The Armenian Reception of the Homilies of Jacob of Serugh: New Findings

chapter 3 The Armenian Reception of the Homilies of Jacob of Serugh: New Findings Andy Hilkens 1 Introduction 1.1 Armenian Translations from Syriac The culture of translation is an inherent part of Armenian as indeed any culture.* From the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the fifth century onwards Armenians translated literature from other communities, written in a variety of languages: Greek, Arabic, Latin as well as Syriac.1 In the case of the latter, two major periods of translation can be distinguished: the earliest period of translation immediately after the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mes- rop Mashtots in the early fifth century, and the Cilician period (eleventh to thirteenth centuries), when the rapprochement between Syriac Orthodox and Armenians after the migration of Armenians from their homeland to the West sparked Armenian interest in the cultural and literary heritage of the Syriac Orthodox.2 However, it must be noted that a sizeable number of translations from Syriac were also produced between the sixth and the tenth centuries.3 * I would like to thank Edward G. Mathews, Jr. and Bernard Outtier for kindly offering their expert advice. 1 Abbreviations used for manuscripts: ALQ (Aleppo, Cathedral of the Forty Martyrs), ITT (Istan- bul [Galata], National Library of the Armenians), J (Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate in the Monastery of St. James), M (Yerevan, Matenadaran), NOJ (Nor Julfa [Isfahan, monastery of the All-Savior]), P (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de Paris), V (Venice, Monastery of the Mekhi- tarists on the island of San Lazzaro), W (Vienna, Monastery of the Mekhitarists). 2 For a general division in periods of translation (also from Greek, Latin and other languages like Georgian, but without mention of Syriac translations between the earliest period of translation and the Cilician period), see LevonTēr-Petrosyan, Ancient ArmenianTranslations (New York: Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center/St. Vartan Press, 1992). 3 Edward G. Mathews Jr., “Syriac into Armenian:TheTranslations and theirTranslators,” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 10 (2010): 20–44. To Mathews’ list should be added an Armenian version of the Syriac Life of Abd el-Masih, commissioned by Gurgen Arcruni, prince of Vaspurakan, in AD873. On this text, see Gérard Garitte, “La passion géorgienne de saint ʿAbd el-Masih,”Le Muséon 79 (1966): 187–88. None of these “middle period translations,” however, can be traced back to the monastery of which Dionysius bar Salibi claims in hisTrea- © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004417182_005 the armenian reception of the homilies of jacob of serugh 65 It is quite tempting to date Armenian translations of Syriac texts that were written in the fourth and fifth centuries to the earliest centuries of translation, but this need not necessarily be the case. A case in point is that of Ephrem the Syrian (AD306–373) to whom the Armenians attributed homilies, hymns, prayers and biblical commentaries. Several of these translations, however, are later in date or are translations made from later texts that were not even written by Ephrem.4 Similar observations can be made about that other great late antique Syriac poet, Jacob of Serugh (c. AD451–521). There is no evidence to suggest that Armenians developed an interest in the writings of Jacob before the Cilician period.5 1.2 Jacob of Serugh and His Reception in Armenian Jacob was widely known for his eloquence, expressed in his homilies, written in prose as well as in the dodecasyllabic meter that he invented.6 381 Syriac tise Against the Armenians (translation in Alphonse Mingana, Woodbrooke Studies: Christian Documents in Syriac, Arabic, and Garshūni, Edited and Translated with a Critical Apparatus. Vol. 4: The Work of Dionysius Barsalibi against the Armenians [Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1931], 55) that it was reorganized shortly after AD726 by the Syriac Orthodox patriarch Athana- sius III (incumbency AD724–40) as a bilingual Syriac-Armenian training center for young boys and a center for the production of Armenian translations of Syriac patristic literature. Edward G. Mathews, Jr., The Armenian Commentary on Genesis Attributed to Ephrem the Syr- ian, CSCO 573 (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), xlviii–l concludes that this monastery probably only functioned in this capacity until just after the death of the Armenian Catholicos Yovhannēs Ōjnec‘i (d. AD728) when the Armenians “broke their engagements and committed injustices against the Syriac Orthodox” (the words of Dionysius). 4 On the Armenian reception of Ephrem and Pseudo-Ephrem in general, see Edward G. Math- ews, Jr., “The Armenian Literary Corpus Attributed to St. Ephrem the Syrian: Prolegomena to a Project,” St. Nersess Theological Review 1 (1996): 145–68, and id., “Ephrem the Syrian: A Syriac Poet in Armenian Verse,” Theological Librarianship 5 (2012): 71–76. On the Armenian prayers by Pseudo-Ephrem, see id., “A First Glance at the Armenian Prayers attributed to Surb Ep‘rem Xorin Asorwoy,” in Worship Traditions in Armenia and the Neighboring Christian East, ed. Roberta R. Ervine, AVANT Treasures of the Armenian Christian Tradition 3 (Crestwood: SVS Press, 2006), 161–73. Now edited and translated in Edward G. Mathews, Jr., The Arme- nian Prayers attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, Texts from Late Antiquity 36 (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2014). For an Armenian version of a commentary on Genesis by Pseudo- Ephrem, see previous note. 5 Edward G. Mathews. Jr., “Jacob of Serugh, Homily on Good Friday and other Armenian treasures: first glances,” in Jacob of Serugh and hisTimes: Studies in Sixth-Century Syriac Christian- ity, ed. George A. Kiraz, Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 8 (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2010), 161. 6 Sebastian P. Brock, “Yaʿqub of Serugh,” in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Her- itage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lukas Van Rompay (Piscat- away, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2011), 433–35..

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