Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

[Zeljko Pasa]

Dear NASCAS

I found in the Arabic manuscripts written by Eastern Syrian Writers that they regularly us for the Holy Spirit: “rūḥu al-quddus” (روح القدس) instead of “ar-rūḥu al-quddus” (الروحالقدس). It is surely from the Syriac “rūḥā d-qūḏšā” (ܪܽܘܚܳܐ ܕܩܽܘܕܫܳܐ), what Dr. John W. Etheridge in his English Peshitta translation translated as:  “The Spirit of Holiness”.

 

I’m interested to know:

1) is it Arabic “rūḥu al-quddus” only influence from the Syriac “rūḥā d-qūḏšā”  or it has some deeply theological meaning? (and if there is, which one?)

2) do you know some literature written on this topics?

3) and literature on Syriac Pneumatology (=teaching on the Holy Spirit)?

4) Who from Syriac writers wrote something specifically on the Holy Spirit?

 

With many thanks in advance

Željko Paša

_____________________________________________
Željko Paša, SJ
Collegio S. Roberto Bellarmino
Via del Seminario 120
I-00186 Roma, Italia

Tel: +39/06.69527-6590 (direct)
Mob.: +39/327.0497327
Skype ID: zeljkopasa

[Robert Morehouse]

Dear Željko,

Sebastian Brock's Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition is one place to look.

-Rob

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[Geoffrey Moseley]

Dear Zeljko,
 
    As far as I know, both "ruh al-qudus" and "al-ruh al-qudus" are used by Muslim authors (with reference to Gabriel).




-Geoff

[Zeljko Pasa]

Thank you Geoff.

Still one question: in English translation of “ruh al-quddus” we can translate it as “the Holy Spirit” without changing the theological meaning? because the expression “The Spirit of Holiness” how translate Dr. John W. Etheridge in Peshitta translation, underlined some theological aspects.

-Rob

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[Zeljko Pasa]

Thank you Robert

 

 

From: Robert Morehouse

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:10 PM

To: nas...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

 

-Rob

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[Thomas A. Carlson]

Dear Željko,

I am not aware of any theological meaning ascribed to "rūḥ al-quddus" specifically, as distinct from "al-rūḥ al-quddus", but even if there was, I think it almost certain that such a theological interpretation would be after the fact, and that the usage developed from the common Semitic use of a construct relationship to express an attributive adjective.  One might even compare "the Son of His love" in Col 1:13, which most modern English translations render "His beloved Son" even though Augustine had a detailed theological structure erected upon this construction unfamiliar to a Latin author.

I don't know specifically which Syriac authors may have written on the Holy Spirit, but Basil of Caesarea's treatise "On the Holy Spirit" was early translated into Syriac and very influential (at least in the West; I'm not sure if it was read as widely in the East).  You might consult David Taylor's CSCO edition of the text to see if it was ever translated into Arabic, and what other literature he mentions in his introduction.

Best,
Thomas.

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From: nas...@googlegroups.com [nas...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Zeljko Pasa [zeljk...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:56 PM
To: nas...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

[roger akhrass]

Dear Zeljko,

Here is a complete bibliography on syriac pneumatology:

http://www.csc.huji.ac.il/db/browse.aspx?db=SB&sL=H&sK=Holy%20Spirit&sT=keywords

On any syriac topic, this excellent website of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

http://www.csc.huji.ac.il/db/browse.aspx?db=SB&sL=A&sT=keywords

With regards,

Roger Akhrass

[Kurt Sherry]

Zeljko, the phrase “Spirit of Holiness” is found in the New Testament. St. Paul uses the phrase, explaining that Jesus was declared “by the Spirit of Holiness” (kata pneuma agiosynes) to be the Son of God in power in Rom 1:4 (an alternate reading could have that the power derives from the spirit of holiness). I would have to check the writings of the Fathers, but I think that this “Spirit of Holiness” is taken to refer to the Holy Spirit, so I doubt that there’s any real change in theological meaning, but the East Syrian tradition might have a very different interpretation than the Chalcedonian tradition with which I’m far more familiar.

[sadowski .]

Dear Zeljiko,

Look here: Orientalia Christiana Analecta 139 (1953), the work by Th. O'Shaughnessy, The development of the meaning of Spirit in the Koran, 42-44.

Saluti dalla Polonia!

michal

[Hany Takla]

Dear Željko,

From Coptic perspective, this term is a direct translation of the Coptic "oupneuma efouab" which is distinguished in the New Testament at least from "pipneuma ethouab" Both have been translated by context in English as "The Holy Spirit" however the first always refer to presence of the Holy Spirit in man while the other is always in reference to the Holy Spirit in the Trinity sense, for lack of a better term. The translation follows closely the Greek in which the first would be written without any article, while the second would have the definite article. It may have been just a strict translation method though I do believe that the translator may have trued to alert us to the distinction in referring to the Holy Spirit with reference to man as opposed to God. The use of the first term (with the indefinte) is found in the Archangel Gabriel annuncuation to the Virgin Mary (Luke) and the descent of the Holy Siprit on the Apostles on the day of the Pentacost (Acts). The other term (with the definite article) was used with reference to plaspheming against the Holy Spirit in Matthew!

Sincerely,

Hany

 

Hany N. Takla, President
St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society
1494 S Robertson Blvd Ste 104
LOS ANGELES CA 90035-3482
USA

[Zeljko Pasa]

Dear Roger,

I checked the links. It is very rich bibliography. Thanks.

Best,

Željko

 

From: roger akhrass

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:38 PM

To: nas...@googlegroups.com

[Zeljko Pasa]

Dear Kurt,

thanks for your observation. I didn’t take in consideration the Greek text.

Sincerely

Željko

 

From: Kurt Sherry

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:38 PM

To: nas...@googlegroups.com

[Zeljko Pasa]

Dear Michel,

thanks for bibliography. I’ll check at Orientale.

Greetings from Rome

Željko

[Zeljko Pasa]

Dear Hany

It is very nice to have possibility make comparison with Coptic. Thanks!

Regards

Željko

From: Hany Takla

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:57 PM

To: nas...@googlegroups.com

[SAMIR Khalil]

Dear Željko,

 

As much as I know, the Arabic expression is : Rūḥ al-Qudus comes only without Shaddah. I have never met it neither as “Rūh al-Quddus” nor as “Rūh al-Quddūs”.

1. We meet it 4 times in the Qur’an, in these verses : 2/87, 2/253, 5/110 and 16/102.
2. In all these verses, the Islamic meening is Gabriel; in the third first verses, it applies only to Jesus. In the forth, it is more general. For the meaning in the Qur’an, see the study of Fr. Thomas O’Shaughnessy SJ,  The development of the meaning of Spirit in the Koran, (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1953). [See also:  Judy Tao Shih-Ching, The Holy Spirit in the Qur'an : an assessment from a Christian Perspective (1965)].
3. This is certainly a loanword from the Syriac. See Arthur Jeffery, The foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an (I don’t have it under hand, but it is also in internet), and is a Semitism as Thomas Carlson said, even if we find it once in Paul in Romans 1:4 as Kurt Sherry said. 

Fr. Samir

 
 

 

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From: zeljk...@gmail.com
To: nas...@googlegroups.com

Subject: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:56:07 +0200

[SAMIR Khalil]

Dear Hany,
Thank you for this clarification.
However, the problem here, as I see it, is another one. In Coptic, we have in both cases a Noun (wether definite or indefinite) + an Adjective. In the Qur'an and in Syriac, we have 2 Nouns: Qudus is not an adjective but a mudâf ilayh. And this "tournure" is Semitic;
Fr. Samir

 

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Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:57:38 -0700
From: htak...@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers
To: nas...@googlegroups.com

[Hany Takla]

Dear Fr. Samir:

This is how the Coptic renders the term that gets translated in Arabic, as seen in the attached image image from an early 19th century Arabic Gospel manuscipt in the collection of the Society. I chose the page that has the text of the Annunciation.

BTW: did you receive my email about the Arabic Tobit question? I sent it from my yahoo account.

Sincerely,

Hany 

 

 

Hany N. Takla, President
St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society
1494 S Robertson Blvd Ste 104
LOS ANGELES CA 90035-3482
USA

From: SAMIR Khalil <sami...@hotmail.fr>
To: "nas...@googlegroups.com" <nas...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 11:54 AM
Subject: RE: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

Dear Hany,
Thank you for this clarification.
However, the problem here, as I see it, is another one. In Coptic, we have in both cases a Noun (wether definite or indefinite) + an Adjective. In the Qur'an and in Syriac, we have 2 Nouns: Qudus is not an adjective but a mudâf ilayh. And this "tournure" is Semitic;
Fr. Samir

 

[Zeljko Pasa]

Dear Samir,

you are right about shaddah. It is my mistake in transliteration.

Thanks for literature!

Best

Željko

 

From: SAMIR Khalil

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 8:43 PM

To: nas...@googlegroups.com

[Jack B. Tannous]

I have always taken the Greek in that passage as possibly reflecting a pre-Pauline usage which has been influenced by Aramaic.  I can’t remember now exactly,

 

Romans 1:3-4 represents, it has been suggested, a pre-Pauline Christian confession (see, e.g., O. Cullmann, Christology of the New Testament, p. 292, where he cites no less than Bultmann to support the point), which makes it potentially an very early text.  For some reason, perhaps this early nature of the text, my instinct has always been to read the Greek there as a calque on the Aramaic ruha d-qudsha.  So the NT Greek evidence, whatever its afterlife in patristic literature, may in fact actually take you back to Aramaic. 

 

Jack

 

From: nas...@googlegroups.com [mailto:nas...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kurt Sherry

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 1:39 PM
To: nas...@googlegroups.com

[SAMIR Khalil]

Dear Hany,
 
Yes, you are right. Here we have in Arabic  Ruh al-Qudus. It would be interesting to see what we find in the different Arabic Translations of the Copts. Do we have commonly this translation (Ruh al-Qudus) or sometimes this, sometimes Al-Ruh ... to see if they are various influences.
 
 
For Tobit, I did not receive your mail. Could you send it again?
 
Thank you, dear Hany, for all what you are doing to promote Coptic Studies. And let us pray for the election of the new patriarch in two weeks !
 
Fr. Samir


 

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Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 12:11:33 -0700

[Serikoff, Nikolai]

Dear colleagues,

I am not a Coptic scholar and therefore this note might not be of relevance. If this is the fact, please accept my apologies. In a melkite translation of the Liturgy of St. John I have noticed an Arabic equivalent for the ακαταληπτος, which sounds as الغيرالماخوذ . From the grammatical prospective this looks not dissimilar to the already discussed form. With regard to a proper reference: I have got it but it sits somewhere in my still unpublished Greek and Arabic Dictionary.

Best regards,

NS
________________________________________
From: nas...@googlegroups.com [nas...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of SAMIR Khalil [sami...@hotmail.fr]
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:34 AM
To: nas...@googlegroups.com

This message has been scanned for viruses by Websense Hosted Email Security - www.websense.com

[SAMIR Khalil]

Nikolai,
 
In Arabic, we find the 3 possibilities, for instance to translate "invisible" :
غير المنظور
الغير المنظور
الغير منظور
 
Honestly, I don't remember which one is more correct than the others.
 
Fr. Samir

[SAMIR Khalil]

PS All these three translations are simply to translate the Greek "alpha privativum" (latin in-, German un-, etc.). There are very frequent in the Arabic versions of Liturgies and of Patristic Works. Like:
 
   French     =    Greek 

Invisible                          αόρατος

inaccessible                  απρόσιτος

intouchable                    άθικτος

inodore                          άοσμος

insensible                      αναίσθητος

impassibilité                  απάθεια

 

Fr. Samir
 
 


 

> From: n.ser...@wellcome.ac.uk
> To: nas...@googlegroups.com
> Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 09:28:17 +0100

[Ronney el Gemayel]

the first one is the correct, ghayr cannot have al-al-ta3irf as far as remember. w-Allah a3lam!

 

P. Ronney el Gemayel sj

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From: SAMIR Khalil <sami...@hotmail.fr>
To: "nas...@googlegroups.com" <nas...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 3:42 PM

[Hany Takla]

Dear Fr. Samir:

Thank you. I will look at what we have if it has similar language. the term intrigued me because of the distinction it has in Coptic. We are all praying but I expect rough times ahead. There is a great storm descending on the Christians in the Middle East these days. History tells it will pass but we have to work to minimize the damage and make sure what have what we need to rebuild. Humans know how to adapt and survive. Literary, artistic, and architecture heritage needs humans to protect and preserve, much like little children. Without such elements peoples cannot properly rebuild after such storms.

Sincerely,

Hany

p.s. I resent the Tobit email from my two other account, hopefully they can escape your spam folder

 

Hany N. Takla, President
St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society
1494 S Robertson Blvd Ste 104
LOS ANGELES CA 90035-3482
USA

From: SAMIR Khalil <sami...@hotmail.fr>
To: "nas...@googlegroups.com" <nas...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 11:34 PM
Subject: RE: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

Dear Hany,
 

Yes, you are right. Here we have in Arabic  Ruh al-Qudus. It would be interesting to see what we find in the different Arabic Translations of the Copts. Do we have commonly this translation (Ruh al-Qudus) or sometimes this, sometimes Al-Ruh ... to see if they are various influences.
 
 
For Tobit, I did not receive your mail. Could you send it again?
 
Thank you, dear Hany, for all what you are doing to promote Coptic Studies. And let us pray for the election of the new patriarch in two weeks !
 
Fr. Samir


 

[Bishara Ebeid]

Dear Paša,

I think in some other writers we have the same problem, and as i saw in Sawirus ibn al-muqaffa', he made an interpretation of the term, for that , the “The Spirit of Holiness”, as in interpretation of روح القدس made him to talk about the Spirit of God, the Spirit which make the union between the three persons of the holy Trinity possible.  So i think it has to do with interpretation always!...

--

[Dmitry Morozov]

Dear Paša and all,

As far as I can judge from perusal of various Arabic biblical texts, both MSS and printed (Borg.Ar.95, Muenchen 234 & 238, Lagarde`s edition of the Alexandrian Vulgate, in Mt 1:18), the expression

روح القدس (after Syriac) was the only one in Christian Arabic actual use at least up to the Propaganda Edition of 1671, including the latter. The usual modern Christian Arabic الروح القدس was coined for the first time (as I suppose) by Anselm Turmeda in 1420 after Latin (some late MSS have variant readings); then it was coined independently by Faris Shidyaq ca 1850 after the English (King James`) Authorised Version, and entered the general Christian usage since Van Dyck`s Version of 1865 after Greek.

I would greatly appreciate any references to probable exceptions, but I could find none.

Sincerely yours,

Dmitry Morozov,

Moscow.

----- Original Message -----

From: Zeljko Pasa

To: nas...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 8:56 PM

Subject: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

[Sasha Treiger]

Dear Željko, Dmitry Alexeevich, and all,

 

There are certainly earlier examples, even from the first millennium. See Blau's Grammar of Christian Arabic, vol. II, p. 350B, paragraph 234.2. In Christian Arabic basmalas one frequently sees bi-smi l-Ab wa-l-Ibn wa-l-Ruh al-Qudus ilah wahid (al-Ruh - with the definite article). This is the case, for instance, in the Arabic translation of Dionysius the Areopagite's Mystical Theology (the translation was done in 1009; the manuscript is 13th century). Such examples abound.

 

Initially, this seems to be the case of adding the definite article to the mudaf--this is how Blau interprets it. Frequently enough, however, qudus was re-interpreted simply as an adjective, perhaps in imitation of the Greek to pneuma to hagion (where both pneuma and hagion have the article, and hagion is an adjective). I have even seen expressions like Aban wa-Ibnan wa-Ruhan qudsan (e.g. Sinai ar. 274, cited in Atiya's Catalogue Raisonné, p. 508).

 

Hope this helps!

Yours

Sasha

[William Hume]

Dear Professors Treiger, Morozov, and all others on this "thread":
I really believe that, in the expression "Ruh al-Quds", we are in the presence of an older Arabic syntax, whereby the apparently indefinite "quds" was "felt" as a proper name that is singular and definite, and "al-Quds" was "felt" as appositive and thus nominative definite adjective, rather than as the second (and thus nominal) part of an "idafa" construction.  Hence, the voweling was Ruh al-Qudsu. .

Consider "Shim`un al-Safaa" -- which occurs in the Rollbook Apocalypse materials -- which is rendered as "Saint Simon [=Peter]".  The first part is viewed as a proper name, and hence definite and singular.  The second part, being in the appositive, is an adjective, being singular and nominative, just like "Shim`un".

Now, I will stick my neck out for everyone to chop it off:

1.  Consider how German and English grammarians imposed Latinizing syntax on their academic writings... no prepositions at the ends of clauses, in violation of natural germanic-linguistic principles.  Eventually the Germans abandoned those things, but not the English academic world.
During this time of the Tenth and Eleventh, grammarians "regularized" the Arabic language and the Hebrew languages: 
2.  Due to the good work of MURTONEN and RUNDGREN, we are not clear that that the Masoretes "Aramaicized" the Hebrew they received.  Archaic "broken plurals" in Pre-masoretic Hebrew is attested in the Samaritan Pentateuch and in the Qumran Pentateuch... but the Masoretic Old Testement shows Aramaic "-im" sound-plural endings.  And MURTONEN missed some non-Aramaic Afro-Asiatic sound plurals, such as long-u, but I digress too much.
3.  The Arabic of the Qur'an has grammatical, yea morphological, peculiarities that distinguish it from all other manuscript-based Arabic.  [And we don't need to even address textual-critical issues of the Qur'an.]  The Arabic of the early Ummayyid period is technically "Classical" Arabic, whereas the Abbassid period really is associated with the rise of "medieval Arabic", which most non-dialectologists lump together with "Classical Arabic".
4.  The Arabs of the Tenth Century had an abundance of translations from Syriac and Classical Greek materials at their hands.  When one looks at the contemporary activity of the Masoretes, it is hard to believe that the Arab Grammarians were not "regularizing" their language, and "correcting" copies of earlier manuscripts, just like the Masoretes were doing.  And other than the Qur'an, so little pre-medieval Arabic material survives... see all of the titles of lost works in the Fihrist.

The upshot?  The "pseudo-Idafa" is one of those many archaic details which are misread by speakers of Modern Arabic, and by Arabists who are well-trained in medieval Arabic, but who have not ever ventured into that dangerous land called "Orientalism", where sojourners linguistically prove grammar and lexicon that is unknown to, and rejected by, the contemporary natives who function in those languages.  The mere fact that HOWELL or DE GOEJE/ WRIGHT might not address it, does not mean that it is not treated in a later article there in the secondary, usually German, literature.

So, I think that "ruh al-Quds" is an example of a persisting Arabic phrase that survived a micro-transition in the Arabic language itself.

Now, tell me again what CRUM's entry for the Coptic of this expression is?

---

From: Sasha Treiger <sashat...@gmail.com>
To: nas...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2012 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

--

[William Hume]

In my last post, the passage should read "RUNDGREN, we are now clear", instead of "we are not clear".  WSH

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From: Sasha Treiger <sashat...@gmail.com>
To: nas...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2012 5:06 PM

Subject: Re: [nascas] Holy Spirit in the Eastern Syrian Writers

--