BOOK REVIEWS

Martin Tamcke, ed. Orientalische Christen zwischen Repression und Migration. Beiträge zur jüngeren Geschichte und Gegenwartslage. Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 13. Münster, Hamburg, and London: LIT-Verlag, 2001. Pp. 210. ISBN 3-8258-5472-8. Paperback. Euros 17.90.

REVIEWED BY CORNELIA B. HORN, SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY [1] Upon the initiative of Dr. Helga Anschütz and since their sixth meeting held in Hamburg in 1999, the annual assembly of the German-speaking Working Group Middle East (Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient = DAVO) includes a panel on issues that are of relevance for the study of the Christian Orient in contemporary times. The volume under review presents a selection of papers delivered at the sixth annual meeting, as well as papers presented at the seventh annual meeting, held in Mainz in 2000. [2] One of the stated interests of the annual panel is to highlight the study of the modern-day situation of Oriental Christians in the “diaspora” in the West. This emphasis is pursued more or less explicitly in about half of the twelve papers printed in the book. Subsequent meetings of the same group have seen a continued interest in this initiative. [3] The spectrum of Eastern Christian cultures, countries, and languages represented in these articles ranges from examples taken from Georgia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, to examples taken from Israel/Palestine and Egypt. Many of the papers included in the volume constitute reports on work in progress. In some instances the contributions summarize studies that have been presented in fuller form in other places. In general, the book is written to be accessible to a broader audience. [4] Two contributions to the volume focus on Christianity in the Caucasus. The first paper in the collection considers Protestant influences on Christianity in that area. In connection with work done for a dissertation on German-speaking, Protestant missionaries from Basel (Switzerland) and Hermannsburg (Germany) to colonies of German-speaking settlers in Georgia in the nineteenth century, Andreas Groß (“Mission und Endzeiterwartung in Katharinenfeld,” pp. 9-16) discusses 65 66 Book reviews

theological developments affecting life in the village of Katharinenfeld during that time period. His main interest focuses on the impact, that the expectation of an imminent beginning of the end-times had on baptismal practices among the colonists as well as on separatist initiatives, including a planned migration to Jerusalem led by Anna Barabara Spohn and reigned in by military control and lack of divine support. By far the longest article in the book is a contribution by Martin Tamcke (“Arnim T. Wegners ‘Die Austreibung des armenischen Volkes in die Wüste’—Einführung zum unveröffentlichten Vortragstyposkript vom 19. März 1919 in der Urania zu Berlin,” pp. 65-135). As an expert on Arnim Wegner’s role as eye-witness to the Armenian Genocide at the end of World War I., Tamcke provides the editio princeps of Wegner’s type-written manuscript for a lecture he delivered on March 19, 1919, at the Urania in Berlin, a lecture that turned its audience of Germans, Armenians, and Turks violent towards one another by way of a graphic depiction of atrocities committed against Armenians on their deportation from their homes in Armenia / Eastern Turkey. The edition, or rather the de facto exact reproduction of the manuscript, is intended to allow the reader some direct insight into Wegner’s way of working on a text (so Tamcke, p. 73, fn. 9). It seems that a photo reproduction of the manuscript could have served the same purpose. Comments in English added to the manuscript at a later point in time reveal Wegner’s intentions of eventually publishing an English translation of the text. Tamcke’s introduction to the material supplies helpful immediate historical context to the tensions Wegner experienced as well as created with his decision to speak up on the Armenians’ fate, for which Germans were partially responsible in Wegner’s view. [5] Four papers treat questions pertaining more immediately to Syriac-speaking Christians. Shabo Talay (“Die Christen in der syrischen Ğazīre [Nordostsyrien],” pp. 17-30) describes the development and settlement process of Syrian and Armenian Christians in the province of Ḥasake in north-eastern Syria with its center in Qamishly. Independent of the more recent military and political developments in the neighboring country of Iraq, which have made life more difficult for Christians in this region of the Middle East, Talay’s report, written prior to the American invasion of Iraq, highlights three points. The increasing agricultural and

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economic difficulties caused by the lack of rain in the region, the decline in business relationships with Turkey and Iraq because of a deterioration of political stability, as well as the population growth among Kurds and Muslims in the region emerge as the three main factors that prompt those Christians from the region who can afford it to emigrate to the West. Addressing related issues in the same region, Wolfgang Schwaigert, a Protestant pastor from Württemberg, (“Die Partnerschaft zwischen dem evangelischen Kirchenbezirk Blaubeuren und der syrisch-orthodoxen Metropolie Djazira wa’l-Furat/Hassake in Nordostsyrien,” pp. 31-37), shares news about an innovative and thus far unheard of ecumenical partnership established between the Protestant ecclesiastical district of Blaubeuren in southern Germany and the Syrian-Orthodox metropolitan district of Djazira wa’l Furat in Ḥasake, north-eastern Syria. The collaboration was initiated through personal encounters and initially focused on the establishment of an ecumenical, interreligious, and educational center in Tell Wardiat. The partnership continues on, furthering mutual contacts through visits, through studying the theological traditions and languages of the respective partners, through supporting financially those in the diaspora who wish to return to Syria, as well as through encouraging projects in the humanitarian realm. The explicit aim of this ecumenical partnership is to strengthen and enable Christians to remain settled in this region in Syria. [6] Helga Anschütz is the author of two further papers on aspects of the contemporary situation of Syriac-speaking Christians. The first shorter paper (“Die Überlebenschancen der syrischen Christen im Tur Abdin/Südosttürkei und im Irak,” pp. 39-42) addresses factors that evaluate the long-term prospects of a Christian presence in the regions of the Tur Abdin, south-eastern Turkey, as well as in Iraq. While Anschütz, also writing before the US invasion of Iraq, still had positive expectations for the Christian presence there, her analysis of the situation in the Tur Abdin is less promising. Restrictions regarding the exercise of Syriac language instruction for children, the discrimination of young men from the Syriac-speaking Christian community in military service, and repeated acts of forced expropriations of real estate property of Christians, as well as the gentrification of the Syrian-Christian population in the homeland and a desire on the part of Christians in the Tur Abdin to join family members who have reached a status

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of financial security in the West are key reasons that continue to contribute to the depopulation of the Christian landscape in south- eastern Turkey and to draw people to move westward. This tendency only intensifies a behavior that already characterizes the life of those who have gone into the diaspora. They suffer from a sense of loss of their roots and identity and they compensate for this by placing all their hopes in the acquisition of material goods. [7] In her second contribution (“Die Auswirkungen von Aktivitäten westlicher Missionare, Wissenschaftler und Hilfsorganisationen auf die ostsyrischen Christen im Orient und in ihren neuen Heimatländern,” pp. 137-143), Anschütz reconsiders the impact of the work of Catholic and Protestant missionaries, western scholars, and Christian as well as humanitarian relief organizations on the fate of the East Syrian Christian community both in the Middle East and in the diaspora. The activities of none of the three types of groups is seen as a blessing for the community. [8] Werner Arnold (“Volksglaube bei den Aramäern in Ma‛lūla,” pp. 145-165) reports on progress made in connection with research towards a collaborative, ethno-geographic monograph on the West Aramaic-speaking village of Ma‛lūla. Based on interviews Arnold conducted with the villagers, he presents a summary of their beliefs in saints and demons and characterizes their convictions regarding vows, the evil eye, magic, and the protection against evil. Arnold’s decision to include numerous excerpts in German translation from responses he received in his interviews leaves the reader with the impression of a close, almost personal encounter with many of his interviewees. Michael Marten (“Representation and misrepresentation in 19th century Lebanon—Scottish and American Protestant missionaries in conflict,” pp. 167-183) contributes the only article not written in German. Based on archival research in Scotland and the US, his paper examines the founding of the Lebanese mission of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland (FCS) in the 1870s. The heart of his article is a presentation of differences of perception and self-representation that are found in the reports of British and American observers of the 1869/1870 visit of Alexander Duff (convener of the Foreign Missions Committee of the FCS) and John Lumsden (representative of the interdenominational Lebanon Schools Committee) to Protestant schools in Beirut and throughout Lebanon. Alexander Duff, for

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whom “the key element in mission work was the school” (p. 174), did not perceive any reasons for possible conflict with already established missionary and educational activities of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Syria. The Americans, however, represented in Marten’s discussion through the views of D. S. Dodge and H. H. Jessup, felt that the Scottish visit was an intrusion into territory that was already established both as an area of American missionary influence and as a region in which a reformed/Protestant Syrian church presence had taken root. Although Duff and Lumsden had misrepresented American views in their reports to their own constituencies, in the end, the American side agreed to and generously collaborated with the de facto establishment of the presence of the FCS in Lebanon. From the American perspective, the goal of attracting Muslims to the Christian faith was better served by Protestant Christians acting in unison with one another than by furthering an image of quarrelling and divisiveness among Christians, an impression too familiar to Muslims, who according to Marten’s assessment of American voices (p. 183) had witnessed for centuries the struggles, schisms, and splits of Latin and Greek Christians. [9] Two papers are dedicated to the study of Christians and the Christian church in Israel/Palestine. Drawing from his demonstrated expertise on the history of the Christian Church in the Holy Land, Friedrich Heyer (“Die Arabisierung der Kirchen im Heiligen Land,” pp. 43-52) presents a helpful overview of the process of acceptance of Arabic as the language used in liturgical celebrations as well as of communication in everyday affairs by Christians in the Holy Land. Building upon the work of Sidney H. Griffith for the early period of the process of Arabicization of the Christian communities starting in the 8th and 9th centuries, Heyer carries his discussion through to the end of the 20th century. It is of interest to note that while from the early 18th century the upper echelons of the ecclesiastical hierarchy actively promoted the use of Arabic in the liturgy by having printing-presses mass produce liturgical texts in Arabic, most parishes resisted that move, despised the Arabic texts, and preferred to copy by hand the liturgical texts in Syriac for use in their liturgical services (p. 45). This resistance to Arabic linguistic influence on the inner life of the church is in contrast to popular aspirations towards securing access for Arabic- speaking native Christians of the Holy Land to positions of

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influence and power within the church hierarchy as well as within the economic and political sphere of public life in Palestinian society. For the modern period, Heyer helpfully highlights the initiatory role of the Maronite Butrus al-Bustani in the rise of Arab Nationalism, the ascendancy and role of the Latin patriarch Michel Sabbah, of the Orthodox publisher Hanna Siniora, the Orthodox professor and politician Hanan Ashrawi, as well as of the representatives of Protestant churches united in the Middle East Christian Council of Churches. [10] Paul Löffler (“Zur Lage palästinensischer Christen heute,” pp. 53-63) analyzes the modern-day situation of Palestinian Christians in their home country. To the factors more frequently recorded in the scholarly literature, Löffler adds what he calls the “factor of attraction,” which is noticeable in the aspirations of young Palestinian Christians. Having received a quality education at Christian schools, which emphasized Western values and perspectives on life, these young people are among the top group of potential and successful emigrants to the West. In a second section, Löffler highlights the relationship between Palestinian Christians and the problem of the Palestinian secular authorities: he sees as positive the relations of Palestinian Christians to them, and briefly emphasizes the influence of “Palestinian liberation theology” and “contextual theology” as instruments that move Christians in Palestine to reformulate their reservations towards Israel as well as their rejection of Israeli oppression against Palestinians. Löffler dedicates the final part of his presentation to a discussion of aspects of the inner structure of the Christian Palestinian community. While he notes that in more recent times the number of mixed marriages between Christians of different denominational backgrounds has increased, he also observes that the pressures of secularization manifest themselves in the hardening of denominational boundaries, a phenomenon that can be observed more widely in the Christian Orient in recent years. In the “Holy Land” of Palestine, however, this factor takes on a special character because of the proportionally larger presence of non-native, western Christian denominations, which heighten the fear of estrangement from their traditions among indigenous Christians. A fuller discussion of ecumenical efforts on the local level could have balanced the picture drawn in this article.

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[11] The volume concludes with two papers that treat Coptic Christianity in Egypt and abroad. Michaela Köger (“Die Mittwochabendveranstaltungen von Papst Shenouda III in Kairo,” pp. 185-199) analyzes the role of Pope Shenuda III as chief pastor and theologian in a global church. In particular, Köger focuses here investigation on aspects of Shenuda’s pastoral-theological concern and strategy displayed and pursued in his weekly, two-part meetings with Coptic laypeople in Cairo. In the first half of these meetings the Pope answers questions raised by the audience on biblical and theological issues as well as on issues pertaining to the practical aspects of the life of the Christian in the modern world. The second half is dedicated to a 45-minute-long sermon on theological issues, spirituality, or on the aspects of the practical side of the religious life. The systematic use of the internet as well as of electronic data recording to spread collections of the “questions and answers” have helped Pope Shenuda develop and maintain a personal and direct rapport in his role as key pastor of the Coptic Church. In the year 2000 and under the editorial leadership of Archbishop Mar Gregorius Johanna Ibrahim of Aleppo, the Syrian- Orthodox Church published a two-volume reedition of a ten- volume collection of Shenuda’s answers to questions posed to him throughout the years. Wolfram Reiss (“Die Koptisch-Orthodoxe Kirche an der Wende zum 21. Jahrhundert: Von einer Nationalkirche zu einer internationalen christlichen Konfession,” pp. 201-210), whose dissertation studied the Sunday-School movement in the Coptic Church, presents data that updates Otto Meinardus’s discussion (“The Coptic Church towards the End of the 20th Century: From a National to an International Christian Community,” EkTh 12 [1993], 431-472) of the impact of the emigration of Copts into the Western diaspora on the structures of the Coptic church. Reiss’s scant narrative frames tabular listings of data on the global spread of the Coptic Church and lists ways in which contacts are being established and strengthened between the mother Church in Egypt and the parishes and dioceses in the diaspora. Reiss clearly sees emigration as a factor that positively contributed to the strengthening of the Coptic Church worldwide. In his conclusion, he remarks, “the Coptic-Orthodox Church has not yet faced the questions posed by the scientific criticism of religion, by the Enlightenment, and by modern, scientific theology,” but instead still displays “a rather fundamentalist

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approach to the Bible, and adamantly adheres to a belief in Marian apparitions even in modern times, to an excessive cult of [venerating] relics, to patriarchal and hierarchical structures, as well as to a firm fixation of [traditionally defined] gender roles” (p. 210). This conclusion appears not only to describe the author’s perception of the church, but also seems to reflect a Eurocentric and uncontextualized perspective. [12] Given that several of the contributions are working-papers, some of the results and conclusions can only be preliminary. That preliminary quality is also reflected in occasional typos in the book (e.g., p. 67, l. 18: drop the second “aus”), inconsistencies in translating Arabic book titles into German in otherwise well- structured bibliographies (p. 198), or inconsistencies in the transliteration of foreign names within a single article (e.g., “Schenute” vs. “Shenoude,” pp. 204 and 210). The level of bibliographical documentation likewise varies from article to article. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that interest in contemporary aspects of research pertaining to the Christian Orient is being cultivated among both senior and junior scholars in Europe, here primarily from among Protestant traditions. Also it is worth replicating an approach that attempts to integrate more fully and more prominently studies of the Christian Orient into the wider context of Middle and Near Eastern Studies. Establishing and promoting regular panels for the study of contemporary issues affecting Syrian Christians in the Americas within the framework of the North American Syriac Symposium and for the study of the Christian Orient at the annual meetings of the Middle East Studies Association of North America may very well be worthwhile initiatives.

Mathunny John Panicker. The Person of Jesus Christ in the Writings of Juhanon Gregorius Abu’l Faraj Commonly Called Bar Ebraya. Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 4. Münster, Hamburg, and London. LIT-Verlag, 2002. Distributed in the US by Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick and Piscataway, N.J.). Pp. 239. ISBN 3-8258-3390-9. Euros 30.90.

REVIEWED BY CORNELIA B. HORN, SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY [1] Responding to a perceived one-sided rapprochement between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches at the expense of the Assyrian Church of the East, which took place at Chambésy, Switzerland, in 1990, Wolfgang Hage repeatedly has called attention to the timely relevance of Gregory Barhebraeus (A.D. 1226-1286).1 One may agree with him that this universally respected and appreciated leader of the Syrian Orthodox church is to be considered as an early model of how one may respectfully engage in dialogue with representatives of other Christian denominations, in Barhebraeus’s case both the “Chalcedonians” and the so-called “Nestorians,” without condemning either of the two as heretics. Just prior to the publication of the book here under review, Karl Pinggéra explored in outline the historical development of Barhebraeus’s Christology by focusing on three texts: a) Barhebraeus’s treatise On the Incarnation, which constitutes the fourth treatise of his main speculative theological work, the Candelabra of the Sanctuary, as well as b) Barhebraeus’s Letter to the Catholicos of the Church of the East, Mar Denḥā I, who held office from 1265 to 1281, and c) chapter four of the more spiritually and mystically oriented Book of the Dove.2 It is to be warmly welcomed that with Dr. Mathunny John Panicker, a member of the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church who now teaches at the seminary in

1 See Wolfgang Hage, “Ecumenical Aspects of Barhebraeus’ Christology,” The Harp 4.1-3 (1991), 103-109; and idem, “Chambésy 1990 und zwei syrische Stimmen aus dem Mittelalter,” in Trinitäts- und Christusdogma. Ihre Bedeutung für Beten und Handeln der Kirche. FS für Jouko Martikainen, eds. Jobst Reller and Martin Tamcke, Studien zur orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 12 (Münster, Hamburg, and London: LIT-Verlag, 2001), 9-20. 2 See Karl Pinggéra, “Christologischer Konsens und kirchliche Identität. Beobachtungen zum Werk des Gregor Bar Hebraeus,” Ostkirchliche Studien 49 (2000), 3-30, see also there p. 5, fn. 11. 73 74 Book reviews

Kottayam, one of Barhebraeus’s own spiritual descendents engages this same line of ecumenically motivated inquiry into thirteenth- century Christology. [2] Panicker’s study, a dissertation accepted at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, situates Barhebraeus’s life and work against the political and religious background of Muslim, Byzantine, Crusader, and Mongol conquests and interactions from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries on the one hand and ecclesiastical developments within the Syrian Orthodox church at the time on the other. In some places the reader may come to conclusions that differ from those Panicker reached regarding individual aspects of Barhebraeus’s biography. A case for Barhebraeus’s Jewish origins, for example, made on the basis of his father’s name, Aaron, combined with the information provided in the Karshuni inscription over his gravesite in the monastery of Mar Mattai, where Gregory and his brother Barsauma are identified as “children of Hebrew? (Ebro ?)” (p. 29, fn. 55) may be judged as stronger than the case made for deriving Barhebraeus’s name from the adjective ‛ebrāyā, a word itself derived from the noun ‛ebrā (“seashore,” “crossing”) (see p. 29). Likewise, Panicker’s dismissal of Budge’s suggestion that Barhebraeus’s mother may have been of Arab extraction (pp. 29-30) appears to rest solely on a presumed equation of Arab with Muslim and neglects the equally likely alternative identification of Arab with Christian; that this is not Panicker’s thought throughout his work becomes clear from p. 207. This reviewer nevertheless appreciates Panicker’s generally ample documentation for and presentation of disagreeing positions, which allow one actively to engage the material and formulate one’s own conclusions in the process. Panicker concludes his first chapter by providing a helpful and sufficiently detailed classification and brief description of Barhebraeus’s written works. The categories of exegesis, liturgy, theology, philosophy, canon law, history, grammar, science (mathematics, astronomy, and medicine), and poetical and literary productions show Barhebraeus as a man of truly renaissance-style expertise. [3] In chapter two, Panicker discusses Barhebraeus’s general methodology which he uses throughout his work and thus also when presenting his Christological thought. The spectrum of Barhebraeus’s sources is remarkable, ranging from Scripture, the Church Fathers, and synodal acts and canons, to historical works,

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texts by pagan philosophers, and works of Islamic authors, primarily the eleventh-century al-Ghazali, to whom Barhebraeus is indebted in his later, more mystical works, and the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi, to whom Barhebraeus refers in his treatise On the Incarnation. Key to Barhebraeus’s methodological approach to Christology, as Panicker highlights, is that although the author is “convinced that his own christological formula is the orthodox one” (p. 49), in his list of the thirty “very dangerous heresies” at the end of the treatise On the Incarnation, he does not include the “Chalcedonians and Nestorians.” Rather, these two groups belong for Barhebraeus to those who “only dispute over the definition of the union (in Christ), because all of them agree in the doctrines of [the] Trinity and of the preservation of the natures out of which Christ was made, without change and mixture” (pp. 49-50; modified; see also p. 206). In his discussion of Barhebraeus’s methodology, Panicker, moreover, emphasizes that Barhebraeus submitted himself to a principle of selection of prooftexts from patristic authors that was in accord with this conciliatory spirit. Thus, Barhebraeus did not “cite a Father as an authority to confirm his position against those who do not accept him as their Church Father” (p. 55). Cyril of Alexandria, for example, is only cited against Chalcedonians, but not against members of the Church of the East, as Panicker points out. Likewise, Barhebraeus also applied that same principle in situations of interreligious relevance. Views of Jews or Muslims that challenged the possibility of the incarnation are not countered by citations from church fathers, given that these authorities are not accepted by the respective dialogue partners. Panicker argues for Barhebraeus’s originality on the basis of the thirteenth-century author’s conscientious and astute handling of the patristic evidence. The ecumenical and interreligious dimensions of Barhebraeus’s approach seem equally illustrative of his religious and political sensitivity and invite further investigation. [4] In chapters three and four (pp. 65-170) Panicker paraphrases and summarizes the argument of the treatise On the Incarnation. The main concern of chapter three of Panicker’s study is the question of the possibility of the incarnation. Presenting in its first half the positions of ancient christological heretics, including the lesser known Nepos the Egyptian (p. 75) and “Oudi of Edessa” (p. 78), the second half of chapter three rephrases Barhebraeus’s response

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to objections raised against the incarnation on the basis of rational arguments (pp. 85-95), as well as those raised by Jews (pp. 95-101) and by Muslims (pp. 101-120). [5] Chapter four focuses on the question of the mode of unity of the natures in Christ. Its first part consists of an exposition of the range of terms (ousia, ithutho, iyo, kyono, qnumo, parsupho, yuqne, tuphso, methbarnshonutho, methbasronutho, iḥidoyutho, and naqiphutho) and their definitions that are crucial to how Barhebraeus formulated his Christology (pp. 121-131). This discussion as such is helpful and to be welcomed. Yet unfortunate misspellings (missing “t” in “sought” [p. 121]; “word” instead of “world” [p. 125, fn. 430]; “Shemeon” instead of “Senoun” [p. 129]) as well as imprecise or awkward expressions (“Ousia is a Greek word, which is used in Syriac either ousia or ithutho to correspond to it.” [p. 122]), that were not removed from the study or corrected before publication, have the effect of distracting the reader’s attention through a displayed lack of precision and attention to details, so necessary in foundational sections like this one. [6] The second, main part of chapter four is divided into three sections in which Panicker lays out how Barhebraeus responded to objections raised by Dyophysites (not “Duophysites” [p. 131]) (pp. 131-153), Eutychians (pp. 153-158), and the followers of Julian of Halicarnassus (pp. 158-169). The length of the discussion devoted to those two last parties over and against which “Chalcedonians and Nestorians” can agree with Barhebraeus reveals that the author of the treatise On the Incarnation had an interest in finding and defining common ground between himself and those whom he did not identify as heretics, the “Chalcedonians and Nestorians,” by characterising their shared opponents. This reviewer also notes especially the continued relevance and broad scope of the question of Theopaschism discussed between Chalcedonians and Syrian Orthodox Christians in the thirteenth century (pp. 149-152), given that already during the time of the immediate aftermath of Chalcedon in the context of Syria-Palestine this question appears to have played not the only but a decisively contributing role in the self-definition of anti-Chalcedonian identity. [7] Both in chapter three and in chapter four Panicker helpfully embeds quotations of key passages in his discussion. While the range of church fathers, whom Panicker references in explanations in his footnotes, includes the classical Greek patristic authorities

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like Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, and others, not surprisingly the two most audible voices are those of Severus of Antioch and Philoxenus of Mabbugh, the first only slightly outweighing the latter. A short discussion of this selectivity could helpfully have been included in the study. [8] Chapter five consists of a systematic presentation of Barhebraeus’s Christology. This section also includes the presentation of Christological statements from Barhebraeus’s biblical commentaries (pp. 113, and 185-191). In his conclusions, Panicker accepts, though with some hesitance, the designation “diplophysitism” (not “diplophysetism;” p. 203) as the appropriate description of the characteristic feature of Barhebraeus’s Christology. This term, as Panicker acknowledges, was introduced into the discussion by Hage in 1991 (see Hage, “Ecumenical Aspects,” 106). Panicker sees that for Barhebraeus “Jesus Christ is one double nature.” That Barhebraeus’s expression here differs from Severus of Antioch’s ύπόστασις σύνθετος,3 is a point which Panicker does not develop. In his conclusions, Panicker also accepts “miaphysite” as a fitting term to characterize Barhebraeus’s position (p. 207, fn. 739). [9] In his general conclusions following chapter five (pp. 205-212), Panicker highlights especially the harmonious relations between Barhebraeus and the respective incumbents of the office of Catholicos of the Church of the East, as well as the respect in which Barhebraeus was held by Muslims. For Panicker, Barhebraeus lived out the ideal of ecumenism by holding on to the right belief of his own church and at the same time reaching out and communicating across the boundaries of denominations. Using the formula of the “one incarnate nature of God the Word,” Barhebraeus admitted, as Panicker sees it, that this “formula was not enough to conserve the faith in its fulness” (p. 208). He held on to it, since he thought it was better than what others had to

3 On this term, see Joseph Lebon, Le monophysisme sévérien. Étude historique, littéraire et théologique sur la résistance monophysite au concile de Chalcédoine jusqu’à la constitution de l’Église jacobite (Louvain: Excudebat Josephus van Linthout Universitatis Catholicae Typographus, 1909), 319- 322; and Joseph Lebon, “La christologie du monophysisme syrien,” in Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 1: Der Glaube von Chalkedon, ed. by Aloys Grillmeier and Heinrich Bacht (Würzburg: Echter-Verlag, 1951), 425-580, here 272-277.

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offer. Nevertheless, he worked on the assumption that all three groups, Chalcedonians, Oriental Orthodox, and the Church of the East, professed the same truth of the faith in Jesus Christ. Thus, according to Panicker, Barhebraeus’s example forcefully mandates to establish “an immediate dialogue in Christian charity, patience, and openmindedness” (p. 211; modified) also with the Church of the East on the basis of the shared common faith in Christ. [10] It is praiseworthy that Panicker’s work provides the English- speaking scholarly audience with convenient access to Barhebraeus’s Christological thinking, at least in its earlier phase, before the thirteenth-century theologian became Maphrian of the East,4 or at most during his first year in office (Panicker, The Person of Jesus Christ, 37). Yet one has to bemoan problems of accuracy in the use of language, even problems with basic grammar (e.g., subject-verb agreement [numerous times, e.g., p. 22]; hypercoristic grammatical forms [“slained” instead of “slain;” p. 37]; confusing punctuation; tenses; misuse of or omission of necessary prepositions; etc.) and expression (see example cited above, to which others, e.g., on p. 207, could be added), which are almost to be expected in a work composed in English by a non-native speaker of English, under the direction of non-native speakers of English in Italy, and published under the direction of non-native speakers of English in a publishing house in Germany. Unless copy-editing of such works is entrusted to the hands of language professionals or native speakers, improvement of the linguistic quality of such works, which immediately influences their effectiveness of communication among an English-speaking audience, is not achievable. While being aware of the increasing costs of producing books in the field of Christian Oriental studies, this reviewer suggests a) that this question should be taken seriously in order to improve the quality and presentation of research results in the field of Christian Oriental studies, and b) to foster closer international collaborations between native and non- native English-speaking scholars in the field, whatever their level of documented achievement may be, who may be willing and open to proofread a work before it goes to print. These comments are not

4 On the dating of Barhebraeus’s On the Incarnation, see H. Koffler, Die Lehre des Barhebräus von der Auferstehung der Leiber, OCA 81 (Rome, 1932), 33-40; and Pinggéra, “Christologischer Konsens,” 6.

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meant to suggest that the author of a given work does not also share the burden of responsibility for accuracy of his own work. In the present case, simple typographical errors (e.g., “Angles” instead of “Angels” [p. 36], or the homophonic confusion exemplified by “inhabitance” instead of “inhabitants” [p. 23, fn. 10]), can be caught by the eye of the attentive reader, native or non-native speaker. Also note that the abbreviation “CHABOT, ‘Deux textes’” (e.g., pp. 110, 111, 117-119 and in the bibliography) is misleading and should read “NAU, ‘Deux textes.’” [11] Moreover, it is necessary to comment on the scope of discussion of the subject matter presented in the book. The title of Panicker’s study leads one to expect a comprehensive and exhaustive treatment of Barhebraeus’s Christology. Yet although the author collects and summarily evaluates Christological statements also from Barhebraeus’s biblical commentaries, the clear focus and perspective of the analysis of Barhebraeus’s Christology is determined by material gathered from the thirteen-century theologian’s early work, the Candelabra of the Sanctuary. This, moreover, entails that Barhebraeus’s explicit conviction of the superiority of his doctrinal position, which shaped his thinking during those early years more so than later on, constitutes the basis for Panicker’s presentation, despite all references to ecumenical efforts. These two structural and systematic limitations of Panicker’s study prevent the book under review from being comprehensive and exhaustive in its treatment of the subject matter. [12] Panicker refers merely in passing to the Letter to Catholicos Denḥā (pp. 45 and 206). He notes that this letter is “[a] christological and historical treatise” (p. 45). Yet his study never explores the Christological content of this work any further, thus lacking in comprehensiveness at least in this instance. Pinggéra’s discussion of the Letter to Catholicos Denḥā, on the other hand, has suggested and convincingly demonstrated that there is a connection between a group’s theological, even Christological, identity, and that same group’s view of church history. While Barhebraeus’s main Christological statements in the Letter to Catholicos Denḥā do not differ from those in the Candelabra of the Sanctuary, in its second half, the Letter consists of a presentation of the early history of the Christian church in Persia, from its beginnings into the sixth century. Very great emphasis is laid on Barsauma of Nisibis’s

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efforts, beginning with the Synod of 486, to introduce and sustain a dyophysite Christology of Antiochene flavor among the faithful in Persia. In this process, Barsauma’s support of “Nestorianism,” according to Barhebraeus’s presentation in the Letter, went hand in hand with furthering the moral decline of the bishops by allowing them to marry. Barhebraeus emphasizes that before Barsauma entered the Persian realm, no one there had ever heard of the two- nature teachings. Situating his opponent’s Christology in a concrete, and therefore also historically and geographically limited context, Barhebraeus manages to present his own theological positition not only as the earlier, and therefore as the orthodox one, but also as that of the oikoumenē. To what extent such a claim to global presence can still be open to “ecumenical” tolerance would have to be questioned. Moreover, Panicker clearly knows of and cites a passage from Barhebraeus’s later work, which demonstrates the significant, even radical shift in the maphrian’s attitude to Christological disputes and controversies. In his concluding pages, Panicker quotes a passage from the Book of the Dove, likely written after 1279, that has Barhebraeus confess that he had become “convinced that these quarrels of Christians among themselves are not a matter of facts but of words and denominations. For all of them confess our Lord to be wholly God and wholly man without mixture, without confusion or mutation of natures. This bilateral likeness is called by some nature, by others person, and by others hypostasis. So I saw all Christian people, notwithstanding these differences, possessing one unvarying equality. And I wholly eradicated the root of hatred from the depth of my heart and I absolutely forsook disputation with anyone concerning confession” (p. 208; modified). [13] Yet in his subsequent comments, Panicker draws no consequences from such a dismissal of the relevance of “disputation with anyone concerning confession.” Instead, he reverts to a characterization of Barhebraeus as confessing Cyrillian dogma (p. 208), in line with Severus of Antioch, representative of “the faith of the early undivided Church” (p. 209), for whom “[t]he Nestorian interpretation of union by will and love alone is not acceptable” (p. 209), and who “rejects the Duophysetic [sic] formulas” (p. 209). When Panicker explains that Barhebraeus knew

Book reviews 81 that “Chalcedonians and Nestorians” did not “intend to affirm” what their formulas express and therefore saw no need to “call them heretics” (p. 209), he limits Barhebraeus’s overall position to that held in his On the Incarnation. Panicker fails to see here Barhebraeus’s change of mind prompted by a deepening of mystical insights into his religion through contacts with both Syrian mystical writers and Muslim philosophers like al-Ghazali and expressed in the Book of the Dove, a position, which indeed makes him a model of ecumenical dialogue “not yet fulfilled” (p. 210). The deeper reason for this oversight or neglect, which in the end affects Panicker’s ability to see true ecumenical potential and power in the theologian he is studying, is the limitation of not giving sufficient space and consideration to the intrinsic connectedness between theological formulations and their conditioning by historical developments, including developments and radical changes in an individual’s perception of his faith over time. Future studies of Barhebraeus’s Christology will benefit from being able to expand further on the handy building-blocks which Panicker’s systematic theological study of Barhebraeus’s earlier Christology contributes to the foundation.

Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, revised edition, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2004, Pp. xvi + 395. Paperback, $60.00

REVIEWED BY ROBERT A. KITCHEN, KNOX-METROPOLITAN UNITED CHURCH [1] Many of us grew up with this book in its first incarnation, and are indebted to the way Fr. Robert Murray has shaped our thinking and constructed our categories about things Syriac. For many a topic in Syriac patristics, one needed to go back to Symbols of Church and Kingdom in order to see what Murray had thought. [2] A lot has happened and changed in the 30 years since the Cambridge University Press first edition, and Murray takes pains to note the progress. The body of the text remains largely intact, while the introduction is where Murray’s and Syriac scholarship’s development is reflected. New bibliographical references since 1975 abound, being marked by #. [3] This being the first book on Syriac patristics that I read in the mid-1970’s, I approached reading it again “as if for the first time.” That did not turn out to be such an easy task, for just as when one rereads a classic of world literature, like Don Quixote or Moby Dick, it is revealing and humbling to see how little you then knew and how little you remember. [4] Murray amends the original paragraph of his “Introduction” by noting that Syriac scholarship has advanced greatly since 1974, yet there are still miles to go. The scope of the book remains the Syriac literature and historical developments prior to the fifth-century schism, focusing primarily upon the works and imagery of Aphrahat and Ephrem. Above all, the environment in which Murray does his investigations is the Biblical imagery and exposition of the Syriac tradition. [5] Numerous scholars have essayed short introductions to the history, culture, and literature of the Syriac-speaking church, and Murray’s contribution retains its position as one of the most lucid, as well as most comprehensive. One area he recognizes needing revision is the problematic origins of Christianity in Syriac-speaking areas. Whether Edessa is “the main cradle of Christianity in the whole Syriac language area” remains the first question. Murray has rewritten this section, noting the subsequent contributions of Sebastian Brock, Hans Drijvers, J. B. Segal, and Michael Weitzman.

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[6] In his first edition, Murray had adopted the hypothesis that Adiabene was the first cradle. However, the lack of any extant Christian Syriac other than Edessene, as well the force of Weitzman’s conclusions on the origins and the development of research on the Syriac Old Testament have led Murray back to Edessa. [7] Adiabene was favoured in some circles because of the witness of the disputed Chronicle of Arbela. Summarizing the back and forth debate, especially J. Assfalg’s and J. M. Fiey’s rejections of its authenticity, Murray is generally convinced by P. Kawerau’s new edition and verification of the text. [8] Murray recognizes significant adjustments must also be made with regards to the status of the Syriac Old Testament, now escorted into a new era by the Leiden Peshitta Institute. Turning away from the so-called “targumic” theories regarding the provenance of the Peshitta, Murray asserts the influence of Michael Weitzman’s work. Weitzman believes that Jews initially translated the Syriac Old Testament for Jews, in which the translation reflects a gradual moving away from cultic and ritualistic emphases to those grounded in prayer, faith and charity. This move perhaps opened the door towards Christianity. Weitzman believes that the argument for Edessa as the place of origin is stronger than for any other locale. Nevertheless, the possibility of a “double origin” is still there; but for the time being, Edessa is the place to start. [9] The study of encratism and other forms of sexual asceticism has not remained static since the first edition. Murray amends slightly his perspective on the forerunners of Syriac asceticism: Bardaisan, Quq and Tatian. Likewise, his treatment of the bnay qyāmā (“sons of the covenant”) benefits from further research, including his own, into this important, but enigmatic ascetical institution. [10] Murray turns to the previous debate regarding the liturgical elements surviving in Aphrahat’s seventh demonstration. Aphrahat’s baptismal ceremony is “a call to holy war,” leading to focus on the senses and functions of the Qyāmā and the īḥīdāyē (“solitary ones”). He finds support in the recently edited Cambridge Genizah targum fragment that interprets Joshua’s second circumcision in a similar fashion to Aphrahat. [11] The early relationship between Judaism and the Church in the Syriac regions is rehearsed. Anti-Judaism polemics in Aphrahat and

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Ephrem derive from concerns about Christians reverting back to Judaism. This leads back to the place of the Bible, particularly the composition of the Syriac Bible, the Peshitta, and then the Diatessaron as the Bible of his primary authors. [12] The increase in the study of Syriac liturgy likewise is such that Murray can do little more than summarize. Key to the discussion are the multivalent uses of the word rāzā (“mystery”), which is Murray’s title word, also rendered “symbols.” [13] The important role of the various Christian schools is reviewed: first Nisibis, then Edessa, and finally back to Nisibis. The hierarchy and life of these schools, Murray observes, were not far removed from the structures and patterns of contemporary Jewish academies. [14] The third section of the introduction, “The Literature and the Writers,” is limited to the works and authors Murray will treat in the main part of his book. Still, that gives the reader an excellent overview on the important literary works of the early classical period. [15] Murray begins with a fuller perspective on the Odes of Solomon, informed now by the critical edition of M. Latke, the French translation of M.-J. Pierre, and numerous new studies on the Odes, their nature and their provenance. He is now willing to concede a bilingual (Syriac/Greek) origin in the Syro-Palestinian region, but is sticking by the conclusion that the Odes are not gnostic, and may be an early Christian wisdom collection. [16] Murray has rewritten his introduction to Ephrem, adjusting and amending subtly his prior observations. In particular, he offers kudos to Sebastian Brock’s monograph, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Cistercian Publications: Kalamazoo, MI, 1985), for its contributions to Ephrem’s use of rāzā/symbols in his theological method, Ephrem’s “spiritual world vision.” Murray too has added a significant article—“The Theory of Symbolism in Saint Ephrem’s Theology,” Parole de l’Orient 6-7 (1975-76). Murray has not withdrawn his earlier praise of Ephrem as the greatest poet of the patristic age, even standing alongside Dante as a theologian-poet. [17] Murray recognizes that some works, while not written by their ascribed author, nevertheless contribute important language and symbolism to his project. His focus is not upon an author, but the milieu and the period, i.e., the Mēmrē on the Blessing of the Table, and

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the anti-Marcionite Explanation of the Gospel. Other authors and works are noted—Cyrillona, Marutha of Maipherqat, the History of Nicaea, and the Liber Graduum (The Book of Steps). Murray’s comments on the latter text remain a seminal analysis of the importance, place, and spirit of the enigmatic text. [18] The book is divided into three units: (1) the introduction to the Syriac Church and the literature focused upon in this study; (2) seven chapters describing in detail the recurrent symbolic and typological themes found in the Biblical interpretation and imagery of Aphrahat, Ephrem and other authors and texts; (3) a long concluding essay, “In Search of the Sources” (Part II), that traces the traditions and roots of the Syriac exegesis and imagery he has described. [19] The second and third units are largely unchanged from the first edition, although Murray appends to each chapter and to Part II additional notes that are primarily supplemental bibliography. [20] Murray treats each theme in a narrative style imitative of much of Syriac exegesis itself. He describes the theme, then weaves citations and discussions of the principal and other relevant authors throughout the chapter. The discussion is not linear as much as it is circular, going around and around, witnessing to the variety of ways the topic is approached. There is a dizzying amount of material to be absorbed, but one of Murray’s best tools is his set of three tables in the Appendices on “Testimonia that the Gentiles have Replaced the ‘Nation’,” “Christ the Stone or Rock,” and “Titles of Christ” (pp. 350-363). [21] One almost takes for granted the graceful efficiency of Murray’s innumerable translations of Aphrahat, Ephrem, and so many others, rendering vividly the poetry of these types and symbols. Following is a summary of the central chapters surveying these wide ranging types and symbols. [22] Chapter 1, “The Nation and the Nations,” follows the typological employment of the Church (the Nations) becoming the successor and replacement of Israel (the Nation) in salvation history. Aphrahat and Ephrem are the primary writers, with Isaac of Antioch contributing several important passages. Murray finds it regretful that Ephrem expresses open enmity towards the Jews, though Aphrahat still understands himself in dialogue with the synagogue.

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[23] Chapter 2, “The Body of Christ,” switches to the symbolic appropriation of the human body of Jesus to express the development of the Church. Searching for a sense of a “corporate personality” uniting the Church, Murray is disappointed that Aphrahat and Ephrem never seem to perceive such a self- awareness. The paucity of discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church is of concern as well. The typology of Christ as the Second Adam is the most striking, found primarily in Ephrem’s Commentary on the Diatessaron. [24] Chapter 3, “The Vineyard, the Grape and the Tree of Life.” Linking the symbolism of Christ as the Vine of John 15 with Isaiah’s vineyard imagery, early Syriac authors played heavily, yet ambivalently on words. Especially was this the case with the Diatessaronic choice of karmā, “vineyard,” that enabled our primary authors and Cyrillona to demonstrate both the rejection of Israel, as well as the continuity of the Church through Christ, the grape in the cluster. [25] Chapter 4, “The Church, Bride and Mother,” draws together familiar themes at play throughout Biblical and patristic literature, that is, the Church as the Bride of Christ, the Bridegroom, and images extending from it. Feminine typology is very evident in Syriac literature, as witnessed in Ephrem’s depiction of Mary as the Second Eve, the fusing of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene as proclaimers of the resurrection, and the Church as Mother in Aphrahat and especially in the Liber Graduum. A personal typology is attached to the bishop as the spouse or bridegroom of the Church in the stead of Christ. [26] Again, there are things that Murray does not see adequately represented in these symbols. Despite the emphasis upon feminine roles, a full understanding of marriage is not really there, though Murray allows for the reticence towards the institution in a church so invested in sexual asceticism. [27] Chapter 5, “Titles Shared by Christ and other Apostles or Bishops.” Of the titles of Christ there is seemingly no end. Murray’s 10-page table lists over 130 titles and names, utilizing The Acts of Judas Thomas as the base for the list. Reiterating that his intention is to correlate the names and titles of Christ to the function of the Church, Murray places many other examples aside for another study. Befitting such a large field of examples, Murray offers the broadest and most in depth survey of the book. Ephrem,

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Aphrahat, Cyrillona, Marutha, the Macarian Homilies only begin the census. [28] Searching for a cohesive Syriac ecclesiology amidst all the names is an elusive quest, for these are employed largely in devotional and liturgical modes, rather than theological. Moreover, Murray keeps pointing out that the multiplication of these names almost certainly owes its legacy to Babylonian, even Sumerian, traditions, as well as Jewish midrashic sources. [29] Chapter 6, “The Rock and the House on the Rock.” As with the singularity of karmā in Chapter 3, here kēphā, “rock,” is the Syriac word that ties together the Church, Christ and the Apostles. Syriac authors did not limit themselves to Matthew 16:18 for symbolism, drawing upon a number of Peshitta Old Testament texts that utilized kēphā. [30] Kēphā became a functional title for Peter in Aphrahat and Ephrem similar to the way certain passages emphasized the Hebrew roots of the name Jesus (Joshua) to mean “Saviour.” [31] The House on the Rock (Matthew 7:24-25) is the other primary symbol/typology for Christ and the Church. Christ is the Architect, a title originally denoting God, now shared with Christ and the Apostles. Ephrem contrasts the Church with the Tower of Babel, eventually transforming the Church into the Tower that really leads to heaven. [32] Chapter 7, “The ‘Pilgrim Church’ and Its Fulfilment.” The term “pilgrim church” is adopted by Murray from the Second Vatican Council to refer to the Church’s eschatological vocation, a theme comfortable to early Syriac Christianity. Indeed, concern over the Last Things consumes so much energy that seldom is the Church in this world and time mentioned. Murray spends significant energy on the 12th mēmrā of the Liber Graduum because of its unique depiction of the relationship between the visible, earthly church and the heavenly church. The 12th mēmrā is translated in full, the first translation into English of any part of the Liber Graduum until recently. [33] A point of tension and conflict for the fourth- and fifth- century Church lay in the individualistic asceticism of the Sons of the Covenant (bnay qyāmā) that rarely saw or expressed itself as active in the visible Church. The focus of these ascetics was upon reentering the eschatological paradise, rather than being involved in the concerns of the local church.

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[34] The third section of the work, “In Search of the Sources,” is Murray’s most significant. After identifying and describing the symbols and types utilized in early Syriac literature, Murray labours here to excavate one level deeper to the literary sources behind the rāzē. Jewish midrashic and targumic traditions are noted first, while the contributions of the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Great Church are searched for antecedents and common perspectives. Frequently, Aphrahat and Ephrem witness to universally held ideas, though it is apparent that these were independently conceived. The opportunities for our Syriac writers to have directly borrowed from their western contemporaries are minimal, if not doubtful. Nevertheless, Murray is quick to observe the cases in which the Syriac writers took a different path along the way. The more problematic realms of Gnostic and nebulous Judeo-Christian perspectives, along with assorted apocryphal writings, are scoured for origins and allusions. [35] Although the narrative of this book flows gracefully, this is not a quick read. Murray deals with complex layers of tradition and a variety of hermeneutics that tempt him—by his own admission— to lead the investigation from time to time a little far afield. His discussion of the images and exegesis of many authors needs to be digested slowly. Sometimes one has to neglect the larger picture in order to absorb the witness of a particular author or text. [36] There are no pretensions to a definitive completeness. In his own words, Murray is “sitting lightly” for others to add more evidence and potentially reinterpret the many facets of this study. Gratitude is due to Gorgias Press for providing the opportunity to reissue and renew this work. Unfortunately, technical constraints prevented a thorough updating of the book, so despite the new material Murray has added to the text and bibliography, many readers will know of an additional article or book treating the topic at hand. Hopefully, eventually, someone will revisit these themes and provide us with a new “Murray.” That will be no mean accomplishment.

Stephen Desmond Ryan, O.P., Dionysius Bar Salibi’s Factual and Spiritual Commentary on Psalms 73-82. Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 57. Paris, J. Gabalda et Cie, 2004. Pp. xix + 251. ISBN 2-85021- 156-4. € 35.00.

REVIEWED BY LUCAS VAN ROMPAY, DUKE UNIVERSITY [1] Dionysius bar Salibi, one of the central figures in the Syriac cultural and literary “Renaissance” of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, has received much attention from Syriac scholars as well as from Syrian-Orthodox Christians who kept his name and legacy alive up to the present day. Many of Dionysius’ writings, however, are so vast and their transmission so complex that they have defied scholarly attempts to produce critical editions and studies. [2] Dionysius’ biblical commentaries pose their specific problems. For several biblical books two or three different commentaries exist, while the underlying biblical texts have been identified as either Peshitta or Septuagint (or Syro-Hexapla). In the absence of scholars willing to devote their whole lifetime to studying and publishing the entire corpus of Dionysius’ commentaries, numerous limited studies of individual commentaries, or parts thereof, were undertaken throughout the twentieth century— mainly in academic theses and dissertations (which often remained unpublished)—thereby causing a fragmentation of the field. As for the textual tradition, a great number of manuscripts have been located and identified, through the efforts of Arthur Vööbus and, more recently, Gabriel Rabo. Unfortunately, many of the Middle Eastern manuscripts are not easily accessible or are available in the West only in unsatisfactory microfilm copies. [3] At first sight, Stephen Ryan’s monograph, devoted to the interpretation of only ten psalms (Pss. 73-82), seems to add just one more publication to the fragmented field of the study of Dionysius’ biblical interpretation. This first impression, however, proves to be wrong. This study has much more to offer! Due to its broad and comprehensive approach, its thoroughness, and its rigid methodology, we are in fact dealing with an exemplary piece of work, which sets new standards for future research on Dionysius. [4] The two introductory chapters (“The Life and Work of Dionysius Bar Salibi” and “Previous Studies on the Biblical Commentaries”) provide an excellent survey of existing scholarship, commenting on an impressive number of studies, 89 90 Book reviews

many of which—as mentioned above—did not lead to official publications. Chapter Three addresses the distinction between “factual” and “spiritual” interpretation, terms that are often used to characterize the double or multiple commentaries that exist for each biblical book. While Dionysius himself uses the terms sucronoyo and ruḥonoyo, the distinction is not always very rigid and commentaries are regularly described—by him or by later scribes— as “factual and spiritual” (at the same time) or “mixed” (mfattko). While for some biblical books the factual commentary is longer than the spiritual one, for other books it is the non-factual commentary (i.e., “spiritual,” “mixed,” or “factual and spiritual”) that is longer. This raises the question of the interrelationship and the hierarchy between the two types. Ryan argues that the original layout of Dionysius’ commentaries was in synoptic columns, a layout preserved in two early manuscripts (Z = Mardin Orthodox 67, between the 12th and the 14th centuries, and R = Mardin Orthodox 66, probably 1189 AD). Parallels for this bipartite, or tripartite, layout may be found in Michael the Great’s Chronicle, in which the materials are organized in three columns, devoted, respectively, to ecclesiastical history, civil history, and mixed materials—see particularly Dorothea Weltecke, “Originality and Function of Formal Structures in the Chronicle of Michael the Great,” Hugoye 3/2 (July 2000), and Ead., Die «Beschreibung der Zeiten» von Mor Michael dem Grossen (1126-1199) (CSCO 594 / Subs. 110; Louvain, 2003), 163-178. Just as the ecclesiastical history in the case of Michael, Dionysius’ spiritual commentary, deemed of greater importance, was originally placed in the “superior,” i.e., right hand column. [5] Basing themselves on, and partly misled by, some of Dionysius’ own comments, previous scholars often assumed that the factual commentaries were based mainly on the Peshitta, while the spiritual commentaries had the Septuagint, or the Syro- Hexapla, as their basis. Ryan shows this assumption to be wrong. The high concentration of Syro-Hexapla quotations in the mixed commentary of Pss. 1-26 is due entirely to the fact that this section, as indicated by Dionysius himself, was copied from the Psalm Commentary of Andrew of Jerusalem, supposedly of Greek origin. In other parts of his work, in both the factual and non-factual commentaries, Dionysius used the Peshitta primarily. The limited number of quotations close to the Greek (and often explicitly

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referred to as “Greek” or “Seventy”) must have been part of Dionysius’ borrowings from Greek sources. Most of them are unrelated to the Syro-Hexapla. [6] This brings us to the question of Dionysius’ sources, which is discussed in Chapter Four. Dionysius himself explicitly mentions “the work of Andrew, the priest of Jerusalem,” which he used in his mixed commentary of Pss. 1-26, and “Athanasius and Daniel and Zurco the Nisibene,” authors used from Ps. 27 onwards. While a detailed analysis of all the data on Andrew and Zurco does not lead to an identification of these authors, we are on firmer grounds with Athanasius (of Alexandria) and Daniel (of Ṣalaḥ). Ryan argues that the long Syriac form of Athanasius’ Commentary on the Psalms was known to Dionysius, while contacts with the short version may also be detected (both versions were published by R.W. Thomson, in CSCO 386-387 / Syr. 167-168, 1977). As for Daniel of Ṣalaḥ, Dionysius’ commentary shows correspondences with the longer version of Daniel’s commentary (in the process of publication by David Taylor) as well as with an abbreviated edition of this work, often attributed to Daniel “of Tella,” and possibly posterior to Dionysius. In addition to Moshe bar Kifo, whose “Introduction to the Psalms” Dionysius himself may have incorporated into his own work, one other important source for Dionysius’ factual commentary—not acknowledged by him!—can be identified, namely the ninth-century East Syrian commentator Ishocdad of Merv (published by C. Van den Eynde in CSCO 433- 434 / Syr. 185-186, 1981). Dionysius’ dependence on Ishocdad had been established as early as 1902 by G. Diettrich (Išôcdâdh’s Stellung in der Auslegungsgeschichte des Alten Testaments) and is now further substantiated by Ryan. [7] Chapter Five deals with the manuscript tradition. Nine manuscripts—five preserved in Western collections and four in the Middle East—were used for the edition. Nine more manuscripts, mostly of a recent date, were discarded or could not be accessed. As appears from the stemma, three Mardin manuscripts (all three from Deir ez Za‛faran) emerge as the primary witnesses: mss. Z and R (mentioned above) as well as ms. A (Mardin Orthodox 69); R and A go back to the same (lost) Vorlage (Y). The three manuscripts all seem to belong to the 12th-14th centuries. Ryan explains in great detail his editorial method, which aims at establishing an eclectic text, choosing “the best text for each

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reading, assigning the other readings to the apparatus” (p. 107). In this process, ms. P (= Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Syr. 66, AD 1354—an indirect descendant of R) serves as “a reference text.” The reason for not working from a clear base manuscript (in which only the obvious errors and omissions would have to be corrected) is that ms. Z, the obvious candidate, was available only in a defective microfilm (preserved in the Vööbus Collection at the Institute for Syriac Manuscript Studies, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago). [8] Chapter Six is the most substantial part of the book, offering the critical edition, and translation of Pss. 73-82. The factual commentary is presented first (p. 110-143), followed by the mixed commentary (p. 144-211). The latter normally is longer than the former, while within the mixed commentary of Ps. 74 two successive explanations are presented. Parallels to the long and short versions of Athanasius, to Daniel of Ṣalaḥ, and to Ishocdad of Merv are indicated in the translation, while footnotes provide textual comments as well as further references to authors such as Evagrius Ponticus, Severus of Antioch, and Hippolytus of Rome. The juxtaposition of the two commentaries for each psalm clearly illustrates Dionysius’ different approaches in each of them. At the same time, we see Dionysius at work, incorporating earlier tradition and building upon it, in order to create his own synthesis. Apparently in an attempt to compensate for the analytical and dissecting approach of most of the book, in a brief concluding chapter (p. 212-223) Ryan sketches the broader contours of Dionysius’ Psalm exegesis, putting him in conversation with major interpreters of the Christian (Western) and Jewish tradition. [9] Returning for a moment to the text edition, we should point out that the choice for Psalms 73-82 was dictated by the existence of an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation on Psalms 1-72, submitted by Marjorie Helen Simpkin at the University of Melbourne in 1974 and consulted by Ryan. It is to be hoped, of course, that such a major work as Dionysius bar Salibi’s Psalm Commentary, will soon be available in full, and not just in bits and pieces, in different states of accessibility. From this perspective, it is to be regretted that the present edition could not be based on the best manuscripts, thus inaugurating a homogeneous edition of the whole work. Isn’t it sad that Western scholars have to turn to poor and deteriorating

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microfilms, made several decades ago, rather than being able to consult the manuscripts themselves? [10] These remarks by no means detract from the very fine quality of Ryan’s edition and annotated translation. A very few minor suggestions are offered here. • P. 40 (in the quotation from Dionysius’ introduction to the factual commentary on the Psalms): the translation “occasions” for celloto (“their factual sense and their occasions,” i.e., of the psalms) conceals the fact that we are dealing with a technical term, reflecting the Greek hypothesis. Perhaps “themes” or “subjects” would be a better translation. • The translation of metyadcono is problematic throughout the volume. The following translations are presented: p. 28, first paragraph: “mystical” (commentary); p. 144, line 7: “spiritual” (Israel); p. 158, line 7: “metaphorical” (“metaphorical darkness or iniquity of idolatry”); p. 170, line 4: “mystical” (Israel); p. 172, line 6: “suprasensual” (beings); p. 190, line 7: “mystical” (nourishment) [tursoyo metyadcono is explained a bit further: “angels are not fed or purified or illuminated by anything else other than knowledge and revelations and the observance of the divine will,” which indicates that an intellectual process is involved]; p. 198, line 4: “mystical” (peoples). In all these instances a translation would be required that does justice to the basic meaning of “understanding” (even if different levels of understanding are involved). “Intellectual” would have been an acceptable translation in most, if not all, of the above passages. • P. 122: the Greek and Hebrew quotations of Ps. 76:10 [LXX 75:11] would deserve some explanation. While for the Greek quotation Dionysius may have been inspired by Ishocdad, he did not take over Ishocdad’s actual reading (which agrees with the Syro-Hexapla). Dionysius’ rendering of the Greek heortasei as tecbed cido “it shall make a feast” (vs. ncadced in Syro-Hexapla and Ishocdad) may reflect a non-Syro-Hexaplaric or pre-Syro-Hexaplaric reading in one of Dionysius’ sources. • P. 174, line 10: if man is taken not as the interrogative pronoun, but as representing Greek men, there is no reason

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to regard the text as corrupt: “And there is no consoler, i.e., as for consolation, I did not find one in this world.” (Athanasius’ text, quoted on p. 175, note, seems to confirm this, as it has the opposition man—dên) • P. 208, line 6: wouldn’t the addition of men be required after da-glizin “deprived of the true Father”? [11] In conclusion, Stephen Ryan is to be congratulated with the publication of this well-written, carefully presented, and almost impeccably printed monograph on a significant work by a major Syrian-Orthodox author. He has critically surveyed the whole field of research on Dionysius and laid the groundwork for important future contributions, by himself as well as by others.

Nabil Matar (ed. and tr.). In the Lands of the Christians, Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xlviii + 229. $23.95.

REVIEWED BY LINDA WHEATLEY-IRVING, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS [1] In the Lands of the Christians, by Nabil Matar1 offers the first English translations of four seventeenth-century travel narratives originally written in Arabic. Of special importance to students of Middle Eastern history is the fact that these texts are about travel to the countries of Europe and South America, while readers of Hugoye will find particularly interesting the selection by Ilyas b. Hanna al- Mawsuli, a Chaldean Catholic priest (later, bishop) of Baghdad. In this review, I wish to focus first on Matar’s introductory essay, which views the travel writings of Ilyas b. Hanna and the other authors from the perspective of current academic historical and Middle East studies. Secondly, I wish to look at Ilyas b. Hanna’s narrative more closely, and suggest another possible way of contextualizing his travels.2 [2] The collection opens with a substantial essay, introducing the travel narratives and explaining why the theme is of interest. At thirty-five pages and almost one hundred endnotes, it reads like the outline of a course that I would love to take. Matar specifically confronts a notion espoused most strongly by Bernard Lewis and in turn cited by many others, namely that Muslims of the Middle Ages were completely lacking in “curiosity” towards Europeans.3 The response of the late Edward Said, who suspected

1 Nabil Matar is Professor of English and department head of Humanities and Communication at the Florida Institute of Technology. His other works include Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (New York, 1999) and Islam in Britain: 1558-1685 (Cambridge, 1998). 2 The work of Ilyas b. Hanna al-Mawsuli has recently been given another translation; c.f. Caesar E. Farah, An Arab’s journey to colonial Spanish America: the travels of Elias al-Musili in the seventeenth century (New York, 2003). Unfortunately this study came to my attention too late to be incorporated into this review. 3 Matar, Lands, p. xiv, citing Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York, 1983), p. 299 [sic; probably p. 297 was intended]. A professor emeritus of Princeton University, Lewis is a prolific author of academic and popular works on Islam and the Middle East, and has been 95 96 Book reviews

that Lewis’ book was written as a riposte to his own Orientalism published just a few years earlier, was to wonder how Lewis could feel that knowledge about Europe was “the only acceptable criterion for true knowledge.”4 Matar’s response is to fill in the silence from which Lewis and his followers argue. [3] The theme of exploration and travel writing is already quite familiar to students of the early modern to modern history of the Middle East and elsewhere; however, Matar argues that his Arab authors can be distinguished from the bulk of contemporary, European-based travel writers: The travelers did not frame their encounter with the Europeans within the “particular myths, visions and fantasies” that characterize many (if not necessarily all) European texts. The Arabic travel accounts cannot therefore be approached through the theoretical models with which European accounts have been studied by writers as different as Stephen Greenblatt, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak. They belong to a tradition that is different not only in its history but in its epistemology: the travelers were not harbingers of an Islamic imperialism compelled to alterize and to present, in the words of Mary Louise Pratt, the “redundancy, discontinuity, and unreality” of the Christians. Rather, they wrote empirical accounts about Europe with the same precision that many of their coreligionists used to describe their journeys within the world of Islam, and in the case of the Christian travelers, within the world at large. Furthermore, and unlike the European travelers who used classical or biblical sources as their guides, the Arabs did not have previous models with which to compare or contrast Europe and America. They went with an open mind and a clean slate. And even when a traveler such as al-Ghassani went with anger and antipathy—repeatedly denouncing the nasara for having expelled his forefathers and coreligionists from Spain—he still admitted, on the first page of his account, that he had kept himself open to the wonders and innovations of the nasara. (p. xxxii, nn. 75-77.)

a prominent advisor on Middle Eastern affairs to successive American federal administrations. 4 Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered,” p. 351, in Alexander Lyon Macfie (ed.), Orientalism: A Reader (New York, 2000), pp. 345-61. Originally published in F. Barker, P. Hulme, M. Iverson and D. Loxley (eds.), Literature, Politics and Theory (London, 1986), pp. 210-29.

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One might question the “open mind and clean slate” of Matar’s authors, since it is axiomatic in literary studies today that no author ever “starts from scratch.” However, it is impossible not to notice the difference in tone between the selection of travel narratives that Matar presents, and many of those discussed by Mary Louise Pratt, which were written in the mid-eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.5 But here, as Matar admits, the issue of timing is crucial: “The seventeenth century visitors belonged to an Islamic society that appeared as powerful and as wealthy as the society of Europe. Neither Muslim nor Christian was put on the cultural or historical defensive during his European journey.”6 Similarly, it would be anachronistic to suppose that the recollections of a Briton traveling or living in the Ottoman world in the seventeenth century would be characterized by the imperialism of the nineteenth century.7 In the seventeenth century, attitudes and boundaries had not hardened. [4] Matar’s particular topic—Arab (or Muslim, or Ottoman subject; it almost does not matter) knowledge of Europe and Europeans—can easily be seen to be a response to a larger theme, represented in both academic and non-academic works, whereby the achievements of peoples of the Islamic world are held up to those of Europe’s, and found lacking. A very brief search in the library netted the next two examples of responses. Perhaps a more popular sub-theme is the purported decline of mediaeval Islamic science, especially astronomy. In a lengthy review of Toby E. Huff’s The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West (Cambridge University Press, 1993), the historian of science George Saliba notes how this decline (once argued to have been well under way in the early twelfth century) keeps having to be pushed later and later in time, as scholars start to read new manuscripts and process their findings.8 Closer to Matar’s own

5 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London and New York, 1992). 6 Matar, Lands, p. xxxv. 7 C.f. Daniel Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire, 1642-1660 (Seattle and London, 1998), pp. 3-12. 8 Saliba, “Seeking the origins of early modern science?” [review article]. Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1999):139-52. Also deflated is the often concurrently held notion that the decline in Arabic science is due to the oppressive force of Islam: the

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topic, Ahmad Dallal has written on Muslims’ “curiosity” and knowledge of Jews (particularly in Yemen), from the early modern period to the early nineteenth century.9 He notes that it is a commonplace even in relatively recent works for scholars to assert that Muslims had no positive interest in Jews and Jewish learning, thereby ignoring the large corpus of (predominantly Shi’ite Yemeni) jurisprudence and Muslim Torah scholarship.10 With so much archival material only now being made available to scholars, and so much more still under wraps, arguments that depend upon absence or paucity of evidence seem like a risky venture academically speaking, quite apart from any other goal the author may wish to advance. [5] The manuscript sources for the travels of Priest Ilyas b. Hanna al-Mawsuli, written in Arabic, are very interesting in their own right.11 One in the “Syriac Bishopric in Aleppo” contains the travel narrative in the first hundred pages, followed by over two hundred pages of translations from European authors on the discovery of America, and a fifty-five page account of the visit of an Ottoman ambassador to France. This manuscript forms the basis of Antoine Rabbat’s 1906 edition, which has been recently reprinted. The other manuscript, British Library Oriental MS 3537, omits the ambassador’s visit. [6] From the narrative we learn maddeningly little about Ilyas b. Hanna al-Mawsuli himself, a Chaldean Catholic priest whose travels took him away from Baghdad to live in Paris, Spain, and South America and Mexico for a period of fifteen years. The first seven years of his travels were spent in Europe, and this period is only covered briefly (pp. 51-6). While in France, he visited King Louis XIV and his brother the Duke of Orleans, remaining in Paris for eight months and acting as a translator into Turkish for correspondence between the king and Sultan Mehmed IV. He then visited Spain, and was granted permission to celebrate mass before

reknowned astronomer Ibn al-Shatir (d. 1375) was a timekeeper at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and a number of his contemporaries and followers “were religious scholars in their own right” (pp. 147-8). 9 Ahmad Dallal, “On Muslim curiosity and the historiography of the Jews of Yemen.” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1999):77-112. 10 Ibid., pp. 88-90, nn. 65-79. 11 Matar, Lands, p. 48.

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the child King Carlos II and his mother the regent. When he was told to request anything he desired in return, he consulted with his friends and, rather against his better judgment, asked for “a permit and an irrevocable order to visit the West Indies.”12 He sailed from Cadiz on February 12, 1675. His goal was the city of Lima, Peru, whose minister was a man whom he had met in Spain. He remained there one year before receiving permission to go to “the mountains of silver.” [7] Ilyas b. Hanna’s narrative of his travels in South America and Mexico (pp. 57-104) has a number of recurrent themes—the clerics, monasteries and churches he visited (where he often celebrated mass in Syriac for his fellow Catholics), observations about the Indians and how they were treated by the Spaniards, the number of times he fell seriously ill and was saved by the Virgin, and remarks about landscape, climate, and flora and fauna. But it is his travels through the mining regions of Peru and Bolivia that receives the most sustained treatment (pp. 67; 73-88). The bulk of this section is taken up by descriptions of visits to primarily silver, but also gold and mercury mines, processing centers and mints. He visited at least thirteen such operations, and made detailed observations of their location, size and especially their processing techniques. He even bought gold (p. 67) and some silver dust (p. 82). [8] The narrative is rather quiet as to why Ilyas b. Hanna visited these places (at considerable trouble and cost to his health), and Matar does not hazard a guess. I can only note that the priest’s intense interest in mining overlapped with a period of crisis in the Ottoman coinage supply in the later seventeenth century.13 This crisis had its roots in the sixteenth century, when silver pouring into Europe from the South American mines entered the Ottoman lands as coinage, by the later part of the century in the form of the European groschen (Ottoman kuruş), forming an increasingly popular currency alongside the Ottoman silver akçe. Ultimately, the Ottoman state silver mines in the Balkans could not compete with this cheaper source, and the mines were virtually closed by the

12 Matar, Lands, p. 56. The West Indies, India, and Yenki Dunia (the New World) seem to be used almost interchangeably. The care taken by Spain to restrict access to her American colonies is well known. 13 C.f. Sevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge UK, 2000), Ch. 8-10, pp. 131-71.

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1640s. But the influx of silver was more than matched by outflows, and the seventeenth century (not unlike the later sixteenth century) was marked by a series of debasements in the akçe, accompanied by counterfeiting. This led to currency substitution and hoarding; sources for Ottoman coinage dried up to the point where, from the mid-1650s to the mid-1680s, the minting of new gold and silver coinage in Istanbul was primarily to provide for ceremonial usage. During the reign of Mehmed IV (1648-87), only seven mints at most produced the akçe and para. But the European currency that was substituted for Ottoman had a curious feature—in the mid-seventeenth century, it was mainly copper, with a silver wash. This currency was called luigini, and it reached its peak usage between 1656 and 1669. Minted by French, Italian and Dutch merchants, it was not legal in its places of origin, but was made under contract, specifically for the Ottoman market. Both observers of the era and many modern scholars have been scandalized by this debased coinage, but, as Pamuk notes, the Ottoman empire was at war with Venice over Crete, and “debased coinage was better than no coinage.”14 The story of Ottoman currency continues with the end of the war with Venice and the currency reforms beginning in 1669, the minting of copper coinage for a brief period starting in 1688, and finally the minting of the new kuruş starting in 1690. American silver production had been in decline since 1670, to a degree that made the Anatolian and Balkan mines viable again, and these were the sources for the new kuruş. [9] The priest Ilyas b. Hanna’s travels in South America from 1676-1681 thus took place within a period of considerable economic turmoil revolving around silver. As to why he stayed in South America for six years, this seems to have been connected to some commercial expectations, partly unfulfilled because his friend the minister of Lima was dismissed during his stay. After several years the minister successfully refuted the charges against him, but was not reinstated. At this juncture, the priest left for Mexico, where he remained for a number of months before sailing for Spain. It seems that he continued in service to the Church of Rome, where he died and was buried in 1693.15

14 Ibid., p. 154. 15 Matar, Lands, p. 106, citing I. IU. Krachkovskii, Tarikh al-adab al- jughrafi al-‘Arabi (Cairo, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 701-6.

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[10] In focusing on only one of Matar’s four travel narratives, I have omitted much of interest. Readers of the book will learn of religious debates held over the dinner table, a man struggling with his feelings for a beautiful young woman, a man on a diplomatic mission who is welcomed into the bosom of a French family, and much else. These are some of the intimate and often light-hearted moments in narratives that were assembled in response to a rather serious academic issue: that of Arabic speakers’ interest in, and knowledge of Europe and Europeans. Part of the importance of this issue lies in the ease in which it can be politicized. Both the larger issue and the individual seventeenth century authors have been well served by Professor Matar.