150 Years of Syriac Studies at the University of Toronto
Amir
Harrak
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2007
Vol. 10, No. 2
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
license has been granted by the author(s), who retain full
copyright.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv10n2harrak
Amir Harrak
150 Years of Syriac Studies at the University of Toronto
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol10/HV10N2Harrak.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 10
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
University of Toronto
File created by XSLT transformation of original HTML encoded article.
This brief article outlines the history of
Syriac studies at the University of Toronto since
1857.
[1]
Instruction in Syriac at the University of Toronto began in
1857, seven years after this institution replaced King’s
College, which had been founded in 1827 through a Royal Charter
from King George IV. A programme called “Oriental
Literature,” including instruction in Hebrew, Aramaic,
Syriac, Arabic and Samaritan, was established by the
German-born Jacob Maier Hirschfelder (1819-1902), who must have
taught all these languages. The university calendar for 1857-58
indicates that the teaching of Syriac included “Grammar
(Phillips’s); The Parables in the New Testament; History
of the Syriac Language and Literature.” In 1886-87,
Syriac was part of the Honour Course taught in the Second Year,
and the grammar used was either “Uhlemann translated by
Hutchinson, or Phillips, or Noeldeke”.
[2] In 1889
Hirschfelder was succeeded by his former assistant James
Frederick McCurdy, a native of New Brunswick (1847-1935). He
was a Semitist and Assyriologist, with degrees from Princeton,
Tübingen, and Leipzig. His teachers were none other than
the distinguished Delitzsch, Schrader, and Nöldeke.
Post-graduate studies in “Orientals” appeared in
the Calendar for 1889-90, and here the study of Syriac expanded
beyond the Syriac Bible to “Selections from Bar Hebraeus,
and Ephraem Syrus.” One of the reference books was
Nöldeke’s Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik,
which by that time was one of the most widely used grammars of
Syriac. The Ph.D. programme in Oriental Languages, called in
this context Semitic Languages or Semitics, was introduced in
1897.
[3] One of
McCurdy’s assistants was William Robert Taylor, a
graduate of Toronto in Theology and Bible; he succeeded McCurdy
upon his retirement in 1914. Taylor, a native of Ontario
(1882-1951), was an outstanding scholar who mastered several
ancient languages and published extensively, mostly in the
field of Biblical Studies. He must have been the supervisor of
Frederick Victor Winnett, also a native of Ontario (1903-1989),
who wrote his dissertation on the 13th century Syriac author
‛Abdīšō bar Brīkhā. This
dissertation, entitled Paradise of Eden, was
“submitted in conformity with the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of
Toronto;” it was published by the University of Toronto
Press in 1929. In the introduction, Winnett justified his study
of the Paradise of Eden, saying “its avowed
purpose is to display the resources and elegancies and
subtleties of that tongue [Syriac], just as the Maqamat of
al-Hariri was written to display the niceties of the Arabic
language.” A master of Syriac and Arabic, Winnett devoted
most of his research at the University of Toronto to
Pre-Islamic Arabic studies.
[4] In 1929
Winnett was added to the staff as Lecturer, and one year later,
another Syriac scholar, William Steward McCullough, became
temporary Lecturer. McCullough, a native of Toronto
(1902-1982), was also versed in all biblical languages,
including Syriac. Overwhelmed by teaching duties, intensive
research by him did not begin until he retired in 1970, and
during his retirement he wrote his A Short History of
Syriac Christianity to the Rise of Islam, (published
posthumously in 1982 by Scholars Press). This is an excellent
tool for the study of both Eastern and Western branches of
Syriac Christianity, and in it the author proved himself
critical, comprehensive, and insightful. The minutes of the
Council of University College dated September 20, 1982, reveal
that at the time of Professor McCullough’s death, he
“left behind a substantial portion of a translation from
Syriac of a monumental work of the thirteenth century, the
Ecclesiastical History by the learned Bar-Hebraeus.”
Though the minutes state that “one of McCullough’s
former students has undertaken to bring the task to
completion,” neither the name of this student nor the
fate of McCullough’s translation is now known.
Unfortunately, this worthwhile study was never published.
[5] In 1961,
while McCullough was teaching Oriental Languages at University
College, Professor Ernest George Clarke was appointed Associate
Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Victoria College, where he
taught Aramaic. Clarke was born in Ontario in 1927 and after he
obtained a Master’s degree in Oriental Languages at the
University of Toronto, he studied for his doctorate at Leiden
University, the Netherlands, graduating in 1962. His doctoral
dissertation was on Syriac: The Selected Questions of
Ishō Bar Nūn on the Pentateuch, published by
Brill in 1962, but his research while at the University of
Toronto concentrated on the targums until he retired in 1993.
He died in Toronto in 1997 while still active in his targumic
research.
[6] One year
after McCullough’s retirement in 1970, David John Lane
was appointed Assistant Professor of Aramaic and Syriac in the
then Department of Near Eastern Studies. David was born in 1935
in England, where he studied Theology and Oriental Studies,
concentrating on Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac. At the University
of Toronto he worked on the Syriac Bible, editing several books
of the Old Testament for the Leiden Peshitta Institute,
revising other books, and publishing a monograph that took
Peshitta studies out of simple text criticism of the Old
Testament into the wider field of Syriac church history and
liturgy. Although he had received tenure in the department as
Associate Professor, in 1983 Lane left Toronto to join the
staff of the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, near
Huddersfield, England. After completing his work on the
Peshitta, he began doing research on the Syriac Fathers,
especially Shubhalmaran, a 7th century bishop and ascetic
author. His edition and translation of the latter’s
Book of Gifts was published on Lane’s 70th
birthday in the CSCO. He died in January 9, 2005, while
lecturing on Syriac at the St Ephrem Ecumenical Research
Institute, Kerala, India.
[7] After
Lane’s departure from Toronto in 1983, Ernest Clarke took
over the teaching of Syriac, as well as his own area of
Aramaic, in the department. From 1988 until the present time, a
full undergraduate and graduate programme in Syriac studies has
been directed by Amir Harrak in the Department of Near and
Middle Eastern Civilizations.