Robert J. Phenix Jr. and Cornelia B. Horn, eds. and trs., The Rabbula Corpus: Comprising the Life of Rabbula, His Correspondence, a Homily Delivered in Constantinople, Canons and Hymns with Texts in Syriac and Latin

Bishop Rabbula of Edessa († 435) can be compared with John Chrysostom († 407). Both men were born into the Greek-speaking élite of the most hellenized part of Roman Syria and educated accordingly, both made it their objective “to suppress abuses and reform society, so as to bring it into a more faithful observance of the precepts of the gospel” (A.-M. Malingrey on the latter). But whereas Chrysostom encountered powerful opposition at Constantinople and ended his life in exile, Rabbula dominated his city right up to his death. Few bishops have been such uncompromising advocates of a society in which poverty is honoured above riches. Rabbula claims the attention of all who suspect that Jesus aspired to radical social reform and actually said “Blessed are the poor,” which his more worldly followers later qualified as “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Phenix and Horn set out to provide a more or less comprehensive source-book for the study of Rabbula. They have called it “The Rabbula Corpus,” which is perhaps a little misleading. There is indeed, preserved in a sixth-century manuscript, such a body of texts: “The Heroic Deeds of Bishop Rabbula of Edessa” with its three appendices: Rabbula’s rule for his clergy, his rule for the monks of his diocese and an anti-Nestorian homily (in Syriac), which he is alleged to have delivered in the presence of Nestorius himself at Constantinople. This fifth-century kernel has snowballed, since the nineteenth century, into the much fuller source-book under review. Phenix and Horn build on the corpora assembled by Overbeck and Bickell.

Overbeck1 expands the sixth-century corpus by the addition of further canons and correspondence before the “Homily” and, after it, of “supplications” (texts to be sung at prayer) attributed to Rabbula.2 He does not translate the Syriac texts. Bickell rolls the snowball further, picking up the passage on Rabbula’s conversion from the Life of Alexander Akoimetes; but his German translations are printed without the Syriac and Greek originals.3 The Rabbula Corpus represents a further accumulation. Phenix and Horn alter the order as follows:

1) “The Heroic Deeds of Bishop Rabbula” (in Syriac);4

2) Rabbula’s alleged Constantinopolitan homily (in Syriac);

3) Rabbula’s rule for monks (in Syriac);

4) Rabbula’s rule for the clergy and the qyāmâ (in Syriac);

5) Another rule for monks, falsely attributed to Rabbula (in Syriac);5

6) Rabbula’s correspondence with Cyril, Andrew and Gemellinus (in Syriac);6

7) John of Antioch’s letter to the bishops of Osrhoene and other letters (in Latin);7

8) The tract De recta fide, dubiously attributed to Cyril (in a Syriac translation);

9) A larger number of hymns attributed to Rabbula (in Syriac).

The bibliography (primary sources and translations pp. 419–440; secondary literature pp. 440–474) and the comprehensive index (pp. 475–509) will make the book very useful to specialists, though the latter is marred by the occasional omission of spaces between the page-numbers.8

Phenix and Horn do not intend their introduction to replace G. G. Blum’s Rabbula von Edessa: Der Christ, der Bischof, der Theologe (1969), “the only monograph on Rabbula”; but they do claim to bring that book up to date (p. xxiv). They do so, perhaps, where monasticism and the qyāmâ are concerned. But on the problem of Rabbula’s famous U-turn, when he switched his allegiance from Antioch to Alexandria, Phenix and Horn disappoint. They simply subscribe to Blum’s opinion, ignoring H. J. W. Drijvers,9 who argues that Rabbula’s formation as a theologian must have been Antiochene, because his masters were Eusebius of Chalcis and Acacius of Aleppo, the latter a close associate of Theodoret. Ibas’ claim that Rabbula was once an avid reader of Theodore of Mopsuestia is therefore plausible. It does not occur to either Blum or Phenix and Horn that the Syriac “translation” of the homily (not extant in Greek) allegedly delivered at Constantinople, which takes a bold anti-Nestorian stance, is an answer to the charge that Rabbula must once have been a supporter of Nestorius. Indeed, who else but Nestorius can have invited him to preach in Haghia Sophia during that patriarch’s reign? At Ephesus in 431, Rabbula set his signature to the deposition of Cyril; only afterwards, when the emperor’s support for Cyril became known, did Rabbula “distance (separavit) himself from the Oriental synod” and become, overnight, an ardent supporter of Cyril and a slanderer of the great exegete Theodore and his disciple, Nestorius, thereby avoiding the fate of Chrysostom. Drijvers does justice to all the sources; yet his arguments are passed over in silence. Blum argues that Rabbula’s signatures at Ephesus were forged and that he must have stayed at home. This unlikely theory, supported by no good evidence, becomes, for Phenix and Horn, “the fact that Rabbula was not present at the Council of Ephesus” (p. clxxi, reviewer’s emphasis).

The authors speak of “the stunning silences in the Life of Rabbula” (p. xviii). They do not appreciate the full significance of the encomiast’s silence about Rabbula’s role at Ephesus in 431. If he never put his name to the deposition of Cyril, the record ought to have been set straight by his apologist. Instead, the ecumenical council, like other awkward subjects, is avoided altogether. Much of his praise for Rabbula can be read as indirect criticism of his successor, Ibas, under whom the encomiast probably wrote. The famous schools of the city, including that of the Christians from Persia, of which Ibas was the head, are only mentioned in passing; indeed, Phenix and Horn mistake the word ܡܟ̈ܬܒܐ (Overbeck, p. 190, line 7), which is probably to be translated as “schools” (though Doran, p. 89, penult., has “those inscribed on the welfare rolls”), for ܡ̈ܟܬܒܢܐ “scribes,” so even this passing reference is missed.

The encomiast denies (§38) that Rabbula “built anything in the earth,” apart from his hospital for women10 and minimal repairs to the nave-wall of the cathedral church, which had suffered ܢܟܝܢܐ “damage.”11 The devious wording of this denial conceals the fact, reported in the Chronicle of Edessa,12 that, already before the flood of 413, Rabbula had converted the synagogue of the Jews into the church of St Stephen. (He did not need to replace the foundations, so built nothing “in the earth”!) Far from acknowledging this, the encomiast is at pains to say how well Rabbula got on with the Jews of his city and how bitterly these outsiders – more honestly characterized in §42 as “the obstinate Israelite people” – mourned the dead bishop. Phenix and Horn (following Hallier, Blum and Doran) take this at face value. But the church-leaders of Syria are not to be trusted when they claim to have the best interests of the Jews at heart. One only has to remember Rabbula’s fourth-century models: the bishop who orchestrated (with impunity) the destruction of the synagogue of Callinicus, Chrysostom and (not least) Ephrem. Rabbula’s contemporary, Barṣauma of Samosata, was not the only one to intimidate judges and even royalty when they dared defend the downtrodden Jews.13 The reign of Theodosius II saw a rise in legislative discrimination against the Jewish community. There is no good reason, then, to doubt the report that Rabbula, in confiscating a synagogue, was acting in accordance with an imperial edict. Yet Blum accepts Ludwig Hallier’s far-fetched emendation of “Jews” to “Audians”; and Phenix and Horn join this chorus of denial that injustice was ever done to the Jews of Edessa!

It might have been better to leave the sixth-century corpus in its original sequence, not to re-order its parts. But the idea of making a source-book containing all the relevant texts in the original and in English translation was a very good one;14 and if this comprehensive “historical source-book for the study of Rabbula” can be revised, corrected and reissued with a shorter introduction,15 it will be an extremely valuable resource. The criticisms in this review should therefore be seen by the authors as constructive, intended to help them improve on their work in a second edition which will combine the best of Overbeck’s, Bickell’s, Vööbus’s and Doran’s work.16

Phenix and Horn disclaim the ambition to replace Blum’s study of Rabbula.17 Perhaps, then, they should issue an updated translation of Blum, incorporating much of the material which overburdens the present introduction, of which pp. xvii–xlvi seem the most necessary. This last applies particularly to the section on “Persuasion, encomium and biography in the Life of Rabbula (= The Heroic Deeds of Bishop Rabbula),” which shows an admirable command of scholarship concerning the various biographical genres. As Phenix and Horn write on p. xlv:

The author’s fealty to classical literary convention may be far greater than previously imagined, and if so, this will impact the use of the Life of Rabbula for the reconstruction of history in Edessa.

Once the section on the Sitz im Leben of the Life (pp. lxx–cxiii) has been abridged and corrected (p. lxxii, on Rabbula’s dates, is misleading),18 it will be truly useful. The other texts included in the source-book should, in the reviewer’s opinion, be introduced at the appropriate points in the book. Here, too, brevity is needed – and greater accuracy, too.19

The Syriac texts need to be corrected from the manuscripts.20 In an appendix to this review, a step is already taken in this direction by listing corrigenda to the fifth-century corpus from MS BL Add. 14,652 (Wright, Catalogue, p. 651f., no. 732).21

As for the English translations, these would benefit from a comparison with Bickell’s German translations, which are generally better, as the following passage from the hymns on p. 290f. of The Rabbula Corpus shows:

Gustav Bickell, Ausgewählte Schriften aus syrischen Kirchenvätern, BKV (Kempten 1874), p. 262: Als die Heiligen kamen und sich niederlegten zum Gastmahl des Leidens, da tranken sie alle von jenem Most, welchen das Judenvolk auf Golgotha gekeltert hatte, und erlernten die verborgenen Geheimnisse des Hauses Gottes. Deshalb sagen wir lobsingend: Gelobt sei Christus, welcher die heiligen Märtyrer durch das Blut aus seiner Seite trunken gemacht hat!

Phenix and Horn: When the saints went up and rested (Syr. ܥܠܼܘ ܘܓܢܼܘ “came in and reclined”) on the couch of their sufferings (Syr. ܒܣܡ̇ܟܐ ܕܚܫ̈ܐ “at the feast of sufferings” = “zum Gastmahl des Leidens” – the possessive pronoun is not in the Syr.), from that juice that the people trampled out (this ought to be: “that must which the [Jewish] people trod”) on Golgotha all of them drank and learned the secret mysteries (correct ܐܖ̈ܙܐ ܟܗ̈ܝܐ to ܐܪ̈ܙܐ ܟܣ̈ܝܐ = Overbeck) of the house of God. Wherefore (“and for that reason” – the archaic “wherefore” seems out of place) we sing with praises (“we sing praises” is better English) and say, blessed is the Messiah (this should be “Blessed is Christ”) who intoxicated the holy martyrs with the blood (“made the holy martyrs drunk on the blood” – the word “intoxicated” is taken from the wrong register) from his side.

The English translations by Phenix and Horn, as published, are neither felicitous, nor accurate. For a revised edition they need to be thoroughly overhauled. An example will be given here from the most important source, “The Heroic Deeds of Bishop Rabbula.” In §46 the anonymous encomiast refers his reader to the Syriac translation of the homily delivered in Constantinople. This reference will be quoted here, first in Syriac (fol. 115v, Overbeck, p. 198f., Phenix and Horn, p. 68), then in Bickell’s German translation, then in Robert Doran’s English translation, and finally in the translation given in The Rabbula Corpus, so as to allow readers of this review to judge for themselves which is the best of the English translations.

In this last, the Greek loan-word τύραννος is translated as if it were θρόνος and the sentence ends too soon. The German translation is certainly the best of the three.

The list of corrigenda which follows this review makes Phenix and Horn’s text of the sixth-century corpus preferable to Overbeck’s, partly because it includes corrigenda to this earlier edition and partly because Phenix and Horn annotate the text copiously and divide it into numbered sections for ease of reference.22

N. B. Bold type is used to highlight the differences between the printed text and the manuscript, where a longer passage is quoted.

Apart from an unnecessary “emendation” on p. 4 and the fact that “[85v]” is placed after, not before, the word with which that folio begins on p. 8, the only differences between the manuscript and the text printed on pp. 2–10 are points omitted and punctuation-marks altered. Such minor infidelities will be passed over here. On pages 12–20, 24–44 and 52–82, however, more serious errors have been introduced, sometimes (as on p. 4) through an attempt to emend the text.