The Translations of Isaac of Beth Qa™Raye (Isaac the Syrian)

ARAM, 11-12 (1999-2000), 475-484 S. BROCK 475 FROM QATAR TO TOKYO, BY WAY OF MAR SABA: THE TRANSLATIONS OF ISAAC OF BETH QA™RAYE (ISAAC THE SYRIAN) SEBASTIAN BROCK One might well wonder what a seventh-century Syriac monastic writer, usu- ally known as Isaac of Niniveh, or Isaac the Syrian, has to do with a confer- ence on Cultural Interchange in the East of the Arabian Peninsula, but one of the very few details that are known of Isaac's life is the fact that he originated from Beth Qa†raye, the region of the west coast of the Gulf. This information is provided, not only by our two prime sources on Isaac's biography, the East Syriac monastic history (ktaba d-nakputa) by Isho{dnaÌ, and the Syrian Ortho- dox biographical note published by Rahmani, but also by two thirteenth-century manuscripts of Isaac's works which describe him as “the holy Mar Isaac Qa†raya, bishop of the town of Niniveh”.1 It is often forgotten that the west side of the Gulf was an important centre of Syriac Christianity in the seventh century, and Beth Qa†raye was the place of origin of a number of important Syriac writers of that time.2 By far the most famous of these is Isaac of Niniveh. The one chronological peg to which Isaac's life can be attached is the state- ment, in the Syrian Orthodox biographical note, that “when the Catholicos Mar Giwargis came to the region (sc. of Beth Qa†raye), he took him (sc. Isaac) to Beth Aramaye”, and in due course consecrated him as bishop of Niniveh. Giwargis reigned as Catholicos from c.659-680, and he is known to have made a journey to Beth Qa†raye in 676. It is thus likely, though not certain, that it was on this occasion that he took Isaac back with him, and if this was so, then Isaac will probably have been born around the third or fourth decade of the seventh century, about the time of, or shortly after, the date of the Hijra. Isaac in fact resigned from the bishopric after only five months, and spent the re- mainder of his life as a hermit (iÌidaya) in the mountains of Khuzistan (the 1 Chabot, J.B., Isho{denaÌ, Liber Castitatis (Rome, 1896), ch. 124; Rahmani, I.E., Studia Syriaca, I (Charfeh, 1904), 33. Both notices are translated into English in [Miller, D.], The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, (Boston, 1984), lxv-lxvi. The two manuscripts are Mardin 46 (used by Bedjan for his edition) and Seert 76; the latter is almost certainly to be identified with the present Paris syr. 359 (where “Qa†raya” is no longer legible, according to Briquel- Chatonnet, F., Manuscrits syriaques de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France (no. 356-435), (Paris, 1997), 25). 2 See my “Syriac authors from Beth Qatraye”, in the present volume, above, pp. 85-96. 476 FROM QATAR TO TOKYO biographical sources mention the mountain of Matut and the monastery of Rabban Shabur, neither of whose location is precisely known, although the latter was somewhere near Shustar/Tustar). Isaac died in old age, leaving exten- sive writings on the spiritual life which were perhaps only put into writing near the end of his life. As they survive today, Isaac's main writings have been transmitted in two “Parts”: “The First Part (palguta)” consists of 82 chapters or homilies, while “the Second Part” contains 41 chapters, of which the third consists of four “Centuries” on spiritual understanding. From the point of view of the present paper it is the First Part which is of prime concern, since it alone came to be translated into Greek, in the late eighth or early ninth century – only a century or so after Isaac's death (the precise date of which, however, remains unknown). This Greek translation is known to have been made by the monks Abramios and Patrikios at the famous monastery of St Saba, near Jeru- salem.3 THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST PART The Monastery of St Saba (Mar Saba) was – and is – a Chalcedonian Ortho- dox monastery under the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and in communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, whereas Isaac belonged to the Church of the East, whose christology was regarded by the Byzantine Orthodox as, at best unsatisfactory, and at worst heretical (and hence nicknamed “Nesto- rian”).4 This makes it something of a puzzle to know how a monastic writer of the so-called “Nestorian” Church of the East came to be translated into Greek in a monastery which was a stronghold of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. From the scattered sources for this period one can in fact find several hints of links between the Church of the East (located in modern Iraq, Iran and the Gulf area) and Palestine during the seventh and eighth centuries.5 Thus, for example, in the middle of the seventh century the East Syriac Catholicos Isho{yahb III (the predecessor of Giwargis who consecrated Isaac bishop) corresponded with the clergy of Jerusalem in friendly terms,6 and we also know that several monks from the Church of the East made pilgrimages to the Holy Places of Palestine. Furthermore, there were evidently a few monastic 3 This information is explicitly given at the beginnig of Greek manuscripts containing the translation. 4 For the misleading nature of this traditional western designation, see my “The ‘Nestorian’ Church: a lamentable minomer”, in Coakley, J.F. and Parry, K., The Church of the East: Life and Thought = Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, (Manchester), 78:3, (1996), 23-35. 5 These are indicated in more detail in my “Syriac into Greek at Mar Saba: the translation of Isaac the Syrian”, forthcoming in Patrich, J. (ed.), The Sabaite Heritage. 6 Latin translation in Duval, R., Isho{yahb III, Liber Epistularum, (CSCO 12, Scr. Syri 12; 1905), 177-8. S. BROCK 477 establishments of the Church of the East in Palestine itself. A mosaic inscription from one of these, situated in the vicinity of Jericho, even mentions the names of several East Syriac monks, two of whom can actually be identified from literary sources.7 We also know from extant manuscripts that certain East Syriac monastic texts were circulating among and read by Syriac-speaking Chalcedonian Orthodox monks in Palestine. In the light of all this, although we still do not know exactly how the Syriac text of the First Part of Isaac's writings reached the Chalcedonian Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba, the fact that it did is a little less surprising than might at first sight have seemed. Isaac's Greek translators, the monks Abramios and Patrikios, must have been working from a manuscript that, on the one hand, did not have all the homilies of the First Part, but which, on the other hand, also included five texts not by Isaac, but which, once in Greek, were regularly attributed to Isaac. These five texts can fortunately all be identified: four are by another East Syriac monastic writer, John Saba (John the Elder), also known as John of Dalyatha (and in Arabic as al-sheikh al-ruÌani), who belongs to a couple of generations later than Isaac.8 The fifth text surprisingly turns out to be an ab- breviated form of a monastic letter by the famous Syrian Orthodox theologian and author, Philoxenos of Mabbug (died 523).9 The Greek translation of Isaac this pleasingly brings together all three Syriac christological traditions – the Church of the East and the Syrian Orthodox providing the text, and the Chalcedonian Orthodox undertaking the translation. The earliest witness to the Greek translation of Isaac's writing happens to be a ninth-century fragment which was discovered at the beginning of this century in the Qubbat al-hazna of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus.10 Once in Greek, Isaac's writings quickly proved popular in monastic circles, to judge both by the number of manuscripts, from all subsequent centuries, and from the fact that excerpts from his homilies feature in a number of monastic an- thologies, in particular in the popular Synagoge (“Collection”) compiled by Paul Evergetinos in the early eleventh century.”11 7 See Fiey, J.M., “Rabban Buya de Shaqlawa et de Jericho”, Proche Orient Chrétien, 33, (1983), 34-38. The inscription was published by Baramki, D.C., and Stephan, St.H., “A Nestorian hermitage between Jericho and the Jordan”, Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, 4, (1934), 81-86, plates LII-LIV. 8 Thus Greek Isaac, homily 2 = John Saba, Discourse 20; Greek Isaac, hom. 7 = John, Disc. 8; Greek Isaac, hom. 43 = John, Disc. 1; Greek Isaac, hom. 80 = John, Disc. 22. 9 In the Greek Isaac this is the Letter to Symeon, at the end. The full form of the Syriac original of Philoxenus' Letter to Patricius was published by Lavenant, R., in Patrologia Orientalis, 30 (1963). 10 See Treu, K., “Remnants of a majuscule codex of Isaac Syrus from Damascus”, Studia Patristica, 16:2, (1985), 114-20. 11 For details, see my “Isaac the Syrian”, in Conticello, G.C. and others (eds), La théologie byzantine (Turnhout, forthcoming). 478 FROM QATAR TO TOKYO OTHER EARLY TRANSLATIONS FROM THE SYRIAC ORIGINAL Before continuing with the subsequent history and influence of the Greek Isaac, however, a brief glance should be given to the other early translations, besides the Greek, of the First Part which were made directly from Syriac. What may be the earliest witnesses to these are single homilies translated into Georgian and into Arabic, both preserved in early manuscripts actually written at the monastery of Mar Saba.

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