l’autographe de Jacques d’Edesse’ (F. Nau, ‘Les traductions,’ 263-64 7

154

[3]

Andreas Juckel

be assigned to the 8th cent. on palaeographical ground,9 it is a copy perhaps written already during Jacob’s lifetime or not long after his death in 708. The authenticity of Jacob’s revisional principles is not affected by the slightly corrupted text of Ms Add 17134. Although Ms Add. 18816 does not exhibit these corruptions, it is of restricted critical value especially with regard to Jacob’s revisional imprint. This manuscript, which Wright assigns to the 9th cent., basically gives the same text and the same sequence of hymns as Ms Add. 17134; but it omits all revisional features: no corrections, no coloured words or letters are given (except in the hymns 131 and 132), and the reviser’s note is excluded. In few instances, however, the text of this manuscript tacitly adopts Jacob’s corrections in the main text. The reduction of the revisional features in Ms Add. 18816 gives a greater significance to Ms Add 17134 with the fully preserved revisional features;10 in text-critical respect, however, Ms Add. 18816 often is to be preferred. A later arrangement and supplementation of the hymns according to the ‘eight tones’ to which they are set (Octoëchos) can be found in numerous manuscripts.11 The Biblical Quotations

[4]

Ms Add. 17134 of the British Library is a treasury of biblical quotations of both Testaments. There are two different kinds of 9 The script is almost identical with the one of plate LIII (Ms Sachau 321, A.D. 740/41) in W. H. P. Hatch, An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts (Boston, 1946/Piscataway, 2002). 10 This manuscript, however, is already affected by a fading-out of the revisional features. In several cases the biblical text usually fully cited in the margins (see below) is not given, but replaced by the reference only. 11 See Brooks, The Hymns of Severus (PO 6.1) 6.—Mss Add. 17134 and Add. 18816 do not yet indicate the tones to which the hymns later were set; but in a few places the tones are added secunda manu. Brooks’ edition throughout adds the tones drawn from the later collections. On the ‘Syriac Octoëchos’ see A. Baumstark, Festbrevier und Kirchenjahr der syrischen Jakobiten. Eine liturgische geschichtliche Vorarbeit auf Grund handschriftlicher Studien in Jerusalem und Damaskus (SGKA 3; Paderborn, 1910), 45-48; J. Jeannin/J. Puyade, ‘L’Octoëchos syrien,’ OrChr N.F. 3 (1913), 82-104; 277-98; J. Jeannin, ‘Octoëchos syrien,’ in DACL 12/2 (1936) 1888-1899.

Septuaginta and Peshitta

[5]

155

quotations: Those inside the text, and those outside in the margins. Jacob not only revised Paul’s translation of the hymns including its biblical allusions and quotations; he also introduced biblical material to this revision which is not an integral part of Paul’s translation but drawn from his own resources. These independent marginal quotations are the subject of the present study.12 Texts of sometimes considerable length (e.g., Luke xv, 3-32) Jacob quotes in the upper and lower margins of Ms Add. 17134. Their intention is—according to Jacob’s note on fol. 75rv—to present the full scriptural texts (‘without variation and without addition or diminution’) alluded to or distorted by adaptation to the Greek metre in Paul’s translation.13 All marginal quotations belong to the original lay-out of the manuscript; by a graphical sign they are attached to words in the main text. Brooks’ biblical index14 gives ca. 1000 Old Testament quotations. Fully quoted in the margins are ca. 600, additional 365 short quotations from the Psalms are used as headers for the 365 hymns inside the text; the rest is represented by a marginal reference only (e.g., ‫ܒ ܐ‬ ). From the New Testament ca. 350 texts are quoted. Septuagint and Peshitta

[6]

According to Brooks’ index, ca. 150 of these marginal texts are classified as being quoted from the Septuagint; 17 are ‘neither P nor LXX’;15 4 are taken from Theodotion, 1 from the Syro12 The revisional procedure probably is the same as that Thomas of Harqel used at the beginning of the 7th century revising the Philoxenian version. 13 The last sentence of Jacob’ note quoted above (‘and how the proofs and testimonies …’) refers to the biblical texts in the margin, not to Jacob’ interlinear corrections of biblical quotations inside the text. These interlinear corrections are part of the general corrections of Paul’s translation according to the Greek text of the Hymns; they are not corrections according to an ‘unvaried’ Bible text. Brooks obviously missed an explicit reference to the margin in Jacob’ note, and declared: ‘Some words have perhaps fallen out in this sentence’ (802). 14 The index is appended to PO 14.1 300-309 [470-479] (Letters of Severus of Antioch, ed. by Brooks). 15 Unfortunately these texts are very short, only Lam 3:22 is suitable for comparison. It shows a mixture of the Septuagint and the Peshitta, a characteristic feature of a large number of Jacob’ marginal quotations (see

156

[7]

Andreas Juckel

Hexapla; and all 13 quotations from Acts are given according to the Harklean version. The majority of unclassified references in the index are quotations from the Peshitta. This mixture of versions seems to be inconsistent with the reviser’s intention to give the scriptural words ‘without variation and without addition or diminution.’ To contrast the allusions and distorted quotations in Paul’s translation we expect him to quote a uniform ‘Greek’ text (i.e., the Syro-Hexapla, and the Harklean) in accordance with the original language of the hymns. Instead of fully adopting the existing versions from the Greek, Jacob is quoting the Septuagint (and Theodotion) in translations of his own; although there are agreements with the Syro-Hexapla, these translations are independent renderings of the Septuagint. How to explain Jacob’s versional inconsistency with quoting the scriptural texts? The versional diversity of scriptural quotations does not derive from the specific wording of the allusions and quotations in Paul’s text. The dominating text quoted (of both Testaments) is the Peshitta, followed next by the Septuagint, while the Syro-Hexapla, Theodotion, and the Harklean are too infrequently quoted to contribute much to the versional inconsistency. With regard to the general intention of Jacob’s marginal quotations to cite an ‘unvaried’ text, the Septuagint quotations are likely to take the place of Peshitta texts which differ too much from Jacob’s standard, i.e., the Greek (Septuagint). This suggestion receives support from the distribution of the Septuagint quotations: Most of them are in poetic books, poetic passages or in the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, i.e., not in texts of simple narrative structure.16 In these portions the Peshitta could be easily incongruent with the Septuagint. The Peshitta texts accepted by Jacob for quoting, however, are also far from being fully aligned with the Septuagint; but they are in a remarkably better alignment below). Although Exod 3:2 (PO 7.5 page 639 [227]) is a rather long quotation, there are no significant distinctive features between Jacob’s text, the Syro-Hexapla and the Peshitta. The remaining 15 quotations (Psalms) are short headers of the hymns. 16 Brooks declares ‘[…] I cannot trace any principle except that in Genesis they [i.e., the citations] are from P, in the rest of the law from LXX, in Job and in the books not contained in the Hebrew from LXX, in Daniel from Theodotion, and in Isaiah in the earlier hymns generally from P, in the later generally from LXX’ (PO 7.5 page 6).

Septuaginta and Peshitta

[8]

[9]

157

with the Septuagint than the Peshitta texts rejected by Jacob. The criterion for adoption or substitution of Peshitta text obviously is not the literal agreement with the Septuagint, but the general congruence given by (almost) identical structure of the verse and by (almost) identical sense. A hint to Jacob’s intention of substituting Peshitta texts by Septuagint renderings of his own is his obvious refusal to replace the rejected Peshitta texts by the Syro-Hexapla. This refusal might derive from the extreme Graecised style of this translation. His own renderings match better the style of the Peshitta by the occasional adoption of Peshitta elements without adopting the Peshitta as such. The influence of the Peshitta in Jacob’s own renderings of the Septuagint is mainly on the lexical level, while the syntax and the general structure of the verse are taken from the Septuagint. On the other hand, numerous minor adaptations to the Septuagint Jacob introduces to those Peshitta texts taken over by him without, however, introducing substantial changes to the text. With regard to the New Testament quotations there is some reason to believe that Jacob was satisfied with the Peshitta version and its translational features. The New Testament quotations in Ms Add 17134 are hardly affected by diversity or revisional activity. With the exception of thirteen quotations from the Harklean version of Acts,17 they are all taken from the Peshitta. According to the ca. 120 quotations from the Corpus Paulinum,18 the textual character of the New Testament quotations agrees with the ‘majority text’ of that version.19 This agreement and the versional uniformity are in strong contrast with the diversity of Jacob’s Old 17 The Harklean quotations are studied by W. D. MacHardy, ‘James of Edessa’s citations from the Philoxenian text of the Book of Acts,’ JThS 43 (1942), 168-173; ‘The text of Jacob of Edessa’s citations and in the Cambridge Add. MS 1700,’ JThS 50 (1949), 186-87. 18 These quotations are included in the comparative edition of that Corpus published by B. Aland/A. Juckel, Das Neue Testament in syrischer Überlieferung, II, 1-3 (ANTT 14, 23, 32; Berlin-New York, 1991, 1995, 2002). 19 This ‘majority text’ of the Corpus Paulinum was prepared by G. H. Gwilliam and J. Pinkerton and included in the New Testament volume issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1920. The majority character of this text, however, needs to be improved by additional collations.

158

[10]

Andreas Juckel

Testament quotations and may be taken as his acknowledgement of the New Testament Peshitta as a satisfactory translation. While Jacob might have taken the New Testament texts in the margins of Ms Add 17134 from a Peshitta manuscript, he carefully checked for the congruence of the Old Testament quotations with the Septuagint. To set out the textual character of Jacob’s marginal quotations in some detail, a total of 207 verses in 62 items are presented in two sections (of 41 and 21 items) according to their derivation from the Peshitta or the Septuagint.

2. THE OLD TESTAMENT: JACOB QUOTING THE PESHITTA [11]

In the following list 41 OT texts quoted by Jacob of Edessa in the margins of Ms Add 17134 are compared with the OT Peshitta20 and with the Septuagint.21 The Targumim22 were constantly 20 The Peshitta follows the Leiden edition: Liber Genesis (based on material collected and studies by T. Jansma, prepared by the Peshitta Institute (I,1 1977); Leviticus ed. D. J. Lane, (I,2 1991); Liber Samuelis ed. P. A. H. de Boer (II,2 1978); Liber Isaiae ed. S. P. Brock (III,1 1987); Liber Ezechielis ed. M. J. Mulder (III,3 1985); Dodekapropheton, ed. A. Gelston (III,4 1980); for Jeremiah and Lamentations (both to be published in the Leiden Edition) I use the edition of S. Lee (1823).—The Syro-Hexapla is used according to the edition of Ceriani (and Vööbus, where appropriate): Codex Syro-Hexaplaris Anbrosianus photolithographice editus [Monumenta sacra et profana 7]. Mediolani, 1874; A. Vööbus, The Book of Isaiah in the Version of the Syro-Hexapla. A facsimile edition of Ms. St. Mark 1 in Jerusalem (CSCO 449/Subs. 68; Louvain 1983). 21 The Septuaginta are quoted according to the Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum. Auctoritate Societatis Litterarum Gottingensis editum; I: Genesis, ed. J.W. Wevers (1974), II,2: Leviticus, ed. J. W. Wevers, U. Quast (1986), XIII: Duodecim prophetae, ed. J. Ziegler (1943), XIV: Isaias, ed. J. Ziegler (1939), XVI,1: Ezechiel, ed. J. Ziegler (1952), XV: Ieremias, Baruch, Threni, Epistula Ieremiae, ed. J. Ziegler (Göttingen 1957). For the books of Samuel I used the edition of A. E. Brooke/N. McLean/H. J. Thackeray, The Old Testament in Greek, II,1:1 and 2 Samuel (Cambridge, 1927). 22 A. Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic. Based on old manuscripts and printed texts. 1: The Pentateuch according to Targum Onkelos (Leiden, 1959); 2: The Former Prophets according to Targum Jonathan (Leiden, 1959); 3: The Latter Prophets According to Targum Jonathan (Leiden, 1962).

Septuaginta and Peshitta

159

consulted but did not influence the formation of Jacob’s quotations (nor does the Masoretic Text). The Lemmata are taken from the Leiden Peshitta, the variants from Jacob’s quotations published by Brooks (I = PO 6.1; II = PO 7.5). Brooks’ texts are checked with the help of a microfilm. The beginning and the end of verses not fully quoted by Jacob are indicated by incipit and desinit respectively. Peshitta variants are only quoted (by their Leiden sigla) in support of variants in Jacob’s quotations. Scribal errors (already noted by Brooks) are included in the list to proof the slightly corrupted condition of Ms Add 17134. By their structure and sense the following texts are fairly well congruent with the Septuagint. Not surprisingly, the congruence is not the same in the items of narrative texts (e.g., Gen and ½ Sam) and in those of prophetic texts. There are two texts (item 4 and 38) with explicit (though tacit) ‘corrections’ according to the Septuagint. One more text (item 21) is followed by Jacob’s note to the different text of the Septuagint. With regard to the numerous minor adaptations to the Septuagint there is no doubt that Jacob carefully compared the Peshitta text taken over by him with the Greek text. 1) Gen 1:27-28/I 155; fol. 34v 28 2‫ ]ܐ ܐ‬om Jac LXX 7k4c 8/5b1 11l3.4→ | ‫ܐ‬ seyame Jac 2) Gen 2:15/I 69; fol. 15v 15 ‫ ] ܐ‬om Jac | ‫]ܕ ܢ‬

‫ ]ܘܒܒ‬no

‫ ܕ‬Jac

3) Gen 2:21-22/I 157; fol. 35r 22 ‫ ]ܐ ܐ‬om Jac LXX: 121-424-31’ 4) Gen 3:14-15/II 603 [191]; fol. 40v 14 ̈ ]‫ܡ‬ Jac ― 15 ̈ ‫]ܒ‬ err |

‫ܗܝ ܒ ܒ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܬ‬

‫ ܒ‬MS Add 17134 ex

‫ ܘܐ ܬ‬. ‫܆ ]ܗܘ ܘܫ ܪ‬ ‫ܗܘ‬ ‫ ܘܐ‬Jac LXX (aÙtÒj sou thr»sei kefal»n,

kaˆ sÝ thr»seij aÙtoà ptšran) Jacob substitutes the Old Testament Peshitta of vs 15b by a translation of the LXX (similar below in no. 38). 5) Gen 3:17-20/I 55; fol. 12r

160

Andreas Juckel

17

‫ܐ ܐ ܐܕܡ ]ܘ ܐܕܡ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܕܪܪܐ‬MS Add 17134 ex err ― 19

‫ ܘܐ‬Jac ― 18 ‫]ܘܕ̈ܪܕܪܐ‬ ̈ ‫ ]ܐ‬MS Add 17134 ex err

no seyame 6) Gen 3:17-20/IΙ 767 [355]; fol. 69v No variant reading 7) Gen 18:1-5/II 794 [382]; fol. 74r desinit ‫ܒ ܢ‬ 4 ‫]ܘܐ ܓ‬ ‫ ܘܐ‬Jac 7a1 10l1 12a1fam 12b2 | ‫ ܘܐ‬Jac ― 5 ‫]ܘ ܒ‬ ‫ ܘ‬Jac

‫]ܘܐ‬

According to Jacob’s text, Abraham is addressing to a single person. 8) Gen 19:15.17.26/II 716 [304]; fol. 61r 15 ] om Jac LXX | ܿ ̈ ‫̈ ܐ ]ܒ‬ ‫ ܒ‬Jac 5b1 9) Gen 19:17.26/II 732 [320]; fol. 64r vs 17 desinit ‫ܐ‬ ܿ ] ‫ܪܗ‬ ‫ܒ‬ Jac (explicitly refering to Lot’s wife) 26 ‫ܒ ܪܗ‬ 10) Gen 28:16-17/I 156; 35r 17 ‫ܗܘ‬ ‫ ]ܕ‬om ‫ ܗܘ‬Jac 5b1 | ‫ ܘܗ ܐ ]ܘܗ‬Jac | ‫ ܕ ܐ‬sic ] ‫ ܬܪ ܐ ܕ ܐ‬Jac 5b1→

ܿ ‫ܬܪ‬

11) Gen 28:16-19/I 161; fol. 35v desinit ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ 17 ‫ܗܘ‬ ‫ ]ܕ‬om ‫ ܗܘ‬Jac 5b1 ― 18 ‫ܐ ]ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ ܒ‬Jac 5b1 | ܿ ‫ ܘ ]ܕ‬Jac (cf vs 11) | ‫ ܘ ܒ ܗ ]ܘ ܒ ܗ‬MS Add 17134 ex err 12) Gen 50:24-26/II 773 [361]; fol. 70r no variant reading 13) Lev 14:3-7/II 750 [338]; fol. 67r ‫( ܐܬܐ‬sic) incipit desinit ‫ܘ ܕ ܐ‬ 5‫ܐ‬ ‫ ]ܨ ܐ‬om ‫ ܐ‬Jac ― 6 ‫ܐ ܐ ܬܐ‬ ‫ ܒ ܐ ܕ ̈ ܐ ] ̈ ܐ ܕ ܒ ܐ‬Jac (cf vs 5)

] transp Jac |

14) 1Sam 17:34-36/II 759 [347]; fol. 68r semper ‫ ― ܕܐܘ‬34 ‫]ܘ‬ ‫ ܘ‬Jac LXX: 245 376 (™l£mbanon) 6h1.19 8a1 9a1fam 10c1 12a1fam→ ― 36 2‫]ܘܐܦ‬ ‫ ܐܦ‬Jac

Septuaginta and Peshitta

161

The variants do not agree with Jacob’s later revision, see A. Salvesen, The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa (MPIL 10; Leiden, 1999), part I,54. 15) 1Sam 17:49-51/II 759 [347]; fol. 68r ‫ܪ‬ desinit semper ‫ ― ܕܐܘ‬50 ‫ ܒܐ ܗ ܕܐܘ ]ܒܐ ܗ ܕܕܘ‬MS Add 17134 ex err 16) 2Sam 23:13-17/II 631 [219]; fol. 46v desinit ‫ܕ ܐ ܐ ܢ‬ 14 ‫]ܒ‬ ‫ ܒܒ‬Jac 9c1 9l2 10c1.2 11c1 12a1fam→ ― ‫]ܒ‬ ‫ ܒܒ‬Jac ― 16 ‫ ]ܘܒ‬add ‫ ܗ‬Jac LXX 15 (oƒ) | ‫ܗܘܢ‬ ]‫ܐ‬ Jac | ‫]ܒ‬ ‫ ܒܒ‬Jac 9l2→

‫( ܒܒ‬in vs 14 and 15; in Jacob’s later revision offers also 16 different construction), see A. Salvesen, The Books of Samuel part I, 160. 17) Isa 8:23—9:1/II, 605 [193]; fol 41r incipit ‫ܐܪ ܐ ܕܙܒ ܢ‬

‫ܗܒ‬

ix,1 ‫ ܘܕ ܒ‬ed Leid sub † ] ‫ܕ ܒ‬ katoikoàntej) 7a1 8a1 11l1 12a1

‫ ܘܐ‬Jac LXX (oƒ

18) Isa 10:33—11:3/I, 175; fol. 38v 33 ‫ܐ‬ xi,1

] om Jac ― 34 ‫̈ ܐ ] ̈ ܐ‬ ‫ ] ܪܒܐ‬om Jac

MS Add 17134 ex err ―

19) Isa 12:2-3/I, 63; fol. 14v 2

‫ܒ‬

‫ܒ ]ܘ‬

‫ ܘ‬MS Add 17134 ex err

20) Isa 14:3-15/II, 599 [187]; fol. 40r 6 ‫ ܒ ܐܬܐ ]ܒܐ ܐ‬Jac 9a1fam ― 8 ‫ ܐܦ ]ܘܐܦ‬Jac 6h3 9a1fam 9d1 10d1 11d1 12a1→ | ‫ ]ܒ ܘܬܐ‬syome Jac (contra Brooks), cf LXX (t¦ xÚla) | ] Jac LXX (¢nšbh) ― 13 ‫]ܐ‬ ‫ ܕܐ‬Jac 9a1fam 9d1 10d1 11d1 12a1 | ‫]ܐܪ‬ ‫ ܐ‬Jac SyHex LXX (q»sw) | ‫ ܒ ܪܐ ]ܒ ̈ܪܐ ̈ܪ ܐ‬Jac cf LXX (™n Ôrei Øyhlù) ( ‫ ܒ ܪܐ ܪ ܐ‬9a1fam → ) ― 15 ] ‫ܘ‬ Jac 21) Isa 14:10-12/I 101; fol. 23r

162

Andreas Juckel

desinit ‫ܐ‬ no variant reading; but the following addition:

‫ܓ ܐ‬ ܼ

‫ܐ‬

‫ܐ‬

ܿ ‫̈ܐ ܐ‬

(the Peshitta reading is ‫ܐ‬

‫ܐ‬

‫ܒܿܝ ܕ‬

‫ܬܐ ܕ ܬ‬ ‫)ܐ‬.

22) Isa 28:16/II, 662 [250]; fol. 52v ‫ܗܐ ܐ ܐ‬ incipit ‫ܐ ܐ‬ 16 ‫ ]ܗܐ ܐ ܐ‬om ‫ ܐ ܐ‬Jac | ‫ ܒ ܘ ܐ ]ܒ ܘ ܐ‬MS Add 17134 ex err 23) Isa 29:13-14/II 742 [330]; fol. 65v no variant reading 24) Isa 32:1-6/II 596 [184]; fol. 39v 3 ‫ ̈ ܘܢ ] ̈ ܘܢ‬MS Add 17134 ex err ― 5 ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܐ ܐ‬Jac 6h3→

‫] ܐܦ‬

25) Isa 35:3-10/I 134; fol. 30v 5 ̈ ] ̈ Jac ― 10 ‫ܗܝ‬ ] ‫ܗܝ‬ ‫ ܐܦ‬Jac cf LXX (kaˆ sunhgmšnoi) | ‫ ܪ ܢ ] ܪ ܢ‬MS Add 17134 ex err 26) Isa 40:27-41:2/II 615 [203]; fol. 43v 28 ‫ܦ‬ ‫ܦ] ܐ‬ ‫ ܘ ܐ‬Jac ― 31 ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ̈ ܐ‬Jac cf LXX (æj ¢eto…)

‫ܕ‬

‫]ܐ‬

‫ܐ‬

27) Isa 49:14-18/II 662 [250]; fol. 52r 15 ܿ ̈ ‫ܿ ]ܒ‬ ‫̈ ܐܐ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫̈ ܿ܆ ܐ ܗ‬ Jac (sic, om ‫ ― )ܒ‬16 ‫ܒ ] ܒ‬ MS Add 17134 ex err ― 17 ‫]ܒ ܓ‬ ‫ ܐܪ ]ܐܪ‬MS Add 17134 ex err add ‫ ܐܬܘܢ‬Jac ― 18 28) Isa 49:18-21/I 137; fol. 31r ‫ ܐܪ ]ܐܪ‬MS Add 17134 ex err 18 ‫ ܐܬ ܒ‬Jac 9l4.6 12a1

―

20 ‫]ܐܬ ܒ‬

29) Isa 61:3-8/II 639 [227]; fol. 48r incipit ‫ܪܘ ܐ ܐ ܒ ܐ‬ 3 ] ‫ ܘ‬Jac ― 4 ‫ ܘ ܒ ܢ ]ܘ ܒ ܢ‬Jac | ‫ ܕܕܪܕܪ‬... ‫ܢ‬ ] ‫ܢ ]ܘ‬ Jac | ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܢ ]ܘ ܢ‬ ‫ܘ‬ om Jac ― 5 ‫ܢ‬ ̈ ‫ ܘ ̈ ܐ ]ܘ‬Jac MS Add 17134 ex err ― 6 ‫ܗܝ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ 9a1fam ― 7 ‫ ܬܪ ܐ ] ܪܬ ܐ‬MS Add 17134 ex err 30) Isa 58:1-2/II 710 [298]; fol. 60r 1

‫]ܘ ܒ‬

‫ ܘ ܒ‬Jac 8a1c 9d1.2 9l3 10d1 12a1 12d1.2→

Septuaginta and Peshitta

163

31) Isa 62:1-4/I 136; fol. 31r 1 ] MS Add 17134 ex err ― 4 ‫ܐ ]ܬܘܒ ܐ ܬܬ ܐ‬ ‫ ܬܬ ܐ ܬܘܒ‬Jac cf LXX: oÙ klhq»setai] + œti O'¦oÙkšti klhq»setai (-sh 147) 147-106c oII L 32) Isa 66:6-9/I 131; fol. 30r desinit ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ 7 ‫ ܿܗܝ ܕ ܐ ]ܕ ܐ‬Jac | ‫ܘܬܐ ]ܘܬ‬ ‫ ܬ‬Jac cf LXX (™xšfuge kaˆ œteken) ― 8 ‫( ܐ‬twice) ] ‫( ܕܐ‬twice) Jac | ܿ ‫ ܿ ] ܘ‬Jac | ‫ ]ܐܪ ܐ‬add ‫ ܘ ܐ‬Jac | ‫ ]ܘ ܐ ܨܗ ܢ‬transp Jac LXX: 88 L 33) Jer 31:15-17/I 154; fol. 34v no variant reading 34) Ezek 18:21-23/II 697 [285]; fol. 58r ̈ ] ̈ MS Add 17134 ex err ― 23 21 ‫ ܐܘܪ ܐ ܕ‬Jac 35) Ezek 37:15-17/ I 176; fol. 38v 16 ‫ ܘܕ ܐ ] ܘܕܐ‬MS Add 17134 ex err ― 17

]‫ܐ‬

36) Hos 2:23-25/I 135; fol. 30v 24 ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ]ܘ‬ ‫ ܘ‬MS Add 17134 ex err ― 25 ܿ ‫ ܘܐܙܪ‬Jac (referring to Hosea’s son? cf. Hos i,4)

‫]ܐܘܪ‬

Jac

‫]ܘܐܙܪ‬

37) Amos 8:9-10/II 703 [291]; fol. 59r 10 ‫ܐܕ ̈ ܢ‬ ] ‫̈ ܢ‬ MS Add 17134 | ‫]ܘܐ ܘܩ‬ ‫ ܘܐ ܘ‬MS Add 17134 ex err | ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ]ܕ‬ ‫ ܕ‬Jac 11l4.5*→ 38) Jonah 3:7-9/I 68; fol. 15v incipit ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘ‬ desinit 7 ‫ ܘܕܪܘ̈ܪܒ ܐ ]ܘܕܪܘ̈ܪܒ ܗܝ‬Jac ― 8 Jac LXX (›kastoj) |

‫ܒܐ ̈ ܘܗܝ‬

‫ܐ ܕܐ‬

‫ܘ‬

‫ܝ ]ܘ‬

] ‫ܬܐ ܿܗܝ ܕܒܐ ̈ ܘܗܝ‬

39) Hag 2:6-9/II 649 [237]; fol. 50r incipit ‫ܬܘܒ ܐ ܙܒ‬ ]‫ܐ‬ Jac 6‫ܐ‬ 40) Zech 11:7-8/I 175; fol. 38v desinit ‫ܒ ܐ‬

‫ܘ‬

‫ ܘ‬Jac | ‫]ܐ‬ Jac LXX

164 8‫ܐ‬

Andreas Juckel

‫ܐ ]ܒ‬

‫ ܒ‬Jac

41) Lam 3:25-30/II 731 [319]; fol. 63v 25 ] add ‫ ܗܘ‬Jac | ‫ܐ‬ ‫] ܿ ܕ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ ܐ‬Jac LXX ܿ (to‹j Øpomšnousin) | ‫ ܗܝ ܕܒ ܐ ]ܕܒ ܐ‬Jac LXX (¼) ― 27 ‫ܬܗ‬ ‫ܬܗ ]ܒ‬ Jac LXX ™n neÒthti] ™k neÒthtoj L 538 C-239 130 ― 29 ] Jac (LXX om vs 29; in Omg Q L 538 239 vs 29 is extant, stÒma aÙtoà only is attested) Evaluation [12]

Jacob’s 41 marginal Peshitta quotations compared with the Old Testament Peshitta and the Septuagint offer the following interpretation: a. In 7 items (6, 12, 15, 19, 21, 23, 33) Jacob’s quotations are in full agreement with the printed text of the Leiden Peshitta (i. e., with the traditional text of the Old Testament Peshitta). In 14 more items (1, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 20, 24, 28, 29, 30, 37) Jacob agrees with a variant quoted in the Leiden Peshitta. In six of these items (16, 20, 28, 29, 30, 37) Jacob’s quotation is the earliest witness of the Peshitta variants. All these variants are minor variations, already extant in the 7th-century transmission of the Peshitta text. b. In 6 items (4, 8, 16, 17, 38, 41 [vs 25]) we find adaptations to the Greek or influence of the Septuagint; one of these adaptations (17) is identical with a Peshitta variant. With special variants of the Septuagint Jacob agrees in item 1, 14 (both also Peshitta variants), 3, 31, 32 (vs 8), and 41 (vs 27). c. Most striking is the great number of singular variants in Jacob’s marginal quotation (in 26 items: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41). The majority of these otherwise not attested variants are beyond text-critical control; few of them might be scribal errors (like the omissions in item 2, 13 vs 5, 18 vs 1, 22 vs 16, and 29 vs 4) or Peshitta variants (see item 10, 18 vs 33, 25 vs 5, 26 vs 28, 29 vss 3 and 4, 32 vs 8, 34 vs 23, 35 vs 17, 39 vs 6). Some of them, however, seem to be intentional changes introduced by Jacob to the Peshitta text:

Septuaginta and Peshitta

165

1. In item 7 Jacob changes the imperatives to the singular in order to make Abraham talking to only one of the three persons who came to meet him. 2. Some of Jacob’s singular variants make the text more explicit: Item 9, 16 (vs 15); 27 (vs 17); 32 (vs 7: ‫̇ܗܝ ܕ ܐ‬, and vs 8: add ‫)ܘ ܐ‬. 3. In item 20 (vs 8) and 26 (vs 31) Jacob imposes the plural of the Septuagint on words of the Peshitta in the singular; in item 20 (vs 13) the plural of the Peshitta is changed to the singular of the Septuagint (and ‫ ܪ ܐ‬seems to be omitted by error). We also find conflations of Peshitta and Septuagint in item 25 (‫ ܐܦ‬is from the Septuagint; the verb is from the Peshitta), and 32 (vs 7: the addition of ‫ ܘܬܐ‬derives from the Septuagint, the tempus from the Peshitta). 4. There is a tendency to omit the suffix in a genitive relation in item 8, 10, 16, 29, 38 (except 38 all in accordance with Peshitta variants), and to reduce ‫ ܘܐܦ‬to ‫( ܐܦ‬14, 20, 24). 5. In item 27 (vs 15) Jacob introduces an expansion ‫ܐ‬ ‫ )ܐ‬which is of the verse (‫ ܐ‬... ̇ difficult to explain. It is a general statement that God will not forget Zion (suffix 3rd pers. sg.) immediately before the special address to Zion (suffix 2nd pers. sg.). ‫( ܒ‬for ‫ )ܒ ܐ‬in item 40, and 6. The variants ‫ܐ‬ (for ) in item 41 (vs 29) cannot be traced anywhere. The same is true for Jacob’s variants in item 4 (vs 14), 5 (vs 17), 13 (vs 6). As these variants are hardly scribal errors, we have to allow for the possibility that Jacob introduced them deliberately.

3. THE OLD TESTAMENT: JACOB QUOTING THE SEPTUAGINT [13]

The Syriac text quoted is Jacob’s translation of the Septuagint taken from Brooks’ edition (I = PO 6.1; II = PO 7.5), and checked with the help of a microfilm of Ms BL Add 17134. The text is collated

166

Andreas Juckel

against the printed Septuagint-texts of Rahlfs and Ziegler. As most of the variants in Jacob’s Septuagint text can be identified in the apparatus of Rahlfs’ edition I adopted his sigla and his style of quoting (not Ziegler’s). The few variants of Jacob’s translation attested only in Ziegler’s fuller edition are quoted without specification of their inner-recensional attestation. The purpose of the apparatus thus compiled is not to give the exhaustive attestation but the affiliation of the variants to Septuagint recensions as far as possible. The Greek Lemmata are taken from Rahlfs’ text; in all given cases they are identical with Ziegler’s. The variants quoted are from Jacob’s Syriac text presented in Greek. Recensions in italics: O = recensio Origenis, L = rec. Luciani, C = rec. in Catena magna in prophetas inventa. Jac = Jacobus Edessenus, Pš = Peshitta (Leiden Edition), SyH = Syro-Hexapla, SyL = Syro-Lucianic translation (see Ziegler’s edition, page 16 and 81-82). Further sigla are given according to Rahlf’s and Ziegler’s editions. Shadowed portions are passages identical with the Peshitta text. 1) Isa 1:4-6/II 697 [285], fol. 58r

‫ܐ ܒ ̈ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܢ‬ ‫ܒܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܬܐ‬ .‫̈ܒܐ‬

‫̈ ܐ܇ ܙܪ ܐ ܒ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܘܐܪܓ ܬܘܢ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ ܐ ܬܘܒ ܬܒ‬5 .‫ܒ ܪ ܢ‬ ‫ ܘ‬.‫ܐܒܐ‬ ‫ܪ ܐ‬ .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ̈ܪܓ ܐ ܘ‬ ‫ܐ ܘ ܐ ܒ ܬܐ ܘܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܘܐ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘ ܐ‬.

‫ܐ܇‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܝ‬4 ‫ܒ‬ .‫̈ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ ܘܗ‬. ‫ܕܐ ܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܬܘ ܢ ܐ‬ 6 .‫ܬܐ‬ ‫ ܘ ܐ‬.‫ܐ‬ ‫ܕܘ ܐ ܕ‬ ‫ܓ ܐ‬ .‫ܕ ܒ ܐ‬

4 Israhl] add ¢phllotrièqhsan e„j t¦ Ñp…sw Jac Pš LXX: LC O(sub obel) ― 5 ¢nom…an] ¢nom…aj Jac LXX: SL ― 6 podîn] ‡cnouj p. Jac Pš LXX: 93 (Ziegler) | kefalÁj] add oÙk œstin ™n aÙtù Ðloklhr…a Jac Pš LXX: LC O(sub obel)

2) Isa 3:12-14/II 738 [326], fol. 65r ‫ ܐܦ ܒ ܐ‬.‫ܢ‬ ‫ܒܐ‬ ‫ܢ‬ ‫ܕ ܒ‬ ‫ ܐ‬12 ‫ܐ܆ ܘ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܡ‬ ‫ ܐ ܐ ܗ ܐ‬13 . ‫ܕ̈ܪܓ ܢ ܕ‬ ‫̈ܒܐ ܕ‬ .‫ܐ ܐܬܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܼܗܘ‬14 .‫ܐ‬ .‫̈ܪ ܗܝ‬ ‫ܘ‬ 13 e„j kr…sin/tÕn laÕn aÙtoà] transp Jac 3) Isa 6:1-7/ΙΙ 671-72 [259-60], 54r

‫‪Septuaginta and Peshitta‬‬

‫‪167‬‬

‫ܐ‪ܿ .‬‬ ‫ܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܿܒ‬ ‫ܙܐ‬ ‫‪ 1‬ܒ ܐ ܕ‬ ‫ܒ ‪ 2 .‬ܘ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‪ .‬ܘ ܐ ܗܘܐ ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܪ ܐ ܘ‬ ‫‪ .‬ܘ ܐ ܓ ̈‬ ‫ܐ ܓ ̈‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫̈ܪܘܗܝ‪.‬‬ ‫ܗܘܘ‬ ‫ܿ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ[‬ ‫ܗܘܘ ] ܨܘ ܐ܆ ܘܒ ̈ܪ ܕ‬ ‫ܘܒ ̈ܪ‬ ‫ܬ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ‪ 3 .‬ܘ‬ ‫ܓ ܐ‪ .‬ܘܒ ̈ܪ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ ̈ ܬܐ ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܘܐ‬ ‫ܐ ̈ ܐ ܕܬ̈ܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܿ ܐܪ ܐ ܬ ܒ ̈ ܗ )‪ 4 .(sic‬ܘܐܬܬܪ‬ ‫ܬ ܐ‪ 5 .‬ܘܐ ܿ ܬ ܘܝ‬ ‫ܗܘܘ‪ .‬ܘܒ ܐ ܐܬ‬ ‫ܐ ܿܗܘ ܕ‬ ‫ܕܒ ܐ ܐ ܝ‪.‬‬ ‫ܕܬܘܐ ܐ ܐ܆‬ ‫ܕܘ ܐ ܐ ܐ‪.‬‬ ‫ܐ ܕܐ‬ ‫ܘܒ‬ ‫ܘ ̈ ܬܐ ܐ ܕ ̈ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ ̈ ܬܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܿ ܐ ܐ‪ .‬ܘ‬ ‫̈ ܐܬܐ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫̈ ܬܐ‬ ‫ܿ‬ ‫)‪(sic‬‬ ‫ܐ‪ .‬ܘܒܐ‬ ‫ܬܝ‬ ‫ܒ ̈ ‪ 6 .‬ܘܐ ܕܪ‬ ‫ܒ ܐ‪7 .‬‬ ‫ܓ ܪܬܐ ܕ ܪܐ܇ ܿܗܝ ܕ ܼ ܒ ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫̈‬ ‫ܿ‬ ‫ܬܟ‪ .‬ܘ ܐ‬ ‫‪ .‬ܗܐ ܿ ܒ ܗܕܐ‬ ‫ܘ ܒ‬ ‫ܘܐ ܼ‬ ‫̈‬ ‫ܐ‪.‬‬ ‫ܘ‬ ‫‪ ― 2 the‬ܒ ܐ ‪1 kaˆ ™gšneto toà ™niautoà] Jac adopts the Pš:‬‬ ‫ܗܘܘ ‪words‬‬ ‫ܨܘ ܐ܆ ܘܒ ̈ܪ ܕ‬ ‫‪are omitted before‬‬ ‫‪ by error ― 3 tÁj dÒxhj] tîn dÒxwn Jac Pš ― 4 tÕ‬ܓ ܐ‬ ‫‪Øpšrquron] t¦¦ Øpšrqura Jac Pš ― 6 ceir…] add aÙtoà Jac Pš‬‬ ‫‪LXX: LO (sub obel) | ¥nqraka] add purÒj Jac A ― 7 e pen] add‬‬ ‫‪moi Jac Pš | t¦j ¢nom…aj] t¾n ¢nom…an Jac Pš (cf Theodoret’s tÕ‬‬ ‫‪¢nÒmim in Ziegler’s edition).‬‬

‫‪ 15‬ܘ ܘܘܢ ܿܗ ܢ ܕ ܒ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܕ ܒ ܢ ܐ ܢ‪16 .‬‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܐ‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 3‬ܐ‬ ‫ܿ ܐ‪ .‬ܘ ܐ‬

‫‪ .‬ܐܬ‬

‫ܕ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܬܐ‬

‫‪4) Isa 9:15-16/II 738 [326], 65r‬‬

‫ܐ ܗܐ ܕ‬ ‫ܗܐ‬

‫ܒܐ‬

‫ܘ‬ ‫̈ ܘܢ‬

‫܆‬ ‫ܐ‬

‫‪5) Isa 21:3-4/II 744 [332], 66r‬‬ ‫ܕ ܐ ܐ ܐ‪ 4 .‬ܒܐ ܕ‬

‫ܒ ܐ‪.‬‬

‫ܐ ܕ‬

‫ܒ‬

‫ܐ‪.‬‬

‫‪6) Isa 24:15-20/II 694 [282], fol. 57v‬‬ ‫̈‬ ‫ܐܬܘܬܐ‬ ‫̈ ܿ ܕܐܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܐ ܕܐ ܐ ‪16 .‬‬ ‫‪15‬‬ ‫‪ .‬ܐ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܘܝ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ )‪ (sic‬ܘܐ‬ ‫ܼ ‪ .‬ܒܐ‬ ‫ܢ‬ ‫ܐ ܘ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ܆ ‪ 17‬ܕ ܐ ܘܓ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܐ ܘܢ‬ ‫ܿܗ ܢ ܕ‬ ‫ܐܪ ܐ‪ 18 .‬ܘ ܘܐ ܿܗܘ ܕ ܩ‬ ‫ܐ ܬ‬ ‫ܓ‬ ‫ܐ‪ܿ .‬ܗܘ ܕ ܕ ܩ‬ ‫ܒܓ‬ ‫ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ̈ ܿ‬ ‫̈ ‪ .‬ܘ ܬܙ ̈‬ ‫ܐ ܐܬ‬ ‫ܕ ̈ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‪.‬‬ ‫ܐܪ ܐ‪20 .‬‬ ‫ܐ ܬܬ‬ ‫ܐܪ ܐ ܘܒ‬ ‫ܕܐܪ ܐ‪ 19 .‬ܬܬܕ‬

168

‫ܿܗܘ‬

Andreas Juckel

‫ ܐ‬.‫ܙ ܐ ܐܪ ܐ‬ .

‫ܬܨ ܐ ܘܬ ܛ ܘܬܙܘܥ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܬ ܘ ܐ ܬ‬.‫ ܘ ܕܪ‬.‫ܕܪܘܐ‬

16 tù eÙsebe‹] to‹j ¢sebšsin (sic) Jac ― 17 ™noikoàntaj] (kat-) o„koàntaj Jac LXX: S* L ― 19 taracÍ] om Jac? ― 20 œkline kaˆ seisq»setai æj Ñpwroful£kion ¹ gÁ] kline‹ kaˆ saleuq»setai kaˆ seisq»setai æj Ñp. ¹ gÁ Jac? (cf L) 7) Isa 24:23-25:1/II 683 [271], 55v

‫̈ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘ ܡ‬. ‫ܐ ܒ ܗ ܢ ܘܒܐܘܪ‬ ‫ܕ‬ 23 ‫ ܕ ܒܬ‬. ‫ܘܐܘܕܐ‬ ‫ ܐ ܒ‬. ‫ܐ ܐ ܝ ܐ‬ 1 . ‫ܒ‬ .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܬܐ ܬܗܘܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܬܪ ܐ ܪ‬.‫ܐ ܬ ̈ ܐ‬ 1 Ømn»sw] kaˆ Øm. Jac Pš SyH (Ziegler) 8) Isa 25:6-10/II 767 [355], 69v

‫ܪܐ ܗ ܐ܆‬ ‫̈ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܐ ܨܒܐܘܬ‬ ‫ ܘ ܒ‬6 ‫ ܒ ܪܐ‬7 .‫ܪܘܢ‬ ‫ܢ‬ .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ .‫ܘܬܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ .‫ ܬܪ ܐ ܓ ܗܕܐ‬.‫̈ ܐ‬ ‫ܗ‬ ‫ ܐ‬.‫ܗ ܐ‬ ܿ ‫̈ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ ܘܬܘܒ‬. ‫ܐܬ‬ ‫ܬܐ‬ ܼ‫ ܒ‬8 . ‫ܐ ܐ ܒ‬ ‫ܐ ܕ‬ .‫ܨܘ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܐ ܒ‬ ܿ ‫ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܓ‬ .‫ܐܪ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘ ܐ ܘܢ‬9 . ‫ܗܘ ܘܪܘܙ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܐ ܿܗܘ܆ ܗܐ ܐ ܢ ܿܗܘ ܕ ܗܝ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܐ ܠ‬ 10 . ‫ܘ‬ ‫ ܗ‬. ‫ܗܘ ܒ ܪ‬ ܼ ‫ܐ ܕ‬ .‫ܪܐ ܗ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ‬ 8 Ð qeÒj] om Jac | toà laoà] toà kÒsmou Jac (scribal err.) ― 9 swthr…v ¹mîn] add oátoj kÚrioj Øpeme…namen aÙtù (vel ¢utÕn) kaˆ eÙfranqhsÒmeqa Jac (cf Pš and LXX: BLO) ― 10 Óti] om Jac LXX: BL Isa 25:6-7/II 683 [271], fol. 55v ‫ܪܐ‬ ‫̈ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܐ ܨܒܐܘܬ‬ ‫ ܘܒ‬6 7 .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܢ‬ .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ .‫ܘܢ ܘܬܐ‬ ‫ܗ ܐ܆‬ ‫ ܗܕܐ‬.(sic) ‫̈ ܐ‬ ‫ܗ‬ ‫ ܐ‬.‫ܒ ܪܐ ܗ ܐ‬

.ܿ

‫̈ܐ ܐ‬

‫ܘܢ‬

.‫ܐ‬

‫ܬܪ‬

‫ܓ‬

6 mÚron] œlaion Jac LXX: 46 (Ziegler) ― 7 ¹ g¦r boul¾ aÛth] aÛth g¦r ¹ boul» Jac? 9) Isa 26:9/I 124, fol. 28r

‫ܕ ܗܪܐ ܐ ܢ‬

‫ܐ܆‬

‫ܬܟ ܐ‬

10) Isa 26:18-19/II 700 [288], fol. 58v 19 .‫ܐܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܢ ܿܗ ܢ ܕ‬

‫ܘܢ ܼܗ ܢ‬

‫ ܘ‬.‫ܢ ܿܗ ܢ ܕܒ ܒ ܐ‬

‫ܐ ܪܘ‬ .‫ܐܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ‬ ‫̈ ܐ ܘ‬

‫ܐ‬ ̈

‫ܐ‬ ‫ܢ‬

9

18

Septuaginta and Peshitta

‫ܬܐ ܐ ܘܗܝ‬

‫ܬܟ܆ ܐ‬

‫ܿܗܘ ܕ‬ . ‫ܐ ܬ‬

169

‫ܐ ܓ‬ .‫ܕܒܐܪ ܐ‬ ‫ ܐܪ ܐ ܕ ܕ̈ܪ‬.‫ܘܢ‬

18 ¢ll£] oÙ pesoÚmeqa ¢ll£ Jac LXX : ScLC 11) Isa 30:18-19/II 768 [356], fol. 69v

‫ܗܕܐ‬ ‫ ܘ‬.‫ܢ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܢ‬ ‫ܕܕ ܿ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܒ ܘܢ‬ .‫ܢ‬ .‫ܘܢ ܿ ܒ‬ ‫ܐ ܒ‬

‫ܐ‬ ‫ܢ‬

[MS ‫ܒ‬ ‫ܕ ܐ‬

‫ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܬܘܒ‬18 ] ‫ܢ‬ ‫ܬܪ‬ ‫ ܘܐ ܐ ܒ ܩ‬.‫ܐ ܘܗܝ‬ 19 . ‫ܿܗ ܢ ܕ‬

18 katale…yete] katale…yei Jac SyH | mak£rioi] add p£ntej Jac (cf Pš) LXX: ALC | oƒ ™mmšnontej ™n aÙtù] oƒ Øpomšnontej aÙtÒn Jac Pš LXX: L (Ziegler) Isa 30:18/II 787 [375], fol. 73v ‫ܗܕܐ‬ ‫ ܘ‬.‫ܢ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܬܘܒ‬18

.‫ܐ ܐ ܢ ܐ ܘܗܝ‬ ‫ܕܕ ܿ ܐ‬ ܿ ‫ܢ‬ ‫ܒ ܘܢ‬ .‫ܒ ܢ‬

.‫ܢ‬ ‫ܒ ܩ‬

‫ܬܪ‬

(sic) ‫ܘܐ ܐ‬

.

‫ܕ‬

katale…yete] katale…yei Jac SyH | oƒ ™mmšnontej ™n aÙtù] oƒ Øpomšnontej aÙtÒn Jac Pš LXX: L (Ziegler) 12) Isa 46:12-13/II 715 [303], fol. 60v

‫ ܿܗ ܢ ܕ ܘ ܐ‬.‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܬܐ ܕ ܘ ܪ‬

‫ܿܗ ܢ ܕܐܒ ܘ ܒܐ ܕ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ ܒ‬13 .‫ܙܕ ܬܐ‬

12

‫ܘܢ‬ . ‫ܘ‬

‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬

12 t¾n kard…an] add aÙtîn Jac SyL (Ziegler) 13) Isa 55:6-9/II 783 [371], fol. 72r

‫ ܐ ܝ ܕ‬.‫ܐܘܗܝ‬ ‫ܘ ܝ‬ ‫ ܘ ܐ ܕ ܐ‬.‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܒ‬6 ‫ ܒ ܩ ܪ ܐ ܐܘ̈ܪ ܗ ܘܓܒ ܐ ܐ‬7 ‫ܬ ܢ܆‬ ‫ܕ ܘܒ‬ ‫ܕ ܓ‬ . ‫ܐ ܘ‬ ‫ܬ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܘ‬.‫̈ܒ ܗ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܬ̈ܪ ܝ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܐ ܓ‬8 .‫ܢ‬ ‫ܒ ܩ‬ ܿ ‫ܢ ܐܘ̈ܪ ܝ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܐ ܐ ܐ ܐ ܕܐܘ̈ܪ‬.‫ܢ‬ ‫ܕܬ̈ܪ‬ ‫ܐܪ ܐ܆ ܗ ܐ ܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܕܪ ܐ‬ ‫ ܐ ܐ ܐ‬9 .‫ܐ‬ .‫ܢ‬ ‫ܬ̈ܪ‬ ‫ܢ܇ ܘܬ̈ܪ ܝ‬ ‫ܐܘ̈ܪ‬ ‫ܐܘܪ‬ 7 ™pistraf»tw ™p…] ™pistr. prÒj Jac (cf Pš) LXX: V-Qmg LC (Ziegler) ― 9 t¦ diano»mata Ømîn ¢pÕ tÁj diano…aj mou] t¦ diano»mat£ mou ¢pÕ tîn dianoiîn Ømîn Jac Pš 14) Isa 57:19-21/II 710 [298], fol. 60r

ܿ ‫ܐ ܘ ܒܐ ܐ‬ .‫ܐ ܘܐ ܐ ܐ ܢ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܐ ܐ‬21 .‫ܓ ܢ‬

‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫̈ ܐ ܕ ܗ ܐ‬ .‫ܐ ܐ ܐ‬

19 20

ܿ‫ܐ‬

170

Andreas Juckel

20 kaˆ ¢napaÚsasqai oÙ dun»sontai] om Jac (scribal error?) 15) Isa 59:11-13/II 699 [287], fol. 58r

.

‫ ܘ ܐ ܐܬܪ‬.‫ܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܘ ܐ ܐ ܘܗܝ‬ ̈ ‫ܐ ܕ‬ ‫ ܘ‬. ‫ܬܐ ܕ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܓ ܐܐ ܓ‬ ‫ܬܢ‬ ‫ ܘ‬. ‫̈ܢ ܓ ܒ ܐ‬ ‫ ܐ‬. ‫ܒ‬ .‫ܒ ܪܗ ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܕܓ ܘܐܪ‬ ‫ ܐܪ‬13 . 12 t¦ ¢dik»mata] tÕ ¢d…khma Jac SyH (cf Pš qeoà ¹mîn] toà kur…ou Jac (cf Pš) 16) Isa 63:17-18/II 766 [354], fol. 69r

‫ܒ ̈ ܬܢ ܕ ܐ‬ ‫ܐܘܪ ܇ ܘ‬ 18 .‫̈ܒ ܐ ܕ ܬܘܬܟ‬ . ̈ . ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܨ‬ ‫ܐ‬ . ‫ܐ‬ ܼ

11 12

) ― 13 toà

‫ܐ ܐ‬ 17 ‫ ܐܬ‬. ‫ܐܪܬ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ ܕ‬

‫ܐ‬ ‫̈ܒ‬ ‫ܪܟ‬

17 ™skl»runaj] kaˆ ™. Jac Pš 17) Isa 63:19/II 711 [299], 60r

‫ܪ ܐ܇‬

‫ܝ ܕ ܐ ܗܘ‬

‫ ܐ‬.

‫ܒ‬ .

18) Isa 64:4-8/II 772 [360], 70r ‫ ܘܗܘ‬5 . ‫ܗܕܐ‬ .

.‫ܿ ܙܕ ܬܢ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܗ ܐ ܪܘ ܐ‬.‫̈ ܬܢ‬ ܿ ‫ܘܗܘ ܕ ܕ‬ ‫܇‬ ‫ ܘܐ‬. ‫ܐ ܒܐ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ ܘ ܐ ܬܬܕ‬.

‫ܕ‬

‫ ܗܘ ܐ‬19 ‫ܐ ܐ ܐܬ ܝ‬

‫ܐ ܪܓ ܬ ܘ‬ ‫ܐܘܪ ܐ ܕ‬ ‫ ܘܐ‬. ‫̈ ܐܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬ ܿ ܿ ‫ ܘ ܐ ܐ ܘܗܝ ܗܘ ܕ ܐ‬6 ̈‫ܐ‬ ‫ܕܐܗ‬ . ‫ܒ‬ . ‫ܐ ܐܒ ܢ ܐ‬ ‫ ܘܗ ܐ‬7 ‫ܐ‬ ‫ ܐ ܬܪܓ‬8 . . ̈

‫ ܗܐ‬4 ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘ ܪܢ‬ . ‫ܬ‬ . ̈

̈ ‫ܕܐ‬ ‫ܒܒܐ‬

5 æj2] kaˆ æj Jac Pš LXX: L (Ziegler) | fÚlla] add p£ntej ¹me‹j Jac Pš LXX: LO (sub aster) | ¹m©j] me Jac ― 6 ¹m©j] me Jac ― 7 p£ntej] add ¹me‹j Jac Pš SyH LXX: BL ― 8 sfÒdra] Jac (Pš ) 19) Isa 65:15-18/II 775 [363], fol. 70v ‫ ܿܗܘ ܕ ܒ ܟ‬16 ‫ܐ ܬܐ‬ ‫ܐ‬

ܿ ܿ ‫ܘܗ ܢ ܕ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ ‫ܐܘ‬ ‫ܓ‬ ‫ܐ ܬܐ‬ ‫ܓ‬ ̈ ‫ ܘܐ ܐ ܐܬ‬.‫ܐ‬ .ܿ‫ܢ ܒ‬

‫ ܿ ܢ ܕ‬15 .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ ܒ ܢ ܓ‬.‫ܐܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܢ‬ .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܐܪ ܐ܆ ܐ ܢ ܒܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܐ‬ 17 .‫ܒ ܘܢ‬ ‫ܐ܆ ܘ ܐ‬ ̈ ‫ ܘ ܐ ܕ ܘܢ‬.‫ܘܐܪ ܐ ܬܐ‬ ‫ ܐ ܐ ܘܬܐ ܘܐܪܘܙܐ‬18 .‫ܒ ܘܢ‬

15 aÙtù] moi Jac SyH LXX: BSLC

Septuaginta and Peshitta 20) Isa 65:22/II 775 [363], fol. 70v

‫ܐ‬

‫̈ ܐ ܕ‬

‫ܘܘܢ‬

‫ܕܐ ܐ ܕ ̈ ܐ‬

‫̈ ܐ ܓ‬

xÚlou tÁj zwÁj] dšndrou t. z. Jac (cf Pš ‫̈ ܐ ܐ ܢ‬ ‫)ܕܐ ̈ ܐ‬

171

‫ ܐ‬22 . ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܐ‬

21) Isa 66:17-19/II 723 [311], fol. 62r (hardly legible in the microfilm)

‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘܐ ܐ‬ [‫ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܐܦ‬

̈ ‫ܒܓ ܐ ]ܘܒ [̈ܪ ܐ‬ ‫ܘ ܕ‬ ‫ܕ‬ ‫ܿܗ ܢ ܐ‬ ܿ 18 .‫ܐ‬ ‫ܢ ܐ‬ [ .....]‫ܐ ܕ ܒ ܐ ܐ‬ ‫ ܐܦ ܐ]ܬܐ‬.‫[ ܒ ܘܢ ܘ] ̈ܒ [ܐ ܕ ܘܢ ܥ ܐ ܐ‬ 19 . ‫ܒ‬ ‫ ܘ ܐܬܘܢ‬.‫̈ ܐ ܘ ̈ ܐ‬ ‫ܘܢ‬ .(sic) ‫ܘܢ ܐܬܘܬܐ‬ ‫ܒ ܩ‬

17

‫ܒ‬ ] ‫ܐ‬

17 e„j toÝj k»pouj] ™n to‹j k»poij Jac Pš SyH ― 18 t¦ œrga/tÕn logismÒn] transp Jac L (Ziegler) | œrcomai] kaˆ œ. Jac LXX: oII (Ziegler) | kaˆ Ôyontai] om Jac ― 19 shme‹a] shme‹on Jac (Pš ‫ )ܐܬܐ‬LXX: BS*LC Evaluation [14]

[15]

[16]

Jacob’s translation of the 21 Septuagint texts presented above includes three formative elements: 1. The Septuagint itself and its different recensions; 2. The Peshitta, and modifications of the Septuagint by the Peshitta; 3. Untraceable modifications of the Septuagint. The Syro-Hexapla may have influenced his translation in a general way, special influence is hardly traceable (see item 7, 11, 18, 19, 21). The Masoretic Text coincides with some Peshitta readings adopted by Jacob (see item 1 vs 4; vs 6:1 ‡cnouj ante podîn; item 3 vs 1: the beginning of the vs; item 13 vs 9); no special influence of the Hebrew is traceable. Ad 1. Jacob adopts variants from different recensions of the Septuagint (disagreeing with the Peshitta) in item 1 (vs 5), 3 (vs 6), 6 (vs 17), 8 (vs 10), 10, 19, 21 (vs 18). Adoption of different Septuagint recensions with agreement of the Peshitta we meet in item 1 (vss 4 and 6), 3 (vs 6), 11, (vs 7), 18 (vss 5 and 7). All these items show a striking preponderance of the Lucianic recension. Ad 2. Jacob’s rendering of the Septuagint follows the Peshitta, not the Septuagint and/or Septuagint recensions in item 3 (vss 1.3.4.7), 13 (vs 9), 16. It is influenced by the Peshitta (without being exactly traceable to any existing reading) in item 8 (vs 9), 13 (vs 7),

172

[17]

Andreas Juckel

15, 20, 21 (vs 19). With exception of the items 15 and 20 again the Lucianic recension is involved. Ad 3. Jacob offers untraceable variants in item 2, 6 (vs 16), 8 (vs 8), 14, 18 (vs 5), 21 (scribal errors are possible in item 8, 14, 21). The retroversion of Jacob’s quotation is without control in item 6 (vs 20) and 8 (vs 7 in the second quotation). With regard to Jacob’s ability to use different textual traditions in the Septuagint renderings of his own, it may be possible that ‘untraceable variants’ may originate from Jacob himself.

4. RESULTS [18]

[19]

1. The first result we can draw from the textual material presented above is that Jacob’s approach to a translation of the Old Testament text must have started ante A. Gr. 986 (A. D. 674/75). We are not informed about the scope of this approach or about the actual incarnation of his textual material so far; but the consistency of the translational principles point to a well prepared written source which covers most of the Old Testament books. Jacob’s decision to add a full-text apparatus of biblical testimonia in the margins to offer the explicit scriptural proof for what is only implicitly said or alluded to in the text was hardly the actual reason for his new approach. Possibly Jacob had started to prepare new translations of unsatisfactorily translated passages of the Peshitta earlier. The preponderance of the Lucianic-Antiochene recension in Jacob’s translations may be due to a local Septuagint text. 2. The second result is that Jacob’s introduction of Septuagint renderings in fact is a substitution of ‘unsatisfactory’ Peshitta texts. The main reason for this interpretation is the mutual influence of Peshitta and Septuagint in Jacob’s quotations. Jacob’s intention is to maintain the Peshitta where it is congruent with the Septuagint, and to replace it by a rendering of the Septuagint where both differ too much. Full or partial agreement of the Peshitta with the Lucianic recension favoured the inclusion of the Old Testament Peshitta during the process of rendering the Septuagint texts.23 The

23 The textual affinity between the Old Testament Peshitta and the Lucianic recension is disputed, but it was already acknowledged at the end of the 19th century, see Th. Stockmayer, ‘Hat Lucian zu seiner Septuaginta revision die Peschito benützt?,’ ZAW 12 (1892) 218-223; and M.P.

Septuaginta and Peshitta

[20]

173

textual character of Jacob’s Septuagint renderings, however, is clearly distinguished from the one of the Peshitta quotations. The accommodation does not eliminate the different textual character of both types of quotations. With regard to translation technique, Jacob’s renderings are far from adopting the extreme Graecising translation technique (‘mirror translation’) of the Syro-Hexapla; but they are much better adapted to the Greek than the Peshitta. 3. The third result is that Jacob’s marginal quotations reflect a prehistory of his later Old Testament revision which came into existence few years before his death in 708. For the purpose of this investigation it is sufficient to state that Jacob’s revision24 ‘is fundamentally an amalgam of the Peshitta and Greek texts’.25 It is based on the Peshitta using the different recensions of the Greek (Septuagint); the Syro-Hexapla may have influenced his renderings, but is no primary source. Special features are a number of regular substitutions in the vocabulary of the Peshitta, glosses and creative expansions to improve the text, and a more Graecised representation of proper nouns than in the Peshitta. A subscription at the end of 1Sam26 provides the link with Jacob’s quotations in Ms Add. 17134. It states that ‘this First Book of the Kingdoms [i.e., 1Sam] was corrected as far as possible and with much difficulty from the different traditions—from that of the Syrians and from those of the Greeks—by the holy Jacob, bishop of Edessa ….’

Weitzmann, The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction (UCOP 56; Cambridge, 1999) 83-84. 24 The books of Samuel are the best presented and studied part of Jacob’ revision so far; see R. J. Saley, The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa. A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions (MPIL 9; Leiden, 1998); A. Salvesen, The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa (MPIL 10; Leiden, 1999); A. Salvesen, ‘Jacob of Edessa’s version of Exodus 1 and 28,’ Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 8:1 (2005) [http://www.bethmardutho.org/hugoye]. An instructive article on Jacob’ revision was written by W. Baars, ‘Ein neugefundenes Bruchstück aus der syrischen Bibelrevision des Jakob von Edessa,’ VT 18 (1968) 547-54.— For further literature, see D. Kruisheer and L. van Rompay, ‘A Bibliographical Clavis to the Works of Jacob of Edessa,’ Hugoye 1:1 (1998), section II A. 25 A. Salvesen, The Books of Samuel, x. 26 Syriac text in A. Salvesen, The Books of Samuel, part I, 90.

174

[21]

Andreas Juckel

Jacob’s quotations in Ms Add. 17134 actually represent the ‘different traditions’ mentioned in the subscription, thus anticipating the revisional principle of the future work. These ‘traditions,’ however, are still isolated from each other in Ms Add. 17134 and lack the characteristic later degree of amalgamation, despite their mutual influence already traceable in the single quotations. The dominance of the Peshitta quotations, however, preludes the increased significance of this version for the future revision; and Jacob’s own renderings of the Septuagint correspond well with the reduced impact of the Syro-Hexapla on his later work. From the very beginning of his revisional activity Jacob adopted the principle of ‘graeca veritas,’ but in a different way than the Harklean version and the Syro-Hexapla half a century before him. While the latter two versions by their ‘mirror translation’ are intended to be read as Greek texts, Jacob is anxious to offer a Syriac text without dropping, however, the substantial relation to the Greek. The ‘graeca veritas’ is reduced to the Septuagint traditions to which a Syriac textual incarnation is given by adoption, correction, and substitution of the traditional Peshitta text. In the marginal quotations of Ms BL Add 17134 this principle is in its infancy and still lacks the refinement and maturity of the later revision.27

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aland, B. and A. Juckel. Das Neue Testament in syrischer Überlieferung, II: Die Paulinischen Briefe, Teil 1-3 (ANTT 14, 23, 32; Berlin-New York, 1991, 1995, 2002). Baars, W. ‘Ein neugefundenes Bruchstück aus der syrischen Bibelrevision des Jakob von Edessa,’ VT 18 (1968) 547-54. Baumstark, A. Festbrevier und Kirchenjahr der syrischen Jakobiten. Eine liturgische geschichtliche Vorarbeit auf Grund handschriftlicher Studien in Jerusalem und Damaskus (SGKA 3; Paderborn, 1910). 27 The present study presents only a limited number of Jacob’s marginal quotations. Further investigations have to study the remaining quotations and compare all of them with Jacob’s later Old Testament revision extant in a small number of manuscripts, see W. Baars, ‘Ein neugefundenes Bruchstück,’ 548-549.

Septuaginta and Peshitta

175

—. Geschichte der syrischen Literatur mit Ausschluß der christlichpalästinensischen Texte (Bonn, 1922/Berlin, 1968). Brooke, A. E., N. McLean, and H. J. Thackeray. The Old Testament in Greek, II, 1: 1 and 2 Samuel (Cambridge, 1927). Brooks, E. W. Jacob of Edessa. The Hymns of Severus of Antioch and Others (PO 6.1 and 7.5; Turnhout, 1910/1911). Ceriani, A. M. Codex Syro-Hexaplaris Anbrosianus photolithographice editus (Monumenta sacra et profana 7; Mediolani, 1874). Duval, R. La littérature syriaque. Des origines jusqu’ à la fin de cette littérature après la conquête par les arabes au XIII siècle (Paris, 1907/Amsterdam, 1970). Hatch, W. H. P. An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts (Boston, 1946/Piscataway, 2002). Chabot, J.-B. La littérature syriaque (Paris, 1934). Jeannin, J. and J. Puyade. ‘L’Octoëchos syrien,’ OrChr N.F. 3 (1913), 82-104; 277-98. Kruisheer, D. and L. van Rompay. ‘A Bibliographical Clavis to the Works of Jacob of Edessa,’ Hugoye 1:1 (1998) [http://www.bethmardutho.org/hugoye]. MacHardy, W. D. ‘James of Edessa’s citations from the Philoxenian text of the Book of Acts,’ JThS 43 (1942), 168173. —. ‘The text of Jacob of Edessa’s citations and in the Cambridge Add. MS 1700,’ JThS 50 (1949), 186-87. Nau, F. ‘L’Araméen chrétien (Syriaque). Les traductions faites du grec en syriaque au viie siècle,’ RHR 99 (1929) 263-65. —. ‘Notice sur un nouveau manuscript de l’Octoechus de Sévère d’Antioche, et sur l’auteur Jacques Philoponus, distinct de Jacques d’Édesse,’ JA 12 (9è série, 1898), 346-51. Ortiz de Urbina, I. Patrologia syriaca (Rome, 1965). Saley, R. J. The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa. A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions (MPIL 9; Leiden, 1998). Salvesen, A. ‘Jacob of Edessa’s version of Exodus 1 and 28,’ Hugoye 8:1 (2005) [http://www.bethmardutho.org/hugoye]. —. The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa (MPIL 10; Leiden, 1999). Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum. Auctoritate Societatis Litterarum Gottingensis editum; I: Genesis, ed. J. W. Wevers (1974), II,2: Leviticus, ed. J. W. Wevers, U. Quast (1986), XIII: Duodecim prophetae, ed. J. Ziegler (1943), XIV: Isaias, ed. J. Ziegler

176

Andreas Juckel

(1939), XVI,1: Ezechiel, ed. J. Ziegler (1952), XV: Ieremias, Baruch, Threni, Epistula Ieremiae, ed. J. Ziegler (Göttingen, 1957). Sperber, A. The Bible in Aramaic. based on old manuscripts and printed texts. 1: The Pentateuch according to Targum Onkelos (Leiden, 1959); 2: The Former Prophets according to Targum Jonathan (Leiden, 1959); 3: The Latter Prophets According to Targum Jonathan (Leiden, 1962). Stockmayer, Th. ‘Hat Lucian zu seiner Septuagintarevision die Peschito benützt?,’ ZAW 12 (1892) 218-223. The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, edited on behalf of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament by The Peshitta Institute Leiden. Liber Genesis (based on material collected and studied by T. Jansma, prepared by the Peshitta Institute (I,1 1977); Leviticus ed. D.J. Lane, (I,2 1991); Liber Samuelis ed. P. A. H. de Boer (II,2 1978); Liber Isaiae ed. S. P. Brock (III,1 1987); Liber Ezechielis ed. M. J. Mulder (III,3 1985); Dodekapropheton, ed. A. Gelston (III,4 1980). Vööbus, A. The Book of Isaiah in the Version of the Syro-Hexapla. A facsimile edition of MS. St. Mark 1 in Jerusalem (CSCO 449/Subs. 68; Louvain, 1983). Weitzmann, M. P. The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction (UCOP 56; Cambridge, 1999). Wright, W. A Short History of Syriac Literature (London, 1894/Piscataway, 2001). —. Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum Acquired Since the Year 1838, 1-3 (London, 1870-72/Piscataway, 2004). Abbreviations ANTT = Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung. Berlin. CSCO = Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Louvain. DACL = Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie. Paris. JA = Journal Asiatique. Paris. JThS = Journal of Theological Studies. Oxford. MPIL = Monographs of the Peshitta Institute Leiden. Leiden. OrChr = Oriens Christianus. Wiesbaden. PO = Patrologia Orientalis. Paris/Turnhout. RHR = Rvue de l’Histoire des Religions. Paris. SGKA = Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums.

Septuaginta and Peshitta

177

Paderborn. UCOP = University of Cambridge Oriental Publications. Cambridge. VT = Vetus Testamentum. Leiden. ZAW = Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Berlin.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 8, 179-235 © 2005 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

NISIBIS AS THE BACKGROUND TO THE LIFE OF EPHREM THE SYRIAN PAUL S. RUSSELL ST. JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA ANGLICAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE

ABSTRACT1 This paper is an attempt to collect together what is known about Nisibis before and during the life of Ephrem the Syrian (306-373). It is important to see him against the backdrop of the place that formed him rather than the place in which he spent the final years of his life, so it is to Nisibis that we should turn for insight into Ephrem’s basic thoughts and concerns. I hope that this information may stir readers to reflect on Ephrem as a child of his birthplace and to see him in a slightly different light than before.

Even of Nisibis, which was clearly the central place in the eastern part of the Mesopotamian shelf, we have 1 I would like to thank the anonymous readers from Hugoye as well as Dr. Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra of Hebrew University, Dr. David G. K. Taylor of Oxford University, Dr. James Russell of Harvard University, Adam Becker of New York University, Dr. Mark Dickens of Cambridge University, Dr. Edwin Yamauchi of Miami University of Ohio and Dr. Glen Bowersock of Princeton University for supplying me with information and suggestions that were helpful in filling in gaps and giving a clearer shape to this paper that had been electronically damaged as well as being incomplete. Please accept my apologies if this list is incomplete.

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The study of early Syriac Christianity has centered on Edessa from the time that Eusebius made it prominent by including the Jesus/Abgar correspondence in his history of the Church.3 Bauer’s use of Edessa and the documents about the early Church there4 has tended to focus the attention of Western scholars on the degree of trustworthiness to be assigned to the Abgar legend. After having invested so much energy in a drawn-out discussion of the establishment of the Church in Edessa, moving to the unspoken assumption that that discussion covered the pre-literary history of Syriac-speaking Christianity has seemed a natural step. It is a misguided step, however. The roll of very early Christian writings produced in Syriac that survive to our day is not a long one: Sebastian Brock5 lists three passages in The Chronicle of Edessa, the inscription of Abercius of Hierapolis (died ca. 200), two passages from Julius Africanus, The Book of the Laws of the Countries, the central elements in the martyr acts of Shmona, Guria and Habbib and what Dr. Brock calls “the scant fragments of Bardaisan’s works preserved by later polemicists” as forming the earliest stratum of evidence. With the exception of the very uncertain Odes of Solomon and some probable, but lost, works lying behind The Acts of Thomas, there is nothing else on which scholars can agree. These seem to be the chief of the surviving pieces from before the arrival on the scene of the two great fourth century contemporaries: Aphrahat and Ephrem. With their activities come the first large bodies of texts that survive to be mined for information on the life and thought of those early Semitic Christians. Millar, Roman Near East, 482. History of the Church, 1.13. 4 The documents are most easily found in W. Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents. Bauer’s treatment is found in Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy. 5 “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” 221-226. 2 3

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Our problems are not solved by the arrival of these works on the stage of history, however. Instead, these writings confront us with new puzzles. Aphrahat seems destined to remain just a name to us, but Ephrem’s life and work can be studied as united elements of a single whole with a specific location in time and space. The enterprise of locating the particular pieces of this corpus, though, is fraught with difficulty, due to the lack of autobiographical references his works provide and the scarcity of earlier materials.6 These circumstances make broad knowledge of the time and place in which Ephrem lived even more desirable, since that background could be a powerful light to shine on the works to help us see what they contain. Because of this, our knowledge of the city of Nisibis and the life of those living there, Christian and non-Christian alike, should hold a prominent place in the mind of any student of Ephrem. This has not been the case for most students of Ephrem, however. Nisibis was Ephrem’s home and formative environment. He passed almost six decades of his life there before his exile in Edessa began. Despite this, even the basic emotional and psychological fact that Edessa can never have been “home” to him seems to have escaped the notice of modern readers of his works. Though both of these places are far from us in time and space and foreign to us in very similar ways, we should not let that similarity to the foreigner make us assume that they were much the same to Ephrem. I would like to suggest that Nisibis should be the first place we look to find the background of Ephrem’s works rather than Edessa. The fact that he spent so much more of his life in Nisibis is important, of course, but it may be even more important to consider the fact that his formation as a human being, a Christian thinker and writer, and as an observer and analyzer of the world must all have taken place in Nisibis. In the same way that an American, born in the 1950s, can never escape some degree of mental connection between Germany and totalitarianism, because of its all-pervasiveness in conversation and writing during his formative years, so would Ephrem’s chorus of inner voices have been tuned to a Nisibene register rather than an Edessene one. 6 A discussion of the difficulties associated with the historical study of Ephrem can be found in Paul S. Russell, “St. Ephraem, the Syrian Theologian.”

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Until modern readers try to read Ephrem primarily as a Nisibene author, they will have failed to approach him on his own ground, I believe.7 In order for us to begin to read Ephrem this way, we must gather about us all we can discover of Nisibis and its character so we can try to match what we can see of Ephrem’s native city with his concerns and views. However, as soon as one begins to attempt this project, an intractable problem arises. One of the reasons that modern scholars turn their imaginations so readily to Edessa as the backdrop for an early Syriac author is that our knowledge of Edessa is, relatively, so far advanced. Every student of Syriac must read J. B. Segal’s seminal work on the city,8 but we have a number of very useful works besides this one that serve to make the student’s eye turn to Edessa whenever early Syriac Christianity is under consideration.9 Since we all read Syriac works with information about Edessa in our heads, we naturally see connections with Edessa in the works of Ephrem. It is not illegitimate to look for these, of course, but do we see them because they are, in truth, connections with Edessa or do we see them because they are connections with the Late Antique Near East? How many of the elements that seem “Edessene” in Ephrem’s works really are so and how many are ambiguous? If we knew more about Nisibis, we might set our knowledge of the two cities side by side and see which of the two seems the more likely source for Ephrem’s thoughts, but we know little of Nisibis and 7 I do not dispute the connection of some of Ephrem’s works with Edessa, of course. Any time a piece can be placed in history, usually on the grounds of internal evidence, I am eager to benefit from that fact. My objection stems from a conviction that Edessa has pushed Nisibis into the shadows when our imaginations are at work on Ephrem and his writings. 8 Edessa the Blessed City. 9 This is not the place for a complete bibliography, but the shelf that sits (tellingly) nearest at hand as I write has on it: Steven K. Ross, Roman Edessa London: Routledge 2001, H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa Leiden: E. J. Brill 1980, Han J. W. Drijvers & John F. Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa & Osrhoene Leiden: Brill 1999, Javier Teixidor, Bardesane d’Edesse la première philosophie syriaque Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf 1992, and H. J. W. Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa Assen 1966. There is nothing like any of these volumes to help a modern reader become acquainted with Nisibis.

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the comparison could hardly be made on equal terms. In this paper, I try to begin to redress that balance. It is important to realize, at the outset, that it is not possible to produce a treatment of Nisibis with anything like the same sophistication and detail that our knowledge of Edessa has achieved. Edessa has been investigated systematically on the ground and Nisibis is, as yet, essentially untouched by modern archaeology.10 The maps of Nisibis I have been able to discover and examine11 are of too large a scale to be useful for someone wanting to gain a sense of the site, and reflect the military focus of the interests of all their modern creators. The most basic tools are lacking for study of Nisibis. This lack explains my approach in this paper. Rather than synthesizing the information I have been able to collect down to a smooth and organized summary, I have, instead, decided to try to present, stated systematically by topic and category, as much of what I have found as possible. As our knowledge of Nisibis grows, I expect that others will be able to make more intelligent use of this information than I can, now, at the start of the process. I imagine 10 I have been told of some investigations going on, especially around the old Baptistery, but have been able to see no photographs or drawings and have heard no mention of any publications of findings at Nisibis. 11 Plate XV in Dussaud, Topographie, Plate IX in Mommsen, Provinces, Plate III in Neusner, History vol. IV, folding endmap from Debevoise, History of Parthia, the map that is found as illustration 1 in Mango, “The Continuity of the Classical Tradition” after page 116 and the following maps from the Library of Congress Map Collection: H 215-30 23331 Turkish 1946 [G-XIV Blatt Nr. G-XIV Siirt (1:200, 000)], G 7430 S 200 G 41 German 1941 [Blatt Nr. H-XV Nusaybin (1:200, 000)], G 7430 S 200 G 4 German 1941 [Nusaybin H/XV (1:200, 000)], G 7430 S 250.G 7 [Mardin Sheet 25 Intelligence Division War Office 1902/revised 1915 (1: 250, 000)], G 7430 S 200 G 7 [Sheet G 15 Nusaybin (1:200, 000)] and G 74 30s 250. G 4 [Blatt Nr 54 Mardin (1:250, 000)]. (These last were the best the very helpful staff at the Map Collection could discover in the Library of Congress Collection.) All these maps do little more than illustrate Nisibis’ position on east/west and north/south routes of travel and its placement on the edge of the high ground over-looking the plain to the south and east. (I assume that interest in the area in the last decade has led to the discovery of whatever map resources the collection at the Library of Congress holds. Some of these were released especially by the CIA for me to examine, so I think it likely that I saw all there is to see.)

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this paper’s usefulness to lie in its containing as many items as possible, so that a reader can refer to it to check if a detail he has identified in a writing, describing the physical situation of the city, the name of a bishop, the mix of ethnic groups in the population, for example, might refer to Nisibis. I hope that someone reading something from Ephrem’s pen might be able to refer to this compendium to see if other sources I have discovered could shed light on what he is reading. The organization of the material into categories will, I hope, make it easier to locate the particular material sought. I hope that the manner of presentation of this paper has not made it more awkward to read than necessary, but I have tried very hard to aim at completeness rather than polish. We are too close to the beginning of this process to trim off what may seem extraneous to us, now. We do not know enough to know what will be extraneous and what will be useful. A high polish is not always the effect at which historical work should aim, however much I admire it in its place. The reader will notice, also, that I have posed a number of questions in this paper that I cannot answer. These are intended to highlight both possible lines of thought and our present lack of certainty. A useful way to look at our knowledge of Nisibis before and during Ephrem’s life may be to think of a complete, well-rounded view of the city as being a mosaic, while what survives for us are merely a small number of the tesserae. While we do not have enough of the original to reconstruct it fully, or even to get a sense of the whole design, by careful consideration and comparison of the pieces we do have, we may be able to discern some things that the pieces, examined individually, would not show us. We may be able to get a better sense of the probabilities of different views of the original. We may, cautiously, make some observations about the absence of elements we would have expected to find, though this is perilous and must always be approached with great caution. A systematic examination of all the facts we can collect about Nisibis may allow us to understand something more of the broad background of life in Late Antique Mesopotamia. Keeping these facts in the backs of our minds may help us to draw Ephrem, in our imagination, back from Edessa to Nisibis and think of him more nearly as he was likely to have considered himself: not as “the deacon of Edessa,” but as the Nisibene refugee.

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I am grateful to the scholars, unknown to me, who served as readers for this paper for Hugoye. I have benefited from their suggestions and been led to new sources by them that I did not know. In one regard, however, I think it necessary to part company with them. They seemed to think that I should take more notice of what is generally known of Mesopotamia in Late Antiquity, especially of the neighboring areas. In other words, they seemed to suggest that I place Nisibis more explicitly against the backdrop of what is broadly known of the region. I have decided not to follow this suggestion and would like to explain why. Since we know so little of Nisibis itself and since our knowledge of all of the ancient Near East is extremely spotty, and so much formed by the particular preoccupations of the archaeologists involved, as Ball12 makes clear in his discussion of the interpretation of the remains of a particular area: Thus the [perceived] pattern of rural settlement and development is affected not so much by the actual remains but by archaeological fashion. We have already observed … how academic priorities can distort the received view of urban continuity. The rural surveys, in concentrating too exclusively on specific research interests, have resulted in the true picture being distorted.

We cannot proceed as if we had a complete or representative body of information at our disposal. Whatever we might gather about Nisibis in particular would soon be submerged by the comparative flood of facts and artifacts relating to other cities and sites. Any hope of beginning to gain an idea of Nisibis’ own individual character would not survive the flattening effect of having the vast majority of information stem from elsewhere. In composing this piece I have, to a large degree, taken for granted the reader’s acquaintance with the broad outline of the political and cultural history of the Roman Near East and have tried to focus my gaze solely on Nisibis in the hope of beginning to gain a sense of its peculiar characteristics. I am willing to accept a spotty and incomplete result because I think that is a fair and responsible rendering of the state of our knowledge of Nisibis at present, given 12 Ball, Rome in the East, 235. Whittaker, Frontiers, 53, echoes this characterization of the archaeological work done in the Roman Near East as “undeveloped.”

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its predominantly literary basis. Until modern archaeological work can be performed at the site and the materials uncovered have been analyzed by scholars, I do not think that we can expand the boundaries of our detailed picture very much. I think this paper is useful and I think its contents are helpful to the reader of Ephrem, but I do not think that it marks the completion of this necessary task. Rather than making this paper more rounded and attractive by filling in its gaps with information from other locales, I have chosen to leave its incompleteness obvious to the reader’s eye, both as a salutary reminder of the state of our knowledge and as a spur to undertaking first-hand investigation on the ground, when that again becomes possible.

PHYSICAL SITUATION [12]

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We should begin with the consideration of the physical situation of the city of Nisibis. Nisibis sat, and sits, on the southern edge of the high ground above the bend of the Mesopotamian plain. It stands as a fortress on the edge of a natural wall that is the mountain range, or range of high hills, that stretch across the northern edge of the center of the curve of the Fertile Crescent. If Pigulevskaja’s suggestion that the Greek name for the region or valley in which Nisibis lies, “Mygdonia,” comes from the Syriac word magda’ = ‘fruit’ is correct,13 that would give us good reason to think that the area seemed much more fertile than the general run of farm land in that part of the world. It might also explain why a city had been built at that particular place to control that important region. It was always important to have steady food supplies near at hand if an ancient city were to survive.14 Nisibis stood astride important routes both from the east to west, that is, from Arbela or Seleucia-Ctesiphon to Edessa or Les villes, 51. A further note of caution before we begin: Millar, Roman Near East, 226, makes an important point by warning that it remains difficult to study areas near the borders of modern states. The fact that Nisibis has been in an area of unrest for a very long time has been one of the factors in keeping modern, scholarly knowledge of its history at such a low point. Unfortunately, I cannot foresee a time when that circumstance will change. Indeed, it seems more likely to grow worse and for there to be much loss of valuable artifacts and materials before they can be recovered. 13 14

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Harran, and from the north the south, that is, from Armenia to the Mesopotamian plain. This position, it is important to remember, determined not only the city’s importance in war, but also its importance in trade. Nisibis stood by the side of a river, the Mygdonius (whose name echoes that of the area), which flows into the upper Euphrates.15 It was also so close to the Tigris to the east, and so highly elevated above the flatter land in that direction, that Ammianus Marcellinus reports having been able to see from Nisibis fires burning to the east as evidence of the Persian incursion across the river in 359.16 This position, both of natural and strategic importance, meant that the city was of great military value to whatever political state controlled it. Thus we hear from Dio Cassius:17 Lucullus reached this city in the summer time, and although he directed his attacks upon it in no halfhearted fashion, he effected nothing. For the walls, being of brick, double, and of great thickness, with a deep moat intervening, could be neither battered down anywhere, nor undermined …

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The fortifications that greeted the Romans’ on their arrival on the scene show that the need to protect the city as a precious asset already had a long history. Such formidable defenses were not the product of a brief building spree or one ruler’s whim, but were evidence of long-standing, serious concern for the site’s protection. The city had a very long history due to its natural desirability. This explains its having been continuously occupied for as far back in time as we can trace the history of the region. Along with the city’s antiquity, we should be aware of its individuality. It is important to remember the strongly localized quality of life in the ancient world. Indeed, we should remember the localized quality of life in all ages before our own, if we consider our own age to begin in the middle of the 19th century

Late Antiquity, 606. 18.6.9, Walter Hamilton trans., 153. This incident is mentioned by Matthews, “Ammianus and the Eastern Frontier,” 551. 17 Dio’s Roman History, Translated by Cary, vol. 3, 11 (Book 36.6). 15 16

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with the wide distribution of steam-powered travel both on land and on sea. It has been well said:18

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… we need to remind ourselves just how diverse and disparate the communities of the fourth century—and not just the Christian communities—were. The basic unit was the city—polis, civitas—with its surrounding countryside. Except in the case of a few great cities, especially Rome and Constantinople, the city and its surroundings were a self-contained economic unit. They were also self-governing, governed by local notables … The Roman Empire made no attempt to erase this prevailing sense of locality.

It is important to remember, when we consider Nisibis, or any ancient city, that we are studying an entity that had much more of an individual life than is common for a city in our own place and time. This should make us cautious in our use of evidence from neighboring regions and cities.

ETHNIC MIX [18]

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The ethnic mix of the city of Nisibis during Ephrem’s lifetime is impossible for us to discover in any detail, so far removed in time as we are now.19 Pigulevskaja20 holds that the name of the city seems to be Aramean in its root. If true, this would put Nisibis into the context of the very widespread Aramaic language world that seems to have stretched from the Mediterranean littoral to the interior of Persia.21 It seems clear that the Greek population of Nisibis grew progressively as the time of Hellenistic occupation continued, Louth, “Unity and Diversity,” 3. Stoneman, Palmyra, 53-54, makes the same point of the oasis city of Palmyra and its territory. 19 Millar, “The Problem” passim, shows clearly the scarcity of hard evidence, so far identified, that can shed light on either the extent of Hellenistic cultural presence during the period of Greek and Roman rule or its depth of penetration. He stresses also, ironically, the scarcity of evidence for non-Greek cultures in the Hellenistic period. Modern scholarship, as yet, is unable to provide a baseline picture of either side of the great cultural divide between Greek and barbarian in the Late Antique Near East. All of the following attempt to review what is known of Nisibis should be treated with caution as a result of our general ignorance. 20 N. Pigulevskaja, Les villes, esp. 49-78: “Nisibe, Ville Frontière.” 21 Frontiers, 25-26 discusses this spread. 18

Nisibis as the Background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian 189 which was the normal thing in Near Eastern cities. It also seems that, in comparison to other cities of the Hellenistic occupation, Nisibis was very little Hellenized and that the Syrians in it remained much the most important part of the population. It was, of course, given, officially, the name of ‘Antioch in Mygdonia’,22 but the use of the old name seems to have returned with the fall of the Seleucids and we should expect that the traditional name was commonly used by the Syrian population throughout the Hellenistic period. Jones attributes at least part of the lack of permanent Hellenistic influence on the local populace to its “chequered history” (a very reasonable suggestion) and cites the continuation of brother/sister marriages as an example of the cultural orientalism that survived even to the time of Justinian and Justin II.23 Jacob Neusner, speaking more broadly of Mesopotamia, gives a very credible account of the likely ethnic mix of the city:24 Because of its antiquity and changing fortunes, the region was, by the second century BCE, a mosaic of peoples, languages and cultures. In addition to Jews, who had been exiled there in the sixth century BCE, and remained in large numbers, the Babylonian region contained numerous Babylonians, who spoke Aramaic and also (through their priests) preserved Akkadian; Macedonians and Greeks; Syrians, Arabs, and other Semites; Armenians and Iranians; and occasional Indians and Chinese. Many of the cities had largely Hellenized populations, particularly Seleucia, CharaxSpasinu and Artemita; others, particularly Babylon and Uruk, were centers of the ancient Babylonian cuneiform civilization; while still others, particularly Ctesiphon, were populated by great numbers of Parthian government officials, troops and traders. Yet few cities were inhabited by a single ethnic or religious group, and all exhibited a measure of Hellenistic culture; Susa, far to the east, conducted its municipal affairs according to accepted Seleucid forms and in the Greek language long into the Parthian period, while Babylonians, Syrians, Jews, and Greeks mingled in the streets of Seleucia. We know, moreover, that the Greek

Jones, Cities, 216. Jones says this name is first attested in the 2nd century BC under Antiochus Epiphanes. 23 Jones, Cities, 222. 24 History of the Jews 1, 2-3. 22

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Another note of caution would not come amiss at this point. While we may know that different languages were in use in the same place at the same time, this does not necessarily tell us who the people were who were using them. When we have epigraphic evidence we do have something solid to hold on to, but it is important to realize that this evidence is of strictly limited value. It is too easy to think that we know who would have been using which languages in certain locations at certain times, but our knowledge is rarely dependable in that regard. Despite the fact that all scholars seem to agree that the Christian community in Nisibis was less Hellenized than that in Edessa (perhaps because it lies farther to the east), we must remember that the earliest Christian inscription from Nisibis, found in the baptistery of the church building there, was put up by Bp. Vologeses in Greek, not in Syriac. Of course, this might have been analogous to the common custom in American Episcopal churches of putting inscriptions inside their buildings in Latin (or even Greek!) despite the fact that no one, including the priest and the stone carver, is able to read these when they are completed. Christians of earlier times were not necessarily more innocent of cultural, social and theological pretensions than their modern brethren. In other words, that inscription may tell us something about the ethnic make-up of the Christian community in Nisibis at that time, or it may not, and there seems to be no certain way to determine which of these is the appropriate conclusion to draw.25 Bp. Vologeses, himself, is an interesting person to consider. While bishop of the Christian community in a city that seems to have been mostly Syriac-speaking, he put up an inscription in the new showplace of his church (commemorating his having had a hand in building it, no less), but he did so in Greek! “Vologeses,” by the way, is not a Greek or Syriac name, itself, but rather one of Parthian extraction, and would have been associated with the Roman Empire’s rival to the east in the minds of the Christians of Nisibis.26 (Vologeses IV of Parthia besieged This point will be discussed more fully below at paragraph 43 ff. “The Parthians spoke Parthian Pahlavi, a North Iranian dialect akin to Sogdian” says The Oxford Classical Dictionary “Parthia,’ 651. 25 26

Nisibis as the Background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian 191 Nisibis in 197.27) I think it is a sign of a certain open-mindedness on the part of the Christian community that Bishop Vologeses’ family (if he was born in Nisibis) did not feel social pressure to give him a more ‘Christian’ name. It seems that, whatever language Vologeses himself spoke as his “native tongue,” it could not have been both the same as that in which his people worshipped (Syriac) and that in which the inscription was composed (Greek). Was it neither of these, but rather Armenian or Persian? It is hard to imagine a family without roots to the north or east choosing such a name for their son.28 Clearly, the Christian community, itself, knew more variety in background among its members than we can discover at this point.

RELIGIOUS MIX [22]

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The mix of religions present in Nisibis during and before the life of Ephrem cannot be reconstructed in detail. We can, however, rehearse some of the facts that we do know and then try to assess what they tell us about what Ephrem’s religious environment would have seemed like to him. As far as paganism is concerned, while we know for certain that it must have been present, we know really very little about which cults were represented in Nisibis. Ephrem himself, in the 10th and 11th of his Hymns on Nicomedia, makes specific reference to the use of astrology and incantations among the people in Nisibis.29 There is evidence also, of the survival of local non-Hellenic cults into this period.30 It seems that there is good reason to conclude that traditional Semitic paganism (that is, cults addressed to some 27 Pigulevskaja, Les villes, 76, Also, Vologeses I (52-80 AD) founded Vologesocerta near Babylon as a rival to Seleucia-Ctesiphon, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 953. 28 Robert, “Une Nouvelle Inscription,” 323, makes the same general point about on-going cultural influence as evidenced by the Persian name (Mithras) of the Bishop of Hypaipa, present at the Council of Nicaea. 29 David Bundy, “Vision for the City,” 201-203. 30 Fergus Millar, “Empire, Community and Culture,” discusses what is known of this native Semitic paganism. H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs, discusses what is known of Edessene paganism, but the local nature of pagan practice and belief makes this information unusable to describe Nisibis, however suggestive it may be.

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of the many local deities common in the Near East before the conquests of Alexander, such as Hadad, Bel and Shamash) continued on throughout the Hellenic period into late antiquity, but we know virtually nothing about it in detail. Millar is quite correct in commenting “…we have no way of knowing what myths or beliefs attached to these cults”.31 It seems certain, judging by literary evidence and by the archaeological work carried out elsewhere in what was once the Seleucid domain, that there would have been local, quite un-Hellenized cults, some Hellenic imports (likely poorer and less well attended after the arrival of Roman rule under the early Empire) and some cults that included elements from both backgrounds. Even this general picture, however, takes us beyond our fact-based knowledge and should not be pressed. The lack of modern archaeological work in the area and the lack of Syriac pagan writings leave us dependent for information on passing references in Jewish and Christian works. (Islamic works are too late to be considered contemporary sources, and, so, offer further difficulties, if one tries to use them with this in mind. I have avoided them for this reason.) It is one of the difficulties inherent in the sort of written materials that survive from the period that their Christian or Jewish nature means that the lives and practices of pagan people are almost completely neglected. For example, Stoneman32 says that the cult of the Roman emperor is absent in Syria, but I would prefer to say that we have not yet found evidence of it and so may assume that it was not common. I do not think that our knowledge is extensive enough to enable us to claim that we know that something did not exist in this area at all. Numismatic evidence, always, in some respects, pleasantly specific, shows coins minted by the city with images of Caracalla, Macrinus, Gordian III and Tranquillina, Otacilia Severa and Philip Junior on the obverses, while the reverses show either the Tyche of the city or, on that of Otacilia Severa, a temple of the Tyche with the Tyche seated between its pillars.33 This last shows a sign of the constellation Aries, a detail included on some of the others. Otacilia Severa is also shown with a river god swimming at her feet. The Tyche is so general a symbol that it says nothing about Nisibis “Empire, Community and Culture,” 163. Palmyra, 71 ff. 33 MacDonald, Hunterian Collection, 315-316, Plate LXXIX. 31 32

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in particular. The constellation may be a reflection of the same interest Ephrem describes in Hymns on Nicomedia 10 + 11. Hill displays Nisibene coins showing Macrinus, Severus Alexander, Severus Alexander with Julia Mamaea, Julia Mamaea, Gordian III, Gordian III and Tranquillina, Tranquillina, Philip Senior and Otacilia Severa.34 This slightly different group of coins shows almost exactly the same range of decoration as those in the Hunterian collection. I think it makes sense to conclude that this array of images reflects the interests and self-understanding of the city rather than of the imperial figures who caused the coins to be struck. All of these symbols fit easily into the life of the city and its cultural interests, as we know them. Drijvers35 warns that we should take notice of the cult of a city’s Tyche and of astrology. He considers these to have been lively rivals to the growth of Christianity and helpful gauges of a city’s cultural profile and its cultural change over time. We do know, on the other hand, quite a bit more about Judaism in Nisibis and its surroundings. Jacob Neusner makes quite clear that Nisibis was an important place in the Jewish Diaspora to the east of Palestine.36 We know that the Jews in Nisibis were not cut off from their brethren in the homeland, but rather supported them with funds when the times demanded. Moreover, it is clear that the feeling of having an active attachment went in both directions. A good example of this is the flight of the students of Rabbi Akiba who went to Nisibis to stay with Rabbi Judah ben Bathyra during the Bar Kokba war.37

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Hill, Greek Coins of Arabia Mesopotamia and Persia, 119-124, Plate

“The Persistence,” 39-40. Jacob Neusner, History of the Jews 1, 13. 37 History of the Jews, 1.122. A city “Nisibis” is also mentioned in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.312, as having been the site of a collection point for the Temple offering of Jews in that area. Because this passage describes Nisibis as on the Euphrates, the editor of the Loeb edition, L. H. Feldman, note a, p 180, vol. 9, suggests that this must be a different city from Ephrem’s Nisibis. Since the river in Ephrem’s Nisibis, the Mygdonius, ran into the Euphrates downstream from the city, I can imagine Josephus thinking of it as a branch of the Euphrates. The reference is uncertain, but likely to be our Nisibis, in my judgment. 35 36

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Neusner takes very seriously the prominence of Judaism in Nisibis and credits the presence of Tannaitic38 teachers there as a reason for the slow growth of Christianity in Nisibis, especially as compared to the growth of the church in Edessa, which did not have that Tannaitic presence.39 If this suggestion is correct, it may provide a useful handle for the modern student of Ephrem to grasp when considering both Ephrem’s method of approach to understanding Scripture and his rhetorical customs when interacting with Judaism. It may also shed some light on the social and ethnic profile of the church in Nisibis. It would be wrong to think that the Christians were limited to people of Jewish extraction, but suggesting that a relatively large portion of the Christians (relative, that is, to the size of the whole group) had Jewish forbears seems quite reasonable. Consider the following passage in which Neusner reflects on the competing penetrations of the rival religious groups (Tannaitic Judaism and Christianity) into the Jewish population in Mesopotamia.40 How shall we understand these facts? They indicate the penetration of an undifferentiated Jewish population by rival, organized parties at pretty much the same time. To say that one or another group ‘failed to make headway’ is probably misleading. What must have happened is that where Pharisaism established itself, it shut out Christianity, just as Christianity excluded Pharisaism if it preceded the arrival of a rabbinical school. The two parties, Pharisaism and Christianity, shaped the pre-existing “Judaism” to suit their respective purposes.

The rivalry between the two religions in Mesopotamia, and to the east, was not only intellectual. Neusner points out that the Jews were, sometimes, the motive force for the persecution of Christians

‘Tannaitic’ refers to the rabbinic tradition before the period of the formation of the Mishnah or Talmud. 39 History of the Jews, 1.180: “Christianity built its base at Edessa, and Tannaitic Judaism at Nisibis, and both were represented by (sic) the outset at least by men actively engaged in spreading their respective doctrines. Thus what Edessa was to Christianity, Nisibis was to Tannaitic Judaism,” cf. 1, 183 for further argumentation in support of this point. 40 Neusner, History of the Jews, 3, 358. 38

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in Persia after 344.41 Bar Hebraeus seems to have thought that the actions of the Emperor Julian echoed the violence of this rivalry in some places,42 which shows, to my mind, a sense of this sad state of affairs being long-standing. Manichaeism was also a religious force in this part of the world during Ephrem’s lifetime. Mani himself may well have been a follower of Shapur’s army on its invasion into the Roman territory,43 and it seems clear that, by the time of his death in 276, his followers and their religion had already entered into Roman territory. This spread seems to have followed the routes of trade, as religions usually did.44 It is clear that Ephrem was very interested in Manichaeism. He wrote against it in his Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and bar Daisan and showed some degree of knowledge about its content of teaching and religious practice.45 Jason David 41 Neusner, History of the Jews, 4, 25. His later article, “Babylonian Jewry,” offers a clarifying note to this point in its conclusion that there is only one instance in the surviving literature of an actual claim of Jews being involved in the persecution of Christians in Persia under Shapur II. Neusner concludes that the different fates of the two religious communities in Persia stemmed from the government’s justified suspicion of the political loyalty of the Christians. While the Jews seem to have regarded the sufferings of the Christians with complacency, this is a very different thing from their being agents of persecution, Neusner rightly concludes. 42 Chronography, I.61. 43 Dodgeon and Lieu, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, 65, which contains Alexander Lycopolitanus, Contra Manichaei Opiniones Disputatio, 2. 44 Samuel N.C. Lieu, Manichaeism in Mesopotamia, esp. 38-53, addresses the diffusion into Mesopotamia and Syria. The Cambridge History of Iran 3 (1), 497 says “The land of the two rivers lay open to all sides, and has always been a melting-pot of races and cultures. Through it eastern writings, too, streamed into the west.” It seems reasonable, then, to assume some presence of cultural and religious influences from the east in Nisibis, even though we catch only brief glimpses of them in the records we have. 45 It has been usual for scholars to assume that the Prose Refutations stem from Ephrem’s final decade in Edessa. Drijvers, Bardaisan, 127 says, “All his life, as monk, ascetic, and prolific author, Ephrem Syrus (306373) made a stand for the cause of orthodoxy, for which he tried to gain acceptance in Syria. A native of Nisibis, he left this town in 363, when it

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BeDuhn46 refers to the following sentence of Ephrem from the edition of Mitchell, I.cxix. His understanding of its meaning emphasizes Ephrem’s knowledge of his theological opponents. “For their works are like our works as their fast is like our fast, but their faith is not like our faith.” Of course, Ephrem cannot allow this observation to stand alone, but draws appropriate polemical conclusions: “And, therefore, rather than being known by the fruit of their works they are distinguished by the fruit of their words. For their work is able to lead astray and (yet) appear as fine, for its bitterness is invisible; but their words cannot lead astray, for their blasphemies are evident.”

This ability to distinguish between the varying divergence between Manichaeism and Christianity in the areas of practice and doctrine is surely evidence of enough acquaintance with the Church’s competitor to allow Ephrem to engage it on more than became part of the Sassanide kingdom. After some wanderings, Ephrem then went to Edessa, where he founded the famous “School of the Persians” of which he was the first head. Now he was really confronted with heresies, which proliferated particularly in Edessa, and he fought against them with all his might.” Ross, Roman Edessa, 123, says, “Arriving in Edessa after Rome’s surrender of his native Nisibis to the Persians in 363 CE, Ephrem found his new home to be a hotbed of what he considered to be execrable heresies. Christians of the strain approved by Ephrem, worshipping in a church established 50 years earlier by the orthodox Bishop Quna, were lost among a throng of followers of other teachers of a more or less ‘heretical’ bent.” Neither of these two excerpts supplies citations from Ephrem’s writings or elsewhere that would lead one to the conviction that Edessa was more full of ideas Ephrem didn’t share than Nisibis, yet the point is assumed to be true. (I will not multiply passages from other scholars, but it would not be a difficult task.) If this idea of Ephrem being sparked to write the Prose Refutations by the perilous state of Christianity in Edessa is correct, then we cannot assume that this level of contact was also present in Nisibis. If this assumption is another effect of the common default assumption of intellectual activity being a characteristic of the Church in Edessa, then we might think it wise to reconsider whether we are in a position to assign a provenance to the Prose Refutations at all. My conviction is that the state of our knowledge does not permit us to decide between these two possibilities. 46 The Manichaean Body, note 37, p. 282.

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one level. It makes sense to think that Ephrem had had some contact with Manichaeans himself, whether they were travelers through Nisibis or permanent residents of the city. His knowledge of their actions has the air of being first-hand, to my ear. John C. Reeves’ compilation of citations of Manichaean writings he has drawn from Ephrem’s Prose Refutations47 supports this conclusion in detail. Ephrem seems either to have had access to Manichaean writings himself or to have had prolonged close contact with wellinstructed Manichaeans and have heard their teaching and argumentation. The relevance of this to his life in Nisibis is still in question, however. A cemetery has been discovered on the Dalmatian coast that contains gravestones of both Manichaeans and Christians who are described as having come from Nisibis.48 I suggest that a willingness to share a burial ground with another religious group should be taken as evidence of close familiarity, though not necessarily approval. That close familiarity makes the kind of contact Ephrem seems to have had with Manichaeism seem plausible. Our evidence does not allow us to be more specific than that, as yet. There must have been other religious groups present in the city of Nisibis, also. For example, because the city was an official center of trade between the Persian Empire and the Roman Empire and was one of the designated pass-through points for travelers moving from one territory to the other, there must have been Zoroastrians in Nisibis on a regular basis. I have been able to find no reference to any Zoroastrian organization or cultic center in the city, but their presence must have been a usual thing.49 Cumont50 speaks of “Manichaean Citations,” passim. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire, 86. 49 Evidence of Zoroastrian presence within Roman bounds is difficult to come by. It seems certain that Zoroastrians visited Roman lands and lived there, sometimes, we may assume, for long periods of time, for purposes of trade. However, concrete evidence of this is not well known. (I have been given a citation in a Persian source for the text of the treaty entered into with Rome by Yazdegerd I in 409, which offered toleration for Christians in Persia and for Zoroastrians in Roman territory, but my present circumstances have not allowed me an opportunity to see that reference yet.) 50 Oriental Religions, 144. 47 48

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temples at “Zela in Pontus and Hierocaesarea in Lydia” but offers no details. De Jong51 mentions sanctuaries of Anahita in Lydia. Boyce and Grenet52 speak of evidence of worship of Ahura Mazda in northern Syria and Antioch in the Third Century. James R. Russell53 gives evidence for the survival of Zoroastrianism in Armenia into the 20th century, which shows how completely its roots could take hold in an area outside the Persian heartland. All this agreement lends weight to our logical conclusions, but the continuing lack of specific, concrete evidence of cultic activity in Nisibis prevents us from forming any idea of the number of people who would have been involved in Nisibis or any idea of their community’s profile through time. We do know that the Persian government protested difficulties suffered by Zoroastrians in Roman territory in the mid-5th century. Surviving fragments of the writer Priscus contain mention of this.54 An embassy from the Persian king also arrived with complaints about those of their own people fleeing from them [to the Romans] and about the Magians living in Roman territory from ancient times—that the Romans, wanting to divert the Magians from their ancestral practices and laws, were harassing them over their sacred rites and not allowing them to keep the socalled unquenchable fire alight at all times in accordance with their law. … The Romans responded that they would send someone to discuss everything with the Parthian [sic] king, for there were no fugitives among them and they were not harassing the Magians over their religious observances. … Constantius, who was prefect for the third time, and was of consular rank and a patrician, was sent as envoy to the Persians.

“Not allowing them to keep the so-called unquenchable fire alight at all times” sounds like interference in the normal worship of fire temples, which means, if we assume that the complaint referred to specific incidents rather than taking a stereotypical form, that fire temples must have been present in Roman territory. Unfortunately, we are given no locations for these temples. Traditions, 283-284. A History of Zoroastrianism, 354. 53 Zoroastrianism in Armenia, esp. Chapter 16 “Children of the Sun,” 515-539. 54 Lee, Pagans and Christians, 172-173, offers the passage in English. 51 52

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The cult of Mithra, which clearly shows connections of some sort with Persia, was wide-spread in the Roman Empire, reaching all the way to Hadrian’s Wall. Unfortunately, experts do not agree on how much, if any, real Zoroastrian influence is found in that tradition. Discovery of its presence in Nisibis would not advance our knowledge appreciably. Mithraism has not been found in Persia, itself, which indicates some kind of separation of the cult from its putative homeland.55 The growing identification of Christianity with the Roman State, the extent and importance of which modern western scholars like to debate, seems to have been accepted as present and to have been perceived as threatening by the rulers of Persia, to the east.56 This threat seems to have been met, particularly under Shapur II (309-379), despite the fact that the Zoroastrianism of the Sassanians seems to have been heavily influenced by Zurvanism, a “Zoroastrian heresy which, after the Islamic conquest, vanished in favour of orthodoxy”,57 with a corresponding identification of the Zoroastrian faith with the Persian state. The resulting clash led to a situation inside Persia in which: “The heads of the Christian martyrs were offered to Anahita,”58 Anahita being a goddess associated by Zoroastrians with water, an important sacred element. What effect on the relations between Christians in the Roman border lands and the Zoroastrians among them and to the east of them did this conflict have? We cannot say, as yet. Experts in Zoroastrianism cannot agree on when, or how, the religion achieved standardization in its scriptural inheritance or its 55 Frye, Heritage, 249. The long and detailed attempt to characterize and assess the true character of the religion of the Orontids (an Iranian dynasty ruling Commagene during the second and first centuries BC) found in Boyce and Grenet, A History, Chapter 10, shows the difficulty of making value judgements based on scattered and fragmentary physical remains, unsupported by any local written materials, epigraphic or literary. This supports my reluctance to move beyond the obvious implications of the evidence we have. 56 This is one of Neusner’s central conclusions in “Babylonian Jewry,” passim. 57 Frye, Heritage, 252. For a full treatment of this strand in Zoroastrianism, see Zaehner, Zurvan. 58 Neusner, History of the Jews, IV, 18 and also in The Cambridge History of Iran, 3.886.

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body of doctrine.59 Neusner opines that the persecution of the Christians by Shapur II was “political, not narrowly religious,” but the border between those two spheres is not always clear and was usually less clear in Late Antiquity than we, in the modern West, think it should be. It seems safe to say that Christians living in Roman territory on the boundaries of the Persian Empire would have felt threatened by Persian power, as such, and were unlikely to perceive, or be comforted by, any distinction between the political and religious elements in that hostile power.60 We can be certain that the large religious groups known to us by name would not have been the only ones present in Nisibis during Ephrem’s lifetime. Ephrem’s Hymns against Julian, 2.22, which mentions the fact that the Persian conqueror61 left the church alone but tore down pagan temples in Nisibis, seems to refer to different types of groups that are hard for us to identify. McVey translates the passage as follows:62 The Magus who entered our place regarded it as holy, to our disgrace. He neglected his fire temple but honored the sanctuary.63 He cast down the [pagan] altars built by our laxity; He destroyed the enclosures to our shame.

Neusner, History of the Jews, IV.9. Frye, Heritage, 252, mentions that this standardization may have been spurred by the superior organization of the Church. Zaehner, Zurvan, Chapter 1 “The Zoroastrian Sects,” describes this difficulty in some detail. It seems unlikely, from his presentation of the sources and nature of the uncertainties, that any particular, clear outline of the history of the development of Zoroastrianism as a formally organized tradition will be accepted soon by a majority of specialists. 60 Ross, Roman Edessa, 22, mentions this sense of a religious threat to the East and seems to imagine it beginning to arise with the rise to power of the Sassanids in 226. 61 This must refer to the occupation of Nisibis after 363, it seems, since no other Persian conquest of Nisibis occurred during Ephrem’s lifetime. 62 McVey, Hymns, 240. 63 This might be taken as describing the presence of a Fire Temple in Nisibis or might be a contrast of Shapur’s general support of the Persian religion with his mercy toward the Church. In the absence of other, clearer references, we cannot be certain. 59

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The term of particular interest to us is the one she renders as “enclosures.” Her note on the word says: “Beck suggests that heretical cult rooms are meant, citing CH (Hymns against Heresies) 1.18.1, where the reference is to the Bardaisanites. That is, the cult places are destroyed by Shapur to the shame of Christians, who should themselves have destroyed them.” This word, hbwšt’ seems to have an overtone of people being shut up together. It later comes to be used for things like monastic cells. It puts me in mind here, though, of the “conventicles” of Dissenters during the aftermath of the English Reformation. That is, it seems to be a word that is used of groups that seem, to the speaker, to be a bit shady, but it doesn’t carry any particular identifying content of its own. Gnostic groups would be an easy fit with it, but so would any groups that Ephrem might not approve of. It seems impossible to tell if he has in mind Christian groups he doesn’t like or other sorts of questionable characters. We should refuse to come to a conclusion when our evidence does not lead us to do so. Thus, this passage can serve as evidence of a number of religious groups meeting in Nisibis of whom Ephrem did not approve, but I do not think we know enough to be certain that they described themselves as Christian and, if they did, what form of Christianity they practiced. We could have guessed at their presence, but we still cannot guess at their identity. It makes sense to assume that business and war brought all sorts of people to Nisibis. It makes sense to assume that Ephrem grew up and lived almost his whole life in a city in which all sorts of religious practices and religious groups were present, at least as they passed through from east to west, north to south, or vice versa. Exactly which groups were present, however, we cannot discover from the materials we have at hand. While this may help us understand his great interest in arguing with, and against, religious thought of all kinds, the details of our knowledge do not allow us to sort the works of Ephrem that survive into Nisibene and Edessene groups based on the rival religious groups and figures that are mentioned, because, even when we know a group was present in Edessa, we are not able to say that it was not also present in Nisibis.

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CULTURAL ELEMENTS [37]

It is certainly clear that a variety of cultural influences was at work throughout the life of the city of Nisibis. However, how to describe these in any detail, and even the period in which each was most particularly active, is impossible for us to map. As Millar says,64 A social and economic history of the Near East in the Roman period cannot be written. None of the conditions for such a history are present.

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It does seem clear, however, that Nisibis was less fully Hellenized than Edessa. There seems to be, as one would expect, a lessening of Greek and Roman cultural weight as the eye moves to the East.65 But this is a conclusion based almost wholly on general trends and logical reasoning.66 Our very scanty knowledge of particulars in Nisibis is at its most vexing in this regard. There are some facts, however, which need to be mentioned regarding Hellenistic influences there. First, it is possible that the Stoic philosopher Apollophanes came from Nisibis.67 We also know that Greek was used far to the east of Nisibis, for example at the Sassanid court, even by Shapur II.68 We should remember that the earliest Christian inscription in Nisibis, that found in the baptistery built by Bishop Vologeses, was written in Greek. The study of architecture also reveals to us the importance of the Greek influence in the region of Nisibis, even long after Ephrem’s life was over and the region had fallen under Roman Near East, 225. Brock, “Greek and Syriac,” 152, mentions the Euphrates as a useful dividing line between the western tendency to leave inscriptions in Greek and the Eastern tendency to leave them in Syriac. This makes Vologeses’ inscription in the baptistery an unusual one in its location, we should note. 66 Millar, “Paul of Samosata,” 1-8, argues very strongly for the strength of the Aramaic cultural milieu in this period, though as a culture very different from the highly literate Hellenistic pattern. He says (7-8) “But all the indications are that it remained a rustic vernacular with no claim to rival Greek as a language of culture.” 67 Neusner, History of the Jews 1, 9. Five citations of his work survive in Arnim, Stoicorum Fragmenta, 90, 404-408 in Arnim’s numbering. It is interesting that one of them is in Latin, from Tertullian’s De Anima, 14. Clearly, some note was taken of this Hellenic son of the East. 68 Elton, Frontiers, 6. 64 65

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Persian rule, never to be Roman again.69 It is an important point to note that there is evidence for Hellenistic influence to be found in rural areas as well as inside the city walls.70 This, of course, argues for a much fuller degree of cultural penetration than the presence of evidence only in urban sites would demand. I must digress here to consider and respond to an article of Fergus Millar that has just been pointed out to me.71 The issues it treats are relevant to many of the sections of this paper, but I have chosen to address them here because Millar uses the language of the baptistery inscription at Nisibis as his focal point in addressing Nisibis and because his paper is, itself, directed at the intersection between ethnic identity, culture and religion, which seems to fit in best at this point in our progress. Millar depicts the Church in the Roman Near East as being a primarily Greek speaking entity during the life of Ephrem.72 He makes note of the fact that epigraphic evidence of Christian inscriptions in Syriac has them appearing first in Mesopotamia and only later coming into the lands west of the Euphrates.73 This seems to lead him to think that the appearance of the Syriac language in inscriptions was a process of something new moving into a previously all Greek context, at least as far as public Christian usage was concerned. This is a very different basic picture than the one that has undergirded this study and I would like to take issue with it. Millar, as I read him, takes the Greek language inscription in the baptistery at Nisibis and Egeria’s report of the dual language liturgy at Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) as two of his central founding facts.74 Millar says: The liturgy, in Aelia at least (we have no evidence for elsewhere), allowed for repetition in ‘the Syrian language’ of the bishop’s words uttered in Greek.

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That introduces one point I would like to address. The second point may be found earlier on the same page when he speaks of Nisibis directly: Mango, “Continuity,” passim. Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts, 26, ff. 71 Millar, “Ethnic Identity.” 72 e.g. 165, 166, 167, 168, 176. 73 e.g. 162, 163, 176. 74 These are introduced at 166 in his paper. 69 70

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Paul S. Russell Nisibis, by contrast, was a significant city, and was also the birthplace, and the original place of residence, of Ephraim, the greatest of Christian writers in Syriac. But, none the less, the earliest Christian inscription from there, recording the construction of the baptistery (which is still standing) by bishop Vologeses in 359/360, is again in Greek. Only a decade later, Nisibis was to be lost to the Persians. But the churches of the central and western part of Mesopotamia, and of Osrhoene, areas which remained Roman, continued to use Greek as their official language.

This concluding thought seems to reappear on the next page when Millar says: If the surviving pagan cults of the Near East did not find any written expression in languages other than Greek, and if ‘the Syrian language’ can be seen as only slowly acquiring a public role within the Greekspeaking Church, that does not mean that major issues were not associated with the interplay of ethnicity, language, and religion.

His second point lies, I think, in the overlap between what he means by “official language” in the first quotation and “public role” in the second. I would like to take the question of the evidence for liturgical language use first. In the strict sense, in the mold of Egeria’s eye-witness description of the liturgical practice at Aelia Capitolina, I agree that we have no witness (to my knowledge) of the liturgies of the Late Antique Roman East during Ephrem’s lifetime. One of the things that bedevils students of Ephrem is that we have no concrete place to put our feet when we try to imagine how he worshipped and how his work was used until the homily of Jacob of Serug celebrating him in the late Fifth or early Sixth Century.75 Still, it is the universal opinion of students of Syriac (as far as I know) that the great majority of Ephrem’s surviving works were produced and intended for liturgical use. I have never heard a hint of the idea that the liturgy in which they were included might have been primarily conducted in Greek. Generally, since the time of Jacob, Ephrem has been spoken of as someone who was addressing the average worshipper in the congregation, with the assumption that he, and they, were all part of one Syriac-speaking Christian body. The 75

A Metrical Homily, (ed.) Amar.

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language of Ephrem’s work itself, and the large size of the corpus that survives, are commonly taken as concrete evidence of the language of his original milieu and of his work being incorporated into that tradition almost immediately, thus surviving for us to read. I see no reason to doubt that general picture. Millar does not argue against this view, but his paper seems to assume something very different. I do not think that the evidence from Aelia Capitolina (a special case, in Christian terms, if ever there was one) can properly be applied to Nisibis as an aid to interpretation. I have argued elsewhere in this paper76 for the individuality and particularity of ancient city life and think that the principle holds good in this case. Let me move to the next point, for now. The question of a language being the “official” one of an early Christian community and its having “a public role” in the community life is one I would like to address. I admit that these are deep waters and, as Egeria reminds us of Aelia Capitolina, more than one language could be used at the same time in the same community for the same liturgical purpose. Still, I do not think that, in Christian terms, it makes sense to imagine any language being the “official” one of a community, in Late Antiquity, except the language used in worship. I expect that there were then, as there are now, many places in the Church where more than one language was in liturgical use in the same locale. It cannot be ruled out as a possibility that a Greek language liturgy was held in Nisibis during the life of Ephrem. (It would be extremely interesting to know if this were so. It would have a great impact on how we imagine his works to have begun being translated into Greek, for instance.) However, I do not think that the appearance of the baptistery inscription is sufficient warrant for us to conclude that Greek was the “official” language of the city’s Christian community. That Greek had “a public role” (as well as Syriac) in Nisibene Christianity I take as established fact: the one because of the inscription and the other because of Ephrem’s own works, but that Greek in any way predominated in community use in Nisibis during Ephrem’s life seems extremely unlikely to me. How could this have been so and have left us with no hint of its presence in all of Ephrem’s writings? More evidence is surely required before we over-turn the settled picture of language use in Nisibis. 76

Paragraphs 17-18.

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Despite the fact that I have already tried to make this point above,77 M. C. A. Macdonald’s article78 on what language use, as evidenced in epigraphy, can actually tell us about the ethnic identity of ancient people is so apt for this point that I cannot proceed without discussing it.79 Macdonald describes throughout his paper the uncertainties inherent in making use of the language or script used in inscriptions to try to sort the writers (or patrons paying for the carving) into groups by background and culture. He makes some very useful distinctions among different sorts of inscriptions as a part of this reflection and has this to say about inscriptions created for public display, among which we must group the baptistery inscription of Vologeses in Nisibis.80 Formal, monumental inscriptions, carved by a professional mason, usually tell us little about the language(s) habitually used by the titular ‘author’ of the text. They are for public consumption and many different factors will have governed the choice of the language or languages in which they are couched. Among these, prestige must always have been an important consideration. How many village churches in the depths of the English countryside contain monuments to dead squires in Latin, a language which none of the congregation could read and which the squire himself had probably long since forgotten? Similarly, it is dangerous to assume from the wealth of Greek formal inscriptions throughout Syria that the population in general spoke (let alone, read) Greek, rather than (or, even, as well as) Aramaic or another Semitic language. … it is essential to look at each inscription within its context and part of that context is the interplay of written and spoken languages, and of degrees, and different types of literacy.”

This brief passage expresses my own thoughts about the Nisibene inscription very exactly. Since we know (or think we do) that the Christian community in Nisibis worshipped in Syriac during Ephrem’s lifetime, and since we are confronted with this Paragraph 20. This piece has just come before my eyes by following Millar’s paper under discussion in the 1998 volume of Mediterranean Archaeology. 79 Macdonald, “Epigraphy and Ethnicity.” 80 Macdonald, “Epigraphy and Ethnicity,” 180-181. 77 78

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public, ornamental inscription in the baptistery in Greek, does it not seem more reasonable to conclude that there is some other explanation for the language of the inscription than that the Nisibene Christian community actually functioned in Greek? Let us look at one possibility that arises immediately for consideration. Sidney Griffith has written eloquently about Ephrem’s deep attachment to the greater Christian Church that lay mostly to the west of Nisibis.81 Might it not be possible that that feeling of attachment was not unique to Ephrem in his time and place but that many in the community also thought of themselves as being deeply attached, as Christians, to the Christian Roman Empire? With the Persian Empire on their door-step more and more hostile to Christianity, this does not seem an unreasonable thing to suggest. If so, might not the choice of language for the baptistery inscription be a further manifestation of that desire of the community to cling to their western brethren rather than a sign of their liturgical or “official” language? This cannot be certainly known, but it seems more likely to me than the conclusion that Ephrem spent six decades in a Greek language Christian community while writing a whole library of Syriac Christian liturgical pieces. 400 hymns and 30 verse homilies82 seems like a lot to have produced if only the last decade of his life was spent in a Syriac language community. Who would have been the intended audience for the Nisibene Hymns, in that picture? I think we are better off thinking a more Syrian picture of the Christian community in Nisibis was the most likely. In the end, the concrete evidence Millar discusses makes clear that we have very little evidence at all to apply to this question of cultural and linguistic distribution in the Late Antique Near East. I think that we should, in that case, resist the temptation to generalize from what we have and make note of our particular facts. I would want to resist overturning what our extensive literary remains seem to indicate on the strength of a single inscription, as concrete as that may be. It is important not to allow one’s imagination to be so inhibited by the lack of physical evidence (as yet discovered) that one finds oneself led to a conclusion that instinct would otherwise avoid. 81 82

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Griffith, “Ephraem, the deacon of Edessa.” This was my rough count in “Ephraem, the Syrian Theologian,”

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There are, of course, many facts that point to the activity of the Semitic, Aramaic, influence on Nisibis and its region. The first, and most obvious, of these must be the dropping out of use of the Greek name for the city, ‘Antioch in Mygdonia,’ and the large number of variants in spelling and pronunciation of the native name of the city, Nisibis. Both of these serve to show the strength of the native tradition about the city’s identity. The breadth of usage of the traditional name is shown in the variant spellings and the weakness of the official attempt to change its name to one that would serve the government’s greater glory makes the number of locals firmly attached to the government seem small.83 The exact nature of the culture passed down by those living in Mesopotamia in an Aramaic-speaking milieu is very difficult for us to gauge. Almost all the information we have about this Aramaic cultural stream comes to us through a Jewish filter. While we know that there were many non-Jewish Aramaic speakers, we have very little writing that they produced surviving for us to read.84 Our acceptance of the vibrancy of the Aramaic culture is made stronger by the fact that no record of Greek games, whether athletic or literary, survives from east of the Euphrates River.85 Anyone who is familiar with the importance the Greeks attached to these games, especially, perhaps, those on the margins of Greek culture trying to identify themselves with it,86 will realize that an area that produced no games was, in a very real sense, producing no Greeks. Palmyra, for example, seems to have had no gymnasium, baths or amphitheater.87 It is interesting to note, by the way, that Dio Cassius, when describing the inhabitants of Nisibis Dussaud, Topographie, 523. Millar, “Empire, Community and Culture,” 159-160 describes what there is. Harrak, “Trade Routes,” argues very strongly for the strength of the Semitic culture in the Near East throughout the pre-Islamic period. This point about the weight of the Semitic culture in this period is hotly contested. 85 Millar, Roman Near East, 234. 86 This must be one of the reasons that the Hellenized king of Macedonia, Alexander, kept a copy of the most Greek object imaginable, The Iliad, with him in his tent at all times. He was staking a claim to a Greek identity that many residents of Greece, proper, would never have granted was his by right. 87 Stoneman, Palmyra, 67. 83 84

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about the time that Lucullus captured the city in 68 BC, calls them barbaroi, the surest and clearest way of indicating that he did not consider them to be Greeks.88 It is important for us to remember that most of our evidence from the Near East comes from the areas that were under the greatest Hellenistic influence. The highly literate nature of the culture the Greeks produced and inspired sparked the production of a great mass of written evidence, literary and epigraphic, that may well exaggerate the size of their influence. The study of Late Antique Hellenism is a field that enjoys a large body of raw material, but the almost complete absence of Aramaic language literary remains, Jewish religious writings aside, means that Late Antique Aramaic culture is a closed book to us. There is no way for us to know what reality this lack of evidence indicates. We must match the silence of the past with silence of our own. Thus, Millar is moved to say,89 Above all, the notion that there was a ‘Syrian’ culture, embracing equally the zone of Syriac literature and Roman Syria, goes beyond our evidence.

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Of course, this predicament tells us nothing about the existence, or lack of one, of a Syrian culture. It tells us only the nature of the evidence that survives for us to examine. It may well be that we moderns give too much weight to matters of language when we consider cultural identity. Especially for us North Americans, who tend to think of different languages as impermeable walls that separate one group of people from another, languages seem to isolate groups of people from each other.90 Dio Cassius 36.6.2, mentioned by Millar, Roman Near East, 443-4. Roman Near East, 493. 90 Brock, “Greek and Syriac,” 153, says “It was undoubtedly the case that large numbers of people in Syria in Late Antiquity were bilingual in Greek and Aramaic; what is more difficult to establish is whether some of the more educated among these could also be described as bi-cultural, that is to say, people who felt at home in both Greek and Syriac literary cultures.” This suggestion, which brings to the fore the possibility that we need not seek to draw boundaries between the Hellenistic and Semitic cultural worlds, is useful. It encourages us to realize the individuality and malleability of human lives. Especially for those living in true border areas, those marking cultural as well as political divisions, such as Nisibis, life offered a wide array of possible influences and choices among which 88 89

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Han Drijvers,91 in speaking with reference to Edessa, warns his readers not to refine too much on the barriers set up by language differences in the Near East of Late Antiquity: The border area fostered a continuous exchange of goods and ideas, and stood open to influences from all directions. That means that the question of language is not decisive: almost all writings that originated in that area and date back to the first three centuries A.D. are handed down in the Syriac and a Greek version, and it is often very difficult to establish which was the original. I would like to add: it is not that important either! Whoever was literate in that particular time and area usually knew both languages, and it may even be supposed that most texts were written down in two versions from the very outset. That does not mean that writings and ideas stemming from the east Syrian region belong without any differentiation to the mainstream of Greek Christian literature as we know it from more western areas, but their special features are not exclusively due to the fact that they were written by chance in Syriac and often also transmitted in Greek. Rather, the whole cultural and religious situation determined their particular content and tendencies, which react on and reflect that situation.

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While we may be suspicious that a scholar who was himself so adept at learning languages might have tended to minimize the difficulties attendant on all linguistic variety, his point is worth consideration. We may be led to over-emphasize the barrier raised by languages because of our own experience of strangeness in studying ancient Semitic tongues. It is also worth noting, in this regard, a warning that Millar puts forward when he is considering the evidence that comes down to us about the Late Antique Near East. Millar makes the point that much of this evidence is connected to military activity. The concerns of the ancient military authors (and, of course, those from whom they gathered their information would have known this) center very largely on the relationship various areas and cities had with the continuation of Roman rule. This is natural, considering groups, families and individuals moved as seemed best and most advantageous to them. 91 Han J. W. Drijvers, “East of Antioch,” 3.

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the role of the Roman army in holding on to the fringes of the empire. One of the byproducts of this fact is that every city and area, and those inhabitants of it who might have come in contact with the Roman authors, would have had good reason for emphasizing, even over-emphasizing, the attachment they felt toward Rome and the cultural connections they enjoyed with the lands farther to the West.92 This means, of course, that we must be very careful when we make use of ancient evidence to discover cultural affinities between the Mediterranean and these areas. Ancient writers, and witnesses, were not striving for the dispassionate stance of a modern, scholarly ethnographer. We know, of course, that there were other strains of cultural influence at work in the area. The presence of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire and in the region of Nisibis is, itself, a sign of exposure to currents stemming from the interior of the Parthian/Persian empire.93 We might remember, also, that the bishop in Nisibis who built the baptistery that survives to this day, at least partially, was named Vologeses, which clearly points to personal ties leading farther to the East. I think that Millar’s point about the significance of the creation of a Syriac Christian literature as the Church grew among Aramaic speakers is a useful one. There certainly must have been cultural life in the community already, waiting to be harnessed for Christian use, but we cannot see through this culture’s Christian production to the pre-existing cultural base behind it.94 Still, it is very unlikely that this Syriac Christian literature was a wholly new creation, spurred into being by the arrival of the Gospel. Logic and cultural probability both urge us to imagine an active Aramaic language culture in the pre-Christian period, beyond the bounds of the more easily traced Jewish community as well as within it. What effect on the life of the city would its proximity to the imperial border have had? Elton holds that the presence of borders tends to increase traffic towards and across them, rather than decreasing it.95 The economic life and settlement that was sparked Millar, Roman Near East, 442. Millar, Roman Near East, 503. 94 Millar, Roman Near East, 510. 95 Frontiers, 77. Bardy, La question des langues, 26, thinks that the border conflicts between Rome and Persia/Parthia threw the Syriacspeaking Christians of the area back toward their Greek brethren to the 92 93

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across the top of England by the building of Hadrian’s Wall is a good example of this effect at work. The effect would, logically, be increased in the area of a pass-through point, such as Nisibis. This should give us pause in the same way that Drijvers’ point about languages should give us pause. Linguistic variety and political boundaries may not have separated Mesopotamia from the east as much as we would have expected to be the case. Stoneman96 makes the point that Rome’s border defences were insufficient to provide a real bulwark against attack and notes, to my surprise, that no Persian or Parthian border fortifications have been discovered by archaeologists, thus far. This must argue strongly against their being necessary for warfare, since both those states repeatedly engaged Rome in war. Stoneman suggests the possibility that they were intended to manage the flow of traffic across the border, which seems reasonable. I also wonder if Rome, usually governed by men from other parts of its extensive territory, might not have built border forts in Mesopotamia because it commonly did so on the other edges of its territory, rather than for any particular, locally appropriate, purpose. Large governmental organizations often choose consistency over practicality through bureaucratic inertia. It may be a mistake, again, to think of borders as walls rather than, perhaps, as funnels. Procopius, speaking about a border area near Armenia, has this to say:97 … the two frontiers were mixed up. The subjects of both the Romans and the Persians had no fear of the

West. He does not expand on this point, but it seems to come from an idea of the border as a hostile barrier. He supports it by noting the presence of so many translations of Greek works among the extant body of Syriac literature. This last point, based on the nature of Syriac literature, is a fascinating one, much debated by modern scholars. I would approach the question by wondering whether it might not be wiser to think that the large numbers of translated works were the result of theological, rather than cultural, affinities with those to the West, but I must pass over it for now. As far as the former point is concerned, I side with Elton’s picture. A support to that decision is offered by the description and details of cross-border movements presented by Lieu in “Captives, Refugees and Exiles,” passim. Hodgson, “The East as Part,” also argues in support of borders as movement control areas rather than fortified lines of the World War I type, meant to seal off the enemy. 96 Palmyra, 81 ff. 97 This is quoted at Elton, Frontiers, 97.

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Possekel reminds us98 that the earliest surviving Syriac manuscript already contains translations from Greek works. She even makes the point that some of these works show signs of having been corrected from earlier translations. This, too, supports the idea that the various groups in the Late Antique Near East did not live in isolation from one another. Another interesting point relevant to the cultural mix in the area is found in Ammianus Marcellinus’ mention of a palace in Nisibis set aside for royal visits.99 This, in itself, would surely increase the city’s influence on life and trade across longer distances than usual for a place its size. The crown was always a major patron and the presence of a royal residence in a city on the border would have a great impact on the economic, as well as the social, life of the city and the regions around it. Along these lines, we know that Nisibis had a mint in the Third Century.100 This would also be a center of positive economic activity and a means of connection with the larger world. Both of these facts are further demonstration of the prominence of Nisibis’ place in the thoughts of those exercising political power over the area.

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There is no point in rehearsing all the back-and-forth struggling between Rome and her rivals to the east: Persia and Parthia, for the control of Nisibis.101 For our purposes, we need only understand Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts, 30. Mango, “Continuity,” 121, n. 88. 100 Mango, “Continuity,” 125. 101 R. N. Frye, Cambridge History of Iran, 3.139, sums up the military history of the age as follows: “In the long series of wars between the Sasanians on one side, and the Romans followed by the Byzantines on the other, the frontier remained more or less constant in upper Mesopotamia. It is true that sometimes Nisibis, Singara, Dārā and other cities of upper Mesopotamia changed hands, but the stability of the frontier over centuries is remarkable. Although the possession of frontier cities gave one empire a trade advantage over the other, one has the impression that the blood spilled in the warfare between the two states brought as little real gain to one side or the other as the few metres of land gained at 98 99

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how Nisibis functioned in the life of Mesopotamia and the political states that bordered on it. This role would have been ingrained in Ephrem’s view of the world as a part of his upbringing. So, we will try to take a broad enough look at Nisibis’ role in the political realm to help us understand this importance. Nisibis is mentioned already in cuneiform texts102 and seems to have kept its importance in all periods because of its natural position. The fact that Nisibis was the location of the treatysignings between Rome and Persia shows its natural role as the meeting point of these two powers. The fact that its position allowed its possessor to project control of important routes explains why Armenia and Rome warred for its control as well as Persia and Rome.103 It is interesting to know that a new city, named Tigranocerta and built about 37 Roman miles north-east of Nisibis, served as the southern capital of the Armenian kingdom of Tigranes for a time. This attempt to reproduce the natural advantages attached to Nisibis shows the desirability of the location in the eyes of people from the north as well as on the east and west.104 The brief life of that city is most likely due to its position not enjoying the necessary physical attributes that the traditional site provided. Nature limits the number of areas suitable for settlement in Mesopotamia. When Rome solidified her rule, Nisibis became the capital of the new imperial province, Mesopotamia Provincia.105 This shows us that Rome assumed a connection between possession of Nisibis

terrible cost in the trench warfare of the First World War.” Greatrex, “The Background and Aftermath,” passim, provides a clear sense of the complexity of the period’s military history while considering only a focused topic during a brief period. 102 Pigulevskaja, Les villes, 50. This is in relation to a campaign of Admirari II (911-890 BC). In 896 Admirari besieged Nisibis with much excavation and effort and managed to capture the city. Nisibis’ role in that military episode foreshadowed much of its activity during Ephrem’s life, almost 1300 years later. 103 Pigulevskaja, Les villes, 52-57. 104 M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia, 229. 105 Pigulevskaja, Les villes, 77, Lightfoot, “Facts and Fiction,” 107. cf. Ammianus Marcellinus 19.9.6.

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and exercising control over that area.106 It is likely that there was a legion present in Nisibis during this period, though we have no concrete evidence of this.107 The presence of a Roman legion would have stirred the political, cultural and religious pots in the city all at once, though just how the effects would play out would depend on the particular legion present and where it had been raised. There are natural military considerations common to all combatants in every age. (Though how these make themselves felt changes from age to age as technology changes warfare.) The persistence of the interest of all powers in the region in occupying and holding Nisibis is an important witness to its practical usefulness. This also means that the city’s inhabitants, in every age, would tend to see many people of all sorts passing through their midst. They would also have a natural interest in news of all sorts from every corner of the compass, given their history of involvement in warfare. The urge for self preservation is a strong spur to attention. Political events before the life of Ephrem conspired to make Nisibis in his day even more central in importance than it might have been. Palmyra, a center of trade and travel that was profiting enough from these to extend its reach to oversee caravan travel over a wide area,108 had been the victim of its queen’s attempt to break free from Roman domination in 272 and Nisibis and Edessa must have enjoyed comparative increases in their own roles.109 106 Lightfoot, “Facts and Fiction,” 107, says: “Until its surrender in 363 Nisibis was not only the headquarters of the dux Mesopotamiae but also often served as the forward mustering-point for the mobile forces of the magister militum per Orientem. 107 Lightfoot, “Facts and Fiction,” 108. 108 Xinru Liu, Silk and Religion, 11, mentions silk fragments in tombs in Palmyra as the earliest evidence of the silk trade with Rome. Palmyra’s control of caravan routes and its maintenance of military outposts as far east as the Euphrates are mentioned by Millar, “Empire, Community and Culture,” 155-156. The disappearance of such an important presence would naturally create a vacuum that competitors would rush to fill. Cf. also Stoneman, Palmyra, 52, on the importance of Palmyra stemming from its location. The removal of that “pivot of two great empires,” as Stoneman calls it, would naturally create an opportunity for a city such as Nisibis to take a more central role. 109 Bundy, “Vision for the City,” 189.

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Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium, which the Cambridge Ancient History describes as: “… a description of the Roman world written in Latin under Constantius by a person of very average intelligence and education, though well traveled. Probably he was a merchant.,” includes the following as section XXII:110 After these, there is our country, for it follows Mesopotamia and Osrhoene. Mesopotamia indeed has many and various cities, whose outstanding qualities I would like to relate. There are Nisibis and Edessa, which, among all of them, have the best men and are very acute in business and good at hunting. They are particularly wealthy and adorned with all [material] goods, for, purchasing from the Persians, they make trading journeys and sell [goods] throughout the whole land of the Romans, except for bronze and iron, because it is not permitted to hand over bronze or iron to enemies. But these cities always take their stands according to the wisdom of the gods and the emperor. Having celebrated walls, they always undo the might of the Persians in war. They are fervent in business and travel through all provinces [of the empire very] successfully. Hence, Edessa of Osrhoene is, itself, a splendid city.

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The central focus of this passage on trade, and the Roman Empire’s attempts to regulate trade that it reports, show that these border cities benefited, financially, as much from their position as they may have been made vulnerable by it, militarily. This dual impact of the proximity of the border supports Elton’s suggestion of these areas being regions of increased activity rather than deserted military zones.111 The repeated assaults on Nisibis during this period cannot be reconstructed by us in detail. Even the actions of Shapur during the famous third siege and his use of the water of the river against the city’s walls, to which Ephrem is thought to refer in the first three of the Carmina Nisibena, are, in Lightfoot’s opinion,112 beyond our real understanding. (We should note, also, Ephrem’s mention in Memre on Nicomedia 15.113 of the presence of elephants with the besieging forces as an enlightening detail that shows just how wide Expositio Totius Mundi, 156 (my translation). Elton, Frontiers, 88 ff. 112 Lightfoot, “Facts and Fiction,” 114 ff. 110 111

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the experience of these border cities could be.) The conclusion we should draw from all this activity is clear, however: so great a value was placed on possession of Nisibis by Shapur that he was willing to waste armies and move rivers to acquire it. The direct approach having failed for Shapur, Arsacius of Armenia (an ally of Persia at that point) arrived in Mygdonia in 359 and treated the surroundings of Nisibis to such severe depredations they were left with only 10 percent of their previous population.113 (This seems a strategy along the lines of the North’s decision to burn the Shenandoah Valley and devastate Georgia and the Carolinas as a means of subduing the Confederate armies during the latter part of the American Civil War.) Nisibis having proved too tough a nut to crack directly, Persia thought that it could make life there unlivable. Ancient cities depended on their immediate neighborhoods for their sustenance, with the very few exceptions of some large seacoast cities such as Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople. A city like Nisibis, far from the sea and not even on one of the two great rivers of Mesopotamia, would have been especially vulnerable to indirect assault of this kind. If this approach had been continued over time by Persia and her adherents, it must have starved out Nisibis in the end, even without the spectacular defeat of Julian and his army in 363. The political role of Nisibis, then, was to be the means of projecting power either on Rome’s behalf toward the East or on behalf of Persia toward the West. Its great importance in assisting the power that controlled it to protect the border region made it an irresistible target, no matter who held it at any particular time. The very same qualities that supported its wealth and cosmopolitan character also made it a bone of contention. All these results of its natural position, both desirable and undesirable, gave to the people of this city a natural tendency to pay greater attention to the peoples and powers around them and to be more careful to develop a good understanding of the practicalities of power and the desires of political states than would people living farther from the frontier war zone. It is not surprising that a lifelong inhabitant of the city, such as Ephrem, would have a broader view of the world than one might expect to find in a person who was never a great traveler. 113

Fiey, Nisibe, 32.

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HISTORY OF CHRISTIANS IN NISIBIS [72]

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At this point, it is not possible for us to identify a firm date for the arrival of Christianity in Nisibis as a resident religion. Christian communities tended to stretch their antecedents back into the past in search of an apostolic connection, as Edessa did, so famously, in the Addai legends. So, even if we had clear, specific testimony to the start of Nisibene Christianity, it might not be wholly convincing. Evidence from elsewhere about a community is more likely to be dependable, especially if it can be shown to have an early origin, because the urge for self-aggrandizement is less likely to be present. We are fortunate in the case of Nisibis in that this sort of clue, in fact, does provide our best guess for a terminus ante quem for the Nisibene community. It makes sense to conclude that Christianity must have been present in Nisibis before 215 since the burial inscription of Abercius, which mentions Nisibis, seems to have been used as a model by a certain Alexander, son of Antonius, about that time.114 The funerary stone of Abercius survives in a damaged state in the Vatican collection. This physical artifact is a very rare piece of evidence, indeed.115 Chaumont116 thinks the epitaph of Abercius shows that Christians “n’étaient pas rares” in Osrhoene, even including Nisibis, at the time he visited there. She also, however, states clearly that she thinks the Christian communities in Nisibis and Edessa were naturally connected, with the latter taking the lead. We have seen above that Neusner considers the two cities to have had quite different, almost opposite, situations as far as the prevalence of the Synagogue and Church are concerned. I think it likely that Chaumont has assumed an importance for the Church in Edessa that our surviving texts might suggest but that the situation on the 114 Bundy, “The Life of Abercius,” 163. Note 2 on that page provides a number of references to other scholarly treatments of the inscription and attendant questions. (Note that, since we know nothing whatever of Abercius’ churchmanship, we can make no conclusions about who the Christians he saw in Nisibis were and what they taught.) 115 Kant, “Earliest Christian Inscription,” provides a color photograph of the stone and a reconstructed text of the inscription, as well as a picture of a reconstruction of the monument. He also provides a narrative of its discovery and a discussion of its value and connection to the monument of Alexander. 116 La christianisation, 6.

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ground, as far as we can glimpse it, does not. The Edesso-centric nature of our records of early Syriac Christianity makes this a very difficult question to settle, while making its consideration a useful urge to caution. Fiey117 thinks Christians were in Nisibis by the end of the first century “modestement bien sûr.” He also accepts the Abercius inscription as reliable. He notes, too, that Roman occupation of Nisibis in 297 meant persecution for the Christians. Logic would suggest that the absence of that persecution before 297 would have helped whatever sprigs of Christianity there were in the city to grow more freely. 118 Fiey119 credits the Edict of Milan with being the occasion for the establishing of a bishopric in Nisibis. He thinks this was a natural step in response to the city’s political importance, but doesn’t say anything about the size of its Christian community having been a factor in this step of institutional maturation. Certainly, Shapur’s stressing his role as a Zoroastrian monarch more and more in his public demeanor as his reign progressed would have made the seating of a bishop in Nisibis an obvious way for the Romans to stake a claim to the city by making the Church there more noticeable. The Christianity of the city would serve as a clear point at which Nisibis would appear “unPersian”.120 “Les Évêques de Nisibe,” 123. Burkitt, Cambridge Ancient History XII, 493, is much more uncertain about the early spread of Christianity to the East. 119 “Les Évêques de Nisibe,” 124. 120 It is generally agreed by modern scholars that the motivation of Shapur II in oppressing Christians in his realm was, at base, political and that its religious element was taken on as a means of heightening the contrast between his realm and Christian Rome. In other words, the persecution of Christians by Persia is seen as a by-product of the renewed desire for war with Rome. Lebourt, Le christianisme; Neusner, “Babylonian Jewry;” Moffett, Christianity in Asia all agree on this. Gilman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia, see it more as a case of the shah allowing the Zoroastrian hierarchy to do what they had been wanting to do. These seem reasonable conclusions to me, though I think our knowledge of the motivations of ancient figures is very uncertain, especially given the scarcity of pre-Islamic materials from inside Persia. Still, none of this affects the usefulness to either side of gestures based in the religious realm. 117 118

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Ephrem’s imaginative description of the early growth of the Church in Nisibis, crediting the three early bishops with nurturing their flock through the various stages of growth,121 would seem to fit very well with a memory of a Christian community that had been small, weak and informally structured up to the time of the legalization of Christianity. There is no hint in the Carmina Nisibena of a diocesan structure before the Fourth Century. (These hymns are a unique source of information on the early growth of the Nisibene Church from the inside, but are not meant to convey the sort of historical chronology that modern students would like to have.) Millar, correctly,122 says all that we really know in any detail of early Syriac Christianity begins at the end of the Third Century. Christianity does seem to have had some history of being present in the region before that time, though. Thus, he says, … by the end of the 3rd century it was claimed that the king Abgar who had been ruling in Osrhoene at the time of Christ had been a convert.

This widely accepted, but certainly incorrect, legend shows that there had been enough time between the Church’s beginning in the region and the end of the 3rd century to put the start of the Church into the past beyond the current memory of the people, but it does not show much more than that. Bundy123 rightly points to Ephrem as the starting point of real records.

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The identity of the Christian believers, their social status, ecclesiastical organization, and belief structures are unknowable. It is only fourth-century texts that begin to provide data regarding this city. Ecclesiastical records, such as they are, begin with Ephrem of Syria.

Certainly, the corporate life of Christians in Nisibis before the time of bishop Jacob, whose rule of the community began during the very early years of Ephrem’s life, is something we can only speculate about on the basis of hints dropped during the period of Jacob and his successors. No earlier materials survive.

121 This is described in Carmina Nisibena 1-21. Fiey, “Les Évêques de Nisibe,” describes what Ephrem says about these figures at 125-132. 122 Roman Near East, 462-463. 123 “Vision for the City,” 190.

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Elias of Nisibis124 (975-after 1049)125 assigned Jacob’s accession to 308/9 and the construction of the Church to 313-320. It may well be that the Christian community during the period of the ban on the Church had grown large (or wealthy) enough to build and was merely waiting for the political climate to change. The Edict of Milan and the execution at Antioch by Licinius of Theotecnus, the leader of the attempted revival of traditional paganism that accompanied the persecution of Christians as part of the social reforms sponsored by the Emperor Maximin Daia in 306-313,126 may have been enough to spur the Christians in Nisibis to take the risk of public construction. Jacob was quite a renowned figure in the mind of the early Church. We know of at least 55 texts, beyond Ephrem’s Carmina Nisibena, that report some information about him.127 Jacob was the first person added by Gennadius to Jerome’s De Viris Illustribus and Theodoret placed him first in his A History of the Monks of Syria, which shows that he was known in both Latin and Greek speaking circles. Much of this reportage appears to be legendary, but the prominence of this Nisibene figure in the mind of other Christians must, at least, have carried with it some awareness of the existence, and importance, of the community he led. His fame extended to inclusion in the lists of martyrs in Lyons and Rome.128 The prominence this notice must have given to the Christians in Nisibis is remarkable, but does not further our detailed knowledge of the community’s history. The report of Jacob’s presence at Nicaea,129 might also be more the result of the new emperor’s desire to include the Church all the way to the empire’s eastern border in his public embrace than a reflection of the particular size and vibrancy of the Christian

Chronologie, cited at Fiey, Nisibe, 23. Patrologia Syriaca, 218. 126 The course of this persecution is described at 377 ff. in Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution. Eusebius, History of the Church, recounts its course, and exults in the death of Theotecnus, in Bk 9 passim. 127 Bundy, “Jacob of Nisibis,” 238. 128 Bundy, “Jacob of Nisibis,” 239. 129 Fiey, Nisibe, 23. This is one of the four things that Bundy, “Jacob of Nisibis,” 248, considers to be dependable facts known about Jacob. 124 125

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community there.130 We must beware the pitfall of assuming important community stood behind a well-known figure. Augustine was always the leader of a minority group in his native Hippo,131 and Northampton, Mass., despite the presence of Jonathan Edwards, was certainly no Puritan ecclesiastical center. We should not allow Jacob’s notoriety or Ephrem’s creativity to lead us to assume that the Christian community in Nisibis was large or important. Extraordinary people can be produced by very ordinary circumstances. The fact that Jacob’s body was a great talisman in Nisibis for centuries after his death132 is further support for his having been, in some sense, that church’s founder. There seem to have been no earlier great figures with whom his memory had to compete. How different this is from Edessa, where Jesus himself was said to have been involved in the church’s life, along with one of the 12! As best we can reconstruct the sequence, the succession of bishops in Nisibis during the life of Ephrem was as follows: Jacob, who died after Nicaea, probably in the Summer of 337;133 Babu, who died after the third siege of the city by the Persians in 359;134 Vologeses, whose name appears in the baptistery inscription, which is a contemporaneous witness dated to 359/60 and independent from the works of Ephrem, died in 361/362.135

130 This might also explain the presence of the Bishop of Palmyra at Nicaea, since Palmyra was certainly greatly reduced in practical importance since its devastation as a result of its conquest under Zenobia. cf. Millar, “Empire, Community and Culture,” 156. 131 van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop, 102 ff. 132 Fiey, Nisibe, 25. 133 Burgess, “The Dates,” 8, argues that the burial of Jacob within the walls of Nisibis establishes that his death occurred during the siege of the city. He also convincingly argues for the siege beginning just after the arrival in Persia of the news of the death of Constantine. 134 Fiey, Nisibe, 28. 135 Fiey, Nisibe, 33.

Nisibis as the Background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian 223 The inscription is translated by Sebastian Brock as follows:136 This baptistery was erected and completed in the year 671 [= A.D. 359/60] in the time of Bishop Vologeses through the zeal of the priest Akepsimas. May this inscription be a memorial to them.

Because this text is unique in being the only surviving inscription in Nisibis we can be quite certain that Ephrem, himself, saw, it is appropriate to give the original as reconstructed.137

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ανηγερθη το [βαπ]τισ[τηριον τουτο και ετελεσθη ετους ΑΟΧ εν χρο νω [Ου]ολα[γεσου] επισκοπου σπουδη Ακεψυμα πρεσβυτερου. Γενητε αυτων η μνη [μη] εντ[υ]πιον τουτου.138

Vologeses’ courage as a leader of the Church in Nisibis during the third siege is praised in the 15th Memra on Nicomedia. Ephrem calls him “a priest who was a general”139 in lauding his spiritual leadership and its role in the repulse of the Persians. Abraham was bishop of the community at the time of its displacement to the West following the loss of Nisibis to Persian control in 363. That sequence of only four leaders makes a very brief institutional life for the church of Nisibis and we cannot advance much beyond a skeletal picture of even that short period, all of which lay within Ephrem’s lifetime. What can we discover about these figures that will lend some color to the picture and an idea of their characters and how they actually functioned in the life of the Church in Nisibis? As we would expect, Ephrem’s works provide virtually all our information. The most prominent and concentrated place to find it is in the first 21 of the Carmina Nisibena. It seems clear, to begin with, that Bishop Jacob was the brightest star of the four.140 It is not only the fact that he came first in time that set him apart. As the leader of the Christians in Nisibis, Jacob is mentioned a much greater number of times than any other Sebastian Brock, Hymns on Paradise, 11. Jarry, “Inscriptions Syriaques,” 243. I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. David G. K. Taylor of Oxford University for this reference. 138 This is how the text runs in Jarry, but should not the last word be “τουτον”? 139 15.152 Bundy’s translation in “Bishop Vologese,” 62. 140 Bundy, “Jacob of Nisibis,” passim. 136 137

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figure.141 Our surviving information does not permit us, however, to view even Jacob in any detail. Bundy142 summarizes our knowledge as follows: This analysis of the Jacob narratives suggests that trustworthy data about Jacob of Nisibis are very restricted. It can only be affirmed with reasonable certainty that: (1) he was a Bishop of Nisibis; (2) he participated in the council of Nicea as an anti-Arian; (3) he was known by Ephrem; (4) he achieved renown after, perhaps before, his death; (5) he died in 337/338; (6) he was initially buried in Nisibis, and, (7) he served four different regions of the fourth and fifth century world as an ideal bishop, contextualized according to different models.

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These, unfortunately, are not the most pertinent details for modern students who wish to know more of the life of the Church in Nisibis during the time of Ephrem. Ephrem calls himself “pupil” of the first three of these bishops,143 which must be, as regards at least some of them, a sign of ecclesiastical deference instead of a natural respect for one’s elders, since he was an elderly and accomplished man at the time he wrote that line. The comment is an illuminating one in that it seems to place Ephrem firmly inside the traditional, institutional Church. However deep this feeling may have run in Ephrem,144 its expression surely reveals him as not entertaining anti-institutional views on the appropriate role to be played by the laity and minor clergy. Carmina Nisibena 17.11, directed at Abraham and so from the very end of Ephrem’s life in Nisibis, credits each of the first three of the bishops with a particular virtue.

Bundy, “Jacob of Nisibis,” 238. “Jacob of Nisibis,” 248. 143 Carmina Nisibena 14.25 + 26. Gwynn’s translation, found at 187. 144 Sidney H. Griffith has argued convincingly that it went very deep in Ephrem. See his “‘The marks of the ‘True Church’;” “Setting Right the church of Syria;” and “Ephraem, the deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire.” 141 142

Nisibis as the Background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian 225 Thou shalt be unto us a wall as Jacob, and full of tenderness as Babu, and a treasury of speech as [Vologeses].145

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It seems that, as the community grew, its needs changed and, says Ephrem, were met by the differing qualities of its leaders. There also seems to have been an increasing need for formal organization of the Christian community. So, we find Ephrem advising the new bishop, Abraham:146 Appoint for thee scribes and judges, exactors also and dispensers, overseers also and officers: to each assign his work, lest haply by care should be rusted, or by anxiety should be distracted, the mind and the tongue, wherewith thou offerest supplication, for the expiation of all the people.

It is hard to know exactly how to take this direction to Bishop Abraham. It might be an indication of the existence of many and varied ecclesiastical offices, but it need not be so. Carmina Nisibena 14.1 had earlier said147 Under the three pastors, there were manifold shepherds; the one mother that was in the city, had daughters in all regions.

This is a more general comment and seems a clear indication of the existence of multiple congregations under the oversight of the bishop of Nisibis. Sozomen148 recounts that the emperor Julian wrote to the inhabitants of Nisibis, who were asking for help against the Persians, and refused to succor them because they had become Christians. He told them to ask again when they had returned to paganism, Sozomen says! We would expect a group to grow in size if it enjoyed freedom to function and imperial favor, and complexity is usually an unavoidable accompaniment of growth. Still, we know that some small religious groups delight in intricate structures, while some large churches fight against institutional development.149 We must remember to be a bit Gwynn’s translation, found at 187. cf. Carmina Nisibena 19.16 for another set of characteristics of the three bishops. 146 Carmina Nisibena 18.11. Gwynn’s translation, found at 188. 147 Gwynn’s translation, found at 182. 148 History of the Church, 5.3. English translation at 328 in Hartranft. 149 A good example of the resistance to institutional change is the continuation of the custom of having only 7 deacons in the Church in Rome long after the Church there had reached a larger size than these 145

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cautious when trying to gauge the size of the community by the length of the list of offices discussed by its members, though it is surely reasonable for us to posit an increase in size for this period in the life of the Church in Nisibis. We know that the church had some internal variety in its structure.150 Unto Moses Joshua ministered, and for the reward of his ministry, from him received the right hand. Because to an illustrious old man thou hast ministered, he too gave thee the right hand. Moses committed unto Joshua, a flock of which half were wolves; but to thee is delivered a flock, whereof a fourth yea a third is sanctified.

Are we to take this as evidence of a strong presence of those in some sort of formal religious life: “Sons or Daughters of the Covenant”? Are we to think that ‘sanctified’ means those already baptized, following the suggestion of some scholars that baptism in Syrian Christian churches was accompanied by a celibate life?151 The most certain conclusion is that there were, among the recognized members of the Christian community, the clergy aside, at least two categories of members: those who were ‘sanctified’ and those who were not. The Church was clearly gaining formal structure.152 officials could readily handle. Lietzmann, History, II.250, reports the constitution of the Roman clergy under Cornelius (251-253) to have included 7 deacons. (One disadvantage of such a limited roster was experienced when all 7 deacons and Pope Sixtus II were martyred in August of 258, according to the report of Kidd, History, I. 477.) 150 Carmina Nisibena 19.6. Gwynn’s translation found at 189. 151 Burkitt, Early Christianity, 50 ff. and Early Eastern, 125, ff. and Vööbus, History of Asceticism, I.13 are among these. 152 Can any example be found in Christian history, setting aside groups like the Shakers who are consciously separatists and require celibacy of all members, in which such a large proportion of the whole has been formally committed to celibacy? It seems to me that to claim to have found such an oddity requires a clearer basis in evidence than we have with regard to the early Syriac-speaking Church. I grant that they, in common with virtually all Christians of other ages and places, had a much greater reverence for celibacy (and discussed it more) than Christians in the modern West, but I am far from certain that that is a sign of their having been so unusual.

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We also hear credible reports of structure and organization in liturgical practice at the time of Ephrem. The homily of Jacob of Sarug on Ephrem153 contains some descriptions of changes in liturgical practice credited to Ephrem. The most prominent of these is the inclusion of women and girls in the liturgical singing that made up a part of the worship. There is not very much more than this, however, that we can say with real confidence about the shape and particular activities of the Christians in Nisibis during the life of Ephrem. It is virtually certain that Ephrem was engaged in formal instruction of students in the Bible. We have commentaries of his that survive and the tradition associates him very strongly with this work. However, we cannot say anything about the sort of milieu in which this teaching took place, or even if it was for the clergy and other special groups, or for the membership of the congregation as a whole. (Logic points strongly to such study having been undertaken by a limited group, but there is no evidence to support that conclusion and the list of Christians who have engaged in serious study who would not have been expected to do so by the usual gate-keepers of education is very long and continues to grow. Our expectations in this area are a very uncertain guide.) It is extremely frustrating that, just when the Church in Nisibis is beginning to take on shape in our vision and we can hope for some firm basis from which to approach Ephrem’s work, the cart is upset and the bulk of the community is forced to make its way west to Edessa. Unfortunately, such is our melancholy case. So, we come to the end of our rehearsal of what can be known about Nisibis during the life of Ephrem there. It is not a picture with many fine details, but it does furnish some backdrop against which we can hope to see him a bit more clearly. The student of Ephrem should not despair at the vagueness of our knowledge of his circumstances before his shift to Edessa. A general sense of his background can be useful when reading his works, and knowing the limits of our knowledge is always a useful element in scholarly study. It must be admitted, though, that we never quite leave the mist behind when we are studying Nisibis or the life of Ephrem the Syrian. He remains at a distance from us, despite our best efforts. 153

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A Metrical Homily on Holy Mar Ephraem, Joseph P. Amar, 40-50,

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POST SCRIPT [96]

I hope that an edited version of this paper will serve as an introductory chapter of a volume intended as a companion to the works of St. Ephrem the Syrian. I would be very grateful for any suggestions for additions or corrections.

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Nisibis as the Background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian 229 Bowersock, G. W., Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar, Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrianism: Its Antiquity and Constant Vigour. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 1992. — and Frantz Grenet (with a contribution by Roger Beck). A History of Zoroastrianism. vol. 3: Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule. Leiden: Brill, 1991. Brock, Sebastian. St. Ephrem the Syrian. Hymns on Paradise. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990. —. “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” II in From Ephrem to Romanos. Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1999. —. “Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria,” I, in From Ephrem to Romanos. Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity, Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1999. Budge, Ernest A. Wallis (trans.). The Chronography of Gregory Abû’l Faraj the son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physician commonly known as Bar Hebraeus being the first part of the political history of the world. (2 volumes). London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press, 1932. Bundy, David. “Bishop Vologese and the Persian Siege of Nisibis in 359 C.E.: A Study in Ephrem’s Memre on Nicomedia.” Encounter 63.1-2 (2002), 55-64. —. “Jacob of Nisibis as a Model for the Episcopacy.” Le Musèon 104 (1991), 235-249. —. “The Life of Abercius: Its Significance for Early Syriac Christianity” in Everett Ferguson (ed.), Doctrinal Diversity Varieties of Early Christianity. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1999, 243-256. —. “Vision for the City: Nisibis in Ephraem’s Hymns on Nicomedia,” 189-206 in Richard Valantasis (ed.), Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Burgess, R. W. “The Dates of the First Siege of Nisibis and the Death of James of Nisibis.” Byzantion 69 (1999), 7-17. Burkitt, F. Crawford. Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899. —. Early Eastern Christianity. London: John Murray, 1904.

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Williman (ed.), Diakonia: Studies in Honour of Robert T. Meyer. Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1986. —. “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” 125-140 in W. Klingshirn and M. Vessey (ed.), The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus. Ann Arbor, 1999. —. “The Marks of the ‘True Church’ according to Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” 125-140 in G. J. Reinink & A. C. Klugkist (ed.), After Bardaisan. Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers. Louvain: Peeters Press, 1999. Gwynn, John. Selections translated into English from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers second series, vol. 13, 113-341. Hamilton, Walter. (trans.) Ammianus Marcellinus. The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378). Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1986. Harmondsworth, G. A. Williamson (trans.). Eusebius’ The History of the Church. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1965. Harrak, Amir. “Trade Routes and the Christianization of the Near East.” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 2 (2002), 46-61. Hill, George Francis. Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Arabia Mesopotamia and Persia. Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1965. Hodgson, Nicholas. “The East as Part of the Wider Roman Imperial Frontier Policy,” 177-189 in The Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire, (ed.) D.H. French and C.S. Lightfoot. BAR International Series 553 (i), 1989. Jarry, Jacques. “Inscriptions Syriaques et Arabes du Tur Abdin.” Annales Islamiques 10 (1972), 207-250. Jones, A. H. M. Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces. Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1971 (2nd ed.). Kant, Laurence H. “Earliest Christian Inscription.” Bible Review 17.1 (February 2001), 10-19. Khatchatrian, A. “Le Baptistère de Nisibis.” Actes du Ve Congrès International D’Archéologie Chrétienne. Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles-Lettres” 1957, 407-421. Kidd, B. J. A History of the Church to A.D. 461. Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1922.

Nisibis as the Background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian 233 Labourt, J. Le christianisme dans l’empire Perse sous la dynastie Sassanide (224-632) (2nd ed.). Paris: Librairie Victor LeCoffre, 1904. Lee, A. D. Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Lietzmann, Hans. A History of the Early Church. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing, 1949-1953. Lieu, Samuel N. C. “Captives, Refugees and Exiles: A Study of Cross-Frontier Civilian Movements and Contacts between Rome and Persian from Valerian to Jovian,” 475-505 in The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, (ed.) Philip Freeman and David Kennedy (part ii). BAR International Series 297 (ii), 1986. —. Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman Near East. Leiden: Brill, 1999. —. Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China. A Historical Survey. Manchester University Press, 1985. Lightfoot, C. S. “Facts and Fiction—The Third Siege of Nisibis (AD 350),” 105-125. Historia (37) 1988. Lipinski, Edward. The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion Leuven: Peeters Press, 2000. Liu, Xinru. Silk and Religion: An Exploration of Material Life and the Thought of People AD 600-1200. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996. Louth, Andrew. “Unity and Diversity in the Church of the Fourth Century,” 1-17. Macdonald, George. Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Hunterian Collection University of Glasgow Vol. III. Further Asia, Northern Africa, Western Europe. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1905. Macdonald, M. C. A. “Some reflections on Epigraphy and Ethnicity in the Roman Near East,” 177-190. Mediterranean Archaeology 11 (1998). Mango, Marlia Mundell. “The Continuity of the Classical Tradition in the Art and Architecture of Northern Mesopotamia,” 115-134 in Nina S. Garsoian et al. (ed.), East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1982. Matthews, J. F. “Ammianus and the Eastern Frontier in the Fourth Century: A Participant’s View,” 549-564 in Philip Freeman and David Kennedy (ed.), The Defence of the Roman and

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BOOK REVIEWS Emma Loosley. The Architecture and Literature of the Bema in Fourth- to Sixth- Century Syrian Churches. Patrimoine Syriaque 2. Kaslik. Parole de l’Orient, 2003. Pp. 294. REVIEWED BY MARICA CASSIS, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

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Although northern Syria holds the remains of hundreds of churches from the fourth through seventh centuries, the approximately forty-five churches containing a bema—the large horseshoe-shaped platform in the centre of the nave—have historically been the most studied structures. The architectural evidence for the bema was presented initially by Georges Tchalenko.1 Since then, there have been several books and articles which use the architectural evidence to illuminate the literary evidence.2 Emma Loosley should be commended for bringing together the architectural and literary evidence in her attempt to prove that these churches are located in discernible clusters which may reflect a particular school of thought at Antioch. In The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth- to Sixth-Century Syrian Churches, Loosley illustrates the importance of looking at both the literary accounts and the physical remains of the entire corpus of churches when making observations about the architecture and liturgy of the West Syrian church. In her introduction, Loosley sets out the two major aims to her study: to provide an updated account of the bema churches through photographs taken during her own fieldwork and to try to establish these churches within the architectural corpus and liturgical tradition of the churches of Syria (pp. 21-22). She then gives a brief account of the development of early Christian architecture (pp. 2226) and introduces the region where the majority of these churches are found, the Limestone Massif in north-western Syria (pp. 26-28). 1 Georges Tchalenko, Églises Syriennes à Bêma, (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1990). This work is based on his survey work during the 1950s. 2 The most recent work is Erich Renhart, Das Syrische Bema: Liturgisch-archäologische Untersuchungen (Graz: Grazer Theologische Studien, 1995).

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The reader is subsequently introduced to the problems associated with studying the bema churches, including the issue of how the term bema should be defined when it is used in the written sources (pp. 20-30). For example, depending on the origin of the source, the term can refer to a large platform in the nave or the raised sanctuary area or can be used as a synonym for the ambo. Loosley also briefly discusses the use of the bema in other religious traditions, since its origins almost certainly lie outside of Christianity (pp. 30-32). Finally, she identifies the major problem in defining and explaining the bema. Although there are several extant examples of the bema, its purpose is unclear in the few West Syrian liturgical sources we possess (p 35). The introduction identifies a number of the major problems in studying the bema churches. These are issues that Loosley goes on to discuss in the remainder of the book, and include such things as scholarly reliance on East Syrian sources to explain West Syrian liturgy. However, the one area that is left unfinished in the introduction (and in the rest of the book) is the discussion Loosley begins on the origins of early Christian architecture and the development which eventually led to the bema churches (pp. 22-26). The evolution of church architecture in Syria from the third century house church at Dura Europos to the massive structures of the fourth and fifth centuries, including those with bemata, is not clearly presented here. I could not help feeling that this short section on the origins of Christian architecture could have been expanded into a short chapter which would have provided a better context for the discussion of the bemata. The first chapter of the book is the strongest, and Loosley presents a number of new archaeological ideas which should restart the discussion about this particular corpus. She presents the archaeological evidence for the bema, both in Syria and elsewhere, and discusses the archaeological evidence for the origins of the bema within the synagogue architectural tradition (pp. 44-47). Loosley also reestablishes several of the facts that we know about these churches, including the absence of the bema from monastic churches and the fact that only one bema church is known per settlement. (pp. 43-44). In doing so, she addresses the two major theories concerning the construction and use of these particular churches: the assertion that all of the bema churches were associated

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with martyria (pp. 49-57)3 and Castellana’s hypothesis that the bema was the result of the social or political influence of wealthy members of the community (pp.57-64).4 In both cases, her analysis is absolutely correct. She first dismisses the idea that the bema was only connected to churches which had an important relic or holy site affiliated with them. She points out that while the majority of the bema churches were connected to sites with martyria, the cult of saints was prevalent throughout Syria and consequently it is not really possible to connect only bema churches with martyria or relics (p. 55). For example, many important pilgrimage sites were found without a bema, particularly those connected to Stylites (p. 56). Rather, she offers the possibility that the bema provided a way to display or use a relic during services. Since the bema stood in the same place as the pillar of the Stylite in some of the major pilgrimage churches (such as at Qalcat Semcan), Loosley suggests that the altar that is sometimes found on the bema might be linked to the display or veneration of the relic during the liturgy (pp. 49-50). This is an extremely interesting idea that deserves further consideration, since it has been difficult to explain the use of the altar on the bema given the presence of an altar in the sanctuary. The second part of her discussion centers on Castellana’s idea that these bema churches can be connected with a prominent member of the community through their proximity to an important tomb or nearby villa. (pp. 57-60). According to Loosley, these “are elements that Castellana relates to civil rather than ecclesiastical power” (p. 57), suggesting that the bema churches were the result of a wealthy or powerful patron. Loosley quite rightly points out that we know far more about the actual architects of these churches than we do about the patrons, citing the extremely important example of Markianos Kyris, the man responsible for building a large number of these structures. (pp. 60-64). Following this reasoning, she turns away from the concept of a secular patron, and considers the questions of who would have built these churches and why. Her observation that Markianos Kyris was also a member of a religious community (since he was buried in a This theory comes out of an assessment of Tchalenko’s work. See particularly page 52 in Loosley. 4 P. Castellana, “Note sul bema della Siria settentrionale.” (Studia Orientalia Christiana, Collectanea 25 [1992]), 90-100. 3

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monastery) (p. 61) leads into her discussion of the possibility that the bema churches reflect a particular set of religious teachings coming from Antioch. These churches were built in clusters over the period of three centuries, each group probably reflecting the earlier one. She is further able to identify these churches as a unique corpus by distinguishing these bemata from the mosaic bemata found further to the west, (pp. 68-70) and the bema of the East Syrian church in Mesopotamia. In her second chapter, the author turns to the sources that mention the bema. Loosley returns to the discussion started in the introduction concerning the proper translation of the term, and discusses its presence in Jewish and Manichean sources (pp. 86-88). She then turns to the Syriac sources, where she restricts herself to liturgical commentaries and explanations. As well, she restricts herself to unambiguous references to the bema as the large platform in the nave (p. 89). She brings to the forefront the issue of the lack of sources in either the West or East Syrian traditions. Her discussion starts with the earliest sources, including the Didascalia Apostolorum, and concludes with the ninth century East Syrian Expositio Officiorum Ecclesiae. Earlier studies of the liturgy of the bema for both the West and East Syrian traditions have relied heavily on interpretation of the East Syrian texts, a methodology which does not account for the important differences between these groups. Loosley stresses this point, and it is an important one (pp. 100-102). While her discussion of the later sources is clear, I found her discussion of the earliest sources problematic precisely because it was not clear. In her discussion of the Syriac version of the Didascalia Apostolorum, for example, she talks first about a church layout which places a platform at the east end of the church, a liturgical arrangement known from Dura Europos (p. 90). She then discusses another passage from the same source that clearly uses the word bema, and indicates that the reference “specifically refers to the bema in the centre of the nave.” (p. 90). While the Syriac does use the word bema, the text does not clearly indicate its placement within the church.5 Loosley’s interpretation may be correct, but a clearer and

Arthur Vööbus, The Didascalia Apostolorum In Syriac, Chapters 1-X. CSCO 176, (Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus SCO, 1979), 38. 5

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more complete discussion of the Syriac would have been helpful. This is a problem throughout the section on the earliest sources. Chapter 3 moves a step further, and tries to illustrate how the bema was used in the West Syrian liturgy through a combination of the textual and archaeological sources. Loosley also compares the East and West Syrian traditions in terms of the liturgical organization of the bema and the symbolism associated with it. Again, she is quite rightly cautious of using the East Syrian sources to assess the West Syrian archaeological material. Based on her own archaeological evidence and the literary analysis, and Renhart’s categorization of the sources concerning the bema, she concludes that “the bema is always a peripheral element in West Syrian texts rather than at the centre of the rite.” (p. 128) The fact that the bema did not always play a central role could perhaps have been better connected to Loosley’s theory about the liturgical connections of the bema churches with a single school of thought emanating from Antioch. If her theory is correct, this could explain why there are few references to the bema in the West Syrian texts, and why it does not retain the mystical dimension that it does in the East Syrian texts. The final chapter is dedicated to summing up the answers that can be given—and stating those that still remain. Loosley illustrates the importance of associating written and archaeological sources, and provides an update on the situation of these very important monuments. She provides a list of work that still needs to be done on these churches. Loosley quite rightly calls for a comparison of East and West Syrian architectural styles—and I believe this could be expanded to a work much like hers for the bema (p. 148-149). Further, Loosley has initiated discussion on an even bigger problem: much more work needs to be done on all of the churches of northern Syria, not just those containing bemata. The remainder of the book is dedicated to three appendices and a catalogue of photos from the bema churches. The appendices provide the sources of our information on all of these churches; the dates; and the obvious clusters that Loosley has identified (pp. 155-163). The photos provide a photo essay on both preservation and decay and are an extremely important document of what we are losing in this region archaeologically (pp. 167-283). However, she has not included either a map of the region or any church

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plans, which often makes it difficult to visualize the churches and liturgical arrangements she is discussing. Overall, The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth- to SixthCentury Syrian Churches is a valuable addition to the debate concerning the bema churches of northern Syria. Loosley’s architectural assessment is extremely important, and her clear divisions between West and East, and even among the West Syrian community should help to restart the debate about uniformity in the early Christian world. The need to look at both architectural and literary evidence is also highlighted by this work.

Peter J. Williams, Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels, Gorgias Press, Piscataway NJ, 2004, xvi + 339 pages (Texts and Studies. Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, Third Series, Volume 2), ISBN 1-59333-096-0. $65.00 REVIEWED BY JAN JOOSTEN, MARC BLOCH UNIVERSITY

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Using a translated text in textual criticism creates many complications: before any collation can be made, the translated text needs to be ‘retroverted’ into the original language; only then can questions of relative priority and textual history be addressed. Retroversion is hard to accomplish and always leaves a margin of doubt. The problem is particularly palpable in textual criticism of the Old Testament, where chance has it that some of the main textual witnesses—notably the Septuagint—are translations. In OT research, the need to establish the ‘translation technique’ characterizing a given textual unit is well recognized (although perhaps not universally applied). A large body of research on the translation technique of the Septuagint exists, comprehending both theoretical considerations and extensive studies of detail. Textual criticism of the New Testament is relatively less dependent on versional evidence. Thousands of Greek manuscripts are attested, representing a wide variety of textual types and reaching back as far as the second century. Nevertheless, the ancient translations of the New Testament do have something to offer. The roots of the Latin and Syriac versions go back to the second century (although the manuscripts are not earlier than the fourth century, and transmit much material that is later than the second century). These two versions also attest, often jointly, many readings that are absent from the Greek tradition or extant only in a small group of manuscripts (notably the famous codex D). As in the field of OT textual criticism, so in the NT, caution should be observed in using the versions. A reading attested in a version is not equivalent to a reading in a Greek manuscript. In certain cases, an apparent variant in a version may go back to a Greek variant; but one can never entirely exclude the possibility that the variant was created during the process of translation. Many striking deviations in the versions have no other source than the linguistic or stylistic requirements of the target language. The present study by Peter Williams is devoted to the identification of 243

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such translational deviations in the Old Syriac and Peshitta versions of the Gospels. Where detailed research can establish that a certain type of variation regularly occurs in the Syriac versions, these versions may no longer be quoted as evidence for the said variation in Greek manuscripts. A good example is provided by one of the first investigations offered in the book, the addition of the name Jesus (pp. 24-37). There is a noticeable tendency in both the Peshitta and Old Syriac to add this name where the Greek has a mere pronoun. For instance, in Matt 4:21, the Greek manuscripts read: “he called them (i.e., the sons of Zebedee),” but the Curetonian Old Syriac reads: “Jesus called them.” Since this tendency is very marked, it is methodologically unsound to quote the Syriac versions in support of Greek manuscripts having the same addition. In Matt 8:3, “he touched him,” many Greek manuscripts read: “Jesus touched him.” The latter reading is found also in the Peshitta and the Old Syriac. Yet there is no way of knowing whether the Syriac versions reflect a Greek text having the addition of the proper noun (in which case they would count as textual evidence), or whether the addition of the name Jesus was made by the translators (in which case the Syriac reading lays no weight in the scales). In Williams’ study, the addition of the name Jesus is fully documented and extensively discussed, leaving little room for doubt as to the text-critical implications of the phenomenon. In six chapters, many other phenomena are studied in the same detailed way: addition and omission of proper nouns, common nouns and pronouns; changes regarding articles, particles and adverbs; grammatical variants such as alteration in number, person, voice or tense; questions of word order; variations in words of speech, and miscellanea. Some brief “rules for the use of Syriac in NT textual criticism” are spelled out in appendix 1, while a second appendix lists a large number of suggested corrections to the apparatus of Nestle-Aland’s 27th edition of the NT text. The book will be very useful for the small number of specialists whose business it is to produce critical editions of the NT text. One may expect future editions of Nestle-Aland’s editio minor to omit a large number references to the Syriac versions. In a few cases, the elimination of the Syriac witnesses may change the balance of probability and lead to some adjustment in the establishment of the critical text.

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For all those who are not into the composing of critical apparatuses of the gospel text, the usefulness of the book is less immediate. Indeed, the kind of textual phenomena treated in this work almost never have exegetical implications. Since the mere pronoun ‘he’ and the proper noun ‘Jesus’ clearly have the same referent in Matt 8:3, the interpretation of the passage will change little whichever reading is adopted. This is not to say Williams’ work is uninteresting. Much can be learnt on the workings of the Syriac language, on the attitude of the Syriac translators to their source, on the history of the text of the New Testament. But on all these points, the reader must go, so to say, beyond the limits the book has set itself. Nowhere in this monograph is it stated explicitly that the textcritical value of the Syriac versions of the gospels is small. Nevertheless, by disqualifying so many readings attested in the Syriac, the argument may in the end raise doubts as to the very worth of these versions. It is only justice, then, to point out that many striking readings occurring in the Peshitta and, especially, in the Old Syriac gospels cannot, in fact, be accounted for simply by their translation technique. A good example is found in John 3:18, where the Sinaitic Old Syriac alone reads ‘the chosen son’ against the Greek manuscripts’ ‘the only son.’ Being either unattested in the Greek tradition, or attested only in codex D, many of these readings are regarded with utmost suspicion by textual critics of the NT. Yet it would be right to restore them to our critical apparatuses, so as not to lose sight completely of the potential contribution of the versions to the history of the text of the New Testament.

F. Briquel Chatonnet, M. Debié and A. Desreumaux, eds., Les inscriptions syriaques. Études syriaques 1. Paris. Paul Geuthner, 2004. Pp. 171. ISBN 2-7053-3759-8. Paperback. €40. REVIEWED BY ANDREW PALMER, SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES

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This is a series of essays intended to make stimulating reading for non-specialists, while not being intended exclusively for them. A review for a journal of Syriac studies should consider the book from the specialist’s point of view. The French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is to publish a series of volumes, arranged by country or region, constituting a systematic edition of Syriac inscriptions around the world: Recueil des Inscriptions Syriaques, to be referred to as RIS. The volume under review appears to be a survey of the inscriptions to be edited in this collection. The several chapters originated in papers presented by various scholars to a conference held in Paris on 7 November 2003. The contributors (in alphabetical order) are: A. Badwi, F. Briquel Chatonnet, A. Desreumaux, M. Gorea, A. Harrak, F. Helliot-Bellier, A. Kassis, W. Klein, P. Marsone, R. Niu, L. van Rompay, J. Thekeparampil and J.-B. Yon. The map on p. 169 shows Asia, Cyprus and Egypt as the areas to be covered, but on p. 51 reference is also made to two inscriptions in Rome. No reference is made to the growing number of inscriptions in the churches of the Syrian Christian diaspora (see one example in paragraph 11 of this review). This volume is also the first in a series of Études syriaques to be published by the newlyfounded Société d’études syriaques, of which the object is “the culture of Syriac-speaking Oriental Christianities, whatever their confession,” including “sacred scripture, theology, patristics, philosophy, grammar, history, law, liturgy, astronomy, medicine, poetry and graphic arts,” a list which, while it is probably intended to include “everything which makes up the cultural wealth of these communities,” happens to omit architecture and archaeology (p. 11). Non-Christian Syriac, though, is perhaps intentionally excluded. The survey begins with Edessa, the home of the Syriac dialect. Briquel Chatonnet and Desreumaux do mention The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene by Drijvers and Healey (1999) and the earlier work of Segal on the pre-Christian Aramaic inscriptions, though they refer neither to the extensive pagan 246

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inscriptions of Soghmatar, nor to the Christian inscriptions collected from Qasr al-Banat by Max van Oppenheim in 1899 and imperfectly published by B. Moritz in Beiträge zu Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwissenschaft 7.2 (1913), 157-74. They outline the history of Syriac epigraphy (pp. 15-17); distinguish two types of inscriptions, those on sacred monuments and those commemorating the death of clergy and “even of women”— though it ought to added that these were nuns (p. 18f.); and mention the regions of Commagene and Armenia, on one side of Osrhoene, and Tur ‘Abdin on the other (p. 19f.), before going on to discuss Syria (p. 21f.), where Christian Syriac mosaic inscriptions have been found in many of the ancient churches. (This reflects the favourable conditions which have obtained in that country for Christian archaeology.) There are even a couple of civic inscriptions in Syriac, which means that language was used beyond the religious sphere. These inscriptions tell more about the past than just names and dates (p. 23f.): a lintel at Zabad engraved in Syriac, Greek and Arabic is “the earliest dated inscription in the Arabic language and script.” On M. Gorea’s drawing one can make out “in the year 823” (A.D. 511/2?). The Alpha, though Greek, hangs on the right arm of the cross, Omega on the left, a probably unconscious Semiticism. The authors conclude “that Edessa seems to disappear rather early from the corpus, whereas in Northern Syria the use of Syriac in inscriptions increases from the fifth century onwards.” This argument from the silence of Christian Syriac epigraphy in Edessa ignores the manuscripts, some of them produced before 600, which attest the continued use of Syriac there. Many witnesses lie buried: who, then, will be “astonished” (p. 24) that they do not speak? The authors themselves regret that no systematic archaeological research has been done in Edessa. The next chapter, on the inscriptions of Lebanon, has a historical introduction by Kassis with a map (pp. 29-31); a section on the stone inscriptions by Yon (pp. 32-36); and a section on the painted inscriptions (pp. 36-40), in particular the twelfth-century paintings in the church of Mar-Tedros at Baḥdidat, which are presented by Badwi with reference to the unpublished MAdissertation of his student Chadi Abi Abdallah (corrigenda: nos. 1-5 do not correspond to nos. 1-5 in the figure and in no. 7 the Syriac word for darkness is spelled with ‘Ayn instead of Ḥeth). Omitted from the survey, perhaps because of its uncertain provenance—it

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turned up on the antiquities market in Lebanon, but it refers to the era of Antioch—, is a long and informative inscription commemorating the construction of a bema, presumably of stone, “in the year 653, in the computation of Antioch, in the year eight” (note the phonetic transcription of the Greek number as oghdo), that is between 1 October 604, when the 653rd year after Julius Caesar’s grant of autonomy to Antioch began, and 31 August 605, when Byzantine Indiction VIII ended (B. Aggoula, “Studia Aramaica III,” Syria 69, 1992, 391-422, includes, on pp. 401-6, a new edition with a translation in which E. Renhart, Das syrische Bema, Graz, 1995, p. 53, places too much faith). The era of Antioch is unlikely to have been used so far south as Lebanon (the date 859 on the lintel-inscription from Ḥarb ‘Ara, in the extreme North of Lebanon, is plausibly interpreted as Seleucid on p. 32 of the book under review, though, as can be seen from Plate II.1, the era is not specified). The most interesting stone inscriptions of Lebanon are those of the quarries of Kamid al-Lawz, which show that men from Edessa and even further afield (some were East Syrians) were quarrying here in 715 under the Caliph Walid. After travelling from Northern Mesopotamia through Syria to Lebanon, the survey arrives in the Holy Land. “Inscriptions of travellers and émigrés” are found in Acre, Galilee, Jericho, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Negev, Sinai, Jordan, Cyprus and Rome. Desreumaux, the author of this chapter, here announces his forthcoming publication of the Syriac graffiti on the columns of the mediaeval porch of the Holy Sepulchre. Those that are dated bear witness to the continuation of the pilgrimage of Syrian Christians from Northern Mesopotamia to Jerusalem during and after the Crusading period. Having published papers on this pilgrimage and on the relations of Syrian Christians with the Crusader states, this reviewer was disappointed that these inscriptions were not placed in their historical context. See A. Palmer, ‘The History of the Syrian Orthodox in Jerusalem,’ Oriens Christianus, 75 (1991), 16-43, and id., ‘The History of the Syrian Orthodox in Jerusalem, Part Two: Queen Melisende and the Jacobite estates,’ Oriens Christianus, 76 (1992), 74-94. We also learn of the recent discovery, in 2002, of two eighth-century (?) inscriptions in the black desert of Ḥarrah, the first Syriac inscriptions to be found in Jordan (they are to be published by M. Gorea) and of the epigraphic evidence of an EastSyrian community on Cyprus in the fourteenth century (p. 50).

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There follows a chapter on the Syriac inscriptions of the Monastery of the Syrians in Egypt which amply satisfies the reader’s hunger for historical context. The inscriptions illuminate the relationship between Dayr al-Suryān and the city of Tagrīt, in Iraq, beginning with the mirror-image memorial to the (Tagrītan) Patriarch Cyriac (793-817), unique in Syriac and much earlier than comparable inscriptions in Arabic, and the record of what may have been the origin of the monastery in 819 (a suggestion: might not the second letter in line 5, though it looks like a Beth, be read as a Mim?). Van Rompay, the author, questions the general validity of the statement that the Syrians in Egypt regarded themselves as belonging to the Church of Syria in the light of three prominent inscriptions of the ninth and tenth centuries at that monastery which put the Patriarch of the Coptic Church first, see H. Kaufhold, “Kirchliche Gemeinschaft und Schisma im Spiegel syrischer Schreibervermerke,” Oriens Christianus 85 (2001), 94-118. He points out that linguistic politics at the monastery, where Coptic and Syrian monks dwelled side by side, leaned towards Coptic in the ninth century and towards Syriac in the thirteenth, from which time onwards Kaufhold’s conclusion, which was based on colophons, may indeed apply (p. 62). His closing reference to the “radical uniqueness (unicité radicale)” of the details on which inscriptions oblige us to concentrate reminds this reviewer of that first searching encounter with letters on stone, by which a hand long dead grips the imagination and makes a new initiate in history. Harrak’s chapter on Iraq (pp. 75-106) is the longest in the book, and the most systematic. He classifies the abundant material into (A) liturgical, (B) funerary, (C) commemorative and (D) historical inscriptions and divides each of these groups into as many as nine sub-categories. The category of liturgical inscriptions, also introduced (under another name) by Briquel Chatonnet et al., is a necessary one, certainly for modern inscrip-tions. Harrak concludes his liturgical section with the following words: “The great number of liturgical inscriptions and the beauty of their calligraphy underline the fact that these inscriptions hold in the Syriac Church the place occupied by icons and statues in the Byzantine and Latin Churches; hence their sacred character” (p. 87). This goes too far. The devotees of an Eastern Orthodox icon or a Roman Catholic statue light candles in front of the object of their devotion and kiss it if they can. And even in a church where

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the walls are covered with holy pictures, such as St. Ephrem’s, Heilbronn, there may be a number of beautifully calligraphed liturgical inscriptions. Among the funerary inscriptions from Tagrīt Harrak documents the use of phrases such as “May the Lord have pity on So-and-so on the Day of Judgement!” (p. 88) and refers to a similar inscription about two Tagrītans in the Monastery of the Syrians in Egypt. The shared diction surely supports Harrak’s claim that the latter inscription is also funerary. This time it is surely Van Rompay who overstates his case (p. 69): “Nothing indicates that these two persons were dead at the time the inscription was produced.” Harrak also examines the epigraphic diction of building-records. This reviewer was pleased to read that ḥaddeth should not always be taken in its literal sense of ‘renovate,’ since it is sometimes a euphemism for ‘rebuild’ (rebuilding churches was forbidden under Islamic law). Compare already A. Palmer, ‘Corpus of inscriptions from Ṭūr cAbdīn and environs,’ Oriens Christianus 71 (1987), 53-139, at p. 95. The following chapter on ‘Syriac and Manichean magic bowls of Mesopotamian origin,’ by Gorea, is marred by a number of misprints and mistranslations: mryhwn d‚swt‚ is read as “Lord of healings” (p. 112), instead of “Lord of doctors” (osawoto is the plural of osyo) and pṣn corresponds to nothing in the English translation quoted in note 16 on p. 113. Nevertheless, this is a valuable contribution. The next chapter, Hellot-Bellier, addresses itself to ‘the contribution of Syriac inscriptions to our knowledge of the history of the Christians of Urmia,’ but this contribution comes to so little that it is hardly worth writing about (p. 122). One wonders what Wassilios Klein could have done with the Syriac tombstones of Iran; his interpretation of those published by Chwolson from finds in Central Asia (650 of them in Kirghizstan) is a bold one, carefully related to historical questions raised by other sources. He concludes that the Black Death which ravaged Europe in 1347-51 did not originate in China, as commonly thought, for it arrived in China “a few years after 1338/9,” in which year (witness: the tombstones) it decimated the sedentary population of Northern Kirghizstan and made them unable to resist the wave of nomads. As a direct result, Christianity disappeared from this region until the Russians brought it back in the nineteenth century. Texts vertically inscribed as if they were

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banners hanging from the arms of the Cross (p. 132) appear elsewhere in a context of near-despair, where a Christian community threatened with extinction invoked this talisman of survival through suffering. See A. Palmer, ‘The Messiah and the Mahdi: History Presented as the Writing on the Wall’ in: Polyphonia Byzantina: Studies in Honour of Willem J. Aerts, ed. Hero Hokwerda and Edmé Smits and Marinus Westhuis. Mediaevalia Groningana, 13 (Groningen, 1993), 45-84. Eight lines of Uyghur writing are inscribed vertically below the arms of a cross at Chifeng in Inner Mongolia, framed by a quotation from the Aramaic (Pshīṭto) version of Psalm 34:5: ḥūr lwoteh w sabar beh (“Look on Him and place your hope in Him”) and the same words (also quoted in the Ehnesh East Wall inscription) are found framing a cross above a lotus flower in Beijing (p. 149). The rest of the paragraph on Beijing in the chapter on the inscriptions of China by Niu, Desreumaux and Marsone (p. 149) is too allusive to be comprehensible. The references to the illustrations on Plate VII in this chapter are unclear, not being given in the same way as in other chapters. On p. 150 (just after Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel have been referred to, without comment, as “angels”) we read that Wu Wenliang, beginning in 1928, collected a large number of inscribed gravestones, but the bibliography includes no publication by Wenliang. The authors are unaware of the project on the Christian tombstones of Quangzhou which Sam Lieu, Ken Parry and others have been working for some years now at Macquarie University (See the interview they gave to Rachael Kohn on 5th March 2003). This project, which enjoys wide academic support, is funded by UNESCO as part of its Integrated Study of the Silk Road programme. One of their findings is that God is referred to in a number of Christian inscriptions of Quangzhou as Buddha! Buddhism came to China from India, so the name of Buddha offers us a transition to Kerala, the south-western coastal state to which the last chapter of the book, by Briquel Chatonnet, Desreumaux and Thekeparampil, is devoted. After a brief survey of Indian Church history the authors survey the inscriptions, which are classified as records of building-work; “inscriptions commémoratives” (records of other historical events); altarinscriptions and prayers; and funerary monuments. This agrees, in the main, with Harrak’s classification, though he coins the more

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compact term “liturgical inscriptions” and (a possible source of confusion) uses “inscriptions commémoratives” of buildingrecords, distinguishing these from “inscriptions historiques.” They go on to speak of the particular interest of this corpus of sixty-two inscriptions, collected by the authors in 1996, 2000 and 2002. There are no inscriptions securely dated before the arrival of the Portuguese, though there are some from before the Synod of Diamper (1599), which already show Latin influence. Excessive pressure to conform to Roman Catholic tradition led to an appeal to the Syrian Orthodox patriarch in the seventeenth century (Oath of the Coonan Cross, 1653), as a result of which contacts began to take place between Kerala and Tur ‘Abdin, which gave rise, in 1874, to a poetic inscription about the mission of two envoys of the Patriarch of Antioch, one of whom died in 1685 and was buried in Kothamangalam. This is an example of the Syriac renaissance of the nineteenth century, which is attested by a number of inscriptions. The authors also refer to inscriptions of the mid-twentieth century in Trichur and even to one in Ayamkudi dated to the year 2000. This makes it difficult to defend the omission from the book of any reference to the late twentieth and early twenty-first century Syriac inscriptions of Europe, the Americas and Australia. Perhaps these should, after all, form a volume of RIS? In the Syrian Orthodox church of St. Ephraem in Heilbronn, BadenWürttemberg, for example, there is a commemorative inscription on the front of the altar (church bought from American Centre in 1995, sanctuary built with donations from the Swirinoyo family of Bê Sallo Makko and others and consecrated by Mor Dionysius Isa Gürbüz in 2002), a eucharistic inscription (John 6:53) around the arch of the altar-niche, a more general liturgical text (Psalm 26:6) around the archway of the Royal Gate, a baptismal text (John 3:5) around the arch of the niche on the south side in which the font is placed and a commemorative inscription around the gûrno itself, accompanied by the same baptismal text. The chapter under review ends with a note on the scripts of Kerala (compare A. Palmer, ‘The Syriac letter-forms of Ṭūr ‘Abdīn and environs,’ Oriens Christianus 73, 1989, 68-89) and these are illustrated by two drawings: one of the splendid funerary inscription of Alexander de Campo at Kuravilangad (A.D. 1687) in English, Syriac and Malayalam on p. 162 and one of an inscription recording the construction of a

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doorway at the west end of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Saint Thomas at Mulanthuruthy in 1575. A photograph of the latter inscription taken by Riccardo Grassetti is printed in S. P. Brock and D. G. K. Taylor, The Hidden Pearl, 3 (S. P. Brock and W. Witakowski): At the turn of the third millennium: the Syrian Orthodox witness (Rome, 2001), p. 116. This reviewer has seen it and traced with his finger the original contours of the writing, which were not accurately followed by the later painter, who knew little Syriac. It is the painted inscription which is drawn (inaccurately in line 5) on p. 158 of the book under review. For RIS a squeeze should be made and photographed in a raking light which shows only the contours in the stone. This is one of the inscriptions allegedly showing Latin influence in the years leading up to the Synod of Diamper (p. 164). That will be disputed here. Here are three translations with the phrase to be discussed here underlined: En l’an mille cinq cent septante-cinq de la naissance de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, au mois de teshrin premier, le 9e jour, un dimanche, on a posé la porte du sanctuaire de l’église Saint-Thomas + en kullam sept cent cinquante-et-un ++. (Briquel Chatonnet et al., 2004, p. 156f.) In the year 1575 of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the 9th of the month of October, a Sunday, this doorway was set up for the nave of the church of St Thomas; by the Kulam era, the year 751. (Brock et al., 2001, p. 116) In the year / (one) thousand and five / hundred and seventy / and five [according to] (the era of) the birth / of our lord Jesus / Christ, / in the month Teshrīn / Qdīm thereof / on day : 9 : (for: “on day 9 thereof”?) / on (day) one in the week (i.e. Sunday) / (subject postponed till the end) raised up (this) door / for the prayer-hall of (this) church / the Holy Thomas (subject of the verb “raised up”). / + Kullam seven / hundred and fifty / and one. + + (Palmer, here)

As Briquel Chatonnet et al. have seen, Brock’s passive “was set up” (representing Olap-Taw-Taw-Qup-Yud-Mim) does not correspond to the traces on the stone, where the reading Olap-QupYud-Mim is clear (it is confirmed by the sense of touch). The translation must therefore be “he raised up,” but who is the subject? According to normal Syriac practice in all centuries the

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subject is usually postponed until after the main statement. A study of epigraphic diction in and around Tur ‘Abdin confirms this with specific reference to building records: see A. Palmer in Oriens Christianus 72 (1988) 114-23. Shying away from the conclusion that Saint Thomas is the subject, Briquel Chatonnet et al. translate “on a posé.” The same study of epigraphic diction shows that this would have been expressed with a passive verb. “Saint Thomas raised up a doorway/door for the prayer hall of the church.” Supposing this is the correct translation—and there is nothing to be said against it in philology—how would contemporaries have understood this strange statement? The Syriac tar‘o can designate either a doorway or the door by which it is closed. If it were the former, then we should have to suppose that the church was built without a doorway on the west side and that this was added in 1575, which seems unlikely. The first readers would of course have been aware that a human carpenter fabricated the door, but they may have been willing to believe that Saint Thomas operated through that human body. St Thomas is represented in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostle Judas Thomas as the twin of Jesus, who brought the Christian religion to India. He is the Apostle of India and might well have been opposed, as such, to St Peter, the Apostle on whom the Roman Catholic Church rested its authority. Such an opposition, in the second half of the sixteenth century, could have been regarded as dangerous by that Church. Perhaps that explains the enigmatic nature of this inscription: a forbidden patriotism is here encrypted. The key to the code may lie in the Bible. In Chapter 10 of the Gospel according to John Christ calls himself a doorway and brands as “a thief” anyone who comes into the sheepfold another way. Perhaps, then, our inscription is a guarded way of saying, seventy-eight years before the Oath on the Coonan Cross, that ‘St Peter’ (i.e. the Pope) is stealing the sheep which belong to St Thomas? In any case, we cannot translate ‘idto, followed, without a d-, by the words qadisho tuma, as “l’église SaintThomas” without imposing a foreign idiom on the Syriac language, which is perhaps why Briquel Chatonnet et al. speak of a Latin influence on the diction of this inscription. Another solution, much simpler, only occurred to me when it was too late to check it by running my finger over the words once more: perhaps what was originally written was qashisho, not qadisho, and the door was erected by an ordinary human priest called Thomas who may have doubled

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up, like St Thomas, as a carpenter? For a carpenter-priest in Bsorino, a village of Tur ‘Abdin, see A. Palmer, Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Ṭur ‘Abdin, University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, 39 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), microfiche 2, H: “The Book of Life: Translations of the Narrative Sections,” p. 11. Les inscriptions syriaques is a collection of scholarly papers which form an eloquent, accessible introduction to a subject otherwise difficult of access. It makes no claim to exhaustiveness and indeed it is easy, as a specialist, to find important omissions in it. It reveals the scope of the planned Recueil des Inscriptions Syriaques and amply justifies that project. Desreumaux announced this new initiative more than ten years ago; see A. Desreumaux and A. Palmer, “Un projet international: Le recueil des inscriptions syriaques,” VI Symposium Syriacum 1992, ed. R. Lavenant (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 247; Rome, 1994) 443-47. One can see from the volume under review that he has been the most active of all those involved. He is to be congratulated warmly on what he has achieved so far. If this review has been critical of certain aspects of this survey, it is only because it is important that the RIS itself should be in all essentials immune to criticism and so a worthy monument to the evident commitment of the contributors.

Pauline Allen and C. T. R. Hayward, Severus of Antioch. The Early Church Fathers. London and New York. Routledge, 2004. Pp. vii + 200. ISBN 0-415-23402-6 (paperback). $29.95. REVIEWED BY LUCAS VAN ROMPAY, DUKE UNIVERSITY

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Severus of Antioch is one of the most important authors of the Syrian-Orthodox and Coptic-Orthodox Churches. According to historians of the imperial church he held the patriarchate of Antioch from 512 to 518, the year in which he was deposed, at the beginning of the reign of the Chalcedonian emperor Justin. His followers, however, continued to consider him their patriarch until his death in 538. Severus’s leadership, which lasted 26 years, was of crucial importance for the formation and consolidation of the antiChalcedonian, Miaphysite movement. While Severus wrote his numerous works in Greek, very little has been preserved in that language. It is only in recent years that Greek fragments, which are preserved in exegetical Catena manuscripts, are being systematically published and studied. See particularly F. Petit, La chaîne sur l’Exode, I. Fragments de Sévère d’Antioche (Louvain, 1999), with a second volume, covering the remaining books of the Octateuch and the books of Kings, forthcoming (2006). The gradual loss of interest in Severus’s Greek works marks the shift of the anti-Chalcedonian movement from the Greek to the Syriac and Coptic cultural areas, a shift which took place in the sixth and seventh centuries and reached its completion in the early Islamic period. In view of the loss of the original Greek Severus, the existence of an extensive corpus of Syriac translations is all the more important. Many of these translations were produced during Severus’s lifetime and are preserved in sixth-century manuscripts. Even if they do not represent the actual wording of Severus’s original writings, they give us access to the milieu of the mid-sixthcentury anti-Chalcedonians in Syria and Egypt, many of whom were bilingual (Greek and Syriac or Coptic), and many of whom were instrumental in shaping what would later become the SyrianOrthodox and the Coptic-Orthodox Churches. Compared to the importance of the Syriac transmission of Severus’s works, the Coptic evidence is much more modest, although it once may have been significant. From Coptic and Syriac, Severus’s name and fame became part of Christian-Arabic literature, from which his legacy 256

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later reached Ethiopia. The Arabic and Ethiopic fields have not yet been fully explored, even though remarkable progress has been made in recent years. Youhanna Nessim Youssef’s 2004 edition and translation of an Arabic Life of Severus, corresponding to the Ge’ez version published by E. J. Goodspeed in 1909, may be singled out: The Arabic Life of Severus of Antioch Attributed to Athanasius of Antioch (Patrologia Orientalis, 49,4; Turnhout, 2004). The present volume, which is edited by Pauline Allen and C. T. R. Hayward, is a most welcome one, as several of Severus’s works have remained relatively little-known in the English speaking world. One finds here long excerpts from various works, most of them newly translated. The translations are by: Robert Hayward (Texts 1-15: extracts from various theological works and Cathedral Homilies, nos. 13 and 14; Text 17: Homily no. 72; and Texts 18-25 and 27-28: extracts from various letters), Iain Torrance (Text 16: Homily no. 18), Witold Witakowski (Texts 29-34: Hymns), and Pauline Allen (Text 26: fragment from a letter). The omission of the translators’ names from the respective chapters and from the Table of contents is misleading and unfortunate. Except for text no. 26 (ten lines from Greek), all other translations are from Syriac. The English translations are particularly welcome for Severus’s theological works, which have been published mostly with Latin translations, and for his homilies, the editions of which are accompanied by French translations. To my knowledge, one more homily has been translated into English, namely no. 52 (On the Maccabees), in R. L. Bensly, The Fourth Book of Maccabees and Kindred Documents in Syriac (Cambridge, 1895), p. xxvii-xxxiv. As for Severus’s letters, most of these have been published by E. W. Brooks (in 1902-1904 and in 1916-1920, respectively) with excellent English translations, which these new translations do not substantially improve. The dossier of letters exchanged between Severus and a certain Sergius (after 518), published and translated into Latin by J. Lebon in 1949 (CSCO 119-120 / Syr. 64-65), was made available in English by Iain R. Torrance in his Christology after Chalcedon. Severus of Antioch and Sergius the Monophysite (Norwich, 1988), 143-236, an important complement to the theological texts translated in the present volume. The first three chapters of the book provide well-written introductions to (1) Severus’s life, (2) Severus’s thought, and (3) Severus’s works. In the broader historical sketch of the Miaphysite

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resistance to the Council of Chalcedon one might have preferred to see a bit more nuance in the description of Justinian and Theodora in their alleged roles of opponent and supporter of the antiChalcedonians, respectively. It is also incorrect, I think, to see in John of Tella’s ordinations of priests in the late 520s the birth of “a separatist and independent church” (p. 28). The Miaphysites’ alienation and separation from the imperial church should rather be seen as a gradual process, spanning the entire sixth and even part of the seventh centuries. Building upon earlier studies by J. Lebon (1951), R. Chesnut (1976), A. Grillmeier (1995), and I. Torrance (1988), a laudable effort is made here to analyze, understand, and contextualize some basic ideas of Severus’s theology, which is profoundly Cyrillian (p. 34-38). In view of this, the following statement, which serves as a conclusion, is unsatisfactory (p. 37-38): “Despite the orthodox language in which such soteriological principles are enunciated by Severus and other monophysites, it is difficult to escape the impression that it was not only Julian of Halicarnassus who believed that, while Christ was a true human being, he was not an ordinary one. The interpenetration of the two natures results in a dominance of the divine nature in the union, and the exchange of properties (communicatio idiomatum) seems one-sided.” Not only is the use of the term “orthodox” problematic in this context, but the application of a non-Miaphysite “orthodox” meta-discourse introduces a theological prejudice that hampers historical understanding. “The Early Church Fathers” series has so far produced a number of important volumes. Severus of Antioch, who was one of the protagonists in a period of intense theological discussion and stood at the intersection of the Greek and Syriac worlds, has a welldeserved place in it. The highly readable translations provided in this volume will further increase awareness and understanding of this important tradition within early Christianity.

Robert A. Kitchen and Martien F. G. Parmentier. The Book of Steps. The Syriac Liber Graduum, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Robert A. Kitchen and Martien F. G. Parmentier, Cistercian Studies Series 196, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 2004. REVIEWED BY ANNE SEVILLE, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

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This volume continues the long-standing Cistercian Studies Series’ tradition of translating monastic literature of all periods into English and joins a growing section dedicated to Syriac spirituality. Indeed it is an important contribution, allowing us a glimpse into one lesser known, pre-monastic strand of asceticism on the eastern fringe of the Roman Empire. The late fourth, early fifth century community to which this work was addressed is stratified into different levels of Christian behavior and observance. The anonymous author focuses most of his attention on two of these levels, what the translators have termed “the Perfect” and “the Upright.” The Perfect ones have renounced all earthly desires and through following the great commandments (for example, to treat everyone better than oneself, to not judge others, to live free from care, etc.), mortifying their bodies, and practicing absolute poverty in the imitation of Christ, they have attained enlightenment and seek to educate other Christians. The second-tiered Upright have not overcome their struggle with material goods and thus lead a life engaged with worldly pursuits and work to minister to the physical needs of the Perfect. Their spiritual disciplines include attempting to fulfill the moral and cultic rules found in the “inferior commandments” (i.e. the Ten Commandments) and the Golden Rule. Kitchen’s extensive introduction begins by acquainting the reader with the general origins of Syriac Christianity. Emphasizing its ascetic flavor, he concisely describes the earliest Syriac literature, its use of vivid imagery and symbolism, and the unique practices that make Syriac Christianity distinct from its Mediterranean counterparts. After a detailed examination of scholarship throughout the last century pertaining to the Liber Graduum (with well-documented footnotes), the introduction proceeds to an overview of the structure of the work (or its lack thereof), brief descriptions of each mēmrā, and general themes that connect the work together. Highlights of this latter section are the translator’s discussions of 259

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the frequently overlooked “fledgling” or intermediate ascetic ranks, such as “the sick and the children,” and consideration of some of the pastoral problems of his community. For instance, tensions exist among the various levels concerning who merits material support, and external charges of elitism must be answered. Kitchen rightly downplays the role of the Liber Graduum in the Messalian controversy. Although historically several scholars had hoped that this was the missing Asketikon of the Messalians, this claim could not be proven through its doctrinal content. The Liber Graduum does demonstrate some Messalian tendencies, like the indwelling of demons, but never fully exhibits unorthodox beliefs. From what we know of the surviving descriptions of Messalian beliefs and practices, such as the total efficacy of unceasing prayer in contrast to the spiritual inefficacy of the visible Church and sacraments, these ideas are not supported by our anonymous author. The translation has been made from Michael Kmosko’s edition found in Patrologia Syriaca 3: Paris, 1926; the enumeration of the mēmrē and the column numbers inserted into the translation follow this text. Kitchen and Parmentier present a fluid translation that is faithful to the spirit of the work overall, skillfully preserving the frank discussion of how these practices ought to be lived out and what the relationships among various Christians ought to be. In addition to the introduction and translation, Kitchen and Parmentier have provided a bibliography of other modern translations of sections of the Liber Graduum, several pages of studies covering the history of scholarship on this work, and a few brief listings on Syriac Christianity in general. There is also an index to the extensive scriptural references of the Liber Graduum that has been extended to include some post- and extra-canonical writings and an index to proper names and places. A subject index would be desirable for such a lengthy and thematically inter-connected work. But these materials along with the comprehensive introduction provide a solid entry point for anyone interested in Syriac Christianity, and the work as a whole offers scholars a valuable resource for the early development of the ascetic life in Syria.

Mar Aprem Mooken, The Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century (Mōrān ‚Ethō, 18; Kottayam. St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 2003), 307 pp. REVIEWED BY ALEXANDER TOEPEL, UNIVERSITY OF TÜBINGEN

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In spite of its comparative proximity the modern history of the Church of the East remains one of the underdeveloped fields in the study of Eastern Christianity. Any publication on this subject is, therefore, to be welcomed, and in regard of the book under review here this is the more so, since its author, His Grace Mar Aprem, Metropolitan of All India, to a great extent not only witnessed but shaped the history of the Assyrian Church of the East during the last forty years. As is to be expected, the book deals first and foremost with the history of this church, while the uniate Chaldaean church, which ultimately stems from the same tradition, receives only minor attention. After two introductory chapters on the origins and history of the Assyrian Church until 1900 (pp. 1767) its history during the twentieth century is presented according to a division into four periods: a period of decline from 1900 to 1918 (pp. 69-112), a period of uncertainty from 1918-1933 (pp. 114-164), a period of sufferings from 1933-1975 (pp. 166-184) and finally the ecumenical era from 1976 to the present (pp. 186-216). The book contains several appendices which include documents of interest, such as the 1994 Common Christological Declaration of Pope John Paul II. and Catholicos Mar Dinkha IV. as well as a Joint Synodal Decree of the Assyrian and Chaldaean churches for promoting unity among each other from 1997. As the distribution of page numbers shows, the major part of the book deals with the period from 1900-1933 and it is here that the author makes a real contribution by drawing upon the riches of the Syriac manuscript libraries in India. Especially on pp. 117-157 the account is based entirely upon the letters of Mar Abimalek Timotheus, Metropolitan of All India from 1908-1945, who acted as regent to the young patriarch Eshai Shimun in the early 1920’s and, during that time, took an active role in the politics of his church. Hereby the author opens up an “Indian perspective” on Nestorian church history in the twentieth century, a perspective which is largely absent in the few hitherto available works on this subject. Likewise informative is the section on the ecumenical era 261

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from 1976 to the present, in which the author himself played a significant role and thus is able to present an eye-witness account. Apart from these issues which are treated in detail, at other points there is a potential of deepening the investigation. To begin with, the book is purely church-historical in character, which means that the political aspect of the narrated events is not expressly stated. For the uninformed reader, however, at times it would have been useful to include some background information. Since Assyrian church history prior to World War I took place within the framework of the Ottoman Empire and its policies towards religious minorities, a knowledge of the millet system is necessary for understanding some peculiarities of this church’s history in the 1920’s and 30’s. On p. 158 the patriarch’s temporal power is briefly mentioned, but it is not made clear how far this claim to civil jurisdiction is related to the Ottoman law system. In addition it has to be said that the account on pp. 157-159 is—as the author on p. 157 n. 65 himself acknowledges—based upon an account friendly towards Patriarch Eshai Shimun. In fact it seems to have been the case not so much that British or Iraqi officials tried to diminish the influence of the patriarchal family but rather that the Patriarch himself insisted upon retaining (and presumably exercising) his temporal power, and that this was the main reason for his eventual expulsion from Iraq (cf. J. Joseph, The Nestorians and their Muslim Neighbors [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961], pp. 198200; G. Yonan, Assyrer heute [Hamburg: Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, 1978], pp. 60-61). The same holds true in regard of the Patriarch’s relationship to the Nestorian military leader Agha Petros, which could have been treated in more depth than is actually the case on pp. 116-117, 157. Especially on p. 157 the Agha’s rather dubious role in the repatriation attempt of 1919 is not mentioned at all. Another issue which carries the potential of more detailed treatment is the question of “Assyrian” nationalism. In the title and throughout the book the term “Assyrian” is used as a denominational marker in accordance with this church’s official usage since the 1940’s (cf. Yonan, Assyrer, p. 154). It is, however, to be regretted that the background of this term, which originally was applied in an ethnic sense, is not explored in greater detail, especially since the works by J. Joseph and J. F. Coakley (cf. Joseph, Nestorians, pp. 13-21; J. F. Coakley, The Church of the East and the Church of England [Oxford:

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Clarendon Press, 1992], p. 4-6 with n. 12)—upon which the account on pp. 51-67, 99-110 otherwise is heavily dependent— contain lengthy sections on this. Finally it has to be asked whether—given the fact that Mesopotamia at this time was regarded as being vital to British imperial interests (cf. D. Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace [London: André Deutsch, 1989], pp. 146-149, 449-454, 558-567)— the motive behind the Anglican church’s “mission of help” (p. 69) was really as altruistic as it is presented on pp. 69 and 85. Even in the missionary W. A. Wigram’s letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1911, which is quoted on pp. 96-98, the link between the Church of England’s missionary work and the political interests of the British Empire is made unmistakably clear. In this respect the Anglican determination to preserve the Church in the East in its original state rather appears as an attempt to keep it from falling under Presbyterian, Catholic or Russian Orthodox sway and the influence of the countries behind these churches, namely the United States, France and Russia. Notwithstanding the good intentions of individual churchmen this seems to have been a serious motive behind the help which the Assyrians received from the Anglican church and the British crown (cf. Joseph, Nestorians, pp. 87-92, 95-107). British military interest in the Assyrians is made especially clear by the history of the Iraq Levies, which consisted of Nestorian tribesmen and played a vital role during the British mandate in Iraq and even in World War II (cf. Yonan, Assyrer, pp. 56-57, 74-76). These are briefly mentioned on p. 154 in connection with the Indian metropolitan Mar Timotheus’ failed attempt to visit their bases in 1927. In order to understand, however, why the British authorities refused to give Mar Timotheus, who at this time opposed the Patriarch Eshai Shimun, access to their Assyrian levy troops it would have been helpful to refer to the political situation outlined just above. For clarity’s sake it is furthermore necessary to indicate a few minor inaccuracies. (p. 30-31) Obviously Rabban Sauma is confused with Marqos, later Patriarch Yahballaha III. Marqos never visited Rome and therefore cannot have been blessed by the pope (p. 31) Here it is stated that after Timur’s genocide the Church of the East “never had peaceful days.” There are, however, no massacres reported until 1843 (cf. Joseph, Nestorians, pp. 29-30). (p. 99) Kemal Atatürk was not involved in the Young Turk

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revolution of 1908. The person in question here is probably Kemal Pasha. Last but not least an index would substantially facilitate the use of the book. These points notwithstanding, the book’s strength remains that for the first time it affords a glimpse into the rich archive material in India which for the larger part still awaits investigation. By giving access to this material the author points towards a dimension of Nestorian church history which lies beyond the question of ethnic minorities in the Middle East. The book thus not only provides a useful update on the history of the Assyrian Church, but draws attention to the erstwhile truly ecumenical and global character of the Church of the East, which is gradually being recovered today.