J.F. Coakley, ed., The Story of the Holy
Mar Pappos and Twenty-four Thousand who Were Martyred with Him
Jeff W.
Childers
Abilene Christian University
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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James E. Walters
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2019
Volume 22.1
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv22n1prchilders
Jeff W. Childers
J.F. Coakley, ed., The Story of the Holy
Mar Pappos and Twenty-four Thousand who Were Martyred with Him
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol22/HV22N1PRChilders.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2018
vol 22
issue 1
pp 307–308
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
J.F. Coakley, ed., The Story of the Holy
Mar Pappos and Twenty-four Thousand who Were Martyred with Him (Ely:
Jericho Press, 2017). Pp. iii + 38; $46.
Jeff W. Childers, Abilene Christian University
J.F. Coakley has produced a fine little volume that students of Syriac will find
useful, especially those who have an interest in hagiographical texts. The
Syriac text of The Story of the Holy Mar Pappos derives
from the fifteenth-century Cambridge ms. Or. 1137. The inaccessibility of the
earlier Damascus Patriarchate 12/18 (that may in fact have been the exemplar for
the Cambridge text) accounts for Coakley’s sole reliance on the later source.
The volume consists of a brief introduction, unvocalized Estrangela Syriac text,
and a good English translation, divided into 40 short paragraphs.
The Story ostensibly narrates the
martyrdoms of the Roman general Pappos and his twenty-four thousand Christian
soldiers near Antioch in 309. The introduction explains the reasons for seeing
the tale as purely legendary. Apart from the fact that the Roman general Pappos,
his military campaign in Nisibis, and an event involving twenty-four thousand
soldiers are otherwise unknown in Roman sources, large parts of the text have
been adapted, with fairly light revision, from the tales of the celebrated
Edessene martyrs Shmona, Guria, and Habbib.
The town around which the critical action occurs, Kapra d’Magdla near Antioch,
is also otherwise unknown. However, the story shows great interest in locations
and in the date of the martyrdom (15 November, the same as the martyrdoms of
Shmona and Guria, albeit six years later; §30), suggesting that the
hagiographers were seeking to establish or reinforce a martyrs’ cult for their
own region, based on the existing Edessene tale. After Mar Pappos and his
soldiers are beheaded on a great slaughtering stone (§26), their corpses are
dragged and thrown into a pit one mile north of town. The blood-drenched stone,
however, heaves itself upright and rolls along the bloody path under its own
power, in pursuit of the crowned heroes, until it reaches the edge of the pit
into which their bodies were hurled and stands guard over them (§§31, 35). After
the triumph of Constantine, the site of the stone overlooking the pit comes to
be consecrated by the bishop of Antioch, who builds a shrine that serves as a
pilgrimage destination and place of miracles. The concern with dates, locations,
the inauguration of a shrine by recognized ecclesial authority, and the witness
of miracles all function to illustrate typical hagiographical motifs.
The Syriac text is straightforward and easy to read, with rather limited
vocabulary. Intermediate Syriac students will have no trouble working through
the text at an encouraging pace, aided by Coakley’s occasional notes and
emendations, as well as by his plain English translation. The text allows for
good practice in intermediate grammar and intermediate syntax. It also offers
opportunities to engage questions about hagiography, including literary
development and interdepen-dence, the function of hagiography in local settings,
and its continuing significance beyond its original context.
The Jericho Press, Coakley’s private academic press, has printed an attractive
book, using the Estrangela type that originally belonged to the Cambridge
University Press. The layout is clean and very legible, with numbered Syriac and
English paragraphs occupying the upper and lower portions of the pages,
respectively, in a fashion that aids quick comparison of the two. Rubrication
adorns the title page and opening page of text. In addition to an errata slip included with the volume that corrects three
typographical errors in the Syriac, and a misprint already corrected on page 19,
we notice irregularities in the text justification on pages 36, 38, and an error
on page 8, note 3, line 1: for “nam eof” read “name of.”