Author: Roger Pearse

“Mopetan Mopet” or “Mobedan Mobed” or “Moabedan Mobed”?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the Life of Mar Aba, the German translation refers to the high priest as the “Mopetan Mopet”.  But when I search the web, I find almost nothing.

Now a google search reveals almost nothing under that spelling.  I know that a “Mopet” is usually given as “Mobed”, meaning “priest”, in our literature.  So I quickly find references to “Mobedan Mobed” and “Moabedan Mobed”, and even “Mobedan-e-Mobed”.  In fact the latter seems contemporary; a certain Rostam Dinyar Shahzadi held the title as recently as 2000.

There is no purpose in using an unusual transcription; it will merely cause interested persons to miss the material.  So I think we had better use “Mobedan Mobed”.

Likewise how should we render “rad”, clearly a title?  And … what is a “rad”?

In the Encyclopedia Iranica online on Syriac writings in pre-islamic Iran[1], there is some very useful information on titles as they appear in Syriac acts, including the Life of Mar Aba:

Modern translators and commentators have not always been able to recognize the titles of civil or religious officials under the disguise of Syriac writing, or have supplied fanciful transcriptions far removed from the authentic form of Middle Persian.

Among civil functions, we must mention the āmārgar (Syr. hmrgrd) “accountant” or, better, “treasurer” of the different administrative divisions of the empire, as we learn from the administrative seals. In the history of the patriarch Mār Abā, this treasurer is in touch with a harzbed < OIr. *harcī-pati- (Syr. ʾrzbd), which has been considered as a corruption of the term argbed “chief tax collector or taxation manager” (EIr. II/4, 1986, p. 400), an important function belonging to the royal family which is attested in the Paikuli inscription (Humbach and Skjaervo, 3.2, pp. 39-44). But Tafazzoli (1990) has shown that the Syriac word, spelled in the same way, is attested in the martyrdom of Guhišt-āzād, where this man is described as “chief of the royal eunuchs and fosterer of the king” (Šāpūr II). Hence this title of “chief of the eunuchs” can no longer be confused with the argbed “tax-collector.” …

The title of ēwēnbed (EIr. IX/1, 1998, pp. 87-88) “master of manners” is puzzling, for it looks like an administrative function, that of an archivist, or perhaps a financial role. But the Syriac sources indicate a religious function: in the history of Mār Pethion, the ainbed (Syr. ʿynbd/ʾynwd) is surrounded with a guard of horsemen, but in the martyrdom of Mār Abā, an ēwēnbed called Kardag is also a magus and judge of the empire (šahr dādwar), as was the great magus Kerdir in the 3rd century.

The Syriac sources also inform us of religious titles: the mowbeds (Syr. mwhpṭʾ), of whom there are three categories (Gignoux, 1984, pp. 197-98). At the highest level stood the Mobedān mobed (Syr. mwbdnmwb(y)d), who is also called in Syriac ršʾ d-mgwšʾ “chief of the magi”; the Great Mobed (Syr. mwhpṭʾ ḥd rbʾ); and the provincial Mobeds, who are in charge of specific regions. According to the situation, the Grand Mobed had to stay at court, but could also travel to the provinces, no doubt as representative of the Mobadān Mobad. The latter title seems to have appeared from the 6th century on.

The different categories of judges are well documented: the rads and the dādvars, as well as the dastvars. The Rad is apparently the highest of religious judges and may, at the same time, be the Mobed (Gignoux, 1984, p. 201). The legal treatise Mādayān ī hazār dādestān indicates that, in the procedure of the ordeal, judgment cannot be pronounced in the absence of the rad. He is attached to a province, and he is distinct from the ēwēnbed. …

The article continues with a vivid description of the distinctly oriental processes of examination and justice, well worth reading, and then a bibliography.

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  1. [1]Philippe Gignoux, “Syriac Language ii. Syriac writings on pre-islamic Iran,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 20 July 2009, available at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/syriac-language-ii-syriac-writings-on-pre-islamic-iran.↩

Life of Mar Aba – chapter 21

Posted on by Roger Pearse

21.  When the holy one heard this, he praised God: “I praise you, Lord Christ, Lord of all kings and King of all lords, that you have done me, a weakling, this great honour, that I am persecuted and reviled, because I confess you in truth as God, your Father and the holy, life-giving Spirit, and that I, for the sake of your great and terrible name, have been handed over by your persecutors to prison and imprisonment.  Show your mercy, O Lord,  to me and to all your holy church, which is useful and profitable for the glory and increase of your holy name.”

Then he said to the Mopetan Mopet, “The earth in all its fullness, the world and all its inhabitants, belong to the Lord.”[1]  Boldly he took the Rad of Azerbaijan by the hand and said, “Come, take me wherever you have been ordered to take me; see, I am happy with you.”  The vigorous fighter  (ἀγωνιστής) went to the field of combat in the strong power of Christ, and after his struggle had lasted seventy days, by the power of Christ he had not been overcome by the magians, but was strengthened by the struggle.  The lamb of Christ emerged victorious, so that he might go and battle with the young lions.

After the Rad handed him over to the captain (aïnbed) and the gendarmes of the province, the Christians at the court of the King of Kings arose; they went with the blessed one and accompanied their spiritual father, who was being sent by his enemies to prison.  They remembered the spiritual milk, which they had drawn constantly from his teaching, and the good shepherd, who taught and pastured them on the meadow of his spiritual words, and of which they were deprived.  Some wept and sobbed, others tore their clothes and hair, others kissed his tortured feet and took grace from his footsteps. 

The blessed one was very sad, and worried about what he saw his flock do, more than a wet-nurse, and they wept more than children if their mother is taken into captivity.   Lastly he prayed in great pain, blessed them, and handed them over to God and the words of his grace, and so they parted.

I had not realised that the preceding chapters were all still taking place at court.  I must go and look back at what I wrote.

Clearly the Rad of Azerbaijan is worried about being involved in such high politics, where he stands to gain nothing, and where, if anything happens to Mar Aba, he might fall foul of the king’s displeasure; for clearly the King of Kings is allowing all this rather than ordering it.  Mar Aba sees the chance to conciliate him and seizes it.

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  1. [1]I.e. that wherever he is, God is with him.↩

Life of Mar Aba – chapter 20

Posted on by Roger Pearse

20.  But since the Christians at court clamoured violently and shouted because of the blessed one, the King of Kings ordered that he should not be thrown into prison.  He was handed over to the Rad of Azerbaijan, named Dad(d)en, a man evil and hardened against everyone, but who through God’s grace was gentle, friendly and peaceful to the blessed and his disciples. 

On the advice of the devil, the enemy of truth, the Mopetan Mopet and the noble magians secretly arranged to send down the holy one into his custody in the province of Azerbaijan, which is eclipsed by error[1], in a district (rûstâkâ) darked by paganism named PRHRWR, in a village named SRSCH by the magians, which is the birthplace of magianism. 

There the magians of the whole Persian realm gather together in order to learn the foolish mutterings of Zardusht bar Spidtahman[2],  people who are the enemies of all truth.  They wander about in droves and bands, follow their masters, talk and argue in the nonsense of their errors, stuttering and yelling and gnashing their teeth like wild pigs.  The blessed one would have to endure the sights and sounds of the wildness and pugnacity of the people, who had never heard the name of Christian, faced with his his greeting and attempt to talk rationally to them.[3]. 

They placed a watch on him.  And because of Satan’s influence, they did not allow him the slightest relief from his pains, which they made him endure so that he would quickly depart from this life.

The description of the conditions sounds rather hagiographical, but the order for banishment to a remote magian stronghold seems likely enough.

UPDATE: Revised after reading chapter 21, as Mar Aba is still at court; but I am not confident still about parts of this.

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  1. [1]“die durch den Irrtum verfinstert ist” — I am not sure that I have rendered this correctly.↩
  2. [2]Zoroaster.↩
  3. [3]Not sure about this sentence at all: “Welchen Anblick und welches Anhören der Wildheit und Streitsucht von Leuten, die nicht einmal den Christennamen hören, seinen Gruß annehmen und mit ihm wie Menschen reden mochten, vermochte der Selige auszuhalten.”↩

Life of Mar Aba – chapter 19

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The negotiations proved fruitless.  Mar Aba felt that he had the backing of the king, and the magians suspected that this might be so.  They resolved to find out.

19.  A few days later, the King of Kings saw the blessed one on the road; he spoke to him and accepted the salutation which the godly one made him.  This excited the envy of the magians and they again brought him before their assembly.  When he appeared before them, one arose as prosecutor and said, “This one used to be a pagan and the son of a pagan, and later became a Christian.” 

Then they all clapped their hands and said, “This man is deserving of death.”  Then they drew up a document of the investigation and read it to each other. 

They showed him the piece of writing, which they had drawn up against him, and said, “If you do our will, and write and sign with us, that you do not forbid those who have married their stepmother, sisters and stepdaughters, as well as those others who (have contracted marriages) forbidden by your scripture, do not come before the court, do not bring any magians and pagans into Christianity, and do not forbid the Christians to eat the flesh left over from magian sacrifices, then we will leave you free and we will not throw you into prison.  Go into your house and manage your Catholicate.  But if you do not listen to us, then we will draw up an indictment (purschaschnâmag) against you and throw you in prison.”

The Catholicos said, “God, whom I serve, forbids me to transgress the true Christian faith, which I hold and teach, and to do you will in any of the above matters.  For anyone who does something like this denies Christ and is no Christian.”

After they heard this, they sealed the indictment and ordered that he be thrown into prison.

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Beware of “elevated vagueness”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Via Trevin Wax I encounter this post by John Piper, referring to Fred Sander’s post about Victorian liberal preacher F. W. Robertson:

There is a connection between skilled vagueness and concealed immorality. Why else would a man use great gifts to make things unclear unless he was afraid of clarity? And fear of clarity in preaching is a good sign that something besides doctrine is being concealed.

Indeed so.  The justification of evil is nothing new.  John Bunyan encountered those who attack Christianity from an self-chosen elevation, and pictured them as Mr High-mind in Pilgrims Progress.   Christian is arrested at Vanity Fair for preaching, and brought before the court.

Then went the Jury out, whose names were, Mr Blindman, Mr No-good, Mr Malice, Mr Love-lust, Mr Live-loose, Mr Heady, Mr High-mind, Mr Enmity, Mr Liar, Mr Cruelty, Mr Hate-light, and Mr Implacable; who every one gave in his private Verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the Judge.

And first among themselves, Mr Blind-man the Foreman, said, “I see clearly that this man is an Heretick.”

Then said Mr Nogood, “Away with such a fellow from the earth”.

“Ay,” said Mr Malice, “for I hate the very looks of him.”

Then said Mr Love-lust, “I could never endure him.”

“Nor I,” said Mr Live-loose, “for he would always be condemning my way.”

“Hang him, hang him,” said Mr Heady.

“A sorry Scrub,” said Mr High-mind.

“My heart riseth against him,” said Mr Enmity.

“He is a Rogue,” said Mr Liar.

“Hanging is too good for him,” said Mr Cruelty.

“Let us dispatch him out of the way,” said Mr Hate-light.

Then said Mr Implacable, “Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death.”

And so they did;…

Mr High-mind may speak softly.  But he is just as much an enemy of truth as the others, and less honest than most.

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 18

Posted on by Roger Pearse

18.  As the Mopetan Mopet and the magians recognised that they had been refuted by the blessed one with these words, they sought out another method to link the issue with the command of the king.  The Mopetan Mopet said, “If in your (holy) scriptures it says, ‘If you do this, you do rightly’ and if is it written in another text, that you should not do it because it is not right, and if the King of Kings says to you, that this, which you are commanded to do, you shall not do, and to do what it says not to do, will you obey the orders of the King of Kings and do his will, or will you transgress his command?”

The Catholicos said, “Far be it from the King of Kings that he, with respect to the good which is commanded of me, and the evil, which is forbidden to me, shall order me not to do good and to do evil.”

The Mopetan Mopet and the magians said, “But what if he does?”

The Catholicos said, “He does not.”

And as they pressured him so much, he said, “If he commands it, I will at that time answer, ‘God the Creator and Lord of all things must be obeyed rather than men.'”

They said nothing in reply.

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Online sources and the classroom

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Jona Lendering has written a thoughtful article here on the problem on online websites and the classroom.  As the author of the respectable Livius.org site, he isn’t theorising, and his words need to be listened to.

If students cannot check the information – if they cannot know how the facts* have been established and which explanatory model is used – students must avoid a website. That’s the first basic lesson.

This means that in the present situation, students must just avoid the internet and check their library. Books are a far better source of reliable information.

Note that I would prefer to use the word “statements” here, for the website probably is not giving facts. 

Now Jona is right.  You can use the web to gather lists of possible sources, as a first stab (only a first stab) at a reading list.  But it is entirely possible that the selection of sources presented online is itself misleading.  Manipulation of the reader by omission of reliable sources and inclusion of unreliable sources is, sadly, becoming commonplace.

Nor is this all.

There used to be a time, not so long ago, that the universities “sent out” information, which society “received”. This is the “sender-receiver model”. The internet now  offers society a possibility to talk back: the “debate model”.

Look at the Wikipedia, where activists can change articles to make them suit their own agendas. Or, if activists create a lot of noise, they can silence the voice of reasonable scholars.

I have experienced this myself, and I know others have had the same experience.  Yet Wikipedia is the first result in most Google searches.

He then goes on to a rather political question, where Jona perhaps does not make his point as clearly as he might.  But the point is a critical one.  So let me paraphrase.

A government minister in his country has referred in a non-condemning way to Intelligent Design.[1]  Scientists have attacked her.  Non-scientists have defended her.  But anyone doing a web search will only find the non-scientific stuff.  Why?  Because the scientific publications are all behind paywalls!  So … anyone who looks into this will only get one side; and it happens to be the non-scientist side. 

And worse yet, because only one side is heard:

You get the impression that she is the victim of a smear campaign by unthinking scientists.

Silencing one side, while the other occupies 100% of the public perception is an incredibly powerful a weapon to manufacture opinion.  It has been used for this purpose by the political left in our society since around 1980, as a way to advance and normalise crazy causes, with great success.  It is now being used to promote freakshow causes like “gay marriage”, and opposition — and everyone was opposed to this as recently as two years ago — is hardly heard.   It’s a very, very powerful way to control what people think.

So it is not a trivial matter to observe that, for practical purposes, a situation has been created where bad information is the only kind available.  Not at all.

The second basic lesson about online information is that, as long as there is no free access, bad information drives out good.

And to some fields of research, the damage is already done.

I hope that this verdict is overly negative.  But it is hard for those of us who remember a world before the internet to imagine how the generation thinks, that does not remember a time before Wikipedia.  Perhaps Jona is right here too.

Jona sums up:

To sum up: at this moment there is no good reason why students should use the internet. Let’s face it: the internet has failed.

As a tool for classroom learning, it most certainly has, although not for popularisation.

Paywalls are one of the reasons why.

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  1. [1]I have no opinion myself on Intelligent Design, since I don’t know anything about it, although I do know some of the politics around it.↩

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve received an email offering to translate the Life of Mar Aba into English from Syriac, rather than the retranslation of Oskar Braun’s BKV German translation which I have been doing this week.  The cost to do so is not prohibitive; but the translator has an eye on possible formal publication subsequently, so we need to find a way that allows me to give him a lot of money, while still allowing him to publish in a way that will do his CV good.

Meanwhile I have heard from my local library that Walter Bauer’s Orthodoxy and Heresy has arrived — I ordered a loan a couple of weeks ago.  So I shall trott along there at the weekend and pick it up, and read it.  The tiny bit that I have seen so far suggests that he refers to various patristic texts, so those should be fun to look up.  Whether he has anything to say, that any of us need pay any attention to, I do not yet know.

The Bauer thesis, apparently, is that Jesus never taught anything all that specific; that the apostles were just one group of his disciples, and that others teaching any old thing wandered around; that the heresies of the second century, such as Valentinians, Marcionites, etc, were all faithful ideological descendants of these putative early disciples; and that the apostolic church, therefore, has no unique claim to the moral authority of Jesus. 

This sounds like complete tosh to me, of course, improbable on so many levels.  Ideological movements get founded by ideologues, not people who can’t make coherent sense for a year or two.  The data certainly doesn’t support that, but says the opposite; and, as five minutes critical thinking reminds us, the Valentinians etc claimed that their teaching was “secret”, not known to the public.  That by itself tells us that, as far as public record went, their teaching was NOT known to be derived from Jesus himself, and everyone knew it. 

And indeed a look at the 2nd century heretics shows that their teaching derives directly from various flavours of pop philosophical paganism, and the “haereses” of this.  Tertullian listed the borrowings, and asked, pertinently, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem … away with this bastardised ‘Christianity’.”  If Valentinus’ disciples like Rhodon did not remain faithful to Valentinus, why do we suppose that Valentinus remained faithful to some earlier teacher?  But to ask the question is to answer it.

To me, all this sounds like the sort of theory that could arise only in a society in transition; in a society which has a historical attachment to Christianity, which the establishment find inconvenient, which wants to discard “thou shalt not commit adultery” etc, but still has an inherited and irrational reverence for Jesus himself.  In western society in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, in short.

Never mind.  We’ll see.  I am told that WB himself is not nearly as bonkers as those who riff off him. 

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 17

Posted on by Roger Pearse

17.  Because the blessed one had given himself over to the commandments of the Lord and the apostles, he warned the bishops and priests, their flock, all the time to warn all ranks (räy/ua) of the Christian community not to break the canons of the apostles and marry their stepmother, niece, wife of their uncle, or to approach two (sisters).  Anyone who did otherwise he expelled from the church with bindings and anathemas.  Then the rad and the mopet of Bet Aramaye arose and accused him also of this. 

The Mopetan Mopet said to the blessed one, “Those who, before you were Catholicos, married such men or women, allow them into the church because it did not happen in your time.” 

The Catholicos said, “I will not transgress the command of my Lord, and to those who do, whether they have transgressed or are transgressing, I will refuse entry to the church, so that they do not contaminate the people of the Lord.”

The chief Magian said, “Those who did so in your time should not enter.”

The Catholicos said, “Whether the devil entered someone before or during my Catholicate, should he leave him or not?”

The chief Magian said, “He should leave him.”

The Catholicos said, “In the same way should also those who have transgressed the divine commandment be freed, so that they are not delivered with Satan and the devils to eternal hell. “

We’re now squarely back in the realm of history rather than hagiography, and the Life is describing what must have been a real problem in the late 6th century in Persia. 

The magians have genuine concerns, not as fire-priests but rather as custodians of Persian culture and defenders of the customs of the ruling classes.  The tendency of Persians to marry close female relatives is mentioned by Tertullian, who tells us that, present at a performance of Oedipus, some Persians laughed at the depiction of marrying your mother as a horrible crime. 

Here we see that the rise of Christianity in Iran was causing real difficulties to some classes of Persian society.  Earlier Catholici had ducked the issue; but Mar Aba’s position was strong enough that he felt able to hold a hard line, even on those who had contracted such marriages before he became Catholicos.

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 16

Posted on by Roger Pearse

We’re now starting to get some of the meat of the issues.  The magian clergy play, it seems, a judicial role.  They are finding that the Nestorian patriarchs are overruling their judgements, when it is a case between two members of their community. 

16.  After this the blessed one went daily into the assembly of the magians, who were negotiating with him and asking him about all sorts of things.  And the mopet of Bet Aramaje got up and said, “Often, when Christians bring a prosecution, and obtain a written (judgement) (buchtnamag) from the Mopetan Mopet, he sends for them, takes them out of the court house and tears up the written (judgement).  All the cases that come to us are actually decided by him, and we suffer much violence through him.” 

The Catholicos said, “If a Christian maliciously accuses his brother, I will not allow him to come into the church.”

Then a man from Samarra (?) named Dendad got up, who had put on the name of Christian, but in this, as in many other accusations, he had joined with the magians, and since he had exchanged God’s truth for a lie, after a few days his body was swollen up, by God’s punishment.  Then he stood up publicly before the magians and said, “I have  maliciously accused the Catholicos.”  But he died mid-sentence.

The man who calls himself a Christian but in fact acts as a pawn of the non-Christian world is still a familiar figure.

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