Wilhelm Baum and Dietmar W. Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History (London/New York: Routledge Curzon 2003). Pp. xii + 204. ISBN 0 415 29770 2. $90.
J.F.
Coakley
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2004
Vol. 7, 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/hv7n2prcoakley
J.F. Coakley
Wilhelm Baum and Dietmar W. Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History (London/New York: Routledge Curzon 2003). Pp. xii + 204. ISBN 0 415 29770 2. $90.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol7/HV7N2PRCoakley.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 7
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
Wilhem Baum
Dietmar Winkler
Church of the East
History
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[1] Anyone
looking for a general history of the Assyrian Church of the
East in English has had to be content to piece together such
books as W. A. Wigram, The Assyrian Church (1910),
Samuel Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia
(vol. 1, 1992), and A. Vine, The Nestorian Churches
(1937). They are all useful, but they are naturally quite
disparate in their age, treatment of sources and level of
scholarship. Winkler and Baum have now offered a
through-composed history in one volume, covering the Church of
the East from the beginnings right down to the end of the
twentieth century.
[2] The book
is a translation, slightly revised, of Die Apostolische
Kirche des Ostens, published in 2000. Just occasionally
the translation is faulty, as when we are told that 'In 1856
during the Crimean War the British learned that in the
so-called "Hatt-i-Humayun Decree" the old Ottoman millet system
had been reestablished' (p. 128). In fact, the British were
partly responsible for this measure, as the German text
correctly says. On p. 83 Magier are Magi, not
'magicians', and on p. 86 the translator has taken 'Kolophon'
to be the name of an author. But such lapses are seemingly
rare, and the English generally reads well.
[3] The
strength of Winkler and Baur's book lies chiefly in the
remarkable amount of information it manages to squeeze into its
short length—and indeed it is much more dense reading
than any of the books mentioned at the beginning of this
review. Readers will be most astonished, perhaps, at the
accumulation of inscriptional and other evidence from Central
Asia, India and China that has come to light in recent years to
suggest the extent of the church in the Middle Ages. (Some of
this evidence is illustrated, notably a strange round
gravestone with Syriac inscription from the fourteenth century
in Central Asia, p. 77). The book shows its critical quality
too, especially at some of the more sensitive points in chapter
1. Discussing the origins of the church in Persia, Winkler
carefully separates the tradition of apostolic origin from the
other early evidence that is somewhat less tidy (pp.
7-14); and he argues that there never was a canonical
dependence of the church on the patriarchate of Antioch (pp.
19-20).
[4] At the
other end of the book, Chapter 5, 'The twentieth century', is
especially valuable, taking in the recovery of the Church of
the East from near collapse to a 'stable and structured'
condition (p. 155) at present. There is a full discussion of
the ecumenical initiatives and successes of recent years, not
sparing criticism for the Coptic bishops who have all too
successfully held these back (pp. 151-2). A useful census of
parishes ends the chapter. For more than half of the century
the church was presided over by Mar Eshai Shimun, a complex and
autocratic leader—he did not consecrate a bishop for over
thirty years—and, as far as his theology went, a
hard-shelled traditionalist. But the Mar Shimun era being now
over, Winkler is inclined to pass over his less attractive side
and give him much of the credit for the church's recovery.
[5] There is
one overall weakness that will unfortunately prevent this book
from becoming a work of reference: the authors'
decision—or perhaps it was the publisher's, to keep the
book short—to dispense with footnotes or (with occasional
exceptions) any citations of sources in the text. How can the
reader verify the intriguing statements, for example, that
'calendrical evidence' shows disagreement about the keeping of
festivals before 410 (p. 15); or that bishop Rabbula of Edessa
in his early years 'spoke up against Cyril' and only later
changed sides (p. 22, 25); or that 'as early as 581 Turks with
crosses on their foreheads had been placed in Byzantine
prisons' (p. 47); or that Syriac ceased to be a vernacular
'because of Islamic language laws' (p. 69); or that Kubilai
Khan established an office of Christian affairs in 1289 (p.
87); or that 'Around 1551 the East Syriac community in Tabriz
disappeared' (p. 116)? The bibliography (pp. 178-94), although
weighty, is not annotated, and the scholar who is (rightly!)
not disposed to quote such statements without checking them
will have a hard time doing so.
[6] A
reviewer of any book on the Church of the East is obliged to
comment on how the word 'Nestorian' is used. Winkler, who has
been a participant on the Catholic side in the ecumenical
process, conscientiously avoids the word as an ordinary name,
for reasons now familiar and sufficiently explained on pp. 4-5.
(Generally he avoids 'Assyrian' too.) My impression is that
Baum, whose assigned chapters 2-4 covering the 7th-19th
centuries are not so dangerous in this regard, did not start
with the same prohibition—or else that he found the
word impossible to avoid in certain contexts. He, or an
editor, then sanitized it by using quotation marks. So for
example we have a mention of '"Nestorian" texts in Central Asia
and China' (p. 171). But this easy expedient (used by other
authors too in recent years) will not do. The texts in question
here are not related to Nestorius or christology; nor I think
does the author mean to emphasize that others have
called them Nestorian. He is just looking for a plain
and acceptable adjective meaning 'of or pertaining to the
Church of the East'. Sadly there is no one such. 'East Syriac',
itself not very elegant, will hardly work in the phrase above
referring to texts that are mostly not in Syriac. 'Assyrian'
would be even worse. In this case, since there is no question
of any other church, I would suggest 'Christian' as the word to
use. With the name '"Nestorian" cross' (pp. 50, 58, 74 etc.)
there is a special need for clarity: is the meaning simply
'cross', or—one hopes not—is this now an
art-historical term for a cross of a particular shape?
[7] It is
easy to point out shortcomings in a book intended to be, as its
subtitle says, concise. It is, however, a valuable
contribution, full of information, and—if too expensive
for the ordinary reader to buy—it ought at least to have
a place on all reading lists.