doi.org/10.36886/nidan.2020.5.1.3
Religious Entanglements and Shared Texts:
The Western Syriac Revision and Reception of the Malabar Sermonary Radu Mustață
Central European University, (Budapest/Vienna) [email protected]
Abstract
In the attempt to unravel the religious entanglements of the Syrian Christians from Malabar and the literary networks of this Christian community in the early modern times, the present article focuses: (1) on collections of Syriac Catholic sermons from Malabar composed by the Catholic missionaries in order to create a new Syriac Catholic literary culture since the second half of the sixteenth century; and (2) on the later Western Syriac redaction and reception of this corpus. Consisting both of putative translations/adaptations from Latin and original creations, the manuscript evidence of such literary compositions bears witness to several successive redactions of Syriac texts from Malabar in the early modern times. It shows how this type of theological compositions became a shared literary genre, being appropriated by two rival factions of the Malabar Syrian Christians, namely Paḻayakūṟ and Putaṉkūṟ, throughout their complicated ecclesiastical history, from the second half of the sixteenth century up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and beyond. The study of these collections of sermons across confessional boundaries testifies to the religious entanglements between the two rival groups, and brings further evidence that the reorientation of the Putaṉkūṟ from the Syro-Catholic tradition from Malabar, based on both Eastern Syriac and European traditions and sources, towards the Western Syriac tradition was a gradual and slow process.
Keywords: Syriac Catholic sermons from Malabar, textual accommodatio, Paḻayakūṟ, Putaṉkūṟ, Malabar Independent Syrian Chrurch
Introduction
The Syriac heritage of the Malabar Christians – known as Saint Thomas Christians1 and claiming Syrian identity – was transformed throughout the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries from a collection of standard Syriac texts belonging to the theological and liturgical literary legacy of the Church of the East, to a new Catholic culture in Syriac, presenting an original synthesis of Syriac sources from Iraq, and of Latin and vernacular sources from Europe. As such, this new Catholic culture in Syriac, addressing the audience of the Malabar Christians, became an emblematic expression of the complex interactions of this Christian community with its Iraqi East Syrian prelates (both
‘Nestorian’ and, after 1552, Chaldean)2 and the Catholic missionaries present on the coastal regions of India, alongside with the consolidation of the Portuguese empire in Asia. Being a work of erudition and a reflection of the cross-cultural interaction between the local Christians, keen to preserve their Syriac rites and jurisdiction (see Perczel, 2013), and the missionary enterprise of Catholic Church in the age of the Council of Trent, this new Catholic Syriac literature also outlines the challenges of the early modern global Catholicism in a missionary context.
As shown by pioneering studies of István Perczel, this Syriac culture illustrates how the Catholic missionaries, especially the Jesuits, had to accommodate Catholic doctrine to a Christian community which was perfectly integrated into the social and cultural structures of the local society from Malabar, while preserving the Syriac rites and language in worship as an essential part of its Christian identity (Perczel, 2009a, 2018). In a seminal study from 2005, Ines Županov has shown how in the second half of the sixteenth century the encounter of the Jesuit missionaries with the Saint Thomas Christians made the former distinguish between “civility” and “religion” (Županov, 2005: 324) and re- elaborate their missionary strategies in the context of “a late sixteenth century Palaeochristian Revival movement” (ibid.: 287) which favored “a creative re- interpretation of Christianity in order to accommodate it to non-Christian peoples and cultures” (ibid.: 284). According to Županov, “the controversial and notorious method of conversion called «accommodation» – employed in the Jesuit overseas missions among the “heathens”, has been first thought out and tested in their mission among the St. Thomas Christians in the late sixteenth century. It was by looking at the antique Christians, a strange kind of Christians who closely resembled their Hindu and Muslim neighbors in India (in customs, rituals, skin
1 Throughout this paper I am using the terms “Malabar Christians”, “Syrian Christians of Malabar”
and “Saint Thomas Christians” interchangeably; again, when I refer to Malabar or Malankara, I envisage the whole territory of the current state of Kerala, where the Saint Thomas Christians live, and not only the Northern part of the state, as it is the case in modern times.
2 I am using here the term “Nestorian” referring to the Church of the East for the sake simplification and in order to avoid terminological confusion, since both Church of the East and the Chaldean Church belong to the East Syrian branch of Christianity; however, on the problems related to the term “Nestorian”, see Brock, 1996.
color, etc.), that the Portuguese and especially the Jesuit missionaries developed the idea that Christianity could accommodate non-European “social customs”
without getting intrinsically corrupt as a religion.” (ibid.: 324).
In the light of newly discovered manuscript material from the local archives in Kerala, István Perczel has developed further Županov’s hypothesis, by emphasizing the role played by the Syrian bishops from Iraq and the centrality of the Syriac language in the process of accommodatio among the Saint Thomas Christians, at that time. In this context, Perczel redefines accommodatio as an entangled joint enterprise involving the Syrian Christians from Malabar, their bishops from Iraq and the European missionaries (Perczel, 2018: 195-196). While for the European missionaries accommodatio meant distinguishing and negotiating the borders between social and religious practice, from the perspective of the local community of the Malabar Christians, it rather aimed at safeguarding the community’s Syrian identity, whose focal point was its Eastern Syriac rites and liturgy (ibid.: 196). Perczel illustrates how Syriac language and literacy was adopted by the Catholic missionaries (especially by the Jesuits), to make their missionary strategy efficient; he also points out how this type of linguistic accommodatio generated a “Chaldean rites controversy” predating the quarrel over the Malabar rites from Tamil Nadu (ibid.). As a clear expression of this missionary principle, a newly created Catholic missionary literature in Syriac was created (ibid.: 218-220).
Thus, the dialectics between Catholic Christianity as a conversion religion and the multi-confessional entanglements between various Christian traditions, in a relation described as both “competitive and complementary” (ibid.), is the general setting from which this new literary canon of Syriac paideia emerged and developed. The importance of this kind of material in the field of intellectual history is manifold: its study opens up an unexplored chapter in the field of early modern global intellectual history, illustrating – through literary networks – the circulation of knowledge from both Europe and the Middle East to the Malabar Coast (see Perczel, 2014 and 2008). Beside connecting the Iraqi manuscript- based Syriac culture and the European printing culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is an important witness to transmission of theological and humanistic knowledge from the European Jesuit teachers to their Indian disciples from Malabar, as an expression of the Jesuit principle of accommodatio (Perczel, 2014; on one such peculiar case, see as well Mustaţă: forthcoming).
Moreover, it is the vivid expression of the diversity of Syriac literature in the early modern times.
Historical context
The political and ecclesiastical setting in which this kind of Syriac literature developed is a complex one and it requires a summary of its historical developments. Throughout the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese Crown strengthened its position on the West coast of India3 by establishing a network of satellite-like settlements and strongholds, and by making alliances with the local rulers and kings, in order to consolidate and ensure its monopolistic trade system (Malekandathil, 2013: 63-82). As such this
“new world system” controlled by the Portuguese and connecting the Indian Ocean world with that of Europe through the Atlantic Ocean, collided with an “old world system”4, which it tried to suppress and replace. The latter was dominated since medieval times by the Arab traders and it connected the Mediterranean world with the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea, going further to the East (ibid.:
83-109). Due to its strategic position in the context of navigation (by reason of the monsoon winds), and its rich potential for trade with spices and other goods, the Malabar Coast became one of the main focuses of contention and dispute between these two macro-systems of trade (ibid.).
The Syrian Christians of Saint Thomas from Malabar were among the early allies with whom the Portuguese engaged in their trade enterprise. Two letters dated in 1523 and 1530 and sent from Cochin, by Mar Ya‘qob, the East Syrian Metropolitan of Malabar and India, to King John III of Portugal testify to the fact that the prelate was interested in establishing an alliance, and in engaging the local Christian community in trade transactions with the Portuguese (see Schurhammer, 1934: 10-24). The Portuguese Estado da India attempted to consolidate itself on the coastal regions of India by building a network of fortresses strategically chosen so as to facilitate trade. However, in the regions which did not fall directly under its control, it made use of the ecclesiastical apparatus. In practice, this meant that: (1) on the coastal territories under its direct rule, the Portuguese crown exerted ecclesiastical control on account of a set of privileges granted by the pope to the king of Portugal (by virtue of the so called Padroado real)5, (2) while in the hinterland it relied on the activity of various Catholic missionaries (among whom the Jesuits played a prominent role) (Malekandathil, 2013: 63-82). This distinction is important as the Syrian Christians from Malabar were residing both close to the Portuguese strongholds
3 On the Coromandel Coast it was rather through Portuguese casados (i.e., traders working outside the authority of the Estado da India and married with local women), and through the ecclesiastical apparatus that the Portuguese Crown exerted and gradually imposed its influence (see Malekandathil 2013: 63-82).
4 This is the terminology used by Pius Malekandathil (ibid.: 88).
5 On the basis of the Padroado real (“Royal Patronage”) the Portuguese Crown had the right to appoint bishops and control the religious life of the regions subjected to its rule; this was regulated through a series of bulls granted by the popes from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (see Aranha, 2006: 115-118).
in Cochin and Cranganore, and, under the authority of local Hindu kings, in the hilly hinterland to which the Portuguese sources refer as the “Serra”.
As a result of the contacts of the Malabar Christians with the Middle East, facilitated through the cosmopolitanism of the Arabian Sea, their ecclesiastical life was ensured, at least since medieval times, by Metropolitan bishops consecrated and sent from Iraq to Malabar, by the Catholicoi of the Church of the East (Perczel, 2015). At the same time, at least since the beginning of the sixteenth century, the administration of the Christian community from Malabar was entrusted to an indigenous archdeacon, chosen from the Pakalomaṭṭam noble family, who was supposed to work in close relation with the East Syrian bishops (see Perczel, 2009b: 205). After 1552, when the Chaldean Church was founded as the Uniate counterpart to the Church of the East, both the Chaldean and East Syrian Patriarchs sent metropolitan bishops to Malabar, claiming jurisdiction over the Malabar Church. This happened simultaneously with the attempt of the Portuguese Padroado authorities to impose Tridentine Catholicism on the local Syrian Christians, and with the intensification of the missionary work of the Jesuits within the same Christian community. Thus, the Portuguese made a systematic attempt of averting from the Malabar Coast the ‘Nestorian’ and Chaldean bishops and to ‘Latinize’ the Syriac rites and liturgy of Saint Thomas Christians, while striving to eradicate all local customs that were perceived by the Europeans as “heathen”. The zenith of this process of ‘Latinization’ was the Synod of Diamper (1599), which condemned as “Nestorian” the Eastern Syriac books of the Malabar Christians and ordered their “correction” according to the Tridentine Catholic doctrine. As a result of the synod, the same Christian community received an European Archbishop, in the person of the Catalan Francisco Roz SJ (1601-1624)6, who was followed by a series of Jesuit archbishops until 1653, when the local community revolted against the Jesuit archbishops and the Portuguese.
The revolt from 1653 had a double outcome: first of all, Archdeacon Thomas (from the Pakalomaṭṭam family), the leader of the anti-Catholic faction, was chosen by a group of priests as Metropolitan under the name of Mar Thoma I, and later he received his consecration from a Syrian Orthodox bishop from the Church of Antioch, namely Mor Gregorios Abd-al Jalīl, the Metropolitan of Jerusalem, who arrived to Malabar in 1665 (Thekkedath, 1988: 100-102). The second outcome of the revolt was that a part of the same community returned to the fold of the Catholic Church, when Alexander Parambil (1663-1687), the cousin of Archdeacon Thomas (Mar Thoma I) was consecrated and appointed as its bishop. Alexander Parambil’s consecration was performed by Joseph Maria Sebastiani OCD, Vicar Apostolic appointed directly by the pope, under the authority of the Congregatio de propaganda fide. All these events happened in the mid seventeenth century, which witnessed the shift of power in Malabar from
6 On Francisco Roz, see Mecherry, 2019.
the Portuguese to the Dutch: the Dutch capture of Cochin happened in 1663, and this had direct repercussions on the ecclesiastical life of the Malabar Christians, as it limited the interference of the Padroado authorities in the community. As a result of this split in the community, two rival groups were formed: “the Old Faction” (in Malayalam, Paḻayakūṟ), i.e. the group that remained in the Catholic fold, preserving the Eastern Syriac liturgy revised by Francisco Roz, after the Synod of Diamper; and “the New Faction” (in Malayalam, Putaṉkūṟ), the group lead by the Mar Thoma Metropolitans (their succession was hereditarily transmitted from uncle to nephew), who since the second half of the seventeenth century strived to adhere to the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, although at times they pendulated between Rome and Antioch for recognition or valid consecration (on this matter, see Fenwick, 2009: 119-167).
It is a common place in historiography that the bond of the Putaṉkūṟ with the Western Syriac rite and liturgy happened in the seventeenth century with Mar Thoma I’s consecration by a Syrian Orthodox prelate (see Thekkedath, 1988:
100-109). However, the important work of John Fenwick has collected evidence that this process of adhesion to the Church of Antioch was a slow one and, at least up to 1750, both factions were using the Malabar Catholic revision of the Eastern Syriac liturgy (see Fenwick, 2009: 151)7. It was rather through the successive work of various Syrian Orthodox missionaries sent by the Church of Antioch, for more than a century and a half, that the Western Syriac tradition got consolidated in Malabar. In this process of adapting the Putaṉkūṟ to the Western Syriac tradition, a prominent role was played by the mission of Mor Basilios Shukr Allah Qasagbi, Maphrian of the East, who arrived together with Mor Gregorios Yohanna, Metropolitan of Jerusalem, on the Malabar Coast in 1751. Besides being credited with the ‘re-Syriacisation’ of the Putaṉkūṟ in the spirit of the Western Syriac tradition, the main outcome of this mission was the consecration of two rival lines of bishops among the Putaṉkūṟ:
(1) one line beginning with Abraham Kattumangat (Mar Koorilose I8) who was apparently consecrated bishop in the 1760s by Mor Basilios Shukr Allah and afterwards elevated to the rank of metropolitan bishop by Mor Gregorios Yohanna; this branch of the Western Syriac tradition became later the Malabar Independent Syrian Church of Thozhiyur;
(2) a second chain of bishops who continued the lineage of the Mar Thoma Metropolitans, through the consecration of Mar Thoma VI as Mor Dionysius I by Mor Gregorios Yohanna in 17709.
7 Ample evidence for this process is gathered throughout the whole of Fenwick’s book.
8 For the names of the bishops belonging to the MISC I have used the forms in use in Kerala, which are used throughout Fenwick’s book; for the same reason, I have used the title “Mar”
instead of “Mor” to refer to prelates of the same Church, although I am aware that they belong to the Western Syriac tradition.
9 On the mission of 1751 and the consecration of two lines of bishops, see Fenwick, 2009: 193- 345.
As Fenwick pointed out, the reason why the latter lineage got precedence over the former one within the Putaṉkūṟ resides in the fact that after the revolt of 1653, with the lineage of the Mar Thoma Metropolitans, “a new role of ‘Malankara Metropolitan’ emerged – an Indian bishop who combined within his own person both the spiritual role of Metropolitan and the ‘head of community’ and ‘head of ecclesiastical administration’ roles traditionally exercised by the Archdeacons.
Increasingly, as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries progressed, it was this combined role to which claimants aspired” (ibid.: 148). Yet in the nineteenth century, in the context of the British rule over Malabar, the Thozhiyur lineage of bishops did provide a West Syrian Metropolitan for the whole community of Putaṉkūṟ Malankara Christians, in the person of Geeverghese Mar Philoxenos II (on this matter, see ibid.: 347-375).
The following quote from Fenwick’s work is illustrative regarding the complex relationship between the Paḻayakūṟ and the Putaṉkūṟ after the revolt of 1653:
Initially there was considerable fluidity and contact between the two groups [i.e., between the Paḻayakūṟ and the Putaṉkūṟ]. This is illustrated by the fact that until the early nineteenth century a number of Churches were still being shared by Pazhayakuttukar and Puthenkuttukar. Visscher records that in the first decades of the 18th century, in some Churches
‘the service is performed by the Syrians and Papists indifferently, not a little to the grief of the former who are scandalised at the multiplicity of images introduced by their rivals.’ Nearly a century later again, when Kerr visited Kerala in 1806, he described how in some Churches the liturgy was performed in the ‘Syrian and Latin rituals alternately by the priests of the Christians of St Thomas who have adhered to their ancient rites, and those who have been united to the Church of Rome. When the latter have celebrated Mass they carry away their images from the Church before the others enter’ (ibid.: 138).
In complementarity with this historical reality, the present study focuses on the religious transfer marked by the transition from (1) the Eastern Syriac tradition of the Church of the East (2) to a new Syro-Catholic tradition, created in Malabar by the Catholic missionaries around the times of the Synod of Diamper (1599), and subsequently by the shift from this Syro-Catholic tradition (3) to the Western Syriac tradition of the Church of Antioch, after 1653. More precisely, on the basis of newly discovered texts, the aim of my article is to present the career of a literary genre specific to Medieval Latin Europe in the Syriac literature of Malabar, across the divisions between the Putaṉkūṟ and Paḻayakūṟ. On the basis of two case studies, I will show how a collection of ‘thematic’/ ‘scholastic’ sermons was initially composed in Syriac, in Malabar, in order to accommodate Catholic doctrine to the audience of the Malabar East Syrian Christians sometimes around the Synod of Diamper (1599). After the revolt of 1653, “the New Faction”
(Putaṉkūṟ) revised and reedited the collection for its own use and, while relying on Western Syriac sources, even used the same European literary genre (alien to the Syriac tradition), in order to write polemic sermons in Syriac against the Portuguese and against its own rival group, “the Old Faction” (Paḻayakūṟ). The study of this collection of sermons across confessional boundaries bears witness to the religious entanglements between the two groups and brings further evidence that the reorientation of the Putaṉkūṟ towards the Western Syriac tradition was a gradual and slow process. The fact that both rival groups used this corpus, and that the Putaṉkūṟ became so skilled in handling this European literary genre alien to the Syriac tradition suggests that the collection might have been used in school for the instruction of the local clergy of the Saint Thomas Christians.
The Malabar Sermonary and MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1
Among the representative literary genres belonging to the new Catholic Syriac literary enterprise/output from Malabar, since the second half of the sixteenth century, an important role is played by a collection of sermons de tempore, de sanctis and ad status fashioned according to the pattern of the European collections of medieval and humanistic sermons. Consisting both of putative translations/adaptations from Latin10 and original creations, the manuscript evidence of such literary compositions bears witness to several successive redactions of Syriac texts from Malabar in the early modern times and shows how this type of theological compositions became a shared literary genre, being appropriated by both factions of the Malabar Syrian Christians, Paḻayakūṟ and Putaṉkūṟ, throughout their complicated ecclesiastical history, from the second half of the sixteenth century up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and beyond.
The medieval ‘thematic’/‘scholastic’ sermon emerged as a literary genre in Western Europe in the twelfth century, in relation to theological disputation as a means of instruction, once the first European universities in Bologna, Paris and Oxford were created. In contrast to the Patristic homily which was based on an unsystematic commentary of a given biblical text, verse by verse, the ‘scholastic’
sermon presented a very clearly determined structure which was codified by the artes praedicandi (manuals of rhetoric on the technique of constructing a sermon)11. The Cistercian Alan of Lille (1128-1202/3) is credited with having written the first ars praedicandi (Briscoe, 1992: 18) and the Repertory of Medieval
10 The idea that some of the sermons from the collection might be translated from an European source, is based on their similitude to European printed collections of sermons from the fifteenth and the sixteenth century; however, I was not able so far to identify a clear model.
11 On the artes praedicandi in the Latin West, see Roberts, 2002: 41-62; Briscoe, 1992: 10-76;
Wenzel, 2015; Murphy, 1989: 136-156 also provides an annotated bibliography on the topic;
Kienzle, 2000 provides a thorough study on the medieval sermon as a literary genre.
Sermons, in eleven volumes, published by Johannes Baptist Schneyer records around one hundred forty thousand sermons12 composed according to this pattern, in Western Europe, between 1150-1350 (Schneyer, 1969-1990). After this period up to the end of the fifteenth century the production of sermons increased even more. The genre proliferated throughout Catholic Europe until the end of the fifteenth century, when in the Latin West a new type of sermon emerged: the humanistic sermon based on the classical rhetoric of the genus deliberativum (“the rhetoric of praise and blame”13). Yet, even after the humanistic sermon gained prominence throughout Europe in the period surrounding the Council of Trent (1545-1563), collections of
‘scholastic’/‘thematic’ sermons continued to be published. In a nutshell, the distinctive structure of the ‘scholastic’ sermon consists of the following parts:
(a) the thema is announced; (b) it is or it may be followed by a protheme as a kind of prologue, which leads to (c) a prayer for divine assistance;
(d) then the thema is repeated or resumed; (e) some kind of connection to the next part is established, which may be […] a bridge passage, or else a longer (f) introduction of the thema; (g) the division follows; (h) the members of the division are confirmed; the members are then explained or further developed with various processes including (i) subdivisions and distinctions as well as (j) other processes of dilatation;
(k) at the end of the development the members might be tied together;
(l) finally, the sermon ends with a closing formula, essentially a prayer (Wenzel, 2015: 48).
Without a thorough philological analysis and proper editing, it is difficult to provide an accurate picture on the beginnings and development of this corpus of texts in Syriac from Malabar, which, far from being a simple collection of sermons, seems to have functioned as both a sermonary and a teaching tool for providing instruction into the basic elements of the Catholic doctrine. Though usually preserved in later (nineteenth century) manuscript copies, the earliest preserved manuscript comprising many texts from this corpus is a seventeenth century miscellany, MS Mannanam Syriac 4614. It is the same manuscript that contains between fol. 33rB-37vB the only dated sermon of the collection: an untitled composition on the feast-day of the Elevation of the Holy Cross, dated on the eleventh of Elul (September) 1567 A.D.15. There is need for further study in order to determine whether to this early date belong as well other compositions similar in style, which seem to have stemmed from a common source, all of them
12 I have taken the estimative number of the items contained in Schneyer’s Repertory from Hanska, 2002: 299.
13 The expression belongs to John O’Malley; on the history of the humanistic sermon and the main features of the genre, see O’Malley, 1979: 36-76.
14 See I. Perczel’s description of the MS in Mustaţă, 2019: 97-103.
15 Ibid., 98.
fashioned upon the model of the European scholastic and humanistic sermons16. It is certain that after the diocesan Synod of Diamper (1599) the corpus of sermons was augmented with several other compositions.
In a previous study (Mustaţă, 2019) I have shown how one of these post-Diamper texts – an original composition written after 1601 and based on Latin, Spanish and Syriac biblical, Patristic, hagiographical and literary sources (classical, medieval and early modern) – reflects at the textual level the Jesuit principle of accommodatio, providing important insights into the Catholic mission, and the ecclesiastical life among the Saint Thomas Christians. I have also shown elsewhere that this corpus of sermons influenced directly the composition of new liturgical poetry, which was inserted into the Malabar Catholic revision of the Eastern Syriac Ḥudrā17, after the Synod of Diamper. It was part of a bigger project which aimed at aligning both preaching and cult to the Catholic ideology of the Council of Trent (Mustaţă: forthcoming). Besides having the potential to illuminate the entanglement between various literary genres, and besides showing the complicated relationship between various Syriac texts from Malabar in the second half of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, the study of this collection of sermons reflects the history of the local Christian community before and after the Synod of Diamper, while testifying as well to the revolts and internal divisions of the Syrian Christians from Malabar in the second half of the seventeenth century.
It is not completely uncommon to find manuscript copies of this collection of Syriac Catholic sermons in the libraries of the Syro-Catholic communities from Kerala, stemming from the “Old Faction” (Paḻayakūṟ). As mentioned above, after the revolt of the Malabar Christians against the Jesuits archbishops and the Portuguese from 1653, it was this community that preserved its “Malabar Chaldean” rite in the liturgy, meaning the Eastern Syriac rite “revised” under the direction of Francisco Ros SJ (1601-1624), the first European bishop of the Saint Thomas Christians after the Synod of Diamper. The revolt of 1653 was partly due to the Latinization of the rites as well as due to the attempt to suppress the customs and uproot the Syrian identity of the Saint Thomas Christians, after the synod of Diamper; it was also the direct outcome of the conflictual relationship between the European Jesuit bishops and the archdeacons, who functioned as local rulers for the same Christian community.
16 On the terminology regarding various types of sermons, I have followed the guidelines provided by Wenzel 2015: 44-50.
17 Literally meaning “cycle”, Ḥudrāis a sort of Eastern Syriac breviary; it contained initially services for the temporal section of the liturgical year, in later times manuscripts of the Ḥudrā started to incorporate services for the commemorations of saints (usually included in the Gazzā) or the anaphoras (see Brock, 2006: 273); in this context, it is broadly described as a liturgical book containing “propers for the services, and the mass for all days of the liturgical year” (Gazzola, 2006: 291).
Yet, in the following paragraphs I would like to focus on a peculiar manuscript of the collection of Syriac Catholic sermons – referred to from now on in this paper as “the Malabar Sermonary” – which shows the reception of this literary genre among the members of the “New Faction” (Putaṉkūṟ), the group that after the revolt of 1653 has gradually turned towards the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 is preserved in the manuscript library of the Malabar Independent Syrian Church of Thozhiyur, which belongs to the Western Syriac tradition in Malabar. As mentioned above, this community is part of the Putaṉkūṟ and its lineage of bishops was established through the consecration of Rabban Abraham Kattumangat as bishop Mar Koorilose I by Mor Basilios Shukr Allah in the 1760s, and through his elevation to the rank of metropolitan by Mor Gregorios Yohanna (see Historical context above). The manuscript consists of two different parts which were pasted together later: a first part (fol.1r-140v), which is written in Indian Eastern Syriac script, contains a fragment of the collection of Catholic sermons and is not dated; on the basis of the script it might be traced back to the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century18. The second part (fol. 141r-204v) is written in Serṭā script and mainly consists of mēmrē19 of Ephrem20, Jacob of Sarug21 and other authors, as well as Western Syriac liturgical material; its two main subparts are dated to 1766 and 1764 A.D. (colophons on fol. 153r and 202v).
The first part of the manuscript, which is relevant to the present discussion, contains the collection of Syriac Catholic sermons; most of the texts from this section are to be found in other manuscripts copied by diligent scribes belonging to “Old Faction” (Paḻayakūṟ); yet, many of the items in MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 bear witness to a Western Syriac revision of the corpus. The aim of the present article is to assess this phenomenon critically, by bringing into focus the case of two sermons from the corpus and show: (1) how texts changed while circulating among the two rival Christian factions – Paḻayakūṟ and Putaṉkūṟ – and how the comparison between various versions of texts reveals important insights into scribal practice and the art of compilation; (2) how the European scholastic sermon was appropriated as a literary genre by the West Syrian community in order to write polemic, anti-Catholic literature. For comparison and contextual
18 Since I have worked with digital copies of the MS, I have not seen the paper’s watermark.
19 That is to say verse homilies; since the papers of the present volume are rather addressed to historians of the Indian Ocean than to Syriacists, I am providing in footnotes minimal information on literary genres, authors and topics related to the Syriac world; however, for a guided bibliography on each of these, one is encouraged to consult The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (see the reference list) and the Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity available online through the Center for the Study of Christianity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: http://www.csc.org.il/db/db.aspx?db=SB .
20 Ephrem (d. 373), Church Father and hymnographer, the most prominent Syriac writer of Late Antiquity and representative of the so called ‘golden age’ of Syriac literature.
21 Jacob of Sarug (451-521), poet and bishop belonging to the Syriac Orthodox tradition, mostly author of mēmrē and celebrated by the Syriac Orthodox Church as “the Harp of the Holy Spirit”.
information, I will consult two other manuscripts of the Malabar Sermonary, namely MS Mannanam Syriac 46 and MS Thrissur Syriac 1722. I have previously used these two manuscripts for the edition of one composition from the sermonary, a panegyric sermon on Saint Thomas the Apostle, written after 1601.
The first part of MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 contains the following items:
fol. 1r-12v: Sermon on the Eucharist; fol. 12v-21v: Sermon on the Dormition of the Holy Virgin; fol. 21v-30r: Sermon on the Nativity of the Holy Virgin; fol. 30r-38r: Sermon on the Nativity of Christ; fol. 38r-43r:
Sermon on the Revelation of the Lord to the Magi;
fol. 43r-47v: Sermon on the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist; fol. 48r- 51r: Sermon on the commemoration of Peter and Paul the Apostles; fol.
51r-59v: Sermon on the Ascension of Christ; fol. 59v-68v: Sermon on the Pentecost; fol. 68v-75r; fol. 75v-78r; fol. 80r-95r: Untitled sermon on Mathew 10: 16-33; fol. 95r-101r: Untitled sermon on the Eucharistic celebration; fol. 102r-105v: Untitled sermon on the sufferings of the righteous; fol. 106r-110r: Prayers for the Passion Day of Christ which were added later in Serṭā script, followed by lexical notes (fol. 111r-v); fol. 113v-126v: Sermon on the Palm Sunday added by a later hand (different from the one who copied the other sermons); fol.
127r-132v: An epitome made on the basis of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History (???), perhaps translated from Latin; fol. 133r- 138r: A short work on chronology; the text is followed by another note on chronology (fol. 138v-140v)23.
MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1, which belongs to the Putaṉkūṟ tradition, must stem from one common source with MS Thrissur Syriac 17, a manuscript of the Paḻayakūṟ, reinforcing the idea of religious entanglement between the two groups. The main argument for postulating a common source is that, besides compositions belonging to the Malabar Sermonary, the Thrissur codex also contains, between fol. 209v-214r, the epitome made on the basis of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, which in the Thozhiyur MS is comprised between fol. 127r-132v (Mustaţă, 2019:
112). Since it is not possible to show in the present article how several of the sermons copied in MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 bear witness to a later Western Syriac redaction of the Malabar Sermonary, I am choosing as representative for this phenomenon the case study of the sermon comprised between fol. 102r-105v.
For the appropriation of the European scholastic sermon as a literary genre by the West Syrian faction of the Malabar Christians (Putaṉkūṟ), I will analyze the
22 On the contents of the MS, see Mustaţă, 2019: 103-112.
23 At the request of the editors, I have not included the Syriac original of the texts used throughout this paper; this is the reason why in the description of the manuscript I have not provided the titles in the original, nor their incipit and explicit; however, I am preparing an edition of all the quoted sources in my doctoral thesis.
text comprised between fol. 80r-95r. On the basis of a few illustrative fragments I will highlight key aspects of the transmission and later reception of the corpus and its literary genre.
Sermon on the sufferings of the righteous
The first sermon to be analyzed bears the title “Sermon on the sufferings of the righteous” (Suwādā d-‘al ulṣānē d-zadiqē)24 and is preserved in two manuscripts:
MS Mannanam Syriac 46: fol. 91vA-94vB and MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1: fol. 102r- 105v25. The version from the Thozhiyur manuscript seems to be a reworking and simplification of the text from the Mannanam codex. I will first describe the text as it appears in the earlier version, providing an overview of the arguments, examples and sources used; afterwards I will present the main differences between the two versions, in order to illustrate how the text was modified in its Western Syriac revision. The sermon begins with a series of biblical testimonia about the opulence/wellbeing (Syr. kahinutā) and the prosperity (maṣlḥānutā) of the sinners and elaborates on their imminent death. The text picks up on classical Patristic topoi about the trial of the righteous in this world, quoting and alluding to such works as Cyprian’s of Carthage (c. 200-258) Liber de mortalitate and Ad Demetrianum, and Gregory the Great’s (c. 540-604) Moralia in Iob; it also quotes a decree attributed to Pope Pontian (fl. 230-235) and addressed to the Bishop Felix Scribonius and makes use of a story about the institution of the feast-day of the Rogation of the Ninevites, which precedes the service for the feast-day in the Eastern Syriac Ḥudrā; most of these sources have been removed from the text in its second redaction. The biblical quotations used throughout the sermon lay a great emphasis on the trial and consolation (buyā’ā) of the righteous, which reminds one of the experiences of desolation and consolation as imbedded in the practice of the Jesuit spiritual exercises. Some of the biblical examples and quotations used by the author are to be found as well in Cyprian’s Liber de mortalitate (such is, for instance, the emphasis put on the example of Tobit); but while the main argument of Cyprian’s treatise is that Christians should not fear death, because it is a passage to the afterlife, the sermon rather insists on the pedagogical role played by sufferings in the redemption of the righteous or on their role as a retribution for sin on earth. Like the Sermon in praise of Saint Thomas from the same Malabar Sermonary, this sermon puts a great emphasis on Old Testament examples and erudition, and its author makes use of the Syriac and Latin Scriptures in the same way: most of the time he mirror-translates the
24 Whenever I transliterated Syriac words in this paper, I have used a simplified system of transliteration: I did not mark the initial and final ālap, the spirantisation of the consonants, and the doubling of the consonants within the words.
25 The text bears a title only in the Mannanam MS.
Latin Vulgate26 by making use of the wording of the Peshitta27 or he paraphrases the text of the Vulgate in Syriac28. The text relies to a great extent on biblical examples and testimonies, which the West Syrian compiler decided to remove, so much so that in its revised version the text became three times shorter than initially.
In order to give an idea on the overall structure of the sermon, I have chosen to record the references to all the biblical quotations present in the text; the reason for doing so is that in its Western Syriac redaction, the text of the sermon was very much simplified so as to almost become a compiled list of biblical testimonia.
The following list comprises the full range of biblical sources29 which are common to both redactions of the text: Habakkuk 1: 2-3, 13-14, 3-4; Psalm 73: 2-5, 7-9, 15-21; Psalm 37: 35-36; Psalm 39: 6-730; Hebrews 12: 6; Psalm 37: 1-2; Psalm 34: 15; Psalm 34: 11; Psalm 37: 37; 1 Corinthians 1: 5, 7; Mathew 11: 12;
Mathew 5: 431; Acts of the Apostles 14: 22; 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18; 5: 1-232; Romans 5: 3-5; Hebrews 12: 5-1133; Proverbs 17: 3-4; Siracides 27: 5; Psalms 23: 4; Tobit 12: 13. In addition to this, the version from the Mannanam MS quotes: 1 Corinthians 7: 31; Psalm 78: 34-35; Daniel 4: 25-32 (paraphrase);
Psalm 32: 9; Job 1: 3-4; Job 2: 9-10; Tobit chapter 2 (paraphrase); Luke 2: 35;
Hebrews 12: 3-4; Ezekiel 9: 1-6 (paraphrase); Luke 6: 21, 24-25; Job 5: 3-5;
Siracides 2: 1; 2 Timothy 3: 12; 1 Chronicles 21 (paraphrase); Jeremiah 18: 7-8;
2 Kings 21 (paraphrase); Lamentations 3: 40. The version from the Thozhiyur MS also contains a few distinct biblical quotations, which are usually developments of biblical motifs/allusions present in the initial redaction of the text; such are:
Mathew 13: 24-30 (with succinct explanations on the parable); Mark 8: 34; James 1: 2; 1 Peter 4: 12-13; Mathew 8: 25; all these are developed or quoted according to the Peshitta version. As mentioned above, like the author of the sermon in praise of Saint Thomas from the Malabar Sermonary, the author of this composition has the tendency to use both the Syriac and the Latin Scriptures, and occasionally to correct the Syriac version of the Peshitta on the basis of the Latin text of the Vulgate (see Mustaţă, 2019: 12-20). The biblical additions belonging to the Western Syriac redaction of the text are exclusively based on the Peshitta version. I am overemphasizing this aspect, because the use of the
26 The standard Latin translation of the Bible done by Jerome (c. 347-420) and used in the Catholic Church.
27 The standard Syriac translation of the Bible finalized around the year 400 A. D. and used by the Syriac Churches.
28 Since I have not provided the Syriac original throughout the paper, I will not make here an analysis of these features; however, for a detailed explanation of an analogous phenomenon see Mustață, 2019: 12-20.
29 All the biblical references in this article are given according to the Peshitta version.
30 MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 cuts the quote short to Psalm 39: 6.
31 MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 contains as well Mathew 5: 10.
32 MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 cuts the quote short to 2 Corinthians 4: 16-17.
33 In the MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1 a part of verse 5 and the verses 10-11 are missing.
Latin Vulgate in Syriac throughout the Malabar Sermonary is the distinctive proof that a certain sermon has been initially composed in a Catholic milieu. By the same token, when the Putaṉkūṟ adopted this European literary genre to write an original polemical sermon against their rivals (Paḻayakūṟ) and the Portuguese, they used exclusively the Syriac biblical version of the Peshitta, in addition to Syriac authorities acknowledged by the Western Syriac tradition (see the second case study below).
In order to outline the main differences between the two redactions of the text and to give an idea on how it became transformed when it was reused by the West Syrian Christians of Malabar, I will provide the analysis of a few relevant passages that highlight important points of difference; the following comparison of parallel text samples outlines the main changes that occurred in the text of the sermon from one redaction to the other:
Translation of MS Mannanam Syriac 46: fol. 91vB-92rA:
Therefore, let us consider the end of the wicked and let us recognize the truth! For, as the Blessed David says, they boast and exalt themselves like the trees of the woods, but all of a sudden they perish and are not to be found in their place (Psalms 37: 35-36)34. For the deceitful men are like a breath; because the man walks [only] in appearance (Psalms 39:
6-7). And so, the kings are not [true] kings, but they pretend to be kings35 and the riches are not riches, but a shadow of the true riches and so on.
Thus, the worldly prosperity is not prosperity, but poverty and those whom we see as prosperous, are descending all of a sudden to Sheol.
For, this world is like a field in which one finds tares among the wheatears and the lord of the house is still waiting for the harvest and expects the conversion of the wicked. And when He harvests, He throws the straw into the fire and puts the wheat into the barn of heavens36. Take a look, my brothers, to God’s lovingkindness! Pope Mar Gregorios [says]: “the righteous [one] is scourged in order to be corrected, as he is preserved for the glory; and the lawless succumbs to luxury, because he abounds entirely in the worldly goods, for which reason the heavenly ones are not given to him”37; for this is how the calves which are to be slaughtered are fattened, and the one who labors under a yoke is harnessed. For, since He knows that the lawless ones will return to Sheol and will be tormented there forever, He makes them rejoice in this world on account of the good deeds they are doing, such as almsgiving, fasting and so on.
34 Throughout the translated passages, I have used Italics for the biblical quotations.
35 Literally, “they show the face of kings”.
36 Allusion to Mathew 13: 24-30.
37 Possible vague paraphrase of Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Book VII, chapter XXI. 24 (see Migne PL 75: 778A-B).
And as a reward for these, God grants them the corporeal goods, but He chastises the righteous and the chosen ones (see Proverbs 3:12 and Hebrews 12:6) in [this] world so as to bless them with the goods that last forever. Thus, the corporeal goods are not true goods, but they are general [gifts] for mankind, that is, for the irrational life. For this reason, let us not be sad if we are not granted the things that the Gentiles seek, but first of all let us seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:32-33) which are the beautiful and everlasting goods; for the worldly ones are passing away.
Translation of MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1: fol. 102v-103v:
Therefore, let us consider the end of the lawless and let us know the truth! For, as the Blessed David says, they boast and exalt themselves like a tree of the woods; when I passed by, it was not there anymore and I looked for it and so on (Psalm 37: 35-36). Again, he says: For the deceitful men are like a breath (Psalm 39: 6). Again, in Matthew, the tenth section [ṣḥāḥā] [of] the Gospel: The Kingdom of Heavens is similar to the man who sowed good seeds in His field; and while his men were sleeping, His enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. The tares also appeared and the servants of the Lord of the house approached and told Him: Our Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field? From whence [then] does it have tares? He answered them: An enemy did this.
His servants asked Him: Do you want us to go and collect them? He answered them: Lest while gathering the tares you would also root up the wheatears together with them, let both of them rather grow together until the harvest. And at the time of the harvest I will tell to the reapers:
First, gather the tares and bind them in bundles to be burnt, and gather the wheat into My barns! (Matthew 13: 24-30), that is to say, the Sower is the Son of Men; the field is the world; the good seed are the righteous;
the tares are the evil ones and the sinners; the enemy is Satan; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels and so on (Matthew 13: 37-39). For this reason, Gregory the Patriarch says: the righteous [one] is scourged in order to be corrected, as he is preserved for the glory; and the lawless succumbs to luxury, because he abounds entirely in the worldly goods, for which reason the heavenly ones are not given to him; for this is how the calves which are to be slaughtered are fattened, and the one who labors under a yoke is harnessed. And again, the Blessed Paul says: God chastises those whom He loves (Hebrews 12:
6) in this world and grants them the sublime gifts of His Spirit and fills their hearts with spiritual pleasure and with hope for the everlasting life.
While comparing the two parallel fragments listed above, one notices the following:
1. The compiler of the later version of the sermon (preserved in the Thozhiyur MS) tried to eliminate the commentary of the preacher from the initial text of the sermon (the one preserved in the Mannanam MS), most likely because he did not find it appealing for the audience of the Putaṉkūṟ; thus, he almost reduced the text of the sermon to a list of useful biblical testimonia about the sufferings of the righteous.
2. He has corrected according to the Peshitta version the second part of the quote from Psalm 37: 35-36, which in the Mannanam MS is quoted by memory, and shortened the initial quote from Psalm 39:6-7.
3. Since the West Syrian compiler tried to remove from his redaction of the sermon the commentary belonging to the Catholic author – while preserving the scriptural logic and arguments of the text – he developed into full quotations biblical allusions from the initial redaction of the text: this is the case with the allusion to the parable from Mathew 13:24-30 quoted in full and explained in the later version, and the allusion to Hebrews 12:6, again, developed into a quotation.
4. In quoting Gregory the Great, the West Syrian compiler referred to him as
“Gregory the Patriarch” instead of “Mar Gregory the Pope,” as he was named in the initial version of the text. This is the only instance in which the West Syrian compiler preserved a Catholic authority in his redaction of the sermon;
all the other quotations and references to Latin Church Fathers having been removed from the later redaction of the sermon. I did not find a clear text belonging to Gregory the Great which would satisfactorily correspond to the quote as it appears in the Syriac text of the sermon; if the sermon indeed paraphrases chapter XXI. 24 from the Seventh Book of Moralia in Iob, then the phrase: “for this is how the calves which are to be slaughtered are fattened, and the one who labors under a yoke is harnessed” is not part of the quote from Gregory’s commentary. However, the West Syrian compiler might have regarded it as part of the quote from Gregory’s work and this might be a possible explanation for keeping it in his redaction of the text.
The sermon in its first redaction relies to a great extent on Old Testament erudition and examples, projecting the topic of the sufferings of the righteous into the broader context of salvation history. The West Syrian compiler renounced to much of this biblical erudition and oversimplified the structure of the text, because he might not have been interested in it. The following fragment is taken from the peroration of the initial redaction of the sermon; it illustrates how the Catholic author of the text connected biblical history with the history of the Church of the East and made use of a story about a late sixth century plague and the institution of the feast day of the Rogation of the Ninevites. The account presents the East Syrian Patriarch Sabrišo‘ I (d. 604)38 as the main agent who set the foundation of the feast day. The intention behind the inclusion of this
38 On Sabrišo‘ I, see Brock, 2011: 355.
account into the sermon must have been the need to accommodate the message of the sermon to an audience attached to its Eastern Syriac tradition. Later on, the West Syrian compiler removed the whole passage from his revised text of the sermon, most likely because he did not find the reference to the East Syrian (i.e.
“Nestorian”) holy man appealing for a West Syrian audience. The Rogation of the Ninevites is celebrated in Western Syriac tradition as well, but the Syriac Orthodox Church ascribes its institution to Marutha, Metropolitan of Tagrit (d. 649) (see Barsoum 2003: 322).
Translation of MS Mannanam Syr 46: fol. 94vA-B:
Again, in the Second Book of the Kingdoms we read that in the days of David there was famine for three years. And David asked the counsel of the Lord on this matter and [the Lord] answered him that this famine happened because of Saul who had already died and his house [that was guilty] of blood, since he killed the Gibeonites. Since they were the remnant of the Amorites and the sons of Israel had sworn that they would not be killed, but Saul, out of ignorant jealousy, killed many of them. And David handed over and gave them seven men who were from the house of Saul and they hanged them and the wrath of God over the people ceased39. Therefore, when we are afflicted by God because of our sins, let us do what Jeremiah the prophet said, that is to say: Let us examine our ways, let us pray and return to the Lord! (Lamentations 3:40). For the Eastern Christians of Mar Sabrišo‘ the Bishop have done this way; in that time, due to the multitude of the sins of men a pestilence almost decimated the men of Beth Garmai, Assyria and Nineveh. And it happened that while this holy man, Mar Sabrišo‘, was praying to God [to cease] the punishment of [divine] wrath which was ravaging his flock, he heard the voice of an angel saying: ‘Proclaim a fast, and make a rogation, and the pestilence will be removed from you!’ Immediately the holy man ordered that the people of the Lord would be gathered to the church and would observe the fast. And in the first day of intercession, which was Monday, it happened that the Angel of the Lord withdrew his hand and nobody was afflicted anymore by the plague. And when the sixth day of the week, which is Friday, came, the people took the Holy Sacraments and they were sanctified, and since then nobody died. It is from this [event] that this three days fasting has been transmitted [to us]. In the same way, also the sinful Ninevites repented through the preaching of Jonas and they were not reproved; and for the chastisement of the people it did not rain for three years and six months, according to the word of Elijah. Mar Cyprian the Bishop Martyr says: Why do we wonder that God is scourging us as we are sinners? Although we are fighting
39 Paraphrase of 2 Kings 21.
against the deeds of our sins, we are the judges of the fact that they have not improved; being human we do not want to be reproved by God, but [we reprove] those partaking our [human] nature40.
The account about Mar Sabrišo and the plague is almost a word for word quotation of the history on the origin of the celebration of the Rogation of the Ninevites (‘eltāh d-bā‘utā), preceding the service for the feast day in the Ḥudrā (the Eastern Syriac Breviary) (for comparison, see Darmo 1960: 275-276). The popularity of the feast day among the Syrian Christians of Malabar explains this type of accommodatio, and yet it is intriguing that the Catholic author decided to refer to Patriarch Sabrišo‘ as a holy man, while a homonymous East Syrian saint appears in the lists of condemnations of the Synod of Diamper40F41.
Polemic sermon against the Portuguese
The “Sermon on the sufferings of the righteous” with its two redactions gives a glimpse into the art of compilation and textual transmission. It shows that: (1) the Malabar Sermonary was initially composed in order to accommodate Catholic doctrine to the East Syrian Christians of Malabar; and (2) that later on it was modified and reedited, when its compositions were appropriated by the “New Faction” (Putaṉkūṟ), i.e., the group that, after the revolt of 1653, strived to adhere to the Western Syriac tradition of the Orthodox Church of Antioch. The second case study of this article, however, goes one step further into questions of textual transmission and reception of this corpus and its literary genre among the Putaṉkūṟ. It exemplifies how, due to the influence of the Malabar Sermonary, the literary genre of European scholastic sermon in Syriac was reused by the same Putaṉkūṟ, to polemicize against the Portuguese and in extenso against their rivals, the Paḻayakūṟ (“the Old Faction” that remained in the Catholic fold). The text under scrutiny is an untitled polemic sermon against the Portuguese, based on the Gospel reading from Mathew 10: 16-33, and it is comprised in the same MS Thozhiyur Syriac 1, between fol. 80r-95r; the text does not have any model or parallel in the Mannanam MS. From a structural point of view, the text of the sermon clearly follows the pattern of the European scholastic sermon with all its constitutive parts, a feature that it shares with other texts from the Malabar Sermonary. Its similarity with the other revised Catholic sermons from the same manuscript (Thozhiyur Syriac 1) is striking. The way the author handles biblical testimonies, exempla and arguments is analogous to the use of Latin Catholic
40 Perhaps a quote taken out of context from Cyprian of Carthage, Ad Demetrianum, chapter 8 or 10 (see Migne, PL 4: 549 A-B and 551A-B).
41 According to J.B. Chabot, the list of condemned East Syrian saints at the synod of Diamper (one of whom is a certain Sabrišo‘) was mainly compiled on the basis of the lives of saints included in the Liber castitatis, an Eastern Syriac hagiographic work treating the lives of monastic founders from the Church of the East; see Chabot, 1909: 619-623.
authorities in the compositions from the Malabar Sermonary. The main differences are: (1) the exclusive use of the Peshitta version for biblical quotations and (2) the reliance on Patristic authorities accepted by the Western Syriac tradition: in addition to the mēmrē of Ephrem the Syrian, the author refers to the prologue of the Syriac verse grammar of Bar Hebraeus42, a mēmrā by Jacob of Edessa43 and alludes to the History of Simeon Bar Ṣabb‘e44. Its exclusive reliance on the Syriac Peshitta and the perfect combination of various authorities accepted by the Western Syriac tradition is a strong argument that the composition is original and it is not a reworking of a Catholic composition from the Malabar Sermonary.
The sermon perfectly conforms to the rules prescribed by the medieval and early modern artes praedicandi from Medieval Western Europe, whose structure I have provided above. As the following outline emphasizes, the author of the text knew very well and mastered the rhetorical division and features of the European (scholastic) sermon – which most likely he studied in school, where the Malabar Sermonary might have been used as a handbook – and he consciously made use of them in his polemic sermon against the Portuguese. The sermon can be conventionally divided according to the following scheme45:
a. Instead of the thema46, the author begins his sermon by reading in full the Gospel text on which the sermon is built.
b. Then, the text of the sermon itself begins with a long protheme taken from the Old Testament – a feature shared with other sermons from the Malabar Sermonary (here, the protheme is taken from 3 Kings: chapter 3, about the wisdom of Salomon).
c. It is followed by the initial prayer (in this case, “Our Father” and “Hail, Mary”).
d. The repetition of the thema (in this case, Mathew 10: 16);
e. The “bridge passage”47 (pes/positio pedis): here it explains the repetition of the thema: “The Lord told His disciples: ‘Behold, I am sending you out as lambs among the wolves,’ that is to say, the lambs are the disciples and also the Christians and the wolves are the pagans, the Jews and the Muslims”
(fol. 81r).
42 Bar Hebraeus (1225/6-1286), polymath belonging to the Syriac Orthodox tradition, the most prolific author of the Syriac Renaissance (12th-13th century).
43 Jacob of Edessa (ca. 630-708), Syriac Orthodox bishop of Edessa, author of works on a wide range of topics (only fragmentarily preserved); among others he wrote the first systematic Syriac grammar.
44 Simeon Bar Ṣabb‘e (d. 341-344), bishop of Seleucia Ctesiphon; he became a martyr under the persecution of the Sassanian king Shapur II; the sermon alludes to the duplication of the poll tax imposed on the Christians by Shapur II.
45 For the terminology, structure and divisions of the medieval scholastic sermon, I have used Wenzel, 2015: 47-86.
46 In many sermons from the Malabar Sermonary the theme is missing in the beginning of the sermon.
47 The translation belongs to Wenzel.
f. Introduction of the thema: the author explains why it is legitimate to call the Christians “lambs”.
g. Division of the thema with its confirmations and subdivisions (prosecutiones/distinctiones): on the basis of the second part of the thema (Mathew 10: 16): “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” the author develops on the peculiarities of serpents and doves by providing tropological and allegorical interpretations (some of them similar to those from the Physiologus tradition) with supporting quotes from scriptural and Patristic (mostly Western Syriac) sources.
h. Development (prosecutio) of the parts announced in the divisio thematis; in fact, the author only develops one prosecutio/distinctio that was announced in the divisio thematis, namely the resemblance between the doves and the persecuted Christians. In the divisio thematis, the idea is articulated as follows:
The word that the Lord said: “Be innocent as doves,” that is: in many cities men make big houses for doves and again they put many baskets in these houses. The doves come and dwell in them and they make many nestlings. Then, men take the nestlings and eat or sell some of them, while the doves do not get angry and do not flee away from the dwellings of their masters. In the same way it is right for the true Christians when afflictions and persecutions happen among them because of the heretics, and when a pillage of their goods happens to them to endure cheerfully and not to depart from the household of Christ, their true Lord (fol. 83r- v).
This distinctio is retaken and developed with a series of biblical and Patristic authorities, including a parable (matlā) about the water of two wells (one poisoned and causing death, and the other one fresh, sweet and life-giving) and a longer story (taš‘itā) about a Christian merchant who committed apostasy, by abjuring Christianity and becoming a Jew for the sake of acquiring earthly riches and the miraculous conversion of his Jewish master to Christianity – event projected in late antique Alexandria, in the times of Pope Theophilus (-412). The paideutic function of such stories is to vilify the earthly riches, by celebrating Christian poverty and righteousness, as a mark of distinction of the Syrian Christians of Malabar in a community formed by Jews, pagans, Muslims, and
‘heretic’ Portuguese referred to as “Franks” (Prangāyē). While polemic references to pagans, Muslims and Portuguese/“heretics” are scattered throughout the sermon, the Jews appear only in the repetition of the thema and in the aforementioned story.
i. All this material is recapitulated synthetically in the combination of the parts (unitio), which I am reproducing integrally, since it provides a good summary on the content and ideology of the text:48
Until now we have explained a bit from the readings of the Holy Gospel;
let us return now to the beginning of the reading and let us speak only about the first sentence, briefly and not at length, so as not to prolong the speech [too much] for those who listen. For, the Lord said: ‘Behold, I am sending you as lambs among the wolves.’ Look carefully and see, my brothers, that He did not give them [i.e. to the apostles] a sword and war machines??? (mekānās from Gr. μηχανή?) in order to threaten the people and subdue them by violence, although – glory to His power! – He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords (1Tim 6:15, Rev 19:16). He also did not put in their hands money49 so as to lure them, although He is the Creator of gold, rubies and precious pearls, but – as you heard – He sent them as lambs among the wolves, while they did not have armor for war and silver to give as bribe, and He gave them the commandment to be poor. And it is known to the whole world that the Apostles were from Jerusalem and from the surrounding cities, according to the words of the angels who called them “men of Galilee”, as it is written in the holy book of the Acts (Acts 1: 11). And one of these Holy Apostles is Mor Toma the Blessed Apostle; through the commandment of our Lord, he came to the land of India and proclaimed the Gospel, instructed and baptized many [people]. And the Indian Christians were following his teaching until the Franks [i.e. the Portuguese] got to rule over them, and bribed [their] kings and rulers, and afflicted and subdued them. They [i.e. the Franks] were killing the Syrian bishops who were coming [to India] for this flock. And so, through bribe, they got power over this people of India. Look closely, my beloved ones, and examine whether the deed that the Franks did is according to the teaching of Christ or according to the teaching of Mohamed, who was subduing mankind through the violence of the sword and wanted to bring them to his disgraceful law through bribe and allurement. For God said in the holy book of the Law [of Moses]: “You will not take bribe, because the bribe blinds the eyes even of those with wise judgment and twists the words even of the innocent” (Exodus 23: 8). And in the book of the Proverbs of Salomon, chapter seven, the Holy Spirit said: “The one who accepts bribe loses his soul and the one who hates to take bribe is saved” (Proverbs 15:27). Now, it does not befit you to renege on your Syrian fathers for a small amount of money that you are receiving from the Franks. For Mor Aprem said: “Those of former times had a trodden way; do not tread a
48 Fol. 92r-95r.
49 Here the author seems to play within the Syriac text with the use of transient possession as used in Malayalam language, which distinguishes between permanent and transient possession.
