A Conference Commemorating the 700Th Anniversary of Abdisho Bar Brikha

H-Mideast-Medieval A Conference Commemorating the 700th Anniversary of Abdisho bar Brikha

Discussion published by Salam Rassi on Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Syriac Christianity at the Crossroads of Culture: A Conference Commemorating the 700th Anniversary of Abdisho of Nisibis

Pontificio Istitito Orientale, Rome

8-9 November 2018

The ancient churches of the Middle East have long attracted the interest of scholars in the West. Yet the danger currently posed to them has occasioned renewed attention from mainstream audiences. One point of interest has been the Syriac tradition, once referred to by Sebastian Brock as the ‘third lung’ of Christianity (alongside the better-known Latin and Greek traditions). Embodying the tradition is the Church of the East, known variously throughout history as ‘Nestorian’ and ‘East Syrian,’ and which today refers to itself as the Assyrian Church of the East. With its historic base in Iraq, the Church of the East once constituted a vast, global entity that spread as far west as Cyprus and as far east China, and produced several prominent thinkers throughout the Middle Ages, some of whom were instrumental in the transmission of Greek thought into the Islamic world. Alongside its Chaldean Catholic counterpart, the Church of the East of today maintains a strong presence in northern Iraq and Iran, eastern Syria, and southern India, with diasporas across Europe, Australia, and North America.

Arguably the most important author from this tradition is the polymath ʿAbdīshōʿ bar Brīkhā (d. 1317), metropolitan of the ancient See of Nisibis. He flourished in a period of literary efflorescence known as the Syriac Renaissance—an era marked by an openness to Islamic philosophy, science and literature—and wrote works in both Syriac and Arabic. He excelled in several ecclesiastical disciplines including religious poetry, theology, apologetics, and canon law, and is even known to have written on alchemy and other esoterica. His famousCatalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers enabled early modern orientalists to reconstruct the history of Syriac literature, and continues to be mined for information by scholars. More importantly, ʿAbdīshōʿ’s popularity has endured among members of the Church of the East, who regard him as one of their most foundational theologians, poets, and canonists.

Citation: Salam Rassi. A Conference Commemorating the 700th Anniversary of Abdisho bar Brikha. H-Mideast-Medieval. 10-17-2018. https://networks.h-net.org/node/8330/discussions/2806150/conference-commemorating-700th-anniversary-abdisho-bar-brikha Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Mideast-Medieval

Yet, for all his importance, ʿAbdīshōʿ’s works have been scarcely studied in wider disciplines. This conference will discuss ʿAbdīshōʿ’s significance for Syriac studies and adjacent subjects. In addition to discussing ʿAbdīshōʿ himself, papers will touch on his Syriac Christian, Armenian, and Muslim contemporaries. In doing so, we aim to throw light on the multi-lingual and multi-religious environment that shaped this remarkable figure’s ‘thought-world.’ Attention will also be paid to ʿAbdīshōʿ’s legacy and reception in later centuries, with focus on the manuscript tradition, editions, and translations of his works. By marking the 700th anniversary of ʿAbdīshōʿ’s death this conference hopes to open the field of late medieval Syriac and Christian Arabic studies to a wider audience, and discuss prospects for future research and collaboration across subject areas.

For more information, contact [email protected]

PROGRAM

Thursday, November 8 09:00 OPENING SESSION

Welcome by R.P. David NAZAR, SJ Rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute

His Holiness, Mar GEWARGIS III Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East

His Eminent Beatitude, Louis Raphaël I Card. SAKO Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans

OPENING LECTURE Salam RASSI (University of Oxford) ‘A Most Obscure Syrian’: Situating ʿAbdīshōʿ in the History of Syriac Christianity and Beyond

11:00 SESSION TWO: Historical Setting and Reception Chair: Barbara ROGGEMA

Marco BAIS (Pontificio Istituto Orientale) La metropolia nestoriana d’Armenia: Barda‘a e Akhlat

Hidemi TAKAHASHI (University of Tokyo) Barhebraeus and the Church of the East

Heleen Murre-van den BERG (Radboud University Nijmegen) ʿAbdīshōʿ bar Brikha and the (Re)making of the Church of the East in the Ottoman Period

Emidio VERGANI (Pontificio Istituto Orientale) Traduzioni e fortuna di ʿAbdīshōʿ in latino: qualche linea di indagine

13:00 Lunch

15:00 SESSION THREE: Theology, Philosophy, and Liturgy Chair: Emidio VERGANI

Mar Awa ROYEL (Bishop of California) The Role of Mar ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis in the Sacramental Theology of the Assyrian Church of the East

Theresia HAINTHALER (Hochschule Sankt Georgen Frankfurt) ʿAbdīshōʿ’s Presentation of Christology in his ‘Libri de Margarita’

Bert JACOBS (KU Leuven) A Dissident Voice to the Spirit of the Syriac Renaissance? The Heresiological Project of Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī

Samuel NOBLE (KU Leuven)

17:00 Coffee break

17:30 PLENARY SESSION

Chair: David TAYLOR Sebastian BROCK (University of Oxford) ‘Let us now Praise Famous Men’ (Sir. 44:1): ʿAbdīshōʿ and his memra on Syriac Books

Friday, November 9 9:00 SESSION ONE: Language and Poetry Chair: Hidemi TAKAHASHI Helen YOUNANSARDAROUD (Freie Universität Berlin) The Preliminary Results of the Edition and Translation of ʿAbdīshōʿ’s Maqāme (Paradise of Eden)

David TAYLOR (University of Oxford) Beyond Paradise: The other Poetry of ʿAbdīshōʿ bar Brīkhā

Samir Khalil SAMIR, SJ (Pontificio Istituto Orientale) Splendeur de la poésie arabe: la prose richement rimée (musaǧǧaʿ) de ʿAbdīshōʿ

Margherita FARINA (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) Ms. Petermann 9: Bar Zo‛bi’s Grammar and the Texture of Knowledge in 13th Century

11:00 Coffee Break

Hubert KAUFHOLD (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) ʿAbdīshōʿ bar Brikha und seine juristischen Werke

Barbara ROGGEMA (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) ʿAbdīshōʿ on Judaism and Interactions with Jews

Lev WEITZ (Catholic University of America) Islamic Law in ʿAbdīshōʿ, ʿAbdīshōʿ in the Islamic World

13:00 Lunch

14:30 SESSION THREE: Manuscript Cultures and Transmission Chair: Marco BAIS

Grigory KESSEL (Austrian Academy of Sciences & University of Manchester) East Syriac Manuscripts of the 11th – 14th century: Observations on some Notable Features

Gianmaria GIANAZZA (Independent Researcher) Originalità degli scritti di ʿAbdīshōʿ in arabo

Anton PRITULA (State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg) ʿAbdīshōʿ bar Brikha’s Impact on the Literature of the Second Syriac Renaissance during the Ottoman Period

István PERCZEL (Central European University, Budapest) An Incomplete Survey of the Manuscripts of ʿAbdīshōʿ in India

Mar Aprem MOOKEN (Metropolitan of Malabar and All India) The Study of the First Indian Edition of the Marganitha of Mar ʿAbdīshōʿ bar Brikha Printed in Mar Narsai Press, Thrissur

17:00 Coffee break

17:30 PLENARY SESSION Chair: Theresia HAINTHALER

Herman TEULE (KU Leuven) ʿAbdīshōʿ, a Genuine Representative of the Syriac Renaissance?

BRIEF COMMUNICATION Georges-H. RUYSSEN, SJ (Pontificio Istituto Orientale) Book Announcement: The Assyrian-Chaldean Question and the Vatican, 1908-1938

18:30 CLOSING REMARKS Salam RASSI (University of Oxford)