Mathunny John Panicker. The Person of Jesus Christ in the Writings of Juhanon Gregorius Abu’l Faraj Commonly Called Bar Ebraya. Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 4. Münster, Hamburg, and London: LIT-Verlag, 2002. Distributed in the US by Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick and Piscataway, N.J.). Pp. 239. ISBN 3-8258-3390-9. Euros 30.90.
Cornelia B.
Horn
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Cornelia B. Horn
Mathunny John Panicker. The Person of Jesus Christ in the Writings of Juhanon Gregorius Abu’l Faraj Commonly Called Bar Ebraya. Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 4. Münster, Hamburg, and London: LIT-Verlag, 2002. Distributed in the US by Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick and Piscataway, N.J.). Pp. 239. ISBN 3-8258-3390-9. Euros 30.90.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol8/HV8N1PRHorn2.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 8
issue 1
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
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Syriac Studies
Bar Ebraya
Panicker
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[1]
Responding to a perceived one-sided rapprochement
between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches at the
expense of the Assyrian Church of the East, which took place at
Chambésy, Switzerland, in 1990, Wolfgang Hage repeatedly
has called attention to the timely relevance of Gregory
Barhebraeus (A.D. 1226-1286).
See Wolfgang Hage, “Ecumenical Aspects of
Barhebraeus’ Christology,” The Harp 4.1-3
(1991), 103-109; and idem, “Chambésy 1990
und zwei syrische Stimmen aus dem Mittelalter,” in
Trinitäts- und Christusdogma. Ihre Bedeutung für
Beten und Handeln der Kirche. FS für Jouko
Martikainen, eds. Jobst Reller and Martin Tamcke, Studien
zur orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 12 (Münster, Hamburg,
and London: LIT-Verlag, 2001), 9-20.
One may agree with him that this
universally respected and appreciated leader of the Syrian
Orthodox church is to be considered as an early model of how
one may respectfully engage in dialogue with representatives of
other Christian denominations, in Barhebraeus’s case both
the “Chalcedonians” and the so-called
“Nestorians,” without condemning either of the two
as heretics. Just prior to the publication of the book here
under review, Karl Pinggéra explored in outline the
historical development of Barhebraeus’s Christology by
focusing on three texts: a) Barhebraeus’s treatise On
the Incarnation, which constitutes the fourth treatise of
his main speculative theological work, the Candelabra of
the Sanctuary, as well as b) Barhebraeus’s
Letter to the Catholicos of the Church of the East, Mar
Denhā I, who held office from
1265 to 1281, and c) chapter four of the more spiritually and
mystically oriented Book of the Dove.
See Karl Pinggéra, “Christologischer
Konsens und kirchliche Identität. Beobachtungen zum Werk
des Gregor Bar Hebraeus,” Ostkirchliche Studien
49 (2000), 3-30, see also there p. 5, fn. 11.
It is to be
warmly welcomed that with Dr. Mathunny John Panicker, a member
of the Malankara Orthodox Church who now teaches at the
seminary in Kottayam, one of Barhebraeus’s own spiritual
descendents engages this same line of ecumenically motivated
inquiry into thirteenth-century Christology.
[2]
Panicker’s study, a dissertation accepted at the
Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, situates
Barhebraeus’s life and work against the political and
religious background of Muslim, Byzantine, Crusader, and Mongol
conquests and interactions from the tenth to the thirteenth
centuries on the one hand and ecclesiastical developments
within the Syrian Orthodox church at the time on the other. In
some places the reader may come to conclusions that differ from
those Panicker reached regarding individual aspects of
Barhebraeus’s biography. A case for Barhebraeus’s
Jewish origins, for example, made on the basis of his
father’s name, Aaron, combined with the information
provided in the Karshuni inscription over his gravesite in the
monastery of Mar Mattai, where Gregory and his brother Barsauma
are identified as “children of Hebrew? (Ebro ?)”
(p. 29, fn. 55) may be judged as stronger than the case made
for deriving Barhebraeus’s name from the adjective
‘ebrāyā, a word itself derived from
the noun ‘ebrā (“seashore,”
“crossing”) (see p. 29). Likewise, Panicker’s
dismissal of Budge’s suggestion that Barhebraeus’s
mother may have been of Arab extraction (pp. 29-30) appears to
rest solely on a presumed equation of Arab with Muslim and
neglects the equally likely alternative identification of Arab
with Christian; that this is not Panicker’s thought
throughout his work becomes clear from p. 207. This reviewer
nevertheless appreciates Panicker’s generally ample
documentation for and presentation of disagreeing positions,
which allow one actively to engage the material and formulate
one’s own conclusions in the process. Panicker concludes
his first chapter by providing a helpful and sufficiently
detailed classification and brief description of
Barhebraeus’s written works. The categories of exegesis,
liturgy, theology, philosophy, canon law, history, grammar,
science (mathematics, astronomy, and medicine), and poetical
and literary productions show Barhebraeus as a man of truly
renaissance-style expertise.
[3] In
chapter two, Panicker discusses Barhebraeus’s general
methodology which he uses throughout his work and thus also
when presenting his Christological thought. The spectrum of
Barhebraeus’s sources is remarkable, ranging from
Scripture, the Church Fathers, and synodal acts and canons, to
historical works, texts by pagan philosophers, and works of
Islamic authors, primarily the eleventh-century al-Ghazali, to
whom Barhebraeus is indebted in his later, more mystical works,
and the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Fakhr ad-Din
ar-Razi, to whom Barhebraeus refers in his treatise On the
Incarnation. Key to Barhebraeus’s methodological
approach to Christology, as Panicker highlights, is that
although the author is “convinced that his own
christological formula is the orthodox one” (p. 49), in
his list of the thirty “very dangerous heresies” at
the end of the treatise On the Incarnation, he does
not include the “Chalcedonians and Nestorians.”
Rather, these two groups belong for Barhebraeus to those who
“only dispute over the definition of the union (in
Christ), because all of them agree in the doctrines of [the]
Trinity and of the preservation of the natures out of which
Christ was made, without change and mixture” (pp. 49-50;
modified; see also p. 206). In his discussion of
Barhebraeus’s methodology, Panicker, moreover, emphasizes
that Barhebraeus submitted himself to a principle of selection
of prooftexts from patristic authors that was in accord with
this conciliatory spirit. Thus, Barhebraeus did not “cite
a Father as an authority to confirm his position against those
who do not accept him as their Church Father” (p. 55).
Cyril of Alexandria, for example, is only cited against
Chalcedonians, but not against members of the Church of the
East, as Panicker points out. Likewise, Barhebraeus also
applied that same principle in situations of interreligious
relevance. Views of Jews or Muslims that challenged the
possibility of the incarnation are not countered by citations
from church fathers, given that these authorities are not
accepted by the respective dialogue partners. Panicker argues
for Barhebraeus’s originality on the basis of the
thirteenth-century author’s conscientious and astute
handling of the patristic evidence. The ecumenical and
interreligious dimensions of Barhebraeus’s approach seem
equally illustrative of his religious and political sensitivity
and invite further investigation.
[4] In
chapters three and four (pp. 65-170) Panicker paraphrases and
summarizes the argument of the treatise On the
Incarnation. The main concern of chapter three of
Panicker’s study is the question of the possibility of
the incarnation. Presenting in its first half the positions of
ancient christological heretics, including the lesser known
Nepos the Egyptian (p. 75) and “Oudi of Edessa” (p.
78), the second half of chapter three rephrases
Barhebraeus’s response to objections raised against the
incarnation on the basis of rational arguments (pp. 85-95), as
well as those raised by Jews (pp. 95-101) and by Muslims (pp.
101-120).
[5] Chapter
four focuses on the question of the mode of unity of the
natures in Christ. Its first part consists of an exposition of
the range of terms (ousia, ithutho, iyo, kyono, qnumo,
parsupho, yuqne, tuphso, methbarnshonutho, methbasronutho,
ihidoyutho, and naqiphutho) and their definitions
that are crucial to how Barhebraeus formulated his Christology
(pp. 121-131). This discussion as such is helpful and to be
welcomed. Yet unfortunate misspellings (missing “t”
in “sought” [p. 121]; “word” instead of
“world” [p. 125, fn. 430]; “Shemeon”
instead of “Senoun” [p. 129]) as well as imprecise
or awkward expressions (“Ousia is a Greek word, which is
used in Syriac either ousia or ithutho to
correspond to it.” [p. 122]), that were not removed from
the study or corrected before publication, have the effect of
distracting the reader’s attention through a displayed
lack of precision and attention to details, so necessary in
foundational sections like this one.
[6] The
second, main part of chapter four is divided into three
sections in which Panicker lays out how Barhebraeus responded
to objections raised by Dyophysites (not
“Duophysites” [p. 131]) (pp. 131-153), Eutychians
(pp. 153-158), and the followers of Julian of Halicarnassus
(pp. 158-169). The length of the discussion devoted to those
two last parties over and against which “Chalcedonians
and Nestorians” can agree with Barhebraeus reveals that
the author of the treatise On the Incarnation had an
interest in finding and defining common ground between himself
and those whom he did not identify as heretics, the
“Chalcedonians and Nestorians,” by characterising
their shared opponents. This reviewer also notes especially the
continued relevance and broad scope of the question of
Theopaschism discussed between Chalcedonians and Syrian
Orthodox Christians in the thirteenth century (pp. 149-152),
given that already during the time of the immediate aftermath
of Chalcedon in the context of Syria-Palestine this question
appears to have played not the only but a decisively
contributing role in the self-definition of anti-Chalcedonian
identity.
[7] Both in
chapter three and in chapter four Panicker helpfully embeds
quotations of key passages in his discussion. While the range
of church fathers, whom Panicker references in explanations in
his footnotes, includes the classical Greek patristic
authorities like Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, and
others, not surprisingly the two most audible voices are those
of Severus of Antioch and Philoxenus of Mabbugh, the first only
slightly outweighing the latter. A short discussion of this
selectivity could helpfully have been included in the
study.
[8] Chapter
five consists of a systematic presentation of
Barhebraeus’s Christology. This section also includes the
presentation of Christological statements from
Barhebraeus’s biblical commentaries (pp. 113, and
185-191). In his conclusions, Panicker accepts, though with
some hesitance, the designation “diplophysitism”
(not “diplophysetism”; p. 203) as the appropriate
description of the characteristic feature of
Barhebraeus’s Christology. This term, as Panicker
acknowledges, was introduced into the discussion by Hage in
1991 (see Hage, “Ecumenical Aspects,” 106).
Panicker sees that for Barhebraeus “Jesus Christ is one
double nature.” That Barhebraeus’s expression here
differs from Severus of Antioch’s
ύπόστασις
σύνθετος,
On this term, see Joseph Lebon, Le monophysisme
sévérien. Étude historique,
littéraire et théologique sur la
résistance monophysite au concile de Chalcédoine
jusqu’à la constitution de l’Église
jacobite (Louvain: Excudebat Josephus van Linthout
Universitatis Catholicae Typographus, 1909), 319-322; and
Joseph Lebon, “La christologie du monophysisme
syrien,” in Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und
Gegenwart, vol. 1: Der Glaube von Chalkedon, ed. by Aloys
Grillmeier and Heinrich Bacht (Würzburg: Echter-Verlag,
1951), 425-580, here 272-277.
is a point which
Panicker does not develop. In his conclusions, Panicker also
accepts “miaphysite” as a fitting term to
characterize Barhebraeus’s position (p. 207, fn.
739).
[9] In his
general conclusions following chapter five (pp. 205-212),
Panicker highlights especially the harmonious relations between
Barhebraeus and the respective incumbents of the office of
Catholicos of the Church of the East, as well as the respect in
which Barhebraeus was held by Muslims. For Panicker,
Barhebraeus lived out the ideal of ecumenism by holding on to
the right belief of his own church and at the same time
reaching out and communicating across the boundaries of
denominations. Using the formula of the “one incarnate
nature of God the Word,” Barhebraeus admitted, as
Panicker sees it, that this “formula was not enough to
conserve the faith in its fulness” (p. 208). He held on
to it, since he thought it was better than what others had to
offer. Nevertheless, he worked on the assumption that all three
groups, Chalcedonians, Oriental Orthodox, and the Church of the
East, professed the same truth of the faith in Jesus Christ.
Thus, according to Panicker, Barhebraeus’s example
forcefully mandates to establish “an immediate dialogue
in Christian charity, patience, and openmindedness” (p.
211; modified) also with the Church of the East on the basis of
the shared common faith in Christ.
[10] It
is praiseworthy that Panicker’s work provides the
English-speaking scholarly audience with convenient access to
Barhebraeus’s Christological thinking, at least in its
earlier phase, before the thirteenth-century theologian became
Maphrian of the East,
On the dating of Barhebraeus’s On the
Incarnation, see H. Koffler, Die Lehre des
Barhebräus von der Auferstehung der Leiber, OCA 81
(Rome, 1932), 33-40; and Pinggéra,
“Christologischer Konsens,” 6.
or at most during his first year in office
(Panicker, The Person of Jesus Christ, 37). Yet one
has to bemoan problems of accuracy in the use of language, even
problems with basic grammar (e.g., subject-verb agreement
[numerous times, e.g., p. 22]; hypercoristic grammatical forms
[“slained” instead of “slain”; p. 37];
confusing punctuation; tenses; misuse of or omission of
necessary prepositions; etc.) and expression (see example cited
above, to which others, e.g., on p. 207, could be added), which
are almost to be expected in a work composed in English by a
non-native speaker of English, under the direction of
non-native speakers of English in Italy, and published under
the direction of non-native speakers of English in a publishing
house in Germany. Unless copy-editing of such works is
entrusted to the hands of language professionals or native
speakers, improvement of the linguistic quality of such works,
which immediately influences their effectiveness of
communication among an English-speaking audience, is not
achievable. While being aware of the increasing costs of
producing books in the field of Christian Oriental studies,
this reviewer suggests a) that this question should be taken
seriously in order to improve the quality and presentation of
research results in the field of Christian Oriental studies,
and b) to foster closer international collaborations between
native and non-native English-speaking scholars in the field,
whatever their level of documented achievement may be, who may
be willing and open to proofread a work before it goes to
print. These comments are not meant to suggest that the author
of a given work does not also share the burden of
responsibility for accuracy of his own work. In the present
case, simple typographical errors (e.g., “Angles”
instead of “Angels” [p. 36], or the homophonic
confusion exemplified by “inhabitance” instead of
“inhabitants” [p. 23, fn. 10]), can be caught by
the eye of the attentive reader, native or non-native speaker.
Also note that the abbreviation “CHABOT, ‘Deux
textes’” (e.g., pp. 110, 111, 117-119 and in the
bibliography) is misleading and should read “NAU,
‘Deux textes.’”
[11]
Moreover, it is necessary to comment on the scope of discussion
of the subject matter presented in the book. The title of
Panicker’s study leads one to expect a comprehensive and
exhaustive treatment of Barhebraeus’s Christology. Yet
although the author collects and summarily evaluates
Christological statements also from Barhebraeus’s
biblical commentaries, the clear focus and perspective of the
analysis of Barhebraeus’s Christology is determined by
material gathered from the thirteen-century theologian’s
early work, the Candelabra of the Sanctuary. This,
moreover, entails that Barhebraeus’s explicit conviction
of the superiority of his doctrinal position, which shaped his
thinking during those early years more so than later on,
constitutes the basis for Panicker’s presentation,
despite all references to ecumenical efforts. These two
structural and systematic limitations of Panicker’s study
prevent the book under review from being comprehensive and
exhaustive in its treatment of the subject matter.
[12]
Panicker refers merely in passing to the Letter to
Catholicos Denhā (pp. 45 and
206). He notes that this letter is “[a] christological
and historical treatise” (p. 45). Yet his study never
explores the Christological content of this work any further,
thus lacking in comprehensiveness at least in this instance.
Pinggéra’s discussion of the Letter to
Catholicos Denhā, on the other
hand, has suggested and convincingly demonstrated that there is
a connection between a group’s theological, even
Christological, identity, and that same group’s view of
church history. While Barhebraeus’s main Christological
statements in the Letter to Catholicos Denhā do not differ from those in the
Candelabra of the Sanctuary, in its second half, the
Letter consists of a presentation of the early history
of the Christian church in Persia, from its beginnings into the
sixth century. Very great emphasis is laid on Barsauma of
Nisibis’s efforts, beginning with the Synod of 486, to
introduce and sustain a dyophysite Christology of Antiochene
flavor among the faithful in Persia. In this process,
Barsauma’s support of “Nestorianism,”
according to Barhebraeus’s presentation in the
Letter, went hand in hand with furthering the moral
decline of the bishops by allowing them to marry. Barhebraeus
emphasizes that before Barsauma entered the Persian realm, no
one there had ever heard of the two-nature teachings. Situating
his opponent’s Christology in a concrete, and therefore
also historically and geographically limited context,
Barhebraeus manages to present his own theological positition
not only as the earlier, and therefore as the orthodox one, but
also as that of the oikoumenē. To what extent
such a claim to global presence can still be open to
“ecumenical” tolerance would have to be questioned.
Moreover, Panicker clearly knows of and cites a passage from
Barhebraeus’s later work, which demonstrates the
significant, even radical shift in the maphrian’s
attitude to Christological disputes and controversies. In his
concluding pages, Panicker quotes a passage from the Book
of the Dove, likely written after 1279, that has
Barhebraeus confess that he had become
“convinced that these quarrels of Christians among
themselves are not a matter of facts but of words and
denominations. For all of them confess our Lord to be wholly
God and wholly man without mixture, without confusion or
mutation of natures. This bilateral likeness is called by
some nature, by others person, and by others hypostasis. So I
saw all Christian people, notwithstanding these differences,
possessing one unvarying equality. And I wholly eradicated
the root of hatred from the depth of my heart and I
absolutely forsook disputation with anyone concerning
confession” (p. 208; modified).
[13] Yet
in his subsequent comments, Panicker draws no consequences from
such a dismissal of the relevance of “disputation with
anyone concerning confession.” Instead, he reverts to a
characterization of Barhebraeus as confessing Cyrillian dogma
(p. 208), in line with Severus of Antioch, representative of
“the faith of the early undivided Church” (p. 209),
for whom “[t]he Nestorian interpretation of union by will
and love alone is not acceptable” (p. 209), and who
“rejects the Duophysetic [sic] formulas”
(p. 209). When Panicker explains that Barhebraeus knew that
“Chalcedonians and Nestorians” did not
“intend to affirm” what their formulas express and
therefore saw no need to “call them heretics” (p.
209), he limits Barhebraeus’s overall position to that
held in his On the Incarnation. Panicker fails to see
here Barhebraeus’s change of mind prompted by a deepening
of mystical insights into his religion through contacts with
both Syrian mystical writers and Muslim philosophers like
al-Ghazali and expressed in the Book of the Dove, a
position, which indeed makes him a model of ecumenical dialogue
“not yet fulfilled” (p. 210). The deeper reason for
this oversight or neglect, which in the end affects
Panicker’s ability to see true ecumenical potential and
power in the theologian he is studying, is the limitation of
not giving sufficient space and consideration to the intrinsic
connectedness between theological formulations and their
conditioning by historical developments, including developments
and radical changes in an individual’s perception of his
faith over time. Future studies of Barhebraeus’s
Christology will benefit from being able to expand further on
the handy building-blocks which Panicker’s systematic
theological study of Barhebraeus’s earlier Christology
contributes to the foundation._______
Notes