Syriac Christian Culture: Beginnings to Renaissance

369 Pages·2021·10.541 MB·English

by  Aaron Michael Butts (editor), Aaron M. Butts (editor), Robin Darling Young (editor)

Syriac Christian Culture

Syriac Christian Culture
܀ Beginnings to Renaissance ܀
Aaron Michael Butts and Robin Darling Young, Editors
The Catholic University
of America Press
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2020
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-0-8132-3368-0
Introduction
Many scholars and students in North America cultivate an interest in
Syriac studies, even though there is only a small number of university
programs or faculty positions dedicated to the Syriac language or
the history, culture, and religion of the historically Syriac-speaking
communities. Scholars of early Christianity continue to investigate
the distinctive culture of the Syriac-speaking regions in Syria and
Mesopotamia expressed in biblical translations and subsequent
compositions, while historians of late antiquity or early Islam
trace the connections between this region and culture and their
neighboring or competitor cultures, such as those of Sassanian Persia
or the realm of Islam. The growing number of digitized collections of
Syriac manuscripts and Syriac scholarship expresses this continuing
interest, as do the essays published here. They are just a small part of
the scholarly work on Syriac studies being pursued in North America.
The articles published in this volume represent a selection of the
papers presented at the Seventh North American Syriac Symposium
(NASS VII), which was convened at The Catholic University of
America, Washington, D.C. on June 21-24, 2015. Held every four
years, the North American Syriac Symposium brings together
university professors, graduate students, and scholars from the
United States and Canada as well as from Europe, the Middle East,
and India, in particular from the State of Kerala. The Symposium
offers a unique opportunity for exchange and discussion on a wide
variety of topics related to the language, literature, and cultural
history of Syriac Christianity, which extends chronologically from
the first centuries CE to the present day and geographically from
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vi Introduction
Syriac Christianity’s homeland in the Middle East to South India,
China, and the worldwide diaspora. The first North American Syriac
Symposium met at Brown University in 1991. It was followed by
symposia at the Catholic University of America (1995), the University
of Notre Dame (1999), Princeton Theological Seminary (2003), the
University of Toronto (2007), and Duke University (2011).1 With the
2015 symposium, the Catholic University of America became the first
university to host this prestigious event for a second time.
The theme for NASS VII was Ad Fontes, or literally, ‘to the
sources’. This Latin phrase is found in the Latin vulgate version of
Ps 42:1: ‘As a deer longs for sources (ad fontes) of water, so my soul
longs for you, God’.2 The phrase ad fontes is, however, better known
as an epitomization of the renewed study of Greek and Latin classics
during the Renaissance. It was, for instance, used by Erasmus of
Rotterdam, who stressed that ‘above all, one must hasten to the sources
themselves (ad fontes ipsos)’.3 For Erasmus, these sources were in
Greek and Latin, but we wanted to extend this to Syriac as well. Thus,
one of our goals with NASS VII was to celebrate the rich and varied
sources on which the field of Syriac studies is built, from manuscripts
and inscriptions to architecture, from objects of art to oral tradition.
Symposium participants were encouraged to re-evaluate well-known
sources, investigate lesser-known sources, and bring to light entirely
new sources. The symposium was also a time to reflect on disciplinary,
theoretical, and methodological approaches to these sources.
We have included in this volume those papers that explore or
reflect this theme of Ad Fontes. In order to make a coherent volume,
we selected papers that focused on texts as sources and especially
literary texts. We are grateful to the contributors, and to all who
attended and supported the conference, for their participation.
Aaron Michael Butts
Robin Darling Young
1. For the history of the North American Syriac Symposium, see S. P. Brock and A. M. Butts, “Syriac
Conferences,” in GEDSH, 389–390.
2. This is ʿal pṣidā in the Syriac Peshiṭta translation.
3. Erasmus, De ratione studii ac legendi interpretandique auctores (Paris: G. Biermant, 1511), edited
in Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia, vol. 1.2, 120.11 (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1969).
Table of Contents
Introduction v
Abbreviations ix
Aphrahaṭ and Ephrem: From Context to Reception 1
1. Making Ephrem One of Us 3
܀
Joseph Amar, University of Notre Dame
2. The Significance of Astronomical and Calendrical Theories for
Ephrem’s Interpretation of the Three Days of Jesus’ Death 37
܀
Blake Hartung, Arizona State University
3. Reconsidering the Compositional Unity of Aphrahaṭ’s
Demonstrations 50
܀
J. Edward Walters, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library
4. From Sketches to Portraits 66
The Canaanite Woman within Late Antique Syriac Poetry
܀
Erin Galgay Walsh, University of Chicago Divinity School
Translation 83
5. The Syriac Reception of Plato’s Republic 85
܀
Yury Arzhanov, Ruhr University, Bochum
6. Did the Dying Jacob Gather His Feet into His Bed (MT) or
Stretch Them Out (Peshiṭta)? 97
Describing the Unique Character of the Peshiṭta
܀
Craig Morrison, Pontifical Biblical Institute
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viii Table of Contents
Hagiography: Formation and Transmission 111
7. The Invention of the Persian Martyr Acts 113
܀
Adam Becker, New York University
8. The Sources of the History of ʿAbdā damšiḥā 149
The Creation of a Persian Martyr Act
܀
Simcha Gross, University of Pennsylvania
9. Stories, Saints, and Sanctity between Christianity
and Islam 174
The Conversion of Najrān to Christianity in the Sīra of Muhammad
܀
Reyhan Durmaz, University of Pennsylvania
Christians in the Islamic World 199
10. Syriac in the Polyglot Medieval Middle East 201
Digital Tools and the Dissemination of Scholarship Across
Linguistic Boundaries
܀
Thomas A. Carlson, Oklahoma State University
11. Christian Arabic Historiography at the Crossroads between the
Byzantine, the Syriac, and the Islamic Traditions 212
܀
Maria Conterno, Ghent University
12. Seeing to be Seen 226
Mirrors and Angels in John of Dalyatha
܀
Zachary Ugolnik, Stanford University
13. On Sources for the Social and Cultural History of Christians
during the Syriac Renaissance 251
܀
Dorothea Weltecke, Goethe Universität
Epilogue 277
14. Syriac Studies in the Contemporary Academy 279
Some Reflections
܀
Kristian Heal, Brigham Young University
Bibliography 287
Index 343
Abbreviations
General Abbreviations
ca. circa, approximately
ms(s). manuscript(s)
PMA Persian Martyr Acts, or Acts of the Persian Martyrs
Journals, Serials, and Reference Works
AB Analecta Bollandiana
AJSLL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature
AKM Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
BF Byzantinische Forschungen
BHG Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca
BHO Bibliotheca Hagiographica Orientalis, SH 10, edited by
Socii Bollandiani. Brussels: Societe des Bollandistes,
1910.
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
CCSG Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca
CH Church History
CRINT Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
ECA Eastern Christian Art
ECS Eastern Christian Studies
ECS Eastern Christian Studies
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