Adam H. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom. The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2006, Series Divination, pp. xvi + 298, ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-3934-8; ISBN-10: 0-8122-3934-2.
Ilaria
Ramelli
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Vol. 10, No. 2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv10n2prramelli
Ilaria Ramelli
Adam H. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom. The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2006, Series Divination, pp. xvi + 298, ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-3934-8; ISBN-10: 0-8122-3934-2.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol10/HV10N2PRRamelli.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
Adam Becker
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[1] This
rich and fine book (a revision of the author's doctoral
dissertation) provides an intellectual and institutional
history of the scholastic culture of the Church of the
East—above all of the School of Nisibis—in the late
antique and early Islamic periods. The work sheds light on the
development of Christian paideia in Late Antiquity and
the rise of the Babylonian Jewish academies, and exposes the
importance of the East-Syrian school movement as the background
to the intellectual culture to come, a point that has not yet
been fully appreciated.
[2] The
present study is all more valuable in that the East Syrians,
called "Nestorians" by their enemies, continue to exist all
over the world, in the Middle East, in South India, and in the
Diaspora, e.g. in the U.S.A. (especially in the Midwest), in
Australia, and in Sweden. Thus it is entirely appropriate that
in a "Note on Transliteration, Spelling, and Terminology"
(xiii-xiv) the author, in line with S. Brock, "The
‘Nestorian’ Church: A Lamentable Misnomer,"
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library of Manchester 78
(1996) 23-36, sensibly rejects the denomination "Nestorians"
for the East Syrians, and also declares his preference for
"Miaphysite" rather than "Monophysite," according to the
terminology adopted by Lucas van Rompay. These in fact are more
accurate denominations, and at the same time much more
respectful.
[3] After a
useful Chronology from AD 363 to 1020 (xv-xvi), the
Introduction (1-21) provides valuable guidelines for the
readers. First of all, Becker sketches the history of the
passage of the exegesis and scholarly practice from the School
of the Persians of Edessa to the School of Nisibis, and follows
the development of this school along with its leaders. He notes
that the East-Syrian scholastic culture grew at the same time
and in the same place as that of one of the main cultural
products of the late antique and early Medieval Near East, viz.
the Babylonian Talmud. The author remarks that in ancient
Mesopotamia Jews and Christians spoke the same language, lived
under the same rulers, and shared the same Scriptures and
mystical and eschatological speculation. In particular, a full
comparative study of the School of Nisibis and the Rabbinic
academies of Babylonia is still a desideratum. This
is, according to the author, due largely to the model of the
"Parting of the Ways" between Judaism and Christianity, which
prevented scholars from a joint investigation of Jewish and
Christian institutions of learning in Late Antiquity. (I note
that a good contribution to criticism against a too sharp
"Parting of the Ways" model is to be found in the miscellaneous
work edited by the author himself and Annette Yoshiko Reed,
The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Tübingen 2003).
In the introduction Becker also presents the main intellectual
historical source for the School of Nisibis and one of the
chief sources for the School of the Persians in Edessa, a
source on which a good part of this book depends: the Cause
of the Foundation of the Schools by Barhadbshabba, of the
sixth century, which combines different traditions, from
Ephrem, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Evagrius of Pontus, and
Neoplatonism. In this text, all historical figures are
understood in pedagogical terms, which is a fundamental
feature.
[4] Becker
remarks that the educational system was alike for Christians
and non-Christians in late antiquity, although some Christian
schools had particular characteristics, e.g. those run by
Justin, Clement, and Origen—but there, too, classical
culture and philosophy were present and alive and the author
correctly observes that it is doubtful whether Origen himself
was attempting to develop a completely autonomous Christian
culture. On this point, I would add some important
contributions: H. Crouzel, Cultura e fede nella scuola di
Cesarea con Origene, in Crescita dell'uomo nella
catechesi dei Padri, Rome 1987, 203-209; M. Rizzi, "Il
didaskalos nella tradizione alessandrina, da Clemente
alla Oratio Panegyrica in Origenem," in Magister.
Aspetti culturali e istituzionali, edd. G. Firpo —
G. Zecchini, Milan 1999, 177-198; Gregorio il Taumaturgo (?),
Encomio di Origene, ed. Id., Milan 2002; J.W. Trigg,
"God's Marvelous Oikonomia: Reflections of Origen's
Understanding of Divine and Human Pedagogy in the Address
Ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus," Journal of Early
Christian Studies 9 (2001) 27-52; L. Lugaresi, "Studenti
cristiani e scuola pagana," Cristianesimo nella Storia
25 (2004) 779-832; A. Grafton — M. Williams,
Christianity and the Transformation of the Book,
Cambridge-London 2006, 22-132; J. Tloka, Griechische
Christen, Christliche Griechen, Tübingen 2006,
25-126. As an example of a fruitful transmission of the liberal
arts to the Middle Ages, the author mentions Cassiodorus’
Institutiones, and we might also recall
Boethius’ treatises and Martianus Capella’s De
Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (cf. e.g. my Marziano
Capella, Milan 2001), which was studied and commented on
throughout the Middle Ages (editions, essays and commentaries
in my Tutti i commenti a Marziano Capella: Scoto Eriugena,
Remigio di Auxerre, Bernardo Silvestre e anonimi, Milan
2006). According to Becker, in fact, the classical
paideia was destroyed not by the Christians, but by
the barbarians, and for this reason classical culture in the
East remained more stable and endured longer than in the West
of the Roman empire; the East-Syrian school movement developed
outside the Roman empire, but was based on classical
paideia and the Scriptures, just like the Christian
paideia that grew inside Roman territory. The Book
of the Laws of Countries, e.g., by Bardaisan (or perhaps
by his school, we might add; see e.g. my "Linee generali per
una presentazione e per un commento del Liber legum regionum,
con traduzione italiana del testo siriaco e dei frammenti
greci," RIL 133 [1999] 311-355) is a philosophical
dialogue written on the model of the Platonic dialogues: in it,
the Christian character of Bardaisan argues against the
determinism of the stars.
[5] The
first chapter, "Divine Pedagogy and the Transmission of the
Knowledge of God: The Discursive Background of the School
Movement" (22-40), examines the tendency, well attested in the
Syriac milieu and most evident in the Cause, to
understand Christian belief and practice in pedagogical terms,
and the conversion to Christianity as a kind of pedagogical
conversion. The first roots of pedagogical imagery go back to
the very beginning of Christianity, where in the Gospels Jesus
is a master with his disciples, and Judaism, according to
Josephus, had hairéseis named after the Greek
philosophical schools. Justin, Clement, and Origen understood
Christianity in pedagogical terms: for Origen, I note that this
conception is closely linked to the role of the Holy Spirit, on
which I now refer to M. Beyer Moser, Teacher of
Holiness. The Holy Spirit
in Origen’s
Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Piscataway, NJ
2005. Becker exemplifies how the Peshitta tends to develop a
pedagogical terminology, which of course facilitated the
pedagogical reading of Scripture, e.g., with prophets as
masters with their own schools, etc. Becker illustrates the
imagery of pedagogy in several Syriac authors, especially
Ephrem and Jacob of Sarug. Another aspect that seems to have
been influential is that scribes in the Syrian area were more
self-conscious than the Greek ones. In documents such as the
Acts of the Persian Martyrs, or the Life of John
of Tella, moreover, we find conversion to Christianity as
a passage from one school to another, and Zoroastrianism
described as the "school of the Magi," and Christianity as
"discipleship of Jesus," implying much study, so that from
outside it could even be misunderstood as "sadness." This
finds, I believe, an interesting parallel in several Latin and
Greek sources on early Christians and the accusations of
tristitia brought against them, which also involved
the philosophers, especially the Stoics. See my
"Tristitia. Indagine storica, filosofica e semantica
su un'accusa antistoica e anticristiana," Invigilata
Lucernis 23 (2001) 187-206.
[6] In the
second chapter, "The School of the Persians (Part 1): Rereading
the Sources" (41-61), the author challenges scholars’
traditional assumption that the School of Nisibis is an
immediate and direct descendant of the School of the Persians
of Edessa. A critical reading of the evidence for the School of
the Persians rather suggests that we know much less about this
institution than was previously supposed, since both sources
and scholars tended to project the sixth-century School of
Nisibis onto fifth-century Edessa, and the sources themselves
are often problematic, dependent on one another, contradictory
and influenced by polemics of their own time. Becker usefully
distributes them into three groups: 1) West-Syrian sources,
involved in Miaphysite propaganda opposed to the so-called
Nestorians and to Chalcedonians as well, such as the letter of
Simeon of Bet Arsham, which is the earliest source (loosely)
connecting Ibas to the School of the Persians and contains
inaccuracies, or Jacob of Sarug’s Letter 14, an
apologetic document, and again, the Chronicle of
Edessa, the Chronicles of Ps. Dionysius of
Tell-Mahre and of Michael the Syrian, and John of
Ephesus’ hagiographical work; 2) Costantinopolitan
sources, i.e. Theodore Anagnostes and the Life of Alexander
the Sleepless, in which the relevant passage is
interestingly suggested by the author to be an extrapolation
from the Acts of the "Latrocinium" Council of Ephesus (449),
and 3) East-Syrian sources: the Cause and the
Ecclesiastical History by Barhadbshabba, attentively
compared by the author, and the Chronicle of Arbela,
which directly connects Ibas to the School of the Persians,
which is probably not correct.
[7] In the
third chapter, "The School of the Persians (Part 2): From
Ethnic Circle to Theological School" (62-76), Becker places the
sources for the School of the Persians in a better framework,
more appropriate to fifth-century Edessa, beginning with the
only source prior to the closure of the school (489), the Acts
of the "Latrocinium" Council of Ephesus of 449. It emerges that
this school seems more similar to a loosely knit study circle
than to an institution; moreover, the Acts mention three
"schools" in Edessa that subscribed against Ibas the bishop:
those of the Armenians, of the Persians, and of the Syrians.
This suggests that the School of the Persians had a somewhat
ethnic aspect, that Ibas was not closely associated to this
school, as it is often assumed, and that the school itself was
not generally known for its dyophysite leanings. It is likely
that toward the middle of the fifth century the schools in
Edessa did not have easily identifiable theological positions,
but were essentially ethnic groupings, maybe voluntary
associations similar to the Latin collegia and the
like: "school" might have been a somewhat metaphorical
designation, like the Greek hairesis, that was applied
to the Greek philosophical schools, and also to the Christians,
and to the Jewish groups of the time of Josephus. In the V
century, many people came to Edessa both from Persia and from
Armenia, such as Moses of Chorene: the author sensibly
considers him trustworthy when he declares that he travelled to
Edessa and employed its archives, as Eusebius had done in the
previous century (see my "Possible Historical Traces in the
Doctrina Addai?", Hugoye 9,1 [2006]
§§ 1-24).
[8] Only
shortly before its closure, according to the Cause and
the Ecclesiatical History by Barhadbshabba, the School
of the Persians was divided into a tripartite hierarchy, very
similar to the arrangement of the Greco-Roman educational
system (mhagyana = magister ludi or
harenarius; maqryana = grammarian;
mphashqana or exegete = rhetor,
philosophus). Another remarkable point made by the
author is that there was only one exodus from the School of the
Persians in Edessa to Nisibis, which occurred in 489 after the
closure of the school itself by order of the Emperor Zeno.
Vööbus was led to suppose two exoduses—one in
471 by Narsai, and the other, larger, in 489—by reading
the same event, described in the Cause and in the
Ecclesiastical History, as two different facts. At the
end of the chapter, Becker observes a couple of things that may
be significant and should stimulate further comparative
studies: 1) the closure of the School of the Persians by order
of the emperor Zeno displays a deep affinity to that of the
School of Athens forty years later, in 529, by order of the
emperor Justinian. 2) In many different sources, this event is
described with the same terminology: all say that the school
was "uprooted," just as several sources pun on the name of
Nisibis while saying that the same School of the Persian was
"planted" (nsb) there. Becker also suggests exploring
whether any ethnically-based intellectual circles developed in
other intellectual centres in late antiquity, such as Athens,
Jerusalem or Beirut, which would be very interesting to
investigate.
[9] In the
fourth chapter, "The School of Nisibis" (77-97), Becker
carefully analyzes the evidence for the School of Nisibis, its
foundation, its daily life, and its curriculum. Among its
models were contemporary cenobitic institutions, the School of
the Persians in Edessa, and maybe also the local school led by
the interpreter Simeon of Kashkar in Nisibis when the new
school was founded, perhaps incorporating students of
Simeon’s school. The author also examines various sets of
canons of the School of Nisibis, valuable for reconstructing
its daily life and the organization of teaching. and presents
the literary production of the scholars attached to the School:
commentaries, in memre and then in prose, where also
the "Alexandrian" allegorical technique crept in; liturgical
works, treatises and "causes." Illuminating comparisons with
the organization of other schools are also provided, and the
author rightly insists on the close parallelism between the
school year and the liturgical year.
[10] The
intellectual life of the School of Nisibis is the focus of
chapters Five through Seven, and is reconstructed on the basis
of the examination of the Cause. In particular, the
fifth chapter, "The Scholastic Genre: the Cause of the
Foundation of the Schools" (98-112), addresses the
question of the literary genre of the Cause, which is
relevant to the understanding of study at the School of
Nisibis: it seems that the Cause is associated with
the explication of the Christian liturgical cycle, which
suggests that the school year was seen as part of the holy
calendar, and that study itself was conceived as a form of
liturgy. The author recalls first of all that only recently has
the Cause been given scholarly attention, in studies
such as D.S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch. A
Study of Early Christian Thought in the East, Cambridge
1982, 63-65; G.J. Reinink, "Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone
Forth: The School of Nisibis at the transition of the
Sixth-Seventh Century," in H.J.W. Drijvers—A.A. McDonald,
edd., Centers of Learning. Learning and Location in
Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, Leiden 1995, 77-89:
81-87; Th. Heinthaler, "Die verschiedenen Schulen, durch die
Gott die Menschen lehren wollte. Bemerkungen zur ostsyrischen
Schulbewegung," in M. Tamcke (ed.), Syriaca II,
Münster 2004, 175-192, and my own "Linee introduttive a
Barhadbeshabba di Halwan, Causa della fondazione delle
scuole: filosofia e storia della filosofia greca e
cristiana in Barhadbeshabba," 'Ilu. Revista de
Ciencias de las Religiones 9 (2004) 127-181; Ead.,
Barhadbeshabba di Halwan, Causa della fondazione delle
scuole. Traduzione e note essenziali," ibid. 10
(2005) 127-170. After setting forth the contents of the
Cause and the problem of its relationship to the
Ecclesiastical History of Barhadbshabba ‘Arbaya, and that of
its authorship by Barhadbshabba d-Halwan, who may be the same
as the former, Becker observes that the literary genres that
seem to be present in the Cause are: the "cause"
genre, derived from the classical aitia and mainly
represented in the Syriac tradition by the "causes of
festivals," which explained the origins of a celebration and
its theological ground; the protreptic tone, derived from the
protreptics to philosophy, and then to Christianity; the
collective biography, and the scholastic "chain of
transmission" found in the "successions of philosophers" (on
which see documentation e.g. in my "Diogene Laerzio storico del
pensiero antico tra biografia e dossografia, ‘successioni
di filosofi’ e scuole filosofiche," in Diogene
Laerzio, Vite e dottrine dei più celebri filosofi,
ed. G. Reale, Milan 2005, XXXIII-CXXXVIII) and later of
apostles and bishops, and also in Rabbinic sources: most
interestingly, Becker points out a terminological similarity
between the Cause and the Avot Becker also
provides a better translation for the title of the
Cause: rather than Cause of the Foundation of the
Schools, he proposes Cause of the Establishment of the
Session of the School, a rendering that is well grounded
in Syriac and helps us to understand the writing as an opening
and official address to the students and teachers of the School
of Nisibis.
[11]
Chapters Six and Seven analyze the contents of the
Cause and place it within its cultural context. The
sixth chapter, "The Reception of Theodore of Mopsuestia in the
School of Nisibis" (113-125), demonstrates that the
Cause depends on a sixth-century version of
Theodore’s thought, attested not only in the East-Syrian
Church, but also in Greek and Latin authors. The author
recalls, first of all, the veneration for Theodore of
Mopsuestia in the East-Syrian Church, where he is the
theological and exegetical authority par excellence, and in
particular in the School of Nisibis, and the translations of
his works into Syriac, which has turned out to be all the more
valuable in that, after the condemnation of his doctrines in
553, most of his writings have been lost in Greek, and are
extant only in fragments. Thence, Becker interestingly develops
the suggestion by Macina, Wallace-Hadrill, and Reinink, that
the Cause ultimately depends on Theodore’s idea
of divine paideia, and, after giving a brief account
of his thought in general, he focuses on the pedagogical
conception of history and of the relationship between God and
humans, and illustrates how pedagogical terminology in the
Cause and in the Syriac translation of Theodore
converge. I definitely agree with the author that we ought not
to stress the opposition between Alexandrine and Antiochene
exegesis (cf. e.g. my "Giovanni Crisostomo e l'esegesi
scritturale: le scuole di Alessandria e di Antiochia e le
polemiche con gli allegoristi pagani," in Giovanni
Crisostomo: Oriente e Occidente tra IV e V secolo. Atti
del XXXIII Incontro di Studiosi dell'Antichità
Cristiana, Roma, Augustinianum 6-8.V.2004, I, Roma 2005,
121-162). Becker also states that the focus on the human being
as the image of God in the Cause is an extremely
common Antiochene motif, which is absolutely correct; we may
nevertheless observe that the so-called "theology of the
image", which sees the human being as eikōn tou
Theou—according to Genesis 1:26-27—is
central and crucial also in the Cappadocians, and above all in
Gregory of Nyssa, who inherited it essentially from Origen: and
in fact, the three Cappadocians’ writings are well
attested in Syriac, and Basil’s Hexaemeron,
continued by Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis
opificio, was highly influential in Syriac literature and
for an understanding of the book of Genesis. In any
case, the author is right that Theodore of Mopsuestia’s
commentary on Genesis, insofar as it can be
reconstructed, seems to lie behind the Cause’s
understanding of Genesis 1: the author of the
Cause puts Theodore’s notion of divine
paideia into more concrete terms, speaking not only of
God who instructed the angels at creation and human beings
throughout history, but even of classrooms and schools
instituted by God. The author reasonably suggests that the
connection between Theodore and the Cause may have
been Narsai, who studied Theodore in Syriac and, as far as we
know, is the first who described creation as a school class
with books, pens, etc., in similes.
[12] The
seventh chapter, "Spelling God’s Name with the Letters of
Creation: The Use of Neoplatonic Aristotle in the
Cause" (126-154), studies the Neoplatonic
interpretation of Aristotelian logic that crept into the
East-Syrian Church from the beginning of the VI century onward.
Becker shows how the Cause uses this material to
develop a natural theology that also contains reminiscences
from Ephrem and Evagrius. Relying on Sebastian Brock’s
noteworthy suggestions, the author challenges the widespread
assumption that philosophical materials like Aristotle’s
writings and Porphyry’s Isagoge were imported
into Nisibis by the Edessan School of the Persians after its
migration. In fact, the evidence for such studies in
fifth-century Edessa is thin, especially because it seems to be
a mistake to place Probus, the early Syriac commentator and
translator of Aristotle’s logical works, in Edessa in the
V century. Aristotle’s logic, read through the
Neoplatonists – as has been shown above all by R. Sorabji
–, arrived at Nisibis later and through another way,
probably thanks to direct contacts with Alexandria, as again
has been suggested by Brock and confirmed by several other
proofs.
[13] Of
course, Greek philosophy had been absorbed in the Syriac
culture already since the days of Bardaisan (documentation in
my "Bardesane e la sua scuola tra la cultura occidentale e
quella orientale," in Pensiero e istituzioni del mondo
classico nelle culture del Vicino Oriente, eds. R.B.
Finazzi - A. Valvo, Alessandria 2001, 237-255) and Ephrem (for
the presence of philosophy in whose works see U. Possekel,
Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of
Ephrem the Syrian, Louvain 1999). I suggest that we might
even go back to Mara bar Serapion and his philosophical letter
to his son, which might be very ancient: see my "Gesù
tra i sapienti greci perseguitati ingiustamente in un antico
documento filosofico pagano di lingua siriaca," Rivista di
Filosofia Neoscolastica 97 (2005) 545-570; D. Rensberger,
"Reconsidering the Letter of Mara Bar Serapion," in Aramaic
Studies in Judaism and Early Christianity, Winona Lake
2006, forthcoming (I am very grateful to the author for sharing
his study with me). Another article on Mara's letter, its Stoic
ideas and early date is forthcoming by Teun Tieleman and
Annette Merz in a Festschrift for P.W. van der Horst. And of
course Greek philosophy came also through Greek Patristic
authors translated into Syriac – especially Platonism.
The author tries to trace the philosophical background of the
Cause, especially in the initial sections of this
writing, where general philosophical issues are put forward;
and here both Ephrem’s and Evagrius’ influence is
detected, and also, e.g., that of the Tree of Porphyry, read
through later Neoplatonism and transferred from logic to
metaphysics. Again the Neoplatonists, and Theodore of
Mopsuestia, are reasonably supposed to lie behind the issue of
the epistemological inaccessibility of God, also addressed by
the Cause, according to which, as a consequence, names
can only be attributed to God by analogy. Once more, we may
recall also Gregory of Nyssa, who held a mitigated form of
apophatism that is central to his whole doctrine. Actually, the
author himself remarks that some terminology of apophatism in
the Cause may derive from Evagrius, who knew the
Nyssene very well. In sum, it seems to me that the author
demonstrates quite finely that the philosophical background of
the Cause derives from both fifth-century Edessa and
the spread of Greek philosophical literature in Mesopotamia in
the sixth century. Some methodological indications by Becker
are also valuable: much work is still required on the reception
of Greek philosophical texts and ideas in Syriac, such as an
edition of the earliest Syriac translation of Aristotle’s
Categories.
[14]
Chapters Eight and Nine recontextualize the School of Nisibis
and the whole East-Syrian school movement in the frame of
East-Syrian monasticism. The eighth chapter, "A Typology of
East-Syrian Schools" (155-168), analyzes the sources for the
various kinds of East-Syrian schools in late antique and early
Islamic Mesopotamia, of which the evidence has not yet been
gathered by any scholar. The main sources are the Book of
Chastity by Ishodenah of Basra, of the late eighth or the
ninth century; the Book of Governors by Thomas of
Marga, of the ninth century, and the Chronicle of
Siirt (or Seert, as it is often transcribed), of
the tenth or early eleventh century. A division into three
different groups is proposed by the author: independent
schools, monastic schools, and village schools. The first group
is represented first of all by the School of Nisibis itself,
attested from the end of the fifth to the early seventh
century, but also, e.g., by the School of Seleucia, independent
of any monastery or church building, under the patronage of the
Catholicos or even the Persian king. There were the School of
Seleucia, too, founded by Paul the Reader, that of Kashkar,
perhaps, that of Balad and that of Bet Sahde in Nisibis, about
which we do not know whether it was meant to counter the School
of Nisibis, as Fiey supposed. Our sources often are not so
clear when they say there was a school in a monastery, since
they tend to conflate monasteries and schools, and thus we do
not know the extent to which the school was a formal
institution. As for village schools, they were small and
associated neither with large ecclesiastical centres nor with
monasteries, but sometimes attached to the local church; some
could even offer some exegetical teaching and advanced
learning. Many were founded by Babai of Gbilta in the eighth
century.
[15] In
the ninth chapter, "The Monastic Context of the East-Syrian
School Movement" (169-203), the author argues that, on the one
hand, although not all schools were connected to monasteries,
the general phenomenon of East Syrian schools is impossible to
understand outside East-Syrian monasticism: even the
independent School of Nisibis was modelled on monastic life; on
the other hand, the schools also developed into entities that
were semi-distinct from the monasteries, because of the
institutional and intellectual differences that existed within
the East-Syrian Church. One meaningful instance is cited of
monks who refused the institution of a school in their
monastery, because of their conception of monastic life as more
ascetic than cenobitic: in Syrian monasticism, more and more
emphasis was put on prayer, silence and solitude, and the
communal life of school and book learning were progressively
felt as merely earlier stages of spiritual development. This
was also due to the influence of Egyptian monasticism, which is
closely studied by the author, who mentions the new rules for
monks by Abraham of Kashkar, inspired by the Egyptian desert
Fathers. The last stage, for which the author presents good
evidence, is the explicit criticism of philosophy, bookishness,
and the School movement in several monastic authors. Becker
also illustrates many transformations in the Church of Syria
from the fifth century onwards: early figures felt as
heterodox, such as Bardaisan and Tatian, were forgotten or
rejected; urban ascetics were put under the control of bishops
and the others removed from cities; the religious history of
Edessa was reconstructed as orthodox from the very beginning.
The author also depicts the enormous influence of the Origenist
Evagrius of Pontus on Syriac intellectual and religious
culture. The map includes two other Syrian Origenists,
Ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite and Stephen Bar Sudaili: I am not
surprised that Origen’s chief doctrine, that of
apocatastasis, appears again in a later Syriac ascetic, Isaac
of Nineveh. An appendix is devoted to the decline of the School
of Nisibis at the beginning of the seventh century—the
sources for it become sparse after the sixth—, and Becker
hypothesizes that this might be connected to the controversy
surrounding Hnana of Adiabene, who led the school in those
days: the Barhadbshabba who wrote the Cause, which
comprises high praises of Hnana, may be the same as the one who
signed the condemnation of Hnana and left the School of
Nisibis: in this case, we should suppose a change in his
attitude toward Hnana. This is entirely possible, since the
Cause was probably written before the outbreak of the
controversy, which is, at any rate, particularly difficult to
reconstruct: he too was charged with "Origenism," but this had
meantime become so multivalent and vague an accusation that it
is not clear what the point of the controversy was.
[16] In
the Conclusion (204-210), the author also indicates further
areas of possible investigation, which surely would be
fruitful: philosophical culture in the Sasanian empire, the
conflict between East and West Syrians in Mesopotamia, the
Armenian sources for the intellectual culture of fifth-century
Edessa, or the nature of the "cause" genre. He also meditates
on what emerges from his overall investigation and
interpretation of the sources: in East-Syrian Christian
schools, learning was not merely an intellectual act, and study
was more than a purely mental activity. A significant example
is that of Mar Narsai in Barhadbshabba’s
Ecclesiatical History, where his study practice cannot
be separated from his asceticism, which is conceived in terms
of imitation of the angels, that is, ceaseless worship of God,
a liturgical activity. All this points to a holistic view that
joins both the intellectual and the practical, performative
side of life. The Cause was a speech delivered to
welcome students who entered the School of Nisibis and was
aimed at presenting the whole history as a long succession of
schools and to have each student feel a part of the cosmic
order, performing his duty of study as a way of life. The
author rightly sees this conception in line with the notion of
ancient philosophy as a way of life, to which especially Pierre
Hadot has recently called attention. This was true of Roman
Stoicism, of the Hellenistic philosophical schools in general,
but also of Pythagoreanism, for example (on which see, e.g.,
the introduction by Francesco Romano to his edition,
Giamblico. Summa Pitagorica: Vita di Pitagora, Esortazione
alla filosofia, Scienza matematica comune, Introduzione
all’ Aritmetica di Nicomaco, Teologia
dell’aritmetica, Milan 2006). This idea was kept up
by the Christians, and it is particularly evident in the East
Syrian scholastic movement, as the author finely illustrates.
It is a pity that this important and sanctifying experience was
restricted to only half of the Christians, just as it happened
in Rabbinic schools as well, whereas already some Greek
philosophical schools were open to women too.
[17] The
chapters are followed by the Notes, mostly devoted to
bibliographical references and the indication of the sources,
but also containing several valuable side-remarks (211-274).
The Bibliography is selected but rich, relevant and up to date
(275-286). In the last pages of the volume we find the Index
(287-296), which is detailed and quite helpful, given the wide
range of materials touched upon by the author in his treatment,
and the Acknowledgments (297-298).
[18] This
book definitely is a valuable contribution that is worth
reading with close attention. Some pages in the Table of
Contents do not correspond to those we find in the book itself
(e.g. the Note on Terminology is not found on pp. xi-xii, as it
appears in the Contents, but on xiii-xiv), but the volume is
very carefully realized and excellent in its overall quality,
both in its contents and arguments and in the arrangement and
presentation of the materials. It deserves to be warmly
recommended for the valuable insights it offers to scholars who
study the development of Christian culture in the Syriac
speaking world in its interactions with Greek philosophy,
Judaism, and the birth of Islam. Sebastian Brock in his comment
on the cover notes that it is particularly helpful to have a
book that shows how the Middle East and Europe were intimately
related from a cultural point of view before the separation
brought about by the Arab conquests. This investigation will
actually contribute to four fields often still considered as
unrelated: Syriac studies, the study of the reception of Greek
philosophy into Syriac and Arabic, Rabbinics, and the study of
Christianity in late antiquity.