The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, by Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum (translated and edited by Matti Moosa). Second Revised Edition. [Gorgias Press 2003; ISBN 1-93196-04-9] xli + 604pp; hardcover.
David G. K.
Taylor
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2006
Vol. 9, 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/hv9n2prtaylor2
David G.K. Taylor
The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, by Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum (translated and edited by Matti Moosa). Second Revised Edition. [Gorgias Press 2003; ISBN 1-93196-04-9] xli + 604pp; hardcover.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol9/HV9N2PRTaylor2.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 9
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 Orthodox
Syriac Literature
Patriarch Aphrem Barsoum
Scattered Pearls
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[1] For over
fifty years Patriarch Ignatios Aphram Barsoum’s
introduction to Syriac literature, The Scattered
Pearls, has been an essential tool for specialist Syriac
scholars, and yet it has not had as wide an impact outside the
Middle East as it deserves because it has only been available
in the original Arabic version (Kitab al-Lu’lu’
al-Manthur) and in a Syriac translation (Ktobo
d-Berulle Bdire), and before their republication by the
Bar Hebraeus Press in Holland even copies of these editions
were difficult to locate.
The first Arabic edition was published in Homs in
1943. The second edition, from which this present translation
was made, was published in Aleppo in 1956. A third edition or
printing appeared in Baghdad in 1976, and a fourth was printed
by the Bar Hebraeus Verlag in Glane/Losser in 1987. There were
further reprints of the second edition at the Mardin Press in
Aleppo in 1987 and 1996. A Syriac translation of the second
edition was produced by Mor Philoxenos Yohanna Dolabani and
published in Qamishli in 1967, and this was also reprinted by
the Bar Hebraeus Verlag in Glane/Losser in 1992.
This complete translation into
English by Matti Moosa, the first into any European language,
is thus to be warmly welcomed because it will enable a far
wider readership to gain access to the riches of
Barsoum’s work.
[2]
Patriarch Aphram Barsoum (1887-1957) was one of a group of
Syrian Orthodox and Syrian Catholic scholars in the early
twentieth-century Middle East (the other notable figures being
Mor Philoxenos Yohanna Dolabani [1885-1969], Mor Gregorios
Behnam [1916-1969], and from the Catholic side Patriarch
Ignatios Aphrem Rahmani [1848-1929] and Ishaq Armalto
[1879-1954]) who made significant contributions to Syriac
studies not only because of their profound knowledge of their
own traditions and manuscripts, but also because of their
familiarity with the great manuscript collections of Europe and
with the writings of the European orientalists.
(Barsoum’s publications included an edition of the
Chronicle to A.D. 819 in the CSCO, and articles in western
journals, as well as the numerous Arabic works listed on p.x of
the introduction.) As is clear from Part II of the Epilogue to
this volume, entitled ‘On the incoherence of some
orientalists and their false charges against our learned men,
and their refutation’, the orientalist tradition was not
received uncritically. Some of Barsoum’s criticisms were
levelled at academic denials of the historicity of certain
religious texts (such as the Doctrina Addai, and a number of
hagiographical works), but others were directed towards
erroneous claims and statements made by Europeans which were
simply the product of their ignorance of Syriac texts and
traditions, whether through inadequate reading and research, or
uncritical reliance upon earlier scholarship, or through lack
of access to Syriac manuscripts in the Middle East.
[3] These
criticisms draw attention to the key methodological strengths
and weaknesses of Barsoum’s Scattered Pearls. In
his very useful introduction Moosa declares (p.xiv): ‘It
is clear that the Western reader must accept
al-Lu’lu’ al-Manthur on its own terms, as
the work of an Eastern scholar writing for an Eastern audience.
He must also bear in mind that Barsoum is the Patriarch of
Antioch, the head of the Syrian Church’. This is pretty
loaded and controversial language, but I take the thrust of the
first sentence to be that the balanced coverage of different
literary genres and the critical analysis of sources is not
always that which might be expected from an academic study
produced by a university trained Syriac scholar, whether from
the Middle East or elsewhere, and in this Moosa is certainly
correct. The second statement also carries much force. Barsoum
is sensitive to any implied criticisms of the antiquity of
Syrian institutions or of the literary and theological genius
of the great Syriac authors. (He is, however, perfectly happy
to criticise the literary merits of certain minor Syriac poets
and theologians.) As the patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox
Church he also strictly limits his history to the writers of
his own tradition, and so no mention will be found here of
Maronite or Syrian Catholic writers, let alone those of the
Church of the East or the Chaldeans. (For these traditions
use might be made of the works of Alber Abuna [Beirut, 1970]
and Pera Sarmas [Tehran, 1962 - 1970], which could also
profitably be translated into a European language, despite
having been, with Barsoum, the key sources for Rudolf
Macuch’s Geschichte der spät- und neusyrischen
Literatur [Berlin, 1976].)
[4] The
other side to Barsoum’s focus on Syrian Orthodox
traditions and authors is that he is able to write about these
with real authority, based on a life-time’s study of
primary materials. Among his quoted sources are the literary
histories and bibliographies of Assemani, Wright, Duval,
Chabot, and Baumstark, as well as the catalogues of all the
major European collections of Syriac manuscripts, and yet
Barsoum is frequently able to correct their statements about
the details of the lives of key Syriac authors on the basis of
Syriac sources available to him (although rarely referenced),
as well as to call attention to Syriac texts either unknown to
western scholars or previously thought lost. He is also
interested in the continuity of the Syriac literary tradition
down to his own day, and so includes many authors omitted from
the western literary histories which frequently come to an
abrupt halt in the late thirteenth or fourteenth centuries.
Because he had himself catalogued many of the Syrian Orthodox
manuscript collections (a list of his unpublished catalogues is
included in the table of his sources), Barsoum is frequently
able to identify which of these libraries preserve manuscripts
of specific works and authors. (Frustratingly, if
unsurprisingly, no catalogue numbers or shelf marks are
provided for these Syrian Orthodox manuscripts, but these can
sometimes be determined by cross-referencing the Scattered
Pearls with the three handwritten catalogues of Dolabani
published by the Mardin Press in Aleppo in 1994, or with the
catalogue of the Patriarchal manuscript collection published by
Dolabani, Lavenant, and Brock [PdO 19 (1994) 555-661].) Any
scholar or student interested in post-sixth-century authors in
particular would thus be well advised to consult Barsoum as a
matter of course, although never to the exclusion of the
established bibliographies of Baumstark and Duval etc.
Barsoum’s Scattered Pearls is an essential
supplement and corrective to such works, but does not replace
them (and neither was it intended to do so).
[5] The
first 218 pages of the Scattered Pearls (which Moosa
first translated as his 1965 PhD thesis at Columbia University)
contains a history of Syriac literature divided by genre and
theme. Some of these sections provide very cursory accounts of
their subject; the Bible is covered in one and a half pages,
for example, and Theology in two and a half pages.
‘Church Liturgies’, however, which are so
frequently marginalised in other literary histories, are here
given 64 pages, with very full listings of anaphoras, plus
tables of categorised liturgical manuscripts from libraries in
both the Middle East and Europe. Also noteworthy are the
sections on ‘Centres of Learning’, ‘Syriac
Libraries’, and ‘Syriac Calligraphy’, the
last of which is accompanied, in an appendix, by a lengthy list
of celebrated Syriac scribes. All of these sections can be
rather tantalising, however, because the very interesting raw
data they contain is rarely provided with any references to
sources. Yet in many of these short chapters Barsoum includes
the names of Syriac authors and works which have evaded the
nets of western scholars, and so even an apparently superficial
section can contain material not readily to be found in other
bibliographies.
[6] For most
readers I suspect it will be the second section of the
Scattered Pearls pp. 219 - 524 in Moosa’s
translation, which will be found to be most helpful. This
contains the biographies of 294 Syriac writers
Taking into account the typographical slip by which
Bardaisan and the Odes of Solomon are both numbered 3, and the
unnumbered entry for Dionysius Saliba is introduced by Moosa
after 233 from its original place in an addendum in the Arabic
text!
ordered
chronologically from Wafa the Aramaean poet (who is said to be
pre-Christian) down to Fr. Yaʿqub Saka who
died in 1931. These entries are very readable, and the
combination of biography and bibliography can be highly
illuminating. Given the wealth of material that is now
available elsewhere on the great Syriac authors of the fourth
and fifth centuries, there is little in the accounts of the
writers of these periods that will excite the scholar, and some
detail and arguments that will seem rather dated. It is in his
account of authors of later periods, whose texts are still read
and studied in the Syrian Orthodox monasteries and seminaries,
that Barsoum really comes into his own. (There are 57 listed
authors, for example, who post-date Bar Hebraeus.) Many of
these figures are little known to western scholars, and it is
clear that many would repay closer study.
[7] As
someone who prior to the publication of Moosa’s English
translation had always previously made use of Dolabani’s
1967 Syriac translation of Barsoum’s Scattered
Pearls, I thought it might be interesting to compare the
two versions. Dolabani was very knowledgeable about the Syriac
manuscripts in Syrian Orthodox church libraries and in private
collections belonging to individual priests and families.
Occasionally therefore he adds references in brackets within
the main text, or in footnotes, to additional Syriac texts
which he knows to have been written by certain authors, or to
the present (i.e. 1967) location of manuscripts referred to by
Barsoum. For example, on p.28, in reference to the library of
Dayr al-Za‘faran (cf. Moosa p.15 §18), he notes that
the majority of its books had been removed to the episcopal
library of Mardin, which then contained more than a thousand
volumes, and on p.34 (cf. Moosa p.20 para. 2) he notes that the
Kharput manuscript referred to by Barsoum had recently been
transferred to Dayr al-Zaʿfaran. Again, on
p.581 (cf. Moosa p.519), he adds that the monk
ʿAbd al-Nur also translated the Psalm
Commentary of Daniel of Salah into Arabic. The number of such
references should not be exaggerated, but they are clearly of
some academic interest.
[8] A
comparison of the lists of biographies of Syriac authors in the
two texts also reveals that there is a significant number of
additions in the Syriac translation, and I think it might be
helpful to list the additional entries, with Dolabani’s
numbering:
10. Basilios, bishop of Homs (d. 359)
11. Philon, bishop of Carpasia (d. 394) - an ascetic whom
Barsoum suggests may have been the author of the Liber
Graduum.
22. Gregory of Cyprus (C. 7, but said to be C. 4).
23. Xystus (C. 4)
110. Athanos of Amid (C. 7)
111. Philogrios (C. 7)
119. Theodotos (d. 729)
202-203. Abu al-Faisal Saad and Abu Nasr Yahya ibn Jrair of
Tagrit (C. 11).
271. Presbyter John of Basibrina (C. 15)
272. Hasan bar Zurqo of Mosul (C. 15)
279. Presbyter Isa of Beth Shaddad of the Jezira (d.
1495)
281. Deacon Nur ad-Din of Mardin (d. 1500)
289. Monk Abd al-Aziz, called Bar Sallaki (C. 16)
291. Rabban Jacob of Qastro d-Qasro (d. 1575)
303. Presbyter Lahdo of Habbob (C. 18)
306. Presbyter Isho Arboyo (fl. 1816)
309. Monk Isho Gribo (d. 1916)
313. Deacon Nimatallah Danno (d. 1951)
314. Patriarch Ignatios Aphram Barsoum (d. 1957)
Some of these are authors whom Barsoum had mentioned in the
thematically organized first half of his book but had not
included in this section, but the majority are additions by
Dolabani himself. The most detailed, and perhaps most
interesting, of these entries are those assigned to the
post-fourteenth century authors, and fortunately the substance
of these passages can be gleaned from Macuch’s work,
mentioned above, since he was dependent on the Syriac
translation of Barsoum rather than the Arabic original. In his
introduction (p.xviii) Moosa asserts that ‘there is
little in Bishop Dolabani’s translation that merits
inclusion here’. As I have indicated, I think
Dolabani’s work does in fact continue to be of some
independent value, and it would have been nice to see the
relatively small amount of additional material incorporated
into this present translation, but this is far from being a
serious defect.
[9] This
second corrected edition of Moosa’s English
translation
The Columbia University thesis of 1965 made
available the first section of Barsoum’s work, and this
translation of the complete text was first published by the
Passeggiata Press (Pueblo, Colorado) in 2000.
reads very well, and the text is remarkably free
of the typographical slips which plague most lengthy books.
Moosa has provided an excellent critical introduction to
Barsoum’s work which could almost be published as a
review in its own right. He has also added occasional
explanatory notes throughout the volume, and an absolutely
essential index which is absent from all of the Arabic and
Syriac editions of the Scattered Pearls that I have
seen. (The multiplicity of names and titles given to various
people has occasionally resulted in individual authors being
given multiple entries in the index, each with distinct sets of
page references. I noticed ‘Basil’ and
‘Basilius’; ‘Amid’ and
‘Diyarbakir’; ‘Anton of Takrit’ and
‘Anton Rhetor’; and in one unfortunate case
‘Areopagite’ and ‘Dionysius the
Areopagite’ and ‘Pseudo-Dionysius’! Let the
reader beware! If a third edition is ever planned it might also
be useful to replace the large numbers of page references
listed under the headings of named libraries of Syriac
manuscripts with a separate index of numbered or categorised
Syriac manuscripts mentioned in the text. These are, however,
simply minor corrections.)
[10]
Matti Moosa should be warmly congratulated for having made this
excellent translation of Barsoum’s pioneering work
available to a new generation of scholars and students. As
Moosa himself acknowledges, the Scattered Pearls
should be used discerningly, but it is a truly essential
complement to existing works of Syriac reference and belongs on
the shelves of all libraries and readers with an interest in
Syriac._______
Notes