Podcast episode
December 25, 2024
Episode 199: Paul Pasquesi on the Book of the Holy Hierotheos
We are delighted to welcome Paul Pasquesi back to the podcast to talk about the Book of the Holy Hierotheos, a little-known and under-studied classic of late-antique Syriac ‘mysticism’. The Book, written in Syriac (though it claims to be a translation from the Greek) is made up of five discourses, detailing the stages by which the human mind can ascend back to God. It is explicitly an esoteric work, positioning itself as the work of one Hierotheos, the imaginary teacher of Dionysius the Areopagite; scholarly opinions differ on its relationship with the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus, but similar strategies are in place at any rate in terms of strategic pseudonymous authorship giving the stamp of canonicity to some very unorthodox opinions, in this case, very Evagrian opinions. Unlike the case of the Pseudo-D, these deviations from the baseline Christian approach lie not so much in extreme apophasis and detailed angelic hierarchies, but in a pantheistic approach to god and his accessibility and notions of universal salvation.
We discuss the text, its Nachleben in the Syriac tradition and beyond, and some of the extraordinary ideas held within its pages.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Translated passages read aloud are from Marsh 1928, cited below.
Robin Darling Young, Joel Kalvesmaki, Columba Stewart, Charles M. Stang, and Fr. Luke Dysinger, editors and translators. Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2024.
A.L. Frothingham. Stephen Bar Sudhaili the Syrian Mystic and The Book of Hierotheos. Brill, Leiden, 1886.
T. Jansma. Philoxenus’ Letter to Abraham and Orestes Concerning Stephen bar Sudaili. Some Proposals with Regard to the Correction of the Syriac Text and the English Translation. LM, 87:79-86, 1974.
F.S. Marsh, editor. The Book which is Called The Book of the Holy Hierotheos, &c. The Text and Translation Society/Williams & Norgate, London/Oxford, 1927.
Karl Pinggéra. All-Erlösung und All-Einheit. Studien zum `Buch des heiligen Hierotheos’ und seiner Rezeption in der syrisch-orthodoxen Theologie. Number 10 in SKCO. 2002.
S. Seppälä. In Speechless Ecstasy: Expression and Interpretation of Mystical Experience in Classical Syriac and Sufi Literature. In Studia Orientalia, volume 98. Finnish Oriental Society, Helsinki, 2003.
Lucas von Rompey. Stephanos bar Ṣudayli . In Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. 2011.
Recommended Reading:
A good one-stop shop for the Holy Hierotheos is still Marsh’s edition and translation, if you can find it. Frothingham’s discussion is from the perspective that these ‘Syrian mystics’ are deeply wrong in their heresies (from, I guess, an acceptible Anglicanism? No idea.), so use with caution, but it still gives some good overview of what Hierotheos is doing; he accepts the attribution of the book to Stephen Bar Sudhaili which, as Pasquesi notes, isn’t necessarily right.
SHWEP Episode 199 Recommended Reading
Themes
Angelology, Apokatastasis, Ascent, Christian Mysticism, Esoteric Christianity, Evagrius of Pontus, Hekhalot, Hierotheos, John Philoponus, Justinian, Late Platonism, Monophysitism, Origenism, Orthodoxy, Pseudo-Dionysios, Spiritual Practices, Taṣawwuf, Universal Salvation
James Butler
December 30, 2024
Tangential to, as only briefly mentioned in, the (excellent) episode itself, but perhaps of interest: universalism is more common in the Latin church, and at a high level, than it has ever been. Cardinal Fernández, who heads the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has made a number of universalist statements (though their nuance is debated), and there is certainly a possible universalist reading of parts of texts like Amoris Laetitia. For the reactionary element of Roman Catholicism, particularly in the USA, this is taken as further evidence that the current Pope is variously heretical, in league with the devil, or sinister South American pagan deities and so on and so on, with much frothing. Froth aside, it is surprising to see it in such high places.
Michael Griffin
January 16, 2025
Thank you to both Paul and Earl for another wonderful episode! I’m wondering if I could pose a question to Paul here, in case he’s reading: around 16:00, you point to discussions of possible Syriac influence of texts like the Holy Hierotheos on the development of the Sufi tradition. I’ve looked a little at Serafim Seppala’s doctoral dissertation touching on this argument. Could you suggest any other readings on the status quaestionis today, if it’s much discussed?