Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 9781463222727

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J O U R N A L O F T H E CANADIAN SOCIETY FOR SYRIAC STUDIES

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies/ de la Société Canadienne des Etudes Syriaques The JCSSS is a refereed journal published annually, and it contains the transcripts of public lectures presented at the Society and possibly other articles and book reviews Editorial Board General Editor

Amir Harrak, University of Toronto

Editors Sebastian Brock, Oxford University Sidney Griffith, Catholic University of America Adam Lehto, University of Toronto Craig E. Morrison, Pontifica! Biblical Institute, Rome Lucas van Rompay, Duke University Copy Editing

Antoine Hirsch

Publisher Gorgias Press 180 Centennial Avenue, Suite 3 Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com

The Canadian Society for Syriac Studies La Société Canadienne des Etudes Syriaques Society Officers 2008-2009 President". Amir Harrak Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer. Klialid Dinno Members of the Board of Directors: Samir Basmaji, Marica Cassis, Klialid Dinno, Geoffrey Greatrex, Amir Harrak, Antoine Hirsch, Robert Kitchen, Adam Lehto, Albert Tarzi Cover Picture. A Syriac fragment from Turfan (SyrHT 124 — see pp. 22-42) Courtesy the Berlin-Branden-burgisclie Akademie der Wissenscliaften. The aim of the CSSS is to promote the study of the Syriac culture which is rooted in the same soil from which the ancient Mesopotamian and biblical literatures sprung. The CSSS is purely academic, and its activities include a series of public lectures, one yearly symposium, and the publication of its Journal. The Journal is distributed free of charge to the members of the CSSS who have paid their dues, but it can be ordered by other individuals and institutions through Gorgias Press (www.gorgiaspress.com).

JOURNAL OF THE CANADIAN SOCIETY FOR SYRIAC STUDIES

Volume 9 2009

GORGIAS PRESS

Copyright (Q) 2009 by The Canadian Society for Syriac Studies.

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

ISBN 978-1-60724-686-2 ISSN: 1499-6367

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

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

The Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies

Table of Contents

From the Editor

1

Alexander Treiger, Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity? An Eighth-Century, Controversy between John of Dalyatha and Timothy I, Catholicos of the Church of the East

3

Mark Dickens,

22 Multilingual Christian Manuscripts from Turfan

Emmanuel Joseph Mar-Emmanuel, Mary as Portrayed in the Hymns of George Warda in the 13th Century

43

Khalid Dinno and Amir Harrak, Six Letters from Paul Bedjan to Aphram Barsoum, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Syria and Aleppo

55

Martin Tamcke,

74 Interaction between German and Iraqi The Pictures Repeat Themselves

Obituaries:

Christians:

Malfono Abrohom Nuro (1923-2009)

85

Professor Michael Marmura (1929-2009)

87

Members of the CSSS for 2008-2009

89

F R O M THE E D I T O R

W

e are happy to present volume 9 of the Journal of the CSSS! Most of the papers published in this issue are the result of the Society's annual activities, and we are grateful to all authors who participated in these gatherings and who accepted our offer to publish their research here. The first paper, by Prof. Alexander Treiger of Dalhousie University, is entitled "Could Christ's Humanity See His Divinity? An Eighth-Century Controversy between John of Dalyatha and Timothy I, Catholicos of the Church of the East." The paper, originally presented at the CSSS Annual Symposium VII (2008), deals with the 8th century mystical writer John of Dalyatha, who was anathematized in the controversy provoked by his doctrine of the 'vision of God', a key term in Syriac mysticism. The article sheds interesting light on the fact that Islam indirectly played a role in the elucidation of certain doctrinal aspects of Syriac Christianity, including whether or not the human Jesus saw his divinity, a belief echoing 'monophysitism', in contrast to which the Church of the East firmly distinguished between the divine and the human natures in the single person of Jesus Christ. The next article was given as a public lecture at the Society and in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, by Dr. Mark Dickens of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London:

"Multilingual Christian Manuscripts from Turfan." Reading this article, one cannot help but be struck with the role that the Syriac language and script played when Christianity flourished in Central Asia and China before its disappearance during the 13th century! There are bilingual Syriac-Sogdian fragments from Turfan, bilingual texts in Syriac and New Persian, Syriac texts with Sogdian instructions (often in rubrics), Syriac texts as marginalia or overwriting in either Sogdian script or Uyghur script, and fragments mixing Syriac and Uighur scripts. Syriac may not have been a daily language, but it left its traces in every aspect of religious life throughout centuries of changing cultures in Central Asia. His excellence Mar Emmanuel, Bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East in Canada, and a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, discusses the role of the Virgin Mary in the poetry of George Warda, or George of Erbil. The article was a lecture given at the CSSS Symposium VIII in 2008. The 13th century George expressed a deep devotion to Mary, judging from the number of hymns devoted to the Mother of Christ. In describing her, he draws on the Old and New Testaments, the writings of earlier Syriac Church fathers, and the rich hymnology of the Church of the East. His expression is beautiful, full of imagery and literary motifs, and all at an especially difficult time for the Syriac Christians due to Mongol invasion. The fourth article, by Khalid Dinno and Amir Harrak, publishes six letters of Paul

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 1

From the Editor

Bedjan addressed to Aphram Barsoum, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Syria and Lebanon, written during the last months of Bedjan's life (1920). Although the missives are short, they contain important details, such as the massacre of Christians at the hands of Turks and Kurds in the region of Urmia during WW1, including Bedjan's own parents, and the effects of the war on the economy in Europe. The article discusses the active lives of two major scholars of Syriac at the turn of the 20th century. Prof. Martin Tamcke's article, "The Christians in Iraq: the pictures repeat themselves," echoes some of the claims expressed with much bitterness by Paul Bedjan in his afore-mentioned letters. The

author compares the attitude of Germany towards the Christians of Iraq and Turkey during WW1 to that of the British and Americans toward the same during the current occupation of Iraq, and shows how in both cases, disinterest in the massacres perpetrated against local Christians characterized all the foreign powers: "The pictures repeat themselves." It is astounding that while the western armies were 'occupying' powers, whether in Turkey or in Iraq, they considered the massacre of innocent Christians to be merely an internal affair for local governments over which (or so the claim went) they had little control! A. H. November 30, 2009

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 2

COULD CHRIST'S HUMANITY SEE HIS DIVINITY? AN EIGHTH-CENTURY CONTROVERSY BETWEEN JOHN OF DALYATHA AND TIMOTHY I, CATHOLICOS OF THE CHURCH OF THE EAST*

ALEXANDER TREIGER DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY

T

his study is devoted to the eighthcentury East-Syriac spiritual writer John of Dalyatha, a prominent representative of the golden age of Syriac mystical literature.1 As a result of the controversy provoked by his doctrine of the vision of God, discussed below, John of Dalyatha was anathematized, in the year 170AH/786-87, by a council of the Church of the East, convened by the Catholicos Timothy I (r. 780-823).2 His writings - together with those of two other influential authors, Joseph Hazzaya3 and John of Apamea4 - were prohibited from being kept in monasteries. Timothy's successor and vehement opponent, the Catholicos Iso' bar Nun (r. 823-827) rehabilitated John of Dalyatha, saying that he found nothing objectionable in his writings,5 but this rehabilitation must have been shortlived.6 Before we turn to an analysis of John of Dalyatha's views and his condemnation by the council convened by Timothy, a brief account of his life is due.

1. JOHN OF DALYATHA'S LIFE7 Relatively little is known about the life of the eighth-century mystic John of Dalyatha, also

called John Säbä (John the "Elder") and, in the medieval Arabic and Ethiopic translations, the "Spiritual Elder" (al-Sayk alriihäm, Arcigawi mcinfcisawi). He was born in northern Iraq, in the village of Ardämüth, in the region known in Syriac as Beth-Nühadrä (on the present-day border with Turkey).8 As a child, he read "all the books in the school," according to one source, or "the divine books in the church of his village," according to another. This points to a village school of the type that, according to Thomas of Marga's Book of Governors, were being opened and restored at that period in that region.9 During his studies, John frequently visited the monastery of Rabban Apnlmäran in the mountains of Beth-Nühadrä.10 However, his monastic life began further north, at the monastery of Mär Yüzädaq11 in the Qardü Mountains.12 John's mentor at Mär Yüzädaq was a certain "Blessed Stephen,"13 a disciple of Jacob the Visionary and Rabban Apnlmäran.14 However, John eventually left the monastery of Mär Yüzädaq and settled in the forbidding mountains of Beth-Dälyäthä, where he lived on "grapes from grapevines" ('enbe d-dälyäta), which is where his sobriquet, "of Dalyatha" as well as the name

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 3

Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity?

of the region apparently came from.15 It was in Beth-Dalyatha that he composed most of his writings: a collection of letters, a collection of homilies, and chapters on spiritual knowledge.16 In his old age, John of Dalyatha returned to Qardu, settled in the vicinity of the village of Argul (whose precise location is unknown), and renovated an ancient monastery there.17 He died and was buried in that monastery. This is what is known on the biography of John of Dalyatha. Some of these details will become relevant later on, as we discuss John's condemnation by a council of the Church of the East.

2. JOHN OF DALYATHA ON THE VISION OF GOD It has been pointed out by Sebastian Brock that in one of his Letters John of Dalyatha "subtly alters the wording" of the beatitude "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt. 5:8). In John of Dalyatha's Letter 14, the text is rephrased to say: "Blessed are the pure, for it is in their hearts that they shall see God."18 Nor is it only in the afterlife that, according to John of Dalyatha, the pure will see God in their hearts. They see Him already in this life, at the heights of mystical contemplation. Vision of God is one of John of Dalyatha's central teachings. His views on the subject follow upon those of the Greek theologian Evagrius (d. 399), whose understanding of spiritual life as an ascent of the mind to the heights of contemplation (theoria) had a profound impact on Syriac monasticism.19 Evagrius divided spiritual life in two stages. The first was called "practical" (praktike). It involved ascetic exercises, designed to help the practitioner overcome the passions and reach a dispassionate state of mind, called apatheia (Syr. la hasosiita). This dispassionate state of mind was the foundation of a second, higher stage on the

spiritual path, called the stage of knowledge (gnostike). Knowledge, or gnosis, eventually led to what Evagrius called "the contemplation of the Holy Trinity" (he theoria tes hagias Triados). This theoria of the Trinity, or in other words, the vision of God, was considered the goal of spiritual life.20 Following Evagrius, John of Dalyatha also describes the highest stage of the spiritual path as the intellect's contemplation, or theoria, of the Trinity: Every intellect filled with speech that has entered this place is blocked from speech by silence and from motion by the amazement [at the sight] of the [divine] mysteries. Here God shows His beauty to those who love Him. Here the soul sees itself and [sees] Christ, who appears in it and gladdens it with His vision. Here it sees the amazing beauty of the angels who stand in amazement at the glory of the Ever-Living. Here the Holy Trinity is shown in mystery and its hypostases are seen by the naked intellect. This is a great mystery, seen only by a limpid intellect.21

The vision described in this passage is complex and involves several elements: silence and stillness, amazement at the sight of the divine mysteries, vision of God's beauty, vision of the self, vision of Christ accompanied by gladness, vision of the angels' beauty. It is only at the very end that the "naked" and "limpid" intellect ('artellaya and sapya are the Syriac terms) is able to behold the Trinity. "Nakedness" and "limpidity," i.e. freedom from all earthly concepts, are prerequisites for this vision of the Trinity, in the same way that for Evagrius a dispassionate state of the mind (apatheia) is a prerequisite for the theoria of the Trinity:

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity? [The soul] is supremely illumined again and penetrates into the holy and greatly resplendent light. It gets absorbed in the glory of [this light's] vision and is amazed. [Then] everything is lifted from its sight as being non-existent, and [the soul] forgets itself, being united to the light of the glory of the Majesty. It is captivated by its beauty and sees the glorious Hypostases [of the Trinity] through knowledge, that is, through unknowing, which is higher than all knowledges and all those who know (ramat men

kullyad 'an w-kullyado 'e).22

It may be noted in passing that, Hypostases of the Trinity apart, the beginning of this passage is remarkably close to what the Muslim mystics, the Sufis, will start calling fana', literally "obliteration," just one century after John of Dalyatha. According to the Sufis, fana' has two stages: one on which all external beings disappear from the practitioner's consciousness, and the other when the practitioner's consciousness itself disappears (this is sometimes called fana' al-fana', "obliteration of obliteration"). It seems that these two stages find their parallels in this passage from John of Dalyatha: John says that first "everything is lifted from [the soul's] sight as being non-existent" and then that the soul "forgets itself, being united to the light of the glory of the Majesty" - this seems to correspond to fana' and fana' al-fana' respectively. This correspondence, although possibly accidental, still raises the interesting question of whether there could have been contacts between Syriac mystics and early Sufis that would account for such similarities. I shall return to this question later on. The theme of "unknowing, which is higher than all knowledges and all those who know" at the end of the passage just quoted is borrowed from the teachings of the famous

Greek theologian who wrote under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite. The Dionysian writings (ca. 500) were translated into Syriac at the beginning of the sixth, and again in the late seventh century23 and became popular in monastic circles of the Church of the East, where John of Dalyatha, as pointed out by Robert Beulay, seems to have used them the most.24 The short treatise entitled On Mystical Theology is probably the most famous of the Dionysian writings. This treatise is a complex reflection on the passages from the Book of Exodus describing Moses' ascent on Mount Sinai, especially on the verse "Moses approached the darkness where God was" (Ex. 20:18). In the Septuagint, unlike the Hebrew masoretic text and the Syriac Peshitta, Moses not only "approached" but actually entered the darkness. Following Dionysius as well as Gregory of Nyssa, John of Dalyatha compares the ascent of the mind to the ascent of Moses on Mount Sinai. Moses serves as a model for the mind; Moses' ascent on Mount Sinai is a paradigm for the mind's ascent to the heights of contemplation. It is a characteristic feature of the resulting vision of God that it happens inside what John of Dalyatha calls "the darkness of God's glory." When

will

"Moses,"

your

intellect (mose hawnak), be concealed with the darkness of

God's glory ('arpella d-subheh d-alaha) and its face will shine with glorious radiance (semhe sbThe), glowing upon it from inside [the darkness]?! It will learn the new book of the new world25 and elucidate its mysteries to the sons of Israel who have been renewed.26

The term John of Dalyatha most frequently employs to designate this darkness is 'arpella. This is the same term that the Peshitta version of the Book of Exodus (Ex.

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 5

Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity?

20:18 [20:21 LXX]) uses to describe the thick cloud atop Mount Sinai - 'arafel in Hebrew, gnophos in Greek - that Moses entered to converse with God. Darkness ('arpella) is combined with the expression "God's glory" (subheh d-alaha). The darkness, therefore, is the darkness of God's glory, the kabod of the

Hebrew Bible, which is God's physical presence that manifested itself as the cloud that filled the Ark of the Covenant and as the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness. "Glorious

radiance"

(semhe

This accusation - that John of Dalyatha maintained that Christ's humanity could see His divinity - was a key reason for the condemnation, as we shall see below. Yet elsewhere Iso'dnah claims that personal motives, such as envy, may have played a role in the condemnation. This is what he has to say in his entry on the seventh-century East-Syriac mystic Isaac the Syrian: [Isaac] wrote books on the divine practices of the monks (dubbare alahaye d-Thidaye), but he said three things that were rejected {la etqabbal(w)) by many people. 29 ... [Isaac's] family was from Beth-Qatraye, and I think that envy was stirred up against him by the people inside the monastery {gawwaye),30 as happened in the cases of Joseph Hazzaya, John the Apamean, and John of Dalyatha (lit. "John of his grapevines," d-dalyateh)'31

sbihe),

mentioned in this passage, is also a reference to the Book of Exodus. Due to its prolonged "exposure" to God's glory, Moses' face was shining when he descended from Mount Sinai and he had to put a veil on his face.27 Once again, the image of Moses is used as a model for the mystic's ascent to the heights of mystical contemplation.

3. JOHN OF DALYATHA'S CONDEMNATION This, then, is John of Dalyatha's doctrine of the vision of God. We must now turn to the history of his condemnation by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Church of the East. We are fortunate to have several historical sources dealing with John of Dalyatha's condemnation. In his Book of Chastity

(Ktaba

d-Nakputa),

a c o l l e c t i o n of

biographies of illustrious monks, the ninthcentury author iso'dnah of Basra explains the reasons for the condemnation as follows: [John of Dalyatha's] writings were rejected {la etqabbal(w)) by the Catho-licos Timothy. He convened a council and anathematized him (ahrmeh), because in his book (ba-ktabeh) [John] had claimed that our Lord's humanity could see His divinity (hazya (')nasuteh dmaran l-alahuteh).28

The council convened by Timothy is described also in a later source, the Arabic Book

of the Sessions

{Kitab

al-Majalis)

of

Iliya bar Sennaya, the eleventh-century metropolitan of Nisibis (d. 1046), who writes the following: At the time of [the 'Abbasid caliph] Harun al-RasTd (r. 786809), God have mercy on him, there was a certain number of Christians who believed that the human being taken from Mary {al-basafi al-ma 'kud min Mary am) [i.e. Christ's human nature] saw the eternal Lord (alrabb) [i.e. the divine nature]. The Catholicos of that time, whose name was Timothy, assembled sixteen metropolitans, more than thirty bishops, and a great number of monks, scholars, and Christian dignitaries. All of them excommunicated (harama) and cursed 32

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity? whoever believed that Jesus, who is the human being taken from Mary, saw the Lord, who is the eternal Word (al-kalima al-azalTya), in this world or would see Him in the world to come, either with a material or with an intellectual vision. They relied in this on the traditional religious teaching (al-sar') and [did so] out of concern to clear the Creator, may He be exalted (tanzih al-bari ta 'ala), from the possibility that a creature come to share in some of His essential attributes, one of which is the vision of God. 33 Timothy's own letter, addressed to the council of the year 174AH/790-91 and ratified also at (or, according to another reading, sent to) 34 a second council in 189AH/805, makes a brief reference to the condemnation. In this letter, preserved in 'AbdTso' bar Brikha's Nomocanon (IX 6), Timothy writes the following: There is an ancient custom current in the Church of God that no teacher (mallpana) approached on his own accord either providing a commentary [on scripture] or composing a treatise (syama) without an order and an agreement of him who was holding the reins of the general administration of the Church. Thus acted all those who provided a commentary or composed a treatise. They would send or bring the treatises they composed, even if they made commentaries and translations, to the patriarch, before these reached the hands of the public. The patriarch then conducted a scrutiny (buhrana) of these writings according to his own knowledge, if he was capable [of this]. Then, if [these works] were worthy of

acceptance and ratification (/qubbala ... wa-l-kullala), he accepted and ratified them immediately. But if they were not worthy of acceptance, he cast them away - as one casts a log from the territory of the Church - and condemned them, just as the Catholicos Mar Sabriso' (r. 596-604)35 did to the writings of Hnana of Adiabene,36 Iso'ya(h)b (III, r. 647-658)37 to the fictions (bedye) of Sahdona38 and the babblings (bgale) of Isaiah of Tahal,39 and we did to the blasphemies (guddape) of that Apamean [i.e. John of Apamea] and of Joseph [Hazzaya] and of John of Dalyatha (d-dalyateh). 40 This text clarifies what was meant by Iso'dnah of Basra when he said that John of Dalyatha's writings "were rejected by the Catholicos Timothy." Evidently, this rejection had to do with John's failure to obtain Timothy's "imprimatur" a prerogative that Timothy as head of the Church of the East claimed forcefully to himself. The actual text of Timothy's condemnation, preserved only in an Arabic translation, adds further details about John of Dalyatha's "blasphemies": The Catholicos Timothy excommunicated (qatrasa = Syr. qatres)41 John known as Dalyateh, John the Apamean, and Joseph [Hazzaya] at a council of the fathers. When they assembled, he discussed with them the events of the time and the darkness enveloping it, [saying] that were it not for God's mercy, human beings would be punished the way they were punished in the days of the flood. He mentioned that some monks dress themselves in the

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity? habit of angels but drink from [the well of] the world and spread astonishing errors. One of them is John Dalyateh, for he has followed Sabellius and believed concerning the Son and the Spirit that they are powers

(quwa = Syr. hayle)

an

d not

hypostases (aqanim = Syr. qnome). [He believed also] that

the Word (al-kalima = Syr. mellta, i.e. the Logos) was called Son not because It is [begotten] of the Father but because the Father created all things through It, and that a created being can see its Creator.42

Three charges are brought up in this passage: (1) First, that John of Dalyatha believed that the Son and the Spirit are not hypostases but powers, in the spirit of the third-century theologian Sabellius, condemned for his controversial views on the Trinity; (2) Second, that the Word (the Logos) is called Son, not because It is begotten of the Father but because through It the Father created all things; (3) And finally, that a created being can see its Creator. The first two charges accuse John of Dalyatha of virtually denying the Trinity. If the Son and the Spirit are merely powers of the Father and not hypostases in their own right, and if, furthermore, the term "Son" is not to be understood literally, this means that John of Dalyatha effectively denied the Trinity. The third charge deals with the doctrine of the vision of God, discussed above. Robert Beulay pointed out that these three accusations are based on one of the homilies of John of Dalyatha, the still unpublished Homily 25, "On the Contemplation of the Holy Trinity" ('al teoriya da-tlitayuta qaddista). This, then, seems to be the problematic "book" (ktaba) mentioned by

Iso'dnah. The first two accusations find their exact correspondence in the following passage from this homily: Divine nature is called "the Father worshiped by all." The "Son" and the "Spirit" are powers (haylé = Gr. dynameis = Ar. quwa) [inhering] in It.43 See how the "Son" is named Word, while [in fact] it is the Father's knowledge that is named Word. [Hence the "Son" is the Father's knowledge. This is obvious from the fact that]44 the divine Paul called [the "Son"] the wisdom of the Father (cf. ICor 1:24) and also because it is through [the "Son"] that [the Father] made the worlds (cf. John 1:3, Col. 1:16, and the Nicean Creed), that is, through His knowledge. It is called "Son" (bra) because it is through it that everything was created (etbri) and is sustained 45

Though John of Dalyatha does not explicitly say that the Son and the Spirit are not hypostases (qnome), he does call them and refer to them as powers (hayle), and this could have suggested to Timothy that they are not hypostases in their own right. Furthermore, John does say that "Son" is only a name for God's knowledge through which everything was created. This is apparently a pun on the double meaning of the Syriac word bra, which can mean both "son" and "created."46 Later on in this homily, John argues that "Spirit" is merely a name for God's life.47 It is easy to see how these teachings would be scandalous in the eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities, since they implicitly denied the doctrine of the Trinity. In another passage from the same homily, the third subject treated in the condemnation is taken up. Since therefore, [the Son] is the Father's intelligence (hawneh)

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity?

and knowledge (Ida 'teh), and it is through His knowledge that the Father is seen and known [both] to Himself and to us all,48 what shall we say to those immersed in blindness who rave and say that the human nature taken from us [i.e. Christ's human nature] does not see the nature of Him who took it and united it to Himself [i.e. the divine nature]. No, let us leave these misguided and adhere to our subject, which is full of life. You have now understood that the Father's knowledge is called c

Son. 49

The logic of this passage is that since the Son is identical to God's knowledge and He is perfectly united to Christ's human nature, it follows that Christ's human nature has full access to God's knowledge. Now, since it is through this knowledge that the Father is seen and known, Christ's human nature must be able to see the Father.50 Importantly, this passage, which is anterior to the condemnation, points to an already existing controversy surrounding the question of the vision of God. John of Dalyatha addresses his opponents, who deny the possibility of a vision of God by humans, as "those immersed in blindness" ('ginay bsamyuta) - the subtext being that those who deny the possibility of a vision of God should appropriately be called blind. Who could these "spiritually blind" opponents possibly be? It is likely that these are the same forces within the Church of the East that later condemned John of Dalyatha's writings at the council convened by the Catholicos Timothy in 170AH/786-87; it is, in fact, quite likely that John is referring to the Catholicos Timothy himself in reference to the latter's Christological views. The implication of this last assumption would be that John of Dalyatha was still alive when Timothy became Catholicos and began

imposing his Christological views on clergy, monks, and laymen in what can be called his anti-messalian campaign (on which see Section 4 below). This would mean that John of Dalyatha's Homily 25, which implicitly criticizes Timothy's views, was written between 780, the date of Timothy's ordination to catholicosate, and 786, the date of the condemnation, when Homily 25 was already used by the council that condemned John of Dalyatha. Indeed, as I shall argue below, this homily is best understood as John of Dalyatha's bold response to the beginning of Timothy's anti-messalian campaign. Be it as it may, John of Dalyatha's opponents must have argued, in line with the official Christology of the Church of the East, that Christ's two natures, the divine and the human, are clearly distinct and do not share each other's properties. (As is well known, this position is unique to the Church of the East and distinguishes it from other Christian groups.) This clear-cut distinction between the divine and the human implied that the human nature of Christ could not have access to any kind of divine knowledge or divine vision.51 This is why the possibility of a vision of God, even by Christ's human nature, was denied. Since vision of God was denied with regard to Christ's human nature, it was denied also with regard to the human nature of an ordinary human being, no matter how advanced this human being might have been on the spiritual path. This conflicted with the claims of the Evagrianizing mystics such as John of Dalyatha. This ideological conflict is at the heart of John of Dalyatha's condemnation by the council of the Church of the East. In order to prove that Christ's humanity could see Christ's divinity (and hence that a mystic could see God) John of Dalyatha resorts to an identification of the Son with the Father's knowledge (and of the Spirit with the Father's life). Despite the fact that Timothy himself uses this, quite popular identification

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity?

in some of his writings,52 he nevertheless did not hesitate, on account of that, to accuse John of Dalyatha of Sabellianism, as we have seen. It is worth noting that this quasi-Sabellian line of thought proved to be extremely influential in later Christian Arabic theology. Arab Christians often presented the hypostases of the Trinity as "attributes" of the single divine essence (existence, knowledge, and life were a typical triad that they used). This approach was useful, since it was more immune than traditional Trinitarian theology to Muslim criticisms of the Trinity as tritheism: once the hypostases had been redefined as attributes, Christian Arab theologians could always appeal to the fact that the Muslims themselves acknowledged the attributes of God.53

4. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF JOHN OF DALYATHA'S CONDEMNATION 4.1. Timothy'sAnti-Messalian

Campaign

Apart from doctrinal considerations, there is also an important social and political dimension to John of Dalyatha's condemnation. His condemnation was part and parcel of Timothy's struggle against "messalianism" in the early years of his catholicosate. Messalianism (from the Syriac word msallyane, "those who pray") was, originally, an amorphous fourth- and fifthcentury charismatic tendency in Syriac asceticism that put emphasis on prayer and immediate access to the divine and was accused of denying the Church hierarchy and the efficacy of the sacraments.54 What is significant for our purposes is that the messalians allegedly believed that after being liberated from the passions by the power of prayer they could see the Trinity with their own eyes. This allegation is brought up in Theodoret's Ecclesiastical

History, written in the 440s,55 and in Timothy of Constantinople's seventh-century tract On the Reception of Heretics [back to the Church]. Significantly, Timothy of Constantinople also indicates that the messalians believed that "the three hypostases of the Trinity are resolved and transformed (analyontai kai metaballontai) into a single hypostasis ... to become mixed with souls worthy of It."56 This bears close resemblance to the accusations leveled against John of Dalyatha. There is no doubt, however, that John of Dalyatha was unconnected to historical messalianism - an amorphous phenomenon itself - just as he was unconnected to historical third-century Sabellianism. Messalianism was little more than a convenient label used by Church authorities against their unruly ideological opponents, particularly those coming from monastic circles. So we need to inquire into what was understood by "messalianism" in the eighth-century Church of the East. Accusations of "messalianism" were frequent in the Church of the East.57 It is significant, for instance, that Apnlmäran, the founder of the monastery of Rabban Apnlmäran, which John of Dalyatha frequented in his youth, had been accused of messalianism and expelled from his home monastery of Beth-'Äbe, "out of envy," around the year 660.58 The same may have happened to Apnlmäran's disciple Jacob the Visionary, originally also a monk at Beth'Äbe.59 Significantly, together with Apnlmäran himself, Jacob the Visionary was a teacher of the Blessed Stephen, who was the mentor of John of Dalyatha at the monastery of Mär Yüzädaq. This shows that John of Dalyatha was possibly associated with these, allegedly messalian circles. The monastery of Mär Yüzädaq itself seems to have been a center of alleged "messalianism." We hear, for example, that a certain Nestorius, who was a priest and monk

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at Mär Yüzädaq and, importantly, a biographer of another condemned mystic Joseph Hazzäyä (this we know from Isö'dnah), had to recant his "messalian" views before he could be appointed by Timothy as bishop of Beth-Nühadrä.60 His letter of recantation, addressed to the council of the Church of the East in 174AH/790-91, four years after John of Dalyatha's condemnation, is an important testimony to what messalianism must have meant at that period.61 The most important doctrine, rejected in this letter as messalian, is "their impious teaching that the divinity of the Only-Begotten [Son] is seen by His humanity" (l-alähüteh d-Thidäyä d-methze men (')näsüteh ... ämrin wa-mgaddpin) precisely the doctrine that we have seen John of Dalyatha endorse and preach in his writings. Though there are several historical documents about Timothy's anti-messalian campaign, modern scholars have not been entirely successful in charting the sequence of events and assigning the documents to specific stages in the development of the controversy. On this subject, the following can be said. Already in his Letter 50, addressed to Aprem the bishop of Beth-Läpät (Gondesäpür) in 'Eläm (Khüzistän) and written probably in 782, two years after his election to catholicosate, Timothy condemns messalianism in the following words: Every person, whether bishop, monk, or layman, who is charged with the heresy of

messalianism (msallyänütä) or any other heresy, may not, according to our Lord's word, serve in [the Church according to] his rank, participate in church [services], or partake of the Sacraments, before anathematizing this evil teaching in writing before the universal Church. 62

This ruling must have been enforced immediately. In order to consolidate the Church, Timothy must have delivered a warning to all those suspected of messalianism, including, presumably, John of Dalyatha, who, as I have argued above, was probably still alive. Instead of complying and recanting his views, however - the way we have seen Nestorius of Nuhadra do only a few years later, in 790 - John of Dalyatha wrote the already mentioned Homily 25 which, I suggest, should be read as a defiant statement of, and an apology for, his own views and an implicit attack on the views of the Catholicos. This must have outraged Timothy, and so, four years later, in 170AH/786-87, he convened a council which condemned John of Dalyatha, Joseph Hazzaya, and John of Apamea and banned their writings. In John of Dalyatha's case, as pointed out by Beulay, the condemnation was specifically based on his Homily 25. 4.2. The Muslim Context It is important to keep in mind that the eighth century was a crucial moment in the history of Middle-Eastern Christianity, as it was reacting, and adapting, to the new political and social reality in the aftermath of the Muslim conquests.63 It was equally crucial for the nascent Islamic community, still a minority in the Middle East, which was absorbing elements from indigenous cultures and religions (Christianity included) and defining its own identity in relation to them. Most importantly, at that period, the two communities - the Christian (split into various denominations) and the Islamic were engaged in complex social and intellectual interaction, and developments within either of them easily affected the other. Timothy was a prominent and influential player in this interaction. He was the Catholicos of the Church of the East who transferred the patriarchal see from Seleucia-

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Ctesiphon, the former Sasanian capital, to the newly founded 'Abbasid capital Baghdad, to be closer to the court. He famously debated with the caliph al-Mahd! (r. 775-785) about the Christian religion,64 and was commissioned by the same caliph to translate Aristotle's Topics from Syriac into Arabic, which he accomplished with the help of the translator Abu Nuh al-Anbari, a Christian secretary of the governor of Mosul.65 In all this, he strove to strengthen the status of the Church of the East both internally and in relation to the Muslim rulers, whose support, as he well understood, was crucial to its prosperity and indeed its very survival.66 With all this in mind, let us consider again the phrase at the beginning of John of Dalyatha's condemnation already cited above: When [the fathers of the council] assembled, [Timothy] discussed with them the events of the time and the darkness enveloping it, [saying] that were it not for God's mercy, human beings would be punished the way they were punished in the days of the flood. 67

The mention of a second flood strikes an eschatological note. It is well known that eschatological expectations were running high among Christians (and others) in that time period. In addition, the Muslim conquests were widely seen by Christians as a divine punishment for their sins.68 The beginning of the 'Abbasid reign - a Muslim dynasty that came to power in 750, during John of Dalyatha's and Timothy's lifetime was also the period when conversion to Islam was rapidly increasing.69 In addition, WestSyriac Christians, the "Jacobites," were increasing their influence in Iraq, now that they were no longer discriminated against by the new rulers, the Muslims, as had been the case under the Sasanians.70 It is reasonable to assume that all these concerns were on Timothy's mind when he

complained to the fathers of the council about the "events of the time and the darkness enveloping it." He must have regarded "messalianism" as a dangerous phenomenon in this delicate situation. There are several reasons for this. First, the messalian doctrine that Christ's humanity could see the very nature of His divinity (and, by implication, that human beings could see the nature of God) presupposed a "merging" of the divine and the human in Christ. It was therefore vulnerable - as the "Jacobite" and the "Melkite" Christologies also were - to the Muslim criticism that Christians deified a human being - Jesus - and were thus guilty of idolatry (sirk). The "official" Christology of the Church of the East which, by contrast, drew a sharp distinction between the divine and the human in Christ was more immune to such criticism. It allowed its proponents to argue that the man Jesus was simply conjoined to the eternal Word, but was not identical to It. The messalian doctrine of the vision of the nature of God by humans interfered with Timothy's apologetic attempts to demonstrate to the Muslim rulers that his, "Nestorian" version of Christianity could be presented in terms acceptable to Muslims,71 and moreover that his was the only version of Christianity which could be so presented and which therefore was the only one worthy of the Muslims' support. Second, from Timothy's standpoint, John of Dalyatha's supposed denial of the Trinity, rejection of the official Christology of the Church of the East, and disdain for Church hierarchy was only one step away from apostasy. He must have feared that it could inspire like-minded Christians to take this step and apostatize, in this difficult period when social pressure to convert to Islam was increasing. This perceived subversive aspect of John of Dalyatha's teachings in a situation of mounting social pressure was probably one of the factors behind his condemnation.

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Third, since in these challenging circumstances, Timothy's ultimate goal was to consolidate the Church of the East in order to ensure its prosperity and survival, he could not but treat with suspicion any kind of spirituality that seemed to downplay or bypass the Church. This is another reason for his relentless attempts to suppress "messalianism" and to strengthen the ecclesiastical discipline - a process of which the condemnation of John of Dalyatha's and his fellow-mystics' Evagrianizing spirituality formed an integral part. On a final note, if we assume that some of the followers of John of Dalyatha's "messalian" doctrines did in fact, at this time or later, apostatize and convert to Islam, as Timothy feared, or at the very least had contacts with early Muslim ascetics (zuhhad), this could explain some correspondences between Syriac Christian mysticism and Islamic mysticism (Sufism), such as the correlation pointed out in Section 2 above between John of Dalyatha's ideas on the vision of God and the Sufi doctrine of "obliteration" (fana'). The continuities between East-Syriac monastic "messalianism" on the one hand and early Islamic asceticism and Sufism on the other need to be investigated further, both for their possible importance for the social history of the region, and as a hitherto unexplored channel of transmission of Late Antique ideas into early Islam.72

APPENDIX: JOHN OF DALYATHA'S WORKS: EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS Three works of John of Dalyatha have survived: (1) a collection of Letters; (2) a collection of Homilies', and (3) Chapters on Spiritual Knowledge. The Letters of John of Dalyatha have been published by the late Fr Robert Beulay with a detailed introduction and a facing French translation: La collection des Lettres de Jean de Dalyatha (PO, vol. 39, fasc. 3),

Turnhout, 1978. There is an English translation, published with a facing Syriac text, reprinted from Beulay's edition: The Letters of John of Dalyatha, tr. Mary T. Hansbury, Piscataway, NJ, 2006. For an Italian translation of prayer sections excerpted from the Letters see Giovanni di Dalyatha, Mostrami la tua bellezza: preghiere e lodi dalle Lettere, tr. Sabino Chialà, Magnano, 1996. There is also a modern Arabic translation of the Letters: alSayk al-Rùhànï Yùhannà al-Dalyàtï, Majmû'at al-rasâ'il al-rûhîya, tr. Salïm Dakkàs (Daccache), Beirut, 1992. John of Dalyatha's Homilies 1-15 have been edited and translated into French: Jean de Dalyatha, Les homélies I-XV, ed. and tr. Nadira Khayyat, Antélias, 2007 (I thank Mary Hansbury for referring me to this work). A French translation of Homily 25 appeared, without edition, in R. Beulay, L'enseignement spirituel de Jean de Dalyatha, mystique syro-oriental du Vllf siècle, Paris, 1990, pp. 511-514. A critical edition and an English translation of the Homilies are contained in B.E. Colless, The Mysticism of John Saba, 2 vols., Ph.D. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1969 (not seen). There is also a complete modern Arabic translation of the Homilies: al-Sayk al-Rùhànï Yùhannà al-Dalyàtï, Majmû 'at al-mayâmir al-rûhîya, tr. Salïm Dakkàs (Daccache), (Beirut, 2002). John of Dalyatha's Chapters on Spiritual Knowledge remain unpublished and untranslated into Western languages (an edition is being planned by Nadira Khayyat). For some information on this work consult R. Beulay, "Des centuries de Joseph Hazzàyà retrouvées?," ParOr 3 (1972) 5-44. On the medieval Arabic translation of John of Dalyatha's works, produced before the thirteenth century by deacon Yùhannà and priest Ibràhïm,73 see Beulay's introduction to La collection des Lettres de Jean de Dalyatha, pp. 275-277 [23-25], 286-287 [34-

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35]; Georg Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, 5 vols., Vatican, 19441953, vol. 1, pp. 434-436; Michel Nakad, La version arabe des lettres de Jean de Dalyatha: introduction, traduction, notes, comparaison avec le texte syriaque, Thèse pour le doctorat de 3e Cycle (Philosophie), Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2 vols., 1980; Tâdurus al-Suryânï and Maksïmûs alSuryânï (eds.), Kitâb Ta 'älim al-Ab Yühannä al-Dalyâtî al-ma 'rüf b-ism al-Sayk al-Rûhânî, 'an al-maktütät 163, 184 nuskiyät bimaktabat Dayr al-Qiddisa al- Adrâ ' Maryam (al-Suryân), Wâdï al-Natrûn, Egypt: Dayr alSuryân, 1998 [ISBN 977-19-6774-6],74 A medieval Ethiopie version of John of Dalyatha's works, entitled Arägawi mänfäsawi (the "Spiritual Elder") was

produced from the Arabic in the sixteenth century. The Egyptian metropolitan Marqos I (d. 1530) contributed to that translation, together with an Ethiopian monk of Yemeni origin named 'Enbaqom (i.e. Habakkuk). The text is extant in a great number of manuscripts and was edited in Addis Abeba in 1982AM/1991-92 under the title Masahafid manakosat: Sostanna mashaf: Aragawi manfasawi [The Books of the Monks: Book Three: The Spiritual Elder] (not seen).75 For a comprehensive bibliography on John of Dalyatha and on Syriac mysticism in general consult, in addition to the studies cited above, G. Kessel and K. Pinggera, Bibliography of Syriac Ascetic and Mystical Literature, Peeters (forthcoming).

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NOTES * Earlier versions of this paper were presented on three separate occasions: at Princeton University (February 7, 2008), at the Seventh Symposium of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies in Toronto (April 5, 2008), and at the University of Texas at Austin (April 29, 2009). I thank the organizers of these events, Professors Andrâs Hâmori, Amir Harrak, and Glenn Peers and Na'ama Pat-El, for inviting me to Princeton, Toronto, and UT Austin and the participants of these events for their helpful suggestions. I am also deeply grateful to Samuel Noble, Kevin van Bladel, Nikolai Seleznyov, and Grigory Kessel, who read earlier drafts of this paper, for insightful comments and several important references. 1

In the estimation of the Syriac scholar and Orthodox monk Serafim Seppälä, John of Dalyatha is "the most original and most poetically talented author" in Syriac mystical literature and one of "the greatest Christian mystics of all time;" S. Seppälä, In Speechless Ecstasy: Expression and Interpretation of Mystical Experience in Classical Syriac and Süß Literature (Helsinki, 2003), 16-17. 2 The dating is based on Isö'dnah of Basra's reference to the condemnation of Joseph Hazzäyä, another East-Syriac mystic who was anathematized at the same council with John of Dalyatha (see n. 3 below). Though the date of the condemnation has been debated, 170AH, corresponding to 786-87, seems to be the correct date. See B.E. Colless, "The Biographies of John Saba," ParOr 3 (1972) 45-63, at p. 52. 3 On Joseph Hazzäyä see R. Beulay, "Joseph Hazzäyä," in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 8, col. 1341-1349; R. Beulay, "Des centuries de Joseph Hazzäyä retrouvées?," ParOr 3 (1972) 544; E.J. Sherry, "The Life and Works of Joseph Hazzäyä," in: W.S. McCullough (ed.), The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Honour of T.J. Meek (Toronto, 1964), 78-91; A. Guillaumont, "Sources de la doctrine de Joseph Hazzäyä," OrSyr 3.1 (1958) 324; G. Bunge, Rabban Jausep Hazzäyä: Briefe über das geistliche Leben und verwandte Schriften: Ostsyrische Mystik des 8. Jahrhunderts (Trier, 1982); T. Olickal, The Three Stages of Spiritual Realization according to Joseph Hazzäyä (Changanassery, India, 2000).

It is unclear who of the several writers known as John of Apamea is intended in the condemnation. On the identity of the various Johns of Apamea see R. Lavenant, "Le problème de Jean d'Apamée," OCP 46 (1980) 367-390 and a recent summary in S.P. Brock, "A Syriac Intermediary for the Arabie Theology of Aristotle? In Search of a Chimera," in C. D'Ancona (ed.), The Libraries of the Neoplatonists (Leiden and Boston, 2007), 293-306, at pp. 294-296. 5 Though Isô' bar Nun's polemical writings against his predecessor Timothy are lost, we do know that his opposition to Timothy was concerned, among other things, with Christological issues. See O. Braun, "Zwei Synoden des Katholikos Timotheos I.," OrChr 2 (1902) 283-311, at pp. 286-287; R. Beulay, "Jean de Dalyatha et sa Lettre XV," ParOr 2 (1971) 261-279, at p. 266nl3; R. Beulay, R. Beulay, "Précisions touchant l'identité et la biographie de Jean Saba de Dalyatha," ParOr 8 (1977/78) 87116, at pp. 115f. On Isô' bar Nun as an exegete see E.G. Clarke, The Selected Questions of Tshô' bar Nun on the Pentateuch: Edited and Translated from Ms. Cambridge Add. 2017, with a Study of the Relationship of Tshô 'dâdh of Merv, Theodore bar Kônï and Tshô ' bar Nun on Genesis (Leiden, 1962). 6 This is indicated by the fact that virtually no East-Syriac manuscripts of John of Dalyatha's works survive, and they are preserved exclusively in manuscripts produced by other ecclesiastical communities (who, presumably, were also responsible for the Arabic translation of his works). For a description of the manuscripts of John of Dalyatha's Letters see R. Beulay's introduction to La collection des Lettres de Jean de Dalyatha, PO 39, fasc. 3 (Turnhout, 1978), 264 [ 12J-282 [30], 7 Our main source for John of Dalyatha's biography is ïsô'dnah of Basra's Book of Chastity (Ktâbâ d-Nakpùta), a ninth-century collection of biographies of monastic figures, mostly founders of monasteries in the late Sasanian and early Arab periods - ed. and tr. J.-B. Chabot, "Livre de la Chasteté, composé par Jésusdenah, Evêque de Baçrah," Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire ecclesiastiques, 16 (1896) 1-79, 225-291; ed. P. Bedjan, Liber Superiorum, seu Historia Monastica, auctore Thoma, episcopo Margensi (Paris and Leipzig, 1901), 437-517; for John of Dalyatha see

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biographical entry No. 126. Another source is a brief "Biographical Note" on John of Dalyatha preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript from Mardin; Syriac text and Latin tr. published by I. Rahmani, in: Studia Syriaca (Charfé, 1904), 34 [Syriac section], 33-34 [Latin tr.]; the Latin translation is reproduced in Colless, "Biographies," 49-50; cf. Beulay, "Précisions," 103ff. 8 On this village, now known as al-Kawâsâ (an identification based on Yâqût's geographical dictionary Mu'jam al-Buldân), see Beulay, "Précisions," 104. On the region of Bëth-Nûhadrâ see J.-M. Fiey, Assyrie chrétienne: Contribution à l'étude de l'histoire et de la géographie ecclésiastiques et monastiques du nord de l'Iraq, vol. 2 (Beirut, 1965). The center of the region is the city of Nûhadrâ (Arabic: Dahûk; usually transliterated as Dohuk). 9 Beulay, "Précisions," 105nl5. On the typology of Syriac schools see Adam H. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (Philadelphia, 2006), 155-168, esp. 163-166 on village schools; N. Pigulevskaja, "Sirijskaja srednevekovaja shkola" Palestinskij sbornik, 15 (78) (1966) 130140; M. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984), 359-361. 10 On Apnïmâran see Isô'dnah, Book of Chastity, No. 93; Thomas of Marga, Liber Superiorum, II.3, ed. Bedjan (Paris, 1901), 60-61; Beulay, "Lettre XV," 269; Beulay, "Précisions," 106. Beulay notes that Apnïmâran had been accused of messalianism and chased out of his original monastery, but Mâranzkhâ, Apnïmâran's disciple and collaborator, still lived in this monastery at the time of John of Dalyatha's visits (until ca. 741). 11 On the founder of this monastery see Isô'dnah, Book of Chastity, No. 90. The name Yûzâdaq is the Biblical Jozadak/Jehozadak (Ezra 3:8, 1 Chr. 6:14). On this monastery see references in Beulay, "Précisions," 107n23. Mâr Yûzâdaq settled at Qardû in the days of the patriarch Isô'ya(h)b II (628-645). 12 This is the mountainous area south of Lake Van in present-day Turkey, west of Lake Urmia, where, according to the Syriac translation of the Bible, Noah's ark landed after the flood (Gen. 8:4 Peshitta, as opposed to Ararat in the Hebrew and the Septuagint).

13

Beulay suggests that Stephen could have been the third successor of Mâr Yûzâdaq as head of the monastery, after Yûzâdaq's disciple Isö'sabran and his successor Sem'ön; "Précisions," 107f., 14 On Jacob the Visionary (hazzäyä) see Thomas of Marga, Book of Governors, II.2, ed. Bedjan, 58-60, who mentions that Jacob had visions and premonitions of distant and future events, on account of which he was called hazzäyä. 15 The precise location is unknown, but Beulay ("Précisions," 111) suggests that these are high mountains to the northeast from Qardû. 16 See Appendix below for bibliographical information on these works. 17 The name of the village is given as Argûl in Isô'dnah and as Raggûl (with an additional village, named Nassür) in the "Biographical Note." The "Biographical Note" also mentions that this monastery originally belonged to a certain monk named Jacob. Beulay ("Précisions," 112) indicates that he was unable to find information about this Jacob or about the location of the monastery. 18 S. Brock, "The Imagery of the Spiritual Mirror in Syriac Literature," Journal of the CSSS 5 (2005) 3-17, at p. 14b (citing John of Dalyatha's Letter 14, §2); cf. 17b, n. 34, where Brock notes that in another letter (Letter 39, §1) "John does much the same, though there he adds, rather than substitutes, 'in their hearts'." 19 Evagrius' writings were translated into Syriac in the fifth and sixth centuries and became immensely popular in Syriac monastic circles. As is well known, Evagrius was later (at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553) condemned in Byzantium as a follower of Origen; this is why many of his writings were lost in Greek and survive today only in these Syriac translations. I. Ramelli, "Note per un'indagine della mistica siroorientale dell'VIII secolo: Giovanni di Dalyatha e la tradizione origeniana," Ilu: Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones 12 (2007) 147-179 stresses John of Dalyatha's debt to Evagrius and the Origenian tradition. 20

This scheme - praktikë and gnôstikë, or (according to the opening sentence of the Praktikos, "Christianity is the doctrine of our Saviour Christ, composed of the practical, the natural, and the theological") praktikë, physikë,

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and theologikë - was adapted, with some modifications, by virtually all the Syriac spiritual writers. See R. Beulay, L'enseignement spirituel de Jean de Dalyatha, mystique syro-oriental du Vllf siècle (Paris, 1990), Introduction, pp. 33ff. 21 John of Dalyatha, Letter 2, §6 (ed. Beulay, 310, 312; Hansbury, 15). Ail translations from the Syriac and Arabie are my own. 22 John of Dalyatha, Homily 8 ("On Contemplation"), §4, ed. and French tr. Nadira Khayyat (Antélias, 2007), 202-203. R. Beulay, La lumière sans forme: Introduction à l'étude de la mystique chrétienne syro-orientale (Chevetogne, 1987), 169 says the following about this passage: "C'est là un texte typique de Jean de Dalyatha, dans lequel se combinent heureusement les influences d'Évagre, de Grégoire de Nysse et de Denys, dans un lyrisme dont l'enthousiasme évoque Macaire." 23 J.-M. Hornus, "Le corpus dionysien en syriaque," ParOr 1 (1970) 69-93 (includes, on pp. 85-93, the Syriac text of The Mystical Theology, ch. 1 in the two versions by Sergius of Rës'aynâ and by Phocas); W. Strothmann, Das Sakrament der Myron- Weihe in der Schrift "De ecclesiastica hierarchia " des Pseudo-Dionysios Areopagita in syrischen Ubersetzungen und Kommentaren, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1977-1978), (includes the Syriac text of The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, ch. 4); P. Sherwood, "Sergius of Reshaina and the Syriac Versions of the Pseudo-Denis," Sacris Erudiri 4 (1952) 174-184; G. Wiessner, "Zur Handschriftenüberlieferung der syrischen Fassung des Corpus Dionysiacum," Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen (1972), 165-216; M. Quaschning-Kirsch, "Die Frage der Benennbarkeit Gottes in den syrischen Versionen des Corpus Dionysiacum Areopagiticum," in: R. Lavenant (ed.), Symposium Syriacum VII, OCA 256 (Rome, 1998), 117-126; M. Quaschning-Kirsch, "Ein weiterer Textzeuge für die syrische Version des Corpus Dionysiacum Areopagiticum: Paris B.N. Syr. 378," Muséon 113.1-2 (2000) 115-124; I. Perczel, "Sergius of Reshaina's Syriac Translation of the Dionysian Corpus: Some Preliminary Remarks," in C. Baffioni (ed.), La diffusione dell'eredità classica nell 'età tardo-antica e medieval: Filologia, storia, dottrina (Alessandria, 2000), 79-94. 24

R. Beulay, "Quelques axes de l'enseignement de Denys l'Aréopagite chez les mystiques

syro-orientaux et leur continuité possible en mystique musulmane," in Les Syriaques transmetteurs de civilisations: L'expérience du Bilâd el-Shâm à l'époche Omeyyade (Antélias, 2005), 97-106; Beulay, Lumière sans forme, 158183. 25 Cf. Is. 65:17 and parallels, 2 Peter 3:13, Apoc. 21:1. 26 John of Dalyatha, Letter 15, §2 (ed. Beulay, 346; Hansbury, 73). 27 In the Syriac version of the relevant verse in Exodus (Ex. 34:35) the same verb for shining ezdahhï - is used as in John of Dalyatha's passage. There is a beautiful homily by Jacob of Serugh, entitled On Moses' Veil, that offers a symbolic commentary on this episode. For an English translation of this homily see S. Brock, "Jacob of Serugh on the Veil of Moses," Sob 3.1 (1981) 70-85. 28 Isô'dnah of Basra, Book of Chastity, No. 126, ed. Chabot, 67:4-7 (reading hâzyâ for hâdyâ). 29 Mary Hansbury in her introduction to St. Isaac of Nineveh, On Ascetical Life (Crestwood, NY, 1989), 11-12 connects this to Isaac's belief in the "primacy of mercy" and his quasi-Origenist insistence on "the final salvation for all creation." 30 The term gawwâyë is differently understood. Chabot translates: "les gens de la Mésopotamie (littéralement: les gens de l'intérieur)"; however, Brock translates it as: "people inside the monastery" (S. Brock, A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature (Baker Hill, Kottayam, 1997), p. 261. I hereby adopt Brock's translation. 31 Isô'dnah of Basra, Book of Chastity, No. 124, ed. Chabot, 64:4-12. "Envy" seems to be a code word for accusations of messalianism, on which more below - see Beulay, "Lettre XV," 269 andn. 16; Beulay, "Précisions," 108; and Colless, "Biographies," 51 and 54 with several references. 32 Ilïyâ bar Sennâyâ, Kitâb al-Majâlis, majlis 1, ed. and French tr. S.Kh. Samir, "Entretien d'Elie de Nisibe avec le vizir Ibn 'Alï al-Magribï, sur l'unité et la trinité," Islamochristiana 5 (1979) 31-117, at pp. 114-115 (I am very grateful to David Bertaina for referring me to Samir's edition of the text and to Lev Weitz and Jack Tannous for sending me a copy of Cheikho's older edition of the Kitâb al-Majâlis, which however, as it turned out, does not include this passage); the passage is also included in the French translation by E.K.

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Delly, La théologie d'Êlie bar-Sénaya (Rome, 1957), 77-78, cited by Beulay, "Précisions," 90nl7 and H. Putman, L'église et l'islam sous Timothée I (780-823): Etude sur l'église nestorienne au temps des premiers Abbasides avec nouvelle édition et traduction du dialogue entre Timothée et al-Mahdi (Beirut, 1975), 49. 33 I disagree with Samir's vocalization and paragraph division of this passage. In my view, the correct reading is wa-harama jamï'uhum wala 'anü man kâna ya 'taqidu (jamï'uhum being the subject, and man kâna ya 'taqidu the object of both verbs). 34 Depending on whether the reading is estaddrat or estarrerat. 35 M. Tamcke, Der Katholikos-Patriarch Sabrïsô' I. (596-604) und das Mönchtum (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1988). 36 On Hnänä, the controversial head of the School of Nisibis, see Tamcke, KatholikosPatriarch Sabrïsô', 31-39; G.G. Blum, "Nestorianismus und Mystik: Zur Entwicklung christlich-orientalischer Spiritualität in der ostsyrischen Kirche," ZKG 93 (1982) 273-294, at pp. 277-278. 37 J.-M. Fiey, "Isö'yaw le Grand: Vie du catholicos nestorien Isö'yaw n i d'Adiabène (580659)," OCP 35 (1969), 305-333; 36 (1970), pp. 5-46. 38 A. de Halleux, "Martyrius-Sahdona: La vie mouvementée d'un 'hérétique' de l'Église nestorienne," OCP 24 (1958), 93-128. 39 Isaiah of Tahal was a follower of Hnänä of Adiabene, accused of Origenist and Chalcedonian leanings. 40 Syriac text and Latin translation of the letter in J.S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana (Rome, 1719-1728), vol. III. 1, 81b-82b. The passage is cited by Colless, "Biographies," 52. 41 The verb literally means taking down, deposition (from the Greek kathairesis), especially of a bishop. 42 Arabic text and Latin tr. in Assemani, BibOr, vol. III.l, 100-101, from Vat. ar. 36, vol. 2, 507; cf. French tr. in Beulay, Lumière sans forme, 229. 43 I took the liberty to put the words "Son" and "Spirit" in inverted commas, because this better brings out the sense of the passage. 44 I have supplied the bracketed section, which, in my view, is implied by John of Dalyatha

and is necessary for an understanding of his argument. 45 John of Dalyatha, Homily 25 ("On Contemplation of the Holy Trinity"), Vat. syr. 124, fol. 332v. Since the homily is still unpublished, I provide the Syriac text: rî'izDO .rwoArî' rdlir^ ri'àAso iVirA rdi^-siV

rdioArî'o

rcîïàLA Jl^

.rî'àvlio

mm J^jïo rî'izj

^^ \cr> rduri' w r i ' à ^ .cn=:\ rdliM rduoio

r^rC*:! OJOT

OOZDO As Beulay notes ("Précisions," 100n53), this homily is omitted in most manuscripts, as the copyist must have been aware that it was the object of the condemnation. My translation differs on certain points from Beulay's (L'enseignement spirituel, 512): "Par le Père adoré de tout on désigne la Nature divine; et le Fils et l'Esprit sont les Puissances qui sont en elle [in Beulay, mistakenly, "en elles"]. Vois comment le Verbe est appelé le Fils, étant (aussi) appelé Connaissance du Père. Le divin Paul, en effet, L'a dit être la Sagesse du Père, ajoutant que c'est par Lui qu'il a fait les mondes, c'est-à-dire par sa Connaissance. Il est donc nommé "Fils" parce que par Lui tout a été créé et que par Lui tout subsiste." 46

Beulay, L'enseignement spirituel, 416nl74. Beulay's translation, L'enseignement spirituel, 513: "Comme nous l'avons dit, on appelle 'Esprit' la Vie de la Nature glorieuse, parce que tout vivant vit par son esprit." 48 Here I propose a slight emendation, reading hzë w-ïdï' ("is seen and known") for hâzë w-yâda ' ("sees and knows") in the manuscript (see n. 50 below, where I argue in favor of this emendation). Beulay's translation of this passage (L'enseignement spirituel, 512) follows the manuscript: "... c'est par sa Connaissance que le Père se voit et se connaît Lui-même, et (voit et connaît) toutes choses." 49 John of Dalyatha, Homily 25 ("On Contemplation of the Holy Trinity"), Vat. syr. 124, fol. 332v-333r (the asterisk marks the proposed emendation): rears' .»moors' n^r^l C71AOOOO r&o 47

I

^Aoo Ai-TOrCÎlrcico ^-Ao oA OOO *i.liO

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity? 53

mnflii^ oc7Di\ ooxujo

50

This is why in the text I proposed to read the participles in the passive: hze w-idi' rather than haze w-yada'. The emendation is absolutely necessary, because only in this case the desired conclusion will follow from the premises. The following passage (Vat. syr. 124, fol. 333b) also confirms the proposed reading: "No one sees the Father if he has no Son in him, since the Father cannot be seen except through His knowledge [i.e. the Son]" (la haze (')nas l-aba en bra layt leh beh mettol d-la methze aba ella en b-Tda 'teh). 51 N. Seleznyov, Khristologija assirijskoj Tserkvi Vostoka [The Christology of the Assyrian Church of the East] (Moscow, 2002). 52 For instance, in his dialogue with the Caliph al-Mahdl §§45ff. (Arabic text ed. Putman, L'Eglise et I'islam, 13-14 [Arabic section]; French tr. ibid., 223-224 [French section]; Russian tr. N. Seleznyov under the editorship of D. Morozev, Bogoslovskie sobesedovanija mezhdu Katolikosom Tserkvi Vostoka Mar Timateosom I (727-823) i khalifom al-Makhdi, povelitelem pravovernykh [Theological Disputations between the Catholicos of the Church of the East Timothy I and the Caliph al-Mahdl, Commander of the Faithful] (Moscow, 2005), 11); cf. Beulay, L'enseignement spirituel, 418. Important background for this identification of the Son with knowledge and the Spirit with life is provided by Harry A. Wolfson, "The Muslim Attributes and the Christian Trinity," Harvard Theological Review 49 (1956) 1-18, who points out that the triad of attributes existence-knowledge-life, originating with Proclus, reappears in kalam treatises. Everett K. Rowson, A Muslim Philosopher on the Soul and Its Fate (New Haven, 1988), 227 argues that Dionysius may have influenced the identification of the Trinity with Proclus' triad. It is quite possible that such authors of the Church of the East as John of Dalyatha and especially Timothy, who had close contacts and even debates with the Muslims, provide a missing link in the chain connecting Proclus and Dionysius on the one hand and kalam treatises on the other. This subject deserves a careful and detailed study.

R. Haddad, La Trinité divine chez les théologiens arabes, 750-1050 (Paris, 1985); M.N. Swanson, "The Trinity in Christian-Muslim Conversation," Dialog 44.3 (2005) 256-263. 54 On messalianism see C. Stewart, "Working the Earth of the Heart": The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to A.D. 431 (Oxford: 1991); K. Fitschen, Messalianismus und Antimessalianismus: Ein Beispiel ostkirchlicher Ketzergeschichte (Göttingen, 1998); D. Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2002); Marcus Plested, The Macarian Legacy: The Place of MacariusSymeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford, 2004), 16-27 (Plested, p. 21n46, justifies the use of the term tendency rather than movement or sect). The earliest reference to the Messalians seems to be in Ephrem's (d. 373) Against the Heresies, Hymn 22, CSCO 169, p. 79: "And the Messalians who live in debauchery - good is he who leads them back to his fold" (cited in Plested, Macarian Legacy, 17). 55

Plested, Macarian Legacy, pp. 20-21 cites the following passage from Theodoret: "[Adelphius] said, 'In truth holy baptism procures no benefit in those to whom it is accorded; only assiduous prayer is able to expel the indwelling demon. For all who are born draw from the first father along with their nature a servitude to demons. When these demons are expelled by assiduous prayer, then the All-Holy Spirit visits and manifests his presence both sensibly and visibly, freeing the body from the movement of passions and entirely liberating the soul from inclination towards base things; being thus entirely loosed, the body no longer needs the coercion of fasting, nor the bridle of teaching [...]. [Such a one] sees future things clearly and sees the Divine Trinity with his own eyes.' (HE iv .11)." 56

PG, vol. 86.1, col. 48C-49A, cited in Plested, Macarian Legacy, 24; Fitschen, Messalianismus, 70-71. 57 A. Vööbus, "Les messaliens et les réformes de Barçauma de Nisibe dans l'église perse," Contributions of the Baltic University 34 (1947) 1-27; Tamcke, Katholikos-Patriarch Sabrïsô' I, 23-24; Blum, "Nestorianismus und Mystik," 276277; J. Martikainen, "Timotheos I. und der Messalianismus," in: J. Martikainen and H.-O. Kvist (eds.), Makarios-Symposium über das Gebet

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity?

(Abo, 1989), 47-60; P. Hagman, "Isaac of Niniveh and the Messalians," in M. Tamcke (ed.), Mystik Metapher - Bild: Beiträge des VII. MakariosSymposiums, Göttingen 2007 (Göttingen, 2008), 55-66 (I am grateful to Grigory Kessel for this reference); Beulay, "Lettre XV," 268; Morony, Iraq, 422-424. The Council of Mär HezqTl of the year 576 treats the problem of messalianism; see J.-B. Chabot (ed.), Synodicon Orientale ou Recueil de Synodes Nestoriens (Paris, 1902), 115116. 58 See n. 10 above. 59 Beulay, "Lettre XV," 268. 60 On Nestorius of Nühadrä see Beulay, Lumière sans forme, 217-223. Grigory Kessel kindly informs me that an important epistle of Nestorius of Nühadrä has recently been edited: V. Berti, "Grazia, visione e natura divina in Nestorio di Nuhadra, solitario e vescovo siro-orientale (f 800 ca.)," Annali di scienze religiose 10 (2005) 219-257 (I have not seen this work). 61 Syriac text of the letter and German tr. in O. Braun, "Zwei Synoden des Katholikos Timotheos I.," OrChr 2 (1902) 283-311, at pp. 302-311; Latin tr. of the relevant section in J. Labourt, De Timotheo I Nestorianorum Patriarcha (Paris, 1904), 22-23; French tr. in Beulay, L'enseignement spirituel, 426-427. 62 Timothy, Letter 50, Canon IV; Syriac text and German tr. in Braun, "Zwei Synoden," 294295. The letter is also published by Chabot in the Synodicon Orientale, 599-603 [Syriac text], 603608 [translation]; however, he mistakenly takes it to be the text of the proceedings of the council of the year 790. As Chabot rightly conjectures {ibid., p. 599), it was taken by the copyist of the Paris manuscript of the Synodicon Orientale from a collection of Timothy's letters. 63 S. Griffith, The Beginnings of Christian Theology in Arabic: Muslim-Christian Encounters in the Early Islamic Period (Aldershot, 2002); S. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, 2008). 64 For the original Syriac text and an English translation of the dialogue see A. Mingana, Woodbrooke Studies, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1928), 1162; the Syriac text is now available in a critical edition with a facing German translation: M. Heimgartner, Die Disputation des ostsyrischen Patriarchen Timotheos (780-823) mit dem Kalifen

al-Mahdi: Einleitung, Textedition, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen, Habilitationsschrift (HalleWittenberg, 2006); Arabic text and French tr. in Putman, L'église et l'islam; Russian tr. Seleznyov, Bogoslovskie sobesedovanija. 65 D. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, London, 1998, pp. 61-69; S. Brock, "Two Letters of the Patriarch Timothy from the Late Eighth Century on Translations from Greek," Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 9 (1999) 233-246. 66 Putman, L'église et l'islam, esp. pp. 127147 for Timothy's interactions with the 'Abbäsid caliphs; H. Suermann, "Der nestorianische Patriarch Timotheos I. und seine theologischen Briefe im Kontext des Islam," in: M. Tamcke and A. Heinz (eds.), Zu Geschichte, Theologie, Liturgie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen (Hamburg, 2000), 217-230. 67 See n. 42 above. 68 Griffith, Church, pp. 23-35; R. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, 1997). 69 R.W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge, MA, 1979); R.W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York, 1994). The sharp rise in conversion rate in the early 'Abbäsid period is reflected also in Syriac sources. The West-Syriac so-called Zuqnïn Chronicle, written ca. 775 in the region of Tür ' Abdïn, to the west from the area where John of Dalyatha lived, reports in a well-known passage: "The gates were open to them to (enter) Islam. ... Without blows or tortures they slipped towards apostasy in great precipitancy; they formed groups of ten or twenty or thirty or a hundred or two hundred or three hundred without any sort of compulsion ..., going down to Harrän and becoming Muslims in the presence of (government) officials. A great crowd did so ... from the districts of Edessa and of Harrän and of Telia and of Res'aynä" (cited in S. Griffith, Syriac Writers on Muslims and the Religious Challenge of Islam [Baker Hill, Kottayam, 1995], 6 and Griffith, Church, 35-36). 70

Writers of the Church of the East complained that after the Sasanian regime collapsed, Muslims no longer used discrimination between different Christian sects. This allowed Monophysites to flourish. See, for instance, Morony, Iraq, 346: "one of the things Yöhannan

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Could Christ's Humanity See his Divinity?

bar Penkayë [the friend and contemporary of the catholicos Hnanïsô' I (686-693)] complained most bitterly about was the way the new rulers allowed both Nestorians and 'heretics' (Monophysites) to survive the conquest. He particularly deplored the demoralizing consequences of undiscriminating toleration in the reign of Mu'âwiya, when 'there was no difference between pagan and Christian; the faithful was not distinct from a Jew'." 71 The eleventh-century theologian Ilïyâ bar Sennâyâ, already mentioned above, exploits "Nestorian" Christology for precisely this purpose. See his Kitâb al-Majâlis, majlis 1, ed. and French tr. Samir, "Entretien d'Élie de Nisibe," 108-115. Significantly, it is in this context that he refers to Timothy's condemnation of the messalians. 72 For some approaches to the complex subject of the connections between East-Syriac and Muslim mysticisms see: Seppâlâ, In Speechless Ecstasy, Beulay, "Quelques axes"; R. Beulay, "Formes de lumière et lumière sans forme: Le thème de la lumière dans la mystique de Jean de Dalyatha," in Mélanges A. Guillaumont = Cahiers d'Orientalisme 20 (1988), 131-141, at p. 133 (suggests some connection between John of Dalyatha and the Islamic dikr); R. Beulay, "De l'émerveillement à l'extase: Jean de Dalyatha et Abou Sa'id al-Kharraz," in Youakim Moubarac: Dossier dirigé par Jean Stassinet (Lausanne,

2005), 333-343; G. G. Blum, "Christlichorientalische Mystik und Sufismus: Zu Grundproblem ihres Kontaktes und ihrer gegenseitigen Beeinflussung," Ilf Symposium Syriacum, OCA 221 (Rome, 1983), 261-270; B.E. Colless, "The Place of Syrian Christian Mysticism in Religious History," Journal of Religious History 5.1 (1968) 1-15, at pp. 9ff. (Section III: "The influence of Syrian Mysticism"). 73 These are presumably the same translators who rendered from Syriac into Arabic Evagrius' Kephalaia Gnostica - see G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, 5 vols. (Vatican, 1944-1953), vol. 1, 398. 74 I have not seen the last two works, the latter among which is apparently an edition of the text, based on two manuscripts preserved at Dayr alSuryän in Egypt. 75 Graf, Geschichte, vol. 1, 436; L. Ricci, "Ethiopian Christian Literature," in: Coptic Encyclopaedia, vol. 3 (New York, 1991), 975979, esp. p. 977; E. Lucchesi, "Arägawi mänfäsawi," in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 1 (Wiesbaden, 2003), 309-310; E. van Donzel, " 'anbaqom," in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 2 (Wiesbaden, 2005), 280-282; M. Kamil, "Translations from Arabic in Ethiopie Literature," Bulletin de la Société d Archéologie Copte 8 (1942)61-71.

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 21

MULTILINGUAL CHRISTIAN MANUSCRIPTS FROM TURF AN 1 -——i

M A R K DICKENS SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

INTRODUCTION: CHRISTIAN MANUSCRIPTS FROM CENTRAL ASIA

T

he Turfan Oasis is located in western China, about 150 km SE of Urumchi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (often referred to as Eastern Turkistan by those outside China). It is situated on the middle branch of the Silk Road,2 on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin, with the rugged Tien Shan Mountains to the north-west and the vast Taklamakan Desert that fills most of the Basin to the south-east. After the fall of the Turkic Uyghur Empire (744-840), the Uyghurs fled southward to set up kingdoms in Gansu and the Turfan Oasis. In Turfan, the resultant Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho, based in the most important city in the area, lasted over four centuries (ca. 860-1284). Not surprisingly, due to its location on the Silk Road, Turfan was a cultural and religious meeting place. Although most Uyghurs had converted to Manichaeism under the Uyghur Empire, the majority religion in the Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho was Buddhism. In addition to these two religions, Christianity was also present, as is evident from the manuscript fragments and other archaeological artifacts that have

been uncovered at Turfan. Much later, Islam became the dominant religion of the area, although the final conversion of the Turfan Uyghurs to that religion did not take place until the 15th century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Chinese Central Asia attracted the interest of archaeologists and explorers from several European countries (England, France, Germany, Russia and Sweden), as well as Japan.3 Between 1902 and 1914, there were four German (or rather, Prussian) expeditions to Turfan, led by either Albert Grünwedel or Albert von le Coq. In addition to thousands of artefacts, these expeditions brought back 40,000 manuscript fragments in 20 scripts and 22 languages to Berlin. Despite a turbulent history due to the Second World War and the subsequent division of Germany into East and West, the vast majority of these fragments are still housed in Berlin, split between three locations: 1) the Turfanforschung, in the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften; 2) the Oriental Department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin', and 3) the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Dahlem.4 Reflecting the religious climate of Turfan, the vast majority of manuscript finds were Buddhist or Manichaean in nature. The Turfan finds were especially valuable in the

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Multilingual Christian Manuscripts from Turfan

development of Turkic and Indo-European (particularly Iranian) philology, due to the many examples of texts in previously unknown or little-known languages, such as Old Turkic, Sogdian, Tocharian, and Bactrian. However, amongst the many fragments, a significant number of Christian texts were also unearthed. We now know that there are slightly over 1100 Christian manuscript fragments: 500 fragments in Syriac, 550 in Sogdian (an Eastern Middle Iranian language) in Syriac script, 50 in Sogdian in Sogdian script and 50 in Old Uyghur (a dialect of Old Turkic) in Syriac or Uyghur script. Although they constitute less than 3% of the total Turfan corpus, they nonetheless testify to the presence of a thriving Christian community in the middle of the Uyghur Kingdom. Most Christian manuscript fragments were discovered at the ruined Christian monastery of Shiii-pang near Bulayi'q (in the Turfan Oasis),5 beginning in 1905, during the Second and Third Prussian Turfan Expeditions (19041907), led by Albert von le Coq.6 At the same time, some Christian manuscript fragments were also found at other sites in the Turfan Oasis, namely Astana, Qocho, Qurutqa and Toyoq. Like the other finds from Turfan, the Christian materials are generally dated between the 9th and 13th centuries, the duration of the Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho. However, with very few exceptions, these texts have not been dated more precisely, either by archaeological or epigraphic means.7 The few exceptions concern texts that can be dated to the Mongol era due to the occurrence of certain words not found before that time.8 With the possible exception of a few texts that may reflect Melkite influence,9 all Christian texts found at Turfan originated in the Church of the East, which had missions into China as early as the 7th century, as recorded in the famous Xian "Nestorian" Stele.10 Not surprisingly, the nature of the Christian monastic community at Bulayi'q has

determined the genre of the texts found there, which include liturgical texts, biblical texts (Psalters and lectionaries), ascetical and devotional texts, hagiographical texts and prayer booklets. As noted above, most Christian texts from Turfan are in three different languages: Syriac, Sogdian and Old Uyghur. Syriac fragments predominantly reflect the core liturgical and biblical texts, such as the Hudra and the Psalter, but there are also a number of prayer booklets and miscellaneous texts, such as the Legend of St. George,11 the Legend of Barshabba,12 and a Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew.13 The many Christian Sogdian texts (most in Syriac script, but a limited number in Sogdian script) include Psalters, lectionaries, hagiographical and ascetical texts.14 The relatively few Christian Uyghur texts (in both Syriac and Uyghur scripts) are varied in genre and include the Legend of the Magi and a wedding blessing.15 In addition, there are Christian texts in two other Iranian languages: the famous Pahlavi Psalter in Middle Persian16 and a few fragments in New Persian in Syriac script, including a folio from a bilingual Psalter discussed below and fragments of a New Persian pharmacological text in Syriac script.17 The Christian fragments from Turfan in Syriac script are currently the subject of a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, United Kingdom and based in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.18 The Christian Library at Turfan Project aims to catalogue all manuscript fragments from Turfan in Syriac script, resulting in three separate catalogues for Syriac, Sogdian and Uyghur Turkic texts. Three separate catalogues will be published in the series Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (VOHD).19 Christian fragments in either Sogdian or Uyghur script will be dealt with in two separate catalogues in the VOHD series.20

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Multilingual Christian Manuscripts from Turfan

One of the most interesting aspects of the Christian materials from Turfan is what they reveal to us of the multilingual (and to some degree, multiethnic) state of the Christian community there. This has been well summed up by Nicholas Sims-Williams (emphasis mine): Syriac was always maintained as the primary language of the liturgy, the languages of the local people being admitted into liturgical use only for particular parts of the service such as hymns, psalms, and Bible readings... The Pahlavi Psalter found at Bulayiq may be seen as an import from the mother-church in Iran and the use of Middle Persian for the vernacular parts of the liturgy as a feature of the earliest period in the history of the Christian community in the Turfan oasis, before Sogdian was raised to the status of a church language... The writers and readers of the Christian Sogdian manuscripts may in many cases have been [Uyghur] Turkish speakers. During the final phase of the monastery's existence... [Uyghur] Turkish was probably the principal language of dayto-day business, although Sogdian evidently retained a place beside Syriac as a language of literature and liturgy.

21

This article surveys some of the more important multilingual manuscript fragments from Turfan, in an effort to shed more light on the roles that Syriac, Sogdian and Uyghur Turkic had in the Christian community in Turfan, in particular the relative status of those languages vis-a-vis each other and what the fragments tell us about the knowledge of Syriac amongst Sogdian and Turkic native speakers.22 BILINGUAL FRAGMENTS IN SYRIAC A N D SOGDIAN (SYRIAC SCRIPT) There are 17 bilingual Syriac-Sogdian fragments in Syriac script in the Turfan collection,

some of which have been regrouped by Nicholas Sims-Williams into original MSS.23 The contents are written in Syriac and Sogdian (in Syriac script), a practice that the Turfan materials indicate was common amongst Sogdian-speaking Christians. The texts include portions from four Gospel lectionaries (N2-N5), one lectionary of Pauline epistles (N6) and one Psalter (N7), the underlying Syriac text of which is the Peshitta. One example of these fragments is n 190 (T II S 25),24 part of the Gospel Lectionary N3 (from which no other folios have survived) which contains Luke 2:10-20 and Matt. 2:1-3, Gospel readings for Christmas and the first Sunday after Christmas respectively. The text alternates between the Syriac original and a Sogdian translation in Syriac script. The first line of the recto side gives an example of this alternation with the first two visible words: (Syriac "the 3 world") V (kdt, Sogdian, "that"). The Syriac marks the end of Luke 2:10.25 These fragments are important in demonstrating the importance of both Syriac and Sogdian in rendering the biblical text for the Christian community at Turfan (and possibly elsewhere in Central Asia). Syriac obviously had prestige as the liturgical language of the Church of the East, but translation of the biblical text into Sogdian also demonstrates its crucial role as a lingua franca and the fact that the Church of the East was willing to be linguistically flexible in its evangelistic efforts. B I L I N G U A L F R A G M E N T S IN SYRIAC A N D SOGDIAN (SOGDIAN SCRIPT) 14 fragments of a Syriac-Sogdian Psalter have been described by Martin Schwartz and Christiane Reck.26 In contrast to the lectionary fragments just described, these are written in Sogdian script, as practice

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Multilingual Christian Manuscripts from Turfan

seemingly less common amongst Sogdianspeaking Christians at Turfan, given the relative number of Christian texts we have in the two scripts. The extant fragments contain portions of Ps 5-6, 19-20, 23-24, 28-30, 50, and 51, all obviously translated from the Peshitta. As Schwartz notes, "the format of each Psalm is as follows: (1) the number of the Psalm in Syriac words; (2) the number of the Psalm in Sogdian numerals, consisting of a Sogdian numeral followed by an ordinal suffix; (3) the Sogdian translation of the East Syrian Psalm Title ... (4) the opening verse in Syriac, and (5) the Sogdian translation of the entire Psalm."27 Of the relevant fragments listed by Christiane Reck, several are now lost, preserved only in photos, and the specific biblical references of others are yet to be identified. Two examples can however be cited, both glassed together: So 15490, side 2, line 3 contains the Syriac rubric r^mW, the end of the first half of Ps 19:1.28 Under the same glass, So 15492, side 1, line 1 contains the Syriac rubric r^v^ the end of the first half of Ps 29:1.29 The rubric on So 15493, side 2, line 1 is difficult to decipher, but may be ?[r£.]v*> v^*ri»[v-n^.o> , re^f

] 10 ] 1 1 ] 12

7. [...] to the Jordan 8. [.. A from (Sog. en) their blessings43 9. [...] afterwards (Sog. prey) the martyrs (Syr.) 10. r.. .1 afterwards (Sog. prey) 11. [...] quickly (Sog. zyrt) 12. [...] before (Sog. pyrnms >) These Syriac liturgical texts with Sogdian instructions give interesting insights into the role of the two languages in the lives of priests and others who celebrated the liturgy. The texts themselves are in Syriac, indicating that they were memorized in that language by those who trained for the priesthood. The instructions, however, are in Sogdian, again demonstrating the lingua franca that was spoken by most in the Turfan Christian community, at least initially. It is also interesting to note that Syriac, not Sogdian, is generally used for standard Christian terms, such as "oil," "altar," "cross," and "martyrs." SYRIAC TEXTS WITH MULTILINGUAL MARGINALIA AND OVERWRITING Nine fragments have so far been discovered containing Syriac texts featuring marginalia or overwriting in either Sogdian script or Uyghur script.44 SyrHT 48 and 49 (T II B 11 No. 11) is a double folio from a Syriac New Testament lectionary, featuring readings from the Book of Romans: Rom. 1:24-2:6 for the First Monday and First Tuesday of the Great Fast (Lent), and Rom. 5:12-21; 7:1-7 for the Second Sunday and Second Friday of the Great Fast. In the lower margin of SyrHT 49, side 1 Nicholas Sims-Williams reads the following words written in Sogdian script, in outline form: 'ynvpwstv, "This book ..." This folio is the last in the sequence, so

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 27

Multilingual Christian Manuscripts from Turfan

presumably this sentence continued onto the next (lost) folio, perhaps originally reading, "This book belongs to [name]"? The Uyghur overwriting on side 2 of SyrHT 83 and SyrHT 84 (discussed in the section above) has been described and translated by Simone Raschmann as a text which was "probably a draft for an Old Turkish letter... the two fragments SyrHT 83 and 84 must have been directly stitched together, when the scribe wrote the Old Turkish letter on the one side and the cursive Syriac scribbling on the other side... the Syriac text must have been already damaged by abrasion when the secondary text was written down. An affiliation to the Christian community may be seen in the use of this Syriac manuscript for this Turkish letter and in the Syriac scribbling. The colour of the ink and to a certain extent the characteristics of the script may suggest that the scribe of the lines [i.e. the overwriting in broad brush strokes] on both sides might have been one and the same person."45 Raschmann translates the text as follows: To Tangrikan Kiin Tugmis (or Togril) Tegin Tum(?). Let us send as many words (as there are) in this letter. Tamiir Saijun. [ Irsik (?), wrote (it). It is eternal. I, Yu // Tomacak. If the overwriting in both Syriac and Uyghur was indeed written by the same person (which it appears to be), then he was undoubtedly a Christian. Furthermore, Raschmann notes that the name Tomacak at the end of the text could be interpreted as the Christian name Toma (Syriac rc^ooK^, Thomas) with the Turkic diminutive suffix -cak, yielding "Little Thomas."46 Why the Uyghur writer chose to "deface" the underlying Syriac text is unclear, but perhaps it occurred at a later time in the life of the monastery, when Syriac was less well-known by the monks. SyrHT 122 (T II B 58 No. la) is a fragment from the Hudra, the primary liturgical text of the Church of the East. Side 1 seems

to be the first page47 from a Hudra designated as Hudra "H" in the hand-list of the Turfan Syriac fragments. Side 2 (which does not contain text from the Hudra) has writing in at least three hands; the last of which is Sogdian in Syriac script, as shown in the extract below (it is unclear if line 12 is in same hand as lines 6-11): K'si K'imcu JJL3SO K'iOTCUJ rCjjiord=] 6 rC^ajoH rd.cn\ «^OjdpC' K'imcu

7 9

K'I.CTCTJ rdiXDrC' .. rdinj-^as» . W -iT.onT.»

n. yinrci=>

: ri'JrviSjrw

ri'ipi^cA •:• iViiv^Hcv^A

My Lord is with you, O blessed among women, for the Lord of men and women, through you, releases women from the curse that came into being through womanhood. By way of the mother of all, sin came into being, and through it death ruled over all. Through you the first curse was changed into blessings" (VII, 31).

WHO WAS GEORGE WARDA? George (in Syriac 'Giwargis') Warda, sometimes known as George of Erbil, was a learned author of the Church of the East who rose to fame during the thirteenth century. While scholars have been attracted to his works, very little is known about his early life.4 Most likely, George was born in Erbil

and continued to live there until his final days. He probably studied and became well versed in the Scriptures in one of the schools or monasteries in Erbil, a city in northern Mesopotamia and an important eparchial centre of the Church of the East since early times.5 His fame derives from the metrical hymns he composed, which were later compiled in a codex called Memre d-Warda, "Hymns of Warda". Mary holds a distinguished place in the Christian Church for being the mother of Jesus Christ. Since the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D., the expression 'Mother of God' became one of the most prominent titles used to address Mary, but the Church of the East continued to address her in the eucharistic liturgy and prayers as 'Mother of Christ'. In his hymns, our author demonstrates his personal devotion to Mary, possibly acting as an apologist defending his Church's position with regard to her title 'Mother of Christ'. To write his hymns, George Warda must have consulted Syriac sources on Mary, chief among them the apocryphal Book of the Cave of Treasures,6 The History of the Blessed Virgin Mary,1 Ephraim, Narsai, and obviously the Holy Scriptures.

THE UNITY OF THE BOOK OF WARDA Surprisingly, George Warda is not included in the catalogue of authors composed by his contemporary Abdisho bar Brikha, the Metropolitan of Nisibis who died in 1318. In certain hymns (LXI-LXIV), George records events in the years 1224-1228, including natural disasters, famines, and plagues that claimed thousands of people along with their livestock.8 He probably witnessed some of these events, judging from the clarity of his later descriptions. The Maronite scholar Gabriel Qaradahi (Cardahi) (1845-1931) placed George's death around 1300 A.D,9 but

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 44

Mary as Portrayed in the Hymns of George Warda

Baumstark considered this date too late.10 Qaradahi's date suggests that George's work was compiled in his later years, after Abdisho's Catalogue was already completed. This in turn would explain why George Warda is not listed in the Catalogue. The author of the present paper consulted two manuscripts containing the works of George Warda, both written in the nineteenth century. The first one was copied in the region of Ashitha in 1837, and the second in Telkepe near Mosul, in the year 1891. Interestingly, while the manuscripts were copied in two different regions, they both included about 144 hymns in a sequential order. Both attribute ten hymns to different authors of the Church of the East and 99 hymns to George Warda, and in the latter case they affirm the authorship by the phrase n^icu mLj ^ mLj, literally "this definitely belongs to Warda". Eleven additional hymns are described as "from the same author," or "by the same," and follow a hymn whose title clearly confirms George Warda as the author. While the remaining 24 hymns were compiled within the Book of Warda, the authenticity of their authorship cannot be confirmed. The Book of Warda seems to be divided into four parts, though Mingana counted three.11 The First Part consists of hymns IXXVI (pp. 1-109), the Second Part of hymns XXVII-LXIV (pp. 109-212), the Third Part of hymns LXV-CXXXV (pp. 212-433), and the last and Fourth Part takes us from CXXXVI to CXLIV (pp. 433-476). Nonetheless, the authorship of the first hymn in the First Part (hymn I, pp. 1-5) and the first hymn in the Second Part (hymn XXVII, pp. 109-113) is not spelled out in their titles. Since the scribe notes that he is "copying another collection of Warda's hymns," it is safe to believe that both hymns belong to George Warda. The aim of this paper is not to shed light on the authenticity of all the hymns attributed

to Warda, but rather to focus on a few hymns composed by him about Mary. In these hymns, George demonstrates his mastery of the Syriac language in his elegant poetical style and an expression marked by symbolism and imagery. He composed the hymns for major Christian feasts, and for the commemoration of saints and of famous Church theologians.

SYMBOLISM AND IMAGERY IN THE BOOK OF WARDA As elsewhere in Syriac poetry, images, metaphors, and analogies abound in Warda's hymns on Mary, written in a 7 by 7 metre. In nine hymns George highlights Mary's central role in the history of salvation. Here George follows in the footsteps of such early authors as Ephraim and Narsai of Nisibis, in composing metrical hymns which, due to their beautiful style and elegant biblical interpretations, were soon incorporated into the liturgical prayers of major feasts and commemorations of the Church of the East, earning him the nickname 'Warda' ('Rose'). In the said hymns, George uses approximately 116 different titles when addressing Mary, most of them deeply rooted in the Bible. While a great number of these titles were used by early church fathers in both the East and the West, George proves himself to be a masterful writer, who also added his own titles and symbols. Prior to composing his 'marian' hymns, George employs the usual literary device in beseeching the Lord's assistance. He emphasizes his own weakness and his inability to address a topic that he believes that he is unfit to write about. Thus, he requires God's mercy to purify and sharpen his mind so that he can speak about this important account of the exalted Mary. He beseeches the Lord to intervene and speak

Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009) — Page 45

Mary as Portrayed in the Hymns of George Warda

through him so that he will be able to magnify Mary, so that the church and the congregation might rejoice. George writes: ri'Jrvauo

A

ivi^ri'o

Vi-NI

r^tt

,m ^ajTS) v^OTri' :ii