Jacob of Serugh, Select Festal Homilies

Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–520/1) has left one of the largest bodies of work of any of the writers in the Syriac-speaking Christian world. Perhaps because of this daunting bulk, his works have been ill-served by modern editors and even less treated by translators into modern western languages. There is much of value and interest in his works, however, for a variety of modern readers, and one can hope that Dr. Kollamparampil’s work will help make this important figure better known among students of the Early Church.

This volume, an outgrowth of the translator’s doctoral work at the Augustinianum in Rome, offers seventeen homilies (six in prose and eleven in verse) that move through the liturgical year, treating, in the order they are presented: the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, the Baptism of Christ, the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, the forty day Fast of Christ in the Desert, the “Sunday of the Hosannas” (Palm Sunday), the Friday of the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and Pentecost. Each homily is preceded by a summary, with a helpful chart of the topics addressed with page numbers for each topic provided. The translator has also provided an introduction that gives information on the life of Jacob, some thoughts on his manner of theological reflection, and some general background treatment of the times in that part of the Christian world, which was an unhappy muddle. The volume also offers 28 pages of bibliography (an important addition in Syriac studies, where materials are scattered and less well-known than are their Latin and Greek counterparts), as well as an index of scriptural citations and a very useful topical index. This last item is a treasure trove for the teacher or student, making the volume much more easy to study and use: I counted, for example, 106 different titles of Christ in this index, each with its own entry.

Translating Syriac, especially Syriac poetry, into English for the uninitiated to read is a delicate business. This translation offers a blend of enough literalness to provide a sense of the underlying original with clarity and ease of reading. While the introduction shows some signs of the author’s roots in a non-standard-English speaking part of the world, I found the translations to be lucid and enjoyable to read. There is a relatively small number of the sort of errors that teaching has inured us to: “it’s” for “its” and “lay” for “lie,” and a few instances of small words being omitted, usually “the,” but these are minor mishaps for the production of such a large body of text and notes. The only complaint about the translation that leapt out at me as I read was that, twice (Homily X.226 and XI par. 43), Kollamparampil renders as “rational” a word that he elsewhere (XVI.405) offers as “endowed with speech,” leaving himself with the odd contrast both times of “rational beings” with “mute beings” instead of those “endowed with speech” being contrasted with the “mute.” True, the word can have that range of meaning, as logikos can in Greek, but why embrace a rendering that is less precise and focused, when an obvious substitute stands ready? There are times when the tendency of language study in theological circles to emphasize the range of words over their precision can mislead the translator. We should not make room for more uncertainties than truly exist.

What does this volume offer the instructor or student in Early Christian Studies? A great deal, and of interest to more than one body of readers. Kollamparampil’s characterization of Jacob’s thought, p. 13, is quite apt and expressive:

Based on a pre-Chalcedonian as well as a ‘pre-Nestorian’ development of dogma Jacob has a dogmatic position in Christology composed of Ephrem’s symbolical-mystical vision of the mystery of Christ and the Cyrilline vision of the...