Reclaiming Narsai’s <i>Mēmrā of the Feast of the Victorious Cross</i>Hugoye: Journal of Syriac StudiesSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/YPMIJKTB/tei
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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Aaron MichaelButtsReclaiming Narsai’s <i>Mēmrā of the Feast of the Victorious Cross</i>http://syriaca.org/cbss/YPMIJKTBhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/YPMIJKTBhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/YPMIJKTBHugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies23:120203-30In this article, I discuss the authorship of a mēmrā with the incipit ‘In the path of the divine mysteries, I have girded myself to walk’ (ܒܐܘܪܚܐ ܕܐܪ̈ܙܐ ܐܠܗ̈ܝܐ ܚܙܩܬ ܕܐܪܕܐ) that is found in four manuscripts that mostly contain mēmrē attributed to Narsai (d. ca. 500). Macomber read the heading of the mēmrā in question as mār(y) Ṣlibā zkā (ܡܪܝ ܨܠܝܒܐ ܙܟܐ), which he took to refer to the author of the homily: ‘an otherwise unknown Ṣlibazka’ in his words. Departing from Macomber and building upon a previous suggestion by Ibrahim, I argue here that the earliest recoverable archetype of this heading actually read ʿē(ʾ)dā daṣlibā zakkāyā ‘Feast of the victorious cross’ (ܥܐܕܐ ܕܨܠܝܒܐ ܙܟܝܐ ), which should be understood as the title of a homily implicitly attributed to Narsai. The change from an original title to a faux author started, I suggest, with a graphic error in which <ʿʾdʾ> (ܥܐܕܐ) was misread by a scribe as <mry> (ܡܪܝ). This problem was then exacerbated by Macomber’s misreading of zakkāyā ‘victorious’ (ܙܟܝܐ) as zkā ‘it has been victorious; it has conquered’ (ܙܟܐ).
Butts, Aaron Michael. “Reclaiming Narsai’s Mēmrā of the Feast of the Victorious Cross.” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 23:1 (2020): 3–30.
Aaron Michael Butts, Reclaiming Narsai’s Mēmrā of the Feast of the Victorious Cross,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 23:1 (2020): 3–30.Holy CrossIV-VII CENarsaiNestoriansV CEhymnographypoetry