SYRIAC INTO GREEK AT MAR SABA:

THE TRANSLATION OF ST. ISAAC THE SYRIAN

SEBASTIAN BROCK

The sack of the monastery of Mar Saba in 813, and the departure of the three famous Sabaite monks,
Michael the Syncellus and the brothers Theodore and Theophanes, to Constantinople has sometimes
given the impression that, as a result, life at the monastery of Mar Saba virtually came to an end. I
In fact, from the late eighth century to at least the end of the millennium (and thus spanning the sack
of 813), the monastery functioned as an important center of translation activity, from Greek into both
Arabic and Georgian. Thanks to the work of Sidney Griffith and others in recent years, the monastery's
role in initiating the process of translating Greek biblical and patristic literature into Arabic is now
coming to be better appreciated. 2 Much less well known outside the small circle of Georgian special-
ists is the part played by monks of the monastery in translating Greek texts (sometimes by way of their
prior translation into Arabic) into Georgian. 3 Given the general disappearance of Greek from Palestine
in the course of the eighth and ninth centuries (the latest dated Greek inscription from former
Palaestina Prima and Arabia is from 785),4 it is not surprising that the need should be felt, in monastic
circles, to translate texts from Greek into Arabic and Georgian. Less to be expected are cases of trans-
lation into Greek during this period; one excellent witness is, however, ready at hand, the translation
from Syriac into Greek of the ascetic homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian (Isaac of Nineveh), carried out
at the monastery of Mar Saba by the monks Patrikios and Abramios. It so happened that this Greek
translation was to prove immensely influential in centuries to come, giving birth to translations into
many other languages, even including, in the present century, Japanese.
This translation into Greek of the late seventh-century Syriac writer is doubly remarkable. In the
first place, translations from Syriac into Greek during the early Arab period are extremely rare,
the only other clear example being the Greek translation of a totally different genre of literature, the

1 The important consequences of their coming to Constantinople are well brought out by C. Mango, "Greek Culture

in Palestine after the Arab Conquest," in G. Cavallo, G. de Gregorio, and M. Maniaci, eds., Scritture, libri e testi nelle
aree provinciali di Bisanzio (Spoleto, 1991), 149-60.
2 See above all the collection of articles in his Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of Ninth-Century Palestine

(Aldershot, 1992). For early translations from Greek into Arabic, probably made at Mar Saba, see K. 1. Leeming,
"Byzantine Hagiographies in Arabic: Three Translations from a Ninth-century Manuscript Copied at the Monastery of
Mar Saba in Palestine (Vaticanus Arabicus 71)" (ph.D: diss., Oxford University, 1998). Arabic translations specifically
said to.have been made at Mar Saba include the Life of John the Almsgiver (Sinai ar. 428: see J. Blau, in Le Museon
76 [1963],370), and the Life of Stephen the Sabaite (translated by Abba Yannah [John], son of Stephen, in 903).
3 A very large number of translations (from Greek or Arabic, or occasionally from Syriac) are to be found in extant

Georgian manuscripts of the 8th-10th century (see G. Garitte, in DSp 6 [1967], 247-55). Most of these will have been
translated in Palestinian monasteries, among which will certainly have been that of Mar Saba; such a provenance is
especially likely in the case of the Lives of St. Sabas and St. Stephen the Sabaite, and the Life of Romanus the neo-
martyr, by the Sabaite Stephen of Damascus.
4 Y. 1. Meimaris, Chronological Systems in Roman-Byzantine Palestine and Arabia: The Evidence of Dated

Inscriptions, Meletemata 17 (Athens, 1992),304 (Umm er-Rasas); this inscription has, however, been redated to 718
by R. Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule (Princeton, N.J., 1995),472-73;
but for another inscription dated to 785 (el-Rasif, Jordan), see now L. Di Segni, in J. Humphrey, ed., The Roman and
Byzantine Near East, vol. 2, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 31 (Ann Arbor, 1999), 178. For the promi-
nence of Greek culture in Palestinian monasteries in the late 8th century, see Schick, 98-100, and esp. Mango, "Greek
Culture."
202 SEBASTIAN BROCK

Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. 5 Second, Isaac was a monk (and, for a short period, bishop) of the the I
Church of the East, whose christology would not have been considered satisfactory in a bastion of Anot
Chalcedonian orthodoxy such as the monastery of Mar Saba. Pale~
The present study accordingly considers three different aspects: (1) how did a group of monastic Li
texts of the Church of the East come to be translated in a Greek Orthodox monastery in Palestine in centl
the late eighth or early ninth century; (2) what was actually translated; and (3), very briefly, what was near
the reception history of this Greek translation? days
Isaac's writings probably date from near the end of his life, when he was living in the vicinity of Two
the monastery of Rabban Shabur in Beth HuzayelKhuzistan, in the heart of the former Sassanian sour,
Empire, and many hundreds of kilometers from Mar Saba. 6 From a variety of different sources, how- unkr
ever, it would appear that contacts between the Church of the East and Palestine were by no means A
uncommon in the late Sassanian and early Arab period, and from the pages of Isho'dml}:l's monastic at T,
history, the Liber Castitatis, we learn of quite a number of monks who traveled to Jerusalem on plas
pilgrimage; 7 no doubt visits of this sort became even more practicable during the fifteen years of fron
Sassanian control of the Holy City. To judge by a letter written perhaps in the early 650s by Isho'yahb estn
III, the catholicos of the Church of the East, 8 there were good relations with members of the clergy in on t
Jerusalem: the letter in question is addressed by Isho'yahb to his "dear brothers, Mar Elias priest and unli
syncellus, archdeacon Paul, deacon Theodore, and all the clergy of the Holy City in Jerusalem," and pou
is written in reply to letters from Jerusalem9 to Isho'yahb that evidently asked for some financial barE
support toward repairing "the ruins (msa!:zptita) of the Holy City," work that was being undertaken by ishc.
an unnamed !:zasya (i.e., bishop): was this conceivably Pope Martin's vicarius, John of Philadelphia? 10 inC(
Slightly earlier evidence for harmonious relations between the Church of the East and the Orthodox pOll
Church can be seen from the meeting between Heraclius and the Catholicos Isho'yahb II in 630 (which vov
nearly resulted in an official theological concordat between the two churches),l1 or from the passing scri
remark in the account of the return of the relics of St. Anastasius the Persian martyr to the effect that
the bishop Elia, sent to Jerusalem by the catholicos of the Church of the East with a letter to Heraclius, (Le
was "entirely orthodox" (pany orthodoxon).12 We also learn of a monk of the Church of the East, Mar "Tl
Io}:lannan, who, after visiting Jerusalem and Scete, spent two years at the shrine of the Head of John (i.e
the
sto
5 See W. J. Aerts and G.A.A. Kortekaas, Der Griechische und Lateinische Apocalypse des Pseudo Methodius die
alteste Ubersetzullgen, CSCO 569-70, Subsidia 97-98 (Louvain, 1998).
6 A good introduction to Isaac's life and works is provided by D. Miller in the introduction to his translation of the

Greek homilies, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (Boston, 1984); see also my "Isaac the Syrian," in
G. C. Conticello, ed., La theologie byzantine (Turnhout, forthcoming). Gn
7 Isho'dnal)., Liber Castitatis, ed. P. Bedjan (Paris-Leipzig, 1901), nos. 23 (p. 453, John), 34 (p. 463, Jacob, founder

of the famous monastery of Beth 'Abe), 36 (p. 464, George of Merv), 37 (pp. 464-65, John of Merv), 50 (p. 473, ane
Qusre, disciple of Abraham of Nathpar), 68 (p. 482, Shem'on), 73 (p. 484, Narsai), 122 (p. 507, Gabriel of Kashkar), by
128 (p. 514, Sahdona). According to Thomas of Marga, Liber Superiorum 2.11, ed. E.A.W. Budge, 2 vols. (London,
1893), I :78 (text), 2: 175 (trans.), "Enanisho," the compiler of the "Paradise of the Fathers," also went to Jerusalem an(
on his way to the Egyptian desert of Sketis.
8 Isho'yahb ill, Liber Epistularum, ed. R. Duval, CSCO 11-12, Scriptores Syri 11-12 (Louvain, 1904-5), 245-47 cle
(text), 177-78 (trans.). (ra
9 Stated to have been brought by "Mar Procopius and the deacon Mar Cosmas." At the end of his reply (in which

he apologizes for the small amount of his fmancial support), Isho'yahb sends greetings to "Melkizedek, Qayuma and ba
Mart Pelagia."
10 Schick, Christian Communities, 179, is almost certainly wrong in assuming that the Jerusalem clergy mentioned
in~the letter were "Nestorian."
Il Described in the Chronicle of Seert, no. 95, ed. A. Scher, PO 13 (Paris, 1919), 582-83. On this episode, see
fA
L. Sako, Le role de la hiirarchie syriaque orientale dans les rapports diplomatiques entre la Perse et Byzance aux Ve- WI
VIle siecles (Paris, 1986), 121-29, and B. Flusin, Saint Anastase Ie Perse et l'histoire de la Palestine au debut du VIle
siecle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1992), 2:319-27.
12 Flusin, Saint Anastase, 1: 101 and 2:323-27.
 SYRIAC INTO GREEK AT MAR SABA 203

1e the Baptist in Horns and who was even ordained priest by the (Chalcedonian) bishop of Homs. 13
of Another Mar Iol:J.annan, originating from Merv, is recorded as actually having founded a monastery in
Palestine in the late sixth century.14
ic Literary evidence for contacts between Palestine and monks of the Church of the East in the seventh
in century can also be supplemented by archaeological finds. The most dramatic case concerns a hermitage
as near Jericho, where a Syriac inscription in mosaic records that the monastery was established "in the
days of Daniel bar Huzaye, Iol:J.annan bar Parsaye, Isho'dad bar Qarraye and Bu'ya bar Shalrrzuraye."15
of Two of these monks, Iol:J.arman the Persian and Bu'ya of Shahrzur, happen to be known from literary
m sources and belong to the seventh century .16 Of particular relevance, too, is the fact that the otherwise
/01-
unknown Daniel comes from Beth Huzaye, precisely the region where Isaac settled as a hermit.
ns A second monastic establishment connected with monks of the Church of the East may have been
IC at Tel Msas, some 15 kn1 east of Beersheba. Here several fragmentary Syriac inscriptions, mainly on
m plaster, were found, and on the basis of these the excavators identified the monastery (which must date
of from the 7th-8th century) as being "Nestorian."17 It should be stressed, however, that, since the
1b estrangelo script is by no means distinctive, the evidence for this identification is rather slender, resting
in on two small details: (1) one of the plaster fragments contains the letters ysw';IS since it is considered
1d unlikely that an inscription would refer to "Jesus," it is assumed that this must be the end of a com-
1d pound proper name, of the type Dadisho" which is common in the Church of the East at this time, but
al barely if at all known in West Syriac sources. Since an inscription mentioning, for example, maran
)y isho'msIM, "our Lord Jesus Christ," is perfectly conceivable, this first piece of evidence must remain
,\0
inconclusive. More convincing is (2), the presence on one small plaster fragment of two diagonal
)x
points below a letter (lamadh, followed by alaph),19 best interpreted as representing the East Syriac
:h vowel lei (rbii:ja karya) , the earliest examples of which are to be found in seventh-century manu-
19 scripts.
lat Also worth mentioning is a group of Syriac inscriptions found at Kamed el Lawz, in the Beqa'
IS,
(Lebanon), some of which bear the date A.H. 96 (714/15 C.E.). One of these inscriptions reads: 20
ar "This is the quarry of Mar Adday, rls patLlra, from Upper Kfar Kawashi in the region of Beth Nuhadra
ill
(i.e., the area north of Mosul). May our Lord preserve him." It has been plausibly suggested21 that
these inscriptions could belong to a group of deported monks from Iraq who had been conscripted into
stone-cutting for the Caliph Walid's building program.
lie

he
in 13 Isho'dnaJ:!, Liber Castitatis, no. 23 (p. 463). Iohannan (John) had been given the monastic schema by Babai the

Great (d. 628).

ler 14 Isho'dnaJ:!, Liber Castitatis, no. 37 (pp. 464-65): it is described as being founded "on the mountain of Ephraim"
73, and was called "Samrona." Another monastery, "near SYDYN," evidently in Palestine, is said to have been founded
r), by someone from Kashkar (Liber Castitatis, no. 122, p. 507).
In, 15 The inscription was published by D. C. Baramki and St. H. Stephan, "A Nestorian Hennitage between Jericho
:m and the Jordan," QDAP 4 (1934), 81-86, with pIs. LII-LIV.
16 See J.-M. Fiey, "Rabban Buya de Shaqlawa et de Jericho," PrOC 33 (1983), 34-38. The identification makes it
47 clear that the monastery was founded in the 7th century, and so the mosaic will probably also date from then, too
(rather than the 9th century, as Baramki and Stephan had supposed).
ch 17 V. Fritz and A. Kempinski, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen aUf der ljirbet el-Msas (Tel Masos), vol. 1 (Wies-
nd baden, 1983), 138-85.
18 Ibid., 1:174-75, with pI. 122A.
.ed 19 Ibid., 1: 180, with pI. 122A.

20 Published by Y. Blitzer and E. Erlich, "A New bftmya inscription from Kamed el-Lawz in the Lebanon Valley,"
;ee JAOS 105 (1985), 711-14. Thirty-three other inscriptions (five of which are specifically dated to A.H. 96 = 714/5 C.E.)
'e- were published earlier by R. Mouterde, "Inscriptions en syriaque dialectal a Kamed-Beqa"" MUSJ 22 (1939), 73-106;
rIe cf. also P. Mouterde, "Trente ans apres: Les inscriptions de Kamed," MUSJ 44 (1968), 23-29. The sense of rls patfmi,
which occurs in several of the inscriptions, is uncertain (possibly "head of the refectory").
21 By R. Mouterde, "Les inscriptions," 103-6.
204 SEBASTIAN BROCK

Finally, it should be noted that a number of monastic writings of East Syriac provenance (including trar
many by Isaac the Syrian) are to be found in the Syriac manuscripts of the monastery of St. Catherine, tun
Sinai. 22 Links between Mar Saba and St. Catherine's were often close, as is witnessed notably by the mOl
career of the Georgian scribe John Zosimus (end of the 10th century), who was active first at Mar Saba mOl
and later at St. Catherine's.23 no.
In the light of these scattered pieces of information, it turns out that the presence at Mar Saba of a one
Syriac work by a monk of the Church of the East is not necessarily so surprising after all: monks from ilie
the Church of the East sometimes traveled to Palestine, and ecclesiastical relations were evidently tho
generally harmonious. We
The monastery of Mar Saba was clearly a polyglot community in the early Arab period, with a the
flourishing scribal tradition in Arabic and Georgian as well as in Greek. 24 For Syriac scribal activity at cen
the monastery there is, unfortunately, only one firm piece of evidence, but this happens to be of great Let
relevance: a Syriac manuscript of Isaac's Ascetic Homilies, the opening eight folios of which are by
preserved in Paris,2s specifically states in its title that it is "The Book of holy Mar Isaac, monk and cer
bishop of Nineveh, written in the holy monastery of Beth Mar Saba, of Jerusalem; and it belongs to
the priest Theophilus." According to Fran~ois Nau,26 the manuscript may date from the end of the Sy1
eighth century - precisely the time when the Greek translation of Isaac's Homilies was made at Mar lee
Saba by Abba Patrikios and Abba Abramios. me
The Syriac text of Isaac's Homilies is transmitted to us in two parts, the first containing eighty-two mD
homilies 27 and the second forty-one. 28 Although at least some homilies of the "Second Part" were ma
known to and copied by Syriac-speaking Orthodox monks,29 it was only the "First Part" that came to wh
be translated into Greek. In fact, not all the Syriac homilies were translated, for fourteen of the
Syriac homilies in the First Part are absent from the Greek translation. 30 On the other hand, the Greek of
ser

22 Sinai syr. 10 contains works by Abraham of Nathpar (whose disciple. Mar Qusre. went to Jerusalem, according

to Isho'dnal;!, Liber Castitatis, 473 [no. 50]); Sinai syr.14 contains extracts from Isaac, John the Elder, and Shem'on
d-Taybutheh (also Philoxenus); Sinai syr. 24 and 56 both contain homilies by Isaac. Among the "New Finds" is a
manuscript containing works by Babai the Great and by ShubJ:.:talmaran: see Mere Philotea du Sinai, "Les nouveaux Gn
manuscrits syriaques du Mont Sinai," in III Symposium Syriacum, OCA 221 (Rome, 1983), 338.
23 See A. Tarchnishvili, Geschichte del' kirchlichen georgischen Literatur, ST 185 (Vatican City, 1955), 109-14.

The two Arabic manuscripts, Vat. ar. 71 and Strasbourg or. 4226, both dated 885/6 and copied at Mar Saba, were
expressly written for the monastery on Sinai.
24 For two surviving Arabic manuscripts see the previous note. Three early dated Georgian manuscripts copied at Th
Mar Saba are Sinai geor. 32-57-33, a polykephalon (festal homiliary) copied in 864, Sinai geor. 35, a paterikon dated ing
906 (on this manuscript, see further below, note 54), and Sinai geor. 36, a Life of Mar Sabas, dated 924/5. Another
Sinai Georgian manuscript (no. 97), datable to the 9th-10th century, is also specifically said to have been copied at tra:
Mar Saba. An early Greek manuscript that may have been copied at Mar Saba is Sinai gr. 210 of 861/2: D. Harfiinger, X)
D. R. Reinsch, and lA.M. Sonderkamp, Specimina Sinaitica (Berlin, 1983), no. 1. 10
25 Paris. syr. 378, no. IX, in F. Briquel-Chatonnet, Manuscrits syriaques de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France

(nos. 356-535), Catalogue (Paris, 1997),76-77.

26 F. Nau, "Analyse du manuscrit syriaque de Paris no. 378 de la Bibliotheque Nationale," ROC 27 (1929-30), pu
414-15. The date is retained by Briquel-Chatonnet. IT
27 Ed. P. Bedjan, Mar Isaacus Ninivita, De Pelfectione Religiosa (Paris-Leipzig, 1909), based on a manuscript of

1235; the earliest manuscripts date from the 10th century. Eng. trans. A. J. Wensinck, Mystic Treatises by Isaac of of
Nineveh (Amsterdam, 1923). (R
28 Ed. S. P. Brock, Isaac of Niniveh (Isaac the Syrian), "The Second Part," chapters N-XLJ, CSCO 554-55, Scrip- (p.
tores Syri 224-25 (Louvain, 1995). Chapters I-III are to be edited by P. Bettiolo in the same series. Sy
> 29 There are excerpts in Sinai syr. 14 (10th century) and in "Codex Syriacus Secundus" (fol. 39r), a Melkite

manuscript dated 882, once on Sinai but now in Cincinnati (photographic edition by W. Strothmann, Codex Syriacus "J
Secundus (Gottingen, 1977).
30 For a list of these, see below, note 50. The numbering of the homilies in the printed Syriac and Greek editions or
differs; for concordances, see [D. Miller], The Ascetical Homilies, cxiii-cxv, and my Isaac of Niniveh, "The Second
Part," (trans.), xli-xliv.
 SYRIAC INTO GREEK AT MAR SABA 205

19 translation includes five texts that are absent from the Syriac collection of Isaac's homilies and that
e, turn out not to be by Isaac at all, but by two other Syriac writers: four are homilies by the East Syriac
monastic author John the Elder (John Saba, also known as John of Dalyatha, i.e., John of the
monastery known as "of the vine-tendrils [daiydtd],,).3! One of these four homilies (John the Elder,
no. 22) happens to be transmitted in Latin translation independently, attributed to Abba Dorotheus, as
a one of his Teachings (no. 24).32 The fifth text incorporated into the Greek translation of Isaac's hom-
m ilies in the printed Greek edition has the title "Letter to the holy father Symeon the Wonderworker,"
ly though an alternative, "Abba Symeon from Caesarea," is also noted. The reference to Symeon the
Wonderworker, that is, Symeon the younger, the sixth-century stylite on Mons Admirabilis, a little to
a the west of Antioch, had led early Western scholars to date Isaac the Syrian incorrectly to the sixth
at century. The basis for this wrong dating was immediately removed once it was recognized33 that this
at Letter to Symeon was in fact nothing other than a translation of an abbreviated form of a monastic letter
re by the great Syrian Orthodox theologian, Philoxenus of Mabbug (d. 523), addressed originally to a
ld certain Patrikios. 34
to It seems highly probable that the Sabaite monks Patrikios and Abramios 35 were translating from a
le Syriac manuscript where all these texts, belonging in fact to three different authors, were already col-
ar lected together under Isaac's name. Since John the Elder belongs to the early eighth century,36 this
means that the Greek translation of Isaac's works cannot be earlier than the late eighth century. A ter-
'a minus ante quem of some time in (probably) the early ninth century is provided by the earliest Greek
re manuscript of Isaac's homilies, Paris. Suppl. gr. 693 + [olim?] Damascus, Qubbat al-l.lazna,37 for
to which a ninth-century date seems reasonably assured.
le Proper study of the way the two translators went about their work is seriously hampered by the lack
:k of critical editions of either the Syriac original or of the Greek translation. The situation is particularly
serious as far as the Greek text is concerned, for the sale printed edition, edited by Nikiforos Theotokis

)n

a 31 The correspondences are as follows:

lX Greek Isaac, Homily John the Elder, Discourse

2 20
,
'"t. 7 8
re 43 I
80 22
at The numbering of John the Elder's discourses, which varies in the manuscripts containing them, is based on the list-
~d ing in J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, vol. 1 (Rome, 1719),435-41.
er 32 As 1. Hausherr recognized, the Latin is derived from chap. 53 of the De Contemptu Mundi, that is, the Latin

at translation of chap. 7 of the Greek text of Isaac, which is in fact John the Elder's Discourse 8: see his "La Doctrina
;[, XXIV de saint Dorothee," OCP 6 (1940), 220-21, repr. in his Etudes de spiritualite orientale, OCA 183 (Rome, 1969),
103-4.
ce 33 First by J. B. Chabot, in his De S.lsaaci Ninivitae Vita, Scriptis et Doctrina (Paris, 1892), 12-15; Chabot, how-

ever, opted for an even earlier date for Isaac (pp. 16-17). Isaac's true date and provenance became clear only with the
l), publication of Isho'dnal:l's Liber Castitatis: see R. H. Connolly's review of P. Bedjan's edition of the Syriac text, in
JTS 11 (1910),313-15.
of 34 The full Syriac text of Philoxenus' Letter was edited by R. Lavenant, in PO 30 (Paris, 1963); a separate edition

of of the Greek translation, derived from Vat. gr. 391, was published by A. Mai in Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, vol. 8.3
(Rome, 1871), 157-87. Lavenant did not use the abbreviated text of Vat. syr. 125 in his edition, but provided a table
p- (p. 154) to indicate how it corresponded to the Greek text edited by Mai and to the sections of his edition of the full
Syriac text.
.te 35 They are specifically mentioned by name at the beginning of the Greek text as having translated the homilies of

liS "Abba Isaac the Syrian, bishop of Niniveh."

36 On John and his spiritual teaching, see R. Beulay, L'Enseignement spirituel de Jean de Dalyatha. Mystique syro-

ns oriental du VIlle siecie (Paris, 1990).

~d 37 For the Damascus folios, now known only from photographs in Berlin, see K. Treu, "Remnants of a Majuscule

Codex ofIsaac Syrus from Damascus," Studia Patristica 16.2 (Louvain, 1985), 114-20.
206 SEBASTIAN BROCK

(Leipzig, 1770) and reprinted by Ioakim Spetsieris (Athens, 1895),38 is based on late manuscripts, and ma
with the homilies reordered so as to provide what, in the editor's eyes, seemed a more logical ma
sequence. As a result, the numbering of the Greek homilies (and of any modern translations made from
the printed Greek) differs radically from that of the Syriac original, edited on the basis of a single (but the
fortunately good) manuscript dated 1235. To add to the confusion, both the Greek and, to a lesser fro
extent, the Syriac manuscript tradition present further variations in the sequence and numbering of the fou
homilies (a single aspect of this will be touched upon below).39 ear
Despite this unsatisfactory situation, even from a cursory comparison of the Greek with the Syriac cOl
it will be noticed that the names of several of the church fathers whom Isaac quotes have been altered aft!
in the Greek. Thus "the Interpreter" (by whom Isaac of course means Theodore of Mopsuestia) may
be reidentified as John Chrysostom,40 or even as "Abba Martinianos,"4l while Evagrius can appear in sig
the Greek text under the disguise of "the divine and great Gregory."42 It is in fact evident that this bet
process of replacing names of writers whose works had been anathematized by the Orthodox Church Cal
in the sixth century had already taken place when the Syriac original of Isaac's homilies crossed over
the ecclesiastical boundary, from the Church of the East into Syriac-speaking Cha1cedonian circles. abl
One surviving Syriac manuscript in which this has occurred is Vat. syr. 125,43 described by Assemani fol
as "pervetustus"44 (the estrangelo hand may be even earlier than the 10th century). This manuscript cel
happens to be of particular interest in that it contains homilies by Isaac, followed immediately by oft
Philoxenus' Letter to Patrikios in its abbreviated form (as in the Greek Isaac), and then by a large of
selection of texts by John the Elder, including the four that are incorporated into the Greek translation cel
of Isaac. Although Assemani's catalogue implies that the names of Philoxenus and John the Elder are ne;
actually in the manuscript, this is incorrect as far as the original scribe is concerned: the author and em
addressee of Philoxenus' Letter to Patrikios have been erased, and a much later Syrian Orthodox hand Ph
has written in the names of Philoxenus and Patrikios.45 In the case of the texts by John the Elder, the ho
original scribe's heading, which just describes the author as "one of the saints living in the moun- ye
tains," is still preserved, but in the margin probably the same late Syrian Orthodox hand has identified nn
the author as "the Elder" (i.e., John the Elder).46 tht
Vat. syr. 125, which is very probably of Melkite origin, shares some further features in common
with the Greek translation over the choice of homilies. In particular, along with the Greek translation, tra
Vat. syr. 125 omits the Syriac homilies 19-21,49,54,56, 71, and 75-76. 47 On the other hand, it does th,
have five homilies that are omitted in the Greek (23-24, 26, 29, and 31),48 and conversely, it lacks bo
seven further Syriac homilies that do feature in the Greek translation (Syriac nos. 17,55,59,65,68, tra
72, and 79).49 Furthermore, its various divergencies from the sequence of homilies in the East Syriac fo
B(
lal
38 This is the edition that has been photographically reprinted a number of times and whose pagination is cited below.
39 See note 30 for some tables of concordance. In his table of contents, Theotokis also gives the numbering of the tic
two manuscripts he used; the first of these largely corresponds to that of the earliest Greek manuscripts (which already
differs in several respects from that of the earliest Syriac manuscripts).
40 Thus Syriac hom. 44 (p. 319) = Greek hom. 18 (p. 65). Diodore of Tarsus simply becomes "one of the sages,"

Syriac hom. 37 (p. 285) = Greek hom. 26 (p. 111). 12

41 Syriac hom. 9 (p. 113) = Greek hom. 41 (p. 172). 77
42 Syriac hom. 22 (p. 174) = Greek hom. 32 (p. 140). Elsewhere Evagrius is sometimes left anonymous, e.g., Syr. th:
hom. 1 (p. 4) and hom. 8 (p. 106) = Greek hom. 1 (p. 3) and hom. 21 (p. 83). 75
43 E.g., fol. 66r (= Syriac hom. 44, p. 319), "the holy Mar Ioanis." For other Syriac manuscripts where such

changes have been made, see Bedjan, Mar Isaacus Ninivita, x-xi.
44 S. E. and J. S. Assemani, Bibliothecae Vaticanae ... Catalogus, vol. 3 (Rome, 1759), 152. The opening quires of se
fhe manuscript are lost, and the text begins with hom. 16.
45 Fol. 145r; the name of the putative author is also erased at the end, fol. 158r, and replaced by "Philoxenos." so
46 Fol. 158r.

47 These homilies are also absent from Sinai syr. 24. C

48 These homilies are also present in Sinai syr. 24. 3<
49 These are the homilies numbered 29,61,4,34,69,49, and 71, respectively, in Theotokis' edition.
 SYRIAC INTO GREEK AT MAR SABA 207

[ld manuscripts (reproduced in P. Bedjan's edition) do not correspond to those found in the early Greek
:al manuscripts.
Accordingly, although Vat. syr. 125 gives some idea of the sort of Syriac collection that underlies
the Greek translation, it by no means fully corresponds in its contents. In particular, the Syriac text
:er from which Patrikios and Abramios must have worked in making their translation must have had the
he four letters of John the Elder already interpolated into the midst of the homilies by Isaac, for in all the
earliest Greek manuscripts the fIrst three of these (corresponding to John Saba's Discourses 1,20, and 8)
ac come grouped together after Syriac homily 7, while the fourth (i.e., John Saba's Discourse 22) comes
ed after Syriac homily 28. 50
ay Before turning to glance at the reception history of the Greek translation of Isaac's homilies, one
in significant point deserves emphasis: whereas the names of both Philoxenus and John the Elder have
lis been either disguised or left anonymous in the Greek, that of Isaac, together with the name of his epis-
ch copal see, has been allowed to remain.
rer Once in Greek translation, Isaac's homilies have continuously over the centuries enjoyed consider-
~s. able popUlarity. Several early manuscripts survive in whole or in part: besides the Paris/Damascus
1m folios (101 in all) of the ninth century, three tenth-century manuscripts are known,51 while from later
ipt centuries a very large number survive. Excerpts from the homilies were also frequently made and were
by often included in popular anthologies such as the Synagoge, or Evergetinos, compiled in the first half
'ge of the eleventh century by Paul of the monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis. 52 Toward the end of that
on century we again find extracts from Isaac, featuring in the Pandects of Nikon of the Black Mountain,
rre near Antioch, and in the Eclogae asceticae of John V (IV) Oxites, patriarch of Antioch. Given his
nd earlier popularity in Greek monastic circles, one might have expected to find Isaac represented in the
nd Philocalia, compiled by Makarios of Corinth and Nikodimos Hagioritis, published in 1782. In fact,
he however, he is absent; possibly it was thought that the prior publication of his homilies in full, twelve
m- years earlier, made his inclusion seem less necessary. In any case, the absence was made good in the
ed nineteenth century in the Russian edition of the Philocalia and in recent years in our own century in
the Romanian edition (1981) by the late Fr. Staniloe.
on The Greek translation of Isaac's homilies formed the basis for a considerable number of subsequent
)n, translations. The earliest of these consisted of extracts, translated into Arabic and Georgian, perhaps at
)es the monastery of Mar Saba itself: in any case, the two manuscripts containing these excerpts were
:ks both written in the monastery, the Arabic in 885/653 and the Georgian in 906. 54 Much more extensive
58, translations into both these languages were made in the eleventh century, by St. Euthymius, one of the
iac founders of Moni Iviron on Mount Athos, into Georgian, and by 'Abdallah ibn al FaQ.l into Arabic.
Both these enjoyed wide circulation, and the Arabic eventually formed the basis of the Ethiopian trans-
lation, perhaps made in the sixteenth century.
)w. Translations into Latin and Slavonic followed in the fourteenth century, and from the Latin collec-
the tion 55 (representing twenty-five of the Syriac homilies) further translations into various European
ldy

:S," 50 The sequence of the homilies in the earliest Greek manuscripts corresponds to Syriac homilies 1-6, 8-11, 13-14,

12,7, John 1, John 20, John 8, 15-18,22,30,25,27,28, John 22,32-45,47-48,50-53,55,64,57-63,65-70, 72-74,

77-80,82, (81), Letter to Symeon (based on Vat. gr. 391, whose sequence corresponds to Paris. Suppl. gr. 393 where
;yr. that survives). The Syriac homilies absent from the Greek translation are nos. 19-21,23-24,26,29,31,49,54,56,71,
75-76.
llch 51 Paris. Coisl. gr. 370; Jerusalem, Mar Saba gr. 157, and Athos, Lavra gr. 335.

52 For further details of the later transmission of the Greek translation, and the various translations made from it,

; of see my "Isaac the Syrian" (above, note 6).

53 Strasbourg ar. 4226, fols. 81 v -148v. This contains translations of a few complete (or nearly complete) homilies,

)s. " some abbreviated homilies, and various excerpts (I am most grateful to Kate Leeming for this information).
54 Sinai, geor. 35, fols. 125v-144r; see G. Garitte, Catalogue des manuscrits georgiens litteraires du Mont Sinai,

CSCO 165, Subsidia 9 (Louvain, 1956), 113-15. For the exact date (906), see B. Outtier in Bedi Kartlisa 37 (1979),
347-48.
55 Known under the title De contemptu mundi; the text as printed in PG 86 is redivided into 53 chapters.
 22)1.

208 SEBASTIAN BROCK

Romance languages were made in the late fifteenth century (Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, and
Italian). The various Russian translations of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century were based
on the Slavonic, but in some cases using the Greek printed edition as well. A Romanian translation,
based on the Greek, was published at the Neamt monastery in 1819.56 Presumably it was from the
complete Russian translation of 1854 that a Japanese Orthodox woman, Fuku Horie, translated Isaac's
homilies into Japanese (1909). Until recently the only complete English translation was based on the
Syriac original (A. J. Wensinck), but now there is an excellent new translation, made from the Greek,
by Dana Miller, published by the Holy Transfiguration monastery in Boston (1984).57 Slightly earlier
a French translation, again from the Greek text, was published by Jacques Touraille (1981).58 One can Le
safely say that Isaac's works are now more widely available and read than at any previous time in 1a
history. cu
The aim of this cursory survey has been to offer a glimpse of a few of the ways in which the trans- tn
lation labors of Abba Patrikios and Abba Abramios, carried out some twelve centuries ago at the na
monastery of Mar Saba, have continued to bear fruit over the centuries, right down to the present day. kG
It is thanks to these two Sabaite monks that the works of St. Isaac, the remarkable seventh-century tiI
hermit of the Church of the East who originated from the region of Qatar, have come to be read today tr,
in languages ranging from Russian to English, from Romanian to Japanese, and from Georgian to er
Amharic. 59 re

Oriental Institute, University of Oxford ql

N
N
Cl
d(

I',

c:
T
a'
II
C

c
~ 56 Made by the monks Isaak and Iosif, disciples of the starets Paisiy Velichkovsky (1722-94), who had himself
worked on reediting the Slavonic translation. I am most grateful to loan I. lea Jr (Sibiu) for this information.
57 See above, note 6. b
58 J. Touraille, Isaac Ie Syrien. Oeuvres spirituelles (Paris, 1981).
59 For details, see my "From Qatar to Tokyo, by Way of Mar Saba: The Translations of Isaac of Beth Qatraye
(Isaac the Syrian)" Aram (forthcoming).