The Departure of Mary in Six Books and the 6th-century Syriac Cult of the Virgin

Thesis

This dissertation presents the first monograph-length study of the Syriac cult of the Virgin and a late-antique account of Mary’s passing, the Departure of Mary in six books, also known as the Syriac Transitus Mariae and the Six Books Dormition Apocryphon (CANT 123-4; BHO 620-630). Previous scholarship analyzed the Departure primarily as part of a multi-lingual corpus of early Dormition and Assumption texts, usually examining questions of theology and literary transmission. A few chapter-length studies treating Mary’s cult in the Departure mostly ignored its Syriac context. In part, this was due to uncertainty about the Departure’s dating and its exact relationship with similar Greek, Arabic, and Ethiopic works. More fundamentally, there was no consensus about which extant Syriac recension witnessed to the earliest form of the Departure.

This study explores the Departure’s dating, literary development, and provenance to lay the groundwork for a historical study of the cult of the Virgin. Chapter 2 determines that early recensions descend from a 6th-century Syriac recension – closest to the extant Long Recension (LR) – of earlier Greek traditions originating in a Palestinian liturgical context. Chapter 3 demonstrates that the recension was edited for inclusion in a proto-Vita of the Virgin, a Syriac Book of Mary, circulating in the 6th-century. Chapter 4 confirms its extensive connections with Syriac miaphysite literature – particularly the Doctrina Addai – with Edessene roots.

Chapter 5 distinguishes between literary and historical dimensions of the cult of Mary in the Departure. On a literary level, it analyzes the work’s Mariology, in particular, Mary’s uniquely anticipated reception of her eternal reward and her intercession for devotees in light of miaphysite Christology and Syriac eschatology regarding the sleep of souls. On a historical level, it tracks the late antique and medieval success of the Departure’s calendar of Marian feast days and hypothesizes the work’s mid-6th century promotion by a Syriac miaphysite hierarchy in exile after the rise of Justin I (518-527 CE).

Authors: Hochstedler, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-2apnwr7z0
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: protevangelium of James; Sinai palimpsest manuscripts; sleep of souls; Syriac Christianity; bread offerings; dormition; cult of Mary; Bethlehem and incense tradition; late antique Christianity; assumption; Syriac hagiography; transitus mariae; doctrina addai; miaphysite identity; book of Mary; Syriac liturgy
• Subjects: Christian hagiography; Eschatology, Ancient; Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Christian literature, Syriac; Manuscripts, Syriac; Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint--Assumption; Christian saints--Cult