The Harp (Volume 15) 9781463233037

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The Harp (Volume 15)

The Harp (Volume 15)

Volume 15

Edited by

Geevarghese Panicker Jakob Thekeparampil Abraham Kalakudi

1 gorgias press 2011

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright© 2011 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in 2002 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. 2011

1

ISBN 978-1-61143-649-5 Reprinted from the 2002 Kottayam edition.

Printed in the United States of America

Festschrift - Mar Aprem

Vol. XV 2002

The Narp

Contents Editorial 1. Biography of Mar Aprem 13. The Veneration of the Apostle Thomas in the Church Province of Persis - Jürgen

Tubach

25. Jacob of Sarug: On The Red Heifer - D. J. Lane

43. La Paternité spirituelle selon Symeon le Nouveau Théologien - Philothéa du Sinai

59. The Three Crucial Terms in Syriac Theology - Kyana, Qnoma, and Parsopa -Geevargese

Chediath

67. Kynai Thoma in Pânan Pâttu -Rev. Dr. Jacob Vellian

75. Four outstanding Danish missionaries in South India -Morten

Màbjerg

87. Some Comparative Reflections on the Chaldean and Old Constantinopolitan Orders of Vespers -Revd Dr Gregory Woolfenden,

Oxford

99. An Introduction to Malayalam Karshon -Koonammakkal

Thoma

Kathanar

107. The Descent of Mary and the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron -Christian

Lange

117. The Third Element of The Dialogue of The Anaphora -Archimandrite

Ephrem

129. Certain Aspects of the Christian Cultural Heritage of Kerala -George

Menachery

137. Some earlier features in the Life of the Virgin -Michel van Esbroeck

Vol XV 2002

The Harp

149. St. Peters' Personality and Ecclesia) Leadership as Revealed in "The Acts of the Apostles" Or St. Peter in "The Acts of the Apostles" -O. M. Mathezv Oruvattithara 155. Some annotations about the fury of theologians -Karl - Heinz Kuhlmann 161. Moshe Bar Kepha and the Christian Communities: The Search for Nonpartisan (Ecumenical) Theological Understanding -Abdul-Massih Saadi 175. Memoria! Service of St. Thomas -Translated by Rev. P. K. Varghese 197. Bishops of the church of the East, 1861 - 1918 an Index -J.F. Coakley 205. East Syrian Liturgy During The Sassanid Period -Baby Varghese, Kottyam 219. The Crystallization of Lebanese Particularism vis-à-vis Syria, Pan-Arabism and Communism in the 1930s and 1940s -Dennis Walker 263. Christ as Gardener in the Syriac Tradition -Jacob Thekeparampil 275. Akrostich Poems: Restoring Ephrem's Madroshe -Andrew Palmer 289. Syriac Manuscripts in India: The Present State of the Cataloguing Process -Istvän Perczel 299. Bar Ebraya -Kuriakose Corepiscope Moolayil 305. 'Syriac Dialogue'- An Example From The Past -Sebastian Brock 319. Book Reviews -John Madey 323.

News

The Harp

Vo!. XV 2002

Editorial This number is dedicated tofelicitate Metropolitan Mar Apr em of the Chaldean Church of the East here in India. He has been a friend and supporter of SEERI from its very establishment and continues to be so. Hence a short biography ofthe Metropolitan and a list ofbooks he has authored are included as befits a Festschrift. The Metropolitan quite recently secured a Doctoral Degree from the Mahatma Gandhi University after defending his thesis researched at SEERI and thus became SEERIs first Doctor. I invite all our readers tojoin us in offering our congratulations to the Metropolitan. The topics included in the number are diverse indeed. All ofthem, I trust will befound interesting and profitable. Not every one ofthese is totallyfreefrom linguistic defects. Our readers aregenerous enough to condone them! The 5th Syriac Congress at SEERI has been held most successfullyfrom8 to 14 September 2002. We shall publish the learned papers presented here in the following numbers of The Harp.

Vol XV 2'j:-2

B i o g r a p h y of M a r A p r e m Mar Aprem (formerly George Davis Mooken) was born on 13 June 1940 at Trichur, Kerala, India. George was the 4th of the ten children of Devassy and Kochiuriariyam of the Mooken family. George was active in the church since his Sunday school days. There were no priests in the families of his parents. Still he wanted to be a priest. His parents were great admirers of the then Metropolitan Mar Abimalek Timotheus who served in Trichur from February 1908 till his death on 30 April 1945. After studying at Bethel Nursery School in Mission Quarters he joined the CMS Boys Parish School and moved to the Chaldean Syrian School in 1949. After passing High School examination he joined the St. Thomas College, Trichur in 1955. He was in the final batch of the Intermediate Course of the Madras University in the St.Thomas College. In 1957 after passing his intermediate examination he joined the Leonard Theological College, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. He excelled as debater and won Chief Minister Memorial Trophy of the state of Madhya Pradesh. When he was only 21 years old, immediately after four years of his B.D. course of the Serampore University at Jabalpur, he wen t to St. Boniface College, Warminster, England on a scholarship of the World Council of Churches. After his one year of postgrad uate studies in England at: St. Boniface College, Warminster (4th year course of the King's College, London University) he had short courses at St. Augustine's College, Canterbury as well as the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, Switzerland in 1962. He holds two master's degrees in Church History, one from the United Theological College, Bangalore (M.Th. of Serampore, 1966), and the other from the Union Theological Seminary, New York (S.T.M. degree in 1967). He was a candidate for Doctor of Theology (Th. D.) Vol.: XV 2002

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Biography of Mar Aprem

degree at Princeton Theological Seminary, USA when he was made bishop at Baghdad, Iraq in September 1968. Later he earned his D.Th. degree from Serampore University near Calcutta after writing his doctoral dissertation in the United Theological College, Bangalore under the guidance of Dr. T. V. Philip, now settled down in Australia. In 1980 while attending the Symposium Syriacum in West Germany( at that time there was a country called West Germany) Fr.Dr.Jacob Thekkeparambil encouraged his bishop Mar Yuhanon of Tiruvalla (Syro-Malanakara) and Mar Aprem to invite scholars from Catholic and non Catholic traditions attending that international symposium to support the idea of an ecumenical institute for the Syriac studies in Kerala. The encouragement an endorsement of the international scholars such as Dr. Sebastian Brock, Fr.E.R.Hambye and others helped the finding of the St.Ephrem's Ecumenical Research Institute in Kottayam.. He has an active participant and supporter in most of the conferences and symposia held at SEERI. He has encouraged scholars abroad to co-operate with SEERI. He sent two students from his church to study at SEERI for M.A.degree courses and several others to do the certificate course. He has helped to project the ecumenical vision of the SEERI. Mar Aprem has a collection of the rare Syriac Manuscripts in the Eastern Syriac. He took active part in encouraging ecumenical attempts for the preservation of these manuscripts in co-operation with SEERI. In 1995, Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam recognized SEERI as the Centre for the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Syriac language and Literature. Dr. Mar Aprem Metropolitan registered for Ph.D. After 5 years of extensive research travelling and reading in Lambeth Palace Library, London, British Library, London, Oriental Institute ,Rome, Harvard University, USA he submitted his Ph.D. dissertation in October 2000. In May 2002 he successfully defended this dissertation in the School of Letters of the Mahatma Gandhi University. He jokingly remarks that SEERI is his institute as it is in the name of St.Ephrem. He is the only bishop in India whose name is Mar Aprem. He is probably the first one in India to take that name. (Afterwards the auxiliary bishop on Trivandrum took that name, Lawrence Mar Aprem who passed away soon aaf ter becoming the first bishop of Martandam diocese of Syro Malankara).. It could be called MAERI as Mar Aprem The Harp

Vol. XV 2002

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Biography of Mar Aprem

Ecumenical Research Institute. It can be SAERI as St. Aprem Ecumenical Research Institute. Mar Aprem was given the Medal of Merit of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Centre, Venice for his cultural and ecumenical experience. He was the recipient of the Literary Award of the Rotary Club of Trichur in 1990. The first prize in the writing competition of the New Delhi based publishing House ISPCK went to him. They published that essay under the title Adoption Abroad (ISBN-81-7214-010-x) in 1991. He received World Wide Award of Trichur as well as the William Carey Award of the Kraisthava Sahithya Academy. He delivered the 10 th annual C h a p l a i n c y lecture in the Loughborough University of Technology in England In May 1994. The University published his lecture. He has lectured and preached in many places all over the world. He is at home in small groups of scholars or ordinary people as well as in large gatherings. Ordained a deacon on June 25,1961 he became a priest on the day he completed twenty-five years of age on 13 June 1965. He was consecrated bishop on September 21,1968 by Mar Thoma Darmo at Mar Zaia Cathedral in Karradat Mariam in Baghdad and promoted as a Metropolitan eight days later in the same Cathedral. Since 1968 he is the head of the Church of the East in India with his headquarters in Trichur. He is active in several religious and social organizations, all over India. Dr. Mar Aprem Metropolitan of the Chaldean Syrian Church of the East in India with headquarters in Trichur was awarded the "MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT" Award of the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England. In 1984. This award is given to selected men and women all over the world for their distinguished achievements. Mar Aprem has written 60 books mostly in English and a few in Malayalam such as biographies, autobiography, travelogue, church history etc. His books Bishop's Jokes and Laugh With the Bishop have already attracted world attention. His book " Nestorian Missions" has been reprinted by ORBIS books, a Roman Catholic publisher in New York. His first two humour books were translated into Russian language and released in Moscow in 1992. His biography of Mar Abimalek Timotheus Metropolitan was translated in to the Assyrian language Vol. XV 2002

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Biography of Mar Aprem

and published in Chicago. His books, Council of Ephesus of 431 AD and the Nestorian Fathers were translated into Arabic language and published in Iraq and Chicago. His books Sermons From the Gospels Vol.1 and Vol. 2 were translated into Assyrian and published in Canada. His biographies of his two predecessors, M a r A b i m a l e k Timotheus and M a r Thoma Darmo were published in Trichur in Malayalam translations. He has written nearly 60 books and over one thousand articles in the Voice of the East and other publications in Malayalam and English. His 60 th book is the Ph.D.thesis defended in the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam in May 2002. The Metropolitan did his research in SEER] and the title is The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the twentieth Century with special reference to the Syriac Literature in Kerala. He has presented papers in international conferences such as Syriac Symposium etc. He has been President of the Church History Association of India from 1976 to 1982. He is now serving in several committees of the National Council of Churches, Churches Auxiliary for Social Action etc. The Bishop earned a doctorate in Church History from Serampore University in 1976 and submitted his second doctorate to the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam in October 2000. The biographical details of Mar Aprem have been given in the M e n of Achievement, Vol. 10, Cambridge, England in 1984. His biography appears in the International Who's W h o of Intellectuals, Vol. 6 Cambridge,1985. The International Directory of Distinguished Leadership, First Edition, USA,1986 also gives the biographical details of the Metropolitan. Similar details are found also in Reference Asia Vol 2 in 1986 and Vol 4 in 1989. Biography International, Delhi, 1993 also has details about him. The Akhila Vinjyana Kosham, DC Books, Kottayam, 1989 and many reference books in Malayalam and English languages have published details about him He is also a writer of devotional songs broadcast over All India Radio. His song Behold the Cross of Calvary was published in 50 Indian and 50 foreign translations. Mar Aprem who has spoken in various platforms throughout India and abroad is a linguist. In June 1990 Dr. Mar Aprem read a paper in the one-man-symposium organized by the Pro Oriente, Vienna. The title of his paper was " Was Nestorius a Nestorian?" This was the first step to form a Syriac commission by the Pro Oriente, Vienna. He has been active in Pro T h e Harp

Vol. XV 2002

Biography of Mar Aprem

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Oriente since the Syriac Commission was formed in 1994. He has participated actively in its deliberations. He is the co-Chairman of the ten-member Joint committee for Theological Dialogue between Vatican and the Assyrian Church, which meets once a year. This committee has made significant studies in Sacraments of the Assyrian Church. He founded The Mar Timotheus Birth Centenary Technical Training Centre in Trichur in 1980, which imparts free training in printing technology to students without any discrimination of caste or creed. This is funded from the World Council of Churches, Geneva through CASA, Delhi. The articles ol: Mar Aprem, who has diploma in Christian journalism from Wheaton, Illinois, have published in various journals in Chicago, London, Berlin, Rome etc. The English translation of his song "Behold the Cross of Calvary" printed in the famous Maramon Convention hymnbook has been included in the disc "Gospel Jubilee" produced by the Columbine Records Corporation, Hollywood, U.S.A. He has preached in gospel meetings from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and Maharashtra to Mizoram. He presided over one of the six days in the large gathering of 100 000 (hundred thousand) people at the Nehru Stadium in Madras in December 1977 when evangelist Dr. Billy Graham spoke. Mar Aprem has studied in England and America in addition to his education in India. His first travelogue was America Revisited published in 1977. The second travelogue about his travels in 1984 From Baghdad to Chicago was published in February 1985. Since then he has published several interesting travels. He has 20 travelogues to his credit, one of which is in Malayalam with a foreword by Cardinal Joseph Parekkatil. That book was serialized in the Sunday supplements of the famous weekly Deepika of Kottayam in 1985-86. He is doing the administration of the Church of the East in India residing at the Metropolitan's Palace, Trichur, and Kerala, India since October 1968. He is one of the senior Metropolitans of the Church of the East universally. He has visited and conducted holy Qurbana for the Assyrian Christians in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, USA, Canada, England, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand. He played an active role in bringing together the two calendar groups of the Assyrian church of the East.

Biography of Mar Aprem

6

During Pro Oriente meetings in Vienna in February 1995 he and Bishop Mar Bawai Soro of the calendar group drew up Vienna proposals. Finally he took an active part in the unity in India brought about in November 1995. Mar Aprem is the founder of the Mar Thoma Matriculation School, Madras. He is the founder Director of the Mar Timotheus Memorial Health & Leprosy Centre in Tattamangalam aided by Emmaus Suisse Leprosy Relief Work in Berne, Switzerland. Some other achievements of the Metropolitan include the construction of new churches in Madras, Calicut, Cherur, Kallur, Koratty, Palghat, Kunnankulam and West Nadakavu. The Chaldean Syrian College in East Fort, Mar Timotheus Birth C e n t e n a r y a u d i t o r i u m in N e l l i k k u n n u , M a r T h o m a A s h r a m , Mulayam, M.T.M. Hospital, Kalathode, Mar Sleeva Creche, Cochin, Parsonage at Kuriachira and shop room buildings at Mart Mariam Cathedral, Paravattany, Nellengara, Pattikad, Peechi, Ernakulam etc. are some of the achievements during his administration. By taking membership in Kerala Council of Churches, National Council of Churches, Church's Auxiliary for Social Action, Vellore Christian Medical College & Hospital Council etc, he has brought the ancient Eastern Church to the general ecumenical world.

The Harp

Vol. XV 2002

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Biography of Mar Aprem

Periodicals, Encyclopedias etc 1.

"Church of the East," St.Thomas Encyclopedia, Vol. II, Trichur 1973, pp 91-95

2.

"First Christian Muslim Dialogue", The Assyrian Oberver, August 1981, No. 10, pp 3-7 Kent, England.

3.

" The Nestorian Church in India from5 l h to 16"' century," Christian Heritage of Kerala, (ed. K. J. John) Cochin, 1981 pp 37-47

4.

"Syriac Manuscripts in Trichur", Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome: Pontifical Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1983, pp 355374

5.

" The Thomas Christians and the Caste Problems", Minoritas, Berlin, 1984

6.

" Fourth Trip to Iraq", Voice of Assyrians, Chicago, Vol. 13,1984, PP 6-7

7.

"Kushappe and Slavatha in the Liturgical Tradition of the East Syrian Church", Platinum Jubilee Souvenir, Mar Yohannan Mamdhana Church, East Fort, Trichur, 1985 (The paper presented in the Symposium Syriacum in Groningen, Holland in 1984)

8.

"Was Nestorius a Nestorian", Pro Oriente, Syriac Dialogue No.l, Vienna, 1994, pages 216-223.

9.

" Mar Narsai Press", Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.78, Number 3, Autumn 1996, pp.171-178

10. "The Mar Thoma church: Tradition and Modernity", A Festscrift in Honour of the Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Mar Irenaeus Suffragan Metropolitan (ed) Dr. P. J. Alexander, 2000, pp.59 -64 11. Several articles in Southern Chronicle, Kottayam. 12. Several articles in HARP, SEERI, Kottayam. 13. Articles in Voice of the East (English), Trichur bi -monthly 14. Articles in Pourastyanadam

(Malayalam), Trichur, monthly

15. Articles in various church souvenirs, Trichur 16. Articles in Malayalam journals such as Presyassi (Trichur), Deepanalam (Palai), Maryvijayam (Trichur), Satyadeepam (Ernakulam), Kalam (Trichur). 17.

Articles in Malayalam daily newspapers Malayala Manorama (Kottayam), Mathruboomi (Kozhikode), Deepika (Kottayam), Express (Trichur)

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International Conferences 1.

Pattaya , T h a i l a n d , June 1980 C o n f e r e n c e on World Evangelisation

2.

Goslar, West Germany, September 1980. The 3rd Syriacum, Paper: Syriac Manuscripts in Trichur

3.

Amsterdam, Holland. July 1983 , International Conference of Itinerant Evangelists convened by Dr.Billy Graham

4.

Freiburg, WestGermany, September 1983. International Congress on Oriental Canon Law, paper: "Authority of the Bishop in the East Syrian Tradition."

5.

Groningen, Holland, September 1984. The 4 th Symposium Syriacum Paper: Kushappe and Slavatha in the Liturgical Tradition of the East Syrian Church".

6.

Louvain, Belgium, 29-31 Aug. 1988, The 5th Symposium No Paper

7.

Vienna, Austria, 18 June 1990, The 59th Ecumenical Symposium of Pro Oriente. Paper : "Was Nestorius a Nestorian ?" Published in Pro Oriente Syriac Dialogue No.l, Vienna, June 1994, pages 216- 223

8.

Modesto, California, USA. May 15-17,1992 Mesopotamia Light Seminar, Paper: The Nestorian Missions.

9.

Cambridge, England, August 29 to September 2,1992. The 6th Symposium Syriacum, Paper:Codification of the Canon Law by Mar Abdisho.

Symposium

Syriacum.

10. Moscow, Russia. September 1992. Lecture on the Assyrian Church in Russian Academy of Science, Institure of Ethnograophy,10 lh Floor in the presence of the Prof. Valery Tishkov, Minister of National Affairs, Russia on the occasion of the release of the Russian translation of the books Bishop's Jokes and Laugh with the Bishop. 11. Loughborough, England. lOMay 1994. 10 th Anniversary Chaplaincy Lecture. Paper: The Contribution of Indian Spirituality in the year 2000. Published as a booklet available at the University of Loughborough University of Technology. 12. Oriental Institute, Oxford. May 1994. Special Lecture: History of the Assyrian Church in the 20,h century. The Harp

Vol. XV 2002

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Biography of Mar Aprem

13. Vienna, Austria. 24-29 June 1994. Consultation on Orthodoxy and Catholicity in the Syriac Tradition, with special attention to the theology of the Church of the East in the Sassanian Empire. 14. Boston, USA, Aug. 1995. International Congress on Oriental Canon Law. Paper: Order and Grades of Order in the tradition of the Ancient Church of the East. 15. Aarhus, Denmark. 7 March 1996. Special Lecture on the Nestorian Church and theology in the University of Aarhus. 16. Berlin, Germany. 10 May 1999. Special Lecture in the Freie University, Berlin. 17. Wittenburg, Germany. May 1999. Seminar on Church under Sassanid Period. Paper: Church of the East. 18. Sydney, Australia, June 2000, 8th Symposium Ba'utha

Paper;

Syriacum.

dNinwaye

19. Melbourne, Australia. July 2000 Lumen Conference. Paper: Ecumenical Relations of the Assyrian Church of the East. 20. Hofgeismar, Kassel, Germany. December 2000. Seminar on Where in the world are the Nestorians? The Apostolic Church of the East ?. Paper: The Assyrian Church of the East in India.

Books by Mar Aprem Biographies 1. Mar Thoma Darmo - A Biography : 214 pages -1974 2.

Mar Abimalek Timotheus - A Biography : 282 pages - 1975

3.

Mar Abdisho Thodenat: 136 pages - 1987.

4.

Strange but True: An Autobiography: 236 pages - 1981.

5.

Not so Strange: An Autobiography Part II: 236 pages - 1 9 9 1 .

6.

Mother of the Motherless: 120 pages - 2002.

Church History 1.

Nestorian Fathers (out of print): 168 pages - 1976.

2.

Nestorian Missions (Reprint 1985): 134 pages - 1976.

3.

The Chaldean Syrian Church in India: 241 pages - 1977.

4.

The Council of Ephesus of431:196 pages-1978.

5.

Sacraments of the Church of the East: 142 pages - 1978.

Vol. XV 2002

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Biography of Mar Aprem

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6.

Nestorian Theology: 183 pages - 1978.

7.

Nestorian Lectionary & Julian Calendar: 140 pages - 1982.

8.

Western M i s s i o n s A m o n g Assyrians: 152 pages - 1982.

9.

A Nestorian Bibliography: 128 pages - 1982.

10.

Indian Christian W h o is W h o : 2 1 0 pages - 1983.

11.

T h e Chaldean Syrian C h u r c h of the East (ISPCK, Delhi) (out of Print): 64 pages - 1984.

12.

Good N e w s Festivals in India: 2 2 4 pages - 1984.

13.

Indian Christian Directory: 264 pages - 1984.

14.

M a r A p r e m , Theologian & Poet: 136 pages - 1990.

Travelogues 1.

America Revisited: 148 p a g e s - 1 9 7 7 .

2.

F r o m Bagdad to Chicago: 168 pages - 1985.

3.

Australian Assyrians: 132 pages - 1988.

4.

To Belgium and Holland Via U K & U S A : 124 pages - 1989.

5.

Sydney to C a n b e r r a : 128 pages - 1989.

6.

T h e Assyrians in Iraq: 112 pages - 1990.

7.

Germany Via Vienna: I 4 0 p a g e s -1.991.

8

Washington to New York: 133 pages - 1992.

9.

I.ondon to M o s c o w : 134 pages - 1993.

10.

L o s Angeles to Tokyo: 136 pages - 1993.

11.

Oxford to Austria: 144 pages - 1994.

12.

Salzburg to Boston: 140 pages - 1995.

13.

Israel, Scandinavia & U S A : 112 pages - 1996.

14.

Hassake to Hollywood: 112 pages - 1998.

15.

Italy, Liban & Iran: 112 pages - 1998.

16.

India to Indiana: 1 i 2 pages - 2002.

Humour 1.

Bishop's Jokes (Reprint 1995): 180 pages - 1983.

2.

L a u g h with the B i s h o p (Bombay): 95 pages - 1988.

3.

L a u g h to Health (C.L.S.. Madras): 82 pages - 1992.

4.

Holy H u m o u r : 104 pages - 1993.

5.

Joy to the World: 104 pages - 1 9 9 4 .

6.

Holy Smile: 100 pages - 1 9 9 7 .

T h é Harp

F^sM^IÎii^fi^rr-^-; •

Vol. XV 2002

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Biography of Mar Aprem

General 1. From Relief to Development-A profile of CASA: 282 pages- 1979. 2. Teach Yourself Aramaic (Reprint-1993): 152 pages-1981. 3. Behold the Cross of Calvary: 208 pages - 1987. 4. Sermons from the Gospels Vol. 1:208 pages - 1998. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Sermons from the Gospels Vol. II: 138 pages -1990. The Nestorian Canon Law: 120 pages - 1995. Mesopotamia Light: 128 pages -1993. Voices of the East: 112 pages - 1998.

Malayalam 1. 2. 3. 4.

An Introduction to the History of the Eastern Churches (Preprint-1990):196 pages-1976. Christheeya Bhakti Ganangal: 124 pages - 1985. Sabhaacharitra Nikhandu: 424 pages - 1985. Christuvinte Kalpadukalilude: 168 pages - 1985.

To be published 1. Assyrian Fathers. 2. Syriac Manuscripts in India. 3. 4. 5.

Poems & Prayers. Advanced Aramaic. History of the Assyrian Church in the 20th century.

VOI.XV20C2:

ThaHirp

THE HOMILIES OF JACOB OF SERUG. The extant homilies of Jacob set in evidence his biblically oriented theological reflection. Since the categories of his theological expressions are derived from the Scriptures coupled with his symbolic mode of theological reflection, his theological vision does not loose its relevance and applicability in the life of Christian faith. It was through such types of theological teachings he earned his reputation and handed over his legacy for the posterity. The studies regarding his dogmatic Christology and his orthodoxy touch only the periphery of his legacy, which is more strongly bound to the early Syriac tradition. This study, based on the select festal homilies, discovers some of the main elements of Jacob's legacy and draws a more just and faithful picture of his theological vision. (Quoted from "Salvation in Christ according to Jacob of Serugh" by Thomas Kollamparampil - page 101).

The Harp

Vol. XV 2002

Jürgen

Tubach

T h e Veneration of the A p o s t l e T h o m a s in the C h u r c h Province of Persis In the year 1533 the Portuguese Governor Nuno da Cunha (15291538) ordered reliable people of Mylapore to be questioned about the mission of Thomas in South India according to King John III' wishes (Joao, 1521-1557). Miguel Ferreira, who was sent to the Apostle's town, interrogated 13 persons. The best of the informants seemed to be a Nestorian bishop never called by his personal name in the sources. He was one of the four bishops sent by the Nestorian Patriarch Elias V (1502-1503) in 1503 to India. Of the statement of the unknown Abuna1 was made use of in the books of Joao de Barros (1496-1570), Diogo do fcouto (1542-1616) and Gaspar Correa. Barros reports in his Decadas da Asia that the Apostle interrupted his sea voyage on his way to India at several stations: And what he knew of the holy Apostle, according to what was written, was that when the Apostles began to preach the Gospel through the world, three (S.Thomas, S.Bartholomew,and S.Judas Thaddaeus) set out together and c a m e to Babylonia, and there they separated ... and that the Apostle Thomas embarked at the city Bascora near the river Euphrates and sailed over the Persian

1

cf. A[ntony] Mathias MUNDADAN, History of Christianity in India I. From the Beginning up to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century (up to 1542) Bangalore 1984.Repr. 1989, p.42; Georg S C H U R H A M M E R , Franz Xaver. Sein Leben und seine Zeit II. Asien (1541-1552) 1. Indien und Indonesien 754f-7547(Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1963), p. 119.124 > Francis Xavier. His Life and Times. Translated by Joseph Costelloe II. India (1541 -1545), Roma 1977

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Jürgen Tubach

sea lo the island C^ocotora, w h e r e he preached the Gospel; and having m a d e many Christians he went thence to India to that city Meliapor, which at that time was one of the best known in India. 3

The accounts of Correa and do Couto, who continued de Barros' Decadas, are similar: the Apostle debarks in Basra at the estuary of Euphrat and Tigris and sails, stopping only in Arabia, to the island of Socotra and then to India. The nameless Abulia cited by them quotes written documents and the oral tradition of India and Babylonia. hi his Jornada written at the end of the 16di century Antonio de Gouvea reports the same tradition about the sea voyage of Thomas '. After a stay in Parthia, Media and Persia, where he preached the gospel, he enters Arabian soil and sails afterwards via Socotra to India. Some say that he went by sea from Basra to Socotra. His stay in Parthia, Media and Persia corresponds to the older tradition of the Church fathers. According to Eusebius Thomas was sent to Parthia. This does not mean that he went to the Iranian province of this name, near the Caspian Sea, but to die Parthian Empire without further specification. About a further sojourn in Arabia and Socotra nothing is known to the ancient sources. Thomas is called the Apostle of India or sometimes of Parthia. The Acta Thomae written in Edessa at the beginning of the 3rd century only know of a stay in „the land of the Indians". From die accounts heard of the travels of Thomas in the 16th century, which were available to the Portuguese, we can therefore conclude they were a tradition peculiar to South India. We can further suppose that his

2

Asia de Joâo de Barros. Dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento g conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente. Terceira decada Sexta ediçâo, actualizada na ortografia S anotada por Hernani CIOADE. Notas historicas finais por Manuel Mûrias III (Lisboa 61946), p.404; A[rthur] C[hristopher] MOULE, Christians in China before the year 1550 (London 1930/New York-Toronto 1930. 1947. Repr. Taipei 1972. Repr. New York 1977/dsgl.[Gordon Press] 1977, p. 14 Fn.17

3

Jean-Baptiste de GLEN, Histoire orientale, des grans progrès de l'Eglise Cathol. Apostol. & Rom. en la reduction des anciens Chretiens, dits de S. Thomas, de plusieurs autres Schismatiques .//»Conclusion This s t u d y on the descent of M a r y has s h o w n that the transmiss i o n of the S y r i a c C o m m e n t a r y o n the D i a t e s s a r o n is r a t h e r complicated. There are sections attested in either versions of the Commentary, and there are passages extant only in either version. However, it seams as if diere w a s a basic text of the C o m m e n t a r y w h i c h the Armenian translator in general translated faithfully. Therefore, the passages surviving in Syriac and in Armenian constitute the basic text of the C o m m e n t a r y with regard to the discussion of the descent of Mary. In contrast, textual a r g u m e n t s and arguments regarding the content suggest to assume a Syriac redaction w h i c h inserted the passages of the C o m m e n t a r y w h i c h are extant only in the Syriac version. It is especially the fact that the commentator, in the basic text, argues that scripture is not interested in the lineage of w o m e n , w h e r e a s he deals with exactly the genealogy of M ary in the section attested only in Syriac which leads to this assumption. With regard to passages surviving only in the A r m e n i a n version, it seems as if the A r m e n i a n translator misread Syriac [your k i n s w o m a n ] as [your sister] and rendered it, consequently, with Armenian 'sister' [ ]• Therefore, the Syriac version he held in h a n d s did not m a k e m u c h sense any more so that he a d j u s t e d his translation by inserting a few explanatory sentences. Did Ephraem compose the basic text of the C o m m e n t a r y if there are later redactions which inserted additional pieces? On the one hand, the basic text shares ' g e n u i n e ' E p h r a e m s position concerning the descent of Mary: Mary is from the h o u s e of David (Luke 2:4). O n the other hand, the basic text does not argue as 'genuine' Ephraem does in his HdN. Ephraem's a r g u m e n t occurs merely in I I 1 as an alternative a m o n g others. Therefore, it is also possible that a disciple of Ephraem's shared the basic understanding with his master, but developed further his master's idea. As long as n o detailed s t u d y in the C o m m e n t a r y as a whole has been presented yet, the question of the authenticity of the C o m m e n t a r y n e e d s to be seen as unsolved. But according to both 'genuine E p h r a e m ' and the basic text of the C o m m e n t a r y , Mary belonged to the house of David (Luke 2:4). "¡Tie Harp

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The T h i r d Element of T h e Dialogue of T h e A n a p h o r a The Eucharistic Anaphora has been subjected to endiess study and analysis, but the third part of the opening dialogue has been comparatively neglected 1 . This is, I suspect, in part because, minor verbal differences apart, it occurs in virtually every Liturgy that we possess from the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytos, that is from the third century, onwards and so presents few "problems" for scholars. From the point of view of sources and meaning the opening greeting in the West, the "Dominus vobiscum", is unremarkable and the Syrian East's use of the "grace" from 2 Corinthians equally so. The fourth element may well go back ultimately to Jewish models, as Gregory Dix, among others, argued in The Shape of the Liturgy2. The third element, however, appears to be exclusively Christian. There is no obvious Scriptural source, and Brightman, who searched diligently for all the biblical allusions in the liturgies, can only suggest Lamentations 3:41 3 . In the LXX this runs, "Let us lift up our hearts on our hands to [the] 1

There is a full length study by C.A. Bouman in Vigiliae Christianae\\/o\. 4 (1950), pp.94-115], "Variants in the Introduction to the Eucharistic Prayer", but it is more concerned with the text itself rather than its interpretation.. The same is true of the important series of articles by Fr Robert Taft in OCP. In this version of my paper I have translated, or occasionally transliterated, all the Greek and most of the Latin citations, for the convenience of readers whose classical learning may have become rusty over the years. The translations are, for the most part, "literal", rather than "literary". 2 Though why, in that case, the Latin should employ the formula used in Judaism when there more than ten persons present and the Greek the one where there are less than ten, is a mystery. 3 I do not know if this suggestion originated with him. It has certainly been frequently repeated since. Vol. XV 2002

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Sublime One in heaven". Here Brightman has been influenced, I suspect, more by the standard English translation of the liturgical text than by any very clear parallel between the two sentences in Greek. The only word common to both is "hearts". On the other hand "Let us lift up our hearts" is a precise translation of the Greek of Lamentations. Is this where Cranmer got the idea of translating "Sursum corda" by "Lift up your hearts"? 4 That this text may be suggested by the liturgical phrase is possible, as we shall see. Moreover, had the biblical text been the source, it is difficult to understand why the verb was omitted and the somewhat gnomic "On high the hearts" substituted, particularly when one observes that the later Greek texts added a verb to the original, though the Latin never did. The LXX of Lamentations seems to intend the masculine, since the Hebrew has the word "God". If it intends a neuter adverbial phrase, "aloft", this is presumably a pious substitution for the word "God". It is important to notice that this particular exchange seems originally to have been confined to the Eucharistic Liturgy. This is true of Hippolytos's texts of the third century and is still true of the Eastern liturgies 5 The familiar English wording is found at least as early as 1549: Priest: Lift up your heartes Annswere: We lift them up unto the Lorde. This has been followed by all English eucharistic rites ever since, including the ASB and the English of the Missal of Paul VI 6 , though an exception must be made for the Indian, or Bombay, Liturgy, which is avowedly based on Syrian models. Here the exchange is as follows: Priest: Your hearts be with Christ on high. People: Our hearts are with the Lord. 4 Cranmer's use of the second person rather than the first goes against almost the whole tradition, which, as the fourth part of the dialogue makes clear, stresses the unity of priest and people in the action. 5 In his account of the blessing of the evening lamp Hippolytos says that the "Sursum corda" is not to be used "because this occurs in the oblation" [AT 25], This distinction between the Eucharist and other "thanksgivings" was not maintained in the later Roman tradition, where the full dialogue was also used on other occasions, such as the blessing of palms on Palm Sunday, of the paschal candle and the baptismal water on Holy Saturday. 6 Including the second person rather than the first. The Harp

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This is far closer to the meaning of the Greek, Latin and Syriac than tine usual English, despite the use of the second person, for which the authors could claim East Syrian authority. It clearly recognises that the key word in the priest's invitation is and — "on h i g h "

1. The Early Fathers. The earliest evidence we have for the whole dialogue is in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytos, of which the Greek can be confidently reconstructed as "On. high the hearts. We have [them] with the Lord" 7 . In Latin this becomes "Sursum corda. Habemus ad Dominum", which has survived to this day unchanged in the Roman rite. In the East the liturgy of the 8th book of the Apostolic Constitutions has " O n high the mind". Neither Hippolytos nor the Apostolic Constitutions have a verb in the first part, but in the earliest MS of the Byzantine liturgy, the Barberini codex of the late 8th century, we find the familiar " O n high let us have the hearts" 8 . Leitzmann suggests that this form of the phrase is "wohl unter dem Einfluss von Lament. Jer. 3:41". As I have said, this seems unlikely. The Liturgy of St James in both Greek and Syriac has both " m i n d " and "hearts". The Greek has the verb, but the Syriac instead has "of us all". Brightman translates "The minds and hearts of all of us be on high. They are with the Lord our G o d " . He is here using a 12th century MS in the BM". St Cyril of Jerusalem has exactly the same wording as Hippolytos. Where Gregory Dix got the idea that St Cyril has "Lift up your minds", I do not know. St Efthymios has the usual "Byzantine" form, again pace Gregory Dix, whereas St Anastasios Sinaita has the form found in St James. The Egyptian liturgies have the Hippolytan form, with the addition of "our"[Greek] 7 For the reasons discussed below I translate the Greek pros here by "with" rather than "to" or "towards". 8 If the texts of Cyril of Scythopolis (c.555) and Anastasios of Sinai (c.700) are reliable they show that the addition of the verb goes back at least to the 6th century. If Homily 9 On Repentance, attributed to St John Chrysostom, were authentic and the text reliable, the addition would go back to the 4th century. The evidence of St Germanos's commentary, which is confirmed by the Latin version by Anastasios the Librarian, allows us to say with certainty that at the latest the verb had been introduced by around 700. 9 This MS appears to conform to the remarks of Moses bar Kepha, who says the correct reply is: 'They are with the Lord our God". The earlier (9th-10th century) MS edited by Connolly and Codrington has "We have them with the Lord". The addition of the verb in the Greek version of St James is probably due to assimilation to the Byzantine norm. Vol. XV 2002

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or " y o u r " [Sahidic] . The East Syrian and Armenian forms are somewhat expanded and need not concern us" . 10

There are not many patristic comments on this particular exchange, but those few are naturally of great interest. St Cyril of Jerusalem already suggests the verb that the Byzantine text will add. His emphasis is on the place where the heart should be, less on the idea of "lifting", and his words are also strongly reminiscent of the later Cherubic hymn. After this the priest cries, "On high the hearts". Truly at that most dread moment one must have the heart with the Lord, and not below close to earth and earthly affairs. Powerfully 17 then the priest at that moment bids all to lay aside concerns of life and cares at home, and have the heart in heaven with God who loves mankind. In his comment on the response St Cyril, like other commentators, stresses that we assert a fact, and that we must not be found to be liars. We assert that our heart is already "above". Again the stress is on the state rather than the lifting. Then we answer, "We have fit] with the Lord", consenting to this by what you confess. Let there be no one then present whose mouth says, "We have [it] with the Lord, but whose thought keeps the mind occupied with the concerns of life 13 . Does this last phrase suggest that St Cyril knew of the other form of the priest's words with "mind" rather than "hearts"? St John Chrysostom refers to the exchange in his commentary on Hebrews. He says: with the hands let lis lift up the mind also. You who have been initiated know what I mean. You at once recognise the phrase and realise what I was alluding to. Let us raise [our] thought to the heights 14 . 10 T h e s e t w o w o r d s , w h i c h only differ by o n e letter, w o u l d of c o u r s e h a v e b e e n p r o n o u n c e d t h e s a m e , as in m o d e r n G r e e k , esmon. 11 Translations into English f r o m a n y of t h e s e s o u r c e s , including G r e e k a n d Latin, a r e frequently unreliable, since translators tend to u s e t h e form familiar f r o m t h e B o o k of C o m m o n Prayer rather t h a n r e p r e s e n t t h e originals accurately, t h o u g h Brightman's v e r s i o n of the Syriac St J a m e s w o u l d a p p e a r to b e correct. Both the East S y r i a n a n d A r m e n i a n f o r m s use t h e s e c o n d p e r s o n in t h e priest's exhortation. T h i s m a y o c c u r first in T h e o d o r e of M o p s u e s t i a a n d is d i s c u s s e d below. 12 T h e G r e e k h e r e is dynamei, "with p o w e r " , "with force". Is this t h e n m e a n i n g of t h e s t r a n g e cry of t h e d e a c o n b e f o r e t h e T r i s a g i o n , Dynamis? 13 MystagogicCatechesesVA [SC 126 p p . 1 5 0 - 1 5 2 ; P G 33:1112-3]. 14 P G 63:158. The Harp

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It is possible that St John may see an allusion to Lam, 3:41, as 1 have indicated by the words emphasised, but he is in fact commenting at this point on Psalm 140, "The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice". If, as seems generally agreed, these homilies were given in Constantinople, the form of the exchange in the liturgy of the Great Church at this period was probably the same as that which we find in the Apostolic Constitutions, with "mind" rather than "hearts". It is important to notice that St John is using the Liturgy to comment on the Psalm, not the other way round, and that the Psalm does stress the idea of "lifting up". The other passage in the writings attributed to St John Chrysostorn which refers to the exchange is in the ninth Homily On Repentance, What are you doing then, friend? Did you not make a promise to the priest when he said, "Let us have our mind and hearts on high", and you said, "We have [them] with the Lord"? Are you not afraid, do you not blush to be revealed as a liar at that dread moment? 15 There is considerable doubt as to the authenticity of this homily and the fact that the preacher does not hesitate to reveal the actual words of the Liturgy, unlike the preacher of the commentary on Hebrews, arid the Syrian form of the first part, with the double "mind and hearts", supports the view that the author of the homily is not Chrysostom. Both the writer of this homily and St Cyril of Jerusalem make the point tha t if the "mind" or "heart" is not "on high" it is a lie to say that it is. This implies that they understand "we have" as describing a present state of affairs, not one that one hopes will be realised. Although not connected directly to the dialogue of the Anaphora, the same ideas are found in one of St John Chrysotom's homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he says: Those whose High Priest is Jesus, ought to be a great deal better. For see, we have our victim on high, our priest on high, our sacrifice on high. Let us bring such sacrifices as can be offered on that altar, no longer sheep and oxen, no longer blood and fat. All these things have been abolished; and instead "the spiritual worship" has been introduced. But what is "the spiritual worship"? The offerings made through the soul; those made through the spirit. "God," says the Scripture, "is a Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and 15 PG 49:343. Voi. XV 2002

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in truth"; these things have no need of a body, no need of instruments, or special places; they are things like gentleness, moderation, generosity, forbearance, long-suffering, humility. 2. The Syrian Fathers.

Theodore of Mopsuestia seems to have had a somewhat different exchange at this point. The bishop says: "On high your minds" and the people answer "Towards you, O Lord"16 The Syrian preacher Narsai, whose master was Theodore, stresses the place rather than the movement. He says: Let your minds be above in this hour where Christ the King is sitting at the right hand. Do not be occupied with vain thoughts of earthly things; look on him who is now mystically on the altar, who sits in the height and asks mercy for sinners. The people answer: To you, Lord, our minds are uplifted, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the glorious King" 17 This reply is still found in the East Syrian rite. The echoes of Ihe prayer before the fraction in the Byzantine Liturgy are striking: Give heed, Lord Jesus Christ our God, from your holy dwelling-place and from the glorious throne of your kingdom; and come to sanctify us, you who are enthroned on high with the Father and invisibly present here with us. And with your mighty hand grant communion in your most pure Body and precious Blood to us, and through us to all the people. The twelfth century West Syrian, Denys bar Salibi, w h o incidentally anticipates the twentieth century when he says that "And with your spirit" means "And also with you", comments on the exchange as follows: 16 Homily 16:3-4 [ST 145 pp. 538-541 ]. The evidence from Theodore must be used with great caution. The summaries at the beginning of the homilies, as I have shown elsewhere, are the work of a Syrian editor and not, as Tonneau misleadingly entitled them Texte du Livre a Commenter", and it is not impossible that the text itself may have been adapted to East Syrian forms. Theodore's comment on the answer "To you, O Lord" is T h e y confess by their words that they are eager to fulfil this". The Syriac word I have translated "eager" may represent the Greek spoudaios (or the cognate verb), which it translates in a number of places in the Syriac NT like 2 Cor. 8:22. 17 The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, ed. Connolly [Texts and Studies, vol.8,1909] pp.11-12. The Harp v ™ -1

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At once the priest commands the people, saying, "Let the minds, intellects and hearts of us ail be above", that is: because holy mysteries have been revealed to them and the gates of heaven have been opened, and spiritual hosts and spirits of saints have come down for the honour of the mysteries, the minds and intellects of us all should be above, and not below on things of earth 1 8 . He also comments at length on the reply, making use of both Jacob of Edessa and Moses bar Kepha, among others, but much of what he says only applies to Syriac and would not really make sense in Greek.

3. The Later Greek Fathers. Some of the later commentators in Greek do lay more stress on the idea of "raising". At the turn of the seventh century 1 9 , St Anastasios of Sinai comments at length on the exchange. It is not clear whether his actual text read "Let us have our hearts on high" or the form with the addition of the word "mind", which we encountered in the homily On Repentance. It seems likely that St Anastasios knew and used the latter work; he even uses more than once the rhetorical question, "What are you doing, friend?" On the priest's invitation he comments: Let us have our mind and hearts on high. Let us raise the eye of the soul on high towards [Greek pros] God. Let us pass beyond heaven, let us pass beyond the Angels, let us pass beyond the Cherubim, and let us hasten to the very throne of the Master. Let us take hold of the immaculate feet of Christ, let us weep, let us compel his compassion, let us give thanks at his holy, immaterial and spiritual altar. This is what the priest bears witness to when he says, "Let us have our hearts on high" 2 0 . In an extended comment on the people's reply he links this with the petition in the Lord's Prayer "Forgive us our debts as w e forgive our debtors" and the kiss of peace, without which we cannot truly say we have our hearts with the Lord. St Germanos's comment is shorter but he also emphases the idea of raising. Then the priest, leading us all to the Jerusalem on high, to 18 C S C O vol. 93 (Syr. 13) pp.50-51. Latin version in Syr. 14 pp.67-68. Like much else in his commentary this is a straight crib from Moses bar Kepha (c.813-903). 19 ODCC gives his floruit as c.700. Brightrnan for some reason dates him to the late 6th century. 20 PG 89:837. Notice the quotation from the Litany before the Lord's Prayer, which I have emphasised. Vol. XV 2 0 0 2

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his Holy Mountain, cries out, "See, let us have our hearts on high." All affirm this, saying, " W e have them with the Lord." The priest, "Let us give thanks to the L o r d . " n The comment of Theodore of Andida is of particular interest to us, since he links this exchange with the people's reply to the deacon's opening exhortation: The high priest in addition gives the order to have [our] hearts on high and our whole mind. While the faithful, as these things are said, are commanded to offer first mercy, then peace as a sacrifice of praise, and they confess that they also have their hearts thus with the Lord as they are commanded 2 2 . Incidentally this confirms the correct text of the reply to the deacon's invitation, indicted by italics in the citation. Since Michael Psellos's verse commentary is not easily available 1 give it for completeness, though it adds little to what we have met already: From things ol earth our senses let us raise; So to this end this answer he receives, As all cry out, " W e have them with the Lord." 7 3 Finally among the Greek commentators we come to St Nicolas Cavasilas, who writes: Having vouchsafed them this blessing and thus raised their souls from the earth, he lifts up their thoughts and says, "Lei. our hearts be on high", "Let us think on the things on high, not those on earth". And they give their assent and say that they have their hearts "there where our treasure is", where Christ is enthroned at the right hand of the Father, " W e have them with the Lord" 2 4 . The stress here is clearly on the place where our hearts are already — or should be, unless we are liars, as the earlier commentators point out. 21 I use the Greek text in the edition by Paul Meyendorff [Crestwood, 1984}. The text in PG 428 is a late and corrupt one. Meyendorff's translation however is misleading. He renders the Greek and by "heavenly" rather than "on high", thus obscuring the allusion to the liturgical formula. 22 PG 140:445 23 BZ(1958) p.7,1.156-158. The Harp

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4. The Latin Fathers

This note concentrates on the Eastern, particularly the Greek, evidence for obvious reasons, but there is also much interesting ma terial from the La tin West from St Cyprian onwards, notably from St Augustine. One passage is strikingly reminiscent of some of the Greek comments: After the greeting that you know, that is, "The Lord be with you", you hear, "Heart on high". The whole life of true Christians is "heart on high", not that of Christians in name only, but of Christians in reality and truth. Their whole life is "heart on high". What then is "heart on high"? It is hope in God, not in yourself, for you are below, God is on high. If your hope is in yourself, your heart is below, it is not on high. And so, when you have heard from the priest," Heart on high", you answer, "We have [it] with the Lord". Make sure that you make a true answer 25 The second passage, again like a number of the Eastern ones, stresses the "place where", rather than the "motion whither": Firstly after the prayer we are admonished to have the heart on high. This befits the limbs of Christ. For if you have been made limbs of Christ, where is your head? Limbs have a head. If the head had not gone on before, the limbs wculdnotfollow. Where has your head gone? What do you say when you repeated the Creed? "On the third day he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father." Therefore our head is in heaven. So when "Heart on high" is said, you answer, "We have [it] with the Lord." And so that you may not attribute the fact that you have your heart on high with the Lord to your own strength, your own merits, your own efforts —because to have one's heart on high is a gift of God — the bishop or the priest who offers continues and says, when the people have answered "We have [them] with the Lord", "Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God" because we have our heart on high. Let us give thanks, because had we not been granted it, we would have our heart on earth 24 . 24 On the Divine Liturgy, 26:6 [SC 4bis, PG 150:424D. 25 Sermo 227 [PL 38:1099ss.]. St Augustine uses the singular since he is directing his remarks to each individual in the congregation. It dees mean that his liturgical text had "Sursum cor". 26 Sermon on the Holy Pascha 7 [Morin, 462ss.J. St Augustine is addressing tne newly baptized, hence his reference to the "Redditio Symboli", the "Handing Back of the Creed", part of the ceremonies of Baptism. Vol. XV 2002

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5. Conclusion The key word in this invitation by the priest is and, " o n high" or " a b o v e " , which can mean both " u p " and " u p w a r d s " , the latter normally with verbs of motion. It is not common in the Greek Bible. In the OT it occurs a number of times in the phrase "in heaven above" and "God in heaven above". In these examples it is usually contrasted with the "earth below — kato"7'. In the NT it occurs in some important passages especially in the phrase ta and "the things above". In St John's Gospel Jesus says " I am from the [things/places] above — ek ton and" [8:23] and St Paul uses the expression twice in Colossians, "Seek ta and" and "Think ta and" [Col. 3:1-2]. In Galatians he also contrasts the "Jerusalem and" with the earthly one [4:26] M . In two relevant passages it means " u p w a r d s " . In John 11:41 Jesus raises his eyes and, and in Philippians St Paul speaks of "the upward — and — call of G o d " [3:14]. In these passages the word effectively means "heaven", indeed NJB, NRSV and REB actually translate it "heavenly" in Philippians. For that reason 1 do not agree with Arndt-Gingrich that the word is "superfluous" at John 11:41, which really means " H e raised his eyes to heaven". The meaning of anothen is also important since it often means "from God", "from heaven", both in the N e w Testament and in the Liturgy, notably at the opening of the Litany of Peace. It might be objected that tire prepositions pros and ad in Greek and Latin respectively mean " t o " and not "with". In fact both are used of the place to which one has come, and so both are used where in English w e would use " a t " . In Latin apud is the usual word for this, and It is interesting to notice that the Vulgate translates the Greek of John 1 : 1 — pros ton Theon, which English translators normally render "and the Word was with G o d " , by apud Dewn. For all these reasons I am not happy with a translation of the Liturgy that does not translate the word and in the opening dialogue of the Anaphora. What the first sentence means is something like "Let us have our hearts in heaven". A strictly literal rendering would be, "Let 27 Cf. for example, Ex.20:4, Dt.4:39, 5:8, Jos.2:11, 3 Kingd.8:23, 2 Chron.20:6 Pss.49:4,113:11, Qoh.5:1, Joel 2:30, lsai.5:30, 8 : 2 1 . 1 Esdr.9:47 is interesting, "And the whole multitude cried, 'Amen', and raising their hands on high [and] and falling to the earth, they worshipped the Lord", as is Qoh.3:21, "And who has seen the spirit of mortals, whether it goes up on high? And the spirit of a beast of burden, whether is goes down below to the earth?" Here a n d virtually means "heaven", as it does in various N T passages. 28 All these passages are cited or alluded to by the commentators on the Liturgy, in particularGermanos and Nicolas Cavasilas. The Harp

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us have our hearts on high here and now. The verb is Aorist Subjunctive, indicating a particular and immediate action. For reasons of euphony something like: Let our hearts be on high. We have them with the Lord seems to me to convey the meaning of the original more accurately than the familiar "Let us lift u p our hearts. We lift them u p to the Lord." It also takes into account the living theological tradition of the Church, as expressed in the commentaries of the Fathers. 29 The united testimony of both East and West then would suggest a translation such as the one proposed above for the third part of the Dialogue which opens the Anaphora, and this has been adopted for the new translation of the Divine Liturgy issued with the blessing of the His All-holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and His Eminence Archbishop Gregory of Thyateira and Great Britain.

29 Since writing this paper I h a v e discovered that both the Italian and Spanish versions of the Missal of Paul VI translate this part of the dialogue of the Anaphora in a similar way, though the French is closer to the traditional English one, except that the priest's invitation is in the first not the second, person. Vol. XV 2002

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J A C O B OF S E R U G ' S LETTER TO PAUL O F EDESSA. If y o u h a d not b e e n p e r s e c u t e d y o u r beauty w o u l d not h a v e a p p e a r e d , a n d if you h a d not b e e n insulted great h o n o u r w o u l d not have befallen y o u . . . . Now, m y lord, there is joy in all the land, a n d the little flock is g l a d b e c a u s e the s h e p h e r d h a s returned to his fold, a n d all the c h u r c h e s are bright with torches of fire a n d with spiritual hymns. A n d all t h e c o n g r e g a t i o n s pray with all their heart for the believing E m p e r o r a n d for your holiness.... It is fitting that t h r o u g h t h e priest of E d e s s a the faith of our E m p e r o r s h o u l d arise like t h e s u n in the world, for E d e s s a is the first b e t r o t h e d of Christ, a n d it is fitting that s h e s h o u l d be t h e first-born full of virtue at all times J.B. Segal: E d e s s a , T h e B l e s s e d City' p. 171).

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Certain A s p e c t s of t h e Christian Cultural Heritage of Kerala One might justly feel frightened thinking of the august body of distinguished ecclesiastical dignitaries and scholars w h o would be perusing this volume; but for discussing the particular topic the present volume in honour of Mar Apr em of Thrissur, a keen student of lands and peoples, and an earnest and competent scholar of Church History, would be most appropriate. The topic of this article has some special merits: on the one hand there can be no two opinions about the invaluable nature of the cultural wealth of the St. Thomas Christians, and on the other hand such another topic does not exist with practically no scope for con troversy or mutual suspicion or petty jealousy between churches. There is to be found today considerable unanimity of opinion a m o n g all the Churches of the St. Thomas Christians and among the sub-groups thereof, both among scholars and the People of God in general, regarding the need to study, research, preserve, and propagate this unique heritage - everyone expressing the strongest desire to earnestly cooperate, actively collaborate, and determinedly work together towards that end without any reservations. As was discovered in the course of more than one international seminar held at SEERI 1 the cultural heritage of the community could be an effective binding force and one of the strongest rallying points - perhaps the chief one at the 1. Cf., f. i., the published and unpublished papers, two or three by the present writer, presented at the World Syriac Conferences and the Societas Liturgica Congress held at SEERI.. Vol. XV 2002

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moment - that could unite all the groups and all the Churches that adhere to the St. Thomas tradition in a meaningful spirit of ecumenism. What is Kerala culture? Who are the true inheritors of Kerala culture? When one looks at the near consensus among scholars 2 that the Brahmins (Nampoothiris) arrive in Kerala only much later than the third century C.E., their dominance decernible only after the 9th10th centuries, and that the Nairs appear on the scene only around the twelfth century and even then only as Sudras as they are till this date, one might reasonably surmise that Mar Thoma Nazranies were perhaps the most influential community in Kerala in the first centuries. Perhaps upto the year 849 (24 M.E.) w h e n Ayyanadikal confers 3 once again the seventytwo aristocratic / royal privileges on the Palli (church) and the Palliyars (Christians) these Christians combined in themselves all the attributes of the Brahmins (Purohitas), the Kshatriyas (soldiers and rulers), and the Vysyas (traders and entrepreuners) 4 Before proceeding any further let us take another look at this oftused but much abused term 'culture'. One uses the word culture in different contexts: When we say in English, "She's a very cultured woman," what we generally mean is She's had a good education and knows a lot about art, music, painting etc. Similarly "She's a person of culture" would mean She likes and knows a lot about literature, art, music, etc. But there is much more to culture than all this. 2. The views of Dr. M. G. S. Narayanan and Dr. Veluthattu Kesavan who have exhaustively studied the question of the arrival of Nampoothiri Brahmins in Kerala and their early settlements in Kerala may be read in their papers for the Liturgical Research Centre "Seminar on some Historical Questions" related to 1 .the Nampoothiris, 2.the Jews, and 3. the Samgham Literature held at Ernakulam in September 2000. Prof. Rajan Gurukkal and Prof. Scaria Zacharia gave prepared responses to the paper on the Early History of Nampoodiris in Kerala. 3. "It is especially stated [in the copper plates] that Vijayaragadeva the king's representative, Ayyan Atikalthe governor, Rama Thiruvatikalthe governor's heirapparent, Pra/crif/(chief citizens), Adhikarar(officers), Arunnurruvar(TUe Six Hundred), and the Patis (local chiefs) of Punnaittalaiand Polaikkutiwere present on the occasion of this gift and this in itself conveys its importance." - M. G. S. Narayanan, Cultural Symbiosis in Kerala, Kerala Historical Society, Trivandrum, 1972, p.36. 4. Because the 72 privileges have more rights and freedoms and authority incorporated into them than enjoyed even by Azhvancheri Thamprakkal, both a ruler and top Nampoothiri. (Read the Tharisappalliplates along with the Jewish plates for some eleven of these privileges or Viduperus: Earth and water on elephant-back, day lamp, spreading cloth, palanquin, umbrella, northern drum, bugle, locked gate, arch, arch-decoration, and arrow.) VideM. G. S. Narayanan, op. Cit., ibid. The Harp

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Other phrases come to mind: phrases like Culture Shock, Culture Gap, Cultural Stereotype, Cultural Cringe, and Culture Vulture. 5 Culture has been defined in various ways, but the truth is, so far a universally accepted definiton of culture has not yet been found. Kroeber and Kluckhohn list in their book "Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions" 6 about 250 definitions and even this list is not complete. Not to become too involved philosophically attention may simply be directed to the excellent article "Culture at the Service of Evangelisation in India" by Stephen Fuchs. 7 In order to emphasise the point that in the phrase Cultural Heritage "Culture" means much more than art, architecture, sculpture, literature, music &c. a few more quotations one may be kindly permitted to reproduce. "Culture is that complex whole which indudes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, customs and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." 8 "Culture is everything. Culture is the way we dress, the way w e carry our heads, the way we walk, the way we tie our ties — it is not only the fact of writing books or building houses." 9 The Nature of Culture: Culture is based on the uniquely human c a p a c i t y to c l a s s i f y e x p e r i e n c e s , e n c o d e s u c h c l a s s i f i c a t i o n s symbolically, and teach such abstractions to others. It is usually acquired through enculturation, the process through which an older generation induces and compels a younger generation to reproduce the established lifestyle; consequently, culture is embedded in a person's way of life. Culture is difficult to quantify, because it frequently exists at an unconscious level, or at least tends to be so pervasive that it escapes everyday thought. Thus the existence and use of culture depends upon an ability possessed by humans alone. It refers to behaviour peculiar to Homo sapiens, together with material objects used as an integral part of 5. Cambridge International Dictionary of English, p.334. 6. A. L. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions - Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass., 1952, Vol.XLVII, No.1. 7. The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India, Vol.l, Ed. G.Menachery, Trichur, 1982, pp.198 ff. 8. Sir E. B. Tylor 9. Aime Cesair Vol. XV 2002

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this behaviour. Hence culture includes language, ideas, beliefs, customs, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, and ceremonies, among other elements. 10 The rock edicts" and copper-plate grants 12 , various Granthavanes, the Ramban S o n g " , the Mar gam Kali Pattukal the PallippattukalI5, and other such songs, the letters and reports of the Portuguese and the Dutch, the Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Diampei' 16 contain m u c h information for the various aspects of the culture of the St. T h o m a s Christians. But the most important source is the collective m e m o r y of the people, and the existing customs and traditions, in addition to the extant works of art, architectur e etc. , 7 Works by Ferroli, Schurhaminer, and Placid, and the efforts of the three H's TIeras, Hosten, and Hambye have contributed greatly to our k n o w l e d g e and u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the Thomas Christian cultual heritage. To u n d e r s t a n d , appreciate, and conserve the cultural heritage of the 'Syrian' Church one m u s t s t u d y all the aspects mentioned above 10. Encyclopaedia Brittanica 11. Like the Thazhekkat church rock inscription and the iater foundation stones and tomb inscriptions of many churches. 12. Like the Tnarisappalli plates and the Palayur plates. 13. An English translation of the Song of Thomas Ramban sent by T.K.Joseph dated 6-7/3/1926 to Fr. Hosten s.j. may be seen in the Indian Church History Classics, Vol.I - The Nazranies.Ed. G.Menachery. Ollur, Jan. 1998, pp.520-525. 14. P.U.Lucas, Kottayam, 1910. A reprint, Ed. J. Vellian, is available (1980). In his Anthropology of the Syrian Christians L. K. Anatha Krishna Ayyar has given English translations of many songs (which is available in the iCHC, Vol.I, The Nazranies. pp.500-506. 15. Vide supra f.n. 14. 16. Gouvea, Antonio de, O.E.S.A, Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa Dom Freyn Aieixo deMenezes, Coimbra,1606. In English: Geddes, Michael, The History of the Church of Malabar... Together with the Synod od Diamper...London: 1694 (fully reproduced in Hough II arid in The Nazranies). In Malayalarn: Scaria Zacharia, Edamattam, 1998. 17. See the separate articles in the ecumenical St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India, Ed. G. Menachery, Vol.II, Trichur, 1973. The later History of Christianity in India (CHAI - Ed. A. M. Mundadan, Vols.l 1984, and I11982) and the Malayalarn 'Kraisthava Vijnana Kosham' (Alleppy, 1976) also have much useful material. The STCEIand The Nazranies ( b o t h Ed. by the present writer) together have nearly one thousand photographs dealing with the cultural heritage of the T h o m a s Christians. A collection of articles by this writer entitled Pallikkalakaium Mattum in Malayalarn (Trichur, 1984) has given as appendices a number of rather exhaustive lists of objects of art of the St. Thomas Christians gathered from churches and households for the various exhibitions organised by the STCEI from 1971 onwards and for the Christian Cultural Museum of Trichur (1980). The Harp

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in detail vis-a-vis the cultural heritage of all T h o m a s Christians and the cultural heritage of Kerala.. These streams are generally quite similar and often identical with each other. In a short article of this length justice cannot be done to even a single aspect of this heritage. However let us deal with some items at random, knowing full well that the selection is bound to be arbitrary, and the treatment haphazard. As two volumes edited by the present writer 1 7 have shown a large number of examples of the various works of art in the OrthodoxJacobite, S y r o - M a l a b a r , C h a l d e a n , and other c h u r c h e s it is not necessary to go into all that again here. Suffice it to say the works of art and architecture in w o o d , metal, ivory, stone, colours, plaster, shells, cloth, etc. in T h o m a s Christian churches and households form a considerable proportion of art objects in Kerala and their position qualitatively and quantitatively in the heirarchy of Kerala's art tradition cannot be questioned. A m o n g the objects in these churches which contribute much to the artistic superiority of Kerala may be counted the huge pillarless roofs and roof decorations, the belfry s, the altarpieces, the ceilings,, the w o o d e n rostra (Pushpakkoodu), the processional RoopaKkoodu, the gold and silver crosses, the w o o d e n c a n d l e s t i c k s , the o p e n - a i r g r a n i t e crosses,, the c o p p e r - s h e a thed flagstaffs, the rock lampstands and the array of rock (chuttuvilakku) lamps on the huge Aanamathil, facades and their plaster images, rock baptismal fonts, bronze bells and vessels, wood and ivory statues, w o o d e n b o x e s , gold and silver c r o s s e s , c o l o u r f u l p r o c e s s i o n a l mnbrellas, multicoloured mural paintings and wooden panels - many older and perhaps better and surely m u c h bigger than m o s t of the r e p u t e d M u g h a l and R a j p u t p a i n t i n g s of India -, g o l d c o a t e d woodcarvings, and a thousand and one other items. True some of these are of post-Portuguese origin. But even that means often an antiquity of half a millennium and typologically and from the point of view of the techniques used most of these are typically Keralite and often typically christian in origin and use. O n e of India's most celebrated festivals is the Pooram festival of Thrissur. This festival was planned, organised and established by Shaktan T a m b u r a n of Cochin just two hundred years ago. Perhaps the most attractive item of this festival is the celebrated Tliekkottirakkam with the heavenly sight of the changing of the colourful umbrellas. It is this changing of the umbrellas that brings to the Thekkinkad Maidan large numbers of visitors from India and abroad every year. Although even the smallest old church of Kerala belonging to the West-Syrian or Vol. XV 20Ô2

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East-Syrian tradition has a dozen colourful Muthukkudas' 8 in its possession from the time of its establishment, it being an item of the 1500 years' old 72 privileges of Kerala christians. These churches or their festivals are not very famous compared to the two centuries' old Pooram. It is not having these art objects that matters, but using one's cultural wealth to the best advantage for the greater glory of God and enjoyment of man. Adi Sankaracharya in his 64 so-called anacharams made white cloth compulsory for Brahmin men and women. He made nasal o r n a m e n t s taboo for Kerala B r a h m i n w o m e n f o l k (i.e.the Antharjanams). Today the njori - fan like arrangement of the Mundu forms part of the costume of aristocratic Nampoothiri women. Brahmin women everywhere else in India use dark-coloured dresses - dark red, green, and blue... Elsewhere in India, similarly, they always use nasal ornaments. In Kerala only Mar Thoma Nazraney women had the two Shankarite customs as described above. Did Sankaracharya who lived in Kalady at the centre of christian communities (such as Parur, Edappally, Malayattur...) in the 8th/9th century borrow these customs from the aristocratic Nazranies to promote Brahmin acceptability? In any case white dress has always been a part of christian culture in Kerala as also the taboo concerning the use of nasal ornaments. Here one might also make mention of the large number of similarities found between nampoothiri and nazraney customs regarding ornaments, marriage, birth, and death related ceremonies and observances, costumes, daily utensils and food items etc." Kerala christians have their own customs and traditions regarding many other matters, as f.i. in the names chosen for their children or in the type of Palaharams they make for Holy days and festivals. There are even some Curries and side dishes which are peculiar to the christians of Kerala. Institutions like Palliyogam and Pallikkoodatn christian aegis.

prospered under

18. Yet when the local churches brought forth all their Muthukkudas in 1983 for the Holy Year cultual rally it was a wonderful sight indeed that left the onlookers dumbfounded with joy. From that time onwards more and more processions in the State and even abroad are displaying the Muthukkudas and Historico-cultural floats to advantage. 19. Cf. articles by Placid Podippara, Alexander Cherukarakkunnel, &c. in STCEIII, Trichur, 1973. (ADAPTED FROM A PAPER PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR AT M T . S T . T H O M A S , KAKKANAD)

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L i t u r g y , l i t u r g i c a l art a n d a r c h i t e c t u r e , m u s i c , m u s i c a l instruments, vestments, gestures and celebrations all formed another important part of the cultural richness of the 'Syrian' Church of Kerala. Down from the first century we find Kerala christians almost invariably open to all the sections of world Christianity and willing to give a warm welcome to fellowchristians from abroad irrespective of their nationality, race, colour, rite, or allegiance. For the Kerala christian Christianity was always the same whether it was of one brand or other. It was only much later that lack of unity and divisions become permanent features of Kerala Christianity. Kerala perhaps is the part of India which has come into contact with the maximum number of different cultures from all parts of the world at least from the first centuries B.C.E. Kerala also came into contact with almost all world religions at an early stage. This exposure to world religions, and world cultures was maximum in the case of the christians of Kerala as they were having a monopoly of sea trade from time immemorial. Hence Kerala christians became world citizens before other parts of India became even aware of the existence of other cultures and other religions. This had had its positive and negative effects on the character and conduct of Keralites in general and Kerala christians in particular. This is well reflected in the cultural heritage of the Kerala christians. While this has helped the Thomas Christian to absorb some of the best things from all cultures, it has also led to their changing too fast and discarding the w a y s of their forefathers w i t h o u t m u c h hesitation. This is best seen in their attitude to their cultural heritage. In spite of Rome or Geneva setting up various commissions and other bodies for promoting the protection and preservation of the cultural wealth of individual Churches and for the promotion of better methods in the preservation of old records very little progress has been made by the Malabar Churches in these matters. The writings and speeches of the Holy Father and other world leaders regarding these matters appear to have had little impact on this Church. This negligence is visible in the attitude to all aspects of culture, although here and there one could see some solitary efforts being made to remedy ma tters. Leadership being given by the ecclesiastical dignitaries it may be hoped will bear fruit in the not too distant future. Perhaps this is the place to sound a much needed warning to our own people to preserve their cultural and historical heritage. Anyone who has worked in the field knows the neglect and even vandalism of Kerala Christians towards their cultural heritage. Old churches and Vol. XV 2002

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monuments are demolished and replaced with ugly concrete structures, ancient paintings are rubbed off, and copperplate grants are sold for metal value; valuable records perish without being copied. And the general outrage to history and antiquity borders on the criminal. And it is high time this is stopped. We may conclude with Goethe: Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. [source: Stevenson]

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S o m e earlier features in the Life of the Virgin It is almost difficult to speak about the "Life of the Virgin", as if it was a very precise text, with a plentiful genealogy of manuscripts in several languages just as for the Bible. The problems which are connected with the Life of the Virgin are different. There is no clear possibility to say that one text is better than another. Most of them have their own consistency in many old Christian languages. The various parts of the Life of Mary from the Nativity of Mary till her Dormition are often isolated in some manuscripts. The complete set of all the episodes in one long composition is rather the exception. The oldest testimony for such a work is the Life by Maximus the Confessor which is preserved in Georgian. There is some opportunity to revisit this theme again. Still fil teen years ago, w e spent time to edit the Georgian Live of the Virgin which is attributed to Maxim the Confessor 1 . We had at that time the consolation to get a letter from Hans Urs von Balthasar, the renowned specialist of Maximus, and he fully agreed to the attribution 2 . He wrote: "What an extraordinary surprise and what a wonderful present! I sincerely thank you. I put everything away and rushed to read the 1

2

M. J. van Esbroeck, Maxime le Confesseur, Vie de !a Vierge. Texte, Louvain 1986; Traduction Louvain 1986 ( = C S C O , vol 478 et 479; scriptores iberici 21 et 22).) I quote that letter: "Basel den 30.1.87. Mon Révérend Père, Quelle extraordinaire surprise et quell merveiilueux cadeau! Je vous remercie de tout cœur. J'ai tout abandonné et me suis lance d a n s la lecture des introductions, puis du texte. C'est évidemment un Maxime tout nouveau, mais reconnaissable comme vous te prouvez, enchevêtré dans une grande tradition - connue et inconnue - et plus abordable que dans la plupart de s e s oeuvres théologiques.»

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i n t r o d u c t i o n , a n d than the text. It clearly gives us a Maxi m u s , w h o is entirely n e w , b u t recognizable, as y o u p r o v e d it, a n d involved in a b r i g h t e r tradition, - k n o w n a n d u n k n o w n - m o r e accessible than in m o s t of his theological works". H o w e v e r , Simon CL Mimouni published in 1994 a long article 1 , w h i c h p r e s e n t s itself as a status quaestionis, w h e r e h e e x p r e s s e d all the possible sceptical reactions on the attribution to M a x i m u s . H e even q u o t e s H. U r s v o n Bal 111 asar against m y thesis, bu t in a publication w h i c h a p p e a r e d in 1941 4 . N o less than seven p a g e s are d e v o t e d to w h a t he considers to be the first Life, that is the G e o r g i a n text which 1 published. I quote s o m e other affirmation f r o m the s a m e article: "The Lite of the Virgin by M a x i m u s the Confessor is the oldest testimony of that literary genre. That text forces to give u s a terminus a quo for that t y p e of literature the first half of he sixt c e n t u r y " . In a footnote he a d d s : "Before that time, the t e r m i n u s a q u o w a s fixed at the e n d of the IX"1 century, w i t h the Life of the Virgin f r o m E p i p h a n i u s the M o n k " 5 . The r e a s o n to react in s u c h a w a y is given s o m e w h a t later: "If the a t t r i b u t i o n a n d the d a t i n g w h i c h w e r e p r o p o s e d by M. v a n E s b r o e c k w e r e a c c e p t e d , this w o u l d s i g n i f y that the reaction in f a v o u r of the D o r m i t i o n a n d a g a i n s t the A s s u m p t i o n get their o r i g i n at that v e r y start p o i n t . In s u c h a n e v e n t u a l i t y , h o w c o u l d w e e x p l a i n the silence of the Greek tradition at the beginning of the VI3"1 century till the m i d d l e of the X"' c e n t u r y . " 4 T h a t a f f i r m a t i o n c o n t a i n s t w o u n s u s t a i n a b l e assertions. First, the H o m i l i e s of John of T h e s s a l o n i k i a l r e a d y are f r o m b e g i n n i n g of the VII th c e n t u r y , n o t to q u o t e m o r e s u p p l e m e n t a r y texts; s e c o n d l y , the o p p o s i t i o n of D o r m i t i o n a n d A s s u m p t i o n , w h i c h w e r e built u p b y the s a m e author to a b i g b o o k 7 , are completely irrelevant for d a t i n g the d o c u m e n t a t i o n . T h i s h a s b e e n illustrated f r o m a totally d i f f e r e n t p o i n t of v i e w by a n article of Pio F r a n c o Beatrice o n the Tlieosophiafrom Tübingen8. This lost w o r k is b u t s a v e d t h r o u g h a v e r y s h o r t description of its content. T h e apologetical w o r k w a s c o n s t i t u t e d o n the p r e s u m p t i o n that the sixth M i l l e n i u m s h o u l d begin in the y e a r 491. the a u t h o r of that w o r k w a s c o n v i n c e d that the E n d of the w o r l d 3

Simon CI. Mimouni, Les Vies de la Vierge. Etat de la question, in Apocrypha, 5(1994). p.211-248.

4

ld.,p.219,note31.

5 6 7

Id., p.221 and note 37. Id. P.222. Simon Claude Mimouni, Dormition et Assomption de Marie: Histoire des traditions anciennes, Paris 1995,716 pp. Quoted Mimouni, Dormition. P. F. Beatrice, Traditions apocryphes d a n s la Theosophie de Tübingen, in Apocrypha, 7(1996), p.109-122. On another point of view, I totally disagree with the meaning of the author that the lost T h e o s o p h y would have been written by Sever of Antioch.

8

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was very close, and he took for granted many fictitious sentences of pagan Philosophy to confirm his thesis*. But the work contained also the "Genesis and Analepsis Mariae". This second word can only refer to the literature about the Dormition of the Virgin. Therefore, it should be placed already in the V"'century. 1 immediately remarked the new edi tion of the Theosophorum Graecorum Fragmenta which was issued in 1995, and 1 noted that paragraph of the Theosophia, which is relevant not only for the Life of the Virgin but also for the Martyrium of Gregory the Wonderworker in Georgian 10 . As a first consequence we should search for the redactions on the Dormition already in the period of Zeno, who is explicitly mentioned in the résumé of the Theosophy, that is before 491. This always has been my conviction. However, the weakness of the treatment of the matter by Mimouni becomes very clear. As he proudly claims to be the author of the Marian section of the Clavis Apocryphorum", there is some reason to reassume the huge bulk of texts from the point of view of the history of the texts, and not on a false conception of an opposi tion between Dormition and Assumption which never existed in the eight first centuries of eastern Christianity. There is some additional reason to give to the Mariological studies another orienta tion, when we observe that Mimouni never quoted the Marienlexikon, which appeared in six large volumes with an average of 800 pages each from the year 1988 to tine year 1994' 2 . Our aim here is not to make a new Clavis, completing the seven items given there for the Life of the Virgin (n°90-96), or making new remarks about the seven moods to dispatch the Transitus Literature (n° 100 A-G), or either to enumera te once more the seventy-seven texts which were brought into connexion with the Transitus (n°101-177) 13 , without mentioning the isolated Lamentations of the Virgin 14 . 9 10 11 12

13 14

H. Erbse, Theosophorum graecorum fragmenta, Stuttgardiae et Lipsiae 1995 p. 1-3,§ 4. M. van Esbroeck, Le martyre géorgien de Grégoire le Thaumaturge et sa date, in Le Muséon, 112(1999), p.129-185. S. Cl. Mimouni, art. cit. P.240, note 131. M. Geeard, Clavis Apocryphorum, Turnhout 1992, n s 100 to 177. R. Bäumer & L. Scheffczyk, Marienlexikon herausgegeben im Auftrag des Institutum Marianum Regensburg, St-Ottilien, 1-6(1988/1989/1991/1992/1993/ 1994). Quoted ML hereafter. This Opus Magnum was achieved when Mimouni published his thesis. It is quite easy to find more texts than those 77 entries, and we will eventually signaiise some of them. Marienlexikon, art. Planctus, 5(1993), p.248-250: Greek, Syriac and Georgian texts.

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First of all J shall stress the clear insertions of the Transitus literature in the second half of the V1'1 century, a fact on which specialists of the Latin Melito literature already perfectly agreed 15 , and which is totally obscured in the classification of Mimourii by his inadequate distinction between Assumption on one hand and Dormition on the other. Both aspects of the final destiny of Mary were always present at the same time in most of the available texts. About this fact, we had already some studies published 16 , which are not used by Mimouni, As H. Urs von Balthasar wrote in his letter, the text of the Maximus is deeply involved in a tradition which preceded him before the year 600. this is true not only in the sense that lost Lifes have to be supposed to explain the emergence of Maximus' text. It also implicates that many fragments of longer lost texts which were saved could really have belonged to brighter compositions. There are several isolated themes which were p u t together in the complete Lives. For many of ¡hose themes, there still exist much more literature than that which appears in the Clavis. The distinction of seven Lives on one side and of seventy seven Dormition-texts on the other must be considered as quite artificial. For the beginning of the Life of the Virgin w e have indeed the Protevangelium Jacobi, whose earliest form can been traced till the IInd century 17 . Therefore we will here stress the external evidence of historical events which alights the development of the KoimesisLiterature even in the IVth century. For the Vth century, nothing is more important than the rejection of the council of Chalcedon by leading representatives of the oriental Christian community. Of this historical event, we already gave an accurate description 18 . We never should forget, that the first symbolic influence in order to explain the role of Mary is the Bible In the IV111 century, long before the council of Chalcedon and even before that of Ephesos, I should stress four testimonies, which I believe to be relevant in order to explain some developments of the current reports on the Dormition.

15 A. Masser Pseudo-Meiito, Id, p.373. Alone against all: Mimouni, Dormition, p.272. 16 Some of those are now put together in: Michel van Esbroeck, Aux origins de la Dormition de la Vierge, Variorum reprints, Aldershot 1995. 17 E. de Strycker. La forme la plus ancienne du protévangile de Jacques, Bruxelles 1961. 18 M. van Esbroeck, La Dormiiiori chez les Coptes, in M. Rassart-Debergh et J.Ries, Actes du IVe congrès copte, Louvain-la-Neuve 1992, p.436-445 and Le culte de la Vierge de Jérusalem à Constantinople aux Vl'-VIl' siècles, in Revue dos Éludes Byzantines, 46{ 1988), p. 181 -190. Both articles are reprinted under the title given note 16. The Harp

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The first item is a passage of the Treatise of Epiphanies of Cyprus on Measures and Weights in its Georgian version, which alone have maintained the date of the consuls Theodosius 111 and Flavius Abundantius for the year 3931,!. The second appears in the homily on the Ascension of our Lord attributed to Eusebius of Alexandria. The third is the close relationship of the Pistis Sophia with the literature about the assumption. The fourth is the episode of the reconstruction of the temple by the lews under Julian the Apostate. (1) The text of Epiphanios comments the modios [22-24] as the fulfilment of the Law, the three measures of fine meal which are prepared by Sara for the Angels [30], and the lour xestoi in the stamnos (Urn) of Manna in the Arch of Covenant [35]. In the centre of his demonstration, there is an equivalence between the LXX and the Hebrew text for the verse Ex. 16, 33-36. Moses said to Aaron: Take a golden stamnos and put therein a full 'outer of manna, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations. Verse 36 adds in the Hebrew text: Now one 'omer is a tenth of an ephah, and in the Greek text: Now a 'omer ivas the tenth of three measures. The logic of Epiphanios' exegesis cannot be understood without looking to the given equivalence between "one ephah" (or one inodios) in Hebrew, and "three measures" in Greek. One could even say that the short report on the validity of the LXX which precedes in chapter 9-13 has its principal motivation in that equation, and that the inspiration of the Greek alphabet (chapter 42) and the classification of the 22 works of the creation and the 22 books of the holy Bible (22-23) comment the same parallelism. Now we can grasp the Mariology included in tha t exegesis. The three measures of fine meal, in Gen. 18,6, are prepared by Sara for the three visitors in the house of Abraham in Mambre. I quote "These three measures are one modios, which is a holy capacity for it is not possible for three men to eat so much. This happened to leave no defect in the name of the Trinity, for that measure was that of the Trinity, and the modios the confession of the unique substance and the three to express the unique communion of the Trinity. And what he says: Make the bread hidden under the ashes (Gen 18,6) denotes the true bread, which is not yet revealed to the whole universe, for it is the 19 M. van Esbroeck, Les versions géorgiennes d ' É p i p h a n e de Chypre. Traité des poids et d e s m e a s u r e s , 111,21 - 3 5 . , Louvanii 1 9 8 4 . ( = C 5 C O , vol. 4 6 1 , p . 3 9 - 4 2 ) . T h e G r e e k a n d Syriac forms of the s a m e T r e a t i s e loss the d a t e a n d other thoughts which a r e r e l e v a n t for the e x e g e s i s . T h e article E p i p h a n i u s in Marienlexikon, 2 ( 1 9 8 9 ) , p . 3 7 5 - 3 7 6 d o e s no! quote that exegetical development. Vol. X V 2 0 0 2

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W o r d of God from Lhe heaven still hidden in the offspring of Abraham, h i d d e n by its own advent. T h e h i d i n g - p l a c e of that bread is the sign w h y he bears the n a m e " h i d d e n " under the heap of ashes. He still lies in coal and ashes, what h a p p e n e d as a figure. W h e n Caleb the son of J e p h o n i a s , after the death of G a z u b a his first wife, took In m a r r i a g e Ephrata (1 C h r o n . 2,18), Ephrata w a s a w i d o w . And C a l e b received f r o m J o s h u a bar N u n the town of Kalrata in heritage, w h i c h m e a n s " w e l l k n o w n for her g l o r y " . Than he built a second town near the first one, and n a m e d it Ephrata (Gen 15.19), from the n a m e of his wife, which m e a n s "Plenti fulness of fruits". After the birth of E l a m o n , Zara and s o m e others, he begot a son and g a v e h i m the n a m e " B e t h l e h e m " . H e loved him and again built a town near both the preceding ones. H e named it according to the n a m e of his s o n , which means " H o u s e of the bread ". So was Lhe n a m e of that house, but it gave no clear significance till the advent from heaven of him w h o w a s born by the virgin M a r y in Bethlehem, that is the H o u s e of the bread, of his w h o said: lam the bread of life which came down from Heaven (Jn 6,51). T h e place got its n a m e l o n g ago, but the bread still w a s not revealed for it w a s h i d d e n , according to w h a t w e said 2 0 . N o w the kapsake c o n t a i n s f o u r xestoi, and this is the m e a s u r e o f the capacity of the urn for the M a n n a . Manna is the question of the P h a r i s e e s a b o u t C h r i s t : Man hit? W h o is h e ? In that u r n , s a y E p i p h a n i u s , are all the mysteries of the Pentateuch and of the f o u r Gospels. It w o u l d be too long to give this full commentary 2 1 here. For ¡he identification of Maria with the Arch of Covenant and with the urn therein is clear e n o u g h to record its use in the frame of the D o r m i t i o n . T h e w h o l e exegesis of Epiphanius d e n o t e s a cluster of testimonies w h i c h were long ago put together for p u r p o s e of evangelisation. O n e should note that the h o u s e of Bethlehem is typologically important to speak about the Virgin in connexion with the birth of Christ. E v e n the n a m e s of J e p h o n i a s a n d Caleb are quite relevant for the Transi tus-Literature. But first o f all, the place Bethlehem throws s o m e light on its role narrating the D o r m i t i o n w h i c h was earlier limited to the mount of Olives in Jerusalem. (2) T h e h o m i l y on the A s c e n s i o n of our Lord, w h i c h is preserved under the problematic n a m e of E u s e b i u s of Alexandria, h a s a final short report on the take off of the Lord into the heaven. T h e h o m i l y w a s attributed to several personalities in n o m o r e than four languages, 20 M. van Esbroeck, Les versions géorgiennes ..., trad., p.39-40. 21 Ibid., p.40-42, where the golden urn in not other than Mary receiving the saviour The Harp

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Greek, Syriac, Armenian and Georgian. Fortunately, the Georgian translation has two different redactions. One of both twice preserved the clear rendering of a lost Greek, which is unlikely to have been in use in the V lh century. The new Testament of Christ is expressed in agreement with the excerpt of Epiphanius which has been q u o t e d above: the prophets become the apostles § 41, the tablets of the Law the Gospels § 42, the rod of Aaron becomes the Cross § 43, the Manna the eucharistie bread § 44, and the water of the rock the eucharistic wine § 45. The most interesting place for our purpose lies in the §§ 47 - 56, which is a discourse addressed by Jesus to his mother 2 2 . That type of consolation greetings is commonly inserted in the literary genre of the Transi tus, especially in the § 3 of the Georgian fragments, whose closest parallels occur in the Ethiopie transitus, and in the Life of the Virgin §§ 81 - 82, before the adoption of Saint John according to the last wish of Jesus on Ihe Cross. § 52 of the Eusebius homily pu ts on the lips of Christ the following words: "I will not leave you, o my mother and Virgin! When your soul will go out of your mouth, I shall not send any angel nor an archangel, but 1 will come myself and shall carry away your soul, which is more lightening than the sun!" These words are from the IV"' century. They are echoed by § 103 in the Transitus", where the Virgin says her second "Fiat" to the Angel (Michael) on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. So there is no trace of Bethlehem, but everything is prepared to receive Christ for the second time, and this will not be possible without the word of Paul us in 1 Thes. 4,6-17: "For the Lord himself will descend with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together zvith them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air". Hence the classical representation of the apostles on clouds in the iconography of the Dormition. This is an old part of the Life of the Virgin. (3) The Armenian homily on the Dormition which is attributed to John Chrysostom is most probably rather from John of Jerusalem (386415) 24 . Its content surely precedes the council of Ephesus. Its § 14 contains just the same relation on the promise of Christ to the Virgin in the context of his Ascension. § 16 knows that the Apostles and many others descended on clouds before Christ came to carry the soul of 22 M. van Esbroeck, Version géorgienne de l'homélie eusébienne CPG 5528 sur l'Ascension, in Orientalia Christiana periodica 51(1985), p.277-306. Included in the Variorum Reprints 1995. 23 Id., Maxime le Confesseur. Vie de la Vierge, p.90-91. 24 Id., Une homélie arménienne sur la Dormitiom attribuée à Jean Chrysostome, in Oriens Christianus, 74(1990), p. 199-233. Republished in Variorum Reprints. Vol. XV 2002

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Mary away. It knows also that the Jewish high priest searched to destroy the body of the Virgin before it was brought into the tomb of Gethsemani, and lastly it already relates how Thomas came too late, asked to open the empty tomb, so that all knew that her body was assumed into the heaven. The final mention of the 15lh of August as her feast is surely an addition after 591, when that liturgical date has been fixed by emperor Mauritius. Perhaps the story of Thomas is also a later supplement. When looking at the Life of the Virgin for the parallels, § 112 and 113 are relating the aggression of the high priest on the body of Mary. Here too, he is anonymous. The story of Thomas, w h o is not named, is also included. The whole presentation is very close to our second testimony. And there is no mention of Bethlehem nor about a house in Jerusalem. One should observe that the oldest Greek Transitus [G 1] agrees with most of these topics, but the high priest bears the name Jephonias. On the Mount of the Olives. The Palm is given to Mary, and subsequently to the converted Jephonias. The hand of Jephonias first was cut off when he tries to touch the body of Mary. This episode is naturally inspired by the Old Testament episode when Ozia attempted to touch the Arch of Covenant in "Samuel 6,6-7. (4) Our fourth testimony is somewhat different. The Pistis Sophia was long considered as a very old Coptic Gnostic text from the 3rd century. Now, the probability that its manuscript dates only from the Vth century is more accepted. There is no doubt about the heretical conception of that text. The context however is quite close to that of the apparition in (he Mount of Olives, where after 11 years, just as in the Armenian homily § 15, Christ descended to meet the apostles and the Virgin. Another striking fact is its date on the 15lh of Tobi, that is the 10th of January, a date which probably reassumed the last consequences of the dwelling of God in Christ and Maria at the end of the week of Epiphany. It can hardly be separated on the two celebrations of the Pascha in the Coptic tradition against Chalcedon, ending on the 21s' of Tobi for the Dormition of Mary25, however, the date looks somewhat more genuine, for the 2151 would have been more normal. The 15th looks as the promise for the visit of Christ himself a week la ter, and the Justinian feast would not have been organised in a week if this tradition did not have some anteriority. Even the Copts took the 9th of August as granted for the Assumption of the body of Mary, 206 days after the 21st Tobi, and that day in August is just one week before the 25 More on this iri La Dormition chez les Coptes, quoted note 18 above. The Harp : ;

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classical date. The 21" is one of the clearest anti-chalcedonian celebration, in the time of Theodosios, the anti-patriarch of Jerusalem from 451 to 453. N o w in the Pistis Sophia, the central theme is indeed Gnostic, for Maria Magdalena becomes there a terrestrial incarnation of the eon Sophia, and only after 13 penances, Maria the mother of Jesus begins to speak. The §§ 61 and 62 are just in the middle to assert that the child Jesus was suddenly replaced by his heavenly twin, a Christology which looks much more Manichean than Gnostic 26 . The role of the apostles is here quite different: they have to decipher the Gnostic drama from the heaven through a lot of quotations of the Psalms and of the Odes of Salomon. That central thesis is however developed with a lot of astrological conceptions which are not necessary to the kern of the development This is why it seems to me probably, tha t the primitive scene on the Mount of Olives is a challenge for the normal exposure of the assumption of the Virgin at the same place. One has not to forget how Gregory of Nyssa, in his second Letter, gave an eloquent view on the numerous heretic groups which flourished in the eighties of the I Vth century in Jerusalem 27 . If we take it for a Gnostic pendant to the normal Palm-tree family of the Dormition, the exegesis of Epiphanius gives the clue why Bethlehem has been introduced on one side, and the House of Mary in Jerusalem on the other. The reality of the body of the Virgin is asserted two times against a Gnostic view, which had only to narrate the second advent of the Lord on the basis of a second Annunciation in the Mount of Olives. We get here a motive to switch to the much more prolific Dormition starting in Bethlehem. There is no absolute necessity to consider that it appeared only in the fifth century. When the role of the Virgin has been recognised, Jephonias or Caleb converted with a lot of Jews w h o discovered the hidden bread in the dish of the three angels w h o visited Abraham. (4) The last point concerns with the abundant material carried by the so-called Transitus in six books in Syriac and Arabic. There seems to be an unmistakable correlation with the flames of fire which came out of the temple, when the Jews were excavating the temple in the time of Julian the Apostate, and the flames which overwhelmed the people, starting out from the house of the Virgin in Jerusalem. The first event has been discovered by S. Brock in the context of a Letter of Cyrill of Jerusalem, whose twelve §§ are exclusively devoted to the excava26 C. Schmidt, Die Pistis Sophia. Die beiden Bücher des Jeü. Unbekanntes altgnostisches Werk, Berlin 1954 , p.77-79. 27 Grégoire de Nysse, Epistuiae, ed. G . Pasquali (Berlin 1935), p. 11 -17. The Harp

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tion of the temple . As a parallel, we quote here from book III of the Syriac Transitus: "The people of Jerusalem assembled and took fire and wood, and they went to the court in which the Blessed one dwelt; a n d the Governor w a s standing at a distance looking on. And when they came to the court, they found the doors shut. And they lifted their h a n d s to pull them up, and straightaway the angel of the Lord struck on their faces with his wings, and fire w a s kindled from the door and the flame blazed forth, which no man had kindled, and the faces and the h a n d s of those people w h o had arrived at the door of the Blessed one's court were burnt, and many of them died. And there w a s great fear in Jerusalem" 2 '. The s a m e is recorded in the complete Syriac Life of the Virgin which has been published by E. Wallis Budge 1 0 , but without the n a m e od Caleb the Saducee, w h o has to be converted. 28

The episode of the temple is clearly a report about the historical decision of Julian the Apostate in 362, to give the Jews the possibility to built up the Temple of Jerusalem. Its application to the house of the Virgin in Jerusalem is quite natural, after we saw how Epiphanius demonstrates that Maria w a s the urn in the Arch of Covenant, which had to be in the temple. The real Arch is Mary's body, and its house in Jerusalem is the temple. Even the Doctrine of Abgar is supposed by the preceding Book II, and this can hardly occur before the end of the IV th century. The Doctrine of Abgar includes the first Invention of the Cross in the time of Protonikè, the wife of emperor Claudius, and a lot of personalities from the first century. The occasion to put them forward in the e c c l e s i a s t i c a l life of J e r u s a l e m w a s the creation of the Stavrophylax in 392, w h o s e first personality w a s Porphyr of Gaza. The many names of the first generation after Christ continue to flourish in the inven tion of the relics of saint Stephan in 415, and the personality w h o actively involved for all those representation is John of Jerusalem, w h o certainly admitted the martyrdom of Judai-Kyriakus of Jerusalem on the 25th of May 362 in Jerusalem 3 1 , a presumption which was never accepted by the jurist Severus of Antioch 32 . 28 S. P. Brock, A letter attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem on the Rebuilding of the Temple, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 40(1977), p.267286. 29 Agnes Smith Lewis, Apocrypha Syiaca. The Protevangelium Jacobi and Transitus Mariae, London

1902, p.38.

30 E. A. Wallis Budge, The history of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the History of the Likeness of Christ, Engfish translations, London 1899, p. 143. 31 M. van Esbroeck, Jean II de Jérusalem et les cultes de S. Étienne, de la SainteSion et de la Croix, in Analecta Bollandiana, 102(1984), p. 126-134. 32 Id., Une note de Sévère d'Antioche sur Juda Cyriaque, in V Sympoisum Syriacum. ed. R. Lavenant, Rome 1990,183-193.

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As we said just at the beginning, the exegesis of Epiphanius on the Virgin is dated by the Consuls names in 393. It seems verisimilar that the exegesis has been soon adapted to the earliest representations of the Assumption of Mary into the heaven, as a protest towards the tendencies reflected by the Pistis Sophia. Naturally, many elements came long afterwards in the texts which have survived in so many different languages. The most important is the date on21 s 'Tobi or 16 January, which cannot have existed before the opposition to the Council of Chalcedon. Several details could have appeared in the period of the Henoticon, which tries to harmonize different theological concepts. The opposition between the Annunciation with Gabriel and the second one of Michael at the Mount of Olives seems earlier than the distinction of the two houses in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and the place of the house in Jerusalem has subsequently been identified with different places in Jerusalem itself, according to the agreement to or the no-acceptance of the council of Chalcedon. There is surely more to understand in so many texts and fragments. Our purpose here was to underline how a complete Life of the Virgin is not to be excluded even before 451, and how the Dormition can justify the existing church of Gethsemani where the opponents to the Council gathered on the 21s' of Tobi and were overwhelmed by the police under the power of Juvenal of Jerusalem in 453.

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THE BUSTLE ANDTHE UNFRIENDLINESS OFTHETOWN One day when I was passing though the worldly streets, the sound of groans full of pain fell upon my ears. I turned and saw a poor man, a stranger to the place, lying stretched out tortured by sickness. I stopped to hear the plaintive words he spoke, about his exile and the woes stored up in it. He began to weep and made the passers-by weep with him, and by the variety and sweetness of his words, he held me where I stood. With grievous sighs, he made his plaint, recounting what he had endured from his exile,'

I left the house of my own

folk, hoping to return, to come back well in spirit and body

But now

grievous pain and sickness torture me, and they beat upon me at every hour-waves charged with death griefs and sickness

No man asks to know my

Each one passes by in haste, no one stops

beside me; they hasten their steps deliberately that they may not see me. Day passes, night comes to flagellate me; it brings darkness, it isolates me, it makes gloomy the wail of the streets.. . There is no light, no company.. . l a m a stranger to the world and its consolations. O exile

, on thy roads are persecution and travail, vexation, hunger

and thirst, fatigue, disgrace, and threats. Harsh looks and words pierce like arrows, like spear-points cruelly they wound my heart

' .

(Quoted from Jacob of Serug's 'Burial of Strangers': J.B. Segal; Edessa, 'The Blessed City'p. 172)

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Oruvattithara*

St. Peters' Personality a n d Ecclesial Leadership as Revealed in " The Acts of the Apost/es" Or St. Peter in " T h e Acts of the Apostles" Introduction St. Peter's preachings and St. Pauls' promulgations are the warp and woof of The Acts of the Apostles. Indeed The Acts authored by the beloved physicians Luke and published around the second half of the first century A.D. summarizes the saga or romantic tale of the edification of the Ecclesia by two towering personalities, Simon turned Peter and Saul turned Paul. True, the services and sacrifices of others like Stephen the first Christian martyr, Barnabas the encourager, James the Apostle, iii this endeavour are also briefly brought out in this earliest extant treatise on the Church. Head of the Department of Politics, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala. The author, a member of the Syrian Orthodox Church, is presently a student of Theology in the 'Mar Thoma Vidya Nikethan' under the Arch Diocese of Changanacherry, of the Syro Malabar Rite, Kerala. This paper is in response to an assignment by Rev. Sr. Dr. Sophy Rose C. M. C. who taught him 'The Acts' in the above reputed institute for the laity. Vol. XV 2002

pp: 149-154

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Main thoughts in the Acts An Apology for the Church Considering all these the biblical scholar T. V. Bartlet in the Book T h e Acts', published by Baltantvne-Hanson and Co. Edinburgh England, opines that The Acts is no history of the Church but an apology for the Church. It may be noted that the term Church appears in the NT for the first time, in Acts 5:17. If the Acts were missing, Christians would have been groping in the fog of uncertainty about the origin of the Church. Fortification

of Faith

The immediate intention of the author is to make it a defence against Judaism and Roman Imperialism. But beneath this lies the real purport. The book is formulated fundamentally to fortify faith both in the Ecclesia and its founder, Lord Christ. Luke speaks from faith to faith for faith. For him, ascension was not the end of the acts of the historical Jesus. He declares that Christ is the living Lord, working in unison with the Holy Spirit, through the vehicle called the Church, and Jesus is the long sought after Messiah and the sole source of salvation. Pneunmtology To read the Acts is to become aware of the all fulfilling function of the Paraclete. The power of the Paraclete is to be employed for the mission of the Church, and not for personal gratification, the Acts categorically warns. The answer to the question as to how does the Church fit into the Divine dispensation and the Lord's salvific scheme is provided by the Acts. Little wonder that the Acts is hailed the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Acts undoubtedly is the prolific source of a welldeveloped pneumatologv. Universality

of the Clmrch

The Acts is a testament of transition and transformation. While it strikes the death knell of the parochialism or the narrow nationalism of Judaism, it heralds the universality of the Church. The rigor of the rabbinic law is replaced by Ihe canon of charity of the Church, which is Catholic. Besides, it represents as nothing else does, the essential core of the Christian faith. Peter's Imprint in the Acts In brief, the Acts combines in itself Trinitarian theology, Christology, Pneumatologv, Ecclesiology, Ecclesial History and The Harp

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everything else required for faith and understanding for a pure and simple imitation of Christ. Study of the Acts will convince that in all these aspects, the personality of Peter and his leadership traits are imprinted sometimes implicitly and at other times explicitly,

St. Peter's Mission Peter, the Leader In the opening chapter of the Acts, Peter's theology and Ecclesiology are outlined partially. Luke presents, at the outset, a perplexed Peter. The vexation is over the vacancy caused by the treachery of Judas. How callous that one who was selected by Jesus himself could betray him, Peter ponders. Should the vacancy be left like that? No! The number 12 has a theological significance. He remembers the promise of the Master that in the Kingdom of God, the 12 Apostles would judge the 12 tribes of Israel. So he resolves to fill up the vacancy. There was yet another rationale for his resolve. Avery valid one indeed! It is a must that the Apostolic College comprised of its originally commissioned strength of 12, lest the faith of the New Israel, mainly of Jewish origin and of traditionalists in the Torah shall be shaken. Simon doe not act on the spur of emotion, as he was wont to while the Master was alive. He knew fully well that his action must not lack the sanction both of God and God's people. No hasty, hurlyburly explanation would suffice, especially because he was the acknowledged primus inter-pares among the apostles and the philosopher and guide of the newly formed Ecclesia. Apparently by a masterstroke, but really by humble submission to the imperceptible Paraclete, Peter performed this super-human task. He seeks succour from the Scriptures. Harken to the words of Peter! Brethren, the Scripture had to befulfilled (1:16). Peter points to Psalms 69 and 109. Summarily, the correspondence between the suffering of Israel as in these psalms and of Jesus on the one hand and that between those who betrayed Israel and Judas the traitor are emphasised. After establishing beyond the ken of doubt that it was providential that the twelfth apostle must be inducted, Peter works out the modus operandi, it was not a hazard. For, Peter knew that more often than not, the will of God works in the Ecclesia, through the will of the believers. In other words, he had no iota of doubt that Will and not Force is the foundation of the Church. Verily the Church is of the all, by the all, and for the all. Hierarchy is tor service and not for subjection. With all these considerations Peter asks for the Voice of the people as it was deemed to be the voice of God. Vol. XV 2002

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Peter however laid downa very importantcondition, which bespeaks his leadership quality, of far sight and forethought. The Chosen must have accompanied the Apostles during the entire ministry. The Ecclesia was impressed that this decree could not be relaxed, as the condition of being a witness to Resurrection would authorize the chosen for the true function of apostleship. What Simon stipulated centuries ago, is still upheld by the Church through her creedal formula rega rding the witnessing to resurrection. Conceded that what was then a direct condition has become a theological or ecclesiological one due to the passage of time. Following the selective process of Jesus the Master, Peter also would like the Ecclesia to make a primary selection. The final selection would be the working of the divine. It is to be made known through the drawing of the lots, the time-tested practice in Judaism. As the Acts testify, the lot fell on Matthias. Peter's whole action is like that of a traditionalist. Yet he proved his mettle as an organizer and leader. More than that he established beyond doubt that the Ecclesia is of Divine and human combine. Undeniably and undoubtedly Peter was an ecclesiologist. Sermon at the Pentecost: - Peterthe

Theologian

Endowed with the 'gift of the tongue', Peter makes a long sermon OIL the day of Pentecost. The eleven stand with him. Two deductions can be drawn. It symbolizes that Peter speaks for them; the apostles acknowledge his primacy. Had not Jesus Himself commissioned Simon so? Who can then challenge Peter's position? Peter begins with what had drawn the crowd: the gift of the tongues. Not by Hellenistic philosophical jargons, but by Hebraic Scriptural passages did he explain the miracle. Quoting the prophet Joel, he assured that Speaking in tongues was not due to drunkenness, but the fulfilment of the prophecy. Peter's points may astound those who depict him as a simple fisherman. It is true that he was not tutored in the school of Hillel or Shammai. But he had his training by a greater man, Jesus! Peter must have imbibed its true spirit: which is what is evident in this sermon. He then reviews the Christ-events. Peter's emphasis is on God's action in all these, including the crucifixion. The theologian in Peter emerges. He gives theological dimension for all the riddle-ridden deeds and death of Jesus. The torturing and the trial of Christ, although cruel and criminal, are explained by Peter as triumphs of Christian love and charity. In other words, Peter projected that God has done something unique through these. He then turns to Psalm 16 as it helped to establish eschatology. How? T h e Harp

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Because this psalm is a breakthrough in the Jewish theology, as the psalmist rises above the common belief in Sheol to an unfailing faith in life after death. Taking the cue from Psalm 110, besides of 16, he achieves two more theological scores. By logical deduction Peter promulgated that 'this Jesus whom you crucified' has been made the 'Lord and Christ' by God. The sermon of Simon did not enrage the people. Rather the multitude of three thousand souls were encouraged to adopt the 'way'. "Brethren", they cried out to Peter, " W h a t shall we do?" Peter issued three imperatives. Repent: be baptized; be a believer. The populace spontaneously devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostle, prayer and fellowship of the breaking of the bread. What this first theologian of the Church put forth on the Pentecost day is accepted and observed by the Ecclesia even unto this day as the dynamics of her kerygma and doctrines of her theology. Peter's Self

Effacement

Peter's healing of the lame man is an epitome of his unflinching faithfulness to the Master. The power to perform miracles did not make him puffed up. He did not make any claim for himself. He points to his Master Jesus. Hence his command to the lame "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Walk". He contends himself to be His Master's Voice. Here is an example for all Christians and especially for t h o s e in s p i r i t u a l a u t h o r i t y . N o w o n d e r the w o r l d h a s acknowledged this man as a saint. Verily self effacement is the insignia of saintliness. If Peter's precepts were practised, religion in its true and simple form, in its pristine glory, would have reigned. There would not have been the chance for the chicanery of the chimerical 'charismats' and 'god men'. The sermon that Simon made at Solomon's porch is an appeal to the Jewish nation for a national repentance. Metonoia is the only remedy for the maladies of Israel. But ours is the misfortune and tragedy that his profound preaching did not fall through. After arresting Peter and his brother apostle, John, the Sanhédrin put them to trial. Filled with the Spirit Peter confesses his Lord and accuses the authorities on their face. He cites the emboldening verse of Psalm 11.8, "With the Lord on my side, I do not fear what man can do to me". He concludes with Jesus' soteriological mission that the Ecclesia has upheld ever since. His second sermon to the authorities, as recorded in Acts 5:2732 testify how apt and prophetic, the title Kepa that Lord Jesus bestowed on him. Once again Peter's adamantine attitude is revealed. He : Vol. XV 2002

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daringly declares that it is man's duty to obey God rather than human authority when the two conflict. Undoubtedly, it is this counsel of the first incumbent of the Holy Sees of Rome and Antioch that has stood as a sheet anchor and strengthened the respective successors to brave the plots and ploys of scheming secular powers and lead the Church through vicissitudes. Peter Opens the Portals of the Ecclesia to the Gentiles The vision of the sail containing unclean animals and the voice directing Peter to eat them were acid tests on his obedience to the Divine Will. Peter was quick to realize their import. He did not rationalize. He decided that the instruction of the Master, rather than the injunction of Moses should be honoured. Peter had not forgotten the Master's ringing words: "Thy will be done". In deference to the directive, the Kepa readily relinquished his long cherished view that Israel alone should have the boon of salvation through the gospel. Precisely Peter proclaimed the gospel of 'unbound Christ' or the accessible Christ. Surely the Peterine spirit is the guiding force for the Mother Church to reckon the signs of the times and move forward inher efforts of evangelisa tion. The eloquen t sermon that Simon made a t the house of Cornaelius is said to be the most important of all the apostolic preachings of the Acts. It is even suggested by certain biblical savants like A. C. Winn, (in his Book 'Acts of the Apostles', S. C. M. Press, London 1960), that Mark's gospel, which is the oldest, "may well be described as an expression of Peter's sermon". Straightforwardly Peter proclaimed that God shows no partiality. The universal appeal is discernible in the oft-repeated usage all. In the subsequent speech, he silenced the 'circumcision' party by posing 'who was I that I could withstand God'. This episode would speak volumes that the 'way' of Jesus was based not on narrow legal or literal reading but on liberal interpretation of the Scriptures. Peter Paves the Way In conclusion it may be commented that Peter paved the path for St. Paul to tread along. The theology, which St. Paul promulgated, is the amplification of the preachings of Peter. The pure and simple Hebraic interpretation of the 'Word' by Peter was the substratum on which Paul grafted his Hellenistic perspectives and made the Ecclesia the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.

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S o m e annotations a b o u t the f u r y of theologians In the introduction to his "Loci communes rerum theolicarum (1521)" Philipp Melanchthon, friend and colleague of Martin Luther, wrote a programmatic sentence characteristic of his vital antispeculative f u n d a m e n t a l position. "Scilicet hoc est C h r i s t u m cognoscere beneficia eius cognoscere, non quod isti docent eius naturas, modos incarnationis contueri". Theology has to deal with that which serves the salvation of the soul! Very similar Luther in one of his sermons of 1525: "For Christ is not called Christ because he has two natures. What's that got to do with me? But he bears this glorious and cheering name because of the ministry and work which he has taken upon himself ... That he is by nature Man and God he has for himself but that he ... has emptied his love and becomes my Saviour and Redeemer that is for my comfort and for God's (WA XVI, 271 pp). Later shortly before his death Melanchton upon the question what he was looking for wrote on the left side of a piece of paper: "You'll be saved from sin, from the tribulations of life and from the fury of the theologians." On the right side he wrote: "You'll come to the light, you'll see God and his Son, you'll discern the miraculous mysteries, which you could not grasp in this life: why we are created this way and not differently and which is the union of the two na tures of Christ." It seems to me that we could learn a lot from these statements, - we the theologians from churches which recognize Nicea and Chalcedon and the patriarchs of the oriental-orthodox churches who on March 3rd, 1998 once and again condemned Nestorius ..." and all those w h o Vol. XV 2002

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follow their heresies or are spreading their false teachings and errors and all the other heresies." Of course this does not mean that we should not do theology anymore but that we finally see our limits of speculation and recognize the final mystery of the incarnation which will be revealed to us all when we see Cod face to face. By the way: already John Chrysostomos has rejected all speculations in the "how" of the christological union; "for this is known by Christ only" (Adam 322). It is salutary therefore to take note of the common christological declaration which was signed by Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Mardinkha IV of the Ancient Church of the East (nick-named) "Nestorian" on November 11"', 1994 at St. Peter in Rome. In this they stated: "As heirs and guardians of the faith received from the Apostels as formulated by our common Fathers in the Nicene Creed, we confess one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of Cod, begotten of the Father from all eternity who, in the fullness of time, came down from heaven and became man for our salvation. The Word of God, second person of the Holy Trinity, became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit in assuming from the Holy Virgin Mary a body animated by a rational soul, with which he was indissolubly united from the moment of his conception. Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man, perfect in his divinity and perfect in his humanity, consubstantial with the Father and consubstantial with us in all things but sin. His divinity and his humanity are united in one person, without confusion or change, without division or separation. In him has been preserved the difference of the natures of divinity and humanity, with all their properties, faculties and operation. But far from constituting ' one and another', the divinity arid the humanity are united in one person of the same and unique Son of God and Lord Jesus Christ, who is the object of a single adoration. Christ therefore is not an ordinary man' whom God adopted in order to reside in him and inspire him, as in the righteous ones and prophets. But the same God the Word, begotten of his Father before all worlds without beginning according to his divinity, was born of a mother without a father in the last times according to his humanity. The humanity to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth always was that of the Son of God himself. That is the reason why the Assyrian The Harp

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Church of the East is praying the Virgin Mary as 'the Mother of Christ our God and Saviour.' In the light of this same faith the Catholic tradition addresses the Virgin Mary as 'the Mother of God' and also as 'the Mother of Christ.' We both recognize the legitimacy and Tightness of these expressions of trie same faith and we both respect the preference of each church in her liturgical life and piety . This is the unique faith that we profess in the mystery of Christ. The controversies of the past led to anathemas, bearing on persons and on formulas. The Lord's Spirit permits us to understand better today that the divisions brought about in this way were due in large part to misunderstanding" (Syriac Dialogue 230). This declaration in mind and remembering Melanchton's and Luther's statements w e now may look again into that christological controversy which has ostracized the Ancient Church of the East of which Mar Aprem is the Metropolitan in India. The Starting Point "It is my earnest desire that even by anathematizing me they may escape from blaspheming God (and that those who so escape mav confess God, holy, almighty and immortal, and not change the image of the incorruptible God for the image of corruptible man, and mingle heathenism with Christianity ... but that Christ may be confessed to be in truth and in nature God and Man, being by nature immortal and impassable as God, and mortal and passible by nature as man - not God in both natures, nor again Man in both natures. The goal of my earnest wish is that God may be blessed on earth as in heaven); but as for Nestorius, let him be anathema, only let man speak of God as I pray for them that they may speak. For I am with those who are for God, and not with those who are against God, who with an outward show of religion reproach God and cause him to cease from being God" (DH 370). He who wrote these words "was a great Christian. There have been many who were prepared to die as martyrs for what they believed to be the truth, but Nestorius was prepared to live cursed and consigned to oblivion, as long as God was not dishonoured. The saving of God's honor, the exclusion of blasphemy and pagan mythology from the language of religious devotion, was what had motivated him all along; and we now know that he not only li ved to see his theology vindicated, bu t even rejoiced to see it even though it meant no reprieve or recogniVol. XV 2 0 0 2

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tion for him and his followers. As long as truth prevailed, he was prepared to suffer, to efface himself, ra ther than arouse renewed conflict, prejudice and misunderstanding. In tribulation he showed a greater generosity of spirit than many who have received the name saint rather than heretic" (Young 229). These annotations will not repea t painstakingly all the speculative arguments about the "ecumenical scandal", there enough books have been written claiming to know "it", - knowing all about nothing! But let us just set the frame of those days and record what can be grasped even today. In order to understand the original controversy we must know the initial circumstances. The beginning was not about christology but about mariology. Furthermore we must not confuse the then dogmatic information with the wide reading of todays' theologians and overflowing libraries. First of all the question was whether the honorary title of Mary as "Mother of God" (theotokos) has to be interpreted in a christological or mariological context. In terms of christology the title strictly speaking only expresses something about the Godhead of Christ. In terms of Mariology, however, it parades also the "Mother of God" above the earthly level, - a monophysite tendency which led the other side to stress upon the opposite and calling the Virgin Mary just mere "Mother of Man" (anthropotokos). When Nestorius came to power as Pa triarch of Constantinople in 428, - he was a follower of Theodore of Mopsues da, - he plunged himself into the controversy by declaring both parties as heretical and made it clear that the title of "theotokos" could only be applied if according to the "School of Antioch" it was interpretable by the term "christotokos" i.e. by the understanding that Mary had not given birth to the GodLogos but only to the man Jesus w h o indeed is united with God, Christ. From now on "christotokos" became the battle cry and a fierce agitation was started which also reached Rome. After a fruitless correspondence between Nestorius and Cyril of Alexandria the situation grew worse and henceforth an "ecumenical scandal" was established. The message was: Nestorius is a heretic like Paul of Samosata w h o in the person of Jesus saw a mere man (solum hominem/psilon anthropon). Pope Coelestin insufficiently informed by JohnCassian (De Incarnatione Domini Contra Nestoriurn Libri VII) condemned Nestorius during a synod in Rome 430 and at The Harp

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the same time appointed Cyril his deputy. With that the patriarch of Alexandria had free hand and pushed things to escalation. Emperor Theodosius II, however, was not willing to let Cyril act alone and thus summoned a council at Ephsus for Pentecost 431. There the problem should be solved. Cyril, however, was not ready to submit himself to the outcome of a council and took the initiative by opening the council before the arrival of the Antioch opposition and of the delegates from Rome, - the imperial representative protesting in vain, - on June 21,431 with only his bishops present. The outcome was obvious: during the first session already (June 22nd) Nestorius was condemned (he had refused to appear and was arrested in Ephesus) taking the symbol of Nicea of 325 as a base and was deposed as the "new Jude". By this the title "theotokos" for Mary was sanctified dogmatically. On June 26th the oriental bishops and Patriarch John of Antioch arrived at Ephesus and their council immediately deposed Cyril. Now the Roman delegates sided with the Patriarch of Alexandria. Later Nestorius brought bitter charges against the dictatorship of Cyril: "Cyril was the only court; for what he said they all said ... Who was the judge? Cyril. Who was the prosecutor? Cyril. Who was bishop of Rome? Cyril. Who was not all and everything if not Cyril" (DH132). The emperor, however, was not satisfied and arrested Nestorius and Cyril together with the bishop of Ephesus Menon. Whereas Nestorius gave up, left his throne and returned to his monastery in Antioch, Cyril succeeded to escape from prison and entered in triumph into Alexandria. And as the imperial intention was on evening out the conflicts the decisive document in the whole matter was not the decree ofCyril's council on Nestorius but rather the Antioch formula of union of Ephesus of 433 to which Cyril had to agree willy-nilly. This formula became the forerunner of Chalcedon as in order not to endanger "his" council of Ephesus and his Alexandrian throne Cyril was forced to interpret the mainly "Antiochian" tenor of this definition according to his understanding by putting last his up to then monophysite terms. The Antioch side admittedly had to pay for their success with the definite abandoning of Nestorius. He thus became the not totally innocent victim of the whole controversy as his Christology was in no way more heretic than that of Cyril. At the same time he became a precedent in the history of dogmatics. Henceforth indeed every Vol. XV 2002

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unpopular patriarch by guided opinion and terror could be hunted down. The condemnation of Nestorius therefore is accompanying the entire following council epoch like a bad conscience. From 435 on Nestorius was abducted into different exiles and he died unbowed in 451 shortly before the opening of the Council of Chalcedon of which he had hoped for a rehabilitation but in vain. Once more: Nestorius was the victim. He had become the symbol of one type of christology taken to extremes. And for that he suffered. Let. us close with his own words: "I regard the sufferings of my life and all that has befallen me in this world as the suffering of a single day; and I have not changed all these years. Now my death approaches and every day 1 pray to God to dismiss m e - w h o s e eyes have seen the salvation of God. Rejoice with me, Desert, thou my friend, my nurse, my home; and thou exile, my mother, w h o after my death will keep my body until the resurrection by the grace of God"'(DH 378).

Bibliography: A. A d a m

Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, Bd. I, Berlin 1965

K. Beyschlag

G r u n d r i s s der Dogmengeschichte, Bd. I, D a r m s t a d t 1982

DH

D r i v e r / H o d g s o n , N e s t o r i u s the Bazaar of Heracleides, Oxford 1925

F. Loofs

Nestoriana, Halle 1905

Syriac Dialogue

Pro Oriente, Vienna 1994

WA

Luthers Werke, W e i m a r e r A u s g a b e

F. Y o u n g

From Nicea to Chalcedon, L o n d o n 1996

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M o s h e Bar Kepha a n d the Christian Communities: T h e Search for Nonpartisan (Ecumenical) Theological U n d e r s t a n d i n g Introduction In the second half of the 9th century, the Syriac Christian communities were shaken by the radical shift of the social and religious policies of the Abbasid Empire brought by the 10th Caliph, alMutawakkel (847-861). and the continuation of these policies through his successors. Unlike al-Mutawakkel, his successors were weak, which eroded the inner stability of the whole Empire.1 As these unprecedented policies were implemented, the Turkish military units gradually seized control of the state from the Abbasid caliphs, and reinvigorated the Sunni version of Isiam, to the detriment of the Mu'tazilite, Christians and other religious groups. 2 As many Christians, Moshe Bar Kepha suffered under the new policies, which severely pressured and antagonized the Christian communities: 1 2

Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East From The Sixth to the Eleventh Century (London and New York: Longman, 1986)169-175. Moshe Bar Kepha was contemporary to six of al-Mutawakkel's successors: alMuntaser (861-862), al-Musta'en (862-866), al-Mutaz (866-869), al-Muhtadi (869870), al-Mu'tamed (870-892), al-Mu'tadh (892-902) and al-Muktafe (902-908).

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economically, socially, physically, psychologically and religiously. 3 The pessimistic outlook of Christians at this time w a s clearly reflected by the c o n t e m p o r a r y East Syriac apologist, Y u h a n n a Ibn M a s a w e h , w h o said, " n o w a d a y s , Christ himself w o u l d b e c o m e Muslim u n d e r the pressure of Al-Mutawakkel." 4 A l - M u t a w a k k e l ' s rules, w h i c h he ascribed to ' U m a r (the second Rashidile Caliph), and which b e c a m e k n o w n as "Pact of ' U m a r , " or " ' U m a r Conditions," greatly restricted the f r e e d o m of Christians. 5 A m o n g other restrictions, the Pact f o r b a d e Christians f r o m criticizing Islam on p a i n of d e a t h . F u r t h e r m o r e , A l - M u t a w a k k e l i m p o s e d psychological pressure on both lay and learned Christians by recruiting an eloquent M u s l i m writer to humiliate and denigrate the Christians, especially in the eyes of the M u s l i m populace, and to challenge Christian teaching a n d ideology. 6 As a result of this policy, m a n y priests, b i s h o p s a n d theologians w e r e imprisoned a n d tortured, a n d the rest suffered silently. In such strained circumstances, the Christian communities, w i t h n o capacity or resources to r e s p o n d to these policies, e n d u r e d their fate, but they dealt internally w i t h their religious differences in w a r m a n d h a r m o n i o u s w a y s . It w o u l d s e e m that this m o r e c o r d i a l relationship w a s partially in reaction to the Islamification policy of alM u t a w a k k e t . The Muslims often challenged the Christians on m a n y theological lopics a n d a l w a y s d e r i d e d the divisive disunity a m o n g 3

Mari Saliba. the 13,h East Syriac Historian bitterly complained from Al-Mutawakkel's policies, saying: "He had subjugated the scholars and the writers of his time, and diminished their honor, and made the science and its seekers his enemy. Moreover, he killed many authors and confiscated their properties and destroyed their homes Thus, the people of Dhimmi (the Christians) suffered a great deal of afflictions, harms, and humiliation through forcing them to change their cloths, and through destruction of their churches and cemeteries, levelling it with the earth ... Furthermore, in all places, he ordered to humiliate the Nasareh (Christians), and to let them wear the blue robe. See Maris Amri et Slibae, De Patriachis Neslorianorum Commentaria(ed. H. Gismondil; Rome: ExcudebatdeLuigi, 1896)71.

4 5

6

Ibn Usaybi'ah, Iwan al-Anbaa fi Tabaqatal-Atibaa (ed. N. Redda; 1965) 250. J. Fiey details "Umar Conditions" imposed by Al-Mutawakkel, and discussed their humiliating impact on the Christians. See J. Fiey, Ahwal Al-Nasara [in Arabic] (Beirut: Oriental Library, 1990) 141-2; Chretiens Syriaques Sous Les Abbasides surtoul a Bagdad (749-1258) (CSCO 420, Subs 59; Lówen: 1980). Al-Jahiz states the intention of his writing by a way of his response to alMutawakkel's request. See Al-Jahiz, Rasail al-Jahiz (Cairo: al-Hangi, 1979) SOSSSI , esp. 303. Also Cf. T. al Hajeri, The Life of al-Jahiz and his Tradition (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arf, 1962)102.

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Christian groups. Iri response, several theologians and apologists expressed true Christian sentiment towards the diversity of the Syriac church traditions. For example, in the ninth century, Ali ben Dawd alAfadi of the West Syriac tradition, 8 Patriarch Keryakus of the West Syriac tradition, 9 and 'Ammar al-Basri of the East Syriac tradition, 10 all expressed their conviction that the differences among Christian traditions were insubstantial in terms of the validity of the religion, and that there was mutual accord on all essential doctrines. It was in the context of enduring the Islamification policy of al-Mutawakkel, and in the context of open/receptive relationships among Christians of different traditions that Moshe Bar Kepha, the Syriac Orthodox bishop, ministered to his community, and wrote his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, in a n o n p a r t i s a n (ecumenical), theological approach, especially the Christology, with apologetic tendency responding to Islamic criticism. By way of introducing this approach, I will briefly describe Moshe Bar Kepha's manuscript, its literary genre, and his writing strategy. On the basis of an analysis of the text, I will demonstrate that Moshe Bar K e p h a d e v e l o p s a C h r i s t i a n , n o n p a r t i s a n t h e o l o g y a n d christological approach to the theme of intra-Christian conflict in his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke. The History of the Manuscript The Institute of the Syriac Manuscripts Studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, among its "200,000 pages of unknown Syriac documents," houses a magnificent copy of a manuscript brought from Mardin by Prof. Arthur Voobus. The incipit of the manuscript 7

For example, al-Jahiz declared: Even if o n e w e r e to exert every effort, a n d summon all his intellectual resources for understanding their teaching concerning Christ, he would still fail to comprehend the nature of Christianity, especially its doctrine of the Divinity. H o w can you understand that, for if you a s k e d about Christ to two Nestorians, sons of the s a m e father and mother, the answer of the first one would contradict the answer of his brother. This holds true also of the Melchites and Jacobites. S e e Al-Jahiz, 3 3 3 - 3 3 4 . 8 Gerard Troupeau, "Le Livre de L'uniaminite de la foi de'Ali Ibn D a w u d al-Arfadi," Parole de L'Orient (1969) 197-219. Abdul-Massih Saadi, ' T h e Essential Unity in Christian Diversity: Arfadi's Writing on The Unanimity of Faith," Karmo (1999) 526 0 (English), 5 0 - 5 9 (Arabic). Look also to the current issue. 9 W. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum Acquired Since the Year 1838 (Vol. 1; London: 1878) Add. 17145. 10 S. Griffith,"" Ammar al-Basri's Kitab al-Burfian: Christian Kalam in the First Abbasid Century," Le Museon 9 6 (1983) 145-181. Vol. XV 2002

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reads, "The Commentary of the Blessed Luke."" And in folio 69a, there is a note acknowledging Moshe Bar Kepha's authorship, and an indication that three earlier editions were used in copying the present edition. 12 Additionally, the colophon reads, "thus by the assistance of God, ended the Commentary on the blessed Luke, composed by the holy bishop Moshe, called bar Kepha." 13 On palaeographical grounds, Voobus dated the manuscript to the 11th century. It is relatively intact, and comprised of 200 pages Because of the amount of evidence, the manuscript authenticity is uncontested: Bar Salibi (11th century), Bar (13th century), 'Abd-lshou of Sawba (13Ul century), and the 13lh century biography of Moshe Bar Kepha , all record Moshe Bar Kepha's work of the whole New Testament commentary. Moreover, in the text, Moshe Bar Kepha often refers to his earlier writings. Therefore, the combination of this evidence and more makes the authenticity of Moshe Bar Kepha indisputable.

Literary Genre The style of Moshe Bar Kepha's commentary is dialectical (r¿i.-icojín his dialectical style, he continues the literary genre of the formal category of discourse in the Syriac schools. Moshe Bar Kepha often prefaces his ideas by saying: "they say," "others ask," "let us ask," and "but we answer." Moshe Bar Kepha converses with his readers by summarizing the opinions of his opponents using their own words, then providing original interpretation. Such a rhetorical tactic enables Moshe Bar Kepha to be inclusive in his arguments, which are ultimately apologetic in nature.

Moshe Bar Kepha's Writing Strategy Moshe Bar Kepha's writing strategy is characterized by his evenhanded treatment of the theology of various Syriac traditions, namely, the East Syriac (Nestorians), the Syriac Melkites (Chalcedoniaas), the Syriac Maronites and the West Syriac (Jacobites). Throughout his Commentary, he avoids the controversial watchwords of christology, such as one or Iwo nature (s), one or two Hypostasis (~es), one or two Will(s)... etc." In fact, on many topics, Moshe Bar Kepha resorts to 11 12 13

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14 For further clarification of the dogmatic terms in the Syriac Tradition see AbdulMassih Saadi, "Christoiogicai Contention a n d Tolerance in the Syriac Church Tradition: A Case for Ecumenism," Journal of Assyrian Academic Society 12.1

(1998) 47-56.

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"divine mystery" and "incomprehensibility" of the Word of God" in order to bring harmony among diverse Christian sects. At the same time, he cri ticizes extremists among the Syriac traditioas. He achieves this by u tilizing the bases of their own particular theological doctrines to support arguments against extremism. By following this strategy, Moshe Bar Kepha aims at presenting an easy, accessible, acceptable and uniform Christian teaching for the instruction of the Christian communities. Additionally, Moshe Bar Kepha employs the term "heretics" to refer either to ancient, non-canonical, Christian teaching, which had mostly ceased to exist, or surreptitiously he refers to Muslims. In effect, by the ninth century, the Christian apologists had perceived Muslim's beliefs as akin to that of the Jews,' 1 the Marcionites, the Manicheans, the Arians, and other ancient pagans.16 By employing this strategy, Moshe Bar Kepha aims at achieving two goals: first, to respond to the Muslim's challenges without risking any dangerous consequences; second, he aims to inform his faithful community of its beliefs, fortify it with spiri tual armor against the ever-present Muslim psychological onslaught, and strengthen its own sense of religious credibility. Christological Topics To demonstrate Moshe Bar Kepha's nonpartisan (ecumenical) christology, I will select a few citations as examples of Moshe Bar Kepha's arguments in his Commentary on Luke. These will include, the source, identity, how, what and who is involved in the incarnation, the theopaschile perspective (God suffering), and what defines the Christian faith. The Source of the birth of the Word of God Moshe Bar Kepha confirms the mainstream christology among the Christians that the conception of the Word of God came from heaven and not from earth, nor from a man as the Jews have said.1" 15 Abdul-Massih Saadi, 'The Letter of John of Sedreh: A New Perspective on Nascent Islam," Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society 11.1 (1997) 68-84. 16 S. Griffith, "Free Will in Christian Kalam: Moshe Bar Kepha Against the Teachings of the Muslims," Le Museon 100 (1987) 159. 159. Griffith stresses that Moshe Bar Kepha's treatise suggests that he must have been well versed in the traditional points of controversy between Christians and Muslims. 17 Fol. 6a+b, on 1:31. It reads: S^rf"

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Moshe Bar Kepha also challenges the extremists within the East Syriac tradition (Nestorians) w h o would say, "the conception was merely the man." 18 He questions his/her reader or listener: "how and w h o did Mary conceive, God or Man? And if they say he is a man, it is not true because the conception did not result (come) from Joseph or from another man. Therefore, Mary conceived God the Word. How? In a way that we cannot speak, comprehend or explain his birth in flesh.' 9 Commenting on Luke 1:35, which reads: "and the Angel said, behold the Holy Spirit will come and the power of the Highest will descend upon you," Moshe Bar Kepha resorts to the divine mystery concerning " h o w the conception occurred." He writes, "the Angel did not answer how Mary will conceive because this conception is beyond the knowledge of both Angels and human beings. For none can comprehend how the power of the Highest can be conceived in the Virgin except he and his Father and the Holy Spirit." 20 While h o w the W o r d of G o d w a s c o n c e i v e d is b e y o n d comprehension, Moshe Bar Kepha explains: "the Angel revealed w h o is the one thai took flesh, and w h o is the one who made him take flesh. For in process of all creation, this order was followed: the Father commands the creation to be created, and the Son creates them, and 18 Nestorius himself, in his apologetic book, Bazaar of Heracleides, did not mention this saying. See Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides (ed. and tr. G. R. Driver a n d L. Hodgson; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925). However, later rival tradition attributed to him the saying: "Do not boost o Mary, as if you have bear God! For, O revered one, you have not bear God, but only the man, w h o was the vessel of God." S e e F. Nau, "Étude sur les parties inéditesde la chronique ecclésiastique attribuée A Denys de Tellmahré (+ 815)," ROC 1 ser. 2 (1897) 6667. It reads on Nestorius mouth: o«- kjL

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the Holy Spirit guides and perfects them. Likewise here, the Father willed that the Son be incarnated for our salvation, and the Son was incarnated, and the Holy Spirit made the Son take flesh because the Holy Spirit formed the body to which the Son united hypostatically (in hypostasis: [in person]) 21 Commenting on w h o Mary gave birth to, Moshe Bar Kepha passes a gentle critique to the "Nestorians" without naming them heretics. He writes: "the Nestorians say, when the Holy Spirit came towards the Virgin, he created the man in her. But we say that if this is all that the Spirit did, it did nothing new. For God created Adam from dust, and formed Eve from a rib. Again if the Holy Spirit created the man, t h e n the f a i t h of M a r y a n d J o s e p h w a s not w o r t h y of a n y commendation." 2 2 And in an act of partnership, Moshe Bar Kepha addresses the Nestorians as "we Christians." He writes: "but even we, Christians, our faith would be worthy of nothing." 23 Moshe Bar Kepha's Arguments With the Various Traditions Arguing from within the East Syriac (Nestorian) theology, Moshe Bar Kepha disagrees with Theodore of Mopsuestia, "the Nestorian," 24 w h o said, "the ones w h o descended towards Mary were not the Hypostases (rtiwcufl of the Son and the Spirit but rather the operation of 21 Fol. 10b, on 1:35 Otn , W

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24 Unlike the earlier writers of the West Syriac tradition, Moshe Bar Kepha uses moderate and gentle words to describes Theodore of Mopsusestia. For example, like many, Philoxenus of Mabbug (d. 523) describes Theodore as "wicked," "stupid," "foolish," "deceiver," and so forth. See Philoxenus of Mabbug, Fragments of the Commentary on Matthew and Luke (ed. J. Watt; CSCO, Vol. 392/ 393, Scriptores Syri Vol. 171/172; Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1978) (text) 27, 25 and 49,55-65; (tr) 2 7 , 2 2 and 49, 48-56. Vol. XV 2002

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the Spirit and the capability of the S o n . " 2 5 M o s h e Bar K e p h a chooses to respond to Theodore from the East Syriac tradition (Nestorian) itself, n a m e l y from the v i e w p o i n t of his c o n t e m p o r a r y , T h e o d o r e bar Koni, and I s o ' d a d of Merv. 2 0 M o s h e Bar Kepha elaborates, " b u t w e s a y that the power and capability of the Son and the Holy Spirit are not separate from them (lit. are not different from them). For the Son a n d the H o l y Spirit are not c o m b i n e d but s i m p l e . " H o w e v e r , M o s h e Bar K e p h a expresses his u n d e r s t a n d i n g of T h e o d o r e ' s c a u t i o n about i m p r o p e r attribution to the transcendent God. But M o s h e Bar Kepha says that " w e should not b e anxious of w h a t carries n o caution, a n d w e take d e e d s that befit G o d a n d attribute them to m a n . " 2 7 As M o s h e Bar K e p h a criticizes T h e o d o r e of M o p s u e s t i a , " t h e N e s t o r i a n / ' h e also criticizes a revered theologian of his o w n tradition, n a m e l y , P h i l o x e n u s of M a b b u g . M o s h e Bar K e p h a a r g u e s that while Philoxenus confessed that G o d the W o r d immediately took flesh in the Virgin's w o m b , he erred w h e n h e said, " o n l y after forty days the e m b r y o received the rational soul." 2 8 " N o n e of the G r e e k teachers accept this," M o s h e Bar K e p h a declares and says, " t o g e t h e r , both quickly and equally, the W o r d of G o d united with both the soul a n d

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. A n d after her, he gave to tine persons w h o were baptised with her. T h e n he gave to every one and said to them: « Let this Eucharist be unto y o u for life and rest, and not for j u d g e m e n t and v e n g e a n c e » . A n d they said: « A m e n » " s In the act of offering and signing, only bread is m e n t i o n e d . T h i s does not necessarily mean that the Acts of T h o m a s refer to a c u s t o m of offering the Eucharist without wine. However, the prayer clearly speaks o f " B o d y " and " B l o o d " . Therefore w e can a s s u m e that the w i n e w a s also offered. (In fact ch.133 m e n t i o n s " b r e a d a n d w i n e " a n d ch. 158 " b r e a d and. mingled c u p " ) . T h e first part is a n invocation or Epiclesis of the " N a m e " : " ( W e ) i n v o k e T h y Holy N a m e " . In ch. 133 also, invocation of the " N a m e " is the main leit-motif of the eucharistic prayer: "Living b r e a d . . . W e name the N a m e of the Fa ther over T h e e ; w e n a m e the N a m e of the S o n over Thee: w e n a m e the N a m e of the Spirit over Thee, the exalted N a m e that is h i d d e n from all"'. T h i s type of invocation w a s an i m p o r t a n t characteristics of the early syriac eucharistic celebrations 10. T h e invocation of the N a m e in the Acts of T h o m a s c o r r e s p o n d s to the third part of the J e w i s h meal p r a y e r Birhat h a - M a z o n u . In Birkat h a - Y e r u s a l a y i m , the " N a m e " is related to the " d w e l l i n g of G o d ' s G l o r y " : " H a v e mercy, J H W H our G o d , upon thy p e o p l e Israel, u p o n thy city Jerusalem, u p o n Zion the abiding place of thy Glory, upon the k i n g d o m of the h o u s e of D a v i d T h i n e anointed, and upon the great a n d h o l y h o u s e that w a s called b y T h y n a m e . . . " In the eucharistic p r a y e r s of the Acts of T h o m a s , the idea of d w e l l i n g m a y b e implied in the d e m a n d " c o m e ! " . In the Baptismal i n v o c a t i o n s in chs. 120-121 and 157, " c o m e " a n d " d w e l l i n g " are m u t u a l l y related. ( " L e t thy p o w e r c o m e and abide u p o n this oil, and let thy holiness dwell in it" -ch. 121; " L o r d , c o m e abide u p o n this oil... over w h i c h w e n a m e thy N a m e - c h . l 57). 8. 9. 10. 11.

WRIGHT, Apocryphal Ads, 1,218-219 (Syr); II, 188-190 (tr). ibid. 1.301-302; II,268. cfr.G. R O U W H O R S T , op.cit., p.224-25. A . V O O B U S . The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, C S C O . 408, (1979), ch.16, p.244 ("bread is .... sanctified through an invocation"). Cfr.ibid.p.239: "the eucharist is accepted and sanctified through the Holy Spirit'.

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To sum up, the eucharistic prayers given in the Acts of Thomas represent an important link between the Jewish meal prayers and the early syriac anaphoras. If the Acts of Thomas were composed around 250, we can rightly assume that the liturgical portions reflect the practices of the Christian community (or communities) east of Edessa during the early Sassanid period. The liturgy was not yet fixed and uniform. Since the eucharistic texts from part of the baptismal celebrations- which were perfectly orthodox- there is no reason to doubt their orthodoxy. Moreover, it would be wrong to use the post-Nicene criteria to assess the orthodoxy of a third century community of a nonHellenistic region.

Synod of Mar Issac (410) and The Liturgical Reforms: The oldest clear reference to the liturgy of the Persian Church is found in the canons of the Synod of Mar Issac met in 410 AD, in Seleucia - Ctesiphon. It was perhaps held to give a national organisation and a centralized structure for the Persian Church. The Ca tholicos Mar Issac and Marutha, bishop of Maiperquat were the principal organisers of the Synod. Marutha came to the Persian court twice as an envoyee from Constantinople. Eventhough the primacy of the See of SeleuciaCtesiphon and its bishop was established at the Council (canons 12 & 21), in liturgical practices, the Synod of 410 marks the beginning of an "antiochianisation" or "westernisation", which lasted for about 250 years, that is till the end of the Sassanid period. One of the important concerns of the Synod was correct liturgical practices '3. The canon 9 of the Synod directs: "Each Sunday the Gospel should be read along with other books, the Word of God should be preached until the third or fourth hour; and then the sacrifice should be offered"14. Does it mean that the reading of the Gospel and preaching were neglected in some churches? This question is relevant, for a Synod will not legislate on a widely accepted practice. In canon 13, the bishops decreed: "now and henceforward, we will all with one accord celebrate the liturgy according to the western 12. Quoted by L . B O U Y E R Eucharist (Eng.tr), (Notre D a m e & London, 1968), p.82 (Seder R. A m r a m Gaon). Rouwhorst quotes (p.21-13) Seder de Rab Saadya, which he considers to be more original. 13. J.B.CHABOT, (ed.&tr.); Synodicon orientale ou recuelde synode nestoriens, (paris, 1902), pp.263-273. 14. ibid.p.265. These injunctions are repeated in 5 4 4 in the canons of Mar Aba. cfr. Canon 25, Synodicon orientale, p.599. Vol. XV 2002

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rite, which the bishops Issac and Marutha have taught lis arid which we have seen them celebrate here in the church of Seleucia. As here, in each city the deacons shall make the proclamation. Similarly the scripture shall be read. The pure and holy oblation shall be offered in all churches on an altar. That henceforward, the custom of the old souvenir shall not exist among us and that the sacrifice should not be offered in houses. We shall celebrate uniformly the feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord and the great day of His Resurrection as the Metropolitan, the Archbishop, the Catholicos of Seleucia - Ctesiphon indicates us. He who dares to celebrate in his church and among his people the feast of the Nativity, Lent and the great day of the Azymes (=Passover) alone and in disaccord with the Church of the West and of the East, should be rejected from all ecclesiastical ministries without mercy as a deprived, and there shall be no remedy for him" 15 . In liturgical matters, this is the most important decision made by the Synod of 410. The canon 13 prescribes four things: (i)

There shall be a liturgical uniformity. The liturgy according to the "western rite" (Edessan or Antiochene?) shall be adopted. (ii) Deacon's role in making the proclamations and reading the Gospel. (iii) Eucharist shall be offered on an altar in a church; the custom of celebrating in houses shall be discontinued. (iv) The festivals of the Church and the Lent shall be celebrated according to the western calendar. The exact nature of the "western rite" that the Persian Church adopted in 410 is an open question. However, the main concern was to make the liturgical practises conform to those of the West, that is of die Roman Empire. Since the School of Edessa had great reputation in Persia, the "western rite" could most probably mean the liturgical practices of that city Marutha surely played the most important role in the organisation and the deliberations of the Synod of 410. Since his name is mentioned in this canon, the "western rite" in question could also mean the liturgy of Maiperquat (Martyropolis), a city about 300kms north-east of Edessa (beyond Amid). 15. ibid, p.266-67. 16. According to William Macomber, it means probably the rite of Edessa, see, "A History of the Chaldean Mass", Worship51 (1977), p.110. The Harp

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C a n o n 15 prescribes the role of a r c h d e a c o n in the celebration of the liturgy: " I n the b i s h o p ' s city, on S u n d a y s the a r c h d e a c o n shall read the koruzuto in the p r e s e n c e of the b i s h o p and he shall read the G o s p e l " . T h i s is one of the earliest references to the office of the A r c h d e a c o n . But h e r e it w o u l d s i m p l y mean " c h i e f d e a c o n " and his role shall not be u n d e r s t o o d in the light of the later d e v e l o p m e n t s in his privileges. C a n o n 13 permits d e a c o n s to read the Gospel and to m a k e proclam a t i o n s . This c u s t o m could be of A n t i o c h e n e origin. T h u s a c c o r d i n g to the Apostolic Constitu tions a presbyter or a d e a c o n r e a d s the G o s pel 1 7 . But in the C l e m e n t i n e li turgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, it is a l w a y s the d e a c o n w h o reads the litany, which c o r r e s p o n d s to the syriac koruzuto™. D o e s it m e a n that c a n o n 13 and 15 attest that the liturgical practices a d o p t e d in 4 1 0 were of A n t i o c h e n e origin? Even if the liturgy in question is of E d e s s a n origin, it w o u l d not m e a n that it is purely M e s o p o t o m i a n . Edessa w a s a l w a y s a city o p e n to Antiochene influence. S o m e of the bishops of Edessa before the fourth century received ordination from Antioch. Thus, according to The Doctrine of Addai ( c . 4 0 0 or e a r l i e r ) , P a l u t , the s u c c e s s o r A g g a i w a s consecrated by Serapin b i s h o p of Antioch. Even the C h r i s t i a n s of Edessa w e r e s o m e t i m e s called " P a l u t i a n s " . T h e story of P a l u t ' s ordination is an e v i d e n c e for a closer relationship b e t w e e n A n t i o c h a n d Edessa. But w e are not sure w h e t h e r the E d e s s a n C h u r c h accepted the ecclesiastical authority of A n t i o c h as J.B. Segal believes 1 '. D u r i n g the pre-Nicene period, receiving ordination from a see did not necessarily m e a n a s u b m i s s i o n to it. It w o u l d rather i m p l y an e x p r e s s i o n of the c o m m u n i o n b e t w e e n the two sees. E v e n in 412, w h e n in the see of E d e s s a b e c a m e v a c a n t , R a b b u l a w a s elected by a S y n o d h e l d in Antioch 2 0 . In this context, it w o u l d not be surprising, if the " w e s t e r n rite" means a liturgy of Antiochene origin. In the course of time, several e l e m e n t s of A n t i o c h e n e origin w e r e i m c o r p o r a t e d into the Persian liturgy. T h e suppression of the D i a t e s s a r o n a n d the i n t r o d u c t i o n of the four separate G o s p e l s also should be understood as part of an antiochianisation of the Persian liturgy. T h o u g h , Rabbula, bishop of 17. Apostolic Constitutions II,57, 7, Sources chrétiennes 320, p.315; 18. Ap. Cons. VIII, 10,1-22, SC.336, p. 167-173; VIII, 13,1-11, Sc.336, p.205-9; II, 57, 18, SC.320, p.319. 19. J.B.SEGAL, Edessa. The Blessed City, (Oxford, 1970), p.81 20. W.S.McCULLOUGH. A Short History of Syriac Christianity to ¡he Rise of Islam, (Chicago, 1982), p.64. Vol. XV 2002

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Edessa (412-435) is credited with this radical liturgical reform, recent scholarship leaves the question open. The Diatessaron may have been largely replaced in official use before his time, probably by the Old Syriac version, rather than by the Peshitta. The Western Rite and The Anaphora of The Apostles (Addai and Mari) We have practically n o w a y to determine the impact of the can o n ! 3 of the Synod of 410 on the subsequent liturgical practices of the Persian Church. Did this canon play a role in making the Anaphora of the Apostles the n o r m a l liturgy of Seleucia-Ctesiphon and of the Persian Church? If die answer is positive, the Anaphora of the Apostles is of Edessan/Antiochene origin and might have been used in various places of Mesopotamia, including Marty ropolis. Another possibility is that, the A n a p h o r a of the Apostles w a s introduced in the Persian Church by the former students of the School of Edessa 21 . During the fifth century, the future prelates of the Persian C h u r c h were trained at the Edessan School. W e know that it w a s the pro-antiochene theological attitude of the School that finally led to the Nestorianisation of the Persian Church in the fifth century. Therefore, i t w o u l d not be surprising if the "liturgy of Edessa" (also probably of Antiochene origin) w a s adopted by the Persians in early fifth century. The common origin of the Anaphora of the Apostles and the Maronite Anaphora of Peter Sharar would further support this hypothesis. If the Anaphora of the Apostles is of Edessan origin, is it not reasonable to think that the Syrian Orthodox communities of Mesopotamia and Persia also used it (or its more ancient form) at least for sometime? In fact a m o n g the seventy or more West Syrian A n a p h o r a s none corresp o n d s to the Anaphora of the Apostles. However, the Maronite and the Syrian Orthodox liturgical traditions have a c o m m o n history, especially in their baptism, eucharist and the pre-anaphoral rites. The Syrian Orthodox liturgy under the Maphrianate of Tagrit and the East Syrian liturgy h a v e several c o m m o n elements. Therefore, as W. Macomber has already suggested, there might have existed a common liturgical tradition in Mesopotamia, with Edessa as its centre w h i c h 21. W. M A C O M B E R ; ' T h e Maronite and Chaldean Versions of the Anaphora of the Apostles", Orientalia Christiana Periodica 37(1971), 79-80. 22. W . M A C O M B E R , " Atheory on the Origins of the Syrian, Maronite and Chaldean Rites", OCP.39 (1973), 235-242. The Harp

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played a decisive role in the fixation of the structure and the final form of the East Syrian liturgy. The Syrian O r t h o d o x C h u r c h in Persia also might have followed that liturgy and finally abandoned it in favour of the liturgy of St. James. Jacob of Edessa (+708) might be the key figure in the process of the Antiochianisation of the liturgical practices of the Maphrianate. Thus his n a m e is associated with the translation and compilation of several liturgical rites. However, several "mesopotomian elements"-some of which were also f o u n d in the East Syrian Churchcontinued to exist in St. James liturgy for a few centuries. Further Antiochianisation The next significant development in the history of he Persian liturgy took place during the patriarchate of Mar Aba (540-552)23. Before his consecration, while he w a s a professor of the School of Nisibis, Mar Aba m a d e an extensive visit to the Byzantine Empire in search of the w o r k s of Theodore of Mopsuestia a n d Nestorius. H e is credited w i t h translating the A n a p h o r a of N e s t o r i u s a n d possibly that of Theodore of Mopsuestia from Greek into Syriac 24 . After his election as patriarch, he m i g h t have popularised these Anaphora in his Church. According to W.Macomber, another result of Mar Aba's journey to "the West" m a y have been the in traduction into the Anaphora and the daily office, of two litanies that have m u c h in c o m m o n w i t h those of the Byzantine liturgy 25 . The litanies in question are the two kornzivoto that follow the reading of the Gospel 26 . In the case of these litanies, another possible channel through which they reached the east Syrian liturgy could be the West Syrian Church in Persia. In fact, Moses Bar Kepha (9th cent) and Dionysius Bar Salibi (12th cent) comment on a litany that follows the reading of the Gospel. The Syrian Orthodox liturgies of the consecration of the Holy Myron, Funeral, Epiphany and Pentecost contain a litany after the reading of the Gospel. A detailed s t u d y of the history a n d content of the Syrian Orthodox litanies w o u l d clarify the question.

23. cfr. A.BAUMSTARK, Geschichte der syrischen Literature, (Bonn, 1922), p. 199-120; W.WRIGHT, A Short History of Syriac Literature, (London, 1894), p. 116-18. J.B.CHABOT, La littérature syriaque, (Paris, 1900), p.218-19. 24. WRIGHT; Syriac Littérature, p. 117; CHABOT, Litt.syr., p.219. 25. W.MACOMBER. "A History..", Worship 51 (1977), p.111. 26. F.E.BRIGHTMAN, Liturgies Eastern and Western, (Oxford, 1896), pp.262-63; 266. compared with pp.362-63; 381 -82. Vol. XV 2002

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The disappearance of the catechumenate in the course of the sixth century was another important development in the east Syrian liturgy. Consequently the ceremonies related to it lost their original meaning. When the Homily 17 attributed to Narsai was written (early 6'h century?), the catechumenate seems to have continued in the author's church 27 . Thus he commented on a practice apparently well-known to his readers. But in the early seventh century, Gabriel Qatraya Bar Lipah fails to interpret them in the framework of the ancient custom of the dismissal of the catechumens, as did Narsai 29 . The catechumenate might have disappeared from the Syrian Orthodox liturgy probably at the same period. In the sixth century, the canons 3, 4 and 5 of the Synod of the Catholicos Mar Aba (544) deal with the liturgical proprieties involving priests, deacons and sub-deacons 29 . Here also the western liturgical canons might have served as the model. In the same century, Henanaof Adiabene, who became director of the School of Nisibis (c.570-1) is credited with the expositions of the creed and the liturgy. Since his name is related to a schism in the East Syrian Church, his woks, now lost, did not get acceptance in the East Syrian Church. However his ideas might have left a lasting effect on his students at Nisibis. During the time of the Catholicos Ezekiel, following the 14th canon of the Synod of 576, the name of the Catholicos was formally begun to be proclaimed in the liturgy 30 . Thus it was implied that the liturgy shall be celebrated in communion with the Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and the liturgical dimension of the autocephaly of the Persian Church was emphasized.

Iso'yab I (582-596) on The Liturgy While the liturgy was in the process of taking its definitive shape, it is normal that the celebrants raise questions about the correct procedures. Thus in a collection of twenty canons, the Catholicos Iso'yab I (582-596) answers such questions addressed to him. In fact the term "canon" here is anomalous, as they are not the decisions of a 27. R.H.CONNOLLY (tr), The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, (Cambridge, 1909),p.2-3. 28. Gabriel Qatraya Bar Lipah, Interpretations of the Offices (Eng.tr) in, G.VAVANIKUNNEL, Homilies and Interpretations of the Holy Ourbana, (Changanacherry, 1977), pp.87-104 (here, p.94); also, S.H.JAMMO, La structure de la messe chaldéenne, OCA.207, (Rome, 1979), p.37. 29. Synodicon orientale, p.556. 30. ibid, p.380. The Harp

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Synod of 584 as the title indicates. They are the answers of the Ca tholicos to the questions of James, bishop of Darai. They cover, among a variety of subjects, various issues related to the liturgy: How should a priest begin his ministries at the altar? When should the celebrating priest take communion? And so on31. Let us quote the first question and its response: " ( ) When the priest approaches to celebrate, how should he begin and what should he say? How should he sign the mysteries? ( ) After having approached (the altar) and having bent the knee, he rises, venerates the altar, and then he greets and blesses the people saying: « The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you a l l » . With these apostolic words (2 Cor. 13:13), he blesses by asking (God) that these things shall be with each faithful. Then he recites, according to the custom of the ecclesiastical orders, other things, about which you have not asked, and you have not included them among your questions, as they are known and recited in all the churches of God" 3 2 Then the Catholicos explains the right procedure in the fraction off the bread. Iso'yahb's answer gives the impression that the (Pauline version of the) trinitarian blessing had been newly introduced into the liturgy. In tine Syrian Orthodox tradi tion, Jacob of Edessa, in h is Epistle to Thomas the Presbyter also says that the trinitarian blessing is a later addition. After having reffered to the deacon's admonition Stand fairly, Jacob writes: "When they are attentive, the priest turns (towards them) and gives them the peace saying: Peace be unto you all and he makes the sign of the cross over them and they answer him, saying: And with thy Spirit. Later the fathers (re-)arranged this part. They decided to say at the time of (sign of) the cross The Love of God the Father, the Grace of the Only begotten Son and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, and the priest should make three signs over the people, instead of one. (But) in the place of these (prayers) the Alexandrian fathers say The Lord be with you all before the beginning of the cjurobo"33 31. ibid, pp.424-451. 32. Iso'yahb, "Synod" of 585, Synodicon, p.427-28. 33. Dionysius Bar Saiibi Commentary on the Eucharist, 'Etho-10, (Kottayam, 1998), ch.3:3, p.9.

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In theSvrian Orthodox eucharistie liturgy, the trinitarian blessing replaced the initial " P e a c e be u n t o y o u all" 3 4 . T h u s w e can a s s u m e that the trinitarian blessing was introduced in the East Syrian Liturgy, s o m e t i m e in the sixth century. It is still absent in the s e v e n t h c e n t u r y c o m m e n t a r y of Gabriel Qatraya. H o w e v e r , the 1 H o m i l y attributed to Narsai c o m m e n t s on it.

Liturgical Reforms of Iso'yahb III (580-659). T h e most significant developmen t in the East Syrian liturgy during the S a s s a n i d period m a y be the liturgical reforms of the Patriarch I s o ' y a h b III. T h r e e w o r k s attributed to h i m might have been the m a m s o u r c e of influence behind the s t a n d a r d i s a t i o n of the Persian liturgy. (i) T h e first w o r k w a s the revision of the Hudra or Service b o o k for the S u n d a y s of the w h o l e year. H e r e - a r r a n g e d the liturgical cycles a n d the seasons a n d fixed their length 3 5 . H e assigned the a n a p h o r a s to each festival and reduced their n u m b e r to the actual three. According to the eleventh century author Ibn al-Tayyib, "the Fathers (ie. Iso'yahb's predecessors ?) h a d ordered the celebration of a fourth anaphora, that of Saint J ohn C h r y s o s t o m " 3 6 . H o w e v e r , Iso'yahb did not retain it in his Hudra. It is n o t clear w h e t h e r his revision of the Hudra i n c l u d e d the actual texts of the three a n a p h o r a s , as they are f o u n d in m o s t o f the older m a n u s c r i p t s of this Service b o o k . If it contained the a n a p h o r a s , they also m i g h t h a v e u n d e r g o n e a revision. I s o ' y a h b ' s r e f o r m s m i g h t be one of the reasons for a d o p t i n g the Liturgy of the Apostles as the o r d i n a r y a n a p h o r a of the East Syrian Church. W e have evidences that the East Syrians also once used several a n a p h o r a s like the West Syrians. T h u s the Chronicle of Seert says that an a n a p h o r a c o m p o s e d b y Saint E p h r e m w a s used in Nisibis until the reforms of I s o ' y a h b a n d the patriarch prohibited it along w i t h others. 34. C O N N O L L Y , The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, p. 11. 35. J.M.FIEY,"iso,yaw le Grand. Vie d u Catholicos nestorien Iso'yaw d ' A d i a b e n e (580-659)", OCP.35 (1969), 305-333; 36 (1970), 5-41. for the references see, OCP.36, pp.10-11. 36. cfr. W . H O E N E R B A C H A N D O.SPIES, Ibn AL-Tayib.Fiqh an Nasaraniya, "Das Recht der Chrislenheit", Par II, csco. 167-168; Scriptores arablci 18-19, (Louva/n, 1957), text.p.90; trans.p.93. 37. "Il (Epherem) c o m p o s s a une m e s s e don't se servant encore les Melchites. Les Nestoriens célébraient aussi cette messe à Nisible jusqu'aux ¡ours d u métropolite J é s u y a h b qui lorsqu'il régal les prières, choisit trios m e s s e s et prohibitta les autres", Chronique de Séert, l,ch.26, Patologia Orientalis 4, p.295. 38. WRIGHT. Syr.Litt.,p.59; CHABOT, Litt.syr., p.347. The Harp

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Narsai, the founder director of the School of Nisibis (+503) is said to have composed a liturgy :,s. If this attribution is correct, Narsai's Anaphora might have been either suppressed by Iso'yahb or revised by him with a new title, attributing it to "the Apostles". Quoting A. Baumstark, A Vòòbus says that there is a possibility that Narsai was tlie redactor of the normative liturgy of the Apostles According to Ibn al-Tayyib (+1043), Iso'yahb abridged the Anaphora of the Apostles which could perhaps explain the absence of the Words of Institution 40 . William Macomber has suggested that the Anaphora of the Apostles originally contained the Words of Institution and were probably suppressed by Iso'yahb 41 . (ii) The second work of Iso'yahb which might have influenced the Persian eucharistie liturgy was his Taksa, a euchology for priests. It contains both rubrics and the texts of the three anaphoras besides other ceremonies like baptism 42 . In fact it was Iso'yahb's recension of Taksa which fixed the ceremonies of the eucharistie celebration 43 . (iii) The third work of our Patriarch was a commentary on the ceremonies of the eucharist, daily office and other liturgical rites. This work seems to have given a theological rationale for the liturgical actions. The theological explanation given to the liturgical actions by an influential patriarch invested them with "a sacrosanct quality to 39. A . V Ó Ó B U S , History of the school of Nisibis, C S C O . 2 6 6 . S u b . 2 6 (1965), p.86. Cfr.BAUMSTARK, Syt.Lit. p. 112. A s s e m a n i mentions an anaphora attributed to M a r Barsauma (Bibliotheca Orientails, III, 65); T h e decrees of the Synod of Diamper ( 1599) speaks of an "Anaphora of Diodore of Tarsus:. J . D . M A N S I , "Diamperitana synodus in Malabar", in M A N S I , Conciliomm nova et amplissima collectio 3 5 , 1 2 5 0 . R . H . C O N N O L L Y has published A N A N O N Y M O U S A N A P H O R A O F S I X T H CENTURY: "Sixth century Fragments of a n East Syrian Anaphora", Oriens Christianus (NS), 12-14 (1925), 99-128. 40. Ibn al-Tayyib, loc.cit; also Michel the Syrian: J . B . C H A B O T (ed. & tr), Chronique de Miche!le Syrien, Patriarche d'Antioche, (4 Vols., Paris, 1899-1910), vol.Ill, 521 ("Il disposa la liturgie de Nestorious en abregé, car elle était fort longue "). 41. M A C O M B E R , " A History..', p. 112-113. 42. B A U M S T A R K , op.cit., p. 199-200. On the revision of the baptismal liturgy,see G . D I E T T R I C H , Die nestorianische Taufliturgie, (1903), xxx, 103; cfr. the comments by R.H.Connolly in his prefaceto Vol.11 of his translation of Anonymi auctoris Expositio Officiorum Ecclesiae GeorgioArbelensi vulgoadscripta:CSCO.92, (1915), p.2-3. 43. M A C O M B E R , "A History..", p.113. Vol. XV 2 0 0 2

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c h a n g e " . T h i s l i t u r g i c a l c o m m e n t a r y n o w lost, is u s e d in an a n o n y m o u s c o m m e n t a r y on the a n a p h o r a a n d o t h e r l i t u r g i c a l c e r e m o n i e s probably written in the ninth century 4 5 . 44

Conclusion D u r i n g the Sassanid times, the East S y r i a n liturgy w a s o p e n to antiochene and perhaps to Byzantine influences. In the early Sassanid period, the liturgy w a s apparently m o r e indigenous. In b a p t i s m a n d euch&rtsjt, the Christianity in Persia followed a liturgical tradition similar to that of Antioch. This similarity is clearly attested in the early b a p t i s m a l r e f e r e n c e s in the A c t s of T h o m a s , in A p h r a h a t a n d in E p h e r m . But from the S y n o d of 4 1 0 o n w a r d s , the Persian liturgy u n d e r w e n t a radical " w e s t e r n i s a t i o n " or antiochianisation. M o s t of the A n t i o c h e n e features w o u l d h a v e reached Persia through Edessa. T h e revision of the c u r r i c u l u m of the School of Edessa under Q i o r e ( 4 3 6 / 7 ) , in w h i c h the works of Saint E p h e r m were replaced with those of T h e o d o r e of M o p s u e s t i a , also m i g h t h a v e accelerated this process. H o w e v e r , the East S y r i a n liturgy w a s not a p u r e imitation of t h e A n t i o c h e n e liturgy. T h e liturgy of Antioch w a s adapted to the Persian context, incorporating several i n d i g e n o u s features. Edessa w o u l d have been the centre of this inculturation, which b e g a n long before the division of the Persian c h u r c h into Nestorian and S y r i a n O r t h o d o x . T h u s several c o m m o n M e s o p o t a m i a n e l e m e n t s are f o u n d in both the east and in the w e s t Syrian liturgical traditions. T h o u g h in jurisdiction the East Syrian C h u r c h fiercely preserved its i n d e p e n d e n c e , in theology a n d liturgy she w a s i n d e b t e d to the Antochne tradition. Despite the fact that a variety of hymns and prayers w e r e c o m p o s e d a n d added to the liturgy, in liturgical creativity, the East Syrian C h u r c h w a s rather conservative, c o m p a r e d to the Syrian O r t h o d o x C h u r c h in Persia. T h u s the East S y r i a n s were reluctant to a d m i t liturgical diversity and since 410, uniformity w a s thought to b e ideal. This attitude finds its best expression in the liturgical reforms of I s o ' y a h b III. In this regard, the Syrian O r t h o d o x Church in Persia w a s perhaps more open. Inspite of the theological difference, the two Syrian sister Churches w e r e open to each other in liturgical matters. Thus the two traditions influenced m u t u a l l y , in liturgical practices as well as in their explanations. A detailed comparative study is of great academic and e c u m e n i c a l interest. 44. ibid. 45. R.H.CONNOLLY, Anonymi... The Harp

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T h e Crystallization o f L e b a n e s e Particularism v i s - à - v i s Syria, PanArabism and Communism in t h e 1 9 3 0 s a n d 1 9 4 0 s This paper reviews the development of a serious ideology of discrete Lebanese nationhood among the country's mainly Syriacheritage Catholics between 1930-1950. It samples the attempts by litterateurs and journalist ideologues to evolve a compound conceptualization of a Lebanese nation that would maintain the selfrule of the Maronite Catholics in particular, but as a state independent enough from Christianity to win some assent and membership from the Muslim and Druze half of the population. The 1930s and 1940s were a period of the proliferation of leftist and wide national ideologies in the Middle East that disputed the need for long-term Maronite political separateness. In reaction, Maronite particularists defined the Lebanese Nation to some extent against those wider ideologies and identities.

The Past Identity of Syriac-Maronite Christians A fair number of Maronites have traditionally identified Lebanon as an enclave of refuge that protected the Arab East's Christians from attempts by Muslims to subjugate and disperse them. In the view of such territorialist Christian communitarians, only in Lebanon can minority religious sects of the Middle East live protected from Vol. XV 2002

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intimidation and persecution. Each Christian sect in Lebanon has in its discourses folkloric motifs that define it as a minority or " p e o p l e " that has lived on the fringes of Muslim states and societies, without sharing the responsibilities or rights of the Surini majority in the region. Fears of "persecution" have been a recurring link unifying at least sectors from all Lebanon's numerous Christian sects. Of these, the Maronite community a s Lebanon's largest and most powerful sect evolved the most committed and conceptually elaborated sense of discrete community consciousness distinguished from the wider Arabic-speaking lands. Fortihed and viable within their m o u n t a i n s , the M a r o n i t e community has a sharp sense of a shared past and future. Unlike the other sects, for it Lebanon is its only homeland. Harik (1968) articulated the sense a large section of Maronites have had that their sect has to an extent been a national group defined by "a long [discrete] history, distinctive ethnic characteristics, a single religion, and by having lived for centuries in one compact area. They once had a distinct language [Syriac] of which they kept some vestiges in their religious books and memories up to the recent past". Sectarian identity and homeland overlap, strengthen each other and blend for the Maronites in contrastto all other Arabic-speaking Christian groups: they are the only one of the Arabic-speaking world's many Christian sects that is spatially concentrated. It is only in Lebanon in all the Arab world that one Christian sect, the Maronites, has majority areas extending wider than a few villages '. While a Christian community feeling w a s one element that g a v e coherence to Lebanon's Maronites vis-a-vis Turkish and Arab Muslim populations and forces, simple dichotomization of the Maronites and the Muslim Arabs can obscure their major affinities. This in turn has to underrate both the effort it took writers to evolve a viable particularist Lebanese ideology after 1930 and the complexity and ambiguity of at least s o m e of the particularist discourses that have developed among Maronites. The interaction of the Maronites with Arabic high literature and intellectual culture may have long preceded their final complete adoption of Arabic as their spoken l a n g u a g e in place of Syriac in the eighteenth century. The final acceptance of Arabic w a s also the culmination of choices that Lebanese strata earlier m a d e in their Mountain redoubts to utilize Arabic as a m e a n s to expand lucrative irade with Arab and Muslim state-units. But cultivation of literary high Arabic in the 19th century by the Maronite clergy and lay people The Harp

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also opened them emotionally and intellectually to the community ideologies that Arab Muslims were to develop in Syria, Iraq and Egypt. The p o s i t i o n s , n u a n c e s and s u b - t e x t s of early L e b a n e s e particularist ideologies after 1930 become fully intelligible only when we view the pan-Arabisrn, pan-Syrianism and the socialisms they refuted as serious options that spoke to real components in the makeup of the Maronites. Our C o m m u n i c a t i o n s

Sampling

This paper tends to draw on more rigorously anti-pan-Arab, antipan-Syrian, anti-leftist communications of Maronite political and social thought in the 1930s and 1940s, which was highly diverse, '['his is because we draw our sampling of formula tions mainly irom the Jesuitfounded newspaper al-Bashir. This publication turned up three kinds of ethos: (a) conservative clerical efforts to maintain a traditional Weststyled Catholicism that would grant leadership in the polity to the Maronite Church amid very l'astsocial change; (b) attempts tinged by French liberal t h o u g h t to devise a territorial Lebanese nation continuous from long before Christianity and Islam, that would have fitted with greater acceptance of the West's secularism among the widening Francophone elite after more than a decade of French rule; and (c) the new particularist activism of the youth in the Kata'ib movement that voiced some impatience with the by now hardened Maronite political and social establishment that had developed under French mandatory rule since 1920. The earlier Kata'ib party could develop into either a systemchallenger or a system-revitalizer. It was after 1947 to become postindependence Lebanon's most dynamic particularist-nationalist political party in membership, organizational adaptability, ideological commitment, and in the range instruments it could apply to influence government policy. The Lebanese Kata'ib Parly, founded in 1936 by five Lebanese Christians, four of them Maronites, was on one level directed to maintaining Lebanese Christian interests against the tide of pan-Syrian and pan-Arab nationalist sentiment rising throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s in Lebanon and the region. Until the end of the 1940s, the Kata'ib was a narrow sectarian paramilitary and 1.

J o h n P. Entelis, Pluralism and Party Transformation in Lebanon: al-Kata'ib 1936-1970 ( L e i d e n : Brill 1 9 7 4 ) pp. 3 2 - 3 3 ; llya H a r i k "Politics a n d C h a n g e s in a T r a d i t i o n a l Society, L e b a n o n 1 7 1 1 - 1 8 4 5 ( P r i n c e t o n : 1 9 6 8 ) p. 1 2 8 .

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sportive association critical of parliamentarism and political parties. As regarded its sectarian composition, in 1942 9 5 % of its c. 35,000 members were Maronites, with the remaining 5% drawn from the other Christian sects. T h e Kata'ib thus was undeniably a Christian political movement during the transition to independence of the late 1930s and the 1940s — although w h e n it b e c a m e a mainly parliamentarist political party after independence, various Islamic sects and Jews would come to furnish 10% of its c. 70,000 party members. From its beginnings, there was ambiguity and tension between the Kata'ib's functions as a party to mobilize effective support for the Maronite-headed Lebanese polity and system, and the impatience that s o m e of its supporters repeatedly voiced to the inequalities and malfunctions in that developing system. In the 1950s the Kata'ib became a parliamentary party. But then during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990, the long-standing contradiction within the Kata'ib's ethos was to generate from it a splinter-militia, the Lebanese Forces (al-Quwwat al-Lubnaniyyah), almost as concerned to revolutionize Catholic Lebanese society as it was to beat off Muslim and wider regional forces.

1: VIS-A-VIS SOCIAL UNREST AND COMMUNISM T h e W a r of the C h u r c h , a l - B a s h i r and the K a t a ' i b Communism

Against

Communism was a new but serious challenger that the Maronite Church, aligned journalists and authors, and the new Kata'ib youth movement had to take on. Yet there w a s a certain amount of bluff in the small, shaky local C o m m u n i s t Party's clever tricks to diffuse impressions that it might be able to transform society or deliver benefits to the toilers in the near future. Its loud-mou thed, manipulative activists were relying on Muslim and Catholic rightist movements and writers to act as its unsalaried publicity agents, which al-Bashir and the clericist Maronites duly did. T h e Great Depression had hit Lebanon harder than most s t a t e s / "entities" in the Middle East. From 1935 onwards, a situation of political and socio-economic quasi-breakdown was developing in Lebanon that was favorable for the emergence of a new class politics and thus to nascent Communism. Rubir Abilla, the Maronite journalist, wrote in the al-Bashir of 21 March 1942 an article titled " W e Want To Eat And Have Clothes — Nothing Else!!". Abilla dated the shortages he The Harp

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described, for example in clothing, from the outset of World War II. Despite massive imports of grain by the government, "the food problem has preoccupied public opinion and the press a good deal," he wrote "as also the authorities w h o have moved to combat the speculators in foodstuffs in a fashion that succeeded at some times and failed at others". In the new war-time economic hardships, the established — socially ineffective — post-1918 party politics had become irrelevant, and had to be "temporarily halted because all we want now is to eat and be clothed, nothing else" "in order not to die of starvation and nakedness as we pass through these black days." Abilla called for truly decisive action — "jailing the [grain] monopolists until they ad mit where the vast quantities of grain they bought up have gone." But Abilla was not eager to make his viewpoint so socially radical as to dispense with the parliamentarist system as that had now developed in Lebanon, completely. He thought that Lebanon's Council of M i n i s t e r s s h o u l d d e c i d e a policy of price-fixing of essential commodities in the light of the advice of the Association of Traders which would "spring from the experience, intelligence, and justice of the disinterested among them" \ The militant Catholics knew that the Lebanese Communist party was succeeding to some extent in sharpening the consciousness of class disparities among the common people, the ones suffering the most from the economic crisis. al-Bashir in 1937 noted that "the Communist movement has began spreading throughout the region on a terrifying scale... although the soil of our land is inhospitable to such seeds, for the populations most tenaciously cling to their [religious] beliefs which are totally incompatible with such anarchistic and revolutionary principles". al-Bashir opposed C o m m u n i s m for a combination of religious and social reasons — its "devilish designs... against the heavenly religions and the social structure". [This stance was yet again the theosophist-like coalition with Islamic Arab forces that recurred from more religious discourses of the Catholic Lebanese throughout the 20th century whenever the impact of Western great powers or ideas from the West threatened the continuity of indigenous identity]. ' al-Bashir, though, accounted for the spread of Communism among "the poor classes" with a realistic account of "the unjust distribution 2. 3.

"Nuridu 'an Na'kula wa Nalbas — L a Ilia!!" (We Want To Eat And Have Clothes — Nothing Else!!), al-Bashir 21 March 1942. "al-Akhtar al-Shuyu'iyyah" (The D a n g e r s of C o m m u n i s m ) , al-Bashir 19-20 S e p t e m b e r 1937 p. 1.

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of wealth a m o n g the p e o p i e " : "the m e t h o d s of production which lead to w e a l t h being confined to a few i n d i v i d u a l s or c o m p a n i e s , the shutting of the d o o r s of ease and luxury in the faces of the w o r k i n g c l a s s e s which labor and toil without, at d a y ' s end, attaining e n o u g h to buy sufficient f o o d . " al-Bashir called on " r e s p o n s i b l e b o d i e s to fight the destructive concept of C o m m u n i s m " by treating the conditions of social inequality and inflation affecting the w o r k i n g classes (and m i d d l e c l a s s e s also) "before it is too late" 4 . Thus, the religious particularist Maroniles themselves conceded that the c o m m u n i s t s were finding a certain a u d i e n c e a m o n g the u n d e r p r i v i l e g e d sections of the Maronite c o m m u n i t y . The eventual b i r t h of a c l a s s p o l i t i c s a s a n a l t e r n a t i v e to the e s t a b l i s h e d confessionalisl. and nationalist politics w a s a possibility. But c o n f e s s i o n a l a n d nationalist p r e o c c u p a t i o n s still firmly held the loyalties of the M u s l i m and Christian m a s s e s , a n d the C o m m u n i s t s had to work within the f r a m e w o r k of that reality. Nor w a s it in their interest lo quickly m o v e to wreck the Lebanese system. When compared to the Arab monarchies with their s a v a g e repression of leftists, Lebanon offered a comparatively open, pluralist society where c o m m u n i s t s could w o r k in s o m e freedom for their cause: thus, they had their stake in the L e b a n e s e nation-state v e n t u r e . In a conciliatory g e s t u r e , F a r a j u l l a h a l - H u i w , S e c r e t a r y - G e n e r a l of the [ L e b a n o - S y r i a n ] C o m m u n i s t Party, addressed a letter to the Maronite Patriarch in which he affirmed that "the C o m m u n i s t Party d o e s not o p p o s e the Lebanese Entity, nor aim to w a g e a war u p o n religion; nor d o e s it f o l l o w teachings of either M o s c o w or Paris". He stressed the r e a d i n e s s of those belonging to the Party " l o w o r k in solidarity with all m e n of goodwill to raise the standing of the Nation, a n d win it prosperity" 5. For a born Maronite from the core Mountain Lebanon (al-Jabal), al-LIulw certainly did not voice much warmth lo the Greater Lebanon state separated from Syria in 1920 by calling it an "entity", a term also u s e d by the pan-Syrian nationalists, although he understood the concern;, and the political realities of the sect that h a d p r o d u c e d him. The C o m m u n i s t s , too, throughout the M i d d l e East stood in a position m o r e defensive than that into which they were on their o w n account cornering the feudalism-linked L e b a n e s e and Egyptian elites. They knew the a p p e a l and d y n a m i s m of the nationalist ideologies, pan-Arabic or particularist, that w e r e being articulated in the 1930s 4. 5.

"al-Akhtaral-Shuyu'iyyah''. Sayyar (pseud), '"Alal-Hamish Na'iq al-Ghlrban" (On the Margin: the Cawing of the Crows), al-Bashir 13 July 1939 pp. 1 , 8 .

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and 1940s. To finally win over the broad masses of the population, they would in their turn have to mount apologetics stressing the indigenous and nationalist character of their own movement. In general, the Maronite particularists almost always met conciliator}' gestures by the Arab Communists with political rejection. The anti-religious atheism a t the heart of the Marxist-Leninist worldview left them no other option. The Jesuit order had spear-headed ideological resistance with the booklet Communism: Its Principles and Consequences by "one of the Jesuit Fathers" which al-Bashir in early January 1938 urged readers in all areas of Lebanon and Syria to order from the Catholic Press and the agencies of the al-Bashir newspaper at 3 piasters per copy6. al-Bashir used its columns to deepen and fill out with journalistic coverage the more purely intellectual and religious attacks Catholic religious orders in Lebanon had already mounted against Communism. Most of the articles were generalized if vituperative, and offered little hard data about the USSR. One, although thin and derivative, did transmit from the Havas news agency some details of purges by Stalin of his generals and of the universities 7 . Like the Catholic particularists, such Communists as Farajallah al-Hulw had their own acculturation to the language and thus the world of the colonial ruling-power. Despite his denials of blindly following foreigners [in his case, Red foreigners], ai-Hulw's overtures to the Patriarch were in part inspired by tentative gropings for some kind of truce between some Church figures and Communists in France at this time as the Nazis gathered strength 8 . To articles of Sawt alSha'b, al-Bashir reiterated its charges that the Arab Communists were indeed non-indigenous agents of powers external to the region, and that that paper was uncritically extolling in its columns "the virtues of Soviet rule and the atheistic principles of French Communism". 6.

Advertisement for al-Shuy'iyyah: Mabadi'uha wa Nata'ijuha in al-Bashir 14 January 1938. 7. "al-lrhab fil-Firdaws al-Shuyu'i: Shahadatun la Rayba fi Sidqiha" (Terror in The Communist Paradise: Testimony of Undoubted Truth), _al-Bashir_ 6 January 1938 pp. 1,2. 8. al-Bashir recorded those initiatives: "Cooperation Between The Church And The Communists", al-Bashir 4 January 1938 p. 1; "Cardinal Lienart, Eveque du Lille: L'Eglise et le Communisme", al-Bashir 11 January 1938; "Extraits de Presse: Le Congress Communiste d'Arles", al-Bashir 12 January 1938 p. 2. al-Bashir's lengthy reprinting of French press items in their original language on this question shows how much Communism and Catholic opposition to it was a function of acculturation to the West in this period. Vol. XV 2002

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C h r i s t i a n i t y had a l w a y s b e e n the only c h a m p i o n o f the w o r k e r s suffering from time immemorial 9 , hi a later 1939 article, a l - B a s h i r again excoriated the L e b a n e s e / S y r i a n C o m m u n i s t s as b e i n g slavish instruments of Russian foreign policy a n d the Sawt a l - S h a ' b as " a n e c h o of the c a w i n g s emitted b y the c r o w s that flap a r o u n d a b o v e the millions of Russians w h o have fallen victim to C o m m u n i s t barbarism". Perhaps financed from the monies that the Soviet g o v e r n m e n t " s u c k e d from the blood of the miserable Russian n a t i o n , . . Sawt al-Sha'b is the e n e m y of L e b a n o n a n d its i n d e p e n d e n c e because it is the e n e m y oi all h o m e l a n d s and religions except the h o m e l a n d of... a clique of tyrants ruling w i t h i n the K r e m l i n ' s w a l l s " . T h i s w a s a n o t h e r o f those Maronite/C'atholic articles that vented thinly-veiled anger against the French ally it ostensibly w a n t e d to help against local foes. French officials w e r e only g o i n g through the m o t i o n s of c l a m p i n g d o w n on the C o m m u n i s t s . T h i s w r i t e r i m p o r t u n e d the F r e n c h H i g h C o m m i s s a r i a t e to crush all local g r o u p s at all colored by N a z i s m and F a s c i s m (this would fell A n t u n S a ' a d a h and his secular p a n - S y r i a n s ) as well as by C o m m u n i s m — a general repression that w o u l d have left the rightist particularists with m a n y f e w e r competitors for the hearts a n d m i n d s of the Maronites 1 0 . M a r x i s m w a s n o w r a i s i n g s i g n i f i c a n t q u e s t i o n s a b o u t the functioning of L e b a n o n ' s society, but in m a n y w a y s 1930-1952 w a s the era of n e w ideological nationalisms. For al-Bashir in its polemics, connecting the Communists to two outside European states discredited them more than charging them with apostacy from religion. S a w t a l S h a ' b ' s echoing of a m i n i m u m of p a n - A r a b i s m and e v e n M a r o n i t e Lebanonist particularism within its M a r x i s m - L e n i n i s m s h o w e d that the the national question n o w had to impinge upon all socio-economic or religious considerations in this period. T h e P r e - I n d e p e n d e n c e K a t a ' i b ' s R e s p o n s e s to Social Disparities and Unrest T h e Kata'ib's y o u n g , innovative leadership was sharply attuned to the plight of the poor a n d the e x p a n d i n g w o r k i n g class, a n d r e a d y to denounce and ameliorate hardships and disparities that were socioe c o n o m i c and thus cut across the divides of sects a n d nationalist categories and ideologies on w h i c h the still-new m o v e m e n t has b e e n s t e r e o t y p e d as h a v i n g b e e n fixated d u r i n g its p r e - I n d e p e n d e n c e 9. S.Sh, "llal-Shuyu'iyyina ii Lubnan: hadhihi Yaduna fa Safihuha" (To the Communists in Lebanon: This is Our Hand, So Shake It), b 4 January 1938 p. 1. 10. Sayyar (pseud), "Na'iqal-Ghirban" 1939. The Harp

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formation. The Kata'ib could vary their role as a "defense" movement of a unified Christian political community both in addressing the disparities within "the Christians", and in engaging constructively with pan-Arab movements and governments in the region with which it shared some Arabic high cultural elements. The Kata'ib already in the 1930s and 1940s had been developing in the direction of becoming a positive system challenger much earlier than the formulations of Entelis' classic study would allow. The Kata'ib was well aware of the danger that food prices and shortages posed not just to the French-supervised political system, but to the Lebanon polity itself. The party therefore offered itself to the authorities in order to help them to address grievances that pan-Syrian or pan-Arab radicals or Communists might now lead or detonate. The movemen t set up a crude "department of economic prosperity" with an office to m o n i t o r c o m m e r c i a l t r a n s a c t i o n s to a s s u r e that manipulation or bottlenecks did not deny ordinary Lebanese affordable grain, flour and bread. A crisp Kata'ib statement noted that the governmental Department of Supply had tried tolowerthe highprices of bread by itself delivering regular consignmen ts of imported wheat to the millers and bakers of Bayrut, and by setting a maximum price at which bread could be sold retail thereafter. The Kata'ib rejected these measures and procedures of the government. There would not be enough police to check u p the prices of every retailer and peoples' enemies might falsely charge some of them. The Kata'ib urged the government instead to sell imported wheat and flour in stores at a fixed price so that the competing alternatives would force the mills and bakers to lower their prices. The Kata'ib offered to provide volunteers to retail the food stuffs from the government stores/ warehouses 11 . As early as late 1938, the Kata'ib's Bureau of Social Affairs organized a "day for the poor" wherein free medical and legal aid was offered to the needy of Bayrut, Tripoli, Zahlah and Juniyah. The stillnew movement, formally just a youth paramilitary focussed aroimd a thletics, was going so far as to build institutions to address Lebanon's social crisis: an instance w a s the early activity of the Kata'ib's Department of Social Affairs (Maslahat al-Shu'un al-Ijtima'iyyah). This crude institution's memorandum to the Lebanese Ministry of Justice in April 1944 on the latter's explanatory note on the Law of [Worker's] 11. "al-Kata'ib al-Lubananiyyah Tahtammu Bi-Bay' al-Hintah" (The Lebanese Kata'ib Involves Itself in the Sale of Wheat) al-Bashir 16 September 1940. Vol. XV 2002

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C o m p e n s a t i o n showed the nature of a substantial interest by the early Kata'ib in the welfare of the w o r k i n g classes. T h e L e b a n e s e Kata'ib, the m e m o r a n d u m proclaimed, " h a d p r o v e d itself in a practical w a y more than once to be the champion of the worker in every just d e m a n d " . H o w e v e r , the Kata'ib, by virtue of its nationalist nature, was n o n partisan, class-neutral — a mediator, in the interest of " t h e higher national interest", between "the worker, one of the strong supports on which the edifice of the homeland maintains itself [and] the e m p l o y e r " w h o , like the w o r k e r , has "rights and duties which must be taken into a c c o u n t " . T h r o u g h " a h a r m o n i z a t i o n of [their] two interests ... [a] clear u n d e r s t a n d i n g between both p a r l i e s , a sound a g r e e m e n t " , the public order essential to the h o m e l a n d could be assured. T h e K a t a ' i b w i s h e d to modify the existing internal social system s o that the L e b a n e s e nation-state v e n t u r e could r e m a i n functional — but its e n d e a v o r to " p r o t e c t the w o r k e r a n d reconcile h i m with the e m p l o y e r on a m u t u a l l y satisfactory basis of social j u s t i c e " stood well to the left of the h a r d e n e d ruling M a r o n i t e political establishment, to w h o s e legislation it p r e s e n t e d w h a t s e e m to h a v e b e e n c o u n t e r "solutions"12. S o m e of the K a t a i ' b ' s e a r l y i n t e r v e n t i o n s a n t i c i p a t e d l a b o r d e m a n d s instead of neutrally r e s p o n d i n g to a conflict situation. A n e x a m p l e is the d e m a n d of the Kata'ib for private b a n k s , a c a d e m i c institutes, c o m m e r c i a l and industrial h o u s e s to m a t c h increases that h a d b e e n a w a r d e d in w a g e s paid by g o v e r n m e n t d e p a r t m e n t s 1 3 . However, most of these were also d e m a n d s of the petty bourgeoisie — the constituency from w h i c h the Kata'ib m a i n l y sprang. H o w far w a s t h e p r e - I n d e p e n d e n c e K a t a ' i b j u s t r e a c t i n g p r a g m a t i c a l l y to the s u c c e s s i o n o f n e v e r - e n d i n g p r o b l e m s that threatened the vitality and indeed survival of fragile particularist L e b a n o n as the 1930s and 1940s p r o c e e d e d ? O r h o w far could its nationalism m a k e it feel with w o r k e r s as w i t h other classes in the Nation? It would be churlish to d e n y s o m e d y n a m i s m , p r o g r a m s and e l e m e n t s for long-term vision of the integration of society from this movement. The Kata'ib could to s o m e extent transcend the interests of the " C a t h o l i c " strata that had b e c o m e the e s t a b l i s h m e n t under the 12. "al-Kata'ib al-t.ubnaniyyati fi Khidmat al-'Amil" (The L e b a n e s e Kata'ib in the Service of the Worker) al-Bashir 21 April 1944 p. 1. 13. "al-Kata'ib Tutalibu bi-Bi'ayat al-Huquq" (The Kata'ib D e m a n d that Rights be Implemented) al-Bashir 7 November 1941. The Harp

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French, in part because it drew some membership from a wider classrange and generational range than the Christian pseudo-parties in parliamentarism. al-Bashir's denunciations of the Lebanese Communist Party's links to French communism again vented that bitterness against the "mandatory" power France that Catholic particularist forces had repeatedly felt since Greater Lebanon was established in 1920. The central grievance, as ever, was that too many French officials in Lebanon were secularists who cared little for the concerns and interests of religious Maronites or their Church, and did sometimes feel more affinity with opponents influenced by French secular ideas, even Communists. al-Bashir in September 1937 printed a bilingual FrenchArabic editorial addressed to the Director of Intelligence and titled "Questions", calling; upon him to outlaw Communist activities in fact as well as just name and ban Sawt al-Sh a'b. This had just been urged on him in a meeting he held with worried Maroni tes. The piece evinced contempt for the incapacity of such French officials to grasp the danger from the Communists, w h o had established cells in Bayrut, Zahleh, Jubayl, Balrun, Ihdin and Jinnin [Jabjnin in a mixed Maronite-Druze area of the Shuf]— a good coverage of Catholic Lebanon which certainly did show that they were starting to challenge the Catholic churches and parties for the loyalties of the Maronites and Melkites14. al-Bashir's editorial of 2 September 1937 denounced the government's ban upon a Kata'ib parade planned as the party's contribution to the seventeenth anniversary of Gouraud's proclamation of Greater Lebanon. al-Bashir bracketed the movement's contribution to the fight against communism with its contribution to resistance against pan-Arab and pan-Syrian forces. Yet despite its "loyalty to Lebanon and France", and resistance to Communism and the opponents of Lebanese independence, the movement was seldom helped by the French. "We cannot but protest against this ban... when we witness a group of [French] officials giving their support to certain agitational and chaos-causing groups tha t are a m a n i f e s t a t i o n of C o m m u n i s m to d e m o n s t r a t e a n d issue newspapers" 1 5 . Beneath its editorial, the paper carried the statement of the Kata'ib head, Pierre al-Jumayyil, protesting the ban. 14. "Su'alat/Questioris", al-Bashir 17 September 1937 p. 1. 15. "Man' al-Kata'ib min al-lshtirak bi-'ld Istiqlal Lubnan: Imti'ad al-Awsat al-Wataniyyah min hadhal-Tadbir al-Ja'ir" (The Barring of the Kata'ib from the Celebrations of Lebanon's independence Day: Dissatisfaction of Patriotic Circles at this Unjust Measure), a l - B a s h i r 2 September 1937 p. 4.

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France h a d few friends in the L e b a n e s e Republic it helped set up in 1920. In general, the c o m m u n i c a t i o n s w e reviewed s h o w e d the Kata'ib proto-party as a positive challenger that tried to berate and jolt a dysfunctioning s y s t e m into working. T h e y w e r e attuned to the street like an opposition party but acted as a c h a n n e l for appeal to give the m a s s e s input into the s y s t e m before they defected.

2: Resistant and Constructive Engagement with Pan-arabs (a): A g a i n s t the C o m m u n i s t s . The challenge from C o m m u n i s m made more conservative L e b a n e s e C a t h o l i c s a n d the K a t a ' i b e n g a g e w i t h n o t j u s t the deprivations a n d p r o b l e m s that local ordinary people w e r e suffering, but with M u s l i m pan-Arabs. The Kata'ib before 1945 were nationalistprotective on one level — they strongly resisted pan-Arabist or p a n Syrian pressures upon the Lebanese nation-state structure: on another level, though, Lhe C o m m u n i s t m e n a c e could bring them together with M u s l i m Arabists in L e b a n o n and in the region. T h e c o n j u n c t i o n w a s driven by the dislike of any tiling smacking of atheism c o m m o n to both M a r o n i t e nationalists and the Arab M u s l i m s w h o , like them, w e r e n o w striving to mobilize and m o d e r n i z e their populations on only s o m e patterns carefully selected from the West. T h u s , the K a t a ' i b c o l l a b o r a t e d in J a n u a r y 1941 w i t h L e b a n o n ' s p a n - A r a b i s t M u s l i m p a r a - m i l i t a r y a l - N a j j a d a h to i m p r o v e the e c o n o m i c c o n d i t i o n s of the m a s s e s . T h e t w o " y o u t h " p r o t e s t m o v e m e n t s o r g a n i z e d a b r e a d strike a g a i n s t the g o v e r n m e n t o f G e n e r a l D e n t z a n d President Emile Edde over the p r o c e d u r e s u n d e r w h i c h food s u p p l i e s w e r e b e i n g p r o v i d e d : the strike f o r c e d the r e s i g n a t i o n of the g o v e r n m e n t . In a later 1937 article " I n T h e C a u s e of Delivering T h e W o r k e r s F r o m The Arms of Criminal C o m m u n i s m " , al-Bashir praised the efforts of the Egyptian T u r c o - C i r c a s s i a n noble ' A b b a s H a l i m to o r g a n i z e a n o n - C o m m u n i s t , non-Socialist federation of trade u n i o n s in E g y p t to pressure Egyptian g o v e r n m e n t s in a sustained w a y into bettering the w o r k e r s ' daily conditions. a l - B a s h i r e x p r e s s e d the h o p e that " t h e N o b l e ' A b b a s Halim will b e successful in a c h i e v i n g [these aims] for

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Egypt, so that the other Eastern lands will follow his example and the last bolt of Communism be shot in vain" 16 . Whatever class interests al-Bashir spoke for in its opposition to C o m m u n i s m , the C o m m u n i s t s t i m u l a n t of early p a r a m i l i t a r y particularism also meshed into more abstract or theoretical issues of national identity. The Communism of the Lebanon-Syrian Party in particular was strongly colored by a pan-Arabism that sprang from the very specific experience of Syrians in the wake of World War 1. The resolutions of the conference of the Communist Parties of Palestine and Syria adopted in 1931, titled "The Tasks of The Communists in the AllArab National Movement", mentioned that "Syria is arbitrarily broken [by France] up into five parts ["autonomousstates"], each with a different government, different laws etc". The resolution projected Syria's particular experience onto the whole Arab world, thundering that "the gist of the Arab national question consists in the fact that English, French, Italian and Spanish imperialists have dismembered the living body of the Arab peoples, hold the Arab peoples in a state of feudal fragmenta tion, deprive each and every one of these countries of the prerequisites for an independent economic and political development, and block the national political unification of the Arab countries." "To cast off the yoke of imperialism [the Arabs] must imite their forces, relying on a common language, historical conditions and a common enemy... to create a number of states, which, thereafter, of their own free will, could unite on the basis of federal principles" 17 . The Lebanese Communists tried to give the rising interest in classical Arab culture — politicized by all and sundry — twists that 16. "Fi Sabil Inqadh al-'Ummal min Ahdan al-Shuyu'iyyat al-Janiyah" (In the Cause of Rescuing the Workers from the Control of Criminal Communism), al-Bashir 16 September 1937. The Marxist Egyptian Louis 'Awad blasted the Labor Party of 'Abbas Halim, paramilitary somewhat like that of the Kata'ib, as Nazi-like and a device to sabotage the "liberal-democratic labor movement" in concert with the Crown: Vatikiotis, Egypt Since The Revolution p. 49. Yet Prince Halim's Labor Party won some following among workers: 'Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot assessed him as "interested in trade unions", he was the "black sheep" of the Royal Family, not its agent, and had merged his General Union of Trade Unions with the Wafdist one in 1931 to oppose, not help, the pro-Palace Sidqi government, mustering pressure on it to regulate child labor from the IFTU. al-Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt's Liberal Experiment, 1922-1936 (Berkely: University of California Press 1977) pp. 119-120. 17. Text published in Japanese in Marxism (Tokyo, March 1938) and printed in Ivar Spector, The Soviet Union and The Muslim World 1917-1958 (Seattle: University of Washington Press 1959) pp. 129-141. Vol. XV 2002

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would promote relinquishment of religious belief as a long-term approach to integrate Muslim and Christian Arabic-speakers in joint political community. Dr George Hanna, on the occasion of a week in Bayrut tocommemorate Syria's ascetic poet Abul-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (9731058), stressed that poet's "doubt" and "sarcastic comments on people and the gods" (sic) and his founding of his philosophy on "reason alone", fulfilled in m o d e r n science: al-Ma'arri now inspired the Lebanese youth who celebrated him to end "sectarianism, oppression of women, and isolation" [as represented by the religious Maronite particularists] 18 . Clearly, the Communists were making their new terrifying doctrine fit into the long tradition of ultra-modernizing, radically secular scienticist pan-Syrian or pan-Arab nationalism long represented by such Maronite figures as Amin al-Rayhani (whom President Bisharah al-Khuri noted had been the Maronite w h o introduced the skeptical al-Ma'arri to the Western world with his English translations of the early 1900s). Would the Communists be the ones to finish the job of eliminating the Maronite Church and the particularistic political forces that had formed around it, in Lebanese history? All political currents and parties in Lebanon that had Christians in them — pan-Syrians, clericist belletrists, radical particularists, C o m m u n i s t s , parliamentarist parties and the new paramilitary Lebanonists in the Kata'ib — all now had to relate themselves in some way to the pan-Arabism that was forming and expanding in the 1940s in particular. This was not only because old motifs from Arab high culture and history were now conferring political influence and clout on the pan-Arabs who mustered them, but also because some of those features of literary language were present in the psyches of the Catholic particularists themselves. (b) Arguments Between pan-Arabists and Catholic Particularists Over Lebanon's History. The ill-tempered c o n t r o v e r s i e s b e t w e e n the Arabist a n d particularist camps now contending for hegemony over the thinking of the general Lebanese public focussed around celebration of 18. "aJ-Duktur Jurj Hanna: al-Tawjih al-Fikri fi Siyasat al-'Ahd al-Jadid" (Dr George Hanna: Ideological Direction in the Policy of the New Era) Sawt al-Sha'b 4 April 1944 pp. 1 -2. Hanna by 1959 endorsed Islam for taking the Arabs from peninsular tribalism to a wide social life, including with Christians in their empire: this was the precondition for modern Arab nationalism led by Nasser's "revolution": Kemal H. Karpat, Political and Social Thought in the Contemporary Middle East (New York: Praeger 1968) p. 63-5. The Harp

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Lebanon's past in the official institutions and rituals that formed as Lebanon moved to its independence. The position of Lebanonist particularist nationalists could sometimes become quite defensive or rear-guard given that some leading Maronite politicians headed by Bisharah al-Khuri wanted to engage the coming Lebanon state with the other Arab countries to a fair degree. The active, vocal opponents of Phoenicianism were posing their appeals for more pan-Arab cultureforms that would build wider c o m m u n i t y in terms of anti-Imperialist nationalism: this had to have appeal in the era of decolonization that had begun. In 1939, " a Lebanese" published in al-Bashira reply to an Arabist attack on Lebanon's stall at the N e w York World's Fair. The item w a s responding to a report Bayrut carried from its N e w York correspondent on 29 July 1939. The correspondent of Bayrut had charged following his visit that the organizers of the Lebanese wing had neglected to project the history of the Arabs and Arabism in Lebanon so that the money allocated to Lebanon's participation in the World Fair was squandered. The alBashir contributor retorted that the stall had "presented Lebanon in N e w York according to the historical eras that had passed over it from ancient times to n o w [=neo-pagan neo-Phoenicianism] and w h a t is hoped it may become in future days, ...without exaggerations and errors, though that may anger a small number (nafar) of short-sighted people or abrasive contrarians (al-mukabirin) who play on the refrain of [antiWestern Lebanese] patriotism in a w a y that could win some assent from the simple-minded". The quasi-Arabists, serious contenders by his admission, were striving to mislead the readers that there is a plot or c o n s p i r a c y b e i n g e l a b o r a t e l y o r g a n i s e d b y " t h e p s e u d o Phoenicians!/neo-Phoenicians: "al-mutafayniqin"], as they term them, to attack or denigrate Arabism or obliterate its landmarks". The article mentioned the similarity of Lebanese particularism to its earlier-elaborated b u t n o w declining neo-pagan equivalent in Egypt — [also under a ttack from the rising pan-Arabs in tha t country]—which it cited to justify the validity of the celebration of the Phoenician pagan past at the fair. The Lebanese stall had included statues of two Lebanese rulers of Arab lineage — Fakhr al-Din al-Ma'ni and Bashir al-Shihabi (both of Druze origin) — and had devoted one comer of the fair to the role of Lebanese scholars and writers in the Arabic language's m o d e m renaissance. That had been enough, the writer taunted the Arabists, since, except for the triumph of their language, the Arabs had had a more marginal racial and cultural impact on Lebanon than had other foreign conquerors who temporarily subjugated the land: Vol. XV 2 0 0 2

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" H o w could the nobie c o r r e s p o n d e n c e neglect... to refer even in p a s s i n g to the b u i l d i n g s a n d statues the A r a b s erected in L e b a n o n a n d the inventions and discoveries they bequeathed?.. But the subject of the L e b a n e s e wing at the N e w Y o r k Fair is L e b a n o n ' s history in previous d a y s and ages, n o t the history of the A r a b s in the other c o u n t r i e s a n d lands. For the A r a b s n e v e r had a r e g u l a r state or sovereignty in Lebanon. All they did was found thrones and k i n g d o m s that r e a c h e d the p e a k of glory and prosperity outside L e b a n o n . T h e ' A b b a s i d s a n d their Fatimid s u c c e s s o r s flourished in B a g h d a d and C a i r o , the U m a y y a d s in Syria a n d A n d a l u s i a . T h e o n l y relation L e b a n o n to its misfortune had w i t h the Arabs in the time of their glory and p r o w e s s w a s that w h i c h it had with every c o n q u e r o r w h o p a s s e d over it a n d stopped there, like the ancient Egyptians, the A s s y r i a n s , the Persians, the Greeks, the R o m a n s and e v e n the C r u s a d e r s and the T u r k s . T h e A r a b s colonized L e b a n o n as t h e s e p e o p l e s c o l o n i z e d it. But w h e r e a s certain of those nations, such as the Greeks and especially die R o m a n s , left after them in L e b a n o n m o n u m e n t s that are real m a s t e r p i e c e s s u r p a s s i n g the m e m o r i a l s left b y the P h o e n i c i a n s , the Arabs left nothing visible — only their language, of which die Lebanese remain p r o u d " " . T h e r e w e r e threads c o n n e c t i n g this particularist to the m a k e - u p of the p a n - A r a b o p p o n e n t s a g a i n s t w h o m h e d e f i n e d his n e w l y h e i g h t e n e d ideology. His p r i d e that the [Catholic?] L e b a n e s e in the 19th a n d 20th centuries had " p l a y e d the leading r o l e " (kana l a h u m a l - q a d a m al-mu'alla) in literary A r a b i c ' s " r e n a i s s a n c e , revival, a n d p r o p a g a t i o n t h r o u g h o u t all A r a b i c - s p e a k i n g countries, and e v e n in f a r a w a y lands to w h i c h they m i g r a t e d " w a s a crucial c o n t r i b u t i o n a l m o s t all p a n - A r a b s t h e m s e l v e s stressed in L e b a n o n , the Fertile Crescent and in Egypt. It was a contribu tion that clearly gave even the M a r o n i t e clergy, long the activist editors a n d publishers of almost lost classical A r a b m a s t e r p i e c e s , a n i n h e r e n t place in the p a n - A r a b high cultural life and ideologies t h a t w e r e n o w unfolding. T h e r e w e r e other compatibilities with the a s s u m p t i o n s of his Arabist o p p o n e n t s . T h a t the writer, in replying to a Lebanese pan-Arabist, should have bracketed 19. "Lubnani Munsif' (pseud), 'Ta'rikh Lubnan al-Haqiqi fil-Ma'rid" (Lebanon'sTrue History At the Fair), Bashir 9 August 1939 p. 2. T h e amir Fakhr ai-Din al-Ma'ni ruled most of Lebanon from 1593-1633; the House of Ma'n, Druze, were accepted by Christian and Druze alike: they encouraged commerce. From 1 6 9 7 - 1 8 4 2 , Lebanon was governed by the Shihabs, originally Sunni Muslims with Druze followers. Bashir al-Shihabi encouraged merchants and Catholic missionaries to come from the states of Italy: he kept it ambiguous if he were a Sunni or a Christian. Some of his family became Catholic. The Harp

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Crusaders with Turks and both with Arabs as all, alike, one negative category of foreign conquerors, was a shift from a motif in previous pan-Catholic particularisms or proto-particularisrns. Some of the French had initially justified their mandate as taking up the historical presence of the bygone Crusaders in Lebanon, and some Lebanese particularists had insisted on their group's partial racial descent from those sacred warriors from the period of the formation of the modern nations and literary languages of Europe. Idealized past relations between the Maronites and the Crusader occupiers had been a symbolic prelude to the alliance of the dominant group of the Catholic Lebanese alliance with the West, and alienation from the Muslim Arab hinterland, in the earlier 20th century. Now anti-Western feeling had penetrated the Lebanese Catholic community so widely, or forced some of its more West-orientated writers so on the defensive, that this contributor was uneager to be associated with the Crusader venture. Still, his argument that the monuments left by the Romans easily surpassed those left by the Arabs and even by the Phoenicians who were the definitive people for the post-1920 Greater Lebanon state, awarded a crucial role to the West from antiquity in forming Lebanon's character. Clearly, self-Westernization would proceed although Lebanese nationalism was striding to political power. H o w e v e r , archeological excavations by Westerners were uncovering constructive activity by the classical Arabs in Lebanon. Lebanon had been one site of innova tive architecture under the Caliphs, as the Arabic press of groups that were highly particularist in their, political stances did not fail to convey to the Lebanese public. al-Bashir in early 1940 published an item titled "Arab Monuments In Lebanon: Ruins of a Town founded by al-Walid Ibn 'Abd al-Malik". This summarised a report in al-Ahram in Cairo that Jean Sauvaget, lecturer in the History of the Islamic East at the Sorbonne, had delivered a paper about Lebanese ruins that he had closely studied. Sauvaget, enlisted under wartime regulations in the Islamic Section of France's Commissariate for Information, believed the ruins to be of a city founded by the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid 'Abd al-Malik who had had the great mosque in Damascus built. The Lebanese site would make the later 'Iraq-based 'Abbasids less innovative in Arabo-Islamic architecture because the ruins were no different from the architectural style of the Madinat al-Salam founded by the subsequent 'Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur in 762. "It has now been established, as against what had been the received view, that that style was not copied from the Assyrians or the Sassanids but from the Syrian Umayyad style Vol. XV 2 0 0 2

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that these ruins document had great importance in the evolution of Line Islamic city" 20 . Identification by Western experts — and Muslim Egyptians seizing their findings in the era of liberal pan-Arabism — of the cultural works of the two formally religious Umayyad and 'Abbasid dynasties as "Islamic" might dampen the enthusiasm of non-Muslim Lebanese for that architectural past. The fact remains that al-Bashir, still a relatively religious Catholic Christian newspaper, felt enough pride in a supraLebanese Umayyad "Syrian style" of architecture to print a (smallish) item that could foster a pan-Arab or pan-Syrian identification. [Archeological activity around the Roman temples at Ba'labakk must increasingly have exposed the extensive Arab fortifications there, and the ruined Arab mosque constructed of reemployed antique material in the acropolis], (c) The Divided Response of the Maronites to the Wave of Confederal Arabism after World War 2 After World War 2, the Arab c o u n t r i e s m o v e d t o w a r d s independence from the rule of the Western powers at varying rates. The tendency towards pan-Arabism that the land-owning and neocapitalist elites and the new middle classes of the rickety Arab state entities now pursued was a gradualist and confederal Arabism: this would maintain separate Arabic-speaking state-units and peoples rather than seek a unitary bloc or state like the Arabism of the 1950s and 1960s. The conservative pan-Arabism of the 1940s was concerned to tighten the ties between the countries of the Arab world through n e w more modern forms of economic exchanges and relationships — a drive that had parallels to the concern of Catholic Lebanese intellectuals and the economic elite to make Lebanon an entrepot and financial centre of the Middle East. Like almost all categories of Maronite religious and political leaders, the Muslim Arab leaders of the period expected the Western powers to be in the region for a long time to come, al though one more global war had again weakened them so that they now would have to loosen their control. 20. " a f - A t h a r a l - A r a b i y y a h fi L u b n a n : Khara'ibu M a d i n a t i n A s s a s a h a a l - W a l i d Ibn A b d al-Malik" (The Arab Ruins in Lebanon: Ruins of a City Founded by U m a y y a d Caliph al-Walid Ibn A b d al-Malik), a l - B a s h i r 2 2 J a n u a r y 1 9 4 0 p. 5. S a u v a g e t c'ied fairly early in his life as a promising author, but did publish such major works as his L a M o s q u e e O m e y y a d e d e M e d i n e ( 1 9 4 7 ) , a n d C h a t e a u x Ommeyades. T h e Harp

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The imminent thinning-out of France's military presence in the Levant, and the possibilities for non-unitary pan-Arab integra tion now opening up drew two varying responses from Lebanon's Catholics. The Christian elements around Bisharah al-Khuri wanted to legitimize and strengthen the Lebanese state by leading it into the League of Arab States: membership would win recognition for Lebanon from the Arabs as a state as sovereign as Syria, ending any irredentism from Damascus. al-Khuri was also inducting Lebanon's Sunni Muslims into the Lebanese system as junior partners of the Maronites. Another group, led by the Maronite Patriarch Antun 'Aridah and the apex clergy and some politicians, though, opposed induction of Lebanon into the new pan-Arab system and especially the construction of panArab institutions that would act as conduits for a flow of pan-Arab ideological motifs or homogenizing pan-Arab high culture into their Christian constituency. 'Aridah did succeed in p r o m o t i n g the weakening of Lebanon's economic links to Syria and limiting the spread of some Arab culture forms coming from outside. Catholic political factions had inbuilt p a r a d o x e s here. The Catholic politicians in or aligned with al-Khuri's administrations, sought to achieve full independence f r o m France by entering a contractual relationship with the other states of the Arab League — and perhaps with Britain and America as well? — that would indeed, as al-Bashir argued, place some restrictions on the freedom of action of the new independent Lebanon polity. Yet the pan-Catholic or panChristian group was striving to hold off the Islamo-Arab states by leading Lebanon into a treaty with the (severely wounded) Great Power France ('Aridah would finally toy even with France's bete noir Britain as protector) that would entitle her to place real limits on some options for Lebanon's external and internal policies. The heavily Christian group around President Bisharah al-Khuri also intended to maintain close economic and cultural interaction with France, among the other Western powers. The stances of the ultrist pro-West particularist forces opposed to al-Khuri, though, were in effect trying to prevent Lebanon from joining the League of Arab States. While France strove to draw Lebanon into a treaty, the ultra-Westernist Lebanese nationalists argued that "Lebanon wishes to preserve its full freedom to conclude agreements and to follow the policy that suits its interest". al-Bashir approvingly quoted al-Sawda's argument that "the numerous declarations of the [previous] government that it rejects every treaty with any state whatsoever so that Lebanon may reach the Peace Conference free and unfettered should necessarily preclude Vol. XV 2002

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linking Lebanon to all those [Arab] states through the Alexandria Protocol." T h e ultra-particularist group, with its intellectual leadership heavily made up of senior clergy, in July 1947 opposed the holding of the Second Cultural Conference of the League of Arab States. These denunciations again showed that a target of their campaigns w a s the (Maronite-led) Lebanese government of Bisharah al-Khuri and its policy of cooperation with the region's Arab states — receiving back recognition by them of Lebanon's separaleness from Syria — within the framework of the Arab League formula. The campaign throughout was encouraged and directed by high Maronite clergy: the president of Literary League for Free (=Privale) Education (al-Rabitah a l - A d a b i y y a h l i l - T a ' l i m al-Hurr) " w h i c h represents most private [educational] institutions in L e b a n o n " was a priest, Father Ighnati vus Abu Marun. The private institutions being spoken for were heavily religious, and the Maronite Patriarch Antun 'Aridah blessed the militantly particularist counter-conference that the Literary League ior Private Education threw a m o n t h and a halt before the Arab Cultural Conference was due to be held in September. Father Ighnatiyus Abu Marun, despite a frosty surface politeness in his letter of 4 June 1947 to the Lebanese Minister of National Education t o w a r d s both the m i n i s t e r and the A r a b L e a g u e , a s s a i l e d the forthcoming Cultural Conference to be held under their joint auspices as an attempt to "prepare the rising generation for Arab unity" through education. The occasion for Ighnatiyus' attack w a s a questionnaire that Lhe secretarial-general of the Arab League had circulated as part of the preparatory activities for the holding of the conference, its questions included how "text books, geography and the study of literature to some extent could be applied . to propagate the Arab idea" and education in general "to preparing the Arab citizen to be as good a citizen in the community of Arab lands as he is of the qutr (land) to which he belongs?" The questionnaire suggested that even at primary school level not "the history of the particular land of the student alone" but "the history of the whole Arab N a t i o n " should be taught. Ighnatiyvus alarmedly cited such questions to prove "the political objective lurking behind [these] educational and cultural i s s u e s " — that is to sav the e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a u n i t a r y " A r a b community... in the midst of which independent nations (umam) would be allowed no en tity ": that would spell the end of "the Lebanese concept and its entity". T h e Lebanese Minister of National Education refuted that the Arab League Covenant's guidelines for cooperation between The Harp

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member states guaranteed that "the external and internal political conditions of each of its constituent member states will be respected". The Arab League was nothing more "than a benign instrument for such cooperation... between all member states, a conjunction of interests in this region of the world and, also, the spiritual and cultural [moral] bonds Jinking the various states in the League to each other". Such "coordination of efforts" by sovereign governments for mutual benefit could never "touch that respect for the independence and sovereignty of every member upon which the Arab states agreed in the very Covenant of their League". The deliberations of the Arab cultural conference in Lebanon would, argued the Minister, express "the spirit of love for a common literature guided by common principles and for a language the most creditable works of which were republished and rescued from the oblivion into which they had fallen by the renaissance in which the [Maronite] Lebanese played the main role"21. Thus, Lebanon's Minister of Education m 1947 argued that the Arab League served both (a) Lebanon's sovereignty and interests as a particularist nation-state and (b) areas for legitimate cultural and also economic cooperation among all Arab member states. His controversy with Ighnatiyyus revealed the cleavage within the Maronite community between (a) those who believed a highly qualified integration within the Arab region was the best means to preserve Lebanon as a viable entity, and (b) those ultras around Pa triarch An tun 'Aridah determined to resist almost any trans-Arab integration or exchanges in any field: economic, political or cultural. The cultural question underlined lhat the cleavage was not merely one of contrasting calculations as to where Maronite interest lay, but a divergence about some aspects in Maronite national identity, or about giving those different ratios. For Maronite religious particularists, the conflict that the group of [deeply West-tinted] politicians around Bisharah al-Khuri had had with mandatory France had fed the sense of the centrality to Maronite national identity of the component of formal Arabic and its high culture. Culture and politics had come together so powerfully that proper bounds or scrutiny might not be kept on cultural opening to outside Arabs in its effects for the political self-containedness of Lebanon . The semi-official pressures from the forming Lebanese 21. "Urihi l-Suna wa Yurini al-Qamar (I Show him Ursa Minor and he Shows Me the Moon) al-Bashir 12 Juiy 1947 p. 1. This ancient Arabic saying was being applied here to depict the Minister as short-sighted in contrast to the far-sighted particularists who could forsee how dysfunctional and harmful the Arab League and pan-Arabism would be in the long term. George 'Abd al-Salib, editor of the former al-Risalah, Melbourne. Vol. XV 2002

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statal elite to downgrade French and establish standard literary Arabic language as the medium of Lebanese nationalism and the Lebanese state ran too much parallel to feared efforts of pan-Arabists in the region to use education and culture as the first step towards political unification of the Arab Last. Because of this (limited) association of the Lebanese state with pan-Arabism on the cultural plane, the ultraparticularists were thus as suspicious and resistant of Bisharah alKhuri's administration within as they were of the Arab states outside Lebanon's borders. The Second Lebanese Cultural Conference organised by the League for Private Education illustrated the particularists' linking of the L e b a n e s e g o v e r n m e n t ' s official e d u c a t i o n a l n a t i o n a l i s m , its commitment to indigenous Arabic, with the external cultural panArabizing pressure being exerted from outside Arab states. The main demand voiced in the resolutions thus was "to keep the school separate from politics because of the contradiction in the aims of the state and the school respectively." The most substantial practical measure that the resolutions recommended was " t o draw up a cultural curriculum which when necessary can run parallel to the official o n e " : if the independent Lebanese government did develop and impose curricula after its principles, the rigorous particularists would adapt and work around them. The particularists at the conference suggested an imaginative strategy to combat the as they believed homogenizing cultural pressures from the surrounding Arab countries, through a countering "cultural renaissance" to "preserve the distinctiveness of Lebanese culture". For instance, the Conference called for contact to be made with international educational circles so that, where these suited the Lebanese spirit, their advanced ( - W e s t e r n ) techniques and experience could be utilized in Lebanese national education. The Conference called for an educational institution to be set up to study the psychology and capacity of the Lebanese child in the light of modern science and theories. The Conference revealed its fear of the attraction literature from other Arab countries had lor some Ma ron i tes — the e m e r g e n c e of a s t a n d a r d i z e d a l l - A r a b l i t e r a t u r e — b y recommending that a publishing house should be set up to print original and translated works "to encourage Lebanese writers and in the hope of intellectual exchange" — with F r a n c e / the West, in view of the reference to translation. The same fear of the intellectual integration of even Christian Lebanese within the standard neo-Arabic literary culture that w a s becoming c o m m o n to the countries of the whole M i d d l e East is revealed by the C o n f e r e n c e ' s call for " L e b a n o n ' s The Harp

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distinctive contribution (character) in philosophy and literature and sciences and social matters to be highlighted." The resolutions generally bear witness to the defensive or oppositional position in which the rigorous particularists stood not just regionally but inside Lebanon itself. Apart from the seeming call for a heightening of intellectual community with the West through the translation of E u r o p e a n works, p e r h a p s for the Arabic-reading Maronite public, and as a counter to the influence of larger neo-Arabic literature, the Conference also proposed "the facilitation of mutual acquaintance to bring into close contact Lebanese thinkers in the h o m e l a n d and in the diaspora so that the characteristics of the Lebanese spirit will be clearly demonstrated" 2 2 . The Western concept that the "spiritual" church was separate from "temporal" politics was sometimes applied by church leaders to prevent individual clergymen associating themselves with even a cultural w i d e r Arab c o m m u n i t y or the m o v e m e n t for regional integration or even with the idea of dialogue with " A r a b i s m " . Accordingly, "His Beatitude the Maronite Patriarch has not permitted Father Yuhanna Marun to travel to Cairo to represent Lebanon in the cultural committee of the Arab Conference because his Beatitude does not feel it is permissible thatpriests be distracted from their spiritual duties in the service of their flocks and leave their churches to practise activities that appertain to laymen (temporal people)" 2 3 . Thus, Patriarch 'Aridah strove to regiment the sector of Maronite culture in and around his institutions into a political instrument for his group — which was, though, only one key contender in the plural, highly politicized, Maronite community. The hyper-alert particularists did not lack contradictions. On one hand, they resisted the region drawing politically and culturally together with the slogans of total sovereignty of the Lebanese state. Sim ultaneously, though, they were careful to maintain their country's profitable entrepot trade with its hinterland Arab neighbours. Thus the Lebanese nationalists wanted the best of both worlds: they were politically separatist but economically wanted to benefit from the commercial needs of Arab neighbours. In part because of their own Arab culture-dimension, their demands for cultural and educational 22. "Qararat al-Mu'tamar al-Thaqafi al-Lubnani" (Resolutions of the L e b a n e s e Cultural Conference), al-Bashir 10 J u l y 1947 p. 1. 23. "Yuhanna Marun: al-Batriark la Ya'dhanu lil-Ab Marun bil-Safar" (Yuhanna Marun: The Patriarch Does not Permit Fr Marun to Travel), al-Bashir 9 January 1945 p. 1. Vol. X V 2002

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separateness from outside Muslim Arabs, with use of French in education at its core, were only partial. Arabic journals and books published by Lebanese Catholics would have markets among other Arab populations, whose own discourses would flow back into the register of Lebanon's Catholic-edited press and publishers. The parlicularist alarmists did not always adequately distinguish the quite different pressures they faced from irredentists in Syria as against Arabs in general. (d) The Interactions with Muslim-Majority Syria As L e b a n o n and Sunni-majority Syria developed into two independent states after W W 2 , they disengaged economically to some extent. The ultra-Lebanonists were not the only group that subordinated rational issues of economic management and life to nationalist feeling in regard to regional integration. al-Bashir highlighted it when the Damascus newspaper al-Qabas wrote that "Syria never thinks, when it demands some [economic or political] agreement with Lebanon, of its entering with Lebanon into a commercial calculation of profit and loss, because the patriotic sentiment (al-'atifat al-wataniyyah) and common nationalism/nationality which unites the two countries stand always far above commerce and figures 24 . The militant Lebanonists did not always keep sight that the Syrians could not demand outright and immediate annexation of Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan (all once parts of Syria) under the articles of the League of Arab States — membership of which in reality would legitimize, not threaten, the independent successor-republic of Greater Lebanon. Yet this Lebanese faction could document that there remained a fair number of Syrians who, in their hearts, had never accented that that wider "geographical Syria" was not the prescriptive poli tical stateunit they should have within the wider Arab world. al-Qabas' terms of "patriotic sentiment" and "common nationality" presupposed that Lebanon and Syria had never ceased after W W 1 to be one homeland, and that Lebanon did not have much title to a separate statehood. Occasional shrill communications from the particuiarists were thus 24. al-Qabas editorial signed by proprietor Najib al-Rayyis, reproduced in "Ba'd Iqrar ¡tíifaqiyyat al-Masalih al-Mushtarakah: Sada HadhaMqrar 'ala Difaf Barada" (After the Conclusion of the Agreement of the Agreement on the Joint Interests: tha Echoes on the Banks of the [Damascus] Barada River), al-Bashir 11 February 1944 pp. 1, ?.. The Harp

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understandable in the context of Lebanon's diminutive size and sense of being vulnerable before claims still emanating from one much larger, more powerful neighbor. The militant Catholic Lebanese particularists had a symbiotic relationship with those circles in Syria that still would have liked, in part with Muslim emotions, a reincorporation of at least parts of the Greater Lebanon state detached in 1920. To project and define its group as the champion of the Catholics, al-Bashir scanned and excerpted the press of pluralist Damascus, which it wrongly termed "a single [communalist] trumpet" against the Lebanon state. al-Qabas in its number of 10 January 1947 made it clear that some Syrians had accepted the political independence of Lebanon only under duress. It had been, lamented the paper "a tremendous sacrifice by Syria that to achieve this evacuation [of France's occupation army] she had to bring herself to accept... a renunciation of her natural, historical and geographical rights to all the coasts of Lebanon, and recognize its independence... and present borders" — here, only a partial irredentism. "The Arab states accepted along with her this enormous sacrifice, or rather these states, more correctly, had pressured her into making it". Lebanon and Syria had bifurcated politically but, argued al-Qabas, remained one economic unit. al-Qabas was keenly aware that Lebanon could, if hostile forces were stationed on her, militarily threaten Syria25. al-Qabas fitted almost with relish into the worst stereotypes of Lebanon's Catholic ultras that Muslim Arabs still as the 1940s closed had no wish for equal political community with Christians. al-Qabas' desire for the predominantly non-Christian areas of Lebanon cited political, geographical, economic and military grounds but by definition evinced no desire to unite wi th the Christian segment of any Lebanese nation situated in the Mountain Lebanon. In early On 7 January 1947 al-Bashir reprinted in full an article of al-Qabas "Arab Lebanon Ignoring Arab History". This had seized on the cultural symbol of the divergent Islamic and Christian calendars, protesting the failure of the Lebanese government to inscribe the date of French withdrawal on the rock at the Nahr al-Kalb river in "the Arab area" in the "Arab" (Islamic hijri) calendar as well as "the Western Christian calendar", although Lebanon was an Arab land that was a member of the Arab League. Syria had memorialized the foreigners' departure from her lands in the hijrah and Christian eras together. The article frankly 25. Salah Labki, "Narsisiyyun" (Narcissists) al-Bashir 10 January 1947 p. 1,

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sought to fan divisive communalism in Lebanese Muslims in demanding that even if the "Arab calendar means [just] the Islamic calendar", Arab Lebanon use it alongside Western Christian dates under its "law of sectarianism" to give equal representation to [the Muslim] "half of its population". al-Bashir sarcastically questioned if the history of Arabism had begun with the Hijrah of the Prophet Muhammad to Medinah and if only Westerners followed a Christian calendar26. This Syrian article did stem from an outlook that equated "Arab" with Islamic. The existence of Syrians whose Arab nationalism still retained an Islamic tinge was being highlighted by Lebanon's own anti-Islamic particularists to support their charge that pan-Arab unity with Syria but perhaps any outside Muslim Arabs would for Lebanon mean Islamic rule and the extinction of their own distinct Christian culture. Politically fearful of Muslim Arabs in general, the Lebanese particularists highlighted attempts by Syrian politicians to image that the wary and cautious Arab League negotiations in Cairo should be geared to realize a federal political union — with the detached stateentities of the former Natural Syria first. A section of the Maronites viewed the formation of that pan-Arab group of states as a cover for the Syrians to end Lebanese independence. As al-Ahrar put it: "People had become convinced that the decisions arrived at by the conferees were all encompassed in what was broadcast about the working of the Alexandria conference. Until Syria's former Prime Minister rose to announce in the Syrian House of Representatives that the sole aim of the conference was comprehensive Arab Unity after the achievement of Syrian Unity which was to embrace Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan. These bold statements have put doubt, suspicion and uncertainty into the hearts of the Lebanese as regards what their destiny is to be... whatever it is that is still behind cover waiting for them •— the precise nature of the meetings which the Arab heads of state hold here and there". The paper d e m a n d e d to know "what the position of the government [of Muslim PM A b d al-Hamid] Karami would be towards the decisions (resolutions) the conferees adopted in their latter meeting in Alexandria which are said to be a form of confederation limiting Lebanon's independence and shackling its freedom of [diplomatic] 26. "Lubnan al-'Arabi Yatajahal al-Ta'rikh al-'Arabi" (Arab Lebanon Ignoring Arab History), al-Bashir 7 January 1947 p. 3. The Harp

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action" and sovereignty by requiring the agreement of the other Arab states before it could conclude any international treaty (with a Western power)27. But the strict particularists, aware that the majority of the Catholics were going along with Bisharah al-Khuri and engagement with the Arabs, were really using images of Syria and outside Muslim Arabs to hit at their Maronite opponents who were in government. This article was attacking a member of the Maronite establishment for fashioning the protocol of the Arab League's requirement of approval by other Arab states before Lebanon could conclude any new interrational treaty, into a tool to end France's last presence. Bisharah and his supporters were now discrediting the ultra-particularists who denounced them. Those fearful of concealed threats to Lebanon's independence behind the [almost innocuous] Alexandria Charter "are" Sawt al-Ahrar retorted "groups—whether some will it or n o t — sincere to their country, without any ambition excepting to see Lebanon enjoy deep-founded stability and full dignity" 28 . Economic Disengagement from Syria. The Catholic ultrist Lebanese nationalists saw the regional economic integration that had been speeded up during World War 2, and now was to politically fostered in the League of Arab States as a threat to Lebanon's sovereignty. The Patriarch took the head of the opposition as an act of political patriotism that he blurred into his religious functions: he did speak with all the weight of his religious office behind him, although ostensibly as a private individual. The deputy George 'Aql tried at a patriarchal festival to give the post of the Patriarch a definitive role in particularist patriotism that overstated the support the incumbents had been able to muster. "Lebanon, from one frontier to another, despite all the differences of its sects and confessions, sees in this Patriarchal See the greatest, the most solid, the firmest support the Lebanese Homeland, object of such sacrifices, has". This claim was chutzpah, although many in the Muslim populations incorporated into Greater Lebanon had respected Patriarch al-Huwayyik in the 1920s, as they did the Patriarch 'Aridah, with neither of whom they always saw eye to eye politically. It was untrue that "over the succession of generations, this Patriarchate 27. "Min A q w a l al-Suhuf: a l - H u k u m a h w a M u ' t a m a r al-Duwal al-'Arabiyyah" (Statements in the Press: T h e Government and the Conference of the Arab States), al-Bashir 11 February 1945 p. 2. 28. "MinAqwal...". Vol. XV 2002

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represented Lebanese public opinion fully". "All the Lebanese, equally those who are present in this building or absent, are unanimously committed to unite around your Beatitude in pursuit of the national interest" [— this though even the attendees included some thinlymasked Maronite opponents!]29. The "Joint Interests" (al-Masalih al-Mushtarakah) between Lebanon and Syria had been established 25 years earlier under the French and were developing. In lending the weight of his office to breaking these institutions operating for a joint economy with the Syrian Republic, 'Aridah was backing a turning-point that was to allow Lebanon to develop an entrepreneurial economy quite different from that of hinterland Syria, where government and its regulation of the economy would getbigger. 'Aridah had statesman-like input into the coming Lebanon state's course of development in that aspect, although his statements had a politically sectional texture: he was mustering the Kata'ib Party and opposing the shaky new Maronite elite that was ushering in independence. There was a barely muted tone of religious pressure for a political aim, in an opening letter from the Maronite Patriarch to Lebanon's Catholic President on the Interests: "my Apostolic blessing encompasses His Excellency our Son alShaykh Bisharah al-Khuri, respected President of the Lebanese Republic" — whose name al-Bashir rarely printed: "We have in the past demanded, and still do, the total independence of Lebanon. lSjow we have become acquainted with the Agreement on Joint Interests between Lebanon and Syria, and the appointment of a Supreme Council with competencies independent of the government and the Chamber of Deputies in legislation, appointments and administration. We find this to be an agreement of which no parallel has been heard of before between independent states... We request Your Excellency to halt this enterprise and express our wish to the Chambers of Deputies that it not ratify it. And accept, Mr President, our greetings with prayer for the lengthening of your noble term of life in all that is good. The humble Antun 'Aridah, Patriarch of Antioch and all the Orient" 30 . This was intervention in politics from the sacerdotal head of all Maronites including Bisharah (who had no wish to be infantilized) — 29. "Id al-Batriark al-Maruni bi-Bikirki Yuhtafalu bihi Ihtifalan Ra'i'an" (Festival of the Maronite Patriarch Impressively Celebrated), al-Bashir 18 January 1944. 30. "ai-Batriyark wa Ittifaq al-Masalih al-Mushtarakah" (The Patriarch and the Agreement over the Joint Interests), al-Bashir 9 February 1944 p. 1. The Harp

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somewhat more than a private opinion from just one more humble ordinary citizen. The dividing-tines between religious hierarchies and political factions and governments have been tenuous in the Maronite and Arab Muslim traditions. A later interview that Patriarch 'Aridah gave to al-Hadaf revealed that he wanted to determine not only the details of the new Lebanese state's economic policies, but that he was also striving to keep some foreign Western (preferably French) military presence on Lebanese soil. The Supreme Council of joint Interests, though made up of an equal number of Lebanese and Syrians, could become "a government within a government [whose] work is directed to 'union' and not to independence". 'Aridah, though, did not want a large Lebanese army to protect the independence of Lebanon for which he would lay down his life: "An army needs equipment and exorbitant running costs while Lebanon is poor,.. Even if able to achieve an army, can it do anything in face of a large state? [=Syria?]... What we need is an undertaking from the Allied states to preserve Lebanon's independence by way of an army from them... Lebanon shall benefit from the presence of the army because it will necessarily have to spend large sums of money in Lebanon" 31 . The Kata'ib and pan-Arabism The Kata'ib did not always share the fearful, exaggerated images of outside Arabs that were galvanizing some ultras' resistance to regional Arab activities. Their daily al-'Amal sometimes perceived how limited and often pro forma the steps to Arab confederation would long remain given the ideological limitations and the weakness of all the Arab states and state-entities. The outside Arabic-speaking countries were seeking understanding and cooperation that would stop well short of any Unity or confederation. Lebanon could maintain its independence from Syria within the new Egypt-centered pan-Arab framework. The clash and the real conflict was to come precisely when, a few years later in the 1950s, the largest section of the 'Iraqis, the Egyptians and the Syrians were to come to believe that the independence of their respective countries had lost justification because — all being Arabs — statehood did not correspond with real nationality, that only one state embracing all Arabs would express their identity. The rise of the 31. "al-Batriark wal-Masalih al-Mushtarakah". Vol XV 3002

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— in its rhetoric unitary — mass pan-Arabism among Muslim Arabs was to create a situation in which the Kata'ib in 1958 would fight alongside other Maronite forces (although a later Maronite Patriarch held aloof) against Muslim forces aided by Nasser's fleeting "United Arab Republic" state of Egypt and Syria. Pierre al-Jumayyil's 1944 Visit to 'Iraq. During this visit, alJumayyil and his party were attuned to sweeping changes in the attitudes of whole Arab populations as pan-Arabism rose. But his reactions were dualistic or moderate. There were threatening hints that his group would resist radical incorporationist pan-Arabism in his references to "the fanaticism of the Lebanese for his Lebanon." In Jumayyil's constructive vein, he believed that the 'Iraqi elite that was hosting him had "understanding of the noble aim" behind Lebanese particularism in this militant twist that his Phalange movement gave it because they themselves, as he perceived or hoped, were developing a similar focus on an 'Iraq Homeland despite or amidst pan-Arabism. al-Jumayyil praised "the warmth of the welcome 'Iraqi circles gave us" despite the somewhat touristic nature of his visit. In regard to possible collaboration, he paid a glowing tribute to the 'Iraqi governments' "commendable efforts to lift up the country, achieving reforms and undertaking projects which have been notably effective in raising the people's standards". In such passages, one does see some preparedness by the earlier Kata'ib to learn from positive "construction" in other Arab countries less advanced than was Lebanon. The 'Iraqis he interacted with had perhaps been well aware that they stood in need of Lebanese businessmen, professionals, officials and educationists. According to al-Jumayyil, everywhere the 'Iraqis voiced towards Lebanon the esteem already expressed by their late King Faysal to a visiting Lebanese delegation in 1923: "Lebanon is the lighthouse of the East: from its light the Arab lands find the illumination they need". "The sincere among the 'Iraqis" sought cooperation with Lebanon on a basis of a deep-felt friendship that wished for it the same complete independence and absolute freedom they wanted for 'Iraq. The 'Iraqis thus, as themselves particularist patriots, sympathetically heard out the Phalangist qualifications alJumayyil gave to the cooperation Lebanon was forging with the Arab countries "on the basis of agreements and treaties": under this "friendship" each would respect the equal rights of the other. al-Jumayyil's acceptance of the Arabist treaties diverged somewhat from al-Bashir and Patriarch' Aridah's fears of such written agreements, as did his sharp comprehension of the limited nature of the pan-Arab Vol. XV 2 0 0 2

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drive of the new Muslim-headed Arab states. The Kata'ib's position could have been somewhere between the Patriarchate and the established Maronites in Bisharah al-Khuri's Lebanese government as the latter engaged with the Muslim-led Arab countries. Overall, alJumayyil and his party were going along with that engagement by the government while asserting limits, and also with its leading of Lebanon to political independence from France, again in contrast to the Patriarch's fear of the departure of foreign troops. The sense was that al-Jumayyil was supplementing or clarifying or tightening official "Lebanese policy" more than opposing the government. He denied that he had come to 'Iraq to in any way undermine the Lebanese government delegation that was to visit Baghdad and Riyad 32 . The distinctness of the Lebanese Nation from the outside Arabs w i t h w h o m it w o u l d henceforth e n g a g e m o r e and more w a s underscored by a more focussed Phoenician origin. Independent of Christianity, this neo-Pagan origin secularized the tone of even Catholic sectarians and conceivably could even draw in some Muslim Lebanese one day.

3: The New Particularism Homeland's Pagan History Differentiated from West The period from 1930 to independence in 1947 saw the invention of a serious particularist Lebanese quasi-ideology: this for the first time restored a detailed past of the nation that started before the religions differentiating the modern Lebanese came to the Homeland. The times, the established politicians and the needs of decolonization were all calling for the new neo-Phoenician nation-history, although diverse individuals and factions now applied it for purposes that could diverge. Images of church-bells pealing out over impregnable mountains that protected from Muslim outsiders, at least smouldered on in the psyche of many Maronites. While imaged churches and refugee monks could still energize w h e n evoked in community 32. Interview with Pierre al-Jumayyil reprinted from al-Hadith, 'Taqdir al-'lraqiyyin liLubnan wa Tafahumuhum al-Ghayat al-Nabilah min Ta'assub al-Lubnani liLubnamh" (The Appreciation of the 'Iraqis for Lebanon and their Understanding of the Noble Aim in the Fanaticism of the Lebanese for His Lebanon), al-Bashir 21 April 1944 p. 2. The 'Iraqi government had definitely been trying to woo alJumayyil and his colleagues: he thanked the Director of Public Security Ahmad Pash al-Rawi for the hospitable interest he had taken in the delegation and its movements around the country: ibid.

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discourse, they would not much draw the country's large Muslim population into identification with the Lebanese state that some Maronites were bound to lead for a long time. Moreover, the French mandatory's widening diffusion of its literary language had drawn sizeable sectors of the Maronites somewhat away from their longstanding puritannical Christianity with its affinities to anti-Western Islam in the 1920s. The evocation from 1930 of the Phoenicians as the people that had began to define the Lebanese nation in its first pagan era seized materials from French scholarship: it was very acculturated. Yet, it also harbored resentment against Lebanon's architect France, which Francophone closeness to her inflamed. To a large extent, neoPhoenicianism was a reinvention of very detailed and realistic data offered by French scholarly excavation from the 1920s of the structures and language of the Phoeriician-Canaanite coast of ancient Syria (post1918 Syria-Lebanon-Palestine). It did, though, retain and run into the new structure sometimes problematical analyses of Phoenicians in the Bible and also old freemasonic motifs (the built-up figure v t Hiram who aided the construction of Solomon's Temple). The Orthodox-born Lebanese ideologue of secular pan-Syrian nationalism Antun Sa'adah, the great opponent of the Lebanonist particularists in the 1930s and 1940s, had articulated sharp and extreme—if intellectually stimulating—condemnations of the ancient Hebrews: his was an anti-Zionism that might harm the commitment of the Catholic Lebanese to the Old and New Testaments as one continuous Scripture and religious tradition. Like the Lebanonist particularists, Sa'adah mentioned exchanges between "Syrians" and Greeks and Romans in antiquity that would permit the modern Nation to keep borrowing from the West as it politically broke away from it. Still, his writings on the macro-history of nations offered many images of Carthaginians and other "Syrians" fighting Roman and Greek Westerners in antiquity — good fuel for wars of national liberation against modern colonialists. These applications of antiquity by Sa'adah and the pan-Syrians were not an isolated phenomenon in particularist thought in Lebanon in the 1930s and 1940s: Catholic Lebanonists took them up from Sa'adah while also on their own account contributing data of their own to the pan-Syrians who however gave it twists that would maintain their rejection of a discrete Lebanon state. The establishment Maronite classes had grown weary of the constraints the French overlords put upon them. They duly sought out aspects of the ancient Phoenician precursors that could sustain a militancy, a showdown and even uprisings. The Catholic Lebanese The Harp

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writers who exalted Carthage (founded as a colony of Tyre in 814 BC) had to always stress the economic, cultural, religious and political bonds that never ceased to knit Phoenician Carthage in North Africa to Lebanon despite some political decentralization. Carthage could demonstrate the capacity of the twentieth-century Lebanese to win and defend sovereignty through military force. As al-Amir Muris Shihab, then curator of the Lebanese National Museum enthused at the School of Eastern Studies of St Joseph's University in 1938: "Carthage — and who among us is ignorant of Carthage? Carthage which ruled North Africa, Sardinia and Spain and produced Amilcar and Hannibal; Carthage whose elephants trampled the peaks of the towering Alps; Carthage which on one day almost strangled Rome. Carthage was naught but a daughter of Phoenicia of which she was no ungrateful/unfilial child: with all her greatness... she did not cease for even one day to send gifts and delegations to present offerings at the temple of Melkarth [patron] deity of Tyre"33. Shihab's speech preceded the French military collapse before Nazi Germany. His relish about Carathaginians almost crushing the Romans reflected an anti-Westernism spreading among the Catholic Lebanese, albeit in a form milder than that rising among other more heavily Muslim countries of the Arab Middle East in the 1930s and 1940s. This 1938 instance of the new Catholic neo-pagan militarism or proto-militarism, from Muris Shihab, was not inspired by the new image of vulnerability that the debacle of French arms in Europe was shortly to arouse among many Maronites. As France — self-declared Latin successor of Rome and its civilization in Lebanon and Syria — collapsed, Catholic educational institutions were used to diffuse the evocation of pagan Carthage, vanquisher of Rome, out among the wider literate-bourgeois Christian public. al-Bashir in April 1940 reported from Bikfayya (in the Jabal) that "the writer" Antun Ni'mah delivered before the recently-founded "Literary Club" (al-Muntada al-Adabi), in the splendid secondary school of the Jesuit fathers, a lecture titled "Hannibal, the Phoenician Hero". al-Bashir defined the audience as "the members of the Club, and a large group of the population and of litterateurs. His lecture was very successful" 34 . Carthage as a symbol of imperial might that 33. "al-Muhajaratu fi 'Ahd ai-Finiqiyyin: Khitab al-Amir Muris Shihab, Hafiz al-Mathaf ai-Watani" (Migration in the Age of the Phoenicians: Speech of the Amir Muris Shihab, Curator of the National Museum), al-Bashir 25 May, 1938 p. 2. 34. "Hannibal al-Batal-al Finiqi" (Hannibal, the Phoenician Hero), ai-Bashir 16 April 1940 p. 5. Vol. XV 2002

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had terrified even ancient Rome came, because of the Phoenician blood of its ruling class, to symbolize modern Lebanon's own potential for decolonization and internal reforms, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was becoming an emblem for self-esteem and energizing hope for the present. Yet it was a motif alternated with more pro-West ones by all but the most ideological of the particularist writers. al-Bashir opened a 1940 article exhorting the Lebanese to overcome their modernday domestic political and sectarian divisions, with the motif of Carthage. "Roman history records that the greatest enemy that stood in the face of Roman dominion was that great sta te that our Phoenician forefathers founded in the lands of Tunisia". That M. Porcius Cato without cease exhorted the Senate, in the lull between the second and third Punic wars, "we must destroy Carthage!", tickled this alBashir writer as evidence of "the danger threatening the state of the Romans by reason of the mere existence of Carthaginia". However, the writer then hastily noted that "as for Lebanon, it has no ambition to expand at the expense of, or dominate, its neighbors and the world. It does desire to organise its own internal affairs and reestablish peace and harmony between its sons". The title of the article, "Lebanon's Carthaginia", shows how Christian Lebanese patriots who fell short of being ideologues quickly alternated shards from the Homeland's ancient pre-Christian past with Western or pragmatic or ameliorist modes of thought, since his perspective suddenly jumps to that of the ancient Romans when he identifies as Lebanon's Carthaginia all its problems that it now had to unremittingly destroy!35. Still, the reference to Lebanon wanting to take control to its own internal affairs may have carried a concealed barb at weakened France and the tight control it exercised in Lebanon before its collapse. [Some charged that the sectarian divisions in Lebanon to which the article referred had been very much inflamed by a divideand-rule policy from France since 1920]. It looks doubtful if the Catholic literati in the al-Bashir circle could have carried through the radical, definitive national-ideological solution to the French-fostered communal divisions that Sa'adah proposed. 35. "Qartajanatu Lubnan" (Lebanon's Carthaginia), al-Bashir 27 March 1940 p. 1. Still, the reference to Lebanon wanting to take control to its own internal affairs may have carried a concealed barb at weakened France and the tight control it exercised in Lebanon before its collapse. [Some charged that the sectarian divisions in Lebanon to which the article referred had been very much inflamed by a divide-and-rule policy from France since 1920]. The Harp

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Antiquity's Definition of the Nation vis-a-vis Jews and Christianity Reconnecting with ancient Phoenicians raised the issue of their non-Christian religions. Some images of ancient Phoenicians in the Old Testament had been rather hostile. In the 1920s, those sectors of the OT had worked against Catholic Lebanese developing affect to the ancient pagan Phoenicians as precursors who first defined the Lebanese Nation, although Pierre Montet had been excavating Byblos (Jubayl) from 1921-1925. Established Maronite religious discourse, such as that of the Patriarch Ilyas Butrus al-Huwayyik, had fused the ancient paganisms of the region with all the things the clerics detested in France and in the modern secular world of the West. A 1922 alBashir article had assailed the cinemas that showed Western films for diffusing a new paganism as harmful as the old paganism of the Canaanite god Moloch. The victims cast to the original Moloch at least retained their immortal souls, whereas those who conducted the crowded cinemas of the 1920s had to be brought to trial because they turned juvenile angels into lust-ridden "devils." Here, traditional local Catholicism made it equally difficult in the 1920s for Lebanese Catholics to identify with either the paganism of ancient LebanonSyria or that of the post-Enlightenment West, equated in this discourse36. Chapter 9 of Genesis related the cursing of Ham by his father, Noah, and of his progeny: "Canaan shall be [Shem's] servant" (Genesis 9: 25,26). Chapter 10 ascribed Sidon in the Greater Lebanon state that General Goureaud set up in 1920 as among "the sons of Ham". Such sectors of the OT had not been recommending the Phoenicians to the Maronites, whose educated people, lay as well as clerics, had been enthusiastically reading the Bible in a superb Arabic translation since the mid-19th century. But from 1930, the Lebanese neo-pagan particularists — adapting the freemasons of the West before them — built up a celebration of the Phoenicians as the ancient precursorpeople upon the foundation of the OT account of the collaboration of Hiram King of Tyre and the Sidonians in providing wood for Solomon's construction of his Temple (Kings, ch. 5). The bygone historical relations between Hebrews and Phoenicians was examined by several articles published in al-Bashir, in origin a religious Ca tholic newspaper. These included summaries of lectures 36. "al-Mashahid al-Sammah:3" (Poisonous Scenes:3), al-Bashir 26 August 1922 p. 1

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delivered iri the series of Bayrut's Institute of Eastern Studies by foreign, mainly French scholars37. Clearly, a positive attitude to the ancient Phoenicians could be fitted into some themes in the Hebrew Bible. But how far could that open up into accepting their religion and culture as self-contained from the Old Testament's prescriptions of monotheism and in real) ty good in themselves? As the neo-pagan enthusiasm fed by the decipherment of the previously lost Ugaritic mythology a t Ra's al-Shamra gathered strength, a confident attitude developed among Lebanon's particularists of Christian origin towards the Hebrews, who to a previous Christian generation had represented the light of divine truth as dichotomized against the darkness of the pagan errors of the Canaanites and Phoenicians. We saw that Prince Muris Shihab's national pride in 1938 was tickled that the Phoenicians later came to build a kind of sea empire based on commerce and "their ships to the West plowed the waters of the Mediterranean sea without anyone daring to stand in their face". True, it was "a moral imperialism" manifested in the relations of the Phoenicians with the Kings of the neighboring lands. "To the South, King David defeated the Philistines and the Canaanites submitted to the Israelites. But can a people that has civilization ever be enslaved?" Shihab then proceeds to describe with relish the technological and economic dependence of the Hebrews upon the more developed Phoenician state. Because his people had only recently achieved prosperity and thus did not have too many skilled artisans, King Solomon when he resolved in the tenth century to build his priva te palace and "a temple for the god of Judah and Israel" was obliged to import Phoenicians to train his own men. For the construction of ships he built on the Gulf of 'Aqabah, and which he dispatched to the goldbearing lands to the south, Soloman was obliged to seek Phoenician aid. This dependence of Solomon upon Hiram for funds, technology and materials Shihab terms an instance of the "moral colonization" the Phoenicians practised' 8 . In this item, then, Muris Shihab voiced a slight disdain for the ancient Hebrews headed by Solomon, and regards their guides the Phoenicians as more than their equal Yet Shihab was far from the 37. See T h e Relations Between Phoenicians and Hebrews", summary of lecture by Fr Buffet Lapierre, one in a series delivered at the School of Eastern Studies in St Joseph's University, ai-Bashir 23 March 1944. 38. "al-Muhajaratu fi 'Aha al-Finiqiyyin" al-Bashir 25 May 1938 p. 3. The Harp

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hatred of the ancient Hebrews and their beliefs voiced by Sa'adah as the Zionists built the basis for approaching Jewish statehood in Palestine. On the other hand we see another (later) al-Bashir article on rela tions between states, specifically modern-day cultural agreements, citing the exchange of skills and materials between Hiram and Solomon as a valid ancient example of a mutually beneficial relationship between two equal states — in contrast to the sinister potential of the exchanges being planned by the pan-Arabs who were working to form the League of Arab States39. Fu'ad Afram al-Bustani and As'ad Rustam in passages from their systematically particularist Short History of Lebanon that al-Bashir selected on Greater Lebanon Proclamation day in 1937, did in their tribute to Hiram "a decisive, enterprising/ ambitious monarch God raised up for Tyre" — describe him as "a contemporary of the Prophet David and Solomon the Wise", and describe the new Tyre of which he was the architect as "grea t in wealth and might; its masons (building craftsmen) were famed". The extracts did not visualize the Hebrews as an inferior or dependent relationship to Tyre through their relations and exchanges with it. But the article is notable for the lack of self-consciousness or reservations or half-notes about the civilization over which Hiram presided. In this it veered to the margin of what could be tolerated within the boundaries of the formal religion delimitating the Catholic Lebanese community. alBustani and Rustam almost use celebratory language in describing the splendor of the houses of worship of Tyrean paganism. Hiram rebuilt the temple of Ishtarut and Milqart, which the passage glossed as meaning King of the village — Malik al-Qaryah — i.e. the lord of the city, and repaired other temples. "He erected in the temple of Ba'l Shmin (the Lord of the Heavens') a magnificent pillar of gold which continued for a period of time to draw the attention of men". The two historians also stated that "the Chief Priest enjoyed great standing in Tyre's social life and had a great influence in government and politics"40. [Was he a sort of precursor of Lebanese Patriarchs in the 20th century?]. The item was happy that "these Lebanese conquered mighty Rome and threatened it with extinction". 39. "Ala Hamish Fikrat al-ittihad al-Thaqafi: Darsun Ta'rikhi 'an Ittifaqat Duwaliyyah Thaqafiyyah Qabl al-Harb" (A Propos to the Concept of Cultural Unity/Unification: An Historical Study ot international Cultural Agreements Before the War), alBashir 14 January 1944. 40. "Fi Sabil al-Nash' al-Lubnani: al-lstiqlal al-Tamm fi 'Ahd ai-Finiqiyyain" (Nourishing the Lebanese N e w Generation: Lebanon's Complete Independence in the Age of the Phoenicians) al-Bashir 5 - 6 September 1937 p. 3. Vol. XV 2002

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The little glosses on Ugaritic compounds and expressions would, because of the common Semitic origin, have been immediately intelligible to the Lebanese readers of the Arabic and produced an impression of familiarity, in contrast to the sense of strangeness that glosses of ancient Pharaonic words and expressions, Hamitic, produced among Egyptian Arab readers in the same period. The glosses instanced the impact that Ra's al-Shamra and the decipherment of Ugaritic by French scholars were having for the two whole decades of the 1930s and 1940s, not merely in ideology and its motifs but also to some extent even in the conceptualization of indigenous language that the recovered texts were now broadening out from the classical Arabs' thinking. Yet the injection of splinters of Syriac and even Hebrew into public journalistic print-nationalism was too out-of-place, tenuous and infrequent in this historical stage to break the grip that the ancient assumptions of standard literary Arabic had on the minds of the Maronites41. There was no question of the still-conservative al-Bashir, which had been founded by Jesuits to teach Christian doctrine and still strove to maximize its circulation among the general public, offering its pages for a radical break with traditional religious beliefs such as Antun Sa'adah was articulating in an ancient history setting. Still, we see considerable movement from (a) attitudes in which belief or adhesion to a pious, practising Christianity predominated as the determinant of group identity to (b) a new mood for which the geographical homeland upon which a population lives and the continuity of their way of life and cultural patterns throughout the varying periods of their changing formal religious confessions are group identity. Aspects of pagan religion do then get some acceptance as in the continuous core of Lebanese identity. "Pagan" Peasantry and Educated Elite in the Territorial Homeland Thus, the poet Hector Khallat, speaking on the "spiritual" aspect of national feeling, propounded a concept of particularist national continuity of which the legacy of Lebanon's pagan period was a crucial aspect. This paganism seems to have two elements. A prominent 41. In response to a lecture by Fr Buffet Lapierre at the School of Eastern Studies at St Joseph's University, Patriarch Antun 'Aridah offered a new interpretation from other Semitic languages, not Greek, of "Phoenician" as meaning "good, beautiful". A Syriac and a Hebrew word he cited were printed in their original scripts in his letter as carried in al-Bashir: "Ra'yun lil-Batriark fi Ism al-Finiqiyyin" (A View from Patriarch on the Name 'the Phoenicians'), al-Bashir 1 February 1944 p. 1. : The Harp

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element reflecting French laicist culture's glorification of ancient Greece and Rome relates to the period when the Phoenicians had lost their independence and the population of Lebanon participated in culture that synthesized local with "universal" Graeco-Roman religion and civilisation. But the second, developing element in perception was a purer, immemorial grass-roots paganism or animism which Khallat in 1944 depicted as lingering on among Lebanon's peasantry. His discourse went like that two decades before of Egyptian particularist intellectuals who in the 1920s had portrayed the peasantry to be a racial "Pharaonic core" preserving in some inherited customs and thought-patterns some things from the old Pharaonic culture. Khallat assailed "with his usual vehemence" the pan-Arabs who were setting the historical emergence of the Lebanese Homeland in the seventh Christian century [ie. the advent of the Muslim Arabs]. Instead, Lebanon's date of birth had to be traced back through the millennia. "As regards our spiritual heritage, look at Ba'labak's immortally fabled ruins [Roman-period], so vast in scale of construction; or the Roman law school in Bayrut which had flourished in bygone eras when the town was called 'Birith'. That spiritual heritage is the most precious thing we Lebanese possess". Khallat here was less hostile to (ancient...) Westerners than the feudal prince Muris Shihab in 1938: his welcoming of Greeks and Romans making crucial contributions to Lebanon in antiquity while rilling her could be mustered to imply acceptance of ongoing hegemony by France or some client relationship with the Western great powers that Muslim Arabist ultras might resist. Khallat admitted the importance of the drawn-out triumph of Arabic as the language of literature and daily life in Lebanon. But for him this important change was still balanced by continuities of national personality through the territorial frame of the homeland and oral transmission and folk-custom working in tandem to keep the Lebanese distinctive: "The Lebanese respects ancient custom, and preserves perverse (abnormal) customs which continue to be followed in out-of-the-way villages at the foot of some rugged-pathed mountains. How like is the barren twentieth century Lebanese woman who makes a pilgrimage to the stopping place of the spring at Afqa (mahallat nab' Afqa), and takes off her garment to hang it on the venerable zuhrah tree... hoping that by undertaking this inherited custom she will become a mother — how like is this woman to her grandmother who used, thousands of Vol. XV 2 0 0 2

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years ago, to practise the same belief. What then can our present-day Lebanon really be? One says it is Phoenician, another claims it is Arab: both men would doubtless be right" 42 . 'Abdallah 'Inan and Muhammad Husayn Haykal and other writers of al-Siyasah in the Egypt of the 1920s had already blended radical secularism, idealization of rural peasant life and vocal neoPharaonic nationalism. They had argued that folk-custom and folkreligion in the Egyptian countryside still after millennia transmitted old Pharaonic-era tenets and practices under veneers of Islam or Christianity. Khallat's speech argued that "present day Lebanon" was as Phoenician as it was Arab: here he may have conceded a greater Arab cultural input upon Lebanon than Egyptian particularists in the 1920s usually did for their land. Overall, his thesis that in all essential things rural people in Lebanon untouched by towns remained true to the ancient w a y s ran parallel to Egypt's (now weakening) neo-Pharaonism, and had the same wish to keep the particularist state outside pan-Islamic and pan-Arab movements thai had partly motivated Haykal and 'Inan. The argument of the particularists in both Lebanon and Egypt was that successive religions — paganisms, Christianity, Islam etc — had failed to detach groups who converted from their respective continuous territorial nations. 20th century Christians and Muslims in a single state-unity were thus co-members of the same nation continuous from pagan antiquity across millennia. But the contest between (a) secular, neutral nationhoods framed by territory and (b) anationalismforagivensecthad different balances between Egypt and Lebanon. Traditionalist Islam was the faith of the overwhelming majority of Egyptians: thus — as Egypt's particularists always had known — it might be politically practical to impose a pan42. Jabar al-Atrash, "al-Muhadarat al-Thaniyah min al-Usbu' al-ljtima'i fi Khaymat alWatan: al-Turath al-Ruhi" (The Second Lecture of the Social Week in the Tent of the Homeland: The Spiritual Heritage). al-Bashir 27 April 1944 p. 1. The French may have sensed that Khallat's stress on Lebanon's continuous strong personality to some extent applied against them: the censor had excised the last paragraph on his projections for the future of Lebanon. Afqa is a village in the qada' of Kisrawan in Lebanon. It has the ruins of a temple once devoted to the worship of Adonis and Ishtarut. It is unclear how far the present qada is identical with the historical province, some of whose Shi'i population was removed in 1305 by the Mamluks and Maronites brought in. If it occurred to Khallat's listeners (and the readers of al-Bashir) that the population of Afqa had Sunni or Shi'i Muslims, Khallat in 1944 would have been seen as denying to Islam, as 'inan and Haykal had done in in Egypt, a radical cultural impact upon the peasantry who converted.

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Arab nationality colored by Islam, although that could marginalize the Copts. But no nationalism pivoting around Christianity could become a definitive belief-system for the Lebanese State created in 1920 because the Christians and Muslims were delicately balanced with neither camp having a clear majority of the population. Although there were nation-building imperatives for the development of sect-neutral neo-pagan themes as Lebanon progressed in the 1940s towards real independence, Khallat's speech might have resulted from a discreet alienation through modern education or the French language from traditional Christian beliefs. And did he have a class alienation from the illiterate peasants he romanticized in nationality? — certainly the case for a writer of feudal background like Haykal who feared involving the fallahin, however immemorially Pharaonic, in national politics. Exalting immemorial animist survivals among isolated, outlying peasant populations removed traditional Islam and Maronite clerics and religious traditionalism as barriers to speeded-up secularization and Westernization of Lebanon and Egypt by future modernist elites. The celebration of the conservatism with which the Lebanese or Egyptian peasants held to deformed residues from ancient paganisms had the tone of loving anthropologists collecting specimens of quaint cultural survivals that were indeed "perverse" or "bizarre" for their modernizing mainstream or class. But the linking of neo-paganism to a research interest in the life and customs of the residually pagan peasantry also responded to personal problems of educated ideologues in adjusting to fast socio-economic change and urbanization. Opposition to urbanization or at least the collapse of rural village units, and regret for the tranquility of premodern village life,, were a reactive nostalgia as things crumbled to take new structures.

Perspective and Patterns Lebanon from 1930 had a maturing pluralist system. The razorbalanced sectarian diversity of its populations, coupled with a pluralist press and elections (although France sometimes violated both) made it hard for any one interest, party or movement — even one of the new paramilitary movements with tightened ideologies — to achieve a sole rule over the country. The high clerics of the Maronite Church, and the discourses and political forces that became articulated around it in the 1930s and 1940s, now could at best make themselves one contender for leadership of the Maronite community of Lebanon. Somewhat Vol. XV 2002

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rejuvenated by the new paramilitary youth of the Kata'ib, the Patriarch Antun 'Aridah at points kept up a residual veto-power in politics and discourse. The new generation of radical secularists in the Communist Party for instance was even more hard-hitting than previous Maronite p a n - S y r i a n s or p a n - A r a b s or s e c u l a r i s t s , and had initiated preliminaries to outreach to the Maronite masses across the country. Yet the Communists stayed wary of openly attacking Christianity (and Islam) or taking on the Patriarchate or the Greater Lebanon polity he championed. President Bisharah al-Khuri and the modernizing, rational-conservative Maronites around him gave Patriarch Antun 'Aridah and the aligned forces their toughest trial-of-strength, and outweighed him in the end: al-Khuri finally carried forward the development of Lebanon into a multi-sectarian parliamentary republic with no alliance to any Western state that would alienate its Muslim citizens. Yet the Patriarchate and the quickly-maturing Kata'ib had skillfully fought the drive of Bisharah and other aligned Catholics to henceforth balance the Western powers with deeper engagement with the wider (mainly Muslim) Arab World. 'Aridah and his supporters had been lightning-fast in improvising counter-institutions to block those that the Lebanese government and the Arab League were building to bring the Arabic-speaking countries closer after a fashion. The Catholic particularist forces mustered more resolve and almost as many resources as the elementary Lebanese government to forestall that government's policy in the region that would downgrade Catholic France. In the process, they starved facets in their own high culture that were directing the Maronites out to engage wider Arabic speakers who did not share their Christianity. Were the ultra-particularists, then, overreacting against the modest connections for which the liberal, confederal pan-Arabs were groping before 1952? King Faruq was hardly the messianic pan-Arab Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser! In the end, the polemics and struggles between ultras and the mildparticularists did not matter so much: from 1947 Bayrut assumed its functions as a center of Arabic publishing, financial institutions and entrepot trade, and the hub of all the ideological forces, regimes and powers in the region, for the whole Arab World. All the tussling outsiders and Powers added to the pressures on the fragile state in 1958, and then were to fatally fuel the "events" that extensively broke overall Lebanon from 1975-1990. The Maronite hardliners thus were to contend in the 1990s that Patriarch 'Aridah and the Kata'ib had been prescient at the points where they fought the pre-1952 liberal pan-Arabism. The Harp

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The Crystallization of Lebanese Particularism... in the 1930s and 1940s

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In general, Patriarch 'Aridah and the earlier Kata'ib had more substance than has been seen by the simple paradigms of the literature that focussed on their conflicts with Muslims and pan-Arabs in and outside Lebanon. These Catholic particularists rapidly sized up and met a whole range of challenges to their and Catholicism's importance in Lebanon's changing society, politics and intellectual discourses. But there was more to their social measures than responding to thrusts from enemies at weak points of Catholicism's hegemony. Forms of Catholicism attuned to modernity have been underrated in regard to their positive social design to integrate Christian community out of disparate classes under NT teachings; and in I ebanon it had been synthesized with nation-building.

43. The Maronite clerics were the ones who were actually addressing the social crisis, by for instance developing a technical school with an onsite hostel for vagrant children who were illegitimate or from poor broken families:' Wassasat al-'Ummal al-Fuqara'" (The Institution for Poor Workers), al-Bashlr 10 January 1947 p. 3.

THE FEAST OF ST. THOMAS IN EDESSA. Among the people no discord arises, no fly settles on dead meat, none that is thirsty lacks drink. On other days water is drawn from the wells from a depth of a hundred feet, now if one digs a little one finds clear water springing up in abundance. There is no doubt that this is bestowed by the merit of the Apostle. When the days of the festival have run their course, taxes are again imposed on the public, the flies that had come to an end appear, the waters that were near to the round are swallowed up. Thereupon... the rains cleanse all the hall of the church of dirt and different forms of filth deposited during the festival so that one would think that it has not been trodden [by foot]. (Quoted from J.B. Segal: Edessa, 'The Blessed City' p. 176).

The Harp

Vol. XV 2002

Jacob Thekeparampil, Kottayam

Christ as Gardener in the Syriac Tradition 1 The Syriac word "ganono", does not occur in the Synoptic Gospels. It is found for the first time in St. John's Gospel, Ch. 20, v.15, in the narration of the resurrection of Christ. In the encounter of Mary Magdalene with the Risen Christ still unidentified, one comes across this term. Here it appears only as a marginal term, occurring only as a thought of Mary. It did not even get pronounced by her. In spite of its marginal nature, the term "ganono" won the attention of the Syriac Fathers and the later hymn writers. In today's Service Books it occurs so often in the Hymns of Resurrection and consequently of Sundays, that it becomes one of the master themes of the Resurrection. Its most impressive and probably the oldest occurrence is in the special service (Proprium)of the West Syriac Easter Liturgy. The hymn sung during the procession that takes place immediately after the solemn proclamation of the good news of the resurrection runs as follows: "O Mary, I am the Gardener (ganono) and the great Planter (nosubo) of Paradise! O Mary, I am the revival, the resurrection and the life of all living beings. O Mary, I am He, Who was slain and buried. Do not approach Me for I have not yet ascended to My Father, 1 This paper was read at the Symposium Syriacum, Sydney, Australia: June 23, 2000

Voi XV ' f i >2

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Jacob Thekeparampil but go and announce to the Apostles that I am gloriously risen from the tomb." 2 OR?

.r^flttj.TTA.I A

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koifls r-\z. •I* icu- rd\ 6 Bede Griffith, ibid Ibid. P.340. For Syriac text, cfr. Fr. Punnoose, ibid p.68. 7 Lilio on Sunday, Bede Griffith, ibid. p. 335. For Syr. Text, cfr. Fr. Punnoose, ibid p.51. 8 For Syriac text, cfr. Pampakuda Penq ito, p.94.

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Christas Gardener in the Syriac Tradition 1

"It is I" .This "I" is that of the Lord of Paradise. This means that the declaration comes from the Gardener who alone has authority to allow Adam to enter the garden and to live there again as its heir. This Garden is fair. The fruit in it is of a royal tree. It is the fruit of true life that was hung on the Cross. The author of the next hymn communicates this appreciation of the Garden and its fruit to the Gardener himself: We read: "O Gardener, how fair is Paradise. There is a fruit in it, which is like the king of trees and is the fruit of true life, which was hung the day before yesterday on the wood. Come, now let us ask it to delight us with its taste."9 vyre*.l rc'irtfa (To .v^a^ta rtSn niuX^ ore* rciivl KJLMI. otn . rrliV.ri' i nm W'^TI itnon 11 rCCMI» rd^.K'n CTA v ,mc\Aaz.rc' Jur^ A K'cvjj

Seen from the perspective of Christ as the Gardener, his nativity would be the rising of the "Gardener w h o planted Paradise" (r£nu.vi»\ h Symposium Syriacum, held in Sydney on June 26-30, 2000. The checklist, introduced by a general description of the library's holdings, will be published in the proceedings of the Symposium. I thank Father Thelly and Father Antony Vallavanthara for giving me access to the manuscript of Father Thelly's paper.

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checklist pays special attention to a breviary containing the hymns of an Indian Syrian poet, belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, who flourished in the seventeenth century: Alexander the Indian. 16 This library has the special importance of containing original works in Syriac by Roman Catholic (Pazhayakuttnkaran) writers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so it is potentially a most important archive for source-material on the early modern history of the Malabar Church in particular and of Kerala in general. As regards all the other libraries, I do not know about any other basis for calculating the number of manuscripts available there than Van der Ploeg's catalogue, only relatively reliable, as I have tried to show. Finally, to all this one should add several private collection belonging to priestly families, such as the Koonamackal collection, numbering 9 items,' 7 or the Nidhiri collection, or even individual manuscripts in private possession, a survey of which will be very difficult to make. 4. An aggregated estimate On the basis of the aforementioned data one may give the following aggregated estimate on the possible number of Syriac manuscripts in Kerala: SEER1: 50 MSS (43 vdP); Thozhiijur: 76 MSS (catalogued by David Taylor, no exact number in vdP, ca. 60 in Kaufhold); Konat collection: ca. 300 MSS (350 according to the numbering; this can be misleading, given the fact that some printed books have also been included; 170 in vdP, who gives a checklist of 129); Mar Aprem collec16 According to P. J . Thomas, Alexander the Indian (Alexandras Hendwaya) or, in Malayalam, Kudavil Chandi Kattanar, lived during the period of the Coonan Kurisu Revolt, the schism that occurred between those who revolted against the Roman Catholic Church and joined the Syrian Orthodox and those who remained faithful to Rome (the Puthenkuttucoorand the Pazhayakuttucoor, that is, those who follow the "new" and those who follow the "old rite"), that is, around 1653. He belonged to the latter group. According to Sebastiani, an Italian missionary to the Malabar Coast, Alexander was a famous preacher and a close friend of the King of Purakad. His hymns were much appreciated by the then Syriacists in Rome. This information is from P. J. Thomas, Malayala Sahityavum Christyanikalum (Malayalam Literature and the Christians) (Athirampuzha: St. Mary's Press 1935; second edition with additions by Scaria Zacharia: Kottayam: D. C. Books 1989), p. 143-144. I owe all this information to Fr. Antony Vallavanthara, who looked for it and kindly translated the relevant passage for me. 171 owe this information to the present owner, Fr. Thomas Koonamackal. The Harp

Vol. XV 2002

Syriac Manuscripts in India: The Present State of the Cataloguing Process

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Hon: 82 +14 = 96 MSS (checklist by Mar Aprem, the number corrected on the basis of the digitized material); Mannanam (108 MSS, 90 according to vdP, who takes the information from Hambye); OTS: at least 94 (a conservative estimate on the basis of the library's two different checklists); "a dozen" in vdP, ca. 50 in Kaufhold); Catholicosate: 31 (according to Father Matthew Koshi; no manuscripts in vdP); Manjinikara: ca. 10 (according to Kaufhold); Vadavatthur: 33 MSS (according to McConaughy), Pulatheen: 9 MSS (according to Kaufhold); Koonamackal collection: 9 MSS (information from Father Thomas Koonamackal). This gives ca. 816 volumes for the eleven libraries, for which we have a more or less firm estimate. Besides these, van der Ploeg mentions five more libraries, without giving even an approximate number of the MSS that can be found there: Bangalore: "a few Syriac MSS" according to vdP - he has described 3; Trivandrum: "dozens of manuscripts" according to vdP - he has described 27; Ernakidam: no number indicated by vdP - he has described 5; CB Thrissur: "a number of manuscripts" according to vdP - he has described 9; Kuruvilassery: "a few manuscripts" according vdP - he has described 3. I think that this calculation - which is subject to change and needs updating during the future work - clearly shows that "over a thousand MSS" to be explored and processed seems to be a rather conservative estimate. In fact the above data constitute ail that I could gather about the question how far the survey and the cataloguing process of the MSS in Kerala has progressed. This seems to mean that the greater part of the work is still to be done. Our joint Indian-French-British-Hungarian team has already begun to work on the new catalogues of Thrissur Metropolitan Palace and Pampakuda, but a complete survey on the manuscripts can be expected only if there will be a large input by the Indian scholars.

Vol. XV 2

FATHER REVEALED HIS MERCY BY SENDING HIS SON. The Father revealed his eternal mercy by sending his Son to the world. Just as at the invasion of sin the door to the grace also was opened. As grace entered there is good hope (sabrá tábá) for humanity. All the consequences of the transgression of the commandment were repealed.The verdict was annulled, debts were recompensed, the bond was torn up, Paradise was reopened and the guard (the Cherub) was disbanded. Adam was made to return, Eve was made chaste, the contentious serpent was crushed, Satan, the deceiver, was unmasked, the bow of death against human race was broken. Hence, in truth there is not a little advantage but good hope (sabrá tábá) for humanity. (Quoted from "Salvation in Christ according to Jacob of Serugh" by Thomas Kollamparampil - page 112).

Kuriakose Corepiscope Moolayil*

Bar Ebraya The Syrian Orthodox Genius Of All Times 1. Introduction:

Bar Ebraya 1 was the Maphrian 2 of the Syrian

1. Bar Ebraya is the east syriac form of his name. In the west Syriac phonology the term is BarEbroyo. This literarly means son of Hebrew. In this sense of the word many scholars assumes that his father Aaron was of a Jewish origin. C.F. Wallis Budge, The Chronography I, P.XV, William Wright, Short History of Syriac Literature P.265, etc. But the Syrian Orthodox Church historians hold a different view of this. It has the meaning Son of the shore or the Son of the crossing because the word Etoro means seashore or crossing and its adjective is ebroyo Cf. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus 11, Col. 2790. Patriarch Aprem, Barsum says, "He was called Hebrew because either one of his forefathers or he himself was bom during a crossing of river Euphrates. It is sufficient proof to cite a line of poetry which he composed about this, If our Lord (Christ), called himself a Samaritan, Do not be ashamed if people call you Bar Hebraeus, For the origin of this application is the river Euphrates, And not a disgraceful doctrine or the Hebrew language. History of the Syriac Literature and Sciences. P. 158. 2. This is the post of the high priest in the Syrian Orthodox Church, second in rank only to the Patriarch of Antioch.Historically this post was created in the Syrian Orthodox Church, When the Catholicose of the East in the Persian Empire embraced 'Nestorian' Theology and separated from the universal church. This church had the backing of the Persian Empire. So the Syrian Orthodox had to creat an equal dignatory for their faithful in Persia with a different title and centre. The Mephrianate was established in Tigris and the first Maphrian so created was Marootha in 629 A.D. The meaning of the word is 'one who gives fecundity'- D - Babu Paul, The Saint from Kooded P18 Kothamangalam (198) India.

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Orthodox Church from 1266-86. E. A. Wallis Budge says, "He is known as the Encyclopaedia of the 13th century. No other Syriac writer possessed to such a wonderful degree of knowledge of History, Tradition and spirit of the Christian and Mohammedan Religions." 4 His versatile geniocity is explicit when we take a glance at the galaxy of his extant works 3 in Syriac" and Arabic languages. He was a very busy and high ranking cleric, second only to the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch 7 , yet he found time to acquired deep knowledge in all branches of literature and produced volumes in all subjects that he studied. It can aptly be said of him too, "he has adorned all that he

3. The Syrain Orthodox Church of Antioch is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches which hold the pre Chalcedonean Christology and Ecclesiology. These churches are wrongly called by western scholars as Monophysites. They are not Monophysites in the meaning of the term, One Person, One hypostasis and one nature which was promoted by Euticus. This formula is considered a heresy and these churches believes, Jesus Christ is perfect God as to his divinity and perfect man to his humanity. The union is real, perfect, without blending or mingling, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without the least separation... In Him are united, in a real, perfect and indivisible and in inseparable way, divinity and humanity, and in Him all their properties are present and active. Common Declaration between Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas June 1984. Ronald G. Robenson CSP, Rome, Vienna Dialogue Booklet No. 1, Vienna (1990). A similar declaration was also singed by the Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas and by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Damascus. The Syrian Orthodox Church was rooted around the Province of Antioch in Roman Syria, Edessa, Persia and further upto India. The Syrian Orthodox Church is now scattered all over the populated centiments, Cf. Christine Chailot, The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and ail the East, Inter Orthodox Dialogue, Geneva (1998), www. Syriac Orthodox Resources. 4.

E.A. Wallis Budge, The Chronography.

5.

See the list of works of Bar Ebraya. A list is given by his brother, Bar Sawma in the Ecclesiastical History II Cf. Aprem Barsum, Ibid P.P 152-158.

6. Syriac language is the liturgical language of the Syrian Orthodox Church, Chaldean Church, The Church of the East, the Maronite Church and two Syrian Catholic Churches in India. This is an ancient language and it is the Edessan dialect of the ancient Aramaic language which Jesus spoke. It has three scripts, The Serto, Chaldean and the estrangelo. Cf. Sebastian P. Brock, A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature, Kottayam (1997), Aprem Barsum, History of Syriac Sciences and Literature, Passeggiata Press CO 81003 (2000) 7.

Patriarch of Antioch is the Supreme Pontif of the Syrian Orthodox Church. The Present Headquarters is at Bar Torna, Damascus, Syria.

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has touched and he has touched all." He was the most famous of all Maphrians. He marvelled as a Maphrian and also as a very luminary star in the realm of Syriac literature 3 . 2. Born in Meletene in 1226 to Aaron, the physician. He was given the name John (Yuhanon) at the time of baptism. He is known popularly as Bar Ebroyo, in West Syriac phonology and as Bar Ebraya in East Syriac and Arabic Circles 9 . The Latin and European version of his name is spelled as Bar Hebraeus. He was given the episcopal name Gregorios on his consecration to the high priesthood. He was then known as Gregory Abul Faraj. He has an Arabic name, Ibn Al Ibri103. At the age of 17 he, with his father had to move to Antioch, where he was taught at the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate. He got the acqaintance of the Mangolians and he used this occasion to study the Mangolian dialect. When the Mangolian ruler Hulagu invaded Antioch, his chief Shawar Nawin fell ill and had to depend upon Aaron, the physician. Bar Ebraya writes on his education, "From my childhood I have been extremely fond of learning I mastered the holy books and their interpretations and acquired the secrets in the writings of the righteous and skillful teachers.When I was twenty the Patriarch compelled me to accept the position of the high priest. This situation compelled me face the leaders of other religions and faith, Christians and otherwise, in arguments. So I spent a lot of time in learning about these and other faiths, until I was well versed in this. Then I was well versed in them. Then I decided to study the wisdom of the Greeks. Then I studied Natural Sciences, Theology, Mathematics, Geometry, Astrology, Physiognomy, etc."" 4. He studied Rhetoric and logic under a Nestorian Rhetoric, Yaccoob. He had very good relationship with the Mangolian rulers. He himself want to meet the invading Tartar King to seek mercy. He was well received for his skill in Medicine. When was elevated as Maphrian the King Hay toun and the Royal Family participated. The 3. The Syriac literature is the 3rd rich stream of Christian writings in its originality on theology, dogmatics, exegesis and Biblical literature. This branch of Ecclesiastical literature flourished in an equal level to Latin and Greek Christian literatures. Cf. William Wright, S.P. Braok, Ignatius Barsum, etc. 9. See note 1. Supra 10. Barsum P. 152 11. Brian E. Colless. Mysticism of Bar Hebraeus, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Rome (1988) P.153.

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Armenian high priest attended his enthronement . He visited the 'Nestorian' 13 Catholicose and befriended him. He was a friend of all. 12

5. The Ecclesiastical History (Part II) deals partly with the history of the East Syrian Catholicate. Bar Ebraya refers in it about the East Syrian Mangolian Catholicose Yabalaha. "In 1281 Mar Denha fell ill and died. While alive two Oigur (Mangolian) monks visited him, on their journey to Jerusalem. They were detained with the Catholicose. They came under the orders of Kubla Khan. Mar Denha consecrated one of the monks as the Metropolitan of China. Mar Denha died before their departure. The newly consecrated Mangolian Metropolitan was elected as the successor of Mar Denha, under the title Yabalaha." 14 Bar Ebraya, also write his tributes to the Catholicose Mar Denha. "He was by nature a good man and the face of God was found in him and he displayed much affection for us and the children of our nation." 6. Apart from this encyclopaedic knowledge in ecclesiastical and secular fields, he was also very much subjugated to the fate of astrology. He wrote, "In that year in which Kronos and Zeus were in conjugation in the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius I was born. And twenty years later, when they were in conjunction in the Zodiacal sign of Libra, I was ordained bishop and twenty years later when they were in conjunction in the zodiacal sign of Gemini. I undertook the office of Maphrian and after twenty years when they will be again in conjunction in the zodiacal sign of Aquarius, I think that I shall go out of this world." 1 5 12. The Armeanean Church also holds the Pre Chalcedonean Christology. 13. The 'Nestorian' terminology is used to denote the teachings of Anastaslus, a presbytor at Constantinople, who believed to have the support of Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinope (428). He was against the term 'Theotokos' (Mother of God) to be used to denote Mary, the mother of Jesus. Cyril the bishop of Alexandria held the opposite view. The third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in A.D. 431, convened by Theodosius II condemned this doctrine and Nestorius. The two distinguishing tenets of Nestorianism are 1. That In Christ there were not only two natures but two persons: of which one was divine, even the eternal Word; the other human, even the man Jesus. 2. That Mary was to be called Mother of Christ, and not the mother of God. P.T. Geevarghese Deacon, Were the Syrian Christians Nestorians? Madras (year not given) 14. Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, (1877) 15. Chronography P. xxviii

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Similarly He wrote in one of his poems, "O net of the worlds, in the year 1226 thy snare seized me, And I think that in the year 12861 shall not be in thee"16 He was a genius who believed in the skill of astrology too. It was found true to him. 7. At the time of his burrial, all the Christians assembled to pay tribute to this man of learning and humane deeds. He was a unifier of religions and denominations. In him the boundaries of religions and nations diminished. His scholarship opened before him the doors of wisdom of all branches. Bar Sawma, the biographer brother and successor in his office of the Maphrian writes about his death and burial, "Then those miserable man rent their garments, and poured dust on their heads, and wept until about three hours of the night had passed; meanwhile he never ceased from telling stories with laughter and a cheerful face. (Suddenly) he went out like a lamp. I ought not to say "like a lamp", but like a glorious and brilliant becon, and the great pillar (of fire) of the: few and feeble Jacobites. And he went to his Lord on the third (day of the week), on the 30 th day of the month of TAMMUZ (JULY), in the year 1597 (A.D. 1286) of the GREEKS. And because MAR YAHBH 'ALLAHA, the praiseworthy Catholicus, was at that time in the city of MARAGHA, he commanded that no man should go to business in the bazar, and that no man should open (his) shop. And he sent out a beater of a board (i.e. bellringer) and all the people gathered together at the cell of the Maphrian. And the Catholicus sent the bishops who were with him, and many large candles, and a whole crowd of ARMENIANS and GREEKS were there, but of our own community only four Elders were present. About two hundred souls were gathered together, and they stood in prayer from dawn until the ninth hour. O what a day of perdition and a morning without mercy! O what a day of wrath and night of death which burst upon the brother of this saint who was joined unto the angels and left the poor and miserable ones in suffering, and weeping, and sadness, and tears and sighs. And when the NESTORIANS, and the GREEKS, and the ARMENIANS had finished their prayers, and prepared him for burial in a fitting manner, they deposited his holy 1 6 . Ibid

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body in a little altar whereat a man might pray and make an offering whensoever he was in MARAGHA. Who is there that will not weep for the excellent people of the JACOBITES when he seeth that they were left as orphans by this man who stood alone, and was a marvellous philosopher. And there remained not among them any one who could inform a stranger by an answer to any question, whether it concerned the Church or some profane matter, whether it was difficult or easy, or who could a discreet, or courteous, or an admonitory letter, as could this man who God adorned with every kind of learning both of those who are in (i.e. natives) and those who are out (i.e. foreigners.) And from the time when he was twenty years old until (he drew) the last breath he never ceased from reading and writing. And he composed and wrote many books, and he could translate from one language into another." 17 His c o m m e n t s on the f u t i l i t y of the f u e d b e t w e e n the denominations are very clear from his own words, "Then it was inevitable for me to engage myself in disquisitions and disputations with the herds of other confessions... and I became convinced that these quarrels of Christians among themselves are not a matter of facts but of words and denominations... and I absolutely forsook disputation with anyone concerning confession." 18 These are not the words of a rare ecumenist of the 21st century , but the scholastic approach and the daring commitment of a 13th century high ecclesiastic. He was thinking centuries ahead and he was hold enough to record his views in his books as well as to put them into practice. 8. Bar Ebraya was a skilful an prolific writer." His mastery in all fields is evident from the array of his extant books on various disciplines. His biblical commentary Osar Rose is doctrinal, critical and linguistic. He uses, Peshitta, Hebrew, Septuagint and Greek texts of Symmachus, Theodotian and Aquilla. He also uses the oriental texts of Armanean and coptic. The syriac versions 20 of Harclean, Pheloxenean and Syro Hexapla are also heavily used in work. His lingustic, expertise and skilful methodology is made clear in this example. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Ibid P. xxix, xxx Brian E. Colless, O C P (1988) W. Budge, Introduction to Chronography Bible in Syriac literature is an interesting branch ot Syriac literature. T h e unique Diatessaron, Old Syriac Gospels, Peshitta, Harclean, Pheloxenean, Syro Hexapla are the important Syriac biblical versions. Finally Peshitta b e c a m e the standard version, Cf. S.P. Brock, Bible in Syriac Literature, S E E R I , Kottayam.

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Sebastian Brock

'Syriac Dialogue'- A n Example From The Past Mar Aprem has been a valued and regular participant in PRO ORIENTE's series of meetings on ecumenical dialogue within the Syriac tradition, entitled 'Syriac Dialogue'1, bringing together the three different christological traditions that became separated in the course of the controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries, namely those of the Church of the East, the Maronite and Eastern Rite Catholic (Chaldean, Syro-Malabar, Syrian Catholic, Syro- Malankara), and the Syrian Orthodox Churches It is a particular pleasure for me, as a fellow participant at some of these meetings of 'Syriac Dialogue' to offer, in honour of Mar Aprem, a translation of a much earlier literary 'Syriac Dialogue', in the form of a dispute poem, or soghitha, on christology where the protagonists for the two christological traditions, Antiochene and Alexandrian, are the Greek theologians Nestorius and Cyril. In effect, they speak for the East and West Syriac christological traditions. The distinctive Syriac genre of the dispute poem, where two characters conduct an argument in alternating verses, has its roots in the ancient Mesopotamian precendence disputes, composed in Sumerian and Akkadian and going back to late third and the second millennium BC. Within the Syriac literary tradition, where the earliest examples of such poems are found in the writings of St Ephrem, the dispute between Nestorius and Cyril is unusual, in that here two historical figures are presented as arguing, whereas in the great majority of the dialogue soghyatha it is pairs of biblical characters who are the 1 PRO ORIENTE, Syriac Dialogue, l-lll. Non-Official Consultation oil Dialogue within the Syriac Tradition (Vienna, 1994-8). Vol. XV 2002

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participants (for example, Cain and Abel, Mary and Joseph, John the Baptist and Christ, etc.)- 2 Furthermore, considering the harsh tones of much of the polemical literature on either side of the christological controversy from the fifth century onwards, the tone of the present poem is remarkably, and laudably, restrained. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that the Cyrilline position is represented in reasonably fair way, and that, unusually, no 'winner' is announced at the end of the poem. Could it be that the unknown author had anticipated the c o n c l u s i o n reached b y theologians in m o d e r n ecumenical dialogue, namely that both sides were trying to express the same mystery, but each approaching the subject from a different angle and theological tradition? Although 'heretics' are indeed mentioned near the end, their identity is left unspecified: was their inclusion just a sop for less open-minded readers, who would have assumed that Cyril was among them? The soghitha is among a number of soghyatJia transmitted along with the memre of Narsai, and this particular one is attached to the memra on the Three Doctors. 3 These soghyalha were all included in A. Mingana's edition of Narsai's verse homilies - with the sole exception of the present soghitha, seeing that it was considered unsuitable for a Chaldean readership. Fortunately, however, it was included in the earlier edition by F.Feldmann, Syrische Wechsellieder von Narsai (Leipzig, 1896), and it will also be found in the much more recent edition of Narsai's homilies, published by the Patriarchal Press. 4 Since many of the soghyatha transmitted in manuscripts of Narsai's homilies are also known in the Syrian Orthodox manuscript tradition, it is most unlikely that they are really by Narsai, though a fifth- or sixth-century date is quite possible for them. In the case of the soghitha on Nestorius and Cyril, however, no separate manuscript tradition 2 For these dispute poems and their ancestry, see especially R. Murray, "Aramaic and Syriac dispute poems and their connections", in M.J.Geller, J.C.Greenfield, and M.P.Weitzman (eds), Studia Aramaica (Supplement 4, Journal of Semitic Studies; Oxford, 1995), pp. 1 57-87, and my 'The Syriac dispute poems: the various types", in G.J. Reinink and H.L.J. Vanstiphout (eds), Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the ancient and Mediaeval Near East (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 42; Louvain, 1991), pp. 109-19. 3 Ed. F. Martin, "Homelie de Narses sur les trois docteurs nestoriens", Journal asiatique IX.14 (1899), pp.446-92; tr. in IX. 1 5 (1900), pp.409-525 (butwithout the soghitha). 4 Homilies of Mar Narsai, 1 (San Francisco, 1970), pp. 287-92. Although the manuscript used for this photographic edition is late, it provides a better reading on a few occasions (notably for stanzas 36-37). The Harp '!»i i t » . i * . • •


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seems to be known, though it remains likely that this soghitha too is not the work of Narsai himself. It is always difficult to date anonymous works, and all that one can say with certainty is that there is nothing in it which would require a date after about the ninth or tenth century, and nothing that would militate against a date of about the sixth century. 5

Following the translation, some short comments on some particular problematic points are offered. Translation 1.

The priests who have loved their Creator And did not reduce Him to suffering Through the power of the Son have vanquished the perverse By means of Him, overthrowing their forces.

2.

O resplendent: and glorious priests Who are filled with love for your Creator, Make request and supplication to the Lord That there be mercy for the world.

3.

Blessed is the Compassionate One who trained you, O resplendent priests who have loved your Lord, For the Word of the Father who was clothed in the body Will strengthen you against the foes.

4.

The ravening wolf of Egypt Stands opposing your company, Saying that the Lord Lowered Himself and became flesh.

5.

A resplendent priest, one of your number, Set himself apart in order to prove him wrong: Into his hands he took the power of the Father, Like some invincible armour.

6.

CYRIL If it is the case, o wolf (?), That the Word of the Father has put on the body, You are believing in a son who is a fourth (person of the Trinity), So leave the Church which drives you out.

5 Unless it features in some copies of the Hudra at the Friday of the Greek Fathers (variously given as the 4 or 5'1' week after Epiphany); it is not to be found at this commemoration in Mar Toma Darmo's printed edition (Trichur, 1960)

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7.

NESTORIUS If I should say as you say, that the Word of the Father became flesh then the Church will eject me for blaspheming and speaking as you have.

8.

CYRIL The eternal Son became flesh John 1 : 1 4 And His great glory came down to earth; He contained Himself in the Virgin And suspended Himself from the top of the Cross.

9.

NESTORIUS The eternal Son became flesh From the house of David they proclaimed Him: Matt. 1:1 Prophets and apostles too indicated this, (thus too) did the Watcher announce to the Virgin. Luke 1:32

10. CYRIL He completed the Law through His coming, He fulfilled the prophets through the shedding of His blood, The announcement of the Watcher that was sent Was intended for the hearing of His mother. 11. NESTORIUS Remove the veil over your hearts And look at the Scriptures which say That the Child of the Father took from us A visible body and dwelt in it. Col. 2:9 12. CYRIL You are a source of amazement (to me), not having heard From the son of thunder (Mark 3:17) who proclaimed it, That the Word Himself (qnomeh) became flesh. John 1 : 1 4 W h y are you arguing and fail to agree? 13. NESTORIUS You are a source of amazement (to me), seeing that all the Scriptures And Writings too have knocked on your ears (proclaiming) that (with) Jesus, the Saviour of the world, His glory has shone forth from David's house. Matt. 1:1,21:9;Rom.l: 3 14. CYRIL Look, there is a mediator between me and you, The great Paul; (so) listen, my man: Gods sent His Son Gal. 4:4 And He became flesh in the Virgin. 15. NESTORIUS Paul himself cries out concerning Him That He is a mediator between His Father and us. Why do you so boldly abuse The Son of the Father who put on the body? The Harp

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16. CYRIL And if it is our body that died, Enduring the sufferings, and was crucified, Then the Jews killed a man, So why are you abusing their envy? 17. NESTORIUS And if the Word of the Father became Despicable flesh, as you say, You are a companion of that band Which insulted and slew its Lord. 18. CYRIL The earthquake which occurred at that hour Testifies to me for what I have said, For rocks have never been rent apart Because of a man when he was slain.

Matt.27:51

19. NESTORIUS The earthquake which occurred at that hour Which slew the People who did not believe Was (the work) of / That He is the Son of God, as the Watcher Proclaimed to His mother when he made to her the annuncement. 20. CYRIL It was the mercy and compassion which proclaimed Flim, How the Word of the Father was at the beginning, John 1:1 Who descended and dwelt in the Virgin And became flesh and tasted death. 21. NESTORIUS Look at what Peter said to Him, Calling Him 'made' and 'master'. Acts 2:36 If he named Him 'made', He is less than the Father who established Him. 22. CYRIL You have gone astray, for you do not listen To what all the Scriptures are saying, For it was 'Lord of glory' that the great Paul I Cor. 2:8 Proclaimed Him when he taught. 23. NESTORIUS You have gone astray, audacious man: do not dispute, (saying) that He who gives life to the dead (Rom. 8:11) tasted death (Heb.2:9), (claiming that Paul) of Tarsus proclaimed itwhereas you are wicked, so do not dispute. 24. CYRIL John, furthermore, baptized Him: He himself did not want to baptize Him, For he was quaking and terrified with fear To lay his hand on the Lord of all. vol xv a

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25. NESTORIUS John, furthermore, baptized Him, Calling him 'the Lamb' (from) before the ages, John 1:29 And the water too, in which He was baptized Covered the flesh, and not the Word. 26. CYRIL The writings of Paul have assured us That it was in His Son that the Father taught concerning Him, Heb. 1:2 Whereas you cry out and proclaim That the Word of the Father put on a body. 27. NESTORIUSHow blind is your heart, and you do not listen, For Matthew proclaimed Him Son of David Matt. 1:1 And with him Luke too agrees (saying) that it is the Son of Joseph who bore the sufferings. Luke 3:23, cp 4:22 28. CYRIL You do not listen when the grea t Moses, Who spoke (in agreement) with me, cried out 'I saw His glory face to face'. Exod. 33:11 Be persuaded, man, and do not dispute. 29. NESTORIUS Have you not heard Moses who asked 'Show me Your glory and let me gaze on You' Exod. 33:18 but the Lord of all replied to him 'You cannot gaze upon Me'. Exod. 33:20 30. CYRIL The Son Himself I heard saying 'I am in the Father, and He is in Me'. John 10:38,14:11 How (=where) did He cry out to you, o man, (saying) the Word put on the body of man? 31. NESTORIUS From Him 1 learnt how He said That 'I was from the race of mortals', For He called Himself a 'human being', And you, my man, are wronging Him. 32. CYRIL The fiery beings and the hosts on high Were downcast at the time of his suffering cp Matt. 27:45, Luke 23:44f For they saw the glory of the Lord of all Being outraged by hostile men. 33. NESTORIUS To the fiery beings He called out for help At the time of His suffering, when He was being crucified, And if He is the Word, why did He need An angel to come and give Him strength? Luke 22:43

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34. CYRIL The Gospel of Paul cries out That He who carne down is the one who ascended too, Eph. 4:10 Whereas you, o man, are disputing, (saying) that the Word put on a human being. 35. NESTORIUS The Gospel of Paul cries out That 'He seated Him on the throne of glory', And if He indeed gave Him a seat Then His throne was not eternal.

Eph. 1:10

36. CYRIL . 37. NESTORIUS Your heart is blind and your are not aware That the same Paul proclaims concerning Him That the Divinity dwells in Him Col. 2:9 And He is the dwelling place of God the Word. 38. CYRIL Open the Scriptures and read them, Listen with attention to the Fathers Who say that God the Word Endured suffering and was crucified too. 39. NESTORIUS Open your ears, wretched man', And listen to Kephas who proclaimed That it was the human Jesus who died. Acts 2:22f Restrain you blasphemies and do not dispute. 40. CYRIL The son of thunder wished to teach us When he called Him God the Word, Proclaiming that He became flesh John 1:14 And descended and ascended just as He willed.

Eph. 4:10

41. NESTORIUS The prayer that took place, wretched man, Matt.26:39-46 At the time of the suffering - whose was it? It was hardly (that of) God the Word! Restrain your blasphemies, why are you arguing? 42. CYRIL The Scriptures cry out and say That God died and was buried cp 1 Cor. 15.3,4 Whereas you, o man, are saying That a human died, and not the Lord. 43. NESTORIUS Christ cried out, and you are not listening, 'I am clothed in the body of mortals' Heb. 10:5 whereas you are in the wrong, and here you are disputing, (saying) that God the Word was crucified.

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44. CYRIL The great Paul cried out as follows, Proclaiming Him Lord of glory, 1 Cor. 2:8 And not a human being, as you are saying; Why are you disputing, refusing to agree? 45. NESTORIUS The Master of Paul (Gal 1:12) cried out as follows, 'I am a human being, in me dwells the Father who sent me in to the world John 3:17, 5:37,17:18 to deliver Adam from the curse. Gal. 3:13 46. CYRIL The sun and the rocks are witnesses, And the temple veil too, when it was torn, Matt.27:51,Markl5:38,Luke23:45 For these things did not happen because of a human being, But because of their Maker. 47. NESTORIUS Listen to the prophet who called out concerning Him 'Emmanuel shall His name be called'. Isaiah 7:14 To whom did this name thus imposed belong, If not to the human being who was conceived? 48. (CHURCH) Thanksgiving be to You, O Lord of all, Who taught Your children to worship You. As for the heretics who have wronged Your Son, You have hidden Your glory from their hearts. 49. Let the Church sing out in joy Praise at the commemoration of priests, For His mighty power resides in them And they have shone out, resplendent by the power of His wisdom.

Comments Stanza 4 The last two words reflect John 1: 14, which is more explicitly quoted in stanzas 7,8,12, and 40. The precise meaning and interpretation of this key verse was a matter of great controversy between the Antiochene and Alexandrine christological traditions. According to Cyril of Alexandria, the phrase " the Word became flesh" meant "became a partaker of flesh and blood like us" (Second Letter to Nestorius), and he saw the verse as supporting his view of the single "nature" of the incarnate Christ. In the eyes of the Antiochenes, however, the Alexandrine understanding seemed to imply "change", with the Word "coming into being" and as it were "turning into flesh". Vol. XV 2002

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The Antiochenes themselves understood the Johannine phrase "became flesh" as synonymous with "took our humanity" (thus the Synod of Isho'yahb 1, 585 ) b , or "took flesh" (so Babai the Great). 7 Similarly, in a florilegium of christological texts, it is stressed that the phrase in John 1 : 1 4 should be understood in the light of 1 Timothy 3:16, "He w a s revealed in the flesh". 8 The diphysite Antiochene understanding of the phrase, with its emphasis on the distinction between the Word (i.e. the divine nature) and the flesh (i.e. the human nature), w a s of course seen as objectionable to the m i a p h y s i t e Alexandrian tradition. Exactly the same sort of differences between the two traditions emerge in their understandings of the next phrase, translated rather vaguely as "and dwelt among us" in most modern English translations (the Greek original and the Syriac have "and tabernacled in us"). Here the Antiochene tradition normally sees "in us" as meaning "in our humanity", that is, in our h u m a n nature. Babai glosses the two phrases in John with the words "(the Word) took flesh and made a dwelling in it", 9 introducing the characteristic East Syriac theme of the divinity indwelling in the humanity, whose New Testament origins are to be found in John 2:21 (Christ's body as a temple, according to his own words) and Colossians 2:9 ("in him [Christ] the whole fullness of divinity dwells bodily"). Such a diphysite interpretation is of course anathema to the Alexandrine tradition, and Philoxenos f u r t h e r misinterprets the East Syriac understanding by supposing that "in us" w a s understood as meaning "in a single qjioma [which for him means 'hypostasis'] of a particular h u m a n being". 10 The normal Syrian Orthodox understanding of "in us" is that it refers to "one of us", that is, in the Virgin Mary. 11 This understanding w a s helped by the fact that all the Syriac versions use the same verb,

6 J.B.Chabot, Synodicon Orientate (Paris, 1902), p. 1 35 (text)/396 (translation). 7 See note 9 below. 8 L. Abramowski and A.E.Goodman, A Nestorian Collection of Christological Texts (Cambridge, 1972), 1, p.99 (text), It, p.58 (translation). 9 Liberde Unione (CSCO Scr. Syri 34-5; ed. A. Vaschalde), p. 1 26 (text)/1 0 1 (tr.). See also p.252/205, where he specifies that the passage points to the two "natures" and qnome. 10 Tractatus tres (CSCO Scr. Syri 9-10; ed. A. Vaschaide), p. 168 (text)/127 (tr.), 11 Thus, e.g. in a Sedro in the Fenqitho (Mosul edition, 11, p.256b): "You became flesh and You tabernacled in the Virgin...". Babai also specifically states that his is how his opponents took it, Liber de unions, p.255-6 (text)/207 (tr.). Vol. XV 2002

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aggen, in both Luke 1:3 5 and John 1:14. An alternative view (held, for example, by Severus)13 was that, whereas "he became flesh" referred to the conception, "he tabernacled" refers to the nativity, and so "in us" is the equivalent of "among human beings" (in agreement with "among us" of most modem translations). 12

Curiously enough, one can find a few East Syriac passages where "in u s " is taken as "in the w o m b of M a r y " , though with the distinctively diphysite gloss "having woven for himself a human robe and clothed himself in it". 14 Conversely, Philoxenus once paraphrases "(the Word) tabernacled in human beings, that is, the common nature (of humanity)"; but he may well be understanding the phrase of John to include a proleptic sense, referring to the indwelling of Christ in the baptized. 15 In the polemical literature, West Syriac writers sometimes claim that, in effect, the East Syriac interpretation implies an alteration of the Gospel wording, with "in it" instead of "in us", so that the verse can be read "As for the Word, there came into being flesh, and He tabernacled in it". 16 Stanza 6 The first line of this stanza is very puzzling. I follow Feldmann (p.31) in translating the second word, d'b "as "wolf" (that is, di'ba), a term normally used (as in stanza 4) of Cyril. The vocalized text of the Patriarchal Press edition, however, reads daba, "of the Father", but I am at a loss how to make any sense of this that conforms to the syntax of the rest of the stanza. In line 2, "who has put on a body" reflects the standard early Syriac term for the incarnation (thus, for example, it represents Greek esarkothe, "was incarnated" in the earliest Syriac translation of the Nicene Creed). As a result of the christological controversies of the 5th /6 t h centuries, the phrase came to be dropped by some Syriac writers in the Alexandrine christological tradition (notably Philoxenos) as being too diphysite in its implications, or even as implying a pre12 See my "From Annunciation to Pentecost: the travels of a technical term", in Eulogema. Studies in Honorofrobert Taft SJ (Studia Anselmiana 1 1 0; Rome, 1993), pp.71-91 (esp. 71-71). 13 Homily 23 on John 1:14, in Patrologia Orientalis 37, pp. 120-22. 14 A Nestorian Collection of Christological Texts, 1, p.48 (text), 11, p.31 (tr ). 15 Tractatus tres, p. 168 (text)/127 (tr.). 16 Thus Philoxenos in his Commentary on the Prologue of John (CSCO Scr. Syri 165-6; ed. A. de Halleux), p.53 (text)/52 (tr.), and elsewhere. Though this indeed represents the East Syriac understanding, the assertion that the Gospel text has been altered, or misquoted, is not correct; the nearest one finds is the altered word order in the Liber Heracleidis (ed. Bedjan, p.279) where the verse is paraphrased "his flesh came into being and God the Word tabernacled in us". H w H a m r >*4hh

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existing h u m a n body (rather than one fashioned by the Word at the very moment of the conception, which is how the phrase is understood in the East Syriac tradition). The phrase Ibesh pagra, as with the phrase Ibesh barnasha, became o p e n to misinterpretation, d e p e n d i n g on whether one takes the object as generic (as it is certainly intended, 'he p u t on the b o d y ' / 'he put on m a n ' (= 'humanity', i.e. h u m a n nature), or particular (which is clearly unsatisfactory-hence Philoxenos' dislike of such phraseology). It should be noted that many later Syrian Orthodox writers still continue to use the traditional phrase 'he p u t on the body' (i.e. bodily nature) perfecdy happily. In line 3 of the present stanza 'Cyril' (perversely) sees the phrase as meaning "put on a (particular) body", thus implying two sons, the Son of G o d / t h e Word, and the son of M a r y / the body (in which the Word is clothed), thus introducing a quaternity into the Trinity at the Ascension, when the son of Mary (i.e. Christ's humanity) was divinized and raised to heaven. Cyril of Alexandria, in his Second Letter to Nestorius, had already asserted that Nestorius's teaching implied two sons, but it was Proclus, slightly later, w h o first brought the accusation that this teaching of Nestorius implied a quaternity in the Godhead, instead of a Trinity. 17 (The accusation of introducing a quaternity h a d already been m a d e in anti-Apollinarian argument by Athanasius). 18 Stanza 7 In line 2 'Nestorius' evidently u n d e r s t a n d s this as implying change, with the verb more or less meaning "turned into". Stanza 9 The adjective mtomaya 'eternal' provides the terminus post quern for the date of the soghitha, for this adjective is not attested until the end of the fifth century (when it appears in Narsai - though the phrase 'eternal Son' in Syriac does not appear until slightly later, in both Jacob of Serugh and Philoxenos, after which it fea tures in sixthcentury East Syriac writers such as Cyrus and Thomas of Edessa). Stanza 12 The words of 'Cyril' in the third line may be contrasted with those of Narsai in his Memra on the Nativity 19 where he comments on John 1:14 as follows: "The Word", he has written, "became flesh" - not by nature, but only that "the Word tabernacled" in flesh, the Hidden in the visible. "He tabernacled", he said, - not that He changed from what He is, for it is not possible for Him to "come to be" and to "tabernacle" in his o w n self (qtzomeh). 17 Patrologia Graeca 65, col. 689A). 18 Letter to Epictetus, Patrologia Graeca 26, col. 1064C. 19 Patrologia Orientalis 40 (ed. F.G. McLeod), pp.62-3 (lines 409-12).

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Stanza 14 The last two lines paraphrase Gal.4: 4, which in fact reads "God sent his son and he was born of a woman". For 'Cyril', the Son here is the Word, whereas in the East Syriac understanding this passage combines reference to the two natures, divine and human 20 Stanza 16 This is a frequent point made by opponents of the Antiochene christological tradition, and even led to the forging of a letter, allegedly addressed to the emperor Marcianby the Jews, thanking him for exonerating them from blame for alleged deicide. This curious piece of anti-Chalcedonian propaganda is preserved in the Chronicles of Ps.Dionysius and Michael the Syrian (as well as an addition in some manuscripts of the Didascalia); it reads as follows: To the merciful Emperor Marcian, the people of the Hebrews. For such a long time we have been regarded as though our fathers had crucified God and not the man. Since, however, this Holy Synod of Chacledon has assembled and has demonstrated that they crucified the man, and not God, we request for this reason that this fault should be pardoned to us and that our synagogues should be returned to us.21 S t a n z a 1 9 F e l d m a n n ' s e d i t i o n h a s (d-bar)

alaha hwa i n t h e t h i r d

line, but the reading hn in the Patriarchal Press edition is to be preferred. Stanza 21 In line's 2-3 'made' Cbida) is based on Acts 2:36 'God made him Cabdeh) both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified'. Presumably 'Netorius' is referring to Christ's human body (cp Heb. 10:5). This verse from Acts, which had previously frequently featured in the Arian controversy, is quoted a number of times by Babai as referring specifically to the human nature of Christ.22 Stanza 23 Though "He who gives life" is based on Rom.8: 11, "tasted death" certainly refers to Heb. 2:9, where there is a major difference of reading between the East and West Syriac manuscript traditions of the Peshitta:23 the West Syriac manuscripts read "for God in his grace for the sake of everyone tasted death" (the standard Greek 20 Thus explicitly in the Liber Heracleidis (ed. PBedjan, p. 141; tr. F.Nau, p. 166; tr. G.R.Driverand L.Hodgson, p. 188). 21 Translation by L. van Rompay, "A Letter of the Jews to the Emperor Marcian concerning the Council of Chalcedon", Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 12 (1981), pp. 215-24 (tr. on p. 215). 22 Notablv Liberde Unione, pp.66-7 (text)/54 (tr.). 23 See my "Hebrew 2:9a in Syriac tradition", in Novum Testamentum 27 (1983), pp.236-44. Philoxenos specifically comments on the two readings in his Commentary on the Prologue of John (ed. de Halleux), p.53 (text)/52 (tr.), while Babai bases himself on the East Syriac reading in an anti-Theopaschite passage, Liber de Unione, p. 60 (text)/49 (tr.).

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text has "by the grace of God ... he tasted death"), whereas the East Syriac ones (along with a very small number of Greek witnesses) have "for he, apart from God, for the sake of everyone tasted death" (i.e. emphasizing that only the humanity of Christ tasted death). The difference in readings here is of central relevance for the theopaschite issue which constitute a major point of difference between the East and West Syriac traditions. In the present stanza 'Nestorius' is in effect saying that 'Cyril' is alleging that the West Syriac (and Greek) reading of Heb. 2:9a is the correct one, whereas for 'Nestorius' (as for some modern textual critics of the New Testament) the reading 'without God' (i.e. apart from Jesus's divine nature) is the original. Stanza 30 In the third line one could read qre instead oiqrn, giving the sense "where have you read...?". Stanza 31 It is not clear to which (evidently Gospel) passages lines 2 and 3 refer. Possibly barnasha 'human being' has in mind passages such as Matt. 8:20 where Jesus speaks of himself as 'son of man' (breh d-nasha). The same will apply in line 2 of stanza 45. Outside the Gospels, Christ is indeed described as barnasha in 1 Tim. 2:5 (a passage used, for example, by Babai, Liber de Unione, p.213 (text)/172(tr.). Stanzas 36-37 Here my translation follows the Patriarchal Press edition where it is Cyril's stanza that is lost, which is clearly much more satisfactory. In Feldmann's edition my stanza 37 is his stanza 36, attributed to 'Cyril' (most anomalously, given the content!), while my stanza 36 is his stanza 37, attributed to a lost reply by 'Nestorius'. Stanza 43 In line 2 'Nestorius' quotes the Peshitta's rendering of the Greek text of Heb. 10:5 ("a body you have prepared for me"). In his Commentary on the Prologue of John Philoxenos strongly objects to the Peshitta's free translation and proposes another which represents the Greek more closely. 24 This is all part of his general objection to clothing phraseology in connection with the incarnation, which he sees as dangerously supportive of Nestorius's views. Stanza 45 In line 2 Feldmann's edition has 'in me speaks' (amar), but my translation follows the reading 'amar 'dwells' of the Patriarchal Press edition. Stanza 48 In the second line Feldmann's edition has la-bnay 'my children' (in which case the Church is understood as speaking); he 2 4 Ed. de Halleux, pp.53-4 (text)/53 (tr.).

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suggests that this may be an errorfor la-bnayk 'your children', which is in fact the reading of the Patriarchal Press edition, followed in my translation. The dialogue covers most of the main points of contention between the two chris tological traditions,25 and thus helpfully provides an opportunity for the modern reader to try to trace the ways in which the unfortunate misunderstandings of the past on either side arose. Only by discovering and explaining how these have come about will it be possible to make real and lasting progress in the contemporary 'Syriac Dialogue'.

25 One prominent issue, however, is surprisingly not present: the question whether Mary should properly be termed 'bearer of God' or 'bearer of Chrisf. The Harp

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