Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia PDF
Preview Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia
Fear ofGod and the Beginning ofWisdom DIVINATIONS: REREADING LATE ANCIENT RELIGION SeriesEditors: DanielBoyarin,VirginiaBurrus, DerekKrueger A complete listofbooks in the series is available from the publisher. Fear ofGod and the Beginning ofWisdom The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia ADAM H. BECKER PENN UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia Copyright©2006UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Publishedby UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104--4112 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Becker,AdamH.,1972- FearofGodandthebeginningofwisdom:theSchoolofNisibisandChristian scholasticcultureinlateantiqueMesopotamia/ AdamH.Becker. p. cm.-(Divinations) ISBN-13:978-0-8122-3934-8 (cloth:alk.paper) ISBN-I0:0-8122-3934-2 (cloth:alk.paper) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindexes. 1.SchoolofNisibis. 2.Iraq-Churchhistory.I.Title.II.Series BR1105.B43 2006 230".18-dc22 2005058594 For Leyla Da stieg ein Baum ... und ein Wassermulch! This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Note on Transliteration, Spelling, and Terminology xi Chronology Xlll Introduction 1 1. Divine Pedagogyand the Transmission ofthe Knowledge ofGod: The Discursive Backgroundofthe School Movement 22 2. The School ofthe Persians (Part 1): Rereading the Sources 41 3. The School ofthe Persians (Part2): From Ethnic Circle to Theological School 62 4. The School ofNisibis 77 5. The Scholastic Genre: TheCauseoftheFoundation oftheSchools 98 6. The Reception ofTheodore ofMopsuestiain the School ofNisibis 113 7. Spelling God's Name with the Letters ofCreation: The Use of NeoplatonicAristotle in the Cause 126 8. ATypologyofEast-Syrian Schools 155 9. The Monastic Contextofthe East-Syrian School Movement 169 viii Contents Conclusion: Studyas Ritual in the Church ofthe East 204 Notes 211 Bibliography 275 Index 287 Acknowledgments 297 Preface This book delineates an intellectual and institutional history of the scholasticculture ofthe Churchofthe Eastin the late antique andearly Islamic periods. The primaryfocus will be on the SchoolofNisibis, the major intellectual center ofthe Church ofthe East in the sixth and early seventh centuries C.E. and an institution of learning unprecedented in antiquity. The significance ofthe School ofNisibis hasbeen appreci ated bysome scholars, butonlya few have studied its sources. However, like Nisibisitself, sittingon the borderbetween the Roman andSasanian Empires, the sources from the School-and Syriac studies in general stand at the convergence ofseveral diverse fields and therefore deserve far greaterconsideration. Aside from the interestthatthisbookmayhave to scholarswhowork in Syriac studies and on "Oriental" Christianity more broadly, it is my hope that the analysis contained herein will be of use to scholars in closely related but unfortunately often intellectually and institutionally separate fields. The studyofthe East-Syrian school movementpromises to shed light on the development ofChristian paideiain LateAntiquity, the rise ofthe BabylonianJewish academies, and the background to the burgeoningMuslim intellectualculture ofthe early(Abbasid period. I am aware thata synthetic studysuch as this is premature due to the amount offoundational work that still needs to be done in the Syriac sources (such as editing oftexts). I hope that my intellectual saltation from source to source andfrom topic to topicwillbe indulged bythose whoworkwithin the field ofSyriacstudiesand thatthisworkwill direct scholarsofotherfields towardsexaminingthefascinatingsourcesofthe Church ofthe East. The currentscholarlyprojectoferasing the false boundariescreated byearlyChristiannotionsofheresycontainsinitshistoriographicalpar adigm an implicitpoliticalcritique ofan approach to human sociallife thatfails to accept the inevitabilityofdifference in the pastaswell as in x Preface the present. The historiographyofChristianitycontinuesto pushbeyond the boundariesofecclesiastical historyestablishedbythe heresiologists and church historians ofthe patristic age. This book does not engage withtherecentscholarlysubversionof"heresy,"butpointsto thekindof history that can be done when such false distinctions are ignored and indigenous Christian traditions are studied as semi-autonomous histori cal developments.1Christianity, like anyothergenerative andwidespread culturalinstitution,hasbeenandnodoubtwillalwaysbepluriform,and the Syriac tradition itselfis a genuswith a numberofspecies. Although as a historian I tend to focus on the radical discontinuities between one periodand another, examiningthese discontinuitiesas the centralpointsofrenegotiation in the transitionfrom one authororone periodtothenext,itwouldbedisingenuousofmetofail toacknowledge the livingchurcheswhichidentifywith the traditionofwhichIama stu dent. TheEastSyriansor"Nestorians,"astheirenemiespreferredto call them, continue to exist today in the Middle East, South India, and the worldwidediasporathatspansfrom Swedento theAmericanMidwestto Australia.2Theyhavebeendividedintoanumberofchurches,including the twomainonesoftheirancestralhomeland, the HolyApostolicCath olicAssyrianChurchoftheEastandthe ChaldeanCatholicChurch,but the members ofeach-as well as their longtime historical adversaries, such as the Syrian Orthodox (West-Syrian) Church-identify strongly with the Syriac tradition, even elevating it, not unlike manyJews since the rise ofZionism, to a national status, one even requiring, according to some, the national autonomy that this implies. IdonotpresumetospeakforSyriacChristians.However,asonewhose country now occupies the land where many of these Christians have lived for centuries, I am concerned about the present complex of cir cumstances endangering the Syriac communities ofMesopotamia and can'thelpbutnotice the strikingsimilaritybetween thesecircumstances and those which led to the more traumatic episodes in the history of Syriac Christians over the last two centuries, including the slaughter of many during what is commonly known as the Armenian genocide. On the one side, some nationalists in Iraq and those Muslimswith an espe ciallyreifiedand newfangled notion ofthe Ummaare attimes complicit in attacks on Syriac Christians, whom they consider part of a larger Western Christian (and "Zionist") conspiracy to strip Iraq ofits auton omyandnaturalresources. On the other,foreign invadersoftenemploy universalist notions, whether "Christian fellowship" or its secularized twin, "Human Rights,"which fail to recognize the autonomousvalue of indigenous Christianity and the local forms of negotiating differences with Muslim compatriots. Christian love and the Rights of Man (and
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