Category: Ancient world

Pythagoras in India?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I had an comment on Origen and Buddhism which I had to disallow as too far off-topic.  But it contained an interesting assertion, which I reproduce here:

Pythagoras, for example, who handed down and was influenced by certain concepts, was himself heavily influenced by Egyptians and the Buddhists in India, as he stayed there and was taught at the feet of Buddhists, hence his belief in the soul’s transmigration – karma;…

Now the amount I know about the life of Pythagoras is pretty slim!  But this sounds like the sort of thing we might investigate.  A search in Google for Pythagoras and India brings up a certain amount, all of it dodgy-looking.

What ancient sources do we have?  Well, a bunch of late writers, it seems.

Porphyry wrote a life of Pythagoras, which formed part of his lost History of Philosophy, but is preserved.  I’d forgotten doing so, but it seems that I have it online here.  However the word “India” does not appear in it.  He did go to Egypt, tho, in the days of the 26th Dynasty, the Saite period.

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the philosophers included Pythagoras, and that portion is here.  This too does not mention India, as far as I could see.

Apuleius, in his Apology, mentions here:

Many hold Pythagoras to have been a pupil of Zoroaster, and, like him, to have been skilled in magic.

But that is not really very much!

Iamblichus also wrote a life of Pythagoras, which was translated by Thomas Taylor, the 19th century English Platonist.  Lots of copies for sale; not many online and searchable!  So I’ve not been able to check this.

Is there any ancient source that says Pythagoras went to India?

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Origen and “Buddhism in Britain”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email has reached me, on an interesting topic:

I’m trying to establish the authenticity or inauthenticity of a purported quote attributed to Origen.  A brief English translation purportedly of Origen appears frequently in atheist polemic and on wikipedia. It reads as follows:

“The island (Britain) has long been predisposed to it (Christianity) through the doctrines of the Druids and Buddhists, who had already inculcated the doctrine of the unity of the Godhead”.

That’s it. Very short.  The underlying source of this purported quote is always the same, page 42 of ‘Buddhism in pre-Christian Britain’ by Donald A. Mackenzie, Blackie and Son Ltd, 1928. This page 42 can be viewed online here. MacKenzie provided no footnote. He said it was from Origen’s Commentary on Ezekiel, but did not cite a paragraph, nor even what edition he consulted.

The ‘quote’ doesn’t have the ring of truth to me, so I’ll be surprised if it is authentically Origen. Are you in a position to comment on the authenticity or otherwise of the purported quote?

I’d be suspicious too!  But the only way to find out is to go and look.

Origen did compose a Commentary on Ezechiel, in 25 books.  But it is lost, and only catena fragments survive.

What about the Homilies on Ezechiel?  I did a search for “Britain” on the English translation of these.  The word appears only in Homily 4, chapter 1:

For when, before the arrival of Christ, did the island of Britain agree together in the worship of the one God?  When did the land of the Moors [do so]?  When [did] the whole world at once [do so]?  Now, however, by virtue of the Churches that occupy the borders of the world, the whole earth shouts with joy to the God of Israel and is capable of [performing] good [actions] according to its boundaries.

So this actually states that the island of Britain was NOT worshipping a single God before the Christians.  So… back to the Commentary.  Is it in a catena fragment, I wonder?  In 1928, I would guess that the author could only be using Migne.

In PG13, there are 60 columns of Selecta in Ezechielem, col. 767 onwards.  These undoubtedly are catena fragments, from whatever works on Ezechiel the catenist used.  I intend to get these translated, but we’re not there yet.  So… a look through the Latin side for the word “Britannia”.  And… it doesn’t seem to be there.  If anyone else wants to look, the PG13 is online here.

In the same volume, fragments from the Commentary start at col. 663.  They are VERY brief.  They do not contain it either.

So … the “quote” and “reference” look like bunk.  The book is plainly not an educated one, so the author has copied from somewhere else.  But where?

There is a JSTOR article which mentions the subject, but I can’t access it.  Can anyone?  It’s here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/498371

Searching for “Origen Britain”, I come across this 1662 text which refers to a remark in Origen about a passage in Luke 1, quoted in Homilies on Luke 6, III, 939. ed. Huet. Virtus domini salvatoris et cum his est, qui ab orbe nostro in Britannia dividuntur — The power of God our Saviour is also with those who in Britain are divided from our world.  Never trust a quote: a look at this text would be a good idea, I’m sure. These too are in PG13, col. 1801 for the homilies, and 1901 for the fragments.  Homily 6 starts in col. 1813.  And there is the quote, in col. 1816C; and the sentence continues, but no more mention of Britain.

Now into Google books.  And I come across a reference to the same idea, here (Lynn Bridgers, The American Religious Experience, 2006, p. 223).  It is that Origen tells of Buddhist missionaries in Britain.  No reference, of course!

The Dictionary of Christian Biography p.340 talks about references to Buddha in patristic texts; but no Origen on Britain.  Origen does talk about two types of Indian philosopher in Contra Celsum, somewhere.  I find this in book 1, chapter 16:

It seems, then, to be not from a love of truth, but from a spirit of hatred, that Celsus makes these statements, his object being to asperse the origin of Christianity, which is connected with Judaism. Nay, he styles the Galactophagi of Homer, and the Druids of the Gauls, and the Getae, most learned and ancient tribes, on account of the resemblance between their traditions and those of the Jews, although I know not whether any of their histories survive; but the Hebrews alone, as far as in him lies, he deprives of the honour both of antiquity and learning.

So he compares various people to the Jews; from this we presume monotheism?  Another source here says that Origen talks about Druids as monotheistic.  No reference again.

Ronald Hutton, Blood and Mistletoe: the history of the druids in Britain, p. 59 is revealing.

The other major publication of the period to mention Druids was conceived in the year in which the first edition of the Holinshed history was published; and represented another example of the influence of continental scholarship on British attitudes. In this case the scholarship concerned was embodied in the great Flemish geographer Abraham Ortelius, who visited England in 1577. He stayed with a young Westminster schoolmaster, William Camden, who was acquiring a reputation for his study of the physical remains of the British past. Ortelius was already interested in Druids, having corresponded with the Welsh historian Humphrey Llwyd over the correct identification of the island of Mona. He persuaded Camden to write a book on British antiquities which would give European scholars an enhanced sense of his nation’s importance within the ancient and early medieval worlds.33 The result was published, in Latin, in 1586, under the title of Britannia. As a work produced as a contribution to international scholarship, according to the highest standards of research, it did not make any grand claims for the Druids, or associate them with rulers such as Druiyus, Bardus and Albion. Instead it alluded briefly to them as practitioners of a heathen religion, relying firmly on ancient Roman sources.34

As the years passed, and the book went through successive, and ever enlarged, editions, Camden’s attitude to them changed. He still confined his authorities to the classical sources that represented ‘genuine’ history, but quoted these at greater length and more favourably to the Druids. The process culminated in 1610, when the final and biggest version of the book was translated into English. It had turned, after all, into a patriotic work intended primarily for a domestic market. The ancient sources on which he relied for information on Druids, especially Caesar, were quoted at length and lightly trimmed to highlight the passages that dealt with the Druids’ learning and social importance. Most impressive, he quoted two early Christian writers, Tertullian and Origen, as saying that they had predisposed the British to receive the Christian faith, by acknowledging only one god.35 Here was the claim that German and French writers had been making for them over the past hundred years, apparently anchored in real ancient texts and contextualized specifically in the Druidic homeland of Britain.

Actually, Camden only had one witness, because Tertullian merely boasted that by his time, under the later Roman Empire, even some of the (remote) British had adopted Christianity. It was Origen who apparently provided the testimony, and he did not mention Druids as such; rather, as Camden read him, he stated that the British had believed in a single god before the coming of Christ, and it could be reasonably inferred from this that the Druids had been responsible for that belief. Camden had, however, made a classic mistranslation. He had not realized that Origen had been posing a rhetorical question: that of whether, before the coming of Christ, peoples as marginal as the British and the Berbers had believed in one deity. The implied answer was clearly negative, allowing Origen to proceed to his point, which was that, by his time in the third century, Christianity had carried that message even to these far-flung regions.36 Camden’s knowledge of Greek, or that of his informant, had not been up to the understanding of the passage. Later in the seventeenth century other scholars spotted the mistake,37 but it was embedded in a work of huge popularity and influence, justly respected for the generally high quality of its erudition and research.

The preview on Google books does not allow me to check the references; but here, clearly, is the source of the story; and it is a bad story.

Can anyone access Blood and Mistletoe?  And what an excellent source this book is!

Update (7th May 2021): A kind reader has supplied me with the pages from Blood and Mistletoe, and I can now obtain the references.  These are on p.431:

33. Stuart Piggott, ‘William Camden and the “Britannia” ’, Proceedings of the British Academy 37 (1951), 199–217.
34. William Camden, Britannia (London, 1586), 11.
35. Camden, Britannia, trans. Philemon Holland (London, 1610), 4, 12–14, 68, 149.
36. Origen, Homiliae in Ezechielem, ed. Marcel Borrett (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1989), No. IV, ch. 1, lines 154–6.
37. Such as Selden (for whom see below) and Edward Stillingfleet, Originae britannicae (London, 1685), 5.

Camden’s 1610 English version appeared under the title of: Britain, or a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Ilands adjoyning, out of the depth of Antiquitie.  It is not that easy to find online.  A transcription here gives us the following quote:

But to this purpose maketh especially that which erewhile I alleged out of Tertullian, as also that which Origen recordeth how the Britans with one consent embraced the Faith, and made way themselves unto God by meanes of the Druidae, who alwaies did beat upon this article of beleefe, that there was but one God. And verily of great moment and importance is that with me, that Gildas, after he had mentioned the rebellion of Boodicia and treated of the revenge thereof,…

The Origen quote is in the Sources Chrétiennes 352, p.162-5.  From this it can be found on p.130 f. of the excellent 2014 text and translation by Mischa Hooker of Origen: Homilies on Ezekiel, which is online at Archive.org here.  From homily 4, chapter 6:

Confitentur et miserabiles Iudaei haec de Christi praesentia praedicari, sed stulte ignorant personam, cum videant impleta quae dicta sunt. Quando enim terra Britanniae ante adventum Christi in unius Dei consensit religionem, quando terra Maurorum, quando totus semel orbis? Nunc vero propter Ecclesias, quae mundi limites tenent, universa terra cum laetitia clamat ad Deum Istrahel et capax est bonorum secundum fines suos.

Even the miserable Jews admit that these things are proclaimed concerning the presence of the Christ, but they foolishly disregard his person, although they see that what was said has been fulfilled. For when, before the arrival of Christ, did the land of Britain agree together in the worship of the one God? When did the land of the Moors do so? When did the whole world at once do so? Now, however, by virtue of the churches that occupy the borders of the world, the whole earth shouts with joy to the God of Israel and is capable of performing good actions according to its boundaries.

And this, of course, is the same quotation that we started with, showing that Britain did NOT worship one god until the Christians came.

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Hannibal and king Antiochus – a story from Macrobius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Praetextatus: Hannibal of Carthage made this very cheeky jest, when he was living in exile at the court of king Antiochus.  This is what he said.

Antiochus was holding a review, on some open ground, to display the huge forces which he had mustered for war against the Roman people, and the troops were marching past, gleaming with accoutrements of silver and gold. Chariots, too, fitted with scythes were brought on to the field, elephants with towers on their backs, and cavalry with glittering reins, housings, neck chains, and trappings.

Glorying in the sight of his large and well-equipped army, the king then turned to Hannibal and said: “Do you think that all these will be enough for the Romans?” 

The Carthaginian, smiling at the king’s prettily-equipped, but cowardly and unwarlike soldiers, replied: “Yes, I believe that the Romans will find them enough, although the Romans are pretty avaricious, you know.”

There could not have been a smoother or more biting remark. The king was asking about the numbers and quality of equipment of his army; but Hannibal responded as if [the men and equipment of the army] was just loot [waiting to be collected and sold by the Romans]. 

The story is found in the Saturnalia of Macrobius, book 2, chapter 2 (Latin here thanks to Bill Thayer); and, apparently, in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 5.5.

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Cumont on the end of the cult of Mithras

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been at it again.  I’ve done some more on the Wikipedia article on Mithraism.  This time I updated the section on when the end came, and they had to put their bull away.  Manfred Clauss says that the deposits of coins left as offerings in Mithraea all stop by 400 AD.  He gives an example of the Mithraeum at Pons Sarravi, where the place was wrecked and the coins scattered contemptuously across the floor.  The latest dated coins?  Theodosius I (d. 395).

The article had a statement by Cumont that the cult may have survived into the fifth century in remote valleys in the Vosges.  As ever with Wikipedia, Cumont’s exact words were not given.  But there was a reference to the English version, his “Mysteries of Mithra”, p. 206.  This said:

A few clandestine conventicles may, with stubborn persistence, have been held in the subterranean retreats of the palaces. The cult of the Persian god possibly existed as late as the fifth century in certain remote cantons of the Alps and the Vosges. For example, devotion to the Mithraic rites long persisted in the tribe of the Anauni, masters of a flourishing valley, of which a narrow defile closed the mouth.”

OK, but no reference given.  So I went searching for “Anauni” – that can’t be a common word.  Nor was it.  A search in the US version of Google books brought up the French text of the same passage, this time in Textes et Monumentes vol. 1, Cumont’s full-length real publication, on p.348. 

Quelques conventicules clandestins purent s’obstiner encore à s’assembler dans les souterrains des palais [5]; le culte du dieu perse put se survivre au Ve siècle dans certains cantons perdus des Alpes ou des Vosges [6]. Ainsi, rattachement aux rites mithriaques persista longtemps dans la tribu des Anauni, maîtresse d’une florissante vallée dont un étroit défilé ferme l’orifice [7].

5) Les vers de Paulin de Nole cités t. II, p.32, ont été écrits dans les dernières années du IVe siècle. Vers 400, Prudence attaque encore le culte du Soleil (Contr. Symmach., I, 309 ss.). – Sur la persistance des pratiques paiennes à Rome au Ve siècle, voir les curieuses tablettes magiques publiées par M. Wunsch, Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln, 1898, p. 53 s.

[The poem of Paulinus of Nola cited in vol. 2, p. 32, was written in the last years of the 4th century.  Around 400 Prudentius attacked the cult of Sol again (Contra Symmachum I, 309 f). — On the persistence of pagan practices at Rome in the 5th century see the curious magical tablets published by M. Wunsch…]

6) Le mithréum de Sarrebourg ne parait avoir été détruit qu’en 395, cf. mon. 273ter y, (t. II, p. 618).

[The Mithraeum of Sarrebourg only seems to have been destroyed in 395, cf. mon. 273, vol. 2, p.618].

7) Un récit du martyre de St Sisinnius (AA. SS., 29 mai, p. 44), parle comme suit de la religion de l’Anaunie : “Alexandria putabatur, Anagnia, privatis religiosa portentis, numerosa daemonibus, biformis Anubibus, idolis multiformis semihominibus, quod est legis irrisoribus, plena Isidis amentia, Serapidis fuga.” Mais les monuments nous ont appris que le culte du Val di Non n’était pas celui d’Isis, mais de Mithra; cf. supra, p. 269, n. 6. [=”6) Téurnia, inscr. 400, cf. 417″] – St Sissinius souffrit le martyre en 397, mais les habitants qui mirent à mort le missionnaire et ses compagnons, persévèrent certainement encore quelque temps dans le paganisme.

Reference 6 is to the coins in the Mithraeum at “Sarresbourg”, i.e. Pons Sarravi.  And are they fifth century?  No, they are not.

But what about reference 7?  Now I can’t make sense of the syntax of the Latin, despite knowing most of the words!  They all seem to be in the ablative!  Let’s try…

A story of the martyrdom of St. Sisinnius (Acta Sanctorum, 29 may, p. 44) speaks as follows of the religion of the Anauni: “It was thought at Alexandria, Anagnia (?), after predictions of the abolition of private religion, by numerous demons, two-formed Anubises, many-formed half-human idols, because there is for the mockers of the law, happy in the madness of Isis, in the exile of Serapis.”  But the monuments tell us that the cult of the Val di Non was not that of Isis, but of Mithra.

Then there is a ref. to monument 400 in vol. 2, which I have looked up:

400. Teurnia (St Peter in Holz). CIL, III, 4736. Dans les jardins du comte Porzia à Spital.
Colonne à six pans.
Cauti | L(ucius) | Albius | Atticus | et C(aius) | Albius | Avitus.

This seems to be dedicated to Cautes.  Then Cumont continues:

St. Sissinius suffered martyrdom in 397 but the inhabitants who put to death the missionary and his companions certainly still persevered in paganism for some years.

OK.  That’s more evidence than I had expected.  But of course we have no real idea of the date of that inscription… do we?  It’s still not that clear.

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What did Late Roman senators wear to the senate?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

To Canterbury to see Luke Lavan who is an archaeologist working at Ostia and generally interested in daily life in late antiquity.  In passing he says that most ordinary people imagine senators in late antiquity running around in togas as in the early empire.  I’d never given the idea a moment’s thought.  What DID they wear at that time?  I wish I’d thought to ask.

When did the Romans stop wearing the toga?

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The spirit of persecution in Firmicus Maternus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Firmicus Maternus, The error of profane religion, 16, we read the following exhortation to the emperors (ca. 350):

3. These temples, very holy emperors, one should call them bonfires. Yes, bonfires of poor wretches, this is the name which is right for them. Because the deplorable servitude of men has led them to raise temples instead of tombs for people charged with crimes. Here we maintain the flames that have burned their bodies, the ashes of the dead are kept in obedience to an impious law; their despicable fate is renewed in the blood of victims daily, the sad lamentations for their death are commemorated by annual ceremonies of mourning, a groan comes to awaken the old pain, the low minds of men learn to honor and to imitate the parricides, incests and murders represented in the rites.

4. These abominations, most holy emperors, must be extirpated radically, in order to destroy them; apply to them the most severe regulations of your edicts, do not allow the Roman world to be sullied any longer by this disastrous error, that the impiety of these practices, a true plague, should not gain in power, and that the domination of that which seeks the ruin of the man of God should last no longer. Some refuse, conceal themselves, and desire with a feverish passion their own death. Come all the same to the assistance of these poor wretches, deliver them: they are perishing! It is so that you might remedy this wound that the supreme God has entrusted the empire to you. We know the danger to which their crime exposes them, we know the punishment reserved for their error: better to release some in spite of themselves than to leave them to their own desires to run to their perdition.

5. The sick like what harms them. When disease has seized the body of a man, the sick clamour for what would prevent them from recovering their health. A spirit oppressed by the languor of a disease always wants what will increase it, it mistakes and scorns the remedies of the experts, it resists the care of the doctor, and tends with an impassioned haste towards its own loss. If evil is gaining ground, it uses the most powerful remedies, the medicine that seeks the good of the patient, is more energetic. The repugnant food, the bitter drinks, those who refuse them are made to take them by force; and, if their disease still progresses, iron and fire are employed. Cured finally, returned to health, the man who underwent against his will the care that was given him because of his disease, recognizes, his spirit once again strengthed, that all these torments were inflicted on him for his good.

This is the authentic language of religious persecution.  “It’s for your own good”, the inquisitor cries.  And who decides what is right for me?  Why, the inquisitor!  We need not suppose Firmicus Maternus insincere; but we know that all too often those who claim this right over us have proven to be very insincere and self-seeking.  The emperors here are Constantius II and his ill-fated nephew, Gallus.  Few of us would willingly live under the rule of either.

So it was during the Cold War.  There were not lacking people who knew what was best for me better than I did.  “The will of people” must prevail, they cried; but somehow “the people” always meant “people other than me”. 

It would be nice to think that we have got past this stage, where a minority — or even a majority — force their views on others, “for their own good.”  Sadly there seems no sign of it.  Those who have power always seem to become arrogant.

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The Paris magical codex

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris is an early fourth century papyrus codex (ms. supplement grec 574) which contains a variety of texts, spells, hymns, etc.   It is 36 folios in length – large for a papyrus, and contains 3274 lines.

The manuscript was acquired in Egypt by the collector Giovanni Anastasi (# 1073 in his collection) and bought at auction in Paris by the BNF in 1857.  It probably comes from Thebes (=Luxor).  Apparently Anastasi was told that his papyri were found in a grave there, perhaps sometime around 1825, although we cannot be sure of this.  Anastasi certainly sold a larger collection of papyri to the Dutch archaeologist C. J. C. Reuvens, the founder and first director of the Oudheidkundig Museum in Leiden, sometime after 1825.1

The codex seems to be the working handbook for an Egyptian magician, compiled from many sources.  It contains more than 50 documents, doubtless acquired from various sources, and is the single most comprehensive handbook of magic known from the ancient world.  The documents contained in it must all be 4th century or earlier — possibly much earlier — and each document has its own history prior to being copied into the codex. 

The text was printed by Karl Preisendanz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1928, rev. 1973, as item IV (hence PGM IV).  Various online versions of this seem to exist.  An English translation was made by H.-D.Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in translation, 1986.  There is an enormous secondary literature.

The best known of these texts is on lines 475- 834, the so-called Mithras liturgy, a series of prayers which begins by invoking Sol Mithras and may — or may not — have some connection to the mysteries of Mithras.

Other parts show Jewish influence, and one spell, an exorcism ending with the words — Come out of NN — on line 3019, contains the words:

I adjure you by the God of the Hebrews, Jesus, Jaba, Jae, Abraoth, Aia, Thoth, Ele, …. 2

and ends with Ptah, which shows how magicians were willing to tap into supposed names of power in just the way recorded in Acts.  It also contains a string of the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet (a, e, h, i, o, u, w) which Eusebius tells us in the Praeparatio Evangelica 11.6.36 was treated by the pagans as a name of power equivalent to the Hebrew Tetragrammaton.  Its presence in the spell shows that he was right.  The same series are also used in the Mithras liturgy.

1 Pieter Willem van der Horst, Jews and Christians in their Graeco-Roman context, p. 269. Here.
2. A. Deismann, Light from the ancient East, pp.258-260 prints the full text of a two leaf spell with English translation, online here.

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Virgin birth of Mitra from Anahita?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve had an email directing me to a webpage supposedly containing an article by Mohammad Moqadam (Moghdam), with the subtitle “The Second International Congress of Mithraic Studies, Tehran 1975″.  This makes the claim:

The Saviour was born in the middle of the night between Saturday and Sunday, 24th and 25th of December, 272 BCE, and according to those who believed in Him from an Immaculate (Anahid) Virgin  (Xosidhag) somewhere not far from lake Hamin, Sistan, Lived for 64 years among men, and ascended to His Father Ahura Mazda in 208 BCE.

and is widely quoted by a certain sort of writer.

This article does not seem to be scholarly.  There are no real references in it to the texts being quoted, edition, etc.  Many of these texts are unfamiliar to me, although I know of al-Tabari.  But it sounds as if he is quoting this from an unspecified edition, in translation… what translation?

His quotes, if genuine — just imagine whether we could check these; it would be very difficult — suggest that by the Islamic period some of the Persians believed that the events of the life of Jesus took place during the Arsacid period.  No doubt such a confusion is possible.  But I don’t see the point of it, unless I am missing something.

The vague reference to Elise Vardapet, that the lord Mihr had a human mother…. this is really not much good.  The real reference is the Elisaeus Vardapet, “History of Vartan”, in a speech given by Christian bishops to the Sassanid governor trying to fend off a persecution.

https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/?p=2648

Some of the claims made seem rather odd to me.  But … I don’t actually see, in any of this, evidence for the claim he makes about a virgin birth of Mitra.  Is it actually there, anywhere?

A frustrating, infuriating article, I think.  It ends with another such example:

It is written in the Bayan al- Adyan, that “the Manicheans say that Jesus called men to Zoroaster.

Is it?  What is this text?  Where do we find it? And so on.

I think we can stick this article down the toilet, I’m sorry to say.  Whether the claim made is true or not, the article does not substantiate it.

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Syriac tablet found at Edessa in Turkey

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Turkish press reports that farmers ploughing a field at Urfa in South-East Turkey struck a hard object, which turned out to be a tablet inscribed with Syriac, using the Estrangelo alphabet.

Tablet inscribed with Syriac language in the Estrangelo alphabet from Urfa (Edessa)
Tablet inscribed with Syriac language in the Estrangelo alphabet from Urfa (Edessa)

It was found about eighteen inches below the ground, and weighs about 100 pounds.  It seems to be about 30 x 60 (either inches or centimeters — I couldn’t work out). 

No word on what it says.  Apparently people at Harran university are going to take a look at it, but it will be placed in the museum at Urfa.

Urfa is the site of Edessa, the city whose Aramaic dialect became what we now call Syriac during the period after the conquests of Alexander.  The city was always central to Syriac culture, but was destroyed by the Moslems during the crusader period.

UPDATE:  I have had an email which tells us a little more:

“I am the founder of the www.suryaniler.com platform from Istanbul/TURKEY. I sent this news to George in order to find out what was the tablet about. Now, I am in contact with the museum archeologists of Urfa. They told me that the tablet is still preserved in the area it is found. When it is taken to the museum may be we can get wider size photo of the tablet.

I talked today to the Urfa Museum. They said; it will come to the museum few days later so that we can maybe get a bigger image. When there is an improvement I will inform you.”

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Michael the Syrian quotes Theodosius of Edessa on James of Edessa

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m looking at Michael the Syrian, and in the first volume of the French translation, I find the following:

Note by Theodosius of Edessa. — You should know that Eusebius, in the Chronography he wrote, began with Abraham the Canon of years and continued until the year 20 of Constantine. But James, of the city of Edessa, who transcribed the book from Greek into Syriac, added the dates and coordinated the  events not only from Adam to Abraham, but also from Constantine until his time, when there reigned over the Romans, Justinian, and over the Arabs, `Abdallah. He carefully reviewed all the Chronicle, both about the empires which Eusebius ignored, and because of other things that this venerable [Jacques] commemorates. And when he starts to dispose them by year, he ties the year 20 of Constantine to the year 21. — As for us, so that the computation is not disturbed after the Canons of Eusebius we put those that Jacques himself has made.

Like so much of what Michael quotes, the history of Theodosius is not extant.

Comparing the introduction to James, printed by Brooks in the CSCO text, with Michael’s quotes, it is clear that Brooks has more of James’ words than Michael the Syrian does.  There are a dozen pages of introduction, all interesting, but probably beyond me to translate at this time.

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