Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/868

 832 SYRIAC LITERATURE [GTH CENT. Stephen bar Sudh- aile. life to the advocacy of Monophysite doctrine. Twice he visited Constantinople in the service of his party, and suffered much (as v;is to be expected) at the hands of its enemies, for thus he writes in later years to the monks of the convent of Senun near Edessa : "What I endured from Flavian and Macedonius, who were arch- bishops of Antioch and of the capital, and previously from Cal- endion, is known and spoken of everywhere. I keep silence both as to what was plotted against me in the time of the Persian war among the nobles by the care of the aforesaid Flavian the heretic, and also as to what befell me in Edessa, and in the district of the Apameans, and in that of the Antiochians, when I was in the con- vent of the blessed Mar Bassus, and again in Antioch itself; and when I went up on two occasions to the capital, like things were done to me by the Nestorian heretics." 1 He succeeded at last in getting rid of his enemy Flavian in 512, and in the same year he presided at a synod in which his friend Severus was ordained patri- arch of Antioch. 2 His triumph, however, was but short- lived, for Justin, the successor of Anastasius, sentenced to banishment in 519 fifty-four bishops who refused to accept the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, among whom were Severus, Philoxenus, Peter of Apamea, John of Telia, Julian of Halicarnassus, and Mara of Amid. Philoxenus was exiled to Philippopolis in Thrace, 3 and afterwards to Gangra in Paphlagonia, where he was murdered about the year 523. The Jacobite Church commemorates him on 10th December, 18th February, and 1st April. Philoxenus, however, was something more than a man of action and of strife : he was a scholar and an elegant writer. Even Assemani, who never misses an opportunity of reviling him, 4 is obliged to own (B.O., ii. 20) "scripsit Syriace, si quis alius, elegantissime, atque adeo inter optimos hujusce linguae scriptores a Jacobo Edesseno collocari meruit." Unfortunately scarcely any of his numerous works have as yet been printed. 5 To him the Syriac Church owed its first revised translation of the Scriptures (see above, p. 825) ; and he also drew up an anaphora 6 and an order of baptism. 7 Portions of his commentaries on the Gospels are contained in two MSS. in the British Museum. 8 Besides sundry sermons, he composed thirteen homilies on the Christian life and character, of which there are several ancient copies in the British Museum. Of his controversial works the two most important are a treatise On the Trinity and the Incarnation in three discourses, 9 and another, in ten discourses, showing "that one (Person) of the Trinity became incarnate and suffered " 10 ; but there are many smaller tracts again.- 1 the Nestorians and Dyophysites. 11 His letters are numerous and may be of some value for the ecclesiastical history of his time. Assemani enumerates and gives extracts from several of them, 12 but none of them have as yet been printed in full, with the exception of that to Abu Nafir of Herta (al-IIirah), 13 to the monks of Tell- 'Adda, 14 and to the priests Abraham and Orestes of Edessa regard- ing Stephen bar Sudh-aile. 15 Contemporary with Jacob of Serugh and Philoxenus of Mabbogh was the pantheist Stephen bar Sudh-aile, 16 with whom both of these writers corresponded, 17 and regarding whom the latter wrote the above-mentioned letter to the priests Abraham and Orestes. This man was the author of the work entitled The Book of Hiero- thcus, which he published under the name of Hierotheus, the teacher of St Dionysius of Athens, 18 and exercised a strong influence on the whole pseudo-Dionysian literature. 19 Theodosius, patriarch of Antioch (887-896), wrote a commentary on the HierotJicus. w Bar-Hebrseus too made copious extracts from it, which he arranged I Ibid., ii. 15; comp. the mention of him at Edessa by Joshua the Stylite in 498, Chronicle, ed. Wright, chap. xxx. * Ibid,, pp. 1", 18. 3 He was living there when he wrote to the monks of SSnfin in 522; B.O., ii. 20. 4 " Scelestissimus hsereticus" (B.O., ii. 11); " flagitiosisshnus homo " (p. 12) ; " ecclesiam Dei tauquam ferus aper devastaverit " (p. 18). 5 B.O., ii. 23 sq. ; Wright, Cntal., Index, p. 1315. Renaudot, ii. 310; B.O., ii. 24. 7 B.O., ii. 24. 8 Add. 17126, dated 511, and Add. 14534, probably of equal age. The Vatican MS. (Assemani, Catal., iii. p. 217, No. cxxxvii.) is dated 564 ; see B.O., ii. 25 sq. 10 B.O., ii. 27 sq. The Vatican MS. is dated 581 ; that in the British Museum Add. 12164 is at least as old. II See B.O., ii. 45, Nos. 15-17, and Wright, Catal., p. 1315. 12 B.O., ii. 30-46. Others may be found in Wright, Catal., p. 1315. 1* See Martin, Grammatica Chrestomathia, et Glossarium Lingual Syriacte, p. 71. 1* Ign. Guidi, La Lettera di Filosseno ai Monaci di Tell 'Adda (Teleda), Reale Accademia dei Linoei, anno cclxxxii., 1884-85, Rome, 1886. In the Ethiopia literature there is extant a book entitled Filekseyus, i.e., Philoxenus, from the name of its author, " Philoxenus the Syrian, bishop of Manbag" (see, for ex- ainple, Wright, Catal., p. 177). It is a series of questions and answers on the Paradise of Palladius, like the Syriac work described in Wright, Catal., p. 1078. is See B.O., ii. 30 : Frothinghain, Stephen liar Rudaili, p. 28 sq. 16 So in a MS. of the 7th century (Brit. Mus. Add. 171U3 ; see Wright, Catal., p. 524). The MSS. of Bar-Hebneus (Chron. Eccks., i. 221), have *.*bx.TI O. or -* i>.3VjO. Assemani writes ^_i^^0% (Sudaili). "Hunt the deer" O O can of course be only a nickname of the father. See Frothinghain, op. tit., p. 56 sq. 17 B.O., i. 303, ii. 32 ; comp. Bar-Hebraeus, Chron. Kecks., i. 221. 18 B.O., ii. 120, 290, 302 ; Frothingham, op. cit., p. 63 sq. The existence of any good Greek text seems to be very doubtful, see Frothingham, p. 70. 19 B. 0., iii. 1, 13 ; Frothingham, op. cit., pp. 2 and 81. 20 See MS. Brit. Mus. Add. 7189 (apparently the very copy used by Bar- Hebraeus); Rosen, Catal., p. 74 sq.; Frothingham, op. cit., p. 84. and illustrated with a commentary chiefly derived from that of Theodosius. 21 At the same time with Jacob of Serfigh and Philoxenus, and in Joshua the same neighbourhood, lived one of the earliest and best of the the Syrian historians, the Stylite monk Yeshu' or Joshua. Of him we Stylite. know nothing but that he originally belonged to the great convent of Zuknin near Amid, that at the beginning of the 6th century he was residing at Edessa, and that he dedicated his Chronicle of the Persian War '-*- to an abbot named Sergius. His approving mention of Jacob 13 and Philoxenus 2 - 1 shows that he was a Monophysite. Joshua's Chronicle would have been entirely lost to us, had it not been for the thoughtfulness of a later writer, Dionysius of Tell- Mahre (d. 845), who incorporated it with his account of the reign of Anastasius in the smaller redaction of his own History. It was first made known to us by Assemani (Bill. Orient., i. 260-283), who gave a copious analysis with some extracts ; and it is now generally acknowledged to be one of the best, if not actually the best, account of the great war between the Persian and Byzantine empires during the reigns of Kawadh and Anastasius (502-506). 25 To the indefatigable Abbe Martin belongs the credit of publishing the cditio princcps of the Syriac text. 26 The work was written in the year 507, immediately after the conclusion of the war, as is shown by the whole tone of the last chapter ; and it is much to be regretted that the author did not carry out his intention of con- tinuing it, or, if he did, that the continuation has perished. The interest which Jacob of Serugh took in every branch of Simeon literature was the means of bringing into notice a hymn-writer of Kukaya. humble rank, the deacon Simeon Kukaya, a potter by trade, as his name denotes. This man lived in the village of Geshir, 27 not far from the convent of Mar Bassus, and while he worked at his wheel composed hymns, which he wrote down on a tablet or a scroll, as might be convenient. Jacob heard of him from the monks, paid him a visit, admired his hymns, and took away some of them with him, at the same time urging the author to continue his labours.- 8 A specimen of these Kukaydtha has been preserved in the shape of nine hymns on the nativity of our Lord, Brit. Mus. Add. 14520, a MS. of the 8th or 9th century.- 9 About the same time flourished Simeon, bishop of Beth Arshiiin, 30 Simeon commonly called Ddroshd Pharsdyd or "the Persian Disputant." of Beth This keen Monophysite 31 was one of the few representatives of his Arsham. creed in the Persian territory, and exhibited a wonderful activity, mental and bodily, on behalf of his co-religionists, traversing the Babylonian and Persian districts in all directions, and disputing with Manichees, Daisanites, Eutychians, and Nestorians. 32 After one of these disputations, at which the Nestorian catholicus Babhai (498-503) was present, 33 Simeon was made bishop, a dignity which he had declined on several previous occasions. He visited Herta (al-Hirah) more than once, and died during his third residence at Constantinople, whither he had come to see the empress Theodora. 34 Assemani states, on the authority of Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, that he was bishop of Beth Arsham from 510 to 515, but the Syriac passage which he quotes merely gives the/on7 of 510. If, how- ever, the statements of John ofEphesus, who knew him personally, be correct, he was probably made bishop before 503, the date of Babhai's decease. 35 His death must have taken place before 548, in which year Theodora departed this life. Besides an anaphora, 36 we possess only two letters of Simeon, which are both of consider- able interest. The one is entitled On Bar-saumd and the Sect oftJie Nestorians 37 ; it deals with the origin and spread of Nest orianism in the East, but from the bitterest and narrowest sectarian point of view. 38 The other, which is much more valuable, is addressed to Simeon, abbot of Gabbula, 39 and treats of the persecution of the Christians at Najran by Dim Nuwas, king of al-Yaman, in the year 523. 40 It is dated 524, in which year the writer was himself at Herta (al-HIrah). 21 Brit. Mus. Or. 1017 (Wright, Catal., pp. 893-895) ; Bibl. Nation., Anc. fonds 138 (Zotenberg, Catal., pp. 175-170); Frothinghain, op. cit., p. 87. 22 Ed. Wright, p. ix. 23 ibid., chap. liv. -* Ibid., chap. xxx. 26 See, for example, the nse that has been made of it in De Saint-Martin's notes to Lebeau's llist. du Bus-empire, vol. vii. 26 Chronique de, Jnsne If. Stylite, 1S76, in vol. vi. of the Abhandlwi (jen filr d. Kunde d. Morgenlandcs. Another edition was published by Wright, The Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, 1882. 27 ^AJ... or !..*- vv . 28 See the narrative by Jacob of Rdessa in Wright, Catal., p. 602 ; and comp. B.O., i. 121, ii. 322; Bar-Hebraus, Chron. Eccks., i. 191. Wright, Gated., p. 363. 30 A village near Seleucia and Ctesiphon ; Bar-Hebraus, Chron. Eccks., ii. 85. 31 Assemani has tried to whitewash him, but with little success ; B.O., i. 342 sq. If he had had before him the account of Simeon by John of Epliesus (Land, Anecd. Syr., ii. 76-88), he would probably have abandoned the attempt in dis- gust. See Guidi, La Lettera di Simeone Vescovo di Beth-Arsdm sopra i Martiri Omeriti, 1881, pp. 4-7. 32 See Bar-Hebraeus, Chrnn. Eccles., ii. 85, i. 189; comp. B.O., i. 341, ii. 409, iii. 1, 403. 33 Land, Anecd. Syr., ii. 82, 1. 12. 34 2bid., ii. 87, last line. 35 R.O., iii. 1, 427. 36 lliid., i. 345. 37 Ibiil., i. 346. 3S First printed in B.O., i. 346 sq., from the Vatican MS. cxxxv. (Catal., iii. 214). 39 Al-Jabbul. Or is it Jabbul, on the east bank of the Tigris, between an- Nu'maniyah and Wasit? 40 First printed in ft.O., i. 304 sq., according to the text offered by John of Ephesus in his History. There is, however, a longer and better text in a MS.