ABOUT THIS SITE

The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch At A Glance Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, 1983 Translated by: Emmanuel H. Bismarji.

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:06:09 -0400

The Syrian Orthodox Church is the Church of Antioch, whose foundation goes back to the very dawn of Christianity, when Antioch was the capital of Syria1 and one of the three capital cities in the Roman Empire.2 The gospel was first preached in Antioch by some of Christ's own disciples who fled Jerusalem after the Jewish persecution. Following the martyrdom St. Stephen the deacon ca. 34 AD., Antioch was visited by Barnabas, one of the seventy preachers, as well as St. Paul the Apostle. Both stayed in Antioch for an entire year preaching the gospel after St. Peter who preached the gospel there and established his apostolic see ca. AD. 33.
According to some historians, the conversion of the city of Antioch itself was carried out by St. Peter the Apostle in two stages: the first was the conversion of the Jews from whose ranks the Christian Church was established;3 the second was the conversion of the pagans who included Aramaeans, Greeks and Arabs. This took place after the settling of the case of Cornelius and his acceptance in the church.4
As we go through the events recorded in the New Testament, we find that during St. Peter's second visit to Antioch, he refrained himself from mingling with the converted gentiles, even after their baptism because of his fear of the Christians in Jerusalem who had contended with him regarding the reception of Cornelius. However, St. Paul opposed him publicly.5 Further, some of the Jewish converts compelled the gentile converts to be circumcised so that they might become Jews before becoming Christians. In order to settle this problem, a council was held in Jerusalem in 51 A.D. and the following message was sent to Antioch through Paul and Barnabas accompanied by Judas, surnamed Barnabas, and Silas: "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden that these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and for unchastity" (Acts 15: 28-29). This event points out the importance of the Syrian Church of Antioch during the early days of Christianity.
The Book of Acts witnesses the earnest zeal of the members of the Church of Antioch and their care for their fellow Christians. They collected alms and sent them with Barnabas and Saul to the poor in Jerusalem. The book of Acts also testifies that it was in Antioch that the disciples of Jesus Christ were first called Christians.6
When Peter and Paul had to leave Antioch on preaching missions, they appointed two bishops to take care of the faithful, Aphodius who was assigned for the Christians of pagan origin, and Ignatius the Illuminator for those of Jewish origin. 7 In 68 A.D., Ignatius the Illuminator became the sole bishop of Antioch. It was he who called the Church of Antioch 'The Universal Church,' since it comprised both of the gentiles and the circumcised. Hence, Ignatius of Antioch was the first to apply the adjective 'universal' to the Christian Church.8
The Syriac Language in Antioch
The Syriac language is the Aramaic language itself, and the Arameans are the Syrians themselves. He who has made a distinction between them has erred. Throughout the old times, the name Syriac appeared along with the name Aramaic in describing the speakers of that language; hence it is a linguistic name. Following the spread of Christianity, the name Syriac came to be preferred over the name Aramaic. The disciples, the first preachers of Christianity, were Syriac-speakers. In the early centuries, when it was revealed that the disciples spoke Syriac, every Aramaean who accepted their teachings and became a Christian changed his original Aramaic identity to a Syriac one. He would be proud to be called a Syriac. As a result, the name Syriac came to imply the Christian faith, while the name Aramaic had a pagan connotation. This is evident from the Syriac translation of the Bible, known as the "Peshitto" or 'simple', which used the name Aramaic to distinguish a pagan from a Christian.9 This is how the use of the term Aramaic to refer to Christians almost vanished in the land of Aram to be replaced by the term Syriac which became synonymous to Christianity.
Hence, the term 'Syrian Church' means the Christian Church. The Syriac language is also known as the Aramaic. Originally it was the language of the Arameans10 who had settled since the l5th century BC in the lands of Aram-Damascus and Aram-Naharin (Mesopotamia).11
The Aramaic language had spread far and wide in the ancient world, to the extent that the alphabets of many other Oriental languages were derived from Aramaic.12 During the reign of King Nabo Blassar, it was the official language of the Babylonian Court, and during the reign of Darius the Great (521 - 486 BC), it was the official language between the various districts of the Persian Empire.13 It had become a lingua franca or 'an international language'14 across the entire East for a long period of time. The Jews had learned it and used it since the Babylonian conquest in the fifth century BC as their common language replacing their own Hebrew language which they had forgotten. Jesus Christ and his disciples spoke Syriac as well.15
Thereafter, Syriac remained dominant over a large section of the Orient, until the end of the 7th century AD when Arabic became popular and Syriac started to decline gradually.16 Some of its dialects, however, are still being used in Tur Abdin, Turkey, the villages around Mosul and other villages in Northern Iraq and in Ma'lula, a village near Damascus, Syria. The trace of its influence is obvious today in the name of several cities and villages in the Middle East and in their common dialects.17
At the dawn of Christianity, Syriac was the mother tongue of the original inhabitants of Antioch, especially of those living in its suburbs, as well as those in the interior parts of Syria.18 Syriac was also the language of the Jewish immigrants in Antioch, whereas Greek was the language of the colonists of the Greek community brought in by the Seleucids.19
The historian Dr. Philip Hitti states that the English name 'Syrian', in its linguistic sense, refers to all the people who speak Syriac (Aramaic), among them those in Iraq and Iran. In its religious sense, it refers to the followers of the Ancient Syrian Church, some of whom are in Southern India. For a Roman, 'a Syrian' (Syrus) meant any person speaking Syriac.
The Church of Antioch used the Syriac language in its religious rites. She celebrated the first Eucharist20 using the Syriac liturgy written by St. James, the brother of our Lord, Archbishop of Jerusalem. This same liturgy is used in the Syrian Orthodox Church all over the world to this day. Today, the liturgy is usually celebrated in Syriac as well as in local languages. Many of the church fathers wrote their religious and scientific books in Syriac.21
Ecclesial Status of the Church of Antioch
The Church of Antioch is considered to be the most ancient and widely known of all churches after the Church of Jerusalem. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Roman Emperor Titus, the Christians in Jerusalem were scattered and many made their way to Antioch. It was from Antioch that the disciples went to the then known parts of the world, spreading the Gospel and establishing churches, monasteries and schools. These monasteries and schools produced many illustrious scholars who enlightened the world with their religious and scientific achievements.22 The fathers of the Syrian Church of Antioch made great and memorable contributions in the study of the Holy Bible, both Old and New Testaments. It was their translation of the Holy Bible into the Syriac language that came to be known as (Peshitto) or 'simple'. They also translated the Bible into Arabic,Persian and Malayalam (a South Indian language).23 Their work was not limited to translation; it included commentaries and exegesis of the Holy Scriptures. They have left behind them a rich heritage that should be counted as unique by today's scholars. This church played a great role in spreading the Gospel to many nations of the world such in Arabia, Armenia, India, Ethiopia. In the process, it suffered the loss of thousands who laid down their lives as martyrs for the faith.24
Establishment of the See of Antioch by Peter the Apostle
Reliable historians such as Origens (d. 256 AD) Eusebius of Caeserea (d 340 AD), John the Golden Mouth (d. 407 AD), Hieronymus ( d. 420 AD ) and Mar Severius of Antioch (d. 538 AD ) have all commented on St. Peter's efforts in Antioch, where, as mentioned earlier, he established the Apostolic See. He was the first of its patriarchs to whom the line of succeeding patriarchs is traced. Eusebius of Caeserea25 notes 'In the fourth year after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, St. Peter proclaimed the word of God in Antioch, the great capital, and became its first bishop."26 He also tells us in his Ecclesiastical History, "Ignatius became famous and was chosen to be the Bishop of Antioch and the successor of St. Peter."27 In his Calendar of Feasts, Hieronymus28 fixed the 22nd day of February as the day of the establishment of the See of St. Peter in Antioch. The Catholic Church still celebrates this feast on this same date.29
We can, therefore, surmise that St. Peter was the first Patriarch of the Apostolic See of Antioch. He had many illustrious successors, including St. Ignatius. This succession has remained unbroken until the time of the present patriarch, the author of this treatise. He is the 122nd in line among the legitimate patriarchs.
Headquarters of the See of Antioch
The headquarters of the See of Antioch was in Antioch until 518 AD. On account of many historical upheavals and consequent hardships which the church had to undergo, it was transferred to different monasteries in Mesopotamia for centuries. In the 13th century it was transferred in the Monastery of Deir Al-Zaafaran, near Mardin, Turkey. In 1959 it was transferred again to Damascus, Syria.
The Name of St. Ignatius taken by the Patriarchs of Antioch
In the early centuries, the Patriarchs of Antioch had kept their original names, even after their enthronement. However, when Patriarch Yeshou was enthroned in the year 878 AD, he adopted the name Ignatius out of veneration for the great martyr Ignatius the Illuminator, the second patriarch after St. Peter. Four other patriarchs followed his example. When Patriarch Yousef, son of Weheb, Bishop of Mardin was installed Patriarch in 1293 with the name Ignatius, the custom was confirmed and it has remained a continuous tradition in the Syrian Orthodox Church to this day.
The See of Antioch and its Relation with the Other Apostolic Sees
According to the canon law which took shape in the first centuries of Christianity, the bishop of a main city (Metropolis) was named Metropolitan, which means the bishop of the capital city or the pedestal of the kingdom. Through various regional and ecumenical councils, the bishoprics were eventually attached to the archbishoprics and the great and equal apostolic sees were recognized to be Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. At the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD, the See of Constantinople was added to those three. The four sees attained high status due to the political importance of their respective cities and their strategic locations.30 In the middle of the 5th century, the bishop of each of these cities was named patriarch, which means the head of fathers.31 Every See had its own jurisdiction and all the churches within it were subjected to its religious authority through the local seats (centers of bishoprics and archbishoprics). In 325 AD the Council of Nicea specified the authority of each of these sees, stating: "Preserve the old custom in Egypt, Libya and the five cities, since the bishop of Alexandria had authority over all of these places, as the Bishop of Rome had also the same authority. Also the dignity of the churches in Antioch and the rest of the bishoprics must be kept fully intact".32 The Council of Nicea did not create these privileges, but merely confirmed them.33
Fellowship of Faith and Authority of the Councils
The four Sees of Antioch, Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople were identical in faith and doctrine, as well as being equal in their authority and privileges. It was a custom for the occupants of these sees to exchange, upon their election, copies of their creeds in order to receive the right of fellowship. The receipt of this right of fellowship, however, was not considered as the installation of the patriarch in his position, but was merely a necessary requirement to exercise his authority legally.34 The historical events testify to the fact that these four great sees were not only autonomous,35 but also autocephalous,36 which means that none had authority over the other and none could interfere in the affairs of the other. In the case of bishops, no bishop could interfere in the affairs of another. Whenever a local, internal problem or dispute arose between the bishops of an archdiocese, a regional council of bishops, under the chairmanship of its archbishop would be convened to settle the matter. The council was considered above the bishops and as the highest authority in the whole archdiocese. If any major problem or grave situation relating to the faith emerged, a general or ecumenical council37 was convened, whose authority was above all the bishops and archbishops, including the bishop-patriarchs of the four great sees. Since all the bishops over the world were invited to such a council and had the right to take part therein, and as no one was to be absent, except for genuine reasons, the universal church was represented fully. As a consequence, all the bishops had to accept the decisions of that council and enforce them in the whole church. This council was considered as the supreme authority in the whole church.38
No bishop, even the patriarchs of the four great sees, had authority to take action in any major faith issue individually since that was the responsibility of the ecumenical councils. Contradiction of opinions and diversification of decisions taken by the regional councils relating to matters of faith often confused the universal church. When such cases were discussed in the ecumenical council, the council would pass its judgment which would be accepted by the universal church as if it were a divine decision. Councils of this type were convened to authenticate the genuineness of the true faith and to reject heresies. The declarations of faith in the Nicean creed, for example, were included in the writings of the fathers in detail and were accepted by the church since its dawn. The council, however, formulated it very clearly and asked the faithful to stand by its terms, or else they would be subjected to excommunication.39
Division among the Four Great Sees
In 451 AD the Council of Chalcedon40 was convened. It resulted in the division of the apostolic sees into two groups. The Sees of Rome and Constantinople became one group, while the Sees of Antioch and Alexandria formed the other. The latter two Sees remain united in faith to this day, with each having its own leadership and absolute independence as was the case since the beginning of Christianity. The former two sees of Rome and Constantinople split from each other in the 11th century AD.
Jurisdiction of the See of Antioch
The pontiff of the See of Antioch had always had a prominent position in the church. His religious authority extended from the Greek Sea in the West to the far end of Persia and India in the East, and from Asia Minor in the North to the frontiers of Palestine in the South.
The church of Antioch was one and was headed by only one patriarch. There was no other one besides him in all the Eastern Countries42. His jurisdiction extended over the lands of Damascus, Palestine, Cilicia, Mesopotamia parts of Asia Minor and all of Persia.43 His authority was dominant over all the Christians in these districts, irrespective of their nationality, race or language. The larger dioceses had archbishops, while the smaller ones had bishops who took care of their spiritual administration. They were all obedient to him.44
Maphrianate of the East
The countries which were lying beyond the Eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire were known as the East, from which, at the time of Jesus Christ, under the Persian rule, the Magis came to Bethlehem and presented their gifts to the Lord.45 When they returned to their countries, they proclaimed the news of Jesus' birth. As there were Jewish communities in the East, some of them might have been present in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. The Book of Acts identifies Parthians, Medes, Elamites and the dwellers of Mesopotamia.46 It is beyond doubt that some of them who believed in Christ conveyed the Gospel to their countries.
Church history records that Addai, one of the seventy preachers, was sent by his brother, the apostle Thomas, to Edessa, capital of the Abgarite Kingdom, and cured its king Abgar V from leprosy and converted him together with all the inhabitants of the city. Then Addai preached in Amed (Diarbekir), in the South of Arzen, in the Eastern valley of the Tigris River, and in Bazebdi. After which he came to Hidiab (Arbil),47 where he settled down with his friend Mari, preaching the Gospel. The Syrian historians: Mor Michael the Great, Bar `Ebroyo and Bar Salibi add that the apostle Thomas passed through these places and preached their inhabitants on his way to India. This is how Christianity spread since the first century all over the East, where churches were built and bishoprics established.
During the third century, a number of bishoprics were gradually organized and a general leadership was established, with Madaen as its center, in the ecclesiastical region under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic See of Antioch.48 Its bishop was called Bishop of the East, or Catholicos of the East, and was later known as the Maphryono49 of the East.50
The Catholicos of the East had general authority over the churches in his district, in collaboration with the Patriarch of Antioch. The political situation hindered this relation since the headquarters of the See of Antioch was within the Roman Empire, while the East was subject to the Persian rule and the enmity between the Persians and the Romans was severe.51
In 431 AD the Council of Ephesus excommunicated Nestorious, Patriarch of Constantinople. A number of bishops from Syria together with the majority of the teachers and students of the School of Edessa aligned with him. Hence, Nestorious' teachings were spread in the East with the exception of Tikrit and Armenia. The result was the division of the Syrians, from the religious and doctrinal points of view, into two groups. This division affected even the Syriac language which came to be distinguished in its phonetic and calligraphic styles, known as the Western style and the Eastern style. The Western style was used in the land of Damascus [Syria] and the Eastern style in the lands of Mesopotamia, Iraq and Azerbejan. The Eastern group cut off its relations with the See of Antioch, with the exception of the Orthodox people in Iraq52 who remained loyal to the Apostolic See of Antioch, enduring great hardships as a result. In the year 480 AD, Barsouma, the Nestorian Bishop of Nusaibin, slandered against the faithful orthodox of the East to Fairouz, the Persian king, accusing them of spying in the interest of the Byzantine Kingdom. As a result, Fairouz slaughtered many of them shedding their innocent blood. After the death of Barsauma, the Armenian Catholicos Christophorus visited the East and consecrated a monk by the name Garmai as bishop in the Monastery of St. Matthew and gave him authority to consecrate bishops, as the Catholicos of the East. Christophorus also consecrated Monk Ahodemeh as bishop at Baerbye.53 In 559 AD, Ya`qub Burd`ono visited the church in the East and consecrated Ahodemeh as General Bishop who became the first General Bishop of the East, after the Nestorians had captured its See. 54
In 628, a reconciliation was reached between the Persian and Roman Empires. Patriarch Athanasius I (595-631) sent his secretary Rabban (Monk) Youhanna to the East. He met with Bishop Christophorus, head of the Monastery of St. Matthew and discussed with him the subject of resuming relations between the See of Antioch and the Church in the East. The bishop convened a synod which was attended by Monk Youhanna and four regional bishops. They elected three monks, Marotha, Ithalaha and Aha, and requested the patriarch to consecrate them bishops. The patriarch accepted the request and honored the old custom of the Church of the East which allowed three bishops in the absence of the Catholicos to consecrate a new bishop in dire circumstances.
The Eastern bishops consecrated the chosen monks as bishops in the presence of the patriarch's envoy. The patriarch then installed Marutha, one of the three new bishops, as Bishop of Tikrit, and gave him authority to preside over the East, on his behalf. The above incident indicates that the Church in the East was autonomous and that its Catholicos who was installed by the patriarch had authority over all its bishoprics. Also we can see in the history of the church that the Patriarch was enthroned by the fathers of the church with the cooperation of the Catholicos. Several attempts have taken place for infringing this tradition.
Mar Marotha of Tikrit (d. 649) was the first to be called Maphryono. From him the Maphrianate took its line of succession. It is worth mentioning that the bishoprics of the East increased in number and prestige to the extent that they outnumbered the dioceses of the See of Antioch during the time of Mor Gregorios Bar `Ebroyo who himself was a Maphryono of the East (1264-12861). Bar `Ebroyo is considered to be one of the most famous and scholarly Maphryonos of the East.
The headquarters of the Maphrianate was first in Tikrit and remained there until 1089 AD. Subsequently, it was transferred to Mosul, and then back to Tikrit where it remained until 1152 when it was transferred to St. Matthew Monastery, near Mosul. For sometime the Maphrianate was at Bartelleh near Mosul and then was brought back to Mosul.
In the past, it was the custom to have the Maphryono keep his episcopal name, even after his installation. But since the 16th century, the name Baselios was added to his original personal name. In the year 1860, after the death of Maphryono Mor Baselios Bahnam IV of Mosul, the Maphrianate was abolished by a decision of a synod.
Reinstatement of the Office of the Maphrianate
On May 21, 1964, the office of the Maphrianate was reinstated according to a resolution of the synod held at Kottayam, South India. It was presided by H. H. Mor Ignatius Ya`qub III, the late Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, and attended by all the bishops of the Syrian Church in India and three bishops from the Middle East who had accompanied His Holiness on his apostolic visitation to India. The author of this book was one of those three bishops. It was decided that the headquarters of the Maphryono should be in India and that the jurisdiction of the Maphrianate is limited to India and to the East of India only.55
Since 1964, the Maphyono is elected by the local Holy Synod of the Syrian Church in India and installed by H.H. the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East who is the Supreme Head of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church. He represents the Syrian Orthodox Church in India in the Universal Synod of the church when it is convened for the election and enthronement of a patriarch. The present Maphryono is H.B. Mor Baselios Paulose II [d. 1996].
Schisms in the Church of Antioch
The Church of Antioch (Syrian Church) endured in its history many painful incidents that divided its flock into several sects at different times. These incidents, a few of which will be briefly discussed, weakened the church in many ways.
In 431 AD the Council of Ephesus rejected the teachings of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who claimed that there were two separate persons and natures in Christ. Patriarch Yuhanna of Antioch supported him. He was succeeded by his nephew Domnos who unfortunately accepted that same heresy. He was deposed in the year 449 AD by the second council of Ephesus and was replaced by Maximus. The teachings of Nestorius were accepted by some Syrians in the Persian Empire, some parts of Syria, Palestine and Cyprus. Those formed a church breaking away from the See of Antioch in 498 AD. They chose a leader for themselves who called himself Catholicos. Their first Catholicos was Babai who had his headquarters in Selucia, Near Madaen in Iraq. This was later transferred to Baghdad in the year 762 AD. At the beginning of the 15th century it was shifted to Al-Kosh and in 1561 to Erumia,1 both in Iraq.
As a result of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, the four great sees were split into two groups and confusion dominated over the church weakening its discipline. Illegal interference took place in several bishoprics and fishing in troubled waters was considered a great gain. The Roman See was able to win a Nestorian bishop called Timotheos, Bishop of Cyprus. In 1445 AD he joined the Catholic Church with a group from his church. It should be remembered that this group comprised members of the Syrian Church who had already embraced the Nestorian ideas. Pope Ojanius IV declared: "It is henceforth forbidden to treat those Syrians who had left Nestorianism and joined the Roman Church as heretics, but they have to be distinguished with the particular name of Chaldeans."56 Five years later in 1450 AD, they returned to their Church. But disputes soon arose in that church when Patriarch Shemoun's Synod passed a resolution to the effect that no patriarch should be installed from outside his own tribe. When this decision was taken by Shemoun's Synod, a rebel synod which opposed Shemoun was convened in Mosul. A great number left Shemoun and joined the Roman See in 1553. Accordingly, Pope Julius III consecrated for them Patriarch Yuhanna Sulaqa. This split did not last long since Patriarch Yuhanna Sulaqa was killed in 1555 AD and the relation with the Roman See was severed.
Until 1827, there were two patriarchs for the Chaldeans, one of whom was called Patriarch of Amed, and the other, Patriarch of Babylon. In that same year, the distinction between the two Patriarchates of Amed and Babylon was abolished by Pope Leo XII. As of 1830, that is from the time of Patriarch Yuhanna Hermezd, there was only one patriarch who was called the Patriarch of Babylon. Yuhanna Hermezd was the first patriarch of the united Patriarchate of Bayblon. In the middle of the 19th century, Patriarch Yousef Odo57 who, unlike his predecessors, was known to have liked the Oriental Church and its ancient traditions, was installed as the Patriarch of Babylon.
Turning back to the See of Antioch, we shall see that since the time of Maximos (449 A D. - 512 AD) it was usurped by patriarchs who had followed the formulation of the Council of Chalcedon and by others rocking from one side to the other. During this critical period, the famous Patriarch Peter II the Fuller was installed to the Holy See of Antioch.
In 512 A D. Mor Severius was enthroned as the Patriarch of Antioch succeeding Philibianos who was deposed because of his unsteadiness of faith. Mor Severius ruled the holy see in peace until 518 when he was sent into exile. When the Orthodox Emperor Anastas died, he was succeeded by Justinos I who was a supporter of the Council of Chalcedon.
He sent into exile most of the orthodox bishops including Patriarch Mor Severios who died in the year 538 while in exile in Egypt. Mor Serjis succeeded Mor Severios to the Holy Throne of Antioch. Through all these great storms, the See of Antioch struggled hard to keep the succession of its patriarchs to this day.
The followers of the Council of Chalcedon seized the opportunity of the exile of Mor Severious to install from among themselves patriarchs with the title of "Patriarch of Antioch". From this time (518 AD) the series of Byzantine Patriarchs started. The most famous of these patriarchs was Ephrem of Amed. Most of those Byzantine Patriarchs were Syrians and others from Greek colonies. Those patriarchs and their followers were called "Melkites", i.e., 'followers of the king.' They were called so since they followed the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon which was upheld by the then king. They used the Syrian rites until the 10th century when they changed to the Greek rites. But, because of their ignorance of Greek, they used the Syriac translation of the Greek rites. In later centuries, after they learned Greek, they started to use the Greek rites both in Greek and Arabic. They collected the Syriac codices, which were preserved in the library of St. Mary's Monastery (a Syrian Monastery which the Greeks later occupied), in the village of Saidnaya, near Damascus and burned them.58
At the beginning of the 7th century, a dispute arose among the followers of the Council of Chalcedon within the jurisdiction of the See of Antioch, because of the emergence of a new dogma of two wills in Jesus Christ. It resulted in a division among the Maronite monks in Lebanon leading to the establishment of a separate Patriarchate. In the 12th century, they joined the Roman See59 and started calling their Patriarchate the "Patriarchate of Antioch".60
There were further new Patriarchates of Antioch splintered from the original Patriarchate of Antioch. At the beginning of the 17th century, through the influence of some Capuchin monks, and with the assistance of the French Consul, a group in Aleppo, Syria, left the Holy See of Antioch. They approached a Maronite bishop in 1657 to consecrate for them an Armenian priest by the name Andraos Akhijian of Mardin as bishop whom they called patriarch. The Syrian Catholic Patriarchate61 started with him. They also called their patriarch "Patriarch of Antioch".
At the beginning of the 18th century, a split took place among the Greek Orthodox, which led some to abandon their Patriarchate and follow the Roman See. They established for themselves a separate Patriarchate which they called 'Patriarchate of Antioch'. They are known as Greek Catholics.
In the last quarter of the 18th century, a group of Syrian Orthodox in Iraq was compelled to join the Roman See, through the connivance of the French Consul, who advised the Ottoman ruler to impose heavy taxes on the Syrian Orthodox people. The Consul encouraged the Dominican missionaries who had already spread roots in Iraq to persuade the simple-minded Syrian Orthodox people to ask for French protection in order to reduce the burden of taxes. But when they approached the French officials for help, they were told that unless they followed the Pope of Rome, no help would be provided. This is how Catholicism spread in Iraq. The first group to embrace it were the inhabitants of Karakoush in 1761 AD. Later, in the middle of the 19th century, other groups from Bartelleh and Mosul62 followed suit.
Mor Ya`qub Burd`ono
As a result of the oppression of the leaders of the Syrian Orthodox Church by the Byzantine Emperors, many holy fathers were martyred, some were exiled, others severely persecuted and the rest scattered. At one stage in 544 AD, there were just three living bishops left in the Syrian Orthodox Church as a result of all the hardships and chaos.
At this critical stage, God raised up an indefatigable man called Ya`qub Burd`ono to defend the church. He went to Constantinople and was respectfully received by Queen Theodora, the daughter of a Syrian priest in Manbej, Syria, and the wife of Emperor Justinian. She served the exiled bishops and supported them in their sufferings. She used her influence to get Mor Ya`qub consecrated general bishop in 544 A D. by Mor Theodosius, Patriarch of Alexandria, who was then in exile in Constantinople. Mor Theodosius was assisted by three bishops who were also under imprisonment. After his consecration, Mor Ya`qub traveled far and wide vigorously organizing the affairs of the church. He consecrated twenty-seven bishops and hundreds of priests and deacons. By the time of his death on July 30, 578 AD, Mor Ya`qub had strengthened the church to survive upcoming disasters. Every year on July 30, the church respectfully and gratefully celebrates his memorial feast.63
Thus, the Syrian Orthodox Church withstood the heavy blows of Byzantine persecution and maintained the apostolic faith, affirmed by the three ecumenical councils. The Holy See of Antioch remained united with the See of Alexandria, and they continue in communion with the Armenian Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Church sharing the same faith and doctrine.
In the 8th century, the Byzantines, in their seventh council described the Syrian Orthodox Church as the 'Jacobite Church', after Mor Ya`qub Burd`ono. Their intention was to disgrace and degrade the noble Syrian Orthodox Church. Though Mor Ya`qub is indeed one of its famous and great fathers, he is not its founder. Since the Syrian Orthodox Church was not established by him, and since he did not introduce any fresh doctrine into its apostolic faith, we repudiate the title 'Jacobite.'64 The Syrian Orthodox Church also denies the designation 'Monophysite' which is Euthychean and which means that the human nature in Jesus Christ was mingled with the divine nature and thus became a mixture and its attributes confused. Eutyches and his teachings were rejected by the Syrian Orthodox Church which follows the footsteps of St. Cyril of Alexandria who believed that Jesus Christ was perfectly human and at the same time perfectly divine, and has only one nature from two united natures without any mixture, confusion or transformation.65
The Syrian Orthodox Church Today
The number of followers of the Syrian Orthodox Church today is around three million. The majority of them reside in India and the rest are spread mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Europe, North and South America and Australia. Its supreme head at present is Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, the 122nd successor of St. Peter in the legitimate line of Patriarchs of Antioch. The supreme head is looked upon as the common father of all Syrian Orthodox people wherever they are. He is obeyed by the Catholicos, prelates, clergy and laity of all ranks in the Syrian Orthodox Church.
The name of the patriarch is to be mentioned before that of the Catholicos in India and of the bishops in their respective dioceses during the eucharistic services, at the end of the daily prayers, on religious festivals, and during other spiritual ceremonies such as ordinations, consecrations, etc. His title is 'His Holiness Moran Mor Ignatius, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East and the Supreme Head of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church'. His religious duties include the installation of the Catholicos, the consecration of the legally elected bishops and the consecration of chrism with the assistance of at least two bishops. He also has the authority to convene universal synods and other synods over which he presides. He cannot be deposed unless he introduces heresy in the orthodox faith of the church as established in the three Ecumenical Councils of Nicea, Constantinople and Ephesus and the teachings of the holy fathers, deviates from the canonical laws, suffers from mental disorder or is found guilty of a serious misconduct.
The patriarch is accountable to the holy synod, consisting of all the bishops of the Apostolic See of Antioch, which is considered to be the supreme authority in the church. The synod is vested with the authority for the election and installation of patriarchs, the approval of the election of bishops, the examination and trial of bishops in case of their deviation from the doctrine and canonical laws, their transfer from one bishopric to another, the acceptance or rejection of their resignation and their deposition, if at all necessary. The synod also has the authority for the creation of a new diocese or the abolition of an existing one. The meeting of the synod is considered legal if it is attended by at least two-thirds of its members. Synodal decisions, taken by majority, become effective upon their approval by the patriarch.66
[As of the time this document was authored (1983), the] Syrian Orthodox Church today consists of twenty-seven dioceses, ten of which are in India, and the rest are spread in different parts Of the world. Each diocese has a bishop who administers its spiritual affairs, ordains its priests, monks and deacons, consecrates altars, churches and the holy oil for baptism and codifies bylaws for its welfare. Each diocese has an ecclesiastical board and a laymen's board to help its bishop in its administration.
All the dioceses maintain the orthodox faith of the church and keep its ancient apostolic traditions. The church rites are performed in Syriac along with the local language. In the past, the church had hundreds of monasteries, a few of which still flourish. The most famous ones are in the Middle East:
1. St. Matthew's Monastery near Mosul, Iraq
2. St. Gabriel Monastery in Tur Abdin, Turkey; both of these monasteries date back to 4th century.
3. St. Hananya Monastery, known as Deir Al-Zaafaran, near Mardin, Turkey, established in the 8th century.
4. In each of the last two monasteries, there is an elementary theological school.
5. St. Mark's Monastery in Jerusalem, which deserves the pride of Christianity, because it includes the upper room, where Jesus Christ took the Last Supper with his disciples. This historic fact has been confirmed by the inscription discovered in 1940 under the plastering of the church in the monastery. The inscription is in Syriac and it dates back to the 6th century. It reads as follows: "This is the house of Mary, Mother of John, Called Mark." The church has two theological seminaries, one in the mountains of Lebanon [in Damascus since 1996] and the other in India, where the clergy are trained.
The Syrian Orthodox Church is progressing and growing actively. In the opinion of a Greek Orthodox historian: The Syrians are active, hard workers and economical, that is why you can hardly find a beggar among them. In spite of all the great crises that they endured, they are still maintaining their economical standard, because of their love to work steadily, and their remoteness from imitating the foreigners in spending extravagantly.67 Another researcher from the Episcopalian Church said in the last century the following about the Syrian Orthodox Church: "It is within the possibilities of Gods providence that they might yet take new root downwards and bear fruit upwards, if the people who still cling passionately to their ancient faith, were once freed from the domination of foreign religion and power, under which they have so long and so cruelly been oppressed. As it is, in all their present feebleness, they are the representatives of the ancient church, which once flourished in these eastern and southern lands."68
The Syrian Church is a member of the World Council of Churches which she joined in the year 1960, through the efforts of the late Patriarch Mor Ignatius Jacob III of blessed memory. It is represented today [as of date of publication in 1983] by Archbishop Mor Gregorios Youhanna Ibrahim of Aleppo in its Central Committee. It is also a member in the Council of Local Churches and collaborates with the other Christian Churches, and takes part in the ecumenical and theological dialogues at official and non-official levels.
Conclusion
This book provides a panoramic view of the Church of Antioch, the true Church of the Orient, commonly known as the Syrian Orthodox Church, whose faith, liturgy and tradition are distinctively Oriental and are at the same time a witness to the undivided early church.
This church battered by the events of history and torn by schisms, is still the custodian of a great heritage. I am hopeful that through prayer and dialogue, its scattered parts can be brought together again and its wounds healed. The communion of faith could be restored among its different sections, and excommunications and curses could be wiped out. Grace will then abound, leading to the unity that was at the dawn of Christianity and the Gospel imperative "that all may be one" will be fulfilled.
References
1. The Holy Bible: New Testament.
2. Dr. George Post: Dictionary of the Holy Bible, 2nd ed., Beirut 1971.
3. Constitution of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch Manuscript-Amended by the Synod of Damascus 1979.
4. Hidayat wa Quanin Al-Majame': A Syriac Manuscript
5. Eusebius of Caesarea: History of the Church.
6. Gregorios Yohanna Bar Habraeus: Summary of Nations, Beirut 1958.
7. Breasted: Earlier Ages.
8. Adai Ashir: History of Kaldo & Athur, Beirut 1913.
9. Lemon the French: Moukhtassar Twarikh Al-Kanisa:translated by Bishop Youssef Daoud, Mosul 1873.
10. Cardinal Eugene Tisserand: Khoulassa Tarikhyia LilkanisaAl-Kaldania; Translated by Bishop Suleiman Sayegh, Mosul 1939.
11. Mari bn Suleiman: Akhbar Fatarikat Kursi Al-Mashreq, from the book Al-Maidal, Rome 18S9.
12. Rev. Butros Nassri: Dhakhirat Al-A&an fi Twarikh Al Mashariqa wal Maghariba Al-Suryian, Mosul 1905.
13. Bishop Gregorios Georges Shahin: Nahlon Wassim fi ar h Al-Umma Al-Suryiania Al-Qawim, Homs 1911.
14. Letus Al-Douairi: Mujaz Tarith Al-Massihia, Egypt 1949.
15. Chabot: Aramaic Languages & its Literature. Translated by Antoun Laurence, Jerusalem 1930.
16. Ali Wafi: Feqh Al-Lougha, 2nd ea., Cairo 1944.
17. Rev. Ishaq Armaleh: Al-Salasel Al-TariLhia, Beirut 1910.
18. Al Massih ssH d. Al'-gTurfa Al-Naqia mn Tarikh Al-Kanisa
19. Dr. Philip Hitti: History of Syria, Lebanon & Palestine.
20. Assad Restom: History of the City of Antioch, Beirut 1958.
1. crtieAsr&svrlelha, Dictionary of the Names of Lebanese
1. Je i Fa h De Fr: Al Al-Shargi Al C h Ke i Al-Rasouli Wal P bd h eLda filiman, tebanon 1971. he magmme Al
1. Patriarch Ephrem Barsoum: A - Al-Loulou' Al-Manthour fi Tarikh Al-Eloum wal AdabAl-Surylania, 3rd ea., Baghdad 1976. A HI Durlar Al-Nafisa fi Mukhtassar Tarikh Al K
2. Patriarch Yacoub III:  A IT9a5r3kh AI-Kanisa Al-Suryiania A1 ~ t k B Dahkat Al-Tib fi Tarikh Deir Mar Matta Al-Ajib, Zahle 1961. C Kanisat Antakyin Souryia, Damascus 1971. D Al-Kanisa Al-Suryiania Al-Antakyia Al- kthodoxia ta lecture), Damascus 1974. E Man Hua Batriark Antakyia Al-Shari, published inthe Magazine, Al-Mashreq of Mosul, Ist year. F Al-Mujahed Al-Rassouli Al-kbar- Mor Yacoub Bardaeus, Damascus 1978.
3. Patriarch Ephrem Rehmani: Al-Mabaheth Al-Jalia fi AlLiturjIat Al-SharqIa, Al-Sharfeh 1924.
4. Patriarch Zakka I Iwas: A Al-Merqat fi Hayat Ra i Al-Rouat, Homs 1958. B Al-Kanisa wa Mouqaoumat Al-Majma' I-Maskounifiha - Damascus Patriarchal Magazine, 10th year, No. 96, 1972. C Qeboul ~I-Majame'-Damascus Patriarchal Magazine,11 th year, No. 108. D Akidat Al-Tajsed Al-Dahi fi Al-Kanisa Al-Suryiania Al-Orthodoxia, 2nd ed., Aleppo 1980.
5. Bishop Youhanna Dolabani: Al-Mithal Al-Rabani. Buenos Aires 1942.
6. Archdeacon Ne'matallah Denno: Iqamat Al-Dalil ala Istemrar rl-Esm Al-Assil, Mosul 1949.

Footnotes:
1 Dr. Assad Restom, History of the City of Antioch (Beirut 1958). Volume 1, p. 14, from the British Encyclopedia, 9th ea., Vol. 2, p. 130.
2 Selucas I Nicatur built the city of Antioch on the Orontes River in Syria in 311 BC, after the division of the Kingdom of Alexander the Great. He called it Antioch after his father, Antiochus. It was the capital of Seleucids until the Roman conquer in 64 BC The Syrians liked it and adopted the first month and the first year of its foundation October 311 BC), as a general date in their religious and civil records. They shifted to the AD. date only at the beginning of this century.
3 It is believed that Peter the Apostle was in Antioch in 34 AD-the year he established the Apostolic See of Antioch. The Ascension of Jesus was in the year 30 AD, Paul converted a year later. He came to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, that is in the year 34 AD., but he did not find any disciples, except James, our Lord's brother. According to the church's liturgy, Peter was then in Antioch, where he stayed for seven consecutive years, until 41 AD. Some scholars believe that the birth of Christ took place four years earlier than the date assumed today. See Patriarch Ignatius Yacoub III, Kanisat Antakyia Souryia, Damascus 1971, pp. 3-6.
4 Dr. Assad Restom, History of the City of Antioch (Beirut 1958). The incident of Cornelius is detailed in Chapters 10&11 in the Book of Acts, in the New Testament.
5 The Apostle Paul said to Peter "If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ?" Galatians 2: 14. See also Lestus Doueiri, Mujaz Tarikh al -Massihieh ( Egypt 1949 ), p. 55
6 Book of Acts 11: 26.
7 Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History, 3: 22.
8 Patriarch Yacoub III, Kanisat Antakyia Souryia (Damascus 1971).
9 Letter to the Galatians 2: 14 and 3: 28
10 Dr. George Post, Dictionary of the Holy Bible. Beirut 1913), Look under Aram; Adai Ashir, History of Kaldo & Athur ( Beirut 1973 ),Vol. 1, p. 16; Breasted. Earlier Ages, Chapter 211, p. 109; Gregorios Youhanna Bar Hebraeus, Summary of Nations (Beirut 1962).
11 The Greeks called these lands Mesopotamia, that is between two rivers. It was comprised of the upper part of Tigris and the convergence of Tigris and the Euphrates, near the mouth of the river. Aram of Damascus included inner Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. The word Aram means the elevated land.
12 Al-Arabi - Arabic Literary Magazine published in Kuwait, No. 81 (1965).
13 Dr. Philip Hitti, History of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine; The First Book of Ezra 4: 6 & 7.
14 Dr. Ali Wafi Feqh Al-Lougha ( Cairo 1944 ), p. 120; Chabot.,Aramaic Languages. p. 9; Kaldo & Athur, 1 :16.
15 It is the language known as Palestinian Syriac and sometimes called Hebrew. Eusebius of Caesarea (263 - 339 AD) in his book 'Al-Dhhour Al-llahi, describes the disciples before being inspired by the Holy Ghost as ".. people from Galilee, knowing nothing except the Syriac language." ( The Syriac manuscript No. 12150 is at the British Museum; it was written in 411 AD and published by Rev. Paul Bedjan in Paris in 1905. ) Although the Holy Bible was translated to several languages, it kept several expressions in their Syriac forms, e.g. (Abba meaning father ( Gal. 4: 6 ); (Talitha Cumi) meaning Damsel, I say unto thee, arise (Matthew 9: 23 & Mark 5: 41 ) and (Tabitha Cumi) meaning you dear arise ( Acts 9:40 ; See also Matthew 27: 46; John 20: 16 and Acts 1: 19. Parts of the Book of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah and all of the gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews were written in Syriac. The Holy Bible was entirely translated into Syriac towards the end of the first century after Christ.
16 Dr. George Post, Dictionary of the Holy Bible, I 58.
17 Dr. Anis Freha, Dictionary of the Names of Lebanese Cities and Villages (Beirut 1972).
18 Patriarch Ephrem Rehmani, Al-Mabaheth Al-Jalia fi Al-Liturjia Al-Sharqia ( Deir Al-Sharfeh 1924 ), p. 23; Dr. Assad Restom, History of the City of Antioch.
19 Al-Mabaheth Al-Jalia, p. 151.
20 Kanisat Antakyia Souryia, pp. 3 & 8.
Al-Durar Al-Nafisa fi Makhtassar Tarikh Al-Kanisa, Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum (Homs 1940), p. 143.
21 Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum, Al-Lou lou Al-Manthour (Baghdad 1976).
22 Patriarch Yacoub 111, Al-Kanisa Al-Suryiania Al-Antakyia Al-Arthodoxia (Damascus 1974) pp. 10-15.
23 Patriarch Yacoub 111, Tarikh Al-Kanisa Al-Suryiania Al-Antakyia (Beirut 1953), Vol. 1, pp. 117-119.
24 A lecture by Patriarch Zakka I Iwas at Vienna, Austria on 4/5/1972. Its Arabic translation was published in the Damascus Patriarchal Magazine No. 97, 10th year, Sept. 1972.
25 Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History.
26 Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum, Al-Durar Al-Nafisa (Homs
27 Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History.
28 Jerome, Latin Church Father of the 4th century.
29 Patriarch Yacoub III, Man Hua Al-Batriark Al-Shar'i i,published in the magazine Al-Mashreq of Mosul, 1st year, p. 836,quoted from the Roman Calendar (Rome 1852).
30 A lecture given by Patriarch Zakka I in Vienna, Austria on May 5, 1972. Its Arabic translation was published in the Damascus Patriarchal Magazine No. 97, 10th year, Sept. 1972.
31 Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum, Al-Durar Al-Nafisa, Vol. 1, p. 398.
32 The Lebanese Synod, p. 311; Patriarch Douehi, Maronite Patriarch, Manaret Al-Aqdas, 1:22.
33 Jesuit Father De Friz, Al-Kersi Al-Rasouli Wal Batriarkia Al-Sharqia Al-Catholikyia, published in the magazine Al-Wehda Biliman in Lebanon, 1971.
34 Same pp. 7, 9 & 10.
35 Autonomous: self directing freedom, esp. moral independence.
36 Autocephalous: being independent of external and especially patriarchal authority - used esp. of Eastern Orthodox national churches.
37 Ecumenical: worldwide or general in extent, influence or application. Representing the whole of a body of churches.
38 Lecture by the author in Vienna, Austria on May 5, 1972.
39 Lecture by the author in Vienna on 6-9-1973.
40 Chalcedon, a district within Constantinople (Istanbul).
41 Bishop Gregorios Georges Shahin," Nahjon Wassim (Homs 1911), Vol. 1, p. 14; Patriarch Rehmani, A-Mabaheth Al-Jalia, pp. 23, 24 & 28.
42 Lemon the French, Moukhtassar Twarikh Al-Kanasi;translated by Rev. Youssef Daoud (Mosul 1873), p. 178.
43 Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum Al-Durar Al-Nafisa. p. 143.
44 Rev. Butros Nassri, Dhakhirat Al-Adhan fi Twarikh Al-Mashriqa wal Maghriba Al-Suryian Mosul 1905), p. 73
45 The Gospel of Matthew 2:2.
46 The Book of Acts 2:9.
47 Mari bn Suleiman, Akhbar Fatarikat Kursi Al-Mashreq, fromthe book Al-Ma dal (Rome 1899), 1. 1; - Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum, Al-Durar Al-Nafisa, Vol. 1, pp.76&77; Eugene Tisserand, Khoulassa Tarikyia Lilkanisah Al-Kaldania; translated by Bishop Suleiman Sayegh (Mosul 1939), p. 76.
48 Al-Durar Al-Nafisa, p. 586; Nahjon Aassim, p. 12.
49 Catholicos: general father; Maphrian: a Syriac word meaning fruitful.
50 Patriarch Ignatius Yacoub III, Dafacat Al-Tib fi Tarikh Deir Mar Matta Al-Ajib (Zahle 1961), p. 51.
51 Same pp. 42 & 43.
52 Al-Lou Lou Al-Manthour, p. 16.
53 Dafakat Al-Tib. p. 34, quote from Al-Tarikh Al-Kanassi, by Bar Hebraeus, Vol. 2, pp. 87 & 99; Tarikh Mar Mikhail Al-Kabir, p. 35
54 Dafakat Al-Tib. p. 35; Al-Lou lou Al-Manthour, p. 26.
55 Damascus Patriarchal Magazine, 3rd year, 1964, No. 21; pp. 6&7; Patriarch Zakka I Iwas, Merkat fi Hayat Ra'i i Al-Rouat (Homs 1958), p. 344.
56 Rev. Ishaq Armaleh, Al-Salasel Al-Tarikhia (Beirut1910), p. 135.
57 Cardinal Tisserand, Khoulassa Tarikhyia Lilkanissa Al-Kaldania, p. 107. From a bull issued by Pope Ojanius IV; Nahjon Wassim, p. 57.
58 Nahjon Wassim, Vol. 1, pp. 72 & 73.
59 Same, Vol. 1, p. 8.
60 Rev. Issa Assa'd, Al-Turfa Al-Naqia mn Tarikh AlKanisa Al-Massthia (Homs 1924), appendix p. 453.
61 Nahjon Wassim, Vol. 1, pp. 41 & 42; Al-Mashreq, magazine published in Mosul, 1st year, p.847.
62 The author, Al-Merqat, pp. 24 & 25.
63 Bishop Youhanna Dolabani, Al-Mithal Al-Rabani Buenos Aires 1942; Patriarch Yacoub III Al-Mujahed Al-Rassouli Damascus1978.
64 Archdeacon Ne'matallah Denno, Iqamat Al-Dalil alaIstemrar Al-Esm Al-Assil (Mosul 1949).
65 Patriarch Zakka I Iwas, Akidat Al-Tajsed Al-Ilahi (Aleppo 1981).
66 The Constitution of the Syrian Orthodox Church issued by the Synod of Homs in 1959 and amended by the Synod of Damascus 1979.
67 Rev. Issa Ass ad, Al-Terfa Al-Naqia (Homs 1922), Appendix p. 424.
68 Rev. Edward L. Cults, Turning Points of General Church History (N.Y. 1890), p. 446.

The Christians Under Turkish Rule “Crusades” “Conflict Between Christendom And Islam” Dr. Matti Moosa

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 06:20:21 -0400

The Christians Under Turkish Rule

Dr. Matti Moosa

More than any other Muslim writer, Ibn al-Athir has discussed the character and achievements of Nur al-Din Zangi, who he says died from al-khawaniq (angina) in 1173-74.[46] Ibn al-Athir says he read the history of the rulers before and after Islam and found no sovereign except al-Khulafa al-Rashidun (the Rightly Guided Caliphs) and the Umayyad Caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (reigned 717-720) to be more praiseworthy for his conduct, justice, and fairness than al-Malik al-Adil Nur al-Din. He lauds Nur al-Din for his indifference to worldly things and for his strict adherence to Islamic law, devotion and piety, adding that he spent long hours in prayer, even at midnight and early morning. He was a very strict Muslim who practiced the rules of the Muslim faith seriously. A part of his faith was Jihad (holy war), for which he was called to make Islam triumph. He was a Sunnite of the Hanafite school, but without prejudice against Muslims of other schools. He was abstemious in his food, simple in his dress, and chaste in sexual matters. He glorified the Islamic Shari’a (law), which impacted his work and conduct. Ibn al-Athir goes on to enumerate Nur al-Din’s achievements, like the establishment of Dar al-Adl (The House of Justice) in Damascus, the building of schools in Aleppo, Hama, and Damascus not only for the Sunnites but also for the Shafiites, and the founding of a great hospital in Damascus where rich and poor Muslim people were treated alike. He also built inns and lodges for the Sufis and homes for the orphans, staffed by men who taught the Quran. The most famous of the many mosques he built is the one that bore his name, al-Jami al-Nuri (The Nuri Mosque) in Mosul, with the tallest minaret in the whole Muslim world, known today as al-Jami al-Kabir (the Great Mosque).[47] In brief, if one follows Ibn al-Athir, he will conclude that Nur al-Din Zangi was “the most ideal Muslim” in every respect. His domain extended far and wide, from Mosul to all of Syria, Egypt, and Yemen.[48]

            But Ibn al-Athir shows a dark side of Nur al-Din Zangi’s character in discussing his treatment of the Christians. He says “Nur al-Din (May God have mercy on his soul)” used a great deal of trickery, duplicity, and deception in dealing with the Franks, and thus was able to control most of the regions they had formerly held. An example of his stratagem is what he did to the Armenian Malih (Mleh), son of Leo I, Roupenid ruler of Cilicia (1173-1175). He kept deceiving, coaxing him and offering him estates until he won him over and used him to fight against the Franks,.the Byzantines, and even his own people. Supported by Nur al-Din, Malih captured the major cities of Adana, Mamistra (al-Mississa) and Tarsus in Cilicia in 1173 and defeated the Byzantine forces, killing many. He sent thirty of their leaders as prisoners and plenty of booty to Nur al-Din, who in turn sent some of them along with the booty to the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustadi bi Amr Allah (1170-1180) with a letter informing him of the victory, because some of the caliph’s troops had participated in it. Asked why he dealt with Malih as he did, Nur al-Din said that he used him to fight against his own people and to stop him from challenging his (Nur al-Din's) troops.[49] The Armenian writer K. L. Astarjian says that Malih had a bad upbringing which affected his life and behavior. He vacillated between several religions and at one time joined the Templars, but then turned against them. Malih embraced Islam before he became involved with Nur al-Din Zangi, who influenced him to invade Cilicia and conspire against his own brother Thoros.[50]

            To William of Tyre, Malih was a most wicked man. When his brother Thoros II died in 1168, the nobles chose Thomas, a nephew of Thoros and Malih on his sister’s side, as administrator of Thoros’s principality. Thomas was well-born but totally unqualified for this position, and Malih, taking advantage of his weakness, quickly seized control of the principality. To buttress his power, he betrayed his own people and defected to Nur al-Din Zangi and offered him allegiance. Nur al-Din welcomed this renegade and, on well-defined terms favorable to himself, provided Malih with a sizable cavalry force. Malih was the first of his [Armenian] people to violate the customs of his ancestors. He not only invaded and occupied the major cities of Cilicia, but also dispossessed the Knights Templar of their holdings there, although at one time he had belonged to their order. He formed an alliance with Nur al-Din and the Turks, on terms appropriate for brothers. By his actions, says William, he rejected the law of God and did immense injury to the Christians. Realizing that Malih and Nur al-Din repesented a great danger to their domains, King Amalric I of Jerusalem (1163-1174) and the governor of Antioch joined forces to fight Malih. Amalric sent several envoys to Malih asking to meet and discuss the situation with him, but without success. War became inevitable. No sooner did he march against Malih in Cilicia than reports reached him that Nur al-Din had attacked Petra in Arabia Secunda. As Amalric and the Franks continued to drive toward Cilicia, however, another messenger brought word that Nur al-Din, who apparently was not yet in a position to challenge the Franks, had abandoned the siege.[51]

            The Syriac sources partly agree with this account. They say that before Thoros II, governor of Cilicia, died in 1168, he gave instructions that his youngest son (apparently under age) was to succeed him, and Thomas, the son of his aunt, should serve as his administrator. Deprived of the chance to succeed his brother, Malih became furious and contacted Nur al-Din, who supplied him with an army of Turks. He attacked and ravaged Cilicia, capturing 16,000 youths and maidens, men and women, and monks and bishops, and carried them to Aleppo; there he sold them to merchants and gave the proceeds to the Turks who had supported him. Hoping to appease him, the Armenians of Cilicia met with him and offered him half the country. Malih accepted the offer and assured them under oath that the other half would go to Thoros’s young son, but soon he broke his oath and took possession of all Cilicia, with its towns and fortresses. He then took his vengeance on his opponents. He gouged the eyes of many bishops and governors and cut off their hands and feet. He flayed others alive and cast their bodies to wild animals.[52] When Amalric learned of Malih’s ill treatment of the Christians, he came to fight against him. Malih sought the Turks’ help, but the king routed them and Malih sought refuge in his fortress. When the king besieged the fortress, he began to feel pain. Finally, he repented and apologized for his bad deeds, swore an oath of fealty to the king, and promised never to join the Turks.[53] Malih’s end came in 1175, when his army commanders revolted against him because of his abominable deeds. He left his camp at night and fled to one of his fortresses. The guards, who were in collusion with the army leaders, captured Malih, cut him into pieces, and threw him to the dogs. They brought his cousin Roupen, son of Stephen, who had been hiding in Tarsus out of fear of Malih, and installed him as their king. As soon as he took power, however, Roupen retaliated by killing those who had murdered Malih, on the pretext that they had treated him cruelly.[54]

            The Anonymous Edessan’s view of Nur al-Din is similar to that of Ibn al-Athir. He says that Nur al-Din was a schemer, cunning, and very strict in observing Islamic laws. It is said that he neither drank wine nor allowed others to do so. He banned the singing, merriment and dancing enjoyed by other Muslim sovereigns. It is even said that no one heard him laugh. He ate alone, and only once a day. He was not lecherous, nor did he marry many women, as was the reprehensible custom of the Muslim sovereigns. He wore simple dress, fasted constantly, and read the Quran. He acted with justice and offered alms to poor Muslims and even to pious Christians. He persisted in strengthening Islamic laws and customs in the countries he had conquered, and abolished all taxes and excises in the countries under his control. And if he learned that an injustice had been done, he was quick to compensate the victim. He never punished anyone without a trial and reliable testimony. His camp was free from rowdiness, frivolous play, and clamor.[55]

            But the Anonymous Edessan, Michael Rabo, and William of Tyre show this Turkish ruler in an unfavorable light when they describe his treatment of the native Christians. William of Tyre says that Nur al-Din was a just prince, valiant and wise, and a religious man according to the traditions of his people, but also a persecutor of the Christian name and faith.[56] Michael Rabo and the Anonymous Edessan show that the Christians suffered greatly from Nur al-Din’s oppression and persecution. When his brother Qutb al-Din Mawdud, lord of Mosul died in 1170, he went to take control of the city and instigated the Muslim jurists against the Christians, whom his brother had treated kindly. He was extremely strict about observing the times of prayer and not drinking wine, and was so devoted to observing the tenets of Islam that the Muslims nicknamed him “al-Nabi” (The Prophet), because he believed that he was like Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. He even expected Allah to talk to him face to face, as he did to Moses. Some of the Muslims who mocked him for his belief and called him a “prophet” sarcastically told him that he, being a divine personage, had appeared to them in the masjid, and he believed them.[57]

            To endear himself more to the Muslims, Nur al-Din hardened his heart against the Christians and ordered that new Christian churches and monasteries be demolished. When he reached the city of Nisibin, the Muslims clamored that the Christians were restoring their churches, and he ordered them destroyed. The Muslims pulled down the wall of the Great Church of St. Jacob of Nisibin, which had been held by the Nestorians since the fifth century (when Iraq was part of the Persian empire), and stole religious articles and about a thousand books. They did the same thing to churches elsewhere. Because Nur al-Din hated the Christians, says Michael Rabo, he appointed one of his relatives, Ibn Asrun, as judge and sent him throughout Syria to demolish every new addition to the churches built in the time of his father and his brother. Everywhere he went, Ibn Asrun asked the Christians for a bribe. If he received it, he would swear that the buildings added to the church were old, thus saving it from destruction; otherwise, he ordered it demolished. When Nur al-Din learned what Ibn Asrun had done, he fired him. Meanwhile, encouraged by his oppression of the Christians, the Muslims of Mardin usurped the Church of the Forty Martyrs.[58]

            From Nisibin, Nur al-Din marched to capture Sinjar, north of Mosul, and then laid siege to Mosul itself.[59] When he reached the city, the Kurds who lived in the neighborhood of the Monastery of Mar Matta (today called the Monastery of Shaykh Matti, 25 kilometers northeast of Mosul), having heard that Nur al-Din was oppressing the Christians, seized the opportunity to destroy the monastery. They attacked it at night, but the monks, who were ready to repel them, destroyed their ladders and even killed some of the marauders. The Kurds then attacked the monastery in daylight, but the Syrians in the neighboring villages came to its aid and drove them away. The Kurds finally resorted to trickery and made a false peace with the monks, who paid them thirty dinars as a sign of their peaceful intention. The monks fell into the trap and told the villagers to go home. As they were leaving, the Kurds immediately gathered on top of the mountain and rolled down a huge rock that hit the monastery wall, creating an opening close to the aqueduct leading to the monastery's cistern. (The rock is still lodged in the wall of the monastery, as this author has personally observed during several visits there.) The monks immediately filled the opening with stones and lime, but the Kurds attacked them with arrows; as they retreated, the Kurds unsheathed their swords and chased them inside, killing fifteen of them.[60] The monks, few in number, were no match for the 1500 Kurds; only those who had taken refuge in the monastery’s upper citadel escaped death. The Kurds pillaged the monastery, carried off whatever they could load onto their beasts, and left. After they had gone, the monks in the citadel removed the rest of the books and religious objects and went to Mosul. The Monastery of Mar Matta was desolate, and the monks would not dare to live in it. The Syrians of Mosul hired men and paid them thirty dinars to guard and prevent the Kurds from doing more damage. On learning what the Kurds had done to the monastery, the governor of Mosul sent troops out and killed a great number of them. In retaliation, the Kurds destroyed nine villages in the Nestorian district, looted and burned the houses, and killed their inhabitants.[61] The Anonymous Edessan adds that the Kurds also attacked the Monastery of Mar Sergius (also called al-Mu’allaq Monastery) in the Barren Mountain.[62]

            When Nur al-Din Zangi occupied Mosul, it was ruled by Sayf al-Din Ghazi II, the son of his brother Qutb al-Din Mawdud who had originally chosen his son Imad al-Din to succeed him as atabeg of Mosul, but then changed his mind and designated his younger son, named for his uncle, Sayf al-Din Ghazi I (d. 1149). This change was made through the machinations of the eunuch Fakhr al-Din Abd al-Masih, the tutor of Qutb al-Din’s children. Although he was a Christian from the province of Antioch, he pretended to be a Muslim. He plotted with Khatun, the daughter of Husam al-Din Timurtash and mother of Sayf al-Din, to have her son replace Imad al-Din as lord of Mosul. On learning of the conspiracy, Imad al-Din asked his uncle Nur al-Din for help in reclaiming the governorship. According to Ibn al-Athir, Nur al-Din not only disparaged Fakhr al-Din Abd al-Masih for his injustice, but detested him both for his part in the conspiracy and for his Christian faith. Abd al-Masih offended the Muslims of Mosul because he loved the Christians and helped them. Others say Nur al-Din tried to subjugate Mosul because of his jealousy of Abd al-Masih, who administered the city so wisely and capably that Sayf al-Din was governor only in name.[63]

            Realizing that the people of Mosul would not resist Nur al-Din’s attack because they were inclined toward him, Abd al-Masih sent emissaries to sue for peace. According to Ibn al-Athir (and Bar Hebraeus, who appears to follow him), Abd al-Masih demanded a pledge of safety for his own life and a promise that Nur al-Din would not usurp power from his nephew. Nur al-Din replied that he had come not to snatch the city or the kingdom from his brother’s sons, but to save the people from the authority of Abd al-Masih; he pledged to spare Abd al-Masih but said he would expel him from Mosul. Peace then prevailed, and Nur al-Din entered Mosul. He took quarters in the citadel and appointed another eunuch, Sa’d al-Din Gümüshtigin, to administer the city’s affairs. But he left the government of the city and the whole province of Mosul to his nephew Sayf al-Din Ghazi II, and after seventeen days he departed for Syria. He took Fakhr al-Din Abd al-Masih with him, but changed his name from Abd al-Masih (Servant of Christ) to Abd Allah (Servant of Allah) and offered him a generous living allowance.[64]

            When Nur al-Din Zangi was in Mosul, says Michael Rabo, he “was intoxicated with vainglory because the Muslims considered him a prophet.”[65] He oppressed the Christians by introducing new measures against them. He burdened them with taxes and the jizya. He ordered them to wear sashes around their waists and not to grow their hair long, so that they could be distinguished from the Muslims (making them the object of mockery). He ordered that the Byzantine Christians wear a red patch on their shoulders, to distinguish them from other people.[66] He also ordered that no Christian should ride a saddled horse or mule. He expelled all Christian secretaries from government departments and from the governor’s court except Deacon Abdun, a wealthy old man known for his wisdom and knowledge. Soon after Nur al-Din left Mosul, however, the Christians were relieved from his iniquitous measures through the magnanimity of his nephew, the good governor Sayf al-Din Ghazi II (atabeg of Mosul, 1170-1176).[67]

            To enhance his standing among the Muslims, Nur al-Din used every conceivable method to humiliate the Christians. He became more arrogant, especially after capturing Syria, Egypt and Athur (northern Iraq). Michael Rabo says Nur al-Din acted as if he had conquered the whole earth and tried through various measures to denigrate the Christians so that the Muslims would regard him as their Imam (religious leader). As if instigated by Satan, Nur al-Din wrote to the caliph (the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustanjid, 1160-1170), “The words of the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran, indicating that the Muslims should do no harm to the Christians for five hundred years, have become invalid because of the passage of those years. Therefore, it is imperative to annihilate the Christians in the regions under the influence of the Muslims. Any Christian who refuses to embrace Islam should be killed.”[68] He also expressed his desire to have an audience with the caliph to explain further the letter’s contents. The letter scared the caliph, who thought Nur al-Din’s intention was to deceive him, capture Baghdad, and become caliph in his place. The caliph, all the more suspicious because he knew that Nur al-Din fancied himself a prophet, did not respond to his initiatives.

            When al-Mustanjid died, he was succeeded by his son al-Mustadi (1170-1180), who had his Vizir killed because he hated the Christians. Much to the relief of the Christians, the new caliph was favorably disposed toward them, as if to spite the Vizir. As a sign of his tolerance, the caliph released the Syrian dignitaries of the Tuma family, who had been detained by his father, and restored their homes and churches to them. The released Syrians told the caliph how his father had discovered the deception of Nur al-Din and rejected his emissaries. The new caliph wrote to Nur al-Din, “You have no right to pretend to be a prophet and enact laws like Allah. You have misunderstood the true words of Muhammad regarding the years. Allah did not order us to kill people without cause.”[69] After receiving this message, Nur al-Din Zangi felt ashamed and sent other messengers asking the caliph to let him visit his father’s tomb. The caliph, knowing his real intention was to occupy Baghdad, rejected this request and even threatened to challenge him if he did so. His action certainly favored the Christians, whom Nur al-Din hated. To Michael Rabo, it was a divine action showing that God had not forgotten His people. Doleful but thankful, he wrote, “Although God had caused the Muslim Arabs and Turks to rule over us because of our sins, He did not for one day deny us His mercy, but always protected us from our haters and showed mercy to His church.”[70]

            Nur al-Din Zangi’s persecution of the Christians appears to have encouraged other Muslim rulers to usurp Christian churches. In 1170 the eunuch Mu’ayyid al-Din, governor of Mardin, appropriated the nave of the Syrian Church of the Forty Martyrs and gave it to the Muslims, who annexed it to their mosque. The next day he fell off his mount and felt guilty, believing that his fall was a divine punishment for what he had done to the church. He wanted to restore the nave to the church, but did not for fear of offending the Muslims.[71] This incident was followed the same year by another, no less grievous to the Christians, involving a monk, Hasan bar Kulaib (or Kumaib) of the Abkar Monastery in the Mountain of Mardin.[72] A conflict apparently arose involving him, his two brothers (also monks), and other inmate monks of the monastery over his bad conduct, for which Hasan bar Kulaib was stripped of his position as a monk. In a fit of anger, he embraced Islam and fled to Jerusalem, where he felt guilty and returned to Christianity. The governor of Mardin arrested his two brothers and the other monks, who were tortured to death. The Muslims of Mardin used his conversion to Islam as a pretext to capture the Abkar Monastery and convert it to a masjid for the use of Muslim Kurds.[73] In 1172, the Muslims of Mardin also seized the Syrian Church of St. Thomas after a Syrian man named Barsoum committed adultery with a Muslim woman. He was arrested and tortured almost to death, and his possessions were confiscated. Because Barsoum had renovated the Church of St. Thomas at his own expense in the time of the governor Husam al-Din, the Muslims, arguing that the church was his personal property, claimed it and converted it into a mosque. The Christians of Mardin, grieved to the extent that they blasphemed against divine justice, tried to reclaim the church, but their action angered the Muslims more against them. They lodged a complaint and asked the governor to restore their church to them, but his heart was hardened and he rejected their complaint, thus creating more aggravation and pressure for the Christians.[74]

            Not surprisingly, Nur al-Din’s death in May 1174 brought feelings of relief not only to the Christians, but to Muslim rulers who were discontented with his strict observance of the Islamic law, particularly because he forbade them to drink wine or engage in any kind of merriment.[75] The chief reaction to Nur al-Din’s death came from his nephew Sayf al-Din Ghazi II, who occupied Nisibin and abrogated the laws enacted by his uncle. Al-Isfahani says he destroyed the place in the mosque where Nur al-Din had inscribed the restrictive laws and allowed the public drinking of wine.[76] It is more plausible that, as the Anonymous Edessan says, Sayf al-Din destroyed the stone tablet over the door of the masjid of Nisibin, on which Nur al-Din had inscribed his instructions including the anathemas on those who violated them. Also, although he allowed public consumption of wine, he restored the poll and land taxes that his uncle had abolished. Shortly after Nur al-Din Zangi died, the Muslims demolished the Great Church of Hagia Sophia in Edessa. They used some of the stones to rebuild the city’s wall and fortress, but carried most of them away to build a masjid in Harran. The Muslims also tore down the northern part of the Great Church of the Apostles (the part left intact later fell down) and carried the stone to the fortress. At the same time, they tore down the chancel of the Church of St. Stephen and the chancel of the Church of Forty Martyrs, which was adjacent to their masjid.[77]

            Although Sayf al-Din Ghazi seems to have been more tolerant than Nur al-Din, the Christians were still harassed by the Turks, whose rulers were clearly partial to the Muslims and frequently interfered in the religious or ecclesiastical affairs of the church, as Michael Rabo relates firsthand. As patriarch, Michael Rabo was often opposed by rebellious and recalcitrant bishops and clergy who could not abide his strict observance of the church’s canon laws. When he was called to serve as patriarch, he says, he felt it his duty to respect and defend holy laws against accepting a bribe to ordain a clergyman or usurping a diocese or congregation because of the influence of a political ruler, laws which had been violated or ignored. For this reason he was opposed by several bishops, including Iwannis Denha of al-Raqqa (Callinicus), whose congregation had lost confidence in him because of alleged misconduct and wanted him replaced. The patriarch convened a council at the Monastery of Mar Hananya (now the Za’faran Monastery near Mardin in Turkey) to consider the case. After the testimony, the council was convinced of the bishops irreligious actions and decided to confine him to a monastery for three years until he improved his conduct. Denha at first accepted the council’s verdict, but then went to Mardin to complain to Nestorian leaders against Patriarch Michael Rabo. When the Nestorians learned the truth about his case, they expelled him.

            Bishop Denha then turned to Najm al-Din, the Muslim governor of Mardin, and offered him a bribe to have Michael Rabo killed. The governor sent some men who arrested the patriarch and made him appear before the governor as a criminal, accompanied only by Abu Kir, archdeacon of the church of Mardin. The governor addressed the patriarch harshly but, after hearing the case, expelled Bishop Denha and dismissed his complaint. The bishop, still determined to spite the patriarch, went to Mosul and slandered Patriarch Michael Rabo to Sayf al-Din, the lord of Mosul, promising to pay him a thousand dinars. Soldiers arrested Michael Rabo and brought him to Sayf al-Din, who was then in Nisibin. The soldiers ushered the patriarch, together with two bishops and a number of monks, into the presence of Sayf al-Din’s deputy, who said, “Since Allah has placed you [the Christians] under our control, you should not resist the royal decree. You should fulfill the royal order of the victorious king (Sayf al-Din), or else you will be humiliated and tortured. Our king has ordered that this bishop should have jurisdiction over the dioceses of al-Raqqa, Harran, Saruj, and Habura (al-Khabur). Accordingly, you should return peacefully to your place or something harmful will take place.”

Michael Rabo courageously answered that divine laws are instituted by three Books: the Torah (Old Testament) of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Christians, and the Quran of the Muslims. He asked the deputy to search these three books and see for himself if God had ordered the rulers to administer the countries by their worldly authority. Faith, he contended, should be administered by choice and not by compulsion. He declared that the just Muslim rulers who came after Muhammad had to the present day observed the interdicts of God and never violated them. According to the command of God, these rulers imposed on the Christians the jizya (poll tax) and obedience, but they did not interfere in matters of faith. “If you try to alter the course followed by former Muslim rulers,” he added, “then know that what you do is not against me but against Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. You would violate their Books, or in other words you would be violating the commands of God.” Worse still, he said, the deputy believed Bishop Denha’s complaints against him. If he would do more investigation, he would easily find they were lies. In fact, the dioceses which the deputy said were in the bishop’s jurisdiction were still under the control of Sayf al-Din Ghazi II. Said Michael Rabo, “If he (the bishop) was appointed by your order, why then he is rejected by their congregations? He has committed a crime against our laws and resorted to your royal authority to force me to violate the laws of God. I would rather have my head cut off than step on these laws.” At this point he extended his neck and told the deputy to cut off his head. The deputy entered Sayf al-Din’s tent, then came out and led the patriarch into his presence, forbidding anyone to accompany him. When Michael Rabo stood before Sayf al-Din, he invoked God's blessing on him. The deputy said, “O patriarch, ask God’s blessing because Sayf al-Din Ghazi has ordered that your laws should be executed, and no one will disobey you.” Michael Rabo repeated his blessing and thanks, then left with tears in his eyes. The bishops and monks were jubilant, while the slanderer (Bishop Iwannis Denha) was disappointed.

            Persisting in his evildoing, the bishop tried another tactic to have Michael Rabo condemned. He shouted in the midst of the Muslim throng, “Know all of you that this old man is a deceiver. He is laboring in the lands of the Muslims to convert them to Christianity, and here is the evidence.” The bishop began to read a letter Michael Rabo had written about the monk Hasan bar Kulaib, who had converted to Islam. The Muslims, greatly agitated by it, tried to stone the patriarch. The monks with him fled, and he stood alone before the Muslims carrying stones in their hands to kill him. By chance some Muslims from Mardin, the city of Hasan bar Kulaib, were present and testified that he was a Christian monk, not a Muslim. The angry crowd apparently believed them and let the patriarch go in peace. Sayf al-Din Ghazi II provided him with a letter of authority and the patriarch returned to his place safe. But this was not the end of the wickedness of Bishop Iwannis Denha. He went to Baghdad and lodged a complaint with the Abbasid caliph, but Patriarch Michael Rabo wrote to the Syrian believers in Baghdad about the case, and the caliph expelled Bishop Denha. The bishop returned to Antioch, where he met with Patriarch Michael Rabo and asked his forgiveness. In a true gesture of Christian love, the patriarch accepted the bishop’s apology and sent him to the Edessan Mountain to await appointment to an available diocese.[78]

            Michael Rabo relates another episode involving clergymen who from sheer avarice turned to earthly (i.e., Muslim) rulers to oppress their own Syrian people and achieve their goals. The antagonist in this case was Ignatius, the avaricious bishop of Tur Abdin, who obtained money through various means. Michael Rabo admonished him to abandon his unworthy behavior and adhere to the laws of the church, but he did not lobey. One Sunday morning he left the worship service and went to the governor, as was his custom, asking him to throw into prison monks, priests, and laymen on a variety of charges. That night, a group of Kurds captured him and beat him badly, but his companions managed to flee. Not satisfied with merely beating him, the Kurds drove a stake into his buttocks and left him near death. Some passersby found him, and as they pulled the stake from his bottom he died. It is said that he was responsible for the deaths of a number of Syrian believers, but it is not known whether they were killed by Ignatius himself or by those whom he had instigated.[79] His case clearly shows that there were renegade and outright immoral clergymen within the church who oppressed their own people, as did their worldly rulers. It also shows the sad state of the patriarchs of the Syrian Church, who had to struggle to save their church and authority not only from the Muslim Turks and their rulers, but from bishops and other clergy whose immoral and evil actions aggravated their situation and weakened the church’s spiritual authority.

            The men who created particular difficulty for Patriarch Michael Rabo by seeking the aid of Muslim rulers against him were Theodore bar Wahbun and Karim bar Masih. Theodore was a native of Melitene, the son of the priest Sohda bar Wahbun. His godfather, the patriarch, brought him to the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, made him his personal secretary, and treated him with kindness and love. At the monastery, Theodore proved to be an avid reader, acquiring profound secular and spiritual knowledge, but he lacked spiritual wisdom and particularly the fear of God. He was rebellious and arrogant, with an inflated ego because of his knowledge.[80] Blinded by false pride and ambition, Theodore turned against his benefactor, seeking to usurp the office of the patriarchate. To achieve this goal he resorted to treachery, manipulation, and bribery of Muslim governors. In 1180 he plotted to split the church with the aid of some bishops who were displeased with the patriarch for his strict implementation of canon laws, which they had violated. Theodore bar Wahbun tried to stir trouble in Melitene, but the congregation had him expelled from the city. He fled to Edessa and then to Jerusalem, inciting the congregations against the patriarch. He failed at this, but succeeded in convincing four bishops to help him become a patriarch. They contacted the governor of Amid, Abu al-Qasim Hasan (Abu al-Qasim Nisan, according to Bar Hebraeus), and offered him money if he would help them to install Theodore as patriarch. The governor was ready not only to violate the canons of the Christian church, which he did not respect or understand, but to violate the laws of Islam for money. Shortly afterwards, he invited Bar Wahbun to become patriarch. Bishop Ibrahim of Amid, who had been removed from his diocese for violating church laws, was to deliver the invitation, disguised as a Turkish officer, but his mission failed due to the sudden death of the governor, who was succeeded by his son.[81] The rebellious bishops called on the new governor and showed him the invitation his father had sent, offering him more money if he would help make Bar Wahbun patriarch. The bishops’ action enraged the Syrian congregation of Amid, who told the new governor, “We will never permit our faith to be destroyed.” He replied, “If your patriarch visits us, we will expel Bar Wahbun.” After the congregation invited the patriarch, he agreed to go to Amid and meet with the governor, but the subsequent evil action of his opponents disturbed him and the church. As the patriarch left the Monastery of Mar Barsoum to travel to Amid, the rebellious bishops entered the church in Mardin, locked the doors, and ordained Theodore bar Wahbun as patriarch in a night service. In the morning they disguised themselves in different clothing and left for Mosul to meet with the Maphrian Mar Yuhanna.[82]

            Karim Bar Masih had a hand in the ordination of Bar Wahbun. Bar Masih came to Mardin, the seat of the patriarch’s diocese, and usurped it by offering gold to the governor. He invited Theodore to Mardin and proclaimed him patriarch, even though he had been condemned not only by the patriarch and his clergy, but by the maphrian and the clergy of the East. Upon hearing of Bar Masih’s action, the Syrians of Mardin, together with the monks of the neighboring monasteries, notably the Monastery of Mar Hananya (Za’faran Monastery), appealed to Patriarch Michael Rabo to appoint a bishop for them. The patriarch chose a learned and articulate monk named Modyana (Confessor), from the Edessan mountain, and ordained him as bishop of Mardin. But the new bishop, unable to become an officer of the church without the governor’s approval, was forced to offer the governor the same amount of gold Bar Wahbun had offered him to obtain his investiture as a bishop.[83]

            In Mosul, Theodore Bar Wahbun and his collaborators asked the Maphrian Mar Yuhanna (d. 1189) to approve Bar Wahbun as patriarch, but he refused. Disappointed, the conspirators traveled aimlessly from place to place. At the town of Dara, between Nisibin and Mardin, the leading Syrian dignitaries urged them to forsake their machinations and obey the patriarch (Michael Rabo). After learning that the conspirators were in Dara, the Maphrian Yuhanna and some bishops went there, captured them, and brought them to the patriarch in chains. At a council convened by the patriarch, they admitted their guilt in writing and asked his forgiveness. Soon, however, Theodore Bar Wahbun, violating his promise to forsake his evil ways, resorted again to deception. Some of his allies hired ruffian Kurds to hide him at night until the patriarch had left the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, where the council met. The patriarch convened another council which also condemned Bar Wahbun, but he refused to leave the monastery, asking instead for forgiveness. The meek, compassionate patriarch accepted Theodore’s false apology, allotted him a cell at the monastery for his residence, and promised to ask the council to reconsider his condemnation. But no sooner did the patriarch leave to go to the Monastery of Mar Hananya than some other rebellious monks helped Bar Wahbun escape by lowering him in a basket from the monastery’s wall. He fled to Damascus, where he approached Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin) and offered him money to proclaim him as patriarch in the regions under his authority. He even wrote a letter slandering the patriarch, hoping that Saladin would destroy him. When the letter was read to him, Saladin inquired about Theodore and, after learning from some Christian believers in his service about his odious conduct, had him expelled.

            Frustrated, Theodore Bar Wahbun went to Jerusalem and began stirring trouble between the Franks and the Syrian minority, especially against Metropolitan Athanasius, who had been chosen to head the diocese of Jerusalem in 1184. Athanasius already had strained relations with the Franks because of a dispute over the Monastery of Mary Magdalene, which belonged to the Syrians but had been usurped by the Franks.[84] He had offered the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem a thousand dinars to return the monastery to the Syrians. The Syrian Church endured deplorable hardships because of the ownership dispute, which was further prolonged because of the Muslims’ occupation of Jerusalem. Bar Wahbun then went to Mardin and Mosul, where he offered bribes to the Turkish governor and his associates, hoping they would proclaim him a patriarch. His action encouraged Muslim governors everywhere to demand money for their help. Next, he turned to the Armenian Catholicos (Gregory IV, 1173-1193), then residing in the Qal’at Romaitha, asking his assistance as he had done with the Latin patriarch in Jerusalem. The catholicos, believing Theodore’s false promises, expelled the Syrian bishop from his diocese and placed the Syrians of Cilicia under his authority, and Theodore Bar Wahbun dared to call himself patriarch. He continued his actions against Patriarch Michael Rabo and lavished enormous amounts of money and gifts on the Turkish governors in Syria and Beth Nahrin, hoping they too would declare him patriarch. Bar Wahbun’s efforts were frustrated when his principal supporter, Catholicos Gregory, died in 1193, and his machinations ended when he died forty days later.[85]

            The death of the miscreant Theodore Bar Wahbun brought some relief to Patriarch Michael Rabo and his church, but he had still to deal with Karim Bar Masih, a monk from the Monastery of Mar Matta. Karim bar Masih belonged to the family of Jabir, which was originally from Takrit but, like many Syrian Takritians, had settled in Mosul. Rebellious and ambitious, he was as much a troublemaker as Bar Wahbun, whose ordination as patriarch he had supported in 1192. Mosul had a Muslim judge named Muhyi al-Din whom the governor greatly respected, and whose advice he always heeded (the governor's lieutenants hated him, but did not dare harm him). Judge Muhyi al-Din was in charge of collecting the tribute imposed on all the monasteries and their properties, including the Monastery of Mar Matta. After Maphrian Yuhanna died in 1189, Bar Masih, hoping to succeed him, sought the aid of this judge to achieve this goal. He took a boat down the Tigris to Takrit, the maphrian’s seat, to usurp the See of the Maphrianate.[86] The archimandrite and some monks of the Monastery of Mar Matta, some Syrian Takritian leaders from Mosul, and four bishops (Ignatius Gabriel Yuhanna bar Hindi, bishop of Urmia in Azerbaijan, Yuhanna Ruwad Marqia, bishop of Ba’arbaya, Saliba, bishop of the Monastery of Mar Matta, and Basilius Matta bar Shuwayk, bishop of Baghdad) wrote in support of Bar Masih and brought him to the patriarch to be ordained a maphrian. But other clerics, including the priest Abu Mansur Bar Tibun and the monks Yaqub and Shamtah of the Monastery of Mar Matta, wrote to the patriarch that Bar Masih was an insolent person who had surrounded himself with a band of wicked men.[87] Michael Rabo says that the Syrian congregations of Mosul and Takrit had informed him that they would never accept him as their maphrian because of his immoral conduct. The patriarch, who had also heard about Bar Masih’s conduct from the late Maphrian Yuhanna, felt he had to find a suitable person for this high office. To foil the plan of Bar Masih and his collaborators, the clergymen prevailed on the patriarch to choose his nephew Yaqub, a learned and venerable man who was ordained a maphrian at the Monastery of Saint Dumit in the province of Mardin in 1189, taking the name Gregorius.[88] When the other bishops, whom Michael Rabo calls “the gang of Bar Masih,” learned that their plan had failed, they bribed the governor, who issued an order naming Karim Bar Masih as maphrian.[89] At the Monastery of Mar Matta, they ordained Bar Masih a maphrian and named him Dionysius.[90]

            But things did not turn out as Bar Masih had wished, for judge Muhyi al-Din died soon afterwards. The Christians of Mosul asked the eunuch Mujahid al-Din, who hated Muhyi al-Din, to help restore their lawful Maphrian Gregorius, who for two years had been barred from entering Mosul because Muhyi al-Din had subjected them to Bar Masih’s authority, in violation of church laws. Mujahid al-Din agreed to help and provided them with letters of passage and a messenger, and they sent a delegation to fetch the maphrian, then at the Monastery of Mar Hananya, and brought him to Mosul with great joy and pomp. When Bar Masih reached Takrit, the Syrian congregation rejected him and he returned to Mosul, frustrated. As soon as he arrived, the officers of the Syrian Church had him placed in their custody. The maphrian and the bishops met to discuss his case and demanded that he return all the gold he had extorted from the Syrian churches. When he did not comply, they met with the clergy and congregation in the Church of the Takritians in Mosul and defrocked him, then sent him back to prison. A year later, his brother paid four hundred dinars, and Bar Masih was freed.

            Curiously, Michael Rabo says that in 1190, under pressure from his bishops, he delegated Bishop Gabriel, abbot of the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, and Bishop Abu al-Faraj, then in charge of the patriarchal office, to Sultan Salah al-Din (Saladin) to explain Bar Masih's machinations to him. Before they reached Damascus, while Saladin was besieging Akka (Acre), the two bishops were arrested as spies and thrown into prison, losing everything in their possession. But they were rescued through the effort of Muzaffar al-Din, son of Zayn al-Din, lord of Edessa, and finally obtained letters of support from Saladin.[91]

After three years of humiliation and condemnation, Bar Masih returned to his old ways. After paying the governor of Mosul 1000 dinars, he was allowed to proclaim himself bishop of Mosul and its environs. Encouraged by the Muslim governor’s support, he donned the garb of a bishop and traveled around the province of Mosul hoping to gather followers, but failed. Meanwhile, he was hounded by his creditors, who demanded that he settle his debts. Since he had no money, he was thrown into prison and remained there for eighteen months. Out of goodness and perhaps pity, Maphrian Gregorius had him released from prison. A year after his release he was finally forced to pay his debts. At the very end of his Chronicle, Michael Rabo states that toward the end of 1194, Maphrian Gregorius and four bishops came to see him at the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and offer allegiance to him. But as soon as they returned to their dioceses, Bar Masih slandered the maphrian to the governor, stating that he had left his diocese and would never return. But when the maphrian and the bishops returned in early 1195, Bar Masih was put to shame, and the maphrian was received warmly by his flock and the governor.[92]

            After Patriarch Michael Rabo died in 1199, Bar Masih caused more trouble for the church. He was imprisoned again and then released through the intercession of Maphrian Gregorius. Because he could not pay the huge debts he had incurred, he fled from Mosul to Mardin, then to Amid, and from there to Miyafarqin, where with the governor’s help he was able to become a bishop of the Syrian flock. But he was condemned by a church council and later absolved by the new Patriarch, Athanasius Saliba the Bald. On December 24, 1204, he died in Miyafarqin; he was buried by the Nestorians, who felt sorry for him after the Syrian Church refused to bury him because of his evil actions and the contention and discord he had caused within the church.[93]

            Around 1175, a sharp conflict arose between the Armenians and the Turks over the Samson (Sasun) Mountain, above Miyafarqin, which the Armenians had controlled since the time of the Assyrians (some Kurds also lived in the mountain and claimed it was theirs). With the help of the governor of Miyafarqin, the Turks occupied its fortresses and expelled the Armenians, and for five years they fought the Armenians living in Miyafarqin and Mardin. The governor oppressed and starved the Armenians, forcing them to surrender the fortresses to the great Armenian lord of Khilat (Akhlat) on Lake Van, Sukman II, Nasir al-Din Muhammad (1128-1183), known as Shah Armen.[94] A miscreant Armenian lord named Bakhyan lost his share of the mountain to the Turks and sought to control one of the fortresses. The Armenians gave him several villages, but this gift was not sufficient to satisfy his ambition. He converted to Islam, thinking the Muslim Turks would offer him a fortress. Much to his disappointment, he was repulsed, and his conversion to Islam benefited him nothing.[95]

            About 1201, before the death of Bar Masih, trouble arose between the Syrians of the village of Bartulli, east of Mosul, and the village’s Muslim khatib (preacher). The Anonymous Edessan says that the Syrian Christians complained against him to the village head, who had him whipped. The preacher went one Friday to the Great Mosque in Mosul (built by Nur al-Din Zangi) and provoked a disturbance against the Christians. A large mob of Muslims joined him and left the mosque to go to Bartulli and destroy it. But when they reached the city gate (Bab al-Jisr, the gate of the bridge over the River Tigris), they found it locked. Disappointed, they returned and vented their anger on the Great Church of the Syrian Takritians. They smashed its doors and sanctuary and pillaged everything inside -- beautiful church vessels, splendid curtains, crosses, Gospels, golden patens and chalices, and other magnificent brass items. They broke into the office of the maphrian, who was absent, and stole his belongings. They destroyed the closets and doors, and even dug into the floor and took great quantities of provisions, including seeds and grains stored in parts of the church.[96]

            The persecution of the Christian communities, particularly the Syrians of the diocese of the Monastery of Mar Matta, worsened beginning in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. The whole northern region of Iraq was a theater of conflict between the lords of Mosul, descendants of Imad al-Din Zangi, and the lords of Arbil. On his deathbed, al-Malik al-Qahir Izz al-Din Mas’ud II (reigned 1210-1218) made his freed slave Badr al-Din Lulu (1180-1259) the administrator for his ten-year-old son Nur al-Din Arslan Shah II (1218-1219), who succeeded him as atabeg of Mosul; he gave the citadels of ‘Aqra and Shush to his younger son, Imad al-Din, who later made Aqra the seat of his government.[97] Because of Nur al-Din’s tender age, his uncle Imad al-Din tried to gain control of his state. The able administrator, Badr al-Din Lulu, obtained from the Abbasid Caliph al-Nasir li Din Allah (1180-1225) a patent of investiture for Nur al-Din, but he still had to face the ambitious Imad al-Din, who was supported by Muzaffar al-Din Kukburi, lord of Arbil.[98] Nur al-Din died in 1219 and was succeeded by his brother Nasir al-Din Mahmud, then only three years old.

            After the death of Nasir al-Din in 1233, Muzaffar al-Din and Imad al-Din attacked the fortress of Imadiyya in northern Iraq, and Badr al-Din Lulu had his hands full trying to repel their forces and protect his state. This conflict seriously impacted the lives and safety of the Christians in the region. In the battle against Muzaffar al-Din Kukburi, Badr al-Din fled to Mosul and then to Balad, hoping to gather sufficient troops. Muzaffar al-Din chased after him and camped behind the hill of the fortress of Nineveh, but when he saw that Badr al-Din was about to crush him, he departed for Arbil.[99] While he was on his way there, some Kurds of Shahrzur in his company kidnaped a Syrian Christian bride from the village of Beth Sakhraya (today called Basakhra). The villagers pursued the Kurds, killed some of them, and freed the kidnaped bride. When Muzaffar al-Din heard of this he became furious, especially when he learned that the villagers had disgraced themselves and honored his enemy by shouting, “Long live the staff of gold, Badr al-Din!” In his anger, he sent troops who attacked the village of Beth Sakhraya and killed 300 villagers who had taken refuge in its church. Then the troops marched to the village of Bartulli and cut off the hands of young men with their swords.[100] In 1220 some chiefs of the Yezidis (known today as the Devil Worshipers) in the villages north of Mosul rebelled against Badr al-Din Lulu and plundered the village of Jabbara in the region of Nineveh, whose inhabitants were Syrian Christians, and killed its men, women and children.[101]

            After the death of Nasir al-Din Mahmud, Badr al-Din Lulu became the atabeg of Mosul.[102] At his death in 1259, he was succeeded by his son al-Malik al-Salih Isma’il (reigned1259-1261). In 1261, the Christians of Mosul and the province of Nineveh suffered tragedy when al-Malik al-Salih Isma’il, accompanied by Kurds, decided to force the Christians of the province of Nineveh to plunder and kill other Christians. His plan was foiled by Shams al-Din ibn Yunus of Bashiqa, who alerted the people of the province to the forthcoming danger and urged them to leave with him for Arbil. Many Christians believed him and departed to Arbil on the Thursday evening of Pentecost. On learning of the their departure, al-Malik al-Salih Isma'il changed his mind and abandoned the idea of slaughtering them, but in the confusion, the Kurds in Mosul attacked the Christians, plundering their possessions and killing everyone who refused to embrace Islam. A great majority of priests, deacons, and dignitaries converted to Islam to save their lives as the Kurds ravaged the country outside Nineveh, killing and robbing Christians. They attacked a convent in the village of Beth Khudayda (modern Qaraqosh) and killed the Christians hiding there.[103] They assembled thousands of horsemen and footsoldiers, attacked the Monastery of Mar Matta, and made war on the monks for four months. They set up ladders, planning to scale the wall, but the monks prevailed and burned the ladders. The Kurds hewed a mass of stone from the mountain above the monastery and rolled it toward the wall. The stone split in two; each part made a breach in the wall, but one remained stuck in it. The Kurds rushed toward the monastery, but the monks and the Syrian villagers inside fought back fiercely with stones and arrows and prevented them from entering. In the foray the archimandrite Abu Nasr of Bartulli was knocked out, and a few men were wounded slightly by arrows.[104] Weary of fighting, the monks sued for peace and pledged to give the Kurds all the hangings, curtains, and equipment of the church, and to collect gold, silver and jewelry for them. The Kurds were also anxious for peace because they had heard that the Mongols were coming to invade the region. Before they departed, they took a very large amount of property from the monastery, valued at 1000 gold dinars.[105]

            At that time the Syrian inhabitants of Beth Sakhraya and other natives of Nineveh took refuge in the Monastery of Mar Daniyal (St. Daniel), also known as Dayr al-Khanafis, or the Monastery of Beetles, near the village of Bartulli. But when they left it and crossed the river Zab to go to Arbil, the amir Kutulbeg accused them of coming from the side of the enemy and killed them all, men and women alike. When Sayf al-Din, lord of Jazirat ibn Umar, heard that his brother al-Malik al-Salih Isma’il had fled to Syria, he also prepared to flee. But before he fled, he rounded up the Christians and threw them into prison until they paid him 2000 gold dinars. On Ascension Day 1261, as the Christians remained in prison in a state of despair, Sayf al-Din distributed the gold among his troops, but finally 70,000 Kurds surrounded him and carried him off to Syria, and Jazirat ibn Umar was left without a lord. Two scouts, Izaz Bash and Muhammad, a captain of the guards, made themselves rulers of the region. They released the imprisoned Christians after exacting 7000 dinars from them, killing only two of them who had had communication with the Mongols.[106] Abu Nasr of Bartulli (d. 1290), who was archimandrite of the Monastery of Mar Matta, lamented these events in a 36-page ode which has fortunately survived.[107] He says that the wicked Kurds forced the priests to deny their Apostolic faith and plunged the deacons into the abyss of apostasy. They ruined the monks’ chastity and kept the believers from confessing the Holy Trinity. Those who refused to recant their faith were crowned with martyrdom. Out of envy, the evil marauders destroyed the churches and monasteries and had no mercy on the altars, the Table of Life, and the holy books. They even violated the Holy Scriptures. No church in all Athur, Nineveh, Rahubuth, Banuhadra (modern Duhuk), and Jazirat ibn Umar was left undefiled. The celebrations of the Holy Eucharist ceased because of the adversities which befell the believers, and the Monastery of Mar Matta it became the fortress of refuge for those who fled the sword and sought peace and tranquility.[108]

            Thus, it is apparent that the native Christian communities of Syrians and Armenians suffered external oppression by their rulers and, especially in the case of the Syrians, internal dissension. This dissension, stirred by mutinous clergymen like Bar Wahbun and Bar Masih, caused the high officers of the church and their communities to fall prey to greedy Muslim rulers, who relished the hefty bribes the rebellious clergy paid them. This was an unspeakably sad period for the native Christians, because it brought boundless pain to honorable leaders like Patriarch Michael Rabo and tremendously weakened their churches and communities, causing many people to embrace Islam in order to escape external oppression and internal conflict caused not only by avaricious Muslim rulers but by the clergy, who were contending for money or the control of more dioceses. One has only to read what is left of the Chronicle of the Anonymous Edessan to realize how deplorable was the internal state of the Syrian Church shortly after Michael Rabo died in 1199.[109]

The Christian communities also had the misfortune of being the victims of warfare between two Muslim groups, the Turks and the Kurds. Starting in 1185, the Turkomans waged war for eight years against their neighboring countries -- Armenia, Athur (northern Iraq), Syria, and Cappadocia. The Turkomans, says Michael Rabo, were nomads and tent dwellers. They spent the winter in the abundantly verdant plains south of Syria, where there was no snow or frozen ground. In the spring they moved to the northern region, where there was plenty of grass for their cattle, moving in herds so large they blocked the highways. The Kurds, who often committed robbery, stole the Turkomans’ horses, cows, camels and other animals, and skirmishes between the two sides occasionally brought casualties. To protect their cattle, the Turks began traveling in caravans. After they learned that two hundred Kurds were about to ambush them in the region of Shabakhtan, near Mardin, the hostilities escalated into warfare, with the result that 10,000 men fell on both sides. Angered, the Kurds brought together 30,000 men from the regions of Nisibin and Tur Abdin, while the Turkomans massed near Khabur. The Kurds were beaten and fled, and the bodies of their dead littered the area between the River Khabur and Nisibin. Soon afterwards, two more battles between the Turkomans and the Kurds took place in the district of Mosul. The Kurds were again defeated and fled to the mountain areas bordering Cilicia to protect their families and cattle, but the Turkomans attacked, stole their possessions, and annihilated them -- men, women, and children. The Turks sent groups of scouts into the mountains and plains of Syria and Mesopotamia, and whenever they found Kurds, they killed them without mercy and for no reason.[110]

            The other Eastern sources shed little light on the conflict between the Turkomans and the Kurds. Ibn Shaddad notes briefly states that in 1183 a battle was fought between the two sides, and that many men were killed.[111] Indeed, there was severe ethnic conflict in Saladin’s army between the Turks and the Kurds, who did not trust each other.[112] This conflict between the Kurds and the Mamluks apparently was so vehement and disruptive that it attracted the attention of the Franks. The Muslims’ aim was to capture King Richard Lion-Heart and bring him to Saladin.[113] The Anonymous Edessan says that the Turkomans became more ferocious when Saladin fell ill for four months in 1183 at Harran, to which he returned after failing to capture Mosul. The Kurds did not dare appear openly on the highways. The Turkomans invaded their villages and drove them from their mountain abodes, forcing them to live in towns under most miserable conditions. Thereafter, the Turkomans became inured to bloodshed, pillage and annihilation.[114]

Michael Rabo says the Christians suffered little harm in the first years of the Turkomans’ conflict with the Kurds, i.e., before 1185. But as it turned into warfare, the Turks became aware that the Kurds often hid their possessions in Christian villages. Moreover, because the Turkish governors did not stop the Turkomans from looting and killing, the Kurds moved into Greater Armenia. After annihilating the Kurds, the Turkomans attacked Armenia and took 26,000 Armenians captive and sold them as slaves. They set fire to the villages and to the Garabed Monastery, and killed all its monks and pillaged its books and possessions. Their troops occupied Tall al-Arabs fortress in the region of Shabakhtan and sold its occupants into slavery. Next they slaughtered 170 Syrian men in Tall Bisme, near Mardin. When the rulers saw the destruction of their territory and the decimation of their village populations, they fought against the Turkomans, especially in the provinces of Claudia and Melitene. In the village of Amrun in Claudia, the Turkomans killed many people, including 200 Syrian men. Says Michael Rabo, no one can describe the carnage and devastation during eight years (1185-1193) of warfare among the Turkomans, Kurds, and Arab Muslims.[115] The Syrians and the Armenians, who had no stake in this warfare, paid the price in lives and possessions. Even small Syrian Christian communities like Bartulli and Mosul were not immune to the antagonism and destructive acts of their Muslim neighbors. Not surprisingly, the numbers of the Christian Syrians and Armenians in greater Syria, Mesopotamia and southern Turkey fell drastically, while the number of Muslims increased.

            Michael Rabo relates several events that shed light on the Turkish rulers’ treatment of the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and their recognition of the saint’s power. In one case Feridun, lord of Melitene, and his profligate brother Muhammad fought over control of the city. Muhammad was soundly beaten and fled Melitene to join the Franks in Antioch. When conditions there did not suit him, he went to Sultan Kilij Arslan II of the Seljuks of Rum, hoping that the sultan would give him Melitene, but instead he received Heraclea (present day Ereghli in Turkey). Soon, however, Heraclea was taken from him. Muhammad went to the Turks in the East (Syria), only to be captured by Nur al-Din Zangi and imprisoned at al-Bira, on the bank of the Euphrates, where he lived off the charity of the people. While he was in prison the monks of the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, who feared Nur al-Din Zangi, bravely extended charity to him because he loved their monastery. When Nur al-Din died in 1174, Muhammad was released from prison; he learned that his brother’s wife, who hated her husband, had alredy left Melitene and gone to her family in Hisn Ziyad (modern Kharput in Turkey). He followed her there, and her family encouraged him to seize control of Melitene. He sought the divine intercession of Mar Barsoum and pledged that if he was successful, he would exempt the monastery from taxes. Disguised as a beggar, he went by night to Melitene with two of his followers. They took him to the house of one of his supporters, where he remained in hiding for two days. On Sunday, February 15, 1175, Muhammad and his companions sneaked into his brother’s palace. They found a ladder on the ground, set it against the wall, and climbed down into the garden, where they found Feridun and an aged nanny sleeping. Muhammad struck his brother a fatal blow to the head, cut off his head, and took the keys of the city and the citadel. He boldly went through Melitene carrying his brother’s head, and everyone who saw him rushed to offer support. Fifteen men swore allegiance to him that night. The next morning he went with a hundred men to the citadel, to proclaim that the city had a new lord. The Christians of Melitene, scared, hid in their homes. But the Turks mounted their horses and gathered at the entrance of the citadel, with swords in hands. There was a great commotion, and rumors about the fate of their lord swirled. When Muhammad dropped his brother’s head from the wall, they faced the reality that their prince had been killed and pledged allegiance to Muhammad. After taking control of Melitene, Muhammad proposed exempting the Monastery of Mar Barsoum from taxes, but the monks felt that such a gesture would outrage the Muslims of Melitene against them and insisted on paying the taxes imposed on them. They proposed to pay him 300 dinars annually and asked to be exempted only from the additional tax of 700 dinars imposed by Feridun. It appears that Muhammad finally gave in to the monks, but as compensation he gave them the Monastery of Mar Dumit (Demete), near Melitene.[116]

            But the most remarkable episode Michael Rabo relates is in connection with Kilij Arslan II, Seljuk Sultan of Rum (1155-1192), who came to Melitene in 1181 and inquired about Michael Rabo, then the patriarch. He sent him a friendly letter, together with a patriarchal staff and twenty red (gold) dinars, which caused much astonishment. The next year Kilij Arslan came again; having heard of the trouble Theodore bar Wahbun had caused, he sent a letter inviting the patriarch to Melitene. When he arrived, he was uncertain but felt that something unusual was happening. The sultan sent a messenger to tell him that he had ordered that the patriarch should enter into his presence according to the tradition and practice of the Christians, preceded by crosses and the gospel. The following day, three amirs and a host of horsemen came to accompany him with honor to meet Sultan Kilij Arslan, but the patriarch remained suspicious. On the morning of Thursday, July 8, 1182, he and his companions entered Melitene. To his surprise, the sultan, his troops, and the townsmen came out to welcome him. The Christians, with torches lit and crosses fixed on their spears, raised their voices, chanting. The sultan approached the patriarch and asked him not to dismount or shake his hand, then opened his arms and embraced Michael Rabo. The two men communicated through an interpreter, and when the patriarch felt that the sultan was truly attentive, he began to talk freely, supporting his points with testimonies from the Scriptures and from nature, interspersed with exhortations. As the sultan listened, his eyes filled with tears, and the patriarch thanked God. Overjoyed, the Christians raised a cry of thanks and praise when they saw the Worshiped Cross hoisted over the heads of the sultan and the Muslims. In this manner the throng entered the church, and at the end of his sermon, the patriarch blessed the sultan and the people. The next day the sultan informed the patriarch that he had abolished the taxes imposed on the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and confirmed his order with a royal rescript.[117] On Sunday, the sultan sent the patriarch a hand, plated with gold and silver and inlaid with jewels, along with relics of St. Peter. Michael Rabo stayed in Melitene a month, and every day the sultan sent him gifts. The two discussed questions about God, Christ, the prophets, the apostles, and other matters. When the sultan left Melitene, he invited the patriarch to accompany him, and on the way the patriarch engaged in a lengthy conversation with Kamal al-Din, a Persian philosopher traveling with the sultan. As the patriarch offered more testimonies from the Scriptures, the sultan praised the Syrians’ wisdom and expressed joy over them. The patriarch attributes the attitude of Sultan Kilij Arslan II not to himself but to the mercy of God, who chose to comfort his small flock and the Syrian Church. Although the sultan’s purpose in conferring such great honor on the Syrian patriarch is not known, his magnanimous attitude stands in contrast to that of the Christian prince, Joscelin II, who unashamedly robbed the Monastery of Mar Barsoum.[118]
After he departed Melitene, Kilij Arslan invaded the Byzantine territory and captured twelve fortresses. Later, in a letter to Michael Rabo, the sultan attributed his victory over the Byzantines to the power of the patriarch’s prayer:

            From Kilij Arslan, the great Sultan of Cappadocia, Syria and Armenia to Patriarch Michael,
            the friend of our state, who resides in the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and who prays for
            our success. We declare that God has glorified the affairs of our state at this time by your
            prayer. From ancient Philadelphia (Alashehr, Turkey), the son of the king of the Rum
            [apparently Emperor Andronicus Comnenus (1183-1185), grandson of Alexius I] came with
            his sons to offer submission to our throne. We dispatched with him an army of forty
            thousand men. The enemies gathered in large numbers in the Great City (Constantinople)
            and prepared for war. But God gave victory to our army and chased and defeated the enemies
            of our state so badly that they will never be able to rise against us for a long time to come.
            Our army occupied the great fortress of Diyadin and controlled the region extending
            beyond the fortress and the seashore, which has become subject to us. Now we administer
            that region, which has not been subject to the Turks before, according to the laws of our state.
            It should be said that verily God has given us all this [victory] because of the power of your
            prayer. Therefore, we beseech you not to cease praying for our state. Farewell.[119]

Never had a Byzantine emperor or a Frankish prince asked a Syrian patriarch to pray for his triumph over his Muslim enemies. The letter clearly shows the sultan’s genuine belief in the power of prayer. Why else would Kilij Arslan have written this letter, knowing that the patriarch had no political or military power? Did he hope to coax the Syrian Christians to support him? This is doubtful, for in his Chronicle Michael Rabo never even suggests that his people were military aggressors or voluntarily took part in the warfare involving the

Bibliogaphy

[46] Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1: 602, and al-Tarikh al-Bahir fi al-Dawla al-Atabegiyya, 161; Ibn Shaddad, al-Nawadir al-Sultaniyya wa al-Mahasin al-Yusufiyya, in R.H.C. Or., 3: 55; Abu Shama, 1: 228, follows Ibn Shaddad; Ibn al-Adim, Zubdat al-Halab min Tarikh Halab, 2: 340; Ibn Wasil, Mufarrij al-Kurub, 1: 262-263; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 107 of the Syriac text, and trans. Budge, 302, where khawaniq is rendered as strangury, a disease marked by the painful and slow discharge of urine; Reinhold Röhricht, Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem 1100-1291 (Innsbrug, 1898), 358; William of Tyre, 2: 394, n. 62.

[47] Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1: 576-577.

[48] Ibn al-Athir, al-Tarikh al-Bahir, 162-175, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1: 602-606; Sulayman Sai’gh, Tarikh al-Mawsil, 1 (Cairo; al-Matba’a al-Salafiyya, 1923), 179-181, 219; Sa’id al-Daywachi, Tarikh al-Mawsil, 1 (Baghdad: The Iraqi Academy, 1982): 335; Husayn Mu’nis, Nur al-Din Mahmud, 180-182; N. Elisséeff, Nur al-Din: un grand prince musulman de Syrie au temps des Croisades (Damascus, 1967), 64-65; Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (New York, 1999-2000), pp. 132-141.

[49] Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1: 588-589, and al-Tarikh al-Bahir, 169; Ibn Wasil, 1: 235; Iorga,
L'Armenie Cilicienne, 98.

[50] K. L. Astarjian, Tarikh al-Umma al-Armaniyya (Mosul, 1951), 214-215.

[51] William of Tyre, 2: 386-387.

[52] Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 103 of the Syriac text, 292 of the English translation.

[53] Michael Rabo, 695-696 of the Syriac text, 337 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, 103 of the Syriac text,. 295 of the English translation.

[54] Michael Rabo, 710-711 of the Syriac text, 361 of the French translation; the Anonymous Edessan, 176-177 of the Syriac text, 205 of the Arabic translation; Bar Hebraeus, 108 of the Syriac text, 305 of the English translation; Frédéric Macler, “Armenia,” Cambridge Medieval History, 4: 1170-1171.

[55] The Anonymous Edessan, 169 of the Syriac text, 197-198 of the Arabic translation.

[56] William of Tyre, 2: 394.

[57] Michael Rabo, 705-706 of the Syriac text, 353 of the French translation.

[58] Michael Rabo, 705 of the Syriac text, 352 of the French translation; the Anonymous Edessan, 168 of the Syriac text, 196 of the Arabic translation.

[59] Michael Rabo, 697-698 of the Syriac text, 339-340 of the French translation; the Anonymous Edessan, 168 of the Syriac text, 195-196 of the Arabic translation.

[60] The Anonymous Edessan, 169 of the Syriac text, 197 of the Arabic translation.

[61] Michael Rabo, 678-679 of the Syriac text, 340-341 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, 3: 263-265; Patriarch Ignatius.Yaqub, Dafaqat al-Tib fi Tarikh Dayr al-Qiddis Mar Matta al-Ajib (Zahla, Lebanon, 1961), 88.

[62] The Anonymous Edessan, 169 of the Syriac text, 197 of the Arabic translation. In the spring of 1951 this author, with the students of St. Ephraim the Syrian Seminary in Mosul and its principal Rev. Bulus Behnam (ordained a bishop the next year), visited this monastery, which stands partly in ruins. Moses Bar Kipha (d. 903), a prominent Syrian writer, philosopher, and theologian, was educated at the Barren Monastery, between Sinjar and Balad in northern Iraq. For his biography, see Patriarch Aphram Barsoum, al-Lulu al-Manthur fi Tarikh al-Ulum wa al-Adab al-Syrianiyya, 2nd ed. (Hims, Syria, 1956), 434-441, and trans. Matti Moosa with the title The History of Syriac Literature and Sciences (Pueblo, Colorado: Passeggiata Press, 2000, 131-133, rpt. Gorgias Press, 2003), 398-404.

[63] Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1: 573-576, and al-Tarikh al-Bahir, 146; Abu Shama, 1: 186, who follows Ibn al-Athir; Ibn al-Adim, Zubdat al-Halab, 2: 331; Ibn Wasil, 1: 191-193; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, p. 295, and Tarikh Mukhtasar al-Duwal, 213-214; Sa’igh, 1: 178-179; Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, Sana al-Barq al-Shami, abridged by Qiwam al-Din al-Fath ibn Ali al-Bundari, ed. Ramadan Sheshen (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Jadid, 1971), 93-94. Another edition of this work is by Fathiyya al-Nabrawi (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji bi Misr, 1979).

[64] Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1: 574-577, and al-Tarikh al-Bahir, 153; Ibn al-Adim, 2: 332-333; Ibn Wasil, 1: 192-193; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 105-106 of the Syriac text and trans. Budge, 295-297, and Tarikh Mukhtasar al-Duwal, ed. Anton Salihani (Beirut, 1958), 213-214.

[65] Michael Rabo, 697 of the Syriac text, 340 of the French translation.

[66] Michael Rabo, 698 of the Syriac text, p. 342 of the French translation.

[67] The Anonymous Edessan, 168 of the Syriac text, 196 of the Arabic translation; Michael Rabo, 710 of the Syriac text, 360-361 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 302 of the English translation.

[68] Michael Rabo, 698-700 of the Syriac text, 344-345 of the French translation.

[69] Michael Rabo, 699-700 of the Syriac text, 344-345 of the French translation.

[70] Michael Rabo, 698-700 of the Syriac text, 344-345 of the French translation.

[71] Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, biography of Michael Rabo; Michael Rabo, 695 of the Syriac text, 337-338 of the French translation (because of a lacuna in the Syriac manuscript, the name of the eunuch is missing; Chabot, p. 337, apparently relying on Bar Hebraeus, writes the name as Amin al-Din, though Bar Hebraeus gives it as Mu’ayyid al-Din); the Anonymous Edessan, 168 of the Syriac text, 196 of the Arabic translation.

[72] Michael Rabo, 709 of the Syriac text, 360 of the French translation, gives the name as Bar Kumaib. Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, biography of Michael Rabo, writes it as Bar Kulaib.

[73] Michael Rabo, 698 of the Syriac text, 340 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, ibid.

[74] Michael Rabo, 700-701 of the Syriac text, 347-349 of the French translation.

[75] Michael Rabo, 705-706 of the Syriac text, 352 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 107 of the Syriac text, 302 of the English translation.

[76] Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, Sana al-Barq al-Shami, 161-162; Ibn Wasil, 2: 9, appears to follow al-Isfahani. Michael Rabo, 709-710 of the Syriac text, 360-361 of the French translation, says Sayf al-Din Ghazi did the same thing after occupying Saruj and al-Raqqa.

[77] The Anonymous Edessan, 171 of the Syriac text, 199 of the Arabic translation.

[78] Michael Rabo, 707-709 of the Syriac text, 357-360 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, the biography of Michael Rabo.

[79] Michael Rabo, 710-711 of the Syriac text, 362-363 of the French translation.
[80] The Anonymous Edessan, 312 of the Syriac text, 350 of the Arabic translation.

[81] J. B. Chabot, ed., Michael Rabo, p. 384, n. 4 of the French translation, says Abu al-Qasim’s son was Baha al-Din Mas'ud, later deposed by Salah al-Din (Saladin), but does not cite any source for this assertion.

[82] Michael Rabo, 721-723 of the Syriac text, 382-384 of the French translation.

[83] The Anonymous Edessan, 316-318 of the Syriac text, 355-357 of the Arabic translation.

[84] On the Syrian Monastery of Mary Magdalene, see Rev. Yuhanna Dolabani, “Al-Suryan fi Filistin aw Dayr Maryam al-Majdaliyya,” al-Hikma, No. 9 (Jerusalem: June, 1928): 434-443.

[85] Michael Rabo, 722-724 of the Syriac text, 386-388 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, the biography of Michael Rabo.

[86] The Anonymous Edessan, 323 of the Syriac text, 362 of the Arabic translation.

[87] See Patriarch Ignatius Yaqub III, Dafaqat al-Tib fi Tarikh Dayr al-Qiddis Mar Matta al-Ajib (Zahla, Lebanon, 1961), 85.

[88] Michael Rabo, 732 of the Syriac text, 402-403 of the French translation.

[89] Michael Rabo, 734 of the Syriac text, 406 of the French translation, says they paid him 2000 gold pieces and 500 red pieces.

[90] Patriarch Yaqub III, Dafaqat al-Tib, 85.

[91] Michael Rabo, 734 of the Syriac text, 406 of the French translation. Unfortunately, he does not explain why he sought Saladin’s intervention of Saladin in the case of Bar Masih and what role Saladin played in this matter.

[92] Michael Rabo, 738 of the Syriac text, 412 of the French translation,

[93] The Anonymous Edessan, 328-330, 340-341 of the Syriac text, 367-368, 379-380 of the Arabic translation.

[94] Michael Rabo, 710 of the Syriac text, 361 of the French translation; the Anonymous Edessan, 147 of the Syriac text, 202 of the Arabic translation, faults the governor of Mardin, rather than Miyafarqin. Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 107 of the Syriac text, 303 of the English translation, apparently places this event in the year 1174.

[95] Michael Rabo, 730 of the Syriac text, 369 of the French translation; the Anonymous Edessan, 147 of the Syriac text, 202 of the Arabic translation.

[96] The Anonymous Edessan, 210 of the Syriac text, 239 of the Arabic translation,
[97] Ibn al-Athir, 2: 126-127; Abu Shama, 2: 227; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 132 of the Syriac text, 371 of the English translation, and Tarikh Mukhtasar al-Duwal, 229, 232; al-Daywachi, Tarikh al-Mawsil, 1: 309-310.

[98] Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 132 of the Syriac text, 371 of the English translation, and Tarikh Mukhtasar al-Duwal, 229, 232.

[99] For details see Ibn al-Athir, 2: 128-137.

[100] Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 133 of the Syriac text, 374-375 of the English translation; Patriarch Ignatius Yaqub III, 94.

[101] Ignatius Yaqub III, 94

[102] Sulayman Sa’igh, Tarikh al-Mawsil, 1: 166; Sa’id al-Daywachi, 1: 321-323.

[103] Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 159 of the Syriac text, 439-441, and Tarikh Mukhtasar al-Duwal, 282-284.

[104] On Abu Nasr of Bartulli, see Aphram Barsoum, al-Lulu al-Manthur fi Tarikh al-Ulum was al-Adab al-Suryaniyya (Aleppo, 1956), 539-540, and trans. Matti Moosa as The History of Syriac Literature and Science (Pueblo, Colorado: Passeggiata Press, 2000, 159-160, rpt. Gorgias Press, 2003), 484-485.

[105] Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 441 of the English translation.

[106] Bar Hebraeus, 160 of the Syriac text, 441 of the English translation.

[107] Barsoum, al-Lulu al-Manthur, 540, trans. Moosa, Passagiata, 160 and Gorgias, 484 says he found a copy of this ode in Diyarbakr, copied in the handwriting of the Maphrian Barsoum II al-Ma’dani.

[108] Patriarch Ignatius Yaqub III, Dafaqat al-Tib, 96, gives a translation of this ode.

[109] The Anonymous Edessan, 335-345, 348-350 of the Syriac text, 374, 379, 380-384, 386-388 of the Arabic translation. Unfortunately, there are many gaps in the cited pages, and we lack information which would have shed more light on the dissension within the Syrian Church.

[110] Michael Rabo, 732 of the Syriac text, 400-402 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, 114 of the Syriac text, pp. 321-322 of the English translation.

[111] Ibn Shaddad, al-Nawadir al-Sultaniyya, R.H.C. Or., 3: 87.

[112] Ibn Shaddad, 3: 313; Abu Shama, Kitab al-Rawdatayn fi Akhbar al-Dawlatayn, 2: 199.

[113] Ambroise, L’Estoire de la guerre Sainte, ed. Gaston Paris, in Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France (Paris, 1897), 453-454, and trans. Merton Jerome Hubert in verse as The Crusade of Richard Lion-Heart, with notes by J. L. La Monte (New York, 1941, rpt. New York: Octagon Books, 1976), 414-415, and trans. Edward Noble Stone as The History of the Holy War (Seattle: The University of Washington, 1939), 148-149; Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, trans. and ed. Helen J. Nicholson as Chronicle of the Third Crusade (Ashgate, 1997), 359.

[114] The Anonymous Edessan, 195 of the Syriac text, 225 of the Arabic translation.

[115] Michael Rabo, 732 of the Syriac text, 400-402 of the French translation; Bar Hebraeus, 114 of the Syriac text, 321-322 of the English translation.

[116] Michael Rabo, 710-712 of the Syriac text, 362-364 of the French translation.

[117] Michael Rabo, 725 of the Syriac text, p. 391 of the French translation; the Anonymous Edessan, ed. Albert Abouna, 187 of the Syriac text, 216 of the Arabic translation, esp. n. 4. Abouna erroneously says that Kilij Arslan imposed a tax on the Monastery of Mar Barsoum.

[118] Michael Rabo, 725-727 of the Syriac text, 390-393 of the French translation.

[119] Michael Rabo, 728 of the Syriac text, 394-395 of the French translation.

Get ideas on sharing photos from people like you. Find new ways to share. Get Ideas Here!

The Franks and the Syrian Christians “Crusades” “Conflict Between Christendom And Islam” Dr. Matti Moosa

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:35:02 -0400

The Franks and the Syrian Christians

Dr. Matti Moosa

The Franks’ interference in the affairs of the Syrian Church seriously weakened their ability to keep the allegiance of the native population in Edessa and elsewhere. This interference was particularly evident in the case of Abu Ghalib bar Sabuni, brother of Bishop Sa’id bar Sabuni, which alienated the Syrians and turned them against the Franks. Abu Ghalib, a monk from the Arnish Monastery near Kesum and Ra’ban, was chosen as bishop of Edessa by Patriarch Abu al-Faraj Athanasius VI in 1101 and took the name Basilius at his ordination. Learned like his brother, but also impetuous and rebellious, he disobeyed both the patriarch and canon law. Forty days after his ordination he became involved in a dispute with the patriarch over some copies of the Gospels deposited at the church in Edessa. The rebellious priest Abdun had sold these Gospels, the property of the patriarchate, to the Syrian congregation of Edessa, using the proceeds to bribe the men in authority to help him keep his position. When the patriarch demanded their return, Abu Ghalib signed a pledge that he would not carry out his religious duties as bishop until he had returned the Gospels. But as soon as he was ordained, he broke his word, claiming that the Syrian dignitaries of Edessa would not allow him to hand over the Gospels. The patriarch sent Abu Ghalib a letter suspending him from service as bishop and denying him the right to style himself as chief priest. Abu Ghalib answered that the patriarch had no right to suspend him from service because the Edessans, not he, refused to deliver the Gospels to him. As a result the Syrian congregation of Edessa was split into two factions, one backing the defiant bishop, the other supporting the patriarch. Abu Ghalib challenged the patriarch’s authority and angered him still further by continuing to ordain priests and deacons. The church in Edessa was thus in a chaotic condition.

What is important, says Michael Rabo, is that the Frankish governor of Edessa, Baldwin II of Le Bourg, supported Bishop Abu Ghalib. Syrian and Frankish delegations asked the patriarch to pardon Abu Ghalib, but even when Bishop Dionysius bar Modyana of Melitene (d. 1120) and seventy Syrian leaders went to the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and prostrated themselves before him, he refused. The patriarch promised to convene a synod to look into Abu Ghalib’s case, but did not keep his word. Worse still, he removed the old and learned Bishop Dionysius from his diocese for supporting Abu Ghalib.[1] As the dispute between himself and Patriarch Athanasius went from bad to worse, Abu Ghalib turned to the Franks to solve his problem. He took his case to Bernard of Valence, the Latin Patriarch of Antioch (1100-1136), making the Orthodox (i.e., Syrian) Church the subject of criticism by outsiders. Patriarch Athanasius, who was then at the Aqshar Monastery near Antioch, was commanded by the Latin patriarch to proceed to Antioch. The Franks took him to St. Peter's Cathedral (called Cassianus) and asked him to pardon Abu Ghalib bar Sabuni, but again he refused.

            The Franks used this refusal as a pretext to act against Patriarch Athanasius and the Syrians. They brought him to their church, treated him with deference and respect, and told him, “Be kind and pray over this bishop (Abu Ghalib) for the sake of our city Edessa.” The patriarch replied, “The bishop has outdone his iniquity.” The interpreter misunderstood him and told the Franks he was asking for money. The Franks said, “This is simony (selling church offices for money) and not in the spirit of St. Peter. It is not worthy of Christians to dismiss a chief priest from his office for money.” As no one who understood the patriarch could be found, the Frankish interpreter said to him, “If you are dealing with money according to your church canons, consider that today you have been offered 10,000 dinars, and therefore you will release this bishop, who resorted to us.” Patriarch Athanasius did not answer (evidently because he did not understand the interpreter), but promised to pray for Bar Sabuni. The Franks gave him a sheet of paper and asked him to absolve the bishop in writing. As he took the paper and started writing, he looked at Bishop Sabuni and said, “Abu Ghalib, look what you have dragged me into.” Abu Ghalib answered insolently, “If I am Abu Ghalib (father of the victorious one), know that you are Abu al-Faraj (father of release from grief and sorrow).” At this the patriarch lost his temper and threw away the paper. He stretched out his neck and said, “Cut off my head; I will not absolve this man.”

            The Franks ordered the patriarch and the bishop beaten. A Frankish bishop told the Latin patriarch, “Although these two wretches have acted disgracefully and deserve to be beaten, it is not appropriate to use beating inside the cathedral.” Shortly the Franks’ anger cooled down, and they let the patriarch and those in his company go to the Syrian Church of the Mother of God in Antioch. But they forbade him to leave the city until they had convened a council to decide the case, and invited their bishops to attend the council. Patriarch Athanasius remained in the church, dejected, locked in a cell, permitted to talk to no one. Grief overcame the Syrian clergy and congregation. Five days later the Syrian priests asked the philosopher Abd al-Masih ibn Abi Durra of Edessa, a Chalcedonian who loved the patriarch and admired his piety, to see him. Abd al-Masih visited the patriarch in his cell and, in a friendly conversation, evidently convinced him that if he hoped to be released, he should offer money to Roger of Salerno, then governor of Antioch (1112-1119). The patriarch accepted this advice, and Roger ordered that he be allowed to leave Antioch and return to his monastery, telling the Latin patriarch, “You have no authority over the Syrians.”[2]

            The patriarch went soon afterwards to Amid and settled in the Monastery of Qanqart. Because of the controversy over Abu Ghalib, the bishop of Edessa, Patriarch Athanasius VI tightened his grip on the city’s Syrian Christians. He ordered that the Syrian cathedral be closed and its bells stop ringing, with the result that disturbances in the city intensified. The Syrian priests rebelled and attacked one another. Thereafter, the communicants began to baptize their children in the churches of the Franks.[3]

            As if the trouble over Abu Ghalib bar Sabuni were not enough, another dispute arose between Al Camra, the patriarch’s family, and the leaders of the Qarya family, who lived in Qanqart, regarding the ownership of certain land and other properties. These dignitaries complained to the governor of Amid against the patriarch, who in response excommunicated one of them, the deacon Ishaq (Isaac) of Qarya. Consequently, the dispute within the church became uncontrollable. Deacon Ishaq urged the governor to let the patriarch leave Amid, since he was old and did not have much longer to live. The governor, anxious to expropriate the patriarch’s possessions and impatient for him to die, visited the Monastery of Qanqart and asked him to pardon Ishaq, but the patriarch refused. The governor became angry, but the patriarch calmed him down by offering him gold. He realized he was a prisoner in Amid and desired freedom of movement. He sent Mikha’il Bar Shumanna, from the Syrian renowned Shumanna family, to appeal to Count Joscelin I to intercede on his behalf with the governor of Amid to let him leave the city. Joscelin responded by threatening to destroy Amid if the patriarch was not permitted to leave, and the governor of Amid reluctantly acquiesced. The grateful patriarch went to see Joscelin in Tall Bashir (Turbessel) and thank him for his support. He stayed there a few days and then returned to the Monastery of Mar Barsoum. On Pentecost Day, as he was performing the Eucharistic Service, just before praying for the Holy Spirit to descend and sanctify the Elements, he suffered a stroke and asked Bishop Timothy of Gargar to finish the service (Bishop Abu Ghalib also attended). Six days later, on June, 8, 1130 he died and was buried in the Monastery of Mar Barsoum.[4]

            A synod headed by Bishop Dionysius of Kesum selected Yuhanna Modyana (the Confessor) as the new patriarch. The bishops took the patriarch-designate to Tall Bashir to meet with Joscelin, who pledged to support him, and Yuhanna Modyana was ordained on February 17, 1129, at the Great Church of the Franks, in the presence of Joscelin and other prominent men. Through Joscelin’s mediation, the new patriarch issued an order pardoning Abu Ghalib bar Sabuni along with the bishop of Sijistan, whom the former patriarch had excommunicated and expelled from his diocese. In compensation for the loss of his diocese, the bishop was offered the dioceses of Samosata and Samha, but was rejected by their congregations. Eventually, he went to Jerusalem and joined the Friars (Knights Templar). Ironically, he fell into an oven and was burned to death, fulfilling a prophetic warning by Patriarch Athanasius, who had once told him, “If you desert the diocese of Sijistan, you will never deserve to be buried [according to church canons].”[5]
For many centuries, no saint held the love and adoration of the Syrians more than Mar (Saint) Barsoum (d. 458), the chief ascetic Syrian monk of his time. Like his contemporaries, Patriarch Severus of Antioch and Philoxenus of Mabug, he was an avid opponent of the controversial Council of Chalcedon and a defender of the faith of One Incarnate Nature of the Divine Logos. After he died, his right hand was preserved in a gilded coffin; when a monastery bearing his name was founded in 790 near Melitene, the monks kept the hand as a relic. The monastery of Mar Barsoum thrived until Joscelin II ravaged it in 1148 and carried its treasures to Tall Bashir, but then declined until the seventeenth century, when it stood deserted and in ruins.[6]

            In the twelfth century, the preserved hand of Mar Barsoum was the cause of controversy for both the Byzantines and the Franks. The Syrians believed it possessed divine power to heal and perform miracles (even today, Syrian Christians are known for their ardent belief in the intercession of saints). The Greeks (Byzantines) scoffed at them, claiming that the miraculous power of the saint’s hand was sheer fiction. The test came in 1134, when swarms of locusts invaded the city of Edessa, leading the Christians to seek Mar Barsoum’s help. They brought out the coffin containing the saint’s hand to ward off the locusts. The Greeks (as was their bad custom, says Michael Rabo) urged the Franks to open the coffin to see whether it contained the saint’s right hand. The monks refused, saying that doing so would cause havoc to the region. The Greeks in turn claimed that the coffin was empty. The monks were forced to take the coffin to the Franks’ church and open it. Immediately a violent sound like thunder shook the place. A dark cloud covered the sky and began to pour down hailstones. The people shouted, “Lord, have mercy! Help, Saint Barsoum!” The Franks, laymen and clergy alike, fell on their faces before the coffin, weeping. The Greeks fled and went into hiding. When the hailstorm subsided, the people conducted prayers for three days. The miracle wrought by the hand of Mar Barsoum astonished even the Muslims. When the Muslims of Harran learned of it, they asked the monks to visit them, but the monks preferred to return to the monastery. Crowds of people of all faiths went out to receive them with prayers and supplications. The locusts did not harm the crops but moved to unplanted grounds, where they devoured grass. Those who saw the miracle glorified God, each in his own tongue.[7]

            The Franks’ presence in southern Asia Minor, where there was a large Syrian and Armenian population, clearly irritated the Byzantines, who had lost dominion over their former subjects and for better or worse had to deal with the Franks. The Byzantines, frustrated at losing power and prestige, tried to use doctrinal controversies to drive a wedge between the Franks and the area’s Christians. After the Franks established their own religious hierarchies in Jerusalem and many cities of Asia Minor, a conflict among the Latin dioceses required the intervention of the pope. According to Michael Rabo, the pope sent a legate to Jerusalem to investigate the situation, establish peace and order in the churches and monasteries, and conciliate the clergy. But no sooner did he begin the investigation than he died -- by poisoning, some say.[8] After the death of the first legate, the pope sent another, identified as Albéric, bishop of Ostie, to pursue the investigation.[9] The new legate removed the Latin Patriarch Radulf from office in November 1139 and put in place another patriarch, who succeeded in reconciling the clergy and controlling the situation. While the legate carried out his duties, the Byzantines stirred him up against the Syrians and the Armenians, telling him they were “heretics,” i.e., anti-Chalcedonians. The legate went to Duluk (Doliche) and met with the Armenian Catholicos Krikor (Gregory III, 1113-1166), whom he took by force to Jerusalem.[10]

            On Whit-Monday in April 1140, Albéric convened a church meeting attended by the Frankish patriarch and clergy and the Armenian Catholicos and clergy. Also present were Ignatius, the Syrian bishop of Jerusalem, Armenian princes, and Joscelin and other Frankish leaders. The council told the Byzantines, “You have accused the Syrians and the Armenians of heresy. Explain this heresy to us.” They answered, “We will never attend a council unless our [emperor] attends it too.” Thus their hypocrisy was exposed, and all those attending the council realized that they were far from the truth. Meanwhile, the Syrians and the Armenians presented tracts containing their doctrines, in their own languages. These were read and translated into Italian, and the council acknowledged the orthodoxy of their doctrines. The Franks asked the Syrians and the Armenians to swear not to change their doctrine, which contradicted that formulated by the Council of Chalcedon. The Syrians agreed, but the Armenians refused to do so and were accused of being Phantasiasts and Simonites.[11]
            What Joscelin II said at the council or how he reacted is not known. But shortly afterwards, he again interfered in the affairs of the Syrian Church, this time in connection with the ordination of a new Syrian patriarch. Yeshu Bar Qatra, a pious deacon chosen by a synod of twelve bishops, was ordained in 1139 and took the name Athanasius. Some unnamed people, apparently including the bishop of Jihan, slandered the new patriarch to Joscelin II, claiming his ordination was uncanonical. Joscelin then summoned Timothy, bishop of Gargar, to Samosata to inquire whether the patriarch’s ordination was legal, but Timothy did not support the bishops’ claim. Joscelin, already angry at the patriarch for not having visited him (presumably to pay homage), ordered that his name should not be proclaimed in the region under his influence.

            Patriarch Bar Qatra, unable to challenge Joscelin’s authority, left Melitene for the Monastery of Mar Barsoum. There he learned that Joscelin II had arbitrarily transferred Bishop Basilius Bar Shumanna from Kesum and proclaimed him as bishop of Edessa. Faced with the unpleasant prospect of losing the congregation in Edessa on account of this appointment, the patriarch chose the lesser evil by confirming Basilius bar Shumanna as the new bishop of Edessa. In his place he ordained Iliyya, a learned man, as bishop of Kesum, giving him the name of Iwannis (John) at his ordination. Not until early 1144, when Joscelin II returned from the coronation of Baldwin III at Jerusalem on December 23, 1143, did Patriarch Athanasius visit Joscelin II at Tall Bashir and reconcile with him and with the bishops who opposed him in the case of Bishop Basilius Bar Shumanna.[12]

            After Imad al-Din Zangi captured Edessa in late December 1144, Bishop Basilius Bar Shumanna fled to Samosata for safety. Some people from Edessa betrayed him to Joscelin II on the grounds that he was plotting with the Turks. They told Joscelin, “If he (the bishop) slipped from your hand, he will return to the Turks. Therefore, he should die, lest he entice those who fled and bring them back to the Turks.” Joscelin arrested the bishop and imprisoned him alongside Muslim captives in the fortress of Romaita, where he remained for three years. After his release he went about collecting charity to ransom some of his own people who had been taken captive by the Turks. He went to Antioch and then to Jerusalem, where King Baldwin III and the Latin patriarch welcomed him. Next he traveled to Mosul, where he met Zangi’s deputy Zayn al-Din, who showed him compassion and appropriated a stipend for his living expenses. He then went to Amid to see Patriarch Athanasius Bar Qatra, who assigned him the diocese of Sebaberk, then under the authority of the bishop of Edessa. Bishop Basilius died in 1169.[13]

            Joscelin II, short of funds, had set his eye on the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, planning to steal its sacred objects and furnishings. In this regard he resembles King Henry VIII of England, who centuries later looted the wealth of the monasteries of his country. Michael Rabo offers two reasons for Joscelin’s plundering of the monastery: first, his action was the wages of the sins of its inmates, who chose the broad path that leads to perdition; second, just as King Solomon of Israel forsook the God of his forefathers and succumbed to pagan worship and abominable lusts, Joscelin likewise hardened his heart and gave himself over to vile action, making light of the great power dwelling in the remains of Saint Barsoum. He did not reveal his evil intent to any of his men, lest they inform the monks that Joscelin was about to loot their monastery. To carry out his devilish scheme, Joscelin gathered his forces and pretended he was marching to pillage the Muslim territory. Three days after reaching Harran in northern Mesopotamia, he climbed the Hura (White) Mountain and camped at the Iza fountain, in northwestern Claudia. When the Muslims learned of his invasion, they fled. Joscelin told his men that since his plan to invade the Muslims’ region had failed, they should offer prayers at the nearest monastery before returning home.

            On the fateful morning of Saturday, June 18, 1148, Joscelin II sent a messenger to the Monastery of Mar Barsoum to inform the monks that he wished to visit. The monks were joyful that the Prince of the Christians planned to visit their monastery and offer prayer. They went to the south gate to welcome him, raising the Cross and the Gospels. Joscelin dismounted and prostrated himself before the Cross with seeming humility. He and his men approached, accompanied by some Franks who had just arrived in the East. The monks did not try to prevent them from entering the monastery, even though they were armed. While the monks were hopeful that they had come to donate gold and money to the monastery, however, the miscreant Joscelin actually intended to rob it. The monks decked out the church, brought out the relics of Mar Barsoum, and set them on a stool before the Franks. Joscelin offered prayers before the relics, placed a piece of paper on the altar, and left to sit on the porch outside the church.

            He gathered the monks and said, pointing to a Frank standing nearby, “This is my cousin who has just come from Rome, and he wishes to see the tower in the upper part of the monastery.” The abbot ordered that his wish be granted. When the Frank, who was actually a military commander, entered the tower with his soldiers, Joscelin ordered the infantrymen to shut the gate and position themselves at the tower. He sent five of his men to search the tower for valuables, but they found only an old monk and two attendants. Disappointed, Joscelin gathered the monks and locked them up in the church. He then summoned some of their elders and accused them of informing the Turks of his arrival in the nearby city of Melitene and thus allowing them to escape. The monks assured Joscelin of their innocence. If what they said was true, he said, then they should give him the possessions of the region of Melitene which the Muslims had deposited with them, for he was told that the Muslims had left enormous wealth in their custody: “You have the obligation to give these possessions to the Christians (Franks), to make them more powerful and take revenge on the Muslims who have pillaged the monasteries of the region of Zabar. I am now in need of these possessions.” The monks said that if they did so, they would no longer be able to live safely with the Muslims in the Melitene region. At this point, Joscelin grew angry and asked the elder monks to leave the church. He locked them up in the house of Saba, called Kano. He sent Frankish priests to the church to take all the silver patens, chalices, incense bowls, censors, crosses, candles, fans (rounded, with bells and portraits of Cherubim and Seraphim), Gospels, and books. His men also searched the monks’ cells and took whatever they found, including gold, silver, brass, iron objects, vestments, and church furniture. When some of the Friars (Knights of the Temple) saw what had happened, they told Joscelin, “We joined you to fight the Muslims and help the Christians, not to plunder churches and monasteries.” They left without eating or drinking.[14]

            Joscelin and his men spent all Saturday plundering. They searched the monks’ cells and the attendants’ rooms again, seeking more valuables. Joscelin found a golden cross and smashed it into pieces, distributing them to his men. He loaded the booty on twelve mules belonging to the monastery and left, taking fifty monks with him. On the evening of Sunday, June 19, 1148, he came to a place called “The Elephant’s Vineyard,” where he left a garrison of 155 Frank and Armenian thugs. On Monday he released the monks, who arrived at Hisn Mansur the next day. Before doing so, however, he told them not to leave the monastery empty, lest the Muslims return to occupy it, and demanded that they pay him 10,000 dinars to leave the monastery alone. The frightened monks by then had nothing to pay Joscelin with, for he had stolen all they had. In their desperation, they brought him their most precious possession, the coffin containing the hand of Saint Barsoum, along with the vessels of four monasteries (Mar Abhai, Sarjisiyya, Madiq and Harsafta) which had been deposited with them for safekeeping. Joscelin’s henchmen stole quantities of wheat, wine, honey, clothing, and other goods, and carried them with the coffin containing Mar Barsoum’s hand to Tall Bashir, Joscelin’s stronghold.

            The Syrians and Armenians of Tall Bashir implored Joscelin to send the monks back to the monastery. He agreed after taking 10,000 dinars as bond from some Edessans who were then at Tall Bashir, keeping five monks and three elders in his custody along with the relics of Mar Barsoum. He let the rest of the monks return to the Monastery of Mar Barsoum in August 1148, accompanied by Iwannis, bishop of Kesum, and the abbot Lazarus. Joscelin’s egregious action against the monks of the monastery must have affected the conscience of some of his men. In a dream, three of his men saw the monastery glimmering with light and the figure of Mar Barsoum standing majestically at its highest point, asking them to go and tell Joscelin to bring the monks back to the monastery. After they related their dream, Joscelin, whom Michael Rabo calls “the second Pharaoh,” promised to free the monks but then stalled. His heart was softened only when members of his family told him that they had seen the coffin of Mar Barsoum’s hand shining like the sun and a sword of fire issuing from it, and heard a voice saying, “O Joscelin, if you do not let me alone and repatriate the monks to the monastery, I will annihilate this region with the sword.” Upon hearing this, he allowed the two monks, David and Jacob, to return to the monastery on September 5, 1149. But he kept the coffin containing the saint’s hand until the monks of the monastery paid him an additional 5000 dinars.[15]

On returning, the monks and their Bishop Iwwanis immediately expelled the Armenians from the monastery. When they saw that the altar of the church lay in ruins, they wept bitterly all day long. They proceeded to rebuild the altar and the rest of the monastery. The troops Joscelin had left behind asked the monks to swear that they would not bar Joscelin or his son, should either wish to enter the monastery. The monks reluctantly complied. The troops remained at the monastery for seventy days, during which no Divine Eucharist (Holy Communion) or any other service was conducted. Following the patriarch’s orders, Bishop Iwannis rededicated the altar of the church, confirmed Lazarus as abbot, and appointed a sexton and a supervisor for the monastery. The monks and attendants donated whatever they could to save the monastery from Joscelin’s grip. They collected 5000 dinars from the faithful who visited the monastery and brought the money to Joscelin in December 1150. He gave them back the hand of Mar Barsoum, but admonished them to pay the balance. They presented to him a certain person who offered a surety for the payment of the other 5000 dinars. Thus, the monks brought back the holy hand of Mar Barsoum.[16] Sadly, Michael Rabo says the Byzantines rejoiced at Joscelin’s plundering of the monastery.[17]

            Ironically Joscelin, a Christian Frankish prince, was rebuked by a Turkish Muslim ruler, Dawla, for violating Christian principles by plundering the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, on which his own father Ghazi, the Turkish governor of Melitene, had imposed heavy taxes. When Dawla heard that Joscelin had invaded the monastery, he thought that the monks had deliberately surrendered it to escape paying the taxes. He told the people of Melitene, “I will take revenge on you because you delivered the fortress (monastery) to the Franks.” Thus the monks, who had already seen their monastery plundered, now had to face Dawla’s vengeance. They were so distressed that they suspended prayer and the pealing of the church's bell for three days. Relief came when Dawla discovered that the monks had not simply handed the monastery over. His wrath against the Christians of Melitene abated, and he assembled an army to fight the small garrison Joscelin had stationed in the monastery, captured it, and evicted the Franks

            Through providence, twelve monks and fifty attendants managed to take some of the oxen and other property belonging to the monastery and went to Melitene to await their destiny. An old monk named Ibrahim, nicknamed “Sorodim,” went to see Dawla. He told him, “Coming to the region of Melitene will cause you great loss because you cannot occupy the region militarily. Also, the method of robbery will not succeed. Wait a little, and we will draw up a plan for the occupation of the region.” Dawla, appreciating this counsel, lavished gifts on the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and exempted the monks from paying taxes for that year. He asked them to swear to abide by this covenant, and they did. Joscelin asked for peace and sent Dawla this message: “You have plundered the monasteries of the region of Zabar under my authority. But I have taken the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, which is more important than any other. It is like an eagle among the fowls of the air. See, I have returned the monastery to you.” Dawla answered, “We, like you, seek peace. But tell me, how can you affirm your quest for peace while you have proven that you have no faith? The Muslims swear by their Book, and the Christians swear by the Cross and the Gospel. But you yourself have violated the sanctity of the Gospel and have broken the Cross into pieces. You have nothing to do with the Christian faith. Reveal your true faith, whether you are a Jew or a pagan, that we may establish peace with you on the basis of your faith.” Thus, says Michael Rabo, “The barbarous Muslim Turk censured the Christian liar.” Finally Joscelin II was defeated and captured by the Muslims, the monks returned to the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, and through God's providence things were straightened out between the Muslims and the monks.[18]

            Joscelin’s iniquities and barbarous treatment of the Syrians were not unpunished. He was struck with disaster en route to Antioch with 200 horsemen. It is not clear whether he was trying to have a showdown with the Muslims or to escape. Although Michael Rabo says Joscelin thought he could face a thousand Muslims with that small force, Bar Hebraeus says he left Tall Bashir hoping to meet with a ship in the harbor of Antioch, which indicates that he and his men intended to escape by sea.[19] When they reached Azaz (Hazart) at night, they were frightened by a noisy band of Turkomans and fled. As Joscelin ran, he thought he saw a tree in his way and stumbled to the ground. (In fact, the men with him said there was no tree.) A Turkoman saw him lying on the ground, hurt by the fall. He did not recognize him but, knowing that he was probably a Frank, thought he could sell him to the Christians. He carried him to a nearby village and met a Jew who saw him and told the villagers that it was Joscelin. Realizing that he had a fortune in his hands, the Turkoman carried Joscelin to Aleppo, whose governor, Nur al-Din Zangi, bought him for a thousand dinars. Nur al-Din had Joscelin II chained and thrown into prison.[20] While Joscelin was in prison, the Muslims showered him with gifts and coaxed him to recant Christianity and embrace Islam, but he adamantly resisted. Then he was threatened with torture, but he courageously withstood the threats and persisted in his Christian faith, confessing that what had happened to him was because of his sins. Joscelin II sent a message to the monks of the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and to the Christians in that region, asking them to pray God to accept his penance. He spent nine years in prison, from 1150 to 1159. As his end drew near, he asked to be taken from his cell to Ignatius, the Syrian bishop of Aleppo, who received his confession and administered the Holy Communion. After his death the Muslims handed his body over to the Christians, who buried him in the church. A great number of Christians and Muslims attended his funeral, bewildered by all that had taken place.[21]

            The Anonymous Edessan offers a slightly different account of Joscelin’s capture and his treatment by Nur al-Din Zangi. He says that when Joscelin heard that the lord of Mar’ash had been killed, he left Azaz and marched with a band of troops to capture Antioch. When he came to Cyrrhus, between Homs and Hama, as he prepared to cross to the village of Shaykh al-Dayr, a group of Turkomans jumped out of the bushes and seized him. Joscelin asked them to take him to Azaz and offered to give them whatever they asked. They took him to Shaykh al-Dayr, not knowing who he was. The Christians of the village, recognizing him, tried to buy him from the Turkomans for sixty dinars. But when a Jew passing through the village, a dyer by trade, told the Turkomans that the man was Joscelin, they took him to Aleppo. Nur al-Din Zangi had his eyes gouged out and cast him into prison, where he remained in heavy chains for nine years until his death.[22] William of Tyre, showing no sympathy for Joscelin, says that while he was in prison, bound with heavy chains, wasted by mental and physical suffering, “He reaped the result of his dissolute ways and came to a wretched end.”[23]

            Among Muslim writers, Ibn al-Athir gives the most detailed account of Joscelin’s end. In 1151, he says, Nur al-Din marched to the country of Joscelin the Frank north of Aleppo, including Tall Bashir, Ayntab, and Azaz, with the intention of besieging and capturing them. Although he praises Joscelin for his courage and prudence and mostly for being “the undisputed Frankish knight,” he says that upon learning Nur al-Din Zangi had assembled an army to fight him, Joscelin went to challenge him. He defeated the Muslims and captured Nur al-Din’s armor-bearer and took him to Mas’ud, sultan of the Seljuks of Rum, telling him, “This is the armor-bearer of your son-in-law; you will face what is much worse.” Nur al-Din, greatly distressed, decided to take revenge. He summoned a group of Turkoman chiefs and promised them a generous bounty if they captured and delivered Joscelin to him, dead or alive. They sent spies to locate him. When Joscelin went out hunting one day, a band of Turkomans captured him. He offered them money to set him free, and they agreed to do so if he delivered the money immediately, whereupon he sent someone to bring it. Meanwhile, a Turkoman went to Abu Bakr Majd al-Din ibn al-Daya, Nur al-Din’s deputy in Aleppo, and told him Joscelin had been taken. Ibn al-Daya sent troops who captured the Turkomans and Joscelin, bringing him to Nur al-Din. Ibn al-Athir gloats over Joscelin’s capture, calling it the greatest victory because he was “a tyrant devil, cruel and too hard on the Muslims; all of Christendom was afflicted by his capture.” Nur al-Din later occupied many of Joscelin’s towns, including Tall Bashir, Ayntab, Duluk (Doliche), Azaz, Cyrrhus, Rawandan (Ravendan), and the fortresses of al-Bara, Tall Khalid, Kafrlatha and many others.[24]

            Ibn Wasil gives still another version, as related by the amir Mu’ayyid al-Dawla ibn Munqidh, who says that when Joscelin left Tall Bashir at night and felt the need to sleep, he told some of his men to continue their march; he would follow later with others, whom he ordered to stay with him. As he slept, a band of Turkomans happened to pass by. Seeing them, Joscelin’s companions fled, and the Turkomans captured Joscelin, not knowing who he was. As they marched the next morning, an Armenian who was passing by recognized him. He approached him and kissed his hand. When the Turkomans asked who the man was, the Armenian said he was Joscelin, lord of Tall Bashir. When the news of Joscelin’s capture reached Majd al-Din ibn al-Daya, he summoned the Turkomans and offered them a bounty, raising it until they were satisfied. When Nur al-Din came to Aleppo, he blinded Joscelin and killed him.[25]

            Joscelin II was not the only Frankish prince to loot the Christian churches and monasteries. Bohemond III, son of Raymond of Poitiers and prince of Antioch (1163-1201), did so too around 1181, but not on the same scale. He first married the princess Theodora, niece of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus, but then divorced her to marry Sybil, “who had a reputation of practicing evil art.”[26] The Latin patriarch of Antioch then excommunicated not only Bohemond and the priest who married him to Sybil, but the whole Christian population of Antioch. He ordered an end to the church bells’ pealing, the celebration of Holy Communion, and even burial of the dead. Ignoring the patriarch’s condemnation, Bohemond compounded his sin by plundering the churches and monasteries. The Frankish princes and judges and the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem interceded on behalf of Bohemond, and he returned his ill-gotten gain to the churches and monasteries. He also expelled from his domain several noblemen who had taken refuge with Roupen (Reuben) III (1175-1185), Armenian ruler of Cilicia, who received them with honor and gave them splendid gifts.[27]

            But the actions of Joscelin II and Bohemond III appear to be exceptions rather than the rule. There were many occasions when the Franks showed justice toward their fellow Christians, the Syrian Orthodox (Jacobites). In 1138 a Syrian monk, Michael of Mar’ash (Germanicia), an inmate of the Kasliyud Monastery in the Black Mountain who had gone to Jerusalem to enter the Monastery of Mary Magdalene, wrote a ten-page tract in Syriac about the restoration of the villages of Beth Arif and Adasiyya, which had been usurped by a prominent Frankish prince.[28] Michael says that in 1137 a prince whom he calls Gonfrey (Godfrey), one of the Franks who stormed Jerusalem in 1099 and killed countless Muslims, usurped the two villages, which belonged to the Syrian community. Although he does not identify the prince further, he seems to be Godfrey of Ascha, a companion of Godfrey of Bouillon, the first king of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.[29] Godfrey of Ascha apparently took advantage of the vulnerability of the Syrian church in Jerusalem to claim the villages, but soon he was captured by Muslims and taken to Egypt in chains. Many years later, an Armenian bishop (whom Michael does not identify) visited Egypt and prevailed on the Fatimid Caliph al-Hafiz li Din Allah (1131-1149) to release Godfrey, by then an old man.[30] The Syrian Bishop Athanasius Kaddana, who had built two churches and a monastery and done other renovations in these villages, was unhappy about Godfrey’s release.

            When Godfrey returned from captivity, he claimed the two villages as his own. King Fulk of Anjou (1131-1143), then in Beit Jibrin, ordered his deputy in Jerusalem to restore the villages to him. The Malkites, who adhered to the formula of the Council of Chalcedon, rejoiced when the anti-Chalcedonian Syrians lost the two villages. But the Syrians managed to reverse the king’s order through the intervention of his wife Queen Melisend (daughter of Baldwin II).[31] Michael the monk says that Melisend was charitable toward the Syrian church and people, having great compassion for them not only because of their loss of the two villages but because of the hardships, anxieties, and persecution Bishop Ignatius had suffered. She sent a messenger to tell her husband of the Syrians’ suffering and the expenses they had undergone to build churches in the two villages, and explained that Beth Arif and Adasiyya had belonged to the Syrian community since Arab times, i.e., since the Arabs occupied Jerusalem in the seventh century. She beseeched him to assist the Syrians by restoring the villages to them, and she commanded the king’s princes and ministers to aid Bishop Ignatius, assuring them that she would consider their help a great favor. Accordingly, Bishop Ignatius and Godfrey of Ascha appeared before the king in Beit Jibrin. After a few days of deliberation, the king ordered that the two villages be restored to the bishop. Godfrey took an oath before the king and those present that he would not harass the Syrians any more, and the bishop promised to pay Godfrey 200 dinars to compensate for his loss.[32]

            Ignatius Sahdo, a monk from the Monastery of Mary Magdalene (and later the Syrian metropolitan of Jerusalem), tells a similar story, and his eyewitness account should be considered reliable. He says that in 1148, Jerusalem was filled with many poor refugees who had escaped the destruction of Edessa by the Zangids four year earlier. Because the Syrian convents could not afford to provide food for them, many died from hunger. Ignatius Romanus, then the metropolitan of Jerusalem, took compassion on the refugees and tried to help them, but he was in financial difficulty because he had had to purchase the village of Dayr Da Krieh (The Village of the Sick), which belonged to the monastery but had been captured by the Muslims and recaptured by the Franks. He appealed to King Baldwin III and his mother, Queen Melisend, for help in regaining the village. Having great respect for Romanus, they ordered the owner of the village (not identified) to return it to the Monastery of Mary Magdalene. The king asked the metropolitan to compensate the owner, buy the village, and secure a deed, legally witnessed and sealed. Metropolitan Romanus agreed to pay 1000 gold dinars to receive the deed -- a large amount for a man who tried to help the poor and needy. But God, who works in mysterious ways, provided an unexpected donor who paid the amount, and the metropolitan was able to use the 1000 dinars to buy food for the poor and needy.[33] After relating this incident, Hans Eberhard Mayer asks whether it could have any connection with the two villages of Beth Arif and Adasiyya.[34] But this is unlikely, for if the incidents were related, Ignatius Sahdo would surely have had some knowledge of the two villages and would have referred to them.

            In some instances even the Franks invoked the divine healing power of the Syrian Saint Mar Barsoum. Michael Rabo relates one such incident. After Joscelin II was taken captive and thrown into prison, the only son of a Frankish leader fell from a tree at his home in Antioch and broke his heel. His parents spent an enormous amount of money on his treatment, but to no avail, and grew very distressed. The boy’s mother, Isabel, having heard of the saint’s miraculous healing power, prayed tearfully, asking him to intercede and heal her son. Knowing that a monk of the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, named Saliba, regularly carried a portrait of the saint and visited the homes in Antioch to impart his blessings, the boy’s parents invited the monk to their home. The next day, Saint Barsoum appeared to the boy’s mother dressed as a king. She asked who this king was, and the crowd said that he was Saint Barsoum. The saint asked her to build a church on a space in her house; then he appeared to the monk carrying his portrait and told him to go to the house of Henry the Frank and build a church in its garden, showing him three altars to be contained in it. When his vision recurred, the monk Saliba became alarmed and related it to Bishop Basilius bar Shumanna of Edessa, who was then in Antioch.

            The monk and the bishop were skeptical about this vision, but shortly afterwards the boy's parents came to report the saint’s appearance to the mother. Bishop Basilius and the monk Saliba carried the portrait of Mar Barsoum to the Franks’ house and began to pray for the healing of their son, and the boy’s parents joined them in prayer. The boy, who appeared deep in sleep, instantly cried out in a loud voice and jumped to his feet, to the consternation of his parents and other family members. They saw him look up and stretch out his hand, as if someone were trying to hold him. Meanwhile, the boy’s parents prepared candles and incense. By now a great crowd had gathered at the site. Turning to his parents and the crowd, the boy said, “Mar Barsoum, accompanied by a host of monks, appeared to me carrying a golden cross which shone with bright light that filled the whole house. He held my hand and told me not to be afraid. He said he had come because of the prayers and the faith of my mother.” The boy asked Mar Barsoum how he could stand up while his heel was broken; then Mar Barsoum touched his heel and he was made whole.[35]

            The boy’s parents, ecstatic, proceeded immediately to the Great Church, followed by a throng of people. From there they went to see the queen (presumably Melisend of Jerusalem). A huge crowd of Franks, Armenians, and Syrians accompanied the queen to the house where the miracle had taken place. Bowing to the ground, the queen wept as the people took earth from that spot for blessing. The boy’s parents began to build a church under the supervision of Saliba. Michael Rabo, then the abbot of the Monastery of Mar Barsoum, says that he himself, together with the monastery’s elders, attended the dedication ceremony of the new church on Sunday, December 9, 1157, in the time of Reginald of Châtillon, count of Antioch, Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem, Aimery, Latin patriarch of Antioch, and the Syrian Patriarch Athanasius Bar Qatra. Also at the service were the Armenian Thoros II, lord of Cilicia; Queen Melisend; Henry and his wife Elizabeth (Isabel); and all the Frankish, Armenian, and Syrian leaders, together with a host of Syrian priests and deacons and Frankish and Armenian monks. The Byzantines, who did not participate in the dedication of the church, “died from anger.”[36]

            This incident speaks volumes. It shows that even the Franks, who like the Greeks espoused the Council of Chalcedon, were ready to accept the intercession of a Syrian saint and honor him by building a church. They demonstrated tolerance towards the native Syrian Christians -- unlike the Greeks, who had been unable to rid themselves of their long-standing doctrinal prejudice, which had weakened Syria and made it a cold prey to the Arabs. From the seventh century on, the Syrians and the Greeks fell victim to the new masters, who held them both in contempt, treating them as dhimmis (protected people) as long as they paid the Jizya (poll-tax). Yet for many years, says Michael Rabo, Muslim Turks and Kurds visited the Monastery of Mar Barsoum to commemorate the saint and seek healing. When Michael Rabo undertook a project to bring water through a duct to the monastery, he was encouraged by both Christians and Muslims. Both groups shared a belief in the divine power of Saint Barsoum to heal the sick, a phenomenon which transcended the religious boundaries between them.[37]

            Although some of the Frankish princes committed outrages against the Syrians, Patriarch Michael Rabo enjoyed extremely amicable relations with the leaders of the Latin Church. Shortly after his ordination as patriarch on September 1, 1167, he visited Mardin and then Edessa, where Bishop Basilius Bar Shumanna received him with great honor. Next he went to Jerusalem; the Latin patriarch there welcomed him with great pomp, perhaps, as Bar Hebraeus says, “to spite the Greek Patriarch of Antioch, whom he disliked.”[38] According to the Anonymous Edessan, he then went to Antioch, entering the city with great pageant and honor. The Franks brought him to the Church of St. Peter and seated him on the throne of St. Peter in the Cassianus wing, in the southern part of the church.[39] He spent the winter and celebrated Easter in Antioch and ordained many bishops before leaving at the beginning of June.[40]

            Over a decade later, Patriarch Michael Rabo was invited to travel to Rome to help resolve the issue of a heresy that had arisen in Syria. A group of Franks, mostly in the province of Antioch, rejected the doctrine of the Consubstantiation, i.e., that upon the consecration of the Bread and the Wine during the Eucharist, these elements turn into the Real Body and Blood of Christ, a basic belief of the universal church until it was challenged during the Reformation. Moreover, these Franks allowed the abominable practice of the communal use of women. These dissident Franks asserted that true belief is not to uphold such a doctrine, but to excel in charitable work by helping the poor and loving one another. As their numbers increased to several thousands, they established their own bishops, and many governors followed them. Naturally, the leaders of the traditional church considered their rejection of the doctrine of Consubstantiation a heresy. In Rome, their leader convened a universal council in 1178 to restrain them. Michael Rabo, who was then on a visit to Antioch, says that the Pope of Rome, whom Chabot identifies as Pope Alexander III (d. 1181), who called the Third Lateran Council in March 1179, sent a delegation to the Latin patriarch of Antioch and Jerusalem on account of the heresy of the Franks. The patriarch in turn sent the bishop of Tarsus and two priests to ask Michael Rabo to travel to Rome with him to help combat this heresy. Michael Rabo could not go to Rome, but wrote a treatise explaining “when and how Satan created this heresy and how our own church Fathers condemned it.”[41] Inviting a Syrian patriarch to a council convened by a Frankish church leader was an unusual act of tolerance, for the Roman Catholic Church considered the Syrian church “heretical.”

            Almost six decades later, another Syrian patriarch received honored treatment from the Franks. Patriarch Ignatius III (1222-1252), accompanied by several bishops, visited Jerusalem and was received with great honor and pomp by the Frankish Frères (Knights Templar). When they saw that he could hardly walk because of his gout, they carried him by hand through Bab al-Amud (the Pillar Gate), designated for the entrance of kings and patriarchs into the city. They took him and his entourage to the Monastery of Mary Magdalene, which belonged to the patriarch’s community and at the time housed seventy Syrian monks. While the patriarch was there, a problem concerning the application of canon laws arose between him and the Frères. An Ethiopian monk of noble origin named Thomas entreated the patriarch to ordain him a metropolitan for Ethiopia. According to established canon laws, the Syrian patriarch had no authority to ordain a bishop of another church without the approval of the Coptic Pope of Alexandria, who had sole jurisdiction over Ethiopia. But it happened that the Alexandrian Patriarch Cyril Laqlaq (Luqluq) had recently ordained an Egyptian Coptic bishop for Jerusalem without the approval of the Syrian patriarch, who had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the city. Apparently, the number of Copts in Jerusalem and Syria had increased so much that they appealed to their patriarch to ordain a bishop for them. They also complained that they had to attend religious services conducted in the Syriac language, which they did not understand. In retaliation against the Alexandrian patriarch’s action, Patriarch Ignatius III himself violated canon law by ordaining Thomas as metropolitan for Ethiopia, after sending Bishop Dionysius Saliba of Claudia to ask the Frankish Frères their opinion about his plan to do so.

            When the Frères learned that the Syrian patriarch had ordained Thomas, they became outraged, but since he was a guest, they tried to avoid any trouble within the Christian communities in Jerusalem. The prior of the Knights of the Temple told the patriarch that he had not purchased Jerusalem or captured it by his sword and pointed out that they had received him with great respect and honor, out of respect for the laws of Christ. He added that when the patriarch sought their opinion, they told him that the ordination of Thomas was against church laws and that he should not do it. “Why then,” the prior asked, “did you hasten to do such a thing, and what was the reason for doing it? Why did you reject our advice?” The stunned patriarch’s face turned pale, and he could not answer. But Bishop Dionysius Saliba came to his rescue. Speaking in Syriac (which the Franks could not understand), he asked the patriarch to tell the Frankish Knights of the Temple that he (the bishop) was to blame for the patriarch’s ordination of Thomas. The patriarch then said that Bishop Dionysius had returned with word that the Frankish prior had approved of Thomas’s ordination. He added that he did not intend to reject their advice or the honor they had bestowed on him. When they asked whether the patriarch was telling the truth, Bishop Dionysius said he was. The Knights of the Temple then were convinced that the prior had misunderstood the patriarch’s message because of the language difference, and they accepted the bishop’s explanation. The grateful patriarch thanked Bishop Dionysius for saving him from an awful predicament and praised his shrewdness and acumen.[42] The action of the Knights of the Temple was more an evidence of respect for canon law than of interference in the affairs of the Syrian Church.

            We should not overlook the fact that although the Franks lost Jerusalem in 1187 to Saladin, they managed to regain control of the city according to the ten-year treaty of Jaffa, concluded on February 18, 1229 between the Emperor Frederick II of Sicily and Sultan al-Kamil Muhammad (1218-1238), son of al-Malik al-Adil, brother of Saladin.[43] When Patriarch Ignatius Dawud visited Jerusalem, the city was under Frankish control. The comment by the Roman Catholic priest Ishaq Armala that in 1240 Patriarch Ignatius III sent Pope Innocent IV a letter proclaiming his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and that he renewed his conversion in 1247 with the Maphrian Yuhanna bar Ma’dani (later patriarch, d. 1263), is historically groundless.[44]

            Michael Rabo seems also to have had good relations with King Baldwin IV (“the Leper,” reigned 1174-1185) of Jerusalem, and his father King Amalric before him. In September 1179, Michael Rabo left Antioch and met in Acre (Akka) with young King Baldwin, who received him warmly. The patriarch told the king of his father’s charter regarding the treatment of the Syrians and obtained a similar charter from Baldwin. Unfortunately, Michael Rabo does not disclose the contents of these charters, which must have been for the benefit of the Syrians and their patriarch, since otherwise he would have not bothered to mention them.[45]

Biliography
[1] Michael Rabo, 592-594 (French, 193, 196-198).

[2] Michael Rabo, 598-600 (French, 207-210). The Anonymous Edessan, 299-300 (Arabic, 235-238), gives a different account of the dispute between Patriarch Athanasius and Bishop Abu Ghalib, and does not describe the patriarch’s appearance before the Latin patriarch in Antioch or his beating in the church. He says only that the patriarch was summoned to Antioch, where Baldwin, count of Edessa, Joscelin I of Courtenay (later count of Edessa), and King Baldwin I of Jerusalem interceded on his behalf, to no avail, after which the patriarch left Antioch and returned to the Monastery of Dowayr (al-Dawa’ir).

[3] Michael Rabo, 602 (French, 212-213).

[4] The Anonymous Edessan, 302 (Arabic, 340-341).

[5] Michael Rabo, 612 (French, 231); Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, biography of Yuhanna Modyana; the Anonymous Edessan, 303-304 (Arabic, 341-342).

[6] For a detailed account of the Monastery of Mar Barsoum and its treasures, including his embalmed right hand, see Rev. Bulus Bahnam (later Bishop Gregorius), “Dayr Mar Barsoum Qurb Malatiya” (The Monastery of Mar Barsoum Near Melitene), in Lisan al-Mashriq, Nos. 4-6 (Mosul, Iraq, 1951): 153-208; Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, biography of Patriarch Mikha’il (Michael) Rabo.

[7] Michael Rabo, 616-617 (French, 238-239); Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 90 (English, 257-258).

[8] Michael Rabo, 626 (French, 254), does not name the papal delegate; Chabot, ed., 255, n. 3 of the French translation, identifies him as Pierre, the archbishop of Lyons, but says he died on May 28, 1139, contradicting Michael Rabo’s assertion that the papal delegation came in 1143.

[9] Michael Rabo, 626; Chabot, ed., 255 of the French translation, n. 4.

[10] Matthew of Edessa, trans. Dostourian, 196 and 338, n. i by the translator.

[11] Michael Rabo, 626 (French, 56). Phantasiasm was the doctrine of Julian, bishop of Halicarnassus in southwest Asia Minor, who asserted the incorruptibility of the Body of Christ and was accused of believing that the Body of Christ was not real but a fantasy. Julian was still living in 536, but nothing is known about him after that date. The controversy over the incorruptibility of the Body of Christ is too detailed to be related here. See T. W. Davids, “Julianus,” in William Smith and Henry Wace, eds., A Dictionary of Christian Biography, 3 (London: John Murray, 1882): 475-476. Simony, the practice of selling church offices for money, is named for Simon Magus, the magician at Samaria who offered money to the Apostles Peter and John if they would grant him the power of the Holy Spirit, which they possessed. See Acts, 8: 14-25.

[12] Michael Rabo, 626, 629 (French, 256, 259); Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, biography of Athanasius Yeshu Bar Qatra.

[13] Michael Rabo, 638 (French, 277-278).

[14] Michael Rabo, 242-243 (French, 285-287); the Anonymous Edessan, 151-153 (Arabic, 177-180; English, 300, n. 2).

[15] Michael Rabo, 647 (French, pp. 291-292).

[16] Michael Rabo, 642-643 (French, 283-285); the Anonymous Edessan, 152-153 (Arabic, 178-179).

[17] Michael Rabo, 651 (French, 289).

[18] Michael Rabo, 643-644 (French, 286-288).

[19] Michael Rabo, 649 (French, 295); Bar Hebraeus, 98 (English, 276-277).

[20] Michael Rabo, 648-649 (French, 295); Bar Hebraeus, 98 (English, 276-277); Gregory the Priest, 258, says simply that Joscelin was taken prisoner by “the hideous and ferocious detester of Christ and brought to the city of Aleppo.”

[21] Michael Rabo, 648-649 (French, 295); Bar Hebraeus, 98 (English, 276-277).

[22] The Anonymous Edessan, 154-155 (English, 301; Arabic, 180-181).

[23] William of Tyre, 2: 201; Gregory the Priest, 258, likewise asserts that Joscelin was punished because he acted against the will of God.

[24] Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1: 480-481, and al-Tarikh al-Bahir, 101-103; Ibn al-Adim, Zubdat al-Halab, 2: 301-302.

[25] Ibn Wasil, Mufarrij al-Kurub, 1: 124.

[26] William of Tyre, 2: 453.

[27] William of Tyre, 2: 454-457; Röhricht, 392-393; Runciman, 2: 429-430; Baldwin, “The Decline of the Crusades, 1174-1189,” 1: 597, n. 7. Michael Rabo, 725-726 (French, 388-389), says the marriage of Bohemond III to the woman of ill repute was finally legitimized and peace prevailed.

[28] This eyewitness account, which was appended to a church prayer book, was published with commentary by M. L’Abbé Martin as “Les Premieres Princes des Croisades et Les Syriens Jacobites de Jérusalem,” Journal Asiatique, 12 (November-December 1888): 471-491 and 13 (January 1889): 33-79, containing the Syriac text and French translation. See Patriarch Aphram Barsoum, al-Lulu al-Manthur fi Tarikh al-Ulum wa al-Adab al-Suryaniyya , 4th ed. (Holland: Bar Hebraeus Verlag, 1987),.375, trans. Matti Moosa as The History of Syriac Literature and Sciences (Pueblo: Passeggiata Press, 2000), 140.

[29] Gérard Dédéyan, “Les colophons de manuscrits arméniens comme sources pour l’histoire des Croisades,” in John France and William G. Zajac, eds., The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, (Ashgate, 1998), 96-97.

[30] L’Abbé Martin, 13: 42-45 of the Syriac text.

[31] See Hans Eberhard Mayer, “Studies in the History of Queen Melisend of Jerusalem,” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 26 (1972): 95-182.

[32] L’Abbé Martin, 13: 46-49 of the Syriac text. Joshua Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle East (London, 1972), 222, mentions Melisend’s favor toward the Syrians in this case.

[33] W. R. Taylor, “A New Syriac Fragment Dealing With Incidents In The Second Crusades,” The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 11 (1929-1930): 124. For elucidation of this tract, see Barsoum, al-Lulu al-Manthur, trans. Moosa, 34-35; Bar Hebraeus, 142 (English, 398-399).

[34] Mayer, 26: 139, n. 72.

[35] Michael Rabo, 651-653 (French, 300-304).

[36] Michael Rabo, 651-653 (French, 300-304 ).

[37] Michael Rabo, 678 (French, 321); Bulus Bahnam, “Dayr Mar Barsoum,” Lisan al-Mashriq, 4 (Mosul, 1951): 162-163.

[38] Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, biography of Mar Mikha’il (Michael) Rabo.

[39] Seating Michael Rabo on the throne suggests that the Franks regarded him as the legitimate Patriarch of Antioch, and provides proof that St. Peter founded the Church of Antioch and its patriarchate before he left for Rome. Indeed, even today the Church of Rome on January 18 commemorates St. Peter as the founder of the Church of Antioch and its first patriarch. See Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th. ed., 13: 696.

[40] The Anonymous Edessan, 307 (Arabic, 346), is somewhat vague about the dates of the patriarch’s ordination and his journeys to various cities. If the patriarch was actually ordained in September 1167, he must have spent Easter of the next year in Antioch. Surprisingly, Michael Rabo does not mention these events, possibly because of his characteristic humility.

[41] Michael Rabo, 700-701, 718 (French, 347-348, 377, esp. 377, n. 1).

[42] Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical History, biography of Ignatius Dawud; Rev. Ishaq Armala, al-Hurub al-Salibiyya fi al-Athar al-Suryaniyya (Beirut: al-Matba’a al-Suryaniyya, 1929), 219-220.

[43] Badr al-Din al-Ayni, Iqd al-Juman, R H C. Or., 2: 187-190, says handing Jerusalem over to the Christians was one of the greatest calamities ever to befall Islam; Thomas C. Van Cleve, “The Crusade of Frederick II,” in Baldwin, ed., A History of the Crusades, 2: 454-455; Runciman, 3: 187.

[44] Armala, p. 220.

[45] Michael Rabo, 720 (French, 379). See Röhricht, 385.

Muslims – Christians relations And Inter – Christrian Rivalries In Middle East Dr. John Joseph

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:53:23 -0400

1-The Syrians in Tur Abdin
2- The Syrians in Syria
3- Bibiography

1
THE SYRIANS IN Tur Abdin

The internal conditions in the still "Ottoman Empire" were chaotic when the war ended in 1918. Food and most commodities were at famine prices. In Istanbul, sugar, an item typical of other commodities, was retailed at three hundred instead of twenty-five piasters. "Everyone was for himself," the Times of London reported hundreds of thousands of brigands, some partly organized politically; others, unorganized bands of deserters and robbers, posed the most serious problem of all.1

Istanbul was an occupied city, the sultan not a free agent. The negotiations conducted with his government and signed by him in the Treaty of Sevres perpetuated the rights of the Western powers to interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey and its former provinces. The many minorities of the empire were used as a pretext for intervention. Armenians, Kurds, Maronites, Jews, and Assyrians were used at the end of the war, just as the Arabs were manipulated at its beginning.

An independent Armenia, a scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish areas-leading to independence if the Kurds so desired;2 a Jewish national home in Palestine, a Greater Lebanon dominated by the Maronites, special privileges for the Assyrians in northern Iraq, led to an inflation of nationalist hopes and demands that severely strained minority-majority relations, leading to antagonisms from which the Middle East is still suffering.
With the collapse of tsarist Russia, the Armenians in eastern Anatolia found themselves in an especially precarious condition. Many deported Armenians had begun to return to their homes soon after Turkey had signed the armistice. Their nationalists, encouraged by the outbreak of the Russian Revolution on the one hand, and the victories of the allied armies on the other, proclaimed the Republic of Armenia in the Caucasus in May l9l8. The surrender of the Ottoman Empire to the Allies five months later led to the withdrawal of the Ottoman troops from Transcaucasia and northwestern Iran, lessening the dangers faced by the infant Armenian republic. With the help of British imperial troops, the Republic was allowed to establish its full jurisdiction throughout the Kars province during the following spring (April 1919).3 More than fifty thousand Armenian refugees, who had left the province when the Russians abandoned it, were repatriated,4 but with strict orders not to advance into Turkish Armenia. They found it too tempting not to, and soon proceeded to extend the Republic's borders westward to include eastern Anatolia, driven by a dream of "the soil of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Diyarbekir and lands beyond.” 5 Moreover, they were encouraged by the Treaty of Sevres, which formally recognized Armenian independence in eastern Turkey.

While the Armenians were trying to take over in the East, Greeks were dreaming their "Great Idea.'' It was in May 1919 when Greece landed troops at Smyrna (lzmir) under the protection of an Allied fleet and proceeded to secure western Anatolia for itself. With Constantinople as the capital and St. Sophia as its cathedral.

The summer of 1920 brought more encouragement for the Anatolian Christians-the French occupation forces had arrived in southwestern Turkey. Armenian young men were enrolled as volunteers for service under French officers. The Christian communities of south-central Turkey were reported by the American missionaries to have declared an "Autonomous Christian Cilicia." 6

Beaten and humiliated, the Turks struck back. Soon after the war's end, the return of the Armenians on Turkish soil had led to a movement designed to prevent them from settling and tilling their fields. "Bands led brigands," wrote the Times, were sent by the provincial notables, leading to warfare ''with all its hideous accompaniments.'' 7 When Smyrna was occupied, news was spread of a massacre of the Muslims by Greeks. Unarmed Muslim Turkish villages had been pillaged by the Greeks, reducing their inhabitants to starvation. Were the English now bringing in the Armenians? Many Kurds, wrote Gertrude Bell, "dreaded an inquiry by British and Armenians into their misdeeds against the Armenians in 1915." 8

Mustafa Kemal started to round up nationalist forces in the spring of 1919 to save Turkey proper from dismemberment. We need not be detained by details of the next few years except to mention that by the second half of 1920, after the Greek danger had been contained, Turkish forces had overrun the greater part of the territory claimed by the Armenian Republic, including Kars and Ardahan. 9
On the Cilician front American missionary reports spoke of burning and bloodshed. At Marash (Mar'ash), after three weeks of fighting, the French troops, helped by the Armenians, were forced to withdraw, the latter left behind, falling into the hands of the Turks now "inspired by an intensified hate.'' By the beginning of 1922 the French forces had arranged an armistice with the Turks.

That summer the Turko-French agreement provided for French withdrawal from Cilicia, coupled with Kemalist recognition of French authority in Syria. The Armenians, as Turkish subjects, had to submit themselves to Turkish rule and accept Turkish guarantees for their safety. Those who wanted to leave for French-occupied Syria would be allowed to do so. 10 Armenian "disheartenment," wrote Dr. John E. Merrill, president of Central Turkey College at Aintab, exceeded that during any of the previous massacres and deportations, for added to the bitterness of the event was consciousness of betrayal.''

In 1922 the Turks granted '' permission…to all Christians " to leave Turkey, creating yet another flight of refugees in panic.11 Jacobite and Chaldean Christians as well as Armenians became victims of Turkish vengeance. Large numbers of the two non-Armenian communities fled in1921 and 1922, bringing to an end their centuries-old residence in Adana and especially Urfa.12 The vast majority of them were helpless victims of the forces unleashed by the events that we have described, innocent of all political ambition. A Jacobite author speaks of the misdeeds of some agitated youth of his community during the French occupation, that displeased Turkish officials.13

Like other minorities, encouraged by the new freedoms proclaimed by the American president, the Jacobites wanted to be heard at the peace conference in Paris. Some of their leaders, especially those, who had immigrated to the United States, joined the delegation of the "Assyrian National Association of America," with its ambitious claims. 14 The future patriarch of the Jacobites, Ignatius Afram I. Brsoum, then bishop of Syria, joined the delegation in Paris even though he was soon disillusioned by what he saw there; at one session at the peace conference he found himself defending Arab rights instead of championing the cause of his community. He was cheered by the Arab delegates present, called bishop of Arabism-Mutran al-'Uruba- and priest of all time – “ Qass al-Zaman.” 15

Outside Cilicia, large numbers of Chaldeans, Jacobites, and Syrian Catholics had remained in their own villages and towns after the Armenian deportations, and they were on the Turkish side when the Armistice was signed. They had often become objects of Turkish retaliation, 16 but it was not until the Kurdish revolt in 1925 that they again suffered massacre and deportation, long after the Turks had settled their problem with their non-Muslim subjects.

The motive of the Kurdish uprising notes a Kurdish writer, "was the endeavor to create an independent Kurdish state and secure the national rights of the Kurdish people." The chief slogan of the revolt was “ the creation of independent Kurdistan under Turkish protectorate and restoration of the Sultanate.” 17 But the Turkish nationalists were determined to crush the rebellion. If the Kurds were not " taught a lesson " very early, then the eastern vilayets of the country would continue to be a source of great danger, forcing the young republic to keep a large army there at a cost that it could ill afford. The Turkish republicans were also convinced that the Kurds were encouraged by the British government in Iraq, where the mandatory administration showed great partiality to them. 18

Moreover, the Ankara government saw in the Kurds an idea-logical enemy; they represented a counterrevolution, the old Turkey fighting the new. When Kurdish forces temporarily occupied Diyarbakr and Kharput, they were reported to have proclaimed Muhammad Salim, the oldest son of Abdul Hamid II as “King of Kurdistan.'' The insurgents demanded the restoration of the religious laws and institutions that “the atheist government of Ankara” had abolished; they called upon all Turkish Muslims to join them in a holy war (jihad) against the new republic.19

It did not take long before the heavy hand of the Ankara government had broken the Kurdish uprising and captured its leaders. By April 1925 the rebels had been driven into the mountains which Ismet Pasha, speaking before the Grand National Assembly, said, " would prove to be their tomb."20 A Turkish court martial set up at Diyarbakr condemned to death and executed in August 1925 Shayk Sa'id and forty-seven other Kurdish leaders. "Altogether," writes Ghassemlou, "206 villages were destroyed, 8,758 houses burnt and 15,200 people killed." About a thousand of the Kurdish notable families were transferred to the western parts of Anatolia. 21

The Jacobites who were spared during the Armenian atrocities became victims during the suppression of the Kurdish revolt. Some Syrian Christians had collaborated with the Kurds or had given them protection either from fear or conviction. 22 Consequently, a number or Jacobites and Chaldeans were surrounded and deported from that part of the Turkish territory that the British government claimed for Iraq to the north of the "Brussels Line." 23 People who conducted inquiries on the spot have also ascribed these deportations to the desire of the Turkish military authorities to seize the cattle and grain of the Christian villagers in order to feed their hungry and angry troops. Politically, the authorities also feared that the Christians' loyalties might be with the British and Iraqi authorities across the border. General Laidoner, commissioned by the League of Nations to investigate these deportations, had "satisfied himself beyond doubt" that Turkish officers had first commanded the occupation and search of the villagers for arms. “Afterwards they pillaged the houses and subjected the inhabitants to atrocious and murderous acts of violence. The deportations were made en masse.” 24 The Jacobite patriarch, Mar Ignatius Elias Ill, was expelled from Dayr Za'faran, which was turned into a Turkish barrack. 25

Not all the Christian inhabitants of Anatolia had left their homes, during and after the First World War. Some who had crossed into Syria or Iraq returned to their villages. During the conflicts, the people of Tur Abdin held on to their mountain fastnesses and, as in the past, found refuge in their churches and monasteries. Kullith, 26 Middu, Basabrina, Idil, and Hakh were among the approximately sixty villages still exclusively Christian as late as the mid-1970s. One of the churches of Hakh (Church of the Virgin), dating back to the apostolic times, its magnificent Byzantine mosaic still largely intact, may be the oldest church still in use in the world. Gertrude Bell, describing its exquisite lacework of ornaments, called it the jewel of Tur Abdin. 27

An American student of Middle Eastern Christian churches who visited the Tur in 1974 wrote that what distinguishes the churches and monasteries of the region from other ancient Christian monuments of Asia Minor is the phrase “ still in use.” 28 During his visit he observed the faithful gathering at the various churches every evening for vesper prayers. The village of Kullith had a Syrian Protestant church with a membership of twenty families, remnant of the once flourishing Protestant missionary effort there. 29

The focal point of the Tur region remained the convent of al-Za'fa-ran with its cathedral, the Church of the Forty Martyrs. 30 In the 1970 there were only four monks at the Dayr, which for centuries had served as the summer residence of Jacobite patriarchs of nearby Mardin, and home of sometimes up to sixty monks. 31 About ten other monks serve in other monastic centers-Mar Jibri'il (Gabriel) and Mar Ya'qtib (Jacob)-their time spent on maintaining them, cultivating their gardens and orchards, as well as on meditating, teaching, and entertaining guests, visitors, and villagers who come from long distances to attend Sunday services. The monastery of Mar Jibra'il, in the village of Qartamln, some twenty miles east of Midyat, has been renovated, and some new buildings have been added in recent years to the old structure. In the Middle Ages this convent, sometimes called Dayr 'Umar, was the most famous and the richest of the Jacobite monasteries. Tradition says that its bishop, Mar Gabriel, had obtained from the caliph, 'Umar Ibn al-Khattab, rights of jurisdiction over all the Christians in the Tur Abdin when the caliph's forces had driven the Byzantines out. 32

These venerated structures have been maintained and expanded by the generous donations of Jacobites everywhere, especially those who have immigrated to the Americas. To the Syrian Orthodox these lands and landmarks, where in Tur Abdin alone the "Suryan" had seventy monastic centers, 33 are “ hallowed by the blood of martyrs and by miraculous interventions of the Holy Spirit” throughout the centuries. 34 Today, two of the monasteries serve as seminaries. In 1974 the convents of al-Za'faran and Mar Gabriel had about fifty students, some of whom would enter priesthood.35 One of the more distinguished graduates of al-Za'faran was Patriarch Ignatius Afram I. Barsoum, the predecessor of the late prelate, who was a graduate of the seminary at Mar Matta, in northern Iraq. 36

The capital center of Tur Abdin continues to be the town of Midyat, the residence of one of the two Jacobite bishops of Turkey, with a diocese of about twenty thousand faithful living in it and its nearby villages, served by forty priests. The city has five churches, each with its priest. The town is divided into two sections, separated from each other by about two kilometers, one predominantly Muslim, the other Christian. 37

All the historic Christian communities of the eastern half of Anatolia were present in Mardin after the maelstrom of l9l4-l8 had swept over that part of Turkey. 38 The Jacobite were the most important group among the city’s Christians, having taken the place of the Armenians. The Syrian Orthodox still had ''numerous communities" in the surrounding countryside in the 1960s, some of them with their own churches and parish priests.

For a while it seemed that things were going back to the normalcy of the pre-World-War-I days. The Eastern Turkey mission of the American board was able to open its schools in Mardin in late 1924. During the Kurdish disturbances of the late 192Os and early 193Os the missionaries reported that the Turkish officials of the city were very friendly, providing the mission compound with a special guard. 39

Although Mardin was still an Arabic-speaking city during the post World-War-II period, all its inhabitants also spoke Turkish. In the I960s, part of the religious services of the Syro-Jacobites, such as the sermon and the readings from the Gospels, while still in Arabic, were translated into Turkish. The liturgical books were still written in either Syriac or Arabic.40 The city had a bishop in charge of all Syrian Orthodox Christians of Turkey until his death in the late l96Os; since then it has been under the jurisdiction of the bishopric of the Jaziralt in Syria.
Outside the Tur Abdin and Mardin districts, the largest concentration of Syro-Jacobites was in Istanbul and its suburbs. There a community of about seven thousand built and consecrated a new church-school complex in 1963 called Suryani Qadim Maryam Ana Kilisesi, Mother Mary's Church of the Old Syrians. 41

As elsewhere in the Middle East, the Christian inhabitants of Turkey find more security and comfort, as well as better economic opportunities and more cordial interpersonal relations, in the large cosmopolitan urban centers. But the future of the small Christian population of Turkey seems to be din. Unlike the Arab world, where the Christian presence is stronger and the Christians (such as the Copts of Egypt and the Greek Orthodox of Syria-original inhabitants of these countries) have thrown in their lot with the Arabs and have very largely identified themselves as a community with the national aspirations of their Muslim compatriots, the Turkish experience has resulted in estrangement. Even the future of Tur Abdin seems to be uncertain.

A well-informed visitor to the Tur noticed some obviously genuine friendship there between some Christians and Muslims, and was touched by the friendship " between a priest and a mullah." He had seen a Muslim woman with a seriously ill child, asking a Jacobite priest to bless her young with prayer; but the visitor also found the overall inter-religious relationship strained and the situation at a "deplorable stalemate.” The solidly Christian villages, he wrote, ''seem obsessed with the fear that Muslims will acquire property among them." 42 A whole Christian village after World War II had become Muslim in order to save the village, Indeed, there are several Muslim villages whose elders remember when they were Christian. The young, writes Homer, see little future for themselves and move steadily away from Tur-to Istanbul, into Syria and Lebanon, some to Europe, Australia, and the Americas. 43

2
THE SYRIANS IN SYRIA

The refugees from Anatolia found new homes and villages in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq where they were helped to settle by members of their community who had long lived in these former Ottoman territories. They also received sympathetic support from the Allied powers who during these crucial years were in occupation of these territories.

Syrian lands situated just south of Turkey attracted the majority of the Jacobites and Syrian Catholics, as well as large numbers of Chaldeans, Armenians, Kurds, and a few Jews. 44 They found refuge here thanks to the public security established by the French occupation. Many of the victims of the events of the early 192Os in the provinces of Cilicia and Turkish Kurdistan came to settle in Aleppo, Hims, Hama, and Damascus, but the majority of them found new homes and villages in the Jazirah district of Syria, a "no-man's land" which before 1927 had practically no settled population except for about forty-five Kurdish villages. 45

As a result of the Kurdish revolts of the mid-1920s and l930 in Turkey referred to above,46 about twenty thousand Kurds came and settled in northern Jazirah along the Turko-Syrian frontier, most of them coming with their flocks and herds, settling down as cultivators either in villages of their own or on the estates of Kurdish landowners. 47 During the interwar years (1919-39) the population of the Jazirah increased, bringing the number of villages and settlements to about 700. In the year 1935 alone, 150 villages sprang up in the region, some of them inhabited from Iraq, following the clash that they had with the Iraqi government. 48

The Jazirah was a potentially fertile corner of Syria, its soil watered by the tributaries of the Euphrates river, the major one being the river Khabur, which flowed through the region from its source at Ras al-' Ayn (head of the spring) on the Turkish border, down to the Euphrates south of Dayr al-Zur. Gradually, this northeastern part of Syria was transformed into a potentially explosive region alongside the other politically volatile regions of the county such as Jabal al-Duruz (Druze) and al-Ladhiqiyah (Latakia). In one sense the Jazirah became more difficult to govern; it lacked the homogeneity that the Druze and Alwite districts had. In the late l93Os, the population of al-Jazirah was estimated as follows: 49

Syrian Orthodox and Catholics 35,000
Armenians 25,000
Assyrians (on the Khabur) 9,000
Kurds 20,000
Jews 1,500
Miscellaneous (including Arabs) 9,500

Made up of a population that had recently fled from fire and famine, these former refugees dreaded the prospect of another exodus after the departure of the French, a prospect which seemed to be approaching in the mid-193Os when France in Syria and Lebanon, and England in Egypt and Iraq, were willing to bring their special relationships with these countries to an end.50All the Christian communities in the Middle East, with the possible exception of the Greek Orthodox Arabs 51 and the Coptic Christians of Egypt, feared an untried Muslim-Arab regime taking over from the European occupying powers. 52 If the French were to leave Syria then at least the province of al-Jatirah should be granted some measure of local autonomy, with a special status such as that of Alexandretta. "The overwhelming majority of the population-Christian, Arab, and Kurdish," wrote John Hope Simpson, "is united in the demand for local autonomy." 53

Anxiety in al-Jazirah, as in Jabal Druze and the 'Alawi districts, Carrie to a head when the Franco-Syrian treaty was signed in 1936. The treaty provided for the replacement of the French by Syrian officials. The minimum demand of the Kurds and Christians of the Jazirah had been that their administrators should come from the local population. The central government rejected this condition, insisting that al-Jazirah was an integral part of Syria. The officials from Damascus, unfortunately, often proved insensitive to the fears and forebodings of the local population even though the central government was counciliatory. 54

Tensions erupted into an open conflict early in the summer of 1937 when the Kurds expressed their opposition to the Syrian nationalist officials appointed to the district. The revolt started in the Kurdish town of Hasaka (French Hasetche) and spread to Qamishli and elsewhere, supported by the Christian inhabitants. Encouraged by some local French officials, the insurgents demanded autonomy. In August 1937 the village of 'Amuda. an important wheat-producing village of some three hundred Christian families, was raided and destroyed by Shammar Arabs and "Kurdish partisans of the Government.'' The Christians of 'Amuda were forced to take refuge at the towns of Qamishli and Hasaka. 55

French motorized infantry units and squadrons of planes were able to tiring the disturbances to an end by mid-August 1937. 56 At the end of that year, the patriarch of the Syrian Catholics, Cardinal Tabbuini, representing the Christian minorities opposed to direct Syrian rule over the Jazirah. approached the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointing out in a memorandum addressed to it the possible danger of a massacre of Christians in northeast Syria and elsewhere. He proposed that complete equality in religious and personal matters be granted to all the communities of the Jazirab; that an equitable number of Christian officials be appointed: that adequate means of protection be made available in areas where Christian security might be jeopardized; and that the interests of the minorities be safeguarded through the decentralization of government. 57

There were occasional riots in the district against the Syrian officials, one of whom, the governor of the Jazirah, a Greek Orthodox Christian from Damascus, Tawfiq Shamiyah, was kidnapped in December 1937 by people from Hasaka. 58 He was soon released, but the kidnappers were arrested; demands for their release from prison were the cause of agitation and demonstration in the district as late as 1939. 59 The hopes of the Jazirah inhabitants were raised high that year when the Treaty of 1936 was not ratified by the French Chamber of Deputies. The Syrian president and his cabinet resigned and the French high commissioner suspended the Syrian constitution and dissolved the Chamber, appointing a nonpolitical council of directors to govern by decree under his direction.60 The mandatory government at this late hour turned the hands of the clock back to 1920 when the French regime started its rule. Jebel Druze and Latakia, which had been separated from Syria in 1922 but which, according to the 1936 treaty, were to be incorporated into Syria, were reestablished as separate administrations. The sanjak of Alexandretta, which had been officially a part of Syria even though enjoying its own semiautonomous administration, was handed over to Turkey, which annexed it in 1939. 61 The high commissioner's decree also removed al-Jazirah from the direct control of the Syrian government and placed it under the immediate rule of his delegate at Hasaka. Within six months, however, with World War II raging at France's door, the functions of governor were once more transferred to a Syrian official; calm was restored as the result of an agreement reached between France and the Syrian government. 62

The political tensions of the Jazirah did not hinder progress. The region's emigrant, refugee populations understandably felt unsafe and suspicious, but they were also a hardworking and frugal people; they very soon proved to be a very valuable element, serving their neighbors as craftsmen, mechanics, electricians, shopkeepers, and entrepreneurs. Many Christians, Jacobites as well as Armenians, especially the "Protestants'' among them, were relatively well educated, having attended American mission schools in Anatolia. 63 Thanks largely to them, by the eve of World War II the district had been turned into a productive area with many prosperous villages and two large flourishing towns-Qamishli with a population of twenty-three thousand of whom twenty thousand were Christians, and Hasaka, with a population of twelve thousand. In 1936 and 1937 the district, traversed by the Istanbul-Baghdad railway, exported by rail alone a hundred thousand tons of wheat in addition to what was transported to the rest of Syria by road. 64

The war years brought in even greater prosperity to al-Jazirah as the Allies encouraged the production of foodstuffs in the Middle East. An official agency was formed during the war to help the Jazirah become a center for grain production. The high prices encouraged local enterprise; the number of tractors and harvesting machinery increased from 30 in 1942 to 930 by 1950. The acreage under cultivation multiplied from fifty thousand in 1942 to over a million acres by l950. 65

The wealth accumulated during the war was invested in more intensive cultivation; the expansion in cotton financed entirely from commercial as opposed to state capital. By the early 1960s, Doreen Warriner could write that the Jazirah was as fully mechanized as any other country in the world. She noted that the pioneers who changed these nomadic grazing lands to a highly mechanized agricultural region were for the most part Christian emigrants from Turkey-Armenians, Jacobites, and Syrian Catholics. There were Muslim farmer-entrepreneurs, but it was the lead. One of the leading agricultural firms in the I96Os was owned by a former Jacobite family from Diyarbakr-Asfar and Naijar Brothers-with branches in Damascus, Aleppo, and Qamishli. The firm cultivated some hundred thousand hectares of land, half of which was rented, the rest purchased. In the late fifties one of the Najjar brothers represented Qamishli in the Syrian parliament, where he urged the government to devote more funds for the building of roads in his district. 66 Mutual appreciation gradually took place in mutual suspicion between the Bedouin natives and the new inhabitants. The Bedouin tribal shaykhs were the large landlords, from whom the merchant-farmers rented the land and sometimes bought it, especially where, through pumped water, they irrigated it. 67 The landlords’ rent amounted from 10 to 15 percent of the gross produce. 68 With the agricultural boom, the tribesmen soon developed interest in farming; the shaykhs started to count their wealth in terms of bales of cotton and tons of wheat as well as in numbers of camels and goats. 69

The political tension of the Jazirah gradually subside when the French finally left Syria in 1946. Their departure made possible the realization by the minorities that they could no longer rely on French backing and intervention. 70 This realization in turn reassured the Syrian government that the minorities would no longer be manipulated by a foreign power as in the past in order to retain their control over the country. President Shukri al-Quwatli’s visit to the Jazirah was greeted with great jubilation in 1945. 71

A Jacobite writer touring the Jazirah has noted the dramatic progress that the members of his community made in the district after independence. The community had two secondary schools in Syria, one in Qamishli and one in Sadad; five preparatory ( junior high ) schools, in Hasakah, Malkiah, Fairuza, Zaydal, and Aleppo; and elementary schools in the various towns and villages. 72

Independent Syria began to build on the foundations that the former refugees and emigres had laid. The government which, according to Doreen Warrier, had “done almost nothing to promote agricultural development,” began to introduce irrigation improvements during the 1960s. A “new Jazirah” was envisioned when the building of the massive Euphrates Dam was started with Soviet aid in 1964. The project, opened in 1973, is at present the second largest electricity and irrigation facility in the Middle East after Egypt’s Aswan High Dam. It is estimated that the harnessed waters of the Euphrates will eventually irrigate enough land to double the farmed areas of the country and make the Jazirah “one of the most attractive and prosperous provinces of the Arab world.” 73 The economic potential of this northeast corner of Syria was further enhanced after independence when oil and natural gas were discovered, thus encouraging the central government to pay greater attention to this once neglected “no-man’s land.”

At the time of writing, the Jazirah, were both the Syrian Orthodox and Catholics have had Episcopal Sees since the late 1930s, is the most populous diocese of the twin communities. 74 After World War II, when the Christian population of Syria was either remaining stable or declining as a result of emigration, the providence of al-Jazirah showed a dramatic increase even though the Muslim growth was much larger. The district remains highly heterogeneous, the proportion of its non-Arab population much greater than in any other region of Syria. 75

Outside the Jazirah, Jacobites and Syrian Catholics settled in Hims, Hama, Aleppo, and Damascus. The Catholic branch of the community predominated in these urban centers, especially in Aleppo, long a Catholic stronghold. 76 In the 1960s major Catholics churches of the Middle East were represented in Aleppo. The Malkites or “Greek Catholics” –the most important and influential Catholic community in Syria- had seven parishes with fifteen secular and three religious priests and a population of 17,000 faithful in this archbishopric; Syrian Catholics had six parishes, with six priests and about 7,500 members; the Maronites, three parishes, with seven priests serving 2,500 people; the Armenian Catholics, seven parishes, with twelve priests, and 15,500 faithful; the Chaldeans (Catholic ex-Nestorians), six parishes, eight priests, and about 6,000 faithful. Of the almost half a million people who lived in Aleppo in 1962, the Christians were estimated to be 30 percent. 77 Most of the Syrian Orthodox in and around Aleppo had settled there after the First World War.” 78

There are few Jacobites in the Syrian capital, even though their Patriarch has resided there since 1957. 79 Most of the Jacobites of Damascus have settled there since World War I; almost all those who were there before then had embraced Catholicism. 80 In the 1960s the Syrian Catholics were estimated at about 4,250 in number, with five churches, seven priests and two elementary schools. 81

Other important Jacobite-Syrian Catholic centers in Syria are Hums, where the Jacobite patriarch resided before moving to Damascus, Hama. 82 Sadad, and Hafar, the last two being exclusively Christian. Syrian Catholic and Orthodox population throughout Syria was estimated in the mid-197Os at just over 100,000 - 82,000 Jacobites, 21,000 Syrian Catholics. 83

Bibliography

1. Times, 20 Nov.1918. See also A. Attrep, " 'A State of Wretchedness and.; Impotence': A British View of Istanbul and Turkey, 1919,”International Journal of Middle EastStudies, (Feb.1978): 1-9.

2. Article 64 of the Treaty provided for Kurdish "independence from Turkey," if a majority of the Kurds desired it within one year from the coming into force of the Treaty, and if the League of Nations Council considered the Kurds capable of such independence. See text in J. C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East; A Documentary Record (Princeton, N.J.:1956), 2:82.

3. As early as April 1918, the Kars province, ceded by Russia in 1878, was abandoned to the Ottoman troops. The Mudros Armistice allowed the Turkish troops to stay in the region of Kars unless it were decided that it too should be evacuated.

4. For details, see Richard G. Hovannisian, "The Armenian Occupation of Kars,1919," in Recent Studies in Modern Armenian History (Cambridge, Mass.: National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, Inc.,1972), pp.23-44.

5. Ibid., p.38.

6. M.H. 116(1920)558; 118(1922)89; New York Times, 25 Feb.,29March, 13 April, 1921.

7. 22 Nov.1919; 2 Dec.1919.

8. Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia (London: Cmd. 1061, 1920), pp.67-70. The Kurds were assured, wrote Bell, that the British had no intention of pursuing a vindictive policy towards them.

9. A Turco-Armenian treaty was signed in December 1920 which was superseded by the Turkish-Russian Treaty of 1921, when the Republic of Armenia was taken by the Soviets. See S. J. Shaw and E. K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2:35&57.

10. New York Times 14 Nov.1921; 23 Dec.1921; M.H.116(1920): 540.

11. M.H. 118 (1922): 8-9, 89, 148 477-78. For a sympathetic account of these events by one who participated in relief work among the refugees, see Stanley E. Kerr, The Lions of Marash (Albany, N. Y.:l973).

12. Urfa, ancient Edessa, is the site of the Jacobite monastery of Mar Afram, which stood conspicuously at the head of the bay. Urfa was reported to have had only "Three or four Syro-Jacobite" families in the l96Os. See Xavier Jacob, "The Christians of South-East Turkey," p.399.

13. "Ibn al-'Ibri," "al-Ta'ifah al-Suryaniyah," pp.70, 115. See also Norman A. Homer, "Tur Abdin: A Christian Minority Struggles To Preserve Its Identity," Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research 2 (Oct. 1978): 134, where the author merely mentions the Syrian Orthodox as having "their own nationalistic ambitions."

14. For a photograph of the delegation that attended the Peace Conference see Assyrian Star (Chicago), May-June, 1971, p.8. For Jacobite petitions to the peace conference, see F.O. 608, no.85, files 347~ and 3481(1919). Cf. Ibn al-'Ibri, "al-TI'ifah al-Suryiniyah," p. 71, emphasizing that the leaders of the Jac'obite community were convinced that only their own government could restore their denied rights; those who had immigrated to America, he adds, thought differently.

15. Ghrighuriyus Builus Bahnim, Nafahat al-Khizam Aw Hayat al-Batrak Afram (Mosul: 1959), pp.25-27, 193-94. See also Matti I. Moosa, "Kitab al-lu'lu' al-Manthur, by Ignatius Aphram Barsoum, Syrian Patriarch of Antioch and all the East" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1965), p. vii.

16. Times, 14 Jan.1920.

17. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Kurdistan and the Kurds (Prague: l%5), p. 50.

18. For a detailed discussion of the role of the Kurds in the border settlement controversy between Turkey and Iraq-the so-called Mosul question-see Joseph The Nestodans and Their Muslim Neighbors, pp.167-94. Cf. A. R. Ghassemlou, Kurdistan and the Kurds, pp.60-61. See also Times 22 March 1926.

19. New York Times, 26 Feb.1925; 19 April 1925; X, p.12. For a discussion of Kurdish opposition to the new regime, see Jweideh, pp.302 Ct seq.; Arfa, The Kurds, pp.33-38, 107-108; Derk Kinnane, The Kurds and Kurdistan, pp. l~l7; W. G. Elphinston, "Kurds and the Kurdish Question," Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 35(1948): 43.

20. New York Times, 9 April 1925.

21. In 1932 a law passed by the Ankara government enabled it to deport "hundreds of thousands" of Kurds into areas where they would "constitute 5% of the population." Most probably the Turkish government was infuriated by the fact that the Kurdish nationalist organization, the khoybun, which organized the 1930 revolt, was under the "direct influence" of the Armenian extreme nationalist party of the Dashnak. See Ghassemlou, Kurdistan, pp. 53-55; Kinnane, Kurds, p.30-31; W. G. Elphinston, "The Kurdish Question," International Affairs 22 (1946): 96. Cf Arfa, The Kurds p.31. (According to a New York Times report, Armenian and Kurdish representatives of the "Armenian Secret Army for the Liberataon of Armenia" and the "Kurdish Workers Party," respectively, told a news conference on 7 April 1980 that Turkish Kurds and Armenians had for tbe first time formed an alliance to fight against the government of Turkey. See times, 8 April 1980, p. A42).

22. "lbn al-'lbri," "al-Ta'ifah al-Suryaniyah," p. 116. For the proximity of the Jacobites and Kurdish tribes and villages to each other, see Mark Sykes, "The Kurdish Tribes of the Ottoman Empire," pp.473.74.

23. The Brussels Line eventually became the recognized boundary line between Turkey and Iraq.

24. For details on these events, see League of Nations, "Report to the Council of the League of Nations by General F. Laidoner on the Situation in the Locality of the Provisional Line of the Frontier between Turkey and Irak fixed at Brussels on October 29, 1924, Mosul, November 23, 1925," in Great Britain, Cmd. 2560 (1925); League of Nations, Turko-Irak Frontier, Memorandum on the Enquiry conducted . . . into the Deportation of Christians in the Neighbourhood of the Brussels Line, Mosul, November 12,1925," in Great Britain, Cmd. 2563 (1925); A. 3. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1925, 1:19, 507-11,516 et seq. See also Time, II Dec., IS Dec., 1925.

25. Ilarry Charles Luke, Mosul and Its Minorities (London: 1925), p. 113. Luke gives the date of expulsion as "spring of 1924." For a discussion of Turkey's policy toward its Kurdish population after the 1930s, See Kinnane, Kurds, pp.31-34.

26. Turkish Dereici, a village of some two hundred families, between Mardin and Midyat.

27. See her Amurath to Amurath, pp.317-IS. For photographs of the church see Abrohom Nouro, My Tour in the Parishes of the Syrian Chutch in Syria and Lebanon, p.60/321.

28. Norman A. Homer, "Tur 'Abdin: A Christian Minority Struggles To Preserve Its Identity," p. 134.

29. Ibid.

30. Named after the forty Roman legionnaires who, according to the legend, were thrown into an ice-cold lake early in the fourth century when they would not renounce Christianity.

31. Homer, "Tur 'Abdin", p.136. Cf. Jacob, "The Christians of South-East Turkey," p.401.

32. See Ilorner, "Tur 'Abdin," p.134; Bell, Amurath to Amuratth, p.314; C. Dauphin, "Situation actuelle des coinniunautes chretien nes du Tur 'Abdin (Turquie Orien tale)," Proche- Orient Chretien(1972): 326; Nouro, My Tour, p.36/297.

33. Adrian Fortescue, The Lesser Eastern Churches, p.341; Gertrude L. Bell, "Churches and Monasteries of the Tur Abdin and the Neighbouring Districts," Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der Architectur 9(1913): 5-6. Several of these monasteries, according to Bell, were scanty structures which most probably were intended for one or two persons. They were devoid of any decorative features, rudely built of undressed stones. Consult her Amurath to Amurath, pp.301-14, for a description of some of these convents "garrisoned by a single monk."
34. Horner, "Tur Abdin," p.137; Nuoro, My tour, p. 21/282;Ibn al-'Ibri, "al-TI'ifah al-Suryiniyah," p.125. For details on these and other monasteries as they were in the 19705, see Claudine Dauphin, "The Rediscovery of the Nestorian Churches of the Hakkari (South Eastern Turkey)," p.326.

35. See "al-Madrasah al-Iklirikiyah fi Dayr al-Za'faran," M.B. I (1962): 485; ibid., 4 (1965)138.
36. See Nouro, My Tour, pp 35-36/28~97. See also pp.20-1.

37. Dauphin, "Rediscovery," p.325; Horner, "Tur Abdin." For more on Midyat, see p.104.

38. Only Armenian Catholics are mentioned by Father Xavier Jacob, who visited Mardin in the 19665. See his "Christians of South-East Turkey," pp.399401; see also Dauphin, ibid., p.325.

39. M.H. 121 (1925): 105; 122 (1926): 338; 127 (1931): 489.

40. See pp.17-8; Jacob, "Christians," p.325.

41. See M.B. 2 (1963): 21011; 6 (1967): 54; 11 (1973): 567-71, including photographs showing the Jacobite patriarch Ighnatiyus Ya'qub III visiting the "vali" of Istanbul and other Turkish dignitaries.

42. Horner, "Tur Abdin," pp. l3~35; Dauphin,"Rediscover," p.327. Claudine Dauphin, also a recent and well-informed visitor to Tur Abdin, found no trace of hostility between the two communities but confirms the fact that as a result of constant emigration, the Christians are "surrounded" more and more by Muslims.

43. Ibid., 135. See also Dauphin, ibid., John Krajcar, "Turkey: A Graveyard of Christianity," World Mission 15 (Spring 1964): 64-72. Starting in the 19665, large numbers of Jacobites, mostly from the Tur Abdin region, have settled in southern Sweden, especially in the city of Sodertal1je. Their number was estimated at over 15,000 in the summer of 1980. (Information in letter to the author from Dr. Yusof Matti, dated 29 July 1980, from Jarfalla, Sweden.) For details on Christian workers, including the Syrian Orthodox, and refugees from Turkey in Europe, see Christian Minorities of Turkey, report produced by the Churches Committee on Migrant Workers in Europe (Brussels: 1979), pp.11-30 and passim.

44. John Hope Simpson, The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey (London: 1939), p.556.

45. For a detailed account of the refugee and emigrant beginnings in the district, see ibid., pp.458 Ct seq.; Ibn al-'lbri, "al-TI'ifah al-Suryiniyah," pp.119-120. See also Robert Montagne, "Quelques Aspects du Peuplement de la Haute-Djezireh," Bulletin d'Etudes Orientales (Damascus) 2 (1932): 53-66. The majority of the Jazirah's Arab population was nomadic, often clashing with the Kurds, especially during the seasons when they brought their flocks close to Kurdish areas for grazing.

46. See pp.101-2.

47. Some of the Kurdish aghas lived on the Turkish side of the border; after the French occupation of Syria, a few of them had moved to the Syrian side. See Simpson, Refugee Problem, pp.458, 555; Elphinston, "Kurdish Question," p.100; Andre Gilbert and Maurice Fevret, "La Djezireh syrienne etson Reveil economique," Revue de geographie de Lyon 5 (1953): 9-1O; cf Ghassemlou, Kurdistan, p.82.

48. By 1940 close to 9,000 Assyrians from Iraq had been settled on the river Khabur in 32 different villages. They were transferred to Syria and there under the agency of the League of Nations with backing from England, France, and Iraq. Turkey had objected in 1936 to their settled on the Khabur on the Turko-Syrian frontier. See New York Times, 15 Now. 1936; Times, 25 March 1940; 10 April 1940; Gibert and Fevret, ibid., p.10; Bayard Dodge, "The Settlement of the Assyrians on the Khabur," R. C A. S. J. 27 (1940): 301-320. By mid-1970 the Assyrian population of Syria, most of them in the Jazirah, was given by one informed source as 30,000, their Catholic brethren (the Chaldeans), as 9,000. See Xavier Jacob, "Die Christen im heutigen Syrien," Stimmen der Zeit; Katholische mota~hfur dasgeistesleben der gegen wart 196 (1978): 345
49. Simpson, Refugee Problem, p.556. liourani gives another estimate for 1937, as follows: Arab Moslems, 41,900; Kurds, 81,450; Chnstians, 31,050; Assyrians, 8,000; others, 4,150. See his Syria and Lebanon: A Political Essay (London: 1946), p.141 n.

50. Iraq received its independence in 1932; the Franco-Syrian treaty negotiated in 1936 provided for Syrian independence in 1939.

51. See pp.9-10.

52. See Betts, "Christian Communities" pp. 7~7l. Betts notes that this pro-Western sentiment continued "to dominate the outlook of a majority of Christian Arabs;" see also Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, p.63.

53. Refugee Problem, pp. 55~57.

54. Ibid., p.556; Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, p.215.

55. Simpson, ibid., 556; Doreen Warriner, Land Reform and Development in the Middle East: A Study of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq (London 1962), p 87. Robert B. Betts speaks of a "massacre of Christians" at 'Amuda which "initiated a strong movement for local autonomy. . ." Christians in the Arab East, pp.36-37, using Hourani's Syria and Lebanon as his source Hourani, however, rightly attributed the autonomy movement to the fears of both the Kurds and Christians of Arab rule, and speaks of the Kurds starting the revolt of 1937, and of an "altercation" at 'Amuda, when a number of Christians were killed." Ibid., p.216; and pp 141,215. Consult also New York Times, 13 Aug. 1937, which speaks of pillaging of Christian shops and homes in 'Amuda, attributing the revolt to Kurds fighting for autonomy."

56. See New York Times, 12 Aug., 13 Aug.,1937; Simpson, Refugee Probim p.556.

57. Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, p.216.

58. Almost half of the Christians in Syria belong to the native church of Syria originally affiliated with Byzantium-the Greek Orthodox church and its offshoot, the Greek Catholic church. In the early 197Os, there were almost twice as many Greek Orthodox Arabs (202,000) as there were Greek Catholic Arabs (112,000). See Jacob, "Christen im heutigen Syrien," p 344; for statistics on Syrian Christians, consult Betts, "Cliristian Com munities," pp.102-3.

59. New York Times, 24 April 1938; Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, p. 216.

60. For a discussion of the reasons why the French government rejected the treaty and the deadlock that followed, see Hourani, ibid., pp.217-29. See also Times, 4 July, 1939.

61. Thousands of Armenian refugees were reported "pouring" into Syria and Lebanon on 25 July 1939 from the Sanjaq when Turkish troops took over from the withdrawing French. New York Times, 26 July 1939. For a detailed discussion of the cession to Turkey of the Sanjaq of Alexandretta, see Toynbee, Survey, 1938, 1:479-92.

62. Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, p.229; for the text of the decree setting up the administrative regime in al-Jazirah, see ibid., p.356.

63. For a discussion of the American mission schools and colleges in Anatolia, see pp. 81-2. See also Jacob, "Christen im heutigen Syrien," p. 345, where he speaks of a community of about 19,000 Protestants in Syria, made up largely of Armenians and Jacobites.

64. Simpson, Refugee Problem, p.556. See also Armalah, Athar Faransa, pp. 2l~l2.
65. Norman N. Lewis, "The Frontier of Settlement in Syria,"International Affairs 31 (1955): 59-60; George Kirk, Survey of International Affairs 193~1946 (Oxford: 1952), pp. 88-89, 122-23, 178-82, 299; Martin W. Wilmington, The Middle East Supply Center (London: 1971), pp. 119-22.

66. Doreen Warriner, Land Reform and Development in the Middle East: A Study of Egypt, Syria, and Jraq, pp.74, 90-92.
67. As in the case of the British in Iraq, the French mandatory authorities assigned the ownership of tribal lands-usually state lands which the tribes traditionally occupied and used for their flocks-to the tribal shaykhs. The latter became the legal owners of large tracts of uncultivated land, their tribesmen receiving nothing, even losing their rights to graze on lands which were rented or sold. During the mandatory period, the French authorities were often accused by the Syrian nationalists of willfully; strengthening the bedoums as a force against the nationalist movement. Ibid., p.88; A. R. George, "The Nomands of Syria: End of a Culture?" Middle East International, April 1973, p. 21. For tribal land policies in Iraq, consult Philip W. Ireland, Iraq: A Study in Political Development New York: 1938), pp.93-95.

68. The merchant-farmers received from 45 to 60 percent of the crop on lands I where they supplied the water; as owners of tractors and combines as well as pumps, they commanded up to 85 percent of the output. See International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The Economic Development of Syria (Baltimore, Md.: 1955), p.37. Gilbert and Fevret, "Djezireh syrienne," pp.93-97.

69. It should be noted that traditionally the bedouins of Syria and Iraq have produced a large part of these countries' wool as well as their meat and dairy products. See Norman N. Lewis, "The Frontier of Settlement in Syria, l80O-1950," pp.59-60; George, "Nomads," p.22; Warriner, Land Reform, pp.92-93; International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Economic Development, p.292.

70. As late as the early l96Os foreigners were barred from entering the Jazirah without special government permission. See Gordon H. Torrey, Syrian Politics and the Military, J945-1958 (Columbus, 0. 1964), p.32; Wairiner, Land Reform, pp. 86, 88.

71. See Armalah, Athar Faransa, pp.212-13.

72. See Nouro, My Tour, pp.31-32/292-93, where the Jacobite author lists the major centers of his community in the Jazirah. Cf. "lbn al-'Ibri," "al-Ta 'ifah al-Suryaniyah," p.38.

73. David Nicolle, "The New Jazira," Middle East Jnternational 28 (Oct. 1973): pp.26-28. See also Daily Star (Beirut), 6 July 1973.

74. Called the Diocese of Jazirah and Euphrates, the Syrian Catholics numbered approximately 7,000 in the I96Os and had seven churches, five II chapels, nine priests, one secondary school, and five elementary schools. See N.C.E., vol.13, p.904; Simpson, Refugee Problem, p.557, Homer, "Tur Abdin," p.134; Armalah, Athar Faransa, pp.208-9.

75. See Betts, Christians in the Arab East, pp. 97-101. The prosperity of the region has attracted Muslim settlers from the other parts of the country, thus reducing the numerical importance of the Christian population. In the early sixties the government itself was helping farmers to move from the congested Hama region to the sparsely populated Jazirah where new villages were constructed for them. Warriner, Land Reform, p.226; Eva Garzouzi, "Land Reform in Syria," Middle East Journal, 17 (1963): 83, 90; George, "Nomads," p. 22. Kinnane Kurds, p. 44, speaks of the Syrian government's intensified effort to Arabise the Jazira under the Ba'th.

76. See pp.37-8.

77. N.C.E., vol. 1, p. 286; vol. 13, p. 904. See also Jacob, "Christen im heutigen Syrien," p.343.

78. The Ottoman provincial yearbook of 1908 gave the Jacobite and Syrian Catholic populations of the province of Aleppo as 1852 and 3130, respectively. Cited in Krikorian, Armenians p.82.

79. In 1974 a new Syrian Orthodox church, dedicated to "The Virgln," was consecrated in Damascus. See M.B. 12 (1974): 240-42.
80. Damascus too has always been an important center of the Catholics of the Middle East, its most important community being the Greek Catholics (Malkites), with a population divided into fourteen parishes in the 196(ls, amounting to 14,000 people. Other Catholic sects during that decade included Maronites (2,000) and a small congregation of Armenian Catholics. See Hambye, "The 'Syrian' Quadrilateral," p. 334; Jacob, "Christen im heutigen Syrien," p.344.

81. N.C.E., vol.13, p.904.

82. Hims and Hama together form a diocese of both sister churches. Dependent on this Syrian Catholic bishopric are two well-known monasteries, one dedicated to Mir Musa (Saint Moses) the Ethiopian, whose original building, with frescoes of exquisite beauty, may go back to the seventh century or earlier; the other is named after Mar Yulayin (Julian). See Armalah, Athar Faransa, pp.134-36; Stephen Rahhal, "Some Notes on the West Syrians," E. C. Q. 6 (1946): 379.
83- Jacob, "Christen im heutigen Syrien." pp.343-46. For a statistical account of these communities during the 1960s, consult Betts, Christians in the Arab East, pp. 1003.

* Muslims – Christians relations And Inter – Christrian Rivalries In Middle East

Hopes to Revive the Christian Area of Turkey SUSANNE GÜSTEN

Thu, 5 Apr 2012 09:14:32 -0400

IDIL, TURKEY — Clambering over the rubble of what was once his hometown, Robert Tutus pointed to a spot just up the road from where his family’s house had stood.
“This is where my father was assassinated,” he said. “Two men walked up to him as he was returning home one evening, and killed him with a bullet to his head.”
His father, Sukru Tutus, was the last Christian mayor of Azeh, known as Idil in Turkish, a town in southeastern Anatolia that traces its Christianity back to the time of the Apostles.
Within a month of his killing, which happened on June 17, 1994, Mr. Tutus recalled last month, the remaining Christian population of the town, several hundred people at the time, had gathered their belongings and fled to asylum in Western Europe.
The departure marked the end of the Christian era of Azeh, which had been a bishop’s seat as early as the second century and home to a Christian population of several thousand until the late 1970s.
Only ruins scattered about the hillside remain of their town today, while above it shabby concrete buildings rise to form the new town of Idil, inhabited by local Kurds and Arabs as well as a few Turkish administrators on temporary postings to the east.
And then there is Mr. Tutus, 42, camped out in an apartment in one of those buildings while he tries to reclaim his father’s properties and rebuild his parental home among the ruins on the hillside.
“This is our home, the home of the Syriac people,” Mr. Tutus said. “We will not give it up.”
The plateau of Tur Abdin, upon which Idil lies nestled between the Syrian plain and the mountain ranges of southeastern Turkey, is the historical heartland of the Syriac Orthodox Church, whose patriarchate resided here until tensions with the Turkish republic pushed it to move to Syria in 1933.
The region is still dotted with Syriac churches like Mor Gabriel, which was founded in the year 397 and is one of the oldest active monasteries in the world today. But apart from the monks, very few Syriacs remain.
A century ago, they numbered 200,000 here, according to the European Syriac Union, a diaspora organization. Some 50,000 survived the massacres of Anatolian Christians during World War I, in which the Syriac people shared the fate of the Armenians. Today, no more than 4,500 Syriac Christians, who speak a local dialect of the Aramaic language as well as Arabic, Turkish and Kurdish, remain in Tur Abdin.
In Azeh, which held out against a siege by surrounding Kurdish villages for months in 1915, the final push in the age-old power struggle over the town began in 1977, when Mayor Sukru Tutus was deposed by the Turkish authorities in what his successor, Abdurrahman Abay, today freely acknowledges was a rigged election.
“The military commander, the judge, the district governor — they encouraged me to run and they helped me” to win, Mr. Abay, chief of the powerful Kurdish Kecan tribe, said last month over a glass of tea in Idil. “After the election, I received a telegram from Egypt, from Anwar el-Sadat. It read: ‘I congratulate you on the Muslim conquest of Idil.”’
The takeover brought the dramatic shift in the town’s demographics that was completed in 1994, with Kurds from the surrounding villages moving in as Syriac families sold up and joined the rising flow of Christian migration from the Tur Abdin to Europe.
Today, 80,000 Syriacs from the Tur Abdin live in Germany, 60,000 in Sweden, and 10,000 each in Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands, according to estimates from the European Syriac Union.
Mr. Tutus found political asylum in Germany, together with his mother, six sisters and three brothers, all but one of whom have since acquired German citizenship and settled there.
A decade later, he was one of the first exiles to accept the Turkish government’s public invitation to Syriacs to return home. It was issued in 2001 under pressure from the European Union and repeated on several occasions.
Although he carries a German passport, Mr. Tutus spends much of his time in Idil, where he has overseen the restoration of the Church of St. Mary and last year founded an Association for Syriac Culture.
“Our aim is to keep the Syriac language and culture alive in Idil, and to remind people that this is the home of the Syriacs,” Mr. Tutus said.
Although the association’s office was fire-bombed this year, Mr. Tutus remains undeterred.
“We want the world to see that Syriacs still live here,” he said.
It is a desire he shares with hundreds of pioneering Syriacs across the Tur Abdin, who have returned from exile in Europe in recent years in an attempt to reclaim their heritage and pave the way for a Christian resettlement of the region.
In the village of Kafro, 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, west of Idil, villagers out for a stroll in the spring sunshine on their neatly stone-flagged street last month gathered around a baby carriage to coo over its occupant. They were admiring Nahir Demir, 1 year old, the first offspring of his family to be born in Kafro since the Syriac village was abandoned by order of the Turkish Army in 1994.
“My father was the last to go,” said Aziz Demir, 45, mayor of the newly rebuilt village. The order to evacuate, he recalled, came at the height of fighting between the army and Kurdish rebels in this region.
But when permission to return was issued in a brief bureaucratic directive by the Turkish government in 2001, the Syriacs of Kafro rushed back from Europe to rebuild their village and to resettle their children in an ancient land they had never seen.
A dozen modern limestone villas now rise up over the ruins of the old village of Kafro, complete with walled gardens and pink-tiled bathrooms, built with the lifetime savings of Syriacs returning from decades in the factories of Germany, Switzerland and Sweden.
Six years after the first moving trucks arrived, Kafro’s population is around 50 and rising, despite the hazards. Both schooling and employment prospects are poor in this impoverished region, where neighboring Kurds herd sheep and ride donkeys to market.
“We knew it would not be easy, and we knew the risks,” said Israel Demir, 46, builder of the villas and father of little Nahir as well as of three teenage daughters transplanted from Goppingen, Germany, in 2006. “But we also know our duty.”
That duty, Mr. Demir said, lies in ensuring the future of the Syriac people.
“I feel a great responsibility, toward my children and toward my people, for safeguarding our homeland for future generations,” Mr. Demir said in an interview in Kafro last month. “Because I know that when a people leaves its land, its home, it has no choice but to assimilate. We can see it happening to our families in Europe and in America. There is a danger that in a few decades the Syriacs will cease to exist.”
Mr. Demir paid a personal price for his mission last year when he barely survived after being shot by Kurdish shepherds while trying to prevent them from grazing their flocks on village land.
But neither the hostility of the locals nor a perceived lack of support from the Turkish authorities will deter him, he said.
“I am trying to open the door to the return of our people,” he said. “I have pushed the door open. Now others must decide whether they will follow me and step through it.”
In the neighboring village of Enhil, Fehmi Isler, 50, took a more sober view of the future as he gazed out from the slim bell tower of the village church over dozens of newly restored houses, one of them his own.
“Only the older people come back, the ones who were born and raised here,” he said.
Dormant in the winter, Enhil comes alive at Easter with the arrival of 300 to 400 Syriacs exiles from Western Europe who have restored their family homes in the past few years for use as summer houses.
“But the young people won’t come, and who can blame them,” Mr. Isler said. “There’s nothing for them to do here but gaze at the cattle and collect cow patties.”
Mr. Isler, who was in Enhil to bury an aunt, who died in a retirement home in Augsburg, Germany, in keeping with her last wish, said his own five children had made the trip from Germany only once.
“No Internet, no mobile phones, no swimming pool — forget it,” he said. “And the Kurdish women yelled at the girls to show some modesty and cover up.”
In Idil, Mr. Tutus is similarly skeptical of his chances of success in attempting to persuade the Syriac diaspora to resettle in Idil. With the war raging on between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish Army, it is an uphill struggle, he said.
“Everyone talks about returning, but it’s just talk,” he said. “I’m here fighting for our return, but they’re sitting tight over there.”
Even Mr. Tutus’s wife, a Syriac herself, and his children, aged 11 and 7, will not come, preferring to stay in Frankfurt after being badly frightened during a visit to Idil.
“There was a power cut and gunfire in the street at night,” Mr. Tutus said. “After that, they refused to come back.”

The loyalty of the Christians and the tolerance of Rome Lorenzo Bianchi

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:54:55 -0400

The loyalty of the Christians and the tolerance of Rome

The ancient sources on the relationship between early Christianity and Rome, discussed in the studies of historian Ilaria Ramelli, contradict the common opinion that Roman power was an ideological enemy of the Christians

by Lorenzo Bianchi

Ilaria Ramelli, I cristiani e l’impero romano. In memoria di Marta Sordi [Christians and the Roman empire. In memory of Marta Sordi], Marietti, 1820, Genoa - Milan 2011, 96pp., € 12.00
The small and very recent book by Ilaria Ramelli, a philologist and historian, a scholar of early Christianity, consists, as she indicates in the preface, of a selection of short informative articles that appeared in Avvenire in 2009 and 2010. However, it is not at all, as one might believe, a simple reprint of essays brought together by a theme, nor a mere compilation, but a dense and careful summary which describes in a nutshell, though omitting nothing necessary or fundamental, of the results of the work on early Christianity. She has conducted with rigorous scholarly methodology (in particular as regards the philological analysis of texts and the evaluation of historical sources), over the last twenty years.
So, though addressed primarily to non-specialist readers, the volume is of great utility also for the scholar, for it presents itself – and this is the particular achievement of the author and the merit of the work – as an extensive index raisoné, that sorts and organizes a vast production (every necessary bibliographic indication is always shown at the appropriate place), and from which emerges the theme of her research, coherent and unified even if ‘scattered’ throughout a number of scholarly journals.
Given the structure of the work, it is not possible in a review to mention every topic dealt with, if not without making a lengthy list: something I do not want to do, limiting myself to the topic that appears most original and significant.
So first of all it should be said that the volume is divided into four distinct sections.
In the first, which deals with the figure of Jesus in the non-Christian sources of the first century, there are two texts, the authenticity of which is shown, that come from a period prior to the well-known passages of Tacitus: the letter of Mara Bar Serapion, a pagan stoic, written around 73, and a passage from the Jewish Antiquities (XVII, 63-64) by the historian Flavius Josephus, a Pharisee who wrote soon after the fall of Jerusalem (which occurred in 70), ‘it is precisely the extraneity to Christianity of the two sources’, writes the author (p. 10), ‘that make Mara and Josephus precious and not ‘suspect’ witnesses to the historical figure of Jesus, and even if they do not believe in his bodily resurrection, they document the faith the Christians had ‘because he appeared to them alive again after three days’ (Jewish Antiquities XVII, 64).
Later, in the third section, the presence of a number of references to Christianity in 1-2nd century pagan novels and satires is highlighted: the Satyricon of Petronius, the Tale of Callirhoe by Chariton, the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, works in which there are allusions, obvious at times, to the facts narrated in the Gospels. And the fourth section deals with the historical traces of the first spread of Christianity from the Middle East to India: in particular the story of King Abgar of Edessa (whose relationship with the Emperor Tiberius appears to be well-founded), the evangelization of Edessa by Addai (the Syriac name of Thaddeus, one of the seventy disciples of Jesus sent out by the Apostle Thomas), that of Mesopotamia by Mari (a disciple of Thaddeus, converted by him), the mention of the mandylion (the achiropita image of Jesus that is compared to the Holy Shroud), the mission of Pantaenus to India (made by the Stoic philosopher, a convert to Christianity and a teacher of Origen and Clement of Alexandria, between 180 and 190).
But I would like to dwell more extensively on the second section which deals with early Christianity in Rome.
In it the author shows that Christianity was known immediately in Rome as evidenced by the senatusconsultum of 35, reported by Tertullian, whereby the Senate rejected the proposal of the Emperor Tiberius to give legitimate status to Christian belief. Considered dubious by many, it is confirmed as historical by Ilaria Ramelli with new arguments in addition to those already given by Marta Sordi and Carsten Thiede, and in particular on the basis of a fragment of the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry (233-305), who certainly cannot be suspected, as is Tertullian, of apologetic intentions. In rejecting the resurrection of Jesus, Porphyry says that if he had truly risen, he would not have appeared to obscure people (as the apostles were), but ‘to many contemporary men worthy of trust, and especially to the Senate and people of Rome, whereon they, amazed at his wonders, would not have been able, with a unanimous senatusconsultum, to emit a death sentence, with the accusation of impiety, on those who were obedient to him’.

The Coliseum [© LaPresse]
The anti-Christian law of Rome was the work of the Senate, but Tiberius did not go ahead with the accusations and, up to 62, Christians were not condemned as such by any Roman authority. The attitude of tolerance of the imperial court toward Christians is also evidenced by the correspondence between St Paul and Seneca, which has come down to us by a different route than that of the Pauline corpus. Summarily dismissed as apocryphal in the common opinion of modern criticism, it is here reassessed on the basis of new and abundant and particularly compelling philological and lexical considerations, as probably authentic, at least as regards most of the letters (or rather short notes) that have survived, bearing the dates of the years 58 and 59. Those were the years in which (if we accept the high chronology) Paul had just arrived in Rome to undergo the emperor’s judgment, and, while awaiting trial, enjoyed benevolent military custody and was free to preach, spreading Christianity even in the Praetorium (‘in all the Praetorium and everywhere it is known I am in chains for Christ’, Phil 1, 13) and in the imperial court (‘All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household’, Phil 4, 22 ).
The relationship of tolerance and indeed benevolence of Roman imperial power towards the early Christians – at least until Nero turned authoritarian in 62 and the unleashing of persecution after fire broke out in Rome on 19 July 64 (a persecution that as Tacitus tells us, Annals XV, 44, and Clement of Rome, I Corinthians V, 3-7 – VI, 1, was fueled by envy and denunciation of Christians) – described by Ilaria Ramelli in the second section, sends us back necessarily to the title of the book. In fact, the author takes word for word the view of a fundamental work of her teacher, Marta Sordi, who for more than two decades held the chair in Ancient History at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan (I cristiani e l’impero romano, published in 1984, that followed, summarized and updated the previous volume Il cristianesimo e Roma, published in 1965). Ilaria Ramelli follows her teacher not only in the method of rigorous screening, and careful analysis of the historical sources, but also in her basic idea: that the opposition, which the persecution undoubtedly shows, between those who administered Roman power and the Christians, was not the outcome, at least in its deepest level, of a political clash or class struggle, as a still widespread prejudice claims, but had different causes, causes related mostly to the religious sphere. The historical documents show that the attitude of the early Christians toward the imperial power was from the outset always characterized by lealty and respect for its authority. It is therefore historically incorrect to see in the Roman Empire a particularly malign embodiment of power and the enemy of the Church. Indeed on the contrary – I may add – it was the Roman Empire, as suggested by the interpretation that St John Chrysostom (Homily IV, On the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, PG 62, 485) gave to the words of St Paul, that seems to stand as an obstacle to the real enemy of the Church, the Antichrist: ‘And now you know what is restraining [the Antichrist], that he may be revealed in his time. The mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present, until he is removed from the scene.’ (2Thess 2, 6-7). What, or who, holds back the mystery of iniquity, according to St John Chrysostom, is the imperial power of Rome.

Contributions of Syriac physicians to Chinese Medicine

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:53:04 -0400

Syriac Physician/Priests Contribute to Chinese Medicine

Posted by barhanna on August 21, 2010 at 3:31 PM

Contributions of Syriac physicians to Chinese Medicine

Syriac palimpsest with a text of Galen's medical text under a 10th century Melkite Prayerbook. fol 126v, from Walters Museum Archmedes Paolimpsest Project
Yi-Si a Syriac priest/physician is listed on the Xian-fu monument in 781 with the words “the sick were attended and restored.”
Dunhuang manuscripts no later than the 9th century mention the Greek Four Element theory, medical treatments similar to that practiced in ancient Greece and Rome, and Christian teachings concerning the sick. The Xinxiuu bencai pharmacopeia includes an ancient Asian Minor medicine called theriaca which was brought to China by the Nestorians.
During the Tang Dynasty Sun Simiao (581-682) was known as a great alchemist. He was also known as Yaowang (King of Medicine). He wrote Qianjinfang (Thousand Golden Remedies) and Qianjin yifang (Supplement to the Thousand Golden Remedies). His works found their way to Gundeshapur in Persia at the famous medical school operated by Syriac physicians. It was under the rule of the Sassanid monarch Khusraw I (531-579 CE), called Anushiravan "The Immortal" and known to the Greeks and Romans as Chosroes, that Gundeshapur became known for medicine and linguistic studies. Khusraw I gave refuge to various Greek philosophers from the school of Athens when it was closed by Justinian in 529. A century earlier the school of Nisibis came under persecution from the Byzantine empire and their scholars fled east to Persia eventually setting up a new educational center in Gundeshapur under the protection of Anushiravan. This nexus of the best and brightest of Greo-Roman civilization mediated by the linguistic genius of Syriac scholars produced one of the greatest advancements in medical scholarship, invention, and discovery in human history.
The Anushiravan turned towards the east, and sent the famous physician Borzouye to invite Chinese scholars to Gundeshapur. These visitors brought Chinese texts on herbal medicine and religion. Along with Indian medicine, Syriac scholars, priests, and physicians, who were often one and the same fused together a body of medical knowledge superior to any on the face of the earth.
Physicians from this school found their way to China. Qin Minghe is thought to have developed medical skills adapted from Central Asia and Persia which would have had at it’s source the teaching hospital of Gundeshapur. Even the name of Qin suggests that he is from the Syriac/Persian west. Da Qin was the name used by Chinese to refer to the former eastern Roman Empire. This part of the world, although foreign to China was not unknown to them. Du Huan was the Tang Dynasty ambassador to the west. He wrote an account of his travels entitled Jing Xing ji. He traveled to Gundeshapur where he wrote, “The people of Da Qin (Persia) were good at curing eye diseases and dysentery.” Also he pointed out the practice of blood letting (trepanation) was a foreign practice which he reported to Emperor Gaozong who later submitted to the treatment by summoning Qin Minghe in about the year 683. The Emperor had become blind after reporting dizziness. The Chinese called this feng xuan, a disease related to a parasite causing temporary blindness. Qin used a combination of acupuncture and bloodletting. He drilled a hole in the skull and drained blood to “sweep away the parasites.” Ma Boyong, a modern Chinese scholar reports that Qin was a Nestorian doctor. If this identity of Qin is true then we have an interesting insight to the crossfertilization of medical knowledge. Acupuncture was known and practiced in China as early as the 2nd century BC. Qin adopted this Chinese practice while using techniques from his Christian training.
In 659 an imperial edit was fulfilled and the Xinxiu bencao, a pharmacopeia, was completed by a team of Chinese scholars. It was the first official material medica produced in China, This effort may have been influenced by awareness of similar pharmacipiae developed in India, Perisa, and an emerging awareness of Greek medical science mediated by Syriac scholars who were translating Galen and Hippocrates for the Caliphate in Baghdad.
In 667, ambassadors from Persia presented the Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty in China with a theriac. Greek physician Galen devoted a whole book Theriaké to theriac. One of his patients, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, took it on regular basis. Knowledge of Galen seems to have infiltrated China during the Tang period.
The Chinese observed that foreigners seemed to respect theriact greatly. The Tang pharmacologist Su Kung noted that it had proved its usefulness against "the hundred ailments".
Chinese Emperors during this period took personal interest in the development of medical knowledge. Xuanzong composed Guanggifang (Formulary of Prescriptions) in 728 and emperor Dezong published Zhenyuan guanggifang which was another treatise on prescriptions.
Chinese medicine, modified by 150 years of foreign influence during the Tang Dynasty began to have a counter-influence toward the west. In 800 AD former Chinese prisoners settled in Baghdad. Most of these Chinese were taken prisoner during the war of Talas in modern day Uzbekistan. The Battle of Talas (怛羅斯會戰 (معركة نهر طلاسIn 751 AD was a conflict between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty for control of the Syr Darya. On July 751, The Abbasids started a massive attack against the Chinese on the banks of the Talas river; 200,000 Muslim troops (according to Chinese estimates) met the combined army of 10,000 Tang Chinese and 20,000 Karluks mercenary. Out of 10,000 Tang troops, only 2000 managed to return from Talas to their territory in Central Asia.
In 860 in a Chinese book named Miscellany Ya Ying Mountain Cave the Chinese scholar Tuan Ch’eng shih (also known as Duan Chengshi 段成式 mentions a dialogue between an Indian, a Chinese physician, and a Byzantine monk. Although this may be a fictional account it points to the kind of international dialogue that was being conducted in the field of medicine.
As Islamic civilization began to emerge in 900 AD a Chinese man came to Baghdad and lived with the famed Calif Al Razi for one year.Al Razi reported that time the Chinese man learned Arabic in about 5 months and then asked to have the works of Galen read to him.

Jawāmi‘ Kitāb Jālīnūs fī al-bawl wa-dalā’ilihi (MS A 84, item 3)
Apparently medical knowledge flowed back to China. In 923 AD Li Hsim wrote Medical Matters from Countries beyond the Sea and 121 medicines from the Middle East were added to the Chinese pharmacopeia.
Syriac physicians maintained their influence in China for at least 600 years through the 13th century. Kublai Khan (1215-1294) was known to have preferred the medicine of Syriac priests. The father of the Syriac polymath Bar Hebraeus treated Mogul royalty.
References
Schafer, Edward H. (1985), The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'Ang Exotics, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-05462-8, p. 184
Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilization in China (2000), Vol. 7 with Gwei Djen Lu, and Nathan Sivin
Bahtia, Lai Sohan, Greek Medicine in Asia, 1970, Indian Insitute of World Culture
Boulnois, Luce, 2004, Silk road: monks, warriors & merchants on the Silk Road
Ho Peng Yoke, Lisowski, F. Peter, 1993, Concepts of Chinese Science and Healing Arts, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore
Ibid, Ho, Lisowski, 1996, Brief History of Chinese Medicine

BOḴTĪŠŪʿ

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:51:56 -0400

The name of the eponymous ancestor of a Syro-Persian Nestorian family of physicians from Gondēšāpūr, Ḵūzestān, 8th-11th centuries, and of several of its members.
BOḴTĪŠŪʿ, the name of the eponymous ancestor of a Syro-Persian Nestorian family of physicians from Gondēšāpūr, Ḵūzestān, 2nd/8th to 5th/11th centuries, and of several of its members.
This article will concentrate on those cultural factors which shaped the family’s intellectual profile before they entered the orbit of ʿAbbasid civilization; it will not give individual biographies of family members during the three centuries of their documented existence (148/765-ca. 452/1060), since both the civilization they lived in and their own orientation were fundamentally Arabic or Syriac, not Persian. (For such information see D. Sourdel, “Bukhtīshūʿ,” in EI2 I, p. 1298, Ullmann, Medizin, index, s.vv. Baḫtīšūʿ, Ğibrīl, Ğurğīs, ʿUbaidallāh, Yūḥannā b. Baḫtīšūʿ; GAS III, index, s.vv. Buḫtīšūʿ, Ğibrāʾīl, Ğūrğis, ʿUbaidallāh, Yūḥannā b. Buḫtīšūʿ.) In later medical texts in Persian, the number of quotations from Boḵtīšūʿ, Jebrāʾīl or Jewarjīs is extremely limited, and their immediate source is Rāzī’s al-Ḥāwī (see Aḵawaynī Boḵārī, Hedāyat al-motaʿallemīn fi’l-ṭebb, pp. 452f., 710.16, and H. H. Biesterfeldt in EIr. I, pp. 706-07; L. Richter-Bernburg, Persian Medical Manuscripts at the University of California, Los Angeles, Malibu, 1978 (Humana Civilitas, vol. 4), index, s.v. “Bokhtishuʿ.”
The name. Beginning with the early 5th century and spanning nearly 700 years, the Middle Persian-Syriac name “Jesus has redeemed,” indicative of the mixed cultural environment of Sasanian and early Islamic Mesopotamia, is well attested among Nestorians (Mari, pp. 28.6, 120.21; ʿAmr, p. 21.9); for its spelling and derivation see Justi, Namenbuch, p. 72a-b, s.v. Buxtyešūʿ, and Ph. Gignoux, Iranisches Personennamenbuch II/2, nos. 253-64. Medieval Muslims apparently felt the need of an explanation for this strange name, but the derivation Ebn Abī, Oṣaybeʿa—or his source—proffers, “Jesus’ bondsman,” only shows that its actual meaning had become obsolete (I, p. 125, bottom).
The Gondēšāpūr background. Before the caliph al-Manṣūr called Jewarjīs b. Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ, the first family member to be known by more than mere name, to his court at Baghdad in 148/765, Jewarjīs had been in charge of the hospital, bīmārestān, of Gondēšāpūr, the see of the Nestorian metropolitan province of Bēṯ Hǰūzāyē and sometime Sasanian royal residence; Jewarjīs’s son Boḵtīšūʿ and his grandson Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ had similar functions there before entering caliphal service. It was doubtless their professional background and their influence as courtiers which made possible the introduction of the institution of the bīmārestān—in fact and name—into medieval Islam: Hārūn al-Rašīd charged Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jewarjīs with establishing a hospital at Baghdad (Jebrāʾīl himself in Yūsof b. al-Dāya’s account apud Qefṭī, p. 383.14f., and Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 174.17f.); yet beyond this bare fact, most details of interest, the functions, organization, and history of the Gondēšāpūr establishment, the theoretical scope of the medicine practiced there, even the language of transmission, remain elusive and shrouded in quasi-legendary accounts which do not easily yield reliable information (for a survey of Arabic sources see V. A. Eberman, “Shkola”).
Medieval Islamic biobibliographers, depending on apologetically tinged 3rd/9th-century Christian authorities, present the glowing picture of an unbroken Hippocratic tradition of medical practice and instruction at Gondēšāpūr from the very moment of the city’s foundation by Šāpūr I (esp. Qefṭī, p. 133, and Barhebraeus, Moḵtaṣar, p. 76.17f.), whereas contemporary or near-contemporary Christian sources on the pre-Islamic history of Nestorianism maintain complete silence about a medical establishment of any kind at Gondēšāpūr. The earliest authentic evidence for its existence is furnished by Pethion’s report that Jewarjīs headed “the hospital of Gondēšāpūr” in 148/765 and by preserved fragments of his medical writings (the earliest mention of a “school” [oskūl] there relates to the first Islamic decades; Mari, p. 63.5-9). Jewarjīs’ activity as a clinical practitioner and teacher and as a medical author can be presumed to have followed the pattern of Nestorian tradition that had evolved at the latest by the middle of the 6th century a.d. Since that time, numerous hospitals had been set up in the region of Nestorian settlement; their administration could be vested in bishops, monasteries, parishes, or even private individuals (Synodicon Orientale, pp. 25, no. 7 [a.d. 410]; 125, nos. 26f. [a.d. 565]; 142ff., nos. 6f. [a.d. 585; tr. pp. 265, 384, 404]; Vööbus, Documents, pp. 123f., no. XXXVI; 131, no. L; Mari, p. 52.16; cf. Joannes Ephesinus apud C. Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum, 2Halis Saxonum 1928, p. 338b.23-29). As the (Greco-)Syriac term iḵsinoḏūḵīn (which uniformly denoted such infirmaries) implies, they originally served as inns for needy travelers; soon, however, they developed into places for the care of the sick. To what extent they also fulfilled academic functions as libraries and schools of medicine is largely unknown. One notable exception to this rule, however, is the xenodochium of Nisibis; it housed a library, provided instruction, and was somehow affiliated with the famous theological School of Nisibis, although contacts between students of divinity and of medicine were officially discouraged in 590 (Vööbus, Statutes, pp. 100f., canones XIX-XX; idem, History, pp. 282f.; “Chasteté,” p. 246, no. 39 [Syr. p. 25.7f.]; Chronique de Séert, p. 530.7ff.). Nothing is known of the medical textbooks used at Nisibis, but an idea of their contents can be formed on the basis of a study of extant Syriac works from the same period (see Ullmann, Medizin, pp. 100f., GAS III, pp. 176-79).
Nearly two centuries later, at the Gondēšāpūr hospital, conditions similar to those at Nisibis may still have obtained. Although the sources are vague about administrative details, the metropolitan appears to have exercised some form of supervision at Gondēšāpūr, at least in order to avoid conflicts with the Muslim authorities (Pethion apud Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 124.1-4; cf. Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jewarjīs’ account in Yūsof b. Ebrāhīm apud Qefṭī, p. 383.15-19/Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 174.18-21). Teaching was done by the head of the hospital (Pethion apud Qefṭī, p. 158.15ff./Oṣaybeʿa, I, 124.5ff.), and some books at least must also have been available, given Jewarjīs’ and his son’s and grandson’s writings and those by other authors of Ḵūzī affiliation, the most important names being Tīaḏūq, “al-Ḵūz,” Yūḥannā b. Māsawayh and Sābūr b. Sahl (see Ullmann, Medizin, pp. 22f., 101f., 112-15, 300f.; GAS III, pp. 184f., 186, 207f., 231-36, 244). However, the extent of the Gondēšāpūr hospital library under Jewarjīs must have been rather limited, and the scope of his and his immediate successors’ medical knowledge still has to be assessed in detail, a task not made easier by the fragmentary preservation of most of the texts concerned (see Ullmann, Medizin, pp. 108f.; GAS III, pp. 209ff., 226f.). At any rate, the extant material clearly shows a preponderance of medicinal therapy over theory, a strong interest in cosmetic treatment (Jewarjīs apud Rāzī, al-Ḥāwī XXIII, pt. 2, pp. 33.12, 87.9, 119.6, 130.12, 170.6, 184.12; Ebn Joljol, p. 64.2f., even ascribes a Ketāb al-zīna to his son Boḵtīšūʿ) and a certain openness to magic and sympathetic remedies (Jewarjīs apud Rāzī, al-Ḥāwī IX, p. 138.6, X, p. 326.11; Boḵtīšūʿ, ibid., IX, p. 127.4, X, p. 315.7); above all, it tends to confirm those reports in the Muslim sources which describe Gondēšāpūr medicine as a combination of Greek and Indian traditions and their adaptation to local needs (Ebn Qotayba, al-Maʿāref, p. 658.17ff.; Qefṭī, p. 133.12-17; cf. Ṭabarī, I, p. 845.14ff.). This activity resulted in the discussion of diseases endemic to the region, such as smallpox and measles (Jewarjīs apud Rāzī, al-Ḥāwī XVII, pp. 16.12 etc., 31.14 etc.; a possible dependence of Ḵūzī physicians on western authors such as Ahron al-Qass remains to be examined, however), and in the integration of Indian and Iranian materia medica and pharmacy into the framework of late antique Galenism.
Judging by the phonetic forms of Indian and Iranian drug names in Arabic, which reflect Middle Persian models, the above-mentioned process took place during the Sasanian period, although a more precise dating and localization can hardly be undertaken. The presence of Iranian elements in Arabic medical terminology, not least the word bīmārestān itself, also raises the question of the role of the Persian language in the transmission of medicine in the (formerly) Sasanian dominions (see below). Arabic sources, no doubt reproducing Iranian traditions, date the introduction of Indian medicine to “al-Sūs” to the time of Šāpūr II; the physician he had called in from India had then imparted his knowledge to local adepts (see Ebn Qotayba and Ṭabarī, as above); such accounts need not be inherently wrong, witness the survey of a Sasanian “history of science” in Dēnkard, book four (see R. C. Zaehner, Zurvan, Oxford, 1955, pp. 7ff.; D. Pingree, The Thousands of Abū Maʿshar, Studies of the Warburg Institute 30, London, 1965, pp. 7ff.). In Rāzī’s quotations from Jewarjīs, an electuary (jawāreš) and a “medicine” (dawāʾ) are named for Kesrā and Qobād, respectively (al-Ḥāwī VII, p. 41.12), but the historicity of such names cannot, of course, be ascertained and at any rate, their connection with Gondēšāpūr remains tenuous at best.
The most reliable account of medical life in Gondēšāpūr under the Sasanians concerns a medical-philosophical disputation convened by order of the king during the twentieth year of “Kesrā’s” reign (Qefṭī, p. 133.17-23). The assembly was presided over by “Jebrāʾīl Dorostābād” as physician-in-ordinary to the king; other leading participants were “al-Sūfesṭāʾī” and “Yūḥannā.” While the last two cannot at present be identified, Jebrāʾīl is none other than the notorious Gabriel of Šīggār/Senjār of the Syriac and Christian Arabic sources (Chronicon anonymum, p. 19.10f.; cf. Synodicon orientale, p. 562.5; “Chasteté,” nos. 57-58 [Syr. p. 36.9, 15]; Chronique de Séert, pp. 498.3, 525.7; Vööbus, History, pp. 230, 306, 308, 315f., with refs.); his title of “head physician” is expressly given both with the Sasanian-Persian term drustabed (cf. MacKenzie, p. 28) and the Greek/Syriac archíatros. Thus the medical conference mentioned by Qefṭī can be dated to about 610, i.e., to the period of intrigue and conflict between Monophysites and Nestorians who both contended for Parwēz’s favor, Gabriel being the major proponent of Monophysitism at court (Vööbus, History, pp. 315ff.). In 612, at Gabriel’s instigation, an assembly of Nestorian bishops was convened for disputations at court (Synodicon orientale, pp. 562 etc., 580 etc.), but it is unknown whether this had anything to do with Qefṭī’s medical meeting.
Whereas the name Gondēšāpūr does not occur once in the Christian sources on Gabriel, it is known that in addition to Gabriel, a whole group of “Nisibene doctors” was in Parwēz’s service (Chronicon anonymum, p. 17.9; Chronique de Séert, pp. 521.9, 522.3-7, 525.5ff.); they, as well as Gabriel of Senjār, can be expected to have received their medical training at Nisibis, even though this is nowhere expressly stated. A good half century earlier, in 555, a Nisibene physician, Gabriel, was in attendance at the court of Ḵosrow I; at the suggestion of his Christian medical advisers and against all custom, Ḵosrow is even said to have established and endowed a hospital and appointed a staff of twelve physicians to it (Zacharias Rhetor, II, pp. 217.20f., 27-218.4); no other source is known which might corroborate or disprove this account. In sum, while medical activity might well have flourished at Gondēšāpūr long before the time of Gabriel Drustabed, the earliest relatively certain date is 610, the year of the meeting reported by Qefṭī.
Notwithstanding the existence of ecclesiastical literature in Middle Persian and of some medical tracts even in Sogdian (Camb. Hist. Iran III/2, pp. 1229, 1392), Syriac was the idiom used for medical reading and writing at Gondēšāpūr during the Sasanian and the first two Islamic centuries; even if it was not Ḥonayn who translated Jewarjīs’s compendium into Arabic, nothing can cast any doubt on Oṣaybeʿa’s testimony that its original language was Syriac (I, p. 125 bottom). Jewarjīs’s grandson Jebrāʾīl and great-grandson Boḵtīšūʿ still preferred to read medical books in Syriac, as did their colleagues at Gondēšāpūr (Ḥonayn, Mā torjema, p. 5.2f. and index, s.vv. Boḫtīšōʿ b. Gibrīl, Gibrīl b. Boḫtīšōʿ). However, their literary use of Syriac was paralleled by that of Persian as a spoken language, including the oral discourse on medicine, witness the above-mentioned “Iranian” (here meant to include Indian) elements in Arabic medical terminology. While the Boḵtīšūʿ family acquired Arabic in the process of their integration into Islamic society, they preserved an oral competence in Persian for nearly 200 years (Pethion apud Oṣaybeʿa, I, pp. 124.10 [Jewarjīs], 126 ll. 10f. from bottom [Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jewarjīs): Yūsof b. Ebrāhīm apud Qefṭī, p. 140.8ff./Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 131 ll. 10f. from bottom [Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jewarjīs]; ʿObayd-Allāh b. Jebrāʾīl b. ʿObayd-Allāh b. Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ apud Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 145 ll.7f. from bottom [Jebrāʾīl b. ʿObayd-Allāh b. Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jewarjīs]).
Admittedly the descendants of Boḵtīšūʿ were not the only representatives of Syro-Persian Galenism in the formative period of Islamic medicine, and the prominence which the later biobibliographers accorded them perhaps derived from social status and certain šoʿūbī tendencies rather than from any outstanding contributions on their part, even though their practical acumen and sound theoretical knowledge were praised repeatedly (e.g., Pethion apud Qefṭī, p. 158.9-12/Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 123 ll. 3ff. from bottom, apud Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 126 ll. 7f. from bottom; Yūsof b. Ebrāhīm, ibid., I, p. 133 ll. 12f. from bottom). They successfully adapted to the transition from the relatively quiet existence of Christian notables in provincial Gondēšāpūr to the highly visible and materially rewarding, if not always enviable, life as courtiers of the caliph. The influence they thus gained among the leading circles of society at large and the patronage they were able to extend to translators of Greek medical texts (see Ḥonayn, Mā torjema, as above) both substantially furthered the diffusion of rational medicine and health care in ʿAbbasid Islam.
Review of sources. Neither Qefṭī’s nor Barhebraeus’s sources for their accounts of Gondēšāpūr’s medical history and especially for the conference of 610 have been identified to date; some Jacobite traditions may have entered into Qefṭī’s text, given its neutral tone toward Gabriel Drustabed. Barhebraeus generally depends on Qefṭī for his remarks on the Boḵtīšūʿ family and other Islamic physicians, but he also used Syriac, markedly non-Islamic, materials. For the period from the moment of Jewarjīs’ arrival at Baghdad in 148/765 to the death of Boḵtīšūʿ “the Younger,” i.e., Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ b. Jewarjīs, in 256/870, our main authorities are Faṯyūn al-Tarjomān (Pethion the Interpreter; fl. 260/873; see Graf, II, pp. 120f., GAS III, p. 231), and Yūsof b. Ebrāhīm “Ebn al-Dāya” (Son of the wetnurse; d. ca. 265/878; see Graf, II, p. 113; GAS I, pp. 373f., III, p. 231; F. Rosenthal, “Ibn al-Dāya,” in EI2 III, pp. 745f.); both spent at least part of their lives at Baghdad in the company of those illustrious contemporaries they later wrote about. Extensive fragments of their otherwise lost works have been preserved in Qefṭī’s and Oṣaybeʿa’s compilations; naturally, these include other sources from the same period as well, but here special mention is due of Esḥāq b. ʿAlī al-Rohāwī for his excerpts from another Baghdadi physician of the 3rd/9th century, ʿĪsā b. Māssa (Adab al-ṭabīb, facs. ed. F. Sezgin, Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, C 18, Frankfurt am Main, 1985; Ullmann, Medizin, pp. 223f., 228; GAS III, pp. 257f., 263f.). Whereas the Nestorian Pethion is an open admirer of the Boḵtīšūʿ family (apud Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 136.2-5), his coreligionist (?) Yūsof’s attitude to them is less partisan—he also transmits from their rivals—but by no means negative, and ʿĪsā b. Māssa depends on Yūḥannā b. Māsawayh, whose relationship to Jebrāʾīl b. Boḵtīšūʿ was not free of tension. None of them is very rigorous about chronological detail; Pethion, especially, stylizes his narrative in order to have it conform to his laudatory and parenetic tendencies, Yūsof’s material is rather in the nature of personal, at times anecdotal or gossipy recollections of an interested observer, and Yūḥannā b. Māsawayh figures as a social climber facing the well-established, haughty Boḵtīšūʿs. The particular narrative stance of each of these and other witnesses and the later authors’ dependence on them still have to be examined in detail. This is all the more essential as, outside the medical community of 3rd/9th century Baghdad, information about that community was extremely scant (cf. the confused notices on “Boḵtīšūʿ” in the Fehrest I, p. 296.23-27 and Ebn Joljol, pp. 61f.).
Bibliography:
In addition to the references given in the text the following works have been quoted: Sources: ʿAmr, Maris Amri et Slibae de patriarchis Nestorianorum commentaria, ed. H. Gismondi, 2 vols. text, 2 vols. tr., Rome, 1896-99; Abu’l-Faraj Ḡrīḡūrīūs Barhebraeus, Chronicon Syriacum, ed. P. J. Bruns and G. Kirsch, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1789, esp. I, p. 62.9-12, and II, p. 59 (= ed. P. Bedjan, Paris 1890, p. 57.12-15; same as in al-Moḵtaṣar, see above); idem, Taʾrīḵ moḵtaṣar al-dowal, ed. A. Ṣāleḥānī, 2nd ed., Beirut, 1958; “Le livre de la chasteté,” ed. J. B. Chabot in Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 16, 1896, pp. 225-92 plus 80 pages Syriac text; Chronicon anonymum de ultimis regibus Persarum, ed. I. Guidi, 2nd ed., Louvain, 1960; (CSCO 1); Chronique de Séert, ed. A. Scher, Paris, 1908-19 (Patrologia Orientalis IV, pp. 215-312, V, pp. 217-344, VII, pp. 95-203, XIII, pp. 437-639); Ḥonayn, Mā torjema, ed. G. Bergsträsser as Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq über die syrischen und arabischen Galenübersetzungen, with suppl. Neue Materialien zu Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq’s Galenbibliographie, AKM XVII 2 and XIX, 2, Leipzig, 1925 and 1932; Aḥmad b. al-Qāsem b. Ḵalīfa Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa, ʿOyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭebbāʾ, ed. Emraʾ al-Qays b. al-Ṭaḥḥān [i.e., August Müller], Cairo, 1299/1882 and Königsberg 1884; Ebn Joljol, Solaymān b. Ḥassān, Ṭabaqāt al-aÂ¡tebbāʾ, ed. F. Sayyed, Cairo, 1955; Mari, see ʿAmr; Ebn al-Qefṭī: ʿAlī b. Yūsof b. Ebrāhīm, Eḵbār al-ʿolamāʾ be-aḵbār al-ḥokamāʾ, ed. of al-Zawzanī’s epitome al-Montaḵabāt wa’l-moltaqaṭāt by A. Müller and J. Lippert as Ibn al-Qifṭī’s Taʾrīḫ al-ḥokamāʾ, Berlin, 1903; ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moslem Ebn Qotayba, Ketāb al-maʿāref, ed. Ṯ. ʿOkkāša, Cairo, 1960; Abū Bakr Moḥammad b. Zakarīyāʾ al-Rāzī, Ketāb al-ḥāwī fi’l-ṭebb, 24 vols., Hyderabad, 1955-71 (Maṭbūʿāt Dāʾerat al-Maʿāref al-ʿOṯmānīya. Selsela jadīda, 4, I-XXIII, 2); Synodicon orientale, ed. J. B. Chabot, Paris, 1902 (= Notices et extraits des mss de la Bibliothèque Nationale XXXVII); Zacharias Rhetor, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. E. W. Brooks, 2nd ed., Louvain, 1953 (CSCO 83, 84, 87,88).
Studies:
V. A. Eberman, “Meditsinskaya shkola v Djundishapure,” Zapiski kollegii vostokovedov pri Aziatskom muzee Rossiĭskoĭ akademii nauk 1, 1925, pp. 47-72; G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, 5 vols., Vatican City, 1944-53 (Studi e testi 118, 133, 146, 147, 172); D. N. Mackenzie, A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary, London, 1971; M. Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Leiden and Cologne, 1970 (HO, 1. Abtlg., Erg. Bd. VI, 1); A. Vööbus, Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Legislation Relative to Syrian Asceticism, Stockholm, 1960 (Papers of the Estonian Theological Society in Exile 11); idem, The Statutes of the School of Nisibis, Stockholm, 1962 (ibid., 12); idem, History of the School of Nisibis, Louvain, 1965 (CSCO 226, Subsidia 26).
(Lutz Richter-Bernburg)
Originally Published: December 15, 1989
Last Updated: December 15, 1989

Early Christianity with Peter Eyland The diffusion of Christianity on both sides of the Roman Eastern Frontier

Mon, 5 Mar 2012 14:30:16 -0500

Early Christianity with Peter Eyland
The diffusion of Christianity on both sides of the Roman Eastern Frontier
20th June 2003
Peter Eyland
Table of Contents
Early Jewish influence
Greek Influence
Tatian and the Evangelion daMehallete
Marcion and the East
Valentinus, the Gnostics and Ptolemy the astronomer
Bardaisan of Edessa
Aberkios (Avircius) in Mesopotamia
Dura-Europos and the domus ecclesiae
Christians in Iran
o Deportations of Shapur I (253 CE and 260 CE)
o Bahram II (276-293 CE)
o Shapur II (309 – 379 CE) and Constantine
o Aphrahat/Aphraates (c.280-367 CE)
o Yazdegerd I (399-420 CE)
o Bahram V (421-439 CE)
o Yazdegerd II (439-457 CE)
o Khusrau (Chosroes) I
o Anushirvan
o Ja’qob (James) of Nisibis and his successors
Roman Syria and Mesopotamia
o Diocletian (284 –305 CE)
o Jacob (James) of Nisibis
o Mar Augen, Julian Sabba and Asterius
Julian the Apostate (361 –363 CE) and the Pagan revival
Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-9/6/373 CE)
Egeria (381 or 384 CE)
Conclusion
To account for the diffusion of Christianity through the Eastern frontier regions, an explanation will be given of the possible mechanism by which it disseminated, and also how local influences on both sides of the frontier interacted to give Christianity a unique regional character.
Early Jewish influence
The book of Acts [1] specifically mentioned people from the Roman East and the Iranian West at a Jewish festival in Jerusalem when Christianity began about 30 CE.
Although it cannot be traced in detail, the “good news” spread East of Jerusalem by such people as these along the trade routes.
Christian merchants, travellers, missionaries and pilgrims passed the message on from city to city, till it permeated through the Roman Eastern and Iranian provinces. Initially, Christian Jews handed on the tradition, and then later, non-Jewish Christians were involved. The Aramaic and Greek they spoke were widely understood throughout the region.
Josephus quotes Strabo: “these Jews have already got into all cities; and it is hard to find a place in the habitable earth that … is not possessed by them” [2] Thus Christian Jews initially had easy access to fellow Jews in many cities, both within and without the Roman Empire.
The book of Acts also showed Paul first going to Jewish synagogues [3]. Eusebius [4] has recorded the Syriac tale of Thaddaeus (or Addai), a Palestinian Jew who was “one of the Seventy”. He recorded that Addai went to Edessa and stayed with Tobias, who was also a Palestinian Jew [5]. The city of Edessa was then successfully converted to Christianity.
Barnard [6] accepted that “Addai is likely to be a historical figure”. He argued that unless there was a previously accepted figure, “Judas Thomas” would have been the obvious candidate for the founder of Christianity in Edessa. This was because Thomas was already associated with Edessa in the mid-third century and his tomb was claimed as a sacred site for pilgrimage. Since Addai had less status than Thomas, Addai’s elevation over Thomas must have been due to historical precedence.
Contrary to this, Segal [7] has argued that the story of Addai at Edessa has been taken over from a similar story told by Josephus about the success of Judaism in Adiabene.
Josephus [8] related how a travelling merchant Ananias (or Hannan) was instrumental in the conversion of Ezad (or Izates) of Spasinou Charax to Judaism. Ezad was a historical person who was a contemporary of Abgar Ukkama of Edessa.
Drijvers [9] has also argued that Edessa was not a major centre until the fourth century and Christianity came to Edessa from the East i.e. from Adiabene and the Jewish exile colony in Babylonia. Drijver’s argued that Christian Jews would have made Adiabene a priority because of the significant Jewish presence there.
From whatever direction, it is likely that Christianity was first established among Jews in Edessa.
Now because it has been represented that Roman Western Diaspora Jews, rejected the Apostle Paul and his message, (occasionally with violence it is alleged [10]) it is striking that Edessean Jews are portrayed very favourably. They are seen to be friends of the Christians. The Jews are depicted in The Teaching of Addai as sorrowing at Addai’s death [11].
Segal wrote that the Jews accepted “the Christians as allies against the dominant paganism” [12] Barnard argues that it was the cooperative influence of Jewish sectarianism that gave Syriac Christianity its characteristic ascetic bent [13]. Although there is no evidence of the same cordiality in Adiabene, there is no evidence to the contrary.
Christians in the wider Roman East showed their bond with the Jews by their use of a Syriac translation of a Palestinian Targum of the Pentateuch that has been dated no later than early in the first century CE [14]. A Jewish connection is also seen in the literature used by Eastern Christians, viz: The Teaching of Addai (Jews as main characters), the Odes of Solomon (claims Solomon’s name and reads a bit like the Psalter), and the Gospel of Thomas (Philo-Hellenistic Judaism’s allegorical interpretations).
It is likely then, that there was initially a good working relationship between Christianity and Judaism in Roman Eastern provinces and also possibly in the Iranian Western provinces.
Greek Influence
The expected presence of Greek speaking people East of Antioch is shown by the discovery of a fragment from the Greek form of a gospel harmony (called the Diatessaron [15] ). It has 16 short lines. It was found in the defensive rubble near the city wall at Dura-Europos.
The owner may have been Christian or Manichee, because as Drijvers [16] has pointed out, the Diatessaron was Mani’s Bible as well. The timing might be a little too close for a Manichee, but Mani was said to have accompanied Shapur I [17].
Clearly, there was continuous bi-lingual contact along the Silk and Frankincense trade routes between Antioch and the East, so it cannot be said (as Burkitt [18]) that there was no Greek cultural or idiomatic exchange in Edessa or the wider region.
An alphabet in Syriac Estrangelá script was found on a wall in the Dura-Europos Church, and also the inscriptions “Daouid” and “Goliod” in Greek letters, but with Syriac spelling [19]. This is suggestive of “Greek as a second language” for some.
Ross [20] wrote on Edessa: “[it] lay open to influences from all directions, and it adopted and incorporated them into a synthesis that is neither purely ’Greek’ nor purely ’Oriental’. It can only be called Edessan”. Brock [21] has noted that an increase of Greek influence can be seen peaking in the seventh century. This was found from the use of loan words in the poetry of Ephrem and Narsai.
There is only one aspect that can be said to be isolated from Greek influence and that is the anaphora of Mar Addai and Mar Mari which remained distinct from the Greek rites.
Tatian and the Evangelion daMehallete
The use of Tatian’s Four Gospel “mixture”, both in Syriac (the Evangelion daMehallete) and in Greek (the Diatessaron) shows that Tatian’s influence spread far and wide.
It was not until Rabbula (Bishop of Edessa 412 – 435 CE) that in Edessa, separate Gospels newly translated from Greek, officially replaced the Evangelion daMehallete and the Old Syriac Versions [22]. Also Theodoret (c.393 – c.460 CE) found more than 200 copies of its Greek form (the Diatessaron) in his Syrian Diocese [23].
Tatian (born c 110 –120 CE) [24] travelled to Rome from the eastern provinces [25], where he became an associate of Justin Martyr. [26] says Justin denounced second marriages as sinful (despite Paul and others to the contrary [27]), which shows Justin’s ascetic inclination and possible influence on Tatian
Tatian returned to the East about 172 CE and his Gospel harmony would have been published about this time in both Greek and Syriac. Burkitt’s claim [28] that Tatian’s first edition was in Latin does not seem to have any force. It was from this time, that Tatian, as Drijvers remarked, became one of the “most influential personalities that shaped Syriac theology” [29].This is because Syriac theology both developed under his teachings and reacted to them.
Eusebius [30] says that: “there is evidence”, that Tatian was “the author” of the Encratite movement (which preached against marriage). The Syriac sources do not mention this [31]. Eusebius seems to have got this idea from Irenaeus. However contra Eusebius, Irenaeus has the Encratites “springing” from Saturninus and Marcion, who “recently” adopted from Tatian only the belief that Adam was denied salvation [32].
Irenaeus said that Tatian was gnostic, e.g. he “romanced about invisible aeons” [33]. This assertion should perhaps be taken with caution and is possibly an overstatement about Tatian’s Logos Christology. Tatian taught that the Logos came from the will of the Father and created man with free will to share God’s situation [34].
Mankind had two spirits: ψυξη/ and πνευ=μα (the seat of god’s image and likeness).
Men lost πνευ=μα through their missuse of freewill.
When God dwells in man there is συζυγι/ (union) again. Tatian wrote that the flesh contains the ψυχη/ as a ναος (temple) [35] so he was not docetic about the humanity of Jesus.
Salvation is a search for the union that mankind had once but lost. This is done through asceticism by rejecting passions and sexuality [36]. Irenaeus said Tatian “repudiated marriage as being depravity and fornication” [37]. The language is not too different from Jerome who, wrote for example: “He who takes a wife and sows in the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption” [38] .
Tatian was seen as a Christian in the East. This is seen from the widespead use of his Evangelion daMehallete as scripture [39] (a heretic’s work would not be accepted). His Προϕ Ε9λλεναϕ was used as an apology for Christianity, and Eusebius included him in a list of Christian apologists who argued that: “Christ is spoken of as God” [40] . He was a strong influence towards asceticism in the Syriac Christian community, and he was an anti-Marcionite [41] .
Marcion and the East
Marcion was born c. 85 CE in the Eastern provinces, at Sinope on the Black Sea coast. His father was reputed to be a Christian bishop [42]. He appeared in Rome in 140 CE [43]. F.F. Bruce [44] has described him as docetic, gnostic, and having a “profound love for Paul”.
The docetics [45] believed that Jesus only appeared to be human. Tertullian wrote that Marcion seized on the incredibility of an incarnate God “to reject the bodily substance of Christ” [46]. Marcion omitted all birth stories and genealogies to start Luke with: “In the fifteenth year of Tiberias Caesar, Jesus [47] came down to Capernaum” [48]. Doceticism is also seen in other wording such as Jesus was “manifested in the form of a man” [49]. It was a natural conclusion from his ideas about God’s relation to Creation.
The Gnostics used intermediaries to explain how darkness and evil matter could originate from a single source of Divine Light. However Marcion was more a Theistic Dualist than a Light-Matter Gnostic dualist. Marcion taught that there was a hitherto unknown [50] Good God, who is “above”, and opposed the “Cosmocrator” (also called the “Stranger”) and his bare justice.
The Good God graciously sent Jesus to reveal that the Creator’s Laws and wars were not the true way
[51]. Salvation came by hearing the Crucified One and loving one’s enemies. It also involved rejecting the Creator’s world with its physical enticements. This led to ascetic practices. One was sexual purity (Syriac word qaddisha ) i.e. avoiding marriage and asking the married to remain continent [52]. Another was to avoid meat and eat fish [53].
Unlike the Gnostics, Marcion did not rely on secret knowledge, but used an open selection of Christian works. He took Paul’s opposition to the Law of Moses seriously and so cut out all of the Tanakh [54]. Marcion saw it as relating the history of the Jews and so nothing to do with Christianity. He accepted as authoritative, ten suitably edited Pauline epistles [55]. He also accepted an edited Luke’s Gospel, because Luke was seen as close to Paul. To combat Marcion, the number of authoritative books was expanded [56] and an orthodox New Testament “canon” began to be crystalised.
The Western reaction did not prevent the spread and longevity of Marcionite Churches in Syria, Mesopotamia and Iran. One of the earliest dated Christian inscriptions in the East came from a Marcionite community in Lebaba, South East of Damascus [57]. It has the date 318/9 CE.
In Theodoret’s time (c. 393 – c. 460 CE) [58] Marcionite Churches in Syria were numbered in the thousands [59]. In the sixth century in Iran, Mar Aba asks a certain Joseph if he is Orthodox, Marcionite or Jewish [60], thus showing that the Marcionites were still known there and equivalent to Christians [61].
The appeal of Marcion was: a simple explanation for the evil in the world; the ability to use one’s will to see good triumph; and the way men and women were treated as equals [62]. It was decidedly more popular than other complex explanations of evil such as that of Valentinus.
Valentinus, the Gnostics and Ptolemy the Astronomer
Valentinus was a Gnostic Christian who was a contemporary of Marcion. It has been claimed that the Coptic Gnostic papyri found in 1945 CE at Nag Hammadi (Upper Egypt) was his “Gospel of Truth” [63]. It does not have much detail of Valentinus’ system. It was a declaration of the Name of the Father (previously unknown). This enabled a person to penetrate the ignorance that has separated them (and all creation) from the Father. Jesus Christ the Saviour revealed the name of the Father in a variety of ways.
Reconstruction of Valentinus’ teaching comes from the limited evidence of his opponents, i.e. Irenaeus (c. 130-200 CE), Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 CE) and Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170-236 CE). Eusebius (c. 260-340 CE) put them all together [64]. Tertullian’s (c. 160-220 CE) Adversus Valentinianos seems dependent on his predecessors. It provides no new information about Valentinus himself except the curious remark that Valentinus nearly became bishop of Rome!
The remark does show that Christian Gnostics were seen to be close to Orthodoxy, and in fact Clement of Alexandria presented what he called true Christian gnosis [65]. Epiphanius also (c. 315-403 CE) gave a description of the Valentinian position under the title "Letter of Ptolemy to Flora" [66].
Briefly, Irenaeus [67] started his description with the eternal “Abyss” and co-existent “Thought” who produced “Mind” and “Truth” and then the whole Pleroma. Wisdom’s passion ultimately produced matter. Jesus was formed from all the Pleromas contributions [68]. The spiritual people are not affected by material actions (e.g. eating food sacrificed to idols), though good works are needed [69].
Bruce [70] has argued that near the beginning of the second century, there developed a conflict between the old cosmology of Genesis and the “new science” of Ptolemy (the Alexandrian Astronomer). In Genesis, there is a simple cosmology with a flat Earth, a single transparent “bowl” for the heavens and God above the “bowl”. The new Ptomemaic system had a cosmology of many rotating transparent spheres concentric with the Earth. Ptolemy explained previously inexplicable phenomena (e.g. the retrograde motion of the planets). This new science would have produced an uncertainty in the minds of Christians of how to understand Genesis in the light of this new knowledge.
The Gnostics, and Valentinus in particular, developed a re-interpretion the “old” Genesis cosmology that would satisfy the “new” Ptomemaic system. There were many “Lords” of the spheres, who were intermediaries between the unknowable supreme God (beyond the fixed stars) and mankind on Earth. The Earth was made by a Demiurge who was the God of Israel, so the “fall of Adam” was really the fall of the divine element into material flesh. Jesus descent from above and subsequent return, was to give this secret knowledge. After baptism for cleansing came the second blessing of knowledge. This knowledge showed how “the flesh” wars with “the spirit”, and so it leads to avoiding procreation (which entrapped more of the divine). Thus knowledge showed the way home to the realm of light, and it was through spiritual resurrection rather than physical resurrection.
In the East, small groups of Valentinians were found in Mesopotamia from the end of the second century [71]. In the fourth century Ephraim deplored the presence of Valentinians in Edessa, he wrote: “Valentinus stole a flock from the church and called it by his own name”. [72] In a letter to the city of Edessa in 362 CE, Julian condemned an attack on Valentinians by Arian Christians. Ambrose (Bishop of Milan from 374 CE) [73] wrote to Theodosius: Letter XL 16. “Shall, then, the burning of the temple of the Valentinians be also avenged?”. [74]
Although it is clear that the Valentinians continued through the fourth century in the East, the complexity of its system would have only appealed to a small group of the intelligensia. More attractive to the masses were the songs composed by Bardaisan from the city of Edessa.
Bardaisan of Edessa (154 – 222 CE)
The origins of the Christian church at Edessa are obscure and full of legends (e.g. Abgar’s letter to Jesus and the coming of Addai). The ordaining of Palut in Antioch c. 200 CE seems to be historical [75], even though it is not mentioned in the Chronicle of Edessa.
The Chronicle recorded that in 201 CE the Christian church in Edessa had flood damage to its “shrine”(haikla) [76].The Chronicle also records ’s apostasy of 138 CE and that Bardaisan’s birth was on 11/7/154 CE [77]. All this indicates that Christianity was in the region from somewhere near the beginning of the second century [78].
Bardaisan’s name was incorrectly associated with the river that ran through Edessa [79]. Bardaisan was personable and charming as mentioned by Julius Africanus [80]. He is called the “father” of Christian Syriac literature and hymnology [81]. Eusebius regarded Bardaisan as “most able”, “highly skilled” and his dialogues were seen to be a “powerful defence of Christian truth” [82] i.e. against Marcion. Bardaisan was an admired and effective teacher through his 150 catchy “teaching songs” [83]. Teaching songs or madrâshe were strophic poems sung by a soloist and the choir responded at the end of each stanza with the same phrase [84]. It is the forerunner of the Byzantine kontakion.
Bardaisan’s songs were popular for a very long time. Ephrem wrote 150 years after Bardaisan’s death: “In the lairs of Bardaisan are melodies and chants. Since he saw the youth longing for sweets, with the harmony of his songs he excited the children” [85]. Ephrem perfected this artform in writing his own madrâshe to counter them but Ephrem’s criticisms seem harsh and unimaginative.
Bardaisan’s work "The Book of the Laws of the Countries," was probably first written in Syriac [86] and was transmitted via his disciple Philippus [87]. While it asserted influence from celestial bodies over material world, it also asserted that humans have free will. The positions of the planets and constellations at the moment of birth determined outward things such as the measure of wealth, power, health and length of life. The spirit that joined with the soul and body of a person at birth was entirely free because of its divine origin [88]. The charge of heresy then seems to have arisen from a misunderstanding of his “scientific” speculations [89].
Moses bar Kepha (d. 903 CE) says about him:"Bardaisan held about this world that it was composed of five entities namely Fire and Wind and Water and Light and [dead] Darkness” [90].
Burkitt’s Preface to Mitchell’s work [91] has Figure 1 (to the left) as an illustration.
“Entity” here represents the Syriac word (i.e. Ithya), which in turn corresponds to the Greek ου0σι/α (being, existence). God is then a sixth Ithya and not the Creator and source of the material Universe. God is the Arranger of pre-existing things into an ordered Cosmos [92] .
There was nothing ascetic in Bardaisan’s view of life. He was more a “humanist” rather than an ascetic and enjoyed the sports of hunting and archery. He married and had a son Harmonius. He was wealthy and seen to dress luxuriously [93].
Around 435 CE Rabbula of Edessa forcibly converted the Bardaisanites and destroyed their building [94]. However Jacob of Edessa (c. 633–708 CE) still found Bardaisanites in his time [95]. They were probably not groups but individuals who had leanings to “science”. In the tenth century Ibn al-Nadim mentioned that “the adherents of Ibn Daysan” moved to Wasit and Basra in Iraq, and to Khorasan and Chinese Turkestan [96].
Bardaisan added an interest in “science” and “humanism” to Christianity in the East [97]. He may have influenced the Syriac speaking Christians towards the learning of Greek Medicine and Science and been a root cause of the later handing on of that material to Islam [98]. One person of note that Bardasian probably met was Avircius.
Aberkios (Avircius) in Mesoptamia
W.M. Ramsay discovered the epitaph of Α)βε/ρκιοϕ (or Avircius) which has been reconstructed in Greek by Lightfoot [100].
Two lines of interest are shown below.

Line no.
Lightfoot’s reconstruction
10
και∴ Συρι/ηϕ πεδ/ον ει)=δον και∴ α)/στεα πα/ντα Νι/σιβιν,
11
,

From these lines, Avircius said that when he went across the Euphrates it seemed that he met Christianity everywhere he went.
The subject of the epitaph was probably the Avircius Marcellus that Eusebius mentioned as the recipient of an anti-Montanist letter [101]. Since Montanism appeared c. 156 CE and Avercius died well before 216 CE, it seems that Christianity was widespread in Mesopotamia near the end of the second century CE.
Drijvers [102] (from the fourth Century vita of Avircius) wrote that Avircius used Bardaisan’s work against the Marcionite position of Euxeinianos. Avircius (in the vita) also met a Βαρξασα/νηϕ who was probably Bardaisan.
The vita has Βαρξασα/νηϕ being “distinguished from all others by his wealth and descent”. Avircius does not accept a monetary reward for his work against the Marcionites and so Bardaisan initiated the process whereby Avircius received the title of ι0σαπο/στολοϕ.
This shows that Christians could travel freely and widely in Mesopotamia at the end of the second Century and meet both orthodox and heterdox Christians. One importatnt place in Mesopotamia was Dura-Europos
Dura-Europos and the domus ecclesiae [103]
The discovery of a Christian house Church in Dura-Europos, that was buried in defensive rubble around 253–256 CE, gave unexpected evidence for Christianity in Mesopotamia. A certain Dorotheos in 232/3 CE painted a side room when it was a dwelling. It was converted into a church in the early 240s as shown by a coin dated to 241 CE. The coin was found in the clay floor of the triclinium when it was amalgamated with a neighbouring room and the floors made the same height. The combined room ended up about 65 m2. A plaster socket in the floor near one end of the combined room indicates that a lectern may have stood there. There is a special room with an arcosolium (a niche with an arch) which appears to be a baptistry and also used for eucharistic purposes. The wall paintings show Jesus as the good shepherd; Jesus healing a paralytic and walking on water; the Samaritan woman at the well; Adam and Eve; David and Goliath; and the five women at the Sepulchre.
There is not much to connect Dura-Europos with Edessa. Some bronze coins were found in Dura-Europos that came from Edessa [104]. A deed of sale was also found there for a female prisoner of war purchased from an Edessene. It was dated 243 CE and is in Syriac with two lines in Greek [105].
The Dura-Europos church is the only solid evidence of Christianity in the region. Even though it was a unique discovery, it does advance the likehood that there was a significant presence of Christianity at that time in Mesopotamia.
Christians in Iran
Deportations of Shapur I (253 CE and 260 CE)
A major concern for the people of the time was the forced transfer of whole populations from Rome to the Sassanians and vice-versa, depending on the fortunes of war [106]. The victorious second and third campaigns of Shapur I (253 CE and 260 CE) saw mass deportations of Romans from Syria, Cilicia and Cappadocia into Iranian cities such as Sod Shapur in Mesene, Bishapur in Fars, Buzurg Shapur on the Tigris and Gundeshapur in Susiana [107].
The transported Christians (Syriac words i.e. bny sbyt’ ) were not confined to the lower stata of Iranian society but were found in the highest levels as attendants, officials and royal physicians [108].
The Middle Persian inscription of Kirder at the Ka`ba-i Zardusht (KKZ) [109] categorised the captives as:
"The Jews (Yahud), Buddists (Shaman), Hindus (Brahman), Nazarenes [110] (Nasara i.e. native Syriac Christians), Christians (Kristiyan i.e. transported Greek Christians and possibly Marcionites), Baptists (Makdag) and Manicheans (Zandik) were smashed in the empire, their idols destroyed, and the habitations of the idols annihilated and turned into abodes and seats of the gods".
Of the many Christians involved in these transfers, the Chronicle of Se’ert [111] described how Demetrianus the bishop of Antioch, who was taken captive to Gundeshapur “died of sorrow” soon after arrival. There was no problem in electing Azdaq to fill his position, which implied that the church organisation was operating effectively. The Chronicle also mentioned how transported Christians (Syriac i.e. bny sbyt’ ) multiplied and prospered with n [113]o taxation.
Since they could acquire land at low or no price they also went about “building churches and monastaries” [112]
Eusebius [113] wrote that bny sbyt’ even had relief from Roman persecution:
"the barbarians … received and kept in gentlest captivity those [Christians] who then fled from amongst us, and secured to them not merely safety from danger, but also the free exercise of their holy religion”.
As an example of that, a bishop from Iran was allowed to attend the Council of Nicea in 325 CE [114]. A policy of toleration was also apparently followed by Hormizd (270 – 271 CE) and probably Bahram I (271-274 CE).

The ruins of the building at Nicea.
Bahram II (276-293 CE).
General toleration did not rule out occasional pogroms and events such as the execution of Candida [115]. Candida was a Christian Roman captive [116], who became a concubine of Bahram II. She was apparently condemned as a Christian by other consorts out of jealousy [117] .
There was some persecution of Christians in the 280s as the result of an edict against the Manichaeans by Kirder. There was sometimes confusion in distinguishing Manichees from Christians and many Manichees pretended to be Christians to avoid persecution [118]. Despite such opposition, the Christians became numerous enough to build two churches at Rev-Ardashir and the anaphora was conducted in both Greek and Syriac for bny sbyt’ and native Iranians [119].
Shapur II (309 – 379 CE) and Constantine
Constantine wrote to Shapur II sometime after 324 CE, that those who persecuted Christians came to a bad end. Speaking on their behalf he wrote:
“I commend these persons to your protection … I commit them to your care.” [120] This seems a veiled threat about how Shapur II is to treat the Christians. It is written in a condescending way, as Shapur II already possessed the Christians and did not need to accept them from Constantine. Perhaps Constantine wanted Shapur II to think twice about attacking Rome because of the Christian element in his population, but it backfired on the bny sbyt’ as they were branded with disloyalty to the state and possibly collusion with the enemy.
Persecution of Christians flared up under Shapur II with each outbreak of hostilities with Rome, (359-61 CE and 371-376 CE). Michael the Syrian [121] has Shapur II oppressing Christians because of an alleged embassy to Rome.
Sozomen [122] has recorded the denounciation of the Catholicus Symeon in 341 CE as “a friend of the Caesar of the Romans and with communicating the affairs of the Persians to him”. He and 100 others were executed.
The Acts of the Martyrs of Bezabde [123] records the death of Christians for religious reasons after Shapur II had taken Bezabde.
Bar Saba, a bny sbyt’ Christian physician was instrumental in the conversion of Shapur II’s sister, Siraram.
Shapur II sent her far away from the capital to Merv in Khorasan (modern North-Eastern Iran and Southern Turkmenistan). Siraram however, built a church there and invited Bar Saba to become bishop there [124].
When Theodosius I became the Roman emperor (379 CE) and Christianity became the official state religion, it became politic in Iran (as shown by the example of Aphrahat below) to subject bny sbyt’ to campaigns to convert them to Iran’s state religion [125].
Aphrahat/Aphraates (c.280-367 CE)
Aphrahat was born in the region of Adiabene. His work Demonstrations has 23 treatises, written between 337 CE and 345 CE.
Dem. VI may indicate that he was a monk. Dem. XIV may indicate that he was a bishop.
Dem. V appears to show his political disloyalty by characterising the Roman leader as “good” and the Iranian leader as “evil and arrogant”.
Demonstration V, of Wars. 1. “This reflection … concerning … the host that has assembled itself for the sword … Good has come to the people of God, and blessedness awaits that man through whom the good came … evil is stirred … by … the evil and arrogant one who glories … 24 …the Kingdom … of Esau is being kept safe … that Kingdom will not be conquered … 25 …concerning what I wrote to you about these forces that are being stirred up to war, it is not as though anything has been revealed to me…if the forces shall go up and conquer...” [126]
This was written in 337 CE [127] and seems to praise Constantine or Constantius’s preparation for war (he is the man through whom good came) on Shapur (the evil and arrogant one). Aphrahat denied prophetic insight and raised the possibility of Persian victory (“the forces”).
Yazdegerd I (399-420 CE)
Yazdegerd I imprisoned the Christian bishop Mar Isaac when some bishops accused him of criminal action. However Bishop Marutha from Martyropolis (a Roman ambassador) intervened and Isaac was cleared. In 409 CE Yazdegerd I, gave official tolerance to Christian worship [128], ordering altars restored and prisoners set free. (Yazdegerd I also showed his moderate views by marrying Susannah, a daughter of the Jewish Exilarch [129]
In January 410 forty bishops met with Mar Isaac at Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Synod (Sunhados) of Seleucia-Ctesiphon established independence from Antioch, as the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was given the title "Catholicos of the East”. The other bishops had sees at Sinjar, Arbela, Kirkuk, Hulwan and in Mesene and Khuzistan [130].
The synod approved the canons of Nicea; unified the dates of Christian festivals; and adopted the rule of one bishop per diocese consecrated by three other bishops.
The duality of languages raised concern some time later about how exactly the anaphora was to be celebrated.
The 13th canon of the Council of Ctesiphon in 410 CE has: "Now and henceforward, we will all with one accord celebrate the liturgy according to the western rite, which the Bishops Isaac and Marutha have taught us and which we have seen them celebrate here in the church of Seleucia." [131]
Unfortunately it is unclear which liturgy was intended; what divergences were happening; and what affect the decree had on subsequent events.
In Yazdegerd I’s later years, Theodoret [132] reported that the powerful Zoroastrian authorities complained that Christians were converting large numbers of Zoroastrians and at the instigation of Abdas, had destroyed Pyreum (an official state fire-temple). Yazdegerd ordered Abdas to rebuild the Pyreum. When Abdas refused he was executed and many churches were destroyed.
Bahram V (421-439 CE)
Theodoret wrote that Bahram V (who was reliant on Zoroastrian power) also campaigned against Christians. Theodosius II responded by invading Iran in 421-422 CE. The threat of Roman action stopped that persecution. The synod of Markabta (424 CE) under Mar Dadiso recognised that Roman intervention had helped them, but now cut off all appeals to the West. The Iranian church had now no association with the Roman Empire. This was apparently to avoid any suspicion of being allies with Rome.
Yazdegerd II (439-457 CE)
Despite the separation of the Iranian Church, Yazdegerd II renewed persecution of Christians. Mir-Nersh, his chief minister issued an edict against the Christians [133]. Christian envoys pleaded with Yazdegerd II and refered him to the “presents” given to Christians by Shapuh (sic) to reward the Christians’ loyalty [134]. The most severe years of persecution of Christians were between 445 and 448 CE.
Khusrau (Chosroes) I Anushirvan
Khusrau I’s victories brought in many thousands of Monophysite Christians, who were eventually seen as a separate Christian body, but the existing Church officials were all Diophysite following the Antiochene theology [135].
Khusrau I had Christian wives in his harem and granted asylum to the philosophers driven from Athens by Justinian [136]. In 573 CE Khusrau (Chosroes) Anushirvan captured Dara and Apamea and chose 2,000 young Christian women as a present for the Turks. On their journey to Turkey, their main concern was apparently about the food they would have to eat, (“ impure meats, and horseflesh, and things that have died or been ” [137]). They asked to wash privately in a river and then drowned themselves hoping to save their souls. The Chronicle of Se’ert [138] also mentioned the incident but incorrectly dated it to the reign of Shapur I.
Roman Syria and Mesopotamia
In Syria and Mesopotamia, persecution and martyrdom of Christians were generally not experienced until the fourth century. The reported deaths of Sharbil and his sister Babai in 104 CE [139] probably did not occur then, as they are not mentioned in the Syriac church calendar of 411 CE.
They may have occurred at some other time.
Diocletian (284 –305 CE)
In 303 CE one of Diocletian’s attendants put a Christian sign on animals that Diocletian was sacrificing.
Diocletian determined that the attendant’s action had nullified the sacrifice [140]. Consequently, he ordered that Christian worship was forbidden and Bibles and Churches were to be destroyed. The persecution brought about the martydom of Shmona and Guria in Edessa. Mar Jacob later composed a Homily on their deaths. Segal [141] accepted the accounts as historical.
Diocletian sent Musonius the governor of Antioch to Edessa and he ordered Shmona and Guria to renounce Christianity and to honour Jupiter by offering incense on the altar. When they declined they were each hung up by one hand and after further examination were beheaded [142]. A deacon Habib was later burnt to death under Licinius orders.
Maximian put out an edict that those “unwilling to sacrifice [to the Roman gods] were [to be] subjected to torture and harsh punishment”. The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus [143] described how by disobeying this edict Sergius was beheaded, and Baccus flogged to death, in Resafa.
Lactantius recorded the “edit of Milan” [144] in 313 CE, which gave “complete toleration” of religion. This toleration allowed new expressions of Christianity to emerge. Jerome said that Hilarion, a pupil of Anthony started the Syrian eremite customs [145], but romantic and fabuluous stories make it hard to accept more than the basics.
Sozomen’s account seems based on Jerome [146].
Ja’qob of Nisibis gives the authentic flavour of Syrian eremite tradition.
Ja’qob (James) of Nisibis and his successors
Theodoret of Cyrrhos [147], a contempory of Sozomen, has given a valuable description of Ja’qob as an “anchorite”, i.e. one who has retired from life.
“Ja’qob embraced a life of solitude and silence, … [on] the peaks … he passed his days there; in spring, summer and autumn making use of the thickets for shelter with the sky above him for a roof; during the winter season he found himself a cave … he gathered wild fruits of the native trees and such plants as were edible … refusing … to make any use of fire … the coarsest goats’ hair … were … both his tunic and a simple cloak.”
Here are seen the classic Syrian anchorite elements: solitude (Syriac îhîdâiê, with consequent celibacy), wilderness life (in high places), raw food, minimal shelter and coarse clothing.
Anchorites imitated the poor, homeless, celibate Jesus [148]. The only exception to poverty was to possess books. [149]
Vööbus has argued that Syrian monasticism did not come from Anthony in Egypt, because it appeared early in Syria and spread only slowly from Egypt [150]. It is also different in character as the ideal of Syrian monasticism was self-annihilation rather than pusuit of spirituality. In this regard Manichaeism is a direct continuation of these rules.
Ja’qob’s influence was wide spread as he made his presence felt in Iran [151] and also at the Council of Nicea. As a bishop in Nisibis, his social concern became legendary [152] and his presence at the seige of Nisibis in 337 or 338 CE was said to raise morale.
Ephrem (who was a personal assistance and deacon to Mar Jacob) in his Carmina Nisibena gave the succession of bishops as Mar Ja’qob, Mar Babu, Mar Valgesh (or Vologeses) and Mar Abraham.
“You shall be a wall for us as Ja’qob, and full of tenderness as Babu, and a treasury of speech as Valgesh” [153] … You who answers to the name of Abraham, in that you are made father of many” [154] … for money she [the Church] redeemed the captives [155].
The last part of the quote is interesting in that it emphasised the Church’s social concern for prisoners of war. This is confirmed by Acta Archelai [156] that praises a certain bishop Archelaus for redeeming prisoner of war slaves.
Ephrem also praised Mar Valgesh (or Vologeses) for his military work in defending Nisibis [157].
Mar Augen, Julian Sabba and Asterius
Legend has it that Mar Augen (Eugenianos) introduced cenobitic monasticism (community as opposed to solitary) to the Syriac world from Egypt.Information on Mar Augen has come from the Book of Sobriety by Isho’dnah and the Chronicle of Se’ert.These works are late, when compared with the description of Mar Augin being contemporary with Ja’qob of Nisibis.
Julian Sabba (d. 367 CE) demonstrated the transition from the solitary ones (he started in a cave); to a scattered group surrounding a central meeting place (his disciples lived around his cave); to a full monastic community.
Asterius, a disciple of Julian Sabba, founded a community near Gindaros, North East of Antioch [158].
Theodoret [159] said that on the very day on which Julian (the Apostate) was slain, Julian Sabba knew about his death.
Julian the Apostate (361 –363 CE) and the Pagan revival
Socrates wrote [160]: “the Emperor [Constantius] had made the provision that [Julian] should have no pagan masters, lest he should be seduced to the pagan superstitions. For Julian was a Christian at the beginning.”
In contrast to that, Ammianus Marcellinus who had personal aquaintance with Julian wrote “from his earliest boyhood [Julian] had nursed an inclination towards the worship of the pagan gods” [161].
Thus when Ammianus wrote earlier that Julian “apostatized” from Christianity [162], it was probably a loose expression, which did not mean to imply that Julian was ever a Christian in his informed personal beliefs.
When Socrates wrote “[Julian] privately, procured [Libanius’] orations”: this makes it likely that when Julian first grew to have informed beliefs, he converted to Paganism from an inherited nominal Christianity.
Julian then had to keep his own counsel for fear of his life.
Socrates’ description of Julian’s external semblance of monastic life [163] and Ammianus’ words that Julian “pretended to adhere to the Christian religion” [164] should then be seen as what Julian did “from his earliest boyhood”.
Socrates wrote about Julian’s style after he was proclaimed Emperor:
“After this [Julian] no longer wore the mask of Christianity, but everywhere opened the pagan temples, offering sacrifice to the idols; and designating himself ‘Pontifex Maximus’, gave permission to such as would to celebrate their superstitious festivals” [165].
An inscription shows that some revival of Pagan worship occurred in Syria [166].
Julian’s antagonism to Christians was demonstrated by removing the reliques of Ja’qob of Nisibis from that city [167].
Also Ammianus wrote that Julian’s tactics of telling the Christian authorities that they should “allow every man to practice his belief … without hindrance” was designed to “intensify their divisions” [168] by promoting heresy hunting.
Julian’s promise to re-build the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem would have been a win-win situation for him [169].
There would have been a great monument to perpetuate his memory and the Jews would have been invigourated at the expense of the Christians.
As an example of Jewish-Christian tension incited by Julian, Barhebraeus recorded the savage reaction of Christians in Edessa where Jews were massacred because Julian visited pagan Harran in preference to Edessa [170].
It seems that the Christians vented their anger on the basis that “the friend of my enemy is also my enemy”.
Libanius wrote that Julian’s death was not brought about by the direct action of Shapur but by Julian’s own troops [171] When Julian’s death was reported to Harran, the citizens (the “Carreni”) were so distressed at their lost protector that they killed the messenger
. In contrast Ephrem the Syrian wrote songs with lines such as “Praise to him who clothed [Julian’s] corpse in shame” [173]
Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-9/6/373 CE)
There are a number of texts that purport to be written by Ephrem and give details of his life. An example is his Testament, which according to Voobus [174] contains an authentic kernel.
There is also Ephrem’s vita in Syriac, which depicts him as “small, his face perpetually sad … bald and beardless” [175].
He was born near Nisibis, “in the way of truth” [176] and became an anchorite in adolescence after baptism [177]. Ephrem became a deacon [178] and was a disciple of Ja’qob of Nisibis [179]. Ephrem rejoiced at Julian’s death, but mourned over Nisibis’ cession to Shapur [180].
Even though Ephrem acknowledged that Shapur showed tolerance [181] he left Nisibis for Edessa and was credited with the foundation of the catechetical school at Edessa.
Ephrem was admired as an ascetic and highly influential as a teacher. He wrote numerous works such as “Against the heretics” of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan. He combatted Bardaisan’s songs by perfecting that art. His works were translated into Greek. His example of study, writing literature and teaching was a great stimulus and guide for the monastic movement [182].
One person was moved to go to Mesopotamia because of the numbers of “holy monks” there was Egeria.
Egeria (381 or 384 CE) [183]
Egeria was a pilgrim who came from the far West of the Empire, near the “ocean”, to visit the Sinai, Jerusalem and Edessa.
At Edessa she visited the tomb of Thomas and got a fuller rendering of the letter of Abgar [184].
At Carrhae she visited the site of Abraham’s house and was delighted to meet the “holy and truly dedicated monks of Mesopotamia” [185].
She remarked that absolutely no Christians lived in Carrhae as the monks lived out in the desert.
Egeria was advised that she could not travel further East to Nisibis and Ur because of the Persians [186]. It was remarkable that at this time, a Christian woman could so easily travel throughout the Roman Empire to see Christian historical sites.
Conclusion
Christianity spread East of Jerusalem along the trade routes. It is likely that Christian Jews first established Christianity among fellow Jews in the East. In Edessa (from whatever direction Christianity came) Christians and Jews initially had good relationships and this may be reflected generally in the East.
There was continuous bi-lingual contact and cultural exchange along the trade routes between Greek Antioch and the East. Tatian was a part of that exchange. His Gospel harmony was used widely and remained in circulation for a long time. He introduced an ascetic element into Christianity. Marcion was another ascetic. He took Paul’s opposition to the Law of Moses seriously and announced the Good god above the Creator god. Marcion rejected the Creator’s world with its physical enticements and established a canon of authorised books. The Marcionites were still in Iran as an alternate Christianity in the sixth-century.
The “new science” of Ptolemy led Valentinus to re-interpret Christianity in the light of new scientific paradigms and advanced the ascetic trend. Bardaisan also generated interest in “science” but his “humanism” was not ascetic. His teaching songs became very popular and through them his influence lasted through to the tenth-century in Iran.
Avircius’ epitaph and the Christian house church at Dura-Europos showed that Christians could travel freely and widely in Mesopotamia near the end of the second Century and meet both orthodox and heterdox Christians. The deportations of Shapur et al created new centres for Christianity in Iran that flourished despite occasional pogroms. The fifth-century (Iranian) Church of the East dissociated itself from the Roman Empire for secular political reasons.
In Syria and Mesopotamia, Christianity expanded and persecution was not generally experienced until the fourth century.By that time the monastic movement had created an ascetic tradition of study, writing literature and teaching.
By these means and through people such as these Christianity diffused on both sides of the Roman Eastern frontier.
.
Bibliography
Ball, W., Rome in the East, the transformation of an empire, Routledge, London and New York, 2000
Barnard, L.W., “The Origins and Emergence of the Church in Edessa during the first two centuries A.D.”, Vigiliae Christianae (22), North Holland, Amsterdam, 1968
Bauer, W., Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, German original, copyright J.C.B.Mohr, Tübingen, 1934, English Translation by Robert A. Kraft, Gerhard Kroedel, etc., Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1971
Beck, E., Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra Haereses,CSCO vols. 169-170, Louvain, 1957
Bedjan, P., ed. Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum IV, Paris, 1890-7
Bedjan, P., ed. Histoire de Mar Jabalaha, de trois autres Patriarches, d’un pretre et deux laiques Nestoriens 2, Paris, 1895
Bethune-Baker, J.F., Nestorius and his Teaching, Cambridge UP, 1908
Boswell J. trans. Passio antiquior SS. Sergii et Bacchi Graece AB 14, Brussels, 1895,
Brock, S.P., "A Martyr at the Sasanid Court under Vahran II: Candida," Analecta Bollandiana 96 , 1978
Brock, S.P., Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity, Variorum, London, 1984
Brock, S.P., Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, ARAM Fourteenth Conference, Antioch and Edessa, Rhodes House, University of Oxford, 12-14 July 1999 found at: syrcom.cua.edu
Burkitt, F.C., Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire: Two lectures Delivered at Trinity College, Dublin, Cambridge UP, 1899
Burkitt, F.C., Early Eastern Christianity, St Margaret’s Lectures on the Syriac Speaking Church, J. Murray, London, 1904
Burkitt, F.C., “The Church in the East”, Cambridge Ancient History, Cambridge UP
Burkitt, F.C., ed. and trans. “The martyrdom of Shmona and Guria”, sec. 1., Euphemia and the Goth with the Acts of the Martyrdom of the Confessors of Edessa, Williams and Norgate, Oxford/London, 1913
Bruce, F.F., The Spreading Flame, Paternoster, Plymouth, 1958
Chabot, J. B., Synodicon Orientale, ou Recueil de Synodes Nestoriens, Paris, 1902
Chronicle of Edessa, ed. Assemani J.S., Bibliotheca Orientalis, Rome, 1719-1728
Chronicle of Se’ert (c. 1036 CE), Patrologia Orientalis 4, ed. Graffin, R., and Nau, F., Paris 1907ff, cited in Dodgeon and Lieu, ibid
Dodgeon M.H. and Lieu S.N.C., “The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars”, Routledge, London, 1991
Drijvers, H.J.W., Bardaisan of Edessa, Royal VanGorcum, Assen, 1966
Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, Studies in Early Syriac Christianity, Variorium Reprints, London 1984
Drijvers, H.J.W., Old-Syriac (Edessean) Inscriptions, Brill, Leiden, 1972
Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, Penguin, 1965, translated by G.A. Williamson
Frend, W.H.C., The Early Church, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1965
Frye, R. N., The Heritage of Iran, Cardinal, London, 1976
Grabka, G., “Eucharistic Belief Manifest In the Epitaphs of Abercius and Pectorius”, The American Ecclesiastical Review, October 1954
Guidi, I, “The Chronicle of Edessa” in Chronica Minora, CSCO, 1955
Gwatkin, H.M., Early Church History to AD 313
, Macmillan, London, 1914,
Gwynn, J., rev. Johnston “Introductory Dissertation on Ephraim The Syrian and Aphrahat The Persian Sage”, Patrologia Syriaca, Firmin-Dido, Paris, 1893-1926
Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version, Zondervan, Michigan, 1993
Isenberg, S.R., “The Jewish-Palestinian Origins of the Peshitta to the Pentateuch”, Journal of Biblical Literature, (90), Society of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, 1971
Jerome, Com. in Ep. ad Gal
Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews
,
Lea, H.C., The History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, Russell and Russell, New York, 1957
Lightfoot, J.B., The Apostolic Fathers, Macmillan, London 1889, 1890
Lieu, S.N.C., "Captives, Refugees and Exiles: a Study of Cross-Frontier Civilian Movements and Contacts between Rome and Iran from Valerian to Jovian," in P. Freeman & D. Kennedy, eds., The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, part 2, Oxford, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 1986
Lieu, S.N.C., Lecture Notes for Ancient History 250/350, Macquarie University, 2003
Littmann, E. et al, Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1904-5 and 1909, Div. III, Greek and Latin Inscriptions, Sec. A Part. 2, Southern Hauran, Leiden, 1910, p. 108, n. 86 (= ILS 9465, Arce, n. 115, p. 111)
Marcellinus, Ammianus, Res Gestae, trans. Hamilton, W., Penguin, London, 1986
Metaphrastes, Simeon, Martyrdom Of the Holy Confessors, Shamuna, Guria, and Habib, Early Church Fathers in 38 Volumes
Millar, Fergus, The Roman Near East, 31 BC – AD 337, Harvard, Cambridge, 1993, p.471
Mitchell C.W., S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations Of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, William Clowes & Sons, London and Beccles, 1921
Morris, J.B., Select Works of S, Ephrem the Syrian, Oxford, London, 1847
Murray, R. "The Features of the Earliest Christian Asceticism," in Christian Spirituality: Essays in Honour of Gordon Rupp, ed. P. Brooks, London, 1975
O’Leary, D., How Greek Science Passed on to the Arabs, London, 1948
Parry, K., etc Ed., The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, Blackwell, Oxford, 2001
Ramsay, W. M., Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Clarendon, Oxford, 1986
Ross, S.K., Roman Edessa. Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE, London/New York, Routledge, 2001
Segal, J.B., Edessa ‘The Blessed City’, Clarendon, Oxford, 1970
Stevenson, J., A New Eusebius, SPCK, London, 1963
Stevenson, J., Creeds, Councils and Controversies, SPCK, London, 1972
Teaching of Addai, ed. Phillips, G., SBL Texts and Translations, 16, Early Christian Literature Series, 4, Chico, Scholars Press, 1981.
The 1876 version is found on-line at http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm
Theodoret of Cyr, Historia Religiosa, unpublished translation by Dodgeon
Vartabed, Elisaeus, History of Armenia, trans. Thomson, 1982
Vööbus, A., History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, CSCO vol 184 subs 14, Peeters, Louvain, 1958,
Vööbus, A., Literary Critical and Historical Studies in Ephrem the Syrian, ETSE, Stockholm, 1958
Wace, H., & Piercy, W. C., ed. Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature, John Murray, London, 1911
Wellesz, E., “Early Christian Music”, New Oxford History of Music, Vol II, ed., Hughes, Oxford, London, 1967
Whipple, A.G., The Role of the Nestorians and Muslims in the history of Medicine, 1967
Wilkinson, J., Egeria’s Travels, SPCK, London, 1971
Yahshater, E., ed., The Cambridge History of Iran, 3(1), Cambridge UP, 1983
 

[1] Acts 2:9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia
[2]Josephus, Antiquities, 14. 7. 2
[3] Acts 13:5,14; 14:1; 17:1,2,10 etc.
However this schema can only be accepted with caution
[4] Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, Penguin, 1965, trans. by G.A. Williamson, p.67 (I, 13)
[5] Burkitt, F.C., Early Eastern Christianity, St Margaret’s Lectures on the Syriac Speaking Church, J. Murray, London, 1904, p.16.
Also Barnard, L.W. “The Origins and Emergence of the Church in Edessa during the first two centuries A.D.”, Vigiliae Christianae (22), North Holland, Amsterdam, 1968, p.162, citing The Teaching of Addai, p.5, 6
[6] Barnard, op sit, p.162. Vööbus, A., History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, CSCO vol 184 subs 14, Louvain, 1958, p.6-7, also accepted Addai’s historicity, however he relies on the problematic Chronicle of Arbel.
[7] Segal, J.B., Edessa ‘The Blessed City’, Clarendon, Oxford, 1970, p.67-69
[8] Josephus, Antiquities, 20, 2, 3
[9] Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, p.215
[10] Acts 13:45; 14:2,19
[11] In The Teaching of Addai, p.46 f, cited in Barnard, op sit, p.163
[12] Segal, op sit, p.42
[13] Barnard, op sit, p.163. He discusses Aphraates on celibate baptismal requirements; the bar (and bat) Q’yama on abandoning the world; and compares the situation shown in the Manual of Discipline.
[14] Isenberg, S.R., “The Jewish-Palestinian Origins of the Peshitta to the Pentateuch”, Journal of Biblical Literature, (90), Society of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, 1971, p.69 –81.
[15] Diatessaron, “through four” is used in music to denote a four-part harmony. See Bruce, F.F., op sit, p. 286
[16] Drijvers, H.J.W. East of Antioch, p.17
[17] Alexander Lycopolitanus, contra Manichaei opiniones disputatio, cited in Dodgeon M.H. and Lieu S.N.C., “The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars”, Routledge, London, 1991, p.65
[18] The earlier view of isolation by Burkitt, F.C., Urchristentum im Orient, was cited by Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, Studies in Early Syriac Christianity, Variorium Reprints, London 1984, p.3
[19] Millar, Fergus, The Roman Near East, 31 BC – AD 337, Harvard, Cambridge, 1993, p.471
[20] Ross, Steven K., Roman Edessa. Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE, London/New York, Routledge, 2001, last words of Chapter 6.
[21] Brock, S., Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, ARAM Fourteenth Conference, Antioch and Edessa, Rhodes House, University of Oxford, 12-14 July 1999 found at syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye
[22] The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, Ed. Parry, K etc, Blackwell, Oxford, 2001, p.399 “Rabbula”
[23] Theodoret, Haeret. Fab. I 20, cited in Stevenson, Creeds, Councils and Controversies, p.308
[24] The Blackwell Dictionary, op sit, p.478
[25] Tatian wrote he was from “the land of the Assyrioi” which is imprecise (possibly Adiabene). Clement of Alexandria said with similar imprecision that Tatian was a Su/roj. Epiphanius deduced that Tatian was a native of Mesopotamia (Haer, xlvi.). Millar (op sit, p.460) describes Epiphanius as “unreliable and fanciful”.
[26] Lea, H.C., The History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, Russell & Russell, New York, 1957, p17
[27] 1 Corinthians 7:28, see also Hebrews 13:34 and 1 Timothy 4:3
[28] Burkitt, F.C., “The Church in the East”, Cambridge Ancient History, Vol 12, p.494-5, cited by Lieu, S.N.C., lecture notes for AHST250/350, p.VIII.1
[29] Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, p.3
[30] Eusebius, op sit, p.190 (IV, 29, 7)
[31] Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, p.7
[32] Irenaeus Against Heresies 1, 28, 1, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.97-98
[33] Irenaeus op sit, 1,28,1, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.97-98
[34] Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, p.8
[35] Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, p.8
[36] Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, p.8
[37] Irenaeus op sit, 1,28,1, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.97-98
[38] Jerome, Com. in Ep. ad Gal
[39]Ephrem the Syrian used Tatian’s Diatessaron. This is supported by the fact that his commentary begins with John 1.1, has no allusion to the genealogies, and continually alternates between gospels.
[40] Eusebius cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.235 (V, 28, 4).
[41] Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, p.7
[42] Frend, W.H.C., The Early Church, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1965, p.66
[43] Bruce, F.F., The Spreading Flame, Paternoster, Plymouth, 1958, p.228
[44] Bruce, F.F., op sit, p.251
[45] From the Greek δοκε/ω>, which expresses how something shows itself phenomenally
[46] Tertullian, Against Marcion, III, 8, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.101
[47] Iesu instead of Isho
[48] Cited by Bruce, F.F., op sit, p.251
[49] Irenaeus, op sit, 1, XXVII, 1-2 “in hominis forma manifestatum”, cited in Gwatkin, H.M., Early Church History to AD 313, Macmillan, London, 1914, p.96-99
[50] Ephrem the Syrian describes him as “the Stranger” in Discourses to Hypatius, III Marcion p.li.
He was also the “unknown God” of Acts 17:23 according to Frend, op sit, p.67
[51] Irenaeus, op sit, 1, XXVII, 1-2, cited in Gwatkin, H.M., op sit, p99
[52] Frend, op sit, p.68
[53] Vööbus, op sit, part I, 2, 2
[54] The Jewish Bible is called the Tanakh, from the initials of the Hebrew words for its three parts called the Law, the Prophets and the Writings
[55] Frend, op sit, p.67
[56] Hebrews (e.g. 13:4) and the Pastorals (1 Tim 4:3, 5:14) were useful
[57] O.G.I. 608, cited in Frend, op sit, p.68 and also S.N.C. Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.4 for the text.
[58] Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.407
[59] S.N.C. Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.4 cites Theodoret Ep. 113
[60] Bauer, W., Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, German original, copyright J.C.B.Mohr, Tübingen, 1934, English Translation by Robert A. Kraft, Gerhard Kroedel, etc., Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1971 p.22 citing P. Bedjan (ed.), Histoire de Mar Jabalaha, de trois autres patriarches, d’un pretre et deux laiques nestoriens 2 (Paris, 1895), 206-274
[61] This has a parallel in modern Israel where a person may be asked if they are Orthodox, Catholic or Christian, i.e. Greek Othodox, Roman Catholic or Protestant Christian.
[62] Vööbus, op sit, part I, 2, 2
[63] So named by Irenaeus in Adv. Haer. III.11.9. The Coptic text is found in NHC I, 3; XII, 2. The English translation in NHL 1977, p.37-49
[64] Eusebius op sit, p.163-4 (IV, 10-11)
[65] Bruce, op sit, p.250
[66] Epipanius, Haer, 33.3-7, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.91
[67] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1, 1, 1, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius t, p.85
[68] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1, 1, 1, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.89
[69] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1, 1, 1, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.90
[70] Bruce, op sit, p.246-248
[71] Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII,7
[72] Beck E., Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra Haereses, CSCO, vols. 169-170, Louvain, 1957, XXII: 3.
[73] Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.397
[74] Theodosius Letter XL 16 cited from biblestudy.churches.net/CCEL/FATHERS2/NPNF210/NPNF2151.HTM
[75] The Teaching of Addai, p.50, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.152. The ecclesiastical dependance on Antioch is also reflected in Christian Edessa being later characterised as having “Antiochene theology”.
[76] The Chronicle of Edessa (composed c 540 CE) found in Assemani J.S., Bibliotheca Orientalis, Rome, 1719-1728, I. p.389f, cited in Segal, op sit, p.24.
[77] Drijvers, H.J.W., East of Antioch, p.4
[78] Contra Burkitt, who wrote that the legend reflected the conversion of Abgar VII (sic), 177-222 (sic) CE. See Burkitt, F.C., Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire: Two lectures Delivered at Trinity College, Dublin. Cambridge UP, 1899, p.45-67
[79] Drijvers, H.J.W. Bardaisan of Edessa, p.217, wrote that the tradition that Bardaisan was born on the bank of the Daisan (i.e. “son of the Daisan”) is dubious as it is unknown to Ephrem, so the meaning of the second part of his name is unclear. In the sixth century the river was diverted from flowing through the city by a new channel cut across the northern border of the city
[80] Julius Africanus (c. 160-240 CE) came with Septimius Severus’ expedition to Osrhoene in 195 CE.
He mentions that he had met Bar Daysan at Edessa in his κεστοι/ or Embroideries
[81] Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.398
[82] Eusebius, op sit, p.191 (IV, 30)
[83] There are three main forms of Syriac poetry (1) the memra, (2) the Madrasha and (3) the sogitha. Wellesz, E., “Early Christian Music”, New Oxford History of Music, Vol II, ed., Hughes, Oxford, London, 1967, p.8,
[84] Wellesz, op sit, p.8, 9
[85] Beck, op sit, Ephrem Madrash 1:17
[86] Drijvers, H.J.W. Bardaisan of Edessa, p.64, 67
[87] A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature, eds. Wace, H., & Piercy, W. C., John Murray, London, 1911, article under Bardaisan
[88] Drijvers, H.J.W. Bardaisan of Edessa, p.219
[89] See Nau M., Une Biographie inédite de Bardesane l’astrologue, Paris, 1897; Bardesane l’astrologue: Le Livre des lois des pays, Paris, 1899; “Bardesane l’astrologue”, Journal Asiatique, juillet-août 1899, p. 129
[90] Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.154 However opinion seems divided on whether Darkness is an entity in itself, see Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa, p.220
[91] Mitchell C.W., S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations Of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan, William Clowes & Sons, London and Beccles, 1921.
[92] This idea, in modern times, is based on an interpretation of Genesis 1:2 as “the Earth became formless…”
[93] Beck, op sit, Ephrem, Madrash 1:12
[94] Drijvers, H.J.W. Bardaisan of Edessa, p.226
[95] Segal, op sit, p.36
[96] Segal, op sit, p.36
[97] Drijvers, H.J.W. Bardaisan of Edessa, p.228
[98] See Whipple, A.G., The Role of the Nestorians and Muslims in the History of Medicine, 1967, p.14-19 and also O’Leary, D., How Greek Science Passed on to the Arabs, London, 1948, p47-52
[99] Ramsay, W. M., Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Clarendon, Oxford, 1986, I, p.722-30, II. p.657. Also Grabka, G., “Eucharistic Belief Manifest In the Epitaphs of Abercius and Pectorius”, The American Ecclesiastical Review, October 1954
[100] Lightfoot, J.B., The Apostolic Fathers, Macmillan, London 1889, 1890, pt. II, vol. I, p. 496
[101] Eusebius, op sit, p.217-9 (V, 16-17)
[102] Drijvers, H.J.W., Bardaisan of Edessa, Royal VanGorcum, Assen, 1966, p.63, 170
[103] Kraeling, C.F., in Well, C.B. ed., The Excavations at Dura-Europos, Final report VIII, Pt 2, New York, 1967, p.102-6
[104] Edwell, P., SSEC coference talk in May 2003 at Macquarie University
[105] Drijvers, H.J.W., Old-Syriac (Edessean) Inscriptions, Brill, Leiden, 1972, p.54-57
[106] Lieu, S.N.C., "Captives, Refugees and Exiles: a Study of Cross-Frontier Civilian Movements and Contacts between Rome and Iran from Valerian to Jovian," in P. Freeman & D. Kennedy (eds.), The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, part 2, Oxford, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 1986, pp. 475-508.
[107] Ball, W., Rome in the East, the transformation of an empire, Routledge, London and New York, 2000, p.115
[108] Yahshater, E., ed. The Cambridge History of Iran, 3(1), Cambridge UP, 1983, p.570-1
[109] Boyce, M., Ed and Trans, “Zoroastrianism”, Textual Sources for the Study of Religion, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984, p.113, also Lieu op sit, VIII, 11, KKZ partially cited in Dodgeon and Lieu, op sit, p.65
[110] At Paul’s trial before Governor Felix, (Acts 24:5) Tertullus the lawyer accused Paul of being a ring-leader of the Nazarene sect (τω=ν Ναζαραι/ων αι9ρε/σεωϕ)
[111] Chronicle of Se’ert, Patrologia Orientalis 4, p.221 – 223, cited in Dodgeon and Lieu, op sit, p.297
[112] see also Ball, op sit, p.121
[113] Eusebius, vita Constantini, Book II, Chapter LIII
[114] Ball, op sit, p.122
[115] Brock, S.P., "A Martyr at the Sasanid Court under Vahran II: Candida," Analecta Bollandiana 96,1978, p.167-181 or Brock, S.P., Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity Variorum, London, 1984, ch. 9
[116] Chronicle of Se’ert, 9, p.238
[117] Brock, S.P., Analecta Bollandiana 96,1978, p.17881
[118] Ball, op sit, p.122
[119] Ball, op sit, p.122
[120] Eusebius, vita Constantini, IV.8-13, cited in Dodgeon and Lieu, op sit, p.150-152
[121] Michael the Syrian, Chron VII 3, p.132, cited in Dodgeon and Lieu, op sit, p.152
[122] Sozomen, H.E. II 9.1-5; 10.1-2, cited in Stevenson, J., Creeds, Councils and Controversies, SPCK, London, 1972, p6-7
[123] “The Martyrdom of the Prisoners of War”, ed. Bedjan, Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum II, Paris, 1890-7, p.316-324, cited in Dodgeon and Lieu, op sit, p.215-219
[124] Ball, op sit, p.122
[125] Yahshater, op sit, p.499
[126] Gwynn, J., revised Johnston in “Introductory Dissertation On Ephraim The Syrian And Aphrahat The Persian Sage”, Patrologia Syriaca, Firmin-Dido, Paris, 1893-1926, 1.184ff
[127] 648 years from Alexander
[128] Chabot, J.B., Synodicon Orientale, p.254-261, cited in Stevenson, Creed, Councils and Controversies, p.255-257
[129] Yahshater, E., op sit, p.499. It has also been seen to be part of movement towards monotheism that eventually served the cause of Islam (see Yahshater, E., op sit, p.568)
[130] Yahshater, op sit, p.499
[131] Chabot, J. B., Synodicon Orientale, ou Recueil de Synodes Nestoriens, Paris, 1902, p.266
[132] Theodoret, H.E. V 38(39) 1- 6, cited in Stevenson, Creed, Councils and Controversies, p.257
[133] Elisaeus Vartabed, History of Armenia, c.II, ap. V. Langois, Collection des Historiens de l’Armenie, II, p.190f., cited in Stevenson, Creed, Councils and Controversies, p.348
[134] Frye, R. N., The Heritage of Iran, Cardinal, London, 1976, see also Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII,11
[135] It has been reasonably argued that the Nestorian “heresy” of two sons came about from a misunderstanding of the Syriac word qnoma and was exacerbated by the political antagonism resulting from the ecclesiastical demotion of the Patriarch of Alexandria. See for example Bethune-Baker, J.F., Nestorius and his Teaching, Cambridge UP, 1908, p.217-218
[136] Herodian, History of the Empire, 5.3.5, cited in Ball, op sit, p.115, 457, n35
[137] John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History 3, trans. R. Payne Smith, Oxford UP, 1860 book 6. VI.7 p.389-390.
[138] Chronicle of Se’ert 3, PO 4, p.224-25, cited in Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII,13
[139] Segal, op sit, p.82-86
[140] Millar, op sit, p.198
[141] Segal, op sit, p.83
[142] Burkitt, F.C., ed. and trans. “The martyrdom of Shmona and Guria”, sec. 1., Euphemia and the Goth with the Acts of the Martyrdom of the Confessors of Edessa Williams and Norgate, Oxford/London, 1913 or Simeon Metaphrastes, Martyrdom Of the Holy Confessors, Shamuna, Guria, and Habib, cited from The Early Church Fathers at www.ccel.org
[143] Passio antiquior SS. Sergii et Bacchi Graece, trans. by Boswell J. AB 14 , Brussels, 1895, p.373-395 also cited extensiely by Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.11
[144] Lactantius, On the death of the Persecutors, 48.2-12, cited in Stevenson, A New Eusebius, p.300-302
[145] Jerome, vita Hilarionis 2
[146] Sozomen 3.14,26-28, trans. Hartranft, p.293
[147] Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Historia Religiosa 1,2., trans. Dodgeon unpubl., cited in Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.13
[148] Murray, R. "The Features of the Earliest Christian Asceticism," in Christian Spirituality: Essays in Honour of Gordon Rupp, ed. P. Brooks, London, 1975, p. 66
[149] Vööbus, op sit, chapter12.1.a. General remarks
[150] Vööbus, op sit, chapter 5.1 Autochthonous character of Syrian monasticism.
[151] Theodoret of Cyr, op sit, II.4, II,6 cited in Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.13
[152] Theodoret of Cyr, op sit, I, 7 cited in Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.13
[153] Ephrem, Carmina Nisibena, XVII.11, in Mitchell C.W., op sit, p.187
[154] Ephrem, Carmina Nisibena, XIX.1, in Mitchell C.W., op sit, p.188
[155] Ephrem, Carmina Nisibena, XIX.16, in Mitchell C.W., op sit, p.190
[156] Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.14
[157] Ephrem, Sermones de Nicomedia, XV.145-170, cited in Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.14
[158] Lieu, Lecture Notes, p.VIII.20
[159] Theodoret III, XIX
[160] Socrates H.E. III, 1
[161] Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, trans. Hamilton, W., Penguin, London, 1986, 22.5, p.238
[162] Ammianus Marcellinus, op sit, 21.2.4, p.209
[163] Socrates H.E. III, 1 What Julian did was to “assume the external semblance”
[164] Ammianus Marcellinus, op sit, 21.2.4, p.209
[165] Socrates H.E. III, 1
[166] Littmann, E. et al. Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1904-5 and 1909, Div. III, Greek and Latin Inscriptions, Sec. A, Part. 2, Southern Hauran, Leiden, 1910, p. 108, n. 86 (= ILS 9465, Arce, n. 115, p. 111) cited in Lieu, op sit. p.VIII.20
[167] Gannadius, Liber de script. Eccl., 1, Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, eds. Migne, J.P.. Paris 1844-1864 , vol 58.1059, trans. Richardson, p.386
[168] Ammianus Marcellinus, op sit, 22.5, p.238
[169] Ammianus Marcellinus, op sit, 23.1, p.255
[170] Barhebraeus, World Chronicle, VII, p. 63, ed. Bedjan, trans. Budge p. 61, cited in Lieu, op sit, p.VIII.20
[171] Although Libanius wrote in, Oration 17: "some Achemenides" did it, clearly in Oration 18: "the murderer was not an enemy" and "one of those who thought that it was not good for them that Julian stayed alive", and in Oration 24: "the murderer was among ours".
[172] Zosimus, historia nova, III, 34, ed. Mendelssohn, p.156
[173] Ephrem, Hymni Contra Julianum, III, 1-5, cited in Lieu, op sit, p.VIII.23
[174] Vööbus, A., Literary Critical and Historical Studies in Ephrem the Syrian, ETSE, Stockholm, 1958, p.15
[175] Vööbus, A., Literary Critical and Historical Studies in Ephrem the Syrian, p.46
[176] transcribed from Vööbus, A., Literary Critical and Historical Studies in Ephrem the Syrian, p.47
[177] Vööbus, A., Literary Critical and Historical Studies in Ephrem the Syrian, p.48
[178] opera omnia, ed Mobarrek II, p.560 cited in Vööbus, A., Literary Critical and Historical Studies in Ephrem the Syrian, p.50
[179] Morris, J.B., Select Works of S, Ephrem the Syrian, Oxford, London, 1847, p.99, note a
[180] Ephrem, Hymni Contra Julianum, II,15-20 and III, 3 “there I saw a foul sight, the banner of the captor, which was fixed on the tower”, cited in Lieu, op sit, p.VIII.23
[181] Ephrem, Hymni Contra Julianum, II, 27 cited in Lieu, op sit, p.VIII.23
[182] Vööbus, A., Literary Critical and Historical Studies in Ephrem the Syrian, p.122
[183] Wilkinson, J., Egeria’s Travels, SPCK, London, 1971, p.113
[184] Wilkinson, op sit, p.115-117
[185] Wilkinson, op sit, p.118
[186] Wilkinson, op sit, p.120

Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition between Rome and Baghdad

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:40:56 -0500

• Imprint: Ashgate
• Illustrations: Includes 2 b&w illustrations
• Published: November 2011
• Format: 234 x 156 mm
• Extent: 360 pages
• Binding: Hardback
• ISBN: 978-1-4094-1007-2
• Price : $134.95 » Website price: $121.46
• BL Reference: 220.7'01-dc22
• LoC Control No: 2011014770
•
• Print friendly information sheet
• Send to a friend
• Edited by Josef Lössl and John W. Watt, Cardiff University, UK
• This book brings together sixteen studies by internationally renowned scholars on the origins and early development of the Latin and Syriac biblical and philosophical commentary traditions. It casts light on the work of the founder of philosophical biblical commentary, Origen of Alexandria, and traces the developments of fourth- and fifth-century Latin commentary techniques in writers such as Marius Victorinus, Jerome and Boethius. The focus then moves east, to the beginnings of Syriac philosophical commentary and its relationship to theology in the works of Sergius of Reshaina, Probus and Paul the Persian, and the influence of this continuing tradition in the East up to the Arabic writings of al-Farabi. There are also chapters on the practice of teaching Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy in fifth-century Alexandria, on contemporaneous developments among Byzantine thinkers, and on the connections in Latin and Syriac traditions between translation (from Greek) and commentary.   With its enormous breadth and the groundbreaking originality of its contributions, this volume is an indispensable resource not only for specialists, but also for all students and scholars interested in late-antique intellectual history, especially the practice of teaching and studying philosophy, the philosophical exegesis of the Bible, and the role of commentary in the post-Hellenistic world as far as the classical renaissance in Islam.
• Contents: Introduction, Josef Lössl and John Watt; Part 1 Alexandria to Rome: Origen: exegesis and philosophy in early Christian Alexandria, Alfons Fürst; Prologue topics and translation problems in Latin commentaries on Paul, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe; Ambrosiaster's method of interpretation in the Questions on the Old and New Testament, Marie-Pierre Bussières; Philosophical exegesis in Marius Victorinus' Commentaries on Paul, Stephen Cooper; Jerome's Pauline commentaries between East and West: tradition and innovation in the Commentary on Galatians, Andrew Cain; The Bible and Aristotle in the controversy between Augustine and Julian of Aeclanum, Josef Lössl; Boethius as a translator and Aristotelian commentator, Sten Ebbesen. Part 2 Alexandria to Baghdad: Translating the personal aspect of late Platonism in the commentary tradition, Edward Watts; Aristotelianism and the disintegration of the late Antique theological discourse, Dirk Krausmüller; Sergius of Reshaina as translator: the case of the De Mundo, Adam McCollum; Sergius of Reshaina and pseudo-Dionysius: a dialectical fidelity, Emiliano Fiori; The commentator Probus: problems of date and identity, Sebastian Brock; Du commentaire à la reconstruction: Paul le Perse interprète d'Aristote (sur une lecture du Peri Hermeneias, à propos des modes et des adverbes selon Paul, Ammonius et Boèce), Henri Hugonnard-Roche; The genesis and development of a logical lexicon in the Syriac tradition, Daniel King; From Sergius to Matta: Aristotle and pseudo-Dionysius in Syriac tradition, John Watt; Al-Farabi's arguments for the eternity of the world and the contingency of natural phenomena, Philippe Vallat; Bibliography; Indexes.
• About the Editor: Josef Lössl is Professor of Historical Theology and Intellectual History, Cardiff University, UK; John W. Watt is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies & Theology, Cardiff University, UK.

Al-Kindi's Role in the Transmission of Greek Knowledge to the Arabs* Matti Moosa

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 17:36:30 -0500

Download in .zip format
 * This material, which is presented solely for educational/research purposes, appeared in the Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society Volume XV, Part I (January, 1967) pp. 1-18. It is a revised and expanded version of a paper delivered in a session dealing with Islamic Studies during the meetings of the American Oriental Society at Philadelphia in April 1966. The article's Footnotes page opens in a separate window.

[Page 1]
The information compiled by ancient and modern writers on the life and works of Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, the only Muslim philosopher of Arab descent, is abundant, but not always consistent. The reader who is interested in the life and works of this eminent learned man is baffled by the evident discrepancies in the dates of his birth and death, particularly those given by modern writers (1). Despite these contradictory dates, [2] it is certain that al-Kindi flourished in the first half of the ninth century and was a contemporary of three Abbasid Caliphs, namely al-Ma'mun (813-33), al-Mu'tasim (833-42) and al-Mutawakkil (847-61).
The era in which al-Kindi lived was unique in the history of Islamic thought. This era, particulary under al-Ma'mun, was at the beginning marked by a distinct liberality of thinking in matters concerning religion and philosophy. Under the patronage of this Caliph, the rationalists, al-Mu'tazilah, expressed freely their tenets, among which was the opinion that the Qur'an was not eternal before the worlds, but was created in time. By the end of his caliphate, however, al-Ma'mun was suppressing any doctrine except that of al-Mu'tazilah. In this era, also, the practice of translating Greek books of philosophy and sciences into Syriac and Arabic was at its peak.
Al-Kindi, who was educated at al-Basrah and Baghdad, must have known about these translations and made use of the translated works in his writings. He must also have devoted his time to the study of philosophy in an atmosphere fraught with theological, polemic and doctrinal disputes. Among the disputants were al-Mu'tazilah, whose influence on the philosophy of al-Kindi is most conspicuous.
Al-Kindi was the first purely Arab philosopher who devoted himself intensively to Greek philosophy and science. An able and prolific writer, he is said to have written no less than three hundred treatises covering the whole spectrum of knowledge in his time. His writings dealt with Peripatetic, Neo-platonic, snd Neo-pythagorean philosophies. They also covered other disciplines, such as logic, mathematics, medicine, alchemy, optics, political economy, physics, metaphysics, and theories of music. He was so erudite and prolific that ibn al-Nadim considered him "the only excellent man in his time who covered the entire ancient sciences" (1).
[3] It would be interesting to know whether, in exploring different fields of learning, al-Kindi relied on original Greek and Syriac sources, or whether he used Arabic translations from both these languages. If the answer to the first question is affirmative, then it becomes obvious that al-Kindi must have known Greek and Syriac and the problem becomes simple. If, on the other hand, his studies were mainly based on translations from these two languages, the question arises as to how much Greek and Syriac he knew, and to what extent he relied upon the works of professional translators.
Nowhere in his voluminous writings does al-Kindi mention that he knew Greek or Syriac. It might be argued that if he had known these languages, he would at least have referred to the original Greek text or the Syriac translation. However, this argument is not decisive, since in some cases, Arab and Muslim writers copied each other without referring to the source from which they had drawn their information. What makes the question more complicated is that some modern western and oriental writers either mentioned al-Kindi as a translator without specifying anything he allegedly translated, or they credited him with the translation of Greek works into Arabic. Max Mayerhof states that
Arab biographers mention Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi among the great translators. Of his translations, very little is known except that of Ptolemy's Geography. No translations which he himself completed have come down to us; even his role as a translator is completely unknown (1).
Thus, while Meyerhof is not certain about al-Kindi's role as a translator, he does not hesitate to credit him with the translation of Ptolemy's Geography. T. J. De Boer writes "[He] al-Kindi is mentioned as a translator of Greek works into Arabic " (2). In his [4] article on al-Kindi in the Encyclopedia of Islam, De Boer makes it clear that al-Kindi "served in various capacities under Ma'mun and Mu'tasim as a translator or editor of Greek philosophical works" (1). Philip Hitti also clearly states that "Ptolemy's Geography was translated into Arabic either directly or through Syriac several times, notably by Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi before 874, and by Thabit ibn Qurrah, who died in 901" (2). Jurji Zaydan not only considers al-Kindi a skillful translator, but also gives the reason why al-Kindi was not mentioned among the translators in his time. "He [al-Kindi] made many translations for himself. He was regarded as one of the skillful translators, but was not mentioned among these translators because he did not make translation his profession" (3). Unfortunately, these writers refer us to no source in making these statments, and we must turn elsewhere for more information on the subject.
According to 'Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Dawud ibn Sulayman ibn Hassan, the Muslim Andalusian writer known as ibn Juljul, was the first writer ever to mention al-Kindi as a translator. Badawi refers to ibn Juljul's book, Tabaqat al-'Atibba' wa al-Hukama' (Categories of Physicians and Sages), and particularly to the part containing the biography of al-Kindi, in which ibn Juljul states that al-Kindi "translated many philosophical books, explained their intricacies and adapted and expounded the incomprehensible and difficult parts of them" (4). Ibn Juljul does not mention by name any book translated by al-Kindi, nor does he mention from what language he made these philosophical translations. Moreover, ibn Juljul has erroneously made al-Kindi [5] the author of Kitab al-Jughrafiyah fi Ma'rifat al-'Aqalim al-Ma'mura (The Book Concerning the Knowledge of the Inhabited Regions), which is none other than Ptolemy's Geography (1). To pursue this point more thoroughly, Badawi should have investigated the sources from which ibn Juljul drew his information about al-Kindi's role as a translator. This, however, is not an easy task because the sources on this particular question are either unavailable or confused.
Ibn Juljul, a native of Cordova, who probably died after the year 394 A. H. /A. D. 992, was the first Spanish Muslim to write the biographies of physicians and sages, including Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (2). From the life of ibn Juljul, we know that he was a man of wide knowledge, particularly in the medical sciences. Although he lived under the 'Umayyad caliphs, 'Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir and al-Hakam II al-Mustansir in Spain, yet he achieved fame only under the Caliph Hisham II al-Mu'ayyad (976-1009) and became his private physician. In the time of al-Mu'ayyad, ibn Juljul wrote most of his works, including Tabaqat al-'Atibba' wa al-Hukama', which he completed in A.D. 987, the same year in which the celebrated Ishaq ibn al-Nadim (d. 995) wrote his famous al-Fihrist in Baghdad. Like ibn Juljul's work, al-Fihrist contained, among other things, the biographies of physicians and sages. There is no doubt that these two men compiled their books separately, neither knowing the endeavour of the other. However, since ibn al-Nadim lived and wrote in Baghdad and was in direct contact with the intellectual activities (including translations) in that city, he was in a much better position to obtain information from original sources about learned men, including al-Kindi, than was ibn Juljul, who lived in Spain and had no contact with the translation activities in Baghdad. But a study of al-Fihrist shows that the author, who devoted several pages to the life and works of al-Kindi, mentions nothing about al-Kindi as a translator, nor [6] does he list any book translated by al-Kindi (1). It is curious that ibn Juljul, who was far away from Baghdad, where al-Kindi lived and worked, says that he had translated many philosophical books, while ibn al-Nadim, who lived and worked in Baghdad, is completely silent on this point.
Where did ibn Juljul obtain such information? The study of ibn Juljul's book shows that he relied on both oral and written traditions. In some of the biographies, he reports stories and information related to him by some of his learned contemporaries, who had travelled to the Eastern Islamic countries (Egypt and other lands of the Abbasid empire) and lived and studied in those countries for many years. Among these men were Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Harrani and his brother 'Umar, who journeyed to the East in 941 and visited al-Basrah and Baghdad, where they remained ten years, studying medicine under Thabit ibn Sinan ibn Thabit ibn Qurrah. They returned to Spain in 962 (2). Another learned man, Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Malik ibn Kaysan, known as al-'Ayidi (d. 985), also journeyed to the East in 958 and visited Egypt, Baghdad, al-Basrah and al-Ahwaz. He remained in the East about twenty years, during which he compiled a great deal of information about it. Upon his return to Spain in 979, people from all walks of life came to listen to his stories and accounts about the East at a mosque in Cordova. Ibn Juljul apparently met him, because he relates that al-'Ayidi recited to him some poetry personally (3). Another learned man was [7] Muhammad ibn 'Abdun al-Jabali al-'Adadi, who travelled to the East in 958 and visited al-Basrah and al-Fustat, where he was put in charge of the hospital. He returned to Spain in 970 (1). Al-Adadi was ibn Juljul's associate in the service of the Caliph al-Mustansir and his son Hisham II al-Mu'ayyad. Undoubtedly, ibn Juljul must have listened personally to these men relating their experiences and observations about the East. Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Harrani, who visited al-Basrah, told ibn Juljul about the shops and market place in that city (2). Whether these men related to ibn Juljul any specific information concerning the lives and works of physicians and learned men in the East like al-Kindi, is a matter of speculation.
As for the written tradition, ibn Juljul refers to the sources which were available to him in compiling his book. Before mentioning these sources, however, it would be interesting for our purpose to know whether ibn Juljul had read any of al-Kindi's writings. In his biography of Euclid, ibn Juljul relates the same account which al-Kindi had given in one of his treatises about how Euclid came to write his book, which ibn Juljul calls simply "The book ascribed to Euclid" (3). Although ibn Juljul gives no title for this book and does not mention a specific treatise in which al-Kindi relates how Euclid wrote it, yet we know from ibn al-Nadim's biography of Euclid that this book must be the Elements (4). We also know from the same biography that ibn al-Nadim, in relating the same account given by ibn Juljul of how Euclid came to write his Elements, has actually quoted al-Kindi's treatise On the Purposes of the Book of Euclid, which he lists among the writing of al-Kindi (5). Furthermore, Ibn Juljul states in the introduction to his book [8] on the categories of physicians and sages that he has acquired the information which he incorporated in his work through the study of ancient books such as Kitab al-'Uluf fi Buyut al-Ibadat (The Book of Thousands or Millennaries dealing with the Places of Worship) by the astrologer Abu Ma'shar (d. 885). Further, he relied on Kitab Horoshioush (Orosius) the relater of stories and Kitab al-Qarwaniqa (Chronica) by Yarunum al-Tarjuman (Jerome, the Translator) who is none other than St. Jerome. He also states that he utilized chronicles of Greek sages, from which he was able to determine the position of each one of them, and under which state and monarch each lived (1). Of these sources, the one written by Abu Ma'shar is important to our thesis.
This Abu Ma'shar quoted by Ibn Juljul must be Ja'far Ibn Muhammad Ibn 'Umar al-Balkhi (d. 885) known in the West as Albumasar. He was not only an eminent astrologer, but also the most informed person about Persian biographies and the chronicles of other ancient nations (2). He began his career by studying Hadith but turned his attention to astrology when he was past forty-seven. According to many Muslim biographies and historians, Abu Ma'shar wrote numerous astronomical books. He also wrote Kitab al-Uluf which contains "the chronicles of ancient western nations" (3). What is meant here by "western nations" is probably the Greeks and the Romans, who inhabited the lands lying west of the Muslim countries. Most of this book, which contained historical and astronomical and astrological information, has unfortunately been lost. Only thirty pages containing astronomical information, survive in the British Museum MS. Or. 3557; another copy at the Bibliotheque National in Paris, MS. 2581, is probably a copy of the British Museum MS (4).
[9] That ibn Juljul used Kitab al-Uluf is evident from his introduction to Tabaqat al-'Atibba 'wa al-Hukama' But there is no way of knowing whether in his account of al-Kindi he has quoted Abu Ma'shar, since this particular book by Abu Ma'shar is lost. However, Qadi Sa'id in his Tabaqat al-'Umam mentions that "Abu Ma'shar is reported to have said in Kitab al-Mudhakarat (Discussions) by Shadhan ibn Bahr that the skillful translators in Islam are four: Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, Thabit ibn Qurrah al-Harrani and 'Umar ibn Farrukhan al-Tabari (1). In 'Uyun al-'Anba' ibn 'Usaybi'ah repeats this same statement by Qadi Sa'id and adds that al-Kindi had translated many books (2). Like ibn Juljul, ibn Abi 'Usaybi'ah does not mention any specific work translated by al-Kindi. This statement by Abu Ma'shar, in which al-Kindi is presented as a translator, has been mentioned neither by ibn al-Nadim in his al-Fihrist, nor by al-Qifti in Tarikh al-Hukama'. However, al-Qifti mentions 'Umar ibn al-Farrukhan al-Tabari as one of the chief translators. He also states that Abu Ma'shar mentioned in Kitab al-Mudhakarat that al-Fadl ibn Sahl, the minister of al-Ma'mun called 'Omar ibn al-Farrukhan from his home town and introduced him to the Caliph, for whom he translated many books. Al-Qifi goes on to say that Umar wrote many books on astronomy and philosophy, including a commentary on The Four Treatises of Ptolemy, and that this treatise was translated by Yahya ibn al-Batriq (3). Going back to ibn al-Nadim, [10] we find he says nothing about 'Umar ibn al-Farrukhan as a translator. But he does say that 'Umar is the commentator on The Four Treatises of Ptolemy, and that this treatise was translated for him by Yahya ibn al-Batriq (1). This makes it clear that either ibn al-Nadim knew nothing about the role of 'Umar ibn al-Farrukhan as a translator, or the copy of Kitab al-Mudhakarat by Shadhan ibn Bahr was not available to him. Further study shows that in his biography of Rabban al-Tabari, al-Qifti once more quotes Abu Ma'shar about translators. He states that
"When Abu Ma'shar was asked about Matarih al-Shu'a' (The Places Where the Rays Fall) he mentioned them and added that the translators of the copies (of al-Mijisti) from the Greek mentioned neither these Matarih al-Shu'a' nor where they fall; they were mentioned only in the copy of al-Mijisti translated by the physician Rabban al-Tabari." Abu Ma'shar continues to write that "Matrah al-Shu'a' of Ptolemy was not mentioned in the old copies (of al-Mijisti) nor was it known by the translator" (2).
Al-Qifti stops at this point without mentioning who these translators were. However, ibn Abi 'Usaybi'ah, who also wrote that Matrah al-Shu'a' of Ptolemy was not mentioned by old copies of al-Majisti, adds the following : "and it [Matrah al-Shu'a'] was not known by Thabit (ibn Qurrah), Hunayn al-Qalusi (sic), al-Kindi, nor by any one of these great translators" (3). This indicates that Abu Ma'shar, not ibn Juljul, as Badawi has thought, was first to mention al-Kindi as a translator. But neither Abu Ma'shar, if we may judge from the previous statements, nor ibn Juljul mention any specific work translated by al-Kindi. It is these statements by Abu Ma'shar, quoted by al-Qifti and ibn 'Abi 'Usaybi'ah, which have led contemporary writers to believe that al-Kindi must have been a translator.
As to the validity of Abu Ma'shar's evidence, we learn from ibn al-Nadim that he was a distinguished astrologer and a writer of [11] many books. He was also a contemporary of al-Kindi and at a time even antagonized him, aroused the public against him, and calumniated him for engaging in philosopical pursuits. Later, however, he was reconciled with him and even studied under him (1). Although ibn al-Nadim does not mention Kitab al-'Uluf by Abu Ma'shar, yet it is clear that ibn Juljul used a copy of this book, in which the author probably related some information about the lives and works of physicians and learned men, including al-Kindi. This question, however, will not be settled until a copy of this book becomes available.
This is not the whole story, for al-Qifti confronts us with a statement which unequivocally makes al-Kindi a translator of Ptolemy's Geography. In listing the books of Ptolemy which have been translated into Arabic, al-Qifti states that "the book of Geography Concerning the Inhabited Regions of the Earth has been rendered in a good translation into Arabic by al-Kindi; it also exists in Syriac" (2). This statement must have caused Gustav Flugel and others to believe that al-Kindi had translated Ptolemy's Geography into Arabic (3). But it would be appropriate to ask in this regard, what was al-Qifti's source? Surely it was not ibn Juljul, who was quoted not only by al-Qifti, but by other biographers of physicians and sages; for ibn Juljul does not mention a specific book translated by al-Kindi. On the other hand, no source, not even ibn al-Nadim, lists a book bearing this title as written by al-Kindi. What makes the clarification of ibn Juljul's statement even more difficult is that only one version of Tabaqat al-'Atibba 'wa al-Hukama' exists.
In returning to al-Fihrist, we find ibn al-Nadim has this to say regarding the translation of Ptolemy's Geography: "He [Ptolemy] has a Book of Geography Concerning the Inhabited Regions and the [12] Description of the Earth in eight treatises, which had been badly translated for al-Kindi, but was later excellently translated into Arabic by Thabit" (1). This statement clearly shows that al-Kindi did not translate Ptolemy's Geography but it was translated for him by someone, and that this translation was bad. Ibn al-Nadim also adds that a copy of this book exists in Syriac. This Syriac copy is perhaps the same one which Thabit translated into Arabic. What is important in this context is that al-Qifti not only copied ibn al-Nadim's work, but also distorted it by making al-Kindi the translator of Ptolemy's Geography. That al-Qifti has copied ibn al-Nadim is evident from the fact that no known source but al-Fihrist ever mentioned al-Kindi in this particular regard. It is possible, however, that al-Qifti had originally copied the former statement by ibn al-Nadim verbatim, but later the words "had been badly translated [for al-Kindi]" were dropped either by al-Qifti himself or by copyists. However, a careful comparison of the texts of ibn al-Nadim and al-Qifti reveals that al-Qifti has undoubtedly misquoted ibn al-Nadim (2). Steinschneider has rightfully observed in this regard that if the translation of Ptolemy's Geography had been a good translation, ibn al-Nadim would not have described it as a bad translation (3). On the other hand, Flugel's observation that some writers were critical of al-Kindi's translation of Ptolemy's Geography while other writers praised it seems to be groundless, since ibn al-Nadim never mentioned al-Kindi as a translator (4).
[13] So far we have seen that some ancient sources presented al-Kindi as a translator, but without specifying his translated works. Al-Qifti, however, who credits him with the translation of Ptolemy's Geography, has most likely misquoted the original sources from which he drew his information about al-Kindi's alleged translation of Ptolemy's Geography.
A study of the basic sources from which al-Kindi worked shows that this distinguished Arab philosopher relied on Arabic translations from the Greek and Syriac languages. From the long list of Aristotle's works, provided by Ibn al-Nadim, we discover that al-Kindi has either commented on or revised the Arabic translations of some of Aristotle's writings (1). For example, he made a compendium of Aristotle's Categories, which had been translated into Arabic by Hunayn Ibn Ishaq. He also made compendiums of Aristotle's De Interpretatione, which had been translated from Greek into Syriac by Hunayn, and from Syriac into Arabic by Ishaq Ibn Hunayn, as well as of Aristotle's Apodeictica and Poetica. And he wrote a commentary on the Analytica Priora, which had been translated into Arabic by Theodore and revised by Hunayn, and on the Analytica Posteriora, part of which was translated from Greek into Syriac by Hunayn; later the whole Greek text was translated into Syriac by Ishaq Ibn Hunayn. Ibn al-Nadim, in listing the works of Aristotle, also mentions that Autolycus has a book on De Sphaera quae movet revised by al-Kindi (2). This is confirmed by al-Qifti (3), and by Barhebraeus, who writes that he has read in an old anonymous Syriac book that what survived of Autolycus' works is Kitab al-Kurah al-Mutaharrikah as revised by al-Kindi (4). We also learn from Ibn al-Nadim that the Pseudo-Aristotelian 'Uthulujiyya (Theology) was translated from Greek into Arabic by 'Abd al-Masih Ibn Na'imah al-Himsi, and was [14] revised by Abu Yusuf Ya'qub Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi for Ahmad Ibn al-Mu'tasim bi Allah (1). We also learn from Ibn al-Nadim that parts of Aristotle's Metaphysics were translated from Greek into Arabic for al-Kindi by 'Ustath (2). These quotations give no indication however, that al-Kindi ever undertook the translation of a Greek book of philosophy or science into Arabic; if he could have done this, it is unlikely that he should have had 'Ustath translate for him parts of Aristotle's Metaphysics. What al-Kindi did was either to summarize or revise the Arabic of translated works. This is not hard to explain, since most, if not all, of those translators were Christian Syrians whose Arabic was inadequate, especially when it came to finding Arabic words equivalent to the Greek terms.
That al-Kindi must have had some knowledge of the Greek language is evident from the treatise he wrote on the Quantity of the Books of Aristotle and What is Required for the Acquisition of Philosophy (3). In this treatise, al-Kindi not only gives a definition of Greek terms which, to be sure, were new to the Arabic language, but he also finds the Arabic equivalents of Greek terms. Furthermore, he gives an explanation of the origins and derivation of these terms. For example, he explains that analutika (analytica) means al-'Aks min al-Ra's because it derives from ana, which means "upwards" or "from bottom to top" (i.e. ra's), and the verb luo, which means to "break" or ''resolve"; therefore, al-'Aks in this context means "breaking" or "resolving". In other words, analutika (al-'Aks min al-Ra's) means "to break things down to their component parts"; that is, ''to analyze" (4). He also gives al-Idah as the equivalent of the Greek term apodeiktike, and explains that this term is taken from the verb apodeikumai, which means [15] "to demonstrate" (1). He also goes on to give the Arabic equivalent of other Greek terms such as hayula, falsafah, 'ustuqus, etc.
But how do we account for the phraseology of al-Kindi, which in some parts of his writings seems to be twisted, contorted, and so strange that one is inclined to doubt its Arabic origin? Abu Ridah, who edited several treatises by al-Kindi, seems sure that al-Kindi's phraseology is Arabic; in fixing such terms, he argues, al-Kindi sets about to revive ancient Arabic words which have been dropped from use, such as 'ays. which in general indicates the bringing into existence (2). Then al-Kindi goes on to make from 'ays a plural form 'aysat, and even derives a verb 'ayyasa, and a verbal noun ta'yis; a past participle mu'ayyis; and an active participle mu'ayyas, all of which pertain to the act of creation or being created. Consequently, the definition of the true creative act, to al-Kindi, becomes "ta'yis al-'Aysat 'an lays" (3), that is, "the creation of beings from nothing". Abu Ridah also maintains that al-Kindi has freely used the Arabic language by deriving the verb hawwa, yuhawwi, that is, "to create" and tahawwa, yatahawwa, that is, "to be created" from the independent personal pronoun huwa, that is, "he". He also derives from the same independent pronoun the term haww and hawiyya, which again indicates the act of creation or existence. Abu Ridah continues to say that "despite what seems to be abnormal language, al-Kindi is well-versed in philology; his derivations may strike the modern reader as strange, but if he repairs to the dictionaries, he will find that they are philologically correct" (4). Abu Ridah concludes that "no translator or philosopher succeeding al-Kindi has been known to have laid down or used these terms in such unique astonishing manner" (5).
[16] It is difficult to accept the notion that these terms are either Arabic or of Arabic origin. Likewise, it is doubtful whether al-Kindi intended to restore archaic terms through their derivative forms. Surely, al-Kindi could have used purely Arabic terms to explain the act of creating or being created, rather than use such abnormal language. It is likely that these terms, as Patriarch Ignatius Jacob III maintains, are of Aramaic-Syriac origin.
In his article "Al-Kindi wa al-Suryaniyyah" Jacob cites several terms such as 'ays, lays, hawwa, haww, along with other terms, to show that in using them, al-Kindi has, in fact, relied on Syriac translations of Greek works (1). Moreover, al-Kindi knew very little or no Syriac, not enough to be able to read Syriac texts. As the translators of Greek works in the ninth century were Syrians whose Arabic was inadequate, it was natural that many Arabized Syriac terms crept into their translations. In establishing the Syriac origin of these terms, Jacob refers us to Syriac dictionaries, particularly the dictionary of al-Hasan Ibn Bahlul in the tenth century, as well as to the treatise On the Soul by Moses bar Kipha, who was a contemporary of al-Kindi, and to church rituals in which these terms are used (2).
Among these terms cited by Jacob is 'ays, believed to have come from the Syriac ith or ithio, meaning "being, existing," but especially "self-existing" (3). It was frequently used by Syrian theological writers. In his treatise On the Creation of Angels, Moses bar Kipha writes: "'Aloho man ithaw wo ithaw wnehwe ithaw mallun dayn ithaw aminoith dlo shuroyo wlo shulomo", that is, "From the beginning God existed, is existing and will still exist; He will eternally exist without beginning and without end" (4). This [17] to be sure, is very similar to al-Kindi's statement "God, may He be praised, exists and is still existing ('ays), and that He is the creator (mu'ayyis) of all beings ('aysat) from nothing (lays) (1). The reason why "'ays" crept into Arabic with an "s" instead of a "th" at the end is that many Syrians from old times tended to pronounce many words ending with "th" by substituting the letter "s". Such pronunciation exists to this day in the Syrian villages of Tur 'Abdin and nothern Mesopotamia.
Another term is lays, which al-Kindi uses to indicate "nothingness" or "nonexistence". It is true that lays is an Arabic incomplete verb, always used in the negative sense, but certainly it does not indicate "non-existence" or "nothingness," nowhere do Arabic dictionaries cite lays in this sense. Abu Ridah, who credits al-Kindi with seeking to restore archaic terms, attempts to establish the origin of this verb by breaking it down into two components: la, which means "not", and 'ays, which means "exist"; therefore, lays means "does not exist" (2). Yet the origin of lays is perhaps more likely to be found in the Syriac layth (the letter t in layth is always hard, which is a composite of la meaning "not" and ith meaning "exist", that is, "does not exist". The derivatives of layth are laytoyutho "non-existence", or "nothingness", ithlayti "to be reduced to nothingness", etc. (3).
Al-Kindi also uses the verb hawwa meaning "to create", and calls God al-Muhawwi, "the Creator", and tahawwi, "creation" or "coming into existence" (4). This verb hawwa comes from the Syriac [18] hwo meaning "to be" or "to exist". Its derivations are hwoyo, "existence", hwoye, "coming into existence", methhawyono, "the things which come into existence," and methhawyonutho, "the act of coming into existence" (1). It is likely that al-Kindi used these terms according to the Eastern Syriac method of pronunciation with the ptah, rather than with the Western Syriac pronunciation with the zqaf; consequently, he wrote hawwa and hwayya instead of hwo and hwoye (2). Al-Kindi also uses the word kuthmat, which by the way has been recorded by Abu Ridah as akmat, to indicate "spot," or "speckle" or ''stain" of the body (3). This is again a Syriac word, kuthmotho in the Western Syriac pronunciation or kuthmatha according to Eastern Syriac pronunciation, meaning "spot" or "speckle", and is particularly used in a metaphoric sense which indicates sin (4).
Al-Kindi apparently found these Arabized Syriac words in his translated sources, and used them for their technical significations in the form in which they occurred.
In summary, the historical and linguistic evidence seems to support the hypothesis that al-Kindi, while capable of explaining certain philosophical terms which had been absorbed into Arabic, must have relied on the translations of others in his study of Greek philosophy.

Footnotes  Page opens in separate window.

Selected Writings of Matti Moosa Menu

More Monastic Origins: The Syrian Orthodox Tradition in Turkey Today Michael Kelly OSB

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:51:31 -0500

A recompense for the disadvantage of distance in travelling from Australia to Europe is the ability to stop en route in any number of fascinating places. I thus took the opportunity in September, 1998, while going to Italy for a meeting of the formators of our Congregation, to fulfil an ambition to visit Turkey with its rich early Christian associations. A further incentive was my learning the previous year of extant Syrian Orthodox monasteries in the country dating back to the fourth century (1).
Turkey today, with a population of around sixty million, is 99% muslim. Syrians account for around one fifth of the 100,000 or so Christians in the country, but only about 2,000 remain in the south-east. It is within this area, on the plateau of Tur Abdin, that an ancient bastion of Chritian monasticism survives in a handful of monasteries. The Tur Abdin lies in the Taurus Mountains, between the Tigris and Euphrates, in what was Upper Mesopotamia. As once it was the site of the boundary between the Roman and Persian empires, so today it is only a little above the Syrian border, not far from the border with Iraq. The two best known monasteries are Dayr el Zafaran (the saffron monastery), seven kilometres south-east of Mardin and Mor Gabriel, 120 kilometres north-east of Mardin. It was to the latter that I paid a brief visit.
Owing to its position near the border, in an area of Kurdish insurgency, Tur Abdin is to be approached with appropriate caution and a number of military check points will be encountered when travelling by bus. On the journey across I took the two hour flight from Istanbul to Diyarbakir, returning in stages by road. From Diyarbakir it is possible to travel by dolmus, a popular form of Turkish transport for small numbers - in this case a mini-bus - to Midyat, via Mardin, a distance of 150 kilometres. On this occasion the two and a half hour journey took six hours as the dolmus broke down near Mardin. From Midyat a taxi is the only public transport for the final thirty odd kilometres.

The entrance to the Monastery of Mor Gabriel
The foundation of the monastery of Mor Gabriel is attributed to Mor Samuel and his disciple, Mor Simeon in 397. It has been known as Deyrulumur, "The Monastery of the Abode" (of Mor Simeon) and also as Qartmin, from the nearby village. The present name comes from the seventh century abbot, Bishop Gabriel. It received imperial benefactions from the emperors Honorius and Arcadius, Theodosius and Anastasius and these are reflected in some of the existing buildings.
The main church of Mor Gabriel was built in 512. It is representative of the monastic style of church of the area (broad from north to south), as distinct from the parochial style (long from east to west)(2). It was beautifully restored on the occasion of the commemoration of the sixteenth centenary of foundation in 1997. The massive walls are of stone and the barrel vault of brick. On the east is the sanctuary with an apse, flanked by two small rectangular rooms. Access to the three of these is by doorways which pierce the thick east wall of the nave. The nave is entered from an arcaded narthex on the west side. The sanctuary is decorated with the remains of mosaics unique because of their antiquity and of interst owing to the lack of any animate figures. In the vault are three crosses surrounded by vines. The upper walls are are adorned with representations of domed ciboria over altars bearing the eucharistic cup and bread. At the entrance to the sanctuary the Scriptures are enthroned in an elaborate metal binding.

The nave of the church

The Narthex                                                        The sanctuary door                                    The sanctuary

The exterior of the narthex
To the left, facing the church, a covered passage leads to an unusual structure known as the Dome of Theodora. This domed octagon, 10.5 m in diameter, open at the apex and with eight niches around the walls, is dated to the same period as the church and is thought to have been a baptistery(3). Further along the passage is a courtyard and on the left side of this is the entrance to the Church of the Mother of God, believed to be from the reign of Theodosius II (408-450). This is no longer used and plaster disguises its great antiquity. The chamber to the right of the sanctuary gives access to what appears to have been a hermit�s cell. On the opposite side of the courtyard is the House of Martyrs, another part of the early complex and seemingly used as burial place also for abbots and dignitaries.
Outside the present complex are two structures known as the Dome of the Egyptians and the Dome of the Departed built, like the Dome of Theodora, on eight arches. However, a square surround and flat roof over the dome disguises the true shape of each building. Early sources refer to one such building, presumably the Dome of the Egyptians. The legend behind this is that eight hundred Egyptian monks came to the monastery and were buried in this sepulchre. The foundations and ruins of other buildings, some even earlier, are to be found surrounding the present monastery.

The "Dome of the Egyptians"
The present community consists of two monks, the abbot and bishop of Tur Abdin, Archbishop Timotheos Aktas, and Raban Tuma Aksoy; fourteen nuns; a teaching staff of five and around thirty students. These are trained to take leadership in local churches, their secular education being completed at public schools in Midyat. The liturgy, in which all participate, begins around 5.30am. Those present gather again at midday, and finally around 5.30pm. The Liturgy of the Hours consists of the seven traditional hours celebrated at the three times mentioned above and is comprised mainly of texts from the Fathers of the early Church. The liturgical language is ancient Syriac while the spoken language is a local dialect of Syriac. Eucharist is celebrated on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and feasts and communion is taken about once a month. Meals follow the prayer times with monks, teachers and students eating together. There seemed to be a healthy diet of meat, vegetables, salad and fruit. The monastery has cattle, goats, poultry and a vegetable garden. There is artesian water and the electricity supply is supplemented by a generator. The property seemed to extend in each direction around the monastery for about 500 m. The guest area contained several rooms with multiple beds and a well appointed common bathroom.
Little remains by way of manuscripts, owing to the numerous raids over the centuries and again today there are difficulties(4). There are restrictions on the use of Syriac and the work of renovation has been stopped. The Tablet, on the 19 September, 1998 quoted a report in the Los Angeles Times that there was police pressure on Mor Gabriel to prevent children being taught the faith and traditional language. An appropriate celebration of the sixteenth centenary was not possible. Many Syrian Orthodox Christians have emigrated, including monks who have founded communities in The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. An association, the "Friends of Tur Abdin" is based in Linz and issues a quarterly periodical(5). Number 9, June 1997, contained historical articles in English, German, Turkish and Syriac on the occasion of the sixteenth centenary.
Mor Gabriel represents not only a rich cultural patrimony but is a unique witness to Syriac monasticism which, with the Egyptian and Palestinian traditions, has passed on the ideals of the earliest Christian monks and nuns. It would be a loss - and a reproof - to contemporary Christianity should this tradition not be allowed to flourish in the place where its history is so long.
________________
Footnotes:
1. E. Picucci, "Witness to an Intense Spirituality", L�Osservatore Romano (Weekly Edition in English), n.33/34 - 13/20 August 1997, p.9.
2. Gertrude Bell, The Churches and Monasteries of the Tur Abdin, (London: Pindar Press, 1982) p. viii.
3. Andrew Palmer, Monk and Mason on the Tigris frontier, (Cambridge: University Press, 1990) p. 147.
4. cf. William Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain, (London: Harper Collins, 1997) pp. 88-129.
5. Freunde des Tur Abdin, Bethlehemstrasse 20, A-4020 Linz. Tel/Fax: 0043 732 773578; http://members.nextra.at/fturabdin
(Since this was written a further monograph on the Turabdin has been published:   Hans Hollerweger, Turabdin: Living Cultural Heritage, (Linz: Freunde des Tur Abdin, 1999)
  (This article appeared in Tjurunga n.56, May 1999, pp.83-88, and in Inter Fratres 49(1999) pp.1-8: English & Italian)                            __________________________________

NEW LIGHT ON OUR NUMERALS JEKUTHIAL GINSBURG

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:05:32 -0500

366 NEW LIGHT ON OUR NUMERALS. [May,

Introductory Note.—It is interesting to see how much new
light is constantly being thrown upon chapters in the history
of mathematics which have always been more or less obscure.
We know, for example, with reasonable certainty the original
habitat of our numerals; we know approximately the century
in which they were perfected; we have rather positive information
as to the century in which they first appeared in European
manuscripts; and we are well advised, through the work of
Mr. G. F. Hill, as to their variations in form for the last
thousand years. It is true that we do not know when or
where the zero of our system was first conceived, although
we now have some valuable information as to the one that
was used by the Mayas, nor do we know the origin of six of
the primitive forms of the digits. Furthermore we do not know
with any certainty the date of the first appearance of our
numerals on the Mediterranean littoral, but we are not without
hope that all this information will sometime be forthcoming,
at least to some degree.

Our hope that such further knowledge is not beyond our
reach is strengthened by a discovery recently made by M. F.
Nau, no report of which seems as yet to have appeared in
English. Because of the importance of this discovery, I
have asked Mr. Ginsburg to make it known to the readers of
the BULLETIN and to supplement the simple statement of the
discovery by searching out such information as is available
concerning the interesting scholar and teacher, Severus Sebokht,
in whose writings the first positive trace of the numerals,
outside of India, is found. This he has done, and his
article is to my mind particularly valuable because of these
features: (1) It shows us that these numerals reached the
Arab lands a century earlier than was formerly supposed;
(2) it shows that the zero was probably not in the system as
then mentioned, showing at least that its value was not generally
comprehended in the seventh century and possibly
confirming the impression that the symbol had not yet been

1917.] NEW LIGHT ON OUR NUMERALS. 367

invented; (3) it reveals something of the life of a man hitherto
unmentioned in the histories of mathematics.
It is to be hoped that this valuable information may prove of
such interest to readers that Mr. Ginsburg may be encouraged
to tell American scholars, in the near future, something of
Sebokht's notable contributions to the study of the astrolabe.

DAVID EUGENE SMITH.

THAT our common numerals are of Hindu origin seems to
be a well-established fact,* and that Europe received them
from the Arabs seems equally certain, but how and when these
numerals reached the Arabs is a question that has never been
satisfactorily answered. It is the object of the present article
to call the attention of students of the history of mathematics
to newly discovered evidence showing that the Hindu
numerals were known to and justly appreciated by the Syrian
writer Severus Sebokht who lived in the second half of the
seventh century; that is, about a hundred years before the
date of the first definite trace that we have hitherto had of
the introduction of the system into Bagdad. It will also be
shown, on the basis of such information as is available respecting
his life and works, that Sebokht was in the most
favorable position for getting information of this kind, and
that he furthermore had in his possession the most powerful
means for the propagating of such knowledge.

Severus Sebokht of Nisibis, bearing the title of bishop,
lived in the convent of Kenneshre on the Euphrates in the
time of the patriarch Athanasius Gammala (who died in 631)
and his successor John.|| He distinguished himself in the
studies of philosophy, mathematics, and theology, and in his
time the convent of Kenneshre became the chief seat of Greek
learning in western Syria. Of his astronomical and geograph-

* Smith and Karpinski, The Hindu-Arabic Numerals, Boston, 1911.
By the French orientalist M. F. Nau in the Journal Asiatique, series 10,
vol. 16 (1910).
Smith and Karpinski, The Hindu-Arabic Numerals, p. 92.
W. Wright, Short History of Syriac Literature, London, 1894, pp.
137-139.
Sebokht took part, together with the Jacobite patriarch Theodorus,
in a public dispute against the Maronites in the year 659. We have also a
letter written by him in the year 665. From these details we may conclude
that he flourished in the beginning of the second half of the seventh century.
(M. F. Nau, in the Journal Asiatique, series 9, vol. 13, p. 60.)

368 NEW LIGHT ON OUR NUMERALS. [May,

ical works there are a few fragments in a manuscript now in
the British Museum.* These fragments consider such questions
as whether the heaven surrounds the earth in the form
of a wheel or of a sphere; the habitable and uninhabitable
portions of the earth; the measurement of the heaven, the
earth, and the space between them; and the motion of the sun
and the moon. His treatise on the plane astrolabe was
published with a French translation by M. F. Nau in the
Journal Asiatique, series 9, volume 13. Sebokht also wrote a
short treatise on eclipses, in which he ridicules the then accepted
belief in a celestial dragon as the cause of all such
phenomena.!

But the most interesting of Sebokht's writings for the student
of history is undoubtedly a fragment of a manuscript^ published
by M. F. Nau, in the Journal Asiatique (series 10, volume
16, page 225) in which he directly refers to the Hindu numerals.
He seems to have been hurt by the arrogance of certain Greek
scholars who looked down on the Syrians, and in defending
the latter he claims for them the invention of astronomy.
He asserts the fact that the Greeks were merely the pupils of
the Chaldeans of Babylon, and he claims that these same
Chaldeans were the very Syrians whom his opponents condemn.
He closes his argument by saying that science is
universal and is accessible to any nation or to any individual
who takes the pains to search for it. It is not therefore a
monopoly of the Greeks, but is international.

It is in this connection that he mentions the Hindus by way
of illustration, using the following words: " I will omit all
discussion of the science of the Hindus, a people not the same
as the Syrians; their subtle discoveries in this science of
astronomy, discoveries that are more ingenious than those of
the Greeks and the Babylonians; their valuable methods of
calculation; and their computing that surpasses description.
I wish only to say that this computation is done by means of
nine signs. If those who believe, because they speak Greek,
that they have reached the limits of science should know these
things they would be convinced that there are also others
who know something." This fragment clearly shows that
not only did Sebokht know something of the numerals, but
* Add. 14, 538, pp. 153-155.
See Notes d'Astronome Syrienne, Journal Asiatique, series 10, vol. 16
(1910). Ï Ms., Syriac, Paris No. 346.

1917.] NEW LIGHT ON OUR NUMERALS. 369

that he understood their full significance, and may even have
known the zero as Rabbi ben Esra did, in spite of the fact
that he, too, speaks of nine numerals. There are two questions
that may immediately arise: (1) How could Sebokht
have obtained any information about the Hindu numerals?
and (2) What are the chances that Sebokht was instrumental
in introducing the numerals to the Arabian scholars?
The first of these questions may be answered very easily.
Nisibis, the place where Severus lived, was the chief city* of
Mygdonia, a small district in the northeast part of Mesopotamia.
It was situated in a rich and fruitful country, was
long the center of a very extensive trade, and was the great
northern emporium for the merchandise of the east and the
west. Since the exchange of goods is always accompanied
by the exchange of ideas, it is only reasonable to surmise that
the different systems of numeration were known in Nisibis,
where they could hardly escape the attention of a man like
Sebokht, who would surely have been looking for just such
information.

The second question is more difficult to answer. It may
be said, however, that the weight of the evidence is in favor of
Sebokht's work being at least one of the agencies by means of
which the knowledge of the numerals was transmitted to the
Arabs. He was the head of his convent and occupied a commanding
position in the literature of his country. He had
many pupils, one of whom, Athanasius of Balad,, was the
patriarch of the Jacobites, while such others as Jacob of EdessaJ
and probably George, Bishop of the Arab Tribes, were well
known as translators and polygraphers. We may be certain
that the knowledge of the numerals possessed on the banks
of the Euphrates by Severus was transmitted by him to his
numerous pupils and through them to other scholars all over
Syria. Since we know that Syrian scholars were employed by
the caliphs as translators and educators, || it would be only
natural that these Syrians should impart to the Arabs, among
other facts relating to the sciences, the knowledge of the Hindu
numerals.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

* See Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography,
W. Wright, Short History of Syriae Literature, pp. 154-155.
Ibid., pp. 141-154.
Ibid., pp. 156-159; M. F. Nau in the Journal Asiatique, series 10,
vol. 16.
Ernest Renan, Islamisme et la science, p. 9.

BAR HEBRAEUS ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:13:25 -0500

One of the major motifs of my poetry, is the exploration of the historical evolution, adoption and transformation of elements of Hellenic culture in literary traditions of non-Hellenic areas that have been touched somehow by Greek civilization. For while it is often claimed that ours is the parent of Western civilization, I would argue that in fact it is the Middle Eastern civilizations that are united closer to us in kinship and which have drawn more heavily on the corpus of our tradition, whereas with the West, it is more precise to refer to an adoptive, rather than a sanguinary relationship. Indeed, various Middle Eastern cultures including the Jewish, Syriac and Arabic exist in a historic dialectic and continuous process of emancipation from Greek culture. The process through which elements of Greek civilization are adopted by, inform and ultimately are subsumed into other cultures on the margins of the Greek world is instructive and act as a parallel and commentary to similar processes unfolding here in Australia. Furthermore, the fact that a good number of the Western oriented first generation fail to identify or understand the inferences to Middle Eastern acculturation in my poems provides a most telling and satisfying parallel to the phenomenon of a large number of the first generation failing to see the level of assimilation and/or acculturation of the latter generations is Australia. If there is one historical persona who inspires me in my delusion of poetical aspiration, then undoubtedly that is Grigorios Bar Ebroyo, known as Bar Hebraeus, an Assyrian bishop, philosopher, poet, grammarian, physician, biblical commentator, historian, and theologian, who lived in Melitene, in Arab territory, on the borders of Byzantine territory in the thirteenth century. A polymath, and scholar, through his works addressing philosophy, poetry, language, history, and theology, he has been called "one of the most learned and versatile of men.” It is through his Syriac translations and discussions of ancient and contemporary Greek writings, real or imagined, that one can gauge the permeation and high esteem of Greek culture into the Middle East. Born in the village of Ebro in 1226, he began as a boy the study of medicine at the great centre of Hellenic knowledge at Antioch and Tripoli. In 1246 he was consecrated bishop and finally was made primate, or maphrian, of the East in 1264. In this task, he was responsible for keeping alive a millenium old Christian tradition in the face of Muslim intolerance, engaging in a dangerous and delicate balancing act between the Byzantines and the Caliphs. His episcopal duties however did not interfere with his studies. He took advantage of the numerous visitations, which he had to make throughout his vast province, to consult the libraries and converse with the learned men whom he happened to meet. Thus he gradually accumulated an immense erudition, became familiar with almost all branches of secular and religious knowledge, and in many cases thoroughly mastered the bibliography of the various subjects which he undertook to treat. Just how erudite and all pervasive he cast his eye in search of intellectual stimulation can be evidenced by a perusal of my favourite of his works, the Kethabha dhe-Thunnaye Mighaizjzikhanl, or Book of Entertaining Stories. This is in effect a joke book, something quite surprising for a clergyman. One chapter, proving how important Greece and Greek philosophy is to the Easter world, is entitled “Profitable Sayings of the Greek philosophers,” lists reputed sayings that are profound, such as this attributed to Socrates: “A certain disciple of Socrates said unto him, "How is it that I see in thee no sign of sorrow?" Socrates replied, "Because I possess nothing for which I should sorrow if it perished. " It also is a repository of sayings that are rather wicked, such as: “Diogenes saw a harlot's child throwing stones at people, and he said to him, "Throw not stones, lest thou smite thine own father without knowing it." In the authoritative English translation by Wallis Budge in 1897, some of the more racier stories, are rendered in Latin for the sake of offending readers’ tender morals. His legacy today survives in the equally compendious and prolific prelate of the Church of the East in India, Mar Aprem, who has also published a joke book among his many writings. Bar Hebraeus’ love of Greek philosophy led him also to write the Kethabha dhe-Bhabhatha or Book of the Pupils of the Eyes, a treatise on logic or dialectics based on the writings of Greek philosophers, which he comments on extensively. This was at a time when the West, in the form of refugees fleeing Byzantium, was only just experiencing a taste of long lost Greek works. In Syria however, these works had been adopted wholesale into the local Aramaic and Arabic cultures for generations. Thus, the prolific prelate continued with his Hewath Hekmetha or Butter of Wisdom, an exposition of the whole philosophy of Aristotle, Sullarat Haunãnãyã or Ascent of the Mind, a treatise on astronomy and cosmography, various commentaries on the medical works of the ancient Greek Galen, explaining how medicine had advanced since his time, as well as a collection of quite remarkable Syriac poems.As if this were not enough, his great encyclopedic work Hewath Hekhmetha, "The Cream of Science", deals with almost every branch of human knowledge, and comprises the whole Aristotelian discipline, after Avicenna and other Arabian writers – a remarkable synthesis which shows the permeation and interpretation of Greek philosophy throughout the East. A further work Teghrath Teghratha, or "Commerce of Commerces", also revisits similar themes, while the Kethabha dhe-Bhabhatha, or Book of the Pupils of the Eyes is an amazing compendium of Greek philosophic thought on logic and dialectics and the Kethabha dhe-Sewadh Sophia, or Book of Speech of Wisdom, a compendium of Greek thought on physics and metaphysics. Bar Hebraeus’ theological works are also significant, coming at a time when the Christians of the Arab world were largely cut off from Byzantium. His Aucar Raze, or "Storehouse of Secrets", is a vast commentary on the entire Bible, both doctrinal and critical. Before giving his doctrinal exposition of a passage, he first considers its critical state. Although he uses the Syriac Peshitta, as a basis, he knows that it is not perfect, and therefore controls it by the Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Greek versions of Symmachus, Theodotion, Aquila, by Oriental versions, Armenian and Coptic, and finally by the other Syriac translations, Heraclean, Philoxenian and especially the Syro-Hexapla. The work of Bar Hebraeus is of prime importance for the recovery of these versions and more specifically for the Hexapla of the great theologian Origen. His exegetical and doctrinal portions are taken from the Greek Fathers and previous Syrian Jacobite theologians, preserving works that would otherwise have been lost to us. How he could have devoted so much time to such a systematic study of the Greek world, in spite of all the vicissitudes incident to the ensuing Mongol invasion, an extemely traumatic event for the Middle East, is almost beyond comprehension. The main claim of Bar Hebraeus to my admiration is not, in his original productions, but rather in his having preserved and systematized the work of his Greek predecessors, either by way of condensation of by way of direct reproduction. The obscurity that writers of his ilk have endured by a Greek nation obsessed with establishing or ‘proving’ western roots in its vain attempt to obtain legitimacy is decidedly underserved. Give me a prelate who writes jokes such as “Another fool...when his son was being circumcised said to him that was making the cutting, "Cut him little by little, for he hath never before been circumcised," compared to a stuffy Korais any day. Bar Hebraeus’ remains lie today in Mar Mattai monastery in Northern Iraq, a most ancient place that has been virtually abandoned due to the dangerous conditions existing in that country for its native Christians. I should feel my debt to him as one of my personal heroes to be partially discharged, should I be able to discover a Greek rendering of his title, maphrian. Μαφριανός, to my taste, sounds decidedly cool.
DEAN KALIMNIOU

ALYSIS OF SYRIAN ORTHODOX ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE IN THE TUR ABDIN FOR CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION Elif Keser Kayaalp

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:06:59 -0500

ANALYSIS OF SYRIAN ORTHODOX ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE IN THE TUR ABDIN FOR CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION  Elif Keser Kayaalp
Turkish Cultural Foundation Fellow Ph.D. in Archaeology, University of Oxford (Exeter College), UK (2009)  Current Position: Senior Fellow at Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Koç University, Turkey
The Tur Abdin is a limestone plateau to the east of Mardin in south-eastern Turkey. Its landscape is dotted with numerous villages and monasteries dating to various time periods. According to some Syriac texts, church and monastery building activity started in the region as early as the 4th century. However, the earliest-securely dated archaeological evidence for churches can be traced to the early 6th century. Some churches from that period, especially the main churches of Deir Zafaran and Mor Gabriel monasteries, the two best-known and most-visited monasteries in the region, have remarkable architectural decoration which make them very important examples of Early Christian architecture. The architectural sculpture of the church of Deir Zafaran is highly classical in character reflecting the tradition that can be seen in the wider region of Northern Mesopotamia, especially in Amida and Rusafa. The conservatism in the sculpture of the region is remarkable given that by the mid 6th century there was already a break with the classical tradition even in Constantinople.
The main church of Mor Gabriel, on the other hand, has wall mosaics in the vault and lunettes of its apse, which is one of the very few wall mosaics that have survived to the east of Constantinople. The floor of the same space is covered with an opus sectile marble pavement, which incorporates marble from Proconnesus (Marmara Island), indicating an imperial involvement in its construction. In fact, a later Syriac text mentions the patronage of the Emperor Anastasius for the construction and decoration of this church.
Not all Byzantine emperors were sympathetic to the Syrian Orthodox. In fact, most of the time Syrian Orthodox suffered from persecution as a result of their Christological positions. They did not agree with the Council of Chalcedon (451) which accepted that Christ had two natures inseparably united. The Syrian Orthodox eventually established their own church hierarchy and their population concentrated in certain areas, the Tur Abdin being one of them. Starting from the 6th century, they also created different architectural forms that can be associated solely with them, such as the transverse-hall type church, which was almost exclusively used in the monastic churches of the Tur Abdin. In no other place in the Byzantine Empire could, a certain type of plan be associated with monastic church architecture.
The region was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in 640. Besides its impressive early Christian remains, what makes Tur Abdin an interesting area for research is the abundance of Christian church construction in the region in the first century of the Arab rule. Gertrude Bell, who first studied the church architecture of the region, dated only four churches to the 8th century. However, recent studies suggest an Early Islamic date for at least twenty-eight structures. Coupled with remarkable 6th century architecture from the same area, these structures present important evidence for the study of the architecture and topography of a transitional period from Byzantium to Islam in the region.
The main evidence dating the structures to the 8th century is the architectural sculpture, the peculiar ways of using brick, and some epigraphic material. The architectural sculpture of these churches presents a stylized version of the earlier classical decoration in the region. The majority of the churches with these features are hall-type churches located in the villages. This may indicate that by the 8th century, villages flourished as the situation of the region improved due to the more secure conditions under the Arabs as a result of the shifting of the frontier, as during the Byzantine rule, the region was a battle zone between the Byzantines and the Sasanians and suffered from destruction.
Churches from the 8th century contain some features that have been faithfully repeated. The appearance of new forms and the attachment to them seems to be a search for an architectural vocabulary that would distinctively be associated with the Syrian Orthodox. Information related to construction between 9th and 12th centuries is considerably rare. There are also no architecturally distinct features in the churches of the region that would suggest such a dating. The 12th century saw a revival in the Syriac culture. Syriac texts mention considerable building and rebuilding in that period and a few inscriptions record rebuilding of monasteries. However, to securely date the medieval churches in the region is a very difficult endeavor. Up until the middle of the last century, there was still a considerable number of Syrian Orthodox living in the Tur Abdin. Thus, these buildings have been in continuous use and have undergone considerable repairs over the centuries. Some of which have damaged the archaeological evidence that would have made their dating possible.
Although there is a very small permanent community in the region today, the well-being of these monuments has great importance for both the local community and the diaspora as the region today is considered to be the homeland of the Syrian Orthodox community, making its buildings into modern pilgrimage centres, attracting many visitors. Especially in recent years, there is a considerable increase in the quantity and the sensibility of restoration projects undertaken. Some of these restorations have revealed crucial material for understanding some important architectural features. For example, in the church of el ‘Adhra at Hah (modern Anitli), the removal of the plaster uncovered an octagonal dome with a peculiar brick construction. This dome is rare amongst its contemporaries but it is a predecessor of many brick domical vaults in the Artukid architecture of the region. Similarly, the arcade on the west facade of this church is the only example of a decorated facade amongst the 8th century churches of the region.
In addition to the restoration of the existing buildings, new structures were added to the churches and monasteries. Village churches were converted into multi-purpose building complexes. Similarly, monasteries received additional buildings built with ashlar stone facings adorned with architectural sculpture. The most remarkable examples can be seen in the monasteries of Mor Gabriel, Deir Zafaran and Mor Yakup at Salah. In Mardin and its environs, there is still an active masonry workshop that continues the local traditions of wall building and decoration. The continuity of this practice is essential for repair and restoration, as well as for the local economy.
This is a very brief introduction to the churches and monasteries of the Syrian Orthodox in the Tur Abdin which are part of a large and vulnerable architectural heritage. This heritage, which is very important on many different levels, is evolving through appropriation of spaces for new functions, rebuilding and restoration, the addition of new structures and sometimes destruction. All these make this heritage even more interesting and in need of more attention and correct cultural heritage policies.
Some selected examples (please click on pictures to enlarge):
•
•
•
•
•
•

Identity and Christian-Muslim Interaction: Medieval Art of the Syrian Orthodox from the Mosul Area, Bas Snelders

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:57:14 -0500

Identity and Christian-Muslim Interaction: Medieval Art of the Syrian Orthodox from the Mosul Area, by Bas Snelders. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta). Peeters, dist, by David Brown Book Company, 2010. 591 p. ISBN 9789042923867 (cl.), $124.00.

It is possible to negate the existence of an entire culture simply by omission. This has been the case with an ethnic group known as the Syrian Orthodox (referred to in English as the Syriac Orthodox), who played a vital role in the early development and dissemination of Christianity. The Syriac Orthodox rejected the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and emerged as an ethnic people with their own distinct identity and culture. For centuries, the West has ignored this tenacious tradition but more recently European scholars are addressing the issues of Syriac literature, music and art, as exemplified in publications emanating from Leiden University, in the Netherlands and Oxford University, England. The sudden interest may have been heightened by today’s political and military upheavals which have threatened the Christian patrimony of what was once Mesopotamia. Snelders’ book is one of the fruits of a pioneering project entitled, The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians (451-1300) funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

This latest title in the series challenges the notion that a distinct division existed between Christian and Muslim in the multicultural Medieval East; Snelders attempts to establish the idea of a shared visual vocabulary among Christians and Muslims alike in the Middle East of the twelve and thirteenth centuries. Working essentially with two similar thirteenth-century Syriac illuminated manuscripts, (Syriac 7170 presently in the British Library and Syriac 559 in the Vatican Library) Snelders suggests that because of the prevalent syncretism, particularly in the Mosul area, it is sometimes virtually impossible to establish the religious background of an artist based on style. Snelders proposes as identity-markers three factors: style, iconography and inscriptions. Making his case slowly and dealing with much of the previous literature on the topic of Syriac art, Snelders discounts arguments in favor of a distinct Syriac iconography and style while, on the other hand, acknowledging Christian superiority in the areas of education, craftsmanship, and trade in medieval Mesopotamia.

The argument for an Islamic style in Christian art of the Mosul area is somewhat compelling; however, Snelders does not present us with enough visual information to clearly make his case. He stipulates the importance of assessing this art contextually but when discussing the two manuscripts in question, that together contain more than one hundred illuminations, Snelders provides us with fewer than ten illustrations. The reader is thus left at a disadvantage. More illustrations of these and other extant Syriac manuscripts would have further enlightened the reader and may have convinced some of Snelders’ “shared style” theory rather than the prevalent and widely-accepted theory of “regional style” that has been promulgated by such art historians as Jules Leroy and André Grabar.

Other than a comprehensive bibliography (despite the lacunae of the significant work of Sylvie Merian in Syriac and Armenian bookbinding) the supplementary material of the book is lacking; for most Westerners a good map of medieval Mesopotamia would have been enlightening, and a less cumbersome system of indexes, would have facilitated easy access to the book’s lengthy text. These are minor inconveniences that should not overshadow Snelders’ success in addressing a complex cultural history and investigating a visual and material culture that has been neglected for far too long.
Lamia Doumato, Head of Reader Services, National Gallery of Art, l-doumato@nga.gov

Genocide Statement & Description

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 07:38:11 -0400

massacre in Sasun (August 1894)

The effects of the 1915 massacres have profoundly touched all of us, and together we mourn the terrible loss of so many innocent lives.

--U.S. President Bill Clinton, April 24, 1994

more U. S presidential statments:

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/current_category.4/affirmation_list.html

***

massacre in Constantinople, 30 September 1895

It is not understandable in human terms. God’s ways are not our ways. It’s all a very great mystery now, but in Heaven we will find the answers to our many why?

--Survivor

***

The Attack by Softas (Theological Students)

...Probably one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell any group. And there weren’t any Nuremberg trials.

--U.S. President Jimmy Carter, May 16, 1978

***

"The Police Taking Prisoners to the Grand Zaptie Prison, Stambul

We had become like animals, without much feeling. We had been reconciled to crying, being hungry, walking. We knew this way was our fate. After awhile I was no longer afraid because no feelings remained in me. We were concerned only about where we were walking and where we could get food and water.

--Survivor

***

Sketch by an eye-witness of the terriblemassacre of Armenians by Softas

...I feel confident that the people of the United States will be moved to aid these people stricken by war, famine, and disease...the stricken Syrian and Armenian people.

---US President Woodrow Wilson, August 31, 1916

***

Burial of the victims of the October 30, 1895
massacres of the Armenians during the region of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

It is not possible to erase the memory of the genocide that has afflicted you. It must be inscribed in the human memory, and this sacrifice must serve as a lesson to young people. At the same time, it is a lesson in the will to survive. So that everyone will know...that these people do not belong to the past, but they are part of the present and have a future.

Francois Mitterrand, President of France, January 6, 1984

more

http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/refuges_album.php

***

the Great Gregorian Church at Urfa, where 3.500 Christians were
butchered; 1500 of them slaughtered in the Church where they had taken refuge

...There is no doubt that this crime was planned and executed for political reasons. The opportunity presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race.

--Sir Winston Churchill, Excerpts from memories of Winston Churchill ‘ The Aftermath “.

***

These left-overs from the former Young Turkey Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule. They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery, and become inimical to any idea or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow.

--Kemal Ataturk, President and Founder of the
Republic of Turkey, June 22, 1926

***

Massacres of Christians in Turkey
"Le Petit" journal, May 2 1909

When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversation with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact... I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this.

--Henry Morgenthau, US Ambassador to Turkey (1913-1916)

***

The gathering of the corpses of victims, streets of Galata
"Le Petit Parisien" journal, September 13, 1896

***

Armenian Massacre in Constantinople
"Il Secolo Illustrato" journal, October 27, 1895

We succeeded in conquering many places but spiritually we were conquered in all of them.

Heyed, Gokalp

***

What is requested of you is to protect and to take good care of everyone from the Syrian and Armenian community living in your territories and frontiers and among your tribes; to help them in all of their affairs and defend them as you would defend yourselves, your properties, and your children, and provide everything they might need whether they are settled or moving from place to place, because they are the Protected People of the Muslims about whom the prophet Muhammad said: Whosoever takes from them even a rope, I will be his adversary on the Day of Judgment.

--Al-Husayn Ibn Ali, in a letter to Prince Faisal and Prince Abd al-Aziz al-Jarba

***

On a certain date in whatever town or village it might be...the public crier went through the streets announcing that every male Armenian must present himself forthwith at the Government Building. In some cases, the warning was given by the soldiery or Gendarme who were slaughtering every male Armenian they encountered in the streets...but usually a summons to the Government Building was the preliminary stage. The men presented themselves in their working clothes...When they arrived, they were thrown without explanation into prison, kept there a day or two, and then marched out of the town in batches, roped man to man, along some southerly or southeasterly road. They were starting, they were told, on a long journey to Mosul or perhaps to Baghdad...But they had not long to ponder over their plight, for they were halted and massacred at the first lonely place on the road. The same process was applied to those other Armenian men...who had been imprisoned during the winter months on the charge of conspiracy or concealment of arms...This was the civil authorities part.

Arnold Toynbee, a British historian of high academic distinction.
Excerpts from his book “ Armenian Atrocities, the murder of a nation “.

***

Three great massacres took place after 1916...Men, women, and children from Constantinople and the surrounding districts, from the Anatolian railway line and Cilicia, were driven into the desert, where they met people from the six Armenian provinces and from the shores of the Black Sea, but this latter contingent consisted only of women, girls and boys of seven and under, as every male over seven had been slaughtered. All these were the victims of the three massacres. The first massacre was that of Res-ul-Ain, in which 70,000 people were killed; the second took place at Intilli, where there were 50,000 people assembled, most of them working on a tunnel of the Baghdad railway; and the third, which was the most fearful of all, at Der Zor, where Zia Bey slaughtered nearly 200,000...These figures only give the numbers of people killed by massacre. If we add to their numbers the victims of misery, sickness and hunger, especially in Res-ul-Ain and Der Zor, the number of Armenians who were slain or died in the desert will exceed a million.

Aram Andonians, Armenian auther.

***

Execution of Armenians in the Constantinople, June 1915

One day Talaat made what was the most astonishing request I had ever heard. The New York Life Insurance Company and the Equitable Life of New York had for years done considerable business among the Armenians...I wish, Talaat now said, that you would get the Armenian life insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and had left no heirs to collect the money. It of courses all [goes] to the States. The Government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?

Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1913-16)

***

Syria - Aleppo - Armenian woman kneeling beside dead child in field "within sight of help and safety at Aleppo"

Late in July, 1915, when the thermometer registered from 105 to 115 degrees, as a group or more than l,000 women and chlldren from Harput [Kharpert] was being conducted southward near Veren Chiher, East of Diarbekir, they were turned over to a band of savage Kurds who rode among them, selecting the best looking women, girls and children. Terrified by the fears of their fate should chey fall into the hands of such ferocious brutes, the women resisted as best they could, thereby enraging the Kurds, who killed a number of their intended victims. Before carrying off those finally selected and subdued, they stripped most of the remaining women of their clothes, thereby forcing them to continue the rest of their journey in a nude condition. I was told by eyewitnesses to this outrage that over 300 women arrived at Ras-el-Ain, at that time the most easterly station to which the German-Baghdad railway was completed, entirely naked, their hair flowing in the air like wild beasts, and after travelling six days afoot in the burning sun. Most of these persons arrived in Aleppo a few days afterwards, and some of them personally came to the Consulate and exhibited their bodies to me, burned to the color of a green olive, the skin peeling off in great blotches, and many of them carrying gashes on the head and wounds on the body as a result of the terrible beatings inflicted by the Kurds.

***

Deportation in the Baghdad railway

One of the most terrible sights ever seen in Aleppo was the arrival early in Augusr, 1915, of some 5,000 terribly emaciaced, dirty, ragged and sick women and children, 3,000 on one day and 2,000 the following day. These people were the only survivors of the thrifty and well to do Armenian population of the province of Sivas, carefully estimated to have originally been over 300,000 souls! And what had become of the balance? From the most intelligent of those that miraculously reached Aleppo it was learned that in early Spring the men and the boys over 14 years old had been called to the police stations in the province on different mornings stretching over a period of several weeks, and had been sent off in groups of from 1,000 to 2,000 each, tied together with ropes, and that nothing had ever been heard of them thereafter. Their fate has been recorded by more than one eyewitness, so it is needless to dwell thereon here.
Survivors: An Oral History of the Genocide, by Donald E. Miller and Lorna Touryan Miller, .

***

Dead of exhaustion: a deported Armenian child (Kharberd, 1915) Maria Jacobsen, Diary 1907-1919. Kharput-Turkey, Translated into Armenian from the Original Manuscript by Nerses Pakhdikian, Mihran Simonan, Antelias-Lebanon, 1979

On the 52nd day they arrived at another village, here the Kurds took from them everything that they had, even their shirts and drawers and for five days the whole caravan walked all naked under the scorching sun. For another five days they did not have a morsel of bread, neither a drop of water. They were scorched to death by thirst. Hundreds over hundreds fell dead on the way, their tongues were turned to charcoal and when at the end of the fifth day they reached a fountain, the whole caravan, naturally, rushed on it, but the policemen stood in front of them and forbade them to take even a drop of water, for they wanted to sell the water, from one to three liras the cup, and sometimes not giving the water, after getting the money. At another place where there were some wells, some women threw themselves into it, as there was no rope and pail to draw water but these were drowned and in spite of that the rest of the people drank from that well, the dead bodies still staying and stinking in it. Sometimes, in other shallow wells, when the women could enter and come out, the other people would rush and lick and such [sic] the wet dirty clothes, to quench their thirst. This source said that by the seventieth day, only 35 women and children remained from the original group of 3,000 exiles from Kharpert, and only 150 women and children survived from the entire caravan that arrived at Aleppo.

***

Armenian refugees in Relief Committee tents, Aintab

For six weeks we have witnessed the most terrible cruelties inflicted upon the thousands of Christian exiles who have been daily passing through our city from the northern cities. All tell the same story and bear the same scars: their men were all killed on the first days march from their cities, after which the women and girls were constantly robbed of their money, bedding, clothing and beaten, criminally abused and abducted along the way. Their guards forced them to pay even for drinking from the springs along the way and were their worst abusers but also allowed the baser element in every village through which they passed to abduct the girls and women and abuse them. We not only were told these things but the same things occurred right here in our own city before our very eyes and openly on the streets
Rev. F.H. Leslie, an American missionary in Urfa

***

Among the ruins Maria Jacobsen, Diary 1907-1919. Kharput-Turkey,

A more pitiable sight cannot be imagined. They are almost without exception ragged, filthy, hungry and sick. That is not surprising in view of the fact that they have been on the road for nearly two months with no change of clothing, no chance to wash, no shelter and little to eat....
As one walks through the camp mothers offer their children and beg one to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their choice of these children and girls for slaves, or worse. In fact, they have even had their doctors there to examine the most likely girls and thus secure the best ones.
There are very few men among them, as most of them have been killed on the road. All tell the same story of having been attacked and robbed by the Kurds. Most of them were attacked over and over again and a great many of them, especially the men, were killed....
The system that is being followed seems to be to have bands of Kurds awaiting them on the road to kill the men especially and incidentally some of the others. The entire movement seems to be the most thoroughly organized and effective massacre this country has ever seen.
-- eye witness
**

Children waiting in the snow for admission into the 'Orphan City', a daily spectacle from the early morning until late at night

On Monday many men were arrested both at Harput and Mezreh and put in prison. At daybreak Tuesday morning they were taken out and made to march towards an almost uninhabited mountain. There were about eight hundred in all and they were tied together in groups of fourteen each. That afternoon they arrived in a small Kurdish village where they were kept overnight in the mosque and other buildings. During all this time they were without food or water. All their money and much of their clothing had been taken from them. On Wednesday morning they were taken to a valley a few hours' distance where they were all made to sit down. Then the gendarmes began shooting them until they had killed nearly all of them. Some who had not been killed by bullets were then disposed of with knives and bayonets.
-- eye witness
***

Armenian deportees sleeping in the street, 1915
Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes,
Bonn, Turkei 183, Armenien

***

Outside the door Maria Jacobsen, Diary 1907-1919

They had been on the road for from three to five months; they have been plundered several times over, and have marched along naked and starving; the Government gave them on one single occasion a morsel of bread--a few had it twice. It is said that the number of these deported widows will reach 60,000; they are so exhausted that they cannot stand upright; the majority have great sores on their feet, through having to march barefoot.
-- eye witness
***

Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Bonn, Turkei Archivbestand Abotschaft

***

Armenian children, the victims of the Turkish atrocities
# 44, 27 November, Front page, 1916, Moscow

In this group, Father Essayan saw no men or boys over eleven years old, the latter having all been slaughtered on the way. His letter also states, "one does not see a single pretty face among the survivors," implying that all such women had been abducted. In addition, Father Essayan said that one thousand Armenians were deported from one city, and only four hundred arrived in Aleppo. Of these survivors, he estimated that 60 percent were sick, and all were suffering from serious malnutrition.
-- eye witness
***

Because Germany and Turkey were allies during the war, this document was particularly incriminating, and the German censor immediately moved to confiscate the publication:
Between the 10th and the 30th May [1915], 1,200 of the most prominent Armenians and other Christians, without distinction of confession, were arrested in the Vilayets of Diyarbekir and Mamouret-ul-Aziz [Kharpert]... On the 30th May, 674 of them were embarked on thirteen Tigris barges, under the pretext that they were to be taken to Mosul. The Vali's aide-de-camp, assisted by fifty gendarmes, was in charge of the convoy. Half the gendarmes started off on the barges, while the other half rode along the bank. A short time after the start the prisoners were stripped of all their money (about L6,000 Turkish) and then of their clothes; after that they were thrown into the river. The gendarmes on the bank were ordered to let none of them escape.

A living skeleton "Story of Near East Relief"
by James L. Barton, New York, 1930, p. 262

***

other atrocities had observed or heard of
For a whole month corpses were observed floating down the River Euphrates nearly every day, often in batches of from two to six corpses bound together. The male corpses are in many cases hideously mutilated (sexual organs cut off, and so on), the female corpses are ripped open.... The corpses stranded on the bank are devoured by dogs and vultures. To this fact there are many German eyewitnesses. An employee of the Baghdad Railway has brought the information that the prisons of Biredjik are filled regularly every day and emptied every night--into the Euphrates. Between Diyarbekir and Ourfa a German cavalry captain saw innumerable corpses lying unburied all along the road.

Children taken in by Near East Relief

***

In addition to reporting incidents of mass slaughter, this statement also gives examples of individual suffering. For example, a woman who gave birth to twins while being deported was allowed no time for recovery and was forced to start walking the next day. In despair, she placed the newborns under a bush and collapsed herself a short time later.
***

Among the 149 documents contained in the Bryce/Toynbee volume, it is possible to find, almost at random, equally graphic passages detailing the deportations. Two final examples will suffice, both describing events in the city of Moush:
The leading Armenians of the town and the headmen of the villages were subjected to revolting tortures. Their finger nails and then their toenails were forcibly extracted; their teeth were knocked out, and in some cases their noses were whittled down. . . . The female relatives of the victims who came to the rescue were outraged in public before the very eyes of their mutilated husbands and brothers....
Among the ruins Maria Jacobsen, Diary 1907-1919. Kharput-Turkey,***

***

Group of Near East Relief orphan girls at summer camp. Below: Alexandropol: "Hands up", Polygon orphanage massed drill, October, 1925 "Story of Near East Relief"
by James L. Barton, New York, 1930, p. 21

The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in the various camps was to burn them. Fire was set to large wooden sheds in Alidjan, Megrakom, Khaskegh, and other Armenian villages, and these absolutely helpless women and children were roasted to death.
-- eye witness

Armenian deportees, 1915 Armin T. Wegner Wallstein Verlag, Germany.

***

In 1922-1923 Near East Relief evacuated 22.000 children from orphanages in interior Turkey to Syria and Greece

The above account, offered by an Armenian, is substantiated by Alma Johannsen, a German missionary eyewitness to events in Moush:
" When there was no one left in Bitlis to massacre, their attention was diverted to Moush. Cruelties had already been committed, but so far not too publicly; now, however, they started to shoot people down without any cause, and to beat them to death simply for the pleasure of doing so."
Alma Johannsen, a German missionary eyewitness to events in Moush

***

This picture shows part of the 5.000 children from Kharput en route on donkey back and foot. "Story of Near East Relief" by James L. Barton, New York, 1930, p. 152

***

Before admission to the orphanage Maria Jacobsen, Diary 1907-1919. Kharput-Turkey, Translated into Armenian from the Original Manuscript

We all had to take refuge in the cellar for fear of our orphanage catching fire. It was heartrending to hear the cries of the people and children who were being burned to death in their houses. The soldiers took great delight in hearing them, and when people who were out in the street during the bombardment fell dead, the soldiers merely laughed at them....
I went to the Mutessarif and begged him to have mercy on the children at least, but in vain. He replied that the Armenian children must perish with their nation. All our people were taken from our hospital and orphanage; they left us three female servants. Under these atrocious circumstance Moush was burned to the ground.

Orphaned Armenian children, 1915
Armin T. Wegner Wallstein Verlag, Germany.

***

This German missionary left Moush for Kharpert, where, she reported conditions were no better: "In Harpout and Mezre the people have had to endure terrible tortures. They have had their eyebrows plucked out, their breasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off their feet or else hammer nails into them just as they do in shoeing horses."

***

Misfits but welcome Maria Jacobsen, Diary 1907-1919.
Kharput-Turkey

These selected accounts are representative of the statements contained in the Bryce/Toynbee volume presented to the British Parliament. Because they are arranged by city, it is possible to corroborate statements by witnesses who did not know one another and could not have collaborated in concocting a story. This volume is extremely important not only because it provides detailed information but also because it was published within months of the time eyewitnesses wrote their accounts. Additionally, the report concludes with a summary of the genocide written by Arnold Toynbee, which continues to be a valuable overview of the events that occured in 1915 and 1916.

***

Armenian refugee family
"Story of Near East Relief" by James L. Barton, New York, 1930

Whether the gendarmes were responding directly to government orders to annihalate the Armenians or were commiting atrocities of their own accord, our interviews provide substantial documentation of actions that resulted in the deaths of thousands of deportees. The lowest level of involvment was complicity between gendarmes and local Kurds, Turks, and soldiers. For example, a survivor from Konia stated:
The soldiers would come and give us a bad time. Others from the hills and mountains would come and snatch girls and baggage, or whatever they could. You scream, "Gendarme, Gendarme," but there was no help, because they [the soldiers and abductors] were all together in this. I saw all of this myself. I saw them snatch girls or goods right from the horses or wagons, dragging them by force. I can still picture the whole thing right now. They would kidnap more of the older girls. They had brought some deportees on the cliff. They would tie them, shoot them, and throw them in the river. There were gendarmes among them, civilians and soldiers. Sometimes it would be the turn of a pregnant woman. They would look at each other and say, "boy or girl," and pierce her belly with the sword. Violence was also perpetrated in the very act of herding the caravans. Several survivors indicated that anyone who lagged behind the caravan was shot. For example, a survivor from Mezre recalled how the donkey on which her mother was riding kept dropping behind the rest of the caravan. This little girl repeatedly urged her mother to leave the donkey behind, but she refused because all their money was sewn into the bedding that was loaded on the donkey. The girl left her mother to catch up with her brother and the rest of the caravan. A short time later she heard a shot and then saw her mother's donkey, without its rider, being led behind the horse of a gendarme.

***

... A survivor from Aintab recalled his father's being struck by gendarmes after he had grown very weak: "The next morning, very early, the gendarmes got up the deportees to continue. They came and said, "Get up," and he wouldn't. So they beat him up so very badly. They beat him with their whips until his body was bleeding, and he fell down as though he were dead. Thinking that he was dead, the gendarmes left. I saw this with my own eyes."
There is also indication that gendarmes engaged in extortion from members of the caravans they were deporting. For example, a survivor from Gurin recalled this scene: "On the way, a few gendarmes-a few of them were taking us-wanted money. They spread a sheet on the ground, and the women, one by one, threw down what they had. They filled a whole bag." From the testimony that we heard, it appears that such greed was often mixed inseperably with violence.

Skulls of deportees

***

An Armenian Mother on the heights of the Taurus Mountains, 1915
Armin T. Wegner Wallstein Verlag, Germany.

For example, Talaat does not challenge the fact that deportations occurred. However, he blames the victims for their own deaths, a theme that recurs in most justifications by perpetrators of genocide. He states that the Armenians collaborated with the Russians on the Caucasian front. In response, the government took the following actions:
The Porte, acting under the same obligation, and wishing to secure the safety of its army and its citizens, took energetic measures to check these uprisings. The deportation of the Armenians was one of these preventive measures.
I admit also that the deportation was not carried out lawfully everywhere. In some places unlawful acts were committed. The already existing hatred among the Armenians and Mohammedans, intensified by the barbarous activities of the former, had created many tragic consequences. Some of the officials abused their authority, and in many places people took preventive measures into their own hands and innocent people were molested. I confess it. I confess, also, that the duty of the Government was to prevent these abuses and atrocities, or at least to hunt down and punish their perpetrators severely. In many places, where the property and goods of the deported people were looted, and the Armenians molested, we did arrest those who were responsible and punished them according to the law. I confess, however, that we ought to have acted more sternly, opened up a general investigation for the purpose of finding out all the promoters and looters and punished them severely.

***

Talaat divided the "looters" into two categories: those who pillaged out of personal hatred and for individual profit, and those who sincerely believed that they were serving the common good by punishing the Armenians for their allegedly traitorous acts. Regarding this latter group, Talaat states: "The Turkish elements here referred to were shortsighted, fanatical, and yet sincere in their belief. The public encouraged them, and they had the gcneral approval behind them. They were numerous and strong."

Talaat offers the following justification for his government's unwillingness to punish these individuals: "Their open and immediate punishment would have aroused great discontent among the people, who favored their acts. An endeavor to arrest and to punish all these promoters would have created anarchy in Anatolia at a time when we greatly needed unity. It would have been dangerous to divide the nation into two camps, when we needed strength to fight outside enemies."

***

Euphrates near Deir-el-Zor, where so many of the deported were murdered.
The river hides dark memories Collection of Bodil Biorn

What is noteworthy in Talaat's reflections is that he does not deny the deportations, nor does he deny that crimes were committed against the Armenians. But he distances himself from the abuses by blaming the Armenians for the necessity of deporting them, implying that any atrocities that occurred in the process of deportation were carried out by fanatical local Turks who were pursuing a personal vendetta, and he excuses himself from punishing these Turks because it would have been policically divisive.

Yet Talaat's remarks do not answer several significant questions: (1) why it was necessary to deport Armenians who were far from the Russian front; (2) why women and children had to be deported; (3) why the government armed the Special Organization and encouraged them to attack Armenian caravans; and (4) why events were orchestrated to make Armenian resistance practically impossible. (As discussed previously, some of the preliminary actions included disarming Armenians serving in the Turkish army, arresting Armenian political and religious leaders, seizing all weapons at a local level, creating hysteria among the local Turkish population toward the "traitorous" Armenians, and removing valis [regional officials] who refused to carry out abuses against the Armenians.) In Talaat's version of the events, the government did what was required, but the local Turkish population got out of hand.
***

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
    We walked for many days, occasionally running across small lakes and rivers. After awhile we saw corpses on the shores of these lakes. Then we began seeing them along the path: twisted corpses, blackened by the sun and bloated. Their stench was horrible. Vultures circled the skies above us, waiting for their evening meal.

National feast, dancers at St. Garabed (4-17th centuries, fully destroyed in 1915)
Collection of Bodil Biorn

***

At Igdir, Armenian children eating their dole of boiled rice supplied by the American Committee Volume XXXVI, Number Five, November 1919, p. 412

At one point, we came upon a small hole in the ground. It was a little deeper than average height and 25-30 people could easily fit in it. We lowered ourselves down into it. There was no water in it but the bottom was muddy. We began sucking on the mud. Some of the women made teats with their shirts filled with mud and suckled on them like children. We were there for about a half hour. If we hadn't been forced out, that would have been our best grave.
Many days later we reached the Euphrates River and despite the hundreds of bodies floating in it, we drank from it like there was no tomorrow. We quenched our thirst for the first time since our departure. They put us on small boats and we crossed to the other side. From there we walked all the way to Ras-ul-Ain.
Of a caravan of nearly 10,000 people, there were now only some of us 300 left. My aunt, my sisters, my brothers had all died or disappeared. Only my mother and I were left. We decided to hide and take refuge with some Arab nomads. My mother died there under their tents. They did not treat me well—they kept me hungry and beat me often and they branded me as their own.

***



We had already been deported once, in 1915, sent towards Der-Zor. But, my uncle's friend had connections in the government and he had us ordered back to Izmir.           Orders came again that everyone must gather in front of the Armenian church to be deported. My father refused to go and told us not to worry. He didn't think the Turkish government would do anything to him, since he was a government employee himself.            Twelve Turkish soldiers and an official came very early the next morning. We were still asleep. They dragged us out in our nightgowns and lined us up against the living room wall. Then the official ordered my father to lie down on the ground… they are dirty the Turks… very dirty… I can't say what they did to him. They raped him! Raped! Just like that. Right in front of us. And that official made us watch. He whipped us if we turned away. My mother lost consciousness and fell to the floor.           Afterwards, we couldn't find our father. My mother looked for him frantically. He was in the attic, trying to hang himself. Fortunately, my mother found him before it was too late.           My father did eventually kill himself—later, after we escaped.

***

They took us from Hüsenig, to Mezre, to Kharpert to Malatia and then, after a couple of days walk, to the shores of the Euphrates River. It was around noon when we got there and we camped. For a while, we were left alone. Sometime later, Turkish gendarmes came over and grabbed all the boys from 5 to 10 years old. I was about 7 or 8. They grabbed me too. They threw us all into a pile on the sandy beach and started jabbing us with their swords and bayonets. I must've been in the center because only one sword got me… nipped my cheek… here, my cheek. But, I couldn't cry. I was covered with blood from the other bodies on top of me, but I couldn't cry. If had, I would not be here today.            When it was getting dark, my grandmother found me. She picked me up and consoled me. It hurt so much. I was crying and she put me on her shoulder and walked around.            Then, some of the other parents came looking for their children. They mostly found dead bodies. The river bank there was very sandy. Some of them dug graves with their bare hands—shallow graves—and tried to bury their children in them. Others, just pushed them into the river, they pushed them into the Euphrates. Their little bodies floated away.

***

The crowds were huge in Meskeneh. We were in the middle of a vast sandy area and the Armenians there were from all over, not only from Marash. We had no water and gendarmes would not give us any. There were only two gendarmes for that huge crowd. Just two. Wasn't there a single man among us who could have killed them? We were going to die anyway. Why did we obey those two gendarmes so sheepishly?           The word was that from Meskeneh, we were going to be deported to Der-Zor. My father had brought along a tent that was black on one side and white on the other. Each time gendarmes approached us to send another group to Der-Zor, my father would move the tent. He would pitch it on the other side of the crowd—as far away as possible. We were constantly moving. He bought us quite a bit of time that way.
Eventually, we crossed the Euphrates River to Rakka where we found an abandoned house—with no doors or windows—and we squatted there. But we still had no food. We used to eat grass. We used to pick grains from animal waste, wash them and then in tin cans fry them to eat. We used to say: "Oh, mommy, if we ever go back to Marash, just give us fried wheat and it will be enough."

***

   There was a girl, a girl who I had befriended on the road, earlier. Her name was Satenig. I remember her very well. She was not too strong. I saw her again in that basement. In the basement of the school where they had thrown us. She was there. She had a little bit of money and she gave it to me. "Don't let them take me," she said. "Don't let them take me." They would come around everyday and take whoever was dead or very weak. She was not in good shape, she was very weak. I stood her up and leaned on her. Held her up, so. They came. I was holding her up, leaning her up against the wall. But they saw her and took her… took her…

***

I do not remember how many days our decimated caravan marched southward toward the Euphrates River. Day by day the men contingent of the caravan got smaller and smaller. Under pretext of not killing them if they would hand over liras and gold coins, men would be milked by the gendarmes of what little money they had. Then they would be killed anyway.           Days wore on. We marched through mountain roads and valleys. Those who could not keep up were put out of their misery. Always bodies were found strewn by the wayside. The caravan was getting smaller each day. At one place, my little grandmother, like Jeremiah incarnate, loudly cursed the Turkish government for their inhumanity, pointing to us children she asked, "What is the fault of children to be subjected to such suffering." It was too much for a gendarme to bear, he pulled out his dagger and plunged it into my grandmother's back. The more he plunged his dagger, the more my beloved Nana asked for heaven's curses on him and his kind. Unable to silence her with repeated dagger thrusts, the gendarme mercifully pumped some bullets into her and ended her life. First my uncle, now my grandmother were left unmourned and unburied by the wayside.
We moved on.

***


A photo by an eyewitness of the terrible massacre of Armenians
Nubarian Collection

In 1915, we were the last to be deported out of Kessab because we were Protestant. The American Ambassador in Bolis had apparently secured guarantees for our safety, but we were deported anyway. They took us toward Der-Zor—the interior Syrian desert. Our whole family: my father, mother, four brothers, two sisters. I was 20-21, at the time. We loaded everything we had on mules and horses and set out under armed guards. They took us to Meskeneh on the Euphrates river. Meskeneh was a huge outdoor camp where ten of thousands of Armenians had been deported—bit by bit they were sent to Der-Zor, to their death. We were there for awhile. We lived under tents along with a lot of others from Kessab. Most of the time we had nothing to eat. Sometimes my father would buy bread from the soldiers but they had mixed sand with the flour—so we ate this hard bread and sand crunched under our teeth.           Meskeneh was a horrible, horrible place. 60,000 Armenians had been buried under the sand there. When a sandstorm hit, it would blow away a lot of the sand and uncover those remains. Bones, bones, bones were everywhere then. Wherever you looked, wherever you walked.

***

My brother-in-law was American Consul Davis' body guard in Mezre and the consul himself saved my father's life. There was a Turkish gendarme by the name of Shadhe who wanted to kill my father. Consul Davis came all the way to our door in Pazmashen. My father was hiding in the back, in the wood shed. He came on his horse and took my father back with him to the consulate.           When the deportations began, I went to Mezre to say goodbye to my father. He cried. The consul saw him and told me to stay. Later, my mother escaped from the deportation and also came to the consulate. We were in the American consulate during the deportations. Consul Davis saved us. Everybody else, my sisters, my maternal aunt—all of them, all of them—were deported. Our whole village was wiped out.           We lived in the consulate until 1922. On September 7, 1922, our family left Kharpert along with 250 Armenian orphans on horses and wagons. My father was asked by the Near East Relief to oversee the transportation of these orphans from Kharpert to Aleppo.           From Aleppo we went to Beirut, then to Marseille and then by ship we came to Providence, Rhode Island.

***



When the massacres began, I was 12 years old. I remember, they first took all the men of our village and kill them. The rest of us were deported. I don't know how many hundreds we were. Everyone according to his ability rented a donkey or a horse and we left.           We went from Albistan to Zeitun to Marash to Aintab. We camped on a farm behind Aintab College, near some newly dug foundations for houses. They were simply large holes in the ground. You understand? An epidemic had broken out in our caravan and people were dying all around us. They started filling those foundations with dead bodies. Two, three, four, five bodies on top of each other.
                  From Aintab, orders came that everyone over the age of 12 was to be sent to Deir-El-Zor. A friend of mine and I escaped, but we were caught later and this time they sent us to Bizib then toward Biredjig. Biredjig is on the shores of the Euphrates. You understand? It is on the other side of the river. We stayed in a khan (an inn) on this side. Caravans would come through there and be sent off toward the desert; hundreds and hundreds of Armenians. We used to see dead, bloated bodies floating in the river.

***

***

Massacres of Syrian Christians In N. W. Persia and Kurdistan Paul Shimon of Urmi Persia

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:12:38 -0400

FOREWORD

For twenty-nine years the Archbishop's Mission has worked among the Syrian Christians in Persia and Turkey. Those of us whose privilege it has been to labour for the spiritual and temporal welfare of this interestirig people, are filled with dismay at the horrors of massacre and persecution which have fallen upon them during the past few months.
I desire to commend Mr. Paul Shimmon's pamphlet to the many sympthisers and friends which this ancient Christian nation numbers in England and America. Never has a nation been called upon to pass through so terrible a persecution, as that which has fallen upon this unhappy people, during the early months of this year (1915). These pages deal for the most part with the troubles in Persia; since it was written, news has come to hand that something like the same horrors have over taken their brethren, who live on the Turkish side of the frontier. Some thousands of these Turkish Syrians have I fled to Persia, but the larger part, driven from their ruined homes, are now wanderers in the inhospitable mountains of Kurdistan.
This pamphlet is an appeal to the liberty loving people of Great Britain and America to see that substantial help is sent to this ancient Christian nation in their sorrow and desolation. Some considerable sum of money has already been sent this year to Persia, and wisely distributed under the direction of the British and American Consuls at Tabriz. Much more help will be required in the Spring, when the task of restoring villages must be undertaken, and an effort made to replace the people in their ruined homesteads.

November, 1995.                                                                                  F.N.H.

With a Forewordby R ev. F. N. Heazeil, M.A. Orgamung Secretary of the Archbishop’s Assyrian Mission. London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., Ltd. Milwaukee: The Young Churchman Company.

Massacres of
Syrian (Nestorian) Christians

The scene of the Assyrian massacres is the plain of Urmi (or Urumia) on the west side of the lake of that name in N.W. Persia. The city of Urmi is situated on the western side of the lake; further west are the mountains of Kurdistan, forming the frontier between Turkey and Persia. These mountains give shelter to the wild bands of Kurds (ever ready to descend on the plain of Urmi), who can easily retire to their inaccessible homes with their ill-gotten spoil. For some years past a Russian force has been stationed in the Urmi plain, with the object of keeping the Kurds under control. These troops were distributed between Khoi, Salmas, Urmi, and Soujbulak, at the extreme south of the lake. Urmi is an isolated spot, and, from a military point of view, ill suited for defence against a strong attacking force. It is easily accessible to the Kurds from the west, while the two high passes on both north and south, and the lake on the east, seal up a besieged army in a very dangerous locality.
The plain of Urmi has a charm for all travelers in the spring and early summer it is a veritable paradise. Its running waters, its gardens, its vineyards, orchards, and melon fields, its tobacco plantations and rice fields, give a variety of colour and a beauty of scene seldom met with in the East.

The plain of Urmi is the home of some thirty-five thousand of the Assyrian (or East Syrian Christians), part of whom dwell in the city, and the rest are distributed among seventy villages scattered over the plain. These people are cultivators of the soil and keepers of vineyards. Away to the west, united to them by religion and language, live the mountaineer Syrians. First, we have many villages in the districts of Tergawar and Mergawar, both in Persia; then comes Nochea, the seat of the Metropolitan Bishop, Mar Khananishu. StilL further west, over the frontier into Turkey, in the very heart of the mountains, dwells the Patriarch, Mar Shimun, at once a civil and ecclesiastical ruler, who is responsible to the Turkish Government for the independent tribes of Baz, Jilu, Tkhuma, and Tyari, who are spread over the tract of country which stretches from Julamerk to Amadia and then down towards Mosul.
The proverbial calm before the storm was literally true in the case of the massacre of The Syrian Christians. In the Urmi plain, the presence of Russian troops for many years past brought security and prosperity. Raiding on the part of the Kurds was stopped, and highway robbery was no longer heard of. It did not mean that the Moslems were any more friendly disposed towards the Christians: they feared them, that was all. The old hatred for the Christian race slumbered for a time, and dare not show itself, so long as the Russian troops were there to see that the peace was not disturbed.

Events began to take a different turn with the outbreak of war in Europe. The Kurds, always ready for a fight, began to plunder the rich districts of Tergawar and Mergawar; the Christian inhabitants fled to Urmi, and were distributed among the villages of the plain. In October, 1914, the Kurds made a determined effort to capture the city. A violent assault was made by them, and for a time they withstood the fire of the Russian artillery. They sacked and burned the villages of Anhar and Aiwach, and advanced within gunshot of the city. Reinforcements arrived, and with the help of Syrians, armed by the Russians, the Kurds and Turks were driven back. Then it was that the Russian officers found that the Syrians could do great service in scouting, and they employed trained Syrians to keep open the lines of communications.

Such was the condition of affairs before the declaration of war between the Allied Powers and Turkey. After the declaration of war the curtain was withdrawn and the drama was played, the like of which has not yet been seen, even in this most cruel war.
The Turks had become aggressive on the Russian frontier near the Caucasus. In December they amassed troops at Sary-Kamish, near Kars, and sought to cut the railway to Tiflis. This created a scare in the Caucasus which was serious enough to cause a withdrawal of the Russian forces from N.W. Persia. Orders reached Urmi on December 30th for the withdrawal of the Russian troops, but these were not made known to the European missionaries and Syrians until three days later. The news came like a thunderclap. The Christian inhabitants were entirely unprepared: when they awoke to the fact of the danger they were in, they found that the roads were all blocked, the Russian protectors had left, means of transport were wanting; the Kurdish and Turkish armies were almost at the city gates: they were caught in a trap. A large number of the Syrians outside the city and many Armenians were able to get away ; most of these were from the Nazlu district, others were refugees from the Turkish frontier, some ten thousand in all. Two English missionaries then left, also the Belgian officials of the Persian Government, and some prominent Syrians of Urmi. All the rest remained behind. The Russian army left on Saturday, January 2nd, and on the next day the Persian Moslems plundered the village of Charbash, and Dilgusha, the two districts which contained the houses of the well-to-do Christian population. It was a painful sight to see the notable Moslems of the city was out, 'blessing each other's feast,' as they termed it, and carrying off everything that came to hand. Houses were stripped of furniture, and even doors and windows carried away. There was also ah attempt to plunder some of the houses within the city, but this was frustrated by the efforts of the French and American missionaries.
There is no doubt that the presence of the American missionaries, and of Mr. Neesan, who remained in the English Mission-house, prevented matters from taking a worse turn. The American flag, which was flying over the American and English houses, had some influence in restraining the brutal savagery of the mob.
In the villages, however, the reign of terror had begun. The Kurds had been informed of the Russian retirement, and were soon at work plundering and massacring the Christians in the Barandus district (S. Urmi). Dizateka, S&tlui, Alyabad, Shimshajcan1 Babarud, Darbarud, Sardarud, Teka, and Ardishai were already in their hands. Looting, plundering, massacre, and rape were the order of the day. In one village, half Moslem and half Christian the Syrians took shelter in the houses of their Moslem neighbours, and hid themselves under the heaps of snow in the yards. In Ardishai, Qasha Ablakhat the Syrian priest, was escaping on horseback with his daughter he was and the girl carried off to Kurdistan, where she was married by force to a Kurd. Four months later came the sad news that she had died. During her illness she had as companion another Syrian giri1 also a captive. This other girl relates that the Moslem women came and turned the sick woman's bed towards the south, the direction to which all Moslems look on their deathbed. The invalid begged her companion to turn her face to the east, that she might die a Christian.

In another village all the male population, but three, were killed, or died of typhoid fever. One young man had 1st arrived from the United States after an absence of nine years; he had come home to be married. The next morning, he, his mother, sister, and an uncle were all killed. Their property was carried off and 500 tumans in cash. Most of the people were killed in their flight; their bodies were not buried, for no one dared to go and perform this office. Many of the bodies were eaten by dogs.
There is one large village - Geogtapeh - some five miles from the city of Urmi. To this place many people from the south of Urmi plain fled for safety, as they thought the inhabitants were well 'able to defend' themselves. But on January 4th, a messenger from the Kurds came, saying that if the people surrendered and paid a large sum of money, their village would be spared. The villagers sent to Urmi to consult the village master, but long before the messenger returned the Kurds had commenced their attack on the place. The Christians put up a magnificent fight, but could not hold out long before overwhelming numbers. The Kurds were also assisted by the Persian Moslems, who were eager to pay off old scores against their Christian neighbours. As the day wore on the situation grew desperate. The cries of women and children, who had gathered in the churches, were heart-rending. The smoke of the burning buildings from four sides overcame the defenders. Finally all took refuge in the two churches on the brow of the hill, which dominates the village. Late in the afternoon, by God's providence, a rescue was made. Dr. Packard, the American missionary, with three Syrian attendants, came with the American flag and made terms of capitulation. The men, women, and children were to be allowed to go out alive, and the village and all the firearms were surrendered. Late that night, Dr. Packard, with some two thousand people, reached Urmi, where with difficulty shelter was found for them in quarters already crowded, in which they passed four months of untold horrors and suffering.

In Geogtapeh, one elderly woman was left behind because she could not move on account, of infirmity; her husband and daughter decided to stay with her. The Kurds killed the two old people, and on the daughter refusing to become Moslem, she also was killed.
Another pathetic case was that of an old priest and his wife, who thought if they gave up everything to the Kurds their lives would be spared. These people were visited. by five different parties of Kurds in succession. They helped themselves to the property of the house, and took all the money they could find. Then came another party and asked for money ; they were told there was nothing left. Then the old man, with the Bible in his hands, was murdered in the presence of his wife. They decided to kill the woman also, but in some mysterious way she avoided them and hid herself. After six days of hiding she crawled out and got to a neighbouring village, where she found shelter with some Moslems, who sent her to the city.

NAZLU DISTRICT

The Barandus river villages and Geogtapeh are south of the city of Urmi, and so were the first to fall a prey to the Kurds as they advanced from the south. The villages of the Nazlu district, such as Ada, Superghan, Mushawa, Sherabad, and Karajalu, some of the wealthiest, not being in the line of advance, should have escaped the horrors of the other villages; but their turn came later, and their story of their woes is equally heartrending.

Ada, one of the largest villages, had been a place of refuge for many Syrians and Armenians late in the year 1914. Then when the Russian army passed that way many of the people followed them, to the number of sixty. The rest, however, all remained. Sunday, January 3rd, passed off quietly, but the next day their troubles commenced. The Persian Moslems began to plunder the Syrian Christians. They broke open the houses, carried off the doors and windows, and emptied the buildings. No one was however killed, although some shots were fired too intimidate the people.   The Syrians exercised great restraint, as they feared a general massacre if they opposed the Moslems who came against them. The elders of the village, while this was going on, sent to the city to ask for protection. The messengers returned with a Turkish and Persian flag and a few soldiers, thinking this would be security for them; but they were deceived. For almost at once the Kurds attacked the village' from all points. They stripped every man they found, I took his money, and then killed him. As the others fled to the vineyards, they were followed by the Moslems, who killed them there. It is said that one Persian Moslem had killed twenty-five persons, and said, 'I am not satisfied yet.' Some eighty bodies lay about unburied; many, who had been wounded, were left to die of their wounds, as there was no one to tend them after they fell. The women and children, who had climbed to the roofs to avoid the fury of the Kurds, were afterwards brutally treated by their attackers, who behaved with' the greatest barbarity. The churches were polluted and the carried off, and forced to become Moslems, and afterwards sold or married to their enemies.

A pathetic case is reported from Karajalu. A woman, fleeing with her two children - her husband was abroad - met a Moslem mullah in her flight. He took the children, stripped them of their clothing, and threw them all into a stream, which was on the point of freezing. He then offered to marry the woman. On her refusal he left the woman on the road to her fate. She returned to the stream, and, taking her children from the water, carried them to a vineyard near by, where she placed them in a hollow place with some straw over them to try and warm them; both children died in the morning. Later the sorrowing woman found her way to Urmi, and five months afterwards the Russians caught this inhuman brute and made him suffer for his crime.

THE FLIGHT TO URMI

The city of Urmi became a veritable city of refuge for the Syrians and Armenians from the villages of the whole plain. - By far the larger number found shelter in the American Mission premises, and some more in the compound of the English Mission, where Mr. Neesan was living. We have read of the flight from Antwerp in the Times, but it is a fairy tale compared with what happened in Urmi. Women arrived at the city in a bleeding condition. Some had been stripped of part of their clothes on the way, and arrived in one tunic shivering in the bitter cold of January; some told us how they had been stopped by four different bands of robbers; many were carried off, made captives, and forced to become Moslems.

The French Mission also afforded another place of refuge, where the French Lazarists, with Monseigneur Sontag and the Sisters of Charity, live. The crowded state of all the houses in the city quickly bred disease, which, combined with semi-starvation, made life unbearable. The Americans threw open their College and Hospital outside the city, and these were soon overcrowded. The Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission premises and the American yard close by formed one great quadrangle, and over this block the American flag was flying. In normal times these buildings could accommodate five hundred people; now there were some ten thousand crowded into this same area. After the first rush was over, the missionaries went to the villages, to search for this or that person who was missing. In this way many young women were restored to their families and delivered from Moslem captivity. But many of the less fortunate had to remain in the Moslem houses to which they had been carried. Many were ill and could not move; other were enceinte, and were ashamed to return to their homes. A young Moslem was carrying his Syrian 'wife' to another village when he met Dr. Packard on the road. The girl threw herself at his feet and asked to be freed from her captor. She was taken to Urmi, only to die after a few weeks of typhoid fever.

The problem of feeding so large a number of people was a great one, and only half a pound of bread a day could be provided. But the worst suffering was caused by the over-crowding. Every available space was filled rooms, churches, corridors, cellars, and stables, all alike were crowded with human beings.

Under these conditions, combined with the bad water supply and the lack of sanitary arrangements in an oriental city, it is not surprising that typhoid fever soon broke out and carried off thousands of people. More than four thousand lost their lives from this disease, while a thousand were killed by the Kurds in the villages. An accurate statement, prepared by the European missionaries, shows that 20 percent of the Urmi Christians perished in four months.

At the beginning of this reign of terror which we have described, the Kurds of Mamash, Mangur, Zarza, in the south, poured into the city. The Herki and the Begzadi from the west poured in at the same time. The son of one prominent Sheik from Shamsdinan came from Nochea and established himself in Dilgusha just outside the city gates. On the arrival of the Turkish army, a few days later, order was for a time restored, and the Kurds and Moslems restrained from the bigger acts of violence. But as soon as the Turkish officers got hold of the reins of government the lives of the Christians became unbearable. For a time a Jehad - a Holy War - was spoken of on all sides, and the Christians gave up all hopes of being allowed to live. The Turks made it quite clear that they had come to serve Turkey, and did not conceal their desire to get 'rid of all Christians.' They also set to work to fill their own pockets; 66oo tumans were taken from the shop and store owners, and other well-to-do people. They prepared a list of 'suspected persons,' who were to be put to death if not ransomed by the payment of a sum of money. In many cases the money was not forthcoming, and the prisoners were put to death.
It was in this way that Mar Dinkha, Bishop of Tergawar, met his death. Mar Elia, the Russian Bishop, was ransomed after a payment of 5500 tumans had been made to the Turks.

THE TRAGEDY OF GULPASHAN

The case of the treatment of the village of Gulpashan is without parallel in the history of the Urmi massacres. It is the most wealthy and prosperous of all the villages of the plain) and its inhabitants are quiet and law-abiding people. When the sister village of Geogtapeh was plundered and burnt, by an ominous fate Gulpashan was spared. Karani Agha, a Kurdish Chief, well spoken of as a man of high principle, had announced that the village was his property and that it was to be spared. For two months the people were left in peace. It was said to be due to a friendship which existed between the Christian village masters, one of whom was related to the German Consular Agent at Urmi, and the Moslems. A servant of the German Agent was there, and Turkish soldiers were placed to guard the village. On February 24th, a band of Persian Fedais, who had been un- successful in an attempt on Salmas, returned to Urmi and attacked the village. They feigned friendliness at first, untild they had got the men of the place in their power. Then they tied them together with ropes and drove them to the cemetery, where they butchered them in a barbarous and cruel way Then the men, still wild with blood, turned on the women, and after treating them in an unseemly manner, put some of thern to death. The American missionaries went afterwards and buried the dead, which they did in many other places also. This was the last of the massacres in the Urmi plain.The awful deeds that were perpetrated here were telegraphed to America, whereupon such strong representations were made by the United States Government that an order was made for their cessation.

THE MASSACRE IN SALMAS.

In the plain of Salmas, to the west of Lake Urmi, there are many large and beautiful villages inhabited by Syrians and Armenians. For the most part these people had fled to Russia before the flight from Urmi took place; but their homes and fields shared the same fate as those in Urmi. The Turks found on their arrival there that a good number of Christians had hid themselves in the houses of friendly Moslems The Moslem Hadjis were ordered to prepare a letter, which every Chrjstian must sign, stating that they had received kind consideration at the hands of their protectors. This was only a t?ick on the part of the Turks, for in this way they got to know the names and dwelling-places of about 725 Armenians and Syrians in Salmas. A few days later all these men, roped together in gangs, were marched to the fields at night between Haftevan and Khusrawa, and some were shot, others were hacked ~o pieces, in one way and another, in the most horrible fashion. This happened in March, only three days before the return of the Russian troops. This timely arrival of help prevented the women of the place from sharing a like fate.


THE ATTACK ON THE SYRIANS IN
THE TURKISH MOUNTAINS.

The rest of the awful story comes from the Turkish side, where the Patriarch and the larger number of the Syrians live in the mountains of Kurdistan. It was many months before news reached their brethren in Urmi as to what had been happining some hundred miles away. The Patriarch, Mar Shimun, was driven from his home in Qudshanis. He fled to Tyari with all the members of his household. The Patriarch's house was burnt, together with many other houses, including the house of the English Mission. Mar Shimun, writing to England a few days ago, tells us that for four months he has been a wanderer with his people, carrying on a war with the Turks and Kurds. They only gave up fighting when Turkish artillery was brought against them, which rnade it impossible for them to offer an effective resistance. Tyari and Tkhuma, both of which districts embrace many Chnstian villages, have been entirely destroyed. In August last, 35,000 mountaineers fled to Salmas, Persia, but the larger part of the Syrians are still in the mountains wandering about from place to place, without food and with. no hope of any one coming to their relief. The most pathetic part of the story is this. Surma, the Patriarch's sister, with Esther, her sister-in-law, and three small children, went down to Chumbar in Tyari in June last for safety. With the approach of tile Turkish Army they soon had to flee to Dadush, and from there to the great Church of Mar Audishu, in the Tal country. They always had to travel on foot with just the clothes they could carry. ‘Oftentimes,’ Surma writes, 'we were hungry, and the little children, who were with us, would fall asleep on the road, as we always had to travel at night.' Surma spent three months in Mar Audishu, expecting to leave at any moment, when the enemy drew near. During that time there was food but almost no water, and none at all could be spared for washing or bathing. Occasionally they walked to a stream to bathe and wash their clothes.

The last day of their stay there was the saddest of all. On that day their brother Ishaya'died of fever. Mar Shimun, hearing of his illness, ha come over the day before. The enemy was then very near, and they could hear the sound of the guns in Tkhuma. Just when the funeral of their brother was to take place, Surma, Rome, and Esther with her children were compelled to: leave the place, lest they should be caught by the enemy. Mar Shimun, two priests, and a few laymen remained behind at this time danger to bury their brother. The burial service was quickly said, and the body hastily interred, and Mar Shimun hastened after the fugitive women and children. They were only just in time, for a few hours after their departure, the Turks arrived and made straight for the church, having heard that the Patriarch's household was there. When writing to us on October 6th, Mar Shimun says he is in a village in Salmas, Persia, with his sisters and one or two members of his filmily. At the present moment there are 'with him 35,000 Syrians camped out in the plain of Salmas (4000 feet above sea-level), sleeping in the fields with no clothes to cover them at night, clad in the rags which they have worn for many months, without food or shelter. The British Consul has telegraphed to England to that unless these people are helped by charitable folk at home, two-thirds of them 'will die; No Christian nation has ever.suffered for their religion as these people; and none has so great a claim on us as this unhappy Syrian remnant.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's appeal in The Times of November 10th has brought a good response, but much more money is needed.
The pathetic accounts of the condition of the people in the field of the Archbishop's Mission constitute an overwhelming appeal to all Christians, especially to those who, like ourselves in England, are entirely free from the horrors of war in our midst. A fund has been opened for the assistance of the starving Christians of Kurdistan, and we earnestly beg for a generous response. Cheques may be sent either to Mr. F. W. Pittman, Church House, Westminster, or to the Rev. F. N. Heazell, The Rectory, Letchworth.

The Treasurer in the United States is Woodbury G. Langdon, Esq., Le Chalet, 151 Madison Avenue, Morristown, N.J.

Massacres

HISTORIA DEL PRIMER GENOCIDIO MODERNO El Imperio Otomano, los sirios y los armenios (1914-1918)

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:47:33 -0400

HISTORIA DEL PRIMER GENOCIDIO MODERNO
El Imperio Otomano, los sirios y los armenios (1914-1918)

SyriacStudies
www.syriacstudies.com

HISTORIA DEL PRIMER GENOCIDIO MODERNO
El Imperio Otomano, los sirios y los armenios (1914-1918)

© The American Foundation of Syriac Studies
Titulo original: The Syrian-Armenian Tragedy (1914-1918)

Todos los derechos reservados, incluidos el derecho de reproducir este libro o partes de él por cualquier medio, incluidos la reprografía y el tratamiento informático, sin permiso previo de la Fundación.

Impreso en Estados Unidos de América
Traducción y notas de Daniel Santacruz

INTRODUCCIÓN
Doctor Admer Gouryh

Ningún campo del conocimiento ha sido tan importante e indispensable como la historia, y probablemente ningún otro ha sido tan controvertido como ésta. La importancia de la historia radica en que nosotros, como seres históricos, creemos firmemente que hay una intrincada relación dialéctica entre el pasado y el presente, y cuánto mejor comprendamos el pasado —con todos sus altibajos— mejor preparados estamos para entender las complejidades del presente y así cerciorarnos de que el futuro sea estable. En otras palabras, aunque somos el resultado de la historia, consciente o inconscientemente hacemos todo lo posible por determinar el curso de ella. Sin embargo, la controversia que rodea a la historia radica en el acto de escribirla, el cual con frecuencia es manipulado, ya por la clase dominante o ya por el estado. Y este último puede modificar o distorsionar hechos históricos con el fin de proteger sus intereses o legitimar su dominio.
Ciertamente, el valor de la historia radica no solamente en el registro objetivo de eventos pasados —aunque esto tiene su importancia también—, sino que consiste mayormente en establecer puentes entre las generaciones presentes y sus antepasados, y entre el estado de ánimo existente y el de grupos que existieron en el pasado. Ese conocimiento del pasado arrojará luz sobre el presente y dejará ver si nuestra forma de pensar actual y nuestras actitudes han cambiado o han permanecido atadas a la misma vieja mentalidad. De ahí que nuestra reacción a los hechos históricos, así sean negativos o positivos, se base en cómo fue percibido o interpretado el pasado. Cuando nosotros, los que vivimos en el presente, nos preocupamos por las generaciones futuras, necesitamos tener un conocimiento objetivo e integral del pasado para que, por un lado, podamos liberarnos de mitos destructivos que probablemente —y sin que estos lo quisieran— ataron a algunos grupos del pasado y por el otro podamos preservar y atesorar sus enriquecedores ideales. Si no hacemos frente a nuestra historia pasada y a nuestra herencia de forma crítica, tal vez terminemos idolatrando ideologías políticas, raciales o religiosas engañosas que pueden desencadenar intolerancia, racismo, discriminación y genocidio en el presente o en el futuro.
Nuestro interés en examinar el pasado no es el resultado de un encaprichamiento con éste como tal o una mera exaltación de audaces hazañas pasadas. Surge, más bien, de nuestra experiencia actual de que la historia humana ha sido testigo de atrocidades cometidas contra minorías étnicas y religiosas, y existe siempre la creciente preocupación de que actos tan viles y destructivos como esos puedan repetirse en el futuro. Esa preocupación por la seguridad de las minorías es legítima y debe tenerse en cuenta porque todavía vivimos en un mundo infectado por divisiones sociales, prejuicio, discriminación, racismo e intolerancia. La masiva exterminación de miles de inocentes musulmanes en Bosnia (1) a manos de cristianos serbios es un claro ejemplo de que el racismo y el odio religioso todavía prevalecen en algunas partes del mundo.
Por fortuna, el exterminio de esos musulmanes recibió un inmenso cubrimiento periodístico en el mundo entero, el cual mostró compasión con su causa y se apresuró a poner fin a las atrocidades cometidas contra ellos. Sin embargo, los medios de prensa de Estados Unidos están todavía ajenos a cómo más de un millón de armenios y no menos de 250.000 cristianos sirios fueron masacrados por fuerzas otomanas y mercenarios en 1915. Esos medios han prácticamente dejado a su público en la oscuridad. Incluso los estadounidenses mejor educados desconocen cómo, cuándo y dónde ocurrió la masacre.
Turquía, los Balcanes, el mundo árabe y Occidente estaban gestándose cuando sucedió esa tragedia. Algunos países europeos buscaban nuevos aliados entre pueblos subdesarrollados y colonizados que estaban dispuestos a cooperar, incluso a colaborar, con Occidente contra el Imperio Otomano (2) y sus aliados. Tales sucesos, que fueron políticos y estratégicos, coincidieron también con el auge del nacionalismo, el cual movilizó rápidamente no sólo a los armenios contra la ocupación otomana, sino también a los árabes, a las naciones de los Balcanes y a los griegos. Por lo tanto, la prioridad de árabes, griegos, armenios y otras naciones oprimidas fue independizarse del Imperio Otomano, ya fuera por medios políticos pacíficos o militares.
Es obvio que el imperio se enfrentaba a fuerzas que lo desafiaban por dentro y por fuera, y tenía que responder a ellas de una forma u otra. Era de esperar que el ejército turco sofocara la revuelta armenia. Sin embargo, después de destruir la estructura política y militar de los armenios y desarmar a la toda la comunidad, las autoridades turcas no tuvieron razón alguna para usar su ejército y azuzar a la población para aniquilar a más de medio millón de armenios, la mayoría de los cuales eran gente pacífica, sin ningún interés en política.
Si se quiere entender la “ cuestión armenia “ seriamente, hay que tener en cuenta no sólo los temores nacionales y políticos del establecimiento turco, sino también la ideología subyacente del sistema turco de entonces. La razón para hacer énfasis en el papel destructivo de esa ideología radica en que la mayoría de los armenios no fueron masacrados por el ejército turco sino por ciudadanos turcos, lo cual es una clara indicación de que quienes cometieron crímenes tan brutales ya habían sido indoctrinados con etnocentrismo, prejuicio e intolerancia. Y una vez la población adopta una ideología etnocéntrica tiende a idealizarse a ella misma y a idealizar esa ideología, y quienes no son parte de su grupo étnico son estereotipados, o sea, son despojados de sus valores humanos, y considerados inferiores, corrompidos y pertenecientes a una raza maléfica. Mostrar a otros como una amenaza justificaría su destrucción. Según la ideología etnocéntrica del sistema turco, los armenios eran “ los otros ”, porque étnicamente no eran turcos ni musulmanes. Así pues, para los turcos intolerantes de esa época, su eliminación era legítima y justificada para que la sociedad turca se mantuviera etnocéntrica.
Los turcos de las décadas de 1910 y 1920 hicieron creer deliberadamente que el pueblo armenio era su principal rival, cuyo objetivo era dividir la tierra turca y socavar su soberanía para azuzar a los armenios contra otros grupos étnicos. Los turcos dijeron que la guerra contra los armenios tenía justificaciones políticas y nacionales. Sin embargo, nunca explicaron sus razones para matar a no menos de 250.000 pacíficos sirios cristianos, que habían vivido en suelo turco por casi dos mil años sin atentar contra el interés nacional o la integridad de Turquía. Es más, se consideraban ciudadanos turcos. Se conocían principalmente por ser una secta cristiana y sus instituciones —iglesias y academias— eran de naturaleza religiosa y educativa.
Durante la era bizantina los cristianos sirios se dedicaron a estudiar las ciencias y filosofía griegas, y durante las invasiones árabes a Siria, Irak y partes de Asia Menor no sólo se ocuparon de esas disciplinas sino que hicieron invaluables contribuciones al desarrollo de la filosofía árabe islámica. Impresionado por el constructivo papel que jugaron para educar a los musulmanes árabes en el siglo XVIII, Ahmed Amen, destacado historiador egipcio, llamó a los cristianos sirios “mentores de los árabes”.
Los académicos occidentales, estadounidenses y del Medio Oriente no le han dado la importancia que merece a la masacre de los cristianos sirios en Turquía. Incluso los escritores armenios, que están bien enterados del exterminio de estos, se muestran reacios a veces a mencionar las atrocidades. El genocidio de 1915 parece haberse vuelto un monopolio armenio, en vez de ser un problema humano.
Creemos que la brutal masacre de aquellos merece ser tratada y examinada detenidamente por sirios, armenios, estadounidenses, occidentales, árabes y turcos sin importar su raza y religión. Primero que todo, la exterminación de esa comunidad, que hablaba siriaco (3), es esencialmente un problema humano. A los sirios que les interese en examinar más de fondo el problema deben dejar de lado sus sentimientos nacionales, políticos y religiosos y ver la masacre desde una perspectiva puramente humana.
El presente estudio intenta investigar el contexto histórico, nacional y político de las relaciones turcas y armenias de comienzos del siglo XX. También tiene por objetivo examinar algunos importantes factores históricos que condujeron a la tensión que causó las hostilidades entre turcos y armenios, y que culminaron luego en la inconcebible masacre, o saferbalik (4). Aunque el autor de este estudio se ha basado en documentos históricos —algunos de autores occidentales, otros de académicos turcos y armenios— no ha agregado interpretaciones ni comentarios personales con el fin de que los lectores tengan fácil acceso a algunos hechos de los cuales pueden deducir cuáles fueron los factores negativos que existieron antes de 1915 que causaron y justificaron posteriormente la exterminación en masa de armenios inocentes y de un pueblo de lengua siriaca.

_________________
(1) Entre 1992 y 1995. (N. del T.)
(1) El Imperio Otomano existió entre 1299 y 1923 y, en su apogeo, abarcó gran parte del sur de Europa, Asia occidental y Norte de Africa. Con Constantinopla como capital, el imperio lo formaron 29 provincias y numerosos estados vasallos. Dejó de existir como tal el 24 de julio de 1923 y fue reemplazado por la República de Turquía. (N. del T.)
(1) Idioma perteneciente a las lenguas semíticas. Dialecto del arameo, fue un lenguaje litúrgico y en el que se escribieron importantes obras cristianas entre los siglos III y XVII d.C. Antes de que el árabe ser convirtiera en el lenguaje dominante, el siriaco era el predominante entre los cristianos del Medio Oriente, Asia Central y el sur de India. Hoy se habla en pueblos de Siria, Turquía, Irán, Irak y Azerbaiyán. Existen comunidades de lengua siriaca en otras regiones del Medio Oriente, Europa, Australia, y Norte y Sudamérica. (N. del T.)
(4) Palabra turca que significa genocidio. Con ella se describen las masacres de las que se habla en este estudio. (N. del T.)

EL GENOCIDIO

Hanna Issa Touma

Las masacres que ocurrieron entre 1894 y 1896, en las cuales murieron unas 200.000 personas, fueron el primer contacto real que la mayoría de cronistas cristianos tuvieron con la brutalidad otomana y prácticamente una preparación para el verdadero genocidio, que se inició en 1915. Los cronistas no dejaron de responder al horror y tanto testigos como diplomáticos, corresponsales y humanitarios de muchas nacionalidades abordaron el tema en cientos de artículos y libros.
Luego, en 1909, ocurrió otra masacre, esta vez en Adana, al sur de Turquía, en la cual murieron aproximadamente 30.000 personas, pero la reacción que se expresó en las crónicas fue, nuevamente, un despliegue de tristeza y problemas. No hubo una reacción política internacional, aunque los embajadores de varios países ya le habían informado de lo sucedido a los líderes de naciones occidentales. Las indefensas víctimas que quedaban todavía en Turquía no podían hacer nada, y los que huyeron tenían que hacer frente a los retos que se les presentaron en los países que les abrieron las puertas. Esto puede explicarse, en parte, por qué durante años la generación que se fue al exilio concentró sus energías en adaptarse a un nuevo entorno, a dedicarse al cuidado de los miembros de la familia que de alguna forma habían sobrevivido, y a organizar escuelas e iglesias para perpetuar, en lo que fuera posible, un legado cultural en ambientes diversos y frecuentemente ajenos.
Los líderes otomanos organizaron las deportaciones y las masacres de las poblaciones cristianas para deshacerse de la Cuestión Armenia y crear así un orden homogéneo. A través de muerte y destrucción eliminaron a la mayoría de los armenios del Imperio Otomano, incluso de las tierras que históricamente les eran suyas, y alteraron radicalmente el carácter racial y religioso de la región.
Nuestro objetivo aquí es examinar tres preguntas: ¿Qué sucedió? ¿Por qué sucedió? y ¿Qué lecciones ha dejado el caso armenio que se puedan aplicar a casos similares? Muchos historiadores argumentan que la razón del genocidio fue a causa de la provocación de los armenios. Otros sugieren que las razones se hallan en el contexto de las relaciones entre armenios y turcos, y en los motivos del Comité de Unión y Progreso (CUP), el partido político dominante en esa época. Si había una condición necesaria para el genocidio, puede haberse debido a los desastres militares y políticos que ocurrieron entre 1908 y 1915, que aislaron a los armenios y alentaron el nacionalismo turco.
Fue este nuevo nacionalismo que no sólo transformó la identidad turca sino que también cambió la imagen de los armenios de millet (1) leal a minoría amenazadora y foránea. En ese sentido se puede decir que el desastre y la ideología separaron a los armenios de los turcos y facilitó su exterminación.
Muchos de los académicos que se han ocupado de estudiar a los Jóvenes Turcos y al CUP, que encabezaron la revolución de 1908 contra el sultán Abdul-Hamid II y que gobernaron a Turquía de ese año a 1918, estarían de acuerdo que el régimen de los Jóvenes Turcos, especialmente en sus fases finales, fue un desastre absoluto para los armenios y los cristianos sirios. Es de destacar que el CUP, dirigido por Talaat Pasha, Ministro del Interior, y Enver Pasha, Ministro de Guerra, fue responsable por las deportaciones que llevaron al genocidio de 1915.
Las matanzas empezaron ese año. Las primeras medidas que se tomaron contra los armenios y otros cristianos se iniciaron con la deportación de toda la población de las provincias de Oriente al desierto sirio y a Alepo, en Siria. Sin embargo, el destino de los sirios se hizo aparente en febrero de ese año cuando las tropas armenias que servían junto a las fuerzas otomanas fueron despojadas de las armas, desmovilizadas y asignadas a cuadrillas de trabajo. A la misma vez, los civiles armenios y cristianos sirios fueron despojados de las armas y a cada comunidad se le pidió que entregara un número específico de éstas. La búsqueda de armas, sin embargo, fue una oportunidad para destruir el liderazgo. Cuando los líderes comunitarios no pudieron entregar el número requerido, fueron arrestados por ocultarlas. Pero cuando las entregaron, fueron arrestados por conspirar contra el gobierno.
Las deportaciones, coordinadas entre el Ministerio del Interior, institución a cargo de la población civil, y el Ministerio de Guerra, encargado de las cuadrillas de trabajo —ahora sin armas—, comenzaron el 8 de abril de 1915 en Zeitun, al sur de Turquía, y en otras poblaciones. Las cuadrillas fueron detenidas por el ejército y masacradas, y los civiles en capacidad de trabajar fueron asesinados y los demás deportados.
Han pasado muchos años después de la tragedia, pero aún queda por escribir un sumario detallado del genocidio. Una de las mejores fuentes en Occidente es todavía el historiador estadounidense Arnold Toynbee, que resumió así la situación:

En cierta fecha en un pueblo o en una aldea cualquiera . . . el pregonero del pueblo iba por las calles anunciando que todo hombre armenio debía presentarse de inmediato al Edificio de Gobierno. En algunos casos el anuncio era hecho por los mismos soldados o gendarmes que estaban matando a todo armenio que encontraban en la calle . . . pero generalmente una llamada al Edificio de Gobierno era el paso preliminar. Los hombres se presentaban en su ropa de trabajo . . . Al llegar eran arrojados en la prisión sin ninguna explicación, dejados ahí un día o dos, y luego sacados del pueblo en grupos, un hombre atado al otro, marchando en dirección al sur o al sureste. Se les decía que estaban iniciando un largo viaje a Mosul (2) o quizás a Bagdad (3) . . . Pero no tenían mucho tiempo para pensar en su situación porque se les hacía detener y se les masacraba en el primer paraje solitario del camino. Lo mismo se hacía con los otros hombres armenios que habían estado prisioneros durante los largos meses de invierno, acusados de conspirar o de esconder armas . . . De esto estaban a cargo las autoridades civiles . . .

Con la excepción de Bitlis, Mush y Sassun (4), donde toda la población fue seleccionada por el ejército para ser exterminada, las mujeres, los niños y los hombres que habían sobrevivido en otros pueblos fueron deportados. Al pasar por pueblos y aldeas, las columnas de indefensos armenios y cristianos eran atacadas una y otra vez por asaltantes, pero más frecuentemente por turcos y kurdos. Los gendarmes del Ministerio del Interior, que estaban para proteger a los deportados, se unieron a la violencia, en vez de tratar de aplacarla. Fue un intento deliberado y sistemático para eliminar a la población cristiana del Imperio Otomano el cual, en cierta forma, cumplió su objetivo con algo de éxito.
Una masacre o un genocidio siempre dan lugar a una controversia sobre el número de víctimas. Los que niegan que tales hechos ocurrieron minimizan las cifras. Los que los afirman, las aumentan. Ciertamente, no se pueden citar cifras exactas. Si uno acepta las cifras del Patriarca Armenio como referencia, la población armenia de mediados del siglo XIX era de 2.5 millones. Toynbee, sin embargo, es más cauto y sugiere que el número es de unos 1.6 millones.
Toynbee estima que para 1915, 600.000 personas de esos 1.6 millones habían sido muertas. En 1916 solamente, 320.000 más cayeron víctimas. Esto deja un total de más de un millón, además de los que murieron de hambre, miseria y enfermedad. A eso hay que agregarle medio millón de cristianos que murieron en el genocidio. Aram Andonias escribe:

Tres grandes masacres tuvieron lugar después de 1916 . . . Hombres, mujeres y niños de Constantinopla (5) y los distritos cercanos a la línea del tren de Anatolia y Cilicia (6) fueron llevados al desierto, donde encontraron gente de las seis provincias armenias y de las riberas del Mar Negro. Este último grupo, sin embargo, consistía solamente de mujeres, y niños y niñas de siete años y menos, pues todos los varones de mayores de siete habían sido masacrados. Todos ellos fueron las víctimas de las tres masacres. La primera fue la de Res-ul-Ain, en la cual 70.000 personas murieron; la segunda fue en Intilli, donde había unas 50.000 personas, la mayoría de las cuales trabajaba en un túnel del ferrocarril a Bagdad; y la tercera, la más feroz de todas, fue en Der Zor (7), donde Zia Bey (8) masacró casi 200.000 . . . Las cifras sólo indican el número de gente que fue masacrada. Si le agregamos a esas cifras la cantidad de los que fueron víctimas de miseria, enfermedad y hambre, especialmente en Res-ul-Ain y Der Zor, el número de armenios que fueron muertos o murieron en el desierto excederá el millón.

Apenas la población cristiana fue físicamente desplazada, liquidada y reemplazada por turcos o armenios, todos sus símbolos culturales, como iglesias y nombres de lugares, fueron destruidos o desaparecidos. Era como si el CUP hubiera querido borrar incluso el recuerdo de la existencia de armenios y cristianos.
En la Turquía contemporánea, según dijo el autor y ensayista de origen armenio Michael Arlen, toda conexión con los armenios han sido borrada como si fuera un acto voluntario. Esto nos convence de que lo que se hizo contra los armenios y cristianos fue genocidio. La pregunta que debe hacerse es por qué.
Un número de historiadores está de acuerdo que la razón del genocidio armenio deriva de la provocación de los armenios, o sea de la intolerable amenaza que estos presentaban para Turquía y el CUP. Un argumento a favor de la provocación viene del historiador estadounidense Bernard Lewis. Dice éste del auge del nacionalismo armenio en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX:

Para los turcos, el armenio era la más mortal de las amenazas. Podían retirarse, aunque a regañadientes, de las tierras que conquistaron a serbios, búlgaros, albanos y griegos, y abandonar provincias distantes y reducir el [tamaño del] imperio. Pero los armenios, que habitaban en toda Turquía, desde la frontera del Cáucaso a la costa del Mediterráneo, vivían en el mismo corazón de la patria turca. Renunciar a esas tierras hubiera significado no solamente el truncamiento sino la disolución del estado turco. Poblados turcos y armenios, inextricablemente mezclados, habían vivido como buenos vecinos durante siglos. Una desesperada lucha entre ellos empezó ahora por la posesión de una patria única que terminó con el terrible holocausto de 1915, cuando perecieron un millón y medio de armenios.

Para Lewis, entonces, el genocidio parece ser un caso claro de dos nacionalidades en conflicto. Los armenios eran una minoría de religión cristiana que vivía tanto en Turquía como a lo largo de la frontera de ésta con Rusia. Como otras minorías del Imperio Otomano, se vieron atrapados en el nacionalismo, tan común en el siglo XIX y a comienzos del XX. De aquí que, como serbios, búlgaros, albanos y griegos, era de esperar que se separaran. Aunque la secesión de esas nacionalidades hubiera sido un golpe al poder y prestigio del imperio, la separación de Armenia hubiera marcado la desaparición de aquél, pues los armenios eran parte del alma de Turquía.
Lewis dice que las dos naciones, Armenia y Turquía, estaban trabadas en una lucha desesperada por la posesión de una sola patria. Claramente, si no se conoce mejor la situación, uno estaría bajo la impresión de que los armenios, como los turcos, estaban armados y eran poderosos. Pero la verdad es que los armenios no estaban unidos bajo un partido político y no contaban con un fuerza militar para conquistar a los turcos o para defenderse de ellos. El sentimiento nacionalista armenio era, en cierta forma, parecido al de los turcos. El nacionalismo turco no se había definido como lo definiría Mustafá Kemal (9), conocido después como Ataturk, pero si existía al estilo de Ziya Gokalp (10), de quienes se hablará más adelante.
¿Qué era el nacionalismo armenio? ¿Qué fronteras y poderes reclamaba para sí mismo? ¿Y en qué se diferenciaba del de otras nacionalidades, incluido el de los turcos, que habitaban en el tambaleante Imperio Otomano? Decir que el movimiento armenio era la más mortal de las amenazas es ser extremista. ¿Pero qué significa esto? ¿Significa que los turcos percibían a los armenios como una amenaza mortal o eran estos ciertamente una amenaza? Si se cree lo primero, entonces no habría discusión. Taalat y Enver, ministros del Interior y de Guerra, respectivamente, habían dicho que temían a los armenios por ser una amenaza a la integridad de Turquía. Dada la drástica situación de los Jóvenes Turcos, para quienes la secesión de minorías iba de la mano con derrota militar a gran escala, uno podría asumir que sus percepciones y juicios no eran claros. La pregunta es, sin embargo, si el temor de los Jóvenes Turcos a los armenios fue causado por las acciones y capacidades de estos o por otras razones, entre ellas la desesperada situación de aquel partido político y su nueva fe en el nacionalismo turco.
Dos partidos políticos armenios, el Hishnak y el Dashnak (11), tenían buenas relaciones con los Jóvenes Turcos, especialmente después de las masacres de 1894 a 1896 y, por lo tanto, pudieron haber representado una amenaza para el régimen del sultán Abdul-Hamid, como se vio antes. En cuanto al argumento de que eran una amenaza para los Jóvenes Turcos, en 1908, cuando ocurrió la revolución, ni la población armenia ni ninguno de los partidos armenios eran considerados como tal. Al contrario, los armenios se alegraron cuando el ejército y los comandantes del CUP triunfaron. La caída del sultán y la restauración de la Constitución de 1876 era todo lo que querían los armenios y sus partidos, principalmente el Dashak. Los largos años de participación activa en el ala liberal del movimiento de los Jóvenes Turcos habían dado fruto por fin. Lewis describe el entusiasmo de esa hora: La larga noche del despotismo de Hamid había terminado; la aurora de la libertad había llegado. La Constitución había sido proclamada otra vez y se había dispuesto tener elecciones. Los armenios y los turcos se abrazaron en las calles. Uno asume, pues, que en 1908 los armenios, en general, y los miembros del Dashnak, en particular, no eran una amenaza mortal para el Imperio Otomano. ¿Qué hizo, pues, que los armenios aparecieran como tal?
Aunque es discutible que el régimen deba ser culpado por las masacres ocurridas en Adana en 1909, se cree que unos 30.000 armenios murieron. Estas masacres, más la creciente dureza del CUP y la continua inseguridad de los campesinos armenios frente a los deportaciones de los kurdos, afectaron las relaciones entre los Jóvenes Turcos y los armenios. Como escribe Roderic H. Davison, un erudito en el tema:

La desilusión de los armenios tuvo su causa en las masacres de 1909, las llamadas “vísperas de Cilicia”, en la Baja Armenia, por las cuales los Jóvenes Turcos deben compartir gran parte de responsabilidad. Problemas duraderos vinieron con las deportaciones de los turcos en la Gran Armenia . . . Kurdos itinerantes, o muhajirs, se apropiaron de las tierras de muchos armenios que habían sido masacrados o que habían huido en 1895. Cuando algunos de los refugiados regresaron en 1908, los kurdos no devolvieron las tierras . . . A partir de 1909 el vice cónsul francés describió la situación como “una guerra real entre los dos pueblos”.

La respuesta de los armenios fue pedir más autonomía en asuntos internos y más protección del gobierno contra las deportaciones de los kurdos. Rusia tomó nota de la situación, la cual revivió la Cuestión Armenia en 1912. Puesto que en 1907 la Gran Bretaña y Rusia habían llegado a un acuerdo para resolver disputas coloniales, Rusia tuvo la tentación, nuevamente, de extender su influencia. Para ello encontró apoyo entre el liderazgo armenio en la Asamblea Nacional, la cual quería usar a Rusia como ventaja estratégica contra el CUP. En febrero de 1914 se llegó a un acuerdo entre los Poderes Centrales (12) y el CUP, el cual pedía el nombramiento de un Inspector General europeo en las provincias orientales para que supervisara las relaciones intercomunitarias.
Uno puede imaginar la humillación e ira que sintieron los nacionalistas turcos con la propuesta interferencia. Parece que para 1907, el Dashnak, el principal partido político armenio, que decía tener 165.000 miembros, no había apoyado el separatismo o la ocupación rusa. Según escribe Davison, para ellos el problema se trataba de un reforma en el Imperio Otomano. No creían que la ocupación rusa les traería más libertad. Por el contrario, agrega, creían que era imposible que Armenia se separara por completo, tanto etnográfica como geográficamente, de Turquía.
Algo en las acciones de la víctima hace que el victimario, o sea el que ha sido provocado, reaccione con violencia. Si los armenios se hubieran portado de forma diferente o hubieran actuado de manera menos amenazadora, el CUP no hubiera optado por el genocidio en 1915. Si hubiera habido menos comunistas, banqueros, tenderos, periodistas o mendigos judíos, no hubiera habido un Holocausto. No se puede sugerir que la víctima fue un chivo expiatorio cuyos motivos y acciones no jugaron un papel en la violencia. Son tanto el victimario y la víctima, y las relaciones entre los dos, que deben ser examinads para lograr una explicación completa.
Nos acercamos a la verdad de por qué los armenios fueron vistos como una amenaza mortal, lo cual llevó al genocidio, cuando nos alejamos de las intenciones y supuestas provocaciones de las víctimas y examinamos, por un lado, el contexto de las relaciones entre armenios y turcos, y por el otro, las experiencias y el punto de vista de los victimarios. Tanto el contexto de las relaciones y los puntos de vista del CPU se vieron alterados drásticamente cuando, entre 1908 y 1915, los Jóvenes Turcos no pudieron tolerar más derrota en batallas o la secesión de minorías. El repliegue del imperio de Europa a Anatolia (13) no fue menos que un desastre militar y político para los turcos, pero tuvo consecuencias para los armenios. No solamente el repliegue aisló a esta minoría, sino que más serias produjo un cambio crucial que fue del pluralismo otomano a un estrecho nacionalismo turco en la perspectiva ideológica y la visión del mundo del partido dominante. Estas dos consecuencias dieron lugar a la creencia de que los armenios eran una amenaza mortal para la cual una respuesta mortífera se consideraba apropiada.
La pérdida de las provincias europeas destruyeron el carácter multinacional y multirreligioso del Imperio Otomano. El desastre empezó el 5 de octubre de 1908, unos tres meses después de la revolución de los Jóvenes Turcos, cuando Bulgaria proclamó su independencia, y al día siguiente, el 6, Austria anexó Bosnia y Herzegovina, la cual había ocupado desde 1878. En 1911, los italianos capturaron Libia y al año siguiente los estados de los Balcanes dejaron a Turquía fuera de Europa.
Para 1911 los turcos habían perdido unos 424.000 kilómetros cuadrados, de una área de aproximadamente 1’855.570 kilómetros cuadrados, y 5 millones de habitantes, de una población de unos 24 millones. Para 1913, Talaat y Enver ya estaban en el poder y el gobierno otomano había perdido el territorio que tenía en suelo europeo, excepto por una franja para proteger los estrechos de Estanbul.
Los griegos, y luego los cristianos de los Balcanes, se habían separado, lo que hizo que los armenios quedaran como una de las grandes minorías cristianas todavía bajo dominio otomano. Pero los armenios no eran cualquier minoría. Durante el siglo XIX pasaron por un desarrollo social, económico y político que se calificó de “renacimiento”. Se ha especulado que este desarrollo fue el factor que contribuyó a las masacres de 1894 a 1896, ocurridas bajo el régimen del sultán Abdul-Hamid.
Nuestra hipótesis es que el régimen del sultán cometió o toleró las masacres no para exterminar a los armenios sino para darles una lección, para que permanecieran en el lugar que les correspondía en el millet, para obstaculizar su renacimiento y para restaurar el antiguo orden. El arribo de los Jóvenes Turcos, con su énfasis en renovación y modernización, se mostraba como una oportunidad para los armenios, y estos pusieron sus energías en el nuevo régimen. Trágicamente, sin embargo, para 1912, a medida que el nuevo régimen se hizo menos tolerante y más nacionalista, la aptitud de los armenios para la modernización debió hacerlos aparecer como una amenaza para el CUP.
En resumen, la desastrosa pérdida de territorio y población que el imperio sufrió entre 1908 y 1912 aisló a los armenios e hizo que fueran más prominentes y se hicieran más visibles de lo que deseaban. Su continua movilidad social fue un reto a la supremacía turca y musulmana, aunque eso no fue todo.
Debe tenerse en cuenta que después de los desastres turcos, la mayoría de la población armenia no habitaba en cualquier parte de las regiones otomanas. Muchos de los campesinos armenios vivían al oriente de Anatolia, una región considerada el corazón de Turquía, colindante con Rusia, el enemigo tradicional de Turquía. Una población considerable de armenios vivia al otro lado de la frontera rusa. Estas circunstancias arrojan una preocupante mirada en dirección a los armenios.
Como dijo Lewis, los Jóvenes Turcos, en parte en respuesta a la crisis se vivió de 1908 a 1912, experimentaron y contribuyeron a engendrar un cambio en identidad e ideología que vino a reemplazar el otomanismo con el nacionalismo.
Así pues, hace notar al comienzo de su magistral libro:

Los turcos son un pueblo que habla turco y vive en Turquía. A primera vista, esto no parece ser algo de gran originalidad, ni de ningún contenido revolucionario. Sin embargo, la presentación y propagación de esta idea en Turquía, y su consiguiente aceptación por el pueblo turco como expresión de su identidad y estadidad, ha sido una de las mayores revoluciones de la era moderna, la cual ha implicado un rompimiento radical con las tradiciones sociales, culturales y políticas del pasado.

El argumento de Lewis aquí es que los herederos del Imperio Otomano —los Jóvenes Otomanos, los Jóvenes Trucos y el mismo Mustafá Kemal— tuvieron que presidir sobre una gran revolución no sólo de percepción e identidad sino política para crear una Turquía moderna. El genocidio de los armenios, el primero de la era moderna, fue un producto de esta revolución nacionalista y, a la misma vez, un paso en su desarrollo.
Para entender el nacionalismo turco y cómo pudo haber contribuido a gestar el genocidio, necesitamos verlo en contraste con dos tendencias que competían con él a la misma vez y que no germinaron: el otomanismo y el panislamismo. Durante el Tanzimat, el período de reforma del siglo XIX, la ideología dominante fue el otomanismo, cuyas doctrinas fueron plasmadas en la reforma constitucional de Midhat Pasha. El otomanismo aspiraba a mantener la integridad del imperio al permitirle más autonomía a los millets minoritarios y al incorporar ciertas reformas liberales y derechos para beneficio de todos los otomanos, sin importar su religión u origen nacional. Debe recordarse que bajo el sultán Abdul-Hamid el otomanismo tuvo que pasar a la clandestinidad, donde encontró apoyo entre minorías como los dashnaks armenios y el ala liberal del movimiento de los Jóvenes Turcos, que lideraba el sultán Sabahaddin.
El sultán había fracasado ya en su intento de preservar el imperio al apelar el panislamismo. Después de 1908, sin embargo, el panislamismo volvió a ponerse en boga, pero con la exitosa revuelta y la secesión de las nacionalidades musulmanas, especialmente en Albania y Macedonia, la esperanza de que el islam pudiera servir de base para una unidad imperial sufrió un serio revés. El golpe final al panislamismo, como dice Davison, fue la actitud de los árabes en el imperio. Cuando estos, que estaban del lado de la Gran Bretaña, empezaron a atacar a los goberantes turcos, se hizo claro que la unidad árabe era apenas un espejismo y que el panislamismo no tenía ningún valor como doctrina política. Los Jóvenes Turcos abandonaron el otomanismo y el panislamismo en 1914 y gravitaron hacia el nacionalismo turco.
Aunque sería Mustafá Kemal quien finalmente estableció las fronteras del estado turco, definiendo así el ámbito territorial y social del nacionalismo turco, esta doctrina, al principio, tomó la forma de ideología rebelde. Fue ésta una especie de panturquismo, llamado turanismo, que creía que todas las personas de habla turca tienen una cultura común y que deben unirse bajo una entidad política. Puesto que había gentes de habla turca en el Cáucaso ruso, Asia Central y Crimea, el turanismo, en teoría, aspiraba a convertirse en el Imperio Otomano, pero sin los molestos problemas que creaban las minorías que habitaban en él. En la práctica, el turanismo tenía pocas posibilidades de éxito, aunque su principal logro fue inculcarles a los turcos otomanos el orgullo de ser turcos. Por otro lado, sin embargo, quería hacerles ver a minorías como los armenios que tenían poco derecho a existir en una nueva entidad política.
Para ilustrar cómo el nacionalismo vino a ser usado en el contexto turco, sería constructivo citar a Gokalp. Uri Heyed, su biógrafo, observó que Gokalp esbozó en sus obras los cimientos de un estado nacional y moderno, que sería establecido después por Mustafá Kemal. Además de su influencia intelectual sobre Talaat y Enver, Gokalp fue miembro del Consejo Central y nombrado —cuando el CUP asumió el poder— para que investigara las condiciones de las minorías, especialmente los armenios. Heyed dice que una parte considerable de las ideas de Gokalp fueron aceptadas por el partido y puestas en práctica por el gobierno durante la Primera Guerra Mundial. En 1919, cuando las fuerzas aliadas entraron a Constantinopla, fue arrestado con otros miembros del CUP. Al ser llevado a juicio por su participación en el genocidio:

Gokalp negó que hubo masacres y explicó que los armenios habían sido muertos en una guerra entre ellos y los turcos, a quienes traicionado. No dudó para admitir, sin embargo, que había aprobado la expulsión de los armenios. El Tribunal Militar lo sentenció al exilio, junto con sus amigos.

En su análisis del pensamiento de Gokalp, Heyed dice que la República Turca trató de hacer realidad el ideal del pensador de una nación turca y homogénea. La mayoría de la población griega fue canjeada por turcos, y la mayoría de los armenios se fueron gradualmente de Turquía.
El nacionalismo turco reflejaba un paralelo con la doctrina de un nacionalismo integral, enunciada en Europa por figuras como Fichte y Herder. Según esa doctrina, las unidades primarias de acción histórica y política no son fuerzas sociales y económicas, como las clases, ni tampoco dinastías o personajes heroico, sino naciones que tienen sus orígenes en un tenue pero glorioso pasado. O sea, en una época de oro.
Por su parte, Gokalp vio en el pasado turco, no en el pasado otomano, una época de oro que antecedía a los orígenes del islam. Se jactaba de las hazañas militares de conquistadores turcos como Atila, Gengis Khan y Timur Babur. Comparó la era en que estos vivieron con la debilidad del presente. Hizo énfasis en las afinidades nacionales entre turcos y pueblos como los escitas (14), los sumerios (15) y los hititas (16), entre quienes encontró las mismas cualidades morales que distinguían a los turcos de otros pueblos: hospitalidad, modestia, lealtad, coraje y rectitud. Digna de mencionarse fue la actitud de los turcos hacia los pueblos dominados por estos. Aunque el amor de los turcos por su propio pueblo fue fuerte, no oprimieron a otras naciones. Agregó, sin embargo, que la espada del turco, así como su pluma, ha regocijado a los árabes, los chinos y los persas. El turco ha creado historia y un hogar para cada pueblo. Se engañó por el beneficio de otros. En un poema, Gokalp escribió:

Tuvimos éxito en conquistar muchos lugares, pero espiritualmente fuimos conquistados en todos ellos.

De acuerdo con Heyed, Gokalp definió a una nación como:

. . . una sociedad de gentes que hablan el mismo lenguaje, han tenido la misma educación, y están unidos por su ideal religioso, moral y estético. En resumen, tienen una cultura y religión comunes.

A primera vista esta definición es claramente inocua pero, en el contexto del pluralismo otomano —y teniendo como base religión, historia y ascendiente— excluye a los armenios y a otras minorías de la nueva entidad turca. Los griegos, los armenios, los sirios y los judíos que vivían en Turquía eran turcos de ciudadanía, pero no de nacionalidad. Seguían siendo un cuerpo extraño en el estado nacional turco.
Para Gokalp, la nación no es solamente una teoría analítica, sino un principio básico de acción moral. Como observa Heyed, según Gokalp, si se reemplaza la creencia en Dios por la creencia en nación, el nacionalismo se ha convertido en religión. Dicho en forma sencilla, el bien sin límite es el bien de la nación y, por lo tanto, todo está permitido.
Dada la identificación de Gokalp con el bien de la nación y la exclusión de los armenios de ella, se desprende entonces que él excluyó a los armenios de sus inquietudes morales. Es de destacar que esta clase de nacionalismo era bastante diferente al otomanismo, el cual no solamente les dio a las minorías un lugar en el imperio, sino que también definió ciertas responsabilidades morales y políticas que debían tener las clases gobernantes hacia ellas y todos los millets. Desde la novedosa perspectiva del nacionalismo, armenios, sirios y griegos vinieron a ser considerados como extraños. En este sentido puede decirse que los enunciados de Gokalp contribuyeron a la separación de los turcos de los armenios y de otras minorías, y prepararon el terreno para su destrucción.
En el momento más crítico de las deportaciones y las matanzas, el embajador estadounidense Henry J. Morgenthau le preguntó a Talaat por qué, supuestamente, los armenios que habían sido desleales no podían ser separados de los que habían sido leales. Talaat contestó: “Nos han reprochado por no distinguir entre el inocente y el culpable, pero eso fue totalmente imposible dado que los que fueron inocentes pueden ser culpables mañana”.
Morgenthau revela la actitud de Talaat en un fragmento aun más aterrador:

Un día Talaat hizo la petición más asombrosa que he oído. Por muchos años [las compañías aseguradoras] New York Life Insurance Company y Equitable Life of New York habían tenido clientes armenios. Talaat dijo: “Me gustaría que usted hiciera que las compañías aseguradoras americanas nos envíen una lista completa de los armenios que tienen pólizas de seguro. Prácticamente todos ya están muertos y no han dejados herederos para que cobren el dinero. Todo, por supuesto, va a Estados Unidos. El gobierno [turco] es el beneficiario ahora. ¿Puede hacerlo?”

El embajador se negó. El cambio fue sorprendente. Del tradicional concepto que tenían los musulmanes y los otomanos de los armenios como “pueblo del libro” —el millet que había jugado un papel vital incluso bajo el sultán Abdul-Hamid y el más leal—, se pasó al de Talaat, según el cual aquellos se habían convertido en un ente foráneo cuya única función, aun en la muerte, era explotarlos por su dinero.
La observación de Lewis de que los turcos eran un pueblo que habla turco y vive en Turquía tuvo profundas consecuencias para los que no eran turcos, especialmente, los armenios, pues ahora estos podían considerarse turcos también. La transformación de identidad en el grupo mayoritario implica un cambio en cómo éste considera a las minorías. Una vez los turcos se convierten en turcos, los nacionalistas como Gokalp, Talaat y Enver vieron a los armenios bajo un nuevo prisma, no como un millet antiguo, sino como extraños que no debían vivir entre ellos. Además, esos extraños eran considerados parte de un peligroso contexto: eran la última de las minorías cristianas que todavía permanecían dentro de las nuevas y preciosas fronteras. Había habido un despertar nacionalista entre los armenios, y en medio de la guerra se dijo que simpatizaban con el lado ruso. En 1896, el Dashnak confiscó el Banco Central de Turquía y en 1905 sus miembros trataron de matar a Abdul-Hamid. Con razón se consideraban a los armenios una amenaza mortal.
El genocidio de los armenios y otros cristianos, sin embargo, no puede ser visto como una reacción a la provocación armenia, sino como una respuesta a los drásticos cambios que se llevaron a cabo en el Imperio Otomano a finales del siglo XIX y al auge de la revolución nacional turca. Como muchos historiadores han observado, ésta tuvo éxito al crear una nueva Turquía, pero en su paso estuvo a punto de destruir a los armenios y a otros cristianos.

Genocide/Statement & Description

Issue #7

_____________________
(1) Millet es una palabra árabe que se refiere a las cortes que requerían minorías del Imperio Otomano, como cristianos y judíos, para manejar sus asuntos comunitarios de acuerdo a sus leyes religiosas. Se usó, también, para referirse a grupos religiosos minoritarios protegidos legalmente. (N. del T.)

(1) Ciudad al norte de Irak, sobre el río Tigris. (N. del T.)

(1) Capital de Irak. (N. del T.)

(1) Provincias al oriente de Turquía. (N. del T.)

(1) La ciudad, sobre el Mar de Marmara, se conoce como Estanbul desde 1930. (N. del T.)

(1) Al sur de Turquía. (N. del T.)

(1) Al norte de Siria. (N. del T.)

(1) Jefe de espías del sultán Abdul-Hamid. También se cree que fue director de la policía secreta turca. (N. del T.)

(1) Fundador de la República de Turquía. (N. del T.)

(1) Sociólogo, escritor, activista político y poeta nacido en 1876 y muerto en 1924. Su verdadero nombre era Mehmed Ziya. Adoptó su nombre de pluma, Gokalp (“héroe del cielo”), en 1908. Escribió varias obras de poesía, e historia y civilización turcas. (N. del T.)

(1) Hishnak son las siglas del Partido Democrático de Armenia. Dashnak son las siglas del Partido Revolucionario de Armenia. (N. del T.)

(1) Los Poderes Centrales fueron Alemania, Bulgaria, el Imperio Otomano y Austria-Hungría. (N. del T.)

(1) Término geográfico e histórico que designa la parte de Asia más cercana a Europa y que comprende la mayoría de la República de Turquía. La limitan el Mar Negro por el norte; Georgia por el nororiente; el Mediterráneo por el sur; y el Mar Egeo por el occidente. La región era conocida como Asia Menor en latín y como Mikrá Asia en griego. Su nombre turco es Anadolu. (N. del T.)

(1) Habitantes de Escitia, una antigua región que se extendió de la desembocadura del río Danubio, en el Mar Negro, hasta la frontera con China. Los escitios, que florecieron del siglo XVIII al IV a.C., fueron nómadas y diestros jinetes. Su idioma es el escitio, y se cree que se originaron al oriente de Siberia y luego se desplazaron hacia el sur de Rusia. (N. del.)

(1) Un pueblo no semita que habitó Sumeria, una región al sur de Mesopotamia en lo que es el actual Irak. Los sumerios existieron, aproximadamente, emtre el año 3500 a.C y el 2000 a.C. Fundaron ciudades-estados, de la cual la más famosa es Ur, y fueron conocidos por su cultura, arte y artesanías. (N. del T.)

(1) Un pueblo no semita que estableció un reino al norte de Anatolia a partir del siglo XVIII a.C. En su apogeo, en el sigo XIV, el reino se extendió hacia el sur de Siria, Palestina y la Alta Mesopotamia. Fueron una de las siete naciones que vivieron en Canaan en época de Moisés. Sus orígenes están rodeados de misterio. (N. del T.)

* * *

Apéndice

Armenia en la historia

Armenia fue una de las primeras civilizaciones en el mundo. Algunos especialistas consideran que Armenia es una de las primeras regiones donde se fundieron hierro y bronce, y donde se cree también que se cultivaron por primera vez cereales como centeno. Durante la mayoría de su historia estuvo bajo control, u ocupada, por fuerzas asirias, persas, romanas, mongoles, otomanas y rusas. Existieron estados independientes armenios por cortos períodos de tiempo, de los cuales el más grande —bajo control del rey armenio Tigranes el Grande— se extendió del Mar Caspio al Mediterráneo y partes de lo que es hoy Siria. Perdió su independencia con la invasión de los romanos en el año 69 a.C.
En varias épocas de su historia Armenia fue tratada severamente por los poderes extranjeros que la tenían sometida. La invasión de turcos nómadas de la dinastía selkuj en el siglo XI tuvo como consecuencia la primera emigración de armenios en gran escala. Otros períodos de emigración siguieron, especialmente durante el siglo XIX, cuando aquellos fueron perseguidos por gobernantes rusos y otomanos por exigir reformas políticas. Entre 1894 y 1896, cientos de miles de armenios fueron masacrados por fuerzas turcas. El gobierno ruso, aunque no tan represivo como el de los Jóvenes Turcos (1908-1918), clausuró escuelas armenias y ordenó la confiscación de propiedades de la Iglesia armenia. Una masacre de mayores proporciones ocurrió en el siglo XX, cuando el gobierno de los Jóvenes Turcos quiso trasladar a los armenios a Mesopotamia. Se estima que entre 1915 y 1923 más de un millón murió a consecuencia de esas medidas.
Armenia se declaró estado independiente en 1918, después del fracaso de la Federación Trascaucásica, que formó con Georgia y Azerbaiyán, la cual tuvo una corta existencia. En 1922, fue incorporada a la Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas (URSS) como parte de la República Socialista Soviética Transcaucásica y en 1936 se convirtió en una de las Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas.
A finales de la década de los ochenta el deseo de Armenia de independizarse se expresó en manifestaciones populares, a pesar de medio siglo de gobierno soviético. Los armenios aprovecharon la política de glasnost (1) del gobierno del presidente Mikhail Gorbachev para protestar públicamente por el estado del medio ambiente y exigir la anexión de Nagorno-Karabakh, un enclave armenio en Azerbaiyán (2). En 1988, un terremoto en Armenia mató unas 25.000 personas y dejó unas 400.000 sin hogar. Al año siguiente, el Soviet Supremo de Armenia declaró que Nagorno-Karabakh era parte de Armenia y proclamó la soberanía de la república sobre él. Los armenios votaron abrumadoramente el 21 de septiembre de 1991 para separarse de la URSS y dos días después el Parlamento armenio declaró la independencia de Armenia. En octubre, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, ex presidente del Supremo Soviet Armenio, se convirtió en el primer mandatario elegido popularmente al haber obtenido 80 por ciento de los votos. La nueva república se hizo miembro de las Naciones Unidas en 1992.
Las tensiones políticas aumentaron en el país en los primeros años de la independencia. Las dificultades surgidas después del terremoto de 1988, la guerra en Nagorno-Karabakh y el bloqueo económico que inició Azerbaiyán contra Armenia resultaron en una creciente oposición política al gobierno. El partido dominante, el Movimiento Nacional Armenio, que promueve un moderado programa de reforma económica y delimitación territorial, se vio retado por varios partidos políticos. El principal fue la Federación Armenia Revolucionaria (FAR), que ha existido durante más de cien años y que fue el partido dominante durante el breve período de independencia, que duró de 1918 a 1922. La FAR, que ejerce un gran dominio sobre las fuerzas militares armenias en Nagorno-Karabakh, rechaza las reformas económicas al mercado y aboga por un acercamiento con Rusia. El primer ministro Kosrov Arutyunyan fue forzado a renunciar en 1993 a causa de la presión política ejercida por la FAR y otros grupos de oposición. Un primer ministro interino, Hrant Bagratyan, fue nombrado en su lugar. También en 1993 las fuerzas armenias derrotaron al ejército azerbaiyani en varios enfrentamientos armados, que tuvieron como resultado que Armenia ganara control de Nagorno-Karabakh. Al año siguiente, Azarbaiyán inició una nueva ofensiva contra las fuerzas armenias allí, pero el número de víctimas y refugiados fueron mayores que los logros. Se acordaron varios ceses de fuego, algunos con Rusia actuando como intermediario, que fueron violados después. Mientras tanto, Armenia seguía siendo víctima de un embargo por parte de Azerbaiyán, a la vez que continuaba la escasez de electricidad, alimentos y combustible. En noviembre de 1994, el presidente Ter-Petrosyan anunció nuevas reformas para estabilizar la economía. Como respuesta a éstas, el Fondo Monetario Internacional aprobó el retiro de $25 millones de dólares en diciembre. Ese mes también, Ter-Petrosyan suspendió del Parlamento a la FAR, a la cual acusó de terrorismo, tráfico de drogas y asesinatos políticos.
A comienzo de 1995, Armenia controlaba 20 por ciento de territorio de Azerbaiyán. Fuerte presión para poner fin al conflicto vino de las compañías petroleras occidentales interesadas en construir un oleoducto del Mar Caspio a Turquía. El proyecto no podía iniciarse sin que se resolviera el conflicto en Nagorno-Karabakh, así pues, a mediados de 1996 la Organización de Seguridad y Cooperación en Europa (OSCE), con el apoyo de Estados Unidos, medió en la disputa. También a comienzo de 1995, el Parlamento empezó a trabajar en la ratificación de la nueva Constitución y en julio del mismo año, Armenia, como nación independiente, celebró las primeras elecciones legislativas y un referendo constitucional. Los ciudadanos emitieron dos votos: uno para elegir un diputado para uno de los 150 distritos electorales y el otro para votar por candidatos de listas de partido, de donde se eligieron 40 miembros adicionales. Los escaños parlamentarios se asignaron proporcionalmente a partidos que recibieron un mínimo de 5 por ciento del voto. El bloque republicano, del cual el Movimiento Nacional Armenio es el miembro más influyente, se llevó la mayoría de los escaños. La OSCE supervisó que las elecciones fueran limpias, pero fueron criticadas por los miembros de los partidos de oposición a los cuales se les negó participación en ellas. Después de las elecciones Ter-Petrosyan volvió a nombrar primer ministro a Hrant Bograytan.
La nueva Constitución fue aprobada por más de las dos terceras partes. Aunque los críticos decían que el nuevo documento le dio demasiado poder al presidente, los funcionarios del gobierno los refutaron con el argumento que, por el contrario, limitaba sus poderes a la vez que fortalecía una rama judicial independiente.

* * *

Los años de los Jóvenes Turcos

Los primeros años de la era de los Jóvenes Turcos, de 1908 a 1918, fueron el período más democrático de la historia otomana. Se restauraron la Constitución y el parlamento, y se formaron partidos que competirían por el liderazgo político. El más prestante de estos fue el CUP, fundado y apoyado por los Jóvenes Turcos, aunque también florecieron otros partidos. El Tanzimat (3) se democratizó, y la industria y la agricultura se desarrollaron y se crearon técnicas presupuestarias modernas. Sin embargo, la Primera Guerra de los Balcanes, en 1912, condujo a una revuelta dentro del CUP y a que un triunvirato, encabezado por Enver Pasha, intentara tomarse el gobierno. El triunvirato se aprovechó del desacuerdo que hubo entre los triunfantes estados de los Balcanes para controlar nuevamente a Edirne (4) en la Segunda Guerra de los Balcanes, en 1913. Inicialmente, el triunvirato trató de evitar participar en la Primera Guerra Mundial, que se inició en 1914, pero hubo varios factores que resultaron en que se hiciera una alianza con los Poderes Centrales y que Turquía entrara a la guerra ese año. Esos factores fueron: la oferta que hizo Alemania de recuperar provincias perdidas, la confiscación de navíos de guerra por parte de Gran Bretaña que estaban siendo construidos en ese país y las manipulaciones de Enver Pasha. Las fuerzas turcas tuvieron un buen desempeño en la campaña de Galipoli (5) y rechazaron y capturaron una fuerza expedicionaria en Al Kut, Iraq. Una campaña en la Península del Sinaí, cuyo objetivo era capturar el Canal de Suez y Egipto, fue infructuosa y condujo a que los británicos organizaran un revuelta en la Península Arabe. Con ayuda de los árabes, una fuerza británica apostada en Egipto invadió Siria y llegó al sur de Anatolia para cuando la guerra terminó. La derrota de una campaña militar al Caúcaso al comienzo de la guerra, encabezada por Enver Pasha, se debió más a mala organización y revueltas en las provincias orientales que a los rusos. Estos invadieron las regiones orientales y centrales de Anatolia en 1915 y 1916, hasta que la Revolución Rusa de 1917 puso fin a la campaña. Los efectos destructores de esas invasiones se vieron complicados por revueltas internas, hambruna, inanición y enfermedades. Unos 6 millones de personas de todas las religiones, o sea la cuarta parte de la población turca, murió o fue muerta, y la economía quedó destrozada.
Al final de la Primera Guerra Mundial, en 1918, y tras la rendición de Turquía, el gobierno turco fue colocado bajo la autoridad de las fuerzas Aliadas de ocupación, encabezadas por Gran Bretaña. En la Conferencia de Paz de París, celebrada en esa ciudad en 1919, participaron las naciones vencedoras de la contienda —Estados Unidos, Gran Bretaña, Francia, Italia y Japón— e impusieron sanciones a las derrotadas: los Poderes Centrales. Las provincias de los Balcanes y árabes serían cedidas y las áreas ocupadas por poblaciones predominantemente turcas en Anatolia oriental y central estarían bajo control extranjero o minoritario. Un ejército griego de considerable tamaño ocupó Izmir en 1922 e invadió el suroccidente de Anatolia, pero las masacres de la población turca a manos de los griegos hicieron que los Aliados les retiraran su apoyo a aquellos. En reacción al propuesto acuerdo de paz y a la invasión griega, el movimiento nacionalista turco surgió en Anatolia bajo el liderazgo de Mustafá Kemal. Durante la Guerra de Independencia Turca, entre 1918 y 1923, éste puso resistencia a las condiciones de los Aliados, expulsó a los griegos y a las fuerzas de ocupación británicas, francesas e italianas, e impuso varios términos, que se incluyeron en el Tratado de Lausana. En el tratado, firmado en esa ciudad suiza en 1923, se estipuló que las áreas turcas de Tracia y Anatolia oriental formarían su propio estado. Tras esta victoria se proclamó una república turca, con Ankara como capital. El gobierno del sultán, con sede en Estanbul, dejó de existir en 1923.
* * *
¿Quiénes son los kurdos?

Los kurdos son una tribu seminómada que habita en la región de Kurdistán, que bordea con Irán por el oriente, con Turquía por el norte, con Siria por el occidente y con el resto de Iraq por el sur. Su lengua es el kurdo, que pertenece a la rama de los idiomas indoeuropeos. La mayoría son sunitas —musulmanes ortodoxos— y viven en pueblos pequeños. Muchos se dedican a la cría de ovejas y su principal manufactura son alfombras finamente tejidas. Se dedicaron a la agricultura apenas recientemente, al integrarse a las sociedades de las regiones donde viven. Se estima que, a mediados de la década de los noventa, su población era de 26 millones. La mitad vive en Irán, Iraq y en varias de las repúblicas que pertenecieron a la Unión Soviética, incluyendo Armenia, Azerbaiyán, Georgia, Kazajstán, Kirguistán y Turkemenistán. Es difícil obtener una cifra exacta del total de la población kurda.
Los kurdos, que no son árabes, resistieron las invasiones de muchos pueblos guerreros, pero fueron subyugados por los seljuks en el siglo XI e integrados al Imperio Otomano en el XIV. En el siglo XIX muchos kurdos abogaron por un estado independiente. El Tratado de Sevres (6), que los Aliados firmaron con Turquía en 1920, le prometió a los kurdos un estado autónomo, pero la promesa no se cumplió. Mustafá Kemal se esforzó, por un lado, por forjar una identidad nacional turca fuerte pero, por el otro, reprimió la cultura e identidad kurdas, lo que llevó a una serie de alzamientos. Desde 1925 ha habido revueltas kurdas en Turquía, Irán e Iraq.
En 1970, después de más de ocho años de guerra casi continua, el gobierno iraquí le prometió a los kurdos autonomía en una región al noreste de Iraq. La puesta en práctica de esta promesa, en 1974, no satisfizo las expectativas de los kurdos y la contienda continuó. La rebelión de los kurdos fracasó en 1975, después de que Irán les retiró su apoyo, como parte de un acuerdo fronterizo con Iraq. En 1988 miles de kurdos fueron muertos, algunos con armas químicas, y cientos de pueblos kurdos fueron destruidos por tropas iraquíes después de que guerrillas kurdas apoyaron a Irán en la guerra de éste contra Iraq. En marzo y abril de 1991, inmediatamente después de la Guerra del Golfo Pérsico, hubo un levantamiento contra el régimen del presidente iraquí Saddan Hussein, en su mayoría de kurdos, pero los rebeldes kurdos, pobremente armados y sin experiencia, fueron fácilmente derrotados por fuerzas del gobierno. Más de un millón de kurdos se refugiaron en Turquía, Irán y las regiones montañosas del norte de Iraq. Se cree que muchos civiles murieron en la rebelión o al huir de Iraq. Los kurdos le exigían a Hussein que cumpliera la promesa de crear una región autónoma en ese país, pero las negociaciones con el gobierno no produjeron resultados. Para 1992, unos 600.000 kurdos permanecían en campos de refugiados en el norte de Iraq, bajo protección de la ONU. A pesar de que existe una región kurda en el norte de Iraq, que tiene la protección de ese organismo internacional, Irán, Siria y Turquía han tomado la posición de Iraq respecto a la región —éste tiene el derecho a ella— y, por lo tanto se oponen a que los kurdos tengan su propio estado. Los conflictos entre los grupos kurdos, el principal de los cuales es el Partido de los Trabajadores de Kurdistán, y el gobierno de Turquía, donde los partidos políticos kurdos se consideran separatistas, continuaron en la década de los noventa. En marzo de 1995, Turquía envió 35.000 soldados al norte de Iraq para acabar con los rebeldes kurdos y repelerlos hacia la frontera sureste con Turquía. El conflicto entre este país y las guerrilas kurdas empezó en 1984 y para 1995 había cobrado unas 150.000 víctimas.
_________________
(1) Vocablo ruso que significa “apertura” o “trasparencia”. Fue usado por frecuencia por Gorbachev para referirse a las actividades del gobierno soviético durante la segunda mitad de la década de los ochenta. (N. del T.)

(1) Azerbaiyán y Armenia sostuvieron una guerra por el territorio entre 1992 y 1994 en la cual murieron unas 30.000 personas. La mayoría de los habitantes del territorio eran cristianos. (N. del T.)

(1) Palabra turca que siginifica “reorganización” y que se refiere a una serie de reformas hechas en el Imperio Otomano que tuvieron como objetivo llevar a éste de un estado teocrático a uno moderno. (N. del T.)

(4) Ciudad situada cerca a la frontera con Grecia y Bulgaria que fuera capital del Imperio Otomano de 1365 a 1453. Se conoció en la antigüedad como Adrianópolis. Constantinopla, llamada luego Estanbul, la reemplazó como capital. (N.del T.)
(5) Se conoció también como la Campaña de los Dardanelos y se peleó en la península de Galipoli entre el 25 de abril de 1915 y el 9 de enero de 1916. Las tropas británicas y francesas se unieron para capturar a Constantinopla y así abrir una ruta marítima hacia Rusia. La batalla resultó en desastre para los Aliados, que sufrieron más de 52.000 bajas. Turquía tuvo unas 22.000. (N. del T.)
(6) El tratado también creó las naciones de Iraq, Siria y Kuwait. (N. del T.)

* * *
Mustafá Kemal Ataturk
(1881-1938)
Soldado, líder nacionalista y estadista que fundó la República de Turquía y fue su primer presidente, cargo que ocupó de 1923 a 1938. El nombre de Ataturk (“padre de los turcos”) le fue dado en 1934 por la Asamblea Nacional como tributo por su servicio a la nación turca. Hijo de un oficial de menor rango que luego se hizo comerciante de madera, Mustafá Kemal nació en Salónica (1) el 12 de marzo de 1881. A los 12 años fue enviado a academias militares en Salónica y Monastir (2), que eran focos de nacionalismo antiturco encabezados por griegos y eslavos. En 1899 entró a la academia militar en Constantinopla, de donde egresó con el grado de capitán en 1905.

Soldado y revolucionario

Después de graduarse, Ataturk fue enviado a Siria debido a las actividades secretas que llevó a cabo a nombre de los Jóvenes Turcos contra el gobierno autocrático del Imperio Otomano, del cual Turquía formaba parte. En 1906 fundó en Siria una sociedad secreta llamada Patria y Libertad, y al ser transferido a Salónica el año siguiente se hizo miembro del CUP, el cual encabezó la revolución de los Jóvenes Turcos, en 1908, contra el sultán Abdul-Hamid II. Sin embargo, no era parte del círculo íntimo del CUP y, por lo tanto, no jugó ningún papel en la revolución.
Ataturk luchó en Libia contra Italia en 1911 y 1912, y fue ascendido a mayor en noviembre de 1911. Organizó la defensa de los Dardanelos durante la Guerra de los Balcanes, que duró de 1912 a 1913, y sirvió de agregado militar en Bulgaria en octubre de 1913. Durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, en la cual Turquía se alió con Alemania, Ataturk ganó renombre como militar en la campaña de Galipoli, en 1915, cuyo papel crucial para rechazar la invasión de los Aliados. En 1916 sirvió en el Cáucaso y en Siria, donde se le puso al mando de una división del Segundo Ejército. El armisticio entre el Imperio Otomano y los Aliados se firmó en octubre de 1918 en la isla griega de Lemnos y Ataturk regresó en noviembre a Constantinopla, la capital, que se hallaba ocupada por tropas francesas y británicas.
El 15 de mayo de 1919 una división del ejército griego ocupó Izmir, en la costa sur de Anatolia, y Ataturk, que había sido nombrado inspector del Tercer Ejército en esa región, llegó el 19 (3) a Samsun, un puerto sobre el Mar Negro al nororiente de Ankara. Inmediatamente se dedicó a unir el movimiento nacionalista turco y a crear un ejército para la defensa. Primeramente, sin embargo, los nacionalistas tenían que combatir el régimen del sultán, con sede en Constantinopla, que parecía dispuesto a permitir la partición del territorio nacional. El 22 de junio Ataturk proclamó la Declaración de Amasya (4), en la cual llamaba a la resistencia nacional contra la invasión de fuerzas extranjeras. Para 1920, el gobierno había perdido credibilidad por estar de acuerdo con que los aliados ocuparan Constantinopla y haber firmado el Tratado de Sevres, el cual reconocía el control de los griegos sobre partes de Anatolia. Ataturk, mientras tanto, organizó un gobierno provisional en Ankara en abril de 1920. Después de derrotas iniciales, ganó batallas decisivas contra las fuerza griegas en Sakarya en agosto de ese año y en Dumlupinar en agosto de 1922. En septiembre de ese mismo año volvió a ocupar a Izmir.

Líder nacional

Una vez hizo frente a las amenazas externas, Ataturk dedicó su atención a las fuerzas conservadoras que rodeaban al sultán. El 1 de noviembre de 1922 fue abolido el sultanato y la república se proclamó el 19 de octubre de 1923, con Ataturk como su primer presidente. Fundó el Partido Popular en agosto de 1923, cuyo nombre fue cambiado a Partido Republicano Popular en 1924. Estableció también un régimen de un solo partido que, con la excepción de dos breves experimentos con partidos de oposición —de 1924 a 1925, y en 1930— existió hasta 1945.
Ataturk creó un estado moderno y secular, e hizo uso de su gran prestigio y carisma para llevar a cabo un vasto programa de reformas. Algunas de ellas fueron abolir el califato, que representaba la autoridad religiosa de los sultanes, así como otras instituciones islámicas; imponer códigos de leyes, vestido y calendarios al estilo occidental; usar el alfabeto latino; y abolir los estatutos que declaraban que el islam era la religión del estado. En 1926 se descubrió un complot para asesinarlo y, tras un juicio, 15 de sus rivales políticos, incluyendo varios líderes del CUP, fueron hallados culpables y ahorcados. Los demás fueron enviados al exilio.
Para 1931, la ideología del régimen, conocida como kemalismo, o ataturkismo, se definió en seis principios: republicanismo, nacionalismo, populismo, centralización de los poderes estatales en asuntos sociales y económicos, secularismo y la difusión de principios revolucionarios. Aunque gobernó como autócrata, su régimen se basó en una alianza entre las burocracias civiles y militares, la nueva burguesía y los propietarios de tierras. El principal objetivo de Ataturk había sido salvar a su pueblo de la humillación y transformar a Turquía en una nación moderna y para el siglo XX, lo cual persiguió con determinación total y delicadeza política. Su característica más esencial, quizás, fue su realismo político, con el cual pudo llevar a cabo reformas sin aventuras desastrosas y permitir que Turquía viviera en paz con sus vecinos.
Falleció de cirrosis hepática el 10 de noviembre de 1938 debido a su afición por el alcohol. Al día siguiente, la Asamblea Nacional eligió como segundo presidente del país a Ismet Inonu.
________________________
(1) Hoy se halla en Grecia y se conoce como Thessalonika. (N. del T.)

(1) Hoy se conoce como Bitola y forma parte de la República de Macedonia. (N. del T.)

(1) El 19 de mayo marca el comienzo no oficial de la Guerra de Independencia. (N. del T.)

(4) Capital de la provincia del mismo nombre, al norte de Turquía. (N. del T.)

* * *
Enver Pasha
(1881-1922)
Militar y líder nacionalista turco que fue Ministro de Guerra de Turquía y Comandante en Jefe otomano durante la Primera Guerra Mundial. Conocido también como Ismail Enver o Enver Bey, nació en Constantinopla el 23 de noviembre de 1881, se graduó de la escuela militar en 1902 y prestó servicio en Macedonia, donde combatió contra guerrillas nacionalistas griegas y búlgaras. En 1906, se hizo miembro de los Jóvenes Turcos, el grupo nacionalista secreto conocido oficialmente como CUP. Emergió como el principal héroe de la revolución que acaudillaron aquellos en 1908, la cual restauró el Parlamento, que el sultán Abul-Hamid II había suspendido en 1878.
Fue enviado como agregado militar a Berlín en 1909, pero regresó ese mismo año a aplastar la contrarrevolución. Luchó con distinción contra Italia en Libia entre 1911 y 1912, y regresó a Constantinopla durante la desastrosa Guerra de los Balcanes, para participar en un segundo golpe de estado encabezado por el CUP en enero de 1913. Ese golpe de estado derrocó la coalición de la Unión Liberal. En 1913 volvió a capturar Edirne, que Bulgaria ocupó ese mismo año durante cuatro meses. Nombrado Ministro de Guerra en 1914, Pasha tuvo la misión de reformar el ejército, que se hallaba desmoralizado. En agosto de ese año ayudó a negociar la alianza de Turquía con Alemania y durante la Primera Guerra Mundial concibió un plan que benefició la estrategia de Alemania. Sin embargo, sus sueños de un imperio que incluiría a todos los pueblos turcos o a todos los pueblos musulmanes terminaron en fracaso. Después de la victoria Aliada al final del conflicto, en 1918, huyó a Alemania y luego a Asia Central, donde trató de organizar la resistencia musulmana contra los soviéticos. El 4 de agosto de 1922, a los 40 años de edad, fue muerto en Tayikistán en un combate con fuerzas soviéticas. Sus restos fueron llevados a Turquía en 1996.
* * *
Sultán Abdul-Hamid II
(1842-1918)

Sultán otomano de Turquía entre 1876 y 1909, hijo de Abdul-Majid I. Sucedió a su hermano Murad V, que había sido declarado mentalmente incompetente. Durante el segundo año de su gobierno Rusia le declaró la guerra a Turquía en respuesta a las acciones de ésta en los Balcanes. En 1876, promulgó la primera Constitución otomana. Sufrió desastrosos reveses militares y, según los términos del tratado de San Stefano (1), firmado en 1878 entre Rusia y el Imperio Otomano, se le privó de la mayoría de sus posesiones en Europa.
Aficionado a la ópera, fue el trigésimotercer sultán del imperio y el útimo en gobernar con poder absoluto. Su gobierno vio la decadencia de éste. A pesar de las masacres de armenios que ocurrieron en Turquía entre 1895 y 1896, Abdul-Hamid no intervino, haciendo caso omiso a las protestas internacionales. El descontento interno con su despótico gobierno llevó a que los Jóvenes Turcos adquirieran influencia y en 1909 fue depuesto por este gobierno y enviado al exilio a Salónica, decisión que fue bien recibida por la población. Su hermano Mehmed V fue nombrado sultán. Regresó a Constantinopla en 1912, donde pasó sus últimos días escribiendo sus memorias y dedicado a la carpintería, su pasión de toda la vida. Murió en febrero de 1918 en el palacio de Beylerbeyi, en aquella ciudad, donde aún se pueden ver los muebles que hizo.
______________________
(1) Pueblo al occidente de Estanbul conocido hoy como Yesilkoy. (N. del T.)
* * *
Declaraciones

Durante los últimos ochenta años, muchos líderes mundiales, así como organizaciones gubernamentales e internacionales, han emitido declaraciones sobre el genocidio de los armenios y cristianos en 1915. En 1916, el presidente estadounidense Woodrow Wilson fue uno de los primeros en pronunciarse al respecto. El Congreso de los Estados Unidos, y otros mandatarios de ese país, han emitido también varias declaraciones desde esa fecha y han conmemorado el aniversario de la tragedia.
Mustafá Kemal Ataturk, fundador de la República de Turquía, condenó también a los autores de las atrocidades. Otras entidades que han emitido resoluciones y comisionado reportes han sido el Parlamento Europeo, las Naciones Unidas, el Congreso Mundial de Iglesias y la Duma rusa (1).
En 1919, un tribunal militar turco juzgó y sentenció a los líderes que organizaron la destrucción de las poblaciones armenias y cristianas del Imperio Otomano. Se ha dicho que esos juicios han servido de precedente a los de Nuremberg (2). El genocidio ha sido reconocido como un “crimen contra la humanidad”. Que estas atrocidades jamás se olviden y, lo que es más importante, que nunca ocurran otra vez.

* * *
Las masacre de 1915 nos han afectado profundamente a todos y juntos lloramos la pérdida de tantas vidas inocentes.
Presidente estadounidense William Jefferson Clinton, 24 de abril de 1994

[La tragedia] no se entiende en términos humanos. Los designios de Dios no son nuestros designios. Todo ahora es un misterio, pero en el cielo encontraremos las respuestas a nuestros muchos porqués.
Sobreviviente de la masacre

. . . Es probablemente una de las peores tragedias que le ha podido ocurrir a un grupo. Y no hubo juicios como los de Nuremberg.
Presidente estadounidense Jimmy Carter, 29 de mayo de 1978

Nos habíamos vuelto como animales y, como animales, no teníamos muchos sentimientos. Nos habíamos resignado a llorar, a tener hambre, a caminar. Sabíamos que ese era nuestro destino. Después de un tiempo ya no tenía miedo porque no me quedaban sentimientos. Sólo nos preocupaba hacia dónde caminábamos y dónde podíamos encontrar comida y agua.

. . . Tengo confianza de que el pueblo de Estados Unidos se conmoverá para ayudar a esas comunidades, que han sido afligidas por la guerra, el hambre y las enfermedades . . . las afligidas comunidades siria y armenia.
Presidente estadounidense Woodrow Wilson, 31 de agosto de 1916

No es posible borrar de la memoria el genocidio del cual ustedes han sido víctimas. Debe grabarse en la memoria humana y este sacrificio debe servir de lección a la juventud. A la misma vez, es una lección en la voluntad para sobrevivir. Así todos van a saber . . . que esos pueblos no pertenecen al pasado, sino que son parte del presente y que tienen un futuro.
Presidente francés Francois Mitterand, 6 de enero de 1984

. . . No hay duda de que este crimen fue planeado y ejecutado por razones políticas. Se dio la oportunidad de deshacerse de la raza cristiana del suelo turco.
Sir Winston Churchill

Estos remanentes del antiguo partido de los Jóvenes Turcos, que debieron haber respondido por las vidas de millones de ciudadanos cristianos que fueron expulsados despiadadamente de sus hogares en masa y masacrados, han vivido intranquilos bajo el gobierno republicano. Hasta la fecha han vivido del saqueo, el robo y el soborno, y han hecho caso omiso a la idea o la sugerencia de dedicarse al trabajo útil y ganarse la vida con el honesto sudor de la frente.
Mustafá Kamal Ataturk, 22 de enero de 1926

Cuando las autoridades turcas dieron las órdenes para esas deportaciones, estaban dando simplemente la orden de ejecución a toda una raza. Ellos entendieron bien esto y, en conversaciones conmigo, no hicieron ningún esfuerzo para ocultarlo . . . Creo firmemente que en la historia de la humanidad no existe un episodio tan horroroso como éste.
Henry Morgenthau, embajador de los Estados Unidos en Turquía (1913-1916)

Lo que se les pide a ustedes es que protejan y cuiden a cualquiera de las comunidades sirias y armenias que vivan en sus territorios y fronteras y entre sus tribus, y que las ayuden en todos sus asuntos y las defiendan como ustedes se defenderían y defenderían sus propiedades y sus hijos, y que les den todo lo que necesiten, ya se hayan radicado allí o vayan de lugar en lugar, pues son los pueblos protegidos por los musulmanes, de quienes dijo el profeta: “Quien les quite siquiera una soga, yo seré su adversario el Día del Juicio”.
Al-Husayn Ibn Ali, en carta dirigida a los príncipes Faisal y Abd al-Aziz al-Jarba (3).
____________________
(1) La Cámara Baja del Parlamento ruso. (N. del T.)

(1) Ciudad alemana donde, entre 1945 y 1949, se juzgaron a los oficiales y funcionarios nazis que participaron en la masacre de judíos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. (N. del T.)

(3) Al-Husayn Ibn Ali fue sharif de Mecca de 1908 a 1917, cuando escribió el documento. (N. del T.)

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

- Ahmed, Feroz. The Young Turks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
- Andoian, Aram. The Memoirs of Naim Bey. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920.
- Arlen, Michael J. Passage to Ararat. New York, New York: Ballantine Books, 1975.
- Armenian National Committee. The Armenian Genocide 1915-1923. Glendale, California. Armenian Educational Foundation, 1988
- Davison, Roderic H. Turkey. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1968.
- Heyd, Uriel. Foundations of Turkish Nationalism. London: Luzac, 1950.
- Hovannisian, Richard. The Armenian Genocide in Perspective. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1986.
- Hovannisian, Richard. Armenia on the Road to Independence. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967.
- Hovannisian, Richard. Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856-1876. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963.
- Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
- Melson, Robert “Provocation Or Nationalism,” in The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, ed. Richard Hovannisian, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1986.
- Morgenthau, Henry. Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1918.
- Sassounian, Harut. The Armenian Genocide: Documents and Declarations, 1915-1995. Los Angeles, California: Abril Printing, 1996.
- Toynbee, Arnold J. The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. London: H.M.S.O., 1916.
-Toynbee, Arnold J. A Summary of Armenian History. London: H.M.S.O., 1916.

Please Click here Statment @ Discriptione

* * *

The Gospel of Thomas and Early Stages in the Development of the Christian Wisdom Literature Alexei Siverstev

Wed, 5 Oct 2011 21:14:39 -0400

Abstract: This work addresses the theological background of the Gospel of Thomas and its relationship to personified wisdom tradition on the one hand, and to the Syriac Christian tradition of the divine redeemer on the other. The Gospel of Thomas shares a number of unique characteristics with the Syriac literature of the second and third centuries C.E., such as interest in personal asceticism as a means to attain divine wisdom, personal deification, and view of Christ as a state of being most clearly expressed in the man Jesus, but also accessible to his followers. All of these characteristics distinguish the Gospel of Thomas from the personified wisdom tradition, which in some cases explicitly rejects them (the Gospel of John). On the other hand, the Gospel of Thomas is organized as a collection of independent sayings (logoi sophon) pronounced by Jesus, while the third-century Syriac writings usually have a poetic or semipoetic form (The Hymn of the Pearl, the Odes of Solomon). In addition, despite significant similarities, the theological message of the Syriac literature appears more "mature" and articulated than the doctrine of the Gospel of Thomas. One may conclude that the Gospel of Thomas belongs to the early stages in the development of Christian doctrine that would eventually evolve into a full-fledged theology in the later Syriac texts. Its message was either redefined in Syriac tradition of the divine redeemer or rejected as a result of adaptation of personified wisdom tradition by the mainstream church.
Introduction
The attempt to analyze early Christian writings as a part of the wider genre of wisdom literature has led to a major breakthrough in the field during the last several decades or so. The idea that at least some of the earliest parts of the gospels belong to the genre of wise sayings now has [End Page 319] considerable support among scholars and has already been used as a methodological tool in a number of form-critical studies. 1 Among other texts, the Gospel of Thomas has received a great deal of attention precisely because its genre has been recognized as that of wisdom sayings (logoi sophon). 2
On the whole, there is a strong tendency in modern scholarship to distinguish between at least two stages in the formation of sayings traditions in early Christianity, and their respective theological backgrounds. The best summary of the first stage can be found in Helmut Koester's words about the theological message of the Gospel of Thomas:
Faith is understood as belief in Jesus' words, a belief which makes what Jesus proclaimed present and real for the believer. The catalyst which caused the crystallization of these sayings into a "Gospel" is the view that the kingdom is uniquely present in Jesus' eschatological preaching and that eternal wisdom about man's self is disclosed in his words. 3
In general this first stage can be characterized by the absence of explicit identification of Jesus with personified Wisdom, as well as by the lack of apocalyptic or judgmental pronouncements against "this generation." It tends to be edifying in its content, using moral admonitions as the major means of conveying its religious message. The "mythological" stratum of this stage is somewhat undeveloped, at least in comparison with the second one.
During the second (polemical) stage, a number of sayings were introduced that imply identification of Jesus with Sophia, thus developing a functional unity between the two of them which had already existed in potentia at the first stage. The overall tendency of this layer would be towards the creation of a "mythological" image of a supernatural Jesus, who is identified with the heavenly Wisdom rejected by "this generation." This tendency is accompanied in turn by a much more bitter and pointed [End Page 320] polemic against society, the polemic heavily loaded with apocalyptic overtones and directly connected to the rejection of Jesus and his disciples. 4
In other words, the second stage exemplifies one of the variations of the so-called wisdom myth widely attested in other writings of the Second Temple period and early rabbinic Judaism. This theology, however, appears to be secondary in our particular case, and largely resulted from the unfavorable circumstances in which early Christian communities found themselves. This leaves us with the obvious question as to the nature of the original theology of the first layer of the Christian sayings tradition. Unfortunately in most of the studies there is no clear sense of what exactly this theological message could have been. One has the sense that the first stage did not have any particular "mythological" background comparable to that of the second stage, but rather is to be viewed as merely a radical preaching of moral values.
The goal of this paper is to show that the Christian sayings tradition in itself had a profound "mythological" significance. This mythology was, however, significantly different from what we call "the personified wisdom theology," and had a life and history of its own. It would be useful to refer now to another group of writings which has striking similarities with the Gospel of Thomas and which is often used as a decisive proof for its later provenance, namely, the Syriac Christian texts of the second-third centuries C.E.
Recent decades have witnessed significant leaps in the study of Syriac Christianity. While some of the most daring expectations proved to be unjustified, the pool of Syriac literature still remains a gold mine for the student of early church history. It had been noticed long ago that, until well into the fourth century, the area of eastern Syria (meaning first and foremost Edessa and its neighborhood) remained out of the scope of "mainstream" orthodox Christianity. The predominant influence in that area came from such "heretical" groups as Gnostics, Manicheans, Encratites, and Jewish Christians. A considerable number of Syriac Christian texts stem from this very period, roughly confined between the late [End Page 321] second and early fourth centuries C.E. Hence there is reasonable hope that one can find in this literature early theological vestiges, otherwise purged from the main body of Christian writings. 5
The likelihood of finding interesting data significantly increases when one approaches the Gospel of Thomas. According to the dominant scholarly view, the Gospel of Thomas in its present form was composed in Syria, while the exact place or even region still remains an enigma. Thomas appears to be the apostolic figure particularly revered in the churches of Syria, while the name Judas Thomas or its redundant form Didymos Judas Thomas is attested only in the East. It seems that the very identification of the disciple named Thomas with Judas occurs only in Syriac tradition, but holds there with remarkable persistence. 6
In addition to these general considerations, G. Quispel was able to identify parallels between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron of Tatian, conventionally dated around the end of the second century C.E. In a number of readings, the two works agree with each other against the canonical gospels, thus pointing to a common source or mutual influence. 7 While the Diatessaron remains the most convincing source for Syriac parallels to Thomas, Quispel also found traces of the gospel in several other Syriac texts of the third and fourth centuries. 8 In addition, there have been various attempts to prove that the original language of Thomas' composition was Syriac. As a whole they have not been successful, but there is still a possibility that some expressions in the text are borrowed from Semitic languages. 9
Indeed the similarities between the Gospel of Thomas and Syriac Christian writings are so significant that they are often considered to provide [End Page 322] grounds for a late dating of the former (third century C.E.). 10 Without going into the details of the whole debate, there is at least one indication that demonstrates a diachronic rather than synchronic relationship between these ideas and theological notions. The similarities between the Gospel of Thomas and the Syriac literature lay in the realm of content, rather than in their formal characteristics. In terms of form, in fact, the Gospel of Thomas is absolutely distinctive when viewed against the background of the Syriac literary output.
The Gospel of Thomas represents a collection of random sayings strung together without any single unifying plan underlying the composition as a whole. The closest parallels are, of course, the biblical book of Proverbs and the mishnaic tractate Pirke Avot. Similar collections appear in the book of Ben-Sira, the Wisdom of Ahiqar, and recently published Qumran sapiential texts. However, this genre, which is amply attested in Hebrew and early Aramaic literary tradition, is virtually unknown in Syriac literature. The only exception is the so-called Letter of Mara bar Serapion. 11 Still, this document has always stood somewhat apart from the "mainstream" of the Syriac literary tradition. It is conventionally dated to the second century C.E., thus serving as one of the earliest examples of Syriac literary production (the bulk of which stems largely from the late second-fourth centuries C.E.). On the other hand, this genre is never attested again later on. Thus the "Letter of Mara bar Serapion" shows that, first, collections of random sayings were not unknown in the Syriac Orient during the second century C.E., and, second, that they were relatively quickly replaced by other more elaborated genres.
The most prominent of these genres was poetry. Its earliest examples (the Hymns of Solomon, and the Hymn of the Pearl) are dated to approximately the third century C.E., and thus possibly reflect the next stage in the development of Syriac literature. While no considerable research has been done so far in respect to the antecedents of Syriac poetry per se, studies of contemporary Hebrew poetry have demonstrated its considerable indebtedness to earlier wisdom texts to such a degree that one can speak of direct continuity between them. 12 We can easily imagine that much the [End Page 323] same development took place in Syriac literature at approximately the same period of time. This would explain in turn both the similarities in content and the differences in structure between the Gospel of Thomas and later Syriac works. They stood on a direct chronological line in terms of formal literary development, while displaying significant conservatism in terms of their content. Based on these observations, it would be probably safe to maintain that the Gospel of Thomas took its final shape in the second century C.E. in about the same time when the "Letter of Mara Bar Serapion" was written.
Thus we have basically two traditions whose affiliation with the Gospel of Thomas have been recognized already in modern scholarship. One of them is the Personified Wisdom tradition, which first had been developed in the Second Commonwealth Jewish literature and later accepted by mainstream Christianity. The origins of an "impersonal divine Redeemer" tradition are not so clear, but it is abundantly reflected in the Syriac Christian writing stemming from the second-third centuries C.E. 13 The goal of what follows is to find an appropriate place for the Gospel of Thomas vis-à-vis both of them.
The Image of the Human Body
Early Syriac Christianity has long been credited as a cradle of later monasticism in some of its most extreme forms. 14 Tatian, who is the earliest representative of the Syriac tradition known to us, appears in the patristic literature as a founder of the Encratite heresy, famous for its practices of self-mortification. While it is not altogether clear whether he indeed started any significant movement of his own, Tatian definitely should be seen as one of the typical examples of Syriac ways of thinking, shocking as they were to his Western "orthodox" neighbors.
In his apologetic treatise Oratio ad Graecos, Tatian gives the following [End Page 324] explanation of the ultimate function of human bodies: "The bond of flesh is soul, but it is the flesh which contains the soul. If such a structure is like a shrine, God is willing to dwell in it through the spirit, his representative" (or. 16.21-24). In other words, the function of the human body is to become a dwelling place for God, to accept God inside.
A similar approach and terminology can be found in another Syriac text of the third century C.E., the Acts of Thomas. In his sermon addressed to a woman of high standing, Thomas summarizes his message in the following words: "Acquire purity, and take unto you temperance, and strive after humility, for by these three cardinal virtues is typified this Messiah, whom I preach. For purity is the temple of God, and everyone who guards it, guards His temple, and the Messiah dwells in him." 15 Predictably enough, the woman asks Thomas to pray so that God "may come upon me, and that I may become a holy temple and He may dwell in me." 16 Severe mortification of the body and asceticism become the main practical implications of this quest for holiness for both "Thomas" and Tatian. According to the church fathers, Tatian was famous for his repudiation of wine and any kind of sexual union between men and women. The dissolution of marriages and condemnation of what are considered to be lawful sexual relations becomes the predominant (to the point of obsession) theme of the Acts of Thomas.
The physical means for turning one's body into God's "dwelling place" presupposed a belief in physical bodily transformation. At the same time, they presupposed the belief in some kind of realized eschatology, in which the bodily transformation should occur here and now, and not in some indefinite eschatological future preached by the mainstream church. Determined asceticism of this kind was deemed to bring an immediate redemption of a personal nature. It is interesting that, in Syriac literature, the idea of communal eschatology remains undeveloped pretty much through the end of the fourth century, and is completely replaced by the theme of immediate salvation through practices of individual self-mortification.
The other imagery which bears exactly on the same theme of bodily transformation deals with the idea of "stripping down" one's old body. In his article, "The Garments of Shame," J. Z. Smith has persuasively argued for the baptismal setting of this motif. 17 It seems, however, that the [End Page 325] baptismal application of this image presupposed some deeper theological explanation.
When Tatian describes his conversion to Christianity, he uses a remarkable phrase to describe his final decision to become a Christian: "Now that I have apprehended these things I wish to strip myself just as children" (or. 30.16-17). 18 For Tatian the desire to "strip myself just as children" came as a result of his intellectual conversion, when his soul was "taught from God" upon reading the Bible. He talks about his conversion in terms of obtaining divine wisdom: "I was persuaded because of . . . the easily intelligible account of the creation of the world, the foreknowledge of the future, the remarkable quality of the precepts and the doctrine of a single ruler of the universe" (or. 30.7-11). One cannot fail to notice that "stripping down one's body" becomes the final stage in the process of intellectual quest for divine wisdom. Understanding of the divinely ordained universal order was traditionally one of the main goals in wisdom literature, and as such it is reflected in Tatian's words. Thus the wisdom roots of his behavioral experience of "stripping himself down" become all the more obvious. 19
The same blend of the quest for divine wisdom and the imagery of "stripping oneself down as a child" constitutes one of the most prominent themes in the Gospel of Thomas: [End Page 326]
His disciples said: "When will you become revealed to us and when shall we see you?"
Jesus said: "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then [will you see] the son of the living one, and you will not be afraid." (Thom. 37)
The double parallelism between this saying and Tatian's phrase (disrobing and children imagery) is obvious. In both cases "garments" apparently refer to human bodies which are to be changed in order to reach a new level of intimacy with God. For Tatian, however, this act stands as a part of the ascetic rendering his body into a suitable temple for God on the one hand, and as a result of true understanding of God's wisdom on the other. The negative attitude towards the body lurks behind another saying from Thomas, which exhibits various similarities to saying 37:
Mary said to Jesus, "Whom are your disciples like?"
He said, "They are like children who have settled in a field which is not theirs. When the owners of the field come, they will say, 'Let us have back our field.' They undress in their presence in order to let them have back their field and to give it back to them." (Thom. 21)
The same basic imagery of children and undressing is present here, as in the saying above, but now we have a conflict between children (disciples of Jesus) and the owners of the field. No matter how much one would like to read Gnostic tendencies into this story (owners as archons, etc.), it is clear that disrobing here means giving away the regular human body to the one to whom it belongs, i.e., to the rulers of this world. In saying 37 the "disrobing just as children" was required for seeing Jesus without fear, meaning that the revelation is conditional upon physical change of oneself. It seems that we are very close to Tatian's idea of converting one's body into a pure temple through stripping away the old one by mortification of the flesh.
For Thomas as well as for Tatian, bodily transformation comes as a significant part of the quest for wisdom. The revelation of Jesus which the disciples seek in saying 37 apparently means revelation of wisdom. But in saying 4 the notion of wisdom is even more explicitly connected to a child: "Jesus said, 'The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same.'" In other words, becoming a child is crucial for obtaining divine wisdom, and as we have seen "to become a child" means for Thomas [End Page 327] "to strip away one's body" or "to disrobe." 20 The same holds true for Tatian.
One can find a kind of synthesis for everything that has been described here in Ode 25 from the Odes of Solomon, originating from third-century Syria:
And I was covered with the covering of thy (God's) spirit;  And I removed from me the garment of skins.
For thy right hand lifted me up,  And removed sickness from me.
Here the "garment of skins" is replaced by "the covering of God's spirit," signifying the dwelling of God in a purified human body. Two systems of images, disrobing oneself and rendering oneself into a pure temple, are thus correlated. There is no mention of wisdom in this poem, but in other odes of the same cycle the quest for God's wisdom plays a paramount role.
It seems that at this level all these texts share the same theological pattern. The human body is seen as a potential temple for God. The procedure of rendering it a temple is symbolically designated as "disrobing" and "becoming a child." The quest for God is paralleled by the quest for God's wisdom, the two of them being different sides of the same coin. Thus, accepting God inside oneself means automatically partaking of God's wisdom. It is not clear, however, whether the demands for rigid asceticism which were so prominent for Tatian had been already present in the Gospel of Thomas, or represent a secondary development of earlier ideas.
The position of the Gospel of Thomas vis-à-vis asceticism is not easy to determine. On the one hand, there are a number of sayings that discourage the disciples from following conventional ascetic practices (Thom. 6 and 14). On the other hand, an equal number of sayings endorse fasting, even if only under certain circumstances (Thom. 27 and 104). The famous saying about becoming "passers-by" (Thom. 42) can be read as also referring to some sort of asceticism and/or itinerancy. As a whole, the sayings of Thomas may already reflect two stages in the development of one and the same tradition. At the first stage, fasting was frowned upon as a conventional means of common piety (like prayer and giving alms), while at the second stage it became increasingly viewed as a means of [End Page 328] bringing down the divine presence and fulfilling realized eschatology on the individual level. With Tatian and his followers the latter tendency reaches its acme. It advocates ascetic destruction (or radical transformation) of this world on the scale of individual human beings in pretty much the same way as the second layer of Q envisions and prophesies its apocalyptic destruction on the scale of human society. This, however, means that ascetic practices were read into the original tradition, rather than presupposed by it. I believe that here we have a clear example of the development of this basic theological notion over the course of two centuries. We see how the more "primitive" theology of Thomas develops in the early Syriac literature without, however, losing its original kernel, but rather being interpreted in new terms. 21
The difference between this motif and the view of Jesus as personified wisdom needs to be stressed. Our texts are much more interested in the followers of Jesus than in Jesus himself. The personality of Jesus is very blurred, while the main goal of all of these texts is to provide readers with the means to attain divine wisdom and accept God inside themselves. Jesus is important as long as he can give his followers instructions about how to achieve this realized eschatology. He becomes the perfect example of a pure temple in which God dwells, and the goal of his disciples is to follow this example. On the other hand, it is the individual uniqueness of Jesus which is crucial for "Jesus as personified wisdom" tradition. He actually is the personified wisdom of God, and the goal of his followers is to hearken to his teachings, not to become his alter ego. 22
Jesus is not Unique: Twins of Jesus
One of the most striking characteristics of the Acts of Thomas is that it develops in some detail the idea of Thomas as Jesus' twin. Most clearly the relationship between the two of them is highlighted in the description [End Page 329] of Thomas' first successful attempt at ruining a marriage on his way to India. The story runs like this:
And when all had gone out and the doors were shut, the bridegroom lifted up the veil of the bridal chamber, that he might bring the bride to himself. And he saw the Lord Jesus in the likeness of the apostle Judas Thomas, who shortly before had blessed them and departed from them, conversing with the bride, and he said to him: "Did you not go out before them all? How are you now found here?" But the Lord said to him: "I am not Judas who is also Thomas, I am his brother." 23
Afterwards Jesus preaches abstention from sexual intercourse to the couple and converts them to Christianity. In this story he is almost explicitly identified with Thomas. The identification becomes even more pronounced if we recall that, in all other cases, it is Thomas who carries out similar tasks, and Jesus is never explicitly mentioned again. At the same time, the preaching of Jesus is not different in its content from that of Thomas, while one could reasonably expect it to be so, if the rigid distinction between Jesus and his disciple were indeed maintained. It seems that Jesus in particular is introduced in the way he is during the first mission of Thomas to foreshadow the following missions and to suggest that also in them he is present behind Thomas' preaching. At any rate, the literary ambiguity in the interactions between these two main characters speaks for itself, and it is intended at the very least to prevent the reader from drawing clear borders between the two of them.
The theme of Jesus' twin becomes even better articulated in the so-called Hymn of the Pearl, included in the Acts, but apparently predating it as an independent composition. The hymn describes in a highly symbolic way the whereabouts of a messenger (Jesus? Thomas?), having been sent by his royal parents to find and capture the pearl, held by a snake. The messenger, however, forgets his royal origins and gets captured in the low world. His family sends him a letter which awakens him and allows him to fulfill his mission. Upon capturing the pearl, the messenger makes his way back, and is welcomed by his parents and their court, and gets back royal robes that he left at home when he departed.
The symbolic significance of changing one's garments is obvious in light of what we have said above about stripping down one's clothing. But in the Acts of Thomas it becomes an event of crucial importance. Before the messenger left his parents they made an agreement with him: "if you go down into Egypt and bring the one pearl, which is in the midst of the sea [End Page 330] around the loud-breathing serpent, you shall put on your glittering robe and your toga [...] and with your brother, who is next to us in authority, you shall be heir in our kingdom." Now, if we assume that the messenger stands for Thomas, as he apparently does, who is his brother? The latter is never explicitly mentioned again in the hymn, but one wonders if he is Jesus. If so, according to the plot, Jesus and Thomas are equal as sons of royal parents. Jesus does not appear to have any special function as a redeemer or the unique son of God. He is one among many, who make their way from this world (Egypt) to their true home in heaven.
But this is just the beginning. When Thomas (or whoever the messenger is) fulfills his mission, he gets back his heavenly robe. The story runs as follows:
And because I did not remember its fashion, for in my childhood I had left it in my father's house, on a sudden, when I received it, the garment seemed to me to become like a mirror of myself. I saw it all in all, and I too received all in it, for we were two in distinction and yet again one in one likeness [...] And it was skillfully worked in its home on high [...] and the image of the king of kings was embroidered and depicted in full all over it [...] And I saw too that it was preparing to speak. I heard the sound of its tones, which it uttered [...]: "I am the active in deeds, whom they reared for him before my father; and I perceived myself that my stature grew according to his labors." And in its kingly movements it poured itself entirely over me, and on the hand of it givers it hastened so I might take it.
The only reasonable conclusion from this somewhat enigmatic speech is that the garment in fact is Jesus (or the heavenly brother of the messenger). If we accept this conclusion, it means that, first of all, the personality of Jesus is significantly blurred, or, more precisely, is not important. Jesus appears as a state of being rather than a historic figure or even the personified Logos. He is a garment (no more, and no less) which the believer can put on himself upon completion of his earthly mission.
The believer in turn is seen as a real "brother of Jesus" or his twin. 24 He [End Page 331] recognizes himself in the robe as in a mirror, and puts the robe on. Thus the distinction between the two of them totally disappears. The messenger (Thomas) becomes Jesus and the son of God (royal father in the hymn). In fact, the notion of Jesus' twins (Thomas, and theoretically everybody who partakes of "real wisdom") not only does away with the uniqueness of Jesus as personified wisdom, or the son of God, but it calls into question the importance of Jesus as a historical character. Those who are able to partake of the divine wisdom are born from above, and in this respect they are equal to Jesus, who, as I have said, represents a state of being rather than a personal entity.
The image of disrobing thus receives additional significance. The royal robe which the messenger puts on at the end of his journey was left for him in his father's house in his childhood. Thus his change of clothes almost exactly parallels the idea of "disrobing as a child" in Tatian and the Gospel of Thomas. The messenger returns to his proper heavenly mode of existence which he left in order to get the pearl and which is symbolized by his childhood. As a result, the overall symbolism of disrobing or bodily transformation can be understood from a new perspective. The putting on a new body or the acceptance of God into oneself should be understood verbatim. The believer indeed transforms his body through deification. He is able to do it precisely because Jesus is not unique, having twins, or "multiple personalities," since the historical personality of Jesus is only vaguely defined. All this comes as a result of the quest for true wisdom, which the believer can now embrace. 25
Saying 84 in the Gospel of Thomas constitutes almost a commentary on the scene of self-recognition by the messenger in the robe offered to him. In fact, the whole significance of this saying can be grasped only in the light of the hymn: "Jesus said, 'When you see your likeness, you rejoice. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die nor become manifest, how much more you will have to bear.'" Does he mean here, that he is the real image of a believer, as it is explained in the Acts? It seems that the saying becomes fully understandable if we bear in mind the significance accorded to finding one's true self in the Hymn of Pearl. Here Jesus tells his followers that they should see their preexisting images in apparently the same way as the messenger did when he saw himself in the robe/Jesus. This in turn could [End Page 332] lead to the conclusion that the idea of heavenly twins stands behind the otherwise enigmatic message of this saying.
On the whole, it seems that the Gospel of Thomas owes much to the concept of Jesus' twins as it is reflected in the later Syriac tradition. As well as with the "disrobing," the parallels exist not merely on the level of content but even on the level of shared imagery and language. Sometimes incomprehensible sayings of the Gospel make perfect sense as soon as we juxtapose them with the theological perspective of the Acts. It is then fair to suggest that the Gospel of Thomas would maintain that Jesus was not unique, and even more, that his historical personality is not what really matters. The real importance of Jesus is that he serves as an example of how one can become the son of God in the most plain sense of the word. Jesus symbolizes a state of being and he encourages his followers to reach this state themselves.
On the other hand there are unmistakable indicators that in the Hymn of the Pearl we are dealing with a more advanced mythology (if not theology) than in the Gospel of Thomas. Instead of the separate and seemingly disconnected sayings of the Gospel we encounter an elaborated myth coined in the form of a didactic poem (saga?). Its symbolism becomes much more abundant and excessive, compared to that of the sayings. Little remains from the previous genre of wisdom sayings. The overall enigma of the message persists, but now it is expressed through the convoluted interplay of the symbolic narrative, rather than through mysterious sayings of the sage which need to be interpreted. As a whole, while the basic message and most essential imagery are preserved in both cases, the Hymn of the Pearl represents a new "mythological" elaboration of the earlier tradition in a way comparable to that of the personified wisdom tradition. Unlike the latter, however, it appears to preserve the core of the message relatively untouched. 26
Personal Deification: Christ as a State of Being
The Acts of Thomas are not unique in seeing in personal deification the ultimate goal of the seer who seeks divine wisdom. Even more explicitly, this idea is articulated in the so-called Odes of Solomon and in Tatian's [End Page 333] Oratio ad Graecos. In both cases the notion of deification is tightly bound up with the acquisition of wisdom, and, in fact, equated with the latter. 27 In a most succinct way this idea appears in the third ode:
I have been united (to the Lord), because the lover has found the beloved,  Because I love him that is the Son, I shall become a son.
Indeed he who is joined to him who is immortal,  Truly will be immortal.
While the language (and especially the idea of love as the main attribute of relationships between God and man) of this passage may to a certain extent remind one of the Gospel of John, as well as of the Johanine epistles, its theology is somewhat different. Nowhere in John would one find the idea of a believer becoming Jesus himself to a degree that erases any difference between two of them. The opposite is true, and the Fourth Gospel is especially remarkable for its consistent emphasis on the rigid boundaries of Jesus' identity, clearly different from that of his disciples. 28 It is also interesting that the idea of immortality here becomes derivative of individual deification. Basically it sounds as though "you yourself will become god, and that is why you will not die." In fact, this type of theology may shed additional light on the peculiar stand of Paul's opponents in 1 Corinthians on resurrection as something that has been already accomplished (in connection with supreme wisdom as something that has been already achieved). The same line of reasoning could have perplexed and discouraged the recipients of 1 Thessalonians when some from their community died prior to the second coming (1 Thess 4.13-18).
In a number of odes, the author who recites them, at a certain point, starts speaking with the Christ's voice. 29 I doubt whether we can find any other similar phenomena in early Christian literature. There is not any formal sign in the text that would mark a transition from one person to another. In fact, it is presupposed that it is actually one and the same [End Page 334] person, who, up until this verse, was a human being, and now continues speaking in his divine capacity. In modern English translations, Christ's speeches are introduced with the words "Christ speaks," but nothing in the original text parallels this insertion, which somewhat misleads the reader and blurs the original point made by the text. Apparently this very moment is seen by the author as the culmination of his quest for divine wisdom, which has been finally achieved.
Tatian gives a less poetical account of basically the same concept, coined now in philosophical terms: "The celestial Word, made Spirit from the Spirit and Word from power of the Word, in the likeness of the Father who begot him made man an image of immortality, so that just as incorruptibility belongs to God, in the same way man might share God's lot and have immortality also" (or. 7.6-10). Again, immortality becomes a result of individual deification achieved in this life, and thus wholly pertains to realized eschatology. Salvation and/or damnation become matters of the here and now, not of the Pauline unspecified future "resurrection from the dead." 30 The idea about humanity's participation in God's nature is explicitly stated. In fact, the distinction between the divine Logos and human beings is deliberately blurred by using the same terminology in order to describe two of them. The Word is said to be made , "in the likeness of the Father," and immediately afterwards humankind is described as , "the image of immortality," which means basically the same thing. Both thus are created in the image of God and humanity is supposed "to share God's lot." In other words, while it is not explicitly stated, humankind is virtually identified with the Logos in a way that runs contrary to the main theological notions of the Gospel of John, which is especially noticeable because of the (deliberately?) shared terminology.
Another passage from Tatian elaborates his idea of individual deification and provides a further link to the Gospel of Thomas. According to [End Page 335] Tatian: "we have knowledge of two different kinds of spirits, one of which is called soul, but the other is greater than the soul; it is the image and likeness of God (). The first men were endowed with both, so that they might be part of the material world, and at the same time above it" (or. 12.18-21). Here the same thesis about the divine part of human beings is repeated, but now it is associated with the human condition prior to the Fall. According to this statement (and to what follows) Adam had possessed the qualities of God before he committed sin. Then they were taken from him, and the quest for wisdom implies claiming them back. 31
One can compare the following saying: "Jesus said, 'Adam came into being from a great power and a great wealth, but he did not become worthy of you. For had he been worthy, [he would] not [have experienced] death'" (Thom. 85). This statement is enigmatic and deliberately obscure, but if we agree that "a great power and a great wealth" mean basically the same as "the image and likeness of God" in the more philosophically oriented rendering of Tatian, then its theological basis becomes more transparent. Unlike Adam, who lost his original semidivine status, the disciples of Jesus (and the followers of Tatian) are expected to get it back and keep it, and that is why they are more "worthy" than Adam. It is also remarkable that for both Tatian and Thomas immortality becomes a kind of trademark of divinity. As we have seen in the earlier example from the Oratio, it is precisely immortality that renders humans participants "in God's lot." Again with Thomas immortality becomes the main definition of the exalted condition of humans, lost by Adam but reclaimed by Jesus' disciples. Such a degree of parallelism not merely in major theological concepts, but even in the technical means of their expression, is hardly incidental, and it points at the very least to a shared cultural/social setting and school of thought. 32 [End Page 336]
More direct and clear examples of individual deification are not lacking from the Gospel of Thomas as well. I will start with one of the most extensive, as well as obscure, passages from the Gospel:
Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up the stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up." (Thom. 13)
The question posed by other disciples to Thomas is obviously one which anybody who reads this saying is likely to wonder about, and the answer to it can be found again in the Gospel of Thomas.
Thom. 108 is decisive for our argument. It reads: "Jesus said, 'He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.'" One immediately recalls "because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring of which I have measured out" in Thom. 13. The same imagery of drinking water is central in both cases and it most probably conveys the same message of deification. The latter is stated explicitly in Thom. 108 and it is implied in the words said by Jesus in the middle of the conversation in Thom. 13: "I am not your master," the plain meaning of which is "we are equal to each other." 33
Moreover, in both cases deification represents the means to acquire divine wisdom. In Thom. 13 it is coined in the typical Gnostic fashion of esoteric wisdom revelation for the elect, adding suspense to the narrative. In Thom. 108 Jesus plainly states that "the things that are hidden" (a common designation for wisdom in at least the Qumran sapiential [End Page 337] literature) will be revealed to the one who becomes him. Thus in Thomas individual deification becomes a final step in one's quest for wisdom in essentially the same way as it does for Tatian or the author of the Odes of Solomon.
At the same time the first text contains one important definition missing from the second one. While in Thom. 108 Jesus is the main (and the only) source of revelation, in Thom. 13 he is merely the one who "has measured out the bubbling spring," definitely not the spring himself. This seeming trifle actually represents another challenge to the idea of Jesus as personified Wisdom. He is not personified wisdom himself, but he is rather the one through whom divine wisdom pours out into this world. He is the vehicle of revelation rather than revelation itself. This picture of Jesus fits perfectly with the somewhat impersonal vision of Christ in the Acts of Thomas (and especially in the Hymn of the Pearl). It also corresponds to the overall reluctance of Tatian to personify Christ--a reluctance so marked that it is not always clear if he speaks of the personified or impersonal Logos (let alone Jesus as a historical character). As a matter of fact, two sayings in the Gospel of Thomas directly attest to this particular theological perspective:
His disciples said to him, "Show us the place where you are, since it is necessary for us to seek it."
He said to them, "Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine he is darkness." (Thom. 24)
Here the distinction between Jesus as a man and a somewhat impersonal state of being is made very explicitly. It is not the historical personality of Jesus that matters and that is to be sought after, but rather the impersonal divine presence that makes Jesus who he is, but which is equally available to his disciples if, of course, they are ready to accept it. 34 According to this type of theology, the man Jesus became a pure temple [End Page 338] for God, accepted God in himself (deification), and, as a result, turned into a channel for communicating God's wisdom. This, however, is very different from the idea of Jesus as personified wisdom (while one can easily follow the line of development between these two types of theology). The major difference is again the notion that Jesus was not unique. He showed his followers an example of how one should build oneself up in order to reach the depths of God's wisdom, but essentially he was a man like anybody else, and so anybody else can become God.
Conclusion
We can now summarize the results of this paper in a more or less coherent way. The Gospel of Thomas perfectly fits the theological agenda of early Syriac literature of the second-third centuries C.E., sharing with it not only an overall theological perspective but also technical language and symbolism. In both cases Jesus is perceived as a human being, who was inhabited by God and thus deified. The essence of his message is that his disciples can reach the same state of existence. The divine part of Jesus is usually understood impersonally and it is by no means identified with Jesus as a historical character. As a result, the interest in the historical Jesus by proponents of this theology was secondary at best. It was the message about Jesus' experience that was really important, and his wise sayings could fulfill this role. In a sense, their status was indeed the one of traditional wisdom pronouncements, if we agree that the goal of, e.g., the book of Proverbs was to supply one with instructions for behavior in everyday life. The difference was that, in traditional wisdom literature, the goal of this life was a sober existence in agreement with God's laws about the universe, while in Thomas the goal was individual deification. How and when this shift in the understanding of wisdom occurred is another question, and deserves a separate study.
At the same time one should always bear in mind that the Gospel of Thomas and early Syriac literature represent consecutive stages in the history of a single theological idea. The Syriac writings represent the [End Page 339] second and the more mature stage in the development of the notion of personal deification. Among the most prominent formal changes, the shift from collections of wise sayings to poetry (or, in the case of Tatian, to philosophical treatise) should be mentioned. In some respects, changes in content corresponded to those in form. The creation of more or less cohesive poetic texts led to the shaping of more or less elaborated mythology about the itinerant redeemer, most fully developed in the Hymn of the Pearl. The story became more "mythopoetic" both in its form and content. Simultaneously, the theology of personal deification was developed in the direction of ascetic practices, quite in agreement with the overall spiritual tendencies of late antiquity. Thus, while the third-century Syriac writings preserved a considerable part of the early theology, they also reflect significant developments which occurred since the Gospel of Thomas had been written down.
The idea of Jesus as personified wisdom could exist in parallel with, or be an early attempt at taming, personal deification theology. It is important, however, to see that originally the two of them were clearly different if not directly opposed to each other. The very emphasis on the significance and uniqueness of wisdom as personified in the historical Jesus ran contrary to the major postulate of the deification theology, namely, that the heavenly Jesus is a state of being, which was most fully displayed in the historical Jesus, but which is by no means limited to him. As a result, the whole notion of discipleship had to be changed from following the example of Jesus through self-deification, to the more modest quest for heavenly wisdom uniquely revealed in Jesus. It seems that at least in the Gospel of John the idea of Jesus as personified Logos developed as a direct response to and rebuttal of deification theology.
If we accept the hypothesis of Thomas' early provenance, it gives us a key to understanding what could be labeled "prepersonified wisdom" mythology in early Christianity. It remains to be seen whether the same cluster of ideas can be discerned in other branches of the early Christian movement (I have specifically in mind the Pauline churches and their theology). However, it seems fair to maintain that, prior to the development of the personified wisdom tradition, early Christian groups had already possessed a theological doctrine with a clearly articulated mystical kernel. If accepted, this conclusion could significantly contribute to our understanding of the genre of saying traditions and its theological setting.

Alexei Siverstev is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University
Notes
1. J. Robinson, "Jewish Wisdom Literature and the Gattung, LOGOI SOPHON" in The Shape of Q: Signal Essays on the Sayings Gospel, ed. J. Kloppenborg (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 51-58. For methodological use of this approach, see J. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).
2. For a summary of the discussion about the relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the canonical gospels, see F. Fallon and R. Cameron, "The Gospel of Thomas: A Forschungsbericht and Analysis," ANRW II.25.6 (1988): 4213-24. See also S. Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1993).
3. H. Koester, "The Synoptic Sayings Source and the Gospel of Thomas" in Shape of Q, 50.
4. This type of two-stage approach has been most fully developed by J. Kloppenborg in respect to the Q Sayings Gospel in his Formation of Q (for the summary of major points see his "The Formation of Q and Antique Instructional Genres" in Shape of Q). There is a considerable tendency, however, to discern a similar two-stage process in the formation of the Gospel of Thomas. See, for example, W. Arnal, "The Rhetoric of Marginality: Apocalypticism, Gnosticism, and Sayings Gospels," HTR 88 (1995): 471-80 and S. Patterson, Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, 198 (cf. Helmut Koester, who seemingly avoids any stratification attempts in his works on Thomas).
5. For a discussion of various aspects of early Syriac Christianity, see R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). J. Segal, Edessa: "The Blessed City" (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).
6. For a summary of the discussion and bibliography, see Fallon and Cameron, "Gospel of Thomas," 4227.
7. G. Quispel, "L'évangile selon Thomas et le Diatessaron" in Gnostic Studies II (Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaelogisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1975), 31-55. Idem, Tatian and the Gospel of Thomas: Studies in the History of the Western Diatessaron (Leiden: Brill, 1975).
8. G. Quispel, Makarius, das Thomasevangelium und das Lied von der Perle, NovTSup 15 (Leiden: Brill, 1967). See also the articles in his Gnostic Studies II.
9. A. Guillaumont, "Les semitismes dans l'Evangile selon Thomas: Essai de classement" in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions Presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 190-204; contrast K. Kuhn, "Some Observations on the Coptic Gospel According to Thomas," Mus 73 (1960): 317-23.
10. For a summary of this approach see H. Drijvers, "Facts and Problems in Early Syriac-Speaking Christanity" in East of Antioch (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984), 157-75.
11. For publication and English translation see Spicilegium Syriacum Containing Remains of Bardesan, Meliton, Ambrose, and Mara bar Serapion, ed. W. Cureton (London: Rivingtons, 1855), 70-76.
12. See Cecil Roth, "Ecclesiasticus in the Synagogue Service," JBL 71 (1952): 171-78 (cf. A. Mirsky, Piyute Yose ben Yose [Jerusalem: Mosad Byalik, 1977], 27-29). See also M. Weinfeld, "Traces of Qedushat Yotser and Pesuke de-Zimra in the Qumran Literature and in Ben-Sira," Tarbiz 45 (1975-76): 15-26 (Hebrew).
13. During recent years the somewhat naïve fascination with the Jewish roots of Syriac Christianity has become much more sober and balanced. See H. Drijvers, "Syriac Christianity and Judaism" in The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. J. Lieu et al. (London: Routledge, 1992), 124-46. I believe that it would be premature at this point to assert Jewish origins for the wisdom tradition of early Syriac Christianity (contrast J. Charlesworth, "Les Odes de Salomon et les manuscrits de la mer morte," RB 77 [1970]: 522-49).
14. A. Voobius, A History of Asceticism in the Syriac Orient (Louvain: CSCO, 1958).
15. Acts of Thomas 86.
16. Acts of Thomas 87.
17. Jonathan Z. Smith, "The Garments of Shame" in Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 1-23.
18. The phrase in question reads as following: . In her recent edition of the Oratio M. Whittaker translates it as "therefore now that I have apprehended these things I wish to 'strip myself' of the childishness of babyhood," taking as accusative singular (Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments, ed. and tr. Molly Whittaker [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982], 55 and explanation of the translation on pp. 84-86). The translation seems very problematic to me, since it is not altogether clear how she translates the preposition which is crucial for the correct rendering of the phrase. The usual meaning of it in Koine Greek would be "just as," and I do not see any compelling reason not to follow this translation in our case. My own translation then would be: "Now that I have apprehended these things I wish to strip myself just as little children."
19. The whole passage from Tatian is coined in terminology strikingly similar to that of some Jewish sapiential texts from Qumran. Cf. for example 4Q417 2 i 6-12. The most remarkable parallel here exists between the "foreknowledge" of Tatian and the "mysteries to come" (raze nihyeh) of the Qumran text. In both cases behavioral precepts are seen as part of divinely revealed wisdom and divinely ordained universal order.
20. Cf. also Thom. 46 where "becoming a child" is a condition for acquaintance "with the Kingdom" and apparently presupposes possession of heavenly wisdom as well.
21. For a detailed treatment of this development see P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 33-121. The fact that the theology advocated by the Gospel of Thomas became very early ascetically oriented is amply attested by the so-called Gospel of the Egyptians, known from excerpts in Clement of Alexandria. In most cases one can closely follow the development of relatively more neutral sayings in Thomas into clearly ascetic pronouncements in "Gospel of the Egyptians": Strom. 3.63 (cf. Thom. 114), Strom. 3.64 and 66 (cf. Thom. 79), Strom. 3.92 (cf. Thom. 37 and 21-22, also 2 Clem. 12.1-2).
22. See for example Q 10.22 and its interpretation in Kloppeborg, Formation of Q, 197-203.
23. Acts of Thomas 11.
24. Cf. the following two verses from Ode 7.4-5 (the Odes of Solomon):
He became like me, that I might receive him.  In form he was considered like, that I might put him on.
And I trembled not when I saw him,  Because he was gracious to me.
The last sentence of verse 5 especially makes sense if we compare it to the conclusion of Thom. 37, when Jesus says: "when you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then [will you see] the son of the living one, and you will not be afraid."
25. For a general treatment of clothing metaphors in Syriac literature see S. Brock, "Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition," in Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den ostlichen Vatern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter, ed. M. Schmidt (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1982), 11-38.
26. As a whole this literary development corresponds to the process of the gradual replacement of the sayings genre by narratives as attested elsewhere. See Robinson, "Jewish Wisdom Literature," 57-58. The "mythologizing" tendency of this process is also reflected in the personified wisdom tradition. See for example Prov 1-9 (esp. 8); Sir 24.1-23; Psalm 154 (=11Q5 xviii 1-16); Sap. Sol. 7.15-8.1; 1 Enoch 42.1-3.
27. The idea of wisdom is especially well articulated in odes 7, 16 and 18. For the decisive role of the search for wisdom in this kind of theology see H. J. Drijvers, "The Peshitta of Sapientia Salomonis," Scripta Signa Vocis: Studies Presented to J. H. Hospers, ed. H. Vanstipout et al. (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1986), 15-30, and idem, "Solomon as Teacher: Early Syriac Didactic Poetry," OCA 229 (1987): 123-34.
28. For obvious connections between the Gospel of John and the Odes of Solomon see J. Charlesworth and R. Culpepper, "The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John," CBQ 35 (1981): 298-322. The polemical emphasis of John on the uniqueness of Jesus is discussed in W. Meeks, "The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism," JBL 91 (1972): 44-72.
29. Odes 8, 10, 17, 28, 30, 36, 41, 42.
30. One should constantly bear in mind the individualistic nature of the message conveyed in these texts. The issue at stake is an individual deification, not a communal one. The message is addressed to a small intellectual elite, searching for divine wisdom, and apparently it was never deemed appropriate for wide dissemination. Tatian in his intellectual arrogance is anything but a democrat. All those converted by Thomas in his Acts belong to the royal court, and he himself appears to be sometimes an aristocratic salon preacher. The Gospel of Thomas praises solitary ones as the most worthy candidates for the heavenly kingdom (Thom. 49 and 75). Apparently the whole theology we are dealing with here was deeply rooted in the idea of individual search for God and his wisdom, and was profoundly aristocratic in its nature.
31. The divine nature of the primordial man is reflected also in the rabbinic tradition, which however showed considerable ambivalence about this notion. See Bereshit Rabbah 20.12 and 21.5.
32. The early Syriac Christian literature had clear scribal characteristics (cf. Tatian's redaction of the gospels). This may at least to a certain degree justify the position of those who claim scribal origins for the Gospel of Thomas against those who see it as created by itinerant charismatics. See W. Arnal, "Rhetoric of Marginality," 471-79 and S. Patterson, Gospel of Thomas and Jesus. On the other hand, these two points of view are by no means mutually exclusive. For the scribal characteristics of the Syriac tradition see S. Brock, "From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning," in East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. Nina Garosian et al. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982), 17-34.
33. For the development of the same theme coined in almost the same language in the canonical gospels see John 4.14 and 7.37-38. One can notice however the same tendency of John to pinpoint the uniqueness of the historical Jesus as a redeemer, which is especially poignant since the two texts share remarkably similar language. For the comparative study, see H. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), 113-24.
34. This peculiar view of Jesus' personality can be defined with the following saying: "Jesus said, 'It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there'" (Thom. 77). Here, unlike in Thom. 24, Jesus is directly associated with the light. However, if we recall the identification between man and Christ in the Odes of Solomon, to the degree that the former is speaking with the latter's voice, we will see that these two ideas do not contradict each other. The man (like Jesus) really becomes deified, but this does not mean that the divine presence is exclusively confined in him. The contrary is true.
Thom. 77 is remarkably similar to John's prologue in terms of seeing Jesus as the primary source of everything, but in fact the two of them sound almost like direct polemic against each other. While in John the divine Logos is clearly identified with the historical Jesus, in Thomas the impersonal nature of the divine component of Jesus is pinpointed as strongly as possible. In fact, John sounds like a later adjustment of a theology somewhat close to that of the Gospel of Thomas to a new theological taste. Cf. also John 11.9-10, 12.35-36, and 8.12. In all of them the Johannine tradition sounds like editorial elaboration of what we have in Thom. 24 and 77.

Tjitze Baarda. Essays on the Diatessaron. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology, no. 11. Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994.

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:53:42 -0400

1. For more than three decades, Prof. Baarda has immersed himself in what Arthur Vööbus called "one of the most difficult topics in all the field of New Testament textual criticism"--namely, Tatian's Diatessaron. A Dutchman by birth, Baarda took a doctorate in Semitic languages at the Free University of Amsterdam, where he studied under R. Schippers. After some years teaching there, he moved to Utrecht where he became the successor of W.C. van Unnik. More recently he returned to the Free University, where he is Dean of Theology and Professor of New Testament. Now nearing retirement, he has published more than thirty articles on the Diatessaron. A selection of these was collected and published on the occasion of his twenty-fifth anniversary of teaching at the Free University. It appeared in 1983 and was titled Early Transmission of the Words of Jesus: Thomas, Tatian and the Text of the New Testament. The volume under review collects fifteen additional articles, fourteen of which were published between 1986 and 1993. A lecture delivered at the 1992 Codex Bezae conference held in Montpellier, France, appears here in print for the first time. One of the fourteen previously published pieces was formerly available only in the original Dutch; it now is offered in English. Before considering the details of three of the articles and remarking on some of the noteworthy aspects of Baarda's work, it will be helpful simply to list the titles of the fifteen articles:
1. "The Diatessaron of Tatian and Its Influence on the Vernacular Versions: The Case of John 19:30"
2. "<grc>Diafwni/a-Sumfwni/a</grc>: Factors in the Harmonization of the Gospels, Especially in the Diatessaron of Tatian"
3. "<grc>A)noi/cas-a)naptu/cas</grc>: The Text of Luke 4:17 in the Diatessaron"
4. "The Flying Jesus: Luke 4:29-30 in the Syriac Diatessaron"
5. "Jesus and Mary (John 20:16f.) in the Second Epistle on Virginity Ascribed to Clement"
6. "To the Roots of the Syriac Diatessaron Tradition (TA 25:1-3)"
7. "The Sabbath in the Parable of the Shepherd (Evang. Verit. 32:18-34)"
8. "'If You Do Not Sabbatize the Sabbath ...': The Sabbath as God or World in Gnostic Understanding (Ev. Thom., Log. 27)"
9. "'A Staff Only, Not a Stick': Disharmony of the Gospels and the Harmony of Tatian (Mt 10:9f parr.)"
10. "'He Holds the Fan in His Hand ...' (Mt 3:12, Lk 3:17) and Philoxenus: Or, How to Reconstruct the Original Diatessaron Text of the Saying of John the Baptist?"
11. "Philoxenus and the Parable of the Fisherman: Concerning the Diatessaron Text of Matthew 13:47-50"
12. "'Chose' or 'Collected': Concerning an Aramaism in Logion 8 of the Gospel of Thomas and the Question of Independence"
13. "The Parable of the Fisherman in the Heliand: The Old Saxon Version of Matthew 13:47-50"
14. "Clement of Alexandria and the Parable of the Fisherman: Matthew 13:47f. or Independent Tradition?"
15. "John 1:5 in the Oration and Diatessaron of Tatian: Concerning the Reading of <grc>katalamba/nei</grc>"
Clearly these are not articles written for the beginner; indeed, they presuppose a command of half a dozen languages--including Coptic, Arabic, Syriac, Armenian, Persian, Aramaic, and Old Saxon--in addition to the usual Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, as well as the modern scholarly languages. There is no disputing it: a Continental education is not without its advantages.
2. Baarda is a particularist; that is, he searches out individual details, researches them exhaustively, marshals all of the relevant secondary literature, and then sketches the possibilities. And he is one scholar who, after having exhausted himself (and sometimes the reader) with notoriously thorough and even-handed analyses, is not afraid to say that, at the end of the day, he does not have an answer. There are no great overarching theories at work here: Baarda is far too well read, knows too many exceptions, to pawn off simple--though perhaps satisfying--answers. Rather, what one observes at work in these articles is the mind of one of the world's greatest textual scholars and philologists at work. No one can read these studies and not be humbled, enlightened, and awed. Indeed, any textual critic who thinks he or she "knows" what is going on should read these studies, for the sources at Baarda's command, both primary and secondary, make our best work pale in comparison. For some examples, let me summarize three of the articles.
3. One of the most accessible (and entertaining) of the articles is "The Flying Jesus." Baarda, whose dissertation was a two-volume study of the text of the Gospel of John in Aphrahat, noticed that Aphrahat (Dem. II.17; Aphrahat died about 350), when discussing the confrontation at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30), states that "He showed the power of his majesty when He was cast down from the height into the depth and was not hurt" (p. 59, italics mine). According to the canonical account, however, despite the fact that the crowd has taken him to a precipice, intending to "cast him down," Jesus is not thrown from the hill, but mysteriously escapes by "passing through the midst" of the crowd (Luke 4:29-30).
4. The causal reader is inclined to dismiss Aphrahat's account as his own overly dramatic invention. But Baarda knows both the ancient and modern sources too well to fall into this trap. In 1881 Theodor Zahn had already noted the reading, when he set about reconstructing the text of the Diatessaron. Basing himself on the Armenian version of Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron, Zahn determined that a similar reading probably stood in Tatian's second century harmony. Baarda then turns to Ephrem's Commentary and presents evidence from both the Armenian version and the Syriac text (discovered only in 1957 and published in 1963). In no fewer than nine instances in the Commentary Ephrem either directly states or obliges one to infer that Jesus was, indeed, cast from the precipice by the mob and "flew," unhurt, down to Capernaum. Turning then to Ephrem's Syriac hymns and metrical sermons, Baarda unearths another seven instances of the same. One theme in much of Baarda's work is his preference for reconstructing each family of the Diatessaron (Eastern and Western) separately. He does so here, offering a reconstruction of the Syriac Diatessaron's text as:
they stood up and they led Him out [from] the town and brought Him by the side of the hill, [on which their town was built,] in order to cast Him down. [When?] they cast Him down from the height into the depth [and?] He did not fall and was not hurt/harmed.... through their midst He passed [and?] He flew [in the air?] and He descended [from above] to Kapharnaum [pp. 79-80, italics omitted].
Suddenly, the odd and abrupt <grc>kathlqen</grc> of Luke 4:31 takes on a whole new meaning.
5. But this is not all, for there is also a Western Diatessaronic tradition. Here Baarda continues to unearth new evidence for the reading: among other sources, it occurs in the "Rijmbijbel" of Jakob van Maerlant (in Middle Dutch, composed in 1271), which is dependent upon Peter Comestor's "Historia Scholastica," which also has the reading and is a Diatesaronic witness. Most remarkably, Augustine preserves part of the tradition in his Contra Faustum 26.2: He quotes the Manichaean Faustus in order to refute him and in so doing reproduces the "throwing" of Jesus from the hill. Augustine does not comment on the varia lectio. Baarda notes,
The agreement between Faustus and the Syriac texts suggests that the Manichaean was acquainted with the Diatessaron or at least with traditions that took their origin in this harmony. Remarkably enough, Augustin [sic] in his refutation does not mention the fact that Faustus used an argument for which [there] was no support in the canonical gospels. We cannot, therefore, exclude the possibility that Augustin knew this very tradition from his Manichaean past [p. 78].
(Your reviewer notes that other parallels between Augustine and the Diatessaron are known; they were first detected by Louis Leloir, and others have been adduced by Gilles Quispel [most recently in VC 47 (1993), 374-378], and now by Baarda.)
6. The Diatessaron was composed c. 172, on the basis of the form in which the gospels then circulated. It evidences unique parallels with the text found in Justin Martyr's gospel citations and with variant readings in other of the very earliest gospel citations. Indeed, if Baarda has successfully reconstructed the Diatessaron's text in this passage (and any unbiased reader who examines his evidence will assent), then he has stipulated the oldest recoverable version of this passage. No other documents prior to 172 preserve it.
7. Briefly, to the other two articles. First, in "<grc>Diafwni/a-Sumfwni/a</grc>: Factors in the Harmonization of the Gospels, Especially in the Diatessaron of Tatian," Baarda brings his knowledge of antiquity and ancient Christianity to bear on the question of the stimuli which led to harmonization, especially in the second century. He notes three factors, two of which are general, and one of which is specific to Tatian. The first of the general factors was the criticism of Christianity by pagan critics, such as Celsus (fl. 180), who mocked the new religion by pointing out the inconsistencies among the gospels. One possible response was to claim only one gospel was authoritative, as Marcion had done. Another response, adopted by Tatian and others, was to reconcile the divergent accounts by conflating them into a single account.
8. The second general stimulus was the "scholarly historical method" of the period (N.B.: quotation marks in the rest of this paragraph are for conceptual clarity and are those of the reviewer; they do not mark extracts from Baarda's text), which proceeded much as we do today: when confronted with inconsistent or contradictory information, that which is judged most reliable is adopted as the "framework," and the other details, where plausible, are "fitted in" around this "Leithistorie." The creators of harmonies saw themselves as doing just what secular historians did: the early gospels were "dispatches from the field" which might well be garbled or confused. The harmonist's task, like that of a general, was to collate the reports, skillfully eliminating the erroneous, restoring the correct sense of garbled reports, and recognizing (and giving greatest weight to) the most reliable reports. Baarda cites examples of secular historians in antiquity who pursued the same goals with identical methods (e.g., Josephus).
9. The third motive, unique to Tatian, was his philosophical understanding of "truth" as unitary. He proclaimed himself to be "the herald of truth" and mocked the Greeks (in his Oratio ad graecos) for their contradictory teachings and schools; this he contrasted with the "unity" of Christian "truth"--of course, this unity was a fiction, for late second-century Christianity was already a fractured, squabbling mess of Marcionites, gnostics of all stripes (Valentinians, etc.), Jacobite Christians (= Judaic Christians), Pauline Christians, Montanists, etc.; nevertheless, it was a good rhetorical ploy on Tatian's part. Baarda therefore concludes that Tatian was driven by a combination of these motives (he gives greatest weight to the last) to create the greatest gospel harmony of all time, the Diatessaron.
10. The last article we will consider is "'A Staff Only, Not a Stick': Disharmony of the Gospels and the Harmony of Tatian (Mt 10:9f parr.)." This article analyzes Tatian's technique of harmonization and highlights one of the most striking contradictions uttered by Jesus. In Matthew 10:10 and Luke 9:3, Jesus instructs his disciples not to take a <grc>rabdos</grc> as they sally forth to preach. But in Mark 6:8, he instructs exactly the opposite: they are to take a <grc>rabdos</grc>--indeed, nothing but a <grc>rabdos</grc>. Commentators have puzzled over these parallel passages and made all sorts of suggestions to resolve the direct contradiction which, to the best knowledge of your reviewer, is not resolved in any Greek manuscript. Tatian's solution (first noted by Theodor Zahn in 1881) was to use two synonyms in Syriac. According to the Syriac Diatessaron (as found in Ephrem's "Commentary," the Arabic Harmony, Syrus Sinaiticus, and the Adysh MS [Georgian]), Jesus told his disciples to take a <syr>xw+r)</syr> ("staff"), but not a <syr>$b+)</syr> ("stick"). What is striking is that this solution could have been introduced into the contradictory Greek text as well (<grc>rabdos</grc>::<grc>bakthria</grc>), but no Greek manuscript does so. Baarda supplements the meager evidence of Zahn (who should not be criticized: most of the Diatessaronic witnesses were unknown a century ago) and uses the example to explore Tatian's sophisticated techniques of harmonization.
11. As the present review has made clear, this volume is not bedtime reading, for it places great demands upon the reader. It should surprise no one that many decades ago, upon his induction, Baarda was one of the youngest men ever to take a seat in the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. Similarly, it should surprise no one that his work stands as a model of classical Dutch scholarship: philologically oriented (as it has been since the time of Heinsius, Scaliger, Cassander, and Grotius), encyclopedic in its learning, attentive to minute details (recall that "god is in the details"), modest in its conclusions, and limpid in its logic. This is scholarship at the very highest level, and anyone who comes in contact with it will learn from it. Advanced scholars should use it as a model, while the aspirant can strive toward the lofty mark set by the man Sebastian Brock once called "the light from the East" (Holland is, after all, east of Oxford).
© TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1996.
William L. Petersen
Department of Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University

NEW LIGHT ON THE TEXTUAL TRADITION OF BAR BAHLUL'S BOOK OF SIGNS

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:52:49 -0400

NEW LIGHT ON THE TEXTUAL TRADITION
OF BAR BAHLUL'S BOOK OF SIGNS

Bar Bahlul was a tenth-century Nestorian who spent most of his life in
Baghdad1. He is primarily remembered today for his remarkable lexicon
of the Syriac language2. In the early 1970s Fuat Sezgin discovered in Istanbul
another work by Bar Bahlul, his Kitab al-Dala’il or Book of
Signs. This new text is not unlike a modern almanac3. It presents first
chronological synopses of the various feasts and festivals of the eastern
churches, as well as of the Jews, Muslims, Îarranian pagans, and others.
It then turns its attention to other matters — how to determine the health
of slaves, poisons, physiognomy, dream divination, and so on. Joseph
Habbi has now published an edition of this text4.

The only complete manuscript of the Book of Signs known to Habbi is
that discovered by Sezgin: Süleymaniye Ktp., Hekimoglu Ali Pa≥a
572.1, ff. 1a-291a, 556/1161. Another short excerpt of the text is preserved
in Süleymaniye Ktp., Fâtih 5411.4, ff. 113a-136b, 688/12895.
Habbi was aware of the existence of the latter but was unable to utilize it
in his edition6. In this note I would like to call attention to yet another,
fairly extensive excerpt of Bar Bahlul's Book of Signs.
Vatican ar. 1304 consists of a number of works on the interpretation
of dreams. Two of these are well known: the dream manuals of Ibn
Ghannam (ff. 2a-167a) and Kharkushi (ff. 230a-314b)7. Sandwiched between
these is another (ff. 174a-229b) that Giorgio Levi Della Vida has

1 Little is known of his life. For an overview, see J. HABBI, Le Livre des Signes de alÎasan
b. Bahlul, in Oriens Christianus, 68 (1984), pp. 210-12. His Book of Signs must
have been composed between 942 and 968. See J.-M. FIEY, Sur le calendrier syriaque
oriental arabe de Bar Bahlul (942/968 A.D.), in Analecta Bollandiana, 106 (1988), p. 271.
2 R. DUVAL, ed., Lexicon syriacum auctore Hassan Bar Bahlul, Paris, 1886-1903.
3 For an overview of its content, see J. HABBI, Les sources du Livre des Signes d'alÎasan
ibn Bahlul, in Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 226 (1986), pp. 193-204.
4 Kitab al-Dala’il li-l-Hasan b. al-Bahlul, Kuwait, 1987. In 1985 F. SEZGIN published a
facsimile “edition” of the text: The Book of Indications (Kitab al-Dala’il) by al-Hasan
ibn al-Bahlul (Tenth Century A.D.), (Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic-
Islamic Science, C10), Frankfurt am Main, 1985. But cf. J.M. WITKAM, Arabic Manuscripts
in Distress. The Frankfurter Facsimile Series, in Manuscripts of the Middle East,
4 (1989), pp. 174-80.
5 Corresponding to Chapter One of HABBI's edition (pp. 57-67).
6 See the comments in the introduction to his edition (p. 24).
7 For Ibn Ghannam (d. 674/1294), see T. FAHD, La divination arabe, Leiden, 1966,
pp. 338-9. For Kharkushi (d. 405/1015), see my forthcoming study, Dream Interpretation
in the Early Medieval Near East.
188 J.C. LAMOREAUX

described as the “Ta{bir ar-ru}ya di Abu}l-Îasan Ali b. Sa{id alÎawlani”
8. It is a question here of Ibn al-QaÒÒar al-Qayrawani, a North
African jurist who flourished in the early 5th/11th century9. Qayrawani
was a prolific author of dream manuals: three others are known10, with
Vatican ar. 1304.2 now making a fourth11.
Della Vida's description of Vatican ar. 1304.2 is not entirely accurate.
He seems not to have noticed that the work of Qayrawani ended on folio
198a (not 229b). There follows Qayrawani's dream manual a miscellany
of other texts on dreams. These were drawn from a number of different
sources: (1) ff. 198a-204b, a section entitled Baqiyah min ta{bir alaÌlam,
containing a collection of traditions on dreams, the source of
which I have been unable to determine; (2) ff. 204b-206a, selections
from Baghawi's (d. 516/1122) SharÌ al-sunnah12; (3) ff. 206a-b, two

8 Elenco dei manoscritti arabi islamici della Biblioteca Vaticana. Vaticani, Barberiniani,
Borgiani, Rossiani (Studi e Testi, 67), Rome, 1935, p. 199.
9 Qayrawani seems to have escaped the notice of the medieval Muslim biographical
tradition, including that devoted to the Maliki school of jurists and to the city of
Qayrawan. Indications contained in his Mumatti{ (see next note) suggest that he flourished
in the early fifth century A.H. In particular, at fol. 169b he dates his reception of a
prophetic tradition to the year 420/1029. Qayrawani's oneirocritic labors are treated at
length in my Dream Interpretation in the Early Medieval Near East.
10 The first is an enormous dream manual arranged by subject, entitled Kitab almumatti{
fi ta{bir al-ru}ya wa-sharÌ uÒuliha, extant only in Sül., Carullah 1571, 194ff.,
1049/1640. Although the ms. is not terribly old, it has suffered much due to water,
worms, and coal dust. There are also a significant number of lacunae in the text. It is thus
fortunate that there are two anonymous dream manuals that made extensive use of
Qayrawani's Mumatti{: Sül., Hekimoglu Ali Pa≥a 590, 343ff., undated, and Sül., Bagdatlı
Vehbi Efendi 941, 121ff., 1005/1596, the latter being basically a mukhtaÒar. — The second
is a shorter dream manual arranged by subject and divided into 30 chapters, the order
of which follows closely that found in his Mumatti{. This work is extant in five mss.: (1)
Sül., Re≥it Efendi 1003.17, ff. 302b-319a, undated, (2) Top., Ah. III 1458.3, ff. 126a-154b,
868/1463, (3) Paris, BN ar. 2746, 44ff., undated, (4) Rabat, Îasaniyah 4536, 30ff.,
1159/1649, and (5) Milan, Bib. Amb. ar. n.s. 1031.7, ff. 111a-129a, 1050/1640. — The
third is another shorter dream manual that Qayrawani arranged not according to the objects
that appear in dreams, but according to their meaning, so that, e.g., all dreams meaning
that the dreamer will have political power are grouped in a single chapter. This work
is extant only in Rabat, Îasaniyah 5596, 57ff., undated.
11 This text is divided into 58 chapters, the order of which diverges sharply from that
found in his other dream manuals. Apart from a rather generic praise of God, the work
has no preface. Qayrawani begins immediately with his introduction, the themes of which
and even at times its wording closely parallel what is found in the first of his shorter
dream manuals. — There may be another copy of this work in Cairo. I have not yet been
able to examine the relevant ms., but have had to rely on F. SAYYID, Fihrist al-makh†u†at.
Nashrah bi-l-makh†u†at allati iqtanatha al-Dar min sanat 1936-1955, I, Cairo, 1961,
p. 243. SAYYID records that Dar al-kutub, Shanqi†i 57, 45ff., 1255/1839, contains a dream
manual entitled Kitab fi ta{bir al-ru}ya, which is ascribed to Abu al-Îasan {Ali b. Sa{id al-
Khawlani al-QaÒÒar. The incipit appears to be identical with that of the Vatican ms., although
SAYYID gives only the first six, rather generic words of the dibajah. SAYYID states,
however, that this dream manual contains 60 chapters (rather than 58).
12 Shu{ayb AL-ARNA}UT ed., SharÌ al-sunnah, XII, Beirut, 1983, p. 202-53 passim.
BAR BAHLUL'S BOOK OF SIGNS 189

short poetic excerpts on dream interpretation, the first treating dreams of
people, the second, dreams of marriage13; (4) ff. 206b-207a, a passage
derived from an unnamed work (not a dream manual) in which it is explained
that the interpretation of a dream can vary with the month in
which it is seen; and (5) ff. 207a-229a, an untitled and unascribed dream
manual, which is in fact a copy (nearly complete) of the last chapter of
Bar Bahlul's Books of Signs, that treating of dream interpretation14.
Although Hekimoglu 572.1 is a well written and relatively early copy
of Bar Bahlul's Book of Signs, it is not without faults. The chapter on
dreams, in particular, is often obscure. This is due in part to its extremely
laconic style. In part it also stems from what can only be scribal
errors. (These problems are compounded by occasional misprints and
misreadings in Habbi's edition). There is no need to give a complete collation
of this new manuscript witness. To establish its importance, a
small sample should suffice (corresponding to the first section of this
chapter in Habbi's edition, pp. 382-5)15.

Page 382 — 4. UFOL : om. V. — Page 383 — 2. ‰« : v « H : om. V. —
8. UNN « : ULNN « V. — 11. U : U* V. — 11. Àb : f V. — 12. Â«oe«Ë :
ÂË«oeË V. — 13. t uKF l U Ë : om. V. — 13. ÂbIM : ÂbI H : ÂbI V. —
13. Á«d : Á«d Ë V. — 15. s U «Ë : l U «Ë V. — 17. Àb : ”d V. —
17. WMHF*« : om. V. — 18. …e M*« : …d M*« H : …d *« V. — Page 384 —
3. W L : W V. — 4. nOHF « ` UB « : trans. V. — 5. w Ë : w V. —
5. q I*« : q I*« H : qOI*« V. — 5. ÂU «Ë : ÂU «Ë V. — 6. _U : ÂUM V. — 6. t U « :
t U V. — 6. …oeU “ w Ë : …oeU “Ë V. — 8. ÊU «–U : ÊU «–«Ë V. — 8. oH « «–U :
oH « «–« t U V. — 9. U d « : UNM d « V. — 15. U2 : U V. — 15. ô : ô Ê«
V. — 17. ÊUBIM «Ë : ÊUBIM « Ë« V. — 18. U dOOG : U dO F V. — Page 385 —
2. U Ëd « dO F Ë : U ËdK dO F K Ë V. — 2. d F : d F V. — 3. rN UO : rN UO HV. —
4. r oe« —«Ë : rN oe« Ë« V. — 5. post dOEM «Ë add. ·ö)« Ë bC U …d Ë V. —
5. ·dB : ·dB V. — 5. ÁdOE Ë : ÁdOE Ë« V. — 6. d F Ë : d F Ë V.

Where H and V differ in ways that affect the sense of the text, V often
offers better readings. Note, for example, the following instances: (i) in
H, at 383.15 and 17, the ordinal al-thamin is repeated, while at 383.13,
al-sadis and al-sabi{ refer to just one type of dream; V offers a consecutive
numeration; (ii) at 383.18, the reading of H and Habbi's tacit cor-

13 I have been unable to identify the provenance of these verses.
14 It corresponds to pp. 382.4-439.9 of HABBI's edition.
15 H = Hekimoglu 572. V = Vatican ar. 1304.
190 J.C. LAMOREAUX

rection make little sense; V does (“food that sends vapors to the
brain”); (iii) at 384.3, V's sittah is superior to H's khamsah (there is
an allusion here to a well-known Ìadith in which MuÌammad defined
the true dream as “one of the 46 parts of prophecy”); (iv) at 384.5,
V's ayyam is clearly demanded by the sense of the passage (“and
when the trees blossom”); and (v) at 385.4, V's adabihim appears to fit
the context better than H's iradihim. Other examples could be noted.
Enough have been cited, however, to suggest the value of V for establishing
the text of Bar Bahlul's Book of Signs.

This new witness to Bar Bahlul's chapter on dream interpretation is
valuable for yet another reason. I have argued elsewhere that this chapter
is an abbreviated, but extremely accurate rendering of the dream manual
of Ibn Qutaybah (d. 276/889), the earliest extant Muslim dream manual16.
Ibn Qutaybah's text rests on an extremely slight manuscript basis17.
The parallels between the two texts are so strong that any future
edition of Ibn Qutaybah's text would have to take into account the witness
of Bar Bahlul. This can be done with far more confidence now that
an additional manuscript of the latter has come to light.

Duke University John C. LAMOREAUX
Department of Religion
Box 90964
Durham, NC 27708-0964
U.S.A.
16 The Sources of Ibn Bahlul's Chapter on Dream Divination, in Studia patristica,
vol. 33, Louvain, 1996, pp. 553-57
17 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yah. ar. 196, 67ff., 845/1441, is the only complete
copy of Ibn Qutaybah's dream manual, although a version of its introduction can be
found in Ankara Üniv. Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakültesi Ktp., Ismail Sâib 4501.2, ff. 180a-
217b, undated.

China Review International Volume 14, Number 2, Fall 2007 Reviewed by John W. Witek

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:10:02 -0400

China Review International
Volume 14, Number 2, Fall 2007
Reviewed by
John W. Witek
Roman Malek, editor. Jingjiao: The Church of the East in China and Central Asia. Collectanea Serica. In connection with Peter Hofrichter. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2006. 701 pp. Paperback $65.00, ISBN 3–8050–0534–2.
In 1623 near Xi'an, a farmer unearthed a stele bearing a lengthy Chinese text on its face with Syriac inscriptions on its sides that recounted the development of the Syro-Oriental Church. Its leader, Aluoben, came to Chang'an, the capital of the Tang dynasty under the Taizong Emperor (627–649) in 635. Within three years, the emperor issued an edict allowing the diffusion of Christianity. Buddhist and Daoist opposition in the late seventh and early eighth centuries curtailed such Christian endeavors, but the Jingjiao beiwen (Stele of the Luminous Religion, called the "Nestorian monument" in the past) erected in 781 described the history of Christianity in that period.1 Entwined with the persecution of Buddhism by the state in 845, Christianity was uprooted from the capital and virtually disappeared from China until it was introduced for a second time before the opening of the Yuan or Mongol dynasty (1279–1368). From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, the stele was considered a hoax in some scholarly circles. But archaeological discoveries as well as Chinese and non-Chinese written sources of the last century explain the presence of the Syro-Oriental Church in China under the Mongols. With two exceptions, the thirty essays in this volume stem from the conference titled "Research on Nestorianism in China" held in Salzburg, Austria, in May 2003. Historians, archaeologists, theologians, and sinologists were able to present their findings in an interdisciplinary setting that resulted in a collection of research materials, not final studies in this field.
The preface by Peter Hofrichter and the editorial introduction by Roman Malek explain why "Nestorian" in the title of the conference was an overarching term that is commonly known, but that more appropriately Jingjiao (Luminous Religion) in the Tang period and yelikewen (in the Yuan period) "should no longer be translated as "Nestorianism" (p. 12). The Church of the East fled from the Roman Empire but continued the theological tradition of Syria and Antioch as they settled in Persia. Over many centuries, misunderstandings resulted in the use of "Nestorianism" as a heresy opposed to the teaching of the Church in Rome. Not until 1994 was a doctrinal agreement on Christology between the Church of the East and the Holy See concluded that led to the latter accepting the liturgy of the Church of the East in 2001. No longer is the term "Nestorian" an appropriate designation; instead Jingjiao, as in the title of the book, is preferable.
The two essays in part 1 focus on past and present studies on Tang dynasty Jingjiao. Matteo Nicolini-Zani indicates that past research developed in three [End Page 513] phases. Japanese scholars such as Haneda Toru and Saeki Yoshiro made the documents known, edited them, and began to interpret them. A watershed was reached with Saeki's The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China (Tokyo, 1951) so that from the 1960s to the 1980s studies were done mostly by Chinese scholars in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but with no appreciable addition of new elements to the Japanese findings. But more recently scholars such as Chen Huaiyu, Lin Wushu, and Wu Qiyu have reformulated the issues on a more scientific basis and thereby have developed "a turning-point in the history of the research on the Christian Syro-Oriental documents in Chinese" (p. 26). The companion essay in part 1 by T. H. Barrett, "Buddhism, Daoism and the Eighth-Century Chinese Term for Christianity. A Response to Recent Work by Antonino Forte and Others," originally appeared a few years ago.2 A discussion of the impact of Daoism and Buddhism shows that in his 745 edict, the Xuanzong emperor changed Bosi jiao (the Persian teaching) to Da Qin jiao (Teaching of Great Qin).
The first two essays of the nine in part 2 show thematic connections of Jingjiao with specific Buddhist and Daoist texts. Stephen Eskildsen notes that there may have been an intensive dialogue of Christians with Daoists, but he is "inclined to think that the Buddhist influence on Nestorians came more through the medium of the heavily Buddhist-influenced Daoist religion of the time" (p. 81). In his essay, Chen Huaiyu portrays a linguistic connection between two Jingjiao and Buddhist texts in the late Tang period by comparatively analyzing each paragraph. Significantly, one of the problems that scholars in this field face is whether some of the documents from Dunhuang said to be "Nestorian" are forgeries. Lin Wushu poses this question, but admits that a final response is not yet possible. Ge Chongyong examines the lifestyle of the Jingjiao followers in terms of their political participation with the upper social classes; their communication with the middle class of doctors, craftsmen, and musicians; and also their charity work among the lower classes. He attributes the failure of their mission to deficiencies in their doctrine compared to the Buddhists as well as their economic inferiority with the Buddhists.
In part 3, twelve essays cover the presence of the Syro-Oriental Church in China during the Jin (1115–1234) and Yuan dynasties. A general overview is provided by Zhou Liangxiao in his comparison of two families who were followers in that church. One family had been in China for more than two hundred years and had adapted to Chinese culture. The other family, part of the Syrian-born immigrant population, had close contacts with the imperial court and were involved in politics even to the extent of temporarily administering religious affairs. Though the two families had a common faith, they differed in culture and lifestyle.
The next essay, by Niu Ruji, discusses Nestorian inscriptions from China during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This sets the scene for the four subsequent essays, one on Yangzhou and three on Quanzhou (Zayton). The illustrations greatly enhance the understanding of these viewpoints that discuss Greek, Latin, Syriac, Uighur, and Chinese terms. These illustrations are followed by an essay [End Page 514] on the past and present field research of gravestones of the Syro-Oriental Church located in Inner Mongolia. Again the illustrations are integral to the text. The rest of part 3 covers such topics as the art of the Syro-Oriental Church in China; a Nestorian-Turkic manuscript from Kharakhoto; a Syriac manuscript possibly written in Inner Mongolia; a biography of Sorkaktani Beki, a Nestorian woman who became prominent in the Mongol court; and the issue of identifying urban structures in Önggüt territory during the Mongol period.
In part 4, seven essays discuss the Syro-Oriental Church in areas beyond China. These include Mesopotamia during the Mongol period, Christian crosses from Central Asia, as well as issues in understanding the finds made along the Silk Route, especially in Kyrgyzstan. Additionally, the last essays present parallels from Caucasian origins to Chinese representations of the cross as well as vestiges of the Syro-Oriental Church in Iran and India. Part 5 is devoted to a two hundred page preliminary multilingual bibliography on the Church of the East in China and in Central Asia.
The wide spectrum of topics under review precludes a thorough critique of each of these essays. The significance of this volume lies in its comprehensive coverage of the Syro-Oriental Church by scholars in very diverse fields. None of them contend that their work is definitive, but they are pointing the way towards attaining a deeper penetration of a phenomenon heretofore known to few specialists.
This volume definitely has constructed a watershed on an important subject in the history of Tang China and later. One glaring omission concerns the date of publication, which is found neither on the title page nor elsewhere in the volume nor on the separate list of errata and corrigenda made available to the reviewer weeks after the arrival of the volume. Some of the English phrases or sentences need revision. But these observations are of lesser consequence in a volume that covers discussions from multilingual sources in Chinese, German, Russian, Syriac, and Uighur, among others. The reader needs to take time to ponder the essays thoroughly. The reward is gaining insights into the history of China from the Tang to the Mongol period under the guidance of leading scholars engaged in fruitful scientific inquiry.
John W. Witek
John W. Witek, SJ, is a professor of East Asian history in the Department of History, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Notes
1. The original stele is in the Beilin Museum, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. Replicas are located at the old entrance of the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi (774–835) on Mount Koya, Japan; in the Vatican Museum, Vatican City, Italy; in the Musée Guimet in Paris, France; and in the Intercultural Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
2. In the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65 (2002): 555–560. [End Page 515]
Copyright © 2008 University of Hawai'i Press

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2000.10.07 Elizabeth Key Fowden, The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran.

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:53:01 -0400

Elizabeth Key Fowden, The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. Pp. xix + 227; 17 b/w ills. ISBN 0-520-21685-7. $55.00.

 Reviewed by Jas' Elsner, Corpus Christi College Word count: 1028 words
In his brilliant and underrated account of pagan pilgrimage to the great temple of Atargatis in Hierapolis (Manbij) in Syria, Lucian evokes the multicultural constituency of the goddess' adherents. He tells us that "no temple is more sacred nor any region more holy" than Hierapolis, whose sanctuary is full of "expensive artefacts and ancient offerings" (De Dea Syria 10). The treasures come from as far afield as 'Arabia, Phoenicia, Babyonia and still more from Cappadocia' (De Dea Syria 10) while the lavish votive offerings that adorned her statue summed up the riches of a whole world largely outside the Roman empire: "There are also many sardonyxes and sapphires and emeralds, which the Egyptians, Indians, Ethiopians, Medes, Armenians and Babylonians bring" (De Dea Syria 32).1
Likewise, in the ruins of the desert town of Dura Europos, in the same Syrian plain, a religious and artistic interface of Roman and Parthian is attested in the characteristic artistic styles and the jumble of deities whose origins reach equally into the East and the West as well as more locally in Syria itself (the latter being represented not only by Atargatis and the gods of near-by Palmyra but also by a very early temple to Jesus Christ).2 Clearly the 'Barbarian Plain', as Procopius called the Syrian Steppe, had a long history as a fundamental frontier zone not only politically, between the great empires of Persia and Rome, but also culturally.
Elizabeth Key Fowden's articulate and well-written account of this region -- part historical geography and part religious history -- fills in the Christian end of this story by focusing (a brilliant move) on a major local saint whose appeal stretched as far as Constantinople and Rome to the Byzantine West and beyond Ctesiphon to the Sassanian East. If I have a major regret it is that the book does not tell the pre-Christian story -- which is every bit as interesting and as relevant to the historical complexity of this frontier region between empires which found multicultural religious appeal to be part of the solution to its difficulties. When Theodoret in the fifth century wrote in his Historia Religiosa that St Symeon the Stylite (atop his pillar at Qalat Siman, also in the same Syrian desert) attracted 'Ishmaelites, Persians, Armenians, Iberians, Himyarits, Spaniards, Britons, Gauls and Italians' (26.11, quoted by Fowden at p. 59), he was effectively making the same point as Lucian three centuries earlier.3 Indeed, it was the Christian bishop Alexander of Hierapolis, from the very city of Atargatis now Christianized, who was responsible in the years immediately before the Council of Ephesus in 431 for setting up the Shrine of St Sergius in the Mesopotamian wilderness at Rusafa. As Fowden well describes, it was only with the coming of Islam and the conquest of the Roman East that the 'Barbarian Plain' lost its centuries-old distinction as the supreme frontier between worlds which had only been so temporarily breached by Alexander. So Islam is certainly the right point for ending the story, but Sergius -- a relative newcomer into the sacred politics of the Syrian desert -- might be said to provide an insufficient beginning.
Fowden's book consists of 6 chapters and an introduction. The latter is a brief and helpful historical geography of the 'Barbarian Plain'. Then she moves to her saint. Chapter 1 ("Portraits of a Martyr") enters the fraught world of reading history out of hagiography and reading hagiography in its correct historiographic milieu. F. is broadly convincing in rejecting the extreme position (taken by David Woods and Tim Barnes, following Hippolyte Delehaye) that the Passio of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus has no historical value, though her dating of a putative martyrdom under Maximinus Daia in c.312 remains at best a good guess. Her dating of the Passio itself to the period immediately after Bishop Alexander's dedication of the Shrine (and his investment there of 300 lb of gold) seems sensible. Clearly the shrine grew relatively popular swiftly (in what was the golden age of pilgrimage to the saints in the East), and it is heartening to see F. use and illustrate a range of visual sources to investigate this topic.
From the saint himself, F. moves in chapter 2 to the place of martyr cult on the frontier. She examines the fascinating case of Mayperqat, east of the Tigris on the very borders of Armenia, Persia and the Roman Empire, where Bishop Marutha (who had served more than once as an imperial envoy to the Persian court) gathered the bones of all those martyred in Iranian territory. With the backing of Theodosius II, he built a grand city full of churches and christened it Martyropolis. Its interest lies in its appeal across the two empires, in which it was to be emulated by Rusafa, the subject of chapter 3. Here F. places the city and cult in its context within the frontier zone (moving back from religious history to historical geography) and gives a good archaeologically-grounded account of the city, its churches, pilgrimage and liturgy. Chapter 4 discusses the spread of the cult of St Sergius in Syria and Mesopotamia, assessing the archaeological and epigraphic evidence place by place (in rather minute detail). The appeal of the saint within the Iranian empire and among the Arabs is extended further in chapter 5 ("Frontier Shrine and Frontier Saint"), where it is clear that he could figure as a kind of deity within polytheistic circles as well as a Christian saint in famous buildings such as the church dedicated to him by Justinian in Constantinople. The final chapter, entitled "St Sergius after Islam" is really a conclusion about the loss of the age-old frontier identity for the Syrian plain (and hence for Rusafa) after the Ummayad triumph in the 630's.
All this is well done and clearly told. A minor cavil is F.'s use of the term 'non-Chalcedonian' -- by which she means 'Monophysite' or 'anti-Chalcedonian' according to p. 3 and the index entry, but which could equally mean Nestorian on the face of it. Indeed at pp. 122-3, it is not entirely clear how the Nestorians and the non-Chalcedonians differ, while at pp. 140-1 they are opposed.

Notes:
 1. For issues of multiculturalism, cultural mix, translation and resistance in the De Dea Syria, see my "Describing Self in the Language of Other: Pseudo(?)-Lucian at the Temple of Hire" in S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire, Cambridge (CUP), forthcoming. There is a new edition with commentary currently in preparation by Jane Lightfoot.  2. See F. Millar, "Dura Europos Under Parthian Rule" in J. Wiesehöfer (ed.), Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse, Stuttgart, 1998, 473-92.  3. For another link between Symeon and Lucian's Atargatis, see D. Frankfurter, "Stylites and Phallobates: Pillar Religions in Late Antique Syria," Vigiliae Christianae 44 (1990) 168-98.

Book Review: The Wisdom of the Pearlers Trans. and Intro. Brian E. Colless

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:52:02 -0400

Cistercian Publications, 2008. ISBN: 9780879073169. ~$25
Recently there has been a great interest among the general public, and to a lesser extent, among scholars. This book seems to be aimed more at a public audience than at an academic one. Part of this desire stems from the popularization of Islamic origins courtesy of Ibn Warraq, Andrew Rippin, and the cheap reprints of John Wansbrough’s seminal works publish more than 30 years ago. The Cistercian Studies series is not geared toward this goal, but does have many books that cover Syriac topics, such as Sebastian Brock’s theology-biography of Ephraim the Syrian (303-373), recent publications with original Syriac side-by-side with English, and now this.
This book is especially important because mysticism in general is hard to understand, especially something so foreign as the Syriac version. Nevertheless, Brian Colless is our guide with an Introduction that covers more than half the book, with selections from the most famous and influential of those discussed. Be warned: there is no Syriac in this book, only the English translations. I bought this thinking I was getting Syriac texts, but no. The general reader may not care in this case since it is a little known language with grammars and dictionaries running into the $100s.
In any case, this serves to introduce the topics in Syriac mysticism, the items they were concerned most about, and their development through various figures. What is striking is that it did not start out with a fast development, and in fact, the greatest mystics were monks who lived in the 6th and 7th centuries, tapering off in the 8th and eventually disappearing almost altogether by the 13th century. What is even more fascinating is that most of these developments had a great impact on developing Islamic theology which emerged out of Mesopotamia, and the Persian Gulf region (the same locale for the highest activity of Christian theology as well). Also of note is the influence of Buddhism. Colless believes there is some substance to the idea that Buddhism was the originator of Christian asceticism and the turning away from the world. Buddhism certainly had an impact on Mani (founder of Manichaeism), and India seems to be an important place in Syriac Christianity, not just by being the destination of Judas Thomas, but also because of the mystical tradition that was already there. In the “Song of the Pearl” the East is the centre of the poem. This poem is part of the “Acts of Thomas” that was composed 2nd-3rd centuries and was very influential among East Syriac Christians, and Indian Christians.
Colless admits there are many topics of interest, but he chose to focus on the pearl, and the imagery of pearlers who were divers into the ocean to get them (they are from clams and are formed when something gets inside the shell, and this white substance forms around it to make it less bothersome). This does make for an interesting read.
The book cover has a picture from a Gospel manuscript from the 13th century in Iraq. This is appropriate since the image is the Transfiguration and gives a hint of what is in the book. Many of the poems deal with Christ and the Holy Spirit. Many of these ideas should be familiar to Western Latin based Christians (eg. Catholics, Protestants), and also to Eastern Orthodox (eg. Greek, Russian) since many of the foundational ideas come from saints and men who are held in high esteem by all traditions.
Dionysius the Areopagite is a case in point. He is said to have been a companion of Paul in Acts, but the writings attributed to him were composed in the early-6th century, and survive in Syriac and Greek from that time. These writings were very influential to the theologians in both those languages, and we know that John Damascene (d. 780) studied them. They were translated into Latin in 858, and men such as Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus wrote commentaries on them, so we can truly see how important this set of writings was.
The anthology itself is very impressive, containing the most pertenant of passages, as well as Biblical and internal references (internal to this book where ideas are found in more than one author). The bibliography and source list of available texts and translations is also impressive, giving an indication of how much of the tradition has been studied. All-in-all, a must-have for those interested in foreign traditions, Eastern Christianity, and the origins of Islam.

Book Review From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity Sebastian Brock

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 12:54:14 -0400

Book Review
From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity

Sebastian Brock. From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity. Variorum Collected Studies Series CS664. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 1999. Pp. xi + 352. $106.95.
Those who are familiar with the work of Professor Sebastian Brock will not be surprised to learn that this is his third volume of essays in the Collected Studies Series. The previous volumes, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity (1984) and Studies in Syriac Christianity (1992), covered a range of topics and interests that, in a majority of cases, have come to be defined by Brock's pioneering scholarship. The present collection is organized around such a topic that has occupied much of Brock's research in recent years: the interaction between Greek and Syriac literary cultures. Following this category, one finds essays that deal with texts and genres of writing. Especially well represented is the extensive literature of dialogues and disputes, a flourishing genre in Syriac, with Sumero-Babylonian antecedents. Here, too, Brock's own prodigious scholarship defines the field. Essays on a selection of wider issues complete the volume.
Chapter 1 traverses the complex intersections between language and geography in the eastern Roman Empire, where Greek continued to function as the language of political power, but where major dialects of Aramaic (Nabataean, Palmyrene, Emesan Hatran, and Syriac) reasserted themselves around the beginning of the common era. Recent discoveries of Syriac mosaic inscriptions confirm the ethnic, linguistic, and political links among these dialects and the populations who used them.
Chapter 2 surveys the textual tradition and underlying interests of the founding legend of Edessene Christianity, the "Teaching of Addai"; first recorded by Eusebius, and expanded in subsequent Syriac recensions. Closely related is the matter of the obscure origins of Syriac-speaking Christianity, specifically, whether Christianity arrived in Edessa by way of missionaries from Greek-speaking Antioch, the position defended by Hans J. W. Drijvers, or if it made its way across western Syria in Aramaic, as Brock has consistently argued.
In chapter 3, Brock maps the intellectual and literary trajectories between the thought-world of the Syriac East and the Britain of Theodore of Tarsus. Sparked by a period of flourishing activity in the seventh century, the use of Syriac spread [End Page 115] to areas west of the Euphrates where it continued to develop lexically even as the prestige and influence of Greek were expanding in the region.
Chapter 4, "From Ephrem to Romanos," the title-essay of the volume, proposes areas of literary interaction between Syriac and Greek. Brock demonstrates the debt of Romanos, an author of Jewish origins in bilingual Emesa, to Syriac literary sources. Following both Maas and Peterson, Brock locates the antecedent of the Greek kontakion in the Syriac madrasha.
Chapters 5 through 9 treat a variety of metrical compositions, verse homilies (mimre), and dispute poems, all areas into which Brock has spearheaded research: chap. 5, "Ephrem's Verse Homily on Jonah"; chap. 6, "Two Syriac Verse Homilies on the Binding of Isaac"; chap. 7, "Syriac Dispute Poems"; chap. 8, "A Dispute of the Months and Some Related Syriac Texts"; and chap. 9, "Tales of Two Beloved Brothers: Syriac Dialogue between Body and Soul." Monastic exegetical concerns fuel the debate in "The Baptist's Diet in Syriac Sources," in chapter 10. Chapter 11 explores unique East Syrian treatments of the ever-popular and widespread legend of the Finding of the Cross.
The seventh-century Syriac monastic writer Isaac of Nineveh, the subject of a recent monograph by Brock (The Wisdom of St. Isaac the Syrian, 1997) is the focus of chapter 12, "Some Uses of the Term Theoria in the Writings of Isaac of Nineveh." Brock charts the expanding semantic range of theoria among Syriac ascetical writers who borrowed the term from Evagrius, and then developed it to accommodate their unique understanding of the spiritual life.
Chapters 13 and 14 are concerned with the role played by Syriac in the transmission of Greek philosophical and medical texts into Arabic. Brock demonstrates how the use of Syriac to bridge Greek and Arabic greatly increased as a result of growing Arab interest in philosophical and medical texts from the ninth century onwards.
Chapter 15 considers the phenomenon of Syriac lexical borrowings from Greek as one measure of the growing influence of Greek on Syriac, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries when Greek increasingly served as the model for Syriac authors who adopted Greek genres, types of syntax, and even vocabulary. The result could be as obscure to readers of Syriac as it was to readers of Greek.
Chapter 15 fittingly closes the collection with the essay "The Scribe Reaches Harbor," in which Brock examines this distinctive nautical topos employed by Greek and Latin scribes, but whose earliest attestations are in Syriac.
In this volume, some of the most recent and defining work of Professor Brock's career, heretofore often available only with difficulty outside Europe or the Middle East, is conveniently gathered. However, at over a hundred dollars, the price will be prohibitive to many, including graduate students, who could profit most from this valuable resource.
Joseph P. Amar  University of Notre Dame

The Martyred Church A History of the Church of the East David Wilmshurst

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:03:06 -0400

East & West Publishing Ltd ADVANCE INFORMATION
This absorbing book deals with the Church of the East—the so‐ called ‘Nestorian’ Church—arguably the most interesting of all the Syriac‐speaking Churches. Few Christians nowadays outside the Middle East are familiar with its name, let alone its history, yet between the ninth and fourteenth centuries the Church of the East was in geographical extent the largest Christian Church in the world, with dioceses stretching from the Mediterranean right across Asia to China. The Church of the East, which began
life as the indigenous church of Sasanian Persia, has been harried and persecuted throughout its history. The tragic story of this ‘martyred church’ is brought vividly to life in this impressive book.
The book is organised into the following ten chapters:
 The Church beyond Rome (AD 36 to 502)  Nestorians and Jacobites (503–633)  Christians and Muslims (634–779)  The Age of Timothy I (780–905)
 A Church at Bay (906–1221)  The Mongol Century (1222–1317)  The Years of Darkness (1318–1552)  Nestorians and Chaldeans (1553–1830)  The Age of the European Missions (1831–1913)  The Calamitous Twentieth Century (1914–2011)
Each chapter contains an overview and a narrative history that describes major events and assesses the reigns of successive Nestorian and Chaldean patriarchs. The historical narrative is followed by thematic sections on ecclesiastical administration, monastic history, and literature
and scholarship. The sections on ecclesiastical administration give ample space to the history of the Nestorian missions to Central Asia, India and China. The sections on monasticism chart the growth and decline of a distinctive form of worship that differed in important respects from monasticism in the Roman Empire. The sections on literature and scholarship pay particular attention to texts which are readily available in English translation, and are written partly with the aim of winning new readers for these texts.
The book gives due weight to the popular Sasanian and Mongol periods but also provides a detailed history of the Church of the East under the Umayyad and cAbbasid caliphs, a relatively neglected area of study in the English‐speaking world. It is particularly strong on the history of the Church of the East under the Ottomans. Drawing on the research which underpinned his earlier work, Wilmshurst provides the fullest account of the history of the Church of the East between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries that has yet been published in English. He also provides a thoughtful Afterword, in which he discusses several possible futures for the Church of the East in the twenty‐first century.
The author demolishes a number of fashionable myths about the Church of the East. In his exposure of the alarming amount of legendary material in its early history, his sober appraisal of the extent and effectiveness of its missionary role in the Middle Ages, and his insistence on the positive role played by the European and American missionaries in the development of the Nestorian and Chaldean Churches in the nineteenth century, he ventures onto sensitive ground. Not all readers may welcome his conclusions, but they will certainly find his arguments stimulating.
David Wilmshurst was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he took a first‐class BA degree in Classics (1979) and a D Phil degree in Oriental Studies (1998). He has spent much of his life in Hong Kong, and is one of the few modern scholars of the Church of the East who can read Syriac, Arabic and Chinese. He first became interested in the Church of the East during a visit in 1988 to Ch’uan‐chou in southern China, whose city museum housed a fascinating collection of Nestorian tombstones from Marco Polo’s time. Presently working as Academic Editor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Wilmshurst is the author of The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913 (Louvain, 2000), a study hailed as ‘an indispensable research tool for students of the Church of the East and Syriac scholars’.
East & West Publishing Ltd
ADVANCE INFORMATION
I’m very excited about this book: it is a welcome, comprehensive overview of the history of the Church of the East, which takes the theological and historical issues seriously and provides a reliable account of the many vicissitudes in the Church’s long life. The Church of the East has truly been a ‘Martyred Church’ twice over; both at the hands of hostile civil regimes and, regrettably, even at the hands of fellow Christians, both east and west. Wilmshurst’s book
brings us a welcome opportunity to know anew and cherish the faithful history of the Church of the East and to work in our own time not only for a healing of memories but also for communion among the sister Christian Churches whose histories reach all the way back to the first centuries of Christianity.
Sidney H Griffith
Written with enthusiasm for the subject, this well‐informed book traces the history of the Church of the East from its origins to the present day. A particularly valuable feature lies in the considerable amount of new light that Wilmshurst has been able to shed on the various obscure periods for which no narrative historical sources are available, thanks to his extensive use of information contained in the colophons of manuscripts.
Sebastian Brock
Wilmshurst displays a phenomenal knowledge of a very little known subject covering a vast area over two thousand years, and manages to convey it very lucidly and readably. The book is also a very useful corrective. Europe tends to think that it invented Christendom, and Europeans often view Christianity as centred perennially on Rome and as somehow the converse of Asia. This book is a timely reminder that Christianity spread eastwards before it spread westwards, and that there was a ‘world Church’ in the east long before the rise of the medieval popes.
Warwick Ball
ISBN 978 1907318 04 7 232 x 154 mm, 544 pages, 14 plates and maps, £39.00, hardback; September 2011
East & West Publishing Ltd G8 Allen House The Maltings, Station Road Sawbridgeworth,
Herts. CM21 9JX, UK
Tel. +44 (0)1279 721398 info@eastandwestpublishing.com www.eastandwestpublishing.com

Original Sin Or the Lack of It? Is Original Sin an Augustinian Nightmare? Robert Stevens

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:01:23 -0400

Original Sin Or the Lack of It? Is Original Sin an Augustinian Nightmare?1 Robert Stevens2 17 August 2011
Introduction: The Purpose of the Paper and The Theological Ground-Rules
The purpose of this paper is not to pretend to be original, but to promote discussion with a view to seeking out sound theology. The writer believes that theology should be rooted in a good exegetical understanding of the scriptures, but also considers that theological learning can be gained from theologians of the past, particularly the early Church Fathers. This practice should be as much a part of the western evangelical traditions as that of the eastern Orthodox traditions. It is noteworthy that John Wesley commented the Church Fathers in his Advice to Clergy (1756).
‘Can any who spend several years in those seats of learning, be excused if they do not add to that reading of the Fathers? The most authentic commentators on Scripture, as being both nearest the fountain, eminently endued with that Spirit by whom all Scripture was given. It will be easily perceived, I speak chiefly of those who wrote before the council of Nicea. but who could not likewise desire to have some acquaintance with those that followed them? With St. Chrysostom, Basil, Austin, and above all, the man of a broken heart, Ephraim Syrus?’ (sic) 3 4
1 Adapting the words of Norman Powell Williams (p 417), ‘original guilt is an Augustinian nightmare’.
2 The writer begins by thanking Fr Gregory Hallam and acknowledges the assistance of his Ancestral Sin & Salvation and Abba Elia Khalife for informing him about the writing of John S. Romanides.
3 wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/an-address-to-the-clergy/ 4 Don Schofield issues a caveat: ‘I trust you will continue to bear in mind the Brethren's caution about 'inspiration of “Church Fathers' anyone other than one who witnessed the events of the Gospels and Apostles are all second-hand accounts and opiinions’. The writer would add a rider: the early Church Fathers had both a wisdom and an understanding of the scriptures with which they continue to bless the church. Nevertheless, one should always read with critical care.Osborne (p 273) argues for a ‘community exegesis’ which involves a dialogue with the past community via commentaries etc and with present communities via constant interaction) to challenge our interpretation.
1
The doctrine of Original Sin was unknown in both the Eastern and Western Church until Augustine of Hippo (c. (354-430).5 It is in Augustine’s writings that for the first time in Christian thought there occurs the term originale peccatum6, a sinful quality inherent in man’s constitution that is involuntarily acquired and deserving of punishment ex poena originalis peccati. It involves guilt.7 Augustine thought that sin had become ingrained into human nature and was transmitted by physical heredity.8
Indeed, it is interesting to note that even Augustine considered more than one possible interpretation.9 The one doctrine he seems to have favoured and the one that has been associated with him is to be found in Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum.10 Briefly stated, the Augustian idea of Original Sin is that all men since the Fall of Adam are seminally in Adam and as a direct result of this in Adam all have sinned and thus share in Adam’s guilt.
Krister Stendahl stated, ‘our vision is often more obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge.’11 The doctrine of Original Sin is often based on Romans 5:1212, particularly Augustine’s understanding of that text. The crucial question is ‘in what sense does [Paul] mean that all men sinned’?13 Much turns on the Greek ’εφ ‘ω. Augustine, along with several of the Latin Fathers understood the words "in whom all have sinned", to mean that all have sinned in Adam. This is based on an erroneous Latin
5 The concept may have arisen in the writings of Tertullian, but the expression seems to have appeared first in Augustine’ s works. 6 The concept of original sin may have arisen with Tertullian. 7 Williams, p 327
8 Williams (p 397) refers to Augustine’s de Diversis Quaestionibus ad Simplicianum. Simplicianus was Ambrose’s successor as bishop of Milan. 9 Earlier on, Augustine considered that God imputed Adam’s sin to the rest of mankind because Adam was head of mankind. Later, he considered that sin was passed on through genetic reproduction because a child was in the father’s own likeness. 10 Ziesler, p 146 11 Paul Among Jews & Gentiles & Other Essays. Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1976, p 7 12 There has been controversy over the interpretation of Romans 5:12-21 since Origen (c 185-252) onwards. It contains ‘obscure and tangled sentences’ (Williams, p 124). Clement of Alexandria apparently did not hold the doctrine of Original Sin. (See Strom. 3:9:64, where he quoted Romans 5:12 and stated that death was produced by natural necessity (Williams, p 339). 13 Williams, p 127
2
translation.14 Modern exegesis, as well as that of the Greek Fathers, prefer to translate this as, "and so death passed upon all men because all have sinned. Witherington states that in relation to Romans 5 ‘we are dealing with some of the most difficult material in all of Romans in terms of grammar and interpretation’. He indicates that the Greek can be interpreted in a number of ways, but, after assessing the various different ways of interpreting ’εφ ‘ω states that the Pauline parallels support the translation ‘because’.15
Williams asserts that Ambrosiaster16 (‘the disaster’)17 made the blunder of misreading the Greek ’εφ ‘ω as ‘in whom (Adam)’. On the other hand, the Pelagians translated the Greek correctly as ‘propter quod’, but this was denounced by Augustine who had an imperfect understanding of Greek.
Romanides states that as a matter of Greek grammar it is impossible to interpret ’εφ ‘ω as a reference to any word other than θανατος (death).18
Ziesler also analyses ’εφ ‘ω. If this is to mean ‘in whom’ (as per the Latin text), there is the difficulty that if it refers to Adam it is uncomfortably back in the passage. If this were to be an analogy of Adam with Christ, one should expect to find not ’εφ ‘ω but ’εν ‘ω. And, like Witherington, Ziesler holds that in Pauline writing, ’εφ ‘ω usually means ‘because’. He drives this interpretation home by stating that in the light of contemporary and near contemporary Jewish thought, it is likely that ‘Adam’ is everyman, so that to state that Adam sinned is a way of saying that everybody sins. This means that the later sinner cannot put the blame on the historical Adam.19 What is inherited is death. Likewise, Alison is of the opinion that understanding ’εφ ‘ω to refer to Adam is the ‘least plausable’. He prefers to follow Photius who linked those words with θανατος (death). In terms of biblical theology, he sees this to be consistent with James 1:12-15 (the temptation leading to
14 Stephen Duffy and Norman Williams. The latter ( p 127) asserts that the Latin provided an inaccurate rendering of the Greek by translating it ‘in quo’. The modern Catholic Jerusalem Bible replaces it with ‘because’. 15 Witherington, pp 143-146
16 ? 4th century 17 The writer’s pun! 18 My thanks to Graham Hallam for drawing my attention to John Romanides’ article, Original Sin According to St Paul. 19 A point also made by my son, William, who, speaking as a psychologist, sees the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin as an excuse for one’s own sinning!
3
sin is the work of an individual’s own desire).20 Williams also holds that ’εφ ‘ω means ‘because’.21
Augustine also relied upon Ps 51:5 as proof of Original Sin and that fallen man was free only to sin. The writer believes that this illustrates the danger of misinterpreting scripture and then proceeding to use misinterpreted texts to built a doctrine. This stance of Augustine has been challenged by two responses within the Nazarene Wesleyan camp. First, McGonigle states in a profound way that there is a difference between universal sinfulness and the origin of sin. The writer observes that the first can be accepted as experienced fact, the second is, at least a debatable theological issue of causation. McGonigle drives his point home by stating that the bible never uses the phrase ‘original sin’. Second, Swanson argues that Ps 51:5 has been misinterpreted because of a failure to take into account the ‘intense poetic imagery’ of that psalm. Psalm 51:5 is a hyperbole. He argues that if Ps 51:5 is to be taken literally, then one must also take Ps 51:7-8 literally, so purification is through hyssop! He concludes that the key to this poem is not the origin of sin, but assurance that God will not despise a contrite heart as per Ps 51:17. Swanson observes that Ps 139:13-14 is overlooked when original sin is under consideration!
The writer would suggest that Augustine may have been influenced in what he said about Original Sin and its impact on the inner nature of mankind by his making out a strong case against the very optimistic view of mankind by
the Pelagians. Romanides asserts that ‘In regard to the power of Satan to introduce sin into the life of every man, Augustine in combating Pelagianism obviously misread St. Paul. By relegating the power of Satan, death, and corruption to the background and pushing to the foreground of controversy the problem of personal guilt in the transmission of original sin, Augustine introduced a false moralistic philosophical approach which is foreign to the thinking of St. Paul and which was not accepted by the patristic tradition of the East.’22
Neither Eastern Orthodoxy nor Celtic Christianity accepted Augustine’s negative diagnosis of the human condition.23
20 Alison, p 154. 21 Williams, p 127 22 Example: St. Cyrill of Alexandria 23 Some attribute inter faeces et urinam nascimur to Augustine; others to Bernard of Clareveux.
4
A more biblical approach to sin might be found in James 1:13-14: man is drawn away by his own lust. James may reflect a Jewish-Christian retention of the Jewish teaching of (rh rcy (yetzer ha-ra), an inclination to evil.24
The presence of the story of Israel in Romans 5-8 means that these chapters are as concerned with the people of God as they are with the individual. The use of the first person should not reduce these chapters to a discussion of the implications of justification for the individual believer because the individual believer is situated within the wider community.25
Augustine had a weakness: an imperfect knowledge of Greek and this shut him off from a more reasonable doctrine of the Fall held by the primitive and Greek church.
Theodore of Mopsuestia (c 350-428) attacked the Augustinian doctrine of hereditary sin in his book Against Those Who Say That Man Falls By Nature and Not By Sentence. The book itself has perished: but Photius, who had read it, gives a summary of its contents. Theodore absolutely rejects such propositions that man, originally created good and immortal, became bad and mortal by Adam’s sin; that sin now has its origin in human nature, and not in the will of man; that newly born infants are tainted by sin, and must obtain forgiveness by baptism, and eating the Lord’s Supper; that marriage and generation are the evil results of an evil nature, etc. It will be seen that Theodore repudiated original sin. At a later date, Julian of Eclanum, and other Pelagians found refuge with him.26 Pelagius denied man’s innate depravity.
Clement of Alexandria relied on Job 1:21 to argue that a child enters this world free from sin.
The writer will develop his points by making a number of propositions and commenting upon them.
24 See Gen 6:5 & 8:21 and Williams, p 118. 25 Cf Is 61:10-11 where the prophet uses the first person singular to describe the restored community. Hays & Johnson, p 195 26 www.earlychurch.org.uk/theodore.php
5
Proposition 1: Adam and Eve were created neither mortal nor immortal.
Comment: Scripture seems to be neutral on OS27, and God rebukes Adam (and also speaks of Eve) in Gen 3:19 where He decrees that man shall return to the ground. The Fathers support the proposition: Theophilus of Antioch, Ephraim the Syrian, Hilary of Poitiers, Maximus the Confessor.
Hallam comments, ‘the Paradise account of Genesis reveals a certain latency toward immortality in humankind which has been spoiled by disobedience to God’.
Proposition 2: Until Adam disobedied, Adam was sinless but not perfect and able to sin. He was not immortal but capable of achieving immortality through obedience.
Comment: The writer believes that this proposition can be supported by scripture: see Rom 5:12. Christ in his ανακεφαλαιωσις (anakephalaiosis) of mankind reverses the first Adam’s disobedience by obedience in both his life and death on a cross. (Phil 2:828; Rom 5:1929) Hallam gives an excellent overview when he remarks, ‘...the Fathers speak of God saving us by recapitulating or regathering [ανακεφαλαιωσις ] the whole creation in Himself and redeeming it, [Ephesians 1:10 where a cognate of ανακεφαλαιωσις appears]. The beginning of this process was in the Incarnation, its climax, the death and resurrection of Christ, its fruition in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, the Body of Christ glorified.’30
27 The writer is grateful to Hallam who, in an email observed, ‘I think you have a good point on the "neutrality" of Scripture in certain aspects although I would have preferred the description ... "not fully worked out." One thinks of "Trinity" and "homoousios" in this regard’. 28 In a sermon Butterworth of Pennington refers to a commentator (unnamed) on αρπαγμον and suggests that the teaching in Phil 2:6 is that Christ did not grasp upon equality with God as a trump card as a way out of death on a cross. A study of Bagster’s Analytical Greek Lexicon appears to confirm this understanding of αρπαγμον. 29 Romans 5:19 uses πολλοι (many) to refer to the impact of Adam and the final Adam (Christ). Unless one were to suggest that the impact of Adam was not all-embrasive in its impact on mankind, it is clear that an Arminian understanding of the impact of Christ must be correct. 30 "God the Son became Man in order to regather in Himself the ancient creation, so that He might slay sin and destroy the power of death, and give life to all men." AH 3:19:6
6
Christ is τελιος (perfect) as the Father is τελιος (see Matt 5:48). The writer believes that whilst Jesus was τελιος, he was able to sin because the temptations by Satan was real. Also, the inherent temptation in Gethsemane was real. The crucial point is that he did not give in to temptation.
Proposition 3: Adam was like a child, fully capable of growing up in obedience to his Heavenly Father and achieving immortality. The fruit itself was not placed in Eden with a permanent exclusion zone around it which would leave humanity in state of infantile innocence. God’s intention was that Adam should grow up through obedience until he received the necessary spiritual maturity to handle such things. Like a child he had to be taught. The same applied to his helper, Eve. But like many children and adults she would not be taught. She wanted to be autonomous and she persuaded Adam to be likewise. They wanted to be God-like without God and so both, particularly Adam as the then head of mankind thereby brought death down upon their heads.
Comment: Scripture seems to be neutral on this. There is a danger in reading into scripture a permanent exclusion zone. However, again, on the issue of permanence scripture appears to be neutral. It tells the story of what happened, rather than what ought to have happened.
However, in terms of Adam’s childlike state, Irenaeos of Lyons is helpful: ‘Man was a little one, and his discretion still undeveloped, wherefore also he was easily misled by the deceiver.31 A good case can be made for studying Irenaeos. He is close in time to the final deposition of the Apostolic Tradition: Christ taught the Apostles, who educated Polycarp, who instructed Irenaeus. A case can be made for Irenaeos being an early witness to the Tradition of the Apostles.32
31 Epid., 12; see also AH 4.37.1; 4.38.3 (ANF, Vol. 1, 518-519, 521-522). 32 He writes to the Roman presbyter Florinus: For, when I was still a boy, I knew you (Florinus) in lower Asia, in Polycarp's house...I remember the events of those days more clearly than those which happened recently...how he (Polycarp) sat and disputed,...how he reported his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their
7
Proposition 4: Irenaeus and the Fathers generally do not understand death as a punishment for the disobedience of our first parents.
Comment: Hallam asserts that this distortion arose later in the West under the influence of Augustine. Instead, the Fathers interpret the consequences of the Fall as something Adam brought on himself when he distanced himself from God. ‘God still walks in the Garden. It is we who hide and shamefully cover our nakedness. Likewise, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and the angel standing guard with the flaming sword is not an act of divine retribution but a compassionate and merciful provision lest we eat of the second tree, the Tree of Life, and die eternally. The fruit of this tree, if we had eaten it, would have condemned us forever.’33
Comment: Chrysostom teaches that by partaking of the tree, the man and woman became liable to death and subject to the future needs of the body. Adam was no longer permitted to remain in the Garden, and was bidden to leave, a move by which God showed His love for him34 ... he had become mortal, and lest he presume to eat further from the tree which promised an endless life of continuous sinning, he was expelled from the Garden as a mark of divine solicitude, not of necessity.35
Comment: Zimmerman states that ‘Irenaeus and Augustine teach (in agreement) that Adam sinned and lost his initial endowment of friendship with God, and that all people die as a result of Adam's sin. But whereas Augustine sees God's pristine plans frustrated by original sin, Irenaeus sees the same sin as an almost necessary step for the education of mankind’. (The writer comments that this shows more of God’s foresight and is much more optimistic.) ‘Irenaeus sees God laying out His plans with original sin already
words, and what were the things concerning the Lord which he had heard from them, and how Polycarp had received them from the eye-witnesses of the Word of Life, and reported all things in agreement with the Scriptures. I listened eagerly even then to these things ...and made notes of them, not on paper, but in my heart, and ever by the grace of God do I truly ruminate on them (Euseb. History of the Church 5:20,5-7; trans. by Johannes Quasten, Patrology I,287).
See www.lifeissues.net/writers/zim/ev/ev_01evolution_sin13.html 33 Gregory Hallam 34 This accords with a ‘hermeneutic of love’ and makes Genesis consistent with John 3:16. Hallam comments, ‘God did not cease to love and care for us in our fallen state’. 35 Hom. in Gen 18, 3 PG 53 151
8
foreseen from the beginning. He would create man free, He foresaw the sin, He then made provisions accordingly. He would help man to use that freedom properly, with original sin36 as a stepping stone to facilitate the learning process. Christ would come fully prepared to cope with the situation of the fallen race. He would recapitulate the fallen race and lead it to the Father.
Comment: Augustine, however, would project Christ as an afterthought - as a second plan after the first had failed. Christ is sent into the world as a repairman, to patch up the disaster caused by Adam. Even so, Augustine has us living in a world not completely repaired by Christ. It is a world, he maintains, in which God still punishes us for Adam's misdeed. It is as though we live in the suburbs of Chernoble after the nuclear meltdown’.37
Comment: St. Paul claims that death is the enemy which came into the world and passed unto all men through the sin of one man.38
Proposition 5: The whole of mankind has inherited inwardly a form of corruption, namely death.
Cyril of Alexandria looks to the birth of the first children from Adam and Eve and notes that ‘he (Adam) produced children after falling into this state, we his descendents are corruptible coming from a corruptible source. Thus it is that we are heirs of Adam’s curse’.39 The curse is that man participates in the disobedience of the Adam and this is inherited through death, not sex. To avoid confusion with the western Augustinian notion of ‘original sin’, it may be helpful to adopt the Orthodox term, προγονικη ‘αμαρτια, or as Williams has it, ‘αμαρτια προπατορικη40 ‘ancestral sin’. Ancestral sin is not inherited guilt as per Augustine’s original sin neither is it imputed guilt (as per Protestant Reformed thinking). It is a state of being that has been redeemed by Christ.41
36 The writer detects that Zimmerman, a Roman Catholic, is here reading in the Catholic Augustinian doctrine of original sin.
37 Anthony Zimmerman, Evolution and the Sin in Eden. www.lifeissues.net/writers/zim/ev/ev_01evolution_sin13.html 38 1 Cor 15:26 39 Doctrinal Questions and Answers, IX, 6 in Cyril of Alexandria, Selected Letters 40 Williams, p 388 41 Galatians 3:13
9
Comment: Hallam acknowledges that those who advocate the western notion of Original sin may rely upon MT Ps 50(otherwise 51): 5, but he comments that this is capable of being understood either in an Augustinian or Orthodox sense. The writer, with Hallam, would assert that the MT can be understood in the light of the equally authoritative LXX text which, when translated, reads: "Behold I was brought forth in iniquities, and in sins (plural) did my mother conceive me." Hence, sin is endemic to the human condition from birth to death. It says nothing about transmission, let alone transmission by sex.
Comment: Hallam observes that there is significant difference between the belief that mankind shares in Adam’s curse through the corruption of death and the view (common in the West since Augustine) that we are punished by death for an original sin in Eden. The Augustinian West started to believe that this original sin was transmitted to subsequent generations through sexual reproduction42 and that man inherits the guilt of Adam.43 Orthodox teaching is clear than mankind does not inherit Adam’s guilt.44
Proposition 6: (This is closely related to proposition 5.) Although mankind became corrupted at the Fall, God preserved his free will (as a part of his Inner constitution) so that according to that free will he might choose to do good and turn away from evil.45
The danger of Augustine’s teaching is that Augustine taught that fallen man did not have any independent freedom to do any good, unless he is assisted by grace46 and in this respect his teaching is unnecessarily pessimistic. Christ, truly man as well as truly God, choose to do good by fulfilling the law and the Father’s will and was without sin.
Proposition 7: The resurrection of Christ is a contingent part of soteriology (the teaching on salvation) beginning with the loving removal of man from
42 This is graphically described by a knowledge of female anatomy and the statement, some ascribe to Augustine, inter faeces et urinam nascimur! (We are born between faeces and urine.) 43 See Augustine, Treatise against Julian the Pelagian 44 This is not to suggest that Christ did not also redeem Adam and those living before him in sin: see Matthew 27:52-53. For further exposition on Matt 27:52-53 and an educationally instructive icon, see a separate paper by the writer.
45 Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p 162 46 Pomazansky, p 162
10
Eden, the birth, life and death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ provides the opportunity of, and the operative capability for, the resurrection of believers who accept Christ as their saviour.
Comment: The writer considers that this proposition can be supported by John 11:25. If there is an Aramaic background to John 11:25 in an oral teaching, then, there is further force in the point. The Syriac Peshitta has aye which carries the double meaning of both ζωη (life) and salvation.47
To the writer it is significant that Christ says that He is the resurrection and the life in that order.
This proposition appears to be supported by Hallam. ‘We should not be surprised then if death, itself the wages of sin, in bringing yet more sin upon the generations of humankind, must needs be destroyed in order that the gates of Paradise might be opened once more to the whole48 of Creation.. This is precisely what we believe about the resurrection. Death has been destroyed by death and Christ, our God, has emerged victorious by contesting that ancient serpent on his own ground: death and hell. The voluntary obedience of a Virgin-Mother bruised the serpent’s head in the Incarnation, [Genesis 3:15]49 and the voluntary obedience of her Son unto death on a cross finally granted unto us the victory in the resurrection.’ ‘The resurrection has become our portal into the very life of God himself, our [θεοσις].’50
Comment: The writer would not overlook a hermeneutic of love when considering God’s sense of justice.51 Kalomiros writes that the Greek word δικαιοσυνη (usually translated ‘righteousness’) is a translation of the Hebraic word hqdc (tsedaka) meaning ‘the divine energy which accomplishes man's salvation’. It is parallel and almost synonymous to dsx
47 Jennings lexicon. See www.dukhrana.com for Peshitta text and lexicons. 48 Italicised by the writer because this contradicts Calvinist teaching. 49 Without detracting from the accomplishment of Christ, one might note the obedience of Mary. The writer believes that this is borne out by 1 Tim 2:15a. A more detailed interpretation of that text can be found in the writer’s paper, Καλασαντος which Don Schofield helpfully critiqued. 50 It is encouraging that in the Lord’s Prayer for believers in John 17, Jesus prays for an aspect of our θεοσις when in John 17: 21 he asks that [believers] may be εν ‘ημιν (in us). 51 It has been asserted that love is the heart and soul of the theology of the early Fathers and of the Orthodox church.
11
(hesed) which means ‘mercy’, ‘compassion’, ‘love’ (the writer would add ‘steadfast love’), and to tm) (emet) which means ‘fidelity’, ‘truth’. This understanding gives a completely different dimension to what is usually conceived as justice. This is how the Church understood God's justice. This is what the Fathers of the Church taught of it. Saint Isaac the Syrian wrote, ‘How can you call God just, when you read the passage on the wage given to the workers? “Friend, I do you no wrong; I will give to this last even as unto you who worked for me from the first hour. Is your eye evil, because I am good?” ’
Christianity is not a wholesale repudiation of Jewish theology, but a deeper understanding of it in the light of Christ’s teaching, the teaching of the New Testament with the aid of the Church Fathers. Therefore, it is significant that Judaism, working from the Old Testament, teaches that men are born morally pure. This teaching appears to be founded on a basic understanding of the creation story. Men were created in the image of God with the free will to obey or disobey God. Judaism has no concept analogous to original sin but rather affirms that men are born with bw+h rcy (yetzer hatov) (a tendency to do good) and with a (rh rcy (yetzer hara) (a tendency to do evil). Men have the free will to act upon bw+h rcy or (rh rcy. There is within mankind an inherent conflict between good and evil orientations.52
A careful study of the Hebrew in Genesis 2 and 3 reveals a play on words and much more. In Gen 2:25 Adam and Eve are described as ,
naked (plural). In Gen 3:1 the serpent is described as more , naked (singular) than all of the animals. After Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit
they realised that they were , naked (plural). Swanson53 develops this point of this in some detail, but look at how Adam and Evil were deceived and note their revelation! The Hebrew root seems to convey the idea of revealing, something that is common to being naked, having knowledge, prudence and cunning! Adam and Eve had gained knowledge
52 See DeFrancisco, James J. Original Sin and Ancestral Sin - Comparative Doctrines. 53 Swanson, Primeval Narratives.
12
before it was intended for them to have that knowledge. Their banashment was now for their own protection!
Conclusion
Whatever might be the condition of man before accepting Christ, the same passage in Romans 5 points out clearly the impact on the believer of the work of Christ. One should read on! The result of death for all in Romans 5:21a is remedied by the gift of life through Christ in Romans 5:21b.54 This is a theologically encouraging Gospel.
It seems to the writer that if the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin is discarded, then the Calvinist doctrine of election also falls, for if all have not sinned in Adam, then the case for pre-birth election to damnation on the basis of sin falls.
McGonigle writes, ‘the influence of Augustine’s teaching on both Roman Catholic and protestant theology has resulted in a pessimistic over-emphasis on original sin and not enough attention given to the glorious possibilities of the new life in Christ through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit’.
The initial draft of this paper was written during Pascha-tide and the writer cannot improve upon Hallam: ‘it is Christ our God who in the icon of Pascha storms into hell and liberates the captives from the grip of death and sin. A new way has thereby been opened up for us to regain Paradise, Christ the first fruits of all those who have fallen asleep’. The focus shifts from a questionable doctrine of original sin to the offer to all of salvation in Christ and, through Christ’s ανακεφαλαιωσις, the θεοσις of all believers. In this way believers can say ‘amen’ to, and are on the soteriological road to, resurrection and life/salvation. Aνακεφαλαιωσις (inclusive of death on a cross), αναστασις (anastasis – resurrection) lead to believers’ θεοσις (theosis) and αναστασις (anastasis).
54 Frank Thielman in Hay & Johnson, p 181 13
Bibliography
Alison, James. The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes. New York, Crossroad, 1998
Anon. The Development of the Practice of Infant Baptism and the Doctrine of Original Sin in the Early Church up to the Time of Augustine. Nazarene College Library: CT310.
Duffy, Stephen J. Our Hearts of Darkness: Original Sin Revisited. Theological Studies 49 (1988)
DeFrancisco, James J. Original Sin and Ancestral Sin - Comparative Doctrines.
Hay, David M. and E. Elizabeth Johnson (editors). Pauline Theology: Vol III: Romans. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1995.
Hughes, Antony. Ancestral versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy. St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Google Scholar
Kalomiros, Alexander. (1980). The River of Fire. As presented at the 1980 Orthodox Conference sponsored by St. Nectarios American Orthodox Church
Seattle, Washington
www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm.
14
McGonigle, Herbert. Re-Minting Christian Holiness:Part 10. The Flame (2000) (vol 66), pp 16-17 (Nazarene Library Reference CT310)
Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral. Downers Grove, Illinois : IVP, 1991.
Romanides, John S. Original Sin According to St Paul. St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, Vol. IV, Nos. 1 and 2, 1955-6.
Swanson, Dwight D. Re-Minting Christian Holiness:Part 11: Holiness in the Psalms. The Flame (2000) (vol 66), pp 21-23 (Nazarene Library Reference CT310)
Swanson, Dwight D. Original Sin in the Primeval Narratives in European Explorations in Christian Holiness: On Original Sin. Nazarene Theological College, Didsbury, 2001.
Williams, Norman Powell. The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: A Historical and Critical Study. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1927.
Witherington, Ben. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids. Eerdmans, 2004
Ziesler, John. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. London. SCM Press, 1989.
15

Moral, Ascetic, and Ritual Dimensions to Law-Observance in Aphrahat's Demonstrations Adam Lehto

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:15:43 -0400

Abstract Writing to counter the critique of a much larger Jewish community, and to instruct fellow ascetics in their chosen path, the fourth-century Syriac author Aphrahat develops a notion of law-observance that serves both ends: God's law of righteousness, which is more fundamental than the Mosaic law, has been summed up in Christ's teaching on love for God and neighbor; but a commitment to this way of love also calls for ascetic renunciation. In addition, the few references to ritual should be understood, like Aphrahat's teaching on ascetic practice, as an attempt to bring this area of Christian life under the all-embracing imperative of following the law of righteousness with a pure heart.
A prominent feature of Aphrahat's fourth-century Syriac Demonstrations1 is the author's concern about the threat of Judaism to his Christian community. In addition to various passages throughout the work as a whole, the majority of the final thirteen Demonstrations focus explicitly on this perceived threat, seeking to show that the Jews have been rejected and that the church has become God's chosen people, drawn from all the peoples of the world.2 Thus Aphrahat feels compelled to argue against circumcision [End Page 157] (Demonstration 11), Sabbath (12) and Passover (13) observance, dietary laws (15), Jewish claims of election (16, 19), Jewish objections to Christ being the son of God (17) and to celibacy (18), and Jewish criticism of Christians based on the fact that they are persecuted (21). Demonstration 20, ostensibly on the topic of giving to the poor, is also preoccupied with the status of the Jews, a preoccupation expressed in particular through an extended midrash on the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.3
Another prominent feature of the text is its ascetic orientation, not unusual in an early Christian work. This is most clear in Aphrahat's Demonstrations on fasting (3), covenanters (6), and virginity and holiness (18), but asceticism is not far beneath the surface in much of the rest of [End Page 158] his work. Aphrahat himself has embraced the ascetic life and is writing to those who have done likewise. Even as Aphrahat affirms the legitimacy of marriage, it is clear that, like Paul, his preference is for a more rigorous understanding of the Christian life. While the topics of Aphrahat's Demonstrations are often generic, this should be not be taken to be evidence for a general readership. When he outlines the qualities of the ascetic in Demonstration 6, faith, prayer, love, and humility figure prominently. Though he does not deny that these topics have relevance beyond his fellow ascetics, his own attention is to that particular subset of the larger Christian community.
It is possible to relate Aphrahat's concern about Judaism to his asceticism by focusing on his positive concept of divine law.4 Much has been written on Aphrahat's arguments against the ritual observances of Jewish law and his rejection of some of the basic assumptions of the Jewish theology in his milieu. A number of studies have also investigated the degree of familiarity that Aphrahat may or may not have had with rabbinic arguments.5 An important aspect of Aphrahat's response to what he perceived as a Jewish threat is the way in which he articulates his own interpretation of God's law, an interpretation which sees the Jewish law as being fulfilled and at the same time points to what Aphrahat saw as a higher, ascetic way of life. It will also become clear that the importance of the law for Aphrahat is a basic part of his faith and not merely a response to Jewish pressure or a product of persecution.6 While Aphrahat claims that Christian ascetics [End Page 159] embrace their way of life "by free choice, and not from the slavery and coercion of a commandment or because we are constrained by it under the law,"7 it is clear from a consideration of other crucial passages in the Demonstrations that asceticism itself is a higher form of law-observance. Aphrahat's preoccupation with law is not merely a feature of his anti-Jewish polemic, though it is often developed in that context.
The main focus of the investigation that follows will be the Greek loan-word nāmosā (; "law" or "the law"), though words based on the root pqd(; e.g., "command," "commandment," etc.) will also be considered where appropriate. I will not be considering cases where nāmosā is used to refer to human laws. Aphrahat also uses the term 'orāytā a relatively infrequent seven times.8
The Semantic Range of Aphrahat's Concept of Law
I will begin by examining the various meanings associated with the term "law" in the Demonstrations. Aphrahat is not overly concerned with consistency in his usage, so it is important to note that the term functions differently in different contexts.
"Law" as Scripture
This sense of the term is basic to all of Aphrahat's arguments, dependent as they are upon numerous prooftexts.9 The law is clearly related to Scripture, but the relationship is not clearly defined. A number of logical [End Page 160] possibilities exist for the denotation of "law": i) the revelation to Moses at Sinai; ii) the ritual laws within the Sinai revelation that are no longer relevant; iii) the Pentateuch as a whole; iv) the Bible (OT plus NT); v) the gospels; vi) the words of Christ in the gospels; vii) the Old Testament alone; and ix) the New Testament alone. The last two of these do not occur in the Demonstrations and can be excluded from discussion.
i) Here Aphrahat seems to refer to a body of law that is given to Moses, contained in but not co-extensive with the Pentateuch. Thus 1.19 (God "gave the Torah to Moses")10 ; 2.5 ("The [promise to Abraham] was four hundred and thirty years older than the law")11 ; 2.7 ("at the head of the whole law it is written: 'I am the Lord your God . . .'")12 ; 3.3 ("Moses also fasted purely when he went up the mountain and brought the law to his people")13 ; 3.4 (where Deut 17.6–7, Lev 24.16, and Exod 20.17 are cited as "written in the law," though this could be an example of ii) below)14 ; and 15.8 (refers to the "ten holy commandments which [God] inscribed with his hand and gave to Moses" ).15
ii) It is important to take note of certain phrases, concentrated in 2.5–6, that Aphrahat uses to denote ritual laws that have, according to him, been made irrelevant by the coming of Christ: "the observances of the law"; "the law of the commandments"; "the customs of the law"; "the offerings which are in the law"; and "the works which were in the law."16 In all cases, these phrases denote that which has been done away with by the sacrifice of Christ.17 Likewise, in the fascinating section 8 of Demonstration 15, when Aphrahat quotes Gal 3.11–12 and says that the Israelites "were not able to be made righteous through the law," it is ritual law that he has in mind. In this passage, the Decalogue is associated with the "easy and pleasant" yoke that Christ gives to his followers, in contrast [End Page 161] with the "hard and difficult" yoke of the ritual law.18 I shall return to this passage below.
iii) Though the denotation of "law" is sometimes ambiguous (does he mean the entire Pentateuch?) in passages where Aphrahat appeals to Sinai revelation (e.g., 3.4, listed above),19 there are some passages in which the whole Pentateuch is clearly the referent. Throughout Demonstration 2 and in 21.2 we find the phrase "the law and the Prophets" in which "law" refers to a section of the Bible rather than to a particular set of laws delivered to Moses at Sinai. Likewise, in Demonstration 3.11, Exod 17.9, which is pre-Sinai in the biblical narrative, is referred to as part of the law.20 Twice in Demonstration 6 (sections 1 and 6), the phrase "curse of the law" occurs. Unlike Paul, it seems that Aphrahat has Genesis rather than Deuteronomy in mind when he uses this phrase.21
iv) When Aphrahat, in various passages (6.1, 17, 20; 7.21; 9.2, 4, 11)22 exhorts his readers to meditate on the law of the Lord, it is inherently unlikely that the reference is to a restricted sense of "law," either Decalogue or Pentateuch. Rather, the meaning of "law" in such passages seems to be "Scripture," including both Old and New Testaments.
v & vi) These two possible meanings emerge from a single passage in section 20 of Demonstration 6. In his closing words at the end of that Demonstration, Aphrahat quotes Luke 16.14 to describe anyone who mocks or scoffs at a fellow covenanter. He says that the warning that Jesus gave to the Pharisees (Luke 16.15, which he does not quote) is fulfilled against such a person. This is followed by the admonition: "Read and learn, and be zealous to read and to act. Let this law of God be your meditation at [End Page 162] all times." Though this could be another example of iv) above, the context and the use of the demonstrative pronoun suggest that here law is associated with either the gospel(s) or with Christ's words in the gospel(s). Even if this is the case, it is clear that this denotation of law did not figure prominently in Aphrahat's thinking.
"Law" as a Spiritual or Moral Ideal Predating Moses
The use of the term "law" to denote Scripture or parts of Scripture represents Aphrahat's "default mode." Another meaning of the term, however, though infrequent, is very important. This other meaning is reflected in a few passages which indicate that the righteous have no need of a written law: they observe a "law of righteousness" that is inscribed in their hearts (2.2, 7; 13.8). Abraham is the paradigmatic figure in this regard, though Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses are also singled out. It is striking that no NT figure appears in this list. This is probably due to the assumption that this law of righteousness, once obeyed by the few, was now available to all through Christ.
Now that I have established the semantic range of the term "law," I will argue three related points: i) the theme of the observance of a "law of righteousness," reflected in but not limited to Scripture, is fundamental to Aphrahat's discourse; ii) ascetic practices are a means to the end of observing this law of righteousness; iii) even Christian ritual law (such as it appears in the Demonstrations) is subordinate to this deeper law of righteousness.
Law-Observance: The Moral Dimension
Aphrahat's ethical instruction flows out of his emphasis on the "two commandments, upon which depends the whole force of the law and the Prophets."23 Love for God is primary but must lead to love for neighbor: "[A]fter a person loves the Lord his God, he should also love his neighbor as himself."24 The theme of faith, as an affirmation of the existence of God and a commitment to loving obedience to God, frames the Demonstrations as a whole, and this faith is inextricably linked to good actions. The role of Christ in faith is stated at the beginning and the end of the Demonstrations: "[T]he foundation of our whole faith is the true stone, [End Page 163] our Lord Jesus Christ"; "In him we have come to know [God] and have become his worshippers. . . ."25
In both cases, faith in God through Christ is linked to good works. The building that is raised on the foundation of faith is "furnished" with items that make it suitable for Christ the king (1.4). Many of these items have a decidedly ascetic flavor to them, but we must keep in mind that when Aphrahat speaks of "pure fasting" and "pure prayer" (the first two items), the purity here has to do with purity of heart, which includes a commitment to moral action that transcends mere ascetic praxis (see 3.8; 4.14–15). The inclusion of love, almsgiving, and hospitality in the list of required furnishings for the house of faith make clear the connection between faith and good works. The fact that ascetic and moral "furnishings" both feature prominently reflects Aphrahat's conviction that a true observance of the moral law is facilitated by asceticism, a link which will be examined in more detail below.
In the closing sections of the last Demonstration, the link between faith and moral action is expressed even more forcefully. Immediately after the passage from 23.61 quoted above, we read:
As the essence of all good actions, this is required before God: a person must believe that there is one God and with faithfulness keep his commandments. If a person acknowledges that there is one God but transgresses his commandments and does not follow them, he does not really believe that there is one God. . . . For the person who believes that God judges the murderer does not murder, and in the person who murders, it is not established that God exists. The person who believes that God judges the adulterer does not commit adultery, and in the person who commits adultery, it is not established that God exists. The person who believes that God judges thieves does not steal, and in the person who steals, it is not established that God exists. All the commandments are likewise.26
Once again Aphrahat's dependence on the Decalogue is evident. In the four sections that follow, Aphrahat expands on the prohibition against swearing falsely, a moral rule that was evidently being breached in a particularly flagrant way in the church he knew. After this exhortation, section 67 contains the very end of his argument proper, before the formal end of the Demonstration in sections 68 and 69. The theme of section 67 is the impermanence of the world and worldly attachments, and its final [End Page 164] line should be seen as a summary of Aphrahat's argument in the Demonstrations as a whole: "There is nothing greater than the fear of God, and the person who keeps his commands is glorified. For many are called wise, but there is no wisdom like the fear of God."27 Aphrahat assumes that by now the reader will understand that ascetic practice is required for the one who is deeply committed to keeping God's commands.
This emphasis on the moral dimension of law-observance is not merely a feature of the beginning and end of the Demonstrations, but occurs throughout.28 The Decalogue is held up as a slightly expanded version of the double law of love, and Christ is portrayed as one who would call God's people back to a true law-observance. Combining a passage from Hosea with the parable of the lost coin from Luke, Aphrahat criticizes Jews for rejecting Christ, who is the lamp that they should have used to seek the Lord and recover their lost love for God (the first of the ten commandments) and neighbor (the other nine commandments).29 To accept Christ is to return to the essence of the law. Likewise, as mentioned above, in 15.8 a distinction is made between the "ten holy commandments" and other "commandments and judgments" having to do with ritual purity. This clear contrast is followed by another: that between the "hard yoke" of these ritual purity laws and the "easy yoke" of Christ. An obvious reading of this passage would understand this "easy yoke," whatever else it may involve, to refer back to the "holy commandments" that are not obscured (for Aphrahat) by ritual purity laws. In other words, as at 1.11, we are again dealing with a portrayal of Christ as proponent of the Decalogue.
Perhaps the most striking appeal to law-observance as a fundamental category for Christian living occurs in the fourteenth Demonstration. A recurrent theme in the exhortation that Aphrahat and his associates direct toward the leadership of the Syriac church is that the law is not being observed. Most of the occurrences of the terms "law" and "command[ment]" [End Page 165] are in the context of discussions of disobedience to the divine imperative. After greeting his readers, Aphrahat30 points to the crisis in the church in a way that seems to include him and his supporters in the problem (14.2). Very quickly, however, it becomes clear that Aphrahat is ready to assess blame for the present situation. His talk of "our sins" and "our minds" in 14.2 refers not to himself and his supporters, but to the church insofar as it has been corrupted by certain of its leaders.
In 14.3 he says that these leaders have "forsaken the law and have adorned themselves with evil,"31 and that under their rule the law has "grown cold" and is "bound."32 In their greed, they have ignored the clear commands found in Scripture against the practice of lending at interest. Their disregard for the law is further seen in the fact that they cater to the rich and oppress the poor, which leads them to pervert justice and to refuse to listen to any admonition. Aphrahat distances himself from the so-called "handlers of the law,"33 whose greed has made them envious and jealous and whose way of life does not match their teaching. They are seen by Aphrahat as continuing the tradition of Adam, who, out of greed, disobeyed the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (14.23). Indeed, the leaders of the church are portrayed as the culmination of a long history of greed outlined in the Bible (14.23–24). These men enjoy exercising power, but have no interest in the good works which ought to accompany the titles they bear. A series of Old Testament allusions describes their condition:
The foolish shepherd's eye is blind and his arm is withered. Do not the priests say, "Where is the Lord?" The handlers of the law do not understand it, and the shepherds are unfaithful to it. From the prophets of Jerusalem comes forth godlessness over the whole earth. The leaders of my people are uprooting them, and women have power over the people. Henceforth we do not fear the Lord. What will the king do to us? Woe to us! What have we become when the law is forsaken and some among us adorn themselves with wickedness? We ought to sit and be quiet and not talk.34 [End Page 166]
Later in the Demonstration, Aphrahat provides another evocative description:
Our Lord has opened before us a great treasure full of all good things. In it is love, peace, friendship, healing, purity, and all manner of good, beautiful, and excellent things. He has given authority to his stewards over all the treasure-house, and has also placed chains, prisons, and fetters into the hands of the stewards and authorized them to bind and to set free. But the stewards have forsaken love and peace and friendship and all the rest of the treasure. They have become prison wardens, prosecutors, and executioners, instead of stewards of the treasure of all good things. . . . We hope, brothers, that when the king sees his stewards, who have transgressed the law and changed the commandment which he gave to them and established their own decrees, he will bind them with the fetters that they so loved, demand payment from them for the blood of his servants, and take away from them his treasure, because they did not cherish it.35
The commandment that has been given to them is expressed, in section 44, not only in Jesus' injunctions to love and forgive, but also in Moses' well-known words, "Do not hate or sin [against] your brother in your heart" (Lev 19.17).36 Leaders such as these have been rejected by God (14.17, 27), with the example of Uzzah (who, in carrying the ark on some heifers, "transgressed the law" and died as a result) serving as a solemn warning.37
Sections 34–37 of the fourteenth Demonstration compare observance of the law among humans with that of the rest of creation. In section 34, the reader is reminded of the greatness of God's creative work. For all the greatness of creation, however, no part of it can respond to God in the way that humans can:
The wind has no vision, the air has no sense of touch, the sky has no shape, and the clouds have not been given knowledge. The creatures of the sea are powerful, but the monsters in it are without speech. The arms of intelligence are stretched out, and the wings of thought are extended; the senses of the mind explore, and the eyes of consciousness gaze intently. The openings of the sense of hearing fly to perceive and to understand the inquiry. But even all of these together do not comprehend.38
These references to "intelligence," "thought," "mind," and "consciousness" are metaphorically applied to the animal and inanimate worlds, but in the next section (14.35) we are told that "the one who extends the [End Page 167] wings of his intellect" inherits wisdom and knowledge.39 These objects of the mind are unavailable to the foolish, but those who ask and who have open hearts are able to acquire them.40 Clearly the topic has shifted from non-human creation to humans. A profusion of metaphors describes first the powers of wisdom and then the characteristics of the wise man. Wisdom is focused on the heavenly realm. It is "the great temple of its Creator,"41 who shows it all kinds of heavenly treasure. The content of this treasure has already been mentioned above: "love, peace, friendship, healing, purity, and all manner of good, beautiful, and excellent things" (14.44). When the wise man (who has been represented by "wisdom" thus far) "sees in his mind the place of his many treasures, then his thought is elevated, and his heart conceives and gives birth to all good things, and he meditates on all that has been commanded."42 The rest of the section contrasts the earthly limitations of the wise man with the power of his wisdom; he can give this wisdom away freely without becoming impoverished, since there "is no limit to the mind of the one who is contained and who lives inside of him."43 What we see here in Aphrahat is a kind of wisdom-mysticism,44 but it is important to keep in mind that this mystical tendency is balanced by an emphasis on "all that has been commanded" in the history of salvation, and it is on the basis of these commands that the final judgment will take place. That Aphrahat does not think of law as disembodied but rather as historically given is affirmed, moreover, in the fact that he can speak of the church leaders as "handlers of the law," i.e., as interpreters of a sacred text that has been given by God. The law seems to function in these passages as the key to the treasury of God; the [End Page 168] wicked leaders of the church will lose its treasure because they did not cherish it by obeying the law.
Section 36 portrays all of creation as an analogue to the wise man who does God's will. By their obedience, the water and sand in the time of Noah play a role in the destruction of a disobedient generation. When God wills for the flood to end, water recedes into the abyss below the land, and the water above the firmament remains where it is. Other examples from the lives of biblical heroes prove that "[h]eaven, earth, and all creatures do his will at each moment, and none among them has resisted his will."45 Such is not the case in the human sphere. Section 37 opens with the thematic statement, "But the transgression of the law is found with Adam. From the first day and forever, he transgresses the law."46 The examples that follow are not of humans in general, but rather the wicked leaders of the church. I will not attempt to summarize Aphrahat's description of these leaders. He is quite harsh, going so far as to call them "the offspring of Satan" and "the enemies of Christ."47 For our purposes, it is enough to note that their behavior and characteristics fall under the category of law-breaking, given the thematic statement which begins the section. At one point Aphrahat calls them "mute dogs who are unable to bark,"48 which reminds us of 7.21, where those who do not meditate on the law are given the same designation.
Aphrahat returns to the metaphor of harvest (among other metaphors) in the closing section of Demonstration 14. Section 46 summarizes the parable of the sower. Section 47 then opens as follows:
Friends! Though we are sinners and unworthy, nevertheless it is on this foundation that we build, and this leaven that we have received. The seed of our Lord has fallen on our earth, and we have received money from the rich merchant. His Spirit has been poured out on everyone, and his kindness is not held back from anyone. If it should happen that someone scoffs at us and does not receive what we have written, he does not injure us thereby, nor does he gain [anything]. Our words demonstrate profit for those who listen, for we have written nothing to you that is outside of the law, nor have we sent a stolen treasure to you, but rather from the seed and the clay of the holy writings.49 [End Page 169]
Here, once again, Aphrahat appeals to "the law" (or "the holy writings") as a standard for truth. Furthermore, this "law" is implicitly compared to a seed. Aphrahat seems to read the parable of the sower as a story of how Christ gives his law to those who would receive it. The "holy writings" are also described as containing (or consisting of) "dough." Earlier in the Demonstration (in sections 30 and 38), Aphrahat, in the process of describing to his readers the kind of persons God calls them to be, draws on a New Testament image and compares them to "new dough" which is not contaminated by any "old yeast."50 Thus, when he compares the holy writings (i.e., the law) to dough, we can infer that the state of being "new dough" has everything to do with responding appropriately to the law of God. The phrase "outside the law" is used elsewhere in Aphrahat only once, to refer to those who engage in immoral acts: "thieves, murderers, liars, and servants of hatred."51 There is no possibility, given Aphrahat's continual use of the Old Testament, that "holy writings" refers only to the New Testament as a kind of "new dough." It is also important to note that in 14.47, law and Spirit are the only elements that are not intended to be taken metaphorically. These two work together, and it is their effect or activity which is described as "foundation," "leaven," "seed," "money," "dough," "good flour," "strong wine," "new patch," "vine," and "fruit." Likewise, those who fail to respond positively to God's law and Spirit are like "the rock which dries out the seed," "the building that is placed on sand," or "salt that has lost its taste."All of these metaphors can be taken, in the context of Aphrahat's discourse, as describing a state of disobedience to God's law and/or a lack of receptivity to God's Spirit. There is no hint of the Pauline antithesis between law and Spirit.52
Other passages can be cited to demonstrate Aphrahat's concern with moral instruction. In 4.15–16, 18, he emphasizes that prayer without compassion and a commitment to doing the will of God is without value. The seventh Demonstration urges those who have fallen into sin to seek out the remedy that is provided in repentance and also urges those in leadership positions not to withhold this remedy from those who desire it. Demonstration 9 portrays humility as a fundamental virtue, from [End Page 170] which other virtues flow.53 In section three of the ninth Demonstration, Aphrahat states that "the humble one reflects on the law of his Lord, and from it receives the remedy which he seeks." The word translated here as "remedy" appears first in Demonstration 7, where it is used eight times to refer to repentance. One of the main functions of the law (i.e., the Scriptures in general), we are here reminded, is that of encouraging sinners to repent. Only those who are humble can embrace repentance. The theme of repentance as remedy also figures prominently in Demonstration 23.3. Those who have repented have access to the tree of life, and judgment is delayed so as to allow others to repent. Though the meaning of the passage is not as clear as we might wish, the fruit of the tree of life is associated with the remedy of repentance. The tree of life is pictured as an olive tree which "gives light to those in darkness, fattens up those who are feeble, and brings the hidden mystery to those who repent."54 This repentance opens the door to spiritual/mystical perception. That Aphrahat is addressing ascetic leaders in the church seems to be indicated not only by this claim for enhanced levels of perception, but also by the passage that follows: "Now they have become the yeast of the righteous in this world, so that room for repentance might be given through them. It is also through them that sinners are forgiven on the earth, so that they might receive the promise and that the sun of goodness might rise on them." The reference to yeast echoes the passage from Demonstration 14, cited above, where Aphrahat describes those who follow the law as being "new dough." I would suggest that these passages emphasizing humility and repentance fall naturally into the same category of law-observance, seen as a positive feature of the Christian life.
Law-Observance: The Ascetic Dimension
It will not be necessary to provide an extensive summary of Aphrahat's instruction on ascetic living.55 While there are the usual commitments to [End Page 171] the renunciation of sexual activity, property, food (certain kinds and/or at certain times), sleep and comfort, Aphrahat also includes discussions of the ascetic's commitments in the moral sphere. My purpose here is to note how this askesis is associated with obedience to divine law and how it is often taken to be a means to a moral end. Though not an exhaustive survey, the following discussion will deal with the most significant passages which make a connection between askesis and moral commitment.
We may begin with the important image for the development of Christian virtues found in the first Demonstration, which I mentioned briefly above. Aphrahat compares this development to the building of a house, with Christ as the bedrock upon which the foundation of faith is laid. The image is not entirely consistent, since the spiritual "house" that rises on the bedrock of Christ and the foundation of faith also has Christ as royal resident. What is important for our purposes are the "furnishings" which must be in place for Christ to reside within and the imperative involved in providing them. The language is clear: the development of these qualities (which include actions) are "required" by faith (i.e., in some sense follow from faith), and indeed, "required" by Christ. In passages such as this Aphrahat comes close to speaking of a "law of Christ" for his followers. The requirements in question (the furnishings of the house) are as follows: pure fasting, pure prayer, love, almsgiving, humility, virginity, holiness, wisdom, hospitality, simplicity, perseverance, moderation, mourning, and purity. It would be convenient for my argument if Aphrahat had explicitly said that various ascetic behaviors were designed to further the development of moral qualities, but he does not. What we do find, however, is the embedding of askesis within what can only be seen as a larger program of spiritual development, which includes a significant moral dimension.
Fasting and prayer occupy prominent positions in this list. While it is clear that these disciplines are very important to Aphrahat, one needs to remember what he means by the phrases "pure fasting" and "pure prayer." An examination of the third and fourth Demonstrations makes this clear. A commitment to the outward forms of fasting and prayer is not enough [End Page 172] in itself. What matters is one's inward disposition, expressing itself in acts of service. When Aphrahat says that "without purity of heart, fasting is not accepted,"56 he is saying, at the very least, that abstinence of any sort must either express or develop purity of heart. This connection is elaborated in a particularly powerful statement later in the Demonstration:
For, my friend, when one fasts, fasting from wickedness is always more excellent than fasting from bread and water. It is also better than humbling oneself, and better than bending one's neck like a hook or covering oneself with sackcloth and ashes, as Isaiah said. Indeed, when a person abstains from bread, water, and all nourishment, and when he covers himself with sackcloth and ashes and when he mourns, he is lovely, virtuous, and beautiful. But this beauty is more excellent: when a person humbles himself and also loosens the chains of impiety and cuts the bonds of deceit.57
On the one hand, humbling oneself, as expressed in fasting, repentance, and mourning, has value in itself. This humbling of oneself already involves moving beyond the observance of merely outward forms or rituals. But Aphrahat's point is that if such humbling of oneself does not also lead to action, it is less than it should be. The pure fasting that includes a commitment not merely to humbling oneself and to repentance but also to moral action is, at the very end of Aphrahat's discussion, said to be the subject of divine command: "[Christ] has commanded us to fast and to keep watch at all times, so that by the power of pure fasting, we might attain his rest."58 The commandment is not primarily about literal fasting, i.e., abstinence, but about pure fasting, which involves a commitment to purity of heart and action. Abstinence serves to further the goal of this purity of heart and action.
Likewise in his explication of "pure prayer." After reminding his readers that prayers will not be accepted from those who are unwilling to forgive, Aphrahat explains how the need to ask for forgiveness can be avoided by "bringing about the rest of God." His starting point is Isa 28.12:
It says in the prophet, "This is my rest: give rest to the weary." Therefore, bring about the rest of God, O human, and there will be no need for you [to say,] "Forgive me." Give rest to the weary, visit the sick, and provide for the poor: this is prayer. . . . Watch out, my friend, that, when an opportunity for giving rest to the will of God comes to you, you do not say, "The time for prayer is at hand. I will pray and then I will act." For while you are trying to finish your prayer, the opportunity for bringing about rest [End Page 173] will have slipped away from you, and your ability to bring about the will and the rest of God will have been diminished. Through your prayer you will be guilty of sin. However, if you bring about the rest of God, it will be [considered] prayer.59
Thus a distinction is drawn between the ritual of prayer (understood in the literal sense of "speaking with God"), which is important in all forms of Christian asceticism, and a deeper kind of "prayer" which involves service to those in need. Those who make a show of their prayers but lack what Aphrahat calls "the works of prayer,"60 a phrase parallel to "the works of the law" in Aphrahat's usage, cannot be said to be offering "pure" prayer; their offerings are rejected. No ritual performance of prayer, as part of an ascetic commitment, can be considered complete without the willingness to allow service to those in need, or reconciliation with one's enemies, to take precedence.
The theme of forgiveness appears in the second Demonstration as a major example of how love is expressed. There, too, Aphrahat repeats the gospel teaching on how forgiveness for the petitioner is conditional upon forgiveness of others. As is so often the case, Aphrahat pairs his exposition of a gospel passage with an appeal to Paul, citing, appropriately, 1 Cor 13. The metaphor from Demonstration 1 is then elaborated: along with Christ as the bedrock upon which the foundation of faith is laid, the house of faith requires beams to strengthen it, which are here equated with love. After an extensive discussion of biblical examples of loving action, in particular the acts of Christ, Aphrahat introduces what seems at first to be an abrupt change of topic:
He gave us a command: that we should forsake the world and turn to him. He revealed to us, in the example of the rich man who trusted in his possessions, that whoever loves the world is not able to please God.61
It turns out, however, that this giving of a commandment is yet another example of the loving acts of Christ. Forsaking the world in order to please God is central to his teaching. Forsaking the world, however, does not involve a flight from the world. Rather, it means participating in the love of Christ, and thus fulfilling the law and the Prophets. Love, in turn, can be identified as the element that brings purity to both fasting and prayer. For Aphrahat, obeying the command to forsake the world means embracing purity of heart. He does not explicitly say that askesis helps to develop [End Page 174] purity of heart, but this is because he does not have to; his readers would have made this connection themselves. The reference to possessions in the passage just quoted, however, as well as the material from Demonstrations 1 and 3, noted above, indicate that, according to Aphrahat, the fundamental goal of love/purity/fulfillment of the law, if taken seriously, requires a commitment to asceticism.
It should not be supposed that the pursuit of purity, at least in the Demonstrations, is limited to the realm of sexual renunciation. Those who do not carefully guard, "in purity,"62 the pledge of the Holy Spirit, imparted at baptism, suffer the temporary departure of that Spirit:
[T]his is the way things are for a person: in the hour in which he perceives in his soul that he is not fervent in the Spirit and his heart is falling into attachment to this world, let him understand that the Spirit is not with him, and let him rise up and pray and keep vigil, so that the Spirit of God might come back to him and he might not be conquered by the Adversary.63
Evidence for this departure includes "speaking hateful words or becoming angry or quarrelling or fighting,"64 which, Aphrahat says, serves as a sign for the Evil One to attack, since he then knows that the Spirit is not present. The fact that "guarding the pledge in purity" can mean more than fidelity to a vow of sexual renunciation is significant. For Aphrahat, the ideal of purity is all-encompassing, and is related to obedience to the law, not in its ritual aspects, but at its deepest level, that of loving God and neighbor.65
There can be no doubt, however, that for Aphrahat, sexual renunciation is of great importance in the pursuit of purity, which is obedience to the law of love. This would be clear even apart from Demonstration 18, which focuses directly on Jewish objections to the Christian ideals of virginity and celibacy. It will be enough for my argument to show how these ideals are related to a moral end, and thus to another ideal, that of law-observance. It is here that Aphrahat makes a distinction between the compulsion of Jewish law and the freedom of Christian asceticism. This distinction, however, is not as absolute as it at first seems, since he retains his own version of the law, into which asceticism is incorporated. [End Page 175]
The opening section of Demonstration 18 outlines Aphrahat's perception of the Jewish objections to virginity and celibacy. In particular, the link between procreation and blessing is rejected. What benefit, Aphrahat asks, are many descendants if the vast majority of them turn to wickedness? Going beyond the general observation of the wickedness of most of the human population, Aphrahat cites the particular examples of Zimri, Achan, and the sons of Eli and Samuel, concluding with the statement, "There are many similar [cases], in which it would have been better for [certain people] not to have fathered [children] or to have been born."66 On the other hand, "[t]o God, a single person who does [his] will is more excellent and notable before his majesty than myriads and thousands of those who are wicked."67
Section 9 shows the link between procreation and a tendency to transgress divine law: "[A]fter he fathered Eve, [Adam] went astray and transgressed the commandment . . . David was attractive in his youth, but through his desire for Bathsheba he transgressed the law and abrogated three of the ten commandments. . . ."68 Even the earth, Aphrahat says, was virginal once, before the rain caused it to produce thistles. In the other examples mentioned (the descendants of Seth, Samson, Amnon, and Solomon), it is not stated that the law has been transgressed, but this is certainly implied. The sexual urge that Aphrahat must admit has been created by God and is good in itself (section 8) is in fact a dangerous thing that is better left uncultivated. The biblical warrant for marriage in Gen 2.24 is given a decidedly negative valence: if a man leaves his father [God] and his mother [the Holy Spirit] in order to marry, "his mind is captivated by this world."69 On the other hand, the "man who has not yet taken a wife and who remains alone is in one spirit and one mind with his father," that is, with God.70 [End Page 176]
It is at this point in the argument (18.12) that Aphrahat introduces an important distinction between ascetic observance and a kind of law-observance that he claims to have transcended:
For this way of life [i.e., virginity] there is a great reward, since we perfect it by free choice, and not from the slavery and coercion of a commandment or because we are constrained by it under the law. We have found its form and image in Scripture, and we have seen that this image of the watchers in heaven is found with the victorious, while on earth it is acquired as a gift. If a person loses this possession, he will be unable [to find it again], nor is a person able to acquire it at [any] price. No one who has it and loses it will find it [again]. No one who does not have it can run and attain it. Love this gift, my friend, to which nothing in the whole world is comparable.71
Clearly if virginity (and, by extension, non-virginal celibacy) is a gift, it cannot be required by the law.72 What we have seen, however, is that a commitment to celibacy is seen by Aphrahat as a kind of shield against wickedness, a very strong preventative measure. One could say that it functions as a "fence around the law," to use a well-known rabbinic phrase. Some are given the ability to rise to a higher level of law-observance than [End Page 177] others, that is, a higher level of purity, a deeper commitment to the law of love. When Aphrahat says, in the context of a very real debate with Jewish interlocutors, that Christian asceticism is embraced freely, and not from the "coercion of a commandment or because we are constrained by it under the law," he is referring to the ritual law that, in his understanding, contributes nothing to the observance of the deeper law (love for God and neighbor).
Law-Observance: The Ritual Dimension
Just as celibacy (and virginity in particular) is reflected, if not commanded, in Jewish Scripture, so too aspects of Christian liturgical ritual can be seen there, according to Aphrahat. Demonstration 12 contains his argument against the Jewish observance of the Passover. His concern is to show that Diaspora Jews cannot lawfully observe the Passover (since this was to occur only in Jerusalem) and that the celebration of Christ's death and resurrection has superseded it anyway. A very comprehensive typological interpretation of the Jewish festival is given, along with a very confusing chronology of Christ's death and resurrection (12.6–12). There is no need to discuss either of these here. It will suffice to focus on one aspect of Aphrahat's argument. He says, "After the Passover, Israel eats unleavened bread for seven days until the twenty-first day of the month, but we observe the [days of] unleavened bread as the festival of our Savior."73 Then in section 12 he stipulates that "If the day of the passover sacrifice, which is the suffering of our Savior, should fall for us on the first [day] of the week, according to the law we ought to make it [fall] on the second day, so that his whole week might be observed with his suffering and his unleavened bread. For after the Passover there are seven days of unleavened bread, until the twenty-first."74 Aphrahat thought that the Christian Easter celebrations ought to coincide with the Jewish Feast of Unleavened Bread. In this sense Easter itself is portrayed as a kind of law-observance. The seven days of unleavened bread are commanded in the law, but Aphrahat interprets this commandment typologically as pointing to the feast of the Savior. It is not clear if Aphrahat's "feast of the Savior" is always seven days or not, since if Sunday could not begin the feast then it is hard to see why it would occur in the middle either. What is clear is that Aphrahat felt compelled to observe Easter "according to the law," where the [End Page 178] commandments about Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are in mind. This concern for keeping the commandments is reinforced, with a new emphasis, in the closing lines of the Demonstration:
But for us, this is what is required: to observe the festival in its time from season to season, to fast in purity, to pray continually, to give glory [to God] eagerly, to chant psalms when appropriate, to administer correctly the annointing oil [lit. "the sign"] and baptism, to consecrate the holy things in their time and to fulfill all the customary rituals. . . . But if we are troubled by these things, and about [the observation of the] fourteenth alone, let us be diligent, but not [only] about the festival which is from season to season. Rather, let us embrace the observance of the fourteenth of every month, and let us mourn on the Friday of every week. However, we ought to do good on every day of the week before the Lord our God. Now, be convinced by this small [treatise] that I have written to you, for you are not commanded to be troubled by bickering over words, in which there is no profit, but [rather you are commanded to have] a pure heart which observes the commandment75 and the festival and the times of the observances of [each] day.76
Here we catch a rare glimpse into the ritual aspect of Aphrahat's faith. He is prepared to admit that the Christian community, like the Jewish, has "customary rituals." The observance of the festival of Christ's death and resurrection involves a regimen of various actions, all of which are "required" and "commanded." Of more importance, however, is the requirement to have a pure heart while doing all those things that are required. This demand for purity of heart does not do away with the observance, but rather transposes it to a new key. The observance of the festival is now placed within the larger context of doing good on every day before God. To celebrate the festival "according to the law," then, is not only to engage in a typological fulfillment of the Old Testament commandment to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but it is also to do so in the proper way, with purity of heart, which acts according to the law of love and thus fulfills the whole law. Aphrahat, then, replaces one form of ritual with another. He shares with his Jewish opponents a desire to follow God's law. What is at issue is how to do so. [End Page 179]
Conclusion
For Aphrahat's celibate circle, asceticism is the path to purity, which could be described as a pure commitment to law-observance. A prominent feature of this asceticism is celibacy, virginity if possible. But as we have seen, Aphrahat is equally (if not more) concerned with purity of speech and acts of compassion. Acts of renunciation that lead to a "flight from the world," understood geographically or physically, are not valued, but those that contribute to a lessening of a love for the world, understood as a realm of lawlessness, are highly prized indeed. Aphrahat is an ascetic because he wants to follow God's law, not the reverse. Asceticism, for him, cannot be established on independent grounds, leading subsequently to a concern for the law. Law-observance itself, however, is fundamental in his discourse, and provides a rationale for the various forms of renunciation reflected in the Demonstrations. The few, almost casual, references to a non-written law of righteousness in the hearts of the patriarchs are more important than they at first seem. This unwritten law forms the essence of the Sinai revelation and becomes explicit in the teaching of Christ.77 For [End Page 180] Aphrahat and his circle, Christians who follow the higher way of asceticism make use of powerful tools in the quest to follow this law. In his second Demonstration, which seeks to show how the whole revelation of God is summed up in the double law of love, Aphrahat says that "[e]verything that is done through the law is meant to encourage people to love" God and neighbor (2.8). If my analysis is correct, the same could be said of Aphrahat's approach to asceticism.
Dr. Adam Lehto lives in Waterloo, Ontario
Footnotes
1. For a general introduction to Aphrahat, see Marie-Joseph Pierre, Aphraate le Sage Persan: Les Exposés I–X, SC 349 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1988), 33–199. A more concise introduction can be found in Peter Bruns, Aphrahat: Unterweisungen. Erster Teilband, Fontes christiani 5/1 (Freiburg: Herder, 1991), 35–73.
2. The most plausible explanation for the shift in focus toward Jewish issues in the second series of Demonstrations is that Shapur II had initiated a persecution against Christians, making conversion to Judaism more appealing. Directly related to Shapur's war with Rome, which was now pro-Christian, this persecution became intense when the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Simeon bar Sabba'e, refused to collect a head tax imposed on Christians to finance the war. See S. P. Brock, "Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties," in Religion and National Identity,Studies in Church History 18, ed. Stuart Mews (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 1–19; J. G. Snaith, "Aphrahat and the Jews," in Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal, ed. J. A. Emerton and Stefan C. Reif (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 235–37; Pierre, Les Exposés I–X, 71–93; Naomi Koltun-Fromm, "A Jewish-Christian Conversation in Fourth-Century Persian Mesopotamia," JJS 47 (1996): 45–63; Adam H. Becker, "Beyond the Spatial and Temporal Limes: Questioning the 'Parting of the Ways' outside the Roman Empire," in The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 343–62.
3. Demonstration 20.7–12 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:904, 13–1:913, 5). I have used the standard critical edition of J. Parisot ("Aphraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes," in PS volumes 1 [Demonstrations 1–22] and 2 [Demonstration 23], ed. R. Graffin [Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1894 and 1907]). In-text references are to Demonstration number and section number (as established by Parisot). All translations of the Demonstrations are the author's own. For a discussion of this particular Demonstration and a plausible reconstruction of its social context, see Adam H. Becker, "Anti-Judaism and Care for the Poor in Aphrahat's Demonstration 20," JECS 10 (2002): 305–27. Of the few extant works of Syrian provenance earlier than the Demonstrations, none but the Didascalia exhibit such a preoccupation with Judaism. This work was originally written in Greek, but was translated into Syriac not long before Aphrahat wrote his Demonstrations. It is in fact a Syriac manuscript which provides the only complete version of this work, with fragments surviving in Greek, along with extensive Latin portions. For an English translation and extensive introduction, see R. H. Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929). Connolly includes the extensive Latin fragments on facing pages where they occur and refers to the few Greek fragments in his footnotes. He argues that Aphrahat probably knew the Didascalia. A. Vööbus, skeptical of any influence from the Didascalia on Aphrahat, has produced the most recent critical edition (The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, CSCO 401 and 407 [Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1979]) along with an English translation published at the same time (CSCO 402 and 408). For a reading of the Didascalia as a Jewish document, see Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, "The Didascalia Apostolorum: A Mishnah for the Disciples of Jesus," JECS 9 (2001): 483–509.
4. Henceforth "divine law" will be referred to simply as "law" for the sake of convenience.
5. See Frank Gavin, "Aphraates and the Jews," Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, 7, #3–4 (1923): 95–166; Marcel Simon, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (135–425) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986; trans. by H. McKeating of French 2nd edition published in 1964); Jacob Neusner, Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth Century Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1971); Snaith, "Aphrahat and the Jews"; P. Hayman, "The Image of the Jew in the Syriac Anti-Jewish Polemical Literature" in "To See Ourselves as Others See Us": Christians, Jews, "Others" in Late Antiquity,ed. Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), 423–41; Pierre, Les Exposés (introduction, as well as extensive footnotes throughout on rabbinic parallels); Naomi Koltun-Fromm, "Sexuality and Holiness: Semitic Christian and Jewish Conceptualizations of Sexual Behavior," VC 54 (2000): 375–95; idem, "Yokes of the Holy Ones: The Embodiment of a Christian Vocation," HTR 94 (2001): 205–18.
6. A recent study by Diana Juhl fails to acknowledge the multivalency of the term "law" for Aphrahat, a failure that is all too typical in the literature: "Neben dem Tod war das Gesetz eine weitere Folge des Falls. Afrahat hat dabei das ganze mosaische Gesetz im Blick. Das Gesetz sollte den viefältigen Begierden der Menschen entgegentreten, die Menschen vor der Sünde schützen. Erst bei der Ankunft des Erlösers wurde der Gebrauch des Gesetzes aufgehoben" (Die Askese im Liber Graduum und bei Afrahat [Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1996], 67). This does not negate the value of her study as a whole.
7. Demonstration 18.12 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:841, 20–22).
8. Five of these occurrences are in Demonstration 2, where Aphrahat discusses the way in which the law of love has fulfilled the law and the Prophets. Four of these five occur in quotations of the words of Christ, and the remaining example in Demonstration 2 is found in Aphrahat's introduction to one of these quotations. The other two occurrences of the term in the Demonstrations are in 1.19 and 21.18, where Aphrahat is not quoting any verse. That he uses the term as a synonym for nāmosā can be deduced by comparing 2.1 and 2.2, where the phrase "the law and the Prophets" occurs using first one (in quotation) and then another term for "law." I have used the term "Torah" (a cognate) to translate 'orāytā. In contrast to the limited use of 'orāytā, the term nāmosā is used 53 times in Demonstration 2 and 116 times elsewhere.
9. The title of the work as a whole is derived from this feature of the text, which includes many "demonstrations" of the truth of its arguments from Scripture.
10. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:44, 16–17.
11. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:56, 19–20.
12. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:61, 23–25.
13. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:104, 4–5.
14. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:105, 14–15.
15. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:756, 11–12.
16. See Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:56, 21; 1:57, 12–13, 15, 24; 1:60, 12. Significantly, earlier in Demonstration 2, Aphrahat had argued that the patriarchs exhibited the "works of the law" before the law was revealed (1:49, 17; 1:52, 7). Clearly this phrase, in contrast to those just mentioned, had a positive meaning for Aphrahat.
17. In 5.20, Antiochus is presented as a kind of anti-Christ (not Aphrahat's term), in the sense that he, too "made the observances which are in the law cease," not because he wanted to fulfill the law (as Christ did), but because he opposed all righteousness.
18. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:757, 9–11.
19. See also 7.19 ("When [Gideon] assembled the people for war, the scribes admonished [them] with the words of the law . . ."), where "law" clearly means something less than "Old Testament," but may be either "Sinai revelation" or "Pentateuch."
20. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:121, 8–11.
21. See 1:244, 12–13; 1:265, 10–11. In Gal 3.10, Paul quotes Deut 27.26 in order to argue that those who try to obey the whole law are under a curse, since such obedience, on his view, is impossible. In 6.6, Aphrahat argues that "it was because of [Eve] that the curse of the law was established, and it was because of her that the promise of death came." There is no reason to suppose that "the curse of the law" in this passage has the same meaning as it does in Galatians. Rather than focusing on a curse from Deuteronomy, Aphrahat refers to the Genesis narrative, which is more appropriate for a discussion of the role of Eve. Thus the phrase "curse of the law" seems to refer to "the curse recorded in Genesis" (which is part of the law, i.e., the Pentateuch) rather than "the curse recorded in the Mosaic legislation."
22. See Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:252, 23–26; 1:304, 22–25; 1:312, 17–18; 1:349, 11–13; 1:412, 6–8; 1:416, 17–19; 1:433, 4–12.
23. Demonstration 2.2 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:48, 11–13).
24. Demonstration 2.11 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:72, 19–21).
25. Demonstration 1.2 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:8, 4–6); Demonstration 23.61 (2:128, 12–13).
26. Demonstration 23.62 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 2:128, 18–23; 129, 15–23).
27. Demonstration 23.67 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 2:144, 19–2:148, 8).
28. This is a major theme in early Christianity and beyond. As Marcel Simon so aptly put it: "In actual fact there is not a great deal of difference between the Jew who applies himself to fulfil what the law prescribes and the apostle who spontaneously, without seeking to do so, lives in conformity with the law. There was even less difference between the ordinary Christian and the ordinary Jew. For the immense majority of Christians the commandments kept their old force, as they had always done. This was even more true after Christian theology had slipped into moralistic grooves very similar to those of Judaism, and made respectable again the ideas of merit and retribution that St. Paul had denied" (Verus Israel, 75). A trajectory that would repay further study on this theme runs from Theophilus of Antioch through the Didascalia and Aphrahat and on to Philoxenus of Mabbug.
29. Demonstration 1.11 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:25, 4–1:28, 21).
30. For the sake of convenience, I will refer to Aphrahat as the author of the exhortation, though it must be kept in mind that here he was not writing on his own, but representing the convictions of the covenanters in general. This is not to deny, of course, that the fourteenth Demonstration bears all the marks of Aphrahat's own convictions.
31. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:577, 1–2.
32. See Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:577, 22 and 1:580, 1.
33. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:633, 7.
34. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:640, 12–22.
35. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:704, 11–1:708, 16.
36. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:705, 9–10.
37. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:620, 27–1:621, 1.
38. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:660, 14–22.
39. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:661, 7–8.
40. Section 35 opens as follows: "Who perceives the place of knowledge? Who comprehends the foundation of wisdom? Who discerns the place of understanding? It is hidden from every living thing, and from the thoughts of all flesh" (1:660, 23–26). The words "knowledge" and "wisdom" are feminine singular, while "understanding" is masculine singular. The pronoun "it" is feminine singular. Either Aphrahat is referring back to knowledge or wisdom, or, more likely, he is treating all three terms as referring to essentially the same entity. He uses the pronoun, rather than any particular term, in the long description that follows. I use the term "wisdom" to refer to what might be more properly referred to as "knowledge/wisdom/understanding."
41. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:661, 17–18.
42. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:664, 10–14.
43. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:665, 4–5.
44. See the very thorough and thought-provoking article by Alexander Golitzin, "The Place of the Presence of God: Aphrahat of Persia's Portrait of the Christian Holy Man: An Essay in Honor of Archimandrite Aimilianos of the Monastery of Simonos Petras, Mount Athos"(http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/aimilianos).
45. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:672, 18–20.
46. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:672, 21–23.
47. See Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:676, 7 and 1:676, 16.
48. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:676, 8–9.
49. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:716, 20–1:717, 7.
50. See Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:649, 12–13 and 1:680, 25–26.
51. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:924, 2–4.
52. For an insightful discussion of Aphrahat's use of Paul, see Stephen S. Taylor, "Paul and the Persian Sage: Some Observations on Aphrahat's Use of the Pauline Corpus," in The Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 312–31.
53. For a discussion of the theme of humility in Aphrahat, and how it might compare to the concept of "implicity" in Philoxenus, see Adam Lehto, "Aphrahat and Philoxenus on Faith," The Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 4 (2004): 47–59.
54. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 2:9, 7–8.
55. Others have undertaken this task effectively. See Sebastian Brock, "Early Syrian Asceticism" (Numen 20 [1973]: 1–19); George Nedungatt, "The Covenanters in the Early Syriac-Speaking Church" (OCP 39 [1973]: 191–215 and 419–44); Robert Murray, "The Exhortation to Candidates for Ascetical Vows at Baptism in the Ancient Syriac Church" (NTS 21 [1974]: 59–80); idem,"The Features of the Earliest Christian Asceticism," in Christian Spirituality: Essays in Honour of George Rupp, ed. Peter Brooks (London, SCM Press: 1975), 65–77; idem,"'Circumcision of the Heart' and the Origins of the Qyāmâ," in After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers, ed. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist, Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 89 (Louvain: Peeters, 1999), 201–11; Marie-Joseph Pierre, "Introduction," in Les Exposés; Sidney H Griffith, "Asceticism in the Church of Syria: The Hermeneutics of Early Syrian Monasticism," in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush & Richard Valantasis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 220–45; Diana Juhl, Die Askese.
56. Demonstration 3.2 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:101, 10–11).
57. Demonstration 3.7 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:113, 12–22).
58. Demonstration 3.16 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:136, 12–14).
59. Demonstration 14.4 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:169, 16–23).
60. Demonstration 4.13 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:165, 16).
61. Demonstration 2.20 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:96, 3–4).
62. Demonstration 6.1 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:245, 21).
63. Demonstration 6.17 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:301, 11–16).
64. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:304, 11–12.
65. Here, of course, Aphrahat's Jewish interlocutors might have protested that the ritual observance of the law is precisely intended to facilitate the observance of the "deeper" law, rather than being an end in itself.
66. Demonstration 18.6 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:832, 21–23).
67. Demonstration 18.3 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:824, 7–9).
68. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:837, 3–5, 11–14.
69. Demonstration 18.10 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:840, 15–16).
70. Demonstration 18.11 (Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:840, 26–1:841, 2). Though this particular interpretation of Gen 2.24 is not mentioned in the discussion of the passage in Elizabeth Clark's Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 182–83, Aphrahat's approach to the passage appears to be close to that of Jerome and John Chrysostom (among many others), who thought that marriage represented a fallen state. Not surprisingly, it is here, in his defense of virginity and celibacy against Jewish criticisms, that Aphrahat is forced to give the most ascetic reading of the Old Testament in all of the Demonstrations. Elsewhere, ascetic exegesis rarely figures prominently: Aphrahat's moral and historical orientation does not require it. The main exception to this rule is found in Demonstration 7.18–22, where Aphrahat gives an ascetic reading of Judg 7.1–8: Gideon choosing men for war is compared to the leaders of the church guiding select candidates into ascetic warfare. A less prominent example is Aphrahat's attribution of "pure fasting" to a series of Old Testament figures (see 3.2). This, however, is ascetic reading with a twist, since what he is attributing to them is not literal fasting, but rather the purity of heart that literal fasting, at best, facilitates. Even when Aphrahat has the luxury of examples of literal fasting (that is, Moses and Elijah; see 3.3), the important thing is that they "fasted purely" and thus were able to function effectively as God's servants.
71. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:841, 19–1:844, 5.
72. Naomi Koltun-Fromm has suggested that "Aphrahat perceived his celibate vocation as a divinely commanded obligation" ("Yokes of the Holy Ones," 215). This is true only indirectly. Insofar as virginity, for example, is a gift, it cannot be considered a general law. But if virginity enables the select few to follow the law of love more closely, then by extension we might say (though, in a polemical context, Aphrahat avoids this formulation) that it is "commanded" for those few. Earlier in her article Koltun-Fromm states, "A comparison between Aphrahat's 'yoke' and various rabbinic 'yokes' illuminates how Aphrahat's Christianity and rabbinic Judaism share common Semitic exegetical patterns and methodology. The yoke's embodiment in ritualized practice—celibacy for Aphrahat and Torah-study and commandment-fulfillment for the rabbis—enables these biblical exegetes to pursue analogous paths to holiness in a post-Temple existence." Koltun-Fromm's general point is well-taken, but it is a mistake to suggest that Torah-study and commandment fulfillment are not important for Aphrahat. As we have seen, Aphrahat is comfortable with the designation of the Decalogue as Christ's "easy yoke," and his self-designation as a "disciple of the holy scriptures" (22.26) should be taken seriously.
73. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:521, 12–15.
74. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:533, 24–1:536, 4.
75. The "commandment" that is observed by the pure in heart may be the love command (cf. 1.8; 1.11; 2.12; 14.14; 14.44).
76. Parisot, Demonstrationes, 1:537, 8–15 and 1:537, 20–1:540, 6.
77. Aphrahat's claim that an unwritten law of righteousness predated Sinai, continued to be operative under the written law, and was now clarified in Christ's teaching and call is formally similar to the later Islamic claim that what Muslims embrace in their faith is nothing other than the pure and original form of religion. For a similar statement in another important early Syriac text, note the following passage from the Liber Graduum 26.5: "Now this Gospel which Jesus gave is the same one which Adam transgressed and [from which he] fell. That Uprightness which Moses and the prophets gave is the same one which was established for Adam after he had transgressed against the first commandment. So the first law become the latter law and the latter [law became] the first one, just as the last became the first and the first [became] the last" (trans. Robert A. Kitchen, The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber Graduum, Cistercian Studies Series 196 [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2004]). Aleksander Kowalski has argued that in the Liber Graduum, the commandment to avoid eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (sometimes simply called "the first commandment") is associated with prohibitions against obeying Satan and engaging in worldly activities (marriage, ownership, and the like). In other words, according to the Liber Graduum, Adam and Eve were the first monastics (see Perfezione e giustizia di Adamo nel Liber Graduum [Rome: Pontificium institutum orientale, 1989], 41–46). While it is clear that for Aphrahat, as for the Liber Graduum, there was a "fall into sexuality," there is, in Aphrahat, no association of the commandment to avoid the fruit of the tree with prohibitions against obeying Satan and embracing worldly activities (for the relevant passages, see Demonstrations 2.2,7; 7.1; 8.17; 11.3; 13.4; 18.9; 21.1, 2, 6; 23.3). Even more significant is the lack of any distinction between perfection and uprightness in the Demonstrations, and the corresponding lack of a "law for the perfect" (first given to Adam and reinstituted by Christ) and a "law for the upright" (given to Moses to regulate the lives of those who had fallen from perfection). For Aphrahat, the perfect law of love, which is also the "law of righteousness" written on the hearts of the patriarchs, forms the essence of the Mosaic law, and it is to this law that Christ calls his followers to return. Asceticism is embraced as a means to the fulfillment of this law of love. The lack of any emphasis on a separate "law for the upright" is probably also a function of Aphrahat's decision to address his own ascetic circle, and not the wider church.

Special An interview with novelist Henriette Aboudi about her latest novel "Farewell Mardin", written in Arabic. Azad-Hye

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:18:44 -0400

The novel is about Seyfo (the Genocide of Syriac, Assyrian and Chaldean population in the Ottoman Empire during WWI), which coincided with the Armenian Genocide.
Due to the importance of the subject to the Armenians we addressed author Henriette Aboudi and asked her about her book.
The Swedish parliament has already recognized the Armenian genocide and mentioned the Assyrian genocide in the known pronouncement. The publishing of your novel coincides with a time when there’s a growing interest in the fate of the nations that were part of the Ottoman Empire before the Genocide of 1915-1918. Will reading the novel help understand what had happened from both a historical and a political perspective?
The purpose behind this novel is to further clarify the events. It gives a chronological order of the events through real characters such as some of my family members who witnessed the atrocities. For example, the scene about Bishop Maloyian’s brutal killing with many other Armenians is taken from history books, while the one where my uncle and his pregnant wife were murdered and their son was kidnapped is taken from my family memoirs. My cousin was later recovered by my family - thanks to the mediation of Cardinal Tabuni - who later became one of Aleppo’s prominent writers.
Why is it that the Assyrian massacres do not grab the same attention like the Armenian genocide? Is it simply negligence by your own people or do you blame the international circumstances?
I do not have one answer to this question. Assyrians in fact did not speak of the persecution they incurred in the last days of the Ottoman Empire with the same determination as the Armenians had. Why? The reason could be because Assyrians, unlike the Armenians, do not have an independent country of their own. There’s also the language factor. For the Assyrians, the first language has always been the Arabic albeit a small number still speaks the old language. By many this language is considered as religious rather than a national one. Just like the Maronites in Lebanon, the Assyrians do not use their language any more, except for the rituals.
There are of course calls to revive the Assyrian nationality but they are seen as reactions to the rise of the religious wave in the region, which was seen in Iraq as bloody conflict between the followers of the same religion and between Islamic extremists and Christians. This is not far from nationalistic struggles between Arabs, Kurds and Turks in the region which could be extended to Turkey and Syria.
Some authors have told details of massacre from personal perspective. Are there any events in the novel that you have personally witnessed?
Both my parents were displaced from Mardin, also most of my relatives. Some still live in my hometown Aleppo, and some have moved to Lebanon or migrated to America or Canada. There are many who have been captivated or killed. To all of these I owe my existence and there is no mission more important than reviving their memory through my novel, especially that their tragedy has been silenced for a long time. Isn’t it unfair that the thousands of innocent victims who have been killed in a moment of insanity in history can find no one to mourn them and tell the story of their tragedy?
I have written this novel driven by the spirit of tolerance that I learned from my mother. My mother, who suffered like everyone else but then she forgave.
Would you like to have your book translated into other languages?
Definitely, every novelist likes to be read in other languages. Translating this book will help introducing the Assyrian tragedy to the public opinion which gives further consolation to those who were displaced, captivated or killed, simply because they represented "the other" or "the different one", from the viewpoint of their persecutors.
We should not forget that what helps victims most and leads them to the stage of forgiveness is the confession of the crimes by the murderers.
Translated by Nanor Mikayelian from Arabic

The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels, by Janet Soskice

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:04:37 -0400

Janet Soskice's The Sisters of Sinai is a pioneering biography of two women, identical Scottish twins born in 1843, who without the opportunity for university study fashioned themselves into biblical scholars whose achievements were nothing less than spectacular. The subtitle, How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels sounds sensational, but this history truly is sensational. Agnes Smith Lewis and her sister Margaret Dunlop Gibson [End Page 341] undertook dangerous journeys to St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai where they discovered what turned out to be the second oldest manuscript of the Christian Gospels: a palimpsest on which a "racy" martyrology of women saints obscured a fourth-century Syriac translation of the original Greek text (qtd. in Soskice 160). As the translation itself dated back to the second century, and as Syriac was a dialect of the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus, this early translation promised a closer approach to the very earliest Christian beliefs. Soskice appropriately closes the first chapter of her account of these adventurous women by testifying that "this is the true story of two sisters who, like the biblical Moses, made a discovery at Mount Sinai that would transform their lives … after trials (including some on the Nile) had proved their worthiness" (6).
But if this beginning sounds like the stuff of romance and legend, the twin sisters' story is situated in an impeccably researched history of biblical textual discoveries that shook the world of Victorian religion to its core by proving that the Christian Bible was the product of many translations and revisions. Soskice is the author of two previous monographs and co-editor of seven essay collections on subjects ranging from feminist theology to medicine and moral reasoning; she brings a sophisticated knowledge of biblical textual history to her impressive sleuthing of biographical minutiae. She is also a gifted writer who transforms the lives of two largely forgotten Scottish women into a page-turning adventure story.
The prologue takes us back to Constantin von Tischendorf's disclosure of an ancient manuscript that he had "borrowed" from St. Catherine's in 1859 (112), and to a new and authoritative edition of the Greek New Testament prepared by two Cambridge scholars based on their comparison of the newly discovered manuscript with the one already held in the Vatican Library. A new English translation of this revised Greek edition was then released on 17 May 1881; the Oxford University Press alone sold a million copies on the first day. But Soskice trumps this sensational bestseller story with a London Daily News story published on 13 April 1893 concerning two ladies, a Mrs. Lewis and her sister, Mrs. Gibson, who had travelled to Mount Sinai in Egypt and discovered another ancient manuscript of the Four Gospels. This was a palimpsest "in a dreadful condition, all the leaves sticking together and being full of dirt" (qtd. in Soskice 3); Lewis had steamed its pages apart with her teakettle! Thus Soskice moves her readers from the standard view of nineteenth-century biblical scholarship as the work of men from the rarified world of university scholarship to the popular media and its amazing news about a blackened wedge of manuscript found by "two ladies" in a "dark closet" (123).
But as Soskice informs us, the Daily News story was only a partial truth. The presence of two eminent male biblical scholars on the expedition was omitted although a third, Professor Rendel Harris, is mentioned. In fact, the exclusion of the two male scholars, Professor Robert Bensley and his adjutant Frank Burkitt, from the account of the sensational new find was precisely what these men had feared. While working with the sisters and Harris on the 1893 trip to the monastery whose purpose was to fully transcribe the Syriac manuscript found by Lewis on an earlier trip, conflicts boiled. It became evident that "Bensly and Burkitt resented Harris's presence and considered Agnes and Margaret upstarts—in which judgment their wives concurred" (157). Who were these two women, and were they unqualified "upstarts"?
Soskice's biography is the first scholarly, fully documented account of the twin sisters. Their life's work was a crucial part of the exciting, if often scandalous, [End Page 342] history of Victorian takeovers of ancient manuscripts discovered in Middle Eastern countries. The self-taught sisters—women were barred from university degrees in England—shine forth as exemplary figures of non-exploitative scholar-adventurers open to the Oriental cultures in which they worked. Before their first trip to St. Catherine's, Bensly had discouraged them from the undertaking, saying that their journey would be in vain because the monks wouldn't accept women. What they found was precisely the opposite: the monks welcomed them because they were women and not "scientific scholars" (108)—a European breed that they had found could seldom be trusted—and also because, unlike the scholars who often were only learned in ancient languages, these women spoke modern Greek, their own language.
They first arrived at St. Catherine's in January 1892 fully prepared with water filters, medicines, and a state-of-the-art photographic apparatus, complete with 1,000 nitrate negatives. They also brought with them knowledge of the Syriac language, which Lewis had begun to study because she had been so enthralled by Harris's work. Harris had discovered at St. Catherine's a full copy of the "Apology of Aristides" in Syriac, a work which proved the existence of an already well-formulated version of Christian belief in the first half of the second century. Harris soon became a valuable friend and supporter. It was he who told them about a "dark closet" full of Syriac manuscripts that he had not had time to examine thoroughly, and in that closet Lewis discovered the palimpsest under whose surface text she was just able to make out "Of Matthew" and "Of Luke" (124).
The rest is, as Soskice's final chapter title makes clear, not history but "Palimpsest." Although Lewis wrote a "masterpiece" of an introduction to what eventually became known as the "Lewis Codex" and later published an English translation (195), so that ordinary people could read this early version of the Gospels; although the sisters also published a still-valuable catalogue of Syriac and Arabic manuscripts held at St. Catherine's, as well as many editions of ancient manuscripts; although the sisters made repeated trips to Mediterranean destinations, lawfully purchasing manuscripts and also publishing accounts of their travels; and although they achieved high acclaim as scholars in their lifetimes, Lewis being awarded four honorary doctorates and Gibson three, and the two together receiving the triennial gold medal of the Royal Asiatic Society—in spite of all these remarkable adventures and achievements, the sisters' lives have been overwritten by the work of biblical scholars who happen to have been men. Soskice has now spelled out the hidden gospel truths of their lives. No scholar of Victorian religion, or of the lives of Victorian women, not to mention anyone who just wants to sit down with a spellbinding tale of Victorian history, should miss it.
Mary Wilson Carpenter
Mary Wilson Carpenter (carpentm@queensu.ca), Professor Emerita at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, is the author of Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies: Women, Sexuality, and Religion in the Victorian Market (2003), George Eliot and the Landscape of Time: Narrative Form and Protestant Apocalyptic History (1986), and, most recently, Health, Medicine, and Society in Victorian England (2009). She is currently working on Victorian literature and medicine.

Hunayn Ibn Ishaq: A Forgotten Legend Samir Johna

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:03:28 -0400

IT DOES NOT MATTER whether we like the history of science or not. If we were to understand the continuity of medical science progress we must study the science of the ancient times, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance because they are not exclusive but rather overlapping. The Greek miracle of marvelous arts, science, and culture over two centuries before the Christian era came very close to perishing if it were not for its transmission through the dark ages. Perhaps it is best stated by Sarton( n1). "Transmission is as important as discovery." If all of the ancient science had been hidden instead of published or had been lost in transmission it would be almost as if it had never been.

With the revolution in communications today the transmission of science is almost automatic and instantaneous providing an easy access for the exchange of expertise. This was not the case in earlier ages. Scientists faced enormous economic, logistic, and political difficulties that made the exchange of expertise very slow and limited. Most of the discoveries had to migrate from one continent to another or had to be translated from a language to another before they became integrated in our intellectual patrimony.

Thanks to the Nestorian (Christian) schools and scholars in Mesopotamia (Edessa and Gondi-Shapor) the translations took place from Greek into Syriac or Aramaic and from the Syriac into Arabic during the third to seventh centuries of the Christian era.( n2, n3) From Arabic they were translated into Latin and finally into English. Many Christian scientists--mostly physicians--graduated from these schools and became forgotten legends as their contributions to science and humanity are only trivially mentioned today. Even when remembered in the literature they are often referred to as Arabs and/or Moslems, contrary to their national identity as Assyrians-Chaldeans (the indigenous people of Mesopotamia) and contrary to their religious identity as Christians.

As an Assyrian American and a Nestorian surgeon I feel obliged to unravel the facts and pay those giant scholars a tribute they deserve in memory of their dedication to science, medicine, and humanity. Perhaps starting with Hunayn ibn-Ishaq sets the stage lot my objectives.

The Life of Hunayn ibn-Ishaq (809-877AD)
Born to a Nestorian druggist in al-Hira near Babylon Hunayn ibn-Ishaq followed in the footsteps of his father. Being an Assyrian like many other natives of al-Hira at that time he spoke only Syriac. It appears that ibn-Ishaq had to learn Arabic later in life.( n4) However, his knowledge about drugs granted him a position as a drug dispenser to ibn-Massawaih, a prominent Nestorian physician and teacher in the school of medicine in Jondi-Shapor. His enthusiasm and eagerness to learn medicine irritated his master and cost him his position.( n5)
ibn-Ishaq left the school determined to study Greek and Arabic languages; he spent several years in Greek towns in Asia Minor and in Basra. Later he was welcomed in Baghdad by Jibra'il Bakhtishu, the court physician to the Caliph al-Ma'mun. Being a liberal Moslem and an admirer of the Greek science and medicine al-Ma'mun appointed ibn-Ishaq to be in charge of an academy and a library, beit al-hikma ("house of wisdom"), supervising all of the translations from Greek and Syriac into Arabic.
Hunayn ibn-Ishaq made long journeys through Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to find Greek scientific manuscripts. The money for these travels and for the purchase of rare books was provided not only by the caliphs but also by the prominent men at their courts many of whom were themselves learned scholars of great reputation.
In time--and for the first time--Arab students could read the Arabic translations of a great portion of the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Paul of Aegina, Ptolemy, Euclid, Aristole, and Plato, an important milestone in the history of science. Arabs and Moslems soon picked up and added their original contributions which were subsequently transferred to Europe via Spain.
Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's Translations
Although preceded and followed by many translators none could be compared with ibn-Ishaq and his pupils. He trained a group of pupils who became competent translators of works into both Syriac and Arabic. His nephew Hubysh was especially proficient in Arabic, and his son Ishaq was competent in Syriac.
Hunayn ibn-Ishaq was without a doubt the greatest and most productive of all translators. He made many original translations as well as revision of many others done by his predecessors as they were inaccurate and many of them had transliterated the Greek with Syriac or Arabic letters.
According to his own list he translated into Syriac 95 and into Arabic 39 books of Galen. In one of his manuscripts entitled al-Sina'ah al-Saghirah preserved in the Garrett collection of Arabic and Persian manuscripts in Princeton University, seven books of Galen's anatomy which are, lost in the original Greek are fortunately preserved in Arabic through the translations of ibn-Ishaq.( n6) Six more Syriac versions and about 70 Arabic versions were made by his pupils and mostly revised by himself as well as the 50 Syriac versions that had been made by his predecessors including the famous Corpus Galena by Sergius of Ras al'Ayn.
Hunayn ibn-Ishaq translated works into Syriac for very prominent (Nestorian) Christian physicians and scholars( n7)--to mention a few: Gibra'il ibn Bakhtishu', Yuhanna ibn Masawaih, Salmawaih ibn Bunan, Bakhtishu' ibn Gibra'il, Zakariyya at-Taifuri, Isra'il at-Taifuri, Shirishu' ibn Qurtub, and others. The Arabic versions were made for prominent Moslems, some of whom had recently converted to Islam such as Ali ibn Yahya, secretary of the caliph al-Mutawakkil: Muhhammad ibn Abd al-Malik az-Zayyat, Vizir of the caliph al-Mu'tasim; Muhammad and Ahmad ibn Musa, mathematicians and physicists; Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Mudabbir, governor of Egypt under al-Mutawakkil; Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Tahiti, governor of Khurassan under al-Ma'mun: and Ishaq ibn Sulaiman, former governor of Egypt.
ibn-Ishaq's method of translation was admirable and satisfies the demands of modern philology. He severely criticized his own early translations and those done by his predecessors and often had them redone. At the time of his death in 877 AD he was engaged in making a translation of Galen's De constitutione artis medicae.
Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's Own Works
ibn-Ishaq was the author of more than 100 original works, but only few of these are extant today. In addition to a Greek-Syriac dictionary, his writings can be divided into the following areas.
General Medicine and Various Subjects( n7)
ibn-Ishaq became famous in medieval Europe by his introduction to the Ars Parva Galeni, which was translated into Latin under the title Isagoge Johannitii. His greatest success among Asians came by his Questions on Medicine and Ophthalmology. Other books covered diverse subjects such as the diet of the old, the diet of convalescent patients, different remedies, symptoms, pulse, fever, urine, bath, hygiene, veterinary medicine, anecdotes of ancient philosophers and medical men, colors, actions of the sun and moon, the reason why seawater is salty, etc. He also wrote about logic, syntax, universal history, religion, and a missive (Risala) on the misfortunes of his own life.
Ophthahnology( n7)
Perhaps Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's greatest achievements were in ophthalmology. He authored many books, some of which are still preserved today. A few of the titles are: The Ten Treatises of the Eve, The Questions on the Eye, On the Structure of the Eye, The Book of Colours, The Divisions of Eye-Diseases, The Choice of Remedies for Eye-Diseases, and The Operative Treatment of Eye-Diseases. His achievements were certainly the starting point for Arab ophthalmology.
Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's Morals and Ethics
Under the caliph al-Mutawakkil ibn-Ishaq reached the summit of his glory as a translator and as a medical practitioner, but at the same time the mistrust of the caliph, a very orthodox and fanatical Moslem, and the envy of ibn-Ishaq's Christian colleagues caused him a series of bad experiences. Although favored by most of the caliphs his integrity as a person and as a professional was heavily and seriously tested.( n7)
The caliph al-Mutawakkil bade him to prepare a poison for an enemy offering him rich rewards if he would do so. ibn-Ishaq refused and was imprisoned for a year. When brought again before the caliph and told he would be put to death if he did not obey the order, he replied:
Two things forbid it, my religion and my profession. My religion commands us to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred as it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies.
After he was pardoned al-Mutawakkil told him that he had only desired to test his loyalty to the standard traditions of medical practice!
A few years later new misfortunes befell ibn-Ishaq when some of his colleagues denounced him to the caliph as a heretic. He was imprisoned in his house for several months and was flogged from time to time, and the caliph deprived him of his goods and (what was the worst punishment to him) his books. In his own words (Missive), he related the following: "I had lost all the books which I had gradually collected during the course of the whole of my adult life in all the lands in which I had traveled, all of which books I lost at one blow..."
Later on he began to regain the favor of al-Mutawakkil after a successful cure and had his fortunes restored and honors and rich presents bestowed on him. From this time ibn-Ishaq devoted himself with an astonishing zeal to the translation work. He pardoned his former enemies and disdained to take revenge on them.
No doubt Hunayn ibn-Ishaq set a rare example for a true scholar and a legend. He kept very high moral and ethical standards in his professional conduct. By translating the marvelous heritage of Greek science into Syriac and Arabic and by adding more than 100 original works he managed not only to preserve but to transfer and enrich the existing fund of knowledge ensuring its sate passage to future generations through the dark ages.
REFERENCES
(n1.) Sarton G. Introduction to the History of Science, Vol I. Carnegie Institution of Washington. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins Co, 1927.
(n2.) Whipple AO. Role of the Nestorians as the connecting link between Greek and Arabic medicine. Ann Med Hist New Ser 1936:2:313-323.
(n3.) Whipple AO. The role of Nestorians and Moslems in the history of medicine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
(n4.) O'Leary D. How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1948.
(n5.) Browne EG. Arabian Medicine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1921.
(n6.) Hitti PK. History of the Arabs; London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1937.
(n7.) Meyerhof M. The Book of the Ten Treatises on the Eye Ascribed to Hunayn ibn-Ishaq (809-877 A.D.). Cairo, Egypt: Government Press, 1928.
~~~~~~~~
By Samir Johna, M.D., F.A.C.S., From the Department of Surgery, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California

( Studies in Syriac Literature)' Bibliography Matti Moosa

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 09:50:41 -0400

1-See J. B. Chabot. La Litterature Syriaque (Paris, 1935), pp. 9-10. Chabot also refers to H. Omont, Inventaire de la Collection renaudot a la Bibliotheque Nationale See also, by the same author, Les Langues et la Litterature Armeenne (Paris, 1910), translated into Arabic by Anton Shukri Lawrence (Jerusalem, 1930), p. 5.

2-William Wright, Syriac Literature (London, 1894), p. 141.

3-Wright, p.74.
664-The Repentance of Ninevah, by Ephraim Syrus. Trans. By Rev. Henry burgress (London, 1853), Introduction, pp.20-21. According to Burgess, Ephraim says that “God gives forgivness, a word concerning which there can be no difference.” Yet Assemani renders the sentence “Indulgenatiam adjecit, id est, Clavium potestatem.” (“He adda indulgence, that is the ‘power of the the keys’.”)

5-loc. Cit., p.21.

6-Viscount Philip de Tarrazi, Asdag ma kan an Tarikh lubnan (The Most True Account of the History of Lebanon), in Arabic (Beirut, 1948), I, 432.

7-Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 74, mentions one anaphora by Philoxenus of Mabug, but refers us to Renaudot, II, 310, and to Assemani, B.O., II, 24. He also cites Renaudot as the source of this information in his Catalogue of Syriac Manuscript in the British Museum.

8-Rubens Duval, La Litterature Syriaque (Paris, 1899), p. 13.

9-Ernest Renan, Histoire des langues semitiques, p. 259.

10-Bar Daysan, Laws of the Countries, ed. Williams Cureton (London, 1855), p.15.

11-Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Syriacum, ed. Paul Bedjian (Paris, 1890), p. 168.

15-Ignatius Aphram Barssoum, al-LuLu al-Manthur (Histoire des Sciences et de la Litterature Syriaque) Arabic, 2nd edition (Aleppo, 1956), p. 237.

16-Ibid

17-martin Sprengling, “Antonius Rhetor on Versification,” American journal of Semitic languages and Literature, XXXII, 3 (April, 1916), p. 139.

18-See Anton Baumstark, Geschichte der Syrischen Literature (Bonn, 1922), p.11.

19- See the preface of William Cureton to his Spicilegium Syriacum (London, 1855).

20-For an English translation of the Pshitto see George M. Lamsa Holy Bible from the Peshitta (Philadelphia, 1957). This translation appeared for the first time in 1933.

21-William Wright, Syriac Literature (London, 1894), p. 5.

22-F. Crawford Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (London, 1904), p. 70.

23-Anton baumstark, Geschichte der Syrischen Literature, p.18.

24-Burkitt, pp. 39-78.

25-E. Nestle, “Syriac Versions,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of religion, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson, XI (1958), 126.

26-Ibid

27-Paul E. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza, and ed. (Oxford, 1959), p. 265.

28-Nestle, p. 127.

29-Kahle, pp. 265-283.

30-F. Crawford Burkitt, Evangelion da Mephareshe (Cambridge, 1904), II, 201.

13-Kahle, p. 265.

32-Kahle, pp. 265-267.

33-John Pinkerton, “the Origin and Early History of the Syriac pentateuch,” in J.T.S., XV (1914), 14-41.

34-Kahle, p. 266.

35-Burkitt, Eastern Christianity, pp. 39-78 Passim.

36-Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book I, xiii.

37-Burkitt, Eastern Christianity, pp. 71-72.

38-Joseph Marquart, Osteuropaische und ostasiatische Streifzuge (Leipzig, 1903), p.288, quoted by Kahle, p. 270.

39-According to Josephus (Antiquities, XX, ii, 1, 4), Izates II, King of Adiabene, son Monobazas I, and his sister Helena, had been won over to the Jewish religion. A Jewish merchant named Ananias (Hannania) had been admitted to the Royal court and harem, whre he was able to I terest the royal ladies I the Jewish religion.

40-Kahle, p. 274, quoting Marquart, p. 298. 41-Kahle, p. 274, quoting Adoloph harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentum (4th ed., 1924), p. 284.

42-Kahle, p. 275.

43-For the Syriac text and English translation of the Doctrine of Addai, see William Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents (London, 184), pp. 24-35.

44-Kahle, pp. 282-283.

45-Addai Scher, Tarikh Kaldo wa Athur, II, 6.

46-See Duval, La Litterature Syriaque (Paris, 1899), p. 32.

47-Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, II, 279.

48-Ibid., II, 468.

49-The Anonymous Chronicle of Edessa, ed. Rahmani, p. 66, cited by Rev. p. Behnam, “Ta qibat Tarikhiyya,” Lisan al-Mashriq (May-july, 1951), p. 271.

50-For full statement of Solomon of Basra see (cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents)

51-Burkitt, Eastern Christianity, p. 32.

52-Kahle, p. 283.

53-Michael the Great, Chronicle , pp. 283-285, quoted by Rev. P. Behnam, “Ta Cqibat Tarikhiyya,” p. 271.

54-Burkitt, Eastern Christianity, P. 32.

55-Cureton Ancient Syriac Documents, p. 162.

56-F. C. Burkitt, “The Diatessaron and Early Syriac Versions,” Encyclopedia Britannica (1950), 517.

57-According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1950), XXI, 834, his heresy “was that of the Encratites. Their main doctrines were the evil nature of matter, an absolute forbidding of marriage, abstinence from wine and perhaps from meat.
58-Barsoum, al-LuLu al-Manthur (syria, 1956), p. 630.

59-Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 8.

60-The full text of St. Aphraim’s commentary on the Diatessaron was discovered and published recently with a Latin translation and French by Leloir. See St. Ephrem, Commentaire De L’ Evangile Concordance Syriaqe Texte Edite Et Transmit par Don Louis Leloir (Dublin, 1963).

61-Ignatius Jacob III, “Al-Kitab al-Maqaddas fi al-Kanisa al-Suryaniya,” al- Magalla al-Patriarchiyya, I (Damascus: September, 1962), 67.

62-Addai Scher, Tarikh Kaldo wa Athur, II, 19.

63-William Cureton, Remains of a very Ancient Recension of the four Gospels in Syriac (London, 1858).

64-Robert C. Bensley, J. Rendel Harris and F. Crawford Burkitt, The Four Gospels in Syriac, transscribed from the Sinatics Palimpsest, intro. By Agnes Smith lewis (Cambridge, 1894).

65-Edgar Goodspeed, “The Canons of the New Testament,” The Interpeter’s Bible (1952) I, 68.

66-Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 13.

67-Barsoum, Al-LuLu al-Manthur, p. 57.

68-Wright, p. 16.

69-Wright, p. 17.

70-William Wright, “Syriac Literature,” Encyclopedia Britannica (1887), vol. XXIV.

71-Bar Daysan was born in 154 A.D., in a place near Edessa on the River Daysan (for which he was named). He was a babylonian by origion, or according to another theory, from Adiabene. His parents. Nuhana and Nahshayrem, escaped from their country in the fifteenth year of the reign of the Persian King Shahruq, the son of Narsay, and settled in Edessa. There Bar Daysan was raised in the palace of King Mano VIII (139-179); hence, he must have been of noable origin. He studied both Syriac and Greek and was converted to Christianity by Oshtasab , the bishop of Edessa. He was ordained a deacon and probably a priest as well. Perhaps he was the person who convinced the Edessa. King Abgar IX (179-214) to become a Christian., for they had been close friends from their younger days. Bar Daysan dies in 222. For information about his life, see Eusebius, Ecclesiasthical History, IV, xxx; Michael the Great, Chronicle, ed. J. B. Chabot (Paris, 1899-1918), p. 110.; Duval, La Litterature Syriaque, pp. 241-248; Addai Scher, II, 20-21; and Barsoum, al-LuLU, al-Manthur (2nd editions), p. 238.

72-William Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum (London, 1855), preface.

73-Burkitt, Eastern Christianity, pp. 158-159.

74-Ibid, pp. 158-159.

75-Antonius is believed to be the emperor Marcus Antonius Aurelius. Yet there is no indication in the original Syriac text that the treatise was addressed to this emperor. See Cureton, op. Cit., preface.

76-Eusebius, Ecclesiastical, IV, xxx.

77-Severus Jacob, Tarikh al-Kanisa al-Suryaniyya al-Antakiyya (History of the
Syrian Church of Antoich), Arabic (Beirut, 1953), I, 129.

78-Martin Sprengling, “Antonius Rhetor on Versification,” The American journal
of Semitic Languages and Literature, XXXII, 3 (April, 1916), appendix I.

79-P. D. Gabrielem Crdahi (Liber Thesauri de Arte poetica Syroum, p. 12) gives the following short poem by St. Ephraim against Daysan: “He whom you see named Bar Daysan/ is more appropriately named than the name of Daysan/ a river near Edessa which Bar Daysan apparently was named after/. For this one the River Daysan / was not flooded with thorns and tares, of which Bar Daysan was full/.

80-Michel le Syrian, ed. J. B. Chabot, p. 110.

81-Bar Hebraeus, Tarikh Mukhtsar al-Duwal (Compendious History of Dynasties), Arabic, ed, A. Salhani (Beirut, 1890), p. 125.

82-Duval, p. 234.

83-Ibid., p. 247.

84-Ahmad Amin, Fajr al-Islam, Arabic (Cairo, 1928), I, 156.

85-Duval, la Litterature Syriaque, pp. 75-77; Wright, Syriac Literature, pp.
33-39; Addai Scher, Tarikh Kaldo wa Athur, II, 46-47.

86-Baumstark, Geschichte der Syrischen Literature, p. 42.

87-Wright, p. 35; Baumstark, p. 44.

88-See Gregory Nyssa, “In praise of St. Ephraim,” al-Majalla al-
patriarchiyya, I, II, III (Hims, Syria, 1939).

89-Wright, p. 33; Addai Scher, II, 47.

90-Burkitt, p. 178.

91-Sprengling, p. 149.

92-Burkitt, Eastern Christianity, P. 96.

93-Ibid., pp. 98-99.

94-Duval, p. 21. 71

95-Ephraim Syrus, The Repentance of Nineveh, trans. Rev. Henry Burgess (London, 1853), II, preface, p. 13.

96-T. J. De Boer, The History of Philosophy In Islam, trans, Edward R. Jones (London, 1961), p. 11.

97-Ernest renan, De Philosophia Peripatetica apud Syros (Paris, 1852), p. I. 98-

98- Jurji Zaydan, Tarikh al-Tamaddun al-Islami (Cairo, 1904), III, 132.

99-Ibid.

100-Renan, p. 4.

101-Renan, Chapter I, passim.

102-Philip K. Hitti, History of Syria (New York, 1951), pp. 251-261.

103-Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, pp. 72-74. 104-Ibid., pp. 72-4.

105-Max meyerhof, Von Alexandrien nach Baghdad, trans. Into Arabic by Dr. Adb al-Rahman Badawi, in Al-Turath al-Yunani fi al-Hadara al-Islamiyya (Cairo, 1940), p. 38.

106-Meyerhof, p. 52.

107-Zaydan, III, 128.

108-William Wright , Cataloque, III, 731-33.

109-Baumstark, pp. 101-102.

110-Severus Jacob, Tarikh al-Kanisa al-Suryaniyya al-Antakiyya (Beirut, 1957), II, 34-5.

111-Renan, p. 12.

112-Ibid., pp. 12-13.

113-Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 48.

114-J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, III, I, 85, note cited by Renan, p. 14.

115-Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 50. 116-Baumstark, p. 254.

117-Duval, p. 15.

118-Renan, p. 15.

119-Ibid., p. 25.

120-Duval, pp. 255-256, quoting Victor Ryssel, Uber den textkritischen wert der Syrischen Ubersetzungen der Klassiker (Leipzing, 1880).

121-Ibn Abi Usaybia, Uyum al-Anba (Beirut, 1957), II, 173.

122-G. P. Behnam, al-Falsafa al-Masha Iyya fi Tarikhina al-Fikri (Mosul, 1958), pp. 12-14.

123-Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 138.

124-Duval, pp. 278-279.

125-Wright, Cataloque, III, 1189.

126-For the Acts of Martyrs, see William Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents (London, 1864). See also John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, ed. E. W. Brooks in the Patrologia Orientalis, ed. R. Graffin and F. Nau (Paris, 1923-26), XVII, XVIII and XIX.

127-Wright, Cataloque, III, pp. 1070-1153.

128-The third part of the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus was edited and published at Oxford in 1853 by William Cureton. See also J. P. N. Land, Joannes, Bischof von Ephesos, der erste Syrische Kirchenhistoriker (Leiden, 1856). In 1860 R. Payne Smith translated Cureton’s Syriac edition of the history of John of Ephesus into English and published it at Oxford. In 1862 the same was translated into German by J. M. Schonfelder and published at Munich. Fragments of the second part of the Ecclesiastical History were published by Land in part ii of his Anecdota Syriaca at Leiden, 1868. Finally, extracts from the Ecclesiastical History were edited by Jessie Payne Margoliouth and published at Leiden, 1909.

129-Duval, p. 187-223.

130-Ibid., pp. 351-52.

131-Renan, p. 34.

132-Bar Hebraeus, Tarikh Mukhtsar al-Duwal, p. 51.

133-DE Boer, The History of Philosophy in Islam, trans. Edward R. Jones (London: Luzac and Co, 1903; republished New York; Dover Publ. Inc., 1967), p. 15.

134-Renan, p. 32.

135-Wright, Catalogue, II, 984.

136-Cf. Renan, p. 33, and Wright, Catalogue, III, 1163.

137-Renan, p. 33.

138-Ibid., pp. 34.

139-Ibid., p. 33.

140-Duval, p. 259; Wright, Syriac Literature, pp. 210-11.

141-Ignatius Aphram Barsoum, al-LuLu al-Manthur, p. 482.

142-Renan, pp. 65-67; Wright, Syriac Literature, pp. 269-70; Duval, pp. 261-62; Baumstark, pp. 316-317.

143-For the complete list of the works of Bar Hebraeus, see E. A. Wallis Budge, The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus (Oxford, 1932).

144-Wright, Catalogue, II, 1165.

145-Renan, p. 28; Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 91.

146-Bar Hebraeus, Dynasties, p. 41. Cf. Renan, pp. 49-50.

147-Wright, Syriac Literature, p. 164.

148-Wright, Syriac Literature, pp. 276-79.

149-The ode Divine Wisdom was translated into Arabic and published with elaborate commentary by Archbishop Paulos Behnam in Lisan al-Mashriq (Mosul, 1950). IT WAS REPUBLISHED WITH THE Syriac text in Syria in 1965 in Archbishop Behnam’s Ibn al-Ibri al-Shair (Bar Hebraeus the poet).

150-Ignatius Jacob III, “al-Kindi wa al-Suryaniyya,” al-Majalla al-Patriarchiyya (January, 1963), pp. 255-267. See also Meyerhof, p. 60.
151-Meyerhof, pp. 62-63.

152-For a detailed analysis of the missionary activity of the Syrian Church in Arabia, See Louis Cheikho, al-Nasraniyya wa Adabuha bayn Arab al-jahiliyya (Beirut, 1912), part I.

153-Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Syriacum, I, 275.

154-Barsoum, al-LuLu al-Manthur, p. 77.

155-Ibid.

156-Ibn Abi Usaybia Uyun al-Anba (Beirut, 1956), II, 37-41.

157-Al-Qifti, Tarikh al-Hukama, ed. J. Lippert (Leipzing, 1903).

158-Meyerhof, p. 60, is incorrect in calling Yahya an Arab.

159-For a detailed description of the works and life of Yahya b. Adi, see
Augustine Perier, Yhya ibn Adi (Paris, 1920).

160-See Ibn Abi Usaybia, Uyan al-Anba for a detailed description of the lives and works of the different translators.

161-The most comprehensive work on the Syrian Christian literature written in Arabic is Georg Graf, Geschichte der Christlichen Arabischen Literatur (Vatican City, 1944 and 1960).

162-Khalil Georr, Les Categories d’Aristotle dans leurs Versions Syro-arabes (Beirut, 1948), pp. 182-200.

163-Meyerhof, pp. 72-78.

164-Ibid.

165-For a through analysis of the Sciences of the Ancients ( Ulum al-Awa’il), see Ignaz Goldziher, “Stellung der alten islamischen Orthodoxie zu den antiken Wissenschaften” in Abhandlungen der Koniglichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, VIII (Berlin, 1916), translated into Arabic by Abd al-Rahman Badawi in al-Turath al-Yunani fi al-Haddara al-Islamiya, (Cairo, 1947), pp. 123-172.

166-Ibrahim Madkur, L’Organon d’Aristotle dans le monde Arabe (Paris, 1934), p. 47.

167-Graf, pp. 281-284.

168-Ibid.

169-Barsoum, p. 546.

170-Ibid., pp. 565-66.

171-For the biography and works of Maphrian Shamoun, see al-Majalla al- Patriarchiyya, VI (1938), 23-30.

172-Barsoum, p. 581.

173-Murad Chiqqi, Naum Faiq (Jerusalem, 1936), pp. 300-4.

174-Barsoum, p. 528.

PAUL THE PERSIAN

Sat, 28 May 2011 06:12:06 -0400

PAUL THE PERSIAN

PAUL THE PERSIAN, a writer who lived at the time of the Nestorian Patriarch Ezekiel (567-80 C.E.), according to Bar Hebraeus (Chron. Eccl. II; ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, 1872, cols. 97-98), and was well versed in ecclesiastical and philosophical matters. Having once aspired to be the metropolitan bishop of Persis, he later converted to Zoroastrianism. Paul’s apostasy is described in a similar manner in the Arabic Chronicle of Séert (XXIV; ed. Scher, 1911, p. 147), but Teixidor (1996, p. 509, n. 1) has questioned the historical value of these reports.
Bar Hebraeus attributes to Paul “an admirable introduction to the dialectics (of Aristotle).” It is generally agreed that this is identical with the Treatise on the Logic of Aristotle the Philosopher addressed to King Ḵosrow (i.e., Ḵosrow I Anuširvān, r. 531-79), which is extant in a Syriac manuscript in the British Museum (ms. 988 [Add. 14660], foll. 55ᵛ-67ʳ; Wright, 1872, p. 1161). An edition and Latin translation of the Treatise were published by Land (1875). The Treatise contains an introduction to philosophy in general, an introduction to Aristotle’s logical works (dependent upon Porphyry’s Isagoge), and concise summaries of the individual books of the Organon studied in the Syrian school tradition (Categoriae; De interpretatione; Analytica priora 1.1-7). The first half of the Treatise has been translated into French by Teixidor (1992, pp. 129-32; 1998b).
Meskawayh (d. 1030), in his Tartib al-saʿādāt, quotes from an otherwise unknown work of Paul addressed to Ḵosrow which provides a general introduction to the philosophy of Aristotle (Pines, 1971, pp. 123-24; Gutas, 1983, pp. 233, 244); this type of prolegomenon traditionally formed the first part of a commentary on the Categoriae (Gutas, 1983, p. 246).
The two works described above exercised a certain influence upon Islamic philosophical writers of the ninth to eleventh centuries C.E. (Kraus, 1934, pp. 16-20; Pines, 1971; Gutas, 1983; 1985, pp. 119, 123, n. 17). Particularly influential were Paul’s classification and division of the parts of philosophy (Gutas, 1983; Teixidor 1996/1997, pp. 733-34) and his claim that knowledge is superior to faith and should be chosen in preference to the latter. Paul argued that through knowledge one may attain certainty, allowing people to reach unanimous agreement. Faith, however, can neither gain exact knowledge nor eliminate doubt, leading to dissension and discord (Gutas, 1983, p. 247; Teixidor, 1996).
This Paul also wrote a short commentary on Aristotle’s De interpretatione, which is extant in Syriac in Alqoš, ms. Vosté 53 (= Scher 50), cah. 24, pp. 1-15. The prescript asserts that this commentary was translated from Middle Persian into Syriac by Severus Seboḵt (d. 667) (Scher, 1906, p. 498; Vosté, 1928, p. 23; Sims-Williams, forthcoming), raising the question of whether the Treatise Paul addressed to Ḵosrow was likewise originally written in Middle Persian (Baumstark, 1922, p. 246 with n. 8; Vööbus, 1965, p. 171 with n. 19; Gutas, 1983, pp. 239, n. 15; 244, n. 29). The De interpretatione commentary and its prescript are also known to have survived in pp. 124-55 of a Syriac manuscript formerly in the collection of Paul Bedjan (Van Hoonacker, 1900, p. 73). The relation of this commentary to the summary of the De interpretatione given in the Treatise has not been established.
Paul the Persian also appears as a literary figure in an early Byzantine Greek anti-Manichean work, the Debate of Photinus the Manichaean and Paul the Persian, which is extant in Sinaiticus gr. 513 (383), foll. 130ᵛ-136ᵛ; Athos, Vatopedinus 236, foll. 129ᵛ-135ʳ; and Vaticanus gr. 1838, foll. 249ᵛ-258ᵛ. Mai (1847) produced an edition of the text (based upon Vaticanus gr. 1838 but with numerous errors) together with a Latin translation; these were reprinted by J.-P. Migne (Patrologia Graeca, vol. 88, cols. 529A-552C). Samuel Lieu and Mark Vermes have prepared an English translation of this work (to appear in the Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum Series Graeca), which is based upon Mai’s edition but includes some emendations made after examining a microfilm of Vatopedinus 236. A critical edition of the Greek text and a new English translation are being prepared by Byard Bennett.
The Debate purports to be a transcript of three disputations held in Constantinople at the command of the Emperors Justin I and Justinian I (i.e., between 1 April and 1 August 527 C.E.), with the eparch of the city, Theodorus (Teganistes), presiding. The three disputations deal, respectively, with the origin of human souls, the Manichean doctrine of the two principles, and the nature of the Law and validity of the Old Testament. Lieu (1983, p. 165, n. 107) initially suggested that the Debate was fictional, being “composed in the literary tradition of the Acta Archelai.” In a later work, however, Lieu (1992, pp. 96, 211-14) appears to have accepted the historicity of the disputations, noting the realistic narration of events and the coincidence in time of this alleged debate with Justinian’s edicts against Manicheism (Codex Justinianus 1.5.12.2-3, 1.5.16.2; ed. Krüger, 1929, pp. 53, 56) and persecution of the Manicheans (John Malalas, Chronographia, ed. Dindorf, 1831, p. 423, 16-17; reproduced in Theophanes, Chronographia A.M. 6016; ed. de Boor, 1883, p. 171, 2-3). The historicity of the disputations has similarly been affirmed by Mercati (1901, p. 191), Richard (1977, p. XLV), and Klein (1991, p. 31). Since, however, there is no evidence that Theodorus held the office of eparch after 1 December 526 (Martindale, 1980, p. 1096; Feissel, 1986) and these disputations are not attested in any other source, their historicity cannot be regarded as established.
The assertion by Labourt (1904, pp. 166-67) and Lieu (1992, p. 212) that the Paul who appears in the Debate can be identified with the author of the Treatise is implausible. The fact that the Paul who authored the logical treatises is said to have flourished over forty years after the debate with the Manichean is supposed to have taken place suggests caution in identifying these two figures.
Bibliography: J. B. Abbeloos and T. J. Lamy, Gregorii Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, vol. 1, Louvain, 1872. A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, Bonn, 1922. C. de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1883. L. Dindorf, Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, Bonn, 1831. D. Feissel, “Le préfet de Constantinople, les poids-étalons et l’estampillage de l’argenterie au VIᵉ et au VIIᵉ siècle,” Revue Numismatique 28, 1986, pp. 119-42. D. Gutas, “Paul the Persian on the Classification of the Parts of Aristotle’s Philosophy: A Milestone Between Alexandria and Baghdad,” Der Islam 60/2, 1983, pp. 231-67; reprinted in his Greek Philosophers in the Arabic Tradition, Aldershot, 2000. Idem, “The Starting Point of Philosophical Studies in Alexandrian and Arabic Aristotelianism,” in Theophrastus of Eresus: On His Life and Work, ed. W. W. Fortenbaugh, P. M. Huby, and A. A. Long, New Brunswick, 1985, pp. 115-23; reprinted in his Greek Philosophers in the Arabic Tradition.
H. Hugonnard-Roche, “Introductions syriaques à l’étude de la logique: à propos de quelques Divisions de Porphyre,” Hautes Études Médiévales et Modernes 73, 1994, pp. 385-408. H. F. Janssens, L’Entretien de la Sagesse: Introduction aux Œuvres Philosophiques de Bar Hebraeus, Paris, 1937. W. W. Klein, Die Argumentation in den griechisch-christlichen Antimanichaica, Wiesbaden, 1991. P. Kraus, “Zu Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 14, 1934, pp. 1-20. P. Krüger, Corpus Iuris Civilis. Volumen secundum. Codex Iustinianus, Berlin, 1929; repr. 1954. J. Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l’Empire Perse sous la Dynastie Sassanide (224-632), Paris, 1904. J. P. N. Land, Anecdota Syriaca, vol. 4, Leiden, 1875 (Syriac text, pp. 1-32; Latin text, pp. 1-30 [translation], pp. 99-113 [notes]). Samuel N. C. Lieu, “An Early Byzantine Formula for the Renunciation of Manichaeism–The Capita VII contra Manichaeos of «Zacharias of Mitylene»,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 26, 1983, pp. 152-218. Idem, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China, 2nd ed., Tübingen, 1992.
A. Mai, Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, vol. 4/2, Rome, 1847, pp. 80-91. J. R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Volume II: A.D. 395-527, Cambridge, 1980. G. Mercati, “Per la vita e gli scritti di ‘Paolo il Persiano.’ Appunti da una disputa di religione sotto Giustino e Giustiniano,” in his Note di Letteratura biblica e cristiana antica, Rome, 1901, pp. 180-206. S. Pines, “Ahmad Miskawayh and Paul the Persian,” Našriye-ye Irān-šenāsi 2/2, 1971, pp. 121-29. E. Renan, “Lettre à M. Reinaud, sur quelques manuscrits syriaques du Musée Britannique,” JA, 4ᵉ série, 19, 1852, pp. 293-333. Idem, De philosophia peripatetica apud Syros commentationem historicam, Paris, 1852, pp. 19-22. M. Richard, Iohannis Caesariensis presbyteri et grammatici opera quae supersunt, Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca 1, Turnhout, 1977.
A. Scher, “Notice sur les manuscrits syriaques conservés dans la bibliothèque du couvent des Chaldéens de Notre-Dame-des-Semences,” JA, 10ᵉ série, 7, 1906, pp. 479-512. Idem, Histoire Nestorienne (Chronique de Séert). Seconde partie, fasc. 1, Patrologia Orientalis 7, Paris, 1911. N. Sims-Williams, “Christian Literature in Middle Iranian Languages,” in The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran, ed. R. E. Emmerick and M. Macuch, New York, forthcoming. J. Teixidor, Bardesane d’Edesse. La première philosophie syriaque, Paris, 1992. Idem, “Science versus foi chez Paul le Perse. Une note,” in From Byzantium to Iran: Armenian Studies in Honour of Nina Garsoïan, ed. J.-P. Mahé and R. W. Thomson, Atlanta, 1996, pp. 509-19. Idem, “Aristote en syriaque: les philosophes de la Haute Mésopotamie au VIᵉ siècle,” Annuaire du Collège de France 97, 1996/1997, pp. 723-43. Idem, “L’introduction au De interpretatione chez Proba et Paul le Perse,” in Symposium Syriacum VII, ed. R. Lavenant, Rome, 1998a, pp. 293-301. Idem, “Les textes syriaques de logique de Paul le Perse,” Semitica 47, 1998b, pp. 117-38.
A. Van Hoonacker, “Le traité du philosophe syrien Probus sur les Premiers Analytiques d’Aristote,” JA, 9ᵉ série, 16, 1900, pp. 70-166. A. Vööbus, History of the School of Nisibis, Louvain, 1965. J.-M. Vosté, “Catalogue de la bibliothèque du couvent syro-chaldéenne de Notre-Dame des Semences près d’Alqoš (Iraq),” Angelicum 5, 1928, pp. 3-36, 161-94, 325-58, 481-98. W. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum, Acquired since the Year 1838, London, 1872.
(BYARD BENNETT)