Thecla in Syriac Christianity Preliminary Observations
Lucas
Van Rompay
Catherine
Burris
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2002
Vol. 5, No. 2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv5n2burrisvanrompay
Catherine BURRIS and Lucas VAN ROMPAY
Thecla in Syriac Christianity Preliminary Observations
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol5/HV5N2BurrisVanRompay.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2002
vol 5
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
Thecla
File created by XSLT transformation of original HTML encoded article.
Inspired by and in response to Stephen J.
Davis' recent book on The Cult of St Thecla (2001), this paper
is a first exploration of the evidence on Thecla in Syriac
Christianity. The relatively extensive Syriac manuscript
tradition of the Acts of Paul and Thecla is briefly surveyed
and placed within its wider literary and cultural contexts. A
few suggestions are made concerning the reception of the text
and the popularity of the Thecla cult. The paper should be read
in conjunction with Susan Ashbrook
Harvey's review of Davis' book, published elsewhere in this
issue.
cburris@email.unc.edu
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Department of Religious Studies, CB#3225
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3225, U.S.A.
&
rompay@duke.edu
Duke University
Department of Religion, Box 90964
Durham, NC 27708-0964, U.S.A.
[1] In
Davis' recent book on the cult of Thecla, an impressive wealth
of material is adduced to illustrate the different ways in
which the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla were read
and interpreted in Egypt [Davis 2001]. Early papyrus fragments
of the Acts in Greek and Coptic, references in
literary texts, wall paintings and material remains attest to
the popularity of Thecla's story as well as to the spread of
her cult.
[2] In
addition to the original and extensive treatment of the
Egyptian material, Davis provides an excellent survey of the
literary developments and the cult surrounding the Thecla
shrine in Seleucia, Asia Minor. Other areas of the Christian
East, however, are only occasionally discussed. For
example, Davis refers to Syriac evidence in a number of
footnotes, indicating its potential importance, but undertakes
no exhaustive study of the Syrian Thecla cult, choosing to
limit his analysis to Egypt. Admittedly, works of art or
material objects related to Thecla are almost non-existent in
Syria. But the Syriac field has preserved some very ancient and
nearly complete manuscript witnesses of the Acts,
which prove that the Thecla story was read and enjoyed
considerable popularity among Syrian Christians. It is our aim
here to present some preliminary data that may contribute to a
future comprehensive study of the cult of Thecla in Syriac
Christianity.
[3] Let us
begin with a brief discussion of the Syriac manuscripts
containing the Acts of Paul and Thecla. William
Wright's 1871 edition and translation of the text are based on
four manuscripts [Wright 1871, 127-169 (Syriac text); 116-145
(English translation) xii-xiii (Preface)]. All four manuscripts
were kept in the library of the Egyptian Monastery of the
Syrians until their transfer to the British Museum in London
around the middle of the nineteenth century [Innemée
& Van Rompay 1998; Van Rompay & Schmidt 2001].
Ms. British Library Add. 14,652 [Wright II, 1871,
651a-652a], dated by Wright on paleographical grounds to the
sixth century – providing the complete text, with some
lacunae due to the loss of a few leaves and damage (letter A
in Wright's edition)
Ms. British Library Add. 14,447 [Wright I, 1870, 98b],
probably belonging to the tenth century – providing
only the beginning of the text (letter B)
Ms. British Library, Add. 14,641 [Wright II, 1871,
1045a], of the tenth or eleventh century – providing
the complete text (letter C)
Ms. British Library, Add. 12,174 [Wright III, 1872,
1137a], dated AD 1197 – providing the complete text,
with some lacunae (letter D)
[4] In 1902,
Anton Baumstark observed that these manuscripts belong to two
different categories [Baumstark 1902, 31]. In the first two
manuscripts, the Thecla texts (entitled "History of Thecla, the
disciple of Paul the apostle" and "History of Thecla, the
martyr") belong to a larger literary unit that is called "Book
of women" (Ktâbâ
d-neššê). This consists of five books
in the sixth-century manuscript (the Book of Ruth, the Book of
Esther, the Book of Susanna, the Book of Judith, and the
History of Thecla) and of four books in the tenth-century
manuscript (On the chaste Susanna, the Exploits of Esther, the
History of Judith, and the History of Thecla). In the latter
two manuscripts, the Thecla texts (respectively entitled
"History of the illustrious Thecla, the one of Paul" and
"History concerning Thecla, who was the betrothed of Thamyris,
the king's son, and at the end (was) the disciple of Paul the
apostle") are part of large collections of historical,
hagiographical, and martyrological texts. In the fourth
manuscript we are dealing with an impressive collection of
seventy-eight pieces.
[5] The
colophons of these four manuscripts allow us to make a few
observations on the places in which the manuscripts originated
or were originally kept. Although the sixth-century manuscript
(no. 1 of the above list) cannot be located geographically, a
largely effaced colophon contains the name of an abbess Maryam,
who seems to have been the owner of the book [Wright II, 1872,
652a], prior to its transfer to the Egyptian monastery. This
may be seen as evidence that the Syriac Thecla text was read by
women, as Davis has argued was the case in Egypt. The second
manuscript has only an owner's note of the Monastery of the
Syrians. The other two manuscripts (nos. 3 and 4) belong to a
period in Syriac literature that was characterized by the aim
to collect and preserve the literary productions of the earlier
generations of Syriac Christianity. In the third manuscript
there is no colophon or note. The fourth manuscript originated
in the Monastery of Barsauma at Melitene in 1197 and has a note
written on behalf of Michael, the patriarch of the
Syrian-Orthodox Church [Wright III, 1872, 1137a-1139a], one of
the protagonists in what has been called the "Syriac
Renaissance".
[6] Without
having undertaken an exhaustive survey of the catalogues, we
would like to point out the existence of several additional
manuscripts. Some of them have already received scholarly
attention; others have remained unnoticed so far. In the first
place, two manuscripts should be mentioned which have come to
light through the work of the Peshitta Institute in Leiden. In
the course of a trip undertaken in search of Syriac biblical
manuscripts in 1964-1965, professor P.A.H. de Boer saw them in
the Monastery of the Syrians in Egypt and was given permission
to photograph them. Their content has not yet been fully
explored and it will suffice here to point out briefly their
potential importance for further research. These new
manuscripts (nos. 5 and 6) also belong to the same Monastery of
the Syrians mentioned above, which, therefore, in its heyday
must have had (at least) six copies of the Thecla text in its
library [Murad Kamil s.d.; Peshitta Institute
1968].
Ms. Deir al-Surian 28, sixth century [Murad Kamil,
XXVIII]
[7] We are
dealing with a composite manuscript. The first part (f. 2-63)
contains the complete Book of Job. A note at the end reports
that in the month Kânun qdem of the year 910 (=
AD 598, December) the manuscript was purchased by the lady
Thom(a)ta bat Sargis for the church of Igâ or
Aygâ, a place which we have been unable to
identify. This (part of the) manuscript was classified as 6h20
in the classification system of the Leiden Peshitta Institute.
It was used in the Leiden edition of Job [Rignell 1993, esp.
VIII-IX].
[8] The
second part of the manuscript (f. 64-132), written by a
different, probably also sixth-century hand, contains the Book
of Daniel (including Bel and Draco) and the Book of Thecla. The
exact date and the place of origin of this manuscript are
unknown. An owners' note at the beginning of this part of the
manuscript mentions the names of "Mattay, Abraham, and
Theodore". These are the Takritan brothers, who must have
brought the manuscript to Egypt somewhere between c. 820 and c.
850 [Van Rompay & Schmidt 2001, 45-46]. The place of this
note indicates that when the brothers acquired this manuscript,
it was not yet bound together with the Job manuscript. This
must have been done, therefore, at a later moment in the
Monastery of the Syrians. This (part of the) manuscript was
classified as 6h21 in the classification system of the Leiden
Peshitta Institute. It was used in the Leiden edition of Daniel
[Sprey 1980, esp. V-VI].
Ms. Deir al-Surian 27, eighth century [Murad Kamil,
XXVII]
[9] Like the
preceding one, this too is a composite manuscript. The first
part (f. 3-51), which is incomplete at the beginning and at the
end, can be dated to the eighth century. It contains Flavius
Josephus' account of the destruction of Jerusalem, taken from
"The Jewish War", III Maccabees, Ruth, Susanna, and (written in
a much later hand) the beginning verses of Esther. This (part
of the) manuscript was classified as 8g1 in the classification
system of the Leiden Peshitta Institute [Peshitta Institute
1968, 135].
[10] The
second part of the manuscript (f. 52-94), also datable to the
eighth century, contains an imperfectly preserved "Book of
women", consisting of the following sections: Esther (of which
the beginning is missing), Judith, Thecla, Tobit (according to
the Septuagint). This (part of the) manuscript was classified
as 8f1 in the classification system of the Leiden Peshitta
Institute. It was used in the Leiden edition of Tobit, for
which book it is the earliest witness of the Syro-Hexaplaric
text [Lebram 1972, esp. III-IV].
[11] Our
observations obviously must be based on the original rather
than on the composite forms of the manuscripts. While the
eighth-century manuscript (no. 6) seems to be another witness
of the "Book of women", including this time Tobit, the new
sixth-century manuscript (no. 5) presents us with the
interesting combination of the Book of Daniel and what is
called here – in biblical fashion – the "Book of
Thecla". This combination can hardly have been accidental,
since the predicament to which Daniel was subjected and his
nearly-martyrdom exhibit some striking similarities to what
happened to Thecla. Whatever the explanation for this may be,
we are dealing here with another strategy (different from that
of the "Book of women") of bringing Thecla in the biblical
realm, one that associates her not with the New Testament, with
which the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla
originally were connected, but with the Old Testament, where
(some) Syrian Christians apparently saw a more appropriate
context for Thecla's heroic behavior.
[12] The
placement of Thecla in the "Book of women" deserves further
study. As is well known, the grouping together of the four
books (Ruth, Susanna, Esther, Judith), with or without the
title "Book of women", is occasionally found in Syriac biblical
manuscripts (the earliest example being ms. Milan, Bibliotheca
Ambrosiana, B 21 Inferiore = 7a1), as well as in some of the
so-called Masoretic manuscripts. The question, then, is whether
the "Book of women" originally existed without Thecla and at a
later moment in history – no later than the sixth century
– was expanded to include Thecla, or whether the original
collection included Thecla and was only later reduced to the
four "biblical" books. The issue of the association of
Thecla with Old Testament women is the subject of a forthcoming
article by Catherine Burris [Burris 2002].
[13] All
the manuscripts discussed thus far belong to, or were preserved
within, the Syrian-Orthodox tradition. However, the Thecla
text also occurs in East-Syriac manuscripts. Four
manuscripts deserve to be mentioned here. The Berlin manuscript
(no. 8) was briefly referred to by Baumstark in 1902. The three
others have never been studied in detail; two of them
unfortunately are not easily accessible.
Ms. Vat. Syr. 597, seventeenth century [Van Lantschoot
1965, 128-131, esp. 130, no. 23]
Ms. Berlin 75, Sachau 222, AD 1881 [Baumstark 1902, 31;
Sachau 1899, 289-291, esp. 291a, no. 40]
Ms. Alqosh 212, undated [Vosté 1929, 79-81, esp.
80, no. 8]
Ms. Alqosh 214, AD 1885 [Vosté 1929, 82-83, esp.
82, no. 15]
[14] The
four manuscripts have in common that they are of a recent date
and that the Thecla text is part of a large collection of
hagiographical texts. This context is comparable, therefore, to
what was said above with regard to manuscripts nos. 3 and
4.
[15]
Summarizing the data of the new manuscripts listed so far, we
may distinguish three contexts in which the Thecla text has
been transmitted: first, the "Book of women" (nos. 1, 2, 6),
second, the combination Daniel-Thecla (no. 5), third, different
types of large hagiographical collections (nos. 3, 4, 7, 8, 9,
and 10).
[16] In
the next manuscript, the last to be discussed here (no. 11), we
see yet another category, which shares some characteristics
with the "Book of women," and others with the large
hagiographical collections.
Mount Sinai, Library of the Monastery of Saint Catherine,
Syr. 30
[17] The
manuscript in question is the famous Sinai palimpsest, which in
its earlier layer of writing contains the Old Syriac Gospels.
It was reused in 779, or perhaps in 698, when the monk John the
Stylite of Bet Mar Qanun, working near Antioch, wrote his
"Select narratives of holy women"
(tašcyâtâ
mgabbyâtâ d-cal
neššê qaddišâtâ)
[Smith Lewis 1900; Hatch 1946, 97]. The list of the holy women
opens with Thecla ("Book of the blessed Mart Thecla, disciple
of Paul, the blessed apostle") and then continues as follows:
Eugenia, Pelagia, Marina, Euphrosyne, Onesima, Drusis, Barbara,
Mary, Irene, Euphemia, Sophia, Theodosia, Theodota, (the
biblical) Susanna, Cyprian and Justa. The work also contains a
short creed and, at the end, "strophes of Mar Ephrem, from the
Hymns on Paradise", reproducing sections from Ephrem's sixth
and seventh Hymns on Paradise (VI, 8, 12-13, 18, 23-24, and
VII, 14 and 17), counted as the seventeenth piece in the
scribe's (or the original redactor's?) table of contents of the
"Book of select narratives" [Smith Lewis 1900, 280 (Syriac) and
205-206 (translation)]. The Thecla text of this manuscript has
not been published. The editor of the "Select narratives" has
limited herself to collating the manuscript against Wright's
edition and to listing the variants [Smith Lewis 1900, Syriac
text, 290-305].
[18] This
manuscript may suggest the intersection of varying
understandings of Thecla and her place in Syrian
Christianity. The stories of Thecla and Susanna remind us
of the "Book of women". However, the other biblical women
are absent, and instead, one finds a number of Christian,
women. This collection, while similar in form to the
hagiographical collections mentioned above, is importantly
different in its content. The other collections are
mainly, albeit not exclusively, devoted to male saints; this
one is exclusively female, again echoing the "Book of
women."
[19] The
manuscript tradition of the Syriac Acts of Paul and
Thecla is not the only source of evidence for the place of
Thecla in Syriac Christianity. When we consider the
reception of the text and the popularity of the saint, we find
important evidence, roughly contemporaneous to manuscripts 1
and 5 above. Among the Cathedral Homilies of
Severus of Antioch (Syrian-Orthodox patriarch from 512 to 518),
there is one homily (no. 97) entirely devoted to "the
protomartyr Thecla", delivered on Thecla's feast day (September
24). Except for a number of fragments, the Cathedral
Homilies have not been preserved in Greek. They
circulated, however, in a Syriac translation around the middle
of the sixth century, and the earliest witness of homily no. 97
(ms. Rome, Vat. Syr. 142) has the year 576 as its terminus
ante quem. This version of the homily has remained
unpublished; the text published by Brière [Brière
1943, 122(566) – 138(582)] is the translation of Jacob of
Edessa (d. 708), which is a revision of the earlier, mid-sixth
century translation [Van Rompay, forthcoming, with further
references].
[20] For
Severus, who extensively paraphrases passages of the Acts
of Paul and Thecla, Thecla is above all an image of the
church [cf. Pesthy 1996, 173-175]. Later in the homily, he
explicitly refers to the many women who zealously imitate
Thecla for her virginity and martyrdom, even though they fall
short of a complete imitation. With regard to the cutting of
Thecla's hair, her preaching, and teaching, Severus maintains
that women are not allowed to follow Thecla's example, since
this is against the overall legislation of the church. Thecla's
sufferings are compared to those of the three condemned to the
fiery furnace (Daniel 3) as well as to Daniel in the lions' den
(Daniel 6). Severus may or may not be aware of a tradition or a
written collection that associates Thecla with Old Testament
women, but his use of Daniel in this context strongly suggests
that he is aware at least of the tradition behind manuscript
no. 5. Further evidence of this awareness may be apparent
in two other of Severus' homilies (nos. 71 and 75), where the
mention of Daniel as an example of a holy person overcoming
wild animals and a perilous situation is immediately followed
by a reference to Thecla [Brière 1915, 69(351) and
130(412)]. After his discussion of Daniel in the homily
on Thecla (no. 97), Severus briefly points to the Thecla shrine
in Seleucia, where healings and miracles are performed. In
general, Severus' comments – in their Greek and Syriac
text forms – give us some glimpses of the background
against which the contemporary developments in the transmission
of the Thecla text took place, and suggest that the
Daniel-Thecla pairing witnessed only in manuscript no. 5 was
not unique to the writer of that manuscript.
[21] As
was the case with the manuscripts of the Acts of Paul and
Thecla, our other evidence is not limited to the
West-Syrian world, either. The popularity of Thecla and the
effect it had on women's piety are evident in the Life of
Febronia, most likely a late sixth or early seventh
century composition to be located in Nisibis [Davis 2001,
125-126; Brock & Ashbrook Harvey 1987, 150-176]. The
Manichaean Psalm-Book, which is preserved in Coptic [Davis
2001, 100-101, with further references], but probably goes back
to an Aramaic original, quotes and praises Thecla, providing an
indirect witness to her renown in pre-Islamic Persia. Her
popularity may also be seen in the fact that two different
women, martyred in Persia [Brock & Ashbrook Harvey 1987, 77
and 78-81], were named after her.
[22] If
in fact the presence of namesakes contributes to our
understanding of Thecla's popularity, as Davis believes it does
for Egypt [Davis 2001, 201-208], it may not be without
significance that two women closely associated with illustrious
East-Syrian holy men bear the name of Thecla. The first is the
mother of Rabban Hormizd, the famous recluse of Northern Iraq
[Budge 1902, I, 9 (Syriac); II,1, 14 and II,2, 329
(translation)]. The second is one of the sisters of Mar
Awgên, who is said to have introduced Egyptian
monasticism to Mesopotamia. His monastery near Nisibis is said
to contain the tomb of the saint as well as the tombs of his
two sisters, Thecla and Stratonice [Fiey 1977, 138]. Thecla
seems to have been regarded as an appropriate name for women
accompanying venerable men, after the example of Thecla, Paul's
companion. Unfortunately, these traditions cannot be dated.
[23]
Neither, unfortunately, can the origins of the living Syrian
Thecla-traditions be clearly dated. Davis briefly mentions the
Monastery of St. Thecla at Maclula near Damascus,
but refrains from further discussion, as "the date of origin
for the site is uncertain" [Davis 2001, 84, note 8].
Admittedly, his statement is correct. However, the region
between Damascus and Homs (Emesa) has known an uninterrupted
history of Christian presence until today and it is, at first
sight, unlikely that the Thecla cult would have been introduced
at a recent date. Other places in the area seem to have been
associated with Thecla [Thoumin 1929; Peña 2000, 30,
244-245, 248-249], although here again clear evidence of great
antiquity is lacking. The case of an undated Syriac
inscription invoking Saint Thecla (qaddištâ
Mart(y) Taqla), found on a column located to the East of
Aleppo [Jarry 1967, 157; Peña 2000, 30] may be the
exception. Not only in this part of Syria, but also in
adjacent Lebanon, Thecla is, up to the present day, one of the
most popular saints [Fiey 1978, 40-41].
[24] In
spite of the very provisional character of our observations, we
hope to have shown that the isolated pieces of information
concerning the literary tradition and the cult of Thecla in the
area of Syriac Christianity deserve to be brought together and
to be developed into a comprehensive study, a counterpart to
Davis' extremely valuable book on the Thecla cult in Egypt.
Acknowledgement
The following persons have provided us with data and useful
suggestions: LeighAnna Allen (Duke University), Mat Immerzeel,
Luitgard Mols, and Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden
University). Konrad Jenner, director of the Peshitta Institute
at Leiden, generously gave us access to the microfilm
collection of the Peshitta Institute.
_______
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