[1] David
Wilmshurst first became interested in the Church of the East
when working as an administrator in the Hong Kong Government.
He completed a doctoral thesis in 1998 at Oxford University
under the supervision of Sebastian Brock and published ‘a
significantly expanded version’ of his thesis in the
Subsidia series of the Corpus Scriptorum
Christianorum Orientalium (Leuven 2000). It is a book of
imposing bulk, which only partially corresponds to the wide
scope set out in the title: The Ecclesiastical Organisation
of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. What the author in
facts does is to catalogue very scrupulously an impressive
amount of documentary material relating to the history of the
Church of the East.
[2] Chapter
1 (p. 1-15) provides the reader with general information on the
book and a survey of the sources. It is remarkable how scanty
the original Syriac historiography is in most of the centuries
under study. After Bar Hebraeus’ Chronography and
the History of Rabban Sawma and Mar Yahballaha (date of
composition 1317-1319) and the additions to the
Chronography in the Bodleian Ms. 52 (relating the
Timurid invasion of Mesopotamia in 1394), Syriac historiography
seems to fade out until the 19th century.
[3]
Wilmshurst mentions here and there East-Syrian poetry composed
on historical subjects (wars, famine, Kurdish assaults). It is
probably among those poems written in Classical or Vernacular
Syriac—few of them are published and even fewer carefully
studied—that we should look for an East-Syrian perception
of history from the Mongolian period to the 19th-century.
Wilmshurst, however, does not appear to be interested in
literature other than historical narrative as an indirect
source for his reconstruction. For instance, Macuch’s
Geschichte der spät- und neusyrischen Literatur
(Berlin-New York, 1976) does not appear in his
bibliography.
[4] The
silence of (East-)Syrian historians is partly compensated for
by other sources: colophons, inscriptions and—especially
after the intensification of diplomatic contacts with Rome in
the 16th century—the official correspondence between the
Vatican and the East-Syrian Patriarchs, reports from
missionaries, diaries of European travellers.
Wilmshurst’s research focused on manuscript colophons,
since, as the author states, ‘in many cases, the name of
a priest or a deacon is the only evidence for Christian
activity in a particular village’ (p. v).
[5] The
author presents a fair discussion on the terminology used (p.
4). Nevertheless, expressions such as ‘schism’,
‘conversion to Catholicism’ or ‘to become a
Catholic’ used for describing the facts of 1552 and their
consequences might have been more accurately pondered and
discussed from the juridical and historical points of view. Was
it really a schism? Who called/calls it a ‘schism’?
Who converted/was converted to what? What did it mean ‘to
became a Catholic’ in various circumstances? The same
holds for ‘traditionalist’ used to distinguish
those in the Church of the East who did not accept the union
with Rome. Together with its counterpart
‘non-traditionalist’ used for the Catholic
Chaldeans, the term ‘traditionalist’ may be a
useful label for a Western scholar, but it risks introducing an
external and questionable point of view onto dangerous ground.
Which side tradition takes is often a moot point.
[6] The
author presents a fair discussion on the terminology used (p.
4). Nevertheless, expressions such as ‘schism’,
‘conversion to Catholicism’ or ‘to become a
Catholic’ used for describing the facts of 1552 and their
consequences might have been more accurately pondered and
discussed from the juridical and historical points of view. Was
it really a schism? Who called/calls it a ‘schism’?
Who converted/was converted to what? What did it mean ‘to
became a Catholic’ in various circumstances? The same
holds for ‘traditionalist’ used to distinguish
those in the Church of the East who did not accept the union
with Rome. Together with its counterpart
‘non-traditionalist’ used for the Catholic
Chaldeans, the term ‘traditionalist’ may be a
useful label for a Western scholar, but it risks introducing an
external and questionable point of view onto dangerous ground.
Which side tradition takes is often a moot point.
[7] In
Chapters 3 to 6 (p. 38-341), the author arranges the
information that he has collected according to geographical
criteria. The result very much resembles Fiey’s
Assyrie Chrétienne (Beirut 1965-68), the
corresponding paragraphs of which are quoted in square brackets
beside Wilmshurst’s titles. Of each of the regions
examined (Nisibis and Beth ‘Arabaye, Amid,
Egypt-Syria-Palestine-Cilicia-Cypros, Mardin, Seert, Gazarta,
‘Amadiya, Berwari, ‘Aqra, Erbil, Kirkuk, Mosul,
Hakkari, Urmia), the author sketches a brief
‘Ecclesiastical History’—in reality a survey
of the various dioceses—and a detailed
‘Topographical Survey’ with copious information on
districts, villages, monasteries etc. Wilmshurst reports in
detail and organizes the data provided by more than 2500
East-Syrian colophons: number of manuscripts copied in a given
place, names of scribes and genealogical reconstruction of
their families, occasional historical information recorded by
the copyists, ecclesiastical title of the persons mentioned in
the colophons as copyist, copyist’s family or
purchaser(s), etc.
[8] The
evidence provided by manuscript colophons is integrated with
information coming from secondary sources. Whenever available,
from the 19th century onwards, demographic data (number of
Christian believers or families, priests, monks, churches;
distribution of the population according to ethno-linguistic or
religious criteria) are presented in clear tables. The use of
secondary literature, however, turned out to be a little
superficial in a number of cases into which I was able to
inquire.
[9] In 1654
the Belgian Carmelite Fr. Dionysius of the Crown of Thorns
visited the village of Telkepe, in the Mosul plain, to visit
the Patriarch Mar Ilyas. In his diplomatic discussion with the
Patriarch he received help from a ‘well-disposed’
priest Joseph. Fiey (Assyrie Chrétienne 359-360)
identifies this priest Joseph with a Joseph mentioned in a
colophon as malpana ‘teacher, professor’,
together with another priest Joseph qankaya
‘sacristan, curate’. We know, thus, of the
existence of at least two priests called Joseph in Telkepe in
1654. Fiey suggests that the priest who met Fr. Dionysius was
probably none other than Joseph son of Jamāl al-Dīn
(‘Ce prêtre Yūsif est probablement le
même que...’), author of a number of poems in
Vernacular Syriac (see Macuch, Geschichte, p. 99-100).
Wilmshurst presents this identification as a fact, without
providing further evidence: ‘Denys [Fr. Dionysius] tried
unsuccessfully to persuade him [the Patriarch] to become a
Catholic, with the help of the influential Telkepe priest
Joseph, son of Jamāl al-Dīn. Joseph, who composed
several religious poems…’ (p. 223-224).
[10]
About the famous East-Syrian author and scribe Israel of
Alqosh, Wilmshurst writes: ‘He remained a traditionalist
[sic!] throughout his life, remarking in 1611 that he had
preserved the old faith of the Church of the East,
‘corrupted by the Jacobites’ (p. 243. quoting H.L.
Murre-van den Berg, ‘A Syrian Awakening. Alqosh and Urmia
as Centers of Neo-Syriac Writing’, unpublished paper).
The text by Israel of Alqosh runs in fact: ‘This is the
profession of the faith of the maddenhāyē (Fiey: ‘Orientaux’).
We have kept it truthfully from the time of the first apostles,
and grace dwelled in it, and the
ya‘qubāyē (Fiey:
‘Nestoriens’) changed it’. I quote from the
same paper by H.L. Murre-van den Berg, published in R. Lavenant
(ed.), VII Symposium Syriacum (1996), Orientalia
Christiana Analecta 256, Rome 1998, 499-515. It is difficult to
find in these verses a conscious and explicit attempt to defend
the ‘traditional’ faith of the Church of the East
against the Catholic sympathies of others, unless we read a
text such as that translated by Fiey, where
‘Jacobites’ (attested in all manuscripts available
to me) was mysteriously or, better, ideologically replaced by
‘Nestorians’. Pace Wilmshurst (and Murre-van den
Berg), Israel of Alqosh or whoever wrote those lines probably
had no Catholics in mind at that moment.
[11]
Chapter 7 (p. 342-370) is an attempt to summarize and arrange
chronologically the material that in the previous chapters is
presented geographically, region by region, district by
district, village by village. Important issues come to the fore
in this chapter:
- the situation in the outlying provinces of the Church of
the East (Persia, Central Asia, India, China) which,
‘with the important exception of India, collapsed
during the second half of the fourteenth century’
possibly because of ‘a combination of persecution,
disease, and isolation’ (p. 345);
- the patriarchal succession, which is not documented by
reliable evidence in the period 1318-1552, while from
1552 to the 19th century it is certain in the case of the
Mosul patriarchate, but less exact for the successors of the
rebellious Sulaqa;
- the population of the Church of the East (clergy and
believers) throughout the centuries, with comparative
statistics of the faithful to the Chaldean and Qudshanis
Patriarchates in the last period relevant for the study (p.
363): ‘With a membership of around 100,000 in 1913, the
Chaldean church was only slightly smaller than the
Qūdshānīs patriarchate (probably 120,000 East
Syrians at most, including the population of the nominally
Russian Orthodox villages in the Ūrmī
region)’;
- an attempt at comparison of ‘the resources and
influence of the Mosul, Qūdshānīs and
Āmid patriarchates at different periods’ (p.
343).
[12] In 4
appendixes, David Wilmshurst provides the reader with the
corpora used as evidence in his study. Appendix One (p.
371-377) contains ‘a concordance of manuscript catalogue
numbers’. The concordances provided includes manuscript
catalogues from ‘Aqra, Alqosh, Mosul, Telkepe, and Dohuk.
Appendix Two (p. 378-732) is ‘a list of East-Syrian
manuscript colophons and inscriptions’. The 2450 records
are listed in chronological order from 615 to 1984 A.D. and
arranged in five columns giving: catalogue number, date, place
where the manuscript was copied, name of scribe(s), and other
details useful as historical information. From the point of
view of a Syriac scholar, possibly not of a historian, it is
regrettable that no reference is made to the contents of the
manuscripts. Appendix Three (p. 733-738) contains
‘extracts from the correspondence of the East-Syrian
patriarchs’ in the Italian or Latin translation preserved
in Rome and published by Giamil (Rome 1902) and Assemani (Rome
1719-1728). Appendix Four (p. 739-746) contains a brief
biography (4-9 lines) of 41 Chaldean bishops of the 19th
century.
[13] The
bibliography (p. 747-757) is divided into three sections:
books, articles, manuscript collections and notes on
manuscripts and inscriptions. In the third section of the
bibliography (and in the study), manuscript collections
containing texts in Vernacular Syriac (M. Lidzbarski, Die
neu-aramäischen Handschriften der Kgl. Bibliothek zu
Berlin, 2 vol., Weimar 1896 and Y. Habbi,
“Udabā’
al-sūrith al-awā’il”, Majallat
al-majma‘
al-‘ilmī al-‘irāqī
al-hay’a al-suryānīya 4 (1978) 97-120) have
not been included.
[14] The
work is complete with maps of the territories covered by the
study. ‘The details given in these maps have been taken
from the 1921 British G.S.G.S. map series ..., revised from an
earlier I.D.W.O. map series of 1916, which has recently been
used as the basis for an atlas of East Syrian settlement in
Kurdistan [J.C.J. Sanders, Assyro-chaldese christenen in
oost-Turkije en Iran. Hun laatste vaderland opnieuw in kaart
gebracht, A.A. Brediusstichting, Hernen 1997]’ (p.
8).
[15] The
quantity of material that the author has analyzed is immense.
The amount of information he has managed to include in 370
pages of discussion, 51 tables, 4 genealogical trees, 5
concordance tables of manuscript catalogues, 350 pages of
data-base on manuscript colophons and inscriptions, 2 indexes
(of places, p. 758-795 and proper names, p. 796-845), and 7
excellent maps is really impressive. This book will certainly
become an indispensable research tool for students of the
Church of the East and Syriac scholars.
[16] Two
important East Syriac works by ‘Abdisho‘ bar Brikha
(Kunasha d-qanone sunhadiqaye—ed. by A. Mai, Rome
1838—and Tukkās dine 'edtanaye, composed
respectively in 1284 and 1315-1316) do not appear among the
sources used by Wilmshurst. Their content is canonical and
provides a picture of the ecclesiastical structure of the
Church of the East at the beginning of the 14th century.
[17] The
facts of 1552, which eventually led to the East-Syrian Uniate
movement, represent an important change in the history of the
Church of the East. In this connection, it would have been
worth mentioning the fact that the primatus Petri was a
canonical principle fairly well established in the East-Syrian
milieu a couple of centuries before Sulaqa’s rebellion.
‘Abdisho‘ bar Brikha, e.g., attributes the
shultanutha over all the patriarchs to the successor of
Peter, the bishop of Rome (Kunasha d-qanone
sunhadiqaye—ed. by A. Mai, Scriptorum veterum nova
et inedita collectio X, Rome 1838, 327, 165). The patriarch
Mar Yahballaha III addressed the Pope in similar terms in an
Arabic letter dated 1304 (L. Bottini, ‘Due lettere
inedite del patriarca Mar Yahballaha III (1281-1317)’,
Rivista degli studi orientali 1992, 239-256).
[18] In
Chapter 2, some statements about the history of the 14th
century need to be corrected or at least toned down. When the
author comments upon the diplomatic mission of Rabban Sawma
(1287-1288, not 1284-1285 as stated on p. 17) and says that
‘the Church of the East worked... to encourage a
Mongol-Christian alliance against the Mamluk’ (p. 16-17),
he is probably going too far. As far as we know, there is no
evidence to support such an interpretation. The role of
ecclesiastical ‘ambassadors’ sent by the Ilkhans
was not a consequence of a specific interest of the Church in
political and military alliance, and their position was
subordinated to that of other ambassadors—Western, mainly
Genoese, guests at the Ilkhanid court—who were sent with
them. Of course, the History of Rabban Sawma and Mar
Yahballaha might give us a different impression, due to the
origin and character of the narrative. But it should not be
forgotten that, even though Rabban Sawma’s mission is
‘the best known Mongol initiative towards the Christian
powers’ (p. 17), it was only one of many and not
necessarily the most successful.
[19] The
hypothesis that the synod of 1318 had to cope with the
corruption and illiteracy of the clergy ‘perhaps because
Yahballaaha III, who knew little Syriac himself, had been
unable to control his bishops and visitors effectively’
(p. 18) does not appear to be based on solid grounds. It was
precisely during the partiarchate of Mar Yahballaha III that
‘Abdisho‘ bar Brikha wrote his canonical works,
which may bear witness to the patriarch’s interest in
setting up an ‘up-dated’ set of rules for the
Church of the East, although he personally was not a scholar,
an exegete, or a canonist as his predecessors and successor
were. Wilmshurst refers to probable difficulties in the
relationship between Mar Yahballaha and (some of) his bishops.
This conjecture is in fact supported by evidence provided by
Ricoldo da Montecroce, who attended a debate in Baghdad between
Mar Yahballaha and some bishops about the permission to preach
that the patriarch had given to the Latin missionaries (Riccold
de Monte Croce, Pérégrination en Terre Sainte
et au Proche Orient. Texte latin et traduction, Lettres
sur la chute de Saint-Jean d’Acre. Traduction par R.
Kappler, Paris 1997, 152-155).
[20] The
‘humane emir Choban’ had much more than ‘an
important moderating influence on the il-khan Abu Said’.
Choban was in fact the real ruler at the beginning of the reign
of Abu Said, who came to the throne as a boy. Indeed Amir
Choban was a Muslim, and the good will he showed to the
Christians according to the History of Rabban Sawma and Mar
Yahballaha may have sprung more from political calculation
than from ‘humane’ disposition.
[21]
Finally, the note about the Ms. Vat. Syr 622 (p. 390) needs
correction: the princess Sara was not the daughter, but the
sister of Giwargis, king of the Önggüd (autoptical
check in Rome, 21-06-2002).