Simon Magus and Simon Peter in Rome: The Sureth Version of a Late East-Syriac Hymn for the Commemoration of Saints Peter and Paul

Alessandro Mengozzi

doi:10.13135/1825-263X/2882

Alessandro Mengozzi University of Turin

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/2882

Keywords: Sureth, Neo-Aramaic, Syriac, Simon Magus, St Peter, hymnology, apocrypha

Abstract

A Sureth (Christian North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic) version of an East-Syriac hymn on Simon Magus and Simon Peter in Rome and its late Classical Syriac Vorlage are here published for the first time. The text is part of a small group of hymns on Peter and Rome that belong to the East Syriac liturgy for the commemoration of Saints Peter and Paul. The episode of the public contest and specific narrative details derive from the Syriac History of Simon Cephas, the Chief of the Apostles. These narrative and poetic texts on Peter have their ultimate roots in literary works, such as the Acts of Peter and the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, that circulated in various languages from the Antiquity onwards and forms the genuine lore of Christian culture, in Europe as well as in Africa and the Near East. More or less consciously adopting a rather narrow-minded, confessional point of view, we are used to label as apocryphal this kind of foundational Christian literature. An attempt is made to contextualize the two versions of the hymn and their text transmission in the histories of both Classical Syriac and Sureth literatures.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Alessandro Mengozzi, University of Turin

Alessandro Mengozzi, PhD Leiden University, is Associate Professor in Semitics at the University of Turin, where he teaches Semitic Philology to undergraduate and graduate students. His main research interests are Neo-Aramaic languages and literatures and late East-Syriac poetry.

References

Baumstark, Anton. 1902. Die Petrus- und Paulusacten in der litterarischen Überlieferung der syrischen Kirche. Leipzig: Harrassowitz.

Baumstark, Anton. 1922. Geschichte der syrischen Literatur. Bonn: A. Marcus und E. Webers.

Bedjan, Paul. 1890. Acta martyrum et sanctorum, vol. I, Paris-Leipzig: Harrassowitz.

Bedjan, Paul. 1891. Acta martyrum et sanctorum, vol. II, Paris-Leipzig: Harrassowitz.

Bellino, Francesca and Alessandro Mengozzi. 2016. Geographical ‘Aǧāib in a Neo-Aramaic Manuscript of the London Sachau Collection.” Le Muséon 129/3-4: 423-56.

Brock, Sebastian P. 1985. “A Dispute of the Months and Some Related Syriac Texts.” Journal of Semitic Studies 30/2: 181-211.

Brock, Sebastian P. 1991. “Syriac Dispute Poems: The Various Types.” In Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Litera-tures, edited by G. J. Reinink and H. L. J. Vanstiphout,. 109-19. Leuven: Peeters.

Brock, Sebastian P. 2001. “The Dispute Poem: From Sumer to Syriac.” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 1: 3-10.

Christiansen, Keith. 1983. “Early Renaissance Narrative Painting in Italy.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 41/2: 1, 3-48.

Christiansen, Keith. 1991. “Some Observations on the Brancacci Chapel Frescoes after Their Cleaning.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 133, no. 1054: 4-20.

Cirillo, Luigi. 2001. “L’antipaulinismo nelle Pseudoclementine. Un riesame della questione.” In Verus Israel, edited by Giovanni Filoramo and Claudio Giantto, 280-303. Brescia: Paideia.

Contini, Riccardo and Cristiano Grottanelli (eds.). 2005. Il saggio Ahiqar: Fortuna e trasformazione di uno scritto sapienziale. Il testo più antico e le sue versioni. Brescia: Paideia.

Côté, Dominique. 1998. Le thème de l’opposition entre Pierre et Simon dans les Pseudo-Clémentines. Ph.D. dis-sertation, Université de Laval.

Dehqan, Mustafa. 2016a. “A Kurdish Garshuni Version of Mem û Zîn.” Gerdûn 11: 5-10.

Dehqan, Mustafa. 2016b. “Sachau 204: A Kurdish Garshuni Poem.” Manuscripta Orientalia 22: 68-70.

Desreumaux, Alain. 2005. “Les apocryphes apostoliques en syriaque.” In Les apocryphes syriaques, edi-ted by Muriél Debié, Christelle Jullien, Florence Jullien, and Alain Desreumaux, 71-95. Paris: Geuthner.

Feldmann, Franz. 1896. Syrische Wechsellieder von Narses. Leipzig: Harrassowitz.

Gibson, Margaret Dunlop. 1903. The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, Edited from a Mesopotamian Mam-script with Various Readings and Collations of Other Mss. London: C.J. Clay and Sons.

Graf, Georg. 1944. Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, vol. 1. Rome: Vatican Apostolic Library.

Guidi Ignazio. 1892. “Bemerkungen zum ersten Bande der syrischen Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum.” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 46/4: 744-58.

Jiménez, Enrique. 2017. The Babylonian Disputation Poems. With Editions of the Series of the Poplar, Palm and Vine, the Series of the Spider, and the Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren. Leiden: Brill.

Jones, Frederick Stanley. 2014. The Syriac Pseudo-Clementines: An Early Version of the First Christian Novel. Turnhout: Brepols.

Jones, Frederick Stanley. 2016. “The History of Simon Cephas, the Chief of the Apostles.” In New Tes-tament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1, edited by Tony Burke and Brеnt Christоphеr Landau, 371-94. Grand Rapids, MI - Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans.

Kaufhold, Hubert. 2005. “La littérature pseudo canonique syriaque.” In Les apocryphes syriaques, edited by Muriél Debié, Christelle Jullien, Florence Jullien, and Alain Desreumaux, 147-67. Paris: Ge-uthner.

Lidzbarski, Mark. 1896. Die neu-aramäische Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin. Wei-mar: Emil Felber.

Kim, Ronald. 2008. “Stammbaum or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Recon-sidered.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128: 505-31.

Lagarde, Paul A. de. 1854. Didascalia apostolorum syriace. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.

Lewis, Agnes Smith. 1904. Acta Mythologica Apostolorum Transcribed from an Arabic Ms. in the Convent of Deyr-es-Suriani, Egypt, and from Mss. in the Convent of St Catherine, on Mount Sinai. London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1904.

Martin, François. 1899. “Homélie de Narsès sur les trois docteurs nestoriens.” Journal Asiatique, IXe série, 14: 446-92.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2002. A Story in a Truthful Language: Religious Poems in Vernacular Syriac by Israel of Alqosh and Joseph of Telkepe (North Iraq, 17th century). Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orienta-lium 590, Scriptores Syri 231. Leuven: Peeters.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2006. “Littérature néo-syriaque et Islam. Échos de l’Apocalypse syriaque du pseudo Méthodios dans les premiers poèmes néo-araméens (Iraq du Nord, XVIIe siècle).” Parole de l'Orient 31 : 349-62.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2008. “A Neo-Aramaic Version of the Soghitha of the Sinful Woman and Satan.” In Malphono w-Rabo d-Malphone. Studies in Honor of Sebastian P. Brock, edited by George Kiraz, 405-19. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2010. “A Syriac Hymn on the Crusades from a Warda Collection.” Egitto e Vicino Oriente 33: 187-203.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2011. “Religious Poetry in Vernacular Syriac from Northern Iraq.” In Religious Poetry in Vernacular Syriac from Northern Iraq (17th-20th Centuries). An Anthology, edited by Ales-sandro Mengozzi. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orienalium 628, Scriptores Syri 241, x-xxv. Leuven: Peeters.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2012. “‘That I might speak and the ear listen to me!’: On Genres in Traditional Modern Aramaic Literature.” Journal of Semitic Studies 57/2: 321-46.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2014. “Persische Lyrik in syrischem Gewand. Vierzeiler aus dem Buch des Khamis bar Qardaḥe (Ende 13. Jahrhundert).” In Geschichte, Theologie und Kultur des syrischen Christentums. Beiträge zum 7. Deutschen Syrologie-Symposium in Göttingen, Dezember 2011, edited by Martin Tamcke and Sven Grebenstein, 155-76. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2015. “The Book of Khamis bar Qardaḥe: History of the Text, Genres and Re-search Perspectives.” In Syriac Encounters. Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, Duke University, 26-29 June 2011, edited by Maria Doerfler, Emanuel Fiano, and Kyle Smith, 415-36. Leuven: Peeters.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. 2017. “Fighting Beasts. The Pseudo-Callisthenes Account of Alexander the Great in India From Rhetoric to Narrative and Return.” In Other Worlds and the Narrative Con-struction of Otherness, edited by Esterino Adami, Francesca Bellino, and Alessandro Mengozzi, 155-81. Milano: Mimesis International.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. Forthcoming a. “D’Ahiqar au tapis volant du roi Salomon, des mirabilia géo-graphiques à Sindbad le marin en araméen moderne : adab et recherche orientaliste à la fin du XIXème siècle.” In Actes du colloque international « L’adab, toujours recommencé : Origines, transmis-sion et métamorphoses » (Paris, IISMM et INALCO, Jeudi 1er -Samedi 3 décembre 2016), edted by Fran-cesca Bellino, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, and Luca Patrizi.

Mengozzi, Alessandro. Forthcoming b. “Singing the Scriptures. Sureth Poetry as Exegesis and Paraenesis.” In the proceedings of the international conference Poetry and Theology, held at the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty in Bratislava (September 20-21, 2018).

Mengozzi, Alessandro. Forthcoming c. “Neo-Aramaic Dialogue and Dispute Poems. The Various Types.” In the proceedings of the international conference Disputation Poems in the Near East and Beyond. Ancient and Modern, held in Madrid 12-13 July 2017, edited by Enrique Jiménez. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Mengozzi, Alessandro and Luca Basilio Ricossa. 2013a. “Folk Spontaneity and Pseudo-Teretismata in East-Syriac Soghiyāthā: Resurrection, Joseph and His Mistress, ‘Tell me Church!’, Moses and Je-sus, and Great Rome.” Христианский Восток 6 (XII), n.s.: 162-180.

Mengozzi, Alessandro and Luca Basilio Ricossa. 2013b. “The Cherub and the Thief on YouTube: An Eastern Christian Liturgical Drama and the Vitality of the Mesopotamian Dispute-“ Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 73/1-4: 49-65.

Mingana, Alphonse. 1905. Narsai Doctoris Syri Homiliae et Carmina, vol. II. Mosul: Typis Fratrum Praedi-catorum.

Moraldi, Luigi. 1971. Apocrifi del Nuovo Testamento. 2 vols. Torino: UTET.

Murre-van den Berg, H.L. 2015. Scribes and Scriptures. The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Prov-inces (1500-1850). Leuven: Peeters.

Nicák, Maroš. 2016. „Konversion“ im Buch Wardā. Zur Bewältigung der Konversionsfrage in der Kirche des Os-tens. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Payne Smith, Robert. 1901. Thesaurus Syriacus, vol. II. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Pennacchietti, Fabrizio A. 1976. “Zmiryata d-rawe: “stornelli” degli aramei kurdistani.” In Scritti in onore di Giuliano Bonfante, 639-63. Brescia: Paideia.

Pennacchietti, Fabrizio A. 1993. Il ladrone e il cherubino. Dramma liturgico cristiano orientale in siriaco e neoaramaico. Torino: Silvio Zamorani.

Perkins, Justin. 1866. “The Revelation of the Blessed Apostle Paul Translated from an Ancient Syriac Manuscript.” Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Records 12: 183-212.

Pritula, Anton. 2015. The Wardā: An East Syriac Hymnological Collection. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Pritula, Anton. 2017. “One More Unknown Khāmīs’ Ode in Honor of Bar ‘Ebrōyō.” Христианский Восток 8 (XIV), n.s.: 187-94.

Sachau, Eduard. 1896. “Über die Poesie in der Volkssprache der Nestorianer.” Sitzungsberichte der Kö-niglich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin XI/8: 179-215.

Sachau, Eduard 1899. Verzeichniss der syrischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin. Berlin: A. Asher & Co.

Saint-Laurent et al., Jeanne-Nicole. 2005. “Peter and Paul (text) — ܦܛܪܘܣ ܘܦܘܠܘܣ .” In Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica (last modified November 5, 2015).

Scher, Addai. 1909. “Notice sur les manuscrits syriaques du Musée Borgia aujourd’hui à la Biblio-thèque Vaticane.” Journal asiatique X/13: 249-87.

Selden, Daniel L. 2012. “Mapping the Alexander Romance.” In The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, edited by Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, and Ian Netton, 19-59. Groningen: Barkhuis.

Selden, Daniel L. 2009. “Text Networks.” Ancient Narrative 8: 1–23.

Teule, Herman G.B. 2010. “The Syriac Renaissance.” In The Syriac Renaissance, edited by Herman G. B. Teule and Carmen Fotescu Tauwinkl, 1-30. Leuven: Peeters.

Thomas, Christine. 2003. The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel. Oxford-New York: Ox-ford University Press.

Vööbus, Arthur. 1979. The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orien-talium 401-2, 407-8, Scriptores Syri 175-6, 179-80. Leuven: Peeters.

Wehnert, Jürgen. 1992. “Abriss der Entstehungsgeschichte des pseudoklementischen Romans.” Apokrypha 3: 211-36.

Younansardaroud, Helen. 2010. “ ‘Aḇdīšō‘ Bar Brīḵā’s († 1318) Book of Paradise: A Literary Renais-sance?” In The Syriac Renaissance, edited by Herman G.B. Teule and Carmen Fotescu Tauwinkl, 195-204. Leuven: Peeters

Younansardaroud, Helen. 2012. “Sogenannte Neologismen in ‘Aḇdīšō‘s Paradies von Eden”. In Geschichte, Theologie, Liturgie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen. Beiträge zum sechsten deutschen Syrologen-Symposium in Konstanz, Juli 2009, edited by Dorothea Weltecke. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.