Month: August 2012

Some notes on the life of Mar Aba I (=Maraba)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Mar Aba I (the name is given as “Maraba” in some 19th century works) became Nestorian patriarch in the mid 6th century and revolutionised the relationship between the Christians and the Sassanid Persian state. [1] He was originally from the country on the right bank of the Tigris near Hale, the chief place in the district of Radan.  Although Sava had evangelised the country ca. 480 AD, many of the inhabitants remained faithful to the official religion.  The future patriarch was born into a Mazdaist family, and seems to have been strongly attached in his youth to the teaching of Zoroaster.  He entered upon a career as an administrator, and, according to the anonymous editor of his Life, “arzbed” of his town, and then assessor of the secretary of the “hamaragerd” of Beit Aramaye.

Nothing seems to have presaged his conversion to Christianity, when, in uncertain circumstances, he met a student named Joseph, surnamed Moses, from Nisibis, who was acting as catechist in the district.  Mar Aba was going to cross the Tigris by boat, when we found on board the catechist, dressed in his monastic habit.  Unable to endure such company, the pagan scribe kicked out his unfortunate companion and dump his baggage in the river.  But a storm sprang up, which abated only after the student was at length readmitted to the boat.  Mar Aba asked Joseph to forgive him.  The latter responded that a disciple of Jesus Christ must not hold on to rancour.  Struck by this, Mar Aba continued to talk to him, and decided to convert.  On his return to Ctesiphon, he arranged to be instructed in the Christian faith, renounced his job in the administration, despite the appeals of his superiors, and received baptism.

The school of Nisibis welcomed him, and there he showed signs of exceptional abilities.  He especially attached himself to one of the teachers of the school, Ma`na, who later became bishop of Arzun.  When he did so, Mar Aba followed him, possibly as his syncellus, and converted many of the pagans and the heretics to Christianity.  He then returned to Nisibis to complete his studies.

But this was not enough for him.  Many of the students then went to Roman territory in order to complete their theological education.  After the accession of Justin, imperial displeasure was reserved for monophysites, and Persian Christians were able to travel more freely in the lands of the orthodox emperor.  His biographer states that Mar Aba wanted to visit the Holy places, and also to dispute with Sergius, “an Arian” strongly tainted with paganism, in order to convert him to the true faith.

At Edessa he met a Syrian named Thomas, probably a  little younger than himself.  The two students formed a friendship, and Thomas taught his companion Greek.  Then together they visited Palestine, and then went to Egypt.  There Mar Aba was able to study the scriptures in the Greek language.

Nor did he fail to make a pilgrimage to the desert where thousands of monks were living the ascetic life, following the venerable traditions of the Desert Fathers.  Then he travelled to Corinth, and Athens, and finally to Constantinople.  His stay at the imperial capital is attested by Cosmas Indicopleustes, who mentions the church in Persia and states:

I received these [details] from a very spiritual man and from the great teacher Patrikios [= Syriac Aba].  He, following the example of Abraham, came from the land of the Chaldaeans with Thomas of Edessa, then studying theology, who accompanied him everywhere and who now, according to God’s will, has died at Byzantium.  He made me part of his piety and his very accurate science, and it is he who now, by the grace of God, has been elevated to the sublime and archiepiscopal throne of all Persia, having been instituted as Catholicos.[2]

The journey to Constantinople must be placed between 525-533 AD.  At that period other oriental teachers could be found in the imperial city.  Best known of these is Paul the Persian. 

No doubt Mar Aba did not attain to this degree of fame, although he also appeared at court.  His stay in Constantinople seems to have been brief, lasting only a single year according to his anonymous biographer.  Mare tells us that Mar Aba and his disciple were invited to anathematise Theodore of Mopsuestia and the Nestorian teachers.  Their refusal led to a threat on their lives, and they were obliged at once to flee, and to place the Persian frontier between themselves and their enemies.

This tradition seems is probably accurate.  Following the colloquium at Constantinople, which took place in 531, Justinian for some time favoured the Monophysites.  In 535 one of thes, Anthimius, became patriarch of Constantinople.  Severus of Antioch was recalled from exile and made a triumphant entry into the capital of the empire.  We may suppose that the victorious party took the opportunity to indulge in reprisals.

If they were obliged to tolerate the dyophysite monks of the capital, the Severians were less constrained when it came to strangers.  It is very probable that Paul the Persian, Mar Aba, Thomas and other Syrians who were residing at Constantinople were forced to choose between banishment and disavowing the teachings of Theodore.  Probably, as they returned to the patriarchate of Antioch, they warned the bishop of that city, Ephrem, of the danger facing the dyophysite orthodoxy.  For in 535 Sergius of Reshaina returned to Antioch, complaining of maltreatment at the hands of the bishop Asylus.  Ephrem, appreciating his talents as a diplomat, placed him in charge of a mission to Pope Agapetus.  The intriguing doctor embarked for Rome, accompanied by a young architect named Eustathius.  He met Agapetus at Constantinople and together they arranged for  the expulsion of the Monophysites from the city.  Since Sergius was Mar Aba’s teacher, and possibly also of Paul the Persian, it is likely that the refugees made him aware of what had happened to them.  It is also possible that Thomas of Edessa accompanied Sergius on his mission and stayed in Constantinople, where he died some years later, probably before 543, the date of the first publication of the Three Chapters.

Mar Aba returned to Nisibis.  His joy at his return was tempered by the spectacle of divisions among his Nestorian coreligionists.  Discouraged, he sought to adopt an ascetic life in the desert.  But his biographer states that when the bishops of the eparchy learned this, they forbade him to do so. 

His profound and varied learning and the austerity of his life increased  his reputation, and when the old Catholicos Paul died, all the votes for his replacement fell on Mar Aba.  This was in the 9th year of Chosrau Anosharwan, in February 540 AD.

His first task was to deal with the disorders that had fallen upon the Nestorian church owing to a schism among the leadership, which had led earlier on to two patriarchs, Elisaeus and Narses.  This had led to two bishops being named for many sees.  His predecessor patriarch, Paul, had invoked the assistance of the state, and with the help of Chosrau II had reestablished unity, and decided that neither of the competitors had been constitutionally made catholicos.  But it was Maraba who dealt with the consequences.

It is ordered that if, in a single see, there was only one bishop instituted before the duality, he remains legitimate.  If there are two bishops, the most virtuous shall be chosen and the other shall serve as a priest.  If both are equally virtuous and orthodox, he who was first instituted shall be confirmed in the episcopate.  The other shall renounce any episcopal functions, but shall be designated as the successor.  If both are unworthy, they shall both be deposed and shall serve in the order of clergy to which they previously belonged.[3]

Such was the decision taken in the synod held, as was usual, by the new patriarch immediately after his election.  But it had to be put into effect.  In the north, it seems, the reform was carried out without difficulty, whether because the circumstances were uncomplicated or because of the personal authority of Mar Aba and his metropolitans.  But in lower Chaldaea, Susiana and Persia proper, the homeland of every schism and revolt, there were problems.  Not only were there two bishops, but some bishops had proclaimed themselves independent of both catholicoses.  There were also some mischief-makers, such as Taimai in Mesene, and Abraham son of Audmihr, in Susiana, who had seized churches and ordained, for money, anyone who aspired to the episcopate.

Mar Aba resolved to visit the troubled regions in persona, and went accompanied by the clergy of his patriarchal church, and some loyal metropolitans and bishops.  The synodicon gives an official list of those who went.  First he went to Perozshabur, then into the land of Kashkar, where he met several supporters and appointed a new bishop to replace both contenders.  Then he went to Mesene, deposed the bishop there and excommunicated Taimai.  Then the mobile synod went on to Hormizdardashir where various differences were resolved, and then on to Persia proper.  At Rewardashir he deposed two usurpers and, after revaliditating ordinations made by them, chose Ma`na as metropolitan.

He too joined the synod which went on to Khuzistan.  Elisaeus of Shushter was delivered from a competitor, and from there the journey continued into Beit Lapat, although the problems there were not immediately resolved, and a case was necessary in the Sassanid courts.

Mar Aba returned to Seleucia, probably ca. Jan-Feb 541, having established his authority.  But the quiet was of short duration, for the resumption of war between the Byzantines and Persians allowed the Zoroastrian clergy to embark on a new phase of persecution.  From 540-545 Chosrau made war incessantly in Lazica, Commagene, Armenia and Mesopotamia. 

At this period the Christians were not protected by theological difference with Byzantium, as they had been in the time of Anastasius, when the monophysite leanings of the latter guaranteed the fidelity of his Nestorian subjects in the eyes of the King of Kings.  So in the 10th year of his reign, when Chosrau left to make war in Lazica, the Zoroastrian priests found themselves free to act.  Their chief was the grand mobed Dadhormizd.

The persecution was not of the scale of the days of Sapor.  Where the Christians were in a minority, the churches and above all the monasteries were destroyed, and nobles who had embraced Christianity were arrested, and several were executed.  The acts of these martyrs give the details, especially the Passion of Gregory, a noble originally named Pirangushnasp.  But in 545 the persecution ceased, following  a treaty between Justinian and Chosrau, which brought the war to an end and stipulated religious liberty for the Christians in Persia, and the release of the senior clergy who had protested the persecution in its early days and been arrested for their pains. 

Mar Aba himself had felt the malice of the magian clergy.  He was summoned before a council of mages, headed by the grand mobed.  The accusation was made that on his journey into Persia he had converted various Mazdaists to Christianity, and had forbidden the practice of various pagan activities to Christians, such as eating meat which had been blessed by Magian priests.  After a pretence of interrogation, Dadhormizd went to the king and obtained permission to hand Mar Aba over to the head of the prisons.  This seems to have been around 540-1. 

But the mages did not dare to abuse their victory.  They knew that the king might well one day think ill of too hasty a zeal, and executing the patriarch might well provoke a revolt by the innumerable Christians of Persia just when the king’s forces were fully stretched.  This perhaps explains the intervention of a notable Christian of Seleucia, one `Abrodaq, who assured the grand mobed that, were the latter to go for instruction in the school of the Catholicos, he would soon be seeking baptism.  This was too much for the mages, and charges were brought against him.

Meanwhile the royal forces were travelling slowly northwards, and all those who had lost money or other advantage from Mar Aba’s reforms hastened to make accusations, and the mages tried to use these to get the patriarch to waive some of the canons that he had put in place, particularly those affecting Persian weddings of cousins and the like.  Others discovered that he was a convert from Zoroastrianism, and sought to make use of this fact.  But Mar Aba refused to budge, and his position was strengthened by the fact that he retained the royal favour, and, when he met Chosrau, the king greeted him in a friendly way and spoke familiarly with him.

Nevertheless Mar Aba was exiled to a remote place, far from other Christians.  His biographer records that this had the effect of bringing large numbers of Christians into the area, and resulted in the establishment of Christianity in the region and the appointment of bishops.  A synod was held, which issued six constitutions.  But Mar Aba remained there, even after peace had been declared.

Ca. 548 a renegade clergyman who called himself Peter Gurganara, who had been deposed by Mar Aba for various irregularities, went to court and obtained, it is unknown how, royal permission to depose Mar Aba and to annul the ordinations which he had made.  Peter went to Azerbaijan with a royal order, which, however, was rather vague.  The mages, who had many reasons to hate Mar Aba, nevertheless found the order insufficient to justify permitting the actions of Peter.  The latter resorted to violence and organised a nighttime attack on the residence of the patriarch, which was foiled by the inhabitants of the area.

These events warned the patriarch that his position was in danger, and he made a secret journey to court to see the king, despite being exiled.  The king was clement, and Mar Aba advised him that he would rather be executed at court, if the king so wished, than murdered in an obscure place by a renegade.  The king accepted this excuse, and remitted his exile, obliging him to be confined at court.

In 551 Anoshazad, son of Chosrau I and a Christian woman, who had been exiled to Beit Lapat, raised a revolt and marched on Seleucia.  He was able to rely on Christian support in the region.  The king’s first reaction was to execute Mar Aba.  But on further thought he invited the catholicos to detach his coreligionists from supporting Anoshazad.  At the same time he released Mar Aba from prison.  By chance at this point a priest sent by the chief of the Haital arrived, seeking ordination from Mar Aba; and the presence of this envoy of a remote people increased the king’s respect for the Catholicos.  The letters of the Catholicos were effective, the revolt failed, and Mar Aba was set at liberty. 

But Mar Aba had suffered from all this, and he died on 29 February 552, at Seleucia.  He had spent the last year of his life in pastoral concerns and in converting heretics.

The king had learned much from this episode.  He did not permit the bishops to elect a new Catholicos, but instead appointed his own candidate, a doctor named Joseph who had treated Chosrau successfully, and the bishops acquiesced in his choice.

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  1. [1]These notes are from J. Labourt, Le christianisme dans l’empire perse sous la dynastie Sassanide (224-632), Paris, 1904, p.162-191.  Although well out of date, the history of the church in Persia is so little known that this material will be new to most of us.  The sources for his life are: Bedjan, Histoire de Mar Jabalaha, etc, Life of Maraba, p.206-274; `Amr, p.23; Mare, p.43-46; Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, vol. 2, col.89-96.  Cf. Assemani, Bibl. Orientale, III, p.75-80; Duval, Litterature Syriaque, p. 218, 440; Synodicon Orientale p.318-351 and 540-562.↩
  2. [2]PG 88, c. 73.↩
  3. [3]Synodicon Orientale, p.321.↩

When were the Olympic games abolished?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In many places online you can find statements that the Olympic games were banned by the emperor Theodosius I.  The date is variable — 385 through to 393, and the claims are always unreferenced to ancient evidence which should make us all wary.

A little earlier this afternoon I was looking for any evidence.  And I came across this:

We owe the notion of the ancient Olympics ending in 393 to John [sic] Cedrenus, who was writing in the eleventh century.  A somewhat different tradition was known to the author of a note on a work by the satirist Lucian, who said that the games continued ‘from the time of the Hebrew judges until that of Theodosius the Younger.’[1]

This naturally led me to ask where I might find the text of Cedrenus.  And … do you know, I found almost nothing?  Why is there no translation of Cedrenus?

Another work made much the same statement:

It is generally assumed that the Olympic games continued to be celebrated as late as the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era.  Cedrenus appears to date their suppression in the 16th (potius the 15th) of Theodosius the elder AD 393.[z] Joannes Lydus attributes it to Theodosius the younger[a]: … unless he meant the substitution of some other era for that of the reckoning by Olympiads. The Olympic games are certainly recognised as in existence in the reign of Theodosius the Great [b] and by Moses Chorenensis seem to be so even as late as the 20th of Theodosius the younger[c].

z. Mr Clinton Fasti Romani ad AD 393 Ol 193
a. iv. 64. 95. 22.
b. Anecdota Graeca Paris ii. 155. 17.
c. iii. 40. 279.

These references are not very helpful, of course.

There is this:

We are told by an eleventh-century historian, Kedrenos (Historia comparativa [sic] 322B and 348A), of the last Olympiad (293rd), which occurred under Theodosius I in 393 or 394 before his edict against pagan festivals.  Kedrenos reports that the Zeus of Phidias was moved to Constantinople, where it was kept in the palace of the patrician Lausos and was eventually lost in a fire.  But the source may well be in error.[55]  The edict of Theodosius II on November 13, 426, ordered the destruction of all pagan temples.  A late source records the burning down of the Temple of Zeus at that time (scholiast to Lucian’s Rhetorical Precepts 6[22] Jacobitz).  Archaeology shows rather that another earthquake brought down the temple and traces of burning are absent. … In A.D. 395, two years after the edict of Theodosius I, the Goths under Alaric invaded as far as the Peloponnese, although Olympia was probably passed by.[2]

Unfortunately the references to Cedrenus only tell us about the statue.  Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici gives a better reference:

 The series of years commences at the 55th Olympiad and is brought down to the cessation of the Olympiads a period of 956 years. Censorinus names the second year of Olymp. 254 and Eusebius the second year of Olymp. 277, which he makes coincident with the 20th year of Constantine.

The Olympiads ceased in the reign of Theodosius. Cedrenus having mentioned the 15th and 16th years of Theodosius proceeds thus [a] … The 16th year of Theodosius began xiv Kal. Feb. AD 394 in the middle of Olymp. 293. 1. He died xvi Kal. Feb. AD 395 in the middle of Olymp 293. 2. The 293rd Olympiad therefore appears to have been the last.

The Scholiast, however, upon Lucian[b] brings down the Olympiads a little lower … The younger Theodosius began to reign May AD 408, U.C. Varr. 1161 = Olymp. 296. 4. The Alexandrine Chronicle pursues the computation by Olympiads to Ol. 345 c but there is no proof that the Olympic games actually continued to so late a period. The author merely expresses the Olympiads as a notation of time.[3]

[a] Cedren. p.325 C.
[b]Tom. VII p. 515.

So what does Cedrenus [4] say, in 326D?  Almost nothing, and that little has to be given with reference to other events:

In year 15 and 16 of his reign, Theodosius published a law that no woman should receive money to become a deaconess unless older than 60. In the same year died [p.325D] Placilla, wife of Theodosius, … the people of Antioch threw down his statue because of the exactions of the emperor, because of which John Chrysostom, then a priest in Antioch, published marvellous orations under the title Of the statues.

Then the festival of the Olympics ceased, which it was customary to celebrate at the end of every fourth year. [P327A] It was instituted at the time when Manasses was king of Judah, and continued until the reign of Theodosius.  …

Likewise Theodosius overturned all the temples of the fictitious ‘gods’, which Constantine the Great ordered <something>. He died at Milan aged 60 from illness, after reigning 16 years, leaving two sons…

So Cedrenus tells us only that in the last year of the reign of Theodosius, i.e. in 394 AD (unless we wish to include the first few weeks of 395), the Olympics ceased.  Interestingly he does NOT say that Theodosius ordered it halted, just that “it stopped”.  The climate of the times must have been very hostile to its continuance, it must be said.

Interestingly Cedrenus, a little earlier, in 322B, tells us of various items removed from temples and set up at Constantinople, after the defeat of Eugenius by Theodosius in 394.

In the [palace] of Lausus was … the image of Athena of Lindos, of emerald stone, four feet high, the work of Scyllides and Dipoenus the statue-makers, which was originally given by Sesostris, tyrant of Egypt, as a gift to Cleobulus, the tyrant of Lindos.  And the Aphrodite of Cnidos, from white stone, nude, hand over the pudenda, the work of Praxiteles of Cnidos.  And the Hera of Samos, the work of Lysippus and Bupalos of Chios.  … And the ivory Zeus of Phidias, which Pericles dedicated in the Olympic temple.

So it sounds as if the image was removed from Olympia before the games had ceased; but it is in the same year and it would be strange if the events were unrelated.  In 348A we read of the fire at Constantinople that happened in the 5th year of the emperor Marcian. Among the places burned is the palace of Lausus.

Let us move on to the Scholion on Lucian.[5]  This reads as follows, in full:

 Ὀλυμπιάδας] πόλις ἧν ἐν Ἤλιδι Ὀλυμπία καλουμένη ἱερὸν ἔχουσα ἐπιφανέστατον Ὀλυμπίου Διός. ἐν ταύτῃ ἁγὼν ἐπετελεῖτο παγκόσμιος τὰ Ὀλύμπια κατὰ πέντε ἔτη συγκροτούμενος· διὸ καὶ πενταετηρικὸς ἐκαλεῖτο· ὅς καὶ ἀνεγράφετο τοῖς δημοσίοις ἀεὶ εἰς δήλωσιν τῶν ἐνιαυτῶν καὶ ἧν τοῦτο ἀκριβὴς τῶν χρόνων ἐπίγνωσις· τεσσάρων γὰρ ἐτῶν μεταξὺ διαρρεόντων τῷ πέμπτῳ συνετελεῖτο. καὶ διήρκεσεν ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῶν καθ’ Ἑβραίους κριτῶν μέχρι τοῦ μικροῦ Θεοδοσίου·  ἐμπρησθέντος γὰρ τοῦ ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ ναοῦ ἐξέλιπε καὶ ἡ τῶν Ἠλείων πανήγυρις.

My Greek is very bad, but my guess at the sense is something like this (corrections welcome!):

Olympiads] The town in Elis, Olympia, is called the manifest temple of Olympian Zeus. In this the Olympic contest common to all the world was celebrated (?) every five years: and because of which (summoned?), falling every four years [i.e. five inclusively].  And the time-span being engraved and setup publicly, indicating the year and the exact date ….  And it endured in first place down from the judges of the Hebrews until Theodosius the Younger.  For a fire having broken out in the temple of Olympia, the assembly of the Elians abandoned it.

It is not clear from this whether ‘it’ is the system of Olympiads was abandoned after the fire in the temple — which thereby wiped out the public record — or the Olympic contests.

Then there is the reference in John the Lydian, but I have not been able to work out where is meant.

It’s not much, is it?  None of this is very conclusive.  I would theorise, ignorantly, that the statement of Cedrenus is correct; and that the system of Olympiads continued another 50 years, out of habit (and, after all Eusebius the Christian historian himself used it in his chronicle), as the scholiast states.  But who knows?

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  1. [1]David Potter, The Victor’s Crown: A  History of Ancient Sport from Homer to Byzantium, Oxford, 2011, p.311↩
  2. [2]Thomas F. Scanlon, Eros and Greek Athletics, Oxford University Press, 2002, p.59.↩
  3. [3]Henry Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici: the civil and literary chronology of Greece : from the earliest accounts to the death of Augustus. From the CXXIVth Olympiad to the death of Augustus, Oxford University, 1830, volume 3, p.xv.↩
  4. [4]B. G. Niebuhr (ed), Georgius Cedrenus, vol. 1, Series: Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, 1838, ↩
  5. [5]H. Rabe (ed.), Scholia in Lucianum, Stuttgart, 1906.  Online at Google Books here and at Archive.org here. Scholia on the Rhetorum praeceptor 9, to be found on p.175-6 for “Olympiadas”.  The scholion is found in M (=cod. Paris 2954, 14th c., a low-grade ms.) and cod. Florence Laur. 32, 13, so is not one of those found in the better sources.↩

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve managed to install some malware.  Oh bother.

It’s something any of us might do.  I was accessing a site which was offering the download of a book.  The link took me to a site called “blitzdownload.com”, which downloaded an exe called “<book title>.exe”.  Naturally I presumed that the thing was an executable zip. 

So I double-clicked on it, and up popped a message asking if it was OK to allow the programme to modify my computer.   Of course a zip wouldn’t do this; but I was tired, and I see that message far too often.  So I said yes.

And gradually I realised that the thing was trying to install this, and that, and the other.  I cancelled out.  But the Windows Start Menu still showed something — some sort of downloader — had been installed.

So I deinstalled it.  But of course, who knows what else it might have done. 

I started Kaspersky and checked for boot-sector viruses, and it showed nothing.  But … if it’s really a trojan — and it clearly is bogus in some way, because why else would it hide its nature? — then it may have interfered with Kaspersky.

OK, well let’s just go back to the previous system restore point.  I fire this up, make the request and … after lots of churning, it gives an error.  I try the previous restore point — same problem.

But when I restart I find that the rollback has at least partially taken effect.  The main effect is that my Kaspersky now won’t start properly.  Nor will it fix itself.  When I try a reinstall it warns I may have a virus. 

And so on it goes.  I will spare you a blow-by-blow account.  Yet here we are, hours and hours lost, struggling, while tired, just to make sure my PC isn’t about to email my bank details to fraudsters.  I don’t dare NOT do so… and yet the recovery process is so very, very fraught.

No wonder so many PC’s are infected.  Trying to make sure that yours is not, after something commonplace like this, exhausts the soul.

Wish me luck!

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An Iranian perspective on Christians in Sassanid Iran

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I encountered a book, written by an Iranian, discussing the position of “religious minorities” in Iran during the Sassanid and medieval period.  The author is Aptin Khanbaghi, the title is The Fire, the star and the cross: Minority religions in medieval and early modern Iran, I.B.Tauris, 2006, and there is a Google books preview here.

It’s very interesting to see a different perspective on things:

The position of Christians probably improved even more under Khusraw I Anushiravan (531-578) as he had a Christian wife. His son Anushazad apparendy embraced the religion of his mother and hoped to obtain the support of Nestorians in Khuzistan to usurp power, without any success.66 Anushazad’s appeal to the Christians for support, shows the numerical importance of this community in Khuzistan at this time. During the same period, Maraba (540-552), a Zoroastrian apostate, became Catholicos (head of Nestorian Church) at Ctesiphon.67 Despite the fact that apostasy in Zoroastrianism was not acceptable, the important number of Christians in the West of Iran prevented Khusraw I from killing him. He needed his collaboration to appease a revolt of Christians.68 Following Maraba’s death, Khusraw I placed his private physician, Joseph on the throne of the Catholicate (552-567). The bishops did not contest his choice.69 Another physician, named Moses or Narses from Nisibis, is mentioned as having gone to the court in order to present to the monarch the anguish of the Christians, so that Joseph could be deposed. However, Joseph’s influence on Khusraw was so strong that the bishops did not dare nominate another Catholicos.70

Henceforth, Zoroastrian officers who converted to Christianity were allowed to maintain their rank in the Persian army, and were no longer ostracized.71 By the time of Hormizd IV (579-590), the number of Christians had increased to such an extant that when the Zoroastrian priests solicited the King to restrict the activities of the Christians, Hormizd replied:

“Just as our royal throne cannot stand on its two front legs without the two back ones, our kingdom cannot stand or endure firmly if we cause the Christians and adherents of other faiths, who differ in belief from ourselves, to become hostile to us. So renounce this desire to persecute the Christians and become assiduous in good works, so that the Christians and the adherents of other faiths may see this, praise you for it, and feel themselves drawn toward your religion.”72

The reconciliation of the Sassanians with the Christians generated a new social and political atmosphere, which allowed the Christians to establish intellectual centres similar to those belonging to Jews, such as the School of Nisibis and the School of Ctesiphon.

I wish that I could see the references!

And … why is this book so expensive?  How on earth does on get to read it?

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An Armenian version of Ephraim’s commentary on Hebrews?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email in the ABTAPL list raised a very interesting question.

In the IVP Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, in the volume on Hebrews, there is an excerpt from Ephraim the Syrian.  Looking at the reference, we find this:

Marco Conti, trans. Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Works of Ephrem in Armenian.  ACCS translation project.

Except that no publication appears to exist.  According to IVP:

Marco Conti (Ph.D., University of Leeds) is professor of medieval and humanistic Latin literature at the Ateneo Salesiano and lecturer in classical mythology and religions of the Roman Empire at the Richmond University in Rome.

In 1836, the Mechitarist Fathers in Venice published the works of Ephraim from the ancient Armenian versions, in 4 volumes.  Some of Ephraim’s works, indeed, no longer exist in the original Syriac, and the Armenian versions are all there is.  A bibliography is here.  But I have not been able to locate this Venice edition online.

However in 1895 they published a Latin translation of the commentaries on the letters of Paul.  This I did find, here.  And in the PDF, on p.217 of the PDF (p.200 of the printed text) there is the start of material on Hebrews!

It would be interesting to know whether Dr Conti prepared a complete translation of Ephraim’s Commentary on Hebrews.  I hope to find out!

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Dishonesty at the BBC – as usual

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Over the last year or two I have noticed some curious reporting on the BBC website and Ceefax.  Whenever there are violent attacks on Christians around the world, the story is often titled “Clashes between Christians and <whoever>”.  It’s usually Moslem attacks on Christians, of course.

They did it again on Wednesday.

At least 16 people have been wounded after Muslims attacked a church and Christian homes in a village near the Egyptian capital, Cairo, officials say.

And how was it titled?  Yup:

Coptic-Muslim clashes erupt in Egypt

The article tries to create a false equivalence to back this up.  We are solemnly told that, four days earlier, some Moslem was complaining a Copt burned his shirt while ironing, and a punch-up ensued, in which firebombs were traded to and fro and a Moslem died.  But the BBC didn’t report that.  And even the BBC can’t conceal the one-sidedness of the “clashes”.

Last October, a suicide attack on a church in Alexandria killed 24 people.

Police in Dahshur early on [the previous] Wednesday fired teargas to stop a Muslim mob from setting fire to a church, but the rioters instead torched several Christian properties and three police cars, officials said.

Ten policemen were among the 16 injured, according to the authorities.

The office of the local Coptic archbishop of Giza said the entire Christian population of Dahshur had now fled, according to the Associated Press.

Doubtless the BBC would head that last detail “Moslems and Christians flee violence.”

I prefer honest information, myself.

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BBKL site now pay-only

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Biographisch-Bibliographisches KirchenLexicon site is no more.  Or, what comes to the same thing, has vanished behind a paywall.

It was free from 1996 until this year.  From 2011 they asked for voluntary donations to fund the work, with little response.  So now they have imposed a pay wall.

It’s not very clear why they suddenly need to monetise the site.  It looks rather as if the decision was a commercial one.  Bautz.de seems to be a publisher, with all that this implies.

But … there goes one of the very few worthwhile internet sites in the German language.  Oh well.

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Ephraim the Syrian, Hymn 23 Against Heresies

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have produced a rough translation of the BKV German translation of this hymn, mainly while reading it to see what it said.  I make no claims for reliability, but it gives an idea of what the content is. The line divisions are my own.

23.  To the same melody.

1. The twelve apostles were the cultivators of the whole world,
But no place and no location was named after their name,
Then appeared all sorts of weeds
After the cultivators had died
And the weed called the wheat by their name;
But on the day of harvest it will be destroyed.

Refrain: Blessed be He, whose harvest is imminent!

2.  They [the false teachers] teach me to hate them
Because they have hidden the secret writings that they have written
Like a man who hides his shame, so that they are not disseminated.
But the church shows her glory, her open beauty is famous.
There is no stain to hide, no flaw that must be covered,
Clear as the light its teaching radiates.

Blessed is he, who shines with its truth!

3.  Joab had captured a city; namely the capital city of the state,
But he did not therefore give it his own name.
As Joab, the commander, he had conquered,
He sent to David, who hastened there himself,
To enter in as king, and as such to name what he had conquered.
Joab acted as a servant, and it was called after the name of the king.

To you be glory from the faithful!

4.  The apostles and the prophets, the princes and the generals,
Laboured and worked, taught and lectured,
And captured towns and fortresses.
The prophets and apostles exerted themselves,
And were called by the name of God.
Our Lord worked and laboured and taught —
And was labelled a fraud,
So we should call ourselves by his name.

Blessed be He, by whose name they are exposed!

5.  The followers of Bardaisan should be asked,
How and why they are called by the name of Bardaisan,
And what was the occasion of the appointment;
Whether they are descended from him, as the Hebrews from Heber.
And if they get their teaching from him, because they are his disciples,
Then arises the accusation with his name on,
That he has devised an evil teaching.

Blessed is he who has discovered their fraud!

6.  Not everyone, however, who creates a school
Names his pupils after his own name;
The apostle taught the people, and no-one is named after his name;
In those names in which he taught did he baptise;
This name in which he baptised he taught them to honour;
He wrote that name on everything.

Blessed is he, whose name is all-worthy!

7.  Now a demon among the Greeks began to lure
Each [bride of Christ] to be a whore,
Making up whatever seemed to him attractive and plausible.
And even today he seduced women by all sorts of silly pretensions;
One he begins on through fasting,
Another by [pentitential] sack-cloth and vegetables,
Another still he captures through words.

Blessed is he who makes his wiles nothing.

8.  An ugly deception cannot be unless it decorates itself with truth,
And a lie cannot get on, without the footsteps of truth.
They won over the bride through [the semblance] of their beauty,
And this shows that they are shameful.
And after they had wooed her (for Christ) they took her for themselves,
And that reveals that they are fraudulent.
So who would not flee from them?

Blessed be he, where everyone finds his refuge!

9.  We speak these words loudly, so that we will be heard by the deaf;
You I make the arbiter, you decide, O listener;
What is greater or more noble, that you are named a Christian,
Or may be called a Christian, or a Daisanite weed?

Blessed be he, after whom everyone longs!

10.  Even before Bardaisan was, and Marcion was spoken of,
Let us go to the earliest, who are older than Marcion,
And let us see how the first churches were named,
And we want to be named by that name,
And to remove and discard the naming with later names.

Blessed be he, who through His name again is put forward!

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On giving too much

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Adam McCollum’s blog HMMLOrientalia came back to life a few months ago, and unfortunately I did not notice.  But he is now posting some very useful material indeed, with good bibliographies, and each post contributes measurably the increasing the quality of information online.

But this post caught my eye for other reasons:

At the beginning of CFMM 306 are a few maxims, first in Syriac, then in Arabic (Garšūnī) …

  • Don’t believe everything you hear.
  • Don’t tell* everything that you see.
  • Don’t say everything that you know.
  • Don’t do everything that you are able to do.
  • Don’t give all you possess.

These are maxims of reticence or prudent withholding, all of this basic theme, and they reflect the experience of those who, having given too freely of their means or knowledge, have gotten into trouble, lost relationships, and more.

I suspect those of us who blog, who contribute online, have all encountered these problems, from being too generous. 

All of us who give of ourselves must know our limits.  More, we must recognise that only we can enforce them.  There are any number of people who go around making demands of others.  Which of us has not received some ill-spelled and preremptory demand for information, evidently from a child too lazy to do his homework? 

To remain in good health, we must politely but firmly decline to exceed our boundaries, whether in response to sudden enthusiasm on our own part, or to urgent importunity from others.  The troll who seeks to lure you into an interminable correspondence is not your friend.  Have the courage to dismiss him.  To do otherwise is violate our boundaries, and to haemorrage ourselves for those who will do nothing for us. 

Often, too often, we find that those for whom we have sacrificed our time and energy suddenly go silent, without even a “thank you”; leaving us feeling flat, sore and abused.  Occasionally we even find that our labours are thrown back in our faces by those who could not have done anything without us, yet decline even to acknowledge their indebtedness. 

So … let us know our limits.

But Adam then goes on to make a valuable point about sayings literature, or gnomologia as some anti-populariser dubbed it:

There are, of course, notable traditions of maxims and proverbs spanning ancient near eastern and classical literature (at least Sumerian, Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin), and the sentiments indicated above are hardly unique among those traditions.

And he then references a number of these.

Arabic sayings literature — or, more accurately Christian Arabic sayings literature — seems largely inaccessible and unexplored.  We really could do with a corpus of the material listed in Graf (vol. 1, p.482 f.).  Little of it has even been published.

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Some notes on Ephraim the Syrian’s “Hymns against heresies”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have been reading the prefatory material to E. Beck’s critical edition of this collection of hymns.[1]  The following is abstracted from these.

 Ephraim’s collection of hymns Contra Haereses was printed by Petrus Benedictus (Mubarak) in the 2nd volume (syr.-lat.) of the Editio Romana in 1740, based upon the only manuscript of this work contained in the Vatican library, codex vat. sir. 111.  He gave the hymns the title, Sermones polemici adversus haereses, since in this edition the Syriac terms madrâshâ and mēmrâ were both rendered as sermo.  The manuscripts have madrâshē (luqbal yulpâne).

Inevitably working from a single manuscript, which was not always legible, the Roman edition is unsatisfactory. 

The two oldest manuscripts also are the foundation for Ephraim’s hymns De Fide.  B is the basic witness, as A is missing more leaves.

  • B = Cod. vat. sir. 111.  6th century, from the Nitrian desert.  Described in CSCO 154 / Syr. 73, p.ii.  This is the only complete manuscript, but the writing is often very blurred, and becomes at times unreadable, as the manuscript fell into the Nile at one point.
  • A = British Library additional 12176.   6th century, from the Nitrian desert.  Also described in CSCO 154.  This was once complete, but is missing many leaves.  It is complete for the hymns De Fide.
  • E = British Library add. 17141.  A liturgical codex, of the 8-9th century, containing  hymns by Ephraim, Isaac of Antioch and Jacob of Serugh.  Contains extracts from the first 10 hymns against heresies, and selected verses from most of the others.
  • F = British Library add. 14574.  This is a few remaining leaves of a large codex containing collections of hymns by Ephraim: De ecclesia, de Virginitate, contra Haereses.  It is written in three columns.  The colophon refers to 56 hymns against heresies, but only a few pages remain.  It was probably written a bit later than B and A.

In B, A and F, we have the text of Ephraim as it was in the 6th century.

There are also two late manuscripts from the vaguely specified “patriarchal library of Homs”.  The first of these (H1) is 12-13th century, and contains a few pieces of the text.  The second (H2) is 15th century.

Beck’s text, despite his criticism of Petrus Benedictus, is also that of B, as this is the only complete manuscript where no pages have been lost.  But the codex fell into the Nile during its adventures, and so is damaged.  In hymns 22, 34, 35 and 38, where comparison with other codices is not possible, it is necessary to infer the readings, although I do not see large lacunae in Beck’s text.

I do wonder at this point, however, what modern multi-spectral imagining would make of this?  Could the text be recovered?

The work has been of interest to theologians ever since it was published, because of the valuable testimony that it bears to Marcion, Mani and Bardaisan.  Consequently it was translated into German by P. Zingerle from the Roman edition for the original Bibliothek der Kirchenvater series,[2] and again by A. Rücker for the new BKV series in 1928.

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  1. [1]E. Beck, CSCO 169-170, 1957. The second volume is the German translation.↩
  2. [2]In the 1834 series, and in the 1873 series also.↩