Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East онлайн

233 страница из 236

Greco-Roman themes did not disappear from the Syriac literature of the following centuries; here, they often intersected the patterns in which Syriac speakers wrote and re-wrote their own past (Wood 2010, 2012). In the aftermath of Emperor Julian’s defeat in 363 CE, Ephrem the Syrian composed four hymns (madrashe) Against Julian; they describe, in condemnatory terms, the reign of Julian and the Roman surrender of Nisibis (Ephrem’s own homeland) as part of the peace deal with the Sasanians; as a result of this event Ephrem emigrated to Edessa, which remained under Roman control. The hymns are often described as vivid invectives written by somebody who had direct experience of the events narrated and contain important historical information (for instance on Julian’s bull coinage). Perhaps paradoxically, however, in these hymns Ephrem presents Nisibis as a bulwark of paganism, a city that, under Julian’s government, opted to set up idolatrous cults within its walls; in Ephrem’s view, the eventual surrender of Nisibis to the Sasanians was just retribution for its own paganism (Griffith 1987). Another especially notable text dealing with Julian, and known as the Julian Romance, is a composite narrative about the reigns of Emperors Julian (361–363) and Jovian (363–364) that strongly condemns Julian and his persecution of Christians. The Julian Romance was likely redacted in early sixth-century Edessa, whose cultural and religious concerns it reflects; it shares some of the aims of the Teaching of Addai in presenting Edessa as an orthodox stronghold standing in stark contrast to the cities of Harran, Antioch, and Constantinople. The pagan emperor Julian is depicted as an enemy to Christianity, aligned with his Jewish allies, and characterized as the Chalcedonian Justinian in Constantinople (Wood 2010); themes found in the Julian Romance emerged again in later Syriac literature, including an important strand of apocalyptic literature represented by the late seventh-century Ps.-Methodius (Butts 2011a).