Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (volume 9): 2006 [2011] 9781463214159

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

Volume 9 2006 [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 9:1 Papers A Sixteenth-Century Batrashil in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.................................................................................3 Jennifer L. Ball Ecclesiastics and Ascetics.............................................................37 Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai.......................51 Ilaria L. E. Ramelli Brief Articles Recent Books on Syriac Topics.................................................129 Sebastian P. Brock Book Reviews........................................................................................133

HUGOYE 9:2 In Memoriam Helga Anschütz (1928-2006) by Andreas Juckel ..........143 Papers Rhetorical Practice in the Chreia Elaboration of Mara bar Serapion ........................................................................................145 Catherine M. Chin Classical Syriac Manuscripts at Yale University......................173 Leo Depuydt Caught in a Compromising Position ........................................189 Kristi Upson-Saia Book Reviews........................................................................................213 Conference Reports .............................................................................231 Travelogue Encountering the Suryoye of Turkey .......................................235 Jeanne-Nicole Saint-Laurent

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Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.1, 3-35 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY BATRASHIL IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART JENNIFER L. BALL CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

ABSTRACT This paper, through an analysis of the iconography, style and use of the sixteenth-century bishop’s stole and its inscription, seeks to elucidate the post-medieval history of liturgical vestments in the Syriac Orthodox church, where little research has been done. The stole will be set firmly within Syriac Orthodox art, using earlier manuscript illumination. It also illustrates ties between the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Coptic and Nubian churches. The object adds to the known history of the Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi monastery, with which the owner of the stole was affiliated. It also furthers our limited evidence on patron-artist relationships and women artists in Islam, as the inscription tells us some information about the embroiderer.

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A unique example of a medieval Syrian liturgical stole, a batrashil, is currently housed in the Islamic Department of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.1 While the object entered the My thanks to Dr. Helen Evans, Curator of Medieval Art, at the Metropolitan for first introducing me to this object, and along with Dr. 1

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collection in 1914, bought from a Syrian antiquities dealer who ran a New York gallery,2 the object and its important inscription, written in Arabic and Syriac, were not fully understood until recently.3 (Figs. 1-2) The batrashil’s inscription indicates that it was made for a Bishop Athanasius Abraham Yaghmur of Nebek in 1534/35 CE who was a scribe in the scriptorium at the monastery of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi in Syria. The inscription tells us about the artist, and sheds some light on the late history of the monastery with which the bishop was associated, as well as the relationship between patron and artist in sixteenth-century Syria.

DESCRIPTION [2]

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The batrashil, heavily embroidered in blue silk, measures fifty-five inches in length and almost eight inches in width. It fit over the head, through a snug rectangular hole, and fell down over the chest and back. The front of the stole displays the following nine Gospel scenes in small squares, each labeled above in Syriac: the Pentecost, Ascension of Christ, Resurrection, Crucifixion, Entry into Jerusalem, Presentation at the Temple, Baptism, Nativity, and Annunciation. (Fig. 1) The strips that fold over the shoulders bear ornate crosses in the front and two smaller crosses on the back, which lead to five panels on the back. (Fig. 2) The four Evangelists are represented along with an ornate cross, mounted on a stepped platform in the center panel. The piece survives in very good condition with little fading, suggesting that it was treated as a precious object at the time of its Stefano Carboni, Curator of Islamic Art, allowing me access to work on it. Thanks also to Dr. Evans and Dr. George Kiraz for their help in facilitating its publication. 2 G. Beilouny came to New York in 1912 and began selling Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Persian, and Ancient Near Eastern objects from his Madison Avenue gallery. He made regular buying trips to Aleppo until the beginning of World War I, when he came back to New York for five years, before selling off his collection in 1919 and returning to Syria. G. Beilouny, A Remarkable Collection of Ancient Works of Art, (New York: 1919), 5. 3 I had much help with both the Arabic and the Syriac: Professor Kathleen McVey of the Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. George Kiraz Editor of Hugoye, Dr. Stefano Carboni of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Professor Irfan Shahid of Georgetown University.

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making and stored carefully. The majority of wear is found on the edges, rendering the inscription only partly legible in places. Several cuts were made and then re-sewn to prolong the life of the garment: both sides of the shoulder panels have cuts where it most likely wore from robing and disrobing; there are also cuts at the bottom edge of the garment which must have frayed from use. Metropolitan Museum of Art conservator, Nobuko Kajitani, restored the piece in the 1970s, shoring up the silk backing with new linen visible in dark blue in spots where the original medium blue silk is completely gone. The figures are animated yet simply embroidered. They all stare forward with facial features outlined in black thread; a continuous line of stitches forms the nose and brow, and beards are made with a mass of black threads sewn into a triangle on the chin. In crowd scenes such as the Entry into Jerusalem panel (Fig. 3) and the Pentecost (Fig. 4), the men are stacked atop each other to illustrate receding space. The garments worn by the figures, especially the Evangelists, form cape-like tents, decorated with zigzags and striping. (Fig. 5) The garments do not suggest actual garments nor do they contain folds to hint at the bodies beneath them. A cartoon-like action breaks up the rigidity of the strict frontal poses in many scenes. The angels in both Christ’s resurrection and ascension (Fig. 6) flutter around Christ with their wings curving wildly around him. The witnesses in these panels crane their necks with their mouths agape as they behold Christ. In the Annunciation panel, Gabriel takes Mary by surprise as her hands are raised in fright, his colorful wings still beating. (Fig. 7) Christ’s donkey prods his way into the crowd around the gates of Jerusalem (notably absent from the background) nudging the tiny people who lay olive branches at his feet. (Fig. 3) Each scene contains only the necessary figures with little, if any, background. The figures stand in saturated blue silk space. The embroiderer stitched the figures in gold and yellow thread with orange, blue, and red touches, mostly in the form of small crosses on holy figures and objects. Metallic wire threads, now tarnished, would have made the figures shimmer within a candlelit church.

ICONOGRAPHY [7]

The iconographical program of the batrashil is distinct and no Syrian vestments of the period survive for comparison. No

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sixteenth-century Armenian or Coptic vestments remain for comparison either. Some Byzantine ecclesiastical garments of the sixteenth-century survive but they follow stylistic trends of Western Europe, especially Italian art, and do not serve well for stylistic comparison. Even widening our scope to other Syriac Orthodox objects of the sixteenth century we find no other works to represent this period. The closest Syrian parallels can be found in manuscript illumination of the late medieval period; these paintings typically contain liturgical feast scenes, the same subject matter found on the batrashil. Some of the surviving manuscripts predate the Metropolitan’s stole by as many as four centuries, which is problematic for a direct comparison. However, the many similarities, both stylistic and iconographic, between the late Medieval Syriac Orthodox illuminations and the batrashil demonstrate a continuity within liturgical art that bridges the late medieval with the post-medieval period. Furthermore, this stole was made for a bishop at a well-known scriptorium, making manuscript illuminations a likely source for the embroiderer. Beginning with the crosses found around the shoulder bands and back panel of the batrashil, each scene will be examined for iconographical and stylistic parallels within the corpus of Syriac Orthodox manuscripts. (figs. 1, 2 and 4) The crosses are ornate and have three distinct forms. The crosses on the front of the shoulders have curved ends and additional smaller crosses protruding from the top and bottom. The back shoulders contain two geometric crosses with small crosses superimposed over a square, with a smaller square in the center. A Latin-style double cross, with two horizontal bars, rises off a set of stairs. Each end of the cross forms another cross, and the embroiderer stitched small crosses within these. A red cross floats above the main one and the stairs are decorated with four additional crosses. The Triumphal Cross motif—a cross mounted on a stepped platform—is in keeping with Byzantine tradition (Fig. 2), representing the cross erected by Emperor Theodosius II at Golgotha in 420 CE. It was also used in Byzantine coinage, which is often cited as the source for such crosses in Syriac Orthodox

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art.4 However, Syriac Orthodox manuscripts typically contain multiple examples of crosses, incorporating the triumphal variety as well as other forms; often an entire carpet page is devoted to such imagery. Four examples of cross carpet pages can be found in the collection of the Bibliotheque National in Paris (Syr. 30, fol. 62; Syr. 40, fol. 10v; Syr. 41, fol. 10v; Syr. 70, fol. 1) among many others.5 These four examples are also mounted on steps; manuscripts 40 and 41 contain crosses at the ends of the cross bars like our two cross-types found on the batrashil; the cross in manuscript 70 has two horizontal bars, like the triumphal cross on the stole, amid its interlacing forms; all of these crosses rely heavily on abstract geometric shapes, often creating crosses within crosses, which is also similar to the designs represented on the stole. The cross carpet page, while known in Early Medieval manuscripts of the West, is unusual in other east Christian manuscript tradi-tions. Furthermore, there is little stylistic connection between the Western examples, made between the seventh and ninth centuries, and our stole. The prevalence and variety of crucifixes in Syriac manuscripts from the twelfth century and later make these a likely source for the cross imagery of the batrashil. The Pentecost takes a prominent position in the top register on the front of the garment—an appropriate scene for a bishop’s stole for bishops continue the Pentecostal mission of the apostles. (fig. 4) The twelve apostles are stacked in three rows of four beneath a half-disk that shoots rays, representing the tongues of fire that empowered the apostles to proselytize in other languages. On either side of the scene are two small crosses. The apostles are indistinguishable from each other, save for the bottom row where each wears a different colored cross on his chest; their facial features, hair, lack of halo, gesture with the left hand and clothing is undifferentiated. An early thirteenth-century Syriac lectionary, today housed in the Convent of St. Mark in Jerusalem, includes a similar semicircular shape that emits rays to each apostle below. (ms. Jerusalem,

4 J. Leroy, Les manuscrits syriaques à peintures conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Europe et d’Orient, (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1964), 120. 5 Leroy, manuscrits syriaques, 4.

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Convent of St. Mark, Syr. 28, fol. 157)6 In the center, the disk displays an enthroned dove, rather than the cross on the disk of the stole, but the iconography is nonetheless similar. In the lectionary depiction, the rays are comprised of simple lines; the disk hangs from the top center of the image like a sun in a child’s drawing. Each apostle holds out his hand in a similar gesture to those on the stole, but the apostles in the St. Mark’s Lectionary, however, are rendered in tiny portrait likeness, with individualized hair, coloring, and age, distinguishing it from our example. A Syriac manuscript in the British Library illustrating the same subject treats the apostles similarly to the batrashil, placing them in a tight row with nearly identical faces and expressions, although their hand gestures are varied. (ms. London, British Library, Add. 7169, fol. 13v)7 Here the apostles are touched by the same simple line, representing the Holy Spirit bestowing the gift of speaking in tongues, which descends from a semi-circular arch. This arch, however, springs over them as a rainbow rather than a convex sun shape. Their faces are depicted in heavy, dark contours that connect the nose to the brow line while the eyes stare forward beneath the thick brow. This is reminiscent of all of the faces represented on the Metropolitan’s stole, including the apostles. Finally, in British Library Add. 7169, the apostles are depicted without haloes, as in our stole. Throughout the manuscript, as with the batrashil, only those figures deemed most important in each scene, often only Christ, wears a halo. The Ascension in British Library Add. 7169 (fol. 13v) also serves as a good parallel for the batrashil. Here Christ is elevated by five angels, whose wings are distinct for their striping (representing feathers). Below, the twelve apostles stand in awe over the spectacle before them, many with their hands reaching upward while others clutch their faces, aghast. On the batrashil, Christ almost appears to stand on the ground, perhaps because of the cramped space allowed by each embroidery panel. (fig. 6) However, the cocked heads of the apostles, only two are represented here, illustrate that he is ascending above them. The abrupt upward gaze is mirrored by two of the apostles just left of center in Add. 7169. The faces of the apostles in both images again are formed by 6 W.H.P. Hatch, Greek and Syriac Miniatures in Jerusalem, (Cambridge: The Medieval Academy of America, 1931), plate LXX. 7 Leroy, manuscrits syriaques, 123.

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the simple line connecting the nose and brow. While only two angels are represented in the stole, their striped wings, which jut out of the upper shoulder region, parallel those in the manuscript. Notably, in the stole, Christ is not in a mandorla as he is in Add. 7169 and most illuminations of the scene, but only wears a halo. The artist may have omitted the mandorla due to the limited space. Absent from both Ascension scenes is the Mother of God. In Syriac manuscripts, as well as Byzantine ones, the Mother of God typically stands in the center of the scene. The St. Mark’s Lectionary, discussed earlier, and the well-known Rabbula Gospels both include her in the center of the scene. This suggests a particularly close iconographic parallel between the London manuscript and the batrashil. The Anastasis scene of the batrashil is unique among the representations of this scene in Syriac manuscripts. (fig. 6) Christ stands beside his tomb, holding a cross in his right hand, with his left hand extended toward Adam, who reaches for Christ. Next to Adam is another figure, possibly Eve, who is often represented in this scene as she is in the thirteenth-century fresco in Mar Musa alḤabashi.8 However, the figure wears a crown, not the veil in which Eve is typically portrayed. The crowned David and Solomon are also typical witnesses to the scene, and the crowned figure may be either king, but more likely is the younger King David as he is beardless.9 The standard iconography pairs David and Solomon. David is shown alone in Psalters, in his guise as the inspired poet, while Solomon, when seen alone, is always shown as king. The earliest representations of David as King are found in the Early Byzantine Sinope Gospels and Rossano Gospels.10 However, there are no precedents for an Anastasis scene without Eve and with only one of the kings. The two angels fluttering around Christ in the Anastasis are also unique to this batrashil. The unusual iconographical choices could be attributed to the small space available to the embroiderer; E.C. Dodd, The Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi: A Study of Medieval Painting in Syria, (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2001). 9 See several examples of the pair in A. Kartsonis, Anastasis: The Making of an Image,(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), especially plates 80, 81, 83, 85, and 87. 10 Kartsonis. Anastasis, 186-7. 8

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however, the addition of the angels makes space an unlikely issue. Therefore we may be seeing a later development of the iconography of the scene or an instance where the artist has conflated several models. In the Crucifixion scene, Christ is flanked by two haloed figures, probably St. John and the Mother of God, creating a Deesis. (fig. 3) Two small figures stand at Christ’s feet, the Roman soldiers who torment him with a vinegar-soaked sponge on his left and a spear on his right. On either side of Christ’s head are two discs, likely representing the sun and moon, which signify the eclipse that occurred at his crucifixion. While the typical late medieval crucifixion has a Deesis, the manuscript that stylistically most closely relates to the batrashil, British Library Add. 7169, does not represent Mary or John; instead the two thieves are shown beside Christ.11 (ms. London, British Library, Add. 7169, folio 11v) As if to illustrate Christ’s divinity, his eyes are closed in a peaceful death while the thieves’ eyes remain open. Angels are also included in British Library Add. 7169. However, the soldiers who rush in with their instruments of torture cock their heads abruptly upward, just as the soldier to Christ’s left does on the batrashil. The style of the figures, particularly in the faces is also similar. Representing the Crucifixion as a Deesis as seen in the batrashil is, however, typical in Syriac and other manuscripts. For example, the St. Mark’s Lectionary uses the Deesis in its Crucifixion as well.12 (fol. 129) The St. Mark’s Lectionary also depicts the sun and moon on either side of Christ’s head as discs inscribed with spokes radiating out from a central point, comparable to those in the batrashil. The Entry into Jerusalem uses the standard iconographic convention except for the direction of Christ’s movement, here right to left, rather than the typical left to right. (fig. 3) Christ heads toward the city gates, not pictured, astride a donkey. He maneuvers through a crowd who throw branches down before him. Some onlookers climb trees for a better view, represented here by the figure on the far right who stands atop a branch, while others prostrate themselves before Christ, shown here by the figure in the 11 12

Leroy, manuscrits syriaques, 122. Hatch, Miniatures in Jerusalem, 123.

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lower left. Several figures are shown with haloes, but the three figures nearest Christ’s feet are not. Two Syriac thirteenth-century manuscripts, British Library Add. 7170, folio 115r, and Vatican, Syriac 559, folio 105r, also reveal a mixture of haloed and unhaloed figures.13 Christ enters from the right as he does in the batrashil. The manuscripts demonstrate significant Islamic, specifically Mongol, influence: the architecture of the city gates employs Islamic domed forms and geometric detailing, several figures wear turbans and other elements of Muslim dress, and the ornate floral patterns at the upper borders of each illumination resemble Islamic ornament. Save for the important iconographical similarities, stylistically Add. 7170 and Vat. Syr. 559 are more at home among thirteenth-century Islamic manuscripts, such as the many versions of the Maqamat made around this time.14 The Presentation in the Temple, the next scene on the front of the stole, is out of step with the chronology of Christ’s life. (fig. 1) The Baptism has been inserted between the Nativity and the Presentation, where it should be placed after the Presentation. Limited space compelled the embroiderer to trim the Presentation scene down to its essential elements. As is typical, Mary presents Christ to the priest who stands beside a ciborium altar space; there was no room for Joseph and the prophetess Anna, who usually accompany Christ and his mother to the temple. The priest is brightly colored, and stands out from other figures on the batrashil that are simply outlined in yellow and black and partially colored with beige. The priest’s vestments however are brightly colored in red, yellow and light blue rectangles; his halo is light blue with a red cross. Perhaps these vestments represent sixteenthcentury Syriac Orthodox priestly garments. As with the Entry scene, the story is read from right to left, again, perhaps indicative of the culture in which it was made. The Baptism on the batrashil also diverges from typical representations of the scene. (fig. 7) John the Baptist stands over Christ, reaching his hand up to baptize Christ as the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers above. Christ stands in the River Jordan, as indicated by the two fish, positioned oddly to John’s left, rather than beneath Christ’s feet. Both men are darkly bearded, an Leroy, manuscrits syriaques, 86. See O. Grabar, Illustrations of the Maqamat, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 13 14

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interesting innovation as Christ has a light-colored beard or no beard throughout the rest of the batrashil. Most unusual is the fact that Christ stands fully dressed in a modest garment decorated with flecks of orange and yellow on a dark blue background. Christ is typically shown bare or in a loincloth in scenes of baptism. In the most conservative representations, the water covers Christ’s loins as in the Armenian Ejmiatsin Gospels.15 (ms. Erevan, Matenadaran 2734, folio 229v) The author is unaware of any precedent for the fully clothed Christ. It seems unlikely that this represents a later development in the iconography of the Baptism, as representations of Christ get less rather than more conservative. Rather, I posit that this Christ is modeled on some other unknown scene, because of his clothing and dark beard, and the embroiderer has inserted him into the Baptism. The Nativity employs standard iconography. (fig. 7) The Virgin and Child rest, somewhat awkwardly, in the center of the scene. An angel, whose wingspan envelops over half of the space, attends them. One of the Magi, who stands in for all three, steps forward from the left, wearing grand, brightly colored robes in yellow, light blue, green and black, with tassels of some kind streaming from his head. A minor figure is squeezed in at the right, perhaps a shepherd, and wears no halo. The last of the narrative scenes on the front of the stole in the bottom register is the Annunciation. (fig. 7) The Angel Gabriel, lands with wings of yellow, green and white still beating, and extends his hands to the Mother of God, who holds up her hands in a mixture of surprise and fear. She is dressed colorfully in a garment striped in red, white and yellow with a blue mantle. Her halo is decorated at the corners with green and red accents. The inscription over the Annunciation scene reads “Annunciation to the Mother of God,” leaving no doubt that this vestment belongs to the Syriac Orthodox church. The back of the stole contains standing portraits of the each of the four evangelists. (figs. 2 and 5) Few examples of such portrait types exist in manuscripts for comparison, where the author portrait format, showing the evangelist seated and writing, is standard. The Syriac Rabbula Gospels (ms. Florence, Medicaean15 John Lowden, "The Beginnings of Biblical Illustration," in Imaging the Early Medieval Bible, ed. John Williams, (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), figure 18.

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Laurentian Library, Syr. Plut I, 56), which depict Luke and Mark standing, clutching their gospels, beside their canon table on folio 10a, form a rare exception.16 The more naturalistic style of the Rabbula illumination and the dress of the evangelists within—they wear the Roman striped tunic and pallium—distinguish it from the representations of Luke and Mark on the stole. The stole’s portraits, instead, depict the evangelists frontally, each wearing a large, tent-like garment, heavily patterned with checks, stripes, and zig-zags. Each wears a distinct halo, decorated with multiple crosses, and each holds a book, displaying it for the viewer. Frontal portraits of standing holy figures are known in fresco painting, such as the thirteenth-century examples in Mar Musa alḤabashi. As the bishop named on the stole was affiliated with this monastery, these serve as a good comparison. Stylistically, the clothing of the figures is more naturalistic in the frescoes, which do not employ the naïve patterns used to decorate vestments on the stole. Furthermore, the faces at Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi are not contoured in a single outline with an attached brow and nose as they are on the stole and in related manuscripts. Nevertheless, the numerous portraits in Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi could have served as inspiration for this unusual iconographic element on the stole. In addition to the iconographical affinities with Syriac manuscripts generally, there are strong stylistic similarities with British Library Add. 7169 in particular. The faces of figures in both works are drawn with a connected nose and brow line and large staring eyes. Figures are similarly stacked up to represent a deep crowd in scenes such as the Entry into Jerusalem. The angels in Add. 7169, with their often oversized, striped wings resemble those in the stole. Several figures in both objects cock their heads looking upward to Christ in the Crucifixion and the Ascension, for example. Finally, the crosses mirror those found in several manuscripts, particularly mss. Paris, Bibliothèque National, Syr. 30 and 40.

16 Carlo Cecchelli, Guiseppe Furlani, and Mario Salmi eds., The Rabbula Gospels: Facsim. ed. of the miniatures of the Syriac ms. Plut. I, 56 in the Medicaean-Laurentian Library, (Olton: Urs Graf, 1959). Folio 10a.

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POST-MEDIEVAL BYZANTINE VESTMENTS [29]

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While there are no other Syriac Orthodox vestments with which to compare the batrashil, it is generally agreed that Syriac Orthodox vestments descend from Byzantine ones at least in overall form. Byzantine vestments provide for fruitful comparison, for their iconographic programs have been studied extensively, unlike the vestments of other East Christian churches which, for the most part, have only been catalogued according to the types and uses of different garments.17 The scenes decorating this particular batrashil—nine of the twelve festal scenes and the four evangelists with a triumphal cross—are somewhat unusual when compared with Byzantine counterparts. The Great Deesis, Christ flanked by the Virgin and St. John and other saints, adorn the majority of Byzantine epitrachelia, the Byzantine equivalent to the batrashil, while the festal cycle is a secondary choice that develops later.18 The embroiderer of the Metropolitan’s batrashil omitted three scenes from the usual twelve feasts—the Raising of Lazarus, the Transfiguration, and the Dormition of the Virgin—further distinguishing its iconography from Byzantine examples. The Evangelists are on occasion represented on a Byzantine bishop’s stole but there they are accompanied by the Apostles and the Virgin, not shown in isolation as they are on the Metropolitan’s example. The style of embroidered scenes on the stole is decidedly not Byzantine or post-Byzantine either. Vestments from the Greek Orthodox Church, by the date the stole was made, reflect Italian Renaissance art, with its concern for naturalism and threedimensionality. Latin Catholic stoles—maniples and pallia—contain Christological scenes arranged in registers,19 raising the issue of Warren Woodfin addresses the iconography of vestments in W. Woodfin, Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments and the Iconography of Sacerdotal Power. (Ph.D. dissertation, U. of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, 2002) as does Tano Papas in Papas, Studien zur Geschichte der Messgewänder im byzantinischen Ritus, (Munich: Institut für Byzantinistik und Neugriechische Philologie der Universität, 1965). For studies of Byzantine and other East Christian vestments see: Joseph Braun, Die Liturgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient, (St. Louis: Herder, 1907) and Karel C. Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress in the Medieval Near East, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992). 18 Woodfin, Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments, 73-80. 19 See for example Braun, Liturgische Gewandung, figs 260 and 279. 17

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Crusader influence. The road from Damascus to Homs, where, according to its inscription, the stole was made, was a major Crusader route. The style of the embroidery and use of the stole, however, shows no similarity to Catholic vestments. Moreover, by the sixteenth century only the Syrian Maronite Church, which joined the Catholic Church during the Crusader period, exhibited any vestigial influence of the Latin Church. Not surprisingly the stole follows the iconographical traditions of other forms of Syriac Orthodox art, rather than Byzantine or Western ecclesiastical garments, even though the origins of the vestment itself are Byzantine.

CONNECTIONS TO COPTIC AND NUBIAN ART [31]

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While the embroiderer clearly used older medieval Syrian models, as can be seen in the stylistically similar manuscripts, the object can also be linked to the wider world of Syria’s neighboring Coptic and medieval Nubian churches, which offer numerous stylistic comparisons. The numerous connections between the Copts and Christian Syrians—in their hagiographic literature, liturgical practices, official contacts, and artistic exchange—has been explored in depth by J.M. Fiey.20 Fiey also observes links with the Nubian Monophysite church, especially with regard to the production of manuscripts.21 In the late Middle Ages, when Islam subsumed the Nubian Kingdoms, the remaining church leadership in Nubia was united with the Coptic Church.22 The local tradition surrounding the founding of the Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi monastery holds that it was built in the sixth century on the gravesite of a fourth-century Ethiopian monk, Moses the Ethiopian.23 Hubert Kaufhold has demonstrated that a Syrian monk, also named Moses, likely founded the monastery rather than Moses the Ethiop-ian.24 Nevertheless, the tradition illustrates the 20 J.M. Fiey, “Coptes et Syriaques: contacts et échanges” (Studia Orientalia Christiana Collectanea 15 [1972/3]), 295-365. 21 Fiey, Coptes et Syriaques, 311-15. 22 W.Y. Adams, “The United Kingdom of Makouria and Nobadia: A Medieval Nubian Anomaly” in Egypt and Africa: Nubia from Prehistory to Islam, ed. W. V. Davies (London, 1991), 258. 23 Dodd, Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi, 9. 24 Hubert Kaufhold, “Notizien über das Moseskloster bei Nabk und das Juliankloster bei Qaryatain” (OrChr, 79 [1995]), 54-9.

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close connections between these three cultures—Nubian, Copt and Syrian.25 Syrian and Nubian monks, through the intermediary of Egyptian monasteries, linked Nubian and Syrian liturgical practice, literature and artistic production. Indeed, several specific sites of Coptic painting, discussed below, are known to have fostered exchange. Those sites, moreover, exhibit important stylistic similarities to the Metropolitan’s batrashil. Finally, visual connections between Christian Nubian art, which was no longer produced in the sixteenth century, and the Syrian stole can be demonstrated; though the Nubian links exist through the filter of Egypt. Paintings found at the Monastery of Deir al-Surian (Syrian Monastery) and the Monastery of St. Antony, both in Egypt, offer the most compelling comparisons.26 Of the most recent frescoes, dating to the thirteenth century, all exhibit similar facial features to figures on the stole, with their staring, round eyes. While the figures on the stole are cruder than those found in the frescoes of Coptic monasteries, the connected brow-line and nose and simplistic beards are a mark of many thirteenth-century Coptic paintings. Syrians founded Deir al-Surian, and both Deir al-Surian and St. Antony’s Monastery, housed Syrian as well as Egyptian monks.27 Deir al-Surian was influential enough to produce a patriarch of the 25 The veneration of Moses the Ethiopian continues even today at Deir el-Baramus in Egypt. 26 For images of the thirteenth-century paintings see G. Gabra, Coptic Monasteries: Egypt’s Monastic Art and Architecture, (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2002) and E. Bolman ed. Monastic Visions, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). For dating and stratigraphy of the paintings at Deir al-Surian see: K.C. Innemée, “Recent Discoveries of Wall-Paintings in Deir Al-Surian” (Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 1:2 [July 1998]) ; K.C. Innemée, “Deir al-Surian (Egypt): conservation work of Autumn 2000” in (Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 4:2 [July 2001]) and Karel C. Innemée, “A Newly Discovered Mural Painting in Deir al-Surian,” (Eastern Christian Art in its Late Antique and Islamic Contexts 1 [2004]), 61-66. Innemée published images of the earlier layers in these studies which would have been covered at the time of the batrashil was made. 27 Gawdat Gabra argues that a Syrian population waxed and waned throughout its history but had a resurgence in the middle of the sixteenth century in G. Gabra, Coptic Monasteries, 49 and Elizabeth Bolman gives evidence of Syrians at the Monastery of St. Antony in E. Bolman, Monastic Visions, 175.

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Coptic Church in the middle of the sixteenth century, Gabriel VII; his attempt to re-populate the abandoned monasteries of Egypt, which included a reconstruction of the Monastery of St. Antony, formed his legacy as Patriarch.28 Along with these multicultural monastic communities, artist-monks and illuminated manuscripts must have traveled between the Egyptian monastic center of Wadi al-Natrun and the Syriac Orthodox monasteries. Coptic manuscripts, too, show visual parallels with the Metropolitan’s batrashil. In addition to the distinct facial structure of the connected nose and brow line, many figures wear vestments with dense geometric patterns like those found on the edges of the garments of the Evangelists on the back of the batrashil. (Fig. 5) For example, St. Stephen pictured in the ms. New York, PierpontMorgan Library 577, folio 1 verso wears two stoles layered over his vestments, all with zigzags, stripes, chevrons and several types of cross shapes busily ornamenting each garment.29 Nubian art also exhibits the facial features found on the batrashil. For example the straightforward gazes of the rigidly posed abbots on folio 8 verso and the expressionless faces of Herod and his soldiers on folio 11 verso in the fourteenth-century Four Gospels of Krestos Tasfana are analogous to the facial types seen on the stole. The Krestos Tasfana Gospels were made in the famous scriptorium Dabra Hayq Estifanos, in Amhara, well known throughout the sixteenth century.30 Further elements for comparison can be found in other Nubian objects. The peculiarly cocked heads of the apostles in the Ascension of Christ (Fig. 6) and of the Roman soldier in the Crucifixion (Fig. 3) on the batrashil are seen on the twelve apostles surrounding Christ on an early fifteenth-century Nubian processional cross.31 Additionally, much like the figures on the stole, the shoulders of the figures on the cross, notably the archangel on the shaft of the cross, slope into shapeless garments with incised cross-hatching and stripes as the only decoration. The archangel’s large formless body parallels the Evangelists’ on the stole; the striped wings of figures on the Gabra, Coptic Monasteries, 49 and Bolman, Monastic Visions, 174. Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, plate 44, figure 1. 30 Published in M. Heldman et al, African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), cat. no. 65. On the scriptorium see page 141. 31 Heldman, African Zion, cat. no. 72. 28 29

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Nubian cross too mirror the angels’ wings in scenes on the front of the batrashil. Syrian and Nubian exchange is more difficult to demonstrate as it occurred through the filter of Egyptian monasteries and the Coptic Church, after the Nubian church had died out. Still, the rendering of figures in the batrashil and the Nubian pieces discussed here makes these contacts clear. While no Coptic or Nubian liturgical vestments of this period survive with which to compare with the Syrian stole, other art forms compare stylistically. This is not surprising as it is widely thought that artists used manuscripts as model books for monumental painting and other media. The frequent exchange between the cultures of the West Syrian Church and the Coptic and Nubian churches is apparent in these stylistic comparisons. The Coptic and Nubian objects also relate to the Syriac manuscripts discussed earlier, suggesting, perhaps, that the maker of the stole used late medieval pictorial models similar in style across the Syrian, Coptic and Nubian churches.

LITURGICAL USE OF THE BATRASHIL [37]

Syriac Orthodox liturgical practice, and likely the vestments used, also shares much in common with the Coptic and Nubian churches. The term batrashil is an Arabic word used in the Coptic and West Syrian churches to describe the stole of a bishop.32 It is worn with another stole, the hamniko, which is thinner, shorter and worn like a necklace.33 Both of these stoles are derived from their Byzantine counterparts, the orarion (priestly stole) and epitrachelion (bishop’s stole). The Byzantine epitrachelion encircles the neck like a scarf, hanging down in two pieces on either side of the chest. In the late medieval period, these two ends were joined. However, our batrashil, which is worn like a sandwich board over the front and back of the torso, remains distinct from the Byzantine version even with this late refinement. Medieval pictorial evidence cannot be used to confirm that the Syrian batrashil fell down the shoulder blades or whether it continued to follow the Byzantine model, covering only the front of the body, as the backs of figures are not shown. Nevertheless, today priests and bishops in the Syriac Orthodox church wear a vestment like the Metropolitan’s batrashil, 32 33

Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 45. Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 72.

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hanging down in front and back, leading one to imagine that the change in form happened late in or after the medieval period. Very possibly the Metropolitan’s piece represents the earliest of the modern contour of batrashil, which folds over the front and back of the torso. Priests and bishops wore the stole for all major liturgical events. Descriptions of ordination and promotion ceremonies by medieval writers, however, in which the batrashil plays an important role, offer the best understanding of its symbolic meaning. Priests were vested with the stole during ordination and the bishops wore it for consecration. Ms. Paris, Bibliothèque National, Syr. 112 written in 1239 CE tells us that priests wore the stole around the neck at the conclusion of the ceremony.34 Ms. Vatican, Syr. 51, dated to 1171/2 CE, notes that the bishop wears the stole as the patriarch hoods him for promotion.35 This use parallels Coptic descriptions of the same ceremonies.36 Arabic 236 in the Coptic Patriarchal Theological Library in Cairo, a book of ca. 1200 CE copied in ca. 1719 CE, observes that the priest was led around the church by the stole, as if it were a leash, to introduce him at the beginning of the ordination ceremony.37 The fourteenth-century Book of the Precious Pearl of Ecclesiastical Knowledge describes a similar ceremony in the Coptic Church for the promotion of a bishop; here the new bishop is pulled around the church by the batrashil by three other bishops who present him to the worshippers present.38 The Byzantine Patriarch Germanos describes the epitrachelion as the metaphorical rope around Jesus’ neck used to lead him to his crucifixion.39 A fourteenth-century interpretation by Nicholas Kabasilas sees the stole as a visual metaphor for the priesthood, where the priest bears the ‘yoke of Christ.'’ Coptic liturgical practice favored Germanos’ understanding of the stole, then, and incorporated it into church practice. Apparently, the Syriac Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 67. B. de Smet, “Le rituel du sacre des évêques et des patriarches dan l’église Syrienne d’Antioche” (OrSyr, 8 [1963]), 172. 36 Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 30-39. 37 Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 31. 38 Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 33-4. 39 Bernardakis, "Les ornements liturgiques chez les Grecs" (Échos d’Orient, 5 [1901-2]), 130. 34 35

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Orthodox Church followed suit, as seen on folio 69r of ms. Paris, Bibliothèque National, Syr. 112. Three bishops stand behind a fourth one who is being ordained, implying that they have just finished leading him through the church and are now witnessing the completion of his promotion by the patriarch, mirroring the Coptic rite.40

THE INSCRIPTIONS [41]

[42]

[43]

The inscriptions, in Syriac and Arabic, further fix the object within its context, and speak directly to the circumstances under which the object was made. The embroiderer inscribed the stole in Arabic around the neck, naming the owner, and on the edges, stitched a eulogy. Each scene on the front and the Evangelists portraits on the back are identified in Syriac. An additional inscription identifying the patron is embroidered in Syriac above each Evangelist. The use of these two languages in Syria is not unusual at this time, when the vernacular and official language of Syria was Arabic and Syriac was used only in the Christian church. The Syriac inscription, is cursorily translated here for discussion. Inscribed in Syriac (above each scene on the front, top to bottom): Pentecost; Ascension of our Lord into heaven; The saving resurrection (or Resurrection of the Savior); (bottom of scene) Adam; The tomb [of Christ]; Entry of our Lord into Jerusalem; Entry of our Lord into the Temple; Baptism of the Lord from John; (top left of Baptism scene): Heaven; Birth of our Lord in the flesh; (bottom center of Nativity scene): Manger; Annunciation to the mother of God (above each Evangelist on the back, top to bottom): May Athanasius be pardoned; in name, a bishop; who is Abraham Yaghmur; son of Isa from the village of Nebek. (Evangelists named, top to bottom): Matthew, the Apostle and the Evangelist, Mark, Luke, John the Evangelist. Bishop Athanasius, named in the inscription, is securely identified from several colophons dating to the mid-sixteenth century.41 He was Bishop of Homs, near Nebek, and Ḥardīn in the Leroy, manuscrits syriaque, 333 and plate 112. His name is found in several Syriac manuscripts from the period, for example: ms. Oxford 125, Lectionary from the Church of St. Theodore in Ṣadad, Syria, ms. Paris, Bibliothèque National, Syr. 145, ms. 40 41

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middle of the sixteenth century. In four of these colophons he is named by the name of his bishopric as well as his true name, Abraham Yaghmur, and that of his father, ‛Isa. Furthermore, two manuscripts mention his home village of Nebek, making the identification of this stole’s owner with the Bishop Athanasius Abraham Yaghmur in the colophons unmistakable. Bishop Athanasius was a scribe and, according to one colophon, he worked in the monasteries of Mar Julian al-Qaryatein and Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi.42 The monastery of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi, located near Nebek, and its sister monastery of Mar Julian al-Qaryatein, in the desert east of Damascus, have illustrious histories extending back to the sixth century CE.43 Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi was a well-known scriptorium in the medieval period, which had a particularly productive period in the fifteenth century.44 Inventories of the period list several manuscripts that were made there. The monastery flourished in other arts as well, as its fresco program attests. It was restored in 1556, suggesting that during Bishop Athanasius’ association with the monastery, the scriptorium and monastery were thriving.45 The historical inscription of the Arabic, written in Nashki script, names both the bishop and the maker, and contains a eulogy. Inscribed in Arabic (around the edge of the neckline): The work is made by the clergyman Abraham, by name bishop Yaghmur, and of the teacher Shaqra daughter of Daniel (?) in the city of Hama in the year one thousand 648 in the calendar of the Greeks. (edges of front of garment): a eulogy beginning “Glory to God the Highest…” (back of garment, left edge): …priest (?)…for the son (?)…And the hope [for] Peace on earth…. (right edge) I

Paris, Bibliothèque National, Syr. 160, Lectionary from the Church of Mar Sarkis, Ṣadad, Syria, ms. Paris, Bibliothèque National, Syr. 108, and ms. Jerusalem, Convent of St. Mark, Syr. 249. Thanks to Hubert Kaufhold for these colophons and the identification of the bishop. 42 Lectionary of Church of St. Theodore, Sadad, Syria in F. Dulabani, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in Syrian Churches and Monasteries, (Halab: 1994), 332-3. 43 Kaufhold, Notizien, 48-119. 44 Dodd, Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi, 11. 45 Dodd, Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi, 12.

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fear from whom my life…the Lord I fear! (See Appendix for a complete discussion of the Arabic.) The historical inscription confirms the name of the Bishop Abraham Yaghmur but gives a date of 1648 in the Seleucid calendar (=1336/7 CE).46 The Arabic and Syriac are of one hand and embroidered into a single piece of silk, meaning that both inscriptions should bear the same date.47 It is possible that the embroiderer copied an older fourteenth-century object. That would explain why the style of the figures does not reflect sixteenthcentury ecclesiastical embroideries, which attempt to model figures with shading and create some sense of three-dimensional space with architectural and landscape elements, nor Mamluk or Ottoman tastes, the ruling dynasties of sixteenth-century Syria.48 However, the Arabic inscription naming the same Bishop Athanasius Abraham Yaghmur as the Syriac text, makes it very unlikely that it was copied from an earlier object, for it would rely on the existence of a fourteenth-century bishop of the same name. While Athanasius Abraham is not an uncommon name, the added details of his father’s name, village, and his second or family name of Yaghmur distinguish him from others. The author could locate only one Athanasius Abraham in the fourteenth century, and he was a Maphrian,49 an important title likely to be indicated on the stole. A Bishop Abraham from the “convent of Natpha [i.e. Nebek],” as al-Ḥabashi was sometimes known, is mentioned in

The Seleucid calendar was commonly used in Syriac Orthodox inscriptions by the twelfth century and was used up until the eighteenth century at Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi. Dodd, Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi, 17. 47 In addition to my own examination of the object where this is clearly observed, Nobuko Kajitani, Metropolitan Museum of Art Textile Conservator, who worked on the object in the 1970s and again in 2002-3 confirms this. 48 See for example the sixteenth-century Epitrachelion from the Stavronikita Monastery published, along with many other examples of liturgical embroideries from this period, in: Athanasios A. Karakatsanis ed., Treasures of Mount Athos, (Thessalonike: Ministry of Culture, 1997), cat. no. 11.7. Large, brightly colored floral patterns were typical of Islamic embroidery at this time, see for example: Jennifer Harris ed., Textiles 5,000 Years, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1993), fig. 96. 49 J.M. Fiey, Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus. (Stuttgart: In Kommission bei F. Steiner, 1993), 34. 46

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1319 CE.50 However, in that case Abraham was probably the name taken upon ordination as bishop, as that is the only name given. Moreover, the absence of the name Athanasius seems to point to a different person. Furthermore, neither of these fourteenth-century bishops have the name Yaghmur or a father named ‛Isa, so far as we know. This leaves the possibility that the numbers were written backwards and should be read as “one thousand 846” as opposed to 648. Typically, artists, many of whom were illiterate, simply copied letters and numbers from their patron’s instructions when inscribing works. When read as 1846 in the year of the Greeks, the object can be dated to 1534/5, certainly within the lifetime of our Bishop Athanasius Abraham Yaghmur. The Arabic, I argue, lends additional details about the embroiderer. She was a woman who likely spoke Arabic herself, as Syriac was only used in the liturgy by this date.51 We cannot be certain of her religion, Muslim or Christian, as members of both religions spoke Arabic. In a study of a thirteenth-century flabellum made for Christians in Islamic Northern Mesopotamia, Bas Snelders and Mat Immerzeel have suggested that a Syriac inscription probably points to a Christian artist, at least for the engraving.52 Inscriptions can be copied without knowledge of the language, however, and even a Christian artist would not necessarily be literate in a language used solely for the liturgy and some literature; we simply cannot guess the embroiderer’s religion. The stole was “made by” both the bishop and a “teacher” named Shaqra, daughter of a certain Daniel. (“Daniel” is not completely legible but is likely). The bishop did not literally make the stole, however; more likely he commissioned it with specific instructions as to its iconography and inscription. The names of patrons are commonly inscribed as “makers” of objects in medieval Islam and Byzantium. Shaqra, then was the only actual maker of the stole. The title of “teacher” likely refers to her position as a master embroiderer, possibly in charge of apprentices. A guild W. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1870-72), 469. 51 British Library, Christian Orient, 26. 52 Bas Snelders and Mat Immerzeel, “The Thirteenth-Century Flabellum from Deir al-Surian in the Musée Royal de Mariemont (Morlanwelz, Belgium),” (Eastern Christian Art in its Late Antique and Islamic Contexts 1 [2004]), 130-1. 50

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system, not unlike those of the medieval West developed in Islam after the fourteenth century. Guilds were established under the Mamluks, who ruled Syria at the time the stole was made, and they reached their pinnacle under the Ottomans in the later sixteenth century.53 Damascus in particular was noted for its large silkweaving guild around 1492 CE and again in the sixteenth century.54 Notably, Shaqra was a woman. Sources give little information about women artists; the majority of guilds had only male members, and mixed guilds would be unlikely given the separation of the sexes in the social life of Islam. Still there is evidence in the form of bans against women selling their wares at markets, the occasional work of art inscribed with a woman’s name, and the sporadic mention of women artisans in literature, suggest that it was not as unusual for a woman to work as an artist as the lack of sources might suggest.55 Weaving and working with textiles were considered acceptable professions for women and women still dominate the field today. It cannot be stated for certain that Shaqra participated in a guild, but her hierarchical title implies it. Our embroiderer worked in the city of Hama, according to the inscription, which is just north of Homs along a major trade route. While this is far north of Damascus where sources describe the primary activities of the Syrian textile industry (and the weave damask gets its name), there is a long history of textile production in other Syrian cities as well. Tyre and Beirut, for example, were known as weaving and dying centers dating back to Byzantine times; the Prophet Mohammed himself was a textile merchant prior to his revelations, following the north-south trade route that still today passes through Hama and Homs. Syria, with its busy textile trade and production, provided a ripe environment for the production of the batrashil, with its precious blue-dyed silk, embroidered with silver threads.

CONCLUSIONS [50]

The Metropolitan’s batrashil opens a window into sixteenth-century Syria, particularly the Syriac Orthodox community. The community 53 Robert Irwin, Islamic Art in Context, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997), 135. 54 Irwin, Islamic Art, 156. 55 Irwin, Islamic Art, 140.

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of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi, where the owner of the stole presided, was active and flourishing, as evidenced not only by the restoration of frescoes there in the sixteenth century but also by the fact that the bishop had the means to travel and commission this expensive piece of embroidery. The iconographical choices borne out in the stole also reveal that while the Syriac Orthodox community must have had ties with other Eastern Orthodox communities, such as the Coptic church, some of the unusual iconographic choices demonstrate the independence, at least of this monastery. The stole finally points to the linguistic flexibility of the Arabic-speaking population of Mamluk Syria. Despite the fact that this is an ecclesiastical garment, it was inscribed with both Arabic and the Syriac used in the church. Karel Innemée’s important work on representations of ecclesiastical dress in the medieval Near East concludes that Syrian and Egyptian vestments had Byzantine roots and then evolved along similar lines, due to their close relationship, while the Armenian Church vestments exhibit important differences.56 Nubian vestments, he adds, have been influenced by the Byzantine and Coptic cultures. The batrashil in its style, iconography, and liturgical use follows the same paradigm. It evolved from the Byzantine epitrachelion but the style is most closely related to Coptic and Nubian art. The use of the stole in Syrian ordination ceremonies also parallels Coptic practice, and probably by extension Nubian use. The inscription sets the stole in the second-quarter of the sixteenth century, at the end of Mamluk rule in Syria, and just before the Ottoman Empire expanded into the region, which explains the dual Arabic and Syriac inscription, common for Christian objects in this culture. The inscription also places the batrashil in the hands of a learned bishop who acted as scribe for several manuscripts and was affiliated with the famous scriptorium at Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi. The woman artist named on the batrashil adds at least a little information to the dearth of sources on women in Islam in this period. It demonstrates that women worked as skilled textile workers and held some authority, as Shaqra’s title of “teacher” implies. Perhaps her title further suggests that she worked in some 56

Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 179-86.

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sort of guild system, but this cannot be said with any certainty. While we cannot say whether or not she was a Christian or part of the majority Muslim population, the use of both Arabic and Syriac may point to a workshop where Christians and Muslims worked together.57 The bishop who commissioned the batrashil, it should be pointed out, traveled to another city to purchase the vestment, suggesting that there were no embroiderers any closer to him or that more skillful artisans were to be found in Hama. The stole must have been expensive, as metallic threads and silk were used in addition to the bright blue dye of the silk. Blue of this color, made probably from indigo, or perhaps lapis lazuli (although the dye of this garment has not been analyzed) which were both very expensive. Indigo had to be imported from Central Asia; lapis was found locally but was considered very precious. The expense of the stole attests not only to the wealth of Bishop Athanasius, but also to the high-quality textiles produced by Shaqra or her workshop. The sixteenth-century date of the batrashil allows scholars of liturgical dress to form a continuum between medieval Syrian vestments and modern ones. The batrashil specifically was not added to the Syrian bishop’s vestments until the thirteenth century—two centuries after its appearance in the Byzantine and Coptic Churches—although the use of some type of stole in liturgical practice dates back much farther. If the Coptic and Byzantine models were followed closely then the first batrashil only hung down the front of the body in its early evolution. Modern versions of the batrashil that fall behind and in front of the torso have been thought to date back to the early eighteenth or late seventeenth-century at most.58 The Metropolitan’s stole predates these examples by nearly two centuries making this form significantly older than was previously thought. Furthermore, the iconographical shift to Christological scenes occurred in Byzantine epitrachelia in the fourteenth century, and then only occasionally.59 Representations of this type of stole demonstrate that the festal cycle was not common in Coptic or 57 Snelders and Immerzeel demonstrate this to be the case in a metal workshop in Northern Mesopotamia. Snelders and Immerzeel, "Thirteenth-Century Flabellum," 131. 58 Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress, 46. 59 Woodfin, Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments, 78.

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Nubian stoles either. However, the embroiderer could have followed the many examples from Syriac illuminated manuscripts, perhaps found in the scriptorium where Bishop Athanasius worked, rather than having to search for another vestment. Perhaps Bishop Athanasius’ instructions to the embroiderer were unusual even for his time, but given the conservative iconography of vestments generally and the archaizing style of this particular stole, this seems unlikely. This stole fills a gap in the sixteenthcentury when the feast cycle, or an abbreviated version of it, must have become more commonplace in the Syriac Orthodox vestments, if not vestments of the Eastern Orthodox churches in general. The Metropolitan’s batrashil points up the need for further research into Syrian vestments, along with Syriac Orthodox art of the post-medieval period. The stole hints at a shift in the form and iconography of Syriac Orthodox vestments since the medieval period; more examples could fill the evolutionary gaps. Finally, the inscription on the stole furthers our knowledge of Christians living in Mamluk Syria, a period that has fallen between scholars of medieval Christians in early Islam and Ottomanists.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, William Y. “The United Kingdom of Makouria and Nobadia: A Medieval Nubian Anomaly” in Egypt and Africa: Nubia from Prehistory to Islam, W. V. Davies ed., London: 1991, 257-63. Beilouny, G. A Remarkable Collection of Ancient Works of Art, New York: Fifth Avenue Auction Rooms, 1919. Bolman, Elizabeth ed. Monastic Visions. New Haven: 2002. Braun, Joseph. Die Liturgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient. St. Louis: Herder, 1907. British Library. The Christian Orient. London: 1978. Carlo Cecchelli, Guiseppe Furlani, and Mario Salmi eds. The Rabbula Gospels: Facsim. ed. of the miniatures of the Syriac ms. Plut. I, 56 in the Medicaean-Laurentian Library. Olton: Urs Graf, 1959. Dodd, Erica Cruikshank. The Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Ḥabashi: A Study of Medieval Painting in Syria. Toronto: 2001. Dulabani, F. Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in Syrian Churches and Monasteries. Halab: 1994. Fiey, Jean Maurice. “Coptes et Syriaques: Contacts et Échanges.” Studia Orientalia Christiana Collectanea 15 (1972/3): 295-365. —. Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus. Stuttgart: In Kommission bei F. Steiner, 1993.

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Gabra, Gawdat. Coptic Monasteries: Egypt’s Monastic Art and Architecture. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2002. Grabar, Oleg. Illustrations of the Maqamat. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Harris, Jennifer (ed.). Textiles 5,000 Years. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1993. Hatch, William Henry Paine. Greek and Syrian Miniatures in Jerusalem. Cambridge: The Medieval Academy of America, 1931. Heldman, Marilyn et al. African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Innemée, Karel C. Ecclesiastical Dress in the Medieval Near East. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992. —. “Recent Discoveries of Wall-Paintings in Deir Al-Surian.”Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 1:2 (July 1998). —. “Deir al-Surian (Egypt): conservation work of Autumn 2000.” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 4:2 (July 2001). —. “A Newly Discovered Mural Painting in Deir al-Surian.” Eastern Christian Art in its Late Antique and Islamic Contexts 1 (2004): 61-66. Irwin, Robert. Islamic Art in Context. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997. Karakatsanis, Athanasios A. ed. Treasures of Mount Athos. Thessalonike: Ministry of Culture, 1997. Kartsonis, Anna. Anastasis: The Making of an Image, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Kaufhold, Hubert. “Notizien über das Moseskloster bei Nabk und das Juliankloster bei Qaryatain in Syrien” in OrChr 79 (1995), 48-119. Leroy, J. Les manuscrits syriaques à peintures conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Europe et d’Orient. Paris: P. Geuthner, 1964. Lowden, John. “The Beginnings of Biblical Illustration,” in Imaging the Early Medieval Bible. John Williams ed. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. Papas, Tano. Studien zur Geschicte der Messgewänder im byzantinischen Ritus. Munich: Institut für Byzantinistik und Neugriechische Philologie der Universität, 1965. de Smet, Dom B. “Le rituel du sacre des évêques et des patriarches dan l’église Syrienne d’Antioche.” OrSyr 8 (1963): 165-212. Snelders, Bas and Mat Immerzeel. “The Thirteenth-Century Flabellum from Deir al-Surian in the Musée Royal de Mariemont (Morlanwelz, Belgium).” Eastern Christian Art in its Late Antique and Islamic Contexts 1 (2004): 113-139. Woodfin, Warren. Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments and the Iconography of Sacerdotal Power. Ph.D. dissertation, U. of Illinois UrbanaChampagne, 2002.

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Wright, W. Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum. London: British Museum, 1870-72.

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Fig. 1. The front of the stole.

Fig. 2. The back of the stole.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1914 (14.137) Photography, The Department of Textile Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, all rights reserved.

A Sixteenth-Century Batrashil

Fig. 3. ‘Entry into Jerusalem’ panel on the front of the stole.

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Fig. 4. ‘Pentecost’ panel on the front of the stole.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1914 (14.137) Photography, The Department of Textile Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, all rights reserved.

A Sixteenth-Century Batrashil

Fig. 5. An ‘Evangelist’ panel on the back of the stole.

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Fig. 6. The ‘Resurrection’ and ‘Ascension’ panels on the front.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1914 (14.137) Photography, The Department of Textile Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, all rights reserved.

A Sixteenth-Century Batrashil

Fig. 7. The ‘Annunciation’ panel on the front.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1914 (14.137) Photography, The Department of Textile Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, all rights reserved.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.1, 37-55 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

ECCLESIASTICS AND ASCETICS FINDING SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY IN FIFTHAND SIXTH-CENTURY PALESTINE JENNIFER L. HEVELONE-HARPER GORDON COLLEGE

ABSTRACT During the fifth and sixth centuries, the church in Palestine experienced considerable turmoil over christological divisions. In the midst of this controversy monks sometimes came into conflict with the established hierarchy of the church. As a source of spiritual authority distinct from ecclesiastical power circles, ascetics could support or undermine the work of a bishop. Drawing upon the works of John Rufus, Zachariah Scholasticus, and Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, this article explores the various models used to reconcile ecclesiastic and ascetic sources of spiritual authority. It examines these authors’ perceptions of interactions between monks and bishops as they established and maintained their spiritual authority.

[1]

In the fifth and sixth centuries, Christians in Palestine faced considerable concern about the proper locus of spiritual authority in the context of ongoing christological controversy. Inhabitants of the province were divided over the christological settlement of the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE). Supporters had confidence in the compromise between Alexandrian and Antiochene christologies articulated by the council’s definition, that Christ had two natures, one human and one divine, united in one person. Opponents of 37

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the council feared that it had succumbed to the Nestorian heresy, allowing too much separation between the divine logos and the man Jesus. The doctrinal differences in Palestine influenced the understanding of spiritual authority in the region. In the struggle for establishing correct christological doctrine, inhabitants of Palestine constructed competing paradigms for locating spiritual authority within the church. Spiritual authority in late antiquity was exercised by multiple institutions, including the ecclesiastical hierarchy, councils, and monastic leaders, and the proper relationship among these authorities was the subject of considerable debate. Bishops occupied a critical position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the eastern Mediterranean. Councils, summoned by imperial authority but largely shaped by the actions of certain bishops, offered judgment on the correct doctrine of the church. Individual bishops struggled with one another because of geographical competitiveness and theological conviction. Equally concerned about maintaining orthodoxy were monks. Bishops at times manipulated monks to secure their cause. Crowds of monks summoned by an individual bishop could serve as a physical threat to his opponents. Ascetic holy men, however, could not always be controlled by bishops. They could represent an independent source of spiritual authority outside the established ecclesiastical hierarchy.1 They could use their spiritual authority to support or undermine local bishops. In other cases, bishops were recruited directly from monasteries and continued to live abstemiously following ordination, surrounded by their clergy in quasi-monastic

For the development of the institutions of the monastery and the episcopate, see Henry Chadwick, “Bishops and Monks” (Studia Patristica 24 [1993]), 45-61; and Conrad Leyser, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 1

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[3]

[4]

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communities.2 The ascetic practices of these bishops became a favorite theme of later hagiographers.3 In the context of ongoing christological controversy and division within eastern Christianity, the relationship between ecclesiastic and ascetic authority is a fruitful avenue of investigation. In both monastic and episcopal circles this process of substantiating spiritual authority was critical if the ascetic, theological, and ecclesiastical accomplishments of one generation were to continue to shape the Christian community in the future. In response to competing views on the proper relationship between ascetic and ecclesiastic leaders, monastic writers depicted both holy men and bishops as acting out divinely ordained roles. These authors hoped that the carefully constructed models of bishop-monk interaction they dramatically depicted would dispel the troubling ambiguity that sometimes characterized real life exchanges. Nevertheless, the texts indicate that both leaders and laity continued to feel concern that sources of spiritual authority could come into conflict. This article explores how various authors constructed the roles of bishops and monks and substantiated their spiritual authority, clarifying the complex and sometimes contradictory expectations of the Christian inhabitants of fifth- and sixth-century Palestine. An extraordinary abundance of textual evidence for the study of spiritual authority survives from fifth- and sixth-century Palestine. From the Judean desert there is the corpus of saints’ lives composed by Cyril of Scythopolis and the rich physical remains of the Judean monasteries. This evidence has been competently interpreted by a number of scholars including Joseph Patrich, John Binns, and Yizhar Hirschfeld.4 From the south, the region of Gaza, Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 137-52, and Andrea Sterk, Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church. The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003). See chapter nine for her analysis of hagiographical evidence from Palestine, including the relationship of monastery and episcopate in the works of Cyril of Scythopolis. 3 Rapp, Holy Bishops, 293-97. 4 Joseph Patrich, Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism (Washington: Dum-barton Oaks, 1995); John Binns, Ascetics and Ambassadors of Christ: The Monasteries of Palestine 314-631 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); and 2

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numerous texts are extant recording for us thoughts, attitudes, and events of the late fifth and early sixth centuries. There may be only modest archaeological finds in the region, but the number of authors we know and the breadth of their surviving texts make us feel we have discovered an archive. A new generation of scholars has begun to make the world that produced these texts visible for us, including Cornelia Horn, with her work on Peter the Iberian, and Jan-Eric Steppa, with his new book on John Rufus.5 Many texts from the region of Palestine in this period deal directly with the issue of spiritual authority, from the ascetic exhortations of Isaiah of Gaza to the letters of Severus of Antioch. For this article I have chosen to analyze three groups of texts: the letters of Barsanuphius and John to the people of Gaza, the hagiography and polemical writings of John Rufus, and the Ecclesiastical History of Zachariah Scholasticus. These works, most originally composed in Greek, survive in a mixture of Greek manuscripts and Syriac translations.6 The radically different flavors of these texts arise both from the genres of the works and the personalities and purposes of the authors. Each has a distinct understanding of the basis of spiritual authority within the church, and together they represent for us the variety of models available for interpreting asceticecclesiastic interaction.

Yizhar Hirschfeld, The Judean Monasteries in the Byzantine Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 5 Cornelia Horn, “Weaving the Pilgrim’s Crown: John Rufus’s View of Peter the Iberian’s Journeys in Late Antique Palestine,” in Symposium Syriacum VIII: The University of Sydney, Department of Semitic Studies, 26 June-1 July, 2000, edited by R. Y. Ebied, Herman Tuele, Peter Hill, and Jozef Verheyden (Leuven: Peeters, 2004); “Empress Eudocia and the Monk Peter the Iberian. Patronage, Pilgrimage and the Love of a FosterMother in Fifth-Century Palestine,” in Internationale Zeitschrift für Byzantinistik, edited by Walter Kaegi (Amsterdam: Verlag Adolf M. Hakkert, 2004); Asceticism and Christological Controversy in Fifth-century Palestine: the Career of Peter the Iberian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); and Jan-Eric Steppa, John Rufus and the World Vision of AntiChalcedonian Culture (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002). 6 It is critical that language does not create an artificial barrier, hindering the study of Palestinian monasticism. Greek and Syriac texts from the same period must be considered together.

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So what do we find when we turn to these texts that survive from fifth- and sixth-century Palestine? How do they portray spiritual authority functioning in society? From a cursory reading of Barsanuphius’ letters, the Plerophoriae of John Rufus, and Zachariah’s Ecclesiastical History, one might never guess they come from the same geographic area and roughly the same time period. John Rufus was driven by the single purpose of discrediting the council of Chalcedon by gathering together dramatic signs and visions that confirm divine rejection of the council. Barsanuphius and his colleague, John of Gaza, on the other hand studiously avoided offering judgment on the controversial council, and they pled with their disciples to avoid discussing any doctrine. They assumed spiritual oversight of bishops and patriarchs, but used their own spiritual authority to augment power of those in ecclesiastical office. Zachariah dispassionately detailed the actions of monks, bishops and emperors, calmly noting who were ‘believing,’ that is, non-Chalcedonian, and who were ‘synodists,’ that is, Chalcedonian.7

BARSANUPHIUS AND JOHN OF GAZA [6]

Barsanuphius and John were anchorites, who lived in neighboring cells attached to the monastery of Seridos outside the city of Gaza in the village of Tawatha. As enclosed anchorites who never left their cells or welcomed visitors, the two Old Men were remarkably involved in the civic and ecclesiastical affairs of Palestine. The text of over 850 letters they composed survives.8 Barsanuphius and For the response of eastern Christians to the Council of Chalcedon see John Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989); and Patrick Gray, The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451-533) (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979). 8 Barsanuphius and John, Correspondence, in Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza, Correspondance, ed. and tr. by François Neyt, Paula de Angelis-Noah, and Lucien Regnault, Sources Chrétiennes 426, 427, 450, 451, 468 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002). For an English translation of selected letters, see John Chryssavgis, Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses by Barsanuphius and John (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003); for translation of the complete corpus, see John Chryssavgis, Barsanuphius and John: Questions and 7

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John wrote letters of advice to a cross section of Palestinian society: monks, clergy, and lay people. Our investigation of the relationship between episcopal and ascetic spiritual authority begins with Barsanuphius and John’s letters to bishops.9 The genre of letters offering advice shapes our picture of bishop/monk interaction. The preservation of the correspondence is selective: we have only summaries of the questions posed to Barsanuphius and John, but the full text of their responses. This record of a correspondence with bishops is far removed from the standard preservation of episcopal letters by church historians (as is done in the Syriac Chronicle, see below). The sixth-century monastic compiler of Barsanuphius and John’s Correspondence treated the letters of bishops, including those of the patriarch of Jerusalem, no differently than he did the letters of a local layman. All were summarized and included only to introduce a letter from Barsanuphius or John. He considered the anchorites the true spiritual fathers whose writing was worth preserving; the bishops merely posed questions easily condensed. From the very composition of the text, it is clear (at least in the minds of the monks) that the spiritual authority of ascetics outweighed that of bishops. Responses, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, forthcoming). 9 The anchorites’ interactions with bishops are summarized here in order to make comparison with the other texts analyzed in this article. For spiritual authority in the Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John, see Aryeh Kofsky, “The Byzantine Holy Person: The Case of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza,” in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity, edited by Marcel Poorthius and Joshua Schwartz, 261-85 (Leiden: Brill, 2004); and Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper, Disciples of the Desert: Monks, Laity, and Spiritual Authority in Sixth-Century Gaza, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. For Barsanuphius and John as intercessors for their disciples, see Claudia Rapp, “‘For Next to God, You Are My Salvation’: Reflections on the Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” in The Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, edited by James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward, 63-81 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). For spiritual authority in the letters of Barsanuphius and John to Dorotheos, see François Neyt, “A Form of Charismatic Authority,” Eastern Churches Review 6 (1974): 52-65.

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[9]

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By entering into a correspondence with the anchorites, bishops acknowledged their own role as supplicants. No letters seeking to admonish the monks survive; rather, the compiler shows us bishops seeking guidance from anchorites, deliberately humbling themselves as disciples. In the content of their letters, as well as the form, Barsanuphius and John demonstrated confidence in their own spiritual authority over bishops. They instructed the bishops on how best to carry out their episcopal duties.10 The anchorites rebuked bishops when they disagreed with their course of action.11 They publicly condemned one bishop of Gaza who sought imperial help to regain his office after being deposed.12 They advised the laity of Gaza about choosing a new bishop.13 All these actions affirmed the model that anchorites advanced in the monastic life should exercise spiritual authority over even high-ranking bishops. However, Barsanuphius and John did more than demonstrate their own spiritual authority over that of the bishops. They actually used their spiritual authority to support episcopal power. They very deliberately urged the laity of Gaza to submit to the patriarch of Jerusalem in their choice of a new bishop.14 Barsanuphius and John served as spiritual fathers for both the bishop of Gaza and the patriarch of Jerusalem. When the discouraged patriarch contemplated flight, the anchorites counseled him to remain firm and resist this temptation.15 They advised him, “This delivery to temptation has not happened without the permission of God. We will examine our heart in order to see which precept of God we have transgressed, and we will know that it is because of that that we have been delivered into temptation.”16 Although the anchorites spoke humbly in the first person plural to add gentleness to their correction, the identity of the sinner was without doubt. The message was clear: sin leads to more temptation and further despair. The anchorites did not offer any public challenge to high ecclesiastical office, but they used their own spiritual authority both to correct and to uphold bishops. Barsanuphius and John, Correspondence, 804-22. Ibid. 825, 831-33. 12 Ibid. 802-03. 13 Ibid. 793-803. 14 Ibid. 793, 795. 15 Ibid. 823-24. 16 Ibid. 825. 10 11

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In the turbulent historical context of late antique Gaza, the anchorites Barsanuphius and John of Gaza were a very moderate pair. They did not seek to be engaged in the christological disputes that shook Palestine in the aftermath of Chalcedon. They were reluctant to condemn or to allow their disciples to condemn those accused of heresy.17 Although they used the rhetoric of NonChalcedonians, loudly proclaiming their allegiance to ‘Nicaea’ alone, avoiding all reference to the Council of Chalcedon, and urging distance from so-called ‘Nestorians,’ they also urged submission to a Chalcedonian Patriarch of Jerusalem. Their moderation caused confusion in later generations as to their own christological position.18

JOHN RUFUS [11]

The Arab writer from southern Palestine, John Rufus, did not share the moderation of Barsanuphius and John. He was a vehement advocate for the anti-Chalcedonian cause. He is the author of colorful polemical text entitled, “Testimonies and Revelations that God has made to the saints on the heresies about his nature and on the prevarication that took place at Chalcedon,” shortened by modern scholars to Plerophoriae.19 The work is a series of anecdotal proofs against Chalcedon recounting many miraculous signs condemning the council. Although John Rufus wrote originally in Greek, this text, like his hagiographical account of his spiritual father, Peter the Iberian, survives only in Syriac.20 Ibid. 58, 693-701. Confusion regarding Barsanuphius’ christological position may have caused his name to be associated with heresy. When Pope Leo III (d. 816) accused Theodore the Studite (759-826) of admitting the heretics, Isaiah, Barsanuphius, and Dorotheos, to the ranks of the saints, Theodore proclaimed that there were three saints by these names as well as three heretics. See Siméon Vailhé, “Saint Barsanuphe” (Echos d’Orient 8 [1905]), 14-15. 19 John Rufus, Plerophoriae, in Jean Rufus. Plérophories, témoignages et révélations contre le concile de Chalcédoine, ed. and tr. by F. Nau, PO 8.1 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912). 20 John Rufus, Vita Petri Iberi, in Petrus der Iberer. Ein Characterbild zur Kirchen- und Sittengeschichte des fünften Jahrhunderts, ed. and tr. by R. Raabe (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1895). For the identification of John as the author of this text, see E. Schwartz, Johannes Rufus, ein 17 18

Ecclesiastics and Ascetics [12]

[13]

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John’s audience for the Plerophoriae was the monastic and lay population of the eastern empire that had already rejected the authority of the Council of Chalcedon. The antagonistic tone of this work would do little to persuade a convicted Chalcedonian or even to sway a committed moderate like Barsanuphius. Rather the text was intended to reinforce the belief system of a dedicated minority.21 John affirmed the anti-Chalcedonian worldview with dramatic testimonies of divine revelations given to monastic holy men throughout Palestine and Egypt. John Rufus was ambivalent about the spiritual authority of bishops. On the one hand he highlighted the episcopal authority of his spiritual father Peter the Iberian as Bishop of Maiuma. His hagiographical work, the Life of Peter the Iberian, cast the office of bishop in a more favorable light than did the Plerophoriae. The monk Peter resisted ordination, first because he did not wish to serve under the Patriarch Juvenal, who had betrayed orthodoxy by embracing Chalcedon.22 He continued to resist being made bishop by the anti-Chalcedonian Patriarch Theodosius, however, because monophysitischer Schriftsteller, Heidelberg 1912. For Peter the Iberian, see Kathleen M. Hay, “Evolution of Resistance: Peter the Iberian, Itinerant Bishop,” in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, eds. Pauline Allen, Raymond Canning, and Lawrence Cross (Everston Park, Queensland: Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, 1998), 159-168; Aryeh Kofsky, “Peter the Iberian: Pilgrimage, Monasticism and Ecclesiastical Politics in Byzantine Palestine” (Liber Annuus 47 [1997]), 209-22; and Bernard Flusin, “Naissance d’une ville sainte: autour de la Vie de Pierre l’Ibère” (Annuaire de L’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section des Sciences Religieuses 100 [1991-1992]), 365-69. For hagiographical accounts associated with Peter, see David M. Lang, “Peter the Iberian and his Biographers” (Journal of Ecclesiastical History 2 [1951]), 158-68. For John Rufus’ view of the church, see Steppa, John Rufus and Volker Menze, “Die Stimme von Maiuma: Johannes Rufus, das Konzil von Chalcedon und die wahre Kirche,” in Literarische Konstituierung von Identifikationsfiguren in der Antike, edited by Barbara Aland, Johannes Hahn, and Christian Ronning, 215-32 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). 21 Steppa, John Rufus, 171-72. See also Aryeh Kofsky, “What Happened to the Monophysite Monasticism of Gaza?” in Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity, edited by Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Aryeh Kofsky, 183-94 (Leiden: Brill, 2004). 22 For reaction in Palestine to Juvenal’s acceptance of Chalcedon, see E. Honigmann, “Juvenal of Jerusalem,” (DOP 5 [1950]), 211-79.

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he did not deem himself worthy of the office of bishop. While being forcibly taken to Jerusalem to be ordained, Peter briefly escaped and ran to throw himself from the roof, choosing death or disfigurement rather than ordination. A voice from heaven stopped him, saying, “Peter, Peter, if you do this, you have no part of me!”23 Both texts emphasized that it was Peter’s status as a bishop that allowed him to consecrate Timothy Aelurus as Patriarch of Alexandria in the place of the despised Chalcedonian patriarch, Proterius, imposed on Egypt by imperial force. As bishops, Peter and Timothy together served as the praiseworthy protagonists of John Rufus’ works. However, John Rufus fundamentally mistrusted bishops. His suspicion of most episcopal authority was tied to his rejection of the Council of Chalcedon. He saw it as a heretical action perpetrated by bishops. This message was repeated throughout the Plerophoriae. John’s sentiments about episcopal power were epitomized in a vision he recounted, in which the apostle Paul appeared with a group of bishops. At his instruction the bishops washed their faces, revealing that they were afflicted with leprosy. Paul rebuked them saying, “Not one of you has been found pure.”24 Episcopal power was a façade covering the disease of heresy. Real spiritual authority rested not with ecclesiastical office, but with ascetic vigor and submission to a spiritual father. Although he claimed the conciliar authority of Nicaea and Ephesus, John had lost faith in bishops since Chalcedon. He saw monks as the guardians of orthodoxy in his day. In fifth- and sixth-century Palestine there were not always clear-cut lines between the monastery and the bishop’s cathedra. John’s own spiritual father, Peter, was both an ascetic holy man fighting against the actions of bishops and at the same time the bishop of Maiuma. There is some evidence that John actually succeeded him in his episcopal see.25 Therefore, John concluded that a bishop could exercise spiritual authority, but only if he were 23 John Rufus, Vita Petri Iberi, 54. After his ordination as bishop Peter attempts to avoid celebrating the sacrament. John related a eucharistic miracle that offered divine confirmation his episcopate. 24 John Rufus, Plerophoriae 60. 25 The title of the Plerophoriae attributes the work to John as bishop of Maiuma. For the argument that John never held this position, see Steppa, John Rufus, 18-19.

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also a monk with a suitable ascetic pedigree. Spiritual authority originated in the monk’s submission to a spiritual father. Ordination could augment the ecclesiastical status of a holy man, but not substitute for authentic spiritual authority based on a lifetime of ascetic discipleship.

THE SYRIAC CHRONICLE [16]

The Syriac Chronicle is an eclectic work covering the christological disagreements of the eastern empire in the fifth and sixth centuries, as well as the military struggle between the Persian and Byzantine Empires. The author of the text explicitly states that books three through six were drawn from “The Greek Chronicle of Zachariah the Rhetor.”26 Zachariah’s Ecclesiastical History probably covered the second half of the fifth century (from 450-491), but the Syriac Chronicle continues through the reign of Justinian.27 Therefore, when discussing the sections epitomized from Zachariah, I will name him explicitly as author. In the other cases I refer to the anonymous Syriac author (called pseudo-Zachariah) who drew upon Zachariah for his composition. The Syriac author of the work was self-conscious about his own desire to be a careful and considerate historian. He expressed this concern in his historiographical statement at the beginning of the Chronicle: Now we beg that readers or hearers will not blame us, if we do not call the kings victorious and mighty, and the generals valiant and astute, and the bishops pious and blessed, and the monks Ps.-Zachariah, Ecclesiastical History 6.7. For the Syriac epitome of Zachariah’s Ecclesiastical History with a Latin translation, see E. W. Brooks, Historia ecclesiastica Zachariae Rhetori vulgo adscripta, CSCO, 83-84, 87-88, Scriptores Syri, ser. 3, t. 5-6 (Louvain & Paris: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1921-1929). English quotations in this article are taken from, F. J. Hamilton and E. W. Brooks, eds., The Syriac Chronicle Known as That of Zachariah of Mitylene, (London: Methuen & Co., 1899). 27 The Syriac Chronicle was completed in 569. For dating see Hamilton and Brooks, Syriac Chronicle, 3-7. For Zachariah Scholasticus, see Lang, “Peter the Iberian;” E. Honigmann, “Patristic Studies,” Stud Test 173 (1953): 194-204; K. Wegenast, “Zacharias Scholastikos,” in R-E 9.2 (1967), cols. 2212-16; and Pauline Allen, “Zachariah Scholasticus and the Historia Ecclesiastica of Evagrius Scholasticus,” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 31.2 (1980): 471-88. 26

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[18]

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chaste and honorable of character, because it is our object to relate facts, following in the footsteps of the Holy Scriptures, and it is not our intention on our own account to praise and extol rulers with flattering words, or to revile and insult with rebuke those who believe differently.28 Although the Syriac author knows nothing of the nineteenthcentury ideal of Rankian objectivity, for those accustomed to reading late antique historians with strong affections such as Eusebius and Zosimus, he appears remarkably even handed. He could describe the good qualities of a bishop: “He was just in his deeds, and showed kindness to the tillers of the soil, and was gentle towards them, and was not greedy after bribes. In his body he was chaste, and in outward matters he did much good to his church, and paid his debts.”29 The same bishop is then labeled as a ‘Nestorian’ and accused of persecuting ‘believers.’ As a nonChalcedonian, the author of the Syriac Chronicle referred to all bishops and monks who reject the council as the ‘believing.’ The Syriac Chronicle shows bishops locked in struggle over Christology. Unlike John Rufus, the author of the Syriac Chronicle viewed the office of bishop as neutral. Some bishops used their authority for good, some for evil. As we have seen, he even asserted that moral behavior and good Christology need not always coincide—a learned official described as ‘believing’ was also indicted for greed and lust.30 Like bishops, monks worked both for the cause of orthodoxy and heresy. There is no distinction between the pious monks and apostate bishops as there is in the works of John Rufus. According to the Chronicle, a contest was taking place for the soul of the empire. Bishops, emperor, and monks were involved in a power triangle.31 Groups of monks publicly supported certain

Hamilton and Brooks, Syriac Chronicle, 16. Ibid. 204. See 205 for the description of Bishop Ephraium of Amida who was also described as just although he was “infected with the teachings of the Diphysites.” 30 Ps.-Zachariah, Ecclesiastical History 9.19. 31 For other examples of the struggle between monks, bishops, and emperor over Christology, see James E. Goehring, “Chalcedonian Power Politics and the Demise of Pachomian Monasticism,” Occasional Papers, The Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, The Claremont Graduate 28 29

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bishops. Monks managed to gain direct access to the emperor, informing him of the behavior of bishops. Sometimes they actually arrived in Constantinople armed with documents to back up their case. The emperor then responded either positively or negatively. The petitions of monks proved effective in shaping imperial intervention in episcopal politics. Their ascetic zeal projected spiritual authority to an imperial audience. Zachariah related that when monks arrived at Basiliscus’ court to plead on behalf of Timothy Aelurus, “the king, and the courtiers, and the queen were struck by admiration of them.”32 This monastic involvement in bishop/emperor relations is an especially prominent motif in Zachariah’s account struggle for the patriarchate of Alexandria. Although we are accustomed to thinking of Egyptian monks as using their force to serve the ambitions of the patriarchs, as in Athanasius’ fourth-century Life of Antony or in the accounts of the council in Ephesus in 449, in the Syriac Chronicle the independence of monks served as a check on episcopal authority. One example will illustrate this pattern. After the death of Timothy Salophaciolus, Egyptian monks informed Zeno that John broke his oath to the emperor and bribed his way to the patriarchate.33 The emperor responded to the request of the monks by removing John and reinstating Peter Mongus to whom the monks had remained loyal. The emperor required Peter to accept the Henotikon as a condition for keeping his see. Zachariah clearly detailed that Peter had monastic support for this action. ‘Monks’ and ‘sisters’ were with the throng who set Peter upon a chariot in celebration.34 Ascetic holy men, Peter the Iberian and Isaiah of Gaza, who would later avoid complying with the emperor’s summons to the capital because of their unease with the Henotikon, were shown here openly affirming the patriarch with other Palestinian monks.35 School, 1989, reprinted in Ascetics, Society, and the Desert (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 241-61. 32 Hamilton and Brooks, Syriac Chronicle, 104. 33 Ps.-Zachariah, Ecclesiastical History 5.6-7. 34 Ibid. 5.7. 35 Ibid. 5.9. See 6.3 for Peter and Isaiah’s evasive maneuvering. See John Rufus, Vita Petri Iberi 103-04. For Isaiah of Gaza, see Hermann Keller, “L’abbé Isa ïe-le-Jeune” (Irénikon 16 [1939]), 113-26; Derwas Chitty, “Abba Isaiah” (JTS 22 [1971]): 47-72; and John Chryssavgis and

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Just as the power of the monks helped Peter Mongus gain his see, monastic resistance to his authority created problems for the patriarch. Uneasy with his acceptance of the Henotikon, because it did not explicitly condemn Chalcedon, a number of illustrious monks withdrew from communion with Peter.36 A monastic emissary to the emperor complained that Peter had expelled the monks from their monasteries.37 This action triggered an imperial investigation. Zachariah claimed that 30,000 monks assembled outside the city in an effort to choose another bishop. The imperial official attempting to defuse the situation feared civil war should the monks enter Alexandria. Incidentally, Zachariah added that the loyalty of the laity to Peter helped to frustrate the rebellion of the monks.38 The author of the Syriac Chronicle highlighted the actions of bishops. He prominently included many letters from one bishop to another. However, a close reading of the text reveals that monastic power served to limit episcopal power. Working with imperial support, monks could support or undermine the authority of bishops. Of course, attempting to balance episcopal and imperial power was a difficult task. Sometimes the monks chose the wrong side of the power struggle. When Emperor Anastasius deposed the Chalcedonian patriarch of Constantinople, Macedonius, the monks loyal to the patriarch were expelled as well.39 The Syriac Chronicle included a letter describing part of their fate: “On that same day Pachomios (Robert) Penkett, Abba Isaiah of Scetis, Ascetic Discourses (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2002). 36 Ps.-Zachariah, Ecclesiastical History 6.1. The tension between the monks and Peter stands in stark contrast to Timothy Aelurus’ close dependence on monastic support, see Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 260. For Haas’ treatment of Peter’s episcopate, focusing on the divergent factions in the Alexandrian church, see 316-30. 37 Ps.-Zachariah, Ecclesiastical History 6.1-2. 38 Ibid. Haas argues that the larger numbers of monks in the fifth century strengthened their power and led to increased strife with the patriarch, Alexandria, 260-61. For the Patriarch of Alexandria’s dependence on the laity and clergy, see 215-44. For Evagrius Scholasticus’ version of the events of Peter Mongus’ patriarchate and his use of Zachariah, see Allen, “Zachariah,” 481-83. 39 Ps.-Zachariah, Ecclesiastical History 7.7-8.

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the king commanded, and the water which supplied the baths was cut off from their monasteries.”40 Implicit in this punishment was a criticism that the monks were not leading an austere life in the first place.

CONCLUSION [23]

[24]

[25]

Christians living in Palestine during the fifth and sixth centuries understood that both monks and bishops held spiritual authority. In the open discord that followed the Council of Chalcedon, the laity grew accustomed to seeing those who exercised spiritual authority come into conflict: bishop turned against bishop and monks struggled with one another. Episcopal and ascetic forms of spiritual authority also competed. There were few clear-cut rules about how to resolve this dissension. Councils, expressing the authority of bishops, decreed that monks should be subservient to bishops in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.41 However, monks, and probably many lay people, believed that ascetic piety was a safer guarantee of orthodox theology than episcopal office, which could easily open its occupant to corruption. The writers considered here confirm the complexity of bishop/monk relations. The texts do not agree about the basic ranking of bishops and ascetic holy men. Each has a slightly different emphasis, revealing the multiplicity of models for resolving tensions between episcopal and ascetic authority in late antiquity. A variety of genres compounds the divergent views of episcopal and ascetic interactions. Each genre carries with it basic assumptions of how events should be narrated. The Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza introduced bishops as the disciples of monks. It assumed that the spiritual authority of anchorites outweighed even the office of patriarch. With this ranking taken as fundamental, the compiler of the text could afford to show the anchorites supporting the legitimate power of bishops, even when they might favor different christological paradigms. The anchorites preferred to keep a middle Hamilton and Brooks, Syriac Chronicle, 171. At Chalcedon it was decreed that no monastery could be established without the local bishop’s consent, Canon 4. This may have encouraged monastic resistance to the council. For other councils dealing with monastic jurisdiction see Chadwick, “Bishops and Monks,” 59-60. 40 41

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course in ongoing doctrinal controversies while focusing on personal piety, rather than allowing their disciples to become distracted by heated polemics. Because there was no challenge to their own authority from the clergy, Barsanuphius and John were generous advocates of episcopal authority. With a clearly defined hierarchy that recognized the authority of monks over bishops, competition between sources of spiritual authority was minimized, allowing for productive cooperation. John Rufus agreed that the spiritual authority of ascetic holy men outweighed the power that ordination granted to bishops. However, where the Correspondence emphasized fruitful collaboration between monks and bishops, John Rufus saw inevitable strife. The examples of Peter the Iberian, Bishop of Maiuma, and Timothy Aelurus, Patriarch of Alexandria, admitted the possibility of combining an ascetic’s authority with the office of bishop, but the overwhelming message of John’s work was that such harmony was extremely rare. He believed that the majority of bishops had lost their spiritual authority, succumbing to heresy by supporting the Council of Chalcedon. Only the monks with their strident vigilance could guard orthodox teaching, fighting continuously with the established clerical hierarchy. The ultimate victory of the anti-Chalcedonian ascetics was assured by God, but there was no promise that the struggle would be easy. The Syriac Chronicle of pseudo-Zachariah refused to answer directly whether the spiritual authority of monks outweighed that of bishops or vice versa. However, the genre of ecclesiastical history carried an inherent bias towards the activities of bishops. In the Syriac Chronicle bishops remained the central focus. With carefully cultivated balance, the author detailed the work of holy and heretical bishops. Although the author was not reticent in voicing his own anti-Chalcedonian perspective, he deliberately weighed good character traits against bad, operating out of a long established Greco-Roman historiographical tradition. Monks entered his narrative when they became involved with episcopal politics. With bishops and the emperor, they formed a triangle of authority shaping doctrinal matters (although the lay people were also present in this work to a more modest degree). Like bishops, the author of the Syriac Chronicle believed the monks could work for spiritual or worldly ends. Differences in morality and doctrine

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characterized different groups of monks. The Syriac Chronicle is the only work to deliberately separate piety from correct theology. These three approaches to reconciling episcopal and ascetic authority share a concern to locate spiritual authority in a recognizable system. They betray a general anxiety prevalent in the fifth and sixth centuries that multiple sources of spiritual authority would hinder the development of a much-desired doctrinal consensus. Geographically close to Egypt and Constantinople and connected to the rest of the late antique world through pilgrims visiting the holy sites, the people of Palestine in particular felt a need to hold competing sources of spiritual authority in balance. Writers such as Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, John Rufus, and pseudo-Zachariah, author of the Syriac Chronicle, differed in their strategies for reconciling episcopal and ascetic power, but all were conscious of the need to give guidance to the people whose traditional leaders might point them in separate directions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Barsanuphius and John of Gaza. Correspondence. In Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza, Correspondance. Edited and translated by François Neyt, Paula de Angelis-Noah, and Lucien Regnault. Sources Chrétiennes, n. 426, 427, 450, 451, 468 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002). Also in Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses by Barsanuphius and John. Translated by John Chryssavgis. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003. Barsanuphius and John: Questions and Responses. Translated by John Chryssavgis. Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, forthcoming. John Rufus. Vita Petri Iberi. In Petrus der Iberer. Ein Characterbild zur Kirchenund Sittengeschichte des fünften Jahrhundert. Edited and translated by R. Raabe. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1895. —. Jean Rufus. Plérophories, témoignages et révélations contre le concile de Chalcédoine. Edited and translated by F. Nau, PO 8.1. Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912. Zachariah Scholasticus (Pseudo-Zachariah). Historia ecclesiastica Zachariae Rhetori vulgo adscripta. Edited by E. W. Brooks, CSCO, 83-84, 8788, Scriptores Syri, ser. 3, t. 5-6. Louvain & Paris: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1921-1929. Also in The Syriac Chronicle Known as That of Zachariah of Mitylene. Translated by F. J. Hamilton and E. W. Brooks London: Methuen & Co., 1899.

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Secondary Sources Allen, Pauline. “Zachariah Scholasticus and the Historia Ecclesiastica of Evagrius Scholasticus.” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 31.2 (1980): 471-88. Binns, John. Ascetics and Ambassadors of Christ: The Monasteries of Palestine 314-631. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Chadwick, Henry. “Bishops and Monks.” Studia Patristica 24 (1993): 45-61. Chitty, Derwas. “Abba Isaiah.” Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971): 4772. Flusin, B. “Naissance d’une ville sainte: autour de la Vie de Pierre l’Ibère.” Annuaire de L’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section des Sciences Religieuses 100 (1991-1992): 365-69. —. “L’hagiographie palestinienne et la réception du concile de Chalcédoin.” In LEIMWN: Studies Presented to Lennart Rydén on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. J.-O. Rosenquist. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1996. Goehring, James E. “Chalcedonian Power Politics and the Demise of Pachomian Monasticism.” Occasional Papers, The Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, The Claremont Graduate School, 1989. Reprinted Ascetics, Society, and the Desert. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999. Gray, Patrick T. R. The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451-533). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979. Hay, Kathleen M. “Evolution of Resistance: Peter the Iberian, Itinerant Bishop.” In Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, eds. Pauline Allen, Raymond Canning, and Lawrence Cross. Everston Park, Queensland: Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, 1998. Hevelone-Harper, Jennifer L. Disciples of the Desert: Monks, Laity, and Spiritual Direction in Sixth-Century Gaza. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Hirschfeld, Yizhar. The Judean Monasteries in the Byzantine Period. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Honigmann, E. “Juvenal of Jerusalem.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 5 (1950): 211-79. Horn, Cornelia. “Weaving the Pilgrim’s Crown: John Rufus’s View of Peter the Iberian’s Journeys in Late Antique Palestine.” In Symposium Syriacum VIII: The University of Sydney, Department of Semitic Studies, 26 June-1 July, 2000, eds. R. Y. Ebied, Herman Tuele, Peter Hill, and Jozef Verheyden. Leuven: Peeters, 2004. —. “Empress Eudocia and the Monk Peter the Iberian. Patronage, Pilgrimage and the Love of a Foster-Mother in Fifth-Century Palestine.” In Internationale Zeitschrift für Byzantinistik, ed. Walter Kaegi. Amsterdam: Verlag Adolf M. Hakkert, 2004.

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—. Asceticism and Christological Controversy in Fifth-century Palestine: the Career of Peter the Iberian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Keller, Hermann. “L’abbé Isaïe-le-Jeune.” Irénikon 16 (1939): 113-26. Kofsky, Aryeh. “Peter the Iberian: Pilgrimage, Monasticism and Ecclesiastical Politics in Byzantine Palestine.” Liber Annuus 47 (1997): 209-22. —. “The Byzantine Holy Person: The Case of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza.” In Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity, eds. Marcel Poorthius and Joshua Schwartz, 261-85. Leiden: Brill, 2004. —. “What Happened to the Monophysite Monasticism of Gaza?” In Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity, eds. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Aryeh Kofsky, 183-94. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Lang, David M. “Peter the Iberian and his Biographers.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 2 (1951): 158-68. Leyser, Conrad. Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Menze, Volker. “Die Stimme von Maiuma: Johannes Rufus, das Konzil von Chalcedon und die wahre Kirche.” In Literarische Konstituierung von Identifikationsfiguren in der Antike, eds. Barbara Aland, Johannes Hahn, and Christian Ronning, 21532. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. Meyendorff, John. Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989. Neyt, François. “A Form of Charismatic Authority.” Eastern Churches Review 6 (1974): 52-65. Patrich, Joseph. Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995. Rapp, Claudia. “‘For Next to God, You Are My Salvation’: Reflections on the Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity.” In Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, eds. James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward, 63-81. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. —. Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Steppa, Jan-Eric. John Rufus and the World Vision of Anti-Chalcedonian Culture. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002. Sterk, Andrea. Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church. The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. Vailhé, Siméon. “Saint Barsanuphe.” Echos d’Orient 8 (1905): 14-25.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.1, 51-127 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

POSSIBLE HISTORICAL TRACES IN THE DOCTRINA ADDAI ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF THE SACRED HEART, MILAN

ABSTRACT1 The Teaching of Addai is a Syriac document convincingly dated by some scholars in the fourth or fifth century AD. I agree with this dating, but I think that there may be some points containing possible historical traces that go back even to the first century AD, such as the letters exchanged by king Abgar and Tiberius. Some elements in them point to the real historical context of the reign of Abgar ‘the Black’ in the first century. The author of the Doctrina might have known the tradition of some historical letters written by Abgar and Tiberius.

[1]

Recent scholarship often dates the Doctrina Addai, or Teaching of Addai,2 to the fourth century AD or the early fifth, a date already This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the SBL International Meeting, Groningen, July 26 2004, Ancient Near East section: I wish to thank very much all those who discussed it and so helped to improve it, including the referees of the journal. 2 Extant in mss of the fifth-sixth cent. AD: Brit. Mus. 935 Add. 14654 and 936 Add. 14644. Ed. W. Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents (London 1864; Piscataway: Gorgias, 2004 repr.), 5-23; another ms. of the sixth cent. was edited by G. Phillips, The Doctrine of Addai, the Apostle (London, 1876); G. Howard (tr.), The Teaching of Addai, SBL Texts and Translations, 16, Early Christian Literature Series, 4 (Chico: Scholars 1

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indicated by Tixeront.3 This Syriac document, first published in the late nineteenth century, narrates the conversion of the Edessan king Abgar ‘the Black’ thanks to the apostle Addai, who was sent to Northern Mesopotamia directly by St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles; in his address to the people of Edessa, in the Doctrina, Addai says that he is from Paneas, on the river Jordan. His historicity, at least in its ground, is accepted by Segal and challenged by Desreumaux and by Drijvers, who thinks that this legend arose at the end of the third cent. for anti-Manichaean purposes; some years later, Eusebius found its documents in the Edessan archives (HE 1.13.5) and with his translation offered the oldest extant account of this legend; according to González Núñez, Addai is the same who evangelized Adiabene at the beginning of the II cent. (both in Edessa and in Adiabene people spoke Syriac).4 Press, 1981), with Phillips’ edition and a new English version; R. Peppermueller, “Griechische Papyrusfragmente der Doctrina Addai” (VChr 25 [1971]), 289-301; A. Desreumaux, “La Doctrine d’Addaï” (Aug. 23 [1983]), 181-86; Id., Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993). On the Abgar legend see H.J.W. Drijvers, “The Abgar Legend,” in New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Louisville: John Knox, 1991), 492-99; M. Illert, Doctrina Addai; De imagine Edessena = Die Abgarlegende; Das Christusbild von Edessa (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), with my review in RBL 2009; I. Ramelli, “Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina Addai,” Aevum 83 (2009) 141168. A dating about AD 400 is often found in encyclopaedia articles, such as P. Bruns, “Addai (Doctrina Addai),” in Lexikon der antiken Christlichen Literatur, Hrsg. S. Döpp-W. Geerlings (Freiburg-Basel-Wien, 2002), 7, and C.&F. Jullien, Apôtres des confins, Res Orientales 15 (Louvain: Peeters, 2002), 67ff. The Addai story is also known in Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Georgian, and Slavonic. 3 L.-J. Tixeront, Les origines de l’église d’Édesse et la légende d’Abgar (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1888), fixed the definitive redaction of the Doctrina to AD 390-430; Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, edd. R.A. Lipsius-M. Bonnet, I (Lipsiae 1891, repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1990), CIXff.; 279-83, give 360-90; see also L. Moraldi, Gli apocrifi del Nuovo Testamento, II (Torino: UTET, 1971), 1647. On the evangelization of Mesopotamia: Jullien, Apôtres; W. Baum-D.W. Winkler, The Church of the East. A Concise History (London: Routledge, 2003). 4 J.B. Segal, Edessa, “The Blessed City,” Gorgias Reprints 1 (Oxford 1970; Piscataway: Gorgias, 2001 repr.); Desreumaux, Histoire, passim (rev. by J. La Fontaine, Byzantion 65 [1995], 266); H.J.W. Drijvers, “Edessa und

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The Doctrina is full of anachronistic features; the author, who probably worked in the late fourth cent. in Edessa, claims that he used the local archives, and in particular some records written down by the scribe Labûbna, the son of Sennaq, the son of Abshadar, and says that the royal archivist, Hannān, had testified to their accuracy: in fact, he appears in the narrative as a contemporary of the events narrated. The introduction of the Doctrina presents this document as “paper of King Abgar son of king Macnu.” At the very end of the document Labûbna is referred to as “the king’s scribe [sâprâ d-malkâ], the one writing down these things of Addai, the apostle.” It is to be noticed that Labûbna is mentioned before as one of the aristocrats of Edessa; according to Traina, he was King Abgar the Great’s scribe, in the Severan age.5 das jüdische Christentum” (VChr 24 [1970]) 3-33: 31 = in Id. East of Antioch, II (London: Variorum Repr., 1984), 4-33; Id., “Addai und Mani,” in II Symposium Syriacum 1980, OCA 221, ed. R. Lavenant (Roma: Pontificio Istituto di Studi Orientali, 1983), 171-85; M. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze, Oriens et Occidens 9 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005), 225-268 on Edessa, further on Palmira, Osrhoene, Middle Euphrates, cultural contacts between Greeks and Eastern peoples, Rome and Iran, pagans, Jews and Christians, the “Romanization” of the Near East. I acknowledge the first indication of this study and other helpful remarks to Andreas Luther, to whom I am very grateful. Eusebius mentions the mission of Thaddeus to Edessa also in his Mart. Pal. 2. 1. 7. See S.C. Mimouni, “Le judéo-christianisme syriaque,” in VI Symposium Syriacum 1992, OCA 247, ed. R. Lavenant (Roma: Pont. Ist. Studi Orientali, 1994), 269-80; J. González Núñez, La leyenda del rey Abgar y Jesús. Orígenes del cristianismo en Edesa (Madrid: Ciudad Nueva, 1995), 31. The sources of the Abgar story in Eusebius are collected by M. Amerise, “La scrittura e l’immagine nella cultura tardoantica” (OCP 67 [2001]), 437-45. On the origins of Syriac Christianity see also M. Walsh, Christen und Cäsaren. Die Geschichte des frühen Christentums (Freiburg-Würzburg: Ploetz, 1988), 12426. 5 G. Traina, “Materiali per un commento a Movsês Xorenacci, Patmutciwn Hayocc,” I (Le Muséon 108 [1995]), 179-333: 293. The Edessan leaders are named before Addai’s address to the people of the city: see my “Edessa e i Romani tra Augusto e i Severi” (Aevum 73 [1999]), 107-43: 125 n. 40. E.g. we find Paqor, a Parthian name (and that of an Edessan king who ruled about 30 BC), Abd Shamash (‘the Sun’s servant’, a name that appears in an Edessan mosaic: Segal, Edessa, 39-41), Shamashgram, also mentioned in the Doctrina as Abgar’s envoy; Abdû (see below); Bar

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Hannān is mentioned at the end of the Doctrina, together with Labûbna, as “the king’s trustworthy archivist” (tabûlârâ sharrîrâ dmalkâ), who “set down the hand of witness.” It deserves attention that he too has an important part in the story of Abgar’s alleged embassy to Jesus. Most recently, Alexander Mirkovic6 studied the Doctrina and, on the basis of language, images and social relations here depicted, convincingly demonstrated that this fiction was written in the IV cent., even though the narrative action is situated in the I cent. This pseudepigraphon, according to Mirkovic, reflects an important phase in the process of Romanization and Christianization of the Syrian aristocracy:7 for this reason Addai’s mission is chiefly directed to the members of the Edessan aristocracy and to the king himself, who in the Doctrina looks more like a Roman governor than a ruler of an independent kingdom. The author shows how Kalbā (see González, Leyenda, 102 n. 119); Agustina and Shalmat, Meherdat’s daughter. The last appears two more times in the Doctrina and might be the Meherdates mentioned by Tac. Ann. 12. 12-14 as the Parthian king chosen by the Romans and betrayed by Abgar. In chap. 35, together with Labûbna’s one, we find the names of Awidā (Sennak in the Doctrina is son of Awidā), Labbû, Hafsai, a name attested in Edessa and Doura Europos: see H.J.W. Drijvers, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene, in Handbuch der Orientalistik 1.24 (Leiden-Boston-Köln: Brill, 1999), 237-48: nr. 6, 9, 55; Garmai, a name that occurs in Semitic inscriptions (ibid, 33-34); Bar Shamash, ‘the Sun’s son’, attested in Edessan inscriptions (ibid. 23; 40); Hesron, a Semitic name also occurring in Edessan inscriptions (González, Leyenda, 104 n. 127); Piroz, the name of a Sassanid king (according to Moses of Chorene, Abgar was kindred with Ardashir’s family); in “Piroz of Patriq” Patriq is the transliteration of Patríkios or Patricius. 6 A. Mirkovic, “Political Rhetoric of Labûbna,” presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, Atlanta, Nov. 22-25 2003, section Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism. See then his Prelude to Constantine: The Abgar Tradition in Early Christianity (Frankfurt: Lang, 2004). 7 These two processes in Mesopotamia seem to be strictly associated in several sources: cf. M. Sordi, Il Cristianesimo e Roma (Bologna: Cappelli, 1965), 478-79; my Il Chronicon di Arbela, Anejos de ‘Ilu VIII, (Madrid, Univ. Complutense, 2002), introduction. For this process at the beginning of the imperial age: R. MacMullen, Romanization in the Time of Augustus (New Haven: Yale UP, 2000).

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aristocratic circles became divided at the arrival of the apostle, but assures the Roman authorities that the Christian church is a good place for the young nobles and will make them into loyal Romans. In fact, Labûbna presents Syrians, whose political loyalty to Rome was doubtful,8 as Romans. So he seems to call his community to participate in the new Roman order of Constantine; this attitude fits the emperor’s political platform of the restoration of Augustus’ Golden Age (reparatio saeculi). The most evident allusion to Constantine’s time in the Doctrina is the story, told by Addai to Abgar, of the inventio crucis by Protonike—the alleged wife of the emperor Claudius converted in Rome by Simon, who worked miracles in Jesus’ name—, who clearly is a double of St. Helena, Constantine’s mother.9 Sidney H. Griffith too thinks that the author of the Doctrina probably wrote in the late fourth cent. or at the beginning of the fifth—he suggests the reign of Theodosius II, 408-450—, and sees in his enterprise “an apologetic, and perhaps even a polemical agenda, pertinent to the author’s own time and place.”10 He thinks that the author’s aim was to put forward a paradigm of normative 8 I show this in the case of Abgar the Black’s foreign politics in “Edessa,” 107-43; “Abgar Ukkamâ e Abgar il Grande alla luce di recenti apporti storiografici” (Aevum 78 [2004]), 103-8. For the Oriental gentes and their relationship with the Roman Empire after the Constitutio Antoniniana: G. Traina, “Le gentes d’Oriente fra identità e integrazione” (AntTard 9 [2001]), 71-80. 9 See J. W. Drijvers, “The Protonike legend, the Doctrina Addai, and bishop Rabbula of Edessa” (VChr 51 [1997]), 298-315. In Jerusalem, with Bishop Jacob’s help, Protonike found three crosses, and her daughter, dead, revived when the third one touched her. Protonike gave this cross to Jacob and ordered to build a great church over Golgotha and Jesus’ tomb. Then she returned to Rome: when Claudius heard of what had happened, “he commanded all the Jews to leave the country of Italy.” This is an echo of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in AD 49: “Claudius Iudaeos impulsore Chresto adsidue tumultuantes Roma expulit” (Suet. Claud. 25. 4; Horos. 7. 6. 15-16). See M. Sordi, I Cristiani e l’Impero romano (Milano: Jaca, 1983), 31-32; G. Jossa, Giudei o Cristiani? I seguaci di Gesù in cerca di una propria identità (Brescia: Paideia, 2004), 17879. 10 Griffith, “The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in Edessa in the Fifth Century” (Hugoye 6:2 [2003]), §§ 1-46; I quote from § 1.

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Edessan Christianity, supported by local ecclesiastical and historical lore: he hoped that this paradigm would play an authoritative role in the Christological controversies of his own time. In this perspective, the most important part of the document seems to be, not the Abgar legend, but the long accounts of Addai’s sermons and speeches in which he delivers the Christian message in Edessa, and which appear more central from the narratological point of view.11 It is not by chance that the author calls his work malpānûtâ “teaching” (Doctrina in the Latin title), and not tash‘îtâ, “history.”12 In fact, if Mirkovic focuses his attention more on the political aspect, Griffith seems to privilege the religious one. Thus, their points of view are largely complementary. Griffith mentions several anachronisms in the Doctrina, such as the author’s assumption that a Caesar is subordinate to an Augustus in the Roman empire, a situation that is historically true from the time of Diocletian and Constantine onward. The mention of Tatian’s Diatessaron (“Every day many people used to assemble to come to the prayer of the liturgy and to the Old Testament and the New of the Diatessaron”)13 also suggests that the author of our document is alleging the historical authority of the Diatessaron, perhaps used for quotations also in the letters exchanged between Abgar and Jesus, and is Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 3. Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 46. 13 Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 31. In Cureton’s ms., Documents, 15, the name is ditonron, which the editor, ibid. 158, identifies with the Diatessaron, on which see e.g. W. Henss, Das Verhältnis zwischen Diatessaron, christliche Gnosis und ‘western Text’, Beihefte zur ZNW 33 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967); W.L. Petersen, Diatessaron and Ephraem Syrus as Sources of Romanos the Melodist, CSCO, Subs. 4 (Louvain: Peeters, 1985); K. Luke, “Tatian’s Diatessaron” (Indian Journ. Theology 27 [1990]), 175-91; W. Petersen, “Diatessaron,” in Anchor Dict. of the Bible, 2 (1992), 189-90; Id., Tatian’s Diatessaron (Leiden: Brill, 1994); Id., “The Diatessaron of Tatian,” in The Text of the NT in Contemporary Research, Studies and Documents 46, edd. B.D. Ehrman-M.W. Holmes (Grand Rapids: Wipf&Stock, 1995), 77-96; T. Baarda, Essays on the Diatessaron (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994); J.P. Lyon, Syriac Gospel Translations, CSCO 548, Subsidia 88 (Louvain: Peeters, 1994); M.E. Boismard, Le Diatessaron, Études Bibliques 15 (Paris: Gabalda, 1995); R.F. Shedinger, Tatian and the Jewish Scriptures, CSCO 591, Subs. 108 (Louvain: Peeters, 2001). On the Diatessaron in Edessan milieu cf. N. Perrin, Thomas and Tatian (Atlanta: SBL, 2003). 11 12

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taking a position in the fifth-cent. controversy about the Diatessaron: at the time of bishop Rabbûlā of Edessa (411/2-435/6) a campaign was waged in the city to ban the Diatessaron and to replace it with the Peshitta version of the Gospels.14 Another interesting point is the author’s concern to refute the claims of the Manichaeans in Edessa: it corresponds to Ephrem’s polemic in the late fourth cent. in this city,15 though he does not mention either Mani or Bardaiṣan or Marcion, who were all dangerous, or regarded to be such, to orthodoxy.16 Another element can be taken from the Christology that emerges in the Doctrina. Even if no heresiarch is named, from many of Addai’s assertions it seems clear that he preaches the Nicene faith, e.g.: “the Son of God is God;” “God was crucified for all people.” Not only does Addai’s preaching correspond to Ephrem’s theological ideas,17 but the latter affirmation, according

14 See M. Blac, “Rabbula of Edessa and the Peshitta” (BJRL 33 [1951]), 203-10. Survey in B.D. De Lacy O’Leary, The Syriac Church and Fathers (London: Society for Promoting Christian Studies 1909; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2002), 94-98. 15 See H.J.W. Drijvers, “Facts and problems in early Syriac-speaking Christianity” (SCent 2 [1982]), 157-75, who reconsiders the Doctrina and related texts to investigate the historical basis of Syriac-speaking Christianity; S.H. Griffith, “The ‘Thorn among the Tares’: Mani and Manichaeism in the Works of S. Ephraem the Syrian,” in StPatr XXXV, eds. M.F. Wiles-E.J. Yarnold (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 403-35; Id., “The Doctrina,” § 35. 16 Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 35. Drijvers, “Facts,” 157-75, also notes the similarity between the Addai-Abgar relationship and the Mani-Shapur I one. Bardaiṣan’s community flourished in Edessa till the early fifth cent. (U. Possekel, “Formative Christianity in Edessa,” delivered at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, Atlanta, Nov. 22-25 2003, section Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism), so the author of the Doctrina may have been interested in mentioning him. A survey and reassessment of the sources on Bardaiṣan and his “heterodoxy” is offered by me in Bardais?an of Edessa: A Reassessment of the Evidence and a Reinterpretation. Also in the Light of Origen and the Original Fragments from De India (forthcoming in Piscataway: Gorgias Press). A recent valuable contribution to Bardaiṣan’s selfunderstanding as Christian theologian is U. Possekel, “Bardaisan of Edessa: Philosopher or Theologian?” (ZAC 10,3 [2007]), 442-461. 17 Griffith, “The Marks of the ‘True Church’ according to Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” in After Bardaiṣan: Studies H.J.W. Drijvers,

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to Griffith, seems to reflect the position of the miaphysites.18 So Griffith suggests that the author propounds the Christological views associated with Cyril of Alexandria’s teaching, in the context of the controversies of his own day, and in particular in the time of bishop Rabbûlā of Edessa.19 Also the emphasis on some ascetical aspects and the care of the poor and sick seems to reflect conceptions of Aphrahat, Ephrem, and hagiographical texts of the fifth cent.: Addai doesn’t accept wealth from Abgar, neither rich burial clothes, although the king supports the building of the local church and Addai’s ministries; he recommends his disciples not to love “the profits of this world,” and in fact “they did not take silver or gold from any man […] they were splendidly chaste, pure and holy […] splendidly engaged […] in taking on the burden of the poor, in visiting the sick.” So, Griffith concludes, “the period that in the ensemble they most immediately suggest is the first third of the fifth century, and perhaps, more specifically, the time of Bishop Rabbula.”20 Han J.W. Drijvers thinks that the final version of the Doctrina is probably due to Rabbûlā himself.21 Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 89, eds G.J. Reinink-A.C. Klugkist (Leuven: Peeters, Department Oosterse Studies, 1999), 125-40. 18 Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 40. For the Miaphysites in Syriac area now: L. Van Rompay, “Syrian Christianity in the Age of Justinian: Continuity and Redefinition,” presented at the SBL Annual Meeting, Atlanta, November 25 2003. 19 On Rabbûlā see G.G. Blum, Rabbula von Edessa, CSCO 600, Subs. 34 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CSCO, 1969); H.J.W. Drijvers, “Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa,” in Portraits of Spiritual Authority, eds. J.W. DrijversJ.W. Watt (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 130-54; G.W. Bowersock, “The Syriac Life of Rabbula and Syrian Hellenism,” in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, eds. Th. Hägg-Ph. Rousseau (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000), 255-71. 20 Griffith, “The Doctrina,” §§ 41-42; 45; Id., “Asceticism in the Church of Syria,” in V.L. Wimbush-R. Valantasis (eds.), Asceticism (New York: OUP, 1995), 220-45; R.A. Kitchen, “The Pearl of Virginity” (Hugoye 7:2 [2004]), §§ 1-35; H.J.W. Drijvers, “The Man of God of Edessa, Bishop Rabbula, and the Urban Poor” (JECS 4 [1996]), 235-48. 21 H.J.W. Drijvers, “The Image of Edessa in the Syriac Tradition,” in The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation, eds H.L. Kessler-G. Wolf (Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1998), 13-31: 15-16. On uses of the Abgar legend in Syriac historiography see L. van Rompay, “Jacob of Edessa and the Early History of Edessa,” in Reinink-Klugkist, After Bardaiṣan, 279-81.

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I agree with the late dating of the final redaction of the document, but I think that there may be also some historical traces in the Doctrina, mixed up with later fictional material. In particular, my attention is attracted by the correspondence between Abgar ‘the Black’ and Tiberius, the emperor.22 This section appears to be an isolated nucleus in the narrative texture, originally not belonging to the Abgar legend and integrated into it with difficulty: with a “laborieuse soudure” in the case of ms. Syr. Sin. 30.23 This might be a historical trace integrated in the narrative frame. I shall point out that, while absent in Eusebius, it is present also in Moses of Chorene and, in an abbreviated form, in a Syriac Transitus Mariae.24 Of Abgar’s historical figure I endeavored to offer a thorough reconstruction in “Edessa” and “Abgar.” On the possible historicity of his exchange of letters with Tiberius see also my “Alcune osservazioni sulle origini del Cristianesimo nelle regioni ad est dell’Eufrate,” in La diffusione dell’eredità classica nell’età tardoantica e medioevale, eds. R.B. Finazzi-A. Valvo (Alessandria: Orso, 1998), 209-25. 23 So Desreumaux, La doctrine, 185. 24 Mary’s Getting out from the World and Jesus’ Birth and Childhood: Cureton, Documents, 110-12. On the Transitus Mariae tradition, fifth to eighth cent. AD, see S.C. Mimouni, La tradition grecque de la Dormition et de l’Assomption de Marie (Paris: Cerf, 2003); S.J. Shoemaker, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford: OUP, 2002); according to E. Testa, “L’origine e lo sviluppo della Dormitio Mariae” (Aug. 23 [1983]), 249-62, the Transitus Mariae, typical of the literary genre of funeral praise, on the anniversary of a dies natalis (on which see my “Osservazioni sul concetto di ‘giorno natalizio’ nel mondo greco e romano” (‘Ilu 6 [2001]), 169-81) is composed by three groups of texts produced in different times by the Church of Jerusalem: Ebionite period (II-IV cent.), period of a faint miaphysitism (IV-V cent.), period of the Henotikon (V-VII cent.). This genre is closely related to the Apocalypses of the Virgin: S.C. Mimouni, “Les Apocalypses de la Vierge” (Apocrypha 4 [1993]), 101-12. According to M. Clayton, “The transitus Mariae: the tradition and its origins” (ibid. 10 [1999]), 74-98, the Syriac tradition is very important and has specific features. According to Bagatti and Manns, all these apocrypha might derive from a Jewish-Christian milieu and depend on one single document not later than the second cent. AD. Among the Syriac versions we can distinguish the Transitus a (V cent.); B (V cent.); C (V-VI cent.); D (VI-VII cent.). See B. Bagatti-M. Piccirillo-A. Prodromo, New Discoveries at the Tomb of Virgin Mary in Gethsemane, Collectio Minor 17 (Jerusalem: SBF, 1975), 57-58; B. Bagatti, “Le due 22

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It is set in the broader context of the legend of the correspondence25 between Jesus and king Abgar ‘the Black’,26 who ruled Edessa from 4 BC to AD 7 and then, after an interruption attributed to the usurper Macnu IV, again AD 13 to 50. At least, this is the chronology of von Gutschmid and many other scholars,27 based on the list of Edessan kings included in the Syriac redazioni del Transitus Mariae” (Marianum 32 [1970]), 279-87; Id., “Ricerche sulle tradizioni della morte della Vergine” (Sacra Doctrina 69-70 [1973]), 185-214; S. Mimouni, “Histoire de la recherche relative aux traditions littéraires et topologiques sur le sort final de Marie” (Marianum 149 [1996]), 168-71. Id., “De l’Ascension du Christ à l’Assomption de la Vierge,” in Marie, edd. D. Iogna-Prat, E. Palazzo, D. Russo (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996). 25 Regarded as spurious by Fathers and Councils: see my “Le origini,” 209-10; Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti, ed. N. Geerard (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), 65-89; I. Karaulashvili, “The Date of the Epistula Abgari” (Apocrypha 13 [2002]), 85-110; V. Ruggieri, “La flessione della scrittura,” in Comunicazione e ricezione del documento cristiano (Roma: Augustinianum, 2004), 75-87: 79-82; E. Giannarelli, “Quando a scrivere è Cristo,” ibid. 279-90: 279-87. 26 Ukkamâ means “black,” or perhaps “blindness.” The Semitic name Abgar is an elative form of the ‘a12a3 kind from BGR: cf. class. Arab ‘abjar = “pot-belly, with inguinal hernia:” J.K. Stark, Personal Names in Palmyrene Inscriptions (Oxford: OUP, 1971), 63a. The Armenian etymology in Moses, PH 2.26, from awag-ayr, “great man” (according to Moses misunderstood by Greeks and Syrians), is imaginary. 27 A. von Gutschmid, “Untersuchungen über die Geschichte des Königreichs Osrhoene,” Mémoires de l’Académie de St.-Pétersbourg, 35 (St. Petersburg-Riga-Leipzig, 1887); H. Leclercq, “Édesse,” in DACL IV (1921), 2058-110: 2064-65; E. Kirsten, “Edessa,” in RAC IV (1959), 55597: 555 and 590; H.J.W. Drijvers, “Hatra, Palmyra und Edessa,” in ANRW II 8 (1977), 799-906: 872; Égérie, Journal de voyage ed. P. Maraval, SCh 296 (Paris: Cerf, 1982), 296 n. 1; M.L. Chaumont, La christianisation de l’Empire iranien, CSCO, Subs. 80 (Louvain: Peeters, 1988), 14-16; González, Leyenda, 26; C. Moreschini-E. Norelli, Storia della letteratura cristiana antica, II 1 (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1996), 319; Griffith too (“The Doctrina,” § 1) and Giannarelli (“Quando a scrivere,” 280) and Jullien (Apôtres, 124) accept this chronology. In my “Edessa,” 109, I supposed two different, homonymic historical figures identified by ancient sources: one who ruled in the Augustan age and the other in the Tiberian and Claudian age.

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chronicle of Ps. Dionysius of Tell-Mahre or Chronicle of Zuqnîn, written in 77628, and on a synchronism29). But it is more probable that Abgar ruled AD 22 to 25, for three years and a month, and then, after Abgar Ḥewârâ’s usurpation, again AD 31/2 to 65/6, according to Luther’s recent hypothesis30 based on the list of the kings (yubālâ d-malke) of Edessa included in the Chronicle of Eliah of Nisibis.31 The latter dating fits the total 38 years of Abgar’s reign attested by Moses, PH 2. 34.32 Shortly before Jesus’ passion, Abgar sent two of his nobles, Maryahb and Shamashgram,33 and his archivist34 Hannān to W. Witakowski, The Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Maḥrê (Uppsala: Universitas Upsaliensis, 1987). On Syriac chronography see E.I. Yousif, Les chroniqueurs syriaques (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002). 29 The six-year interruption is attested in Ps. Dionysius; 4 BC was fixed on the basis of the Armenian version of Abgar’s legend, according to which the supposed correspondence between Abgar and Jesus took place in the 32nd year of Abgar’s reign = 14th year of Tiberius’ reign = AD 27/8. 30 A. Luther, “Elias von Nisibis und die Chronologie der edessenischen Könige” (Klio 81 [1999]), 180-98; cf. Drijvers, Inscriptions, 237-48, and my “Abgar.” 31 Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum, pars prior, ed. E.W. Brooks, CSCO 62, Syri 21; tr. 63, Syri 23 (Louvain: Imprimerie orientaliste L. Durbecq, 1954). 32 For a possible allusion in Juvenal, see my “Nota per le fonti della persecuzione anticristiana di Nerone” (ETF 14 [2001]), 59-67; Ead., “Dione di Prusa Giovenale, e l’impressione probabilmente suscitata da aleuni supplizi delle prime persecuzioni anticristiane” Augustinianum 45 (2005), 35-45. 33 Theophoric names of Aramaic origin, respectively meaning: “the Lord gave” and “Shamash decided.” For other names with “Shamash” (Syr. shemshâ = “sun”), see Drijvers, Inscriptions, 22; 47. Addai in the Doctrina blames the Edessan people because they adore the sun; according to Josephus, AI 18. 6; 19. 8, a Sampsigeramos was king of Emesa and Aristobulus’ father-in-law. 34 He is called ṭabûlārâ sharrîrâ: the first term corresponds to tabularius, “secretary,” while Eusebius calls Ananias (= Hannān) takhudromos, like Moses, PH 2. 32: surhandak, “courier.” See Traina, “Movsês,” 293 n. 65, who proposes a different vocalization in Syriac, so to obtain the transliteration of tabellarius, “courier.” In the narration Hannān seems to be both courier and secretary. According to Segal, Edessa, 20, sharrîrâ means the king’s confidant: this is the interpretation 28

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“Sabinus son of Eustorgius” (the Roman governor who ruled Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine and Mesopotamia) in Eleutheropolis in Palestine on political affairs. He received them with joy and honour and sent a letter to Abgar. On their way back home they took the road to Jerusalem, where they saw Jesus and heard of his miracles; according to Thomas Ardzrouni, an Armenian historian of the tenth cent., Abgar’s evoys belonged to the group of Gentiles who asked Philip to present them to Jesus according to John 12:20-22. González thinks that Thomas surely derived these data from ancient sources:35 I suppose that he drew them from Moses, who in PH 2.31 says that Abgar’s envoys were the Gentiles of the Gospel episode. Back in Edessa, they informed Abgar, who stated: “These powers are not of men but of God. For there is no one who can revivify the dead, except God alone,” the first Christological statement in the Doctrina.36 So Abgar sent envoys to Palestine with given by Moses too, who describes Hannān as “confidant.” On bilingualism in ancient Syriac speaking area see D.G.K. Taylor, “Bilingualism and Diglossia in Late Antique Syria and Mesopotamia,” in Bilingualism in Ancient Society, eds. J.N. Adams-M. Janse-S. Swain (Oxford: OUP, 2002), 298-331; for Aramaic-Greek bilingualism in the I-II cent. AD see H.M. Cotton, “Survival, Adaptation and Extinction: Nabatean and Jewish Aramaic versus Greek in the legal documents from the Cave of Letters in Nahal Hever,” in Sprache und Kultur in der kaiserzeitlichen Provinz Arabia, ed. L. Schumacher and O. Stoll. Mainzer althistorische Studien 4. (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag, 2003), chap. 1. On the name Ananias see González, Leyenda, 75 n. 13. Ananias is also the Christian Jew who baptized Paul in Acts 9:10-19 and who is said to have preached in Eleutheropolis, where Peter ‘Abshlama’s martyrdom took place (the last name occurs in the Doctrina). 35 González, Leyenda, 76 n. 19. In Acts 2:5 we read that in AD 30 in Jerusalem there were many Jews coming from everywhere, also from Mesopotamia and Cappadocia (ibid. 2:9-12): it is very probable that Jews from Osrhoene too (in Mesopotamia, near Cappadocia) visited Jerusalem in AD 30 and then, back home, related what they saw and heard. For the importance of these Jews who listened to Peter’s first preaching in Jerusalem in relation to the early spread of Christianity see C.P. Thiede, Ein Fisch für den römischen Kaiser (München: Luchterhand, 1998), 120 and passim. 36 See Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 6; another is in Abgar’s letter to Jesus: “When I heard of the great wonders that you do, I decided either that you are God […] or that you are the Son of God.” And then these

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a letter for Jesus, written down by Hannān: the king, who was ill, asked Jesus to come to Edessa, in order to heal him and find refuge from the Jews, who wanted to kill him. Jesus received and read the letter on Nisan 12, in the house of Gamaliel, intended to be St. Paul’s teacher, the rabbi who spoke to the Sanhedrin in favor of the Apostles (Acts 5:34; 22:3) and who in NT apocrypha is for Jesus and his disciples.37 Jesus didn’t go to Edessa, but sent a message to Abgar, written by Hannān,38 in which he promised to statemens multiply in the words of Abgar and above all in Addai’s teaching, addressed both to Abgar and to the people (see ibid., § 14). The king himself instructed the apostle to address all the people, “that they might know that the Son of God is God.” Cf. T. Anikuzhakattil, Jesus Christ the Saviour. Soteriology according to East Syriac Tradition (Satna: Ephrem, 2002); A. Grillmeier, Jesus der Christus im Glauben der Kirche, II.3, ed. T. Hainthaler (Freiburg: Herder, 2002); Dieu Miséricorde, Dieu Amour. Actes du Colloque VIII, Patrimoine syriaque 1-2 (Antélias, CERO 2003); G. Thumpanirappel, Christ in the East Syriac Tradition (Satna: Ephrem, 2003). Relation to the Holy Spirit: E. Kaniyamparampil, The Spirit of Life. A Study of the Holy Spirit in the Early Syriac Tradition (Kottayam: Oriental Institute Religious Studies, 2003); D.W. Winkler, Ostsyrisches Christentum, Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 26 (Münster: LIT, 2003). 37 See e.g. M. Erbetta, Gli Apocrifi del NT, I, 2 (Casale: Marietti, 19832), 344-66. A little further in the Doctrina, Jesus replied to Abgar while he was in the High Priest’s house (a similar version is in the Acts of Mari, 2, which at the beginning present a parallel account of the letters exchanged between Abgar and Jesus and Addai’s coming to Edessa and his preaching there: see below). It would be Gamaliel, again: he was not hostile to Jesus and the Christians, but he was no High Priest; maybe the Syriac text means, more generically, an important priest. 38 According to Eusebius, Jesus himself wrote the letter; according to Moses, Thomas wrote it for him. Moreover, in the Doctrina, the Acta Maris, 2, and the Peregrinatio Aegeriae, 19, 9, Jesus promises the invincibility of Edessa, a clause absent in Eusebius and Moses. On the Acta Maris see my Atti di Mari (Brescia: Paideia, 2007). On the Peregrinatio (381-4 or 385-8), see R. Gelsomino, “Egeria, 381-384 d.C.” (Helikon 2227 [1982-87]), 437-53; H. Sivan, “Holy Land Pilgrimage and Western Audiences” (CQ 38 [1988]), 528-35; Id., “Who was Egeria?” (HThR 81 [1988]), 59-72; C. Weber, “Egeria’s Norman homeland” (HSPh 92 [1989]), 437-56; F. Cardini, “Egeria, la pellegrina,” in Medioevo al femminile, ed. F. Bertini (Bari: Laterza, 1989), 3-30; Atti del Convegno sulla Peregrinatio Aegeriae, Arezzo 23-25.X.87 (Arezzo: Accad. Petrarca, 1990);

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send a disciple of his to Edessa after his ascension.39 (This P. Smiraglia, “Un indizio per la cronologia relativa delle due parti dell’Itinerarium di Egeria,” in Studi G. Monaco, IV (Palermo: Fac. di Lettere e Filos., 1991), 1491-96; Egeria, Diario di viaggio, trans. E. Giannarelli (Torino: Paoline, 1992); A. Palmer, “Egeria the voyager,” in Travel fact and travel fiction, ed. Z. v. Martels (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 39-53; H.J. Westra, “The pilgrim Egeria’s concept of place” (MLatJb 30 [1995]), 93-100; M. Mulzer, “Mit der Bibel in der Hand?” (ZPalV 112 [1996]), 156-64; Moreschini-Norelli, Storia, II, I (1996), 496-99; A. Doval, “The Date of Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catecheses” (JThS 48 [1997]), 129-32; D. Gagliardi, “Sul latino di Egeria” (Koinonia 21 [1997]), 105-16; A. López, “Mujeres en busca de la palabra” (FlorIlib 10 [1999]), 163-86; Egeria, Pellegrinaggio in Terra Santa, ed. N. Natalucci (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1999); M. Giebel, “Friedensbrief und Pilgerflasche” (Anregung 46 [2000]), 400-8; my “Edessa,” 127-28. Egeria visited Edessa (Per. 19. 2-19) and saw the church and the royal palace (“palatium Aggari regis,” probably that of Abgar the Great, also attested by the Chronicon Edessenum, 1 and 9) with the ancient marble portraits (archiotepae) of Abgar (“rex Aggarus, qui antequam videret Dominum, credidit ei, quia esset vere filius Dei”) and his son Macnû (Magnus). She is informed by the bishop of the Abgar-Jesus correspondence, which took place per Ananiam cursorem. As evidence of the invincibility of Edessa, an episode of Abgar’s day is narrated, concerning the siege laid to Edessa by the “Persians” and the salvation of the city thanks to Jesus’ letter; many other times, later on, Edessa was saved by this promise (Per. 13). Egeria also visited Abgar’s tomb and was given a copy of Abgar’s and Jesus’ letters. Such was the veneration for Jesus’ letter in Edessa in the fourth cent. that the gate through which Ananias brought it into the city was kept in a perpetual ritual pureness (Per. 18); on ritual pureness in early Christianity: U. Volp, Tod und Ritual in den christlichen Gemeinden der Antike, VCSuppl. 65 (Leiden: Brill, 2002). The same clause of the invincibility also appears in five Greek inscriptions reproducing Abgar’s letter more ancient than the Peregrinatio and Eusebius: this leads to suppose that it was Eusebius who curtailed the Edessan material on which he was working, taken from the archives of Edessa (the same as that provided and checked by Labûbna and Hannān). 39 The sources on the correspondence are in H. Leclercq, “Abgar,” in DACL, I (1924), 2058-110; also R.A. Lipsius, Die edessenische Abgarsage (Braunschweig 1880); E. von Rohden, “Abgar V Ukkama,” in PW, I (1894), 94; G. Eldarov, “Abgar V,” in Bibliotheca Sanctorum, I (Roma: Città Nuova Editrice, 1961), 75-76; M. Erbetta, Gli Apocrifi del NT, III (Casale: Marietti, 1966), 77-84: 78; Drijvers, “Abgar Legend;” W. Cramer, “Abgar,” in LThK, I (19932), 48-49; my “Edessa,” 124; n. 35.

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narration has many points in common with those of Moses and Eusebius: e.g. the envoys’ names, their trip to Eleutheropolis, the figure of Sabinus son of Eustorgius, who becomes Marinus son of Storog in Moses, with the same powers of L. Vitellius in Orient in AD 35-37; the good reception given by the Roman governor to Abgar’s envoys, present in Moses too; Hannān/Ananias as intermediary between Abgar and Jesus, in Eusebius as well.) Thus, Addai, “one of the 72 apostles,”40 then called shlîhâ, “apostle,” himself throughout the Doctrina, was sent by Judas Thomas, one of the Twelve,41 to Edessa, where he dwelled “in the house of Tobias, the son of Tobias the Jew, who was from Palestine”42—he appears 40 Cf. Luke 10:1, where duo is after hebdomêkonta in Marcion, Tatian (Ephrem’s commentary, Italian, Dutch tr.), P45 (London, IIIrd cent.), B (Vatican, IVth cent.), D (Cambridge, VIth cent.), M (London-Hamburg, IXth cent.) 1604 (Athos, XIIth cent.) s (codex of the Vetus Latina, Milan, Bibl. Ambros. VIIth-VIIIth cent.), e (Vet. Lat., Trento, IVth-Vth cent.) a (Vet. Lat., Vercelli, IVth cent.) c (Vet. Lat., Paris, XIIth cent.), l (Vet. Lat., Breslau, VIIIth cent.) r2 (Vet. Lat., Dublin, IXth cent.), the Vulgate, the ancient Syriac versions, the Armenian version, Adamantius and Epipanius; duo is missing in the other mss., in Irenaeus (Greek text) and Origen (Latin text). So, the Syriac Doctrina has the same text as Tatian and the ancient Syriac versions. Cf., ad l., Nuovo Testamento greco e italiano, eds. A. Merk-G. Barbaglio (Bologna: Dehoniane, 19912). 41 Thomas is the protagonist of a tradition of evangelization in the East (Parthia and India) linked to the Church of Edessa: see my “Note sulle origini del Cristianesimo in India” (SCO 47 [2000]), 363-78; C. Dognini-Ead., Gli Apostoli in India nella Patristica e nella letteratura sanscrita (Milano: Medusa, 2001), esp. my chap. 4 on Thomas and his Acts (connected with Edessa), on which see A.F.J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, NTSuppl 108 (Leiden: Brill, 20032); A.D. Deconick, Voices of the Mystics, JSOT Suppl. 157 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 2001). On the Gospel of Thomas see e.g. B. Ehlers, “Kann das Thomasevangelium aus Edessa stammen?” (NT 12 [1970]), 284-317; S. Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom (New York: Seabury, 1983); R. Cameron, “The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins,” in The Future of Early Christianity. Essays H. Koester, eds. B. Pearson-A. Kraabel et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 381-92. 42 This Jewish connection for early Christianity in Edessa seems to be in contrast with anti-Semitism in the Doctrina (see below). Our document says that after Addai’s preaching in Edessa “even the Jews who were learned in the Law and Prophets, who traded in silk, submitted and

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became followers and confessed that the Messiah is the Son of the Living God.” I think that all this might have a historical nucleus, especially if we consider the role of Jews, and in particular traders, in the first christianization of Eastern regions, as results from the Acts of Thomas and other documents concerning the arrival of Christianity in India (in which Edessa probably had an important part): see my chapters in DogniniRamelli, Apostoli; A. Harrak, “Trade Routes and the Christianization of the Near East,” in The Origins of Syriac Christianity: First Symposium of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies, Nov. 24 2001, according to whom Christianity first spread throughout Syria and Mesopotamia along trade routes thanks to merchants (whose importance in the ancient world is studied in C. Zaccagnini, ed., Mercanti e politica nel mondo antico, Roma: Erma, 2003; cf. K. Ruffing, “Wege in den Osten,” in Stuttgarter Kolloquium zur historischen Geographie des Altertums 7 [Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002], 360-78). See also Jullien, Apôtres; J. Yacoub, Babylone chrétienne (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1996); my Il Chronicon, introduction; my “Il Chronicon di Arbela: una messa a punto storiografica” (Aevum 80 [2006]), 145-164. On Jewish Christianity see S.C. Mimouni, “Judéo-christianisme;” Id., “Pour une définition nouvelle du judéo-christianisme ancien” (NTS 38 [1992]), 16186: 184: Jewish Christians were Jews who recognized Jesus as the Messiah but still observed the Jewish Law; Id., Le judéo-christianisme ancien (Paris: Cerf, 1998); R.E. Brown, “Not Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity but Types of Jewish/Gentile Christianity” (CBQ 45 [1983]) 74-79; J.E. Taylor, “The Phenomenon of Jewish-Christianity” (VChr 44 [1990]), 313-34; C. Colpe, Das Siegel der Propheten Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeit-Geschichte 3 (Berlin: Inst. Kirche Judentum 1990); Jews and Christians. The Parting of the Ways AD 70 to 135, ed. J.D.G. Dunn (Tübingen: Eerdman, 1992); Id., The Parting of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism (London: SCM-Philadelphia: Trinity, 1981); L.H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton: UP, 1993); S.G. Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70-170 C.E. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995); Le déchirement. Juifs et chrétiens au premier siècle, éd. G. Marguerat (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1996); Shoemaker, Traditions, 212-32, who thinks that the concept of a “primitive Jewish Christianity” is a scholarly construction developed by Italian and French scholars, esp. J. Daniélou; it is not to be confused with the broader category of “Jewish Christianity,” which is considered still useful. See also Verus Israel. Nuove prospettive sul Giudeocristianesimo, ed. G. Filoramo-C. Gianotto (Brescia: Paideia, 2001); T. Rajak, “Jews and Christians as Groups in a Pagan World,” in Ead., The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2002), part 3; D.K. Buell, “Race and Universalism in Early Christianity” (JECS 10:4 [2002]), 429-68; cf. Ead., “Rethinking the

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also in Eusebius’ parallel passage as Tôbias, and, with a slightly different name, Ṭûbanâ, in the Acts of Mari, 443—, and he preached the Gospel in Abgar’s kingdom. In the meanwhile Hannān, the archivist who accompanied the king’s emissaries to Jesus, painted a portrait of Christ that he brought back to Abgar, who enshrined it in one of his palaces; Moses, 2. 32, asserts that Hannān brought the Saviour’s image to Edessa, while Eusebius does not mention it, probably because he was hostile to representations of God. His silence is not a compelling argument against the supposition that the motif of Jesus’ portrait belongs to the original version of the Abgar legend.44 In Edessa, Addai healed both Abgar and Abdû, as we read in Eusebius and in the Acts of Mari, too. The picture is connected to the manifold legend of Jesus’ portrait present in Edessa in later times, the mandylion or achiropita (here linked to the tradition of Edessa as “Blessed City,” mdintâ mbarraktâ, a title that, according to the Doctrina, seems to be due to Christ’s prayer for Edessa in his letter to Abgar: “As for your city, may it be blessed

Relevance of Race for Early Christian Self-Definition” (HThR 94:4 [2001]), 449-76; M. Pesce, “Quando nasce il Cristianesimo?” (ASE 20 [2003]), 39-56; Eung Chun, Either Jew or Gentile: Paul’s Unfolding Theology of Inclusivity (Westminster: J. Knox, 2003); Jossa, Giudei; a whole session was devoted to Jewish Christianity at the 2007 SBL Annual Meeting, S. Diego, Nov. 17-20. 43 See C.&F. Jullien, Les Actes de Mar Mari (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001); Id., Les Actes de Mâr Mâri, CSCO 602, Syri 234-5 (Louvain: Peeters, 2003); Id., Aux origines de l’Eglise de Perse, CSCO 604, Subs. 114 (ibid. 2003); an Italian transl. with essay and notes is my Atti di Mari; see also Ead., “The First Evangelization of the Mesopotamian Regions in the Syriac Tradition: the Acta Maris as a Continuation of the Doctrina Addai” (Antiguo Oriente 3 [2005]), 11-54; Ead., “The Narrative Continuity between the Teaching of Addai and the Acts of Mari: Two Historical Novels?,” in Framing Plots, Proceedings of the London 2006 Conference, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 189 (2009), 411-450; Ead., “La Doctrina Addai e gli Acta Maris: Note storico-letterarie sui loro rapporti intertestuali” (AION 65 [2005] {2009}), 1-31. 44 Drijvers, Abgarsage, 392. According to the Acts of Thomas (M. Geraard, Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), 245. II, 1; Frede, Kirchenschriftsteller, 90-91; 186) the painter was not able to portray Jesus, who thus impressed his own image on a canvas.

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and may no enemy ever again rule over it”),45 which is the subject of the Byzantine Narratio ascribed to Constantine Porphyrogenitus (X cent.). This work seems to preserve very ancient material, such as the information on the friendship between Abgar, correctly called toparkhês of Edessa, and the prefect of Egypt, in my view probably A. Avillius Flaccus, who ruled Egypt AD 32 to 38—just the years of Vitellius’ mandate in the Near East and of the AbgarTiberius correspondence—and is well known to us thanks to Philo, In Flaccum, 1-3; 25; 40; 116; 158. He was one of the most intimate friends of Tiberius; he was born and grew up in Rome with Augustus’ nieces, obtained the government of Egypt, a direct possession of the emperor, and probably helped the good relationship between Abgar and Tiberius that is evident in their correspondence.46 In fact, the core of this Abgar-Jesus legend seems to be common with the account provided by Eusebius, HE 1.13, who claims that his source was a Syriac document kept in the archives of Edessa: it is probably the same source of the Doctrina,47 and, Analysis of the evidence in my “Dal mandylion di Edessa alla Sindone” (‘Ilu 4 [1999]), 173-93. Also: E. von Dobschütz, Christusbilder (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899); Id., “Der Briefwechsel zwischen Abgar und Jesus” (Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 43 [1900]), 422-86; Drijvers, “The Image,” 13-31; Illert, Doctrina. 46 See my “Edessa,” 128, to which, for prefects of Egypt in the JulioClaudian age, I add L. Capponi, Augustan Egypt. The Creation of a Roman Province (London/New York: Routledge, 2005). 47 See Jullien, Apôtres, 67; on the Edessan archives ibid. 123ff. Discussion in S. Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, eds. H.W. Attridge-G. Hata (Leiden-New York: Brill, 1992), 212-34, with previous bibl.; Ramelli, “Bardesane e la sua scuola.” Already Lipsius, Abgarsage, and Acta Apocrypha, CVI-CXI, said that Eusebius and the Doctrina had, almost partially, the same Edessan sources; so Erbetta, Apocrifi, III, 80: the Doctrina depends on Eusebius but not only on him; Moraldi, Apocrifi, 1647, 1657-58 with bibl.: both Eusebius and the Doctrina depend on the documents of the Edessan archives, which the Doctrina amplifies. A common source is also supposed by Desreumaux, “La Doctrine,” 186; Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” 212-34 appears critical; further bibl. in González, Leyenda, 36 n. 41. On Eusebius as Church historian see F. Winkelmann, “Historiography in the Age of Constantine,” in Greek and Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity, ed. G. Marasco (Leiden 2003), 3-41. On 45

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according to Moses of Chorene, as I shall show, those were the archives that Abgar himself, or more probably a homonymous predecessor of his, conveyed to Edessa, and the archives that preserved the Syriac document that was controlled by the witness Hannān as well, and on which the Doctrina is based. Eusebius says that still in his time in the Edessan archives there were the documents concerning Abgar, and that he translated them from Syriac (ibid. 1.13.5).48 His report does not include the AbgarTiberius correspondence,49 and this suggests that the source of this material may be different—but not necessarily later. Before recording Thaddeus’ mission, he says that King Abgar, “who ruled over the peoples beyond the Euphrates,” was ill when the exchange of letters with Jesus took place, and that Jesus promised him to send a disciple: soon after the Resurrection, Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, sent Thaddeus (= Addai), one of the seventy disciples, to Edessa (HE 1.13.4); in the alleged letters of Abgar and Jesus, Abgaros Oukhama is called toparkhês, the right title used, later, by Procopius too, who, moreover, explains it correctly. There is no mention of letters exchanged with Tiberius, but in Eusebius’ account we find a very interesting trace of the same theme of the Abgar-Tiberius correspondence as recorded in the Doctrina and in Moses: in the conversation between Abgar and Thaddeus, when the apostle asks him to believe, in order to get cured, the Edessan king says: “I would have wished to take armed forces and to destroy the Jews who crucified him if I had not been prevented by the Roman Empire.”50 We read these same words, together with a the reliability of Eusebius’ sources see K. Toyota, “The authenticity of Eusebius’ sources” (YClS 39 [1991]), 92-101. 48 The document was in Syriac; Syriac texts with translations accluded have been found in Mesopotamia; on bilingualism in this region in late antiquity see Taylor, “Bilingualism,” 298-331. 49 For a critical analysis of Eusebius’ account see my “Edessa,” 12122, and, with a new hypothesis, my “Bardesane e la sua scuola.” Eusebius goes on translating the Syriac documents that came after the letters in his papers taken from the Edessan archives (HE 1.13.11); so, he tells the story of Thaddeus’ mission. 50 The same words are in the parallel version of the Abgar story contained in the Syriac Acts of Mari, 4, in the context of the conversation between Abgar and Addai. The “Roman Empire” is here, just as in the Greek text, “the kingdom of the Romans.”

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reference to Abgar’s and his predecessors’ loyalty toward Rome, also in the Doctrina, in the same context: “I would have wished to take armed forces myself and to destroy the Jews who crucified him, but because of the Roman Empire I had respect for the covenant of peace which was established by me, as by my forefathers, with our lord Caesar Tiberius.”51 In fact, Tiberius punished those held responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus—as he says in his letter to Abgar—, and thus did what Abgar had wished. In the Syriac letter to Abgar he says that he has already done something and promises to intervene again in this sense. Whereas the legend of Abgar’s letter to Jesus and of the latter’s response is absolutely unhistorical—even the date given is incorrect,52 and Eleutheropolis did not have this name in the first cent.53—, the correspondence between the Edessan king and the Roman emperor might contain some historical traces. Abgar’s Also see my “Edessa,” 125. The year in which Abgar sent two of his nobles and his archivist to the Roman governor, when on their way back they saw Jesus in Jerusalem for the first time, is said to have been “the year 343 of the Greeks,” or AD 31/2, while Jesus probably died in the spring of AD 30 (see J. Blinzler, Il processo di Gesù [It. tr. Brescia: Paideia, 19662], 85ff.; J.P. Lemonon, Pilate et le gouvernement de la Judée [Paris: Lecoffre-Gabalda, 1981], 133; C.P. Thiede, Jesus. Der Glaube, die Fakten [Augsburg: Sankt Ulrich, 2003]), “Under the reign of our lord the Roman Caesar Tiberius and of king Abgar […] the Black,” according to the Doctrina, Abgar’s appellative was known to Eusebius, too, who indicates the year 340 of the Greeks = AD 29. 53 This Palestinian town, South-West of Jerusalem, also mentioned by Ammian. Marc. 14.8, took this name in AD 199/200, under Septimius Severus, in whose honour it was called Lucia Septimia Severiana Eleutheropolis in Severan coinage (Lucia Septimia Severiana was the name of Diospolis, too, founded in the same year): formerly it was Baetogabra. In the fourth-fifth cent. AD Eleutheropolis was the capital of Palaestina Eleutheropolitana, a wide district comprehensive of the toparchiae of Engaddis and Bethleptapha. Epitaphs and Church historians attest an early Christian presence (Vth cent.). See A. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (Oxford: OUP, 19712), 220; my “Osservazioni,” 212-13; Jullien, Apôtres, 65. Another interesting clue in this sense is, at chap. 68, the sequence Aggai-Palut-‘Abshlamā-Barsamyā, which seems to reproduce the episcopal succession in Edessa in the third cent. Palut was bishop 192 to 209; see Kirsten, “Edessa,” 569-70. 51 52

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letter to Tiberius in the Doctrina stresses the Jews’ alleged responsibility for Jesus’ crucifixion: since Abgar could not proceed against the Jews himself—as we read in the Doctrina—, he wrote a letter to Tiberius, his “lord,” and related to him the crucifixion, with the darkness and the earthquake that accompanied it, even though he was aware that these facts were well known to Tiberius (“although nothing is unknown to your majesty”). He urges the emperor to take measures against the Jews, who, in his view, were responsible for the death of a man who did not deserve it. Tiberius, who shows himself happy at the loyalty of this vassal king (“I received the letter of your faithfulness towards me, and it was read before me”), in his answer says that Pilate had already informed his “governor Aulbinus” of this—indeed, Justin and Tertullian mention a report by Pilate on the Jesus story—, and that he, Tiberius, had already removed Pilate with infamy—as he really did through L. Vitellius—, because he had let a man be killed who rather deserved veneration. Finally, he promises a punitive action against those responsible: “to take legal proceedings towards those who acted against the law.” But first, Tiberius says, he has to settle “the war with the children of Spain, who have rebelled against me;” he concludes his letter rejoicing again because Abgar has written to him showing “loyalty towards me and the covenant of faithfulness, yours and of your forefathers.” Another passage, during the first dialogue between the king and Addai, in which Abgar professes his loyalty and that of his predecessors towards the Roman emperor, is perfectly in line with these words.54 The continuation of the 54 Soon after quoting Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters, our document says that Aristides, Tiberius’ envoy to Abgar, went back to Rome from Edessa with gifts from Abgar to Tiberius as further signs of his faithfulness and devotion to the emperor; he passed through Tiqunta (there was Claudius, “the second after the emperor”), and reached Artiqa: there was Tiberius, while Gaius supervised the regions near Caesar. Claudius’ figure might be a reminiscence of Germanicus, who, during Tiberius’ reign, but not after AD 19, acted as a plenipotentiary in Syria and in Orient with exceptional powers similar to those of Vitellius (so G. Firpo, Il problema cronologico della nascita di Gesù [Brescia: Paideia, 1983], 208ff.), after the legatus of Syria, Cn. Calpurnius Piso, had left his charge by order of Germanicus, who took his place with extraordinary powers. See my “Osservazioni,” 118; 224. The mysterious Tiqunta might be Thiunta, a town North of Hierapolis, in Asia Minor, on the “Persian road” from Edessa to the

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document attests that Tiberius, after the war that involved those “children of Spain,” punished some Jewish leaders in Palestine: through the above mentioned Vitellius, in fact, he removed Caiaphas, as attested by Ios. AI 18.4.3. Moses, as I shall point out, integrates this same material with Tiberius’ motion before the Senate to recognize the Christians, an important element for the contextualization of our passage, and cites a second letter of Abgar, a reply to Tiberius. The reference to the “children of Spain” in Tiberius’ letter is generally regarded as an anachronism: so e.g., Griffith55 observes that after the Spanish wars under Augustus there was no serious imperial fighting in Spain until the Goths, Suevi and Vandals invaded the peninsula in 409. Thus, he suggests that the author of the Doctrina is here evoking Constantius’ operations against the Visigoths in Spain between 414 and 416.56 He also notices,57 with reason, that the first mention of Spanish rebels in the Doctrina occurs in the account of the Protonike legend, a double of empress Helena’s inventio crucis, and that Helena’s story first circulated in Greek only in the latter years of the IV cent.58 This suggests that West, or, less probably, Thilaticomum, located in Osrhoene, South-East of Edessa, where the ala septima Valeria praelectorum stood. It was placed on the main way that lead from Edessa to Hierapolis (in Syria) and to the sea, i.e. from Edessa to Italy. As for Artiqa, Cureton, Documents, 61, suggested to vocalize Ortiqa and understand Ortigia; it is also possible to suppose an identification with Aricia / Aritia, South-East of Rome, on the Via Appia: according to Tac. Ann. 6.32, Tiberius in 35-37 was urbem iuxta, and Josephus in AI 18.6.6 [179] says that from Capri he went to Tusculum, “about a hundred stadia from Rome.” 55 Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 24 and n. 52. 56 For a history of Iberia (from the fifth cent. onward) see E.M. Gerli, ed., Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2003); from Caesar to Septimius Severus cf. E.W. Haley, Baetica Felix (Austin: Univ. of Texas, 2003). 57 Griffith, “The Doctrina ,” § 24. 58 See J.W. Drijvers, Helena Augusta (Leiden: Brill, 1992); Id., “The Protonike Legend and the Doctrina Addai” (StPatr 33 [1996]), 517-23; Id., “The Protonike Legend, the Doctrina Addai and Bishop Rabbula” (VChr 51 [1997]), 288-315; Id., “Promoting Jerusalem: Cyril and the True Cross,” in Drijvers–Watt, Portraits of Spiritual Authority, 79-95; C.P. Thiede-M. D’Ancona, The Quest for the True Cross (London: Routledge, 2000) with my rev. (Aevum 75 [2001]), 217-19; M.L. Rigato, Il titolo della

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the full form of the Doctrina was composed after the beginning of the fifth cent. All this is perfectly correct, but the point is that in Tiberius’ letter the “children of Spain” probably are not the Iberians (Hiberi) of the Iberian peninsula, but the Hiberi of the Caucasian region, the inhabitants of Hiberia (nowadays Georgia).59 It is true that one would expect a Syriac translator just to represent the original form in transliteration, but in a Greek or Latin original there certainly was not the expression “children of Hiberia”, so in this case the Syriac translator would provide something more than a mere transliteration: he found Hiberi or Ibêres in Tiberius’ letter, both terms already endowed with a double meaning, and translated “children of cspny’”, which in turn means both the Iberians of Spain and those of Caucasus. Indeed, very similarly, in the so-called Book of the Laws of Countries, the Syriac cspny’—the selfsame word employed in our Doctrina—does not indicate Spain, but the Caucasian Iberia, since it is mentioned between Sarmatia and Pontus and the Caucasian peoples Alani and Albani.60 This is all the more remarkable if not only the Liber, but perhaps also the original nucleus of the Abgar-Addai legend was related to Bardais?an and his school.61 Now, these very Hiberi were employed by Tiberius and Vitellius in the conflict against the Parthians just in AD 35-37, according to Tacitus, Ann. 6.32-36.62 In fact, Vitellius accomplished a series of military operations in the Mesopotamian area in order to Croce (Roma: Gregoriana, 20052) with my review (InvLuc 27 [2005]), 361364. 59 See Schulten, “Hispania,” in P.W., VIII, 1965ff., esp. 2029 on the identical denomination of Spanish and Caucasian Iberians. 60 On Pontus and its inhabitants see now C. Marek, Pontus et Bithynia, Orbis Terrarum 2 (Mainz: von Zabern, 2003). For problems related to Syriac translations, which are not always ad verbum, see P.J. Williams, Early Syriac Translation Technique (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias, 2004), who, in particular, studies variants probably created by the Syriac translators of the Greek Gospels, such as additions of Jesus’ name (24-37), but also additions or omission of pronouns and nouns, changes of articles, particles and adverbs, alterations in number, person, voice or tense, or in word order, etc. 61 As I agued in “Bardesane e la sua scuola.” 62 See my “Edessa,” 118. On the relationships between Romans and Parthians in Oriental sources: Ead., “Mosè di Corene e i rapporti romanopartici” (HAnt 51 [2005]), 141-49; Ead., “Un tributo dei Parti a Roma agli inizi del I secolo a.C.?” (RIL 134 [2000]), 321-330.

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stop the initiative of the Parthian king Artabanus, and to liberate Armenia from Arsaces, who was supported by Artabanus himself (Tac. Ann. 6.31). Tiberius chose at first Phraates, then Tiridates, as rivals of Artabanus, and made use of the Iberian Mithridates in order to reconquer Armenia, reconciling him with his brother Pharasmanes, king of the Iberians (ibid. 32). Mithridates then compelled his brother to support his plans of conquest “dolo et vi” (Tac. Ann. 6.33), and the consequent treacherous murder of Arsaces made it possible for the Hiberi to invade Armenia (ibid. 33). The most obvious translation of Tiberius’ phrase in his letter to Abgar, with reference to the Iberians, is “who have rebelled against me,” but we might also understand: “who have offered resistance, raised disorders, difficulties towards me,” or even “who have rebelled because of me” (or “have been stirred up by me”). This would fit the historical situation as well, since the Iberians were not immediately manageable, and were used by Tiberius against the Parthians.63 The correspondence between Abgar and Tiberius should have taken place just in the years 35-36; seen in this light, the reference to the “children of Spain” (a Semitic periphrasis that stands for “Hiberi”) of Tiberius’ letter is not an anachronism,64 but a precise historical detail. See my “Osservazioni,” 217. Anyway, there was tension between the Spanish and Tiberius: according to Velleius Paterculus, 2. 39, “Tiberius Caesar… certam Hispanis parendi confessionem extorserat;” at the end of AD 33, Tacitus mentions the legatus of Spain, Arruntius, together with that of Syria (so Suet. Tib. 41, too), who were detained in Rome and so prevented from reaching their provinces: for ten years Arruntius was forbidden to take possession of his province (Ann. 6.27: “Arruntium ne in Hispaniam pergeret decimum iam annum attineri”): he committed suicide in AD 37. Syria and Spain are again oppressed in the last years of Tiberius’ reign: “Hispaniarum Syriaeque… principes confiscatos. Plurimis etiam civitatibus veteres communitates et ius metallorum ac vectigalium adempta” (Suet. Tib. 49). Among those principes confiscati there was Sextus Marius, Hispaniarum ditissimus, who escaped a former accusation (Tac. Ann. 4. 36), but not the next: in AD 33 he was condemned for incestum and hurled down from the rupes Tarpeia; his wealth was confiscated by Tiberius (Tac. Ann. 16.19.1: “ne dubium haberetur magnitudinem pecuniae malo vertisse, aerarias aurariasque eius quamquam publicarentur sibimet Tiberius seposuit;” cf. Dio Cass. 58.22.2-3). It is not impossible 63 64

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It is not so strange that an exchange of letters between the king and the emperor should be kept in the royal archives of the Mesopotamian city. These archives were also visited by the Armenian historian Movsês Xorenacci (Moses of Chorene), who, according to tradition, lived in the fifth cent. AD and wrote the Patmutciwn Hayocc or History of Armenia: scholars are generally critical of Moses’ reliability as a historian, and place him in a later period,65 but a reappraisal of his historical identity, of his importance as a historian, and of the traditional dating of his work has been offered, above all by Giusto Traina.66 He mentions this correspondence in PH 2.33, in the context of the broadest biography that we have of Abgar ‘the Black’ (PH 2.26-34). He obviously cannot have derived this correspondence from Eusebius—even from the translation of his work—who does not know it. He claims that his source was in the archives of Edessa67 that this bad situation caused disorders and tumults in Spain in the last years of Tiberius’ reign. 65 Esp. K. Toumanoff, “On the Date of Pseudo-Moses of Chorene” (Handes Amsoreay 10-12 [1961]), 467-76 (after the fifth cent.), with arguments developed by R.W. Thomson, ed., Moses Khorenats’i. History of the Armenians (Cambridge-London: Harvard UP, 1978), 1-61; V. Inglisian, “Die armenische Literatur,” in Handbuch der Orientalistik, I, 7 (LeidenKöln: Brill, 1963), 156-250 (VIII-IX cent.); E.V. Gulbekian, “The conversion of king Trdat” (Le Muséon 90 [1977]), 49-62. 66 S. Voicu, “Movsês Corenacci,” in Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, II (Casale: Marietti, 1983), 2324-25 new edition in the Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane II (Genova: Marietti, 2. 3390), of which an English edition is forthcoming in Cambridge, dates PH to the fifth cent. and supposes subsequent redactional interventions of the eighth cent. to explain anachronisms; G.X. Sarkisyan, The History of Armenia by Movses Khorenatsi (Cambridge: Harvard UP 1980); G. Traina, Il complesso di Trimalcione. Movsês Xorenacci e le origini del pensiero storico armeno (Venezia: Casa Editrice Armena, 1991), who demonstrates that some anachronisms that led to postdate PH are apparent and others are due to a subsequent rehash of the text; Id., “Materiali I,” 179-333 (with bibliography 325-33); II (Le Muséon 111 [1998]), 95-138. 67 A.H. Becker, Devotional Study (Ph.D. Princeton: Univ., 2004), 25657 then published as Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2006), with my review (Hugoye 10,2 [2007]), §§ 1-18, admits that Moses in the fifth cent. derived information from the

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and was due to “Lebubna68 son of Apcshadar, who gathered all these facts of Abgar’s and Sanatruk’s time and put them in the archives of Edessa” (PH 2.36); in fact, Moses claims that he himself visited Edessa and its archives (PH 3.62), and may have drawn the information directly from Labûbna or perhaps through Mar Abas Katina, a Syriac writer, probably author of a chronicle, of the fourth cent. AD.69 It is true that both Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the Armenian version of the Doctrina were among Moses’ sources, and that Moses can not always be taken as an independent witness, but in several details his reports differ from those sources and they might derive from another tradition that may provide reliable information; he claims to have, and may have, personally consulted the archives of Edessa. Moses, who probably confuses the historical figures of Abgar ‘the Black’ and a predecessor of his—like other ancient sources—, begins Abgar’s story from the accession of “Abgar, Arsham’s son,” to the throne, and from his hostility to Herod the Great in the Augustan age (PH 2.26); Jesus Christ’s birth is mentioned as well.70 After Tiberius’ ascent to power, Moses recalls Germanicus’ mission in the Near East (ibid. 2.27) and the building of Edessa by Abgar, who conveyed there the local gods, the books of the schools annexed to the temples, and the royal archives. Moses correctly places Germanicus’ Syrian mission in AD 19 and calls him “Caesar” (so is archives of Edessa, where a “School of the Armenians” is attested by the Acts of the Ephesian Council called Latrocinium. I am very grateful to Adam Becker for letting me read his work way before its publication. 68 On this reading and the relative fluctuation in the ms. tradition of the Armenian text see Traina, “Materiali… I,” 294; the scholar declares: “since the Book 2 of PH derives material from the Doctrina Addai several times, the information [on Labûbnā] appears to be fully grounded” (ibid., my transl.). For the frequent mention of archival material in Moses see ibid. 292; on Moses using the Doctrina see Thomson, Moses, 39ff. 69 He is mentioned by Moses and perhaps Jerome: so Traina, “Materiali… I,” 293 n. 70; Id., Il complesso, 62 pays attention to Moses’ autobiographical statement that he visited Edessa. 70 On its date see Firpo, Il problema; J. Winandy, “Sur l’année où naquit Jésus” (EThL 75 [1999]), 419-20. J. Pastor, “Economic Policy as a Measure of Evenhandedness,” in Jews and Gentiles in the Holy Land, eds. M. Mor-A. Oppenheimer-J. Pastor-D. Schwartz (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2003), 152-64, defends Herod against the charge of treating Jews and gentiles unequally.

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he also called in Tac. Ann. 2.71): he was entrusted by Tiberius with the control of the Roman Near East because of the disorders that upset those regions, above all the Parthian kingdom (Ann. 2.1-5): he received the imperium maius over the transmarine provinces, while Syria was entrusted to Gn. Piso “ad spes Germanici coercendas” (ibid. 2. 43). Moses also speaks of Germanicus’ “triumph,” which most probably was the ovation decreed by the Senators, when they learnt that he had elected Artaxias king of Armenia (Tac. Ann. 2.64). After Germanicus’ death (ibid. 2.71-73) there was a power vacuum that could not be adequately filled by C. Sentius Saturninus, supported by Germanicus’ friends and hostile to Piso (ibid. 2.74 and 77), who anyway died at the end of AD 2071. Then Moses mentions Abgar’s undefined “plans of rebellion” (xorhi apstambutciwn, PH 2. 28-29), that were never realized, but can be correctly placed in the context of a historically attested vacancy in Roman power in the Near East soon after Germanicus’ death,72 and a peace mission of this king to “Persia” that seems to date back to the period during which Germanicus in fact was in the Near East, in AD 19-20. Indeed, in PH 2.30 Moses says that this mission took place “more than seven years before” the alleged correspondence between Abgar and Jesus, which in the Armenian version of Abgar’s story is placed in AD 27-28. In Moses’ story, Under Moses’ “Marinus” there might be an echo of Saturninus, who ruled Syria after Germanicus’ death and succeded Piso. Tac. Ann. 2, 74, attests legati and senatores in Syria at the end of AD 19: perhaps they are the “Roman officials” of PH 2.29, whom Abgar informed of the aims of his Parthian mission. On Germanicus and Piso and the Roman Near East see e.g. D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, I (Princeton: UP, 1950), 468-500; J. Debeck, “Les Parthes et Rome” (Latomus 10 [1951]), 459-69; M.L. Chaumont, L’Arménie entre Rome et l’Iran, I, in ANRW, II, 9, 1 (1976), 71-194: 73-90; A. Barzanò, “Roma e i Parti fra pace e guerra fredda nel I secolo dell’Impero,” in La pace nel mondo antico, ed. M. Sordi, CISA 11 (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1985), 211-22: 214-16; W. Eck-A. Caballo-F. Fernández, Das Senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre (München: Beck, 1996). Or else, beneath “Marinus” one may see a memory of L. Vitellius: in PH 2.30 Moses states that, during the war between Herod and Aretas, Tiberius appointed “Marinus” plenipotentiary in the Roman Near East, and that he ruled over “Phoenicia, Palaestina, Syria, and Mesopotamia,” the same territories controlled by Vitellius in 35-37 AD. 72 See my “Edessa,” 114-16. 71

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“Persia” must mean “Parthia” and/or “Armenia.” Moses says that in AD 19-20 on the “Persian” throne Abgar found “Ardashes son of Arshavir” in conflict with his brothers.73 As I tried to demonstrate,74 this Ardashes seems to be a historical figure: in AD 19 on the Parthian throne there was Artabanus, well-disposed toward Germanicus and less toward Tiberius, and on the Armenian throne there was (put on by Germanicus) Zenon called Artaxias, i.e. “Ardashes.” Moses presents Ardashes as “son of Arshavir” perhaps because he confuses him with the homonymous Artaxias (“Artaxes” in Dio, “Ardashes” in Moses) son of Artavasd, i.e., “Arshavir” (?), linked to the Parthians and well known to Tacitus. Artaxias had begun his reign soon after the death of his father, who ruled in the Augustan age (Tac. Ann. 2. 4). According to Moses, who confuses Abgar and his homonymous predecessor of the Augustan age, Abgar ascended the throne precisely “during the reign of Arshavir,” around 4 BC. That Abgar went to Parthia with his army leads us to suppose that his mission had not only a diplomatic aim. Abgar actually aroused suspicions among the Romans that he might have gone there to procure armed forces: so he tried to soothe these suspicions and informed the “Romans’ prefects” (gorcakals hrovmayeccwocc)75 of the aims of his mission at once, in order to avoid being suspected of betrayal. At first the Romans did not believe him, because of the hostility of his enemies, among whom were Herod the Tetrarch, Philippus (on whom see Ios. AI 18.137), and Pilate (PH 2.34). Indeed, the last was a Roman governor, and the other two were on good terms 73 But Moses himself declares in PH 2.37 that these “brothers” are the result of a fictitious chronological retrojection intended to point out the Arsacid origin of Garêns, Surêns and Gamsarians, who subsquently settled in Armenia. A Suren is known to Tac. Ann. 6.42, around AD 35. Infightings are attested in Parthia during Artabanus’ reign, soon after Germanicus’ death. See R.N. Frye, The History of Ancient Iran (München: Beck, 1983), 233-39, esp. 237-39. 74 See Ramelli, “Edessa,” 116. 75 Gorcakals derives from gorc, “work, deed; office” + compositional vowel a + -kal: on the meaning of the Armenian-kal compounds see G. Bolognesi, “Sull’origine iranica di alcuni composti armeni con –kal(ow),” in Studi di dialettologia italiana in onore di M. Melillo, a c. di C. Caratù-R. Piemontese (Bari 1988), 63-68. Gorcakalkc literally means: “holders of office.”

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with Rome; so, they could easily put Abgar, their enemy, in a bad light in the eyes of the Romans. Given this hostility between Abgar and Herod, we can well understand Abgar’s participation in the war between Herod and Aretas (whose daughter had been repudiated by Herod), that really took place in the early 30s of the I century AD.76 Abgar sent auxiliary troops to Aretas against Herod, who was defeated (PH 2.29);77 Aretas, too, had already been involved in the events of AD 19, when he had been for Germanicus against Piso (Tac. Ann. 2.66). Then Moses tells the story of two envoys of Abgar’s, Mar Ihab and Shamshabram, together with their confidant Anan—the same name as in the Doctrina—to Petckcubin, to the Roman plenipotentiary “Marinus son of Storog,” a sort of double of the historical L. Vitellius, in order to let him know the purpose of Abgar’s mission and to ask for his support against his own enemies, because of whom the Romans suspected him of a plot. They met Marinus in Eleutheropolis, the same town as in the Doctrina: he treated Abgar’s envoys “with friendship and regard” and exhorted Abgar not to fear anything from Tiberius, since he paid the whole tribute (PH 2.30). Here comes, then, the supposed trip of Anan (=Hannān) and the other envoys to Jerusalem, their meeting with Jesus, the alleged correspondence between him and Abgar (PH 2.31-32), the arrival of Jesus’ portrait in Edessa, and then Thaddaeus’ preaching, the conversion of Abgar and many other Edessan nobles, Thaddaeus’ mission to Sanatruk/Sanadrug, Abgar’s supposed kinsman,78 and the correspondence between On this conflict see e.g. G.W. Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983), 65-68. 77 Moses affirms that Aretas won “thanks to the help of the valiant Armenians,” i.e., the soldiers sent by Abgar, who is considered to be an Armenian by Moses. In fact, Moses povides an Armenian etymology of his name, and presents him, in the heading of his letter to Tiberius, as “king of Armenia” (arkcay Hayocc). The name of the commander who led Abgar’s troops against Herod is Armenian too: Xosran Arcruni. This confusion is probably due to the fact that in subsequent times Edessa really was under Armenia, and on its throne there was an Armenian dynasty. On the ancient Armenian territories: R. Hewsen, “Introduction to Armenian historical geography” (REArm 19 [1985]), 55-84. 78 In PH 2.36, he is the apostate son of a sister of Abgar’s who “ascended the throne in the twelfth year of Ardashes king of the Persians, and lived for thirty years:” he could be the Parthian king of Trajan’s time, 76

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Abgar and Tiberius. Finally, Moses declares that these letters were at once stored and kept in the archives of Edessa, and that Abgar wrote other letters to “Nerseh king of syria” and “Ardashes king of Persia” and then died after a 38-year reign; his successors turned back to paganism and this caused the Christian preachers’ martyrdom (PH 2.34).79 In the letters exchanged with Tiberius, recorded in PH 2.33, Abgar seems to be on good terms with the emperor, to whom Abgar’s loyalty was very important indeed, since he was seeking allies among Oriental kings against the Parthians (Tac. Ann. 6.31-37; 41-44). In these letters we can see precise references to the historical situation of AD 35-37 in the Near East and exact allusions to the historical actions of L. Vitellius, who, under Tiberius’ order, dismissed both Pilate and Caiaphas (Ios. AI 18.90-95).80 These facts find a precise correspondence with what Meherdates’ son (Arr. Parth. fr. 77) and Vologeses’ father (Dio 68. 30; 75.9.6: Vologeses is also known to Moses, PH 2. 36), or the homonymous king attested in AD 76-77 in an inscription of Hatra (Caquot, Syria 40 [1963], 7; Chaumont, Recherches, 13; on Hatra see also F. Vattioni, Hatra, Annali Suppl. 81 (Napoli: IUO, 1994); M. Sommer, “Hatra,” Klio 85 [2003], 384-98; U. Hartmann-A. Luther, “Münzen des hatrenischen Herrn wrwd,” in Grenzüberschreitungen, Hrsg. Id. & M. Schuol [Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002], 161-68 on Hatra in Trajan’s time and the political situation of Mesopotamian states): these dates do not fit the old chronology of Abgar’s reign in Augustan age. See my “Abgar” and “Osservazioni,” 221 n. 35. Moses’ Ardashes might be Ardashir I, on whom see, e.g., Chaumont, Recherches, 22-23, 30-31, 49ff. On the Sanatruks attested in the ancient world see “Sanatruces,” in PW II A (1920), 2231-32 and ibid. “Sinatrukes,” ibid. III A 1. The Sanatroukês attested by the Suda, probably on the basis of Arrian (so Chaumont, Recherches, 13 n. 1), is “king of the Armenians,” just as in Moses, and is appreciated by Greek and Roman nobles. 79 For the Christianization of Iran, in addition to Chaumont, Christianisation, see Jullien, Apôtres, and my Atti di Mari. 80 See my “Osservazioni” and C.P. Thiede, “Caiaphas: an innocent man?” (The Church of England Newspaper, March 11 [2004]), 23: Caiaphas was one of the longest-serving High Priests ever (AD 18 to 36); his family tomb shows traces of syncretistic tendencies. In addition to his role in Jesus’ condemnation, he collaborated with the occupying Romans to the disadvantage of the people: according to Thiede, it was he who let Pilate rob the treasury of the Temple, and fund an aqueduct into Jerusalem, which caused riots brutally quelled by Pilate (Ios. BI 2.175-77); he invited

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we read in Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters: to Abgar’s requests the emperor replies that he has already dismissed Pilate—guilty of having yielded to those who wanted Jesus to die, whereas he was worthy of adoration—and promises to punish the Jews, in his view responsible for Jesus’ death, as soon as he has settled some problems with the Spaniakc, i.e. the Caucasian Iberians. This material is common with that of the Doctrina and seems to come from the same source, which cannot be Eusebius, who knows the rest of Abgar’s story but not the letters exchanged with Tiberius. A pivotal point for the present research is that Moses correctly links Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters to the mention of the senatus consultum of AD 35, absent from the Doctrina but historical, or at least attested in far more ancient sources: Moses derives this information from Eusebius, who, on his part, has it from Tertullian.81 In fact, in Apol. 5.2 Tertullian says that the condemnation of Christianity as superstitio illicita resulted from a decision of the Senators when Tiberius, informed by Pilate, in AD 35 proposed in front of the Senate to recognize the Christian religion: the Senators, failing the probatio, refused, and this senatus consultum was probably the first and main juridical basis of the persecutions against the Christians, who, as members of an illegal religion, were liable to death, if accused, tried and found culpable of superstitio illicita.82 Tiberius, according to Tertullian, vetoed the vendors into the Temple precincts, too (Talmud, Keritot, 1.7). According to J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (London: Macmillan, 1925; Bloch Publishing 1989; 1997 repr.) and C. Cohn, The Trial and Death of Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), he survived in office under two prefects perhaps having bribed them. See H.K. Bond, Caiaphas: Friend of Rome and Judge of Jesus? (Louisville: J. Knox, 2004). 81 On Eusebius as Moses’ source see Traina, “Materiali… I,” 300ff. Documentation in my “Il s.c. del 35 contro i Cristiani in un frammento porfiriano” with preface by M. Sordi (Aevum 78 [2004]), 59-67. 82 It can be interesting to note, in this connection, that in the above mentioned Martyrium Beati Petri, chap. 3 (Lipsius, Acta, 5) it is precisely the Senators who opposed Christianity in Rome: “Surrexerunt quidam ex senatoribus in conventu Senatus […] et incitabant alios ad tumultum et appellationem.” Tertullian does not specify the date of this senatus consultum: the reference to AD 35 is made in Eusebius’ Chronicon in Jerome’s version (176-77 Helm) and in Chron. Pasch. 430. Tiberius probably learnt of Jesus and the first Christians thanks to Pilate, who sent

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Senate’s decision, so that there were no anti-Christian persecutions until the time of Nero, who was the first to give free play to accusations against the Christians. For this reason, Tertullian in the Apologeticum defines Nero as dedicator damnationis nostrae, and in Ad Nat. 1.13.4 speaks of institutum Neronianum, while after Tiberius’ veto and until AD 62 the Christians were never condemned as such by any Roman authority. Tertullian would have had nothing to gain from inventing this episode, because it contradicts his apologetical line, according to which only bad emperors persecuted Christianity, and above all because he would have discredited the Christians by mentioning their comdemnation due to the Senate, so authoritative an organ, which in fact during the Julio-Claudian age was empowered to decide whether to accept or to reject new deities. Moreover, the dedicatees of his Apologeticum, the Romani imperii antistites, who could consult the Senate’s official records, would easily have been able to give the lie to Tertullian’s words, if false. But Tertullian even invites them to check: consulite commentarios vestros… In fact, the historical reliability of Tertullian’s passage on the s.c. of AD 35, maintained by Sordi,83 seems to be confirmed today by a Porphyrian fragment, F64 Harnack, transmitted by Macarius of Magnesia’s Apocriticus (2.14), which I brought to scholars’ attention.84 Porphyry is speaking of Jesus’ apparitions him a report well known to Justin (I Apol. 35; 48) and Tertullian (Apol. 5.2; 21.24). Its arrival at Rome is dated by the above-mentioned chronicles in AD 35. See my “Possibili tracce di conoscenza della religione cristiana nei romanzi antichi? Una contestualizzazione,” in Potere e religione nel mondo indo-mediterraneo tra ellenismo e tarda antichità, eds G. Gnoli – G. Sfameni Gasparro, Il Nuovo Ramusio 9 (Rome: ISIAO, 2009), 257298; Ead., “Il fondamento giuridico delle persecuzioni anti cristiane” Laverna 15 [2004]), 47-62. 83 Sordi, I Cristiani, chap. 1. 84 In “Il senatoconsulto,” with further bibliography. According to H. von Harnack, Porphyrius gegen die Christen (Berlin: Reimer, 1916), 12-14 and then, partly, to J.G. Cook, The Interpretation of the New Testament in Graeco-Roman Paganism (Tübingen: Hendrickson, 2000), 168-249, and, undoubtedly, to P.J. Hoffmann-G. Abramides, Porphurios neoplatonikos Kata Khristianôn (Thessaloniki 2000), 11-36 and 42, this fragment derives from Porphyry’s main polemical work against the Christians. See G. Rinaldi, La Bibbia dei pagani, I (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1998), 124-75 with bibl. In Macarius’ Apocriticus, the passage is attributed to the pagan

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after his resurrection in AD 30: he criticizes Jesus because he appeared to obscure people,85 instead of worthy and authoritative (episêmoi, axiopistoi) characters of that time (hoi hama) like Pilate or Herod, “and above all to the Senate and the people of Rome, so that they, astonished by his wonders, would not make, with unanimous decision [dogmati koinôi], liable to death, as impious, those who obeyed (or: were persuaded by) him […] If he had appeared to worthy and influential men, thanks to them all would have believed, and no one of the judges would have punished them as inventors of absurd tales. For God surely does not like, but an intelligent man does not either, that many people have to undergo the most serious punishments owing to him.”86 Here Porphyry is speaking of a unanimous decision of the Senate of Rome (dogma [tês character whose anti-Christian polemic is usually recognized as inspired by Porphyry and provided with a good knowledge of the Bible and Christianity. So we are faced by a fragment either of Porphyry or inspired by him: see Rinaldi, Bibbia, I, 271-78; F. Ruggiero, La follia dei Cristiani (Rome: Città Nuova, 2002), 151-67. The first hypothesis seems more probable: Porphyry studied in Rome, where he was a disciple of Plotinus’, but also attended Origen’s classes, probably in Caesarea, and may have had access to Origen’s rich library. See my “Origen and the Stoic Allegorical Tradition” (InvLuc 28 [2006]), 195-226; Ead., “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianization of Hellenism” (Vigiliae Christianae 63 [2009]) 217-263. 85 This objection was already raised by Celsus, ap. Orig. C. Cels. 2. 59, and it must be ancient, since Tertullian refutes it in Apol. 21.22: Jesus after his resurrection “nec se in vulgus eduxit, ne inpii errore liberarentur, ut et fides, non mediocri praemio destinata, difficultate constaret.” Porphyry does not reply to this argument, and this lets suppose that he probably did not read the Apologeticum. This confirms that the two sources attesting the s.c. of AD 35 are independent of one another. 86 The resurrection is today generally dated to AD 30: see e.g. Thiede, Jesus, 127-30. The condemnation of the Christians as inventors of absurd tales is parallel to the Senate’s declared impossibility of doing any probatio and the consequent refusal of Tiberius’ proposal in Tertullian’s account: so Christianity became a superstitio illicita and the Christians indictable for impiety, asebeia, the same charge we find against the Christians in the socalled Nazareth Edict of the Neronian age, which threatened them with “a trial de diis [asebeia] for the worship of a human being:” see E. Grzybek-M. Sordi, “L’édit de Nazareth” (ZPE 120 [1998]), 279-91: 284-87; its juridical basis was the senatus consultum of AD 35.

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suglêtou, tês boulês] was the regular Greek rendering for senatus consultum, differently from psêphisma, which indicated a decision of the people, and from diatagma, which designated one of the emperor) that, shortly after AD 30, fixed capital punishment for the Christians. Now, I think that this cannot but be identified with the s.c. of AD 35 attested by Tertullian. This is an extremely important confirmation, all the more in that it comes from a source that, unlike Tertullian, cannot possibly be labeled as “apologetic” or philo-Christian. Moreover, now the principle unus testis nullus testis can no more be used against the historicity of the s.c. of AD 35, which is attested by at least two independent sources. We have to consider the political meaning of Tiberius’ project,87 which of course doesn’t mean that Tiberius converted to Christianity. Rather, the emperor, who wished to settle controversies without violence, if possible, but consiliis et astu, according to Tac. Ann. 6.32, probably wanted to legalize the new Judaic sect that had thousands of adherents in the popular classes of Judaea, as we know from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and was Messianic without being anti-Roman or insurrectional. Tiberius intended to remove from the Sanhedrin any jurisdiction over this sect—as had been already done in the case of the Samaritans, withdrawn from Judaic religious control and induced to be faithful to Rome—and to help to pacify a difficult province. The importance attributed by Tiberius to this project is shown not only by his immediate veto of possible accusations that the Senate’s refusal could give rise to, but also by the actions in Judaea in AD 87 This project may be read as an anticipation of those that, according to the Historia Augusta, Alex. Sever. 43, were conceived by Hadrian, who would have wished to recognize and would have had temples without statues ready to be dedicated to Christ, and by Severus Alexander, who in his lararium had statues of Christ, Abraham, Orpheus, etc.: his purpose of recognizing Christianity juridically, and not only tolerating it as he already did, was prevented “ab his qui consulentes sacra [probably haruspices] reppererant omnes Christianos futuros si id fecisset et reliqua templa deserenda.” See my “La Chiesa di Roma in età severiana” (RSCI 54 [2000]), 13-29; Ead., Cultura e religione etrusca nel mondo romano (Alessandria: Orso, 2003), chap. 4; on Severus’ lararium see J. Rüpke, “Bilderwelten und Religionswechsel, in Griechische Mythologie und frühes Christentum, Hrsg. R. von Haehling (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005) 359-76: 362-64.

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36-37 against Caiaphas and Pilate by the imperial legatus L. Vitellius. These are historically attested by Ios. AI 18. 89-90 & 122 and echoed in Moses and in the Doctrina, precisely in Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters. Vitellius’ commentarii, cited by Tertullian in De anima, 46, are probably the pagan source from which the apologist drew his information on Tiberius’ proposal, perhaps known to him also via the apology of Apollonius, a Christian senator sentenced to death under Commodus in 183-185 “on the basis of a senatus consultum” (Eus. HE 5.21.4). The Acts of Apollonius, 171 Lazzati, record that the prefect of the praetorium, Tigidius Perennis, was willing to acquit Apollonius, but “the senatus consultum says that it is not licit to be Christian:” this formula, mê exeinai Khristianous einai, closely corresponds to Tertullians’ non licet esse vos, the direct consequence of the s.c. of AD 35. This may thus be considered even as a third independent attestation of the s.c. of AD 35. An observation can also be drawn from the comparison of the disposition of the material in the Doctrina and in Moses: in our Syriac document Abgar’s message to Tiberius is not quoted within the story of the king’s envoys sent to Palestine and the exchange of letters between Abgar and Jesus, but at the end of the document, after Addai’s preaching and the description of his arrangements for the church in Edessa, and before those for the evangelization of Assyria. Moreover, in Moses, PH 2.33, the letters to Nerseh king of Assyria and to Ardashes, king of Persia, are situated after the correspondence between Abgar and Tiberius, whereas in the Doctrina, 74-76, there is only the letter to Narsai, and this is placed before Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters.88 And Moses links this AbgarIn PH 2.33 Abgar, in his letter to Nerseh of Assyria, says that the apostle will reach Armenia, while one of his companions, Simon, will be sent to Persia: Abgar encourages Nerseh and his father Ardashes, king of Persia, to look for him. Soon after, Moses mentions the apostasy of both Abgar’s son, who ruled Edessa, and Sanadrug, a son of a sister of Abgar’s, who ruled Armenia and abandoned Christianity for fear of his pagan satraps. Abgar’s son was responsible for the martyrdom of Addaeus’ successor, Aggaeus (Syr. Aggai), whereas “to Armenia came the apostle Bartholomew,” the traditional evangelizer of Eastern regions as far as India (cf. my chap. 4 in Gli Apostoli in India). Chaumont, Recherches, 82 & 167-171, admits the presence of Christianity in Armenia in the second cent., before St. Gregory the Enlightener’s preaching. According to Tac. Ann. 13.7 and Ios. AI 20.158, B.I. 2.252, in AD 54 Nero entrusted 88

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Tiberius correspondence to the account of the s.c. of AD 35, which is completely missing in the Doctrina. It seems that Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters, absent in Eusebius, are really an independent nucleus, and it might be very old. The anti-Semitism that evidently characterizes these letters fits well the general anti-Semitic attitude of the Doctrina, of course89— and not the criticism of pagans90—, which might be reminiscent of Aristobulus with the government of Armenia Minor; after AD 60, Aristobulus obtained to rule parts of Armenia Maior bordering Armenia Minor, too (see e.g. Magie, Roman Rule, I, 554-57; 574; II, 1435; Chaumont, Recherches, 83; R.D. Sullivan, The Dynasty of Judaea in the I Century, in ANRW 2.8, [1977], 296-354: 317-21). He was son of Herod of Chalcis and husband of Salome, Philip the Tetrarch’s widow (Ios. AI 18.134-37; B.I. 2.221). Just in the house of Aristobulus (“an apostate from Judaism”: see Sullivan, The Dynasty, 320), according to St. Paul, Rom 16:10, before the end of AD 54 there was one of the earliest Christian churches in Rome. See M. Sordi, “La prima comunità cristiana di Roma,” in Cristianesimo e istituzioni politiche, eds. E. Dal Covolo-R. Uglione (Roma: LAS, 1996), 15-23: 18-19, and my “Osservazioni,” 223-24. 89 E.g. Protonike in Jerusalem met Jacob, “administrator and prefect” in the church there (the correct rendering of episkopos for that early time); when she asked him to show her the place where Jesus was crucified, the wood of his cross and his grave, Jacob said that they were under the control the Jews, who didn’t allow Christians to see them: “They persecute us that we not preach or proclaim in the name of the Messiah. Often they even confine us in prison.” In this farewell discourse to the Edessan hierarchs, Addai says: “Beware of the crucifiers, and do not be friends with them lest you be responsible with those whose hands are full of the blood of the Messiah;” they promise: “We shall not take part with the crucifying Jews.” Throughout the Doctrina the Jews are called zaqôpê, “crucifiers.” On anti-Semitism in antiquity see e.g. P. Schäfer, Giudeofobia. L’antisemitismo nel mondo antico (Roma: Carocci, 1999); B. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: UP, 2004), 440-91. 90 E.g. Nebo and Bel, the main gods of Edessa, are the pagan gods most frequently mentioned in the Doctrina. Addressing the people of Edessa, Addai speaks against several pagan deities worshipped by them, in an accurate picture of pagan religion at Edessa. Among the gods mentioned by Addai there is also Taratha: see below. Cf. H.J.W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (Leiden: Brill, 1980); an Edessan mosaic of the II-III cent. AD representing Orpheus shows a Hellenized pagan culture; on its dating: A. Luther, “Das Datum des Orpheus-Mosaiks aus Urfa,” (WO 30 [1999]), 129-37.

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later polemics,91 but also corresponds precisely to the historical circumstances of AD 35-37. In his address to the people of Edessa, Addai states that Christ “is the God of the Jews who crucified him,” and Abgar is said to have written to Tiberius “since he could not pass over into a country of the Romans to enter Palestine and kill the Jews, because they crucified the Messiah.” But also Peter, according to the account of the Acts, in his pentecostal speech attributed to the Jews the responsibility for Jesus’ crucifixion (Acts 2:22-23: “men of Israel […] you nailed him to the cross […] and killed him; (or had him nailed … had him killed)” ibid. 36: “that Jesus whom you crucified”). Josephus too, in his Testimonium Flavianum, and Mara bar Serapion, a Syriac Stoic, say the same thing.92 In particular, in comparison with Abgar’s letter to Tiberius, it may be significant to notice a similar knowledge of Christ and early Christians, a similar hostility towards those who were held responsible for Jesus’ death and a similar confidence in the Romans in this letter (Brit. Mus. Add. 14658, seventh-eighth cent.),93 which, according to some scholars, was written at the end of the first cent.94 Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 37, mentions authors of Adversus Judaeos works such as Ephrem or Cyril of Alexandria (on whom: R.L. Wilken, Judaism and the Early Christian Mind [New Haven: Yale UP, 1971]), or John Chrysostom (Id., John Chrysostom and the Jews [Berkeley: UCP, 1983]). 92 See my “Stoicismo e Cristianesimo in area siriaca nella seconda metà del I secolo d.C.” (Sileno 25 [1999]), 197-212; “Gesù tra i sapienti greci,” Riv. Filos. Neoscol. 97 (2005), 545-570. Ed.: Cureton, Spicilegium, 4348; transl. J.B. Aufhauser, Antike Jesuszeugnisse (Bonn: Marcus-Weber, 1925), 4; 9; I devoted a whole section of my book Stoici Romani Minori (Milan: Bompiani, 2008) to the Letter of Mara Bar Serapion, with essay, translation, and commentary. On the Testimonium, for its authenticity see my “Alcune osservazioni circa il Testimonium Flavianum” (Sileno 24 [1998]), 219-35; C.P. Thiede, “What they knew about Jesus” (The Church of England Newsp., May 13 [2004]), 31; Id., “The Jew Josephus and Jesus” (ibid. June 10 [2004]), 23. A. Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, Studies in Bibl. Literature 36 (New York: P. Lang, 2003). 93 Analysis of these three aspects in my “Stoicismo,” 197-212. 94 Blinzler, Il processo, 43-48, dates it short after 73; so also S. Mazzarino, L’Impero Romano, II (Bari: Laterza, 1991), 887; later date according to K. Mc Vey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara Bar Serapion,” in V Symposium Syriacum, Leuven 1978, ed. R. Lavenant (Roma: Pontificio Istituto di Studi Orientali, 1990), 257-72 and C.M. Chin, 91

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Moreover, the memory of L. Vitellius (Tac. Ann. 6.32.3ff.)95 might be seen behind Moses’ Marinus, governor of “Phoenicia, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia,”96 and the Sabinus of the Doctrina, a Roman imperial official in “Eleutheropolis,” and perhaps the Albinus97 mentioned as a “proconsul” by Tiberius in his letter to Abgar in the Doctrina98 (and also behind the “Rhetorical Practice in the Chreia Elaboration of Mara Bar Serapion,” Hugoye 9,2 (2006), §§ 24: contra, my “La lettera di Mara Bar Serapion” (Stylos 13 [2004]), 77-104; Ead., “Gesù tra i sapienti” and Stoici Romani with new arguments. E.I. Yousif, La floraison des philosophes syriaques (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003), 27-32; D. Rensberger, “Reconsidering the Letter of Mara bar Serapion,” forthcoming in a volume of the Duke Judaic Studies Monograph series, which the author kindly let me read: I am very grateful to him. A confirmation of the Stoic ideas and the early date of Mara’s letter comes also from T. Tieleman and A. Merz, “The Letter of Mara Bar Serapion: Some Comments on its Philosophical and Historical Context,” in Festschrift P.W. van den Horst, Leiden 2008. 95 During his mandate he passed beyond the Euphrates, probably reaching Osrhoene, too (ibid. 6.37). See my “Il senatoconsulto,” with bibl.; Ead., “Edessa;” Ead., “Osservazioni.” 96 A reminiscence of Saturninus, too, might lie under Marinus (see above). A Marinus was a friend of Tiberius’ (Tac. Ann. 6.10.2), who had him killed in AD 32. Julius Marinus, Philip the Arab’s father, had powers in Orient as legatus inferioris Moesiae in AD 97. Cf. my “Osservazioni,” 218; “Edessa,” 114-15. 97 That Aulbinus/Albinus is here confused with Vitellius was already supposed by Cureton, Documents, 159-60. We know that Lucceius Albinus succeded Porcius Festus as governor of Palestine, but only in AD 55 according to Jerome. Cf. my “Le procuratele di Felice e di Festo” (Rendiconti Istituto Lombardo 138 [2004]), 91-97. 98 In the apocryphal Acts of Peter (of the II cent., but containing, among legendary features, ancient traditions too, such as those concerning noble families of Rome converted to Christianity, who are said to have helped Peter) A(u)lbinus is praefectus urbi and close friend of the emperor. This could be significant, even if the emperor here is Nero. González, Leyenda, 139 n. 263, proposes the identification of “Sabinus,” “A(u)lbinus” and “Marinus” (the same character in the different versions of the Abgarsage) either with Clodius Albinus, or with Albinus governor of Judaea in 62 and the following years, or the above mentioned A(u)lbinus of the Acts of Peter. In the apocryphal Martyrium Beati Petri Apostoli a Lino episcopo conscriptum, 3, Albinus is amicissimus Caesari, and his wife Xandips is convinced by Peter to refuse any intercourse with him, so that Albinus

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Licianus/Lucianus of the Paradosis Pilati99). In a Syriac Transitus Mariae, similarly, we find a Sabinā100 as the governor entrusted by Tiberius, whose power extended as far as the Euphrates and who acted as intermediary between Abgar and the emperor. All those figures, in fact, are presented as having the powers of Vitellius, and are often mentioned in connection with the contacts between Abgar and Tiberius. It is worth noting that the legatus Syriae’s control over Palestine according to our Syriac and Armenian documents fully corresponds to the historical situation of the Tiberian age; in fact, only before AD 70 was Palestine under the supervision of the legatus Syriae or plenipotentiaries like Germanicus in AD 19 or Vitellius in 35; according to both Moses and the Doctrina, the legatus Syriae is located in Eleutheropolis, i.e. Baethogabra, near Jerusalem.101 seeks to take vengeance upon Peter (Lipsius, Acta, 4). In the Paradosis Pilatou it is an Albius who decapitates Pilate at Caesar’s order. On the Gesta Pilati see Geraard, Clavis, CA 62; H.J. Frede, Kirchenschriftsteller. Verzeichnis und Siegel (Freiburg: Herder, 19954), 190, Ap E-Pil. 99 Licianus/Lucianus is here “chief of the region of Orient;” his name recalls Lucius, Vitellius’ praenomen. In the Paradosis, 6-7, a letter of Tiberius to Licianus echoes some details of the Abgar-Tiberius letters: the emperor is intentioned to punish the Jews, who forced Pilate to put Jesus to death, and wants to bring Pilate to trial. See e.g. F. Spadafora, Pilato (Rovigo: IPAG, 1973), 187, and the whole book for Pilate’s legend, on which see also J.D. Dubois, “Les Actes de Pilate au quatrième siècle” (Apocrypha 2 [1991]), 85-98, my “Il senatoconsulto” and “Possibili tracce”. 100 Cureton, Documents, 110. Ios. AI 17.9.3, mentions a Sabinus who was Kaisaros epitropos tôn en Suriai pragmatôn; he was imperial procurator in P. Quintilius Varus’ entourage (see Firpo, Il problema, 218), but in the Augustan age. See C.P. Thiede, Jesus und Tiberius (München: Luchterhand, 2004), 131. Better: Tac. Ann. 13. 45 mentions Sabinus, Poppaea’s grandfather and Tiberius’ friend, who died at the end of AD 35 and was maximis provinciis per quattuor et viginti annos impositus (ib. 6.39, 3; cf. 4.47 & 49; 5.10). 101 For his supervision over Palestine see e.g. E. Schürer, Storia del popolo giudaico al tempo di Gesù Cristo, I, transl. C. Gianotto (Brescia: Paideia, 1985), 311ff., 441ff., 555f.; B. Lifshitz, “Étude sur l’histoire de la province romaine de Syrie,” in ANRW, 2.8 (1977), 3-30; S. Applebaum, “Judaea as a Roman Province,” ibid. 355-96; C. Marucci, “Romani e diritto romano nel Nuovo Testamento,” in Da Roma alla terza Roma (Roma: Herder, 1992), 37-74, esp. 41.

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It is also very interesting to observe the loyalty motif in the letters: shortly after the correspondence with Tiberius, in the Doctrina Abgar protests his loyalty to Rome: once Addai had performed some miracles in Edessa, he was recognized as the man whom Jesus had promised to send to Abgar, and so was introduced to the king, who, as we have already mentioned in brief, before expressing his faith, explains to the apostle the reason why he did not travel to Palestine himself to see Jesus: “Because that kingdom belongs to the Romans, I have respect for the covenant of peace which was established by me as by my forefathers with our lord Caesar Tiberius.” Of course it is not historically true that the Romans did not want Abgar to travel to Palestine, a notion that the author has already presented to explain the reason why the king sent a letter to Jesus instead of going to Jerusalem himself: he did not want to trespass into the territory of the Romans and to precipitate an international incident in this way. The historical situation was not such, and in fact this phrase does not belong to the correspondence, but Abgar’s desire to protest his loyalty is historically grounded, and the author of the Doctrina could have found it in the letter of Abgar to the emperor. Moreover, the suspicion that a trip of Abgar to Palestine might raise could have a historical basis in Abgar’s immediately previous participation in the war between Herod and Aretas, as an ally of Aretas—an Arab as well102—against Herod, according to Moses, PH 2.29.103 This conflict took place—Moses says in PH 2.34—between the death of John the Baptist in AD 29 and the Abgar-Tiberius correspondence (AD 35-36). Moses seems to derive his information from Ios., AI 18.109-150 and another source concerning Abgar and the part that he played in the war between Herod and Aretas. Thanks, again, to Josephus—who gives us precious information on this conflict, its causes and the interpretation of Herod’s defeat as a punishment for the murder of John the Baptist—, we know that in AD 34 Herod and Aretas were fighting (stasiázousin), and in fact the cause of the conflict was the repudiation of Aretas’ daughter by Herod, so it began not after AD 29. From Josephus we also learn that the real 102 He is “King of Arabia” in Ios. AI 16.294; he ruled Arabia Petraea, inhabited by the Nabataeans: Abgar is rex Arabum in Tac. Ann. 12.14. According to J.F. Healey, “Were the Nabataeans Arabs?” (ARAM 1 [1989]), 38-44: 43-44, Abgar’s dynasty may have had Nabataean origins. 103 Analysis of the source in my “Edessa,” 111ff.

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war between the two ended precisely in the years of Vitellius’ mission in the Roman Near East (AI 18.106), in AD 35-37: Vitellius gave up the punitive expedition against Aretas when he heard of Tiberius’ death in AD 37 (Ios. AI 18.120-124). So the problem of the war and of Abgar’s position as an ally of a royal enemy of Rome was contemporary with the correspondence between him and Tiberius. Because of the hostility of Herod, Philip and Pilate, Abgar’s protestation of loyalty to Rome was not believed by the Romans, and so in his letter to Tiberius he strongly asserted his and his fathers’ faithfulness. This fits the political purpose of the author of our document, as rightly shown by Mirkovic, but also corresponds very well and precisely to the historical and political situation of AD 35-36. And this may constitute a reason why the epistolary material was absorbed in the Doctrina. There is another point connected with Abgar’s attitude towards Rome, that deserves to be noticed. The Doctrina presents two figures at Abgar’s court in the days of Addai’s preaching: Abdu and Sennak; the first is mentioned also by Eus. HE 1.13.18-19: Abdos son of Abdos, and in the Acts of Mari, 4, where he is Abd bar Abdû, one of Abgar’s ministers, is healed by Addai together with the king, and is converted. An Abdos is also present in the Narratio ex diversis historiis collecta ascribed to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, where he informs Abgar of Addai’s arrival at Edessa. Well, they are historical figures precisely of the time of Abgar ‘the Black’. They are well known to Tacitus, who attests that Abdus and Sinnaces, a powerful eunuch and a rich noble, were linked both to the Romans and to Abgar’s court (Ann. 6.31-32). They played an important role in the events of AD 35-37 as promoters—without king Artabanus’ knowledge—of a Parthian embassy to Tiberius intended to request Phraates as a king instead of Artabanus: in fact, Tiberius supported Phraates. Then, maintaining the same political conduct, according to Tac. Ann. 6.36, Sinnaces persuaded his father Abdageses to desert Artabanus, who was in difficulties because of the Hiberi and of Vitellius, and in AD 37, with his troops, he joined Tiridates, Artabanus’ rival, chosen by Tiberius himself (Ann. 6.32), after Tiridates had crossed the Euphrates together with Vitellius (ibid. 37) and before Vitellius went back to Syria. It is evident that the political conduct of Abdus and Sinnaces, who frequented Abgar’s court, was philo-Roman. These two notables subsequently

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had a large fortune in Christian hagiography thanks to the legend or their conversion, supported by Eusebius and the Doctrina. In some ancient sources they appear as martyrs: the Depositio Martyrum and Martyrologium Hieronymianum under “III Kal. Aug.” record: “Abdos et Semnes in Pontiani quod est ad Ursum Pilatum;” later sources, among which the legendary Passio, set their story under Decius and describe them as “subreguli in Persia” charged of burying martyrs and transferred to Rome, where they appeared before the Senate, and there was also a certain Galba: spared by the wild beasts, they were beheaded and buried in the Pontianus cemetery, where a painting of the sixth cent. bears the inscription “De donis Dei et sanctorum Abdo et Senne Gaudiosus [fieri fecit].”104 Allard105 remarks that Abdos and Sennes surely are not to be set under Decius, who, among other things, never went to Persia, whereas the Passio says that he was there, but suggests no alternatives. I would like to point out the exact correspondence between the supposed martyrs and Abdus and Sinnaces, mentioned by Tacitus as Oriental envoys at the end of Tiberius’ reign and by the Doctrina as notables who listened to Addai’s preaching in Edessa. The hagiographical legend of Abdos and Sennes might be a development of the story of these two men who really lived in the first cent. AD, knew Abgar, and were in Edessa during his reign. It seems interesting to me that the earliest Latin redaction of one of the most ancient sources on Abdos and Sennes, the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, probably derives from a Syriac text of the fourth See e.g. W. Böhne, “Abdon und Sennen,” in LThK, I (1957), 12; V. Saxer, “Abdon und Sennen,” in LThK, I (19932), 19; D. Calcagnini, “Abdon e Sennen,” in Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, I (Genoa: Marietti, 2006), coll. 7-8. According to G.N. Verrando, “Alla base e intorno alla più antica Passio dei Santi Abdon e Sennes” (Aug. 30 [1990]), 145-83, who studies the authors of the IV-V cent. and the iconographical and liturgical documents, the Passio uetus dates back to the second half of the fifth cent. and has Roman origins. For other sources (the Martyrologium Romanum, the marble calendar of Naples, the Roman Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries…), see AASS, nov. II, 98. The catalogue of Roman churches of Pope Pius V mentions a church consecrated to A. and S. in the place where they suffered martyrdom according to the legend, where the Colossus of Nero was placed, between the Flavian Amphitheatre and and the Temple of Venus. 105 “Abdon et Sennen,” in DACL, I (1924), 42-45. 104

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cent. AD.106 So, in the years of Vitellius’ oriental mission, the king and the court of Edessa seem to be in good terms with the Roman emperor. In the Doctrina the loyalty of Edessa to Rome from the political point of view, stressed throughout the document, might also be a retrojection of the political situation of Edessa under the Romans’ rule in the first half of the third cent. AD107 back into the first cent., and correspond to the religious communion with the see of Rome: in the final section of our document the author describes how the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Edessa became suffragan to Antioch and ultimately connected with Rome: in fact, the Doctrina, after mentioning Aggai’s death by the breaking of his legs on order of Abgar’s apostate son—whose apostasy is also mentioned by Moses, PH 2.34—, and after explaining Aggai’s inability to lay his hand upon Palut for the succession, says that Palut received the ordination to the priesthood from Serapion, bishop of Antioch, who himself had received his ordination from Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, “from the succession of ordination to the priesthood of Simon Peter who received it from our Lord, and who had been bishop there in Rome 25 years in the days of our Caesar who reigned there 13 years.”108 Moreover, in Addai’s farewell discourse 106 See L. Cracco Ruggini, “Il primo Cristianesimo in Sicilia,” in Il Cristianesimo in Sicilia, edd. V. Messana-S. Pricoco (Caltanissetta: Seminario, 1987), 85-125: 88. On the M.H. see B. de Gaiffier, “Les SS. Castus et Aemilius,” RAC 42 (1966), 155-65 (on historical traces of African martyrs in the M.H.); A. Momigliano, “Interpretazioni minime” (Athenaeum 55 [1977]), 186-90; J.M. McCulloh, “Martyrologium Hieronymianum Cambrense” (AB 96 [1978]), 121-24; G. Lucchesi, “Ancora sull’antico calendario italico” (RSCI 32 [1978]) 140-52: a source of the M.H. is the Italic Calendar, a guide to the martyrs’ tombs with subsequent additions of liturgical indications, from 425-30 ca.; L. Ferragina-A. Masullo, “La situazione documentaria concernente S. Felice vescovo di Nola” (Impegno e dialogo 6 [1990]), 79-104; F. Amsler, “Remarques sur la réception liturgique et folklorique des Actes de Philippe” (Apocrypha 8 [1997]), 251-64. 107 See my “Edessa” and “Abgar Ukkamâ” with bibliography, and F. Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 BC-AD 337 (Cambridge-London: Harvard UP, 1993), esp. 472-81. 108 So according to Cureton’s text: Phillips’ text, instead, presents Zephyrinus as bishop of Antioch. See Howard, Teaching, 52; 105; Griffith,

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to the hierarchs he mentions “the Letters of Paul, which Simon Peter sent to us from the city of Rome,”109 together with “the Acts of the Twelve Apostles, which John the son of Zebedee sent to us from Ephesus.” Also in the Protonike story we can see a special relationship of the queen with Peter himself, in Rome: Protonike is said to give glory to the Messiah “with those who were followers of Simon, whom she held in great honor,” and when she came back to Rome from Jerusalem “she told Simon Peter that which had happened.” In this passage a particular conception of the relationship between imperial and ecclesiastical power is clearly involved: it is also the case of Addai’s address to Aggai, Palut and Abshlama (he recommends them “to love rulers and judges who have attained to this faith […] but if they go astray, rebuke them justly”).110 What Griffith rightly calls “the Roman connection,” “The Doctrina,” n. 46. Besides the idea that the see of Antioch depends on that of Rome, we can also notice the conception of a continuous episcopal succession from the apostles onward, typical of fourth-century ecclesiology (see now on this idea R.L. Williams, Bishop Lists [Piscataway: Gorgias, 2005]). Griffith, ibid., § 28 points out that the author of the Doctrina retrojects the political and ecclesiological ideas of his time into the early Christian period of Edessa’s history, and consequently concludes that he incorporated earlier legendary traditions in his work, in order to make a historical and doctrinal claim in his own time: I quite agree; yet, I think that, in addition to these legendary traditions, he might have incorporated some historical traces, too, even very ancient. 109 For a connection of Peter’s paradigmatic role and Ephrem’s ecclesiological ideas see S.H. Griffith, “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire,” in T. Halton-J. Williman, eds., Diakonia: Essays R.T. Meyer (Washington: CUA, 1986), 22-52; Id., “Ephraem the Syrian’s Hymns Against Julian” (VChr 41 [1987]), 238-66; Id., “Setting Right the Church of Syria,” in W.E. Klingshirn-M. Vessey, eds., The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays in Honor of R.A. Markus (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan, 1999), 97-114; Id., “The Doctrina,” § 28. 110 Here the relationship between ecclesiastical and civic power is described in terms that would fit Eusebius’ theory, as noted by Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 27. We know the interpretation of the nails of the Cross put in Constantine’s crown and in the bit of his horse: they symbolize both the imperial power and its submission to Christ (and his representatives): this is Ambrose’s idea. See my review of M. Sordi, L’impero romano cristiano (RSCI 55 [2001]), 215-17, and my “Unconditional forgiveness in Christianity? Some reflections on ancient

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noticing that it has both civil and ecclesiastical dimensions in the Doctrina, has also a historical basis in the letters exchanged between Abgar and Tiberius. Abgar was the king of a little buffer state placed in a strategic position between the Roman empire and the Parthian kingdom in a period during which Tiberius strongly wanted to secure the loyalty of the states situated near the Parthian border. While in the rest of the Doctrina Abgar is a client king of Tiberius and then of Claudius, in the letters the matter is not of tributes111 or submission, but of loyalty. We know in fact that these kings of buffer states between the Romans and Parthians were often scarcely trustworthy:112 Abgar himself, according to Tac. Ann. 12.12-14, in the Claudian age first supported and then, having been bribed with money, abandoned the Parthian king imposed by the Romans, as I shall document. An evocation of the Parthian kingdom and its relations with Abgar’s Edessa can perhaps be seen in the mention of Narsai as “king of the Assyrians,” whose subjects went into the territory of the Romans to see Addai (and here Edessa seems, rather unhistorically, a Roman city, while in other passages of the Doctrina Abgar is said not to be allowed to trespass into the territory of the Romans!).113 It is worth noticing that Narsai’s “Assyria”, which in the Doctrina seems to be evangelized soon after Edessa and by people coming from Edessa, is considered to be situated outside the territory of the Romans (bêth Christian sources and practices,” in Aspects of Forgiveness, ed. Christel Fricke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 111 For the problem of the tribute due to Rome by its clients see my “Un tributo dei Parti a Roma agli inizi del I sec. a.C.?” (Rendiconti Istituto Lombardo 134 [2000]), 321-30. 112 C. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 2000); B. Levick, The High Tide of Empire: Emperors and Empire AD 14-117 (Kingston-upon-Thames: LACTOR, 2002), chapp. 2 (Roman imperial expansion towards the East), 3 (client kings’ conduct towards Rome). 113 Narsai is said to have asked Abgar for a written account of Addai’s signs, and to have been satisfied. But it is to be noticed that Narsai lived in the third cent. and, according to González, Leyenda, 73, and Jullien, Apôtres, 216, is probably identifiable with the Persian king, son of Shahpur I, who succeded Bahrâm III in AD 293/4. This is another clue of the late redaction of the document. Eusebius does not mention the letters to Narsai and Ardashir.

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rhômayê); the author calls its inhabitants “orientals.”114 It is probable that this “Assyria” ought to be regarded as located in the territory under Persian hegemony and it may be identified with the region of Adiabene. We know that some traces of Christianity in this region might go back to the very time of Abgar ‘the Black’, with the possible conversion of king Izates of Adiabene and his mother Helena, presented by Josephus as a conversion to Judaism.115 According to Ios. AI 20.2.4-5, Izates, in the first years of Claudius’ reign, together with his mother, was converted by a certain Ananias— who had the same name as the Christian who in Damascus played an important role in Paul’s conversion to Christianity (Acts 9:10-11; 22:12), and as the archivist/courier in Eusebius and the Doctrina— to a particular form of Judaism without circumcision.116 Now, in the self-same years, among the Christians it was an object of lively debate whether to maintain circumcision or not:117 in AD 49 the See Millar, Near East, 100-01; Desreumaux, Histoire, 98 n. 155; 126. Howard, Teaching, 74-75; Griffith, “The Doctrina,” n. 41; B. Hemmerdinger, “Assyria” (BollClass 16 [1995]), 15-16. 115 The identification of Narsai’s “Assyria” with Adiabene is supposed by Griffith, “The Doctrina,” n. 41. On Izates’ conversion see my “Osservazioni,” 209-225; Jullien, Apôtres, 218-19. 116 In fact, though Josephus presents the event as a conversion to Judaism, some details let us suppose that Helena and Izates might have become Christians: Helena’s and Anania’s opposition to Izates’ circumcision is significant in this sense: “He said that Izates could venerate the divinity even without circumcision, if he decided to follow the Jewish customs, for this was more important than circumcision” (Ios. AI 20.2.5). Helena feared the Adiabenians’ hostility to circumcision: we’ll see that, according to Bardaiṣan, Abgar the Great, after his conversion, forbade a similar ritual mutilation under the appearance of Romanization of local customs. Helena’s and Izates’ conversion to Christianity was supposed by S. Mazzarino, Il pensiero storico classico, II 2 (Bari: Laterza, 1974), 104; see already J. Marquart, Osteuropäische und Ostasiatische Streifzüge (Stuttgart: Dieterich, 1903), 300; F. Haase, Altchristliche Kirchengeschichte nach orientalischen Quellen (ibid. 1925), 86. According to Moses, PH 2.35, Helena was a wife of Abgar’s: Moses seems to be the first who links her with Abgar: Kirsten, “Edessa,” 569. 117 On Jewish Christianity and the question of circumcision see B. Bagatti, The Church from the Circumcision (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press, 1971; 1984 repr.); Nourished with Peace. Studies S. Sandmel, ed. F.E. 114

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council of Jerusalem discussed this problem and the decision was taken not to impose circumcision on men converted to Christianity.118 Izates in those same years was friends with Abgar and took decisions in foreign politics together with him (Tac. Ann. 12.12-14).119 Indeed, in AD 49-50 Abgar, rex Arabum Acbarus,120 Greenspahn-E. Hilgert-B.L. Mack (Chico: Scholars, 1984); F.W. Horn, “Der Verzicht auf die Beschneidung im frühen Christentum” (NTS 42 [1996]), 479-505; J.R. Wagner, “The Christ, Servant of Jew and Gentile” (JBL 116 [1997]), 473-85; T.W. Berkley, From a Broken Covenant to Circumcision of the Heart, Ph.D. Diss. Marquette University (Milwaukee, Wis. 1998). 118 For controversies on circumcision within Judaism see e.g. L.H. Feldman, in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (London: Harvard UP, 1965), 410-11; L.H. Schiffman, “The Conversion of the Royal House of Adiabene,” in Josephus, Judaism and Christianity, eds. L.H. Feldman-G. Hata (Detroit: Brill, 1987), 81-94; M. Frenchkowski, “Iranische Königslegende in der Adiabene zur Vorgeschichte von Josephus Antiquitates XX 17, 33” (ZDMG 140 [1990]), 213-33; Also: S. Weitzmann, “Forced Circumcision and the Shifting Role of Gentiles in Hasmonean Ideology” (HThR 92 [1999]), 37-59. On circumcision in the Jerusalem Council, in St. Paul and the NT see J. Daniélou, La teologia del Giudeocristianesimo (transl. Bologna: Mulino, 1974), xxvi; F. Bruce, “Galatian problems, 3. The ‘other’ gospel” (BRL 53 [1971]), 253-71; R. Jewitt, “The agitators and the Galatian congregation” (NTS 17 [1971]), 198-212; P. Borgen, Paul preaches circumcision and pleases men and other essays on Christian origins (Trondheim: Tapir, 1983); J. Paget, “Barnabas 9:4: a peculiar verse on circumcision” (VChr 45 [1991]), 242-54; J.M. Lieu, “Circumcision, Women, and Salvation” (NTS 40 [1994]), 358-70; J.S. Vos, “Paul’s Argumentation in Galatians 1-2” (HThR 87 [1994]), 1-16; D.C. Allison, “Exegetical Amnesia in James” (EThL 76 [2000]), 162-66; L. Troiani, “La circoncisione nel Nuovo Testamento,” in FiloramoGianotto, Verus Israel, 95-107. For a comparison between Paul, Rom 2:29 and Philo’s thought on circumcision, on which he limits his allegoresis in Migr. Abr. 89-93; Spec. leg. 1. 1-11: J. Barclay, “Paul and Philo on Circumcision” (NTS 44 [1998]), 536-56. For Paul’s thought in early Christianity see M. Simonetti, Ortodossia ed eresia fra I e II secolo (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1994). 119 Analysis in my “Edessa,” 109-11. 120 Pliny, NH 5.85-86, considers the region of Osrhoene, with Edessa and close to Commagene, as Arabia: its inhabitants are the Arabi Orroeni or Orroei. In 5.86, near Edessa, he mentiones Carrhae (“Arabia supra dicta

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together with Izates who ruled over Adiabene, first supported Meherdates, the Parthian ruler imposed by the Romans, and, together with some inlustres Parthi (Tac. Ann. 12.12), requested Meherdates as king in front of C. Cassius, “qui Suriae praeerat” (ib. 12.11), but then, together with Izates, decided to betray him and, bribed with money by Gotarzes, Meherdates’ rival, abandoned the latter. Cassius, who suspected this at once, said to Meherdates that “barbarorum impetus acres cunctatione languescere aut in perfidiam mutari” (ibid.). In fact, for many days Abgar detained Meherdates in Edessa (“fraude Acbari, qui iuvenem ignarum et summam fortunam in luxu ratum multos per dies attinuit apud oppidum Edessam”), and deprived him of precious armed forces, his own army and that of his friend Izates, and so caused Meherdates’ defeat. Tacitus comments: “Izates Adiabeno, mox Acbarus Arabum cum exercitu abscedunt, levitate gentili, et quia experimentis cognitum est barbaros malle Romam petere reges quam habere” (ibid. 14). Moreover, Ios. AI 20.3.3. attests that Izates too, just like Abgar, was initially loyal to Rome: he records that when Bardanes, a son of the Parthian king Artabanus, who had been helped by Izates to recover his realm (ibid. 1-2), was going to take up arms against Rome, Izates strongly tried to dissuade him, at the cost of incurring Bardanes’ hostility. Abgar, too, was loyal to Rome—like his homonymous predecessor— before Meherdates’ affair, as we know from Moses121 and from habet oppida Edessam […] Carrhas”), where Izates ruled (Ios. AI 20.2.2). On ancient Arabia see R.G. Hoyland, Arabia and the Arabs (New York: Routledge, 2001). 121 Analysis of Moses and Procopius in my “Edessa,” 111ff. Moses, PH 2, 26, attests some kind of submission of Edessa to Rome in the Augustan age, when he says that “in the second year of Abgar’s reign” (probably a predecessor of Abgar the Black) all the Armenian territories became tributary of Rome;” we know that in Moses’ view Edessa was an Armenian city. It is not sure that Edessa paid a tribute to Rome in the I cent., but Moses is right when he mentions a bond of loyalty that linked the Edessan kings to Rome. We know that Osrhoene passed under Roman control through Lucullus’ victories (69 BC against Tigranes king of Armenia) and the occupation of Armenia in 66-65 BC, but it seems that local kings were granted a relative independence. In the I cent. AD Edessa was under Adiabene for a period; only in AD 114 Trajan conquered Armenia, Mesopotamia and Adiabene, set Edessa on fire and gave it to a Parthian king; in 213 Edessa became a Roman colony under

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the name of Antonina Edessa Colonia Metropolis Aurelia Alexandra; the Abgarid dynasty disappeared in AD 242. From the recently discovered PMesopotamia A we learn the existence of an Aelius Septimius Abgar, unknown before, who in AD 239/40 was “honored with the hupateia in Orhay,” i.e. Edessa. See J. Teixidor, “Les derniers rois d’Édesse d’après deux nouveaux documents syriaques” (ZPE 76 [1989]), 219-22; Id., “Deux documents syriaques du IIIème siècle après J.-C., provenant du moyen Euphrate” (CRAI [1990]), 144-66; Desreumaux, Histoire, 18-19; Millar, Near East, 553-62; M. Gawlikowski, “The Last Kings of Edessa,” in Symposium Syriacum VII, ed. R. Lavenant, OCA 256 (Roma: Pont. Ist. Studi Orientali, 1998), 421-29; T. Gnoli, Roma, Edessa e Palmira nel III sec. d.C. (Pisa-Roma: IEPI, 2000), 73-74 and my “Abgar.” In fact, before these recent discoveries, Ps. Dion. 131 Ch. fixed the end of the Edessan dynasty in 220/1, without mentioning Aelius Septimius Abgar’s reign, whereas today we know that Aelius lost his power only in 242; from then to 248 Luther supposes an interregnum up to the complete abolition of the monarchical institution in Edessa, according to Jacob of Edessa, 28182 Brooks, who records that the Edessan dynasty lasted till year 560 of the Greeks = AD 248, when the Romans deposed Abgar Severus, because he wanted to defect, and created Aurelianus, son of Habsay, hegemôn, laying Edessa under tribute: “and so the Edessan monarchy ended:” see Chronica Edessena. Chronica Minora, III, eds. E.W. Books-I. Guidi-J.B. Chabod, CSCO Syri 5 (Paris: 1905; repr. Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste L. Durbecq), 282-82; Gnoli, Roma, 78-79; A. Luther, “Marcopolis in Osrhoene und der Tod des Kaisers Caracalla” (Electrum 7 [2003]), 101-10, on the end of the kingdom of Osrhoene in the Forties of the third cent.: from then on, Marcopolis was no longer a place of residence for the Osrhoene kings. But also before the creation of that hêgemôn, the Roman intervention is to be seen in the assignment of the kingdom, for some time, to Abgar the Fair and Aelius Septimius Abgar (Luther, “Elias,” 19497; Gnoli, Roma, 79-80) and to others referred to as diepontes tên hupateian (on this title cf. Gnoli, Roma, 89-123; S.K. Ross, Roman Edessa [LondonNew York: Routledge, 2001], 75-81 and passim), governors who were equites Romani, mentioned in four documents of the Mesopotamian dossier: one of them, who appears in PMesopotamia A, is “King Aelius Septimius Abgar, son of Macnu, the Crown Prince [paṣgribâ], son of King Abgar, who is honoured with the hupateia in Edessa.” Such hupateia seems to indicate the monarchical power in Edessa after its transformation into a Roman colony, a sort of enclave in the procuratorial province of Osrhoene, governed by equites Romani: during the vacancy of the Edessan throne, the power was entrusted to a Roman eques (on these equites governors cf. Gnoli, Roma, 82-83; 87). Other hypotheses on the nature of this hupateia

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Procopius,122 even if before AD 35 he may have done something that made him suspect to the Romans. So Izates’ conduct reveals deep similarities with that of Abgar: both were allies of Rome before this episode, both seem to have at least known something about Jesus—even if we do not accept the story of their conversion to Christianity, legendary in the case of Abgar, possible for Izates—, and later, in the Meherdates affair, both decided, together, to make a political choice that did not favor Rome. Moreover, Meherdates is certainly mentioned in the Doctrina as father of a wife of Abgar’s, Shalmat,123 and is also said to have attended Addai’s preaching. Izates too is perhaps referred to in the Doctrina, which mentions a Bar Zati, i.e. a son of a certain “Zati” who is probably identifiable with our Izates.124 His son, according to the Doctrina, was among the nobles who attended Addai’s preaching and were converted. That Izates transmitted his faith to his sons is known thanks to Josephus (AI 20.3.3), according to whom Izates’ sons learnt Hebrew (glôttan par’ hêmin patrion) and seem less probable: a caretaker government of Coelesiria (so W. Eck, “C. Iulius Octavius Volusenna Rogatianus” (ZPE 90 [1992]), 199-206: 201); consulate or consular rank (so Millar, Near East, 478); a sort of imperium maius: so D. Feissel-J. Gascou, “Documents d’archives romains inédits du Moyen Euphrate. IIIème siècle après J.-C.” (Journal des Savants 65 [1995]), 65-119: 81. 122 In the sixth cent. Procopius (on whom see M. R. Cataudella, “Historiography in the East,” in Marasco, ed., Historiography, 391-447: 391-417), Bell. Pers. 2.12.8-19, knows, probably from Eusebius, the correct title of Abgar (the homonymous predecessor of ‘the Black’), toparkhês (he explains: “this was the title of those who ruled over a people [tous kata ethnos basileis]), and describes his pro-Roman conduct. He presents him as “closest friend of Augustus” and records the story of his voyage to Rome intended to reinforce the alliance with the emperor. Augustus was so pleased of Abgar’s company that he would not part from him, and Abgar had to invent an expedient in order to go home. Then Procopius tells a story very similar to that of Eusebius and the Doctrina about Abgar’s illness, his alleged correspondence with Jesus, the promise that Edessa would never be conquered (this point is absent in the other two sources but present in the Peregrinatio Aegeriae, cf. above) and mentions the siege unsuccessfully laid to Edessa by Chosroes in 544 (2.26). Procopius, as Moses, identifies the Abgar of the Augustan and that of the Tiberian age. 123 Moses, PH 2.35, says that Helena was not the only wife of Abgar. 124 See already Cureton, Documents, 162.

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received an education (paideia) characterized by Jewish customs. Moses too in PH 2.35 links Abgar’s Christianity with that of the kings of Adiabene (he tells that Helena, the first of Abgar’s wives, was converted to Christianity like her husband and after the latter’s death was sent to Kharan, Carrhae, by the new Armenian king, Sanadrug, but, as she did not want to live in a pagan land, under Claudius’ reign she went to Jerusalem, where, during a famine, she furnished the people with grain from Egypt: here Moses mentions Josephus’ authority).125 A further detail might be interesting with reference to the relationship between Adiabene and the Jewish-Christian world. I have shown that, according to the Doctrina, Jesus received Abgar’s envoys in Jerusalem in Gamaliel’s house: the Jewish Bereshit Rabba attests that Gamaliel maintained close relations with the kings of Adiabene. Besides, Nineveh, the main town of Adiabene, was on the road that passed through Osrhoene and was linked to Edessa; then, through Hierapolis in Syria, this road crossed the Euphrates

125 It is evident that Abgar’s death in 64/5 does not fit with the Claudian age: in fact, according to Ios. AI 20.2.1, Helena married, not Abgar, but Monobazus of Adiabene. Moses, like Horosius (7.6), is persuaded that Helena was a Christian and depicts her as the Christian Abgar’s widow. However, the points of contact between Moses’ narration and Josephus’ one are several: in AI 20.2.2 Izates, Helena’s son, begins to rule over the khôran… Kharrhôn; ibid. 2.4: they are both converted; ibid. 2.6: in Jerusalem, during the (historical) famine of AD 46, Helena provides grain from Egypt and Izates supplies money; Moses draws from Josephus the detail of Helena’s monument just outside Jerusalem. It would be more probable that Moses derived his information from Eusebius, who cites Josephus in turn, and records that Helena provided the grain during the famine, and that she was the queen of Adiabene (HE 2.12); nevertheless, in Eusebius some details are absent, such as the mention of Carrhae, Helena’s Christianity, or the monument “in front of the gate of Jerusalem” rather than en proasteiois tês nun Ailias (Eusebius, ibid.). On the other hand, the identification of Helena queen of Adiabene with Abgar’s Christian widow is due neither to Eusebius nor to Josephus, but only to Moses. Anyway, that germs of Christianity were present very early in Adiabene seems to be attested by the Chronicle of Arbela, too (see my Il Chronicon), and by the already mentioned Acts of Mari (cf. my Atti di Mari).

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and reached the Roman territory.126 So, in order to reach Adiabene, following the main road, one had to cross Osrhoene; on this road there was Carrhae, too, where Izates ruled according to Ios. AI 20.2.2. Another interesting historical trace in the Doctrina—a trace probably dating back not to the age of Abgar the Black, but to that of his later namesake Abgar the Great, rav, who ruled AD 177 to 212127 as “a client of Roman power from the beginning of his

126 On roads in Roman Syria and Mesopotamia: T. Bazou, “Les routes romaines de Syrie,” in J.M. Dentzer-W. Orthmann, Archéologie et histoire de la Syrie, II (Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei, 1989), 205-21; Jullien, Apôtres, 93, 196. 127 For his chronology see my “Abgar.” For the years 177-212 see Drijvers, “Hatra,” 870-79, accepted by Luther, “Elias,” 180-98, and Gnoli, Roma, passim. The deposition of an Abgar in AD 212/3, when the Edessan reign was abolished for the first time by Caracalla, is referred to Abgar Severus by Gnoli, Roma, 74-79; by Teixidor, Rois, 221 and Documents, 160, to Abgar the Great (who, according to S.K. Ross, “The Last King of Edessa: New Evidence from the Middle Euphrates” (ZPE 97 [1993]), 197-206: 194-95, is identical with Abgar Severus; according to Gawlikowski, Kings, 428, instead, Abgar Severus was a successor of the Great). Millar, Near East, 561, puts a question mark near 212, because the 26 years of Macnu’s rule, soon after Abgar’s one, according to Ps. Dionysius, 128 Chabot, would lead us to 213. In fact, after the transformation of Edessa into a Roman colony, Abgar’s son ruled for 26 years with the title of paṣgribâ, “Crown Prince,” attested by PMesopotamia A (Teixidor, “Documents,” 144-66). At the end of this period, in AD 239/40, the same document attests the rule of the son of Abgar’s son, Aelius Septimius Abgar, who then was deposed by Gordianus III in AD 242 according to PMesopotamia B (ed. J. Teixidor, “Un document syriaque de fermage de 242 ap. J.-C.,” (Semitica 41-42 [1993]), 195-208; Gnoli, Roma, 73-75; Ross, Edessa, 69-70; 73-82). For recent discoveries (papyri and parchment) on Edessa and Osrhoene in the late II-III cent. AD see the editions of P.Mesop.: Feissel-Gascou, “Documents” (Journal des Savants 65 [1995]), 65-119; (67 [1997]), 3-57; (70 [2000]), 157-208; also Gnoli, Roma; Ross, Edessa, esp. 46-82; 185-95; with the review art. by A. Camplani-T. Gnoli, “Edessa e Roma: a proposito di un libro recente” (MediterrAnt 4 [2001]), 41-68. On the papyri: H.M.Cotton, W. Cockle and F. Millar, “The Papyrology of the Roman Near East. Survey,” JRS 85 (1995), 214-35.

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reign”128—is the mention of the church built by Addai with Abgar’s generous support. In fact, besides the maintenance of the poor and the sick, the only gift of wealth that Addai accepts from Abgar is devoted to the building of a church in Edessa, which finds a parallel in the big church that Protonike ordered to be built over Golgotha and Jesus’ tomb in Jerusalem.129 Moreover, we are said that “Some years after the Apostle Addai had built the church in Edessa, […] he built churches in other districts as well, both far and near […] set up deacons and presbyters in them, taught those who were to read the Scriptures […] and the orders of ministry.” This suggests a spread of Christianity from Edessa to the nearby regions, but what is of the highest interest here is the mention of the church in Edessa. From the Chronicle of Edessa, chap. 12, we know that “in the year 624 [= AD 313] bishop Qûnê laid the foundations of the Edessan church; but it was bishop Sa’ad, his successor, who built it wholly and completed the edifice.” So, soon after Constantine’s victory and conversion a church was built in Edessa. But in the same Chronicle, chap. 1,130 we find that already in AD 202 (“513 of the Edessan era”), under the reign of Abgar the Great, there was a church in Edessa, the first ever attested in that city: I suppose that Addai’s church, as mentioned in the Doctrina, could be reminiscent of this church, although some scholars have a more skeptical approach to its existence and think that the first Christian building in Edessa was in fact that of Qûnê.131 Indeed, the Chronicon records a big flood due to the overflowing of the river Daiṣan—that from which the name of Bardaiṣan, “son of the Daiṣan,” derives —at the very beginning of the third cent.: “in the 128 Ross, Roman Edessa, 46; 70: likewise, “Abgar X not only acted on Rome’s behalf, but actually received his throne—and some sort of official position in the Roman imperial structure—from the hand of Gordian himself.” 129 See also Griffith, “The Doctrina,” § 43. 130 This Chronicle is a document of the sixth cent. AD, but the account of the flood is taken from a record contemporary to the event and kept in the Edessan archives: Chron. Edess. 1, 3 ll. 11-15 ed. Guidi: Chronica Edessena, cit.: “Those who wrote these records and King Abgar’s edict are Mâryabh Bar Shemesh and Qâyômâ Bar Magarṭaṭ, notaries in Edessa; those who put them in the Edessan archives are Bardîn and Bôlidâ, superintendents of these archives, and also officers of the city.” 131 See discussion in the last section of my “Edessa.”

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month of teshrîn herây”, i.e. in November, the waters flooded Abgar’s palace and also “the area of the sacred building of the Christians that was open to the congregation” (p. 2, l.4), in Syriac bhaykelâ d-‘idtâ d-krîsṭeyanê. Haykal (absolute state), haykelâ (emphatic state) is the part of the sacred building open to the congregation of the believers, the laymen: Guidi (p. 3 ll.23-24) translates templum and explains: “h.e. partem ecclesiae ubi populus locum habebat”; Brockelmann translates 1) palatium; 2) templum; 3) sacrarium templi, sacellum templi, navis ecclesiae; 4) ecclesia.132 So not only is the presence of Christians attested in Edessa at the time of Abgar the Great, but also a building dedicated to their religious ceremonies.133 And if the Christian local community had a place of public cult, the destruction of which by the flood was recorded in the local chronicles, it certainly was with the king’s consent. In fact, it is even probable that Abgar the Great was a Christian himself: his conversion is much debated among scholars; I provided a full discussion of this issue in a previous work.134 He forbade a ritual practice of masculine mutilation—in some sources assimilated to circumcision135—in honor of Taratha-Atargatis, 132 C. Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum (Halis Saxonum: Niemeyer, 1928), 174 col. 2, s.v. haikl. 133 A. Hamman, I Cristiani nel II secolo (Milano: Saggiatore, 1973), 34 reads this passage of the Chronicon as a sure attestation of the existence of a Christian church in Edessa in the Severan age. On Christianity under Abgar the Great also see Ross, Edessa, 133-34; F. Millar, “Paul of Samosata, Zenobia, and Aurelian” (JRS 22 [1971]), 2-17; Drijvers, “Hatra,” 863-85; Id., “Edessa und das jüdische Christentum”. As recalled e.g. by Moraldi, Apocrifi, II, 1657-58, the Christian church was organized in Edessa by the bishop Qûnê in AD 313, when, soon after Constantine’s victory, he built a church, according to the same Chronicon Edessenum. 134 Ramelli, “Edessa,” part II. 135 We can remember Hadrian’s ban on circumcision in AD 119/20 (J. Mélèze Modrzejewski, “‘Filios Suos Tantum’-Roman Law and Jewish Identity,” in Mor-Oppenheimer, Jews and Gentiles, 108-36: 121-23), and Antoninus Pius’s rescript of the ban after Bar Kochba’s war: only children could be circumcised (ibid. 132), so that an adult male could not convert to Judaism without violating Roman law. For the sometimes difficult distinction, in the sources, between various kinds of mutilation and circumcision: M. Knight, “Curing cut or ritual mutilation?” (Isis 92 [2001]), 317-38. For pagan views on circumcision cf. D.S. Barrett, “Martial, Jews, and circumcision” (LCM 9 [1984]), 42-46; further

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mentioned also in the Doctrina as a local pagan deity: the episode is attested in the Book of the Laws of Countries by Bardaiṣan’s school136 and by Eus. PE 6.10.44. From the first, who was a contemporary of Abgar, or more probably from his school that recorded his information, we know that the king’s decision was due to his conversion to Christianity: “In Syria and in Edessa the men used to excise their virility in honor of Atargatis, but when king Abgar believed [hymn], he ordered that every man who was circumcised should have his hand cut off.” Of course there is a difference between emasculation and circumcision, but firstly it disappears in Eusebius’ parallel text, which in both cases speaks of a “mutilation” (apokoptein),137 and secondly it is evident that the Book of the Laws of Countries says that Abgar’s decision was due to his new faith. In Syriac mehaymenâ, “believer,” is usually synonymous of meshîḥayâ, “Christian,”138 and for Bardaiṣan, who undoubtedly was a Christian, just as for his followers, “to believe” obviously refers to the Christian faith. Besides, the historian and chronographer Sextus Iulius Africanus, who lived at Abgar’s court as an instructor of his son and was a Christian, too,139 defines Abgar as a “holy man,” documentation in my “Elementi comuni della polemica antigiudaica e di quella anticristiana fra I e II sec. d.C.” (Studi Romani 49 [2001]), 245-74. 136 PS, ed. F. Nau, I 2, 607 = FHG V 2, 92 = Cureton, Spicilegium, 20. See Ramelli, “Edessa,” 137-43 on the probable Christian faith of Abgar the Great. On Bardaiṣan see my “Linee generali per una presentazione e un commento del Liber legum regionum, con traduzione” (Rendiconti Ist. Lombardo 133 [1999]), 311-55; “Bardesane e la sua scuola tra la cultura occidentale e quella orientale,” in Pensiero e istituzioni del mondo classico nelle culture del Vicino Oriente, edd. R.B. Finazzi-A. Valvo (Alessandria: Orso, 2001), 237-55, all with bibl.; Possekel, “Formative Christianity”; Ead., “Bardaisan;” my Bardais?an of Edessa: A Reassessment. 137 On the cult of Atargatis in Edessa see A. Desreumaux, “Les titres des oeuvres apocryphes chrétiennes,” in La formation des canons scripturaires ed. M. Tardieu (Paris: Cerf, 1993), 84 n. 110; T. Green, The City of the Moon God (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 159-60; Drijvers, Cults, 121, 143. 138 See P. Kawerau, Die Chronik von Arbela, CSCO Syri 199 (Louvain: Peeters, 1985), xii. 139 See T. Rampoldi, “I Kestoi di Giulio Africano,” in ANRW, II.34.3 (1997), 2451-70: 2452-53 & 2468; Ramelli, “Edessa,” 134-37. Sextus in his Kestoi, 1. 20, describes a scene of everyday life at Abgar’s court that he himself saw: the king’s son killed a bear with his bow and arrows: he was instructed by Sextus in archery. Sextus went to Edessa probably on the

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hieros anêr (ap. Eus. Chron. a. 220 Chr. 214 Helm; Sync. Chronogr. I 676, 13 Bonn; 359B, from Africanus’ chronographical work), and probably means that Abgar was a Christian; it is significant, too, that Abgar entrusted his son to a Christian instructor as Africanus, who moreover was a Roman. And from Dio, 72.12.1, we know that Abgar’s decision to forbid those ritual mutilations was presented by him as an attempt to make his subjects adopt Roman customs.140 occasion of Septimius Severus’ expedition and then was friends with Alexander Severus, for whom he planned the Pantheon Library and to whom he dedicated his Kestoi, the first non-religious work written by a Christian. He was also a friend of Origen’s, whom he met and with whom he exchanged letters. Sextus may have promoted the meeting of Origen and Julia Mamaea, of Syrian origins, to whom Hippolytus also dedicated his De resurrectione. In Edessa he knew Bardaiṣan, another Christian, whom he calls ho Parthos and describes as an excellent archer (ibid. 1. 20). The Osrhoenes were able archers and Abgar himself furnished selected archers to Septimius Severus (Herodianus, 3.9.2) and then Alexander Severus had Osrhoene archers as body guards, who then rebelled against Maximinus Thrax, who repressed the revolt just while he persecuted the Christians (ibid. 7.1.9-11). For a probable presence of Christians in these Osrhoene cohorts see my “Edessa,” 137. 140 See Sordi, Il Cristianesimo, 477-479; Ramelli, “Edessa,” 131-133 and 138-39. Mazzarino, L’impero, 463-464 n. 18, supposes that Abgar’s state was the first officially Christian state and, moreover, the first state that persecuted pagans. See also Id., “La democratizzazione della cultura nel Basso Impero,” in XI Congrès International de Sciences Historiques, Stockholm (Assen: Van Gorcum-Prakke, 1960), 35-55. Dio speaks of Abgar the Great and his realm in three passages: in 75.1-2 he records that in AD 195 Septimius Severus defeated the Osrhoenes and the Adiabenes, who assured their loyalty to him after Pescennius Niger’s death. In 77.12.1 (our passage) on Abgar he says that, “as soon as he began to rule his fellow countrymen,” he inflicted heavy impositions on the nobles under the pretext of converting them to Roman customs. In 79.16 Dio speaks of Abgar’s Roman stay, after Septimius’ Oriental expedition: his entry into Rome was hupo pompês aplêtou. Abgar granted him the rule, despite the creation of a provincia Osrhoena (only in 213 or 216 did Edessa become a Roman colony, Marcia Aurelia Antoniniana Edessa. For the historical reconstruction of the end of the Abgarids see Millar, Near East, 553-62; Gnoli, Roma, 74-79; Luther, “Elias,” 194-98; Ross, Edessa, 150-85, and here, above). In fact, we know from Herodianus, 3.9.2 that in 195 or 197 he gave himself in fidem and his sons as hostages to the victorious Septimius: his sons were educated in Rome (so, e.g., the Herodian princes

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Eus. HE 5.23.2-4; 24.1 says that in the time of Pope Victor, a local synod was held in Edessa on the problem of the Easter date, which was the object of a lively debate in those days. All the paroikiai of Osrhoene took part in it, and its proceedings were communicated to Victor.141 And a libellus synodicus published by Mansi, I, 727-728, relates that at the end of the second cent. AD, in the time of the Roman emperor Commodus, the metropolitan bishop of Edessa had eighteen suffragan bishops, among whom were also those of Adiabene, a nearby region.142 We must remember that the libellus is mostly considered unreliable about the number of the suffragan churches—even if it includes the suffragan bishops of both Osrhoene and Adiabene—, that it probably retrojects an institutional situation of later times, and also that the full historicity of Eusebius’ account has been challenged. Anyway, from Abercius’ Epitaph,143 a precisely datable and reliable document, we know that at the very beginning of the third cent. AD Christianity had already spread in the regions situated East of the Euphrates. For Abercius, who was a Christian, says that he saw all the Syrian cities, including Nisibis, and that he crossed the Euphrates, and “everywhere” he “met brothers of the same religion,” i.e. Christians.144 In an Edessan inscription of the third cent. the mention of baptism and faith in resurrection makes its Christian character fully evident.145 were educated in Rome, as sign of loyalty: see M. Hadas-Lebel, “L’éducation des princes hérodiens à Rome et l’évolution du clientélisme romain,” in Mor, Jews and Gentiles, 44-62). See Hist. Aug., Vita Severi, 18, 1: “Abgarum subegit; Arabes [= Osrhoenos] in dicionem accepit; Adiabenos in tributarios coegit.” 141 The historicity of this account is accepted by Jullien, Apôtres, 124, where it is also maintained that Abgar the Great may have become a Christian himself. 142 See my “Edessa,” 140. 143 See my “L’epitafio di Abercio” (Aevum 74 [2000]), 191-206. Already I. Ortiz de Urbina, “Le origini del Cristianesimo in Edessa” (Gregorianum 15 [1934]), 82-91 admitted that Abercius’ inscription confirms the presence of Christians in Osrhoene in the second half of the second cent. AD. 144 Epitaphium Abercii, ll.10-12: he kept “Paul” on his chariot, i.e. Paul’s epistles. On Paul in second cent. Asia see M. Simonetti, “Paolo nell’Asia cristiana del II secolo” (VetChr 27 [1990]), 123-44. 145 See my “Un’iscrizione battesimale edessena del III sec. d.C.” (‘Ilu 8 [2003]), 119-36; M.C.A. Macdonald, “Some Reflections on Epigraphy

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I think that it is probable that in the Severan age not only were there Christians in Edessa (at least Bardaiṣan was a Christian and his disciples were Christians), but the king himself perhaps converted to Christianity. So, Abgar the Black’s alleged Christianity has often been seen as a retrojection of the possible conversion of the Great,146 and I think that the Doctrina might contain traces and echoes of this, such as the conversion of the Edessan king and the building of the first church. Abgar the Black’s correspondence with Jesus is not historical, whereas I believe that his exchange of letters with Tiberius might contain historical traces, especially if put in the historical context of Tiberius’ knowledge of Christ and Christians (perhaps thanks to Pilate), of his proposal to the Senate, and of Vitellius’ political and military mission in the Near East soon after the s.c. of AD 35, precisely in the years of Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters. Moreover, the new chronology proposed by Luther for Abgar the Black fits the relationship between Abgar and Tiberius better than the old one: the period of Abgar’s removal from his reign, AD 26 to 30, coincides with the years of Seianus’ greatest power, and the second time he ascended the throne in AD 31 exactly corresponds to the year of Seianus’ downfall and to the very date given by the Doctrina (year 343 of the Greeks = AD 31/2) for the beginning of the relationship between Abgar and Tiberius that led to their exchange of letters.147 In addition, this date perfectly fits the above mentioned friendship of Abgar and Avillius Flaccus, prefect of Egypt AD 32 to 38. Like Abgar, Avillius was hostile to the Jews and Herod; just like Abgar, he was a friend of Tiberius’, and, soon after his death, he was removed by Caligula. Abgar’s first acts of foreign politics are characterized by an evident good will towards Tiberius, who, attentive to the situation in the Near East at the beginning of the thirties,148 in AD 31 probably helped him to and Ethnicity in the Roman Near East,” Mediterranean Archaeology 11 (1998), 177-190: 181-82 for the link with ethnicity. 146 See e.g. Rahner, “Abgar,” 43; Chaumont, Christianisation, 16 (the story of Abgar “est tout à fait anachronique et s’inspire en grand partie de celle d’Abgar VIII le Grand”); Drijvers, “Abgarsage,” 393. 147 See my “Abgar.” 148 See M. Sordi, “Linee per una ricostruzione degli ultimi anni di Tiberio” (Stylos 1 [1992]) 27-35 = Ead., Scritti di storia romana (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2002), 447-54: 449-51 and 453.

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recover his throne after Abgar Ḥewârâ’s usurpation, in order to secure an ally against Herod. We have seen that Abgar supported Aretas against Herod just at the beginning of the thirties of the first cent. AD, in a conflict that ended precisely in the years of Vitellius’ mission in the Orient and of Abgar’s and Tiberius’ letters, in which we see their uniformity of views, in respect to the Oriental situation, and Abgar’s loyalty towards the emperor. Under Caligula, Avillius, Abgar’s friend, fell into disgrace, and under Claudius Abgar’s conduct toward Rome became more ambiguous: we have mentioned his defection together with Izates of Adiabene. Claudius, nobilitatibus externis mitis (Tac. Ann. 12.20), didn’t punish this disloyal act, and so Abgar remained on his throne till the time of Nero. The son of Gotarzes’ successor, Vologeses (ibid. 14), continued ruling the Parthians, and took part in the war between Armenians and Iberians that also involved the Romans (ibid. 44), when he tried the invasion of Armenia before AD 54 (ibid. 50) and again in AD 55 (Ann. 13.6), when Nero had entrusted the government of Armenia to Domitius Corbulo and sought to create a net of allies among the Oriental kings. “Socii reges, prout bello conduceret, parere iussi” (Ann. 13.7-9): among these kings, according to the new chronology, there probably was Abgar too, whose support was to be precious, because the situation near the Oriental border was unstable. In AD 58 the Armenians, dubia fide, called now an army, now another, and inclined to submit to the Parthians, whose king Vologeses sacked the lands of those whom he deemed loyal to the Romans (ibid. 34; 37). All this may have contributed to remove Abgar from loyalty towards Rome.149

For the events linked to the conflict between Romans and Parthians, which involved Abgar too, see now E. Winter, Rom und das Perserreich: zwei Weltmächte zwischen Konfrontation und Koexistenz (Berlin: Akademie, 2001), 1-36. In AD 62 Vologeses attacked the Hyrcanians, who asked the Romans for an alliance (Ann. 14.25), and also attacked proRoman Armenia with the support of Adiabene (ibid. 15.1-2), which about ten years before betrayed Rome together with Abgar’s Osrhoene. It is probable that now too Abgar stood by the Parthians’ side. The king of Adiabene was present at the negotiations between Vologeses’ praefectus equitatus and the Roman general Paetus (ibid. 14). Abgar died a couple of years before Nero’s death, while the situation in the Near East kept being unstable. The silence of the sources about his foreign politics in the last 149

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In conclusion, I suppose that the Doctrina might contain some historical traces, especially in the correspondence between Abgar and Tiberius, even though wrapped in a legendary dress.

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Vattioni, F. Hatra. Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli Suppl. 81. Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1994. Verrando, G.N., “Alla base e intorno alla più antica Passio dei Santi Abdon e Sennes.” Augustinianum 30 (1990):145-83. Voicu, S. “Movsês Corenacci.” In Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, ed. A. Di Berardino, II. Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1983. 232425. Volp, U. Tod und Ritual in den christlichen Gemeinden der Antike. Vigiliae Christianae Suppl. 65. Leiden-Boston-Köln: Brill, 2002. von Dobschütz, E. Christusbilder. Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende, I. Texte und Untersuchungen 18. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899. —. “Der Briefwechsel zwischen Abgar und Jesus.” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftlichen Theologie 43 (1900): 422-86. von Gutschmid, A. “Untersuchungen über die Geschichte des Königreichs Osrhoene.” Mémoires de l’Académie de St.-Pétersbourg 35 (1887). von Harnack, H. Porphyrius gegen die Christen. Berlin: Reimer, 1916. Von Rohden, E. “Abgar V Ukkama.” In Pauly-Wissowa. Realenzyklopädie 1 (1894): 94. Vos, J.S. “Paul’s Argumentation in Galatians 1-2.” HThR 87 (1994): 1-16. Wagner, J.R. “The Christ, Servant of Jew and Gentile.” JBL 116 (1997): 473-85. Walsh, M. Christen und Cäsaren. Die Geschichte des frühen Christentums. Freiburg-Würzburg: Ploetz, 1988. Weber, C. “Egeria’s Norman homeland.” HSPh 92 (1989): 437-56. Weitzmann, S. “Forced Circumcision and the Shifting Role of Gentiles in Hasmonean Ideology.” HThR 92 (1999): 37-59. Westra, H.J. “The pilgrim Egeria’s concept of place.” MLatJb 30 (1995): 93-100. Whealey, A. Josephus on Jesus. Studies in Biblical Literature 36. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. Wilken, R.L. Judaism and the Early Christian Mind: A Study of Cyil of Alexandria’s Exegesis and Theology. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971. —. John Chrysostom and the Jews. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Williams, P.J. Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels. Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, 3rd Series 2. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2004. Williams, R.L. Bishop Lists: Formation of Apostolic Succession of Bishops in Ecclesiastical Crises. Gorgias Dissertations 16, Early Christian Studies 3. Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005.

Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai

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Wilson, S.G. Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70-170 C.E. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. Winandy, J. “Sur l’année où naquit Jésus.” EThL 75 (1999): 419-20. Winkelmann, F. “Historiography in the Age of Constantine.” In Greek and Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity, ed. G. Marasco. Leiden: Brill, 2003. 3-41. Winkler, D.W. Ostsyrisches Christentum. Studien zur Orient. Kirchengeschichte 26. Münster: LIT, 2003. Winter, E. Rom und das Perserreich: zwei Weltmächte zwischen Konfrontation und Koexistenz. Berlin: Akademie, 2001. Witakowski, W. The Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Maḥrê. Uppsala: Universitas Upsaliensis, 1987. Yacoub, J. Babylone chrétienne. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1996. Yousif, E.I. Les chroniqueurs syriaques. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002. —. La floraison des philosophes syriaques. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003. Zaccagnini, C. (ed.) Mercanti e politica nel mondo antico. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2003.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.1, 129-132 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

BRIEF ARTICLES

RECENT BOOKS ON SYRIAC TOPICS PART 9 SEBASTIAN P. BROCK UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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The present listing continues on from previous listings in the first number of Hugoye for the years 1998-2005. Reprints are not included (for some important ones, see http://www.gorgiaspress.com). 1998

Ishlemon Warduni and Habeb Hermiz, Syriac and Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the St Peter Seminary Baghdad (Baghdad). [81pp, 134 mss; in Arabic].

2002

Tang Li, A Study of the History of Nestorian Christianity in China and its Literature in Chinese (Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang).

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2003 n.a., Phanqithos: the West Syriac Liturgical Cycle. I, Winter Phanqitho; II, Lent and Passion (Piscataway, NJ). A. Akopian, Dasaken Asoreren (Yerevan: Yerevan State University Press). [Introductory Syriac Grammar and Reader] A. Berger and H. Younansardaroud, Die griechische Vita des Hl. Mamas von Kaisareia und ihre syrischen Versionen (Semitica et Semitohamitica Berolinensia 3; Aachen: Shaker Verlag). G. Chediath (tr. A.J. Joy), The Catholicos of the East (Trivandrum: MS Publications).

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—, (tr. A.J. Joy) The Malankara Catholic Church (Kottayam: Bethany Sisters’ Publications). M. Galletti, Cristiani del Kurdistan: assiri, caldei, siro-cattolici et siro-ortodossi (Rome: Jouvence). N. Matar, In the Lands of the Christians. Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century (London). [Including the Chaldean Ilyas Hanna]. B. Puthur (ed.), St Thomas Christians and Nambudiris, Jews and Sangam Literature: a historical Survey (Liturgical Research Center Publications 7; Mount St Thomas, Kochi). Metropolitan Kiwarkis Saliwa, Makhtutat maktaba mutraniya knisat al-sharq fi Bagdad (Baghdad). [222 mss].

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2004 S. Chialà, Simone di Taibuteh. Abitare la solitudine. Discorso per la consacrazione della cella (Testi dei Padri della Chiesa 72; Monastero di Bose). R. Ebied and H. Teule (eds), Acts of the VIIIth Symposium Syriacum (= Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 56). J.M. Fiey (ed. L.I. Conrad), Saints syriaques (Princeton NJ: Darwin Press). H. Hugonnard-Roche, La logique d’Aristote du grec au syriaque. Études sur la transmission des textes de l’Organon et leur interprétation philosophique (Paris: Vrin). N.P. Joosse, A Syriac Encyclopaedia of Aristotelian Philosophy: Barhebraeus (13th cent.) Butyrum Sapientiae. Books of Ethics, Economy and Politics (Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus 16; Leiden: Brill). C.A. Karim, Symbols of the Cross in the Writings of the Early Syriac Fathers (Piscataway NJ). D.J. Lane, Shubhalmaran, The Book of Gifts (CSCO 612-3; Scr. Syri 236-7; Leuven: Peeters). R. Le Coz, Les médecins nestoriens au moyen âge: les maîtres des arabes (Comprendre le Moyen Orient; Paris). J. Lund (in collaboration with G. Kiraz), The Old Syriac Gospel of the Distinct Evangelists: A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance, 3 vols (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press). A. Mirkovic, Prelude to Constantine: the Abgar Tradition in Early Christianity (Studies in the Religion and History of Early Christianity 15; Frankfurt a/M: Peter Lang).

2005

D.D. Benjamin (tr. Y.A. Baaba), The Patriarchs of the Church of the East. Dinkha III not IV. United States of America. [ISBN 09707489-2-2]. T. Buchan, “Blessed is He who has brought Adam from Sheol”. Christ’s Descent to the Dead in the Theology of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Gorgias Dissertations 13; Early Christian Studies 2; Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press).

Recent Books on Syriac Topics

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Centre d’Études et de Recherches Orientales (CERO), Les syriaques transmetteurs de civilisations: l’expérience du Bilâd el-Shâm à l’époque omeyyade (Patrimoine syriaque: Actes du Colloque IX; Antélias). Centre d’Études et de Recherches Orientales (CERO), Nos sources: arts et littérature syriaques (Sources syriaques 1; Antélias). [Collection of essays on different genres of Syriac literature]. S. Chialà (Introd.) and M. Nin (tr.), Isaac de Nínive. Centúries sobre el Coneixement (Clàssics del Cristianisme 99; Barcelona). [Catalan tr. of Part II, chapters 3 (Centuries) and 5 (Prayers)]. R. Contini and C. Grottanelli (eds), Il saggio Ahiqar. Fortuna e trasformazioni di uno scritto sapienzale. Il testo più antico e le sue versioni (Studi Biblici 148; Brescia: Paideia). M. Debié, A. Desreumaux, C. Jullien, F. Jullien (eds), Les apocryphes syriaques (Études syriaques 2; Paris: Geuthner). A. Harrak, The Acts of Mar Mari the Apostle (Writings from the GrecoRoman World 11; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature). [Text and translation]. J.F. Healey, Leshono Suryoyo: First Studies in Syriac (Gorgias Handbooks 2; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). [New edition, with CD] J. Isaac, Catalogue des manuscrits syro-chaldéens conservés dans la bibliothèque de l’Archevêché chaldéen d’Erbil à Ainkawa (Iraq) (Baghdad: Publications Nagm al Mashriq). I. Isebaert-Cauuet, Jacques de Saroug, Homélies sur la Fin du Monde (Les Pères dans la Foi 91; Paris: Diffusion Littéral). M. Lattke, Oden Salomos. Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar, Teil 3. Oden 29-42 (Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus 41/3; Fribourg: Academic Press/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). C.V. Malzoni, Jesus: Messias e Vivificador do Mundo. Jo 1,1-42 na Antiga Tradicao Siríaca (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 59; Paris: Gabalda). T. Muraoka, Classical Syriac. A Basic Grammar with a Chrestomathy (2nd revised edition; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). I. Perczel (ed.), The Nomocanon of Mar Abdisho of Nisibis. Facsimile Edition of Manuscript 64 from the Collection of the Church of the East in Trissur with an introduction by H. Kaufhold. (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press). [With CD] S. Rassam, Christianity in Iraq (Leominster: Gracewing). G.J. Reinink, Syriac Christianity under Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Rule (Variorum Collected Studies CS 831; Aldershot: Ashgate). A. Schmidt and S. Westphalen, Christliche Wandmalereien in Syrien. Qara und das Kloster Mar Yakub (Sprachen und Kulturen des christlichen Orients 14; Wiesbaden: Reichert).

132

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N.N. Seleznyov and D.A. Morozov, The Dialogue between the Catholicos of the Church of the East Mar Timatheos I (727-823) and the Caliph al-Mahdi (Moscow: Assyrian Church of the East) [in Russian]. N.N. Seleznyov, Nestorii i Cerkov Vostoka (Moscow: Put’) [ISBN 5-86748032-1] H. Takahashi, Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography (Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press.) K. Valavalonickal, Aphrahat, Demonstrations, I-II (Moran Etho 23-24; Kottayam: SEERI). E. Vergani and S. Chialà (eds), Le Chiese sire tra IV e VI secolo: dibattito dottrinale e ricerca spirituale (Milan: Centro Ambrosiano). E. Vergani, Efrem il Siro. Il dono della perla. Inni sulla perla (Testi dei Padri della Chiesa 78; Magnano: Monastero di Bose). J.W. Watt (with the assistance of D. Isaac, J. Faultless and A. Shihadeh), Aristotelian Rhetoric in Syriac: Barhebraeus, Butyrum Sapientiae, Book of Rhetoric (Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus 18; Leiden: Brill). J. Weinberg, Azariah de’ Rossi’s Observations on the Syriac New Testament (Warburg Institute Studies and Texts 3; London-Turin: The Warburg Institute).

BOOK REVIEWS Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West. (William B. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2005) Pp. xii + 251. Paperback, $22.00. REVIEWED BY ROBERT A. KITCHEN, KNOX-METROPOLITAN UNITED CHURCH

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Trinitarian theology has been on the rise, with all manner of studies and theologies being offered befitting the complexity and subtlety of One God in Three Persons, the unique Christian concept in world religion. This contribution by Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, while a very important one for anyone interested in the Third Person, would not fall normally within the scope of topics to be reviewed by this journal. Rogers, however, is eager to draw the perspectives of Eastern—and Syriac—Christianity into his field of vision. Waiting on final proofs from the publisher of his previous book, Rogers found he had plenty of time to delve into works on the Spirit in translations from the Eastern traditions. In particular, Rogers really loves Ephrem, citing numerous hymns, and one section of the seventh hymn on the Virginity is cited three times in the volume. Many other Syriac authors make an appearance in Roger’s investigations: Balai, Bar Hebraeus, Jacob of Serug, Isaac of Nineveh, Philoxenus of Mabbug, Abdisho bar Berikha. Greek writers such as Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor, and Romanos the Melodist, along with significant forays into the thought of Russian Orthodox theologians Pavel Florensky, Sergei Bulgakov, and Paul Evdokimov are not the usual fare for a Western systematic/constructive theologian. Is this not the purpose for which all labors at translation have been intended: to provide other theologians and historians reliable source materials for their work? Rogers utilizes well the materials and assessments of other scholars. His favorite source is Sebastian Brock’s The Holy Spirit in Syrian Baptismal Tradition (Poona, India: Anita Printers, 1998) from which the lion’s share of his Syriac citations are drawn. 133

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One of Rogers’ other Eastern favorites is the life of Simeon Stylites, but it is the life as interpreted in several articles by Susan Ashbrook Harvey upon which he focuses. Admitting that he is making an atypical scholarly move, Rogers relies not upon the actual vitas of Simeon, but upon Harvey’s secondary study [primarily “The Stylite’s Liturgy: Ritual and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998) 523-539], which shall be examined below. Nevertheless, Rogers’ monograph is still firmly planted in the West. Despite the numerous Eastern (“outside the Modern West”) references, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas provide critical mass for the theology of the Spirit, while Robert Jenson, Donald Mackinnon, and Rowan Williams help guide Rogers in the thinking of the modern West. Behind all the scenes remains the presence of Karl Barth. Although Rogers firmly corrects Barth on several key points in the latter’s understanding of the Holy Spirit, it is apparent that Barth still provides the orientation for much of Rogers’ direction. In the midst of his sabbatical reading, Rogers came to recognize that the Person of the Spirit has usually been neglected, sublimated, disembodied, and consequently depersonalized in modern trinitarian theological systems. He begins with Barth who, while appearing to be the champion of the Spirit, is one of the culprits for its subtle demise. Paraphrasing the famous line from the musical Annie Oakley, Rogers captures the sense of Barth’s approach, “Anything the Spirit can do, the Son can do better!” Barth talks about the importance of the Spirit, but over the pages of Church Dogmatics his Christocentric tendency nudges him to assign the real work of the Spirit to that of the Son. His language sometimes speaks of the Spirit being “the power of Christ,” reducing the Person to a function. Rogers concludes, “In the background, Barth is both the model and disappointment here.” Rogers sets out fourteen “Preliminary Theses,” providing the outline of his argument. Several can be helpful for us here. The second and third theses direct us to the New Testament witnesses that permit us to glimpse the intratrinitarian relations and interactions of the Persons. We are allowed such glimpses through the agency of the Spirit which then manifests these relations “in human beings as the conditions for the possibility of human participation in the trinitarian life.” The life of the Trinity is not just

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an idea about which we think and contemplate, but a reality in which human beings can and do take part. Rogers’ essential summary of this interrelationship is in his fifth thesis: “The Spirit proceeds from the Father to rest on the Son.” He prefers the more active verb “to alight” rather than the passive “to rest.” The idea is filled out in the following sixth thesis: “Because the Spirit hovers over the waters at creation and rests on the body of the Son in the incarnation, the Spirit rests on bodies in excess of nature, or ‘paraphysically,’ to coin a word out of Romans 11:24; not just in a way that re-befriends the physical, but also in a way that redeems, transfigures, elevates, and exceeds it.” For Rogers, it is the non-necessity, the excessiveness, superfluity, the grace and rest that characterizes and distinguishes the Spirit as a Person of the Trinity. From here Rogers takes the reader on a rich, but complex tour amplifying the nature, character and adventures of the Spirit. Each section warrants time to savor and digest, so it is not a simple task to summarize all the insights and arguments elucidated. Yet it is possible to summarize the narrative of Rogers’ understanding of the Spirit, and narrative is the word. “I propose that the Spirit is a Person with an affinity for material things. The Spirit characteristically befriends the body,” declares Rogers. The Spirit is therefore not just a function or power of the other Persons. A Person requires a narrative, a vita, and despite the perspective of some readers, there are plenty of narratives of and about the Spirit in the Old and New Testament. Rogers acknowledges that many of these instances involve the Spirit acting in concert with the Son, so he uses these primary narratives to frame his development of the Third Person: Resurrection, Annunciation, Baptism, Transfiguration, and Ascension/Pentecost. The Spirit is often perceived as being inaccessible in a personal human sense, but Rogers objects that this is “not because she lacks the qualities of a person; the Spirit is inaccessible because she has the qualities of a person. She is not inaccessible because impersonal, but as personal.” Who, after all, can really say that one knows completely another person with all our inner mysteries? It is the superfluity, the excessiveness of the gifts of the Spirit, that most marks the character of the Spirit; an excessiveness—what else is grace but excessive?—by which human beings are saved. So in the

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end the Spirit can do something better than the Son-rest. “The logic of the Spirit is not of productivity, but of superfluity, not the logic of work, but of Sabbath. The Spirit like the Sabbath sanctifies. A few notes on Rogers’ journey through the narratives of the Spirit. Resurrection: “The most remarkable trinitarian passage in the New Testament,” Robert Jenson observes, is Romans 8:11—“If the Spirit of the One Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in your mortal bodies, you too shall rise from the dead.” Rogers peers inside the verse through several other exegetes and early writers, but his most important insight comes via Aquinas. “Nevertheless something is to be gained by Christ’s reception of the resurrection from the Father: The exercise of raw power is not joinable, because unlike Christ human beings do not have that power as their proprium; but the reception of power is joinable, ‘because what God the Father did in Christ, he does also in us.’” Human beings become perfect, deified, not in their accomplishment, but in their reception of the Spirit’s gift.

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Annunciation: The concept of the Spirit’s superfluity and excessiveness is perceived especially in Mary’s giving birth to Christ. One of Romanos the Melodist’s hymns on the Nativity utilizes the key phrase “para phusin” that Rogers interprets as “excess of nature,” as opposed to many translators who render the phrase, “contrary to nature.” He rightly notes that it is this excessiveness of the virgin birth that some Protestants don’t like and feel uncomfortable about, for it is just too exorbitant, out of control, physically excessive (Rogers is Presbyterian). The last word on this excessive Annunciation Rogers gives to Jacob of Serug, “Mary gave a body for the Word to become incarnate, while Baptism gives the Spirit for human beings to be renewed.”(P. Bedjan, Homiliae selectae, Vol. 1, mēmrā 9, p. 204) Baptism: What happens at the River Jordan is to be primarily understood as an intratrinitarian event, in which other human beings may participate by their own baptism. The general problem of why did Jesus need to be baptized is answered by observing that while the Son does enjoy a divine attribute by right, there is no barrier to his receiving it also from another (the Spirit) in humility. This ability to receive from the Spirit also enables Christ to receive even from human beings. The Spirit relates to the Son by

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taking “something Christ does not need and presents it to him as gift,” while “Christ does not hold on to what is his but receives it from another as gift.” Rogers is enamored with Ephrem’s seventh hymn on Virginity [strophes 5, 6, and 14 are selected], placing it as his epigraph to the volume, examining it at the conclusion of Part I, and again here. The hymn identifies the oil used to anoint the baptized as “the dear friend of the Holy Spirit,” the oil painting the image of Christ onto the one baptized. “Christ has many facets, and the oil acts as a mirror to them all: from whatever angle I look at the oil, Christ looks out at me from it.” Human participation in baptism leads one back towards participation in the divine. Rogers cites Vladimir Lossky’s succinct observation, “The work of the Son deifies human nature, and the work of the Spirit deifies the human person.” Transfiguration: Rogers pulls together Romans 8 and Luke’s depiction of the Transfiguration to imply that only God can pray to God. When human beings pray they are caught up in the triune activity of the Persons praying to one another. Prayer is what the Trinity does. Prayer does not “change God’s mind,” but is a transfiguration of human beings who do not know how to pray as they ought. It is in liturgy that human beings are nourished and developed by the Spirit over time. Rogers turns to the life of Simeon Stylites as an example of how asceticism can be liturgically channeled to a positive end for both ascetic and community. Simeon’s vitas witness how Simeon’s out of control severe asceticism caused continual dissension in his community, resulting inevitably in his expulsion. The local priest Mar Bas takes on Simeon and encourages both his athletic asceticism, pillar and all, as well as structuring his practices around the eucharist, the daily and annual liturgical calendar, preaching and teaching, healing and reconciling disputes. Rogers relays Harvey’s assessment that “Simeon began his pillar-standing as an attempt to escape people, but was transformed into the very center of liturgical life.... His body becomes spiritual, anticipating the spiritual bodies of heaven, taking on characteristics associated with the Holy Spirit—light, fire, incense, presence on the altar, formation of the seeker, production of the witness, gathering of the community.” Rogers concludes that Simeon, under his own authority was pathological, out of control, and therefore

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amorphous, while under the liturgical formation of the Spirit, he is unique and original not as an individual but to and for his fellows. Ascension and Pentecost: Rogers recognizes the problem in his re-construction of the narrative of the Spirit is that Pentecost does not take place in the life of Jesus, nor does the Ascension mention the Spirit. Yet, Rogers sees the two events forming an excellent example of how the Son defers to the Spirit in order to receive a gift. It would be quibbling for Hugoye readers with their special interests to require more of Rogers in utilizing the resources of the Eastern and Syriac churches, though it is true that many of his Syriac references are branches to his argument, not the roots. His constructive pneumatology is just that: a systematic endeavor to understand the Person of the Spirit in her intertrinitarian activities. I believe, nevertheless, that Rogers is part of a beneficent trend slowly developing in Western theological ranks that recognizes and utilizes the contributions and insights of Eastern Christian and Syriac theology and literature. Predictably, Ephrem is the writer most often selected. Jaroslav Pelikan, Hughes Oliphant Old, Robert Wilken, Carol Zaleski, and certainly others, have referenced Ephrem and other Syriac writers in recent writings with no pretensions to Syriac scholarship per se, just pretensions to good theology. The more non-specialists in Syriac literature read these works in translation, the more we will learn in return. As Rogers would probably assent, there is ample roominess in the Spirit to accommodate all manner of readers of resources outside the modern West.

Joanna Weinberg, Azariah de’ Rossi’s Observations on the Syriac New Testament: A Critique of the Vulgate by a Sixteenth-century Jew, Warburg Institute and Nino Aragno Editore, London and Turin, 2005, vi + 109 pages (Warburg Institute Studies and Texts), ISBN 0-85481133-8 REVIEWED BY P.J. WILLIAMS, UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

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Azariah de’ Rossi of Mantua (1511-1577) is best known for his work Me’or Enayim ‘Light of the Eyes’ (1573), which involved a treatment of the origin of the Septuagint. He also separately rendered the Letter of Aristeas into Hebrew. In this book, for the first time, are published his observations on the Syriac New Testament, written in Ferrara in 1577 shortly before the author’s death. This work was unknown to modern scholarship until 1974, when an autograph was discovered. Since then another autograph, almost identical to the first, has come to light. Weinberg offers an introduction to the text (pp. 1-20) and thereafter the printed editio princeps giving the Italian text with an English translation on the facing page. The page with Italian has footnotes pertaining to the text of the work and variations between the two manuscripts, while the page with English has footnotes commenting on the content of the text. This work is of interest from a number of points of view. Its period of composition, the sixteenth century, was of course one of considerable ecclesiastical debate about the most authoritative text of the Bible and about the nature of the Vulgate. This text shows a Jew engaging with this debate between Christians. That he was writing for a Christian audience also explains the choice of Italian rather than Hebrew as the language of composition. The immediate context for the work was the publication of the first edition of the Syriac New Testament by J.A. Widmanstadt in 1555, of the second edition by I. Tremellius in 1569, and of the reprint of Widmanstadt’s text with further manuscript evidence in the Antwerp Polyglot (1571). Thus the work was produced at a time when the nature of the Syriac New Testament text was an important question. De’ Rossi offered the work to Giacomo Boncompagni (Governor General of the Church and son of future Pope Gregory XIII) and Cardinal Santa Severina (Giulio Antonio Santoro, 1532-1602). 139

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The basic argument of the work was that ‘certain passages in the New Testament, particularly the Aramaic expressions, ought to be emended on the basis of the ancient Syriac rendering’ (p. 4). The work considers various texts, including Matthew 3:17; 5:22; 6:24; 16:17; 23:5; 27:6, 33, 46; Mark 3:17; 5:41; 7:11-12; 34-35; 15:34; John 1:42-43; 12:28; 19:13-14, 20-22; Acts 1:19; 7:14-16; 9:40; 13:17-22; 1 Cor. 16:22. Luke’s Gospel receives no special analysis.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.2, 143-144 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

IN MEMORIAM

HELGA ANSCHÜTZ (1928-2006) ANDREAS JUCKEL UNIVERSITY OF MÜNSTER

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The renowned German scholar and esteemed friend of the Syriac Churches Dr. Helga Anschütz died on the 13th of May at the age of 78, and was buried among the Suryoye in the cemetery of the Mor Ephrem Monastery in Glane/NL.1 Although her health suffered several setbacks during the last few years, her death was unexpected and met with deep mourning. By her scholarship and personal acquaintance with the oriental Christians and their homelands, she was an indefatigable advocate of the Suryoyo cause in their German (and European) exile. She served the Suryoye to preserve their identity; at the same time she promoted their integration by numerous activities of the two associations she founded. Her knowledge of the Tur Abdin, its history and its people was unique. She met the Metropolitan Philoxenus Dolabani of Mardin and Bishop Afrem Bilgic of Tur ‘Abdin. Dr. Anschütz was born in Hamburg on April 19, 1928. Between 1948 and 1956, she studied history, philosophy, pedagogy, and journalism at the University of Hamburg. In 1956 she received her Ph.D. in (early) history and economic geography, then taught German language at the Goethe-Institutes in Teheran (Iran) and Rabat (Morocco) as well as in several institutions in Germany between 1960 and 1989. Since 1965, she travelled regularly in the Middle East and the Maghreb, and centred her research on the The information is based on an obituary published by the Mar Gabriel Association in Germany (www.margabrielverein.de). 1

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present-day life of Oriental Christians. In 1968, she received a special grant for research in the Tur ‘Abdin which resulted in her famous book Die Syrischen Christen vom Tur ‘Abdin (1985). In 1990, Anschütz founded (together with her husband Dr. Boulos Harb) the German-Lebanese Association, and in 1992 the Mar Gabriel Association to support the Syrian Christians. Scholars and Suryoye will miss her.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.2, 145-171 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

RHETORICAL PRACTICE IN THE CHREIA ELABORATION OF MARA BAR SERAPION CATHERINE M. CHIN THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

ABSTRACT This essay argues that the text known as the Letter of Mara bar Serapion is an example of a Greek rhetorical exercise, the chreia elaboration. The letter fits the paradigm of the chreia elaboration as it is found in Greek rhetorical handbooks, such as those of Theon and Libanius. Since it is a rhetorical exercise, the letter should not be read as straightforward evidence for the experience of Roman conquest in Syria, nor should it be read as evidence for Christian apologetic practice in early Syriac literature. Rather, the letter provides scholars with the opportunity to examine the interaction between Greek rhetorical literature and the rise of Syriac prose literature in late antiquity.

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The Letter of Mara bar Serapion to his Son, known through a sixth- or seventh-century manuscript (BM Add. 14658) edited in the nineteenth century by William Cureton, is a little-studied document in scholarship on Syriac literature.1 The difficulties involved in 1 William Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum (London: Francis and John Rivington, 1855), 70–76 (English); 43–48 (Syriac); on the date, see pref. i. I am grateful to Michael Penn and Tina Shepardson for their critical comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this essay. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers for Hugoye for their suggestions, and

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dating the work and determining the religious and philosophical persuasion of its author, in addition to the general lack of philosophical creativity in the text itself, have relegated the letter to a secondary position in the study of early Syriac literature and Syriac Christianity.2 There have been strong arguments that the writer was not a Christian, but a Stoic sympathetic to Christianity;3 still, the examination of the letter by Kathleen McVey, presented in 1988, has to a certain extent re-opened the question of the author’s allegiances. The philosophical themes in the letter are not uniquely Stoic, as McVey points out;4 at the same time, the references to Christianity are marginal enough to the general rhetorical arc of the letter to cast doubt on McVey’s thesis that the author was a Christian propagandist.5 Studies of the letter have in the main concentrated on its philosophical, religious, and historical content, and the relationship between its content and its putative author, rather than on its rhetorical form. A closer examination of the form of the letter may help place it more firmly in its ancient intellectual context, which, I argue, is that of a standard Greek rhetorical exercise, the chreia elaboration. When the text is situated in this rhetorical context, the murkiness of the historiographical questions surrounding the text’s date and “religious” character becomes in Orval Wintermute, who first pointed me in the direction of Mara bar Serapion. 2 There have been very few studies of the letter in the past century. The major bibliography is: Kathleen McVey, “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara Bar Serapion to his Son,” V. Symposium Syriacum 1988, ed. R. Lavenant, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 236 (1990): 257–72; Friedrich Schulthess, “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion,” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51 (1897): 365–91; and the comments of H. J. W. Drijvers in “Hatra, Palmyra und Edessa: Die Städte der syrischmesopotamischen Wüste in politischer, kulturgeschichtlicher und religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung,” ANRW II.8 (1977), at 886–87. I very much regret that the most recent article to appear on the letter, Ilaria Ramelli’s “La lettera di Mara bar Serapion,” Stylos 13 (2004): 77–104, was unavailable to me at the time of writing and could not be incorporated into this article. 3 Notably those by F. Schulthess, “Brief,” 381–91. 4 K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 261–62. 5 K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 270–72; against this view, see F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC–AD 337 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 460–62.

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some ways easier to understand: if the author of the document is not an original Mara bar Serapion, but a later writer composing a prosopopoetic exercise in his name, the vagueness of historical detail in the letter and its relatively commonplace philosophical ideas become the stuff of classroom “general knowledge” rather than documents of individual experience or belief. This shift does not gain the historian any more evidence for a historical Mara bar Serapion, of course, but it does position the letter as further documentation for a tradition of interchange between Greek and Syriac rhetorical and educational traditions.

I. THE CHREIA AND ITS USES [2]

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The letter as it stands is in two parts: the letter itself, and a short anecdote about its supposed writer, Mara bar Serapion. The division between the two is stark: the letter, written primarily in the first person and addressed in the second, ends with the words: “And if anyone grieves or worries, I do not counsel him, for there in the life of the whole world he will find us before him.”6 The anecdote immediately follows, written in the third person, as an account of a conversation between Mara bar Serapion and a companion: One of his friends asked Mara bar Serapion when he was bound at his side, “By your life, Mara, tell me what laughing-stock appeared to you, that you laughed?” Mara said to him, “I laughed at time, since, although it has not borrowed evil from me, it repays me.”7 This anecdote is in the clearly recognizable form of a rhetorical chreia, a brief narrative, usually concerning a famous historical figure, that ends in a pithy remark or witty gesture. The secondcentury teacher Theon, in his Progymnasmata, lists several types of chreiai, among which are “chreiai that offer an explanation in answer to a question…. For example, ‘When he was asked whether the Persian king seemed happy to him, Socrates said: “I can’t

W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 48.22–23. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from ancient texts in this essay are my own. 7 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 48.24–26. 6

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answer, since I can’t know what he thinks of education.”8 The story of Mara bar Serapion and his laughter seems to fit into this general type; it is difficult to imagine that ancient readers of the anecdote would not have recognized it immediately as an example of the genre. Indeed, as many writers on ancient Greek and Roman education have made clear, the chreia played a significant role even in elementary education in antiquity, being used to teach basic literacy, as well as to inculcate common social and cultural norms.9 As Ronald Hock and Edward O’Neil point out, many such chreiai take the form of a saying by a philosophical figure in answer to a question, and closing with a constrastive (usually, in Greek, men…de) response, such as, “When Diogenes was asked why people give to beggars, but not to philosophers, he said, ‘Because people expect to become lame or blind, but they never expect to philosophize.’”10 This is almost precisely the form of the Mara bar Serapion chreia, with Mara bar Serapion being asked a question and responding with a contrast (“although [time] has not borrowed evil from me, it repays me”). The chreia at the end of the letter thus initially suggests a possible context, as an anecdote typically found in literary schooling.

Theon, Progymnasmata, 3.52–54, text in James R. Butts, The Progymnasmata of Theon (Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1987). 9 The most useful works on the chreia now available are the two volumes of edited and translated texts on the chreia, with introductions and analyses by Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, vol. 1, The Progymnasmata (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), and vol. 2, The Classroom Exercises (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2002). A third volume is currently being prepared on the chreia in Byzantine commentaries and scholia. Other writers on education who comment helpfully on the uses of the chreia are Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. at 186–89; and Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 223–24; H. Marrou comments only occasionally on the chreia in his survey of primary and literary education in Greek antiquity: A History of Education in Antiquity (tr. G. Lamb; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956; reprinted Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982). 10 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 16. 8

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The presence of a typical chreia at the end of the document takes on greater importance if the letter itself is also placed in a context of rhetorical exercises. As is well known, it was common for students of grammar and rhetoric in antiquity to compose themes both about historical figures, and centered on specific historical anecdotes in which these figures played a part.11 Perhaps the richest set of examples are those collected in the Suasoriae of the Elder Seneca, in which the embellishment of certain historical situations is standard to many of the exercises, such as the exercises on how to advise Alexander the Great on his battle strategy.12 It was at the same time common for students to compose speeches under the names of various historical figures as an exercise in characterization (prosopopoieia or ethopoieia).13 Book 8 of Theon’s Progymnasmata is dedicated to prosopopoieia, and includes in its description of this rhetorical practice the creation of speeches attributed to “specific people: for example, what words would Cyrus speak as he moved on the Massagetae, or what would Datis say, after the battle of Marathon, on meeting with the king?”14 This sort of composition was a familiar exercise for declamation, and Cribiore suggests, given the high rate of survival of examples, that such prosopopoetic writing was likely a favorite school practice.15 While I would not argue that the Letter of Mara bar Serapion was composed by a child, or anyone beginning to learn basic rhetorical techniques, I think it is not too much to suggest that it was composed as a prosopopoetic exercise by a writer deeply engaged with the Greek rhetorical tradition, and probably in a pedagogical context. Similarly, the authors of Seneca’s Suasoriae were not “beginners,” but people to whom demonstration of rhetorical skill was professionally important, and whose work, for that reason, was pedagogically useful. Following George Kennedy, scholars of ancient education have sometimes placed epistolary composition outside the main 11

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H. Marrou, History of Education, 174; R. Cribiore, Gymnastics, 228–

12 Suasoriae 1.1–16, text in Michael Winterbottom, The Elder Seneca: Declamations, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974). 13 Stanley Stowers, Letter-Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 32–33. 14 Progymnasmata 8.6–8. 15 R. Cribiore, Gymnastics, 228.

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concentration of formal rhetorical education, suggesting that letterwriting was primarily taught as training for business or civil service.16 Others, however, cite the use of model letters in elementary education to argue that letter-writing did form part of the standard curriculum for literacy.17 Clearly some teachers, like Theon,18 did expect students to write letters as part of their training in ethopoeia or prosopopoeia. Libanius, too, expects his students to have mastered the art of letter-writing.19 It would not, then, be especially remarkable to find prosopopoetic letters produced in a school or pedagogical context, even if letter-writing were also covered in other professional training. Combining prosopopoetic writing with paraenetic or hortatory letter-writing would result in something like the example of paraenesis in the epistolary manual of Pseudo-Libanius: “My friend, always become an imitator of virtuous men. For it is better to hear good when imitating good men than to be blamed by everyone when following bad men.”20 Pseudo-Demetrius, in his treatise on Epistolary Types, comes closer to the fictionalizing hortatory letter in his example: I have presented to you in summary those things for which I am well-respected amongst my subjects. I know then that you, too, can in this way keep the good opinion of your obedient subjects; even though you cannot make many friends, you can be moderate and generous to all. Being such, you will have a good reputation among many, and you will keep your reign tranquil.21 This passage is, of course, purely fictive as a moment of royal advice, but the existence of such fictional historicizing exercises should not surprise a reader who is approaching a text with a rhetorical or pedagogical setting in mind. 16 George Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 70–73. 17 See Abraham J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 7; and S. Stowers, Letter-Writing, 32–33. 18 Progymnasmata 8.10. 19 Ep. 777.6; examples are discussed in R. Cribiore (who follows G. Kennedy in placing letter-writing primarily in professional schools), Gymnastics 216–17. 20 Epistolary Styles 52, text in A. J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 74. 21 Epistolary Types 11, text in A. J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 36.

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Most significantly for the purposes of this paper, it was also common practice for students to read and memorize chreiai, and to use them in composition. At the grammatical level, chreiai were used in exercises on the different declensions, and students were asked to decline chreiai rather repetitively, as in the ars grammatica of Diomedes: The chreia exercise varies by case as follows: in the nominative singular: Marcus Porcius Cato said that the roots of literature are bitter, but the fruits pleasing. In the genitive: the saying of Marcus Porcius Cato is remembered, that the roots of literature are bitter but the fruits pleasing. In the dative: it pleased Marcus Porcius Cato to say that the roots of literature are bitter, but the fruits pleasing.22 A number of preserved Greek school exercises indicate that such declension exercises using chreiai were practiced in schools, and not merely in manuals.23 At a more advanced level, rhetoricians adopted the chreia for use in precisely the kind of historicizing composition discussed above. Students would have learned, then, to “expand” chreiai into historical narratives. Theon gives the following brief example: For example, a concise chreia: Epameinondas, as he was dying childless, said to his friends: “I have left two daughters—the victory at Leuctra and the one at Mantineia.” Let us expand like this: Epameinondas, the Theban general, was of course a good man in time of peace, and when war against the Lacedaemonians came to his country, he displayed many outstanding deeds of great courage. As a Boeotarch at Leuctra, he triumphed over the enemy, and while campaigning and fighting for his country, he died at Mantineia. While he was dying of his wounds and his friends were lamenting, among other things, that he was dying childless, he smiled and said: “Stop weeping, friends, for I have left you two immortal daughters: two victories of our country over the Lacedaemonians, the one at Leuctra, who is the older, and the younger, who is just now being born at Mantineia.”24 Notably, this expansion contains several elements in common with the Letter of Mara bar Serapion: it relates itself to actual historical R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 69. R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, chapter 2 contains a full discussion of these examples. 24 Progymnasmata 3.226–40, tr. J. R. Butts. 22 23

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events; it contains several completely unverifiable—and quite possibly entirely false—historical details; and it has added overt pathos to the concision and understatement of the original chreia. Other educational writers give far more extended examples of chreia elaboration.25 Although execution seems to vary, Hock and O’Neil identify the standard elements in chreia elaboration as follows: encomium of the speaker, paraphrase of the chreia, philosophical rationale behind the chreia, argument from the opposite state of affairs, analogy, example, “testimony of the ancients,” and a short epilogue.26 The resulting composition could easily reach the length of the Letter of Mara bar Serapion; comparable examples are found in the work of Libanius, whose teaching in Antioch places him easily within the boundaries of a Greek-Syriac literary milieu. McVey has raised the possibility that the Letter of Mara bar Serapion is a rhetorical exercise, although she considers it unlikely.27 While the letter does not fit exactly the scheme proposed in the rhetorical manuals, I would argue nonetheless that it contains enough of the elements and organization suggested in these pedagogical texts to be taken seriously as a chreia elaboration. The major differences can, I think, be explained by the fact that the writer of the letter has framed his elaboration as a hortatory or paraenetic letter, an exercise in prosopopoieia, rather than more straightforwardly as a third-person account of the chreia and its speaker.28 To begin, the letter opens with a brief encomium, typical of chreia elaborations. In this case, the encomium is not of Mara bar Serapion, but is addressed to his son, who is praised for his

25 See those collected in R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, chapter 3. 26 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 83–90. In some texts, various elements are left out or modified, as is typical of differences between educational writers. 27 K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 272. 28 As Jeffery T. Reed notes, “the flexibility of the epistolary genre allowed for its conflation with other genres”: “The Epistle,” in A Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, S. E. Porter, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 189. Reed also notes (190) that it is more common in the Hellenistic period for pseudonymous letters to follow rhetorical norms than for authentic letters to do so.

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intelligence (“you are very diligent in learning”).29 Such substitution of one family member for another also occurs in Pseudo-Nicolaus, Progymnasmata 3, in which Theano, the supposed wife of Pythagoras, is replaced with Pythagoras in the encomiastic section of the elaboration of her chreia.30 Further elements of chreia elaboration are also found in the letter: arguments from the opposite case are grouped together at Cureton 45.6–16, which reads in part, “In which possessions will men trust? Or about which things will they say, ‘They are abiding?’ About an abundance of property, which is stolen? About fortifications, which are plundered? About cities, which are destroyed?” It then offers further examples of the opposite state of affairs by citing exempla of unfortunate figures of the past: “Therefore a man may rejoice in his kingdom like Darius, … or in his bravery like Achilles, or in his wife like Agamemnon, or in his son like Priam…” Following this section, the letter includes “testimony of the ancients” and examples in the form of further cases from history: “For how did the Athenians profit by the killing of Socrates? They received hunger and death in retribution for it. Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras? For in one hour their whole land was covered in sand.”31 Further examples are framed, next, as general cases that Mara bar Serapion himself has seen: “But I, my son, have examined those things […] Evildoers rejoice and the upright are afflicted. The one who has, denies it, and the one who does not have fights to acquire. The poor seek, and the rich conceal, and everyone laughs at his companion.”32 These examples are followed by a concluding exhortation: “For it is not enough to read this matter that thus comes into my mind to write to you, but it should go on into action.”33 Finally, the letter closes with a brief historicizing epilogue placing Mara bar Serapion in a prison setting: “And also here in prison we give thanks to God because we have received the love of many.”34 The presence of all these elements in roughly the correct order according to the norms of chreia W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 43.2. R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 218. 31 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 46.12–14. 32 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 46.20–47.3. 33 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 47.16–17. 34 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 48.7–8. 29 30

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elaboration strongly suggests that the writer of the letter is familiar with the rhetorical conventions described above. There are two key elements that I have not yet discussed, and that have been transformed by the prosopopoetic and hortatory framing of the letter. These are the paraphrase of the chreia and the elaboration of the philosophical rationale behind it. Nearly all of the examples of chreia elaboration include, after the encomium, a paraphrase of the chreia involved. Here, for example, is Libanius’ paraphrase of the following chreia: When asked by someone where he kept his treasures, Alexander pointed to his friends. […] Paraphrastic. So, having approached him, a certain man said, “O King, I would gladly see your treasures.” And it seems to me that he was moved to do this when he saw that an entire nation had just been conquered, and was thinking that the result of this was a great deal of money. What, then, about Alexander? He did not reply immoderately, as if someone had asked him something inappropriate. And he did not order his servants to take the man and lead him around and show him lots of gold, or so many silver talents, or plenty of spoils, but directing the man to look at his friends, he said, “Do not seek any other wealth of Alexander. These are my treasures.”35 The paraphrase here expands the chreia in several ways: first, it sets the chreia within a vaguely historicizing setting by suggesting that Alexander is fresh from a military victory.36 There is no evidence in the chreia that this is the setting for the event; it is entirely Libanius’ invention. Libanius also adds the suggestion that there are, indeed, piles of gold, silver, and spoils there to be looked at, although Alexander ignores them. Finally, where the chreia does not have Alexander speak at all, Libanius invents a short conversation between Alexander and his inquirer. This kind of expansion appears to be typical of the paraphrases in chreia elaborations.37

35 Libanius, Progymnasmata 3, in R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 140–42. 36 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia vol. 2, 143 n. 281, suggest that the imagined setting may be after Alexander’s victory over Darius. 37 See R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, examples collected in chapter 3.

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The combination of suggested historical detail and invented speech also occurs in the Letter of Mara bar Serapion, a little after the encomium, as one would expect in a chreia elaboration. For I have heard about our companions, that when they left from Samosata it pained them; and like those who complain of the time, thus they also spoke: “Therefore we are journeying from the house of our people, and we will not return to our city and see our people and receive our gods with honor.”38 There follows a description of the people of Samosata grieving and in exile. Clearly, while the passage is not a direct paraphrase of the chreia, it serves some of the same purposes as the paraphrase: it provides a historical setting for the speaker, and invents dialogue to enliven the scene. Notably, this passage, and the lines following it, have been the lines on which historians have relied most heavily in attempting to date the letter; if it is right to think of the historicizing here as a deliberate rhetorical ploy, the power of this device is still in evidence.39 The fact that this passage is not a direct paraphrase of the chreia may, moreover, be explained by the fact that the letter is an exercise in prosopopoeia; Hock and O’Neil list no chreiai that are spoken in the first person, and the move in the letter outside the third person would create difficulty for a writer in summarizing what were purportedly his own actions and sayings. Assuming, then, that the prosopopoeia forbids the writer from paraphrasing directly, in the same way that it forces the encomium to be directed at the addressee rather than the speaker himself, the writer still uses the conventions of paraphrase to suggest a historical context for the speaker and to establish the setting of speaking to one’s companions more generally. After this “paraphrase,” there is a short philosophical rationale offered, which reads in part: But consider this: that to wise men every land is equal, and to good men, in every city there are many fathers and mothers. […] What, then, do we have to say about the error that is founded in

W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 44.6–9. W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, pref. xiii–xv, dates it to the late second century; F. Schulthess, “Brief,” 379, tentatively to the end of the third century; F. Millar, Roman Near East, 460, suggests the late first century. 38 39

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the world? In the world its course is heavy, and in its motions we are shaken like a reed in the wind.40 Since the chreia is not directly paraphrased, however, the philosophical rationale for it is also not direct. Rather, the philosophical maxims used throughout the rest of the letter in its paraenetic aspects take up the function of the saying in the chreia, and also provide its philosophical rationale. I turn to these themes next.

II. PHILOSOPHICAL THEMES AND RATIONALES: THE CONTENTS OF THE LETTER [11]

The main theme of the chreia is Mara bar Serapion’s philosophical indifference, expressed in his laughter. Secondary elements are: the presence of friends, the prison setting, the troubles of time, and the idea of ownership, as expressed in the metaphor of borrowing and lending. Each of these themes is found in the letter in order in various formulations, so that collectively these too suggest the dependence of the letter-writer on the previous existence of the chreia.

Philosophical Themes [12]

First, and most obvious in the letter and in the chreia, is the theme of philosophical indifference. The Mara bar Serapion of the chreia has separated himself from his troubles enough to take an ironic position with regard to them. Likewise, the Mara of the letter exhorts his son to the study of philosophy as the only way to separate himself from a variety of troubles. A series of philosophical clichés serve to bolster this exhortation: “Those who busy themselves with philosophy are looking to escape from the distresses of the world.”41 “To wise men every land is equal.”42 “For a man is never loosed from his wisdom as one is from his possessions.”43 The theme of ironic observation and detachment is also persistent: “I wondered at many who cast out their children, and I wondered at others who bring up those who are not their W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 44.23–45.2. W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 43.19–20. 42 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 44.23. 43 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 45.25–26. 40 41

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own. There are men who acquire property in the world; and I also wondered at the others who inherit what is not their own.”44 These are precisely the sort of nondescript philosophical sentiments about the unpredictability of fate and the need to deal philosophically with loss that school children would have learned and copied as maxims in any Hellenistic or Roman school setting, for example, in the sayings of Menander, or the appearance of such lines as,“To the wise man, every land is home,” or even, “Whoever thinks to fare well through phronesis: it is useless, for everything in life comes about not through intellect, but through chance.”45 Clearly one of the main concerns of educational literature is the teaching of such commonplaces, and the reasons behind them. In this respect, the Letter of Mara bar Serapion breaks no new ground. Indeed, as a concrete development of the idea of indifference, the writer of the letter focuses at length on the idea of the wise man’s attitude toward possessions. In the chreia, this theme is expressed in the metaphor of borrowing and lending; in the letter, its expression is much more literal. Again, the sentiments found in the letter are for the most part unexceptional: “And let not ownership subdue you, which many hunger after, and let it not entice your eye to desire riches, something which does not endure.”46 Or, again, “all of these possessions which are seen by you in the world, like one who exists for a little time, like a dream they are loosed.”47 “For I have seen that when there are many goods, so also distresses are met. And just as luxuries are brought, so also are griefs gathered. And [where] properties are great, there the years of bitterness are many.”48 The philosophical depth of these exhortations is minimal, yet they reflect a basic exposure to the philosophical parlance of antiquity. They recur in the 44 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 45.2–4. K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 271, suggests that the first part of this remark is a condemnation of the exposure of children, an argument that I discuss below. 45 Quoted in T. Morgan, Literate Education, 133. NB that Morgan also describes maxims on the appropriateness of properly seeking wealth (125–27); it is important to remember that these maxims are not strictly meant as a coherent philosophical program, but as an induction into commonly held cultural values. 46 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 43.22–33. 47 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 43.24–44.1. 48 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 45.27–46.2.

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elaborations of chreiai, especially in the sections devoted to the “philosophical rationale” of the chreia. For example, one chreia elaboration preserved in the work of Doxapatres explains this chreia as follows: The saying of Aphthonius the rhetor is remembered, who said, “It is grievous to lose what has already been experienced.” […] The rationale: Since everyone prefers what is known to what is unknown, and since everything whose usefulness is known is considered better, he judged that the loss of these things would be very painful….49 In the case of its passages on the transience of possessions, the letter does reveal a moral stance similar to Stoicism, but this devaluing of material wealth was also a commonplace in NeoPlatonic thought and Pythagoreanism,50 not to mention ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature, and, as we have seen, basic literate education in the Hellenistic and Roman world. More specifically, the chreia suggests that Mara bar Serapion’s detachment is so great that he can laugh at his situation even when “bound.” Theon preserves a similar chreia about Socrates: “The philosopher Socrates, when a certain Apollodorus, an acquaintance, said to him, ‘The Athenians have unjustly sentenced you to death,’ responded, laughing, ‘But did you want them to do it justly?’”51 In the letter, Mara bar Serapion’s observations and his ironic surprise find their counterpart in the laughter with which the world greets the wise man: “The poor seek and the rich conceal, and everyone laughs at his companion…. They rejoice in evil affairs and they spurn the one who speaks the truth. A man marvels, therefore, when the world wears him out in scorn….”52 The presence of this scornful laughter alongside Mara’s notes on human inconsistency recalls the two different kinds of laughter in the chreia: first, the “laughing-stock” that Mara’s friend sees nowhere in evidence, and second, the philosophical—and by ordinary standards unexpected—laughter of Mara bar Serapion himself. In the letter, the two types of laughter are developed into the full-blown themes of philosophical indifference and irony (the laughter of Mara bar R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia vol. 2, 244. K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 261. 51 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 1, 90. 52 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 47.2–6. 49 50

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Serapion), and the world’s rejection of the sage (expected laughter at a laughing-stock). Neither theme can claim either originality or development in the letter, but both give evidence of a basic grounding in ancient philosophical tropes in use in rhetorical training. On the assumption that the letter is secondary to the chreia, the unremarkableness of all of these sentiments is fairly easy to understand. If the author of the letter was more concerned with drawing out the themes implicit in the chreia than in advancing their philosophical development, s/he has done an admirable job. Moreover, in hortatory or paraenetic letters, it was not always considered good form to submit original philosophical insights. The epistolary manual of Pseudo-Libanius contains the following advice on writing paraenetic letters: “[P]araenesis is hortatory speech that does not admit of a counter-statement, for example, if someone should say that we must honor the divine. For nobody contradicts this exhortation were he not mad to begin with.”53 Thus the very commonness of the letter-writer’s expressions lends them a certain rhetorical force. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the letter s the writer’s use of the figure of time (zabnâ). Here the ambivalence in the letterwriter’s interpretation of the chreia becomes obvious. “Time” in the chreia is personified to ironic effect, and seems to mean approximately the same thing as “circumstance”: “I laughed at time, since, although it has not borrowed evil from me, it repays me.” In the letter, “time” is an ambiguous figure. Friedrich Schulthess supposed that “time” in the letter was an expression of the Stoic concept of “fate,”54 but as McVey points out, this is a strained and otherwise unattested translation.55 I would argue that the philosophical generalities in the letter also weigh against a strict technical interpretation of the term. Cureton seems to see “time” as personified at some points in the letter (“the Time forbade us to complete those things;”56 “that dominion which the Time has assigned to us”57), but not at others (“such men as are called to discipline seek to disentangle themselves from the struggle of the Epistolary styles 5, tr. A. J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 69. F. Schulthess, “Brief,” 383. 55 K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 262. 56 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 75.30. 57 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 76.7–8. 53 54

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time;”58 “they are the ups and downs of the times”59). The ambiguity is understandable, however, if the author of the letter is seeking to conform both to the personification in the chreia and to a more prosaic use of the word. The personification of “time” in the anecdote is striking, and could be put to good rhetorical effect, but would be difficult to sustain over an extended composition. The repeated use of the word “time” in the letter reflects the centrality of “time” in the chreia, but its ambiguity in the letter seems to be a result of the problems inherent in expanding a concise witticism into a serious treatise. Theon’s chreia of Epameinondas, quoted earlier, comes to mind: here the Theban general’s victories are personified as his daughters, but in the expanded chreia the victories are described in both everyday terms and in personified terms. The result is perhaps more labored than the original, with the change from “I have left two daughters—the victory at Leuctra and the one at Mantineia” to “Stop weeping friends, for I have left you two immortal daughters: two victories of our country over the Lacedaemonians, the one at Leuctra, who is the older, and the younger, who is just now being born at Mantineia.” Given the manner in which the writer of the Letter of Mara bar Serapion follows other conventions of chreia elaboration, it is perhaps best to see the figure of time as ambiguous by virtue of the difficulty of chreia expansion rather than because of a complex philosophical agenda.

Historical Themes [16]

The presence of both friends and troubles is another obvious theme in the letter and chreia, and it is through examination of the “hardship” of Roman military action described in the letter that scholars have generally attempted to place the letter in a specific historical context.60 Yet these examinations have been singularly inconclusive. The references in the letter to a Roman conquest of Samosata suggest, at first glance, three different possible contexts for the letter: the Roman takeover of Commagene in the late first century, the war between Rome and Parthia in the mid-second century, and the conflict between the emperor Valerian and the W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 70.23–24. W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 71.5. 60 See n. 37, above. 58 59

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Persian Shapur I in the mid-third century. Unfortunately, the flight to Seleucia and the imprisonment of residents of Samosata described in the letter do not find corroboration in accounts of any of these three conflicts.61 Fergus Millar has suggested that a late first century date may be most probable for the letter, but acknowledges that the assumption of any such strict historicity in the letter is problematic.62 Given the difficulty in matching the circumstances described in the letter to any known Roman conquest of Samosata, however, it is worth considering more seriously the possibility that the letter-writer is not describing actual events at first hand, or at all. The muddled description of Mara bar Serapion’s troubles could more easily have arisen from the clues given in the chreia, namely, that Mara is imprisoned with certain companions, and that the times are bad. The detail of Roman conquest would then be a rhetorical flourish based on the knowledge that the Romans had, at some point in the past, conquered Samosata. The parallels with Theon’s “expanded” chreia are here apt: the student of rhetoric is to give the anecdote a lively historical setting, adding whatever details seem most plausible or vivid. Details of Mara bar Serapion’s capture by the Romans lend the letter both vividness and a certain pathos which the chreia itself lacks. Likewise Libanius’ elaboration of the Alexander chreia: the chreia is given a setting “historical enough” to tempt scholarly identification (Hock and O’Neil suggest Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela),63 but there is no need for this account to be read as accurate. Indeed given the fact that the same chreia could be attributed to various speakers,64 some caution in reading them as the basis for historical accounts must be maintained. There is one important historicizing element found in the letter that is absent in the chreia: the presence of children, both the children mentioned in the description of the exiles, and Mara bar Serapion’s son specifically.65 Yet the children in the letter are easily explained by the genre of the text. The letter is an exhortation to the philosophic life, and such exhortations were traditionally given See K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 258–60. F. Millar, Roman Near East, 460–62. 63 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 143 n. 281. 64 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 1, 309, 315–16, 325–26. 65 F. Schulthess suggests a situation in which Mara bar Serapion and his son were separated during the leaving of Samosata: “Brief,” 377–78. 61 62

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the form of advice from an older man to a younger.66 The most famous example of the genre is probably Seneca’s set of letters to Lucilius, advising the young (and possibly fictitious)67 man on the proper method of undertaking the philosophic life. However, such letters were also commonly in the form of advice given from father to son; the trope of father-to-son exhortation is a common one in both Roman didactic and Near Eastern wisdom literature.68 In literature on the chreia, too, the theme of proper upbringing of the young is prominent: one of the most often-quoted chreiai is that of Diogenes: “When he saw a boy misbehaving, Diogenes struck the boy’s pedagogue.”69 Both Libanius and Pseudo-Nicolaus elaborate this chreia with appeals to parents’ concern that their children be taught proper behavior by their pedagogues, acknowledging the trope of the parent as arbiter of correct education.70 The letterwriter is thus able to frame Mara bar Serapion’s letter in a highly traditional manner and then use this framework to include another common philosophical complaint: that children, good and bad alike, are most often a grief to their parents.71 Thus the act of expanding the chreia into a historical document and philosophically hortatory letter using the figures of sons and children allows the letter-writer to conform even more closely to traditional GrecoRoman rhetorical norms. The Letter of Mara bar Serapion seems to fit in with the general pattern of chreia elaboration, with paraenesis added and certain elements of the chreia elaboration form modified to suit the genre of the prosopopoetic letter. A schematic division of the letter into its different rhetorical components would then look something like this: Rhetorical Components Cureton encomium 43.1–5 Cf. S. Stowers, Letter-Writing, 39. S. Stowers, Letter-Writing, 40. 68 For a detailed discussion of the Roman tradition, see Fannie J. LeMoine, “Parental Gifts: Father-Son Dedications and Dialogues in Roman Didactic Literature,” Illinois Classical Studies XVI (1991): 337–66. 69 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia vol. 1, 316, cite it as the most frequently occurring chreia in their set of texts. 70 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 158–60, 212–14. 71 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 44.3–6. 66 67

Mara Bar Serapion Rhetorical Components paraenesis paraphrase/historicization philosophical rationale argument from the opposite further paraenesis testimony of the ancients/exempla further paraenesis epilogue followed by the original chreia

163 Cureton 43.5–44.6 44.6–20 44.20–45.5 45.6–17 45.18–46.9 46.10–47.16 47.16–48.7 48.7–23 48.24–26

In comparison with Hock and O’Neil’s list of elements common to the chreia elaboration (encomium, paraphrase, philosophical rationale, argument from the opposite, analogy, example, testimony of the ancients, epilogue), the similarities are very clear.

CONCLUSION: SYRIA, GREEK EDUCATION, AND CHRISTIANITY [19]

The idea that the Letter of Mara bar Serapion is deeply indebted to Greek rhetorical traditions, and may not reveal much as an eyewitness account of a Roman victory, has of course arisen in other work on the letter, although the work’s specific status as a chreia elaboration has not, until now, been explored.72 McVey has argued that the letter conforms in many respects to stock philosophical writing in antiquity, and that extrapolating a concrete historical setting or context from the letter is difficult, not to say impossible. Specifying that the letter is a chreia elaboration would, I think, both reinforce and explain this difficulty: while it acknowledges that “Mara bar Serapion” may well have been a recognizable historical figure to the readers of the chreia, it gives modern readers no more actual historical information about him than Libanius’ elaboration of the Alexander chreia gives us about Alexander. McVey argues further that the writer of the letter can nonetheless be identified as a Christian writer of the fourth century, 72 F. Millar, Roman Near East, 460–61, acknowledges that the letter is problematic but attempts to date it to the first century nonetheless, on the assumption that it is a product of the Roman victory at Commagene.

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on the strength of two passages: one that apparently connects the dispersion of the Jews to the death of their “wise king,” and another that describes people as “casting out” their children, a passage that McVey takes to be a reference to (and condemnation of) the exposure of infants.73 Her conclusion is that the writer is a Christian apologist posing as a pagan intellectual in order to support Christian supersessionist and moral claims. Here, too, however, the identification of the letter as a chreia elaboration should complicate the drawing of such straightforward conclusions from these two passages. To take the second passage first, as the simpler case: the lines in question read as follows: “For I wondered at many who cast out their children, and I was amazed at others who bring up those who are not their own. There are men who acquire property in the world; and I also was amazed at the others who inherit what is not their own.”74 If we read the letter as a rhetorical exercise, it is easy to connect this passage to such texts as the Controversiae of the Elder Seneca, in which children are frequently lost, kidnapped, disinherited, or otherwise misplaced through often spectacular turns of fortune.75 In a slightly more subdued Greek rhetorical context, the passage is reminiscent of another chreia attributed to Diogenes: “The Cynic philosopher Diogenes, when he saw an illegitimate child throwing stones, said, ‘Stop, child! You might hit your father without knowing it.”76 The point is more about human ignorance and turns of fortune than simply about the ethics of stone-throwing. I would suggest that the passage in the Letter of Mara bar Serapion takes up this trope, not to condemn child exposure per se, but as a comment on the unpredictability of human affairs and the resultant need for detachment. As the letter elsewhere suggests, “glory, that vanity that fills the life of men, do not reckon it among those things that make us happy: quickly it does us harm, especially in the birth of beloved sons.”77 It is hard K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 267–71. W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 45.2–4. 75 E.g., Seneca, Controversiae 7.1.1, “The man who was released by his son, the pirate chief;” 7.3.1, “The thrice-disinherited son caught pounding up poison;” 7.4.1, “The blind mother who would not let her son go,” text and tr. in M. Winterbottom, Elder Seneca. 76 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 1, 317. 77 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 44.2–4. 73 74

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to read this as an unmixed endorsement of child-rearing. The question of child exposure, then, taken in a rhetorical context, does not allow for a simple identification of the letter with any specifically Christian moral claims. It is harder to interpret the passage about the dispersion of the Jews and about their “wise king.” This is partly because there is a crucial verb missing in the passage, and partly because, as we have seen, the genre of chreia elaboration tends to historicize in extremely vague ways. Again, it is worth quoting the passage in full; it occurs in the section of the letter that, following the conventions of chreia elaboration, combines exempla and “testimony of the ancients” to support its argument: For what did the Athenians profit by the killing of Socrates? They received hunger and death in retribution for it. Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras? For in one hour their whole land was covered in sand. Or the Jews, of their wise king? For from that very time their kingdom was taken away. For God justly made retribution for the wisdom of these three, for the Athenians died hungry and the people of Samos were irreparably covered by the sea, and the Jews were destroyed and persecuted out of their kingdom, and are dispersed throughout every land. Socrates is not dead, because of Plato, nor Pythagoras, because of the statue of Hera, nor the wise king, because of the new laws that he established.78 There is, unfortunately, no clarifying verb in the question, “Or the Jews, of their wise king?” It is reasonable to suppose that, given the context, the reader should supply a phrase like, “by the death [sc. of their wise king],” and in fact this is what Cureton does in his translation,79 but it is significant that Jesus is not actually named in the text, nor is the crucifixion specified. I do not mean to suggest that the writer here cannot have a Christian apologetic argument in mind, and I think it is more than reasonable to suppose that the

W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 46.12–20. W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 73.35–36. F. Schulthess, “Brief,” 371, likewise supplies “by the killing [sc. of their wise king]” here. It may be going too far to supply “by the rejection/crucifixion?,” as K. McVey does (“Fresh Look,” 264), especially since “crucifixion” would presumably remove all doubt that the “wise king” should be identified with Jesus, who is after all never named in the text. 78 79

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“wise king” here is meant to be a reference to Jesus.80 This has been the general consensus of scholars working on the letter since Cureton.81 The vagueness of the reference is, however, important. Cureton suggests that it is due to the early date of the letter, and that the writer was prudently avoiding a mention of Jesus in order to remain safe during a period in which Christians were persecuted.82 If the letter is a chreia elaboration, however, there is no need to suppose that the lack of specificity is so coherently motivated. As McVey notes, the reference to Pythagoras in the same passage is also problematic, in that the writer conflates Pythagoras the philosopher with Pythagoras the sculptor, also of Samos, who, according to Diogenes Laertius, lived at about the same time.83 The appeal in both cases, then, is not necessarily to a Pythagoras or to a “wise king” the specific details of whose identity are vital to the argument. Rather, the appeal is to a more general “antiquity” populated by generic wise figures who are persecuted. To return, briefly, to Libanius’ elaboration of the chreia on Alexander and his friends, Libanius offers the examples of Orestes and Pylades and of Achilles and Patroclus as support for his argument that friends, are, indeed, treasures.84 These examples tell us no more than that these legendary figures were recognizable as “friends” in Greek cultural discourse. They do not entail that Libanius endorsed a return to Homeric military or religious ideals. Indeed, despite his devotion to traditional Greek gods, it seems clear that Libanius did not, for example, follow Julian the Apostate in any extreme religious nostalgia.85 It is plausible then that by the time the Letter of Mara bar Serapion was written, some form of the NB however that F. Millar, Roman Near East, 461, considers Solomon an equally likely possibility. 81 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, pref. xiii; F. Schulthess, “Brief,” 379; Drijvers, “Hatra,” does not mention the passage specifically, but places the letter in a Christian milieu; K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 263ff. 82 W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, pref. xiii–xiv. 83 K. McVey, “Fresh Look,” 270; Diog. Laer. V. Pyth. 25, text and tr. in R. D. Hicks, Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers (Harvard: Cambridge University Press, 1925). 84 R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, Chreia, vol. 2, 152. 85 Cf. Polymnia Athanassiadi, Julian and Hellenism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 126–27, 206–7. 80

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anti-Jewish argument that the death of Jesus, or of a “wise king,” was the reason for the dispersal of the Jews was current in Syriac thought. This would support McVey’s contention that the letter may date from around the fourth century or later, when the argument is prominent in Syriac Christian sources. It does not, however, entail that the writer of the letter had a particular theological interest in promoting this argument. On the contrary, Bowersock’s work on the long period of coexistence between “paganism” and Christianity in Syria seems well supported by a letter that places Socrates, Pythagoras, and Jesus (or a wise Jewish king) in precisely the same group, namely, persecuted wise men.86 If, as Bowersock has argued, Hellenism, Christianity and local cult could thrive in coexistence in Syria, it would be prudent to avoid the conclusion that any familiarity with Christian arguments implies a Christian affiliation. The composition of an originally Greek type of rhetorical exercise in Syriac should, instead, make clear the vast range of possibilities for cultural and narrative interchange in such a text. Rather than privileging one narrative over the others, it may be better to use this text to question the likelihood that cultural and religious affiliations were routinely seen as exclusive in the late ancient Near East. The removal of the Letter of Mara bar Serapion to his Son from a concrete historical context poses certain problems for the historian of Syrian-Roman relations in the first centuries CE. The letter’s placement in a far more traditional rhetorical context, however, opens up new possibilities for the study of early Syriac literature and the history of education in the provinces of the Roman Empire. Although the date of the letter, on this reading, remains elusive, the use of Greek and Roman rhetorical forms in Syriac prose composition suggests a high degree of cultural exchange between Syriac speakers and their imperial neighbors. Notably, the codex in which the Letter of Mara bar Serapion is found also contains several translations of Greek philosophical and educational works, among them sententiae of Menander, Isocrates’ paraenetic speech to 86 Glen W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), chapter 3. See also H. J. W. Drijvers, “The Persistence of Pagan Cults in Christian Syria,” in East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. Nina G. Garsoïan et al. (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982), 35-43. Drijvers has a less optimistic view about this coexistence, but acknowledges that it did occur.

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Demonicus, maxims attributed to Theano and to Pythagoras, works of Aristotle, and Porphyry’s Isagoge, as well as Greekinfluenced works such as the Book of the Laws of the Countries.87 If Cureton is correct in dating the codex to the sixth or seventh century, it would also have been produced during a prolific period in the translation of Greek works into Syriac.88 The Letter of Mara bar Serapion, following Brock’s general narrative of progressive Syriac assimilation to Greek culture over the fourth to the eighth century,89 may be later than the fourth century. Along with the Greek translations in the codex are a large number of works by the late fifth-/early sixth-century Syriac philosopher Sergius of Resh‘aina, commentator on Aristotle and translator of Galen.90 A similar move toward Syriac cultural adoption of Greek figures is evident in the number of Greek cultural icons used in the letter: Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Achilles, Priam, and Agamemnon, to name only a few.91 This prominence of Greek rhetoric and literary 87 See William Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum, vol. 3 (London, 1872, repr. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 1990), 1154–60. 88 See Sebastian Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning,” in East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. Nina G. Garsoïan, et al. (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982), 17–34; for the position of these translations in a larger narrative of transmission of Greek literature into Syriac and Arabic, see S. Brock, “Greek into Syriac and Syriac into Greek,” Journal of the Syriac Academy III. Baghdad (1977): 1–17; reprinted in S. Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity (London: Variorum, 1984); and D. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early cAbbasid Society (London: Routledge, 1998), 20–23. 89 S. Brock, “From Antagonism,” 19–25. 90 W. Wright, Catalogue, 1154–58; cf. S. Brock, “From Antagonism,” 21. 91 On the other hand, the number of Greek loan-words in the letter is small; the names of Greek literary and cultural figures are easily the most prominent. Brock argues for an increasing use of Greek loan-words as assimilation occurs, especially in translations (S. Brock, “From Antagonism,” 18; see also his “Aspects of Translation Technique in Antiquity,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 20 [1979]: 69–87) and “Some Aspects of Greek Words in Syriac,” in Synkretismus im syrischpersischen Kulturgebiet, ed. A. Dietrich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; reprinted in Syriac Perspectives in Late Antiquity). It may be,

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culture in the letter is even more clearly recognizable once the letter is properly understood to be a chreia elaboration. The Letter of Mara bar Serapion is thus a document of both limited and important historical use. While it tells us little about the political relationship between the Roman Empire and late ancient Syria, it nonetheless usefully illustrates the intersection of Greek literary forms and Syriac literary practice. The writer who posed as Mara bar Serapion for the purposes of this letter should alert students of Syriac literature and Christianity, not so much to the need for a philosophical outlook on life, as to the need to approach ancient Syria as an active participant in the culture of the broader Mediterranean world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Athanassiadi, Polymnia. Julian and Hellenism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Bowersock, Glen W. Hellenism in Late Antiquity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990. Brock, Sebastian. “Aspects of Translation Technique in Antiquity.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 20 (1979): 69-87. Reprinted in idem, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity. London: Variorum, 1984. —. “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning.” In East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. Nina G. Garsoïan, et al. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982, 17–34. Reprinted in Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity. —. “Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria.” In Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, ed. Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 149–60. —. “Greek into Syriac and Syriac into Greek.” Journal of the Syriac Academy III. (1979): 1–17. Reprinted in Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity.

however, that the use of loan-words in a rhetorical exercise would have been considered “bad form,” as it often was in Latin and Greek practice. As Brock has elsewhere suggested, in some bilingual contexts Syriac would have been considered a language of greater literary prestige than Greek, which might also have inclined the author to avoid loan-words: S. Brock, “Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria,” in Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, ed. Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 149–60.

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—. “Some Aspects of Greek Words in Syriac.” In Synkretismus im syrischpersischen Kulturgebiet, ed. A. Dietrich. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Reprinted in Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity. Butts, James R. The Progymnasmata of Theon. Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1987. Cribiore, Raffaella. Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Cureton, William. Spicilegium Syriacum. London: Francis and John Rivington, 1855. Diogenes Laertius. Life of Pythagoras. Text and translation in R. D. Hicks, Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Harvard: Cambridge University Press, 1925. Drijvers, H. J. W. “Hatra, Palmyra und Edessa: Die Städte der syrischmesopotamischen Wüste in politischer, kulturgeschichtlicher und religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung.” ANRW II.8 (1977): 806–901. —. “The Persistence of Pagan Cults and Practices in Christian Syria.” In East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. Nina G. Garsoïan, et al. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982, 35–43. Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbasid Society. London: Routledge, 1998. Hock, Ronald F., and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. Vol. 1: The Progymnasmata. Vol. 2: The Classroom Exercises. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986, 2002. Kennedy, George. Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. LeMoine, Fannie J. “Parental Gifts: Father-Son Dedications and Dialogues in Roman Didactic Literature.” Illinois Classical Studies XVI (1991): 337–66. Malherbe, Abraham J. Ancient Epistolary Theorists. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. Marrou, Henri-Irénée. A History of Education in Antiquity. Tr. G. Lamb; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956; reprinted Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. McVey, Kathleen E. “A Fresh Look at the Letter of Mara Bar Serapion to his Son.” V. Symposium Syriacum 1988, ed. R. Lavenant, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 236 (1990): 257–72. Millar, Fergus. The Roman Near East 31 BC–AD 337. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Morgan, Teresa. Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Ramelli, Ilaria. “La lettera di Mara bar Serapion.” Stylos 13 (2004): 77–104.

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Reed, Jeffrey T. “The Epistle.” In A Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, ed. S. E. Porter. Leiden: Brill, 1997, 171–93. Schulthess, Friedrich. “Der Brief des Mara bar Sarapion.” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51 (1897): 365–91. Stowers, Stanley K. Letter-Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986. Winterbottom, Michael. The Elder Seneca: Declamations. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. Wright, William. Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum. Vol. 3. Originally published in London, 1872; repr. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 1990.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.2, 173-188 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

CLASSICAL SYRIAC MANUSCRIPTS AT YALE UNIVERSITY A CHECKLIST LEO DEPUYDT BROWN UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT Yale’s Beinecke Library preserves a small but diverse collection of eighteen items in Syriac, some transferred from the University’s American Oriental Society Library. This article is a checklist. Nos. 1 and 2, part of the Old Testament and a New Testament, may be the oldest items. Nos. 3 and 4 are two more copies of the Revelation of St. Paul. Nos. 5–9 have also long been known in multiple copies. No. 10 is a Syriac-Armenian lexicon, No. 11 is a linguistic work entitled “Illumination of Beginners,” and No. 12 is a fragment of cAbdišōc ’ s Catalogue of Syriac Authors. No. 17 contains a copy of Moses bar Kepha’s On Paradise, a work so far accessible only in a sixteenthcentury Latin translation by the pioneer Andreas Masius that has played an important part in the rise of Syriac Studies in Europe. The Beinecke copy of AD 1225 predates the oldest known copy by about 140 years. No. 18 is a deed of sale of AD 243, long the oldest dated Syriac text known.

[1]

Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds among its treasures a modest but interesting—and despite its small size, rather diverse—ancient Syriac collection encompassing eighteen items. This collection includes manuscripts originally part 173

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Leo Depuydt

of the Library of the American Oriental Society located at Yale. In the summer of 1991, I spent some days at the Beinecke Library studying its Syriac collection, by virtue of my appointment as Senior Lector in Syriac and Coptic at Yale (1989–91). From my notes, I compiled the following checklist. Some of the Beinecke manuscripts have already received mention in J. T. Clemons’s useful survey of Syriac collections in Canada and the United States, published in 1966.1 But for obvious reasons, Clemons’s survey does not always provide descriptions based on a firsthand examination of the items. In 1991, the following list was submitted and accepted for publication in the first volume of a newly planned journal entitled Middle Eastern Christian Studies. But the journal never came into existence. An inquiry addressed to me by R. A. Kitchen in October 2005 about a Beinecke Syriac manuscript—itself inspired by a lead from S. Brock—led me to return to the manuscript of this checklist and to decide to submit it for publication in the present journal. Some of what follows was part of an oral presentation entitled “Moses bar Kepha’s ‘On Paradise’ and the Beginning of Syriac Studies in Europe” read at the Syriac Studies Symposium held at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in June 1991. Much of the text is in the same form as it was in late 1991, but some new data have been added. I am grateful to an anonymous referee of this journal for valuable information affording updates on several items in the list. A full-scale catalogue would require a more detailed treatment of all the items, but it is hoped that the present list is useful. Only upon my recent revisiting of the manuscript of this checklist—after a long absence from any serious engagement with things Syriac—did I learn that my planned publication and the paper read at the afore-mentioned conference at Brown University had found entry into the scholarly literature, namely by mediation of S. Brock—who was present at the conference—in G. J. Reinink’s edition and translation of the Syriac original of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, of which manuscript Beinecke 1 J. T. Clemons, “A Checklist of Syriac Manuscripts in the United States and Canada,” OrChrP 32 (1966): 224–51 and 478–522; cf. id., “The Search for Syriac Manuscripts in America,” JAOS 85 (1965): 208–10; and also E. Stout, Catalogue of the Library of the American Oriental Society (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1930).

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Syriac 10 (see No. 17[8] below) contains a version of some significance.2 According to Reinink (p. xxxvii), the proposed name of the journal was to have been Middle Eastern Christian Studies Annual. Reinink’s description of this list as “in press” makes all the more appropriate tying up a loose end by publishing the list. Another development that has happened since is the publication, in the same year 1991, of A. Desreumaux’s repertory of Syriac manuscript collections.3 In this repertory, the Beinecke Syriac collection is described on the basis of information provided in February and March of 1989. This information is itself said to be at least in part based on a list compiled in 1976. Meanwhile also, S. Brock has published a detailed bibliography on Syriac literature covering the years 1960–1990 and compiled from earlier bibliographies.4 The reader is referred to this valuable work for additional information on the Syriac texts in the Beinecke Library. The contents of the Beinecke collection of classical Syriac manuscripts may be summarized as follows. The two biblical manuscripts (see Nos. 1 and 25), containing various books of the Old Testament and a Syriac New Testament, are in all probability the two oldest items in the collection. They are distinct from all other Beinecke Syriac codices in that they are written on parchment and not on paper. The New Testament codex is dated to AD 917/18, and the Old Testament one resembles it so strikingly that it cannot be much younger, if at all. A facsimile of a page of the New Testament manuscript can be found in Hatch’s Album of dated Syriac manuscripts. The text of the two codices is that of the Peshitta. As regards biblical matters, it is worthwhile to point out G. J. Reinink, Die syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 540–41, Scriptores Syri 220–21 (Leuven: In Aedibus E. Peeters, 1993), at CSCO 540, V, IX, XVI–XVII, and XXXVII. 3 A. Desreumaux, with F. Briquel-Chatonnet, Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits syriaques, Documents, études et répertoires publiés par l’IRHT (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1991). For the Yale collection, see pp. 197–99, Nos. 609–12. 4 S. Brock, Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, Kaslik, Lebanon: Parole de l’Orient, 1996. 5 These numbers have been introduced to allow cross-reference, to the list and between items of the list. They are not meant to replace the call numbers of the manuscripts. 2

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that the Beinecke Library possesses, in addition to these two Syriac biblical codices, a unique Greek fragment of the Diatessaron. The fragment was excavated in 1933 at Dura Europos and dates to before AD 256/57.6 It has added a new dimension to the discussion as to whether the Diatessaron was first composed in Syriac or in Greek.7 The manuscripts described in Nos. 3 and 4 are of fairly recent date. It is to be doubted that they will bring much textcritical gain for the Syriac text of the Revelation of St. Paul. Of the works listed in Nos. 5–9, multiple copies have already long been known from European and Near Eastern libraries, as appears from A. Baumstark’s listings.8 Two of them, Nos. 7 and 9, have dates, namely AD 1736 and AD 1699. The colophon of the latter is in Karshuni—Arabic written in Syriac letters—as are many marginal notes in several of the Beinecke Syriac manuscripts. Dates in Beinecke colophons are, as in the vast majority of Syriac manuscripts, according to the Era of the Greeks, commencing on 1 October 312 BC. No. 8 appears strikingly modern. One wonders whether it was copied, or at least solicited, by the donor. The handwritten English translation found in the same booklet seems to be his. An interesting item is No. 10, a Syriac-Armenian lexicon. The Armenian is written in the Syriac script. Various prayers precede, follow, and are inserted in the lexical list. Diacritic dots, added to the Syriac letters, mostly in red, allow the denotation of sounds See S. Emmel, “Antiquity in Fragments: A Hundred Years of Collecting Papyri at Yale,” The Yale University Library Gazette 64 (1989): 38–58, at 51–52. 7 More recently, M. Goodacre, D. Parker, and D. Taylor (“The DuraEuropos Gospel Harmony,” in Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, Third Series, Volume 1, ed. D. Taylor [Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 1999], 192–228) have proposed (p. 228) that the Dura Europos fragment “is not part of Tatian’s Diatessaron, and so … can shed no light on the origins of the Diatessaron.” In reaction to this study, J. Joosten (“The Dura Parchment and the Diatessaron,” VigChr 57 [2003]: 159–75) has interpreted certain features of the text as “prov[ing] beyond reasonable doubt … that [it] … is a fragment of a gospel standing in the textual tradition of Tatian’s Diatessaron” (p. 159). 8 A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur mit Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen Texte (Bonn: A. Marcus and E. Webers Verlag Dr.jur. Albert Jahn, 1922). 6

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[6]

[7]

[8]

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proper to Armenian. When I could not find the word following Syriac št’ “drink” in textbooks of classical Armenian or in a modern Armenian dictionary, the eminent Jerusalem Armenologist Michael Stone informed me upon inquiry that the form is neither ancient nor modern but typically medieval. No. 11 is also a linguistic work, a grammar book including many verbal paradigms entitled Nuhhār– Šarwāyē “Illumination of Beginners.” No. 12 contains a fragment from cAbdišōc ’ s Catalogue of Syriac Authors. The copy is of recent date and therefore of secondary importance. As is the case with Nos. 5–7 and 9, most of the works in Nos. 13–17 are additional medieval copies of classics of Syriac literature of which several manuscripts are found in libraries in Europe and the Near East. The first work in No. 17 is of great interest. It is a copy of Moses bar Kepha’s On Paradise.9 This work is at present publicly accessible only in a sixteenth-century Latin translation reprinted in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca. The genesis of this translation is intimately connected with the rise of Syriac studies in Europe. The translator was the eminent Flemish humanist Andreas Masius. Born near Brussels in 1514, Masius graduated in 1533 as Magister from the renowned Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, where in addition to the three Holy Languages—Hebrew as language of the Old Testament, Greek as language of the New Testament, and Latin as language of the Vulgate—several Oriental languages were taught.10 Masius was one of the three or four pioneers who laid the foundations of the modern discipline of Syriac Studies. He is noted for having produced the first solid studies in Syriac linguistics, including a grammar and a dictionary, both published in Antwerp around 1570. Remarkably, he published his entire Syriac opus in the last four years of his life. Masius traveled all over Europe in the service of diplomats. Around 1550, he was at Rome, where he met a scholar from An appendix to the manuscript offers the following twofold explanation for the epithet bar Kepha “son of a rock.” First, Moses’s father was named Simon who is also called Kephas. Second, when Moses’s mother died soon after giving birth to him, his father took him to a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where he received nourishment from an icon of the Virgin painted on a rock. 10 For Masius and his Syriac Studies, see A. van Roey, “Les études syriaques d’Andreas Masius,” OLoP 9 (1978): 141–58. 9

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Mardin called Moses who became his Syriac tutor. Moses had come from the Near East carrying an important manuscript that had presumably been entrusted to him by his bishop as being representative of Syriac theology. It contained Moses bar Kepha’s De Paradiso. Masius bought the manuscript and translated the text, but he only published his translation, and not the Syriac text. It is known, however, that he excerpted the text for his Syriac dictionary so that at least some vocabulary of the text made it into print. The identity and whereabouts of the Syriac manuscript used by Masius are unknown to me. The translation was no doubt an intellectual feat at the time. It must have contributed significantly to preparing Masius to write the first scientific grammar of classical Syriac. A good copy of De Paradiso has now turned up at the Beinecke Library. In search of additional copies one does not need to roam the churches and monasteries in the Middle East nor dig through the archives of European libraries. An expedition into the footnotes of Arthur Vööbus’s works suffices. Vööbus mentions other copies of De Paradiso. One of them, now in the Middle East, was until now thought to be the oldest. It dates to AD 1364/65. The Beinecke manuscript, as its colophon indicates, is about 140 years older. Since Moses died around AD 900, the Beinecke copy is only about three and a half centuries removed from the author’s autograph. On the basis of the extant copies, it should be possible to establish a critical edition of De Paradiso. This may be worthwhile because Masius’s Latin translation is not always literal. In fact, a contemporary of Masius, Torrentius, thought the publication unworthy of him.11 An edition of the text would also come at a time when Moses bar Kepha’s star is rising. It has recently been noticed that prominent authors like Dionysius bar Salibi and Barhebraeus excerpted Moses. Finally, No. 18 contains a deed of sale on parchment dated to AD 243. It was for a long time the oldest known dated Syriac text.12 van Roey, “Les études syriaques,” 151, 151 n. 58, 152 top. For two earlier manuscripts dating to AD 240 and AD 242, see S. Brock, “Some New Syriac Documents from the Third Century AD,” Aram 3 (1991): 259–67. See also J. Teixidor, “Deux documents syriaques du IIIe siècle après J-C provenant du moyen Euphrate,” CRAI (1990): 146–66; id., “Les derniers rois d’Edesse d’après deux nouveaux documents syriaques,” ZPE 76 (1989): 219–22; H. J. W. Drijvers and J. F. 11 12

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For the sake of completeness, it needs to be mentioned that the Yale collection also holds a few modern Syriac items and two manuscripts in Karshuni.13

INDEX AUTORUM [11]

References are to Brock, Classified Bibliography = BCB. ‛Abdišō‛ of Nisibis (BCB, 23 no. 4), Nos. 7, 12 Barhebraeus (BCB, 40–42 no. 37), Nos. 9, 13 Euagrius (BCB, 94–95 no. 79), No. 16 Isaiah, Abba (BCB, 151–52 no. 116), No. 16 Jacob of Sarugh (BCB, 156–60 no. 128), No. 13 John bar Zucbi (BCB, 168 no. 154), No. 14 John of Lycopolis (or Apameia), the Solitary (BCB, 163 no. 135), No. 16 Maruta of Maiperqat (cf. BCB, 265), No. 8 Methodius (Pseudo-) of Patara (BCB, 223–24 no. 183), No. 17 Moses of Kepha (BCB, 234–35 no. 188), No. 17 Philoxenus of Mabbug (BCB, 244–47 no. 206), No. 16 Solomon of Basra, No. 15 Timothy Isaac (BCB 149 last reference), No. 11

BIBLE Old Testament [12-13] 1 Old Testament, Certain Books of the IXth–XIth centuries14

Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene: Texts, Translations and Commentary, HO, Erste Abteilung: Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten 42 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), 237–48. 13 For the Karshuni manuscripts, see also Desreumaux, Répertoire, 199, No. 612. 14 Thus the List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts (Preliminary Issue) Edited by the Peshitta Institute Leiden University (Leiden: E.J. Brill), 32.

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AOS Rn/B47b.—A parchment codex with a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 239; List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts, 32; “Peshitta Institute Communications XIV: Fifth Supplement to the List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts,” VT 27 (1977): 508–11, at 511 [reporting the transfer of the manuscript from the American Oriental Society Library at Yale to Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]). The hand strongly resembles that of No. 2. CONTENTS: Certain books of the Old Testament, including Joshua, Judges, 1, 2 Samuel, 1, 2 Kings, Proverbs, Ben Sira, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Song of Songs, Job. The location of the books is as follows (taken from List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts, 32): ff. 1v–27r, Josh; ff. 27r–49r, Judg; ff. 49r–107r, 1–2 Sam; ff. 107r–169r, 1–2 Kgs; ff. 169r–189r, Prov; ff. 189r–220r, Sir; ff. 220r–226v, Eccl/Qoh; ff. 226v–229v, Ruth; ff. 229v–232v, Cant; ff. 232v–254r, Job. New Testament [14]

2 New Testament AD 917/18 Syriac 6.—A parchment codex with a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 249). The hand strongly resembles that of No. 1. For a brief description and a facsimile, see Hatch, [218], Plate CLXVII. Acquired in AD 1907 (Desreumaux, Répertoire, 199, No. 611). Also mentioned by H. P. Smith, “Biblical Manuscripts in America,” JBL 42 (1923): 249–50. CONTENTS: New Testament (Peshitta) without Revelation. Pauline Epistles. See 16(1)

APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE [15]

Cave of Treasures, Book of the. See No. 15(2) Matthew and Andrew the Apostles, History of Saints. See No. 5(1) 3 Paul, Revelation of St. Rn32a.—A fragmentary paper codex without a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 237). CONTENTS: Revelation of St. Paul (incomplete). Baumstark, Geschichte, 70,22–26. For a more complete copy, see No. 4. Rn32b.—A fragmentary paper codex without a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 242). CONTENTS: Revelation of St. Paul (incomplete). Baumstark, Geschichte, 70,22–26. This copy is more complete than No. 3.

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Sheba to Solomon, Questions of. See No. 16(2)

HAGIOGRAPHY [16]

5 Miscellany AD 188815 Syriac 5.—A paper codex with a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 248). Gift of C. C. Torrey in June 1950 (Desreumaux, Répertoire, 199, No. 611). CONTENTS: 1. History of SS. Matthew and Andrew the Apostles 2. History of St. Abba Marcus of Mount Tharmaka 3. History of St. Cyriacus and Julitta For editions and translations of parallels to (1), see W. Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols. (London: Williams and Nordgate, 1871), vol. 1, 102–26 and vol. 2, 93–115; M. Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, vol. 2.1 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1908), 65–116. For a study of (2), see A. E. Look, The History of Abba Marcus of Mount Tharmaka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929); originally a Ph.D. dissertation of 1927 for Yale University, bearing the same title.

HISTORICAL ROMANCE [17]

6 Alexander Romance Rn/H62.—A paper codex with a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 235). CONTENTS: Alexander Romance. Baumstark, Geschichte, 125,10–17 and 348–49 ad 125 n. 3. For an English translation of the present manuscript, see J. Perkins, “Notice of a Life of Alexander the Great,” JAOS 4 (1854): 359–440.

HYMNS, LITURGICAL POETRY [18]

7 ‛Abdišō‛ (of Nisibis), Pardaisā da-‛den 13 Tammuz AD 1736 Rn/Ab32.—A paper codex with a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 232). CONTENTS: ‛Abdišō‛, Pardaisā da-‛den (“Garden of Eden”). Baumstark, Geschichte, 324,12–20. Trans. (English) F. V. Winnett, The Paradise of Eden (Ph.D. dissertation for the University

15

Thus Desreumaux, Répertoire, 198, No. 611.

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of Toronto, 1929); also mentioned by J. Murdock, “Ebed-Jesu’s Makâmât,” JAOS 3 (1853): 475–77. Jacob of Sarugh, Sugita. See No. 13(2)

PRAYERS [19]

See No. 10

SCHOLASTIC WORKS Encyclopaedia [20-21] Solomon of Basra, Book of the Bees. See No. 15(1) History [22]

8 Maruta of Maiperqat, On the Council of Nicaea Rn/M36.—A paper booklet consisting of two quires (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 241). The hand is the same as No. 12. CONTENTS: Maruta of Maiperqat, On the Council of Nicaea. Baumstark, Geschichte, 53,27–54,10. One quire contains the text, the other a handwritten English translation. Jurisprudence

[23]

9 Barhebraeus, Ktābā d-Huddāyē Kanun II AD 1699 Syriac 11.—A paper codex with a binding. Olim Istanbul, Fehim 8; “purchased on 26th August 1967 by Yale University from Mrs. Melahat Menememcogliu” (H. Takahashi, Barhebraeus: A BioBibliography [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press LLC, 2005], 236). CONTENTS: 1. (pp. 1–291) Barhebraeus, Ktābā d-Huddāyē (“Book of Guidances”). Baumstark, Geschichte, 315,2–6. For this work, see also Takahashi, Barhebraeus, 227–40; for the present manuscript, see p. 236. 2. (pp. 291–303) Appendix: Laws on Inheritance (according to Islam) and the Manumission of Slaves. Linguistics

[24]

10 Syriac-Armenian Lexicon, with Prayers

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Syriac 9.—A paper codex with a binding. CONTENTS: SyriacArmenian Lexicon; various prayers precede, follow, and are interpolated. The Armenian is written in Syriac letters, often accompanied by diacritical marks, mostly in red. 11 Timothy Isaac, Nuhhār–Šarwāyē Syriac 12.—A paper codex with a binding. CONTENTS: Timothy Isaac, metropolitan of Amid, son of deacon cEbed-Hayya, Nuhhār– Šarwāyē (“Illumination of Beginners”). For another copy, see BL Add. 21211. A grammar book for beginners, including many verbal paradigms. Literature [25]

12 ‛Abdišō‛, Catalogue of Syriac Authors Rn/Eb31.—Six bifolios forming a quire in twelve from a paper codex (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 234). The hand is the same as that of No. 8. CONTENTS: ‛Abdišō‛, Catalogue of Syriac Authors (a fragment). Baumstark, Geschichte, 325,1–2. Theology

[26]

13 Barhebraeus, Ktābā da-Mnārat Qudšē Syriac 7.—A paper codex with a binding. CONTENTS: 1. Barhebraeus, Ktābā da-Mnārat Qudšē (“Book of the Lamp of Holinesses”). Baumstark, Geschichte, 314–15. For this work, see Takahashi, Barhebraeus, 175–91 (the present manuscript is not listed). 2. Appendix: Three short works including a Sugita by Jacob of Sarugh. Baumstark, Geschichte, 149,7–10. 14 John bar Zucbi, On the Matter of Faith, and Interpretation of the Eucharist Kanun II AD 1687 Syriac 13.—A paper codex with a binding. CONTENTS: 1. On the Matter of Faith. Baumstark, Geschichte, 311,2–4. 2. Interpretation of the Eucharist. Baumstark, Geschichte, 311,5–6.

MISCELLANIES [27]

15 Miscellany

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Syriac 4.—A paper codex with a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 247). Gift of C. C. Torrey in June 1950 (Desreumaux, Répertoire, 199, No. 611). CONTENTS: 1. Solomon of Basra, The Book of the Bees. Baumstark, Geschichte, 309,7–12. 2. The Book of the Cave of Treasures. Baumstark, Geschichte, 95– 96. Brock, Classified Bibliography, 64–65 no. 42. See now S. Ri, La Caverne des Trésors: Les deux recensions syriaques, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 486–87, Scriptores Syri 207–8 (Leuven: Peeters, 1987); the present manuscript is not listed. 16 Miscellany Syriac 8.—A fragmentary paper codex with a binding. CONTENTS: 1. (f. 1r) Pauline Epistles (the end only). 2. (ff. 1v–2v) Questions by Queen Sheba to King Solomon. 3. (ff. 3r a–4v b) Philoxenus of Mabbug, Letter to Patrikios of Edessa. Baumstark, Geschichte, 142,8 with n. 10. 4. (f. 4v b) Sayings, 2 by ? (Philoxenus?), 4 by Euagrius, 1 by Abba Isaiah. 5. (ff. 4v b–7v b) Philoxenus of Mabbug, Confession of Faith. Baumstark, Geschichte, 143,6–7 with n. 6. 6. (ff. 7v b–9r a) John of Lycopolis (or of Apameia), also the Solitary, or “Seer and Prophet,” The Holy Commandments of the Gospel. Baumstark, Geschichte, 90,13–14 with n. 14. 7. (ff. 9r a–29v a) Commandments (from the gospels, the Pauline and Catholic Epistles, and the Prophets). 8. (ff. 29v a–end) About the Sacraments (anonymous). 17 Moses bar Kepha, Various Works

Thursday, 3 Nisan ad 1225 St. Barsauma’s, Mardin Scribe Joseph

Syriac 10.—A paper codex with a binding. CONTENTS: Works by Moses bar Kepha, with two appendices.

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1. (pp. 1–124) On Paradise: First (1–97), Second (97–108), and Third (108–24) Memra. 2. (pp. 124–86) On Resurrection. 3. (pp. 186–205) Exegesis of Sayings of Paul on the Resurrection. 4. (pp. 205–9) Word of Comfort. 5. (pp. 209–18) On the Trinity. 6. (pp. 218–24) Symbolism of the Shaving of the Monks. APPENDICES 7. (pp. 224–25) Biographical Notes Pertaining to Moses. 8. (pp. 225–end) Pseudo-Methodius of Patara, On the End of Times. See now G. J. Reinink, Die syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 540–541, Scriptores Syri 220–221 (Leuven: In Aedibus E. Peeters, 1993); for the present manuscript, see pp. XVI–XVII. [28]

[29]

Note that the manuscript shown in Hatch’s Album, Plate CXXXV was also copied at St. Barsauma’s, though by another scribe, in AD 1234, less than a decade after the Beinecke manuscript. It also contains works by Moses bar Kepha, as does the manuscript depicted in Hatch’s Album, Plate CXXXVI, dated to AD 1242. The Beinecke codex contains the oldest known copy of Moses’s On Paradise. Other copies are Hs.Ming.Syr. 65 and Hs.Mard.Orth. 368, the latter dating to AD 1364/65 and previously thought to be the oldest (Vööbus 1970, vol. 1, 233 n. 33). For Masius’s Latin translation, see PG 11, 481–608. For notices concerning other Syriac copies: A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Mingana Collection of Manuscripts, I: Syriac and Garshuni Manuscripts (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Limited, 1933), No. 65; A. Vööbus, “Syriac Literature.” In Encyclopaedia Britannica 21 (1967), 589; A. Vööbus, Syrische Kanonessammlungen, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 307, 317, Subsidia 35, 38 (Leuven: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1970), vol. 1, 233 n. 33; W. Strothmann, Johannes von Apamea, PTS 11 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1972), 55 n. 57, 106 with nn. 120–21; L. Schlimme, “Die Bibelkommentare des Moses bar Kepha,” in A Tribute to Arthur Vööbus: Studies in Early Christian Literature and Its Environment,

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Primarily in the Syrian East (Chicago: The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 1977), 63–71, at 65 n. 11. Cf. also A. Vööbus, “New Manuscript Discoveries on the Old Testament Exegetical Work of Moses bar Kepha,” Abr Nahrain 10 (1970–71): 97–101.

DOCUMENTARY [30]

18 Syriac Deed of Sale on Parchment Dura DPg 20 (= Dura Europos 28 or P.Dura 28).—A parchment sheet. The text is dated to AD 243. CONTENTS: A Deed of Sale. Ed. and trans. (English) J. A. Goldstein, “The Syriac Bill of Sale from Dura Europos,” JNES 25 (1966): 1–16; see also Drijvers and Healey, Old Syriac Inscriptions, 232–36 (based on Goldstein).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Baumstark, A. Geschichte der syrischen Literatur mit Ausschluss der christlichpalästinensischen Texte. Bonn: A. Marcus and E. Webers Verlag Dr.jur. Albert Jahn, 1922. Bonnet, M. (denuo edidit post C. von Tischendorf), Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, vol. 2.1. Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1908. Brock, S. “Some New Syriac Documents from the Third Century AD.” Aram 3 (1991): 259–67. — Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, Kaslik, Lebanon: Parole de l’Orient, 1996. Clemons, J. T. “The Search for Syriac Manuscripts in America.” JAOS 85 (1965): 208–10. — “A Checklist of Syriac Manuscripts in the United States and Canada.” OrChrP 32 (1966): 224–51, 478–522. Desreumaux, A.; with F. Briquel-Chatonnet. Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits syriaques. Documents, études et répertoires publiés par l’IRHT. Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1991. Drijvers, H. J. W., and J. F. Healey. The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene: Texts, Translations and Commentary, HO, Erste Abteilung: Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten 42. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999, 237– 48. Emmel, S. “Antiquity in Fragments: A Hundred Years of Collecting Papyri at Yale.” The Yale University Library Gazette 64 (1989): 38– 58. Goldstein, J. A. “The Syriac Bill of Sale from Dura Europos.” JNES 25 (1966): 1–16. Goodacre, M., D. Parker, and D. Taylor. “The Dura-Europos Gospel Harmony.” In Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, Third Series, Volume 1, ed. D. Taylor. Birmingham,

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University of Birmingham Press, 1999, 192–228. [I have not had access to this work. I quote from Joosten, “The Dura Parchment.”] Hatch, W. H. P. An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts. Boston: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1946. Joosten, J. “The Dura Parchment and the Diatessaron.” VigChr 57 (2003): 159–75. List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts (Preliminary Issue) Edited by the Peshitta Institute Leiden University. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1961. Look, A. E. The History of Abba Marcus of Mount Tharmaka. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929. [Originally a Ph.D. dissertation for Yale University of 1927, bearing the same title.] Mingana, A. Catalogue of the Mingana Collection of Manuscripts, I: Syriac and Garshuni Manuscripts. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Limited, 1933. Murdock, J. “Ebed-Jesu’s Makâmât.” JAOS 3 (1853): 475–77. Perkins, J. “Notice of a Life of Alexander the Great.” JAOS 4 (1854): 359–440. Perkins, J. “The Revelation of the Blessed Apostle Paul Translated from an Ancient Syriac Manuscript.” JAOS 8 (1866): 183–212. “Peshitta Institute Communications XIV: Fifth Supplement to the List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts.” VT 27 (1977): 508–11. Reinink, G. J. Die syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 540–41, Scriptores Syri 220–21. Leuven: In Aedibus E. Peeters, 1993. Ri, S. La Caverne des Trésors: Les deux recensions syriaques, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 486–87, Scriptores Syri 207–8. Leuven: Peeters, 1987. Schlimme, L. “Die Bibelkommentare des Moses bar Kepha.” In A Tribute to Arthur Vööbus: Studies in Early Christian Literature and Its Environment, Primarily in the Syrian East. Chicago: The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 1977, 63–71. Smith, H. P. “Biblical Manuscripts in America.” JBL 42 (1923): 249–50. Stout, E. Catalogue of the Library of the American Oriental Society. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1930. Strothmann, W. Johannes von Apamea, PTS 11. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1972. Takahashi, H. Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2005. Teixidor, J. “Deux documents syriaques du IIIe siècle après J-C provenant du moyen Euphrate.” CRAI (1990): 146–66. — “Les derniers rois d’Edesse d’après deux nouveaux documents syriaques.” ZPE 76 (1989): 219–22.

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van Roey, A. “Les études syriaques d’Andreas Masius.” OLoP 9 (1978): 141–58. Vööbus, A. “Syriac Literature.” In Encyclopaedia Britannica 21 (1967). — Syrische Kanonessammlungen, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 307, 317, Subsidia 35, 38. Leuven: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1970. — “New Manuscript Discoveries on the Old Testament Exegetical Work of Moses bar Kepha.” Abr Nahrain 10 (1970–71): 97–101. Winnett, F. V. The Paradise of Eden. Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Toronto, 1929. Wright, W. Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols. London: Williams and Nordgate, 1871.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.2, 189-211 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

CAUGHT IN A COMPROMISING POSITION THE BIBLICAL EXEGESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BIBLICAL PROTAGONISTS IN THE SYRIAC DIALOGUE HYMNS KRISTI UPSON-SAIA DUKE UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT Syriac Dialogue hymns have been an important part of East- and WestSyriac liturgy since at least the middle of the fifth century CE. The hymns perform a distinctive method of biblical interpretation—“freezeframe” exegesis—that expands biblical narratives in order to garner scriptural support for contemporary Christological positions. While providing useful theological training, however, the hymns convey several compromised portrayals of biblical protagonists, which are striking when compared with Greek and Latin treatments of the same figures.

[1]

Much of the recent scholarship on ancient biblical interpretation has focused on the variety of figurative exegetical methods. Such projects have endeavored to problematize the traditional polarization between Antiochene typology and Alexandrian allegory, and rather to shift scholars’ focus to educational practices that formed both readers and reading methods, as well as the social, political, and religious functions of various exegetical 189

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practices.1 In the quest to rethink the figurative exegesis of Latin and Greek Christianity, scholars have not paid enough attention to the exegetical approaches of Syriac Christians. The most obvious reason for this disregard is language; until recently, much of the Syriac Christian corpus has remained untranslated, hindering scholars’ access to and analysis of the material. A closer examination of exegetical methods from this tradition, however, further complexifies the categories of biblical interpretation in late antiquity and provides a fruitful avenue for further research. In this paper, I will look at a distinctive form of interpretation found in the Syriac Dialogue hymns. These hymns, which were incorporated into Syriac liturgy from the early fourth century to the present day, utilized a method of exegesis that expanded biblical narratives, filling in gaps when the biblical stories were imprecise or ambiguous, in order to limit alternative “unorthodox” interpretations. The authors of Syriac Dialogue hymns fused an exegetical technique akin to Jewish narrative aggadah with a Mesopotamian dialogue genre in order to devise a hymn form that could entertain as well as instruct Syriac congregations on a number of contemporary theological issues. In what follows, I will describe the method of exegesis employed by Syriac Dialogue authors, the pedagogic function of these hymns, and their unusual treatment of certain biblical protagonists.

FUSION OF MESOPOTAMIAN PRECEDENCE DISPUTE & BIBLICAL NARRATIVES [3]

There are over forty extant Dialogue hymns surviving in at least one Syriac church (the Syrian Orthodox, the Maronite, and/or the Church of the East).2 These hymns, which have been included in For example, see F. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002); D. Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 2 For a catalogue of the Syriac Dialogue hymns, see S. Brock, “Syriac Dialogue Poems: Marginalia to a Recent Edition,” Le Muséon 97 (1984): 29–58. Although the much-anticipated American collection of the Dialogue hymns has been delayed, individual hymns—in Syriac and English translations—can be located in the following publications. Sebastian Brock has published fourteen individual Dialogue hymns in a 1

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Syriac liturgy since the fourth century, share a common structure and format.3 Each hymn is focused on a dialogue or debate between two main characters. After a brief introduction, the pair alternate arguments in support of their side of an issue. At the end of the debate, a winner is pronounced. Structurally, Syriac Dialogue hymns follow a 7 + 7 couplet meter4 and often employ an Syriac collection, S. Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho (Holland: Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese of Central Europe, 1982); two Dialogue hymns in Syriac with English translations can be found in S. Brock, “The Dispute between the Cherub and the Thief,” Hugoye 5.2 (July 2002): 169–93 and S. Brock, “The Sinful Woman and Satan: Two Syriac Dialogue Poems,” Oriens Christianus 72 (1988): 21–62; English translations of the four hymns involving Mary have been published in R. Beshara, Mary: Ship of Treasures (Lebanon: Diocese of Saint Maron, 1988), 65–67, 83–93 and in S. Brock, Bride of Light: Hymns on Mary from the Syriac Churches (Kottayam: SEERI, 1994), 111–134; English translations of four Dialogue hymns can be found in S. Brock, Sogiatha: Syriac Dialogue Hymns (Kottayam: St. Joseph’s Press, 1987). For an English translation and commentary on the Dialogue between Cyril and Nestorius, see S. Brock, “‘Syriac Dialogue’—An Example from the Past,” Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 18.1 (2004): 57–70. 3 Although the manuscript evidence dates to the eighth and ninth centuries at the earliest, internal evidence demonstrates a much earlier date of origin for this genre in Syriac literature. Sebastian Brock argues that the Dialogues were already adapted from Mesopotamian Precedence Disputes into a distinctive, Syriac genre by the time of Ephrem, whom he sees drawing freely upon the stylized form in his madrashe. Both East- and West-Syriac traditions also share several sogyatha in their liturgy, which points to a date of origin before their split. Moreover, the phrasing of certain theological concepts also indicates an early date. For example, several hymns commonly write that Jesus “clothed himself” or “put on” a body (lbeš pagrâ), which would later be an unusual and imprecise way to describe the incarnation. Brock, therefore, estimates a common literary production of early Syriac Dialogue hymns among the East- and WestSyriac churches around the beginning of the fifth century, though the exegetical form is evidenced already in the fourth century by Ephrem. Brock, “Syriac Dialogue Poems: Marginalia,” 35–6. 4 In a few cases there is slight variation on this typical meter. For instance, the Dialogue between Joseph and Benjamin has a 6 + 6, 6 + 6 meter, the Dialogue between Mary and the Gardner an 8 + 8, 8 + 8 meter, and Ephrem’s Dialogue between Death and Satan has a 7 + 4, 7 + 4 meter. Brock, “Syriac Dialogue Poems: Marginalia,” 42, 48, 54.

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alphabetic acrostic.5 There is also frequently a community response (qala) intermittently dispersed amid the stanzas.6 The debate format and certain structural characteristics common to the Syriac Dialogue hymns were borrowed from the Mesopotamian Precedence Dispute genre, which typically involved a debate between two personifications who vied for superiority (e.g., Summer and Winter, Silver and Copper, Pickaxe and Plough).7 Early Syriac Dialogues demonstrate the most affinity to the Mesopotamian genre. That is, the characters were personifications (e.g., Dialogue between the Church and Synagogue) and they disputed who was greater (e.g., Dialogue between the Two Thieves). Later Syriac Dialogues, however, began to transform the genre. These Dialogue authors co-opted the context of dispute from the Mesopotamian genre, but replaced the disputants with biblical characters. Furthermore, these characters took opposing sides of an issue rather than debating which of them was greater. In an attempt to fuse the Mesopotamian genre with biblical narratives, Syriac Dialogue authors expanded the biblical texts in a manner that paralleled the Jewish exegetical technique of narrative aggadah.8 This interpretive method shared by both Jews and Syriac 5 The acrostic often commences after the introductory material at the beginning of the debate. Eight of the twenty-six hymns, however, have no alphabetic acrostic. See Sebastian Brock’s useful chart of the structural characteristics of each hymn in S. Brock, “Syriac Dispute Poems: The Various Types,” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures, ed. G. J. Reinink and H. L. J. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1991), 117–19. 6 For a more detailed description of the characteristics of the Syriac Dialogues see Brock, “Syriac Dispute Poems: The Various Types,” 109– 19. 7 For more on the characteristics of Mesopotamian Precedence Disputes see R. Murray, “Aramaic and Syriac Dispute-Poems and their Connections,” in Studia Aramaica: New Sources and New Approaches, ed. M. J. Geller, J. C. Greenfield, and M. P. Weitzman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 160; and S. Brock, “The Dispute Poem: From Sumer To Syriac,” Journal of Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 1 (2001): 3– 10. 8 I do not mean to imply that aggadic exegesis is static and can be coherently classified only in this way. For a discussion of the various forms of narrative aggadah, see J. Heinemann, “The Nature of the

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Christians is characterized as a running expansion or elaboration of biblical narratives.9 Biblical stories were retold with supplementary insights regarding the biblical protagonists’ feelings, motivation, reasoning, and inner thoughts and prayers inserted into the new narration.10 Such expansions made room for the author’s commentary on the biblical narratives within the retelling of the narratives themselves.11 We know that exegesis akin to narrative aggadah was utilized by a handful of Syriac commentators. We find traces of the method in both Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis and the anonymous Cave of

Aggadah,” in Midrash and Literature, ed. G. Hartman and S. Budick (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), esp. 42–45. 9 For a discussion of the genre boundaries of what Philip Alexander calls the “rewritten bible,” See P. S. Alexander, “Retelling the Old Testament,” in It is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture, ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 99– 121. This sort of expansion is also reminiscent of the rhetorical technique of amplification. See esp. Aristotle, On Rhetoric I.9, in G. Kennedy, Aristotle, On Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 78–87. For an examination of the relationship between rhetorical techniques and rabbinic exegesis see D. Daube, “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric,” Hebrew Union College Annual 22 (1949): 239–264. 10 The use of Jewish aggadot in Greek and Latin Christian literature has long been a topic of interest to scholars of Patristics. Most scholars have been concerned with the points of contact between Jewish and Christian interpretations, but very few have been concerned with shared exegetical methods. Adam Kamesar’s article is the notable exception. Kamesar has argued that Alexandrian-Palestinian Christians used Jewish aggadot for historical knowledge or background information (as a part of “historical” exegesis), while Antiochene exegetes were more skeptical of the historical validity of the aggadic expansions. See A. Kamesar, “The evaluation of the narrative aggada in Greek and Latin patristic literature,” Journal of Theological Studies 45.1 (April 1994): 37–71. For a helpful review of publications on the topic, see J. Baskin, “Rabbinic-Patristic Exegetical Contacts in Late Antiquity: A Bibliographical Reappraisal,” in Approaches to Ancient Judaism, ed. W. S. Green, Brown Judaic Studies (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1978), 53–80. 11 For more detailed discussions of Jewish aggadah, see J. Heinemann, “The Nature of the Aggadah,” 41–55; G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1973).

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Treasures.12 This similarity with Jewish exegetical practices is not surprising as recent scholarship has demonstrated a high degree of interdependence between Jewish and Christian exegetical methods and literature.13 In fact, with particular relation to the Dialogue hymns, the shared exegetical heritage of Syriac Jews and Christians is evidenced clearly in a variety of extant (Jewish and Christian) dialogues among the months of the year.14

“FREEZE-FRAME” EXEGESIS [7]

Syriac Dialogue authors combined the Mesopotamian genre with expanded readings of the biblical stories to develop a distinctive form of biblical interpretation. Although multiple authors composed Syriac Dialogue hymns over a large span of years, a consistent exegetical method is employed in nearly every hymn. 12 For a broader context of Jewish literature and exegesis in the Syriac tradition, see S. Brock, “Jewish traditions in Syriac sources,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30 (1979): 212–232. 13 Michael Weitzman and Han Drijvers represent the two poles of opinion in the hotly-debated scholarship on Jewish and Christian relations in Syria. See H. J. W. Drijvers, “Jews and Christians at Edessa,” Journal of Jewish Studies 36 (Spring 1985): 88–102; H. J. W. Drijvers, “Syrian Christianity and Judaism,” in Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak (London: Routledge, 1992), 124–46; M. Weitzman, “From Judaism to Christianity: The Syriac Version of the Hebrew Bible,” in Jews among pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak (London: Routledge, 1992), 147–73. Particularly in terms of biblical exegesis, Lucas Van Rompay briefly discusses parallels between Jewish and Christian reading practices in L. Van Rompay, “The Christian Syriac Tradition of Interpretation,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, ed. M. Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 616–17, while Tryggve Kronholm offers a detailed examination of Jewish exegetical influence on Ephrem in T. Kronholm, Motifs from Genesis 1–11 in the Genuine Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1978), esp. 215–222. For a specific example of Jewish and Christian exegetical interdependence, see N. Koltun-Fromm, “Sexuality and Holiness: Semitic-Christian and Jewish Conceptualization of Sexual Behavior,” Vigiliae Christianae 54 (2000): 375–395. 14 See S. Brock, “A Dispute of the Months and Some Related Syriac Texts,” Journal of Semitic Studies 30.2 (Autumn 1985): esp. 184–5.

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Syriac Dialogue authors typically utilized what I will call the “freeze-frame” approach to biblical narratives.15 After introducing the setting of a particular biblical story at the beginning of the hymn (often following the Peshitta quite closely), the author would freeze the biblical story and expand that frame to fill in a more detailed conversation between two biblical characters. A question or doubt raised by a character in the biblical narrative often provided the starting point of the “freeze-frame” section since such expressions were easily expanded into a larger debate or dialogue. At the end of the hymn, the author pronounced an official ruling on the issue discussed and then resumed where the biblical narrative left off. The Dialogue between Zechariah and the Angel is a prime example of the Syriac Dialogues’ exegetical method.16 In the introduction, the author sets the scene for the conversation between Zechariah and the angel. As he describes Zechariah entering the Temple with the incense,17 the author follows the Peshitta nearly verbatim.18 The angel of the Lord, standing “to the right of the altar of incense” (men yammin madbḥâ d-besmê)19 sensed that Zechariah was frightened, and said: “Do not be afraid” (lâ tedḥal). The angel then prophesied that Zechariah would have a son, one who “will not drink wine or strong drink” (ḥamrâ w-šakrâ lâ neštê). In this introduction the author follows the biblical text quite closely, making only slight alterations to fit the narrative into his meter restrictions.20

15 This term was inspired by Sebastian Brock’s discussion of the “religious drama” of the Dialogue hymns in Brock, “Syriac Dialogue Poems: Marginalia,” 37. 16 For the Syriac and English versions of this Dialogue see Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 18–22, and Brock, Sogiatha, 7–13. 17 As was common in Syriac tradition, the author assumes that the priest Zechariah was placing the incense in the Holy of Holies during the feast of Atonement. 18 Luke 1:5–25. 19 The Peshitta differs slightly, replacing the construct state with the emphatic state plus a dalath: (men yamminâ d-madbhâ d-besmê). 20 For instance, the author changed Luke 1:15 of the Peshitta, “while he is in the womb he will be filled with the holy spirit” (w-ruhâ d-qudšâ netmlêc ad hu b-karsâ d-'emeh), which is fifteen syllables, into the conventional 7 + 7 meter by rephrasing the verse to read: “while still in

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The subsequent discussion between Zechariah and the angel in the Dialogue hymn is an amplification of Zechariah’s Peshitta inquiry: “How should I understand [that Elizabeth will bear a child] for I am an elderly man and my wife [has lived] many days?”21 In fact Zechariah’s first lines of the hymn are a paraphrase of this question: “How, sir, shall this be, that Elizabeth should have a child? She is old and barren too; and I am old, as you can see.”22 The following twenty-eight alternating stanzas are comprised of Zechariah repeating this question (in various forms) as the angel presents arguments that God is both capable and willing to perform the miracle. After the angel convinces Zechariah of God’s plan, he strikes Zechariah dumb and the hymn returns to the remaining biblical narrative, describing Zechariah’s exit from the temple and his attempt to communicate with the people outside. Again, in the conclusion of the hymn the biblical narrative is followed closely. There are a number of slight variations from this typical “freeze-frame” pattern. In some Syriac Dialogue hymns the “freeze-frame” is not an expansion of a biblical verse, but rather an addition of a missing scene. For instance, one Dialogue hymn describes a conversation between Mary and the Magi who came to worship the newborn Jesus. In the canonical texts there is no recorded dialogue between the Magi and Mary and/or Joseph. It must be assumed by readers/hearers of the biblical stories though that when the Magi were presenting their gifts to Jesus they conversed with his parents. From this assumption, the Dialogue author fills in a scene that was absent from the biblical record.23 Additionally, not all hymns freeze a frame of a canonical text, but some rather apply the method to an extra-canonical source. The Dialogue between Joseph and Mary,24 for instance, possibly takes its the womb, the Lord will fill him with the Holy Spirit and consecrate him:” w-ruhâ d-qudšâ b-gaw marbcâ nemlew(hy) Mâryâ wa-nqaddšiw(hy). 21 Luke 1:18. 22 Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 19; Brock, Sogiatha, 8. 23 For the Syriac text, see Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 34–8; Sebastian Brock and Ronald Beshara provide English translations in Brock, Bride of Light, 125–132, and Beshara, Mary, Ship of Treasures, 85–8. 24 For the Syriac text and English translation, see Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 29–33; Brock, Bride of Light, 118–124; and Beshara, Mary, Ship of Treasures, 83–5.

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starting point from the famous apocryphal text, the Protevangelium Jacobi (PJ).25 Following the typical “freeze-frame” pattern, this Syriac Dialogue expands upon the exchange between Joseph and Mary after he has discovered her pregnancy. Although the PJ creates a conversation not found in the minimal narrative of Matthew 1:18–21, the Dialogue between Joseph and Mary develops the conversation even further.26 In this extended dialogue, Mary is able to make several arguments defending her miraculous conception (and consequently, her purity).27 At the end of the exchange, the hymn returns to the PJ narrative and describes the angel’s visit to Joseph, which supports Mary’s case. Likewise, the Dialogue(s) between the Sinful Woman and Satan (referencing the woman who anointed Jesus with oil28) expands a memra commonly attributed to Ephrem, which describes Satan’s attempt to dissuade the “sinful woman” from anointing Jesus.29 Following the memra, the authors of this 25 The Syriac versions of Protevangelium Jacobi, which are preserved only in fragments, have been dated to the fifth century. For more details on the four Syriac manuscripts see E. de Strycker, La forme la plus ancienne du Protévangile de Jacques. Recherches sur le papyrus Bodmer 5 avec une édition critique du texte grec et une traduction annotée (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1961), 35f, 353–355. 26 Although it is possible that the Dialogue between Joseph and Mary is based solely on the Matthean passage, this dialogue appears to be following and expanding upon the conversation between Joseph and Mary found in the PJ. First, the Dialogue relates Mary to her “poor parents,” central figures in the first half of the PJ. Second, the Dialogue picks up on Joseph’s extended rebuke of Mary, which is not found in the Matthean version of the story. 27 Mary appeals to Eve as proof that humans can come into existence without intercourse, while also claiming the uniqueness of her Son and, therefore, the lack of need for precedence. Additionally, she argues that her son (when he is born or once he has grown) will be her best witness and will prove her innocence. Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 29–33; Brock, Bride of Light, 118–124; Beshara, Mary, Ship of Treasures, 83–5. 28 Luke 7:36–50 (cf. Matt 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9; John 12:1–8). 29 There are several manuscripts (representing both the East- and West-Syriac traditions) that record the exchange in slightly different versions. Sebastian Brock, therefore, has concluded that the versions were likely authored by different people who used the memra attributed to Ephrem as their guide. See S. Brock, “The sinful woman and Satan,” 22. For the Syriac text, see E. Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers, Sermones

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Dialogue describe the conversation between the sinful woman, as she buys oil in the marketplace, and Satan, who appears to her as a young man. The conclusion of the hymn then cites her interaction with Jesus from the biblical narrative: “She entered His presence all in tears, she received (what she wanted) and returned in joy.”30 Finally, there are a few hymns that diverge from the exegetical conventions more pronouncedly. While the main debate in the Dialogue between Mary and the Angel is an expansion of the biblical narrative, the biblical context is neither cited verbatim nor paraphrased in the introduction and conclusion of the hymn as is typical of the “freeze frame” approach.31 Rather the introduction of the hymn is supplicative in nature, prayerfully asking God for the words to properly discuss Jesus’ incarnation.32 Likewise, the hymn concludes with words of praise, rather than a reconnection to the biblical story.33 The “freeze-frame” method has been set aside entirely in the Dialogue between Mary and the Gardner,34 which follows the pace of the biblical narrative.35 Rather than interjecting and expanding a particular section, the author chose to expand several sections of the biblical narrative in order to address multiple issues, such as Jesus’ resurrection and humanity’s salvation. Despite these slight variations in the “freeze-frame” approach, the majority of Syriac Dialogue authors consistently expanded the biblical narrative, opening up the stories to create a space for II, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 311, Scriptores Syri 134 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1970), 78–87. For a German translation, see E. Beck, Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers, Sermones II, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 312, Scriptores Syri 135 (Louvain, 1970), 99–109. For an English translation, see A. Edward Johnston’s translation in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, ser. 2, vol. 13, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 336–341. 30 Brock, “The sinful woman and Satan,” 52. 31 Luke 1:26–38. 32 “O Power of the Father who came down and dwelt, compelled by his love, in a virgin’s womb, grant me utterance that I may speak of this great deed of yours which cannot be grasped.” Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 23; Brock, Sogiatha, 14. 33 Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 27; Brock, Sogiatha, 20. 34 For English translations, see Brock, Bride of Light, 132–134; Beshara, Mary, Ship of Treasures, 65–67. 35 John 20:11–18.

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theological musing. In this way, Syriac Dialogue authors did not simply comment on the biblical narratives but rather placed their expansions and interpretations into the voices of the original biblical characters. These interpretations, therefore, appeared to have been sanctioned by the characters themselves, eliding the exegetical work of the authors. Additionally, since the hymns were sung and heard—rather than read—the line between what was originally in the biblical stories and what was added became blurred and the Dialogue authors’ interpretations were legitimated as they were seamlessly interwoven into the canonical text. This use of biblical material is particularly successful because the new story contains “echoes of the old story.”36 Hearers of the hymns, who recognize the familiar story, are predisposed to receiving these new versions, possibly unaware of how—or the extent to which—the hymns’ authors revised the biblical narratives. The Syriac Dialogues thus created—and perpetuated through regular, liturgical performance—new biblical traditions that complemented the imprecise canonical versions. In this way, the authors of the Syriac Dialogues expanded the biblical narratives in order to limit possible interpretations of the biblical material. Syriac Dialogue authors were not unique in this endeavor. It was not uncommon for Greek and Latin commentators to clarify ambiguous passages of scripture, in many instances, taking liberty to describe the intentions, rationale, and hidden thoughts of biblical protagonists. For instance, David Dawson has demonstrated how Valentinus inserted his biblical interpretations into new compositions that “did not distinguish quoted or borrowed material from what he create[d]… Instead he absorbed his sources almost entirely into his own imaginative compositions.”37 In terms of oral presentations of biblical material, we find several preachers who regularly expanded biblical narratives in their homilies through

David Dawson discusses a similar mode of “interpretation as composition” with regard to Valentinian allegory. He argues that the author of a revised biblical narrative “garners the unwitting sympathy, and perhaps even support, of readers who, were they to see how seriously their former favorite story had been undermined, displaced, or absorbed, might otherwise be shocked at the interpreter’s audacity.” See Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision, 127–45, esp. 130. 37 Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision, 127–128. 36

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dialogues between biblical characters.38 Such exegetical practice in Greek and Latin liturgies deserves more attention.

PEDAGOGICAL FUNCTION OF DIALOGUE HYMNS [16]

[17]

The Dialogue hymns were a site of flexibility within a relatively stable textual tradition. It was here that interpreters could alter, add, or leave out portions of the biblical narratives to retell the story in a way that benefited their theological agendas. This method of expansion was attractive to Syriac authors because it provided not only a space for debate of pressing theological issues, but also biblical justification to support one side of the debate. When the biblical narratives were ambiguous, contradictory, or worse yet, silent on their contemporary issues, the Dialogue authors found a way to open up the canonical narratives so as to buttress their stance on a contemporary theological issue.39 After reading the Syriac Dialogue hymns, their important pedagogical function becomes immediately clear. The biblical characters in the hymns were made to discuss in detail aspects of Christology (e.g., the nature of Christ, his incarnation, and his salvific resurrection),40 as well as the complex relation between Judaism and Christianity.41 These conversations helped congregants See P. Allen, “The Sixth-Century Greek Homily: A ReAssessment,” in Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, ed. M. Cunningham and P. Allen (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 213–214; and for a brief discussion of the use of dialogues in the preaching of Proclus (e.g., Homilies 7, 28, and 35), see J. Barkhuizen, “Proclus of Constantinople: A Popular Preacher in Fifth-Century Constantinople,” in Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, ed. M. Cunningham and P. Allen (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 179–200, esp. 192. 39 Cf. Heinemann, “The Nature of the Aggadah,” 49. 40 See in particular the Dialogue between Joseph and Mary and the Dialogue between Jesus and John the Baptist in Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 29–33 and 39–43. This pedagogical function is most evident in hymns like the Dialogue between Cyril and Nestorius, which I have not analyzed in detail because it deviates markedly from the “freeze frame” approach outlined above. For an English translation and useful commentary on this hymn, see Brock, “‘Syriac Dialogue’,” 57–70. 41 See the Dialogue between Christ and the Synagogue and the Dialogue between the Church and the Synagogue. Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 44–49. 38

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to discern their place amidst the varying forms of Christianity current in late antiquity. As Averil Cameron has argued, controversies of theology and practice were so common to Christian communities of the fourth and fifth centuries that the Christian Mediterranean could be characterized as a “culture of dispute.”42 Christians became well versed in defending their actions and beliefs from the attacks of “outsiders.”43 At the same time, many Christians were busy weeding out theological heresies that opposed their sense of orthodoxy from within Christianity.44 Hymnody in general and the Dialogue hymns in particular, responded to such theological crises in an entertaining and instructive way. In fact, Jacob of Serug plainly states that “Ephrem had trained choirs of consecrated virgins to sing the madrashe in the liturgy explicitly for instructing the congregation in right doctrine.”45 The need to instruct congregations on the theological issues of the day drove Syriac Dialogue authors to create a useful exegetical technique and hymn form. What makes the exegetical work of the Syriac Dialogues even more striking is the far-reaching and performative aspects of their biblical interpretations. Lucas Van Rompay has noted that “unlike exegetical commentaries, which were used by scholars and students, homilies [and hymns] reached a much wider audience” and therefore were particularly useful for their paranetic function.46 As a regular part of Syriac liturgy, the Syriac Dialogue hymns A. Cameron, “Disputations, Polemical Literature and the Formation of Opinion in the Early Byzantine Period” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures, ed. G. J. Reinink and H. L. J. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1991), 91–108. See also R. Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). 43 Cameron, “Disputations,” 99f. 44 Cameron, “Disputations,” 103. 45 See Susan Harvey’s extended discussion of Jacob’s citation in S. Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9.1 (Spring 2001): 127–128; and S. Harvey, “Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant: Women’s Choirs and Sacred Song in Ancient Syriac Christianity,” Hugoye 8.2 (July 2005). 46 Van Rompay, “Christian Syriac Tradition of Interpretation,” 641. 42

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educated their congregation first on church doctrine and second on how to properly interpret and understand certain biblical narratives. Dialogue hymns were sung at important times of the liturgical year, including Nativity, Epiphany, and Holy Week. The Dialogue between the Angel and Mary was sung during Advent. The Dialogue between the Sinful Woman and Satan was traditionally sung on the Thursday of Holy Week. The two thieves disputed in a hymn on Good Friday, while the repentant thief debated with the cherub who guards the gates of Paradise on Holy Saturday.47 The lines of the dialoguing characters were sung antiphonally by two separate choirs.48 In this performative context of liturgy, the lessons of the Dialogue hymns were not merely heard, but experienced by the members of the alternating choirs.49 As the lines of the dialoguing characters were sung, the singers literally took on the voices of the characters, allowing them to enter thoroughly into the debates. In other words, the church service became one (if not the only) sanctioned site to debate the theological issues of the day. Although the singing of the Dialogue hymns allowed for the embodied expressions of various theological positions, the authors of the Dialogue hymns (and the church leaders who sanctioned their performance in the liturgy) in the end approved only one authoritative stance. The final pronouncement on the issue found at the end of each hymn left no room for church members to deviate. Just as the singers embodied the debate, so too they gave voice to the “orthodox” judgment ultimately endorsed by each hymn. Congregations, therefore, were instructed on church 47 Note that this Dialogue hymn conflates the Garden of Eden and Heaven, considering both to be the same “Paradise.” The author, therefore, assumed that the cherub who was commissioned to guard the garden paradise after the expulsion of Adam and Eve (Gen 3:24) would be the same cherub to admit Christians into the heavenly paradise. See S. Brock, “Dialogue Hymns of the Syriac Churches,” Sobornost 5:2 (1983): 39–40; Brock, “Syriac Dialogue Poems: Marginalia,” 42–3, 45, 46–8. 48 Evidence of this can be gleaned from the fact that several liturgical manuscripts contain either the even or the uneven numbers of stanzas. For the remaining portions of the hymn, they refer to their “brother” manuscript. 49 See Susan Harvey’s fascinating discussion of “performed speech” in terms of women’s voices in the Syriac liturgy in Harvey, “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence,” 124–131.

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doctrine by embodying the doctrine itself through the performance of the hymns. Additionally, the congregation members who were not part of the alternating choirs participated in community refrains (many of which were shared among various hymns). These refrains were interspersed between the stanzas and played a role in policing congregants to come down on the “proper” side of the issue. For instance, three Dialogue hymns shared the following refrain: Praise to You, Lord for at Your coming sinners turned from their wickedness and entered into the protection of Eden’s Garden, which is the holy church.50

By the end of each hymn, the congregants would know which side of the issues constituted “wickedness” (e.g., improper opinions regarding Jesus’ conception and incarnation) and likely monitored themselves to “turn from” such opinions. [22]

Since the hymns were sung side by side with biblical readings, congregants were taught not only how to think about theological issues of their day but also how to interpret biblical stories in an “orthodox” manner. The hymns clarified—by limiting—the meaning or significance that could be extracted from the canonical stories. By pairing the biblical narrative with an authorized interpretation (in hymn form) the congregation was given the tools to interpret the biblical narratives “properly.”

THE COMPROMISED CHARACTERIZATION OF BIBLICAL PROTAGONISTS [23]

It is clear that composers of Syriac Dialogue hymns were chiefly concerned with imparting proper theological instruction to their congregants; the form and performance of such hymns were well thought out and organized to create such an effect. The hymns’ unqualified focus on presenting “orthodox” theology (particularly Christology), however, generated an interesting by-product concerning the depiction of biblical protagonists. Both the framework of expansion, which was launched from biblical protagonists’ doubts and questions, and the concern to detail This refrain is found in the Dialogues between Joseph and Mary, Mary and the Magi, and Cherub and the Thief. 50

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Christological disputes (e.g., the nature of Christ, his incarnation, and his salvific resurrection) overshadowed the desire to protect the reputation of some of the Bible’s most beloved characters. While many Greek and Latin interpreters strove to protect the reputations of their beloved forefathers, this concern was deprioritized in the Syriac Dialogue hymns. With the goal to expand biblical scenes into more detailed theological discussions, the Syriac Dialogue hymns used the questions and doubts of biblical characters as starting points. These blemishes or momentary lapses of character noted in the biblical narratives were amplified in the Syriac Dialogues and served as a frame to initiate a discussion, as well as to keep it going. For instance, in the Lukan version of John the Baptist’s miraculous conception, readers will notice that Zechariah hesitates to accept the angel’s message, and questions the angel’s prophesy only once.51 In the Syriac Dialogue, however, Zechariah questions the prophesy again and again.52 This repeated contention is a narrative strategy that creates a space for the angel to explain in detail how and why God would enact the miraculous birth. This portrayal, however, runs the risk of depicting Zechariah as ignorant or dimwitted in order to allow room for instruction on the incarnation. In fact, by the end of the hymn, the singer or hearer might be more apt to agree that the angel’s punishment for Zechariah’s unbelief— striking him dumb until the birth of the child—is warranted much more so than a reader or hearer of the biblical text. Likewise, in the Dialogue between John the Baptist and Jesus, John’s repeated protests (when asked to baptize Jesus) frame the movements of the Dialogue. Each of John’s refusals allows a space in the hymn for additional theological arguments; the character Jesus is thus able to discuss the necessity of being baptized, the necessity of being baptized by a human rather than a heavenly creature, and the paradoxical ability of a divine being to be enclosed by a material river.53 John’s refusals keep the Dialogue going and demarcate sections of Christological instruction, but also make John vulnerable to being perceived as both stubborn and ignorant. Luke 1:18. Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 18–22; Brock, Sogiatha, 7–13. 53 Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 40–41; Brock, Sogiatha, 23–24. 51 52

Caught in a Compromising Position [26]

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It is clear that Dialogue authors used the human flaws of biblical characters as a narrative strategy that both launched the Dialogues and kept the debates alive. The authors seemed unconcerned with how this technique might compromise the reputations of certain biblical characters. Moreover, the singers or hearers of the hymns might not have been offended by such depictions, considering them to be merely reflections of these characters’ humanity. This lack of concern to protect biblical characters at all costs from the appearance of vulnerability, however, is striking in comparison with Greek and Latin Christian exegesis. Unlike the authors of the Dialogue hymns, many Greek and Latin commentators went to great lengths to sanitize their biblical protagonists’ reputations. These commentators regularly explained away or justified the indiscretions of the beloved forefathers that might have been unsavory to both Christians and Christian adversaries.54 The difference between these two sorts of exegesis might be prompted by the kinds of theological issues—and 54 For example, in response to Faustus’ claim that Abraham impatiently and lustfully pursued his servant Hagar when his wife Sara failed to conceive, Augustine launched a three-pronged defense. First, he claimed that Abraham did not indulge his bodily appetite irrationally, but rather under the guidance of reason, with divinely-instituted procreation as his goal. Second, Augustine cites 1 Corinthians 7:4, to demonstrate that Abraham’s actions were consistent with marital obedience to his wife’s (also highly-rational) desire for children. Third, Augustine pays careful attention to the sequence of events in the biblical narrative to show that God had not yet told Abraham from whom his countless descendents would derive. (Augustine, Against Faustus 22.1–59). Likewise, to defend Abraham’s willingness to commit patricide, many commentators portray Isaac as a willing victim. (1 Clement 31:2–4; Philo, On Abraham 172) Additionally, when confronted with Jacob’s double-deception of his brother Esau, commentators creatively read Genesis to claim that Esau willingly gave up his birthright, and that Isaac’s blindness was God’s way of ensuring that Jacob received the blessing. (Ephrem, Commentary on Genesis 23:2; 25:2; Philo, Questions on Genesis 4:196) With regard to the patriarchs’ sexual indiscretions, see E. Clark, “Contesting Abraham: The Ascetic Reader and the Politics of Intertextuality,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, ed. L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 353–65; and E. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).

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opponents—that were most pressing on the different Christian communities. On the one hand, the Marcionite and Manichaean opponents of Tertullian and Augustine advanced theological arguments that directly implicated particular biblical figures (particularly the patriarchs). For example, in order to invalidate the God of the Israelites, Marcionites attacked key figures of the Hebrew Bible. In response, Christians like Tertullian spent a great deal of energy interpreting the biblical narratives in such a way as to exonerate these major characters.55 On the other hand, the range of theological issues addressed in the Syriac Dialogue hymns tended to focus on the Christological controversies surrounding the person and nature of Christ. This different focus might account for the disregard of Syriac Dialogue authors to preserve and protect the character of other key biblical protagonists; they need not protect characters that were not under attack. Thus, the need to define precisely the character and nature of Jesus, the central figure under dispute, overshadowed all others. As a result, Syriac Dialogue authors fearlessly expanded upon the blemishes of other biblical protagonists in order to stabilize important points of Christology.56 If, as I argue, Syriac Dialogue authors strove to protect disputed characters alone, it should not be surprising to find that Mary was also consistently protected from vulnerability. Mary is a conversation partner in four of the Dialogue hymns and in each one, although she may express doubt or hesitation, her doubts are consistently legitimated to protect her from negative depiction.57 For example, in the Dialogue between Mary and the Angel, Mary wonders about the message the angel imparts to her, but she is 55 For example, when Marcionites accused Moses of fashioning an idol in the form of the brazen serpent, Tertullian immediately defends him, maintaining that Moses merely “ornamented” this divinelysanctioned tool of healing. Tertullian, Against Marcion 2.22. 56 For instance, recall that in the Dialogue between John the Baptist and Jesus, John’s vulnerability is exposed in order to explain various aspects of Jesus’ nature. See paragraph 25 above. Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 40– 41; Brock, Sogiatha, 23–24. 57 Syriac texts for the dialogues between the Angel and Mary, Joseph and Mary, and Mary and the Magi can be found in Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 23–28, 29–33, and 34–38. For English translations, see Brock, Bride of Light, 111–134; Beshara, Mary, Ship of Treasures, 65–67; 83–93.

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sheltered from being cast as a doubter like Zechariah. Rather, a concept such as the incarnation is simply too complicated for Mary’s weak understanding. (Although modern readers may cringe at what now appears to be a negative depiction of Mary’s intelligence, in the hymn, this gendered excuse guards her from seeming to lack faith.) Thus, Mary’s questions are not cast in terms of antagonism, but rather in terms of her inability to understand such magnificent claims; she says, “all this that you say is most difficult, so do not find fault with me.”58 Later, Mary’s piety makes her wary to immediately receive the angel’s prophesy. Recalling the trouble Eve caused by carelessly paying heed to the serpent, Mary is depicted as acting cautiously and with great discernment as she says to the angel: I am afraid, sir, to accept you, for when Eve, my mother, accepted the serpent who spoke as a friend, from her former glory she was snatched away.59

Thus, in this hymn, Mary’s responses are able to keep the conversation alive, while Mary is simultaneously shielded from blame. [29]

In the Dialogue between Mary and the Magi, Mary seems initially stunned as the Magi tell her that her son will be a great king. Later in the Dialogue, however, she reveals that she knew about her son’s future glory all along (even before the Magi), but was obediently keeping the secret of the Angel. By portraying Mary as guarding a secret the author protects her from seeming ignorant. On the contrary, Mary gains the upper hand by revealing to the Magi another secret that was not disclosed to them: she conceived and birthed the child as a virgin.60

Mary also says, “what you are saying is remote from me, and what it means I have no idea,” and “what you have said is alien to me, I am quite unable to grasp what it means.” Brock, Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 24; Brock, Sogiatha, 15, 16. 59 Later in the hymn she repeats this caution, saying, “I am afraid, sir, to accept you, in case there be some deceit in what you say.” Brock. Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 24, 25; Brock, Sogiatha, 16, 18. 60 Brock. Sughyotho Mgabbyotho, 34–8; Beshara, Mary, Ship of Treasures, 88. 58

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Finally, in the Dialogue between Mary and the Gardener (note that in this hymn the “Mary” who meets Jesus at the tomb is his mother, not Mary Magdalene61), Jesus’ disguise hides his identity from Mary. Since she is not physically able to recognize her son, Mary is blameless. In fact, Mary is cast in a positive light for her persistence to find her son and to understand the significance of his resurrection.62 In the end, it appears that protecting Mary’s reputation is more important than preserving the integrity of her male counterparts. She is the only biblical figure, aside from Jesus, to require such safeguards. This attention to Mary confirms the vital role she played in Syriac Christianity. Since she was implicated so strongly in Christological issues, such as the conception and incarnation of Christ, her character deserved as much protection as her son’s.

CONCLUSIONS [32]

The Syriac Dialogue hymns are an important genre within the Christian literature of late antiquity. The authors of these hymns creatively interwove the Mesopotamian Dispute genre with an expanded reading of biblical narratives to craft a hymn form that entertained as well as instructed. Driven by current theological debate, they guided certain interpretations—and excluded others— through an expansion of biblical narratives. In this way, they also shored biblical support for their theological positions by putting their interpretations back into the mouths of revered biblical characters. Since their new interpretations were fixed within the liturgy of the Syrian churches (both East and West), they taught congregants how to think about certain theological issues, as well as how to interpret the Bible properly, creating a seamless unity between the biblical narratives and their interpretations of those narratives. An understanding of this distinctive exegetical method will hopefully point scholars to similar methods that can be located in Greek and Latin homilies and biblical commentaries.

61 For more on this common conflation of Marys in the Syriac tradition, see R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2004), 146–48 and 329–35. 62 Brock, Bride of Light, 132–134; Beshara, Mary, Ship of Treasures, 66– 7.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, P. S. “Retelling the Old Testament.” In It is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture, ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, 99–121. Allen, P. “The Sixth-Century Greek Homily: A Re-Assessment.” In Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, ed. M. Cunningham and P. Allen. Leiden: Brill, 1998, 201–225. Barkhuizen, J. “Proclus of Constantinople: A Popular Preacher in FifthCentury Constantinople.” In Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, ed. M. Cunningham and P. Allen. Leiden: Brill, 1998, 179–200. Baskin, J. “Rabbinic-Patristic Exegetical Contacts in Late Antiquity: A Bibliographical Reappraisal.” In Approaches to Ancient Judaism, ed. W. S. Green. Brown Judaic Studies. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1978, 53–80. Beck, E. Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers, Sermones II, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 311, Scriptores Syri 134. Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1970, 78–87. Beshara, R. Mary, Ship of Treasures. Lebanon: Diocese of Saint Maron, 1988. Brock, S. P. Bride of Light: Hymns on Mary from the Syriac Churches. Kottayam: SEERI, 1994. —. “Dialogue hymns of the Syriac Churches.” Sobornost 5:2 (1983): 35–45. —. “The Dispute between the Cherub and the Thief.” Hugoye 5.2 (July 2002): 169–93. —. “A Dispute of the Months and Some Related Syriac Texts.” Journal of Semitic Studies 30.2 (Autumn 1985): 181–211. —. “The Dispute Poem: From Sumer to Syriac.” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 1 (2001): 3–10. —. “Jewish traditions in Syriac sources.” Journal of Jewish Studies 30 (1979): 212–232. —. “The Sinful Woman and Satan: Two Syriac Dialogue Poems.” Oriens Christianus 72 (1988): 21–62. —. “‘Syriac Dialogue’—An Example from the Past.” Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 18.1 (2004), 57–70. —. Sogiatha: Syriac Dialogue Hymns. The Syrian Churches Series XI. Kottayam: St. Joseph’s Press, 1987. —. Sughyotho Mgabbyotho. Holland: Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese of Central Europe, 1982. —. “Syriac Dialogue Poems: Marginalia to a Recent Edition.” Le Muséon 97 (1984): 29–58. —. “Syriac Dispute Poems: The Various Types.” In Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of

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Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures, ed. G. J. Reinink and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1991, 109–119. Cameron, A. “Disputations, Polemical Literature and the Formation of Opinion in the Early Byzantine Period.” In Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures, ed. G. J. Reinink and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1991, 91–108. Clark, E. “Contesting Abraham: The Ascetic Reader and the Politics of Intertextuality.” In The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, ed. L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995, 353–365. —. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Daube, D. “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric.” Hebrew Union College Annual 22 (1949): 239–264. Dawson, D. Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. de Strycker, E. La forme la plus ancienne du Protévangile de Jacques: Recherches sur le papyrus Bodmer 5 avec une édition critique du texte grec et une traduction annotée. Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1961. Drijvers, H. J. W. “Jews and Christians at Edessa.” Journal of Jewish Studies 36 (Spring 1985): 88–102. — “Syrian Christianity and Judaism.” In Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak. London: Routledge, 1992. Heinemann, J. “The Nature of the Aggadah.” In Midrash and Literature, ed. G. Hartman and S. Budick. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, 41–55. Harvey, S. “Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant: Women’s Choirs and Sacred Song in Ancient Syriac Christianity.” Hugoye 8.2 (July 2005). —. “Spoken Words, Voiced Silence: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9.1 (Spring 2001): 105–131. Kamesar, A. “The Evaluation of the Narrative Aggada in Greek and Latin Patristic Literature.” Journal of Theological Studies 45.1 (April 1994): 37–71. Kennedy, G. Aristotle, On Rhetoric. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Koltun-Fromm, N. “Sexuality and Holiness: Semitic-Christian and Jewish Conceptualization of Sexual Behavior.” Vigiliae Christianae 54 (2000): 375–395.

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Kronholm, T. Motifs from Genesis 1–11 in the Genuine Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian. Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1978. Lim, R. Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Murray, R. “Aramaic and Syriac Dispute-Poems and Their Connections.” In Studia Aramaica: New Sources and New Approaches, Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 4, ed. M. J. Geller, J. C. Greenfield, and M. P. Weitzman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, 157–187. —. Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition. Picataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2004. Van Rompay, L. “The Christian Syriac Tradition of Interpretation.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, ed. M. Sæbø. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996, 612–641. Vermes, G. Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies. Leiden: Brill, 1973. Weitzman, M. “From Judaism to Christianity: The Syriac Version of the Hebrew Bible.” In Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak. London: Routledge, 1992, 88–102. Young, F. Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002.

BOOK REVIEWS The Old Syriac Gospel of the Distinct Evangelists: A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance, by Jerome A. Lund, in collaboration with George A. Kiraz. [3 vols; Gorgias Press, Piscataway, 2004; ISBN 1-59333-0693; 1-59333-070-7; 1-59333-0071-5;] xxiv, 1-952 pp; 953-1691 pp; 1692-2449 pp; hardcover. REVIEWED BY DAVID G.K. TAYLOR, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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[2]

Since the 1970s there has been a steady growth in the number of biblical concordances available to readers of Syriac, beginning with Strothmann’s concordance of Qoheleth (1973), Winter’s concordance of Ben Sira and Sprenger’s of Psalms (both 1976), and then Strothmann’s word list of the Old Testament deuterocanonical texts (1988) and his monumental 14-volume concordance of the complete Peshitta Old Testament (1984, 1986, 1995), based on the text of the 1852 Urmia Bible and, remarkably, Walton’s London Polyglot of 1653-1657. Strothmann’s concordance is now in the process of being complemented by that of the Leiden Peshitta Institute, edited by Borbone and Jenner, which is based on their critical edition of the Peshitta Old Testament, and the first volume of which, covering the Pentateuch, appeared in 1997. For the New Testament, scholars were for a long time reliant on the word lists of Schaaf (1709) and The Way International (1985), before these were eclipsed by Kiraz’ Concordance to the Syriac New Testament (1993). The latest addition to these ranks of essential research tools is Jerry Lund’s impressive concordance of the Curetonian and Sinaitic Old Syriac Gospel manuscripts, which at just under 2500 pages in length is a work of truly stakhanovite proportions! The concordance is divided into three volumes, the first containing words beginning ‫ܗ‬-‫ܐ‬, the second those beginning -‫ܘ‬ ‫ܠ‬, and the third ‫ܬ‬-‫ܡ‬, plus two separate concordances of personal names and geographic names. The volumes are produced on American standard sized paper (8½” x 11”, or 21.59 x 27.94cm), but with the exception of title pages and the introductory materials, the volumes are printed in ‘landscape’ format down the whole length of a page opening. That is, the columns begin at the left213

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hand edge of the left page and continue down to the right-hand edge of the right page. This allows sufficient space for the key word, with a significant space on either side, to be anchored at the same point in every line (as though in a separate column) with approximately five to seven words preceding and following. This of course makes it very easy to locate the word that is being sought, and provides outstanding contextualisation that is not bettered in any other Syriac concordance. To the right of the Syriac text (which is printed throughout in unvocalized estrangela type) is a reference to the manuscript and Gospel verse being cited, and then to its right a column for the insertion of each distinct Syriac form as it starts to be listed, and then finally an index number for each entry within the listing of a particular word. (All prefixed and suffixed forms of a noun are numbered together, as are all forms of a particular verb.) At the beginning of each new Syriac lemma a simple English gloss is provided which seeks to reflect the prime meaning found within the Old Syriac Gospels themselves, plus a very simple grammatical classification (N for noun, V for verb, p for preposition, etc). Some nominal and adjectival forms are provided with further grammatical classification as they are listed, but the only additional information given for verbs is their identification as peal, pael etc, which seems a little sparse compared to concordances such as Kiraz, and is particularly unfortunate given that there are some unusual verbal forms in the Old Syriac Gospels which non-specialists may find hard to identify. Unlike the Leiden concordance, however, in which different forms are all jumbled together, Lund’s work very carefully distinguishes the various morphological forms and orders them alphabetically, and this is a great help to all users. Whereas Kiraz and Strothmann list all words under their Syriac roots, Lund has explicitly followed the practice of the earlier KeyWord-in-Context concordances of Aramaic texts (Targum Neofiti, by Kaufman and Sokoloff, 1993; the Aramaic documents from Egypt, by Porten and Lund, 2002), and so lists the verbs by root (with the third radical yodh verbs listed as ‫ ܗܘܝ‬and ‫ ܝ‬etc., and not as ‫ ܗܘܐ‬and ‫) ܐ‬, but gives an alphabetical listing of all other words, with nouns presented in their emphatic / determined forms, and adjectives and those passive participles used adjectivally or substantivally, in their absolute forms. The justification given for this methodology is that by conforming to the practice of the

Book reviews

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above cited Aramaic reference works “it will allow the student of comparative Aramaic dialects to compare Syriac with those other dialects more readily.” Since the very existence of this concordance is a consequence of Jerry Lund’s work for the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project, and the support of the Project directors, and given that the Leiden concordance took the same unfortunate approach, it seems rather churlish to grumble about this arrangement, but nevertheless I do think that since the majority of users will be students of Syriac and the Syriac biblical versions, it might have been helpful to follow the lead of Kiraz and Strothmann and the major Syriac reference lexica and list all forms under the appropriate root (perhaps with an appended alphabetical key, as in Kiraz, to aid those who need assistance to track down a particular word). With the present arrangement, without the aid even of lists of root derivatives such as those provided by Jessie Payne Smith in her dictionary, users will have to work hard if they wish to identify all usages of a particular root within these manuscripts. One of the definite strengths of Lund’s concordance is that it includes listings of all uses of conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and particles in their alphabetic position, whereas some of these (especially ‫ܘ‬, ‫ܕ‬, ‫ܒ‬, ‫ܠ‬, etc.) are omitted from many of the other published concordances, or are relegated to appendices. The separate listing of personal and geographic names is also useful, though it might have been helpful to add English glosses to these in addition to the less familiar transcribed forms. Now, it should also be noticed that Lund was faced with a particularly daunting problem when he decided to produce this extremely welcome concordance to the Old Syriac Gospels. Whereas the Strothmann and Leiden concordances of the Peshitta Old Testament and Kiraz’ concordance of the Peshitta New Testament could work with critical editions of biblical texts based on multiple manuscripts, in which all scribal errors and idiosyncracies had been carefully removed to produce what might be termed ‘idealized’ texts, Lund had no such luxury available to him. Instead he had to work with two early, fragmentary, and highly idiosyncratic manuscripts, presenting significantly different texts, which were full of unusual orthographic forms and significant numbers of simple scribal errors. On top of this, of course, the Sinaitic manuscript is a palimpsest which is barely

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legible in substantial sections, despite the nineteenth-century application of chemical reagents and the late twentieth-century use of photographic imaging. Thus the editio princeps of 1894, Agnes Smith Lewis’ re-transcription of 1896 and her edition of 1910, and the 1904 edition of F.C. Burkitt, all too frequently report variant readings for the same passages. Part of Lund’s solution to these problems was to base his concordance on Kiraz’ Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels (= CESG; 2nd edition 2002), which had taken its own text of the Curetonian manuscript from Burkitt’s 1904 edition and of the Sinaitic manuscript from Lewis’ 1910 edition. (Although in so doing it had removed all of the small corner brackets used in these volumes to indicate that the transcribers considered a particular reading uncertain.) His second solution was to make 73 emendations to the text of the Gospel manuscripts, of which only 9 were corrections to the Curetonian manuscript. Words thus emended were included in the body of the concordance at the point determined by the alphabetic form of the emendation, although the changed form is enclosed by < >. The rejected form is also listed at this point (only) in the concordance, and is enclosed by { }. Lund provides a complete list of the emendations adopted in his concordance on pp. xi-xviii, and subdivides them on pragmatic grounds, such as ‘errors arising from metathesis of consonants,’ ‘errors arising from graphically similar consonants,’ ‘error by omission of a letter,’ etc. He argues that “whether a modern transcriber or an ancient scribe introduced the mistake is immaterial; a textual error is still a textual error,” and so he does not seek in most cases to distinguish these sources of potential error. For anyone interested in the textual transmission of the Old Syriac Gospels there is some fascinating material here which repays closer study. There are, however, also some rather marked flaws in the methodology used to identify errors to be emended, and so I thought it might be useful to restructure Lund’s list (though keeping his numbering of items), and to provide some comments, as a first contribution to the ‘scholarly consideration’ which he invites at its beginning. A. Typographic errors in CESG alone In the following cases a comparison with the earlier editions reveals that a simple typing error has slipped into CESG:

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Read ‫ـܐ‬ . For ‫ܐ‬ 27. Sin Matt 10:4 For ‫ܘܕܒ ܪܗ‬ Read ‫ܘܕܒ ܬܗ‬. 5. Sin Luke 4:1 For ‫ܐ‬ Read ‫ܗ ܐ‬. 19. Sin Luke 17:6 For ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܕ‬ Read ‫ܐ‬ . 8. Cur John 4:39 For ‫ܠ‬ Read ‫ ܠ‬. 58. Cur John 6:45 For Read . 9. Cur John 14:11 Notes: 19. For several days I thought that there was no entry in the concordance for ‫ܗ ܐ‬, as I was simply unable to find it. By chance I then discovered it listed after as ‫ܗ ܐ‬ , and along with it forms such as ‫ ܐ ܐ‬, ‫ ܒ ܪ‬, and . This is far from intuitive to me, and I don’t think it should be adopted in any future concordances. (Likewise, a long search for ‫ ܐܘܪ ܐ‬eventually found it listed as ‫ ܐܘܪܥ‬.) 58. Lund has incorrectly emended the text here, on the basis of ‫ ܠ‬. Sinaiticus, to B. Typographic errors in Lewis and so also in CESG In these cases a typographic error in Lewis’ 1910 edition of Sinaiticus has been preserved uncorrected in CESG: For ‫ܕܬ‬ Read ‫ܬܕ‬. 4. Sin Mark 16:6 For ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ Read ‫ܐ‬ . 11. Sin Luke 9:19 For ‫ܒ ܗ‬ Read ‫ ܗ‬. 12. Sin Luke 10:2 For ‫ܓ‬ Read ‫ܓ‬. 13. Sin Luke 10:7 For ‫ܘܐ‬ Read ‫ܘܐ‬. 23. Sin Luke 15:32 For ‫ܕ ܓ ܐ‬ Read ‫ܕ ܓ ܐ‬. 57. Sin John 5:6 Notes: 57. Although in Lewis’ main text the yodh is surrounded by corner brackets, in her introduction p.xxxiii she cites it as ‫ܕ ܓ ܐ‬ (as does Burkitt ad loc.), and she does not include this reading in her Appendix I where disagreements with Burkitt’s edition are listed. The 12 corrections listed above were clearly correctly made to the text in Lund’s concordance, although given their origins in twentieth-century printing it was not necessary to justify them by comparison with other ancient texts, nor to preserve the error in the concordance (with the possible exception of 57.). These errors should also, of course, be corrected in copies of the CESG.

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C. Suspect transcriptions by modern scholars

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In all of the following instances the text of Sinaiticus was for a long time illegible to the transcribers, and many readings in these passages remain uncertain, and so it seems reasonable that Lund’s sound emendations should be accepted.

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Read ‫ܘܐ‬ . For ‫ܕ ܘܐ‬ 21. Sin Matt 24:6 For ‫ܒ‬ Read ‫ܒ ܘܢ‬. 14. Sin Luke 11:24 For ‫ܒ ܐ‬ Read ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬. 39. Sin Luke 23:53 For ‫ܗܘ‬ Read ‫ܗܝ‬. 15. Sin John 6:63 For ‫ܗܘ‬ Read ‫ܗܝ‬. 16. Sin John 15:4 Notes: 21. This proposed emendation is supported by its occurrence in Aphrahat Dem. XXI.23 (989.6). D. Scribal errors Whilst it is possible that one or two of the following are orthographic variants, it seems more likely that they are all simple errors by the scribe of Sinaiticus. 26. 60. 28. 1. 29. 61. 30. 72. 2. 3. 31. 34. 6. 33. 56. 7. 44. 63. 71. Notes:

Sin Matt 8:34 Sin Matt 12:36 Sin Matt 12:41 Sin Matt 22:19 Sin Matt 22:30 Sin Matt 26:36 Sin Matt 26:69 Sin Mark 6:40 Sin Mark 9:18 Sin Mark 14:11 Sin Mark 14:70 Sin Luke 5:4 Sin Luke 9:1 Sin Luke 17:37 Sin Luke 18:22 Sin Luke 19:44 Sin Luke 22:48 Sin John 6:52 Sin John 20.1

For ‫ܐܘܪܥ‬ For ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ For ‫ܒ ܘܙܬܗ‬ For ‫ܘܐ‬ For ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬ For ‫ܘܢ‬ For ‫ܓ ܐ‬ For ‫ܘ‬ For ‫ܘ‬ For ‫ܐ‬ For ‫ܕܓ ܐ‬ For For ‫ܐ‬ For ‫ܢ‬ For ‫ܙܒ‬ For ‫ܪ‬ ‫ܕ‬ For ‫ܒ ܕܐ ܐ‬ For ‫ܐ‬ For ‫ܕ ܓ ܐ‬

Read ‫ ܐܘܪ‬. Read ‫ܒ ܐ‬. Read ‫ܒ ܘܙܘܬܗ‬. Read ‫ܐܘ‬. Read ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܒ‬. Read ‫ܘܢ‬ . Read ‫ܓ ܐ‬. Read ‫ܘ‬. Read ‫ܩ‬ ‫ܘ‬. Read ‫ ܐ‬. Read ‫ܕܓ ܐ‬. Read . Read ‫ ܐ‬. Read ‫ܢ‬ . Read ‫ܙܒ‬. Read ‫ܕ‬. Read ‫ ܒ ܗ ܕܐ ܐ‬. Read . Read ‫ܕ ܓ ܐ‬.

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29. This occurs in a section that could not be read before Lewis’ 1910 edition, and so it is possible that this is a transcriptional error rather than a scribal error. 30. This same emendation is also listed by Lund as 51. 72. In this instance an entire word is being added that does not exist in the manuscript, on the grounds that normal grammatical practice requires it. I am sure this is right, but it should be noted that this is a significant step away from simply recording the extant text. With these readings Lund’s policy of listing the word under the emended form but also presenting alongside it the original erroneous form is highly appropriate. E. Non-standard orthography There are good grounds for thinking that all of the following are orthographic variants, and not scribal errors. Some are attested in other early Syriac texts, others follow well known patterns for such variants. It is a mistake to attempt to conform these words to later standards, or to those taught in the church schools and monasteries of the Edessa region. (Indeed, the extent of the unusual orthography found in these manuscripts is clear from the most cursory browse through the pages of the concordance, and it is a mine of information that has as yet been little explored by linguists.) In this table Lund’s proposed emendations are listed in brackets in a column placed before the original readings which are to be kept. 24. 25. 65. 17. 52. 35. 37. 38. 42. 43. 40. 53. 45. 46.

Sin Matt 3:4 Cur Matt 3:14 Cur Matt 13:16 Sin Mark 6:9 Sin Mark 10.32 Sin Luke 12:5 Sin Luke 13:3 Sin Luke 14:10 Sin Luke 14:12 Sin Luke 16:6 Sin Luke 19:17 Sin Luke 19:36 Sin Luke 23:16 Sin Luke 23:16

‫)ܘ ܐ‬ (For ‫ܗ‬ (For ‫) ܬܝ‬ ‫)ܘ ܒ‬ (For (For ‫) ܬ‬ (For ‫)ܒܐܘܪ ܐ‬ (For ‫)ܐ‬ (For ‫)ܬܬܘܒ ܢ‬ (For ‫ܐ‬ ‫)ܬ ܒ‬ (For ‫) ܪ ܐ‬ (For ‫)ܘ ܘܒ‬ (For ‫)ܐ‬ (For ‫)ܒܐܘܪ ܐ‬ (For ‫)ܐܪܕ ܗܝ‬ (For ‫)ܘܐ ܒ ܗܝ‬

Keep ‫ܘ ܐ ܗ‬. Keep ‫ ܬ‬. Keep ‫ܘ ܒ‬. Keep ‫ ܬܘ‬. Keep ‫ܒܐܪ ܐ‬. Keep ‫ܐܢ‬. Keep ‫ܬܬܒ ܢ‬. Keep ‫ܬ ܒ ܐ‬. Keep ‫ܐ‬ . Keep ‫ܘ ܒ‬. Keep ‫ܐܘ‬. Keep ‫ܒܐܪ ܐ‬. Keep ‫ܐܪܕܘܗܝ‬ Keep ‫ܘܐ ܒ ܗܝ‬.

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Keep ‫ܐܪܕ ܝ‬. (For ‫)ܐܪܕ ܗܝ‬ 47. Sin Luke 23:22 (For ‫)ܘܐ ܒ ܗܝ‬ Keep ‫ܘܐ ܒ ܗܝ‬. 48. Sin Luke 23:22 (For ‫ܗ‬ ‫) ܒ‬ Keep ‫ܒ ܗ‬ . 41. Sin Luke 24:26 (For ‫ܡ‬ ) Keep ‫ ܡ‬. 50. Sin John 7:51 (For ‫) ܐ‬ Keep ‫ ܐ‬. 59. Sin John 10:9 (For ‫)ܐܘܪ ܐ‬ Keep ‫ܐܪ ܐ‬. 54. Sin John 14:5 (For ‫ܢ‬ ‫)ܐ ܒ‬ Keep ‫ܐ ܒ ܢ‬. 49. Sin John 14:18 Notes: 24. As Burkitt noted in his helpful notes on the grammar and syntax of these manuscripts (cf. Burkitt II.40), Sinaiticus has a marked tendency to omit the letter waw in prepositions, nouns, and verbs, (as do other early Syriac texts, cf. Drijvers and Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene [1999], p.23), and this particular form is also attested in Assemani’s Acta Martyrum (1748) II.74. 25. Silent final waw and yodh are occasionally, if rarely, omitted from the ends of words in the Old Syriac Gospels and elsewhere. Cf. Taylor, The Syriac Versions of the De Spiritu Sancto by Basil of Caesarea (1999), Index Orthographicus, p.183-195. 65. Strictly speaking this is not a matter of orthography, but rather the word in the Curetonianus appears to be the common abbreviation which is used in numerous manuscripts for the full form suggested by Lund. (These abbreviations often occur at the ends of lines, but I have not been able to check this here.) 52., 53., 54. Another example of a word that can lose its waw in early orthography, and which is also attested in the Peshitta of Matt 20:30 in Pusey and Gwilliam’s cod.36, and is cited by Payne Smith from the Roman edition of Ephrem. 35., 40. Both of these words are found in manuscripts and in the lexica with their defective forms. 38., 41. These are not plural forms but an orthographic variant of the singular that is also found in a sixth century manuscript of Basil on the Holy Spirit (cf. Taylor, loc. cit.) and Isa 52:1 and 61:3 in 5ph1 (cf. VTS III.1 p.xvi), Isa 42:10 in 6h3, and in 7pk18 (op. cit. p.xviii). 42. This is yet another example of defective spelling, which happens to be attested in a second-century inscription, As37:7 (Drijvers and Healey, op. cit., p.108) 45.-48. Burkitt II.54-56 lists numerous occurrences of verbs in Sinaiticus with object suffixes that do not conform to later

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orthographic standards (far more than are marked for emendation by Lund), and in Taylor, op. cit., further examples of these are listed from various sources. 50. By way of comparison, it should be noted that the scribe of Sinaiticus has a liking for forms such as ‫ ܒ‬and ‫ ܒ‬. F. Possible textual variants / unjustified emendations The following are rather a rag-bag of readings. Some of them are early Syriac textual readings which may well pre-date the writing of the two surviving Old Syriac manuscripts, and others are capable of being read as coherent variants within their context, or are actually supported by known variants in other early New Testament witnesses. In all cases they seem to me to be instances where it is not appropriate for a concordance to emend the text (although a note that they may well be errors, or need emending by critics, is of course perfectly reasonable in an introduction). The practical consequence of such emendation is that a curious reading such as ‫ ܘ‬is now only to be found by reading the introduction and 68., knowing that it must be looked for under ‫ !ܘ ܪ‬If it is an error it is an interesting one, and should be left in its appropriate context for other scholars to consider. (For ) Keep ‫ܐ‬ . 64. Cur Matt 1:21 (For ‫) ܒ ܪܝ‬ Keep ‫ ܒ ܪܟ‬. 18. Sin Matt 4:10 (For ‫)ܕ ܐ‬ Keep ‫ܐ ܐ‬. 20. Cur Matt 11:6 (For ‫ܕܘܗܝ‬ ‫ܒ‬ ) Keep ‫ܕ ܘܢ‬ ‫ܒ‬. 66. Cur Matt 14:13 (For ‫)ܙ ܪܐ‬ Keep ‫ܙ ܪܝ‬. 22. Sin Matt 25:40 (For ‫ܟ‬ ‫)ܕ‬ Keep ‫ܕ‬. 36. Sin Mark 6:26 (For ‫)ܘ ܐܬܐ ܒ ܪܝ‬ Keep ‫ܘ ܐܬܐ‬. 73. Sin Mark 8:34 (For ‫)ܕ ܘܒ‬ Keep ‫ܕ ܒ‬. 32. Sin Mark 10:4 (For ‫)ܕ ܘ ܝ‬ Keep ‫ܕ ܒ‬. 67. Sin Mark 10:49 (For ‫)ܘ ܒ‬ Keep ‫ ܒ‬. 55. Sin Mark 11:1 (For ‫)ܕ ܒ ܐ‬ Keep ‫ܕ ܒ ܐ‬. 62. Sin Mark 13:8 (For ‫)ܐܒ ܐ‬ Keep ‫ܐܒ‬. 10. Sin Luke 1:5 (For ‫)ܘ ܪ‬ Keep ‫ܘ‬. 68. Sin Luke 1:53 (For ‫ܐ‬ ) Keep . 69. Cur Luke 24:20 (For ‫ܐ‬ ‫ܘ‬ ) Keep ‫ܘ‬ . 70. Sin John 13:5 Notes: 64. The Greek, and Sinaiticus and Peshitta, read ‘his people,’ and Lund would so emend, arguing that this is ‘an internal Syriac

222

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development, produced by scribal lapse.’ Burkitt II.257, on the contrary, states that ‘the variation in the suffix shews that the change was not due to a simple graphical error,’ and he points to Luke 2:10 where Sinaiticus and Peshitta have ‘world’ for Greek ‘people.’ (Lund lists 9 further internal Syriac textual developments on p.xix.) If sense, literal or theological, can be made of the reading, as here, it should not be emended, because otherwise this begins to result in the conforming of the Old Syriac Gospel text to some hypothetical Greek norm. 20., 66., 22. Possibly an error, but possibly not as an intelligible rendering can be given in context, and thus to be left without emendation. 73. In this instance an error does seem likely, but again it is not certain, and does not warrant emendation in the body of a concordance. 32. This could be an orthographic variant, or the use of an Aphel form to indicate the writing of a decree or formal document, and in either case no emendation is necessary. 67. In the parallel passage in Luke 18:40 Jesus commands that the blind man be brought to him, and not just be ‘called / summoned,’ and it is noteworthy that in the Persian Diatessaron (III.33) it appears to be the Lukan wording of this verse that is inserted into the Matthaean version of the episode. 62. Although this is the only attested feminine form of this word in Syriac I think it is significant that as acute a lexicographer as Brockelmann felt that it should be included in his Lexicon, 210b. (It might also be noted that the feminine form does exist in various Jewish Aramaic dialects, such as JBA, where it has the meaning ‘destruction’.) This may be an error, or it may be a precious attestation of a rare word, but it should be left in the text of a concordance for readers to decide. 10. Not only does the Hebrew text of the Old Testament occasionally read ‘Abiyam’ instead of ‘Abiya,’ but the Old Latin manuscripts e l also read abiam in this very verse. It is far from clear, therefore, that this is a Syriac scribal error. 68. The reading ‘he despised the rich as being empty/worthless’ is certainly remarkable, and it may be an error. Alternatively it could be an internal Syriac development of encratite / ascetic motivation, as witnessed in numerous other passages, and so it would be a mistake to conform it to the Greek text.

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69. Lund appears to take the Curetonian reading here as a plural absolute form ‘elders,’ and so for grammatical reasons emends it to the plural emphatic / determined form. He adds ‘This as “our elders”.’ The seems better than interpreting the form Greek here, however, literally reads ‘the chief priests and our rulers,’ and so it seems highly likely that this word should indeed be read as ‘our elders.’ (Another instance of the Curetonian having been brought into closer conformity with the Greek text than Sinaiticus or, occasionally as here, the Peshitta.) 70. This proposed emendation is also quite radical. Lund argues that ‘it is clearly a textual error, probably by a modern in transcriber who was unaware of this meaning [‘wipe’] of ‫ܐ‬ Syriac.’ But in this passage the transcribers seem to have been able to read the text without too much difficulty (although this is relative), and they re-read it on several subsequent occasions. Also, ‫ܘ‬, the given that the Peshitta of this passage also reads ‫ܐ‬ transcription of an alternative reading was not a consequence of ignorance but a conscious recording of what they believed they ‫ ܘ‬in this could see. It is possible to make some sense of context, and so the reading should stand. (If an alternative reading were required for other purposes I think a more plausible ‫ܘ‬, using the same reconstruction of the original text would be root employed in the Harklean.) I have devoted far more space than is normally possible in a book review to a consideration of Jerry Lund’s list of emendations because I found the issues they raised very interesting, and I hoped that this new analysis would stimulate further discussion. By my very crude ‘back of an envelope’ estimate, however, this affects 73 out of some 170,000 lines of text, and even in these 73 lines Jerry has explained very clearly what he has done, and has preserved both the original reading and his emendation. It would be quite wrong, therefore, to interpret this discussion as a critique of the larger work. On the contrary, I firmly believe that the publication of Jerry Lund’s concordance marks the beginning of a whole new era of text-critical and linguistic study of the Old Syriac Gospels, and I for one would like to thank him enthusiastically for the invaluable resource that he has placed within our hands.

The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, by Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum (translated and edited by Matti Moosa). Second Revised Edition. [Gorgias Press 2003; ISBN 193196-04-9] xli + 604pp; hardcover. REVIEWED BY DAVID G.K. TAYLOR, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

[1]

[2]

For over fifty years Patriarch Ignatios Aphram Barsoum’s introduction to Syriac literature, The Scattered Pearls, has been an essential tool for specialist Syriac scholars, and yet it has not had as wide an impact outside the Middle East as it deserves because it has only been available in the original Arabic version (Kitab al-Lu‚lu‚ al-Manthur) and in a Syriac translation (Ktobo d-Berulle Bdire), and before their republication by the Bar Hebraeus Press in Holland even copies of these editions were difficult to locate.1 This complete translation into English by Matti Moosa, the first into any European language, is thus to be warmly welcomed because it will enable a far wider readership to gain access to the riches of Barsoum’s work. Patriarch Aphram Barsoum (1887-1957) was one of a group of Syrian Orthodox and Syrian Catholic scholars in the early twentieth-century Middle East (the other notable figures being Mor Philoxenos Yohanna Dolabani [1885-1969], Mor Gregorios Behnam [1916-1969], and from the Catholic side Patriarch Ignatios Aphrem Rahmani [1848-1929] and Ishaq Armalto [1879-1954]) who made significant contributions to Syriac studies not only because of their profound knowledge of their own traditions and manuscripts, but also because of their familiarity with the great manuscript collections of Europe and with the writings of the European orientalists. (Barsoum’s publications included an edition of the Chronicle to A.D. 819 in the CSCO, and articles in western journals, as well as the numerous Arabic works listed on p.x of the 1 The first Arabic edition was published in Homs in 1943. The second edition, from which this present translation was made, was published in Aleppo in 1956. A third edition or printing appeared in Baghdad in 1976, and a fourth was printed by the Bar Hebraeus Verlag in Glane/Losser in 1987. There were further reprints of the second edition at the Mardin Press in Aleppo in 1987 and 1996. A Syriac translation of the second edition was produced by Mor Philoxenos Yohanna Dolabani and published in Qamishli in 1967, and this was also reprinted by the Bar Hebraeus Verlag in Glane/Losser in 1992.

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introduction.) As is clear from Part II of the Epilogue to this volume, entitled ‘On the incoherence of some orientalists and their false charges against our learned men, and their refutation,’ the orientalist tradition was not received uncritically. Some of Barsoum’s criticisms were levelled at academic denials of the historicity of certain religious texts (such as the Doctrina Addai, and a number of hagiographical works), but others were directed towards erroneous claims and statements made by Europeans which were simply the product of their ignorance of Syriac texts and traditions, whether through inadequate reading and research, or uncritical reliance upon earlier scholarship, or through lack of access to Syriac manuscripts in the Middle East. These criticisms draw attention to the key methodological strengths and weaknesses of Barsoum’s Scattered Pearls. In his very useful introduction Moosa declares (p.xiv): ‘It is clear that the Western reader must accept al-Lu’lu’ al-Manthur on its own terms, as the work of an Eastern scholar writing for an Eastern audience. He must also bear in mind that Barsoum is the Patriarch of Antioch, the head of the Syrian Church.’ This is pretty loaded and controversial language, but I take the thrust of the first sentence to be that the balanced coverage of different literary genres and the critical analysis of sources is not always that which might be expected from an academic study produced by a university trained Syriac scholar, whether from the Middle East or elsewhere, and in this Moosa is certainly correct. The second statement also carries much force. Barsoum is sensitive to any implied criticisms of the antiquity of Syrian institutions or of the literary and theological genius of the great Syriac authors. (He is, however, perfectly happy to criticise the literary merits of certain minor Syriac poets and theologians.) As the patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church he also strictly limits his history to the writers of his own tradition, and so no mention will be found here of Maronite or Syrian Catholic writers, let alone those of the Church of the East or the Chaldeans. (For these traditions use might be made of the works of Alber Abuna [Beirut, 1970] and Pera Sarmas [Tehran, 1962-1970], which could also profitably be translated into a European language, despite having been, with Barsoum, the key sources for Rudolf Macuch’s Geschichte der spät- und neusyrischen Literatur [Berlin, 1976].) The other side to Barsoum’s focus on Syrian Orthodox traditions and authors is that he is able to write about these with

226

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real authority, based on a life-time’s study of primary materials. Among his quoted sources are the literary histories and bibliographies of Assemani, Wright, Duval, Chabot, and Baumstark, as well as the catalogues of all the major European collections of Syriac manuscripts, and yet Barsoum is frequently able to correct their statements about the details of the lives of key Syriac authors on the basis of Syriac sources available to him (although rarely referenced), as well as to call attention to Syriac texts either unknown to western scholars or previously thought lost. He is also interested in the continuity of the Syriac literary tradition down to his own day, and so includes many authors omitted from the western literary histories which frequently come to an abrupt halt in the late thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Because he had himself catalogued many of the Syrian Orthodox manuscript collections (a list of his unpublished catalogues is included in the table of his sources), Barsoum is frequently able to identify which of these libraries preserve manuscripts of specific works and authors. (Frustratingly, if unsurprisingly, no catalogue numbers or shelf marks are provided for these Syrian Orthodox manuscripts, but these can sometimes be determined by crossreferencing the Scattered Pearls with the three handwritten catalogues of Dolabani published by the Mardin Press in Aleppo in 1994, or with the catalogue of the Patriarchal manuscript collection published by Dolabani, Lavenant, and Brock [PdO 19 (1994) 555661].) Any scholar or student interested in post-sixth-century authors in particular would thus be well advised to consult Barsoum as a matter of course, although never to the exclusion of the established bibliographies of Baumstark and Duval etc. Barsoum’s Scattered Pearls is an essential supplement and corrective to such works, but does not replace them (and neither was it intended to do so). The first 218 pages of the Scattered Pearls (which Moosa first translated as his 1965 PhD thesis at Columbia University) contains a history of Syriac literature divided by genre and theme. Some of these sections provide very cursory accounts of their subject; the Bible is covered in one and a half pages, for example, and Theology in two and a half pages. ‘Church Liturgies,’ however, which are so frequently marginalised in other literary histories, are here given 64 pages, with very full listings of anaphoras, plus tables of categorised liturgical manuscripts from libraries in both the Middle East and

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Europe. Also noteworthy are the sections on ‘Centres of Learning,’ ‘Syriac Libraries,’ and ‘Syriac Calligraphy,’ the last of which is accompanied, in an appendix, by a lengthy list of celebrated Syriac scribes. All of these sections can be rather tantalising, however, because the very interesting raw data they contain is rarely provided with any references to sources. Yet in many of these short chapters Barsoum includes the names of Syriac authors and works which have evaded the nets of western scholars, and so even an apparently superficial section can contain material not readily to be found in other bibliographies. For most readers I suspect it will be the second section of the Scattered Pearls pp. 219-524 in Moosa’s translation, which will be found to be most helpful. This contains the biographies of 294 Syriac writers2 ordered chronologically from Wafa the Aramaean poet (who is said to be pre-Christian) down to Fr. Yacqub Saka who died in 1931. These entries are very readable, and the combination of biography and bibliography can be highly illuminating. Given the wealth of material that is now available elsewhere on the great Syriac authors of the fourth and fifth centuries, there is little in the accounts of the writers of these periods that will excite the scholar, and some detail and arguments that will seem rather dated. It is in his account of authors of later periods, whose texts are still read and studied in the Syrian Orthodox monasteries and seminaries, that Barsoum really comes into his own. (There are 57 listed authors, for example, who post-date Bar Hebraeus.) Many of these figures are little known to western scholars, and it is clear that many would repay closer study. As someone who prior to the publication of Moosa’s English translation had always previously made use of Dolabani’s 1967 Syriac translation of Barsoum’s Scattered Pearls, I thought it might be interesting to compare the two versions. Dolabani was very knowledgeable about the Syriac manuscripts in Syrian Orthodox church libraries and in private collections belonging to individual priests and families. Occasionally therefore he adds references in brackets within the main text, or in footnotes, to additional Syriac texts which he knows to have been written by certain authors, or to 2 Taking into account the typographical slip by which Bardaisan and the Odes of Solomon are both numbered 3, and the unnumbered entry for Dionysius Saliba is introduced by Moosa after 233 from its original place in an addendum in the Arabic text!

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the present (i.e. 1967) location of manuscripts referred to by Barsoum. For example, on p.28, in reference to the library of Dayr al-Za‘faran (cf. Moosa p.15 §18), he notes that the majority of its books had been removed to the episcopal library of Mardin, which then contained more than a thousand volumes, and on p.34 (cf. Moosa p.20 para. 2) he notes that the Kharput manuscript referred to by Barsoum had recently been transferred to Dayr al-Zacfaran. Again, on p.581 (cf. Moosa p.519), he adds that the monk cAbd alNur also translated the Psalm Commentary of Daniel of Salah into Arabic. The number of such references should not be exaggerated, but they are clearly of some academic interest. A comparison of the lists of biographies of Syriac authors in the two texts also reveals that there is a significant number of additions in the Syriac translation, and I think it might be helpful to list the additional entries, with Dolabani’s numbering: 10. Basilios, bishop of Homs (d. 359) 11. Philon, bishop of Carpasia (d. 394)-an ascetic whom Barsoum suggests may have been the author of the Liber Graduum. 22. Gregory of Cyprus (C. 7, but said to be C. 4). 23. Xystus (C. 4) 110. Athanos of Amid (C. 7) 111. Philogrios (C. 7) 119. Theodotos (d. 729) 202-203. Abu al-Faisal Saad and Abu Nasr Yahya ibn Jrair of Tagrit (C. 11). 271. Presbyter John of Basibrina (C. 15) 272. Hasan bar Zurqo of Mosul (C. 15) 279. Presbyter Isa of Beth Shaddad of the Jezira (d. 1495) 281. Deacon Nur ad-Din of Mardin (d. 1500) 289. Monk Abd al-Aziz, called Bar Sallaki (C. 16) 291. Rabban Jacob of Qastro d-Qasro (d. 1575) 303. Presbyter Lahdo of Habbob (C. 18) 306. Presbyter Isho Arboyo (fl. 1816) 309. Monk Isho Gribo (d. 1916) 313. Deacon Nimatallah Danno (d. 1951) 314. Patriarch Ignatios Aphram Barsoum (d. 1957) Some of these are authors whom Barsoum had mentioned in the thematically organized first half of his book but had not included in this section, but the majority are additions by Dolabani

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himself. The most detailed, and perhaps most interesting, of these entries are those assigned to the post-fourteenth century authors, and fortunately the substance of these passages can be gleaned from Macuch’s work, mentioned above, since he was dependent on the Syriac translation of Barsoum rather than the Arabic original. In his introduction (p.xviii) Moosa asserts that ‘there is little in Bishop Dolabani’s translation that merits inclusion here.’ As I have indicated, I think Dolabani’s work does in fact continue to be of some independent value, and it would have been nice to see the relatively small amount of additional material incorporated into this present translation, but this is far from being a serious defect. This second corrected edition of Moosa’s English translation3 reads very well, and the text is remarkably free of the typographical slips which plague most lengthy books. Moosa has provided an excellent critical introduction to Barsoum’s work which could almost be published as a review in its own right. He has also added occasional explanatory notes throughout the volume, and an absolutely essential index which is absent from all of the Arabic and Syriac editions of the Scattered Pearls that I have seen. (The multiplicity of names and titles given to various people has occasionally resulted in individual authors being given multiple entries in the index, each with distinct sets of page references. I noticed ‘Basil’ and ‘Basilius;’ ‘Amid’ and ‘Diyarbakir;’ ‘Anton of Takrit’ and ‘Anton Rhetor;’ and in one unfortunate case ‘Areopagite’ and ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’ and ‘PseudoDionysius’! Let the reader beware! If a third edition is ever planned it might also be useful to replace the large numbers of page references listed under the headings of named libraries of Syriac manuscripts with a separate index of numbered or categorised Syriac manuscripts mentioned in the text. These are, however, simply minor corrections.) Matti Moosa should be warmly congratulated for having made this excellent translation of Barsoum’s pioneering work available to a new generation of scholars and students. As Moosa himself acknowledges, the Scattered Pearls should be used discerningly, but it is a truly essential complement to existing works of Syriac reference 3 The Columbia University thesis of 1965 made available the first section of Barsoum’s work, and this translation of the complete text was first published by the Passeggiata Press (Pueblo, Colorado) in 2000.

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and belongs on the shelves of all libraries and readers with an interest in Syriac.

CONFERENCE REPORTS First Annual Meeting of Dorushe: February 2006 JEANNE-NICOLE SAINT-LAURENT, BROWN UNIVERSITY

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In February, 2006, Dorushe, an international group of students of Syriac and affiliated with Beth Mardutho: Syriac Institute, sponsored a meeting for graduate students of Syriac Studies. The theme of the meeting was “Syriac Pedagogy,” and it took place at Catholic University of America. Graduate student Ann Seville organized the event, and different students and professors from several countries presented papers. The faculty guest key-note speaker, Prof. Susan Ashbrook Harvey from Brown University, spoke to us about practical skills for Syriacists pursuing an academic career. She generously shared personal reflections and tips for the next generation of Syriac enthusiasts. She encouraged us to build strong networks amongst ourselves and to collaborate on projects and research questions. Other special guests included Profs. Sydney Griffith and Phillip Rousseau, and they kindly welcomed us to their center for Early Christian Studies and Semitics at Catholic University. Prof. Shawqi Talia, also from Catholic University, wrote for us a beautiful poem in Neo-Aramaic: a blessing for our academic efforts. Prof. Joel Walker from the University of Washington shared his comments and words of wisdom for professional development. George Kiraz spoke to us also about the latest in Computing Technology for our field and gave us a workshop on Meltho Fonts. Prof. Michael Sokoloff from Bar-Ilan University shared his recent work on the CAL and Brockelmann Syriac Dictionary project. The conference generated concrete plans for future development of our field and produced thoughtful reflection on the changes that Syriac Studies has seen in the last twenty-five years. Following is a summary of the papers that students and professors presented, with gratitude from the organizers for the stimulating dialogue that was generated. David Michaelson, from Princeton University, presented a paper on “Developing a Syriac Database.” He proposed that a Syriac database comparable to the Thesaurus Lingue Grecae (TLG) could also be created for Syriac texts. He also suggested that an Electronic Bibliography of Syriac Studies could incorporate and 231

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compile current bibliographies on Syriac topics into one, and in this way it could easily be updated electronically. This electronic bibliography could also include a section on dissertations on Syriac topics. The group then discussed how to undertake such projects. We proposed that the best idea would be to divide the work amongst willing students who could then enter in the data manually. George Kiraz told us that it would be easiest if we commit to entering a little bit of information daily. Over the course of a year and divided up amongst a dedicated group, such a database could be achieved. Michael Penn, professor of Religious Studies from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, was unable to attend the conference. His paper, however, was read in absentia. The topic, “Beyond Add and Stir: Teaching Syriac Christianity,” was an analysis that made suggestions concerning how one can integrate Syriac topics into introductory courses on Early Christianity. He offered some examples of syllabuses that he has used in his teaching to bring Syriac into “mainstream” courses on Christianity. Jonathan Loopstra, a graduate student from Catholic University, presented a paper on integrating Syriac into Seminary Curricula. Jonathan focused particularly on the use of Electronic Resources such as eBeth Arké, the Syriac Digital Library Project, and the International Syriac Language Project as a means of providing Syriacists with resources needed for smaller seminary settings. He suggested how digital media can facilitate the wider distribution of important Syriac texts and translations to colleagues and students. Young Kim, a graduate student from the University of Michigan, shared his own personal narrative of what had led him into Syriac studies, and he explained how this incorporation of Syrian Christian history had enhanced his training in Late Antique Studies. This led to a discussion concerning the issue of the lack of Syriac teachers at many institutions of higher education. We discussed places were Syriac can be learned, including Prof. Joseph Amar’s Summer Syriac Institute at the University of Notre Dame. Linda Wheatley-Irvine, a professor from the University of Illinois, then ushered us into the field of Art History with her presentation on “Teaching Early Syriac Christianity with images and the Concept of Visuality.” We discussed the concept of the Visual Culture and how this notion fits well with the emphasis in

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Syrian Literature on sight. We saw also her beautiful images from Tur Abdin, and discussed the importance of better integration of art history and material culture into courses treating Christianity in the Syrian Orient. Dan King from Cardiff University then spoke on the “Translation of Greek into Syriac: Models for Cultural Networking.” Dan has been focusing on Translation Studies for his dissertation. He showed how the changing methods of translation technique in the West Syrian church reflect the ways they thought about theology and philosophy and interacted with all other cultural and historical developments, especially the relationship between the Greek and Syriac worlds. He argued that the translator was the “power-broker” in this situation, defining and regulating the attitudes of the faithful towards an alien culture and thereby to their own as well. He showed, moreover, how translation itself became part of the christological battle-ground in the early Syrian churches. Ophir Münz-Manor, from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, spoke on the relationships of Syrian Christian Hymnography to Rabbinic Hymns: “From Ephrem to Yannai-The Rise of Late Antique Hymnography.” He discussed Ephrem’s hymnal structure and content, madrashe and memre, and he related them to Jewish counterparts by Yannai. This paper posed interesting questions on the mutual influence and dependency of these hymnographers. Scott Girdner, a graduate student from Boston University, spoke on Christian-Muslim interaction in his paper: “The Potential for Syrian Orthodox Apologetic Literature in Presenting the Development of Mu‘tazilite Kalām: The Debate of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdī and Timothy I in its context.” This talk raised methodological questions concerning the representation of Muslims in Syrian Christian Literature. Conference attendants were also treated to a tour of a Syriac Exhibit in the Mullen Library, led by Semitics librarian Monica Blanchard. We also participated in a Syrian Orthodox prayer service on Sunday morning. The success of the first Dorushe conference has encouraged us to make this an annual meeting. David Michaelson of Princeton University has agreed to organize our next meeting the weekend of April 14, 2007. This will be held at Princeton University in New

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Jersey. Further information and an official announcement is forthcoming.

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 9.2, 235-250 © 2006 [2009] by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press

TRAVELOGUE

ENCOUNTERING THE SURYOYE OF TURKEY JEANNE-NICOLE SAINT-LAURENT BROWN UNIVERSITY

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The early Christians traveled from distant lands to touch sacred places and to gaze upon the faces of holy men and women who shined forth as vessels of divine love.1 In the tradition of visiting living saints and seeing the landscape against which they are situated, scholars and students made a similar journey to the loca sancta of the modern Syriac-speaking churches in August 2005. Through the expert organizational skills and enterprising spirit of Dr. George Kiraz, and on account of the support of many self-sacrificing people along the way,2 we visited the Christian sites 1 I am borrowing this imagery from Georgia Frank’s work on pilgrimage to visit the living saints in late antiquity. See The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). 2 Here, the group would like to thank the following generous people in particular for their help and labors of love to make the trip a reality. Firstly, my advisor Susan Ashbrook Harvey of Brown University and Ms. Christine Athanasiopoulos at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in New York for arranging for the group to be received in an audience with His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on August 7, 2006. We would like to thank also Fr. Edip Aydin of Princeton Theological Seminary for arranging a meeting for our group with the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Istanbul His Eminence Mor Filuksinos Yusuf Çetin. We would like to thank İshak and Sara Tanoğlu for arranging our visit to Harput and Elazığ. We would also like to thank Elif and Savas

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of Istanbul, Tur Abdin, and Harput, August 3-18, 2005. The trip was organized by Dorushe, the graduate student organization affiliated with Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Each day uncovered new pearls for us, as we encountered the distant voices of the Syriac past as well as the living faces that comprise the modern churches of the Syrian Christians in Turkey. Our group itself was a felicitous blend of students, scholars, and enthusiasts of Syriac. George Kiraz of Beth Mardutho came with his wife Christine, who co-directs Gorgias Press, and they brought their two children Tabitha (4) and Sebastian Kenoro (2). Having these youngsters, who are fluent in Kthobonoyo Syriac, brought joy to the group and impressed the local clergy and people of Tur Abdin. George’s sister, Alaria Saar, and her friend HoangAnh Do, came from California, and with their pharmaceutical knowledge they helped to keep our bodies calm from the spice of Turkish food. Rev. Dr. Paul S. Russell, a Syriac scholar, joined us from St. Joseph of Arimathea Anglican Theological College in Berkeley, CA. Prof. Alison Salvesen from Oxford University accompanied us as our group Syriac scholar. Hidemi Takahashi, a Bar Hebraeus scholar of boundless curiosity and encyclopedic knowledge of Syriac Christianity, joined us from Chuo University, Tokyo (he has since transferred to the University of Tokyo). Our graduate student constituency included Carl Griffin from Brigham Young University, Jonathan Loopstra from the Catholic University of America, Miriam Goldstein from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mark DelCogliano from Emory University, Rev. Gareth Hughes from Cardiff University in Wales, and myself from Brown University. In all, we hailed from four countries, six universities. Thus fifteen distinct personalities came together to create a wealth of knowledge and energy for the group. We spent the first few days in Istanbul as we joined together from various countries. We visited the magnificent Hagia Sophia/Ayasofya, once the great church of Byzantine Christendom. We also saw the Chora Church and enjoyed the beauty that adorns Turkey’s historical center. The true highlights, however, were meeting the groups of Christians in Istanbul: both Ulvi Kayaalp for their help in arranging our flights to Diyarbakir. Many thanks to İsa Doğdu for arranging our visit to Mor Gabriel, our busses around Tur Abdin, and our hotel in Mardin. We would also like to thank the Aziz family for arranging our stay at the Bektaş Hotel in Istanbul.

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the Greek Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox. The Armenian Apostolic Church and the Roman Catholic Church also have important communities in Istanbul, and all the Christian groups together have solid and sisterly relationships. We attended the evening prayer of the Syriac Orthodox community in a church outside of Istanbul. The people greeted us with warm hospitality, and His Eminence Filuksinos Yusuf Çetin, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan for Istanbul and Ankara, invited us to a reception. He shared with us the current situation of their church in Istanbul, and he related his efforts to strengthen the community of the Suryoye in the city through reaching out especially to the young people of his flock. He spoke of the struggles of being a minority religion in Turkey, and he emphasized the importance of keeping a close relationship with the monastic communities and dioceses of Tur Abdin and Harput. The bishop gave us generous souvenirs from our visit. The nuns living there at his residence prepared a delicious meal for us, and we met some of the pillars of the Istanbul Suryoyo community. On Sunday, August 7, we traveled to the Phanar district of Istanbul to attend the liturgy celebrated by His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. There, we celebrated with the Orthodox Church the morning prayers and divine liturgy, in the presence of the relics of John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus. Our group had the honor of being received by the Patriarch, who bestowed gifts on us. He shared his vision for the Church, his efforts to attend to his local and global flock, and his personal dedication to causes like the protection of the environment. A man of grace and humility, he blessed the baby Sebastian Kenoro Kiraz. He told us how much his Church needs the prayers and love of the global Christian community. Monday, August 8, we flew to Diyarbakir in Southeastern Turkey, where our bus drivers Elias (from Midin) and Faulos (from Beth Qustan) greeted us. It was a delight to hear the beauty of their spoken Syriac, and in the vans we were graced to listen to the modern music of the Suryoyo community! We drove into Diyarbakir, ancient Amida, and we visited the Syriac Orthodox church of the Yoldath Aloho (Meryemana). The church, the seat of the patriarchate for brief periods in the 1860’s, is set off by walls, and as one enters one sees a small garden that the small community tends. The women were working outside in the shade on their

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quilting and drying fruits and vegetables. The walls of the church contained many beautiful inlaid Syriac inscriptions. The church itself contained the relics of Dionysius Bar Salibi and the tomb of Jacob of Sarugh. The priest who received us in the church, Fr. Yusuf Akbulut, had the experience, in 2000-2001, of spending some months in cells—which were not of the monastic kind—for talking in public on the genocide of the Christians in the early 20th century. We also visited the church of Mar Petyon, which is Chaldean Catholic. There was once an Armenian church in Diyarbakir (now occupied by a Kurdish family), but we were unable to get inside. What was the main church of the city is now a mosque, reminiscent in its style, though smaller, of another edifice with a similar history, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. After leaving the city with its formidable basalt wall, we stopped along the Tigris River at an old stone bridge, built in 1065. We coasted alongside the River for another hour before reaching Mardin, our home for the next four nights. Our second day in the area around Tur Abdin took us to the once mighty fortress-town of Dara. There is an interesting depiction there of a risen Christ on the outside of a cave. We visited the necropolis and underground cistern, and the local children there gave us flowers. We climbed below to a church now underground that had been a temple to the sun gods worshipped by ancient Mesopotamians. Outside we saw a structure with “channels” that had once been covered by arches. It seems to have been a storage area for grain—logical, as pointed out by Dr. Salvesen, given the constant back and forth of armies in the region that would have used such grain stores. We drove further to Nisibis, modern Nusaybin, to visit the city that was once a stronghold for Syriac literature and learning, the place St. Ephrem and St. Jacob called home. We visited the impressive church of Mor Yacqub with its double altars. On his journeys as bishop, Mor Yacqub had seen the bigger churches of cities like Nicaea, and he decided that Nisibis deserved one, too. We climbed down to the crypt of the city’s great fourth-century church that lies underneath the altar to touch the tomb of Mor Yacqub. We walked around the outside of the church that has been partially excavated, and was completely underground until three years ago. We read inscriptions on its hallowed walls. While in the church with the tomb of Mor Yacqub beneath our feet, Dr.

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Salvesen lectured for the group on Syrian Christianity in the Nisibene area. Dr. Salvesen related the history of the area around Nisibis, drawing on the information from the Syriac Chronicles. The School at Nisibis has not yet been excavated. We spoke with other pilgrims in Nisibis who had come from Germany. Political danger had driven them from their village of Mor Bobo nearby, and the father had taken his daughters back to the Tur Abdin area so that they could reconnect with their roots. We also met as a large group of Christians from the city of Qamishli in Syria, just across the border from Nisibis. From Nisibis we drove up the valley along the ancient Mygdonius and had lunch by the headwaters of the White Waters (Maye Hewore) where we cooled down with kebobs. This restaurant/picnic area suspended on rafts over the water was a refreshing break from the scorching weather, and we visited with a number of Kurdish Muslim families who had come back for summer visits to the area. We could speak to the children in German or French, and they translated for the parents, who, despite the relatively long period they had been in Europe, were limited in languages other than Kurdish. Kurdish musicians serenaded us on the kemanje and other regional instruments. We drove on into the heart of Tur Abdin, on the way passing over the watershed between the Tigris and the Euphrates. We arrived at the Monastery of Mor Gabriel, where the Metropolitan Bishop of Tur Abdin, Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktaş, greeted us and offered us tea and watermelon. We met Malfono Isa there, who busily works as a teacher at Mor Gabriel, teaching local boys such as Faulos (who spoke both Kthobonoyo and modern Syriac, as well as Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic and some English!), as well as Suryoyo youth who arrive from Europe to study for a period of time before beginning university back home. Isa gave us a tour of the monastery and the churches, much of it recently refurbished. It was stunning in its monumental beauty. The main church at Mor Gabriel has a beautiful mosaic floor and altar. Behind the altar we climbed up into the cave where ascetics would watch and pray in solitude. He took us to the Beth Qadishe (burial area), and we touched sacred relics. We saw the eating areas and the beautiful fields below where the monastic community grows crops. The women in our group also went to the convent to meet the nuns. Our reception at Mor Gabriel was warm and unforgettable.

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We went to Ramsho prayer service with the people, in a plain but beautiful chapel, and then we continued on to supper with them: simple fare, including yogurt-barley soup. We sat upstairs for tea afterwards and spoke with visitors—the monastery is a popular destination amongst Christians from Syria. Among them were visitors from Melkiyya (the hometown of Mor Severios Malki Murad, current Syriac Orthodox bishop of Jerusalem) and Qamishli. On August 10th, we began the fast before the feast of the Assumption, or ‘Transfer’ (shunoyo), as it is called in Syriac. We traveled northeast from Mardin, on the Mardin-Midyat road to Qelleth (Syr.) /Qillith (Arab.). Although the historic route from Mardin to Midyat passed through Qelleth, today the village is not off the modern main road. Thus, it took quite a long time to find this village, yet we realized as soon as we arrive that it was worth the effort. Once a populated Christian town, all the Christians have since left. However, we met a man there who has returned to restore the Syriac Orthodox church there, Mor Yuhanon. He had left the village for Sweden sixteen years before. The Swedish Syriac Orthodox community is funding this project. Today only two families remain in the village. Qelleth is rather isolated and must receive supplies intermittently from other towns. There is a small graveyard there, where one sees the grave of the mukhtar who was killed by the Kurds in 1992. Above the altar in the church reads Ilono d’haye—tree of life. Sebastian and Tabitha ran all around the church, as the scholars sorted through a pile of manuscripts and papers in the back of the church. Others explored the remains of houses, doing their best to avoid the bats! There are ruins of three monasteries in the area, Mor Abai, Mor Dimet, and the “Monastery of the Headache,” the last visited by those seeking cure from migraine. Additionally, the town has abandoned Syrian Catholic and Protestant churches. Some work had been done to restore the Protestant church. We also visited the town of Bnebil, where we met a charming eighty-five year old priest, who recounted stories of the struggles, resilience, and valiance of the Christians in recent history. The priest Yacqub bar Isa Shemcun Kfarzoyo (Yakub Günay in Turkish) lives there with his wife. Although they are both in their eighties, they are flourishing with stalwart spirits. Fr. Yacqub was ordained a priest in 1954. Some of us remained outside and spoke with the

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priest’s wife, a small woman with thick glasses, who spoke of the difficulties of life in the town. Eight Christian families and two Muslim families remain. The church contained among its many treasures that the qashisho showed us, a manuscript from the pen of the scholar-bishop Filuksinos Yuhannon Dolabani. Fr. Yacqub told us how fifty people had left Bnebil after fights with the Muslims in the 1960’s, and many had fled to Syria or Istanbul. In 1915, the Kurds had come and killed four of the city’s leaders. The church has received aid from Sweden to help restoration efforts. As we left Bnebil, we could see the Monastery of Mor Stephanos in the cliff above the village. In the evening, we went up to the stunning Dayr al-Zacfaran, the saffron monastery perched on a hill overlooking the plain to the south of Mardin. As we arrived, it was nearing sundown. We quickly prepared to ascend the hill atop the monastery, where four other monasteries for solitaries lie. A young man who was living at the monastery, Ephrem, led us up through the bushy terrain, and after a half hour of steady climbing, steep and difficult in some places, we reached the monastery of Our Lady of the Drop [Yoldath Aloho d-Nutfo/Dayro d-Nutfo]. It is perched on the top of the mountain, carved into the face of the rock, with stunningly beautiful views over the plain below and Dayr al-Zacfaran. Only silence dwells there now, and the spirits of the monastics who had prayed there for centuries filled the summer evening with comfort and assurance. We gathered as a group in the chapel and gave thanks—“it was good to be there.” On the climb downwards, although it was nearly dark, we followed the way of a shepherd and his sheep, and we reached the monastery by evening. Some special guests were awaiting us inside Dayr alc Za faran. The great living light of Syriac learning, Malfono Abrohom Nouro, happened to be there visiting from Aleppo, and his presence and refulgent spirit was a grace. He spoke to our group about his life’s work and passion: the promotion, pedagogy and scholarship of the Syriac language. His energy was boundless, and we were able to buy signed copies of his books on learning Syriac, including Souloko. We also met Hatune Doğan, a Syriac scholar and teacher originally from the village of Zaz in Tur Abdin, but who now lives in Germany. She has been working with young women coming to Dayr al-Zacfaran from abroad to learn Syriac. She spoke of her efforts to promote girls’ education in the

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monastery. Metropolitan Filuksinos Saliba Özmen of Mardin, who lives in Dayr al-Zacfaran, greeted us warmly and sat and talked with us for a long while. There was a lively exchange between the bishop and the scholars from Britain, who updated him on the state of Syriac Studies at Oxford, where the Bishop had studied. His Eminence gave us much love and thoughtful presents, and Dr. Salvesen gave him his favorite English tea. We also received a tour of the monastery, seeing the places where the patriarchs and bishops of the past were buried in the walls. We visited the living quarters of the bishop. Many pilgrims were simultaneously visiting as we were there. We shared a lovely meal with the people there, and later we drove back to Mardin, high above the plain. The next morning, we woke up early to set out on the three hour drive to Urfa, or ancient Edessa/Urhoy. The drive between Mardin and Edessa is long and dry, and we planned to do it in one day. We passed by Viranşehir—ancient Tella. As we reached Edessa, we were struck by a town buzzing around with people and traffic. We stopped for a drink of ayran and some bread and pastries in a park before beginning our excursion. We walked to the top of the towering citadel protecting the city, and we investigated its two columns with their famed Syriac inscription. The two large columns are also called “Nimrod’s throne,” and according to legend Abraham was launched from them when he was a baby. He was caught by a pool, where holy carp now swim. After climbing around the citadel, we walked down to see the carp. The museum of the city contains outside the lovely mosaics from ancient Edessa known to us from Segal,3 but they are outside, unkempt, and dusty. The outside yard of the museum contains Christian funerary inscriptions and tombs, as well as pillars, Roman statues, Hittite engravings of archers, and inscriptions from Tella and other important historical sites. It was painful to see these treasures, in Syriac, Greek and Ottoman Turkish, unlabeled and “maintained” outside in questionable conditions. The inside of the museum contains the sad remnants of the twentieth-century atrocities against the Christians in Edessa: statuettes of saints from modern churches now stripped sit in the museum and gather dust. Some of us wandered around the streets of Urfa—two main streets J. B. Segal, Edessa 'The Blessed City' (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2002, 2nd edition). 3

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that designate the earlier flow of the Daysan before its rerouting by Justinian, which flank the raised level of the town itself. We visited many churches that have been transformed into mosques, such as the former St. John’s church, where the two building structures were clearly once a church and baptistery. We were led to the former Armenian church, now a mosque, by three locals, 20something-year-old Turks who were happy to tolerate our primitive Turkish! We also wandered around in the bazaar, which was built by Suleiman the Magnificent. We were unsuccessful in locating the rock tombs described by Segal as being in the hills to the west of the citadel, being directed first to the modern town cemetery, a result of the unsuccessful combination of Said’s (our bus driver) Turkish and Miriam’s Arabic. Edessa’s vestiges of its shiny Christian past are difficult to discern now, as mosques stand where once Ephrem’s church would have been. Egeria who visited Edessa in the fourth century would probably not recognize the town there, yet we perceived with our hearts through the spirit of the city the beauty that earned Edessa the epithet of “blessed.” We stopped through Harran on our way back, braving nearly five kilometers of unpaved road, apparently part of the Turkish efforts at renewing the region along with the new dam. The town walls have been partially restored, as well as one of the gates, and we drove inside the village to see the famous beehive houses. The aggressive behavior of the locals encouraged us to leave Harran quickly, following Abraham’s example! On August 12, we continued our tour of the villages of Tur Abdin. We drove to Azekh, also known as Idil, a town to which the Kirazes could trace their maternal roots. In Azekh/Beth Zabday we met a small group of Suryoye jewelers who had set up their shop for business, having returned to Azekh after living for a time in Germany. We bought some presents for our loved ones back at home. The Suryoye shared with us how they had single-handedly raised up their church from the rubble, and they were working tirelessly to reestablish a strong foothold of their Christian community in Azekh. They took us inside the church. They narrated to us how the people of Azekh “held on” in 1915 for forty days while their village was attacked. Likewise, in 1923 the Christian women of Azekh had fiercely warded off the Turks with stones, and they attributed their success to help from the Virgin

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Mary, for whom the church of Yoldath Aloho is named. Our guides also told us about the German military adviser (WWI) who was with the besieging army, who decided to become a monk following this miraculous victory. He reportedly later became a cardinal! When the people here speak of their roots, their tone of voice reveals the pride they had in the strength of their forefathers. We were joined in our visit to the church by Suryoye visiting from abroad, such as Gabriel, who left 25 years ago. He now lives in Holland and has children whom he has named Nineveh, Babel and Salin (former name of Qamishli). Many of these visitors stay in town during the day, but sleep in the guest rooms at Mor Gabriel. They spoke of the importance of preserving their culture and heritage. We traveled onwards to Midin, a town that remains wholly Christian. Our bus driver Elias hails from Midin, and he showed us where he had grown up and played football as a boy. Suzy was our guide in Midin. She had returned to Midin five years previously, after living for twenty years in Germany. She was energetic and young-looking—“I don’t feel 40!” Her husband had died prior to her return to Midin, and she told us it was not easy for her to make ends meet. She shared that the locals receive few “tourists” in Midin. We visited also the church of Mor Sobo in the courtyard of a local house in Midin, and it lies half underground. The main Church in Midin is named after Mor Yacqub of Sarugh, which was originally built in 450 AD. It was destroyed during Timur Lane’s invasion of the area and rebuilt in 1525. We were told that there were three other churches in use—Mor Barsaumo, Mor Zokhe, Mor Yuhanon Macmdono/John the Baptist. In all, twenty churches adorn the town! Around fifty-five families live in Midin today, and they keep themselves isolated from the non-Christian population around them. We then visited Beth Sbirino, where a charming boy who spoke excellent German showed us the main church of Mor Dodo. There, we read manuscripts in Karshuni with the local malfono—he enjoyed it as much as we did! There were once twenty-five churches in Beth Sbirino. On August 13th, we traveled to Salah, where there is only a very small, but valiant Christian community now. We visited the Monastery of Mor Yacqub, once the seat of the “patriarchs of Tur

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Abdin.” Here, a number of monks and nuns have come to live, after restoring the church and setting it up for visitors splendidly. Aziz Bolan, the only Christian left in the town, received us. We spent a good part of the morning examining the numerous inscriptions around the entrance to the church, and then Aziz gave us a tour of the whole complex, including excavations undertaken near the back. Aziz was quite happy to take us into town to see houses and churches once belonging to Christians. We followed Aziz through the village, trying to avoid the open running sewage in the streets and the barn animals roaming freely, and he took us to the church of Mor Aphrem which is used now as a cowshed. In Hah, we went to the radiant church of Yoldath Aloho. There are about twenty Christian families there today. According to legend, this church is the oldest church in Christendom, built by the kings from the East on their way home from Bethlehem. (According to more “scientific” accounts, it was originally built in the 7th or 8th century.) It is a restored jewel against a beautiful desert landscape, unique in its octagonal shape, and intricately decorated inside. The eve of the great feast of the Assumption was in the air, and pilgrims whom we had met along the way were preparing for the overnight stay in Hah. We ate lunch there along with Faulos, and we very much enjoyed the cooking of the friendly woman running the kitchen. In Hah, we also went to the ruins of Mor Sobo and wandered around in its buildings and graveyard. Next, we stopped at Bakusyone, or Beth Qustan (Constantine), the home of both the eponymous abbot and present bishop of the Monastery of Mor Gabriel. The church there is named Mor Eliyo. This was also the hometown of our bus driver Faulos, and we got to meet his little baby boy while passing through. It has been greatly restored, as well. We drove onwards to the lovely Dayro da-Slibo, where five Christian families have returned from Europe to live in the old monastic complex. The main church is dedicated to the Holy Cross. The smaller building to the right was the church (grave) of Mor Aho. The nun who lives there now, Maryam, is a sprightly and intelligent woman, who spoke to us in Arabic as she climbed up and down the ecclesiastical complex, which has been lovingly restored by the Swedish Suryoye community. The monastery is built “higgledy-piggledy” with staircases all around. Sister Maryam’s brother Gabriel was also there. We also met Khālisa, who was

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drying salted tomatoes on the roof of the church! We sat and drank tea and cold water (getting brave—not from bottles!) with Maryam. Despite her sprightliness, it was clear that she had huge responsibilities in taking care of the large complex. Then we drove back to Midyat, and we stopped outside the town to see the Monastery of Mor Abrohom and Hobil, founded in the fifth century. We then entered Midyat and visited Mor Shimuni. Inside the church, Faulos opened up a grand copy of the Syriac Gospels with colored pictures, and he read with us. We read inscriptions on the baptistery and all over the church, and those of us with less experience with inscriptions were helped by our comrades as well as our driver! It is worth mentioning that Faulos was far beyond a mere driver, serving as translator between the numerous languages mentioned above, as well as correcting our Syriac reading! We visited the church Mor Barsaumo in Midyat, where the faithful were emerging, each with two loaves of bread, in observance of a funeral of a priest who had been killed in a car accident the day before. There, Malfono Ayhan showed us his classroom, and we saw the bread baking for the next day’s mass on a coal stove. We were hungry, and it smelled great! The drive back from Midyat in the evening was beautiful, and we watched the sunset and as we passed through small villages. On Sunday in Mardin, we visited the church of the Forty Martyrs, where we attended the Divine Liturgy. We were received by the bishop of Mardin/Dayr al-Zacfaran, Bishop Saliba. We sat in his beautiful salon with many of the faithful and drank bitter coffee (due to the funeral the day before). Mardin was the seat of the bishop, who is now in residence at Dayr al-Zacfaran. It was the center of the patriarchate until 1933, when it moved to Homs in Syria. The church there, named for the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, is 370 years old. The interior is beautifully decorated with icons of saints, including a stunning one of the Martyrs of Sebaste meeting their chilly death. The church was quite full for the Sunday liturgy. Our beautiful Hotel of the Caravansaray in Mardin, with a stunning view from its top deck, made a wonderful home base for us. We often walked up and down the streets of Mardin, smelling fresh bread and spices. Miriam and I rose at 6 am each morning to run around the city—and to work-off delicious baklava!

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We headed north the next day—a long drive—to Elazığ, stopping in Diyarbakır for lunch. We passed through a canyon area and drove by a large beautiful lake. In Elazığ, we were met by the friendly Tanoğlu family, who took us to the church of Mor Giwargis. The church of the Syriac Orthodox community in Elazığ is small and simple, to support a community of a few families. Our group was treated to three excellent lectures by the poolside of our hotel in Elazığ. The first was from George Kiraz, who directed us in improving our spoken Syriac, using John Healey’s book Leshono Suryoyo: First Studies in Syriac (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005). Hidemi Takahashi reviewed with us his scholarship on Bar Hebraeus, referring us to his book Bar Hebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005). We then heard from Alison Salvesen, who spoke about how Syriac writers of the fourth century, like Ephrem, describe or identify themselves in relation to the area in which they grew up. She mentioned, for example, that Ephrem’s fourth hymn on Julian Sabas referred to our land as the land of Abraham, Jacob and the patriarchs. She also spoke about Jacob of Edessa’s pride that Syriac was a language close to Hebrew, although he himself was “pro-Greek.” For the East-Syrians, in contrast, Hebrew had less prestige, but the biblical references to Aram were very important. She spoke about the evolution of the term “Syrian,” and the linguistic and geographical definitions that developed throughout the first millennium CE. For the feast of the Virgin Mary, we drove up to the city of Harput, and the church of Yoldath Aloho. Harput has long been a center of Syriac and Armenian Christianity. The church in Harput dates from the second century, and has long been a place of pilgrimage to Mary. Although the majority of Harput’s citizens left at the beginning of the century, the church has remained, strong and beautiful atop the cliff with a vast plain extending beneath it. The church has a cavernous feel to it, and when one enters, one is greeted by beautiful icons and the smells of candles and incense. The pilgrims came for the feast of Mary on August 15, after fasting six days before. On the day that we were there, we met Christians who had come from as far away as Adıyaman and other places, journeying to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary. The divine liturgy was beautifully offered, in Syriac, Arabic and Turkish, and afterwards we feasted with the others who had journeyed there at a

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café overlooking the modern Elazığ below. The community was remarkably friendly. Later that day we had the treat of visiting the historic restored house in Harput with an energetic and witty guide, Rabban Melke, who rattled off a spirited tour in Syriac, Arabic, and Turkish. A house there has been restored in order to show the way people used to live in Harput, and there are plans to expand the complex in coming years. They proudly took out the architectural plans to show us. Rabban Melke showed us around the house. A few of us then went to explore the fortress of Harput following the visit. On our last day, we drove out to Malatya/Melitene, once the center of Syriac Orthodoxy in the days of such men as Patriarch Michael I, Dionysius bar Salibi and Bar Hebraeus. Thanks to Hidemi’s and George’s endless curiosity, our drive to Melitene took us “off the beaten track” in order to glean more information about the abandoned Armenian churches we passed along the way. We crossed (or ran on foot) over the Euphrates and stepped out of the van to drink in the beauty of the natural surroundings. We spotted the sign of a church/monastery on our map, and then we decided to backtrack a bit in order to discover more about it. Our drivers stopped along the side of the road in order to ask some local farmers where we should go. They instructed us, and then after learning that we were Christians, launched into a theological discussion with us. They wanted to know how it was that Christians believed that Jesus was God. I was impressed at their curiosity, but as we had left our notes on Nicene Christology at the hotel, we continued on our way in search of the church. Up through the thorny bushy path we climbed until we reached the ruins of an Ottoman fort on top of the hill. We never, alas, found the monastery of Tomisa. We continued on to Malatya, which is the mishmish or apricot capital of Turkey, where we drove through the orchards, searching for the remnants of Byzantine and Seljukid Melitene. In Eski (or Old) Malatya, the walls of the city, whose construction began under Trajan and was continued by Diocletian and Justinian, can still be visited. Little else remains in Eski Malatya from its Byzantine days, but the Ulu Cami (Great Mosque), constructed by the Seljuks, stands much in the same way as it did in Bar Hebraeus’ time. A little way away from Eski Malatya, after a bit of circling in and out of the apricot orchards near the Hittite ruins of Arslantepe, we

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found the remains of a church, which we deduced to have been Armenian. We asked the local farmer about what the church was, and he was hesitant to share much. Then, when Said our driver spoke to him in Turkish, and obfuscated the fact that we were a group of Christians, the farmer proceeded to share with pride how his forefathers had driven the “infidels,” i.e. the Armenians, from the area. The joy with which he recounted the atrocities committed against the Christians was chilling and harsh reminder of the sufferings that the former Christian inhabitants had experienced. As we left the area of Elazığ and drove back to Diyarbakır, my heart was heavy to leave this place that I had longed to visit my whole life. We stopped in Diyarbakir before going back to Istanbul, and we climbed on top of its basalt walls, walking around the city and looking one last time towards the Tigris flowing away. The senior citizens of Diyarbakir congregate under its walls. Each memory from this trip is impressed indelibly on my mind. More than the beauty of the surroundings and the architecture, I will remember the faces that we met. Thank you to our wonderful group!! May this be the first of many such trips! May we honor through our scholarship the living heirs and transmitters of the Suryoyo culture and history!4

4 Photographs of the trip can be found on the online version of this paper at http://www.bethmardutho.org/hugoye. These were graciously provided by Hidemi Takahashi, Gareth Hughes, and Alaria Saar.

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Scavenging for manuscripts at the Church of Mor Yuḥannon at Qelleth