Download PDF Datastream

290 Pages·2009·1.57 MB·English

Apostolic Memories: Religious Differentiation and the Construction of Orthodoxy in
Syriac Missionary Literature

By
Jeanne-Nicole Madeleine Saint-Laurent
B. A., Gonzaga University, 2000
M. A. University of Notre Dame, 2002
A. M. Brown University, 2006

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University

Providence, Rhode Island
May 2009
Copyright Page
This dissertation by Jeanne-Nicole Saint-Laurent is accepted in its present form
by the Department of Religious Studies as satisfying the
dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Date_____________ ______________________________
Prof. Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Advisor

Recommended to the Graduate Council

Date_____________ ______________________________
Prof. Ross S. Kraemer, Reader

Date_____________ ______________________________
Prof. Stanley K. Stowers, Reader

Approved by the Graduate Council
Date_____________ ______________________________
Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School
iii
Curriculum Vitae
Jeanne-Nicole Saint-Laurent was born on April 3, 1978 in Riverside, CA. She
graduated from Gonzaga University in 2000, summa cum laude, with a BA, Honors, in
Classics and Religious Studies. She earned an MA in Early Christian Studies in 2002,
where she wrote a Master’s thesis entitled “The Vita Tradition of Ephrem the Syrian: a
Hagiographical and Theological Analysis.” She was a Fulbright Scholar in Salzburg,
Austria from 2002-2003. From 2003-2009, she was doctoral student in the Dept. of
Religious Studies at Brown in the area of Early Christianity, with a specialties in
Christianity in Late Antiquity and Syriac Christianity. In 2008-9, she was a junior fellow
in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library. She has taught Syriac at
Brown and Syriac Patristics for the Pappas Institute at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox
Seminary. Her publications include “Tools of the Trade: Instrumenta Studiorum,”
coauthored with Joseph Kelley, in D. Hunter and S. A. Harvey, eds., Oxford Handbook of
Early Christianity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 2171-2216; “Early
Christianity in Late Antique Austria: Eugippius and Severinus,” in F. Young, M.
Edwards, and P. Parvis. eds., Studia Patristica, Vol. XXXIX (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), pp.
429-434. She is the founder of Dorushe, a graduate student group for students of Syriac
studies. She has presented papers at the North American Patristics Society, the Pappas
Patristic Institute Graduate Student Conference, and Dorushe conferences at Princeton
University and the University of Notre Dame. Beginning in the fall of 2009, she will be
an assistant professor of Religious Studies at St. Michael’s College in Burlington,
Vermont.

iv
Acknowledgements

I thank my advisor and mentor, Prof. Susan Ashbrook Harvey, for her outstanding
guidance, sacrifice, and countless hours of help and one-on-one tutoring that she gave me
these past six years of my doctoral work at Brown University. Through her, I found my
scholarly voice. I thank my teachers Prof. Ross Kraemer and Prof. Stanley Stowers for
their expert critique and support as readers of this dissertation. I thank all three of them,
along with Prof. Mark Cladis, for their support in my going to California for a year to
dissertate and care for my father.
I thank Prof. Joseph Amar for introducing me to Syriac and for teaching me to
love Syriac literature when I was a Master’s student at the University of Notre Dame. I
thank him, Dr. Chip Coakley, and Rev. Sidney Griffith who welcomed me into their
Syriac reading groups during my doctoral studies. I thank George Kiraz for helping me
to start the group Dorushe with other Syriac graduate students, and I thank the Hugoye
Turkey group of the summer of 2006 for wonderful memories in Tur Abdin. I am
grateful to the trustees of Harvard University for a junior fellowship in Byzantine Studies
that afforded me to complete my dissertation at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in
Washington DC.
Other scholars who supported me in finishing this dissertation whom I wish to
thank include Prof. Walter Stevenson, Prof. Joel Walker, Prof. Scott Johnson, and Dr.
Bruce Beck. I thank Prof. Blake Leyerle for introducing me to the world of Late
Antiquity and for always encouraging and inspiring me. I thank my spiritual father Rev.
Brian Daley, SJ for his constant friendship and guidance. I thank my teachers at Gonzaga
University: Revs. Frederick Schlatter, SJ, Ken Krall, SJ, Rev. Antony Via, SJ, Steve
v
Kuder, SJ, Prof., Bruno Segatta, Drs. Catherine and Michael Tkacz, and Prof. Robert
Kugler. All instilled a love for Christian antiquity that sustained me. I thank Gail
Tetreault in the Dept. of Religious Studies at Brown for her solid wisdom.
I thank my extended family in Austria, especially Prof. Dietmar Winkler, Dr.
Henrike Winkler, Familie Aussermaier, Reinhard and Jovita Koppler, Christine Sontag,
and Anneliese Weinmar and family. I thank my larger “family” in California: Toni
Warnshuis, all the Mulherins, the Dekkangas, Rose Schwartzberg, Faith Manners and Sr.
MaryAnne Huepper, and the Frazees.
The support and love of my friends carried me constantly throughout my graduate
studies. I thank Katy Tyzkiewicz Ramsey, Ann Alokolaro Fennessy, Kate Brayko Gence,
Cindy Lobosky, Beth Tyzkiewicz, Eileen Jacxsens Lapington, Gina Pernini, Emily Holt,
Erin Shields, Carly Dokis, Mimi Beck, Kathleen Celio (and family!), Prof. Arthur
Urbano, Amy and Mark Rainis, Chris Fiori, Jaime Hawk, Jennifer Closson, Yasmin
Redoblado, Katie Chidester, Rosa Sevilla, Jill Frazee, Jim Lee, Bert Fitzgerald, Joel
Wichtman, Cheryl Healey, Brett Wayman, Scott Kmack, Liz Watson, Joanna Joly, Prof.
Scott Moringello, Dr. Jack Tannous, Prof. Miriam Goldstein, Kyle Smith, Jeff Jackson,
Tenny Thomas, Kelsey O’Keefe Billows, Erin O’Malley, Donna Bach, Franceska
Fairbanks Robinson, Alison Gregoire, Patrick Cashman, the Salvan family, the Edelman
family, Mary Cawley, and Steve Walker. I thank my running partners Prof. Andrew
Scherer and Dr. Graham Wilkin. Special thanks go to Shane Intihar, who read my entire
dissertation from Guam and caught many important errors. Thanks to Angel, Mark
Slater, and Serbio at Michel Richard’s Citronelle for “helping” me through the final
stages of completion.
vi
I thank my friends and colleagues at Dumbarton Oaks, Dr. Fotini Kondyli, Vitaly
Permjakovs, Prof. Stratis and Samantha Papaioannou, Dr. Myriam Hecquet-Devienne,
Dr. Rina Avner, Yuliya Minets, Dr. Isabella Sandwell, Prof. Panagiotis Roilos, with
special thanks to Prof. Jan Ziolkowski, Dr. Alice-Mary Talbot, Dr. Debra Stewart Brown
and Prof. Irfan Shahid.
Finally, I thank my wonderful family. I thank my grandmother of blessed
memory, Louise Saint-Laurent, for teaching me to find joy in small things. I thank the
Nichols and McDevitt families. I thank my nephews Kyle and Sean Dickey whose short
lives taught me the meaning of the appreciating each day. I thank my brother-in-law,
Ryan Dickey for his great outlook and sense of humor, my beautiful sister Marie-Louise
Dickey for her inspiring love and supportive friendship, and my godson and nephew,
Luke George Dickey, for his smiles.
I thank my mother, Michaeleen Saint-Laurent, who never stopped believing in me
and sent me a card every week since my first day of college. Her gentleness and
unconditional love modeled Christ for me.
Finally, my best friend, my father, Prof. George E. Saint-Laurent, did not live to
see the completion of this dissertation. This work is a product of how he raised me: to
love learning, be faithful to God, find joy in the sharing of your gifts, and see scholarship
and teaching as service and vocation. I have more gratitude to him than I could ever
express with words.
I dedicate this dissertation to both my parents in thanksgiving for their selfless
love.

vii
ABBREVIATIONS

AB Analecta Bollandiana
ACO Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Schwartz. Berlin: de Gruyter,
1924-40. New ed. J. Staub, 1971.
AMS Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, ed. P. Bedjan. 7 vols. Paris/Leipzig: Otto
Harrassowitz, 1890-97. Repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968.
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt
BJRL Bulletin of John Rylands Library
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
CAH Cambridge Ancient History
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
Scrip. Syr. Scriptores Syri
Sub. Subsidia
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
FC Fathers of the Church
GCS Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller
HE Historia Ecclesiastica
HTR Harvard Theological Review
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
viii
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
LCL Loeb Classical Library
NPNF Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
OC Oriens Christianus
OCA Orientalia Christiana Analecta
OCP Orientalia Christiana Periodica
OLA Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta
PG J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca
PO Patrologia Orientalis
PS Patrologia Syriaca
SC Sources Chrétiennes
SCH Studies in Church History
SH Subsidia Hagiographica
SP Studia Patristica
SPCK Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge
VC Vigiliae Christianae

ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Curriculum Vitae v
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
Chapter One: An Apostle of Great Price: Sanctification of Thomas and the
Template of Syriac Missionary Legends 41
Chapter Two: The Teaching of Addai: Icons of City, Apostle, and King 72
Chapter Three: The Acts of Mari and the Construction of
East Syriac Sacred Legend 102
Introduction to Chapters Four and Five: Between Constantinople and Amida:
the Voice of John of Ephesus 133
Chapter Four: Constructing Commonalities: John of Ephesus and the
Myth of Simeon of Beth Arsham, Missionary to Persia 146
Chapter Five: Hagiographical Portraits of Jacob Baradaeus 175
Chapter Six: Ahoudemmeh and the Making of Sasanian
Non-Chalcedonian Christianity 205
Conclusion: 237
Bibliography: 251

x