Participants in the Seminar will be introduced to the documents and monuments of cultures that have previously been overshadowed in the accounts of many historians of the later Roman Empire or of ancient Persia. We assume an interest, but no previous expertise, in this period and topic. Participants could be historians of Christianity, specialists in eastern Christianity, historians of late antiquity, specialists in Persian history, or classicists interested in a new perspective on the other languages and cultures of the Roman empire. Since the Seminar’s leaders are trained in two different fields (Semitic languages and history, and the history of eastern Christianity respectively) our approach is transdisciplinary; we hope for participants who come from a number of disciplines. The aim of the Seminar is to spur new consideration of well-known material, with an eye toward a deeper understanding not only of the regional cultures under consideration, but of the preparation of this region for the rise of Islam.
Week 1: Introduction
The Seminar will begin with an introduction to the regions of Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia in late antiquity. We will examine a range of political, cultural, religious, and linguistic experiences that defined Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia. We will ask how the indigenous cultures of the former Iranian enclaves of Armenia and Syria re-emerged early in the Common Era to become focal points for the spread and development of Christianity throughout the region.
Week 2: Judaism in Mesopotamia and Syria after the Bar Kochba revolt: Rabbinism, Mysticism
The Jewish communities of the Second Temple period present a parade example of both resistance to and accommodation with Hellenism and its successor culture under Roman rule in the East. This section, however, focuses on the redefinition of Judaism that occurred with the final loss of the Temple and indigenous Jewish rule in Palestine after 135.
Week 3: The Rise of Indigenous Christian languages and Cultures - Syriac, Arabic, Armenian.
In this section, we will consider the role of Syriac and Armenian in articulating Christian identity. We will closely study shifting linguistic landscapes that led to the spread of these languages well beyond their regions of origin, and their eventual dominance of Syriac and Armenian. Following Pompey’s invasion of western Asia in 63 BCE, a process began whereby local Aramaic dialects (e.g. Nabataean, Harranan, Palestinian) began to disappear to be eventually supplanted by Greek, the lingua franca throughout the region. The single exception to this pattern is Syriac, the dialect of Aramaic associated with the kingdom of Edessa/Urhai. Rather than disappearing from use, Syriac spread into areas of Syria/Mesopotamia where other dialects of Aramaic once dominated. At the same time, Syriac emerges as the vehicle of an indigenous form of Christianity in the region. In the same way, Armenian came to dominate eastern Anatolia.
We will compare the situation of over-used Greek evidence in the form of epigraphic and literary sources with that of the lesser known Syriac and other Aramaic inscriptions of the same period [Warwick Ball, Rome in the East. The Transformation of an Empire. (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 439-450]. The evidence challenges the prevailing understanding that “the notion that there was a “Syrian” culture, embracing equally the zone of Syriac literature and Roman Syria, goes beyond our evidence” [Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 BC-AD 337. (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), 201, 493].
We will consider the distinctive Semitic cultural identification of Christian Edessa as demonstrated by two prominent early literary figures with ties to the city: Tatian and Bardaisan [now S. Brock, “The Earliest Syriac Literature,” The Cambridge History of Early Christianity (eds. F. Young, L. Ayers, A. Louth); Cambridge University Press, 2004; Ball, 87-96].Both authors were steeped in the traditions of Greek paideia and both were well-traveled throughout the Greco-Roman world. Yet, at the very time when Hellenism was at the height of its influence in Syria and Mesopotamia, these authors deliberately chose to write in Syriac and not in Greek. Two of the major bodies of writing that survive from the fourth century, namely, Aphrahat’s Demonstrations and the anonymous Book of Steps, were produced within the Sasanian Empire. Ephrem shows as much Persian influence as Mesopotamian/Semitic (see now S. Brock, “Ephrem and the Syriac Tradition,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature).
Week 4: Early Christianity in Edessa and Mesopotamia, and traditions in “the space between” Judaism and Christianity.
During the fourth week, the Seminar will investigate the latest research that suggests that Christianity was introduced into the region, not as a result of a Greek-speaking missionary impulse from Antioch eastward, but from Aramaic-speaking Adiabene/Hadyab that traveled westward to Nisibis and Edessa. The influence of a form of sectarian Judaism, not unlike which is known to have existed among the Qumran sectarians, is pervasive in the earliest phase. This is seen is the early self-designation of Christianity as qyama/covenant, and ascetical practice as a characteristic of both Qumran sectarians and Syriac-speaking Christianity. These characteristics are seen in the formative and on-going influence of the “Thomas” cycle of literature (i. Gospel of Thomas (Nag Hammadi II, 2), ii. Bk. of Thomas the Contender (Nag Hammadi II, 7), iii. Acts of Thomas -originally in Syriac, iv. Doctrina Addai, v. Acts of Mani).
An emporium of influences: The socio-religious and linguistic similarities between Syriac dispute poems and their ancient Mesopotamian models are examples of what Han J.W. Drijvers (citation) has identified with regard to the nature of culture and religion in western Asia in the Greco–Roman period, namely, that indigenous religious patterns were influenced by, and assimilated, earlier Mesopotamian, native Semitic, and Hellenistic traditions. The principle would hold true through the pre-Islamic Arab period, as well.
Week 5: Cities and “Schools”: Edessa, Nisibis, Antioch, Caesarea, Etchmiadzin.
Even before the rise of Christianity, Judaism had appeared school-like; it focused on questions that seemed both philosophical and rhetorical (Frances Young, “Christian Teaching” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature). We will consider the origins of the designation “school” and investigate its appropriateness in the context of Edessa and Nisibis where Hellenism arguably played a lesser role than, say Antioch and Caesarea. We will ask what evidence there is for “schools” in Edessa and Nisibis prior to the late fourth and early fifth centuries (Syriac Life of Jacob of Nisibis; Vita Ephraemi). Is the designation “schools” in this context anachronistic? a Hellenizing tendency?
Week 6: The Near East after Hellenism: The “Commonwealth” of Indigenous Churches and Polities.
In this week, we reassess the original question of the seminar and attempt to reassess the standard picture of Graeco-Roman cultural and religious domination in the east. Along with the formation of Christian communities along the eastern border of the Roman empire came the appearance of the public monuments and the literary discourse of the more familiar form of Christianity -- of a religion that thought of itself as universal – katholikē – and hence indebted to a far older project of universal missionary evangelizing.