Shroro

The Syriac Orthodox Christian Digest - November, 2005

Syriac Art Influence on British and Irish MSS

By Fr. Dale A. Johnson

A monk named Rabbula with at least four assistants created a Syriac illuminated Gospel in 586 AD. A notation at the end of the MS reads: "This book has been written and finished in the holy convent of Bet Mar Yohannan of Zagba in the days of the lover of God, Sergius, presbyter and abbot this convent, and of the monks Thomas, Thomas [?] and of the martyr presbyters and of Ahbeshab and Tatqana and Damian, deacons and of all other brothers with them in Christ.

Although written in a monastery in the region of Mesopotamia near Edessa, the design features of the MS appear in manuscripts in the British Isles soon thereafter. The MS of Rabbula obviously drew from a deeper inconographic tradition, perhaps back to the second century. It is this artistic source that lies behind the Syriac Rabbula Gospels, and the illuminated MSS of Britain and Ireland including the Book of Lindisfarne, the Anglo-Saxon Book of Durrow, and the Irish Book of Kells. The emphasis upon the Eusebian tables in the Rabbula MS suggest the source of their inspiration.

The illuminations appear at the front of the Rabbula manuscript in a single gathering of 14 folios. The subject-matter includes two dedicatory scenes (fols 1v, 14r); five author portraits (of Eusebios and the four Evangelists; fols 2r, 9v–10r). The ten Eusebian canon tables are spread over 19 leaves (fols 3v–12v). A total of 29 New Testament subjects are distributed in 24 small scenes flanking the canon tables (fols 3v–9r, 10v–12v. The care given to the Eusebian tables is powerful evidence of the artistic source.

Tatian developed a Gospel Harmony (2nd c.) known as the Diatesseron. Ammonius of Alexandria (3rd c.) is believed to have developed the Diatesseron of Tatian (2nd c.) by adding titles or headings to each section of the Harmony that he called canons. These titles and pericopes were broken down even further and were taken by Eusebuis (4th c.) and developed into lists of comparisons to prove that there were no contradictions between the gospels. He showed the harmony of the gospels by demonstrating every place where they agreed. He did this in a series of ten tables of comparison. He writes to Carpianus about his system.

Eusebius to Carpianus, (my) beloved brother in the Lord. Greetings.

Ammonius the Alexandrian, through truly much labor and zeal, presented to us the Fourfold Harmony set in order next to the Gospel According to Matthew were the similar-sounding pericopes of the rest of the Evangelists, with the inevitable result that the continuing sequence of the three was utterly destroyed concerning the interconnection of readings.

But so that, while preserving entire the rest of the whole and the sequence, you may know the proper place in each Evangelist in which each is guided by love of truth to say like another, taking a starting-point from the work of the above-mentioned man, I have formed for you ten lists in total, attached below.

Of these, the first contains numbers in which similar things were said by the four: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (agree). The second, in which the three: Matthew, Mark, Luke (agree). The third, in which the three: Matthew, Luke, John (agree). The fourth, in which the three: Matthew, Mark, John (agree).The fifth, in which the two: Matthew, Luke (agree). The sixth, in which the two: Matthew, Mark (agree). The seventh, in which the two: Matthew, John (agree). The eighth, in which the two: Luke, Mark (agree). The ninth, in which the two: Luke, John (agree). The tenth, in which each of them wrote in his own manner (agree).

The Eusebian Tables were quite popular in both the East and West. But they seem to hold special favor in the Syriac Gospel MSS. The letter of Eusebius to Carpianus is framed in a decorative palmate border. This illumination of the text was an artistic tradition flowing from the Diatesseron. We know this from a report about a copy of the Diatesseron made in the 16th century in Tur Abdin (in present day southeast Turkey) and brought to Rome by an Armenian bishop. The manuscript found its way to Florence where it was recently studied by Danish art historian Carl Nordenfalk, who is a specialist in Celtic manuscripts. When he later examined an illuminated Celtic gospel books,he saw similarities in the illuminations of the ancient copy of the Diatessaron and the later 7th to 10th century Celtic Gospels..

For example, in the Book of Durrow the emblems of the Evangelists precede each gospel as in Diatessaron. He also noticed that the palmate borders which we generally associate with Celtis knots was preceeded by the Syriac art form evidenced in the Rabbula Gospels. Maybe they should be called Diatesseron Knots that suggest the weaving together of the Gospel pericopes. The Book of Durrow was composed only a few years after the Rabbula Gospels in the last decade of the sixth century, yet their illuminations are remarkably similar. It is believed to be the first figurative painting in British art. 

This same tradition in figurative illumination of manuscripts appears again in a slightly later manuscripts, the Gospel of Willibrord and again on the front page of the Book of Kells.

I believe that the illuminated Gospels of the British Isles drew from the same artistic source as the Rabbula Gospels. We now know there was extensive contact between the Syriac and Coptic east, sources if the illuminated art, and the British Isles. In a letter to king Charlemagne of France, the English monk Alcuin named the Celtic fathers pueri egyptiaci or the children of the Egyptians. The Celtic fathers looked upon St. Anthony as their pattern in asceticism. In the seventh century Antiphony of the Irish monastery of Bangor loud we read, This house full of delight Is built on the rock. And indeed is the true wine transplanted out of Egypt. 

Seven Coptic monks of Egypt are reported to have lived in Disert Uilag in west Ireland and are remembered in the Irish Litany of the Saints as witnesses of the close contact between the Western and Eastern Church.

Theodore of Tarsus, who knew Syriac, was the seventh Archbishop of Canterbury, and his books brought the teachings of the Syriac school of Antioch to Anglo-Saxon Britain. I believe these books seeded the artistic imagination of the British Isles.

While the illuminated texts of the Syriac and Coptic traditions preceded the Irish and English MSS, the latter developed the illuminated text tradition with unrivaled genius.