Amida and Ephesus

This blog has run across British Library Add MS 17202 twice now, so - let's dedicate a post to that.

MS 17202 is a Syriac miscellany. Many parts in it bear dates, such as anno graecae 866 meaning AD 555.

We've been told here and there that John of Ephesus (b. AD 507) was the first ecclesiastic historian in Syriac for those who followed the Councils of Ephesus, and not Chalcedon. The Church of the East, of course, had adopted Syriac as of AD 410 and owned her own historiography. But MS 17202 is of Amid/a and Ephesus. Like John.

Hartmut Leppin wrote concerning John that he wrote after this miscellany, no earlier than AD 588. Leppin also wrote on the history of the Ephesians in Amida: that the Romans exiled them AD 521-30 and again 536-40ish. Leppin thinks that John was at Amida during all this, and then drifted west.

Now, the third part of John's book starts AD 571 so, I do not expect many points in contact with MS 17202 (besides some ethnography). I do however wonder about the second part, which covers from Anastasius to Justinian, and which the "PseudoDionysius" of Zuqnîn would later adapt. Given that John as opposed to (says Leppin) Theodoret wrote concerning what he'd experienced himself, and given that Zuqnîn would bear a strong interest in Amida: John would be looking to the second half of the MS, where Zacharias gives way to Pseudo-Zacharias.

Over the Reign of "the serene king of our day" Justinian, MS 17202 book 10 is BADLY fragmented. The MS promises to tell of Bar Khali (a Chalcedonian, whom John hated) in chapter 2 but his name (Abraham) is all we got. And it promises a famine in chapter 14, assigned to Justinian 9-10 (546-7); Zuqnîn concurs, thus kicking off AG 855-8 (placed AG 858, there). But the MS cuts out before that chapter. Other MS (Brooks: JAC. EDESS. L.C.; MICH. FOL. 185 V; GREG. P. 81) do tell of the famine in the East, but not of the ensuing plague of madness (ergot?).

MS 17202 is missing book 11 entirely. Book 12 has chapters 4-7 extant, covering the late AD 550s (AG 860s-early 870s). Sadly by this point John has abandoned interest in Amida.

MS 17202's book 9 makes clear its author rejected Chalcedon. Still: the MS was compromised, being so loyal to Justinian.

All this said, Leppin needs to be qualified: we have in MS 17202 a Justinian-loyal, but also Severan, historian in Syriac contemporary with John but writing before him. John followed this lead if not its content. John may have been an eyewitness to Amidene events so didn't need that content.