Download PDF | Tommaso Tesei - The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate_ Apocalypticism at the Crossroads of Byzantium and Iran (Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity)-Oxford University Press (2023).
241 Pages
Acknowledgments
This book started by accident. I was writing another book (on the relationship between the Syriac legends of Alexander's gate and the Qur’anic story of Du-lQarnayn) when I realized that my previous assumptions about the dating and context of the Neshand d-Aleksandrés, a Syriac text prominently at the center of my analysis, were erroneous. My doubts, first confined to a footnote, soon claimed their place in the text. The footnote became a paragraph, the paragraph became a chapter, and the chapter became a monograph. This surprisingly fast and, honestly, painful, intellectual process could not have happened had I not been in the ideal circumstances.
Most ideas in this book were conceived during my stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where I found the most stimulating atmosphere and the best work conditions that a researcher can dream of. Iam deeply grateful to the Institute, and to Sabine Schmidtke in particular, for the opportunity that I was given. My stay at IAS was funded thanks to a Patricia Crone membership. Since I was a Ph.D. student, Patricia has represented a model for the scholar I want to be. Being awarded a fellowship in her memory was, and will remain, the highest honor of my academic life.
It is hard to find the words to express my deepest gratitude to David Powers, for his friendship and for his unreasonable generosity. During the past few years David has been a constant source of support and advice, and constantly provided invaluable help with his meticulous comments on my writings. So was also the case with the present book. He has read (twice!) the entire manuscript and offered a countless number of suggestions for improvements. It is largely his merit if this study is a bit less dense and garbled than what it used to be in its earliest stages.
I would not have written this book had it not been for my friend Stephen Shoemaker, whose observations on the origins of the Neshand made me hesitate for the first time about what I had until then considered as undisputable facts. Besides instilling doubts in my mind and demolishing my scholarly assumptions, Stephen is the best colleague. He has always been willing to discuss my ideas during the entire development of this book project, and I have enormously benefited from his feedbacks and comments. For these and other reasons, I thank him profusely.
The research in this monograph is heavily indebted to the work of those scholars who studied the Neshand d-Aleksandrés before me, and to Gerrit Reinink and Kevin van Bladel in particular. Both of these scholars have strongly influenced my way of doing research, teaching me, among other things, the importance of taking the risk of making hypotheses on the historical circumstances in which ancient texts were composed. Although I ended up disagreeing with the specific contextualization of the Neshand that Reinink and van Bladel advocate in their studies, their scholarship set a fundamental example for my own, and my intellectual debt to them is enormous.
Stefan Vranka and the project managers at Oxford University Press have helped me along the entire process, and the two anonymous reviewers have provided many insights from which I greatly benefited. Christopher Bonura has read a preliminary draft of this book and sent me several valuable comments that helped me in refining my ideas. Domenico Agostini, Guillaume Dye, Aaron Hughes, George Kiraz, and Sergey Minov took the time to read sections or chapters of this study and sent me useful feedback. Other scholars who contributed in various ways to the study included in this volume are Khodadad Rezakhani, Mario Casari, Andrea Piras, Lutz Greisiger, and Yuri Stoyanoy, as well as those who attended my presentations at the Near Eastern Studies Seminar at IAS in 2018-2019 and provided useful feedback for this book project, including Hasan Ansari, Marilyn Booth, Glen Bowersock, Martino Diez, Alejandro Garcia-Sanjuan, Christian Mauder, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Johannes Pahlitzsch, Michele Salzman, and Nukhet Varlik. The Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII (Fscire) has given me the rare opportunity of holding a two-day seminar, during which I could present, and receive feedback on, many of the ideas presented in this monograph. I am grateful to all these colleagues and friends for their help and support.
Although this book is largely the product of my most recent research activity, my work on the Syriac Alexander texts started almost fifteen years ago, during my MA studies in Paris, and continued throughout my doctoral studies in Rome and Paris, and my five-year-long postdoctoral experience in Jerusalem. I am particularly grateful to Aboubakr Chraibi, for his wise guidance and mentorship over the period of my education at INALCO. I should like to thank Prof. Gabriel Motzkin and Dr. Leonard Polonsky, who conceived and realized the visionary project of the Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, where I could pursue my research after obtaining my Ph.D. degree. My current institution, the Duke Kunshan University, has provided a friendly environment in which to finalize the redaction of this monograph. I am grateful to the many colleagues, friends, and students who have made my new life in China so interesting and enjoyable. In particular, I would like to thank Kolleen Guy, James Miller, Ben Van Overmeire, and, last but not least, my brilliant and talented student Hajra Farooqui, who has a bright future ahead of her. I also wish to thank my parents, Isabella Cipriani and Alberto Tesei, who over the years have patiently observed their son making life decisions that took him further and further away from home.
This book was written over the course of four years. It was a particularly hectic period, marked by an unusual concentration of significant life events, including three relocations to three different continents, one of which happened in the middle of the global pandemic. Saying that completing a book in those circumstances was a challenge would be an understatement. Certainly, I would not have been able to achieve that goal had I not had some extraordinary companions at my side, my wife Marie Malka Shalev, who left her country and career to follow me in this journey, and our four, very much loved, dogs, Hutch, Ox, Pudding, and April, who filled my life outside the academia with joy (and chaos!).
This book is dedicated to the memory of my beloved professor, Angelo Arioli, who passed away a few months before its publication. The encounter with him was one that indelibly marked my life, instilling in me the love for research that turned a confused nineteen-year-old student into an aspiring scholar. Among the many memories of him that I greatly cherish, Prof. Arioli was the first one who talked to me about Du-l-Qarnayn, sparking in me the curiosity that ultimately led me to write this book.
Tommaso Tesei Budapest, June 1, 2023.
Introduction
In 1889, Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge published The History of Alexander the Great, Being the Syriac Version of the Pseudo Callisthenes, which includes critical editions and translations of four Syriac texts containing stories about Alexander the Great.’ The longest of these texts is a Syriac version of Ps.Callisthenes’s Alexander Romance. The other three works are two anonymous, medium and short-length, prose narratives, and a metric homily spuriously attributed to Jacob of Serugh (d. 521 cg). The present study focuses on the first and longer of the two prose narratives, which Budge called A Christian Legend concerning Alexander, but whose original title is Neshand d-Aleksandros, literally “the victory of Alexander.” Western scholars often refer to this text as the Syriac Alexander Legend. This denomination has resulted in confusion between the latter and the Syriac adaptation of the Alexander Romance. To avoid misunderstandings, in this monograph I will use an abbreviated form of the Syriac title and will use Neshdnd to refer to the work in question.
The confusion between the Neshand and the Syriac Alexander Romance is related to the fact that the Neshand d-Aleksandros has been overlooked by scholars. At present, since Budge’s 1889 work, no new critical edition or English translation of the Syriac text has been produced?—although a French translation has recently been published by Georges Bohas.* No monographic study dedicated to this text has been produced, and many aspects of the Neshand are misunderstood by scholars. The several articles published by Gerrit Reinink between the 1980s and the early 2000s on the topic of the Syriac Alexander texts are surely an invaluable step forward in the analysis of the Neshand, and recent studies by Kevin van Bladel and Lutz Greisiger have refined our knowledge of the Syriac work.* However, despite their valuable contribution to the study of the Neshand, these studies embrace a theory which I myself advocated in previous studies? but that I now consider to be fundamentally wrong, namely that the text was composed during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641). One goal of the present work is to rectify current scholarly views about the dating and contextualization of the Neshana.
Setting the Syriac work in a well-established historical context and determining the exact period and circumstances in which this work was composed is an important endeavor. The Neshdna is a seminal text for later Christian and Muslim apocalyptic traditions. It contains the earliest recorded versions of literary motifs that would become central to the medieval apocalyptic tradition— the most notable being the motif of the gate erected by Alexander against Gog and Magog (hence the title of this book). The Neshana also represents an early witness to an influential political ideology that guided both Byzantine and early Islamic imperial policies. At the same time, the Neshdnd had an important impact on literary sources that are crucial to our understanding of the rise of Islam. Indeed, the Neshdand influenced (directly or indirectly) other Syriac works that provide invaluable information about Christian reactions to early Islamic expansionism—for example, the Apocalypse of Ps.-Methodius. In addition, the Alexander story, as told in the Syriac text, inspired the famous Qur’anic pericope on Da-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83-102), and some scholars—including myself—have argued that the Neshdnd is the source of this Quranic passage.° For all these reasons, a critical study of this text will illuminate key cultural and religious trends in Late Antiquity.
While the scholarly consensus commonly dates the Neshdnd to the time of Heraclius, in this study I show that an earlier version of the text was produced during the reign of Justinian I (1. 527-565). This new historical contextualization of the Neshand enables me to better delineate the development of late antique, politicized forms of apocalypticism, which assign to the Christian Roman Empire the task of establishing a cosmocratic rule in view of Jesus's Second Coming. I argue that the Neshand d-Aleksandros played a decisive role in shaping this apocalyptic ideology. At the same time, by analyzing the contents and the ideology of the text, I hope to contribute to our understanding of the origins and developments of important literary motifs of medieval literature worldwide, like the characterization of Alexander as a pious prophet-king (in both Christianity and Islam alike), and the story of the gate that he erected to confine the eschatological nations of Gog and Magog.
I also hope to shed light on lesser-known aspects of political debates in the sixth-century Near East. Against the current scholarly wisdom, I argue that the author of the Neshana did not celebrate the Byzantine emperor, but rather criticized him and his policies. By portraying the hero of his legend— Alexander—in ideal terms, the author sought to draw attention to Justinian’s shortcomings. This new reading of this Syriac apocalypse offers historians a valuable insight into important aspects of Justinian’s reign, as seen by an author who was not on the emperor’s payroll. In this regard, my study provides a new approach to aspects of political debates in sixth-century Byzantine society that have been marginalized.
Readers familiar with my previous studies may be surprised (or disappointed) by my lack of engagement with the influence of the Neshdnd on the story of Du1-Qarnayn, and the Neshdna’s significance for the study of the emergence of the Qur’anic corpus. This is a deliberate choice. The present study focuses on the
Syriac text and on historical circumstances in the mid-sixth century cE. The few references to Du-l-Qarnayn will mainly be placed in footnotes, except for some brief remarks in the conclusion. It goes without saying that the question of the impact of the Neshana on the Quranic pericope deserves a thorough investigation, especially in light of the new insights that I provide in this work. I hope to dedicate a specific study to this topic in the future.
Book Structure, Annotated Contents, and Note on Transliterations
The book is divided into ten chapters, which are organized into two main parts. Part I (Chapters 1-6) is mostly aimed at revising earlier scholarship on the Neshana d-Aleksandros and at determining the historical context in which the Syriac work was originally composed. Part II (Chapters 7-10) analyzes specific themes and motifs in the Neshdnd at the light of the newly established historical context. Because of the character of the current analysis—which involves a broad variety of literary and material sources from the historical environment in which the Neshand was composed—the book includes several excursuses. Consequently, the reader might find some passages to be conceptually dense. The following annotated contents are meant to facilitate the navigation through these occasional complexities.
In Chapter 1, I describe the manuscript tradition of the Neshand d-Aleksandros. I present the Alexander story as narrated in the Syriac work and the sources that the author used to compose his narrative. I also explore the geography behind the episode of Alexander’s gate, as this is an important element to determine the Syriac author’s historical and political context.
In Chapter 2, I review earlier scholarship on the Neshand, with special attention to the debate over whether or not the Syriac work is a seventh-century composition.
In Chapter 3, I demonstrate, by means of philological analysis, that the only passage in the text that clearly indicates a seventh-century dating—a prophecy referring to events that occurred between 626 and 629 cE—is in fact an interpolation within an earlier composition dating to the end of the reign of Justinian. This interpolation—I argue—demonstrates that several decades after its composition, the Syriac work was modified in order to connect it to new historical circumstances, and possibly to the widespread belief in the Byzantine world that the ideal emperor described in the Neshdana had returned in the figure of Heraclius.
In Chapter 4, I demonstrate that the author of the Neshand uses the episode of the eschatological gate erected by Alexander to address two major points of controversy between the Byzantine and Sasanian empires at the time of Justinian and Khosrow Andshirvan: (1) their dispute over the control of the Caucasian mountain passes (traditionally identified as the semi-mythical Caspian Gates); and (2) the war between the two empires for the possession of the kingdom of Lazica. These disputes between the two rival empires provide the political framework for the author’s elaboration of the story of Alexander's gate. I relate the author’s engagement with contemporary issues to broader political debates in the Byzantine world during the reign of Justinian. I point out that, while producing a unique representation of thorny political controversies, the Neshana d-Aleksandros reflects concerns and positions that are expressed in the works of several contemporary authors.
In Chapter 5, I explore the section of text about the war between Alexander and his Persian rival, Tubarlaq. Against many previous scholars, I demonstrate that themes and topoi adopted by the Syriac author do not relate to a specific understanding of the notion of holy war in the seventh century. In fact, I show that the Neshdnd conforms to literary trends observable in earlier Christian texts. Then, I demonstrate that the peace agreements between Alexander and the Persian king Tabarlaq described in the Neshanéd reflect the reality of RomanPersian peace treaties in the sixth century—not the seventh century, as claimed by many scholars. By formulating an idealized version of the peace contracts stipulated by Justinian and Khosrow Andshirvan, the Syriac author criticizes the Byzantine policy of buying peace with gold. I connect the author’s criticism of Justinian to broader dissatisfactions in the Byzantine world with the emperor's poor achievements in the conflicts with the Persians. I also demonstrate that the author’s criticism of Justinian has a close parallel in the work of another sixthcentury Syriac writer, that is, the anonymous author of the Julian Romance. Then, I analyze a prophecy uttered by Tubarlaq at the end of the Neshdnd and argue against the view that this prophecy echoes themes of Heraclius’s war propaganda. Finally, I address the unsolved problem of Tubarlaq’s identity and offer a new solution for this question.
In Chapter 6, I situate the figure of Alexander in the Neshdna in relation to the well-known phenomenon of the imitatio Alexandri, adopted by Roman historiographers and imperial propagandists to relate Eastern, “Persian,” campaigns led by Roman generals and emperors to the glorious antecedent of Alexander's war against the Achaemenid Empire. I highlight the political connotations of the image of Alexander as a kosmokrator in the mid-sixth century. Through this peculiar characterization of Alexander, the Syriac author not only expressed his anti-Sasanian feelings, which culminate in Alexander's prophecy about the imminent collapse of the Sasanian Empire, but also criticized Justinian for his inability to repeat Alexander's glorious deeds against the Persians and for his poor achievements in the conflict against the Sasanian enemy. In the Neshana the figure of Alexander is thus a nemesis of the Byzantine ruler. I also note the parallel between the Neshdnd and the Julian Romance, drawing attention to similarities between the characterizations of Alexander and Jovian in the two works—both of which criticize Justinian.
In Chapter 7, I analyze the peculiar and unprecedented characterization of Alexander as a pious (Christian) prophet-king and as the founder of the Roman Empire, envisaged as an eschatological agent. I argue that the figure of the Christian, apocalyptic, Alexander in the Syriac work is rooted in the hermeneutics of the Danielic prophecies (Dan 2, 7, and 8) developed by Christians in both the Byzantine and Sasanian empires to situate the two empires in the framework of God’s plan for human salvation. I emphasize the parallels between the Neshdand and the conceptualization of Alexander’s kingdom in Aphrahat’s (d. 345 cE) hermeneutic of Daniel. Finally, I argue that a better understanding of the ideology and concepts behind the elaboration of the Syriac Alexander helps us to better understand the development of the story of Alexander's eschatological gate. I demonstrate that some of the main features of the episode of the gate are embedded with a symbolism that relates to the author’s readings of the Danielic prophecies and to his views on the role of Alexander’s empire in sacred history.
In Chapter 8, I study the apocalyptic ideology presented in the Neshana dAleksandros and its relationship to pro- and anti-imperial sentiments in earlier literature. I highlight the Syriac author’s unprecedented emphasis on the eschatological role of the Roman Empire and on his innovative conceptualization of Byzantium as a kingdom destined to establish a Christian cosmocracy in preparation for the return of the Messiah and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. At the same time, I emphasize the connection between the apocalyptic vision articulated in the Neshdna and that outlined two centuries earlier in Aphrahat’s Demonstrations. I argue that the author of the Neshand expanded upon the antiSasanian character of Aphrahat’s reading of Daniel not only as a consequence of the renewed hostilities between the two empires, but also in reaction to increasing rapprochement between the Sasanian crown and the Church of the East. My reading of sixth-century sources indicates that contemporary Persian Christians developed an understanding of Daniel’s apocalyptic visions that sought to confer upon the Sasanian Empire a special role in sacred history and a dignity equal to that attributed to the Roman Empire by Byzantine authors. In reaction to these trends current among Persian Christians, I argue, the author of the Neshand developed his highly politicized and militant hermeneutic of Daniel 2,7, and 8—which predicts the collapse of the Sasanian kingdom.
In Chapter 9, I analyze the first part of the prayer that Alexander addresses to God at the beginning of the Syriac work, with special attention to the motif of Alexander’s horns in the Neshdand. This motif emerges from ancient iconographic representations of Alexander crowned with ram horns—as in the effigies of the Greco-Egyptian god Zeus-Ammon. Unlike late antique Christians, who typically displayed hostility toward this pagan symbolism, the author of the Neshana christianizes the image of the horned Alexander by reading it through the lens of biblical texts—among which is the Book of Daniel. As I show, the author uses the motif of Alexander’s horns to formulate an innovative hermeneutic of the Danielic vision of the ram and the he-goat in Daniel 8. This hermeneutic results in the attribution of an apocalyptic value to the ancient horn symbolism. I argue that this literary operation is related to the author's willingness to address contemporary political circumstances, especially Byzantine-Sasanian relationships. Through a sophisticated combination of biblical and Classical traditions, the Syriac author transforms the ancient representation of the horned Alexander into an element of his anti-Sasanian polemic.
In the final chapter, I address the second part of Alexander’s prayer, specifically the king’s surrender of his crown and throne as a ceremonial act prior to the return of the Messiah. I compare this motif to the well-known Last Roman Emperor legend, and I compare the passage in the Neshdna with sections from the Apocalypse of Ps.-Methodius and the so-called Tiburtine Sibyl where the Last Emperor theme appears. I argue that the Neshdna contains the first recorded version—although in an embryonic stage—of this legend. I connect the scene of the surrender of the crown and throne in the Neshdana to late antique allegorical representations of the idea of translatio imperii, by means of the symbols of the heavenly crown and the throne of the kosmokrator. I argue that the Syriac author draws upon this semiotic universe to again express the idea that Rome was destined to become a cosmocratic power with the goal to rebut representations of Persian dynasts as universal kings.
Ihave limited as much as possible the use of non-Latin characters and have included passages from the Syriac text of the Neshand only when I considered their inclusion beneficial to the analysis. In transliterating Syriac words and sentences I preferred to leave the transliterations unvocalized. I have vocalized words and sentences only when they occur within the body of the text, with the aim of not disrupting the fluidity of the reading. Unless otherwise stated, translations of the Neshand are mine. A new English translation of the full Syriac work is provided in Appendix 1 at the end of the book. I have occasionally included in the chapters excerpts from that translation whenever the analysis required a more direct access to the translated text.
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