Roger Pearse

My queries about the Chronicle of Zuqnin led me to read the translation of the Third Part of the Chronicle by Witold  Witakowski.  This covers the period from the reign of Anastasius (ca. 500) to the end of the century. 

In the Byzantine empire no political dissent was permitted.  The emperor was absolute, and he made all the decisions.  Dissent was a capital offence.  But a certain amount of religious disagreement was permitted.  Human nature being what it is, this ensured that all the political disagreements of the empire expressed themselves in theological language and debased theology to the service of personal ambition.   Those doing this were mostly Greeks, and they did it in the language of Aristotle.  They also discovered that, while agora-democracy was illegal, they were allowed to get together in church councils and vote each other into exile, much as they had ostracised each other a millenium earlier.

The long disagreements between Alexandria and the rest of the empire came to a head at Chalcedon in 451.  But this merely served to ensure half a century of violent disagreements.  The emperor Zeno had tacitly abandoned the council in his Henotikon, and Anastasius followed him in a policy of supporting the status quo — no Chalcedonians disturbing the peace in monophysite regions, no monophysites doing the same in Chalcedonian regions.  The position was weakened by the fact that Constantinople was Chalcedonian, while the emperor was clearly not.

The succession of Justin, a Chalcedonian, led immediately to persecution of the monophysites, and this continued under Justinian, although the latter’s wife Theodora was a  monophysite and protected them to some extent.  The Chronicle of Zuqnin quotes verbatim from the lost Second Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus, who witnessed what went on.  The story starts in 527 AD, when the Patriarch Ephrem appointed a man named Abraham bar Kaili as bishop of Amida, in the monophysite area.

In Amid a man by the name of Abraham, a cleric of that church, became bishop. He was called Bar Kaili and (although) his family came from Tella he arrived in (Amid) from Antioch. Then Satan possessed him totally, and he devoted himself to violent persecution without mercy, to pillage and the destruction of people’s souls more than his earlier and more recent predecessors. This villain used (all means) including the killing, crucifixion and burning of believers in a barbarous and cruel way, without mercy. Impudently he plotted by every means foul ruses for the destruction of people—tortures, cruel scourging and pernicious confinement in prison, both in the tribunal building and in the deepest pit which was in the prison, into which murderers and others sentenced to death were thrown and where they were executed, after which their bodies were secretly removed and cast in desolate graves, like those of dumb animals.

In order to deceive the Amidenes’ keen ardour for the true faith he pretended to them that he would not preach (the doctrine of) the Council. But during the time of the dux Thomas, a Goth who was the dux at that time, he gave orders to bring and crucify four persons at every single gate. They hung on their crosses till the evening. As next day the commemoration of the blessed Mother of God was to be celebrated outside the northern gate of Amid, the wicked bishop rode out to celebrate it. When he saw the bodies hanging on the crosses he forbade them to be taken down until it was necessary because of the smell of corruption. (Only) then would he let them to be taken down and buried.

Also when he learned that there was an uprising (and the people) were shouting these words, “Behold! the new martyrs by the hand of the Christians have appeared! So why do the Christians blame any longer the pagan judges who did that, when now they themselves, like those, do (the same)”, he tormented men and women because they had stood up against him when he demanded that they should accept the Council of Chalcedon.

And all these things (happened) in our presence and we saw it with our (own) eyes.

First he expelled and ousted (the monks from) all the holy monasteries in the vicinity of the city, and then from the whole country around it. Also he made a list of the quarters, mansions and houses of the city, of men and women, each one by his name. He demanded that they be entered on to the church register and that they receive communion, even babes, and not only those which had been born but also those which had not yet been born. He demanded that the women should be registered so that when they had given birth, they should bring the (babes) to be baptized. If it happened that a new-born child died or (that a babe) was miscarried, unless clergy came to see it, the family of the dead babe which had not been brought to be baptized was in danger. And these evil deeds, that is pillaging and destruction, were done not only in this city but in all the country around it and in the (whole) diocese of Amid.

On the holy martyr Cyrus.

Here is (something) most terrible, grievous and cruel: (the story of) a priest whose name was Cyrus, from the village of Ligin, who was seized and required to receive communion. When he refused, he was brought to the city before the bishop. He violently shouted at him in indignation saying:

“Why do you not receive communion?”

And he answered:

“You make your communion repugnant to me and I cannot partake of it, for communion given by force is not a communion.”

Then (the bishop) swore:

“You will not leave here, but you will take communion.”

(Cyrus also) swore:

“I will never accept the forced communion from you.”

Then the bishop had the Eucharist brought and gave orders to hold the priest, to fill a spoon (with the Eucharist) and to put it into his mouth. (But) as he shut his mouth they could not insert the spoon into it. Then the bishop gave orders to bring a whip, to stick its handle into (the priest’s) mouth and in this way to get the spoon (also) into his mouth. They held his teeth apart (so forcefully) that they were nearly pulled out. With the handle (of the whip) inserted in his mouth he mumbled, not being able to move his tongue nor to speak normally to them. He swore saying:

“By Christ’s truth, if you put the Eucharist into my mouth, I will spit it out upon your faces.”

Thus in bitter wrath and threatening (him) with death they inserted the spoon to one side of the whip and poured the Eucharist into his mouth. But he blew and ejected it from his mouth. Accordingly they called him “the Spitter”.

When Bar Kaili saw what that priest did, he used it as a pretext to kill him which had been his intention (in the first place). As the others perished by his hand so he would cause also (the priest) to perish. Intoxicated with the ferocity and cruelty of Satan, who “was a murderer from the beginning”, he promptly gave orders to carry wood and fire to the tetrapylon (187) in the city and (there) to burn the priest. It was the Wednesday of fasting in Holy Week. So he had the priest put in [the tetrapylon] and wood gathered there from the vicinity. They set him on fire and burned him. (The people of) the city wailed and wept at this horrible and heart-rending sight, as they watched a man burning and dense smoke rising as from dumb and irrational beasts (being burnt). This was a hideous and inhuman deed, which, with all its ferocity, stupidity and obduracy of heart, (only) dumb beasts can inflict on each other. All (the people of) the city were so agitated and shocked at the evil deed of burning that priest in (such) iniquity and wickedness that they thought to burn Bar Kaili, doing to him the same thing that he had displayed by burning that priest. There were (however) some nobles of the city (who) out of fear of the emperor restrained them from doing so. Many people however separated themselves from (Bar Kaili) regarding him as a murderer and a Jew, and they ceased (to receive) communion from him.

(Bar Kaili) being afraid lest the matter become known to the emperor and lest he sentence him to be burnt as he himself had burned (a man), in anticipation he wrote falsely and informed (the emperor) that a certain priest had trampled the Eucharist with his feet, and because of this had been burned. Thus he managed to deceive (the emperor) and to cause the murder to pass (without consequences).

That we have not deviated from the truth, nor misrepresented it in what we have described, the Lord is our witness and all the contemporaries of that wicked and ferocious deed. This evil became known all over the East and West, and everybody was horrified by what was done by people wearing the robes of priesthood but far removed from its virtues.

(187) A monumental gate-like construction with four entrances built in Roman cities on the cross of the main streets. The best example in the East is the Great Tetrapylon in Palmyra (3rd c. A.D.).

Bar Kaili had, of course, no more religion in him than a plank of wood.  He was a hatchet-man, chosen precisely for his lack of conscience and in the knowledge that  his violence would be exercised on the dissenting population, in order to force them to conform.

The wicked bishop is a constant figure down the centuries.  James of Edessa describes such folk very accurately in his damaged Chronicle:

But the bishops who had swerved from [the faith, since] they were [not accepted] by the churches, and they would not endure their [communion], not considering their folly, — — —  — — —  — — — [out of] desire of power made use of worldly authorities and [the sword of tyranny — — — — ] to get possession of churches and sees [and the flock — — — — which] was purchased with the blood of Christ.

It might be supposed that such actions would not happen today.  A look at the accounts of the behaviour of bishops in the Episcopal Church of the USA on VirtueOnline reveals precisely the same behaviour.  In the USA they cannot murder and torture.  But the law allows them to seize churches which they did not build from those who did, expell the congregations, and sell the property for their own profit; and they are doing this all over the USA.  The church is pursuing just such a policy against dissenters now.

Perhaps it is something about episcopacy as an institution.  It is depressing to see, nevertheless.

In the Vatican library there is a manuscript written in Syriac containing a world chronicle in four parts, ending in 775 AD.  The shelfmark of the volume is Vatican Syriac manuscript number 162.  The manuscript contains 173 leaves or ‘folios’ in manuscript-speak, each with two sides, the front (‘recto’) and the reverse (‘verso’).  The manuscript seems to have been written in the early 9th century, if we look at the letter-forms in use.

On folio 66v at the bottom there is a scribal note or colophon.  The leaf seems to have been lost and recopied.  It reads:

Pray for the wretched Elisha of the monastery of Zuqnin, who copied this leaf, that he might obtain mercy like the robber on the right hand (of Jesus).  Amen and amen.  ¹

Another British Library manuscript (Oriental ms. 5021) mentions a scribe, Elisha of Zuqnin.  A colophon dated to 903 says that he lived in Egypt as an anchorite.  Presumably he wrote the Vatican ms. while at Zuqnin, and moved to Egypt later.

The manuscript was found in Egypt at the monastery of Deir el-Suryani (Monastery of the Syrians) in the Nitrian desert in Egypt.  This  monastery acquired a very rich collection of Syriac manuscripts.  In 926-932 AD the Archimandrite Moses of Nisibis collected manuscripts from monasteries in Syria and Iraq and transported them to Egypt, forming the basis of the collection.

One of the early Syriac scholars, J. S. Assemani, brought a bunch of Syriac manuscripts to the Vatican library in 1715.   One of these was the manuscript of the chronicle.  He didn’t get the whole manuscript, tho; a century later Henry Tattam bought nearly all the remaining manuscripts at the monastery and donated them to the British Museum, in 1842.  Among the piles of parchment are some leaves missing from Vatican Syr. 162.  These are today in the British Library, bound under the shelfmark Additional Ms. 14,665, folios 1-7.

The chronicle used old parchment.  Underneath the Syriac text are Greek letters of the 7-8th century, containing excerpts from the Old Testament.  123 folios of the Vatican manuscript and all the London folios are from this old manuscript.

The text has deteriorated since the 18th century.  A copy was made by Paulin Martin in 1867, which is in the French National Library (shelfmark Syr. Ms. 284 and 285).  The copy contains errors, but is valuable since the original can no longer be read in various passages.  Chabot, the editor of the text in the CSCO edition — the only one — was forced to rely on the copy at various points.  It would be interesting to see what modern technology could do to improve this edition!

Partial publication of chronicles is the curse of Syriac studies.  This chronicle is not immune.  There were two partial editions in the 19th century.  Fortunately the CSCO text is complete, but only the first half received a Latin translation!  The second half was not translated until 1990, when R. Hespel translated it into French.

Earlier, the fourth part was also edited and translated into French by Chabot in 1895.² This portion (from fol. 121 to the end) is of interest for Islamic history.  Parts 3 and 4 were translated into English by Amir Harrak in 1999.

Would that this was online!

1. Incerti auctoris Chronicon Pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dictum, ed. J.-B. Chabot, CSCO 91 and 104 (S.Syr. 43 and 53), Paris 1927, 1933.  Vol. 1, p. 241, note 6.
2. Chronique de Denys de Tell-Mahre; quatrieme partie, publ. et trad. par J.-B. Chabot, Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes: sciences philologiques et historiques 112), Paris, 1895.  Online here and here.
3. Amir Harrak, Chronicle of Zuqnin: A.D. 488-775. Mediaeval sources in translation 36. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1999.  A limited edition preview is in Google books here.  Harrak also collated the whole CSCO text against the manuscript and gives critical apparatus omitted by Chabot.