D. Kruisheer, [Review of] H.G.B. Teule (ed. and transl.), Gregory Barhebraeus, Ethicon (Mēmrā I) (CSCO 534, 535, Syr. 218, 219; Leuven: Peeters, 1993), Bibliotheca Orientalis 53.5/6 (September-December 1996), 815-818

Dirk Kruisheer

Humanities Commons

815 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LIII N° 5/6, September-December 1996 816 In spite of this close relationship, Part Three, in which having been written by a different author. Moreover, Parts genre, which is not the case with regard to Part Three. A final remark concerning the fairly large number of inaccura­cies which occur throughout the book: at times, author's statements are referred to without mentioning the publica­tions, internal cross-references are incorrect, and occasional misprints appear. Nevertheless, the authors of The Seventh Century in West­Syrian Chronicles do present a good overview of the West­Syrian sources available for the seventh century AD. The collection of texts, moreover, gives a vivid impression of the period. Its translations, annotations, chronographical tables and the like make it a valuable instrument for newcomers in the field of Syrian and Byzantine studies. To the specialist, the work has several interesting new ideas to offer, as well as a fresh evaluation of West-Syrian historiography. October, 1995 * * * Jos van LENT TEULE, Herman G.B. (ed. and transl.) - Gregory Barhe­braeus, Ethicon (Memra I). Corpus Scriptorum Chris­tianorum Orientalium 534, 535 I Scriptores Syri 218, 219. Uitgeverij Peeters, Leuven, 1993 (24 cm, xxvm, 132; xux, 157). ISSN 0070-0452. 2200, 1900 BF. These volumes comprise the edition and translation of Memrii I of Barhebraeus's Ethicon; Memre II-IV - which represent some four-fifths of the entire text - are to follow. Various aspects of Teule' s work will be discussed here, chief among which is the fact that we now have the oppor­tunity to make a reliable assessment of Barhebraeus 's most popular work. As the editor indicates in the preface to the translation, the Ethicon has thus far been given scant atten­tion by the scholarly world, perhaps because the work as a whole was never translated into a W estem language. The Syriac was available as early as 1898 in Bedjan's edition, which was copied for that of <;ii;:ek in 1985.1) But up until now scholarly discussions have concentrated on the transla­tion of the two chapters of the Ethicon appended to Wensinck's translation of the Book of the Dove.2) The pre­sent edition and translation solve the .problem of the limited accessibility of the Ethicon, providing a solid basis for the study of the work itself and its place in the history of both Syriac and Arabic literature. The Syriac text of the Ethicon, in part or in its entirety, is preserved in 42 manuscripts, and all of these are described in the introduction to the edition. In a concluding overview, Teule arrives at a provisional outline of the various branches of transmission (East Syrian and those that lack East Syrian characteristics, e.g., where the designation of Mary as Mother of God is not omitted) and also divides the manu­scripts which are used in the critical apparatus into families. Some 16 manuscripts have not yet been seen by the editor, presumably including the most valuable witness, ms. Bagh­dad (olim Mosul 99). Copied A.D. 1292, only 13 years after the composition of the Ethicon and 6 years after the author's death, this manuscript was last seen by Father Fiey in Bagh­dad some time before 1973. Fortunately, two copies of ms. Baghdad survive in Western libraries, but up to now they have failed to provide a solution to all the textual problems Teule has encountered. When this difficulty is taken into account, together with the fact that the remainder of the text of the Ethicon has yet to be studied in depth, it was both cor­rect and sensible of the editor to postpone his judgement on the transmission of the text. Accordingly, Teule deemed it premature to give a stemma of the manuscripts. In accor­dance with the method proposed by R. Draguet, the text of one manuscript (here ms. Oxford Bodl. Syr. Hunt. 490, copied A.D. 1323), including its errors, has been chosen as the main text. All variants, as well as the proposed correc­tions, are mentioned in the apparatus. Where the basic man­uscript is not followed in the translation, this is explicitly indicated in the notes to the translation. The translation is preceded by an introduction dealing with several questions related to the history and composition of the Ethicon. Here the work is largely placed within the tradition of Arabic literature, with respect to both its history and its Nachleben. The latter is described in an overview of Arabic (Garshuni) translations of the Ethicon, ancient and modem, that testify to the popularity which Barhebraeus's work enjoys to this day. This is also reminiscent of the broad transmission of the Syriac manuscripts and the Syriac edition of 1985. The introduction continues with an investigation into the provenance of the title of the· work (presumably based on the Aristotelian division of practical philosophy) and a survey of the contents of the entire Ethicon. This is followed by a discussion of Al-GhazalI's !J:iyii' 'ulam al-din as the main source of the Ethicon. Here, the observations made by Wensinck in 1919 are systematically elaborated: 1) P. Bedjan, Ethicon, seu Moralia Gregorii Barhebraei, Paris, Leipzig 1898; J.Y. <;ic,;ek, Bar 'Ebraya, Ktabii d- 'Jtiqon, St Ephrem Monastery, Glane 1985. 2) A.J. Wensinck, Bar Hebraeus's Book of the Dove together with some chapters from his Ethikon (De Goeje Fund 4), Leiden 1919, 85-133. The Book of the Dove has been translated from the Syriac text that is included in Bedjan, Ethicon, 519-99.   __________________________________________________D. Kruisheer, [Review of] H.G.B. Teule (ed. and transl.), Gregory Barhebraeus, Ethicon (Mēmrā I) (CSCO 534, 535, Syr. 218, 219; Leuven: Peeters, 1993), Bibliotheca Orientalis 53.5/6 (September-December 1996), 815-818.__________________________________________________817 BOEKBESPREKINGEN - ARCHEOLOGIE 818 Barhebraeus not only cited copiously from the Il;yd ', but also used Al-GhazalI's structuring of ideas. This has resulted in an identical fourfold division of the book: Memra I: prayer and meditation (IJ:iya': 'ibdddt); II: sustenance and purity of the body, worldly customs ( 'addt); III: purification of the soul from shameful passions (muhlikdt) and IV: embellishment of the soul with excellent qualities (mun­giyydt). In this respect, it is noteworthy how Barhebraeus explains his sympathy for Al-GhazalI in his Chronicon: " .. .  And in his Greatest Work [the IJ:iya'] he adduced many examples of the behaviour of the Desert Fathers. That is the reason why we mention him". 3) A synopsis of passages in Memra I of the Ethicon ·and their parallels in the IJ:iya' is given in Appendix I to the translation. The identification and discussion of biblical and patristic sources is confined largely to the notes to the translation and the index in Appendix II. The preparatory work done here may be expected to lead to a separate study by Teule, focus­ing on Barhebraeus's place in Christian tradition. With regard to the Christian sources, the focus in the present work is on the tracing of the technical terminology, which often goes back to the translators of Evagrius of Pontus. In the work of Barhebraeus this idiom merges with, and is modi­fied by, Arabic calques that can be identified with the aid of the Il:iya'. A provisional list of technical terms in Syriac and Arabic concludes the introduction (see also Wensinck, Book of the bove, 137-42).The aim which Teule set himself, i.e., to present a trans­lation that provides a literal, yet intelligible rendering of the Syriac text, has, in my opinion, been fully achieved. Teule deliberately adopts the vocabulary that is coined by earlier translators of Syriac mystical texts. The English is transpar­ent and does not presume to be more than a translation; where problems arise that would interfere with the reading one is referred to explanations in the notes. The first volumes of the edition and translation of Barhe­braeus 's Ethicon are a solid piece of work, on the one hand remaining within the limits which the editor set himself, and, on the other hand, breaking new research ground. As to the first observation, the cautious treatment of the problems of textual transmission and the absence of overly general characterisations of the work are worthy of mention. With respect to the second observation, the emphasis which Teule places on the reconstruction of the intellectual and spiritual context of the Ethicon, in which Syriac and Arabic traditions meet, and the different levels at which this problem is approached - lexically, stylistically and formally - is fruitful and of great value for all the disciplines involved. This result in turn sometime may help to explain the high esteem in which the Syrian Christians held, and still hold, the Ethicon. Some minor critical remarks, however, are called for. In this review, several references are made to the work of A.J. W ensinck, who is often quoted by Teule himself. Wensinck's work is still deserving of praise for its pioneer­ing nature and its exposition of certain problems that have been taken up again by Teule. The latter, abiding by the standards of modern philology, has provided us with a new basis for the study of Barhebraeus' s spiritual writings, which 3) Quoted and discussed in H.G.B. Teule, 'Barhebraeus' Ethicon, Al­Ghazfili and Ibn Sina', Islamochristiana 18 (1992) 73-85, this passage 75f . . lbn Sina's influence on Barhebraeus is mentioned only casually by Teule in the introduction to his translation (xxxii). heightens our appreciation of Wensinck as the author of an important essay on the subject, i.e., his introduction to the Book of the Dove. In this sense, the two authors comple­ment each other. Furthermore, Wensinck did a great deal of ground work in identifying Barhebraeus 's sources and in compiling an initial list of technical terms (as referred to above). In this light, Teule could have acknowledged Wensinck's achievements more generously, for example, in the preface to the translation. Two final remarks are of a more practical nature. In the introduction to the translation (p. xxxiii) it is noted that the numbers in bold type and square brackets in the translation refer to the edition. Neither system is used, however, and the references take the form of numbers in the margin. Another comment that should be addressed to the publisher as well: quite a few pages of the edition, in particular those that sig­nal the beginning of a new chapter, display the results of a clumsy attempt at imitating the appearance of a Syriac man­uscript (different type sizes in the headings), while trying to remain faithful to Western typographical conventions (use of indents). This style has also been applied to the transla­tion, where the result is not as bad, but still far from elegant. Amsterdam, January 1996 Dirk KRUISHEER ARCHEOLOGIE VAN LOON, Maurits - "Hans" Frankfort's Earlier Years, based on his letters to "Bram" van Regteren Altena. Ned. Inst. v.h. Nabije Oosten, Leiden 1995 (24 cm., 65,3 figures) ISBN 90-6831-676-1. HFL 32,-. . In the history of ancient Near Eastern studies in this cen­tury two names in the English-speaking world have a partic­ular resonance, those of W.F. Albright (1891-1971) and Henri Frankfort (1897-1954), by birth a Dutchman. Both are often succinctly described as archaeologists; but this description hardly begins, in the conventional sense, to describe their contributions to scholarship. They combined a professional competence remarkable in its range and depth with an all pervading interest in philosophy and religion, in human and cultural values. Both brought great erudition and penetrating intelligence to their research on the artefacts and the iconography of the peoples of the ancient Near East, often organizing them systematically for the first time in the light of evidence from their own excavations. At every tum their understanding of these ancient cultures was strength­ened by close acquaintance with the evidence of ancient texts. They offer a rare challenge to the historian of scholarship who seeks to sketch their intellectual portraits. Premature attempts to delineate Albright's have already illustrated the wisdom of proceeding with caution, of seeking first the pri­mary sources wherever possible, particularly any that relate to their early lives and to the intellectual milieu of those for­mative years. In this slim volume Maurits van Loon has admirably begun the task for Frankfort, whose early years in Holland are virtually unknown to those who do not read Dutch. In his linking commentary to his English translations of Frankfort's letters to his lifelong friend Abraham ("Bram") 

[Review of] H.G.B. Teule (ed. and transl.), Gregory Barhebraeus, Ethicon (Mēmrā I) (CSCO 534, 535, Syr. 218, 219; Leuven: Peeters, 1993)

https://hcommons.org/deposits/download/hc:27008/CONTENT/kruisheerd_1996_review_of_hgb_teule_ed_and_transl_greg.pdf/

[Review of] H.G.B. Teule (ed. and transl.), Gregory Barhebraeus, Ethicon (Mēmrā I) (CSCO 534, 535, Syr. 218, 219; Leuven: Peeters, 1993)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Humanities Commons