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The Christian Reception of the Xwadāy-Nāmag: Hormizd IV, Khusrau II and their successors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2016

PHILIP WOOD
PHILIP WOOD*
Affiliation:
Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London, philip.wood@aku.edu
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Abstract

This article considers the Islamic-era sources that report the history of the last Sasanian kings. It focuses on scenes that seem to indicate Christian influence and asks what this tells us about Christian transmission of the Middle Persian royal histories and about the position of Christians in the empire more broadly. In particular, it discusses three scenes from al-Ṭabarī: his presentation of Hormizd IV as a ‘pluralist’ monarch; the changing attitudes of Christians to Khusrau II and the presentation of Khusrau's short-lived successors.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 407 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2016 

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References

1 My thanks to M. R. J. Bonner for discussion of several points in this article, which was completed as part of a British Academy Post-doctoral Fellowship.

2 Gignoux, P., “Problèmes de distinction et priorité des sources”, in Harmatta, J., (ed.), Prolegomena to the Sources on the History of pre-Islamic Central Asia (Budapest, 1979), pp. 137–141 Google Scholar and Gignoux, P., “Pour une nouvelle histoire de l'Iran sasanide”, in Middle Iranian Studies, (eds) Sklamowski, W. and Tongerloo, A. (Leuven, 1984), pp. 253–262 Google Scholar on the hierarchy of sources in Sasanian history.

3 Macuch, M., “Pahlahvi literature”, in The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran. Companion Volume I to a History of Persian Literature, (eds) Emmerrick, R. and Macuch, M. (London and New York, 2009), pp. 116–196 Google Scholar, at 172–181; Omidsalar, M., Poetics and Politics of Iran's National Epic, The Shāhnāmeh (New York, 2011), pp. 37–39 Google Scholar; Nöldeke, T., Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Sasanidenzeit (Leiden, 1879), pp. xiv–xx Google Scholar.

4 The belief that Sasanian monarchs were closet Christians has been explored in Schilling, A., Die Anbetung der Magier und Taufe der Sāsāniden. Zur Geistgeschichte des iranischen Christentums in der Spätantike (Louvain, 2008)Google Scholar.

5 Huyse, P., “Late Sasanian society between orality and literacy”, in The Sasanian Era. The Idea of Iran vol. III, Curtis, V. S. and Stewart, S., (eds) (London and New York, 2008), pp. 140–153 Google Scholar, esp. pp. 150–153. See also Shahbazi, A. Sh., “On the Xwadāy-Nāmag”, in Iranica Varia: Papers in Honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater, (eds) Duschesne-Guillemin, J. and Lecoq, P. (Leiden, 1990), pp. 208–229, esp. p. 214Google Scholar.

6 For the deliberate elevation of literacy, see Husraw Ī Kawādān ud Rēdag-ē. Khosrow fils de Kawad et un page, (ed.) and translated by S. Azarnouche, Studia Iranica Cahier 49 (Paris, 2013), esp. section 8 for attendance at school and 10 for the emphasis on scribal skills. See further, M. Boyce, “The Parthian Gōsān and Iranian minstrel tradition”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April (1957), pp. 1–45. For Khusrau's alleged abolition of the gosānān as a privileged class, see Ps. al-Jāhiz, Kitāb al-tāj, translated by Pellat, C., La livre de la couronne (Paris, 1957), p. 55 Google Scholar.

7 On the threat of tūran in the propaganda of Khusrau I, see Howard-Johnston, J., “State and society in Sasanian Iran”, in The Idea of Iran III: The Sasanian Era, (eds) Curtis, V. and Stewart, S. (London, 2008), pp. 118–131 Google Scholar and Payne, R., “Cosmology and the expansion of the Iranian empire, 502–628 C.E.”, Past & Present, CCXX (2013), pp. 3–33 Google Scholar. Also see Pourshariati, P., Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire. The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran (London and New York, 2008), pp. 85–89 Google Scholar on the Letter of Tansar, translated by M. Boyce (Rome, 1968).

8 Boyce, M., The Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (reprint, London, 2001), p. 127 Google Scholar on the rewriting of Arsacid history; Choksy, J., “Sacred kingship in Sasanian Iran”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute II (1988), pp. 35–53 Google Scholar on the shah as a mortal representation of Ahura Mazda in the Dēnkard. On the shah's sole right to interpret the Avesta, see The Testament of Ardashir, (ed.) and translated in M. Grignaschi, “Quelques spécimens de la littérature sassanide conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Istanbul”, Journal Asiatique CCLIV (1966), pp. 1–141, at p. 70. Note also P. Kreyenbroek, “Iran ix. Religions in Iran: Religions in pre-Islamic Iran”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica for the ban on lay exegesis of the Avesta.

9 Letter of Tansar § 28. In addition, it forbids nobles from squandering wealth (§24) and presents current literate production as the restoration of the Kayanid wisdom destroyed by Alexander (§11–12). On Khusrau restoring the social hierarchy, see Ps. al-Jāhiz, pp. 52–55.

10 Such stories of the reign of Ardashir include the Kārnāmag ī Ardaxšēr ī Pābagān, translated F. Grenet (Die, 2003) and the Letter of Tansar, as well as numerous anecdotes from the Book of the Crown. I am influenced here by Vansina, J., Oral Tradition. A Study in Historical Methodology (Chicago and London, 1961)Google Scholar.

11 See the reconstruction in Howard-Johnston, J., ‘Heraclius’ Persian campaigns and the revival of the eastern Roman Empire’, in his East Rome, Sasanian Persia and the End of Antiquity: Historical and Historiographical Studies (Ashgate, 2006), VIII Google Scholar.

12 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Seventh-Century Middle East (Oxford, 2010), pp. 345–348 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Nöldeke, T., The Iranian National Epic, translated by L. Bogdanov (reprinted Philadelphia, 1971), p. 23 Google Scholar.

14 Nöldeke's assumption that the Xwadāy-Nāmag was a single text, transmitted via Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (Geschichte, xiv-xxviii) is effectively rebutted in Bonner, M. R. J., An Historiographical Study of Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd ibn Wanand al-Dīnawarī's Kitāb al-Aḫbār al-Ṭiwāl (Oxford, unpublished D.Phil., 2013), pp. 79–85 Google Scholar.

15 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, p. 351.

16 The treatment of Yazdegard in al-Ṭabarī (Taʾrīkh al-Rusūl wal-Mulūk, (ed.) M. de Goeje (Leiden 1879–1901), I, p. 1067, with translation and notes of Bosworth, C. E., The History of al-Ṭabarī volume V, The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen (Albany, NY, 1985)Google Scholar is extremely brief. He observes ‘his power was like a vision in a dream’. In al-Dīnawarī, Akhbār al-Ṭiwāl, (ed.) W. Guirgass and I. Kratchowsky (Leiden, 1888) there are no more sections headed under the names of individual shahs after the death of Shiroë (p. 111). Al-Dīnawarī may rely primarily on an Arabic source on the conquest of the Persians (ʿajam), rather than on the Xwadāy-Nāmag tradition, and this provided the poetry at p. 115.

17 See below.

18 al-Dīnawarī, pp.110–111.

19 The cleared rock face, and the presence of unused blocks of dressed stone and late Sasanian column capitals nearby is described in H. Luschey, “Bisotun ii. archaeology”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica. See also J. Howard-Johnston, “Kosrow II”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica.

20 Z. Rubin, “Musa ibn ‘Isa al-Kisrawi and other authors in Sasanian history according to Hamza al-Isfahani”, unpublished paper presented at Oxford, 2008. I will not discuss al-Dīnawarī in any detail here. His coverage of the period after the accession of Hormizd IV does not show the kind of Christian-influenced material we find in al-Ṭabarī, and his treatment of the war with Rome is very brief. The passage in al-Dīnawarī (for example pp. 46–47) describing the activities of Christian missionaries is discussed in Schilling, A., “L’apôtre du Christ, la conversion du roi Ardašir et celle de son vizier”, in Jullien, C. (ed.), Controverses des chrétiens dans l'iran sasanide (Paris, 2008), pp. 89–112 Google Scholar.

21 Rapp, S., “The Iranian heritage of Georgia: Breathing new life into the pre-Bagratid historical tradition”, Iranica Antiqua XLIV (2009), pp. 645–694 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenwood, T., “Sasanian echoes and apocalyptic expectations: A re-evaluation of the Armenian history attributed to Sebeos”, Le Muséon, CXV (2002), pp. 323–397 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marshak, B., Legends, Tales and Fables in the Art of Sogdiana (New York, 2002)Google Scholar. These references are taken from Payne, ‘Cosmology’.

22 Nöldeke, Geschichte, pp. 474–478, following al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, (ed.) and translated by C. Barbier de Meynard, Les prairies d’or (Paris, 1874) [revised by C. Pellat (Beirut, 1979)], II, pp. 223–224. Bonner, Historiographical Study, p. 21, notes that al-Dīnawarī is highly dependent on this Romance for his treatment of Hormizd IV (p.82 ff.).

23 Al-Thaʿālibī, Ghurar akhbār mulūk al-Furs, (ed.) and translated by Zotenberg, H., Histoire des rois des Perses (Paris, 1900), pp. 692–711 Google Scholar.

24 Al-Thaʿālibī, pp. 712–714 and 721.

25 Al-Thaʿālibī, pp. 722–724; al-Masʿūdī, II, pp. 233–234. For the actual reconstruction of these reigns, made with the help of the coinage, see Panaino, A., “Women and kingship. Some remarks about the enthronisation of Queen Boran and her sister Azarmigduxt”, in Eran und Aneran: Studien zu den Beziehungen zwischen dem Sasanidenreich und der Mittelmeerwelt, (eds) Wiesehöfer, J. and Huyse, P. (Stuttgart, 2006), pp. 221–240 Google Scholar. See also the comparison of succession lists in the histories in Daryaee, T., “When the end is near: Barbarised armies and barracks kings of late antique Iran”, in Proceedings of the 6th European Conference of Iranian Studies, (eds) Macuch, M., Weber, D. and Durkin-Meisterernst, D. (Wiesbaden, 2010), pp. 43–52 Google Scholar, at p. 45, note 11.

26 Shāhnameh, translated by Mohl, J., Le Livre des Rois, 7 vols. (Paris, 1878), VII, pp. 269–288 Google Scholar.

27 Note, however, al-Maqdasi, Le Livre de la Création et de l'histoire d’Abou Zeid AḤmad ben Sahl el- Balkhî publié et traduit d’après le manuscrit de Constantinople, translated by C. Huart, 6 vols. (Paris, 1899–1919), V, p. 205, which includes the scene of Yazdegard's death at Merv and specifically references the Xwadāy-Nāmag. Another briefer account, which is much more typical of the Muslim Arabic sources, is given as part of a continuous narrative of the Sasanian kings at vol. III, p. 176.

28 Shāhnameh, VII, pp. 394–395.

29 Shāhnameh, VI, pp. 173–194. It has been suggested that parts of Ferdowsi's account of Anoshazad derive from Christian sources such as a Syriac martyrology. See Bonner, M. R. J., Three Neglected Sources of Sasanian History in the Reign of Khusraw Anushirvan, Studia Iranica Cahier 46 (Paris, 2011), pp. 65–68 Google Scholar.

30 Shāhnameh, V, pp. 348–385.

31 Nöldeke, Iranian National Epic, p. 16; Barthold, W., “Zur Geschichte des persichen Epos”, Zeitschrift der Deustchen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft [Journal of the German Oriental Society] XCVIII (1944), pp. 121–157, at p. 151Google Scholar.

32 Z. Rubin, ‘Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’, p. 82; J. Howard-Johnston, “Al-Ṭabarī on the Last Great War of Antiquity”, in his, East Rome, VI, at pp. 6–7.

33 Howard-Johnston, “Al-Ṭabarī”, p. 12. Cf. al-Ṭabarī, I, p. 1002 and Khuzistan Chronicle, (ed.) I. Guidi, Chronicum Anonymum in Chronica Minora I, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 1–2 (Paris 1903), p. 25. On the Khuzistan Chronicle see Watt, J., “The portrayal of Heraclius in Syriac historical sources”, in The Reign of Heraclius (610–41): Crisis and Confrontation, (eds) Reinink, G. and Stolte, B. (Leuven, 2002), pp. 63–79 Google Scholar; Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis. Historians and Histories of the Seventh-Century Middle East (Oxford, 2010), pp. 128–135 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nautin, P., “L’auteur de la ‘Chronique anonyme de Guidi’: Élie de Merw”, Revue de l'histoire des religions CIC (1982), pp. 303–313 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is a partial English translation of the Chronicle by M. Greatrex in The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, Part II AD 363–630. A Narrative Sourcebook, (eds) G. Greatrex and S. Lieu (Abingdon and New York, 2002), pp. 229–237.

34 Al-Ṭabarī, I, pp. 840–843, with translation and notes of Nöldeke, T., “Ueber den syrischen Roman von Kaiser Julian”, Zeitschrift der Deustchen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft XXVIII (1874), pp. 271–292 Google Scholar.

35 Al-Ṭabarī, I, pp. 920–925; Hirschberg, W., “Nestorian sources of north Arabian traditions on the establishment and persecution of Christianity in the Yemen”, Rocznik Orientalistyczny XV (1939/1949), pp. 321–338 Google Scholar.

36 Fiey, J.-M., Jalons pour l'histoire de l'église en Iraq (Louvain, 1970), pp. 9–10 Google Scholar summarises ʿAbdishoʿ's material. See also Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana, 4 vols. (Rome, 1728), IIIa for a Latin translation.

37 Quoted in Elias of Nisibis, Chronography, (ed.) and translated Brooks, E. W., Opus Chronologicum Scriptores Syri ser. 3, 7–8 (Paris, 1909–10), pp. 124–125 Google Scholar. See also Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana (Rome, 1728), IIIa, p. 216.

38 Solomon of Basra, Book of the Bee LII, translated by Wallis-Budge, E. (Oxford, 1886), p. 123 Google Scholar.

39 Most notably, the compiler is unwilling to reconcile different versions of the same events and often merely juxtaposes them in successive sections: for example, Chronicle of Seert, (ed.) and translated by A. Scher et al., PO 4, IV and V.

40 Chronicle of Seert, PO 4, II, IX; PO 5, XLIII, LXV; PO 7, V, XI–II, XIV; PO 13, XLIII.

41 A feature of the sections included in Chronicle of Seert, PO 13 (the period c.590–640).

42 Note how the narrative of the Sasanian shahs is, for the most part, kept separate from ecclesiastical material until the account of Hormizd IV and his relationship with the Catholicos Ishoʿyahb I: Chronicle of Seert, PO 13, XLII. See my comments in Wood, P., The Chronicle of Seert. Christian Historical Imagination in Late Antique Iraq (Oxford, 2013), pp. 122–123 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 128–131, 172–174.

43 Chronicle of Seert, PO 13, XLIII (443–444). This material in the style of the Xwadāy-Nāmag (as preserved by al-Ṭabarī) is continued at LVIII (465), which implies it was composed shortly after Khusrau II's restoration.

44 Al-Ṭabarī, I, p. 991.

45 Chronicle of Seert, PO 7, XXVI (153); XV (130); XI (122).

46 Chronicle of Seert, PO 7, XXVII (160). Cf. the comments of Peeters, P., “Observations sur la vie syriaque de Mar Aba, catholicos de l'église perse (540–52)”, in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati V: Storia ecclesiastica—Diritto (Vatican City, 1946), pp. 69–112 Google Scholar. The more detailed Syriac Life of Aba is now edited and translated in Jullien, F., Histoire de Mar Abba, catholicos de l'Orient. Martyres de Mar Grigor, général en chef du roi Khusro Ier et de Mar Yazd-panah, juge et gouverneur. Corpus Christianorum Scriptorum Orientalium 659, Scriptores Syri 255 (Louvain, 2015)Google Scholar.

47 Taqizadeh, A., “Iranian festivals adopted by Christians and condemned by Jews”, Bulletin of SOAS X (1942), pp. 632–653 Google Scholar; Walker, J., The Legend of Mar Qardagh. Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq (Berkeley, 2006)Google Scholar. For the condemnation of incest and sorcery, see the references collected in Wood, Chronicle of Seert, pp. 144–145.

48 Al-Ṭabarī, I, pp. 989–990. See al-Dīnawarī, p. 80 for the celebration of the poor at Hormizd's reforms.

49 On Vahram and his use of a Zoroastrian ‘messianic fervour’, note the suggestions of Pourshariati, Decline and Fall, pp. 122–123. On the connections between the aristocracy and the Zoroastrian church (qua holders of property), see Macuch, M., “Pious foundations in Byzantine and Sasanian law”, in La Persia e Bisanzio, (eds) Carile, A., Ruggini, L. and Gnoli, G. (Rome, 2004), pp. 181–195 Google Scholar.

50 Chronicle of Seert, PO 13, XLII (440–442); Khuzistan Chronicle, p. 17.

51 Chronicle of Seert, PO 13, LXV–LXVIII.

52 On the diplomatic relationship between Maurice and Khusrau, see Frendo, D., “Byzantine-Iranian relations before and after the death of Khusrau II: a critical examination of the evidence”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 14 (2000)Google Scholar and Sako, L., Le rôle de la hiérarchie syrienne orientale dans les rapports diplomatiques entre la Perse et Byzance aux Ve– VIIe siècle (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar. Also note the diplomatic role of the return of captured relics by Khusrau at Rusafa: Fowden, E. K., The Barbarian Plain. Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran (Berkeley, 1999), pp. 136–141 Google Scholar. Rumours of the conversion of Sasanian shahs had become relatively common by the late sixth century. See sources and discussion in Schilling, Taufe der Sāsāniden; Jullien, C., “Christianiser le pouvoir: images des rois sassanides dans la tradition syro-orientale”, Orientalia Christiana Periodica LXXV (2009), pp. 119–131 Google Scholar, at pp. 127–131; S. Minov, Syriac Christian Identity in Late Sasanian Mesopotamia: the Cave of Treasures in Context (Jerusalem, PhD dissertation, 2013), pp. 300–303.

53 Al-Ṭabarī, I, p. 1002.

54 Compare ps-Sebeos, translation and commentary Thomson, R. and Howard-Johnston, J., The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos (Liverpool, 1999), Ch. 33, p. 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Al-Ṭabarī, I, p. 1003.

56 J. Howard-Johnston, “Heraclius’ Persian campaigns and the revival of the eastern Roman Empire”, in his East Rome, VIII.

57 Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse et l'histoire de la Palestine au début du VIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1992) II, pp. 118–119 Google Scholar.

58 For example, al-Thaʿālibī, pp. 722–227.

59 al-Ṭabarī, I, p. 1061.

60 Khuzistan Chronicle, pp. 28–29. Earlier sections of the Chronicle (pp. 15–17) are also distinctly biased towards Yazdin, Shamta's father.

61 Thomas of Marga, Book of the Governors, I, xxxv, edited and translated by Wallis-Budge, E. (London, 1893)Google Scholar, p. 63/ translation 112–115.

62 Al-Ṭabarī, I, p. 1046. See also Nihāyat al-‘Arab fī Akhbār al-Furs wa-l-ʿArab, partially translated by Browne, E., Journal Asiatique n.s. XXXII (1900), pp. 195–259 Google Scholar, at p. 253. On this source see Grignaschi, M., “La Nihāyat al-Arab fi Akhbāri-l-Furs wa-l-ʿArab”, Bulletin d’études orientales (Damascus) XXII (1969), pp. 15–67 Google Scholar.

63 Al-Thaʿālibī, p. 721. Al-Dīnawarī gives his version of the accusation list on pp. 112–113, and adds Khusrau's deposition of the Arab king ʿal-Nuʿmān III, a detail that may respond to Islamic-era concerns.

64 In the reigns of his daughters Boran and Azarmidukht. Al-Dīnawarī, p. 111, also notes that Shahrbaraz claimed the illegitimacy of Shiroë's line on the basis of his murder of Khusrau.

65 This elaboration is especially visible in the tales of Shirin and Barbad at Khusrau's court that al-Thaʿālibī provides.

66 Chronicle of Seert, PO 13, XCIII (554–556). Cf. Khuzistan Chronicle, pp. 29–30. See further the discussion by Mango, C., “Deux études sur Byzance et la Perse Sasanide”, Travaux et Memories IX (1985), pp. 93–118 Google Scholar and Howard-Johnston, ‘Al-Ṭabarī’, pp. 12–14 (on Shahrbaraz's letter).

67 Though if Shahrbaraz appealed to Christian sentiments in his Roman alliance, he was far from making common cause with other patrons of Christianity at the Sasanian court. Indeed, he was responsible for the deaths of both Shamta, son of Khusrau's Christian financier Yazdin, and Ardashir III, son of Shiroë, whose birth had been foretold by a Christian holy man (Chronicle of Seert, PO 13, XCII (552)).

68 Sizgorich, T., “Narrative and community in Islamic Late Antiquity”, Past and Present CLXXXV (2004), pp. 9–42 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; T. Sizgorich, “Do Prophets come with a sword?” Conquest, empire and historical narrative in the early Islamic world”, American Historical Review CXII (2007), pp. 993–1015.

69 Note the increasingly prominent use of Christian symbols on the seals of Sasanian officials: Gyselen, R., “Les témoinages sigillographiques sur la présence chrétienne dans l'empire sasanide”, in her Chrétiens en terre de l'Iran I: Implantation et Acculturation (Paris, 2006), pp. 17–78 Google Scholar.