Ephrem-Isa Yousif, Les Chroniqueurs Syriaques, L’Harmattan: Paris, Budapest, Torino: 2002. ISBN 2-7475-2709-3.
Amir
Harrak
Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
TEI XML encoding by
html2TEI.xsl
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2003
Vol. 6, No. 2
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
license has been granted by the author(s), who retain full
copyright.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv6n2prharrak
Amir HARRAK
Ephrem-Isa Yousif, Les Chroniqueurs Syriaques, L’Harmattan: Paris, Budapest, Torino: 2002. ISBN 2-7475-2709-3.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol6/HV6N2PRHarrak.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2003
vol 6
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
Syriac Chronicles
File created by XSLT transformation of original HTML encoded article.
[1] The book
under review is a survey of the most important chronicles
written in Syriac and Christian Arabic, meant to introduce the
general public to this very important literary genre. The book
is divided into three major sections. The first section deals
with the Chronicle of Edessa and the short Chronicle
of Joshua the Stylite; both are early documents dated to
the 6th century. The second section deals with West
Syriac “Jacobite” chronicles, beginning with the
ecclesiastical History of John of Asia (or of Ephesus), though
this is not technically a chronicle. Several pages are devoted
to the chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, the
monumental Chronicle of Patriarch Michael the Syrian, the
Chronicle to the year 1234, and the Chronography of
Bar-Hebraeus. The third and last section surveys the Arabic
Chronicle of Seert, the opus of Elijah of Nisibis,
Kitāb al-Majdal (“Book of the Tower”)
of Mārī son of Sulaimān, and the Book of
Mysteries of Slīwā son of Yōhannā. A conclusion, chronological lists, maps
and indexes end the book.
[2] The
value of the book resides in the translation of often lengthy
extracts from the chronicles selected by the author for his
biographical, literary and historical analyses. The
translations are generally reliable and enjoyable to read
thanks to Dr. Yousif’s mastery of both Syriac and French.
In each chronicle or ecclesiastical history Yousif opts for the
most important passages to translate, such as those dealing
with the Crusades for Michael the Syrian and the Mongols for
Bar-Hebraeus, so as to stress the contribution of Syriac
Chronicles to world history. The translated passages are always
accompanied by commentaries written in a simple but vivid
language, to help the reader understand the events discussed by
the original sources. The author ends the presentation of each
chronicle with comments on its author, the latter’s
writing style, concept of history and aims in writing. He
justifies the shortcomings of the chronicles by saying that
they were written in specific contexts and for different
audiences. Thus, the lack of objectivity of Bar-Hebraeus when
talking about the Mongols is explained with reference to the
danger of openly criticizing the chronicler’s uneasy
masters (p. 275).
[3] Since
the book is written for public readership with no background in
the subject, Yousif surveys the historiographical tradition in
ancient Mesopotamia and the classical world at the beginning of
the book. He shows that the interest of Syriac-speaking culture
in recording history was not a novelty but rather a
continuation of earlier cultural and scientific trends. Here
one might note that in Assyria the practice of writing annals
did not start with Tiglath-pileser I (p. 12) but at least two
centuries before him, at the beginning of the Middle Assyrian
period (middle of the 14th century). While the list
of Greek historians and early Christian chronographers and
ecclesiastical historians is useful and telling (pp. 14-20),
one should add that Syriac chronography as a literary genre is
greatly indebted to the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea.
[4] The
Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, though the shortest among the
known Syriac chronicles, is dealt with at length (pp. 37-58)
because of its early date. Several passages are translated on
the basis of William Wright’s 1882 edition, though
Chabot’s edition of the 1940s is not only more recent but
also more reliable than that of Wright. The palimpsest
manuscript does not show Coptic (p. 37) but Greek (p. 95)
underwriting, more precisely the Septuagint studied in great
detail by Eugene Tisserant, Codex Zuqninensis rescriptus
Veteris Testamenti (Rome 1911). Recent studies have shown
that Joshua the Stylite was probably not the author of this
chronicle but the compiler and author of the last part of the
Codex zuqninensis (see below).
[5] The
second and largest section of the book (pp. 59-276) discusses
the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus and four major
chronicles produced by West Syriac writers. Yousif is right to
include the history of John of Ephesus, despite the fact that
this is not a chronicle as such. John’s influence on
Syriac chronography as evidenced in the so-called Chronicle of
Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre was great, both in terms of
content and of style. The survey of this ecclesiastical history
includes a useful study of the time of Justinian. Yousif always
highlights the ethnic and linguistic awareness of the Syriac
writers whenever it is clearly expressed in their writings, and
dealing with John of Ephesus, he notes the author’s
insistence on writing in Syriac though he knew Latin and Greek
(p. 93).
[6] Although
Yousif knows that modern scholarship prefers the title
“Chronicle of Zuqnīn” rather than the
“Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre” in
reference to Codex Zuqninensis, he opts for the latter.
I have made it amply clear that the author of this Codex
may well have been Joshua the Stylite, and that the manuscript
is not a 9th century copy of an original (p. 95) but
an autographon on the basis of the physical shape of the codex
and the textual evidence inside it (A. Harrak, The Chronicle
of Zuqnīn, Toronto, 1999). Most of Yousif’s
discussion deals with the early Abbasid period in which the
chronicler lived. It is true that the Chronicle of Zuqnīn
is universal, but one must admit that Part IV, a major portion
of this monumental source, is a “local chronicle”
concentrating on the economic policy of the early Abbasids in
the Jazīra (Upper Syria). This part of the Chronicle is
similar in genre to other “local” chronicles and
histories dated to the medieval period, such as
Tārīkh al-Mawsil
“History of Mosul” of al-Azdī (9th
century), “History of Tabaristān,” “History of
Sijistān,” etc.
[7] While
discussing the Chronicle to the year 1234 and the massive
Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, Yousif rightly notes the
indebtedness of both chronicles to the 9th century
Patriarch Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, the most outstanding among
all Syriac chroniclers. Because of the importance of this
author and his role in perfecting Syriac chronography, one
would have liked an independent study of this author. Andrew
Palmer had already paved the way to such a discussion in
reconstructing his chronicle as far as the 7th
century is concerned, and concomitantly in stressing the
erudition of Patriarch Dionysius in Syriac chronography (A.
Palmer, The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian
Chronicles, Liverpool 1993).
[8] The last
part of the book is devoted to East Syriac
“Nestorian” authors (pp. 279-420), and here the
author surveys the sources, translates them and comments on
them as he did for the other chronicles and histories. The
Chronicle of Seert published in Patrologia Orientalis
between 1907 and 1918 is discussed at great length (279-344).
This is a very important source for East Syriac Christianity
that makes use of some no longer available chronicles listed by
Yousif (p. 280). The latter noticed the important gap found at
the beginning of this chronicle that must have contained the
events of the first two centuries and part of the third century
of the Christian era. Even the mutilated second part of the
chronicle misses events that took place between 422 and 484.
Unfortunately, Yousif does not take into account an Arabic
“History of the Church” that may fill the gaps of
the Chronicle of Seert. The editio princeps of this
chronicle was published by Butrus
Haddād, Mukhtasar al-Akhbār
al-Bīʿiyya (Brief Ecclesiastical
Chronicle), Baghdad 2000, but the original was copied in the
year 531 of Hegira which corresponds to AD 1137. The
writer’s name is deleted but we know from the contents of
this source that he resided in Baghdad during the latter part
of the 10th century and that he was a member of the
church of the East. In a private correspondence with
Haddād dated to 1988, the late
Father J-M. Fiey did not believe that this history was part of
the chronicle of Seert, though he stressed its importance as a
literary source dealing with the early history of the Church of
the East. By contrast, the editor and publisher of the
“new” chronicle was greatly convinced that it may
well have been the missing part of the Seert Chronicle; see B.
Haddad in Actes du deuxième congrès
internationale d’études arabes
chrétiennes, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 226
(Rome 1986) pp. 207-210. If Yousif had included the
“Brief Ecclesiastical Chronicle” in his book, he
could have updated his discussion about the Chronicle of Seert.
Even if we assume that there is no relation between the two
chronicles, discussing it in detail could have added value to
the last section of the book under review since chronicles and
church histories written by East Syriac authors are not
numerous.
[9] The
above comments are not meant to undermine Dr. Yousif’s
book. He has, in fact, produced an excellent tool for the study
of Syriac literature and ancient and medieval historiography.
The tool is particularly useful for students and the lay public
who are not versed in the Syriac language and literature. Even
scholars in this field can benefit from its lengthy
translations, in addition to the comments coming from the pen
of an author who not only knows Syriac well but is also a
member of the Syriac-speaking community.