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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.
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.
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.
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.
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].
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.
s.d.; Peshitta Institute
1968].
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].
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.
taš cyâtâ
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].
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].
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.
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.
clula 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].
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.
_______
Baumstark 1902 = Anton Baumstark,
Die Petrus- und Paulusacten in der literarischen
Ueberlieferung der syrischen Kirche (Leipzig 1902).
Brière 1915 = M.
Brière, Les Homiliae Cathedrales de
Sévère d'Antioche. Homélies LXX à
LXXVI (Patrologia Orientalis 12,1 ; Paris 1915).
Brière 1943 = M.
Brière, Les Homiliae Cathedrales de
Sévère d'Antioche. Homélies XCI à
XCVIII (Patrologia Orientalis 25,1 ; Paris 1943).
Brock & Ashbrook Harvey 1987 =
Sebastian P. Brock & Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women
of the Syrian Orient (The Transformation of the Classical
Heritage 13; Berkeley etc. 1987).
Budge 1902 = E.A. Wallis Budge,
The Histories of Rabban Hôrmîzd the Persian and
Rabban Bar- cIdtâ, I and II,1-2 (London
1902).
Burris 2002 = Catherine Burris, "The
Syriac Book of Women: Text and Meta-Text". Paper
presented at the conference on "The Early Christian Book", The
Catholic University of America, June 2002.
Davis 2001 = Stephen J. Davis,
The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in
Late Antiquity (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford
2001).
Fiey 1977 = Jean-Maurice Fiey,
Nisibe. Métropole syriaque orientale et ses
suffragants des origines à nos jours (Corpus
Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 388 / Subsidia 54; Louvain
1977).
Fiey 1978 = Jean-Maurice Fiey, "De
quelques saints vénérés au Liban",
Proche-Orient Chrétien 28 (1978) 18-43.
Hatch 1946 = William Henry Paine
Hatch, An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts (Boston,
Massachusetts: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
1946).
Innemée & Van Rompay 1998
= Karel Innemée & Lucas Van Rompay, "La
présence des Syriens dans le Wadi al-Natrun
(Égypte). À propos des découvertes
récentes de peintures et de texts muraux dans
l'Église de la Vierge du Couvent des Syriens",
Parole de l'Orient 23 (1998) 167-202.
Jarry 1967 = Jacques Jarry,
"Inscriptions arabes, syriaques et grecques du massif du
Bélus en Syrie du nord", Annales islamologiques
7 (1967) 139-220.
Lebram 1972 = J.C.H. Lebram,
Tobit (The Old Testament in Syriac according to the
Peshitta edition, IV,6 – fifth section, 1972).
Murad Kamil s.d. = Murad
Kamil, Catalogue of the Syrian Manuscripts Newly Found in
the Monastery of St. Mary Deipara in the Nitrian Desert
(an undated English translation, c. 1960, of an earlier Arabic
inventory).
Peña 2000 = Ignacio
Peña, Lieux de pèlerinage en Syrie
(Studium Biblicum Fransciscanum, Collectio minor, 38; Milan
2000).
Peshitta Institute 1968 = "Peshitta
Institute Communications VII", Vetus Testamentum 18
(1968) 135-136.
Pesthy 1996 = Monika Pesthy, "Thecla
among the Fathers of the Church", in Jan N. Bremmer (ed.),
The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla (Studies on the
Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles 2; Kampen 1996) 164-178.
Rignell 1993 = L.G. Rignell,
Job (The Old Testament in Syriac according to the
Peshitta edition, II,1a, 1993 [second edition]).
Sachau 1899 = Eduard Sachau,
Verzeichnis der syrischen Handschriften (Die
Handschriftenverzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu
Berlin, 23. Band; Berlin 1899).
Smith Lewis 1900 = Agnes Smith
Lewis, Select Narratives of Holy Women from the
Syro-Antiochene or Sinai Palimpsest as Written above the Old
Syriac Gospels by John the Stylite, of Beth-Mari-Qanūn in
A.D. 778, 2 volumes (Studia Sinaitica 9-10; London
1900).
Sprey 1980 = Th. Sprey a.o.,
Daniel and Bel and the Dragon (The Old Testament in
Syriac according to the Peshitta edition, III,4 – second
section, 1980).
Thoumin 1929 = R. Thoumin, "Le culte
de sainte Thècle dans le Jebel Qalamun",
Mélanges de l'Institut français de Damas
(Section des arabisants) 1 (1929) 163-180, with Plates
XVII-XXI.
Van Lantschoot 1965 = Arn. Van
Lantschoot, Inventaire des manuscrits syriaques des fonds
Vatican (460-631) Barberini Oriental et Neofiti (Studi e
Testi 243; Vatican City 1965).
Van Rompay & Schmidt 2001 =
Lucas Van Rompay & Andrea Schmidt, "Takritans in the
Egyptian Desert. The Monastery of the Syrians in the Ninth
Century", Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac
Studies 1 (2001) 41-60.
Van Rompay, forthcoming = Lucas Van
Rompay, "Jacob of Edessa and the Sixth-Century Syriac
Translator of Severus of Antioch's Cathedral Homilies", in K.D.
Jenner & R.B. ter Haar Romeny (eds.), Jacob of Edessa
and the Syriac Culture of His Day (Leiden 2002).
Vosté 1929 = Jacques
Vosté, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque
syro-chaldéenne du Couvent de Notre-Dame des semences
près d'Alqoš (Iraq) (Rome & Paris
1929).
Wright 1871 = William Wright,
Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 2 volumes (London
1871; reprint Amsterdam 1968).
Wright I, II, III = W. Wright,
Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum,
3 vol. (London 1870, 1871, 1872).