Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/869

 GTH CENT.] SYRIAC LITERATURE 833 John bar Cursus. Mara III. of Amid. John bar Aphtouyfi Jacob Burdc- 'aiia. To the same age and sect as Simeon belonged John bar Cursus (Kovpyos), 1 bishop of Telia or Constantiua. He was a native of Callinicus (ar-Rakkah), of good family, and was carefully educated by his widowed mother, who put him into the army at the age of twenty. He would not, however, -be hindered from quitting the service after a few years and becoming a monk. Subsequently, in 519, he was raised to the dignity of bishop of Telia, whence he was expelled by Justin in 521. In 533 he visited Constantinople, and on his return to the East was seized by his enemies in the mountains of Sinjar, and dragged to Nislbis, Ras'ain, and Antioch, where he died in 538, at the age of fifty-five, having been for a year and six days a close prisoner in the convent of the Comes Manasse by order of the cruel persecutor Ephraim, patriarch of Antioch (529-544). His life was written by his disciple Elias (of Dara ?). 2 The Jacobite Church commemorates him on the 6th of February. Canons by John of Telia, are extant in several MSS. in the British Museum and elsewhere. 3 The questions put to him by Sergius with his replies have been published by Lamy. 4 His creed or confession of faith, addressed to the convents in and around Telia, is found in Brit. Mus. Add. 14549 (CataL, p. 431), and an exposition of the Trisagion in Cod. Yat. clix. (CataL, iii. 314) and Bodl. Marsh. 101 (Payne Smith, CataL, p. 463, No. 20). Another of the unfortunate Monophysite _bishops whom Justin expelled from their sees (in 519) was Mara of Amid, the third bishop of the name. He was banished, with his syncelli and with Isidore, bishop of Ken-neshrin (Kinnesrin), in the first instance to Petra, but was afterwards allowed to go to Alexandria, 5 where he died in about eight years. 6 According to Assemani (Bibl. Orient., ii. 52 ; comp. p. 169), Mara wrote a commentary on the Gospels. It would seem, however, from a passage of Zacharias Rhetor, 7 that Mfiru merely prefixed a short prologue in Greek to a copy of the Gospels which he had procured at Alexandria, 8 and that this MS. contained (as might be expected) the pericope on the woman taken in adultery (John viii. 2-11). That the Syriac translations of the prologue and pericope were made by himself is nowhere stated. Yet another sufferer at the hands of Justin was John bar Aphtonya (Aphthonia, his mother's name). 9 He was abbot of the convent of St Thomas at Seleucia (apparently in Pieria, on the Orontes), which was famous as a school for the study of Greek literature. Being expelled thence, he removed with his whole brotherhood to Ken-neshre (the Eagles' Nest) on the Euphrates, opposite Europus (Jerabis), where he founded a new convent and school that more than rivalled the parent establishment, for here Thomas of Hera- clea, Jacob of Edessa, and others received their training in Greek letters. 10 His Life, written by a disciple, is extant in Brit. Mus. Add. 12174. n According to Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, as quoted by Assemani (loc. cit. ), he died in 538. He wrote a commentary on the Song of Songs, some extracts from which are preserved in a Catena Patriim in the British Museum (Add. 12168, f. 138a), a considerable number of hymns, 12 and a biography of Severus of Antioch, 13 which must have been his last work, as he survived Severus only about nine months. We now come to the man who was the real founder of the Jacobite Church in Asia, and from whom the Jacobites took their name, Jacob bar Theophilus, surnamed " Burde'ana" 14, because his dress consisted of a barda'tha or coarse horse-cloth, which he never changed till it became quite ragged. 15 What Assemaui could learn regarding him he has put together in the Bibl. Orient. , ii. 62-69 16 ; since then our sources of information have been largely increased, especially by the publication of the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus by Cureton and of the same writer's Lives in Land's Anecd. Syr., ii. 17 On a careful study of these is based Kleyn's excellent book Jacobus Barad&iis, de Stickler der SyriscJie Monophysictisclic Kcrk, 1882. Jacob was the son of Theophilus bar Ma'nu, a priest of Telia or Constantina, and the child of his old age. After receiving a good education, he was entered at the monastery of Pesilta (or the Quarry), 18 close by the village of Gum- nictha in Mount Izala (or Izla), 19 not far from Telia. About 527- of the Museo Borgiano and in Brit. Mus. Add. 14650, from which it has been reedited (with an excellent introduction, translation, and notes) by Guidi, La Letteradi Simeone, &c., Reale Accadeinia del Lincei, 1881. To this work the reader is referred for all the documents bearing on the subject. 1 The name of the father is also given as Curcus and Cyriacus. Assemani's Barsus (5.0., ii. 54) is a misreading. - There are two copies in the British Museum, edited by Kleyn, Het feven mn Johannes van Telia, door Elias, 1SS2 ; see also the Life by John of Asia in Land, Anecd. Syr., ii. 169. 3 73.0., ii. 54. Dissert, de Syrorum Fide et Disciplina in Re Eiicharistica, 1859, pp. 62-97. 5 See Land, Anecd. Syr., ii. 105. Ibid., p. 108. 7 Ibid., iii. 250 sq. _ 8 Compare what is said of his fine library and of its ultimate deposition at Amid, ibid., p. 245. 9 B.O., ii. 54. 1 See Bar-Hebrseus, Chron. Eccles., i. 267, 289, and comp. pp. 258, 295, 321 ; Hoffmann, Avssuge, p. 162, note 1260. n Wright, CataL, p. 1124, No. 5. 12 See for example, Brit. Mus. Add. 17134 (Wright, CataL, p. 330). 13 Cited in Brit. Mus. Add. 14731 (Wright, CataL, p. 855). 14 Usually corrupted into Baradteus ; the form Burde'aya seems to be incor- rect ; see Bar-Hebrreus, Chron. Eccles., ii. 97. '5 See Land, Anecd. S>/r., ii. 375. IB Comp. also ii. 326, 331. 17 The life at p. 249 is of course by John of Asia ; that at p. 304 ran hardly be called his in its present form, though he may have collected most of the materials ; see Kleyn, op. cit., pp. 34, 105 mi. 18 Land, op. cit., p. 365, 11. 6, 7. 19 Ibid., p. 372, 1. 2. 528 he and another monk of Telia, named Sergius, were sent to Constantinople in defence of their faith, and, being favourably received by the empress Theodora, they remained there fifteen years. Meantime the persecutions of the Monophysites, more especially that of 536-537 by Ephraim of Antioch, seemed to have crushed their party, despite all the efforts of the devoted John of Telia and John of Hephaestus." This state of matters excited the religious zeal of al-Harith ibn Jabalah, the Arab king of Ghassan, who came to Constantinople in 542-543, and urged Theodora to send two or three bishops to Syria. Accordingly two were conse- crated by Theodosius, the exiled patriarch of Alexandria, namely, Theodore as bishop of Bostra, with jurisdiction over the provinces of Palestine and Arabia, and Jacob as bishop of Edessa, with juris- diction over all Syria and Asia. From this time forward Jacob's life was one of ceaseless toil and hardship. He visited in person and on foot almost every part of his vast diocese, consecrating deacons and priests, strengthening the weak, and bringing back those who had erred from the true faith. But to restore the Monophysite Church bishops were necessary, and the consecration of a bishop required the presence of at least three others. Select- ing a priest named Conon from Cilicia and another named Eugenius from Isauria, he travelled with them to Constantinople and thence to Alexandria with letters of recommendation from the patriarch Theodosius. At Alexandria Conon was ordained bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia and Eugenius bishop of Seleucia in Isauria, whilst Antoninus and Antonius were consecrated for dioceses in Syria. On his return to Syria other bishops were appointed to sees there and in Asia, among the latter the historian John of Ephesus ; and so the work progressed, till at last Jacob's efforts were crowned by the enthroning of his old friend Sergius as patriarch of Antioch (in 544). Sergius died in 547, and the see remained vacant for three years, after which, by the advice of Theodosius, Jacob and his bishops chose Paul, an abbot of Alexandria, to be their patriarch. Of the subsequent internal strifes among the Monophysites them- selves we cannot here speak. The aged Jacob set out once more in the year 578 to visit Darnian, patriarch of Alexandria, but died on the Egyptian frontier in the convent of Mar Romanus or of Casion. Here his remains rested in peace till 622, when they were stolen by the emissaries of Zacclueus, bishop of Telia, and buried with much pomp in the monastery of Pesilta. 21 His commemora- tion takes place on 28th November, 21st March, and 31st July. Jacob's life was too active and busy to admit of his writing much. We may mention an anaphora, 22 sundry letters, 23 a creed or confes- sion of faith, preserved in Arabic and a secondary Ethiopic trans- lation, 24 and a homily for the feast of the annunciation, also extant only in an Arabic translation.- 5 Conspicuous among the scholars of this age for his knowledge of Sergius Greek, and more especially of the Aristotelian philosophy, was of Sergius, priest and archiater of Ras'ain. He was, however, ifRils'ain. Zacharias Rhetor may be trusted, a man of loose morals and ava- ricious. 26 He journeyed in 535 from Ras'ain to Antioch to lodge a complaint before the patriarch Ephraim against his bishop Asylus. 27 Just at this time the exiled Severus of Autioch and Theodosius of Alexandria, as well as the Stylite monk Ze'ora, were living with Anthimus of Constantinople under the protection of the empress Theodora. This alarmed Ephraim, who seems to have found a willing tool in Sergius. At any rate he sent him to Rome with letters to Agapetus, who travelled with him to Constantinople in the spring of 536, and procured the deposition and banishment of the Monophysites. Sergius died at Constantinople almost imme- diately afterwards, and Agapetus followed him in a few days, wherein John of Ephesus and Zacharias Rhetor clearly see the judgment of Heaven. 23 As a man of letters Sergius was to the Monophysites what Probus was to the Nestorians : he was the first 29 to make them acquainted with the works of Aristotle by means of translations and commentaries. 'Abhd-isho', it is true, gives Sergius a place in his catalogue of Ncstorian writers, 30 and states that he composed "expositions of logic" or "dialectics"; but he merely does so in the same way and on the same grounds that he registers the name of Jacob of Edessa as the author of "annals and a chronicle." 31 The books were too valuable for him to insist on the heresy of the writers. In the case of Sergius there was an additional reason. The man was well known in the East, 32 many of his works being dedicated to his friend and 20 rbid., p. 176. 21 See the account of this "translation" by Cyriacus, bishop of Marde (Maridin), in Brit. Mus. Add. 12174 (Wright, Catnl., p. 1131). 22 Translated by Renauclot, ii. 333. 23 Translated from the Greek originals in Brit. Mus. Add. 14602 ; see Wright, CataL, p. 701 ; Kleyn, op. cit., pp. 164-194. 24 See the Arabic text in Kleyn, op. cit., p. 121 sq.; the Ethiopic version has been edited by Cornill in Z.D.M.d., xxx. 417 sq. 25 Bodl. Hunt. 199 (Payne Smith, CataL, p. 448, No. 5). 26 Land, Anecd. Syr., iii. 289, 11.13-15 ; comp. Bar-Hebraeus,C7f ro?!.7v'c7t>s., i. -07. 27 Bar-Hebrseus (Chron. Eccles., i. 205) has Ascolius (see also B.O., ii. 323), but Asylus is correct; see Anecd. Syr., iii. 289, 1. 6, and Kleyn, Johannes van Telia, p. 59, 1. penult. 28 Land, Anecd. Syr., ii. 19; iii. 290. 29 Bar-Hebraeus, Chron. Syr., 62 (traus., p. 59); see also the Hist. Dynast., 150 (trans., p. 94) and 264 (trans., p. 172). 30 B.O., iii. 1, 87. 31 n,i,l.. '2>. 32 He may even be identical with the Sergius mentioned by Agathias as XXTT. 105