Kristian S. Heal and Robert A. Kitchen, eds., Breaking the Mind: New Studies in the Syriac “Book of
Steps”
J. Edward
Walters
Rochester College
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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James E. Walters
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2018
Volume 21.1
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv21n1prwalters
J. Edward Walters
Review of: Breaking the Mind: New Studies in the Syriac
“Book of Steps”
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol21/HV21N1PRWalters.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2018
vol 21
issue 1
pp 224–30
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.
File created by James E. Walters
Kristian S. Heal and Robert A. Kitchen, eds., Breaking the Mind: New Studies in the Syriac “Book of
Steps.” CUA Studies in Early Christianity. Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 350; $65.00.
Nearly a century after the publication of the first edition and
Latin translation of the Syriac Book of Steps (hereafter BoS) in the Patrologia
Syriaca series, this corpus remains understudied and undervalued as a witness to
the diversity of Christian belief and practice in the historical study of late
ancient Christianity. Indeed, it is difficult to incorporate the BoS because of
uncertainties surrounding its historical context, and the relative lack of
attention may be due to the fact that the complete corpus was only recently
published in English translation for the first time.
Robert A. Kitchen and Maartien
F. G. Parmentier, The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber
Graduum, Cisctercian Studies 196 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cister- cian
Publications, 2004).
However, it is also likely that these
texts have been largely ignored in broad, synthetic treatments of late ancient
Christianity because of the pervasive scholarly narratives that have accompanied
the corpus ever since its publication. Such narratives give the impression that
the corpus has been correctly “identified” (as part of the Messalian
controversy) with the result that the BoS is regarded as anciliary to the study
of “mainstream” late ancient Christianity. The paucity of critical studies of
the ideas and practices witnessed by the BoS makes the present volume a welcome
addition to the bibliography, not only of scholarship on the BoS or early Syriac
Christianity, but more broadly on the history of late ancient Christianity and
religions of the ancient Mediterranean.
This volume, which represents a collection of papers solicited generally by the
editors and delivered at two different conferences, offers both critical
examinations of significant aspects of the contents of the BoS, many of which
have been neglected or overlooked in previous treatments, and several
challenging new directions for future scholarship. The sixteen chapters (aside
from Preface and Introduction) are organized into five parts: 1) The World
Around the BoS, 2) The Text, 3) Biblical Exegesis, 4) Theological Perspectives,
and 5) Practices of Asceticism.
The overarching theme of Part 1 is contextualization, as the first three chapters
seek to situate the social, political, and religious context(s) for the author
and community of the BoS. In Chapter 1 (“The Romano-Persian Border and the
Context of the Book of Steps”), Geoffrey Greatrex offers a succinct summary of
Roman-Persian relations from the last quarter of the 3rd century to the end of
the 4th century with particular attention to how the interactions of these
imperial regimes affected Christians in the Persian Empire. There is little new
information in this chapter, but it does offer a helpful condensed narrative of
events that could otherwise only be pieced together from multiple sources.
Whereas the first chapter is primarily concerned with the political history of
the 4th century, chapters 2 and 3 deal with comparisons between the BoS and
other religious communities and practices. Timothy Pettipiece (“Parallel Paths:
Tracing Manichaean Footsteps Along the Syriac Book of Steps”) draws some
cautious conclusions about links between the community described in the BoS and
Manichaeans. Namely, Pettipiece argues that the bifurcated communal structure of
Upright/Perfect resembles the Hearers/Elect structure of the Manichaeans and
notes some literary parallels between the BoS and the Manichaean Kephalaia.
Pettipiece rightly urges caution regarding making too much of these connections,
resisting the pitfall of arguing for direct relationships. Indeed, adding to
this caution, it seems that the future of any such comparative analysis must
begin with an examination of essentialist categories of “Christian” and
“Manichaean” identities in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The third and final
chapter of this section, written by Martien Parmentier (“The Book of Steps on
Magic”), offers a brief analysis of how “magic” functions in the BoS. Parmentier
begins with references in Greek literature to Syriac as a “magical” language and
then considers the way that the BoS constructs Christian miracles in distinction
from “magic.” Further treatments of this topic would benefit from a clear,
analytical definition of “magic,” more emphasis on the discursive nature of
Christian rhetoric about magic, and a deeper contextualization of magic in
Syriac sources against the background of the vast corpus of Aramaic magical
texts.
The two chapters in Part 2 (“The Text”) highlight some of the most pressing
desiderata in future analyses of these texts. First, Grigory Kessel (“A
Previously Unknown Reattributed Fragment from Memra 16 of the Book of Steps”)
offers an overview of the textual history of the BoS and notes that the future
of textual discoveries for corpora like the BoS lies (most likely) in the
discovery of unattributed fragments that are extracted and repurposed in
monastic miscellany manuscripts. Further, Kessel provides an example of
precisely such a previously unknown fragment from Memra 16, which circulated
either anonymously or under the name of Mar Thomas. Kessel found this fragment
attested in eight manuscripts, ranging from the 13th to 18th century, and the
chapter concludes with a critical edition of the fragment. Hopefully, further
analysis of the transmission history of the BoS will shed light not only on its
reception history, but its origins as well. On the topic of origins, it has long
been assumed that the BoS is a corpus dating from the 4th century or early 5th
century. Kyle Smith (“A Last Disciple of the Apostles: The ‘Editor’s’ Preface,
Rabbula’s Rules, and the Date of the Book of Steps”) challenges this consensus
position by interrogating the historiographic assumptions that undergird this
dating. There are two narratives in particular that Smith challenges: the
identification of the Messalian controversy as the proper context for
understanding the BoS and the use of ‘proto-monastic’ language that appears so
often as a descriptor of the BoS community (indeed, this term appears many times
even in this volume). Smith grants that the traditional dating of the BoS rests
upon a plausible interpretation of the available historical data, but, as he
argues compellingly, it is not the only plausible interpretation. Rather than a
response to a 4th-century crisis, Smith reads the BoS as a response to a
different crisis in the 5th century, namely the imposition of regulations upon
monastic communities by none other than Rabbula of Edessa. As a key part of the
argument, Smith also postulates that the “Preface” that accompanies the corpus
in some of the manuscript witnesses was not, in fact, written by a later editor,
but represents a composition by the author himself and that this understanding
of the introduction should re-frame the way we understand its relationship to
the corpus. Even if one does not accept Smith’s full argument, there can be no
doubt that he has offered a significant challenge to the dating of this corpus,
and this challenge cannot be ignored in future discussions of the context of the
BoS.
The third part of the book, devoted to Biblical Exegesis, contains two chapters.
The first chapter (“Biblical Exegesis in the Syriac Book of Steps: A Preliminary
Survey”), by René Roux, contains a broad overview of the ways that the author of
the BoS interprets Scripture. One interesting aspect that Roux elucidates is the
author’s strategy of interpretation that seeks to remove apparent contradictions
in the commandments of the Bible. Roux also clearly shows the ways that the
author exegetes the “precepts” and the “examples” found in Scripture. In the
second chapter of this section, Matthias Westerhoff (“Did the Author of the Book
of Steps Understand Paul?”) demonstrates that the use of Paul is somewhat more
complicated than one might expect: Paul is clearly the hermeneutical lens
through which the author of the BoS understands the central message of the
Gospel, but the author also feels free to disagree with Paul and creatively
interpret Paul’s words for his own purposes.
The four chapters that comprise the Theological Perspectives section (Part 4) are
quite different from one another in approach and method. In Chapter 8 (“A Broken
Mind: The Path to Knowledge in the Book of Steps”), J. W. Childers puts the
author of the BoS in conversation with modern virtue ethicists and argues that
the BoS demonstrates a clear correlation between virtue and the acquisition of
knowledge. Childers’s guiding principle throughout this argument, as the title
of the chapter suggests, is that the phrase “breaking the mind” in the BoS
refers to the act of humbling oneself for ethical instruction and moral
formation. In the following chapter, Pablo Argárate (“The Perfect and Perfection
in the Book of Steps”) analyzes the concept of “perfection”. This is an
intriguing topic and Argárate makes interesting observations, but the treatment
here could have benefitted from a more analytical approach and clearer thesis.
In her chapter, Kelli E. Bryant (“You Are What You Eat: Dietary Metaphors in the
Syriac Book of Steps”) approaches the corpus by analyzing eating metaphors that
the author uses to describe the moral and ascetic formation of the community.
When reading the corpus, it is easy to overlook this metaphor, but having read
Bryant’s analysis, it is now difficult to overestimate how central this concept
is to the author’s rhetorical approach. Bryant notes the clear biblical
allusions that the author relies on to construct the dietary metaphors of
“milk,” “vegetables,” and “solid food,” but also clearly demonstrates the ways
that the author employs these metaphors to distinguish the “diets” of the
Upright and the Perfect. Tera Stidham Harmon authors the final chapter of this
section (“Falling from the Path of Perfection: Sin in the Syriac Book of
Steps”). Harmon explores the place of sin in the ascetic system of the BoS.
Although sin may seem like a rather obvious theme that would emerge in such a
work, Harmon shows that the communal effort to overcome sin through the
imitation of Christ is a central aspect of the community’s organization; indeed,
it is what binds the Upright and Perfect together in their pursuit of holiness.
The fifth and final part of the book is devoted to Practices of Asceticism. Given
the significance of the BoS in the history of Syrian asceticism, it is no
surprise that, with five chapters, this is the largest section of the book. In
the opening chapter (“Disturbed Sinners: In Pursuit of Sanctity in the Book of
Steps”), Robert A. Kitchen examines the concept of “holiness” in the BoS by
considering modern definitions of this term. The title of this chapter is
derived from a quote from Karl Barth, the primary modern author that Kitchen
uses for theological framework. Although the concept of “holiness” in the BoS,
strictly speaking, refers to virginity, Kitchen broadens the definition in
search of the virtues that one must pursue in order to remain on the steep path
toward perfection. Sergey Minov (“Marriage and Sexuality in the Book of Steps:
From Encratism to Orthodoxy”) provides a thorough examination of the author’s
treatment of sex as a result of the fall and thus marriage as a concession to
human weakness. Minov carefully demonstrates how central and unusual the
author’s exegesis of Gen. 1-3 is on this topic, but also ties it into broader
discussions of sexuality and virginity in late ancient Christianity by comparing
the BoS with encratism and differentiating the author of the BoS from Aphrahat
and Ephrem.
The primary concern of Thomas Kollamparampil’s chapter (“‘Hidden Work’ of the
Heart and Spiritual Progression in the Book of Steps”) is an overview of
spirituality in the BoS and the practices that the author advocates for the path
of spiritual progression. In the penultimate chapter of the volume, Aryeh Kofsky
and Serge Ruzer provide a close reading of Memra 21, highlighting the author’s
exegetical and hermeneutical strategies for constructing his ascetic system.
Kofsky and Ruzer show conclusively that the author of the BoS is a creative and
independent exegete who employs multiple styles of interpretation to suit his
purposes. Finally, Jason Scully (“Lowering in Order to be Raised, Emptying in
Order to be Filled: The Ascetical System of the Book of Steps”) places the
ascetic framework of the BoS in a broader context by comparing its essential
features (e.g., humility leading to spiritual progression) with other ascetic
literature of early Christianity. For Scully, the BoS is not dependent upon
other ascetic literary traditions, but these similarities should not be
overlooked when contextualizing the early Syriac monastic tradition.
As any edited volume should, this book significantly expands the scholarly
investigation of a particular topic. Indeed, this volume pushes the study of the
BoS forward in a number of ways. Likewise, this volume leaves a number of open
questions awaiting more definitive treatment. Considering the volume as a whole,
there are a few important themes that emerge and stand now as the most pressing
concerns for any future scholarship on the BoS. The first and most obvious theme
is the precise time and context for the production of this corpus. While the 4th
century remains the consensus, Smith has provided a compelling case for
reassessing this conclusion. Many chapters take it for granted that the BoS is a
product of the 4th century and thus best contextualized by comparison with
Aphrahat and Ephrem; however, this presumption can no longer be taken for
granted. On a similar note, the multiple assessments of asceticism in this
volume should provide a significant challenge to the language of
“proto-monasticism” that is so often associated with this corpus. The very idea
of “proto-monasticism” conveys ideological assumptions that must also be
re-examined and re-framed. Finally, a theme running beneath the surface of
several essays that offers a significant path forward is the necessity for
incorporating these ascetical homilies into the field of late antique
Christianity more broadly. These texts have long been ignored or sidelined, but
hopefully, the quality of these contributions will demonstrate the significance
of the BoS and allow it to have a broader audience.