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Another Treatise of Aphrahat the Persian Sage in Ethiopic Translation a Short Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

T. Baarda
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Extract

In 1964, Enrico Cerulli published a treatise On the Resurrection of the Dead which he had found in Ms. Palat. Orient. 148 of the Bibliotheca Mediceo–Laurenziana at Florence. The text of this treatise turned out to be a very important theological treatment of the final resurrection. Since the text dated from the fourteenth century, it was thought that it would shed some fresh light on the theological discussions of the Ethiopian church of that age. The treatise deals with an existing heresy which called in question certain orthodox opinions with respect to resurrection. Therefore, Cerulli concludes, there must have been a group of people which had spread heretical ideas with respect to the doctrine concerning resurrection in Ethiopia at that time; and he suggests that they may have been connected with a gnostic movement which, it can be demonstrated, existed in Ethiopia during the fourteenth century. I am not qualified to judge the correctness of the theological Sitz im Leben which Cerulli gives to this text. Whether or not the Ethiopic text gives us a clue to a better understanding of the historical conditions of the Ethiopian Church in that period, I am not able to decide. What I wish to demonstrate in this short note is that from another angle Cerulli's publication is most welcome.

Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 5 , October 1981 , pp. 632 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

[1] Cerulli, E., ‘De Resurrectione Mortuorum’ opusculo della chiesa Etiopica del sec. XIV, in Mélanges Eugéne Tisserant II, ‘Orient chrétien’, lère partie (StT 232) (Città del Vaticano, 1964), pp. 1–27.Google Scholar

[2] Cerulli, E., a.c., p. 1 f.Google Scholar

[3] Cerulli, E., a.c., p. 2 f.Google Scholar

[4] Baarda, T., The Gospel Quotations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage I, Aphrahat's Text of the Fourth Gospel (Amsterdam, 1975), pp. 160–6 (= § 68).Google Scholar

[5] Baarda, T., o.c., pp. 115–18 (= § 37), esp. p. 117 f.Google Scholar

[6] Demostration of the Resurrection of the Dead, Parisot, cf. J., Aphraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes (PS I:1–2) (Paris, 1894–1907), spec. I:1, pp. 361–406.Google Scholar

[7] Cerulli, E., a.c., 25(end)-26(line 5), translation; for the text, cf. a.c., 13(end)-14(line 10).Google Scholar

[8] Dem. VIII:14;Google Scholar for the text Parisot, cf. J., o.c., p. 388, lines 5–16.Google Scholar

[9] Similar changes are e.g. ‘Signore’ (loco ‘Deus’), ‘Spirito santo’ (loco ‘spiritus’), ‘Apostolo Paolo’ (loco ‘beatus apostolus’).

[10] Parisot, J., o.c., p. 387:7–8.Google Scholar

[11] Cf. Clement's reference to the Secret Mark in which a youth has been raised by Jesus: He went into the tomb, stretched forth his hand and raised him, κοατήσας τĪ χεóς, Smith, cf. M., Clement of Alexandria and a secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Mass., 1973). p. 452 (line 3 f.) and p. 109 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[12] Baarda, Cf. T., o.c., p. 163.Google Scholar

[13] We may also mention line 21, which looks like a synoptic combination: visse (cf. MatthewMark v. 1): (ήγέρθη) and risorse (cf. Mark-Luke: άνέοτη). Was this formulated under the influence of line 13? The order is, however, different from that in line 13. Another difference is found in line 23 (+ di lui, Eth) and line 28 (+ his, Syr.).

[14] The reading of Ms. B; Ms. A omits it) seems to me the original one; it is now supported by the Ethiopic text.

[15] Or can we trace in this haplography the influence of a current Gospel text in the time of the Syrian copyists?

[16] The Ethiopic tract ends at Parisot, J., o.c., p. 393 line 17, whereas the Syriac treatise ends at page 406 (line 21).Google Scholar

[17] Wright, W., The Homilies of Aphraates, the Persian Sage, edited from Syriac manuscripts of the fifth and sixth Century in the British Museum (London, 1869), p. 156:3–5.Google Scholar

[18] Parisot, J., o.c., p. 365:10–13.Google Scholar

[19] Parablepsis: ?

[20] Did his text contain instead of which the then was wrongly read as ?

[21] Baarda, Cf. T., o.c., pp. 115–18 (§ 37).Google Scholar

[22] Vogels, H.J., Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine (Freiburg i. Br., 4 1955), p. 304 app.Google Scholar

[23] Parisot, J., o.c., p. 365:15–18;Google Scholar the Ethiopian translator did not understand his Syriac copy at this point, for he writes ‘Ed ancora circa quel che tu dici che verrà un ’ora e quando i morti avranno sentito la parola del Figlio dell'uomo usciranno dalle lore tombe, …’. The Ethiopian text misses the phrase ‘and will live’ (Baarda, Cf. T. o.c., p. 117). Does this text imply that it lacked the phrase ‘and now it is’? The fact that the ‘and’ has been preserved (e quando) in the Ethiopic text according to the translation of Cerulli leads me to suspect that the words ‘is now’ have disappeared in quando. This suspicion is strengthened by the fact that Cerulli was not aware that there was a quotation of John 5. 25 in the text.Google Scholar

[24] Wright, W., o.c., p. 157, nota c.Google Scholar

[25] Parisot, J., o.c., p. 367 f., nota ad line 9.Google Scholar

[26] The reference in lines 1–8 is to 1 Cor. 15. 29, έпεè τί пοιήσονσω οì βαпτόμενοι пέρ τών νεκρών; εΙ λως νεκροì ούκ έγεΙρονραι, τί καì βαпτίςονται ύпèρ αύτών; It is strange that Parisot finds this text only in lines 1–5, whereas the remaining words (Parisot: ‘as quid illi pro eis baptizantu’, lines 6–7) are not printed in italics, indicating that it is not a quotation. Kerschensteiner, J., Der altsyrische Paulustext, CSCO 315, Subs. 37 (Louvain, 1970), p. 55, who rightly renders with ‘illi, qui baptizantur pro eis’ and acknowledges these words as a quotation (cf. 130), does not render the text as a whole in the most adequate way, ‘Quid facient illi, qui baptizantur pro mortuis, si mortui enim non surgunt. Illi… etc.’ The ‘enim’ may tell us that we have to render ‘Si mortui enim non surgunt, illi – cur baptizantur pro eis’. One cannot say that the translator's Syriac copy was influenced by the text of the Pešitṭā (omitt. ), for in that case his text would have read also ‘pro mortuis’ instead of ‘pro eis’.Google Scholar

[27] Bibi. Nat. Paris., Cod. Aeth. 146,Google Scholar fol. 245v–252r (text edited by Pereira, E., Jacobi Episcopi Nisibeni Homilia de Adventu Regis Persarum adversus Urbem Nisibis, in: Orientalische Studien Theodor Nöldeke gewidmet (1906), pp. 877–92).Google Scholar See also the short comparison of ThureauDangin, F. reported by Parisot, J., o.c., pp. xxxix-xl, whose general opinion about the relation of the Ethiopic and Syriac texts of Demonstration V applies also to their relation in Demonstration VIII: ‘Aethiopicae versionis auctor a textu Syriaco in nonullis discedit, sive quod aliquid omittit, sive quod alia allis verbis explicat, quo sensus interdum legenti clarior, saepius vero deterior evadit’ (o.c., p. xl).Google Scholar

[28] British Museum, Cod. Orient. 818, fol. 187r–191r; Pereira, cf. E., o.c., p. 877, n. 1.Google Scholar

[29] Parisot, J., o.c., pp. 183–238; a closer examination of the Ethioptic text of this tract is desirable.Google Scholar