Life of Mar Aba – chapter 41 (and end)

We may as well add today the conclusion of the Life of Mar Aba.

41.  In order to avoid wearying you, through hearing too much, let us pass over what God soon did through him and for his sake in many distant countries, through arbitrating disputes which Satan, the enemy of our nature, had aroused; then in the imprisonment, which he endured for seven years in Azerbaijan; then in the fetters which he wore for three years around his neck, hands and feet at the king’s court.

There is a lot of this, and in many parts; the mouth is unable to tell it all, and you already know much of it.

So we end our words with the words of the blessed David, and say: “Blessed is the people that has such a man, and blessed is the people at whose head stands such a man, to feed the flock of our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Amen.

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 40

Dead but not buried yet! (I have split up some of the monster sentences in this one).

40.  He was honoured for seven days in the cathedral, day and night, with scripture readings, hymns, sermons and spiritual songs, and all the hosts of believers from all the provinces took the blessings home, by means of small towels (ὠράριον) and garments, that they laid on his body.  Then the King of Kings and the Mobedan Mobed sent the Mobed (of the province?) and the judge and other magians to see whether it was the saint or not, because, out of fear and terror, they didn’t believe in his death.

After these delegates had seen him, the body of the saint was placed on another bier (λεκτίκιον) and buried with great honour while spiritual songs were sung.  Countless multitudes eagerly honoured him with perfumes and lamps all the way through the city to the monastery of Seleucia.  Likewise the judges and magians who had been sent went before the litter (? BISPK’), in which the saint’s body was, and after he had been honoured through God’s almighty power, the magians returned, amazed and astonished at what they had seen and heard, to those who had sent them.

Thus the multitude lauded and praised God because of the wonderful things that happened at the death of the saint.

The King and the chief priest, the Mobedan Mobed, clearly wanted to make sure that Mar Aba did not stage a fake funeral and pop up somewhere out of their reach!

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 39

Mar Aba may be dead; but the political situation was still difficult.  The fire-priests had not forgotten their old adversary.  For Zoroastrians were not buried, and Mar Aba had been a noble Persian.

39.  Then the magians made so much fuss, that nobody dared to bury him until the King commanded it.  When he was laid on the bier (λεκτίκιον) and brought out, with great difficulty because of the crowd of believers, who threw onto it many handkerchiefs (σουδάριον) or coats and took them back again, as means of grace and blessing, until it reached the cathedral of Koke, the magians ordered that he should be thrown to the dogs.

Then the believers in droves shouted, “If anyone approaches the body of the saint, we will begin a bloodbath.”  They came en masse seized the litter (? BSPK’) and took it as a relic, and left nothing except the coffin (γλωσσόκομον) in which was the body of the saint.

The details seem rather gruesome to us.  But funerals in the East are political events, even today.

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 38

By this time Mar Aba was an old man.  Clearly he had reached an understanding with the Sassanid King, and was trusted to undertake what were really diplomatic missions.  But his health had suffered from his long period of imprisonment, and it is likely that everyone knew that he did not have long to live.

38.  Afterwards the King of Kings sent him [Mar Aba] into the province of Bêt Hûzâjê, and by God’s work and his care many priests were saved from death and their blood was not shed.  He encouraged them and filled their hearts with the words of spiritual teaching.  Then he returned to the court of the King of Kings, who allowed him to reside wherever he wanted.  The captain of the foot-soldiers (paig) who guarded him was ordered to leave him in peace.

He took up his dwelling next to the church of Bêt Narkôs.  There he lived and concerned himself with divine instruction, and every day he said wonderful things to those who came to him, and converted many from heresy who had come with the King of the Arabs to pay homage to the King of Kings and that made pilgrimage to him.

When he became ill for some time because of his imprisonment, the King ordered that doctors should be sent to him to heal him; but they could not.

The Saint slept from his holy struggle on the Friday of the second week of Lent.

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 37

Let’s return to the 6th century Syriac Life of Mar Aba, the Nestorian patriarch.  This life is interesting since it is not far removed in time from the events, and contains what are clearly historical statements about an otherwise little-known period of the history of Christianity in Persia.

A German translation exists, but no English translation.  I can’t translate Syriac, but I can turn German into English, so that is what I am doing.  The last chapter was back in April (you can find the other chapters using the link ‘Mar Aba’ at the foot of the posts).

The story so far.  Mar Aba is a noble Persian who has converted to Christianity and risen to become head of all the Christians in the Persian realm.  He has come into conflict with the Zoroastrian clergy. But something new is happening; the Persian King of Kings has started to realise that, far from being an agent of a foreign power, the Christian patriarch may be a balance to the power of the Zoroastrian clergy.  He is therefore under semi-arrest at the Persian court.

Now read on!

37. Some time later, the chief of the Hephthalites (haftarân chudâ)[1] sent a priest to the King of Kings, and many Christian Hephthalites sent a letter to the Saint [Mar Aba] to ask him to consecrate the priest as  a bishop for the whole Hephthalite realm.

After the priest had come before the King, and set forth the business of his mission, [the King] wondered at what he heard, and marvelled at the great power of Christ, that the Christian Hephthalites also considered the Lordly One [Mar Aba] as their chief and regent, and he said to him that he should go and adorn the church as was custom, and should go into his church and house and collect the bishops according to custom, and ordain the man sent by the prince of the Hephthalites.

When the people of the Lord heard this message, and the Saint came out of prison and into the cathedral of his apostolic seat, what joy was like that joy, that the Lordly One had returned to his blessed flock after nine years, which he had spent in combat with lions and panthers for his beloved flock,[2] and returned victorious.

What shepherd loves his flock like our father, the master  of the holy flock, who bore every trouble and persecution for it, and gave himself over to death?  As the good shepherd led his blessed sheep into the holy sheepfold, so the sheep and lambs of Christ ran in to him from all sides, when they heard his beloved voice, surrounded him, sought refuge with him, and kissed his hands and feet and whole body, which was torn and mangled by the claws and fetters.  And they waited to hear the sound of his sweet hymns and to suck spiritual milk from his beloved teaching.  Because the sheep heard the voice of the blessed shepherd, they were very happy about this, and only with difficulty could he enter his blessed appartment because of the crush of people.

The following morning the church was adorned with throngs of believers; the Saint ordained the Hephthalite priest as bishop for the land of the Hephthalites, and in the people of the Lord joy grew over the arrangements of divine providence.

There seems no reason to question any of this.  The spread of Christianity along the Silk Road, led by the Nestorian clergy, is an undoubted fact, and the King of Kings would undoubtedly see a political advantage in the Hephthalites getting their bishops from the (Persian) patriarch.

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  1. [1]Also known as the White Huns; a serious threat on the northern side of the Persian kingdom.
  2. [2]The “lions and panthers” no doubt refers to his battles with the Zoroastrian clergy.

Notes on chapter divisions in Syriac manuscripts from antiquity

The British Library holds some of the most ancient Syriac manuscripts in the world, brought there in 1842 by Archdeacon Tattam from the monastery of Deir al-Suryani in the Nitrian desert in Egypt.  Last Saturday I went down there, along with Syriacist Steven Ring, and examined four of them for evidence of chapter divisions.  This sort of thing is not recorded at all well in critical editions, so personal inspection was necessary.

The first item examined was Ms. Additional 12150.  This is a large folio manuscript, containing translations from Greek, and dated (by the scribe) to 411 AD!  That is, it was written the year after the sack of Rome by Alaric and the Goths.  I used Wright’s Catalogue, p.632 f., as a finder’s guide.  The text is written by a single scribe.

It begins on folio 1r with scribbles in Syriac and Arabic.  The page must originally have been blank, which is curious; for the text begins on folio 1v with no heading.  However a running header in red, apparently by the same scribe as the text, appears on the verso of each leaf; in this case, saying “.o. Clement .o.”, because the volume begins with discourses and homilies from the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions; labelled as “I” by Wright.

Folio 1v shows the start of chapters 1, 2 and 3 of discourse 1, or so I find from De Lagarde’s 1861 edition of the text.

There are no chapter numbers.  Each chapter begins on a new line, and ends with a series of “o.o.o.o”, sometimes all in black, sometimes alternately in black and red.  This fills up most of the remainder of the line; and a blank line sometimes follows.  De Lagarde shows the item in his edition, but for some reason has omitted the newlines.

The subscriptio to the first discourse is in red on f.53r.   There it is followed by a blank line, then “.oo. .oo. .oo.”

I found that:

  • Discourse 1 is divided into chapters throughout.
  • Discourse 3 is not divided at all.
  • Discourse 4 is divided throughout.
  • Homily 12 has a few divisions only towards the end.
  • Discourse 14 is not divided at all.

The next item in the codex, II, is the work of Titus of Bostra against the Manichaeans.  This has chapters, ending with three examples of a marker, consisting of four dots in a diamond shape; later on reverting to the same end-of-chapter marker as used for Clement.  Again a new chapter means a new line.

I curse, by the way, that the British Library would not allow me to take snaps of the pages with my mobile phone; thus I am reduced to verbiage, where an image would show what I mean.

After Titus we find (III) the treatise of Eusebius on the Theophania, in five books.  This also is divided into chapters by the same markers.  However, part way through book 4, the ninth chapter — there are no numerals, remember — begins with a heading in read, and each chapter then has a heading for the remainder of the book.  Book 5 also has some.

Item IV is Eusebius, The Martyrs of Palestine.  This is divided into sections with red headings.  Inside each section are chapter divisions as before. E.g. f.235v, 236r.

Item V is Eusebius’ Encomium on the Martyrs, divided into chapters like the rest of the ms.

Nowhere are there any numerals.

It is interesting that some of the Clementine material is divided, and some is not.  I would infer from this that the divisions are not by the scribe, who would otherwise have done the same thing all through.  The differences in the Clement material may be accounted for most easily, if we suppose that the scribe had a box full of rolls, each containing one item, which he proceeded to copy into his brand new codex.  He only had a rag-bag of rolls, which is why discourse 2 is missing — the discourses are headed with their number in the subscriptions — and some of these came from sources that were divided, while some were not.

The same applies to the Theophania; while all the rolls were divided into chapters, the last two had headings in the roll.

The next manuscript examined was a quarto, Additional 14639.  This dates to the 6th century AD, and contains a Syriac translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Historia Ecclesiastica.

I noted that on f.11b there was a red heading.  F. 18 has chapter divisions, marked by filling up the line with a diamond of 5 dots, then newline.

The table of contents to book 2 appears on f.18v.  It is not numbered.  Each table element is on a new line, and alternate elements are in different colours, black and red text. At the end of each element the scribe has filled up the line with dots or diamonds.  Divisions in the text are mainly by means of red headings.

There is a deviation in the table of contents.  The one on f.70a starts with alternate red and black elements, as before; but the scribe then changes to first word of each entry in red, with the rest of the words in black.  However the table of contents on 96v is back to full alternating as before.

I then looked at Additional 14542.  This dates to 509 AD, and contains Basil the Great’s work on the Holy Spirit.  It is a quarto volume.

A chapter division is visible on f.7r., and on f.5r.  10r 13v, with coloured dots.  There are no headings, but definitely chapter divisions of the form we saw earlier.  The subscriptio is in red.

My final manuscript was Additional 17182, containing the homilies of Aphrahat.  It dates to 474 AD.  It too is quarto.

There are infrequent chapter markers. One appears on f.3v; another on f4r.  There are no blank lines when a new chapter begins, but there are newlines.  F.7v has two diamonds at foot of page.  There is a red heading on f.11v and f23r.  There is also a running title on the verso, but this time only at the end of each quire.  Presumably this means that the book was written in quires, and the running heading told the binder what order to assemble the book.

In short we find, in these very early manuscripts, copious evidence of division into chapters.

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Armenian version of Chronicle of Michael the Syrian now in English

This morning I received an email from Robert Bedrosian, the translator into English of a great number of Classical Armenian texts:

The English translation of Michael the Great’s Chronicle is now online.  It may be freely copied and distributed.

http://rbedrosian.com/Msyr/msyrtoc.html

This is incredibly good news!

The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian is the largest medieval chronicle.  It was composed in Syriac, and has come down to us in a single Syriac manuscript, of which the beginning is lost; some abbreviated Arabic versions, and a condensed version in Armenian, which alone preserves the opening portions of the work.

Wonderful!

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Buying images of pages from a manuscript in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg – part 1

I need to look at some pages from a Syriac manuscript in the collection of the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.   Rather than flying out there, paying for a hotel, it might be cheaper to just purchase a few digital photographs.  At least, one would hope so!

After a look at page on the website which talks about electronic copies, I have composed an email in English and sent it off.  It will be interesting to see whether they are cooperative or not.  Manuscript libraries can be very bolshy!

I will let you know.

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The Syriac translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s “Church History”

Two very early manuscripts exist of a Syriac translation of the “Church History” of Eusebius.  One of these dates from 462 A.D. It was bought from the monks of the Nitrian desert in Egypt, and destined for the British Library; but the middleman, a certain Pacho, double-crossed his masters and instead sold it, together with three other books, to the Tsar for 2,500 roubles – a significant sum in those days.  Today it has the shelfmark, National Library of Russia, New Syriac mss. 1.

The Syriac version was first published in 1897 as Histoire ecclésiastique d’Eusèbe de Césarée; éditée pour la première fois par Paul Bedjan.   It is a curious fact that I have been quite unable to locate this book online.  A couple of years later another edition was made.

Can anyone point me to the Bedjan edition?

Nina Pingulevskaya, who catalogued the Syriac mss. of the library in St Petersburg, published an article about this ms, thankfully online here.[1]  Using Google translate, the sense is fairly obvious.

UPDATE: Adam McCollum points me to a copy online here.  If you page down, you will find a download link at the right.

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  1. [1]Published in Vostochniy Sbornik I, Leningrad, 1926, p. 115-122.  My thanks to Grigory Kessell for this information.

Syriac manuscripts in St Petersburg, Russia

It’s pretty hard to find out what the libraries in St Petersburg hold.  But today I discovered that Gregory Kessel produced an abbreviated translation of the 1960 catalogue by N. V. Pigulevskaya.   Better yet, he made it available online.  It’s here.

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