Saturday, December 19, 2020

The context of early Oriental Christian historiography

Seert / Nineveh-Siʿrt starts before the Council of Ephesus.

Before AD 430 Christendom was more-or-less united. In AD 410 shah Yazdegerd convoked a synod in Mahoze (Seleucia-Ctesiphon) which ratified "Nicaea". Anyone outside that consensus, implicitly the the Theodosian consensus, was simply deemed a heretic, in their day and in ours (Vox Day notwithstanding). Per Philip Wood, Nigel Abû'l Farâj Barhebraeus marks Dadishoʿ, from AD 422, as the last "orthodox" Catholicos. Siʿrt as noted breaks off right when Dadishoʿ got started.

In Dadishoʿ's time there came to Rome a second Theodosius, in the end a puppet of politics. Here is the birth of the Miaphysitism - and of the East's rejection thereof, eventually to rally around the memory of exPatriarch Nestorius. This process of schism and reconstruction took some time. It also took place under a foreign régime, that of the Iranians, who did not come from a Semitic world and, further, weren't (yet) prepared to accept a Semitic Scripture.

In this context, Nestorius got "retconned" into a founder of the nascent Oriental Church. Barhebraeus likewise retcons Dadishoʿ, into the founding father of a Miaphysite Eastern maphrianate. Barhebraeus marks Bar Sauma as the villain in his story, and he does make for a good one, although maybe not all for Barhebraeus' reasons.

Mari like his counterparty Barhebraeus sees no schism before Ephesus. In fact Mari doesn't just stick with the Eusebius / Socrates canon; he will include Roman material as far as AD 500. Note that this takes us to Chalcedon. As to why Mari doesn't use (say) Procopius beyond that, it may just be because Mari loses interest.

As far as I can tell the whole East-Syrian world was about done with Rome, from Emperor Justin on. West-Syria (and Caucasia, and Egypt) remained much better informed, especially Melkites and Maronites. Siʿrt recognises this and pulls its Constantine-era lore from Qusta bin Luqa / Constans son of Luke, wr. AD 900s. A Melkite, sure; but, viewed from Kurdestan, at least not a Miaphysite.

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