Category: Ancient world

Gibbon on Bar Hebraeus and the destruction of the Alexandrian library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have now located the passage where Gibbon discusses the destruction of the library of Alexandria by the Arabs, as recounted by Bar Hebraeus, and thereby gave rise to a large progeny of English-language quotations of the words of Omar given in it.  It may be found here.  Unfortunately I haven’t found a reliable volume/page number reference.

I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou was more curious and liberal than that of his brethren, and in his leisure hours, the Arabian chief was pleased with the conversation of John, the last disciple of Ammonius, and who derived the surname of Philoponus from his laborious studies of grammar and philosophy. (115) Emboldened by this familiar intercourse, Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his opinion, contemptible in that of the Barbarians – the royal library, which alone, among the spoils of Alexandria, had not been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror. Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian, but his rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without the consent of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic. “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved: if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.” The sentence was executed with blind obedience: the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city; and such was their incredible multitude, that six months were barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of Abulpharagius (116) have been given to the world in a Latin version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences. The fact is indeed marvellous. “Read and wonder!” says the historian himself: and the solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the silence of two annalist of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conquest of Alexandria.(117)

115. Many treatises of this lover of labor (=philoponus) are still extant, but for readers of the present age, the printed and unpublished are nearly in the same predicament. Moses and Aristotle are the chief objects of his verbose commentaries, one of which is dated as early as May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458 – 468.) A modern, (John Le Clerc,) who sometimes assumed the same name was equal to old Philoponus in diligence, and far superior in good sense and real knowledge.

116. Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 114, vers. Pocock. Audi quid factum sit et mirare. It would be endless to enumerate the moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish with honour the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex. Patriarch, p. 170: ) historia … habet aliquid ut απιστον ut Arabibus familiare est.

117. This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the annals of Eutychius, and the Saracenic history of Elmacin. The silence of Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems, is less conclusive from their ignorance of Christian literature.

It is remarkable that this does not involve a verbatim translation of Pococke’s text.  But such a translation seems elusive.  Could it be that few people can work out who the Severan monophysites were, so omit the words?

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Bar Hebraeus, Abd al-Latif, and the destruction of the library of Alexandria

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m trying to find some specific sources for the claim that the Caliph Omar ordered the burning of the library at Alexandria.   Yesterday we looked at Abd al-Latif.  The source most commonly quoted is Gregory Bar Hebraeus, also known as Abu’l Faraj, writing in the 13th century.  He was the last great writer of Syriac.

Bar Hebraeus wrote two histories in Syriac; the Chronicum Syriacum, and the Chronicum Ecclesiasticum.  The former is more or less a world history, and was translated by E. Wallis Budge.  The latter is a list of ecclesiastics, of both the west and east Syriac churches, and has only been translated into Latin. 

Late in life, however, he produced a history in Arabic, which was extracted and translated from the Chronicum Syriacum, with additions specific to the Arabic version.  Excerpts from this were printed in Latin translation by the 17th century orientalist, Edward Pococke, in 1650, (an 1806 reprint is here) [1] and then the Arabic text with a Latin translation of the whole by the same editor in 1663 under the title Historia Compendiosa Dynastiarum [2].

In the 1650 text, on p.170-171 he quotes Bar Hebraeus.  But I find that I have a PDF of the 1663 edition, and so I have transcribed the Latin from it.  The following text is on p.114 (p.66 of the PDF).  I would guess that the PDF comes from the Early English Books Online (or EEBO) database, accessible only behind a paywall, but I don’t know.  I would guess that the volume also included the Arabic, which explains a page number of 181; but I don’t seem to have this.

Sectio

Porro hoc tempore claruit inter Muslemios Johannes, quem vocamus nos Grammaticum, qui Alexandrinus fuit, fidemque Christianorum Jacobiticorum professus Severi doctrinam adstruebat, deinde recessit ab eo quod profitentur Christiani de Trinitate; quare convenientes eum Episcopi in urbe Metsra rogarunt, ut ab eo quod [profitebatur] rediret; cumque redire nollet, eum de gradu suo dejecerunt.  Vixitque donec caperet Amrus Ebno’lAs Alexandriam, et ad Amrum, accessit; qui, cognito quem  inscientiis locum teneret, honore ipsum affecit, audiitque de sermonibus eius Philosophicis, quibus assueti non fuerant Arabes, quod eum a stuporem redigeret, quoque percelleretur.  Fuit autem Amrus intellectu praeditus, ad res percipiendas promptus, conceptibus claris, adhaesit ergo illi, neque ab eo discessit.  Deine die quodam dixit illi Johannes, “Circumvisti tu omnia Alexandriae repositoria, omniaque rerum genera quae in iis reperiuntur obsignasti; quod ad illa igitur, quae  tibi profutura sint, nolo tibi contradicere, at quae nulli tibi usui futura sunt, nobis potius convenient.”  Dixit illi Amrus, “Quid est quo opus tibi sic,” dixit illi;  [p.181] “Libri Philosophici, qui in Gazophylaciis [Bibliothecis] Regiis reperiuntur.”  “Hoc,” inquit Amrus, “est de quo statuere, non possum. Illud [petis] de quo ego quid in mandatis dare non possum, nisi post veniam ab Imperatore fidelium Omaro Ebno’lchatsab impetratam.”  Scriptis ergo ad Omarum literis, notum ei fecit, quid dixisset Johannes, perlataeque sunt ad ipsum ab Omaro literae, in quibus scripsit,  “Quod ad libros quorum mentionem fecisti: si in illis contineatur, quod cum libro Dei conveniat, in libro Dei [est] quod sufficiat absque illo; quod si in illis fuerit quod libro Dei repugnet, neutiquam est eo [nobis] opus, jube igitur e medio tolli.”    Jussit ergo Amrus Ebno’lAs dispergi eos per balnea Alexandriae, atque illis calefaciendis comburi;  ita spatio semestri consumpti sunt.  Audi quid factum fuerit et mirare.  E medicis autem qui hoc tempore floruerunt fuit Paulus Aeginata Medicus, suo tempore celebris: …

I do not guarantee the accuracy of the above, from the wretched PDF.  But it more or less corresponds to the following translation I found online at an Islamic site here.  I have resisted the urge to tidy it up, as this probably originates from the Arabic text rather than the Latin above.

In those days Yahya al-Nahwi, who was known as Grammaticus in our language, enjoyed fame among Arabs. He was a resident of Alexandria and a Jacobite Christian who ascribed to the Savari (?) creed. In his last days he renounced the Christian faith, and all Christian scholars of Egypt gathered around him and advised him to recant, but he did not. When the scholars were disappointed they stripped him of all the offices that he held. He lived in that condition until Amr ibn al As (the Muslim commander of the army conquering Egypt) entered Egypt.

One day Yahya went to see him. Amr came to know about his learning and scholarship and he paid him great respect. He began a discourse on philosophical issues which were unknown to Arabs: His speech made a deep impression on Amr and he became fond of him. As Amr was an intelligent, wise and thoughtful man, he made Yahyaa his companion, never parting his company.

One day Yahya said to Amr, “Whatever there is in Alexandria is in your control. As to things that are useful for you we have nothing to do with them, but as to those which you may not need, my request is that you favour us by putting them at our disposal, for we deserve them more than anyone else.” Amr asked him what they were. He said: “They are the books on wisdom and philosophy that are stored in the state library”

Amr replied that he could not decide the matter himself but had to seek the Caliph’s instructions in this regard. Accordingly, he informed the Caliph of the matter and asked for instructions. The Caliph wrote: “If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them.”

After receiving the reply Amr began dismantling the library. At his orders, the books were distributed among the public baths of Alexandria. Thus in a period of complete six months all the books were burnt and destroyed. Believe it, and do not be amazed. [3]

 “Savari” is of course the Severan form of monophysitism.  The translation is rather free, tho, I can see, so let’s return to Pococke’s Latin and look at the key point:

Scriptis ergo ad Omarum literis, notum ei fecit, quid dixisset Johannes, perlataeque sunt ad ipsum ab Omaro literae, in quibus scripsit,  “Quod ad libros quorum mentionem fecisti: si in illis contineatur, quod cum libro Dei conveniat, in libro Dei [est] quod sufficiat absque illo; quod si in illis fuerit quod libro Dei repugnet, neutiquam est eo [nobis] opus, jube igitur e medio tolli.”    Jussit ergo Amrus Ebno’lAs dispergi eos per balnea Alexandriae, atque illis calefaciendis comburi;  ita spatio semestri consumpti sunt.  Audi quid factum fuerit et mirare. 

Therefore having written a letter to Omar, he told him what John said, and a letter was brought to him from Omar, in which he (Omar) wrote, “About the books of which you have made mention: if there is contained in them what agrees (conveniat) with the book of God, in the book of God is what is sufficient, without them; but if (quodsi) in them there is what the book of God rejects, by no means is the material in them for us, order  them to be taken away.”  Therefore Amr ibn al-As ordered to disperse  them among the baths of Alexandria, and to burn  them for heating; so in the space of six months they were consumed.  Listen to what was done, and marvel.

This does not seem to quite say what Omar is generally supposed to say, unless I have misunderstood the Latin.  Unfortunately the words as quoted vary very considerably online: “they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous” is merely one of these.

I wonder just what the English language source is, never mind the ancient source.  I tried to find something in Gibbon, but in vain.

But using these words, I find this page which makes the following claim, helpfully escaping from the morass of hearsay by giving a reference to a real journal article:

We think that Isya Joseph did a thorough investigation of Bar Hebraeus and his role in the narrations about the Alexandria Library destruction by Amr Ibn Al-As on the command of Omar. His research was published in 1911 in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature (Volume 27). Here is a link to his research. 

The reader is advised to read pages 335-8. According to Isya Joseph, Bar Hebraeus says that Yahya, a Coptic philosopher, petitioned Amr Ibn Al-As to restore the royal library (Alexandria Library). Amr referred the matter to Omar. Omar ordered him to destroy the library on grounds that if what is in the library agrees with the contents of the Qur’an, then it is redundant. And, if the contents of the library do not agree with the Qur’an, then such contents are heretic. …

The assumption here is that no Muslim mentioned this library incident before Hebraeus. This latter assumption is actually mistaken. There are at least two independent sources that validate Hebraeus’s story. First, Abd-Al-Latif of Baghdad visited Egypt in the latter part of the sixth century. He mentions that the library which was in Alexandria was burned by Umru bn al-As in compliance to Omar’s orders. Second, Jamal Ad-din Al-Kufti, who was born in Kuft in upper Egypt in 565 A. H., and died in 646 A. H. , declares that the library was burned by Umru Ibn Al-As (page 335 of the above linked article).

When I look at this article by Isya Joseph, it begins with the following words:

In his At-târih (ed. 1663, p. 180), Bar Hebraeus says that when Yahya, the Coptic philosopher, petitioned Umru bn-Al-`As, the Moslem conqueror of Egypt, to restore the Royal Library to the public, the latter referred the matter to Omar bn-Al Hattab, the second Halif.  The Halif ordered him to destroy the Library on the ground that if the books were in accord with the Kuran, the Kuran alone was sufficient, and if at variance with it, there was no need of them; therefore they were to be done away with.

The page number agrees with the data above.  This phrase “in accord with the Kuran”, modified to “in accordance with” appears in various places.  Dr Joseph tells us more; that his source is George Zaidan, who he tells us published in 1904 in Cairo a History of Mohammedan Civilization.  He refers to vol. III of this, and continues:

The other authority is Jamal ad-Din Al-Kufti, wazir of Aleppo, who was born in Kuft in upper Egypt (south of Asiut) in 565 A.H., and died in 646 A.H. (op. cit., p. 42). In his Dictionary of Learned Men, a manuscript in the Hidewi Library, dating from 1197 A.H., Ibn Al-Kufti declares that the Library was burned by Umru bn Al-`As.

I don’t know whether we can access the work of Jamal ad-Din al-Kufti, which was clearly unpublished at that time.  My own knowledge of Islamic literature is too scanty to say, and a web search drew a blank.  Does anyone know?

The remainder of Dr Joseph’s article merely summarises material from Zaidan.  Doubtless the book was one difficult to access in America at that period.  I wonder whether Zaidan’s book is online.  I find his name given as Jirgi Zaydan, Zeidan, etc.  A search under the former gives a list of Arab publications.  It seems that Zaidan published in Arabic; volume IV was translated into English by David Margoliouth, and is online here, but of course that does not help us.  So Zaidan is also a dead end.

Returning to the Islamic site al-Tawid, the page also gives a further interesting quote (which it then disagrees with):

4) Ibn Khaldun, in the chapter “On the Rational Sciences and their Kinds” (al-`ulum al-‘aqliyyah wa asnafuha) of his Muqaddimah, says: “At the time of the conquest of Iran many books of that country fell into the hands of the Arabs. Sa’d ibn Abi al-Waqqas wrote to `Umar ibn al-Khattab asking his permission to have them translated for Muslims. ‘Umar wrote to him in reply that he should cast them into water, “for if what is written in those books is guidance, God has given us a better guide; and if that which is in those books is misleading, God has saved us from their evil.” Accordingly those books were cast into water or fire, and the sciences of the Iranians that were contained in them were destroyed and did not reach us.

This he references as “Pur Dawud, Yashtha, vol. ii, p. 20″; but he then rebuts the statement by examining Ibn Khaldun directly who in fact introduces the quote as follows: “It is said that these sciences reached Greece from the Persians, when Alexander killed Darius and conquered Persia, getting access to innumerable books and sciences developed by them. And when Iran was conquered (by Muslims) and books were found there in abundance, Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas wrote to `Umar . . . .”

Is Ibn Khaldun accessible, I wonder?

Just to follow up on yesterday’s post, the Islamic web page also quotes Abd al-Latif, whom he describes as a Christian writer, in a somewhat curious form:

Abd al-Latif al- Baghdad, a Christian, refers to it in his book entitled al Ifadah wa al-Nibar fi al-umur al-mushahadah wa al-hawadih al-mu`ayanah fi `ard Misr (the subject of the book is the events and conditions observed personally by the author, and is in fact, a travel account). In it while describing a `tower’ ( `amud) known as `Amad al-Sawari, the previous site of the library of Alexandria, he writes: “It is said that this tower is one of the several on which was erected a theatre, where Aristotle used to lecture and which was an academy, and here stood the library of Alexandria which was burnt by Amr ibn al-`As at the Caliph’s order.”

Whether this version or de Sacy’s is right I cannot say unless we obtain the Arabic text.  Isya Joseph also has a version of Abd al-Latif, referenced to vol. III, pp.41 ff of Zaidan.  He does not quote him explicitly, but says:

In speaking of the past events and remains in Egypt, he says that the Library which was in Alexandria was burned by Umru bn Al-`As in compliance with the order of Omar.

As we saw yesterday, this is almost the words of Abd al-Latif, word for word.  

There are several loose ends in all this.  The lack of modern editions and modern translations is a clear barrier.  I was able to find a short bibliography here.

[1] Bar Hebraeus, (tr. Edward Pococke). Specimen Historiae Arabvm; sive, Gregorii Abul Farajii Malatiensis De origine & moribus Arabum succincta narratio, in linguam latinam conversa, notisque è probatissimis apud ipsos authoribus, fusiùs illus., operâ & studio Edvardi Pocockii. Oxoniae: 1650: excudebat H. Hall. 

[2] Bar Hebraeus (=Abu’l Faraj) (tr. Edward Pococke) . Historia Compendiosa Dynastiarum Authore Gregorio abul-Pharajio Malatiensi Medico, Historiam Complectens Universalem, a Mundo Condito, Usque Ad Tempora Authoris, Res Orientalium Accuratissime Describens Arabice Edita & Latine Versa Ab Edvardo Pocockio. Imprint: Oxford: H. Hall / Ric. Davis, 1663.

[3] According to the website this is Wahid Akhtar (tr), Murtada Mutahhari-quddisa sirruh, Alleged Book Burnings in Iran and Egypt: A Study of Related Facts and Fiction, in al Tawhid vol 14, No. 1 Spring 1997, and an English translation from the Persian. The site refers to Bar Hebraeus as Abu Al-Faraj ibn al-`Ibri.  He introduces the author, mentions the Chronicum Syriacum, and adds “He also prepared a condensed version of it in Arabic under the title Mukhtasar al-duwal. It is said that all its manuscripts are incomplete and defective.”  It references the information as “35. These details are cited from Shibli Nu’mani’s Kitabkhaneh yi Iskandariyyah, Persian trans. by Fakhr-e Da`i, pp. 14-15, 38.” and “36. Ibid., pp. 16-18.” 

 

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Abd al-Latif’s “Account of Egypt” and the destruction of the library of Alexandria

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I was reminded this evening of the stor about the destruction of the library of Alexandria under Omar.  The conqueror Amr wrote to the Caliph Omar to ask what to do about all the books.  He got back the reply:

As for the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them, for in that case the book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed, then, and destroy them.

I take this quotation from L. Canfora, The vanished library, corrected Eng. tr., 1990, p.98.

The question for us is whether this statement is to be found in the ancient sources.  Who is the source for this, to start with?

Canfora says (p.109) that Gibbon discusses this passage, and relies on Bar Hebraeus, Specimen Historiae Arabum, given in Latin translation by Edwarde Pococke in 1649.  I did not see a page number, tho.  Is Pococke’s work online?

Hunting around on the web I find a page by James Hannam which says that there are in fact two sources, although unfortunately he does not reference this page.  As well as Bar Hebraeus, he refers to Abd al-Latif, “Account of Egypt”, whom he says describes Alexandria and mentions the ruins of the Serapeum.  The author died in 1231 and thankfully there is a Wikipedia page.

The Arabic manuscript was discovered in 1665 by Edward Pococke the orientalist, and preserved in the Bodleian Library. He then published the Arabic manuscript in the 1680s. His son, Edward Pococke the Younger, translated the work into Latin, though he was only able to publish less than half of his work. Thomas Hunt attempted to publish Pococke’s complete translation in 1746, though his attempt was unsuccessful. Pococke’s complete Latin translation was eventually published by Joseph White of Oxford in 1800. The work was then translated into French, with valuable notes, by Silvestre de Sacy in 1810.

The Wikipedia references are unfortunately to a secondary source.  But my eye fell immediately on the existence of a French translation of the work, by de Sacy, in 1810.  Surely this should be online?  If so, the work might be an interesting one to examine.  A Google search revealed that the title of the work is Relation de l’Egypte par Abd al-Latif, Paris, 1810.  This proved to be on Google books here and here.  So … what does he say?

 P.171 starts book 1, chapter 4, where he looks at the antiquities of Egypt.  After some pages on the pyramids, surely deserving of translation, on p.182 is material about Alexandria.  On p.183 is a statement about the burning of the library.  Here it is, with a little context about what sounds like “Pompey’s pillar.”

I saw at Alexandria the column named Amoud-alsawari [the column of the pillars]. It is of granite, of red stone, which is extremely hard. This column is a surpassing size and height: I had no difficulty in believing it was seventy cubits high; its diameter is five cubits; it is raised on a very large base proportional to its size. On top of this column is a big capital, which could not be so well positioned with such accuracy without a deep knowledge of mechanics and the art of raising great weights, and extreme skill in practical geometry.  A man worthy of trust assured me that he measured the periphery of this column and found it was seventy-five spans of your large measure.

I also saw on the seashore, on the side where it borders the walls of the city, over four hundred columns broken into two or three parts, of which the stone was similar to that used by the column of  the pillars and which seemed to be to it in the proportion of a third or a fourth. All the residents of Alexandria, without exception, assume that the columns were erected around the column of the pillars; but a governor of Alexandria named Karadja, who commanded in this city for Yusuf son of Ayyub (Saladin), saw fit to overthrow these columns, to break them and throw them on the edge of the sea, under the pretext of breaking the force of the waves and thereby protecting the city walls from their violence, or to prevent enemy ships from anchoring against the walls. This was acting like a child, or man who can not distinguish right from wrong.

I also saw, around the column of the pillars, some sizeable remains of these columns, some whole, others broken; it could still be judged by these remains that these columns were covered with a roof which they supported. Above the column of the pillars is a dome supported by this column. I think this building was the portico where Aristotle taught, and after him his disciples; and that this was the academy that Alexander built when he built this city, and where was placed the library which Amr ibn-Alas burned, with the permission of Omar.

The pharos of Alexandria is too well known to need description. Some accurate writers say that it is two hundred and fifty cubits high.

It is interesting to see that de Sacy uses an older form of French, where était is étoit, and -ai- is often -oi-.

UPDATE (2015): The four hundred columns are the colonnade around the enclosure of the Serapeum of Alexandria.

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What happens when the state pulls out of Constantine’s deal with the church?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Phil Snider has (somehow) been reading Ephrem’s Hymns against Julian the apostate.  His summary of what they say is fascinating, and may be very relevant to our world.

I’ve always been interested in these hymns, but as far as I knew, no translation existed in any modern language.  Does anyone know of one?

UPDATE: Apparently there is one, in Samuel Lieu, The emperor Julian: panegyric and polemic, Liverpool 2, 1996.  This contains a panegyric by Claudius Mamertinus; Chrysostom’s Homily on St. Babylas, against Julian and the pagans XIV-XIX (so presumably not complete); and Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns against Julian.  The latter fills 24 pages of a TTH volume, so is not all that long.

The book also contains the following information on editions and translations:

The HcJul. were first published by J. Overbeck in his florilegium of Syriac writers: S. Ephraemi Syri, Rabulaei episcopi Edesseni, Balaei aliorumque opera selecta (Oxford, 1865) pp. 3-20. They were translated into German with brief notes by G. Bickell in his article: ‘Die Gedichte des hl. Ephräm gegen Julian den Apostaten’, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, II (1878) pp. 335-56. Bickell’s translation was republished with fuller introduction and notes by S. Euringer in Bibliothek der Kirchenvater, (Kempten and Munich, 1919) pp. 199-238. The most recent edition and the one on which the present translation is based is that of E. Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Paradiso und Contra Julianum, CSCO 175 (text) and 176 (trans.), (Louvain, 1957). There is an unpublished Oxford B. Litt, thesis on the poems (with translation) by P. C. Robson, A Study of Ephraem Syrus Hymns Against Julian the Apostate and the Jews (Ms. B. Litt. d. 1411, 1969). Hymn IV, 18-23 has been translated into English by Sebastian Brock in the appendix to his edition of the Syriac letter attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem on the rebuilding of the Temple (Brock, 1977,283-4).

I had forgotten that the BKV texts are online, thanks to Gregor Emmeneger, here, which includes the four hymns against Julian, starting here.

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9 literary sources for Tiberius before AD 187?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I came across an interesting claim online yesterday:

…[there] are 45 ancient sources of Jesus within 150 years of His death. Nobody even comes close to this. Tiberius who died just 4 years after Jesus did only had 9 sources within 150 years of his death.

This seems to be based on this:

Dr. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona write:

“What we have concerning Jesus actually is impressive. We can start with approximately nine traditional authors of the New Testament. If we consider the critical thesis that other authors wrote the pastoral letters and such letters as Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians, we’d have an even larger number. Another twenty early Christian authors and four heretical writings mention Jesus within 150 years of his death on the cross. Moreover, nine secular, non-Christian sources mention Jesus within the 150 years: Josephus, the Jewish historian; Tacitus, the Roman historian; Pliny the Younger, a politician of Rome; Phlegon, a freed slave who wrote histories; Lucian, the Greek satirist; Celsus, a Roman philosopher; and probably the historians Suetonius and Thallus, as well as the prisoner Mara Bar-Serapion. In all, at least forty-two authors, nine of them secular, mention Jesus within 150 years of his death.” 6

“…Let’s look at an even better example, a contemporary of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus’ ministry and execution. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke. Compare that to Jesus’ forty-two total sources in the same length of time. That’s more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same period. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of nine each 7 .” 8

6. Gary R. Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids MI : Kregel Publications, 2004) 127.
7. Tiberius’s number reduces from ten to nine since Luke is a Christian source.
8. Gary R. Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids MI : Kregel Publications, 2004) 128.

By “sources” the authors mean “literary sources”, of course.  Emperors have their heads and names on coins and inscriptions.  Jesus, on the other hand, is known to us only from literary sources.  But unless we propose to take the position that there only people whose existence is certain are those important enough to appear in inscriptions, we must compare like with like, and ask, “If this person was known only from literary sources, how many such sources would there be?”

I admit I was astonished by the low number for Tiberius.  Can it be right? 

Cassius Dio, writing after 193 AD, is excluded by the 150 year window.  I presume the authors must also mean “sources that name Tiberius”, for Juvenal, in his 10th satire, refers to him, although not by name. 

I suspect that if we searched a bit further, we might find a few more.  In the great mass of Greek technical and medical literature, untranslated and inaccessible to most people, which makes up a much larger proportion of extant literature than most of us suppose, there is probably something.

But of course all the references to Jesus, however obscure, have been pulled into the light.  Jesus was probably the most important figure of antiquity to those in modern times.  Tiberius was only an emperor.

It is quite something when the master of the Roman world in the time when Jesus walked on earth is “only an emperor”, known from a handful of sources.  If it’s true, of course.

UPDATE:  Aulus Gellius, in book 5 of the Attic Nights, mentions Tiberius by name, so this list by Habermas etc is indeed not a complete one.  Indeed the list of authors seems lacking in second century sources.

UPDATE:   I’m looking at the old TLG E disk, using Diogenes, and doing a search on TIBERI (not checked dates on all these).  I get 1015 matches, but most are Byzantine and so much too late.

  1. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book 2, paragraph 39, 20.
  2. Philo, In Flaccum, in quite a few places.  Also Legatio ad Gaium.
  3. Galen Medicus, De compositione medicamentorum per genera libri vii Volume 13, page 836, line 8
  4. Lucianus Soph., Macrobii Section 21, line 10
  5. Strabo Geogr., Testimonia Volume-Jacobyʹ-T 2a,91,T, fragment 1, line 1
  6. Acta Alexandrinorum, Acta Alexandrinorum Chapter 5b, column or fragment 1, line 17  (I think we will accept this)
  7. Flavius Josephus Hist., Antiquitates Judaicae Book 19, chapter 303, line 2, book 20, c. 159
  8. Claudius Aelianus Soph., De natura animalium Book 2, section 11, line 28
  9. Clemens Alexandrinus Theol., Stromata Book 1, chapter 21, section 145, subsection 2, line 3
  10. Publius Aelius Phlegon Paradox., De mirabilibus Chapter 13, section 1, line 1, ch. 14, and in the fragments of his works.
  11. Justin Martyr, Apologia c. 13
  12. Vettius Valens Astrol., Anthologiarum libri ix  Page 32, line 25 – an astrologer d. 175 AD.  There is a translation project for him here.  Book 9 is here but incomplete.

I’m ignoring the ps.Clementine literature as too late.

UPDATE: Quintillian, Institutio Oratorica, book 3, mentions Tiberius.  Phaedrus, Aesop’s Fables, book 2, poem 5, mentions him.

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On the tombs of the emperors in the Church of the Holy Apostles

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the various antiquarian compositions of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913-959) was De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae.  The work was revised in the following reign.

In the Book of Ceremonies ii, 42, the following list of tombs in the church may be found.  Other excerpts from this work translated by Paul Stephenson can be found here.  Glanville Downey gave the following translation 1 from the CSHB edition  2.

CONCERNING THE TOMBS OF THE EMPERORS WHICH ARE IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY APOSTLES

Heroon of the Holy and Great Constantine.

1 In the principal place, to the east, lies the sarcophagus of St. Constantine, [of] porphyry, or rather ‘Roman’ [stone], in which he himself lies with the blessed Helen his mother.
2 Another sarcophagus, [of] porphyry Roman [stone], in which lies Constantius the son of Constantine the Great.
3 Another sarcophagus, porphyry Roman, in which lies Theodosius the Great.
4 Another sarcophagus, green hieracites, in which lies Leo the Great.
5 Another sarcophagus, porphyry Roman, in which lies Marcianus with his wife Pulcheria.
6 Another sarcophagus, green Thessalian, in which lies the Emperor Zeno.
7 Another sarcophagus, Aquitanian, in which lies Anastasios Dikoros with Ariadne his wife.
8 Another sarcophagus, of green Thessalian stone, in which lies the Emperor Michael, the son of Theophilos. Note that this sarcophagus of Michael is that of the Emperor
Justin the Great. It lay in the monastery of the Augusta, below the Apostle St. Thomas, in which the robes of the apostles were found. And Lord Leo the Emperor took it and placed it here for the burial of the body of this Michael.
9 Another sarcophagus, green Thessalian, in which lies Basil with Eudokia and Alexander his son.
10 Another sarcophagus, Sagarian or pneumonousiani, in which lies the renowned Leo with his son Constantine, who died later, the Porphyrogennetos.
11 Another sarcophagus, [of] white, so-called imperial, [stone], in which lies Constantine the son of Basil.
12 Another sarcophagus, green Thessalian, in which lies St. Theophano, the first wife of the blessed Leo, with Eudokia her daughter.
13 Another sarcophagus, Bithynian, in which lies Zoe the second wife of the same Leo.
14 Another sarcophagus, green Thessalian, in which lies Eudokia the third wife of the same Lord Leo, she who was surnamed Baine.
15 Another sarcophagus, Proconesian, in which lie Anna and Anna the daughters of the blessed Leo and Zoe.
16 Another small sarcophagus, Sagarian or pneumonousian, in which lies Basil the brother of Constantine Porphyrogennetos, and Bardas the son of Basil his grandfather.
17 Another small sarcophagus, of Sagarian stone, in which lies . . .

Heroon of the Great Justinian

18 At the apse itself, to the east, is the first sarcophagus, in which lies the body of Justinian, of unusual foreign stone, in colour between Bithynian and Chalcedonian, something like stone of Ostrite.
19 Another sarcophagus, of Hierapolitan stone, in which lies Theodora the wife of Justinian the Great.
20 Another sarcophagus lying to the west, on the right hand, of stone of Dokimion, of variegated rose colour, in which lies Eudokia the wife of Justinian the Younger.
21 Another sarcophagus, of white Proconesian stone, in which lies Justin the Younger.
22 Another sarcophagus, of Proconesian stone, in which lies Sophia the wife of Justin.
23 Another sarcophagus, of white stone of Dokimion, onyx, in which lies Heraklios the Great.
24 Another sarcophagus, green Thessalian, in which lies Fabia the wife of Heraklios.
25 Another sarcophagus, Proconesian, of Constantine Pogonatos.
26 Another sarcophagus, of green Thessalian stone, in which lies Fausta the wife of Constantine Pogonatos.
27 Another sarcophagus, Sagarian, in which lies Constantine, the descendant of Heraklios, the son of Constantine Pogonatos.
28 Another sarcophagus, of variegated Sagarian stone, in which lies Anastasios also called Artemios.
29 Another sarcophagus, of Hierapolitan stone, in which lies the wife of Anastasios also called Artemios.
30 Another sarcophagus, of Proconesian stone, in which lies Leo the Isaurian.
31 Another sarcophagus, of green Thessalian stone, in which lay Constantine, the son of the Isaurian, who was surnamed Kaballinos; but he was cast out by Michael and Theodora, and his cursed body was burned. Likewise his sarcophagus was cast out and broken up, and served for the foundations of the Pharos. And the great blocks which are in the Pharos belonged to this sarcophagus.
32 Another sarcophagus, of Proconesian stone, in which lies Eirene the wife of Constantine Kaballinos.
33 Another sarcophagus, green Thessalian, in which lies the wife of Kaballinos.
34 A small coffin of Proconesian stones, in which lie Kosmo and Eirene, sisters of Kaballinos.
35 Another sarcophagus, Proconesian, in which lies Leo the Chazar, son of Constantine Kaballinos.
36 Another sarcophagus, of Proconesian stone, in which lies Eirene the wife of Leo the Chazar.
37 Another sarcophagus, green Thessalian, in which lies Michael Travlos.
38 Another sarcophagus, of Sagarian stone, in which lies Thekla the wife of Michael Travlos.
39 Another sarcophagus, of green stone, in which lies Theophilos the Emperor.
40 Another small sarcophagus, green, in which lies Constantine the son of Theophilos.
41 Another small sarcophagus, of Sagarian stone, in which lies Maria the daughter of Theophilos.

The Stoa to the South of the Same Church
42 In this lie the sarcophagi of Arkadios, Theodosios, his son, and Eudoxia his mother. The tomb of Arkadios is to the south, that of Theodosios to the north, that of Eudoxia to the east, each of the two porphyry or Roman.

The Stoa to the North of the Same Church
43 In this stoa, which is to the north, lies a cylindrically-shaped sarcophagus, in which lies the cursed and wretched body of the apostate Julian, porphyry or Roman in colour.
44 Another sarcophagus, porphyry, or Roman, in which lies the body of Jovian, who ruled after Julian.

1. Glanville Downey, The Tombs of the Byzantine Emperors at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, Journal of Hellenic Studies 79 (1959), p.27-51.
2. Constantini Porphyrogeniti De Ceremoniis Aulae Byzantinae, 2 vols ed. J. Reiske, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. Bonn 1829

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Julian the Apostate on Constantius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I imagine that most of us have read Ammianus Marcellinus.  The gloomy pall of the reign of Constantius, which opens the remaining books of that work, is almost palpable.  The atmosphere of suspicion and oppression, the constant denunciations, the fear of ordinary decent people confronted by people like Paul “the chain” … all this is horrifying.

It is interesting, therefore, to see how Julian refuses to attack Constantius in letter 13, which I scanned and placed online yesterday:

13. To Hermogenes, formerly Prefect of Egypt [361, Dec.? Constantinople]

Suffer me to say, in the language of the poetical rhetoricians, Ο how little hope had I of safety! Ο how little hope had I of hearing that you had escaped the three-headed hydra! Zeus be my witness that I do not mean my brother Constantius — nay, he was what he was—but the wild beasts who surrounded him and cast their baleful eyes on all men; for they made him even harsher than he was by nature, though on his own account he was by no means of a mild disposition, although he seemed so to many. But since he is now one of the blessed dead, may the earth lie lightly on him, as the saying is! Nor should I wish, Zeus be my witness, that these others should be punished unjustly; but since many accusers are rising up against them, I have appointed a court to judge them. Do you, my friend, come hither, and hasten, even if it task your strength. For, by the gods, I have long desired to see you, and, now that I have learned to my great joy that you are safe and sound, I bid you come.

The context of the letter is that Julian had been unexpectedly successful as general in Gaul.  This had roused the suspicions of Constantius, who had demanded that Julian send the best of his army to Constantius for service in the east.  Julian was promptly proclaimed emperor by the Gallic army. 

Constantius then had Julian proclaimed a public enemy, and made preparations to attack him.  This was a serious matter, for Constantius, although unlucky in foreign wars, had proven very capable at civil war.  But it came to nothing; as Julian marched east, Constantius died. 

Julian as the sole remaining member of the house of Constantine was accepted as emperor by everyone.  He set up a commission to enquire into the misdeeds of Constantius’ associates, and included several members of Constantius’ circle.  The hated Paul the Chain was burned alive, to universal rejoicing.

The verdict of Julian is interesting, thus.

… he was what he was.

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Sarcophagi of the Eastern Roman emperors still around?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I wonder how many people know that the sarcophagi of the Roman emperors buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles are still around?  The following picture from Wikimedia Commons and this one show some of them stood outside the Istanbul archaeological museum.  The one without a cross on is said to be that of Julian the Apostate.

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Why we need Akkadian

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Jim Davila has an interesting column entitled Why we need Akkadian.  

I think we all know that the earliest civilisation of mankind arose in Sumer and Akkad, in the plains of Mesopotamia, when men started to build mud-brick houses, build cities, and soon to produce those curious cuneiform tablets, the earliest widespread writing system of men.  The “wedge” enjoyed a very long life, longer far than Roman script, and perhaps ceased to be used some time in the Roman period.  I remember reading an article, “The last wedge”, dedicated to just this question, although sadly I forget the answer.

Very early on, cuneiform was used for semitic languages – that vast group of closely related tongues which exists today in modern Hebrew and Arabic, and once encompassed biblical Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac.  I learn from Jim’s article that Akkadian is the term for all these early languages, which relate closely to the Hebrew of the bible.  It was, after all, from Ur of the Chaldees that Abraham set out on his journey.  Not that anyone at the time would have seen anything special about a man setting out with a camel or two.  But that journey changed the course of history.

The study of these early languages and their culture must mainly be undertaken from archaeology.  The early volumes of the Cambridge Ancient History, imposing as they are, are very dry for just this reason.  But what is learned from them can illuminate our understanding of the Old Testament.  The article Jim quotes says of the latter, and quite rightly:

Reading the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible, is tough.  For one thing, it’s very, very old, and not refracting the text through our 21st-century prism is difficult.

This lovely image of understanding highlights a real difficulty; and study of Akkadian is one of the solutions.  It gives us more information about the sacred text.

But Jim then moves on to consider the plight of the humanities in an age of cost-cutting.  Such pleas we have all seen before, many, many times.  The self-interested pleadings of the idle herd who graze on the public purse need not move us unduly.  Jim’s comments deserve a hearing because he acknowledges that much of what is written does not.

I’ll say at the outset that the humanities to some degree have this type of scrutiny coming, because significant sectors of it have bought in overly much to intentionally obscurantist and, frankly, lazy postmodern approaches.

Sections of the humanities have engaged in any amount of elitism.  If we wanted an example, we could look at how Latinists have eliminated J and V from texts, in favour of texts only using I and U — and then printed them, not in capitalis, but in the lower case script invented in the 15th century!  The process introduced a barrier to ordinary people, made the learning and reading of Latin harder, and privileged a caste of professional scholars.  Claims that it was more authentic merely sought to sugar-coat the real effect — and the real purpose — of the change.  Such elitism, the creation of professional classes, the claims that disciplines like history — or theology — are owned by those drawing salaries are malevolent.  Once the people who pay are excluded, they will naturally ask why they are paying.

It is unlikely that archaeology, which has reached out so successfully to the world, will suffer as some might.  The mighty popular image of Indiana Jones stands in the way of such cutbacks.  Papyrology may perish; but Raiders of the lost ark will preserve much.

I do not think any here will suspect me of undue reverence for the humanities.  My training is as a scientist, and the use of the humanities to decorate with authority the claims of some political or religious position is why I can’t take much of it seriously.  The manner in which some disciplines have been prostituted for political purposes is known to us all.  Sociology died of such a process; economics barely survived being gang-banged for the ends of state socialism.  Theology does not deserve to survive unless it purges its culture of Christian-baiting and seeks to escape the process whereby the assured results of scholarly investigation have always reflected the desires of those who control university appointments.  The way in which the scholarly study of Lucian in 19th century Germany reflected precisely the attitude of the state authorities towards anti-semitism, lucidly documented by Holzberg in “Lucian and the Germans”, indicates that classics has no objective standard on which to operate.  The list might be extended probably endlessly.

But let us be clear.  A modern state must produce trained men to operate the machines on which our society depends.  It must produce scientists, lest we all die from superbugs.  It must produce men able to read and write, although the weevils have been at work, and it is questionable whether it does.  But whether this process has much to do with education in the sense in which it would have been understood in the renaissance must be questionable.

Why history?  Why teach it?  What does it matter, how the despots of the Byzantine empire fought off their foes?  Do we care about the processes whereby the Fathers decided whether Cyril or Nestorius should be condemned?

It does matter.  It matters deeply to us all.  Our society came into being by the rediscovery of the classical world.  The education provided by the classics, both those of the Greek and Latin world, and of the English-speaking world, is one that can never become outdated, except in the eyes of those whose hate for our society exceeds reason or sanity.  To know them is to become an educated man.  To listen to their voices is to escape the tyranny of the present.  To love them is a liberal education.

A man who suffers a certain kind of brain damage loses the ability to remember more than a few minutes of his life.  Such men are thereby crippled.  An old man is far less likely to be deceived by the promises of politicians than the young.  Man is an ape, in that he is ever forgetful of what is not before his eyes.  But history is the means whereby we can extend our memory back before we were born.  It is the means whereby we can learn much, that those who seek to cheat us in our own day would prefer we do not know.  A nation without memory is a nation without a future.  A nation that cannot read what people said in the past cannot access that memory.

Thus we need Akkadian. 

Johnson once remarked that a civilised nation should be able to celebrate in a multitude of dead languages.  And so it should.  It indicates power of mind.

Our academics have become lazy.  I was shocked to learn that a certain Oxford college considers a don hard-working if he engages in five hours of teaching a week.  Reform is indeed necessary.  But it will be a poor land, where a boy cannot learn Latin and Greek, where undergraduates do not sit in a punt with a volume of the classics. 

I remember the last time I ever went punting at Oxford.  I bought, in a now vanished bookshop in St. Clements, an old ‘Everyman’ volume to read.  The cover had gone, and someone had recovered it with some brown paper.  Written on the brown paper in felt-tip were the words, “A century of English essays”.  But I took it with me, and read as we punted into the Cherwell, along the green-brown muddy river and under the trailing trees.  I have it still.  It introduced me to the essays of Augustine Birrell.  These in turn led me to Dr. Johnson, to an appreciation even of Gibbon, whom I might otherwise have known only as a less-than-honest polemicist, and a score more.  Such is education, and a university the opportunity to acquire it.

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The plague and famine under Hisham – from the Chronicle of Zuqnin

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The translation continues:

Of the drought and famine that also took place on the earth in those days.

At that time, God sent us on these most cruel and terrible plagues: the sword, captivity, famine and pestilence, because of our sins and the misdeeds that our hands had engaged in.

“Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not incline towards this people. Send them away from before me, and let them withdraw. What if they say to you: Where shall we go? [You shall tell them:] Thus says the Lord: To death he who [is destined] to death; to the sword he who [is destined] to the sword; [34] to famine he who [is destined] to famine; to captivity he who [is destined] to captivity. I will send four plagues upon them, says the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to eat, the birds and beasts of the earth to devour and tear in pieces, and I will deliver them over to the earthquake.” This is what Jeremiah, taught by revelation, has left us. He himself said: “The cry of Jerusalem has gone up before me. The great have sent the small to the water; they have come to the cisterns and have found no water: they have returned with empty vessels, they have been confused and distressed, and they have covered their heads. Because of the works of the earth there has been no rain; the labourers have been confounded, and have covered their heads; the does have given birth in a desert, and they have abandoned their young because there was no grass; the wild asses are keeping to the roads: they have sucked the air like dragons and their eyes are dim because there was no grass.” In truth, all these things which the prophet said were fulfilled in the present time.

This is the carnage that the armies of Arabs have made between them. They have drowned the earth in their blood; the birds, the beasts and even the dogs are filled with their flesh. Men pillage one another. The plague ravages them, so that if someone goes outside the sword stops him; if he stays at home, plague and famine take him. One hears on all sides only sadness and bitterness.

First, the rain that used to descend to earth during the winter has been held back and has not fallen. All the seeds have been dry and nothing has sprouted, so that there has been a great famine throughout the region, so much so that wheat rose to eight or seven qephîzè for a dinar: and yet none is for sale. Some governors sent men who seized wheat wherever they found it, either in houses or in silos, and sent it to him. Men were oppressed to death by the famine, especially the owners of wheat who had not experienced [35] the test of famine and whose corn had been seized by the authorities, so that they died of hunger. Thus the famine was felt even more by the rich than the poor. It also spread throughout the country, so there was no place better preserved than another from its ravages: everywhere was the same oppression. The wild beasts, as well as domestic animals that live on grass, perished because there was no grass. So there was great distress upon men and upon all flesh because of the famine which had not its equal in our time, nor in the time of our fathers. The fountains and streams were empty and the rivers dried up.

Upon the death of Hisham miseries were multiplied upon the earth. All the miseries, and especially the plague and famine, befell us because of our many sins.

 Note how the famine was worsened by seizing grain from those who had it. 

This is why Africa starves.  If what a  man saves will be seized by others, then the poor man has no incentive to save.  Anything he saves will simply be stolen by the local “Big Man” — a concept unknown under the honest colonial administrations.  In consequence everyone does the bare minimum they need to stay alive.  So when drought comes, as it always will, they starve.  Security of property is essential to human life.

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