ON ST. JACOB OF SARUG, BISHOP, IN MESOPOTAMIA,
IN THE YEAR 521.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Jacob, bishop of Sarug. (S.)
BY H. M.
§ I. The cult of St. Jacob. The sources of his history. He was not the teacher of George, bishop of the Arabs. His doctrine is examined by the bishops.
St. Jacob of Sarug would have had to be treated by our predecessors at the 27th of January or the 5th of April, Of St. Jacob of Sarug, long almost unknown to the Latins, days on which his name occurs in the calendars of the Maronites, if indeed they could at that time have learned anything of his cult and deeds De Paradiso Commentarius, Antwerp, Plantin, 1569.. But in the year 1675, when the Bollandist April was published, the name of a doctor very well known among the Syrians had scarcely sounded in Latin ears, from the translation of the work of Moses Bar Cepha on Paradise, which, first made and published by Andreas Masius See below, no. 3., all the Libraries of the Fathers after Marguerin de la Bigne have reproduced [Bibl. Patrum, Paris ed. 1575, vol. VI, col. 275 and following; Bibl. Patrum, Lyons ed. 1677, vol. XVII, p. 457 and following.]. For there the authority of the Lord Jacob of Sarug is brought forward several times [Moses, part I, chapters XX, XXVII, XXVIII, part III, pp. 55, 71, 139, 166 and following, Antwerp ed., p. 217.], whom the Syrian author also names Botnanensis Part I, chapter XXII, p. 65. or of Botnan Chapter XXV, p. 69., names which Masius did not rightly interpret, although he had learned from the Syrians that one man was distinguished by these two appellations Ibid., preface, p. 10.. Whence he is to be condemned for carelessness who abridged the preface of Masius in the Library of the Fathers, splitting the one and same person of the bishop of Sarug into two Bibl. Patrum, Lyons, loc. cit.. Later the Bollandists received more certain, though not accurate, knowledge of the Syrian doctor from the works of Fausto Nairone the Maronite, or at least from the Literary History of William Cave 6th century, Geneva 1720, p. 340.; but since they did not find the name of St. Jacob of Sarug inscribed in the only Syriac calendar which was at hand for them, it did not even come into their minds to write anything of him at the 29th of June, on which he is celebrated by the Jacobites.
[2] [Assemani first accurately disclosed his cult and deeds, whom we follow almost alone.] But at length, when the first volume of the Bibliotheca Orientalis had been published, they would perhaps have considered that both the cult and the life of St. Jacob should be illustrated by them at the 29th of July, if they had read what Assemani discusses; unless they preferred to be silent, because they thought that it was not sufficiently established about his legitimate cult. But things which lie hidden in a great volume, and occur in no calendar or menology, easily escape the eyes even of a diligent investigator. The most holy bishop of Sarug was therefore wholly omitted, and left to us, without any gain of historical learning, since, a century and a half having elapsed since Assemani's work, nothing about that holy man has occurred to us which could not long since have been drawn from the Bibliotheca Orientalis. It will at any rate be our part to set forth more clearly and briefly what Assemani expounds diffusely and sometimes obscurely, and from time to time to illustrate it with our observations. This being so, let readers bear with us if we do not always call by name the author whom we chiefly follow. For all the documents which we use are found in few places. But now before we move on to recount the deeds of Jacob, we shall briefly set forth those few things which we know of his cult.
[3] [The bishop of Sarug is venerated on some days among the Maronites, on others among the Jacobites and Armenians,] He is commemorated today by the Maronites at the 5th of April; by the Jacobites, who undeservedly claim the orthodox doctor for themselves, he is venerated on the 29th of June, the 29th of July, and the 29th of October. And the Armenians recall the holy bishop of Sarug at the 25th of September, as may be seen in Assemani Bibl. Orient. vol. III, part I, p. 648 and Aucher Vitæ Sanctorum, vol. XII, pp. 277 and 278.. It would at any rate have been better to follow the Catholic Maronites than the heterodox Jacobites; but, as is known, in our work we intend first of all to narrate the history of the saints, and although for the most part we follow the order of the orthodox and especially of the Roman Martyrology, we yet order the series of the Commentaries to serve the utility of history, and we gladly seize every occasion that the defects of the work may sometimes be repaired. Finally it is to be noted that in the Latin translation of the calendar published at Rome in the year 1624, which Papebroch received at Rome, St. Jacob is not named at the 5th of April, which indeed I at first much wondered at, but I soon understood after I had handled the Euoplia fidei of Fausto Nairone the Maronite. For hence I saw that in the year 1624 the history of Jacob of Sarug was not plainly known to the Maronites themselves, since the learned man, who published his work at Rome in the year 1694, in defining his age and in citing his works, does not sufficiently distinguish what pertains to Jacob of Edessa and what to the one of Sarug Euoplia fidei, pp. 48, 50, 112.. And in the calendar of the year 1624, Jacob of Edessa is praised at the 27th of January with Ephrem, which agrees entirely with what Nairone brings forward from the calendar of the Maronites Ibid., p. 48.. But I think that the one of Edessa was named there out of ignorance, and that the one of Sarug ought to be put back in place of the one of Edessa. The feast of the 5th of April would then be of more recent institution, and after the time of Nairone.
[4] [The sources of whose history are indicated, which are an epitome of his Life of the tenth century;] It is chiefly by a threefold kind of monuments that the few things about the deeds of St. Jacob have been handed down. The first of these is that brief summary of his Life, found by Assemani in his codex 15 and inserted in the Bibliotheca Orientalis, which we shall publish anew in Latin after this Commentary. That codex, if I am not mistaken, Assemani indicates as of the tenth century, which he describes in the first volume of the Bibliotheca Orientalis as marked number 15 among the codices brought by him from the East Bibl. Orient. vol. I, pp. 613 and 614.. Yet the Life of St. Jacob of Sarug, which stands at the beginning of the codex, is not found in Assemani's description, for which reason I hesitated in doubt, until in another volume of the Bibliotheca I saw the certainly same codex called in these words our codex 15 Ibid., p. 285; vol. II, p. 47.. Unless then the history of which we are treating was added by a more recent hand, it is older than the eleventh century, written plainly in the times of the Mahometans See below, p. 831., and indeed at the end of that same tenth century, on account of the mention of the Christian era, not used by the Syrians before Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 289, note 1.. But all these things we propose by way of opinion, not being taught anything more certain and clearer by Assemani.
[5] [Then a poem, which Assemani believed to have been written by George, disciple of Jacob,] The second monument is a Panegyric Poem which, according to the title placed upon it in Nitrian Codex 5, George of Sarug, disciple of St. Jacob, composed in praise of his master in dodecasyllabic metre. Would that it had pleased Assemani to publish it whole, and not merely to assert that George plainly agrees with the Anonymous author of the Compendium Ibid., p. 285.. To confess candidly what I think, I should with difficulty believe that that work was composed by a disciple of the doctor of Sarug, and this indeed for more than one reason. For it is very meagre, which in a disciple is not without occasion for wonder. Then, it joins to the 22nd year of St. Jacob the capture of Amida, which is absurd Nos. 9, 10 and 16.; and finally it does not speak like a witness who has seen the things which he narrates: but in all that Assemani brings forward he confesses that he draws the life of his so-called master from books and the narrations of others. For it has this: But if you desire to know, whoever you are that burn with zeal for doctrine, when he began to teach, listen and I will tell you truly what I have received (lit.: heard) from the history written about him and from my teacher; and below: And also it is said of him etc. Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 287.. Indeed, however much Assemani urges the contrary Ibid., p. 340., I judge that that George is one and the same with George, bishop of the Arabs, a contemporary of Jacob of Edessa. For what at all do we know of George, who is reported to be the disciple of Jacob of Sarug? It first became known to Assemani from the title of the poem: In the name of the Lord we write a discourse on Mar Jacob, doctor, bishop of Batnan of Sarug, which Mar George, his disciple, published. Later in the Chronicle of Gregory Abulpharagius or Barhebræus he found the following: He (Jacob of Sarug) also has an exposition of the six centuries of Evagrius, which he wrote at the request of Mar George, bishop of the Gentiles and his disciple Ibid., vol. II, p. 322.. Here the learned Maronite thought that the dignity of George, of which he had confessed himself ignorant in the first volume, was at length revealed, and he therefore warned the reader not to confuse this George, bishop of the Gentiles or Arabs, the elder, with another George, likewise bishop of the Arabs, younger by nearly two centuries.
[6] But we, to George, bishop of the Arabs, an author of the 7th century; But, as far as I see, here we rather find the solution of a quite tangled question. For what Barhebræus says of the elder George so agrees with one who was precisely contemporary with and perhaps a disciple of Jacob of Edessa, that it could scarcely be asserted of another. For this latter George, whose person, age, and condition are placed beyond all controversy, was bishop of the Christian Arabs and a little younger than Jacob of Edessa. Again, that exposition of the six centuries of Evagrius Ponticus, or τῶν προγνοστικῶν προβλημάτων [Socrates, Eccl. Hist. book IV, chapter 23; compare Fabricius, Harles's edition, vol. IX, pp. 284 and 285.], falls rather to Jacob of Edessa, since he is held an outstanding one among the Syriac translators of Greek books. To this argument something might perhaps be added by one who had at hand the very rare Catalogue of the Oriental codices of the Vatican Library, in whose second volume,
Assemani discourses on the works of Evagrius Ponticus translated into the Syriac or Arabic language, as I learn from the supplement to this catalogue in Angelo Mai Scriptt. veterum, vol. IV, p. 200.. The opinion which we propose is surely favoured by the words of the so-called older George himself, who betrays himself as much more recent than St. Jacob of Sarug, and by whatever Assemani gathered here and there about George, bishop of the Arabs. About the year 700, then, the encomiastic poem of George would have been written, which accordingly, if a copy of it had been made available, we should have exhibited in place of the Acts, in preference to the compendium of the Life to be published below. Wherefore the parts brought forward by Assemani we shall set before the eyes of readers where it is opportune.
[7] And finally the historical works of the Syrians. There remains finally the third kind of documents, which are contained in the historical works of the Syrians excerpted by Assemani, among which the chief place is held by Joshua the Stylite Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 275., a contemporary of St. Jacob, and Gregory Barhebræus the Monophysite Ibid., vol. II, pp. 321 and 322., who recount a few things not met with in the summary of the Life or in George. But for which of them the older Life cited by George showed the way we do not know. Perhaps it still lies hidden somewhere, covering the proof of many things most probably pertaining to the disputes of the Monophysites and the Orthodox in Syria. For Jacob, a doctor distinguished in eloquence and knowledge, could not fail to fight to the extent of his power, or to apply all his endeavours to restoring peace. No one so far appears to have inquired into this Life. For as to Assemani, on reading these words in the catalogue of the Manuscripts of England: Narrative of Mar Jacob Catalogi librorum Mss. Angliæ et Hiberniæ, vol. II, second part, no. 1018., seeming to himself to have detected a Life of St. Jacob of Sarug Op. cit., vol. III, part I, p. 285; compare p. 684, this can hardly be proved. If this history has perished for us, it has at least bequeathed its remains, scattered here and there in the pages of Syrian authors, which we shall studiously collect in our Commentary.
[8] [Jacob at three years old in church, on the day of Epiphany, running of his own accord to the altar,] Jacob was born in the year 452 in the village of Curtam on the river Euphrates, of Christian parents, and indeed, if George is believed, of a priest as father, who, a vow having been made for the removal of their sterility, at length received him. And when he was three years old, a wondrous thing happened, which was afterwards believed to have been a forerunner of his future sanctity and doctrine. On the holy day of Epiphany, brought into the church by his mother, at that moment of time at which the consecration was being carried out by the bishop, breaking from his mother's lap he ran to the altar and three times took up in his hand and drank blessed water, according to Assemani, consecrated wine, in my judgment. We copy out the words of George, who narrates this story more amply than the others: When the boy had reached his third year, his mother, on the feast of the manifestation of the Only-begotten (Epiphany), carrying him, went into the church, to which an immense people had flowed together. The high priest was present in the midst of the holy of holies and before the table, where the Son of God is immolated, bowed down, and groaning he asked God that the Spirit, descending upon the oblation, might perfect the sacrament… Then the boy, stirred by divine grace, slipping from his mother's lap, burst through the crowd, all being astounded, and joyfully entered the Holy of Holies. Soon approaching the table of life, he bowed his head three times and adored as in a mystery (as understanding a mystery), and just as one who is thirsty, if he finds waters, rejoices, so the innocent boy stretched out his hands before the table, and with three handfuls and three times he too drank,… Then the Spirit began to reveal to him and to interpret all the things which are contained in the divine Scriptures.
[8] He takes up the consecrated wine, How from this, or from the abbreviated Life, in which these words are read: He drew in the Holy Spirit, Assemani elicited that this is a question of blessed water, I certainly do not understand. The authority of a man most skilled in the Syriac language and the Oriental rites, and the lack of Syriac books from which we still suffer, would certainly deter me, did not the whole narrative seem clearer than light. The time at which the thing was accomplished, the place, the words of the authors, all pertain to the eucharistic sacrifice. The priest asks from God by prayers, according to the custom of the Syriac liturgy, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the oblation: evidently the boy takes up the sacred thing which is present on the altar, which as it were contains the Spirit. Water is found in Assemani's translation, not in the Syriac text. But what shall we say of the fact itself? There is surely nothing that should remove us from accepting that narrative; it would indeed be more certain, if it were proposed by a contemporary author, such as, in my judgment, George was not. But all understand very well that a truly wondrous thing sat deeply in the memory of peoples, and that afterwards, when Jacob was renowned among all, it was not without right held to have been an indication of divine providence toward the boy. And this is not obscurely hinted at in these words of Gregory Barhebræus: This man attained the gift of knowledge not by human industry, but by the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the Anonymous and George trace from this prodigy the wondrous knowledge and eloquence of Jacob. But of those things which he afterwards did until the twenty-second year of his age nothing has been handed down to memory. It can be conjectured that he was a monk in one of the very many monasteries which existed both at Edessa and in the vicinity, since monks were especially renowned for studies and writings; yet it is not to be proved. But what Amrus son of Matthew, the Nestorian, tells as a fable about Jacob of Sarug as a pupil of the Nestorian school of the Persians, which flourished at Edessa, is too evidently remote from the truth to be sifted in this place Bibl. Orient. vol. III, part I, p. 385 and following; compare below, no. 16..
[9] [After he began to deliver orations in church, ordered to speak extempore before the bishops,] And when he was 22 years old he began to deliver discourses and homilies in church, yet not to commit them to writing. The fame of his doctrine was spread to the four regions of the world, says George, and many began to come often to him, that they might become sharers of the treasures conferred on him by the Holy Spirit; and after the same author has narrated that Jacob's doctrine was examined by the bishops, he continues thus: For before the aforesaid assembly of bishops he had indeed been accustomed to give orations, but out of his extreme humility of mind he had by no means dared to publish them in writing. But the judgment of the bishops is joined to a certain prodigy, which, unless with a disturbance of the series of the times, cannot be admitted, at least as it is narrated by George. On this occasion, that the deeds of the bishop of Sarug may thereafter be examined more clearly, I shall recite after Assemani the second and third passage from the discourse of George: But if you desire to know, he says, whoever you are that burn with zeal for doctrine, when he began to teach, I will set forth the truth to you from his History and from my teacher, as I have heard. When he was in his twenty-second year, the fame of his doctrine was spread to the four regions of the world, and many from every side began to come often to him, that they might become sharers of the treasures conferred on him by the Holy Spirit… This too has been handed down to memory about him. Five bishops at one time came together to him, to learn about his doctrine: for they thought that he uttered discourses not in the Spirit, but from worldly wisdom, just as they themselves did. They asked therefore that he give an extemporaneous discourse to them, intending to examine the soundness of his doctrine. For so it had been resolved by them, that if Jacob blurted out anything contrary to the orthodox faith delivered by the Fathers, they would not allow him to compose homilies or chants in the Church of God, but would reject and condemn him, so that his doctrine should in no way be received. But the Holy Spirit, who had chosen Jacob for the office of doctor, had taught him beforehand the orthodox rule of faith. Wherefore although in that assembly the modest man, according to his modesty, would not speak, yet the bishops and the very numerous people who had come together in the church of Batnan of Sarug compelled him to rise and to utter what they asked of him, he also fearing lest they should condemn him, indignant at this. He answered that he would obey what was said: "The homily which you ask of me I will speak." And all looked to the gate of the altar, and they saw there depicted the chariot which the admirable prophet Ezekiel beheld, and they asked him to discourse on this what he could…
[10] [Discoursing excellently and prophetically, if George is believed, he is praised and approved by them.] Then, having received a blessing from the venerable order of bishops, that simple man opened his mouth in the power of the Spirit, and cried out and proclaimed his doctrine with a great voice, before this people which was eager to hear his words: "Most High who sittest upon the unsearchable chariot, let a wondrous word about Thy greatness be composed by me." But soon, the exegetical poem being interrupted, he burst forth in these words, in which he deplored the capture of Amida, made known to him divinely: "Terrible messages and bitter rumours have disturbed my mind: do Thou, Lord, render peace to it by Thy words…" But the bishops interrupted him and said: "Why now do you entangle matters with matters? things which do not follow and are nothing to the purpose, for you are not now to speak of Amida." Yet that chosen man did not cease, and continued as one saddened on account of the devastations which had befallen Amida from the Persians: "Let the regions and their inhabitants mourn Amida, on account of the slaughters and the blood poured out in it." And he left that argument and returned to those things which the bishops had ordered, and he finished the discourse on the chariot. And behold, at once the destruction of Amida was announced to the bishops, and thereafter they believed Jacob. Then the distinguished man grew in the eyes of all, and the bishops greatly rejoiced over him and over his doctrine… And they commanded him not to neglect the gift conferred on him by God for good work, but to commit his doctrine to writing, that his sayings might profit the Church and all her sons. For until the bishops came together to examine him, he did not commit his doctrine to writing, but composed and never wrote down what he said, on account of his exceptional humility of mind and piety. Behold, we have offered to the reader nearly all that Assemani excerpted from George, the translation somewhat changed, because we think that poem the older document in which the life of St. Jacob is praised. The Anonymous and Gregory Barhebræus have the same more briefly.
[11] [But to all these things the right reckoning of the times is opposed; yet the judgment of the bishops is likely.] But certainly in all these things two matters are wholly to be distinguished: namely the first-fruits, so to say, of that wondrous faculty with which St. Jacob of Sarug was endowed in composing poems, and the part which he had in consoling those to whom the destruction of Amida was the greatest sorrow. The latter thing happened thirty years later. The former is more doubtful, although something true seems to be contained in that narrative. It is likely that Jacob's talent and poetic power were known from the first years of his youth,
that many things were uttered by him on sacred subjects; and when these had reached the ears of the bishops, they considered it their duty to inquire into the doctrine of the younger poet. For the times were most dangerous: and if in fact Jacob was twenty-two years old when he rendered an account of his doctrine to the bishops, these things more probably took place under Jacob's metropolitan, or perhaps bishop, Cyrus of Edessa, who burned with such hatred against the Nestorians that he appears to have fallen into the Eutychian heresy. He was therefore examined: he was found wholly free of the Nestorian heresy, which at that time especially, after the death of Ibas, long accused of Nestorianism, was offending a great part of the people of Edessa, and he was permitted to teach the people freely. All these things I should admit the more gladly because it is hinted by George himself clearly enough that that prophetic prodigy is recounted not by all, not by the author of his life, but by certain others, perhaps by that Teacher or Doctor whom he cites.
§ II. On the orthodoxy, deeds, episcopate, and works of St. Jacob.
[Inquiry is made into the orthodoxy of St. Jacob, which in the first times of his youth is not certain,] This is the place for us to inquire into the orthodoxy of St. Jacob, a matter surely beset with difficulties, if we were to resolve to discourse on his manner of acting through the whole course of his life, since the works, which it is necessary to use above all for passing judgment, are all but entirely unpublished. To few has it been given to turn over the documents of the dispute, and therefore many things are uncertain. For in estimating the opinions of authors and in investigating the sense of any book, all know how greatly the learned commonly disagree. But if we consider only the last years of St. Jacob of Sarug, his right faith could not be called into doubt without rashness, and thus it is an indication that his youth too was pure from heresy. It could certainly have come about that Jacob in his first times, carried away by the same fervour as Cyrus of Edessa, and withdrawing as far as possible from Nestorianism, conceded something to the contrary error. Which indeed someone might suspect, from that examination of his doctrine, carried out perhaps under the presidency of Cyrus, and from the approbation following it, the report of which would suffice to explain the opinions of the Jacobites and Nestorians about Jacob of Sarug. The Jacobites are persuaded that that doctor was opposed to the council of Chalcedon, and for that reason they recall his memory in the ecclesiastical office on four different days, as we saw at no. 1 of this Commentary.
[13] [Whom however, if Assemani does not vindicate him with sufficient success from the Jacobites] His authority is indeed brought forward by them quite often: he is said in Gregory Barhebræus to have been distinctly approved and received by Severus, patriarch of Antioch, the chief centurion of the Monophysites Bibl. Orient. vol. II, p. 321; compare Renaudot, vol. II, pp. 367 and 368.. Dionysius I of Telmahre, patriarch of the Jacobites, about the year 800, relates that St. Jacob was summoned by Paul, patriarch of Antioch, who at first refused to go because he had heard that he was held by the insanity of the two natures Ibid., pp. 298 and 299.. But since these things do not cohere well enough with one another, and what Dionysius wrote does not accord with the right order of the times, Assemani judges that he inserted these things imprudently into his Chronology. Almost the same reply is made to the anonymous writer of the end of the seventh century, who discourses on the affairs of Armenia in Combefis. For he confuses Jacob of Pitnan (of Botnan), whom he calls a heretic, with Jacob Zanzalus, the true father of the Jacobites Combefis, Auct. latter part, col. 275.. I know that a valid exception is opposed to Monophysite authors, because, following in this matter the other heretics, they seek everywhere patrons for their dogma and are not easily freed from the suspicion of falsifying codices [Evagrius Scholasticus, Eccl. Hist. book III, chapter 31; compare Labbe, vol. IV, col. 1766; Bibl. Orient. vol. III, p. 285, no. 34.]. But for the most part they try to enlist to their side older doctors, not more recent ones, who saw the rise of the new opinion, unless those who are conjectured either to have hesitated or not to have thought altogether rightly. I am surely surprised that from the works of St. Jacob, who wrote so many homilies, Assemani calls up so few things which plainly contradict Eutychianism, and these (it is my opinion) ambiguous Bibl. Orient. vol. I, pp. 290, 291, 307, 311, 322, 325, 326.. These things indicate a man who, in the times of the emperor Zeno, the author of the Henoticon, wavered between good and bad doctrines, or from too great a zeal for peace feared to assert the true doctrine openly. At any rate the ambiguous opinions of the letter to the abbot Samuel, which admit the Jacobite opinion Ibid., pp. 295 and 297., unless the codices are corrupted, no one will easily twist into a Catholic sense, not even Assemani himself.
[14] [His writings, when they have been published some day, will perhaps show that he was always whole.] The codices would have to be diligently turned over, that the clouds which surround the reputation of St. Jacob might be dispelled. Until his works are published and carefully examined, doubt about his first years will remain. It was easy to foist on him a whole homily against the Council of Chalcedon, whose title Assemani brings forward Ibid., p. 294.; but it cannot come about that the genuine sense of an author who wrote much should be so obscured by the corruption of the codices that it is by no means detected. One may care little, in judging the opinions of Jacob of Sarug, for the authority of the Nestorians, since they are accustomed to accuse even Catholic writers of a confusion of the natures in Christ. But in the case of which we are treating they have this peculiarity, that they narrate that Jacob turned aside from Nestorianism, in which he had been steeped in the Edessene school of the Persians (which in a Mesopotamian man is surprising), to the views of Severus. So Amrus son of Matthew, a writer of the 15th century, whom, as he is destitute of all proof, it is not even necessary to refute Ibid., vol. III, p. 384 and following; compare p. 585.. That the orthodoxy of the Syrians cannot easily be judged is shown by what happened in the case of Jacob of Edessa. For him, whom Giuseppe Assemani sharply defends, Stephen, a kinsman of this man, was compelled to leave wholly to the Monophysites Catalogue of the oriental manuscripts of the Medicean Library, pp. L and 109..
[15] But that Jacob held Catholic views for many years before his death is plain. But whatever may be thought, conjectured, or rather feared about the Syrian doctor's youth, he was without any controversy orthodox for many years before his episcopate. Of which thing the witness is the contemporary Joshua the Stylite, who it is established was a Catholic from the passages brought forward by Assemani Op. cit., vol. I, pp. 282 and 283., and who adorns Jacob with those praises which he would not have granted to a heretical man. The learned Maronite also appeals to the testimony of Isaac of Nineveh, the credit of which may rest with him, since he does not recite the words of Isaac. Add John Maron and the Maronites, on whom consult Assemani Ibid., pp. 290, 291, 392; compare p. 517.. More distinguished is what we find in a Greek book, of the seventh century as is more likely, On the difference of those who approach the most pure faith, asserted by an author who receives the Council of Chalcedon. It bears the name of Timothy, presbyter of Constantinople and sacristan at the church of the Mother of God in Chalcoprateia. For this reason Assemani assigns this little work to that Timothy the sacristan, who in the year 511 was by force and unjustly substituted for Macedonius, the orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, not heeding the notes of time which he himself supplies. For how could Timothy have made mention of St. Jacob, bishop of Batnan, before the year 511, namely more than eight years before he occupied the see of Batnan, Timothy who moreover died before the election of Jacob? It is a difficult work to define the age of a book which, according to the lot of ritual books, was enlarged by various persons for the necessities of the times. All those chapters which Cotelier published under one title are in all probability not later than the seventh century. And therefore an excellent argument for the orthodoxy of St. Jacob of Sarug is derived from this. It is contained in these words: Those who smite their heresy with anathema (that is, who are received into the church with only abjuration of the heresy) are these… The Eutychianists and their associate Dioscorus, and then Severus and Jacob, not that orthodox one of Batnan, but another, a heretic, etc. [Cotelier, Monumenta, vol. III, p. 396; compare the note, col. 626; Fabricius, Harles's edition, vol. VIII, p. 358 and following.]. But above all testimonies, for proving the purity of the faith of the bishop of Sarug, this pleases me, that he was raised to the episcopal dignity in the reign of the emperor Justin, when the Monophysites were being expelled from their sees. At the time when Paul, bishop of Edessa, metropolitan of the whole of Osrhoene and thus of the city of Batnan, was driven into exile Bibl. Orient. vol. I, pp. 409 and 410., surely there would not have been established not far from Edessa a new bishop, very well known from written books and favouring heresy. By this single reason it is plain that the bishop of Sarug for many years already before his episcopate wrote nothing alien to the Catholic faith. Add that, as will be set forth in the following number, for at least twenty years he had already by that time performed ecclesiastical functions in the same diocese. Let us await the edition of his Homilies, that, as I greatly desire, his whole life may be vindicated from the charge of error.
[16] In the region of Sarug Jacob first held the office of periodeutes, From the 22nd year of his age to the fiftieth, of what Jacob did nothing at all is delivered by the Syrian authors whom Assemani follows. But about the year 503 we see him adorned with a certain chief dignity in the church, as it appears, of Sarug. For thus at that year, having recounted the disaster of Amida and the flight of its inhabitants to the western parts of Syria, the contemporary author Joshua the Stylite continues in his Chronicle: But the venerable Jacob the periodeutes, who composed many discourses on the chapters of the scriptures, and wrote canticles and hymns on the locusts (which in the year 500 had devastated the region) Bibl. Orient. vol. I, pp. 21, 270 and 271., did not withdraw his hand from those things which became him, but he issued a letter of exhortation to all the cities, bidding them trust in the salvation of God, and exhorting that the inhabitants should not take to flight. That that periodeutes is the same as our Jacob is proved by the books which are said to have been written by him and by the authority of Gregory Abulpharagius Barhebræus, who, on the testimony of Assemani, frequently cites those poems on the locusts, not met with in Assemani's catalogue of the works of the man of Sarug [Ibid., p. 275, note 1, and p. 270, note 4; compare Abulpharagius, Dynastiæ, Oxford edition, p. 93 (Latin) and 148 (Arabic).]. But we also learn from the same Abulpharagius the region in which Jacob held the office of periodeutes: He was, he says in the Chronicle, periodeutes of Haura in Sarug Bibl. Orient. vol. II, p. 322.. Where Haura was situated Assemani did not know, and therefore in the index of the second volume he wrote a village of the region of Sarug. We know nothing more.
[17] Whose character is here briefly set forth, Further, on the offices of the periodeutes and of the chorepiscopi, who are akin to them, too much has already been disputed for the whole question
to be recalled to examination. What seem certain we shall comprise in few words. From the chorepiscopi, whom the council of Laodicea, canon 57, ordered in vain to be abolished, the periodeutes are to be distinguished, whose institution however appears to have been drawn up according to the prescription of this council. The power of the chorepiscopi was not always the same according to the diversity of places and times; but gradually diminished, it at length either vanished entirely with the name itself, as among the Greeks and Latins, or remained in name only, as among the Syrian Melchites and Nestorians. Among the Greeks the exarchs and protopapas, and among the Latins the archpriests and deans, succeeded them. And when the distinction of power between the periodeutes and the chorepiscopi was abolished, the former appellation fell. The Jacobites and Maronites are however to be excepted, who preserved the distinction of name and dignity, as I understand from Assemani Ibid., vol. III, part II, pp. 830 and 831.. But the office of the periodeutes, to return to our purpose, is most aptly shown by Balsamon in his Commentary on that canon: The periodeutes are certain overseers (ἔξαρχοι) promoted by the bishop. For they run about (περιοδεύουσι), they observe spiritual faults and absolve the faithful Beveridge, Pandectæ, vol. I, pp. 479 and 480.. For the rest, on all these matters consult Binterim Denkwürdigkeiten, vol. I, part II, p. 386 and following., Augusti Christliche Archäologie, vol. XI, p. 159 and following., Hefele, and other writers listed by them [Conciliengeschichte, at the council of Laodicea, canon 57, vol. I, p. 901, Arnheim edition.].
[18] [He was created in the year 519 bishop of the city of Batnan, which is now called Sarug.] After for a long time he had taught the church of Sarug by voice and writing, he was at length called to rule it in the sixty-eighth year of his age. Further, the city of Batnan, in the province of Osrhoene, a day's journey distant from Edessa, ten thousand paces according to the itinerary of Antoninus, known already in the time of Trajan Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. X, p. 119., and whose first known bishop Abramius was present at the first council of Constantinople Le Quien, Oriens Christ. vol. II, col. 971.. The fortress and walls which protected it from enemies, gradually weakened, especially after the year 505, in which it was captured by the king of the Persians, Cavades, at length recovered their former strength in the time of Justinian Ritter, op. cit., vol. XI, p. 288; Bibl. Orient. vol. I, pp. 278 and 284.. When St. Jacob ruled Batnan by episcopal authority, it was a city or, to use the very words of Procopius, a small town and of no importance, πόλισμα βραχὺ καὶ λόγου οὐδενὸς Procopius, On the Persian War, book II, chapter 12, p. 119, Paris edition.. Today the name of Batnan has vanished from common use, and in its place has come the appellation of the region itself over which the city of Batnan presides. For Sarug among the ancients was most certainly a region, not a city: for that reason many authors in Syriac have made mention of Batnan in Sarug; we have heard of Haura in Sarug mentioned above; Joshua the Stylite narrates that the Arabs invaded in Sarug Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 277.. In Turkish and Arabic they now call the city Serudj Ritter, vol. XI, pp. 290 and 291; Bayer, Historia Osrhoena, pp. 305 and 314..
[19] He refused to go to Paul of Antioch, as Dionysius the Jacobite relates, Of the episcopate of St. Jacob this alone is to be found in the books of the historians, which Dionysius of Telmahre relates in Assemani, who, wholly occupied in repelling the charge of the Jacobite heresy, does not notice that by the history of this time the disagreements of St. Jacob and Paul of Antioch are wholly confirmed. For what does Dionysius, a good and accurate author, as Assemani himself attests Op. cit., vol. I, p. 299., report? That by Paul, before he left Antioch, Mar Jacob, doctor and bishop of Batnan of Sarug, was summoned: who refused to set out there, because he perceived that Paul was not of sound faith. Take away these last words, which Dionysius the Jacobite wrote by way of opinion, persuaded that Jacob of Sarug stood on his side: there will remain the mention of the veneration which Paul showed toward Jacob, a man of sound faith in appearance, but of a character hardly worthy of a bishop. When Paul, a man hated by good and bad alike, was on the point of leaving Antioch, could not Jacob have hesitated in doubt? Let there be compared what Peter Bosch wrote about Paul in the Chronological History of the patriarchs of Antioch [Acta SS. vol. IV of July, pp. 93 and 94; Oriens Christ. vol. II, col. 731 and 732.], and the prudence of St. Jacob will be approved.
[20] Not to be so greatly blamed by Assemani in this matter. For when, so Dionysius continues, Paul nevertheless urged Jacob to come to him, the latter, prostrate before the altar, prayed thus with groans and tears: "Lord God, who knowest the hidden things of the heart, and searchest the reins and the heart: if Thou knowest that Paul is held by the insanity of the two natures, do not permit me to come into his sight." When therefore he had been compelled to go away, departing from the city of Batnan he turned aside into a certain monastery, which is called of the Persians, and is distant from Edessa six thousand paces. Spending the night there, he received a revelation of his departure, and was ordered to return to his own city. He without delay ordered those who were with him to prepare the beast quickly and to go back to the city, foretelling that death would follow after two days, all marvelling: and he at once made again for his city. When he had come there, he disposed by testament of the church and of all his doctrine (writings), and after two days he departed from this light. Dionysius certainly errs, who narrates that the death of Jacob happened a little after the departure of Paul. He followed in this matter what the crowd used to tell. Not for that reason however are all parts of this narrative to be rejected. Suppose that Paul, who gave up his see at the beginning of the year 521, asked Jacob to come to him, thinking that it would thus come about that he should have more favour and authority with all, concord being made with the most celebrated doctor. In the same year Jacob departed from this life, and his death, being joined in the memory of the people with the departure and perhaps even the death of Paul, gave some beginning to the opinions which the Chronicle of Dionysius has brought down to us.
[21] A few things finally are noted about the works of St. Jacob, There remains finally that we should discourse in few words on the works of St. Jacob. For who is able to speak of works still unpublished, whose codices are far away? Assemani compiled a series of all the writings of this author which he found, and annexed it to his notice of St. Jacob in the Bibliotheca Orientalis. But no one doubts that many things also lie hidden in codices, omitting those which have been lost by the injury of the times. We shall neither reproduce that catalogue, nor repeat the fragments of the poem of George, here several times cited, which pertain to the works of the blessed man. For all would be maimed and imperfect, accordingly useless to the learned, and full of tedium to others who have no care for searching codices. We shall note here only three things: first, that it may be that, among the works attributed to St. Jacob of Sarug, there may occur the Syriac copy of some discourse of St. Jacob of Nisibis. This at one time came into Assemani's mind, when he treated of the Nisibene, that nearly all the works enumerated by Gennadius would perhaps be found among the writings of Jacob of Sarug, their legitimate author Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 21.. How false this was he himself candidly acknowledged, when there was offered the wondrous agreement of the Armenian translation with the list of Gennadius Ibid., pp. 557 and 358.. The credit of the works of St. Jacob of Nisibis seems scarcely capable of being diminished. But the same cannot be said of St. Jacob of Sarug without a diligent sifting of the codices. Secondly we shall point out that the greatest part of the works of the holy bishop were written in bound speech in dodecasyllabic metre, each verse consisting of a triple tetrasyllable. That this kind of poem is properly called Jacobite among the Syrians is witnessed by Nairone Nairone, Euoplia fidei, pp. 50 and 51., Assemani Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 299 and elsewhere., and August Hahn Bardesanes gnosticus, p. 48.. But Fr. Pius Zingerle, who has communicated learned writings on the poetry of the Syrians to the German Oriental Society, from a little work of Stephen of Eden, calls the Jacobite metre tetrasyllabic, which does not differ much from the former opinion, since the dodecasyllable, divided by two cæsuras, always consists of three tetrasyllables Zeitschrift der D. M. G. vol. XVIII, p. 751.. Yet I think he speaks more rightly who calls Jacob's metre dodecasyllabic, examples of which are the two orations published by Cureton and the fragments of George in Assemani. Thirdly and finally, we shall note the whole little works of St. Jacob which we know to have been published outside the liturgical books. For I cannot collect the parts and fragments, since many books have been written a few years ago in which the opinions and authorities of the Syrians are brought forward, and which I know by name only. Besides the liturgy, however, which was published in Latin by Renaudot Liturgies, vol. II, p. 356., the rites of baptism and confirmation in Assemani's liturgical codex Cod. lit. vol. II, p. 309, and vol. III, p. 184., the metrical orations on Habib the martyr Ancient Syriac Documents, London 1864, p. 86. and on Guria and Shamuna Ibid., p. 96. by Cureton, and on Simeon the Stylite by Stefano Assemani Acta martyrum occidentalium, p. 230., published in Syriac and Latin, no whole little work of Jacob has been published.
[22] And on his fame, in which he scarcely yields to Ephrem himself. By so many orations, distinguished no more for diction than for sublimity of thought, the doctor soon seemed in the estimation of the Syrians inferior only to the great Ephrem. His homilies are read in the churches through the course of the year, and hence those are generally found in the codices which are included within the circle of the feasts. This indeed seems to have been the cause why not a few, always omitted by scribes, have perished. The holy Doctor in all likelihood began to be venerated in the ecclesiastical office not long after his death, and his memory attached itself to the memory of St. Ephrem, also a doctor and poet. Daily these two names are celebrated conjoined in the office of the Maronites and Jacobites. In the Mass indeed in these words common to both liturgies: Let us commemorate St. Jacob and St. Ephrem, most eloquent mouths and pillars of our holy church Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 55.. At Vespers of Sunday and of all solemn feasts, in the very metre of Jacob, the Maronites sing: Let there be recalled the memory of St. Jacob and of St. Ephrem, who was the lyre of the Holy Spirit Ibid., and Works of St. Ephrem, vol. I (Syriac), after the preface.. More magnificently still the Jacobites in the daily office, on the third weekday, with whose words we shall close this Commentary: *Two glorious luminaries have entered the holy church, bride of Christ, and have dwelt in her: St. Ephrem, the venerable old man, and St. Jacob
the doctor of Batnan of Sarug, a sea of knowledge. With their doctrine the earth has been filled, and the faith has been confirmed in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the threefold mystery* St. Ephrem, works, loc. cit., from the Roman edition of the office, p. 98..
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE LIFE OF ST. JACOB
by an anonymous Syrian author.
Jacob, bishop of Sarug. (S.)
aThe origin of Jacob, his wondrous infancy, doctrine, episcopate, and works. Saint Mar Jacob the Doctor, pipe of the Holy Spirit and lyre of the faithful Church, was from the village of Curtam on the river Euphrates, the son of the vows of faithful and sterile parents b. And when he was three years old, on one of the Lord's feasts [c], his mother went to church. And at the time when the oblation is made, and the Holy Spirit descends upon the mysteries d, Jacob broke from his mother's lap, and, bursting through the crowd, went to the table of life and received the Holy Spirit in three handfuls. From then he began to be fruitful in eloquence and doctrine. Soon the bishops heard of him and, rising, came to him to examine him e. And they ordered him to make a discourse on the chariot which Ezekiel saw f, and he said: "Most High who sittest upon the chariot of the heavenly minds" [g]. Then they commanded him to deliver his doctrine to the Church in writing. And he began to compose discourses and homilies in the church, at the age of twenty-two years. Later he was made bishop of Sarug, at the age of sixty-seven and a half years, in the year 830 of the Greeks, or 519 after the coming of the Messiah. And after he had filled the Church with the doctrine of life and flooded the whole world with outstanding homilies and interpretations, he departed to the Lord and was buried with a splendid funeral in his city of Sarug, in the year 832, on the 29th of the second Teschrin h. He lived seventy years: sixty-seven and a half before the episcopate, and two and a half in this dignity. We have found that his whole doctrine equals in bulk fifty prophets i: of homilies indeed seven hundred and sixty-three. The first homily is that which he wrote on the chariot, and the last, which he did not finish, on Mary and Golgotha k.
ANNOTATIONS.
The title of the discourse, which was written in the metre of Jacob, namely the dodecasyllable, or the tetrasyllable three times repeated, we gave at no. 5. The codex in which Assemani found it was written about the year of Christ 1100, in the monastery of the Syrians of St. Pisois in Scete, from the ancient manuscripts of the same place Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 565.. But in no other catalogue have I seen mention of this poem. It is read, as is said after the title, in the commemoration of the same Mar Jacob Ibid., p. 340.. It begins with these words:
Jesus, light whose rising gladdens all the ends of the earth,
Cause the light of Thy grace to rise upon my thoughts.
This life was published anew in Syriac in his Schola Syriaca by Fr. Johann B. Wenig, who also brought other fragments of St. Jacob into his book Schola Syriaca, Innsbruck 1866, pp. 43, 155 and following..
I do not know at all why in this place Assemani thought of blessed water taken up by the boy, than whom certainly no one could better understand the author's sense. Did he perhaps fear that an infant, to be illustrated one day by the praise of sanctity, might seem to have acted not reverently enough? Surely George does not name water, nor can it be supposed that the word was omitted by a printer's error in the Syriac text, since George's verse is complete with its triple tetrasyllable:
Wathloth khouphnen — bathloth zabhnin — eschti oph hou. And three handfuls — three times — he too drank.
In vain therefore does the learned Maronite discourse learnedly on the blessing of waters on the day of Epiphany, about which we have judged that we must be wholly silent here.
The beginning of this poem is found three times in Assemani's Bibliotheca: namely in the brief summary of the life itself, in the excerpts of George, and in the catalogue of metrical works, at number one. The first words are everywhere the same; the second verse varies, as will be plain to one comparing. Here are the first two verses from the catalogue:
Most High who sittest upon the unsearchable chariot,
Give me Thy word that I may proclaim on earth that Thou art without end.
In Nitrian cod. 5, which Assemani here cites, it is also noted: This discourse is the first of all the discourses of St. Mar Jacob. It exists also in Arabic Bibl. Orient. vol. I, p. 304..
This commentary being already printed, I hear that a Dissertation is being prepared in the University of Louvain, by which more about St. Jacob may become known. Of it we shall speak at the end of this volume, if it can be done.