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Home , Lateran Council (769), Maronites

CHAPTER ONE

FIRST BEGINNINGS: TESEO AMBROGIO AND THE MARONITE DELEGATION TO THE FIFTH

Probably the rst European scholar to acquire any signi cant knowledge of Syriac was Teseo Ambrogio (1469–1540). He belonged to the family of the Counts of Albonese in the Lomellina in Italy. Born in Padua, he trained as a lawyer, was ordained a priest, and entered the community of the Canons of St. John Lateran. Later in 1537 he became Provost of S. Pietro in Cieldoro in his native city.1 Teseo’s introduction to Syriac came at the time of the Fifth Lateran Council (1513–1515) to which the forty- rst Maronite , Sim’an ibn Dawud ibn Hassan, sent a delegation at the invitation of Leo X.2 The Fifth Lateran Council was thus the occasion for the introduction of Syriac into the West. We shall have cause to return to the Council, Leo X, and his learned car- dinal Egidio da Viterbo in due time. First, however, we must consider the Maronite delegation and the Church they represented.

The Maronites

The union of the Maronite in the with had been a long process that began with the arrival of the in the in 1099. The Crusaders had found eager supporters amongst the Maronites on the coast and ecclesiastical conformity developed from this amity.3 The Maronites of the mountain fastnesses however seem

1 Properly: Teseo Ambrogio degli Albonesi. Full biographical details in Levi della Vida’s article in Dizionario Biogra co degli Italiani (G. Ernest and S. Foa, Rome 1960) vol. II, pg 39–42. 2 For the Maronite delegation see: N. H. Minnich “The Participants at the Fifth Lateran Council” Archivum Historiae Ponti cae XII (1974) pg 157–206, especially pg 166–167. 3 For what follows, see: the Lebanese scholar Kamal S. Salibi “The Maronites of Lebanon under Frankish and Mamluke Rule” Arabica IV (1957) pg 288–303; also his “The in the Middle Ages and its Union with Rome.” Oriens Christianus XLII (1958) pg 92–104 with full bibliography to that date; Jean Gribomont “Documents sur les Origines de l’Eglise maronite” Parole de L’Orient V (1974) pg 12 chapter one rather to have resented Frankish rule and to have opposed union with Rome. Their opposition to the union championed by the Patriarchs made its realisation a long drawn out business. William of Tyre records the community’s abjuration of its heresy—which he portrays explicitly as —and their submission to Almeric of Limoges, Latin Patriarch of (1142–c. 1196), around 1180.4 That submission however was violently contested by the anti-union Maronites.5 Peter of Capua (1150–1209), Cardinal-priest of the Church of St. Marcellus, was sent by Innocent III with the Fourth Crusade (1202– 1204) as his Legate to the East to correct (as Rome saw it) Maronite doctrine and practice and the Oath of Union was renewed to him. A subsequent bull of Innocent however had to reinstate Peter’s corrections and shows that the matter of conformity remained controversial.6 The Maronites trace their origins to St , a Syrian hermit of the late fourth, and early fifth centuries, and to St. , (685–707), under whose leadership the invading armies of Justinian II were routed in 687. In spite of William of Tyre’s accusations of Monothelitism, their own traditions assert that they have always been orthodox.7

95–132; Frazee “The Maronite Middle Ages” Eastern Churches Review X (1978) pg 88–100. For a good general introduction: Matti Moosa, The Maronites in History (Syracuse U.P., New York 1986). A helpful modern overview and with more recent bibliography is Jean Meyendorff and Aristeides Papadakis, L’Orient chrétien et L’Essor de la Papauté (Cerf, Paris 2001 (English ed. 1994) especially pg 138–152. More speci cally: Harald Suermann, Die Gründungsgeschichte der Maronitischen Kirche (Harras- sowitz, Wiesbaden 1998). The standard modern Maronite history is: Pierre Dib, Histoire de l’Eglise maronite (2 volumes, 1962). An account of Maronite historiography may be found in K. S. Salibi, Maronite Historians of Mediaeval Lebanon (Beirut 1959: 2nd ed. Naufal Group, Beirut/Paris 1991) which I have not seen. The Maronite histo- riographical tradition is criticised by C. de Clerq in Dictionnaire de droit canonique vol. 6. pg 811–829 and C. Karalevslij in Dictionnaire d’histoire et de la géographie ecclésiastique vol. 3 pg 563–703. The Maronite Research Institute (MARI) today produces invaluable bibliographic listings and the Journal of Maronite Studies. 4 William of Tyre, Historia Rerum in Partibus Transmarinis Gestarum Lib XXII cap VIII (Migne P.L. 201 col. 856) “ad unitatem Ecclesiae Catholicae reversi sunt, dem orthodoxam suscipientes, parati Romanae Ecclesiae traditiones cum omni veneratione amplecti et observare”. 5 It is perhaps in this context of resistance that we should imagine the circumstances that led to the death of the ‘mummies’ uncovered in the exciting excavations of the Cave of Asi-l-Hadat. See: GERSL (Groupe d’Etudes et Recherches souterraines du Liban), Momies du Liban. Rapport préliminaire sur la découverte archéologique de Asi-l-Hadat (XIII siècle) (Edifra, Beirut 1994). 6 T. Anaissi, Bullarum Maronitarum (Max Bretschneider, Rome 1911) pg 2ff. This work is the source for all bulls concerning the Maronites that are cited below. 7 William’s accusations are challenged, inter alios, by R. W. Crawford “William of Tyre and the Maronites” Speculum XXX 1955 pg 222–8.