A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. Группа авторов
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bibliography (Brock 1979: 29 includes a helpful table on what period each one of the main historiographical texts covers). There also survive Syriac translations of Greek historiographical works, including Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History and Chronicon, Socrates Scholasticus’s Ecclesiastical History, Theodoret of Cyrrhus’s Ecclesiastical History and Religious History, and Zacharias Rhetor’s Ecclesiastical History, which is lost in the Greek original.
Other Literature
In addition to historiography proper, other Syriac texts can be useful for the study of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, not only on account of the material they contain about the emergence of Christianity in relation to enduring pre-Christian cults and traditions (Chapter 38), but also, and more broadly, about the interactions between local and Greco-Roman cultures in the context of the Roman provincial world. One of the earliest surviving Syriac pieces of literature is also a most extraordinary Syriac text: it takes the form of a prose dialogue featuring the Edessene nobleman and philosopher Bardaisan (154–222) conversing with his philosophically minded pupils on the issue of human free will. This dialogue, composed in the early third century, shows awareness of Platonic models, and includes an ethnographic excursus that lists some of the curious customs of different peoples; these customs include the ancient (and reportedly no-longer-in-use) religious practice of self-emasculation in honor of Atargatis in Edessa of which Bardaisan was likely well-informed (English translation in Drijvers 1965; Millar 1993: 474–475; Healey 2019). Additional information about pre-Christian cults in Edessa, and the Near East more broadly, can be found in the Apology of Ps.-Meliton (Chapter 5). Despite being configured as Christian texts opposing non-Christian cults and practices, Christian apologies such as that by Ps.-Meliton can be helpful sources for the study of pre-Christian religion and cults, and, more broadly, of the continuity of Greco-Roman culture among Syriac speakers; the Syriac translations of the early apologists Ps.-Justin Martyr (Exhortation to the Greeks) and Aristides (Apology) effectively provided an elementary introduction, in Syriac, to Greek philosophy and Greek mythology.
The Teaching of Addai is a composite Syriac narrative of the fifth century that backdates the Christianization of Edessa to the time of Jesus, at the same time making a case for an apostolic pedigree for Edessene Christianity; nonetheless, the text contains important information about Edessene society during the monarchic period (Sommer 2018: 254–255). The narrative includes (i) a legendary exchange of letters between King Abgar of Edessa and Jesus, (ii) a narrative about the ensuing mission of Jesus’s apostle Addai (Thaddeus) to Edessa, and (iii) an account of the conversion to Christianity of Abgar and all the citizens of Edessa (Syriac text and English translation are published in Howard 1981; an earlier version of the legend is found in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 1.13; with Corke-Webster 2017). The Teaching of Addai articulates Christian doctrine and promotes a paradigm of correct Christian behavior, but it also attacks Near Eastern pagan cults, against which Addai makes an important speech (18); interestingly, such cults are presented as ultimately belonging to Aramaic-speaking communities other than Edessa, such as those at Hatra, at Hierapolis, and among the Arabs, while Edessa is singled out as preeminently a Christian community on account of its orthodox faith and Christian ascetic practices (Wood 2012: 175–177; Healey 2019). Another early Syriac text that, conversely, demonstrates a more cosmopolitan dimension is the fourth-century Acts of Thomas, which narrate the travel and missionary activity of the apostle Thomas in India (English translation in Klijn 2003). This text should be understood in the context of the lively commercial and cultural exchanges between the Syriac-speaking region and Asia, as is also instantiated by an Account of India authored by Bardaisan and surviving only fragmentarily in Porphyry (De abstin. 4.16.9–18.3 and 376 F Smith); in one passage, the Edessene philosopher writes of his personal encounter with an embassy from India. At another level, both works offer important glimpses into the Edessenes’s perceptions and experiences of Roman and Parthian imperial powers (Andrade 2020).
An early Syriac document for which it has proved especially difficult to find a precise historical context is the Letter of Mara bar Serapion (text and English translation in Cureton 1855; see now the contributions in Merz and Tieleman 2012). It is unclear whether or not a Greek original underlies this Syriac text, and hypotheses of chronology have also varied considerably, ranging from the second to the fourth centuries CE. The text takes the form of a letter by a self-styled philosopher to his son and offers pieces of moral advice perhaps inspired by Stoic ethics. Especially problematic is the reference that the text makes to the Romans’ occupation of Samosata, and to the ensuing exile of the author; this passage might be a reference to the Roman takeover of Commagene in the early 70s CE. Some scholars, however, emphasizing the overall lack of historical detail in the text, have argued that its moral contents and format suggest instead strong links with higher rhetorical education and, in particular, with the school exercise of the chreia elaboration (McVey 1990; Millar 1993: 460–462; Chin 2006). In fact, the text contains references and anecdotes about Greek historical figures such as Achilles, Socrates, and Pythagoras, and does indeed attest to the endurance of Greek paideia (“education”) in Syriac. The Letter of Mara bar Serapion should be understood within the context of the large strand of early Syriac instructional literature that demonstrates the continuity of Greco-Roman educational traditions in Syriac, such as the translations of works by Plutarch, Lucian, and Themistius, and wisdom literature attributed to ancient Greek philosophers (Brock 2003; Rigolio 2013; Arzhanov 2019).
Unlike much of the later Syriac literature, the Christian character of these instructional texts is rather lukewarm, and they stand as a reminder of the diversity that characterized early Syriac literature; it is necessary to emphasize that what survives was selected and transmitted according to the interests of Syriac Christianity as it became institutionalized from the fourth century onwards. A trace of another strand of literature that circulated in Syriac from the second century onwards, and was not obviously related to the religious interests of the Christian communities in Osrhoene, is the Story of Ahiqar, a long-lived piece of ancient Aramaic literature that was received into Syriac and here considerably expanded. Arguably, this text catered to the intellectual interests of the class of scribes, administrators, and diplomats of the kingdom of Edessa. It is a fictional narrative centered on the legendary career of Aḥīqar, an Aramaean minister working at the court of the Neo-Assyrian kings Sennacherib (705–681 BCE) and Esarhaddon (681–669 BCE), who, although long distinguished for his wisdom and royal service, was slandered by his own adoptive son and apprentice Nādin and consequently sentenced to death. The Story of Ahiqar stands as an important reminder of the potential connections between Syriac and ancient Aramaic literature; in its expanded Syriac version, however, it includes much moralizing and instructional material that reveals a strong interest on the part of the Syriac-speaking elites in moral education and etiquette (English translation in Lindenberger 1985; Contini and Grottanelli 2005).
Greco-Roman themes did not disappear from the Syriac literature of the following centuries; here, they often intersected the patterns in which Syriac speakers wrote and re-wrote their own past (Wood 2010, 2012). In the aftermath of Emperor Julian’s defeat in 363 CE, Ephrem the Syrian composed four hymns (madrashe) Against Julian; they describe, in condemnatory terms, the reign of Julian and the Roman surrender of Nisibis (Ephrem’s own homeland) as part of the peace deal with the Sasanians; as a result of this event Ephrem emigrated to Edessa, which remained under Roman control. The hymns are often described as vivid invectives written by somebody who had direct experience of the events narrated and contain important historical information (for instance on Julian’s bull coinage). Perhaps paradoxically, however, in these hymns Ephrem presents Nisibis as a bulwark of paganism, a city that, under Julian’s government, opted to set up idolatrous cults within its walls; in Ephrem’s view, the eventual surrender of Nisibis to the Sasanians was just retribution for its own paganism (Griffith 1987). Another especially notable text dealing with Julian, and known as the Julian Romance, is a composite narrative about the reigns of Emperors Julian (361–363) and Jovian (363–364) that strongly condemns Julian and his persecution of Christians. The Julian Romance