On account the T'day guests called in sick, I have some time to spend with you, dear readers. I missed this book last year (or: earlier this year) so: The Life of Bar Ṣawmā. Including a collection of essays.
This figure isn't the Nisibene. Its subject was one of those West Syrian holy men; a big figure in the second robber-synod held at Ephesus. He'd got himself sidelined from Chalcedon so his hagiographers are, accordingly, had-qnoma. Barsauma's career was mostly Palaestinian; but I take it that his native Aramaic was for Melkites and Jews, so it is to Syriac we needs turn. Simon Corcoran argues for an entire remove to Edessa and Antioch. There, per Drijvers and others, the Vita accumulated a legendarium.
Hahn argues is that this Life is, nonetheless, early. Barsauma works among Samaritans, considered friendly to Christians. The Samaritans will rebel in AD 484 against Zeno, and more-seriously under/against Justinian. West-Syrians in the centuries afterward will consider the Samaritans contemptible and will calumniate Saint Maximus for arising amongst them.
This implies Edessa Callirrhoë wasn't yet consecrated to Theotokos, either [UPDATE 7/24 Ibas?]. But it's coming, soon after the Samaritan revolt. I wonder if this Vita is bubbling around monasteries not far from Edessa, earliest 480s.
No comments:
Post a Comment