The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine ed. by Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine ed. by Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze Scott Johnson The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine. Edited by Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze. (Oakland: University of California Press. 2020. Pp. x, 324. $95.00. ISBN: 9780520304147.) The fifth-century Life of Barsauma is one of the longest and most intriguing Syriac hagiographical texts to survive from Late Antiquity. Until this volume, only excerpts had been published in a modern language, by François Nau in French in [End Page 175] 1913/14. With this volume we now have, in addition to seven excellent chapters on the text, an English translation of the full work, made by Andrew Palmer (pp. 187–271), based on his forthcoming critical text of the Life. This book thus represents a fantastic success both in bringing the Life to a larger audience while also exploring some of the nuanced aspects of a largely unknown (or misunderstood) work. Toward the end of this book, Daniel Caner remarks in his chapter “Wandering Monks Remembered” that the Life of Barsauma is a “hagiographical masterpiece” (p. 151). Elsewhere, Jan Willem Drijvers, in his chapter “Barsauma, Eudocia, Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount,” calls it a “fascinating hagiographical report” (p. 103), and Günter Stemberger, in his chapter “Barsauma’s Travels to the Holy Land and Jewish History,” lauds its “consistently literary character” (p. 74). Almost across the board this book praises the high quality of this long Syriac text. At the same time, these scholars strike a discordant note: Stemberger calls the Life “pure fiction” (p. 88); Drijvers “predominantly fiction” and “a literary construct and a historical fabrication” (p. 103). Simon Corcoran, in his chapter “Barsauma and the Emperors,” puts it more delicately: “When [the author] gives sufficient details for his account to be checked, he is often found wanting” (p. 49). The Life of Barsauma is fascinating in a number of ways and repays close reading. It defies genre characterization, being structured by ninety-nine “signs” and not written with precise chronology in mind—its closest analogues would be the familiar miracle collections from the Greek world, of which we have no other examples in Syriac. In it we gain a full picture of one of the most rigorous fifth-century holy men of the vaunted Syriac tradition, a contemporary of Simeon the Stylite’s, and, according to Simeon himself in this Life, even more holy. He was a “chief of mourners (risha d-abile)” and achieved ascetic perfection (gmiruta), in technical Syriac parlance. But that full picture also includes close relationships with both the emperor Theodosius II and his empress Eudocia, four violent pilgrimages to Jerusalem, repeated assaults on Jews, pagans, and fellow Christians, and the complete destruction of a synagogue. The Life, therefore, claims a great deal for its saint that, if verifiable, would transform our understanding of the social category of holy man in Late Antiquity. Alas, much of the Life appears to have been written from thin air. Theodosius II certainly invited Barsauma the archimandrite to Ephesus II in 449, and he played a role there and at Chalcedon, where he was the only attendee to speak on the floor in Syriac (as we learn from the Acta). But his relationship to the imperial house and formal leadership in the Miaphysite movement were minimal. The anti-Judaism of the work is significant, but his direct actions against the Jews in Palestine cannot be proven and seem to be echoes of anti-Julian rhetoric which had a long half-life in Syriac. As Johannes Hahn explains in his excellent conclusion to this very stimulating volume, “What we can primarily gain from the Life is an artfully crafted image or rather remembrance of Barsauma the saint, not a representation of the historical person” (p. 172). The book (and Life) are, however, a goldmine for readers interested in the exploration of genre, Syriac ascetic categories, and, further, [End Page 176] how hagiographical tropes could, at times, serve to countenance violence in an age of doctrinal and social unrest. Scott Johnson...