Review: Fr. Andrew Younan’s Article “Chaldeans and Assyrians in the Middle Ages”

Last week, I had an opportunity to read Fr. Andrew Younan’s latest blog post titled Chaldeans and Assyrians in the Middle Ages (April 2, 2024). At first glance, the title of his article caught my interest.

As I am deeply passionate about this topic, I thought It’d be appropriate to post a review where I will draw particular emphasis on Fr. Younan's portrayal of the "Chaldean" cultural identity. I was intrigued to find that Fr. Younan had come across some “rare references” and was curious to see what his findings were.

Fr. Younan’s article promised to offer his readers some insight into the ethnic terminologies associated with members of the historic Church of the East and who lived in Mesopotamia from 500–1500 AD. He begins by explaining that during this period, our people did not care as much about ethnicity as we do today.

Fr. Younan argued that instead, our people either associated themselves with the empires in which they belonged to (i.e., Persian Empire) or as adherents of a particular denomination (i.e., “Jacobites” or “Nestorians”), or simply as “Christians”. He then proceeds to explain that in some rare instances, our church fathers did use certain ethnic terms such as “Chaldeans” and “Assyrians” to refer to our people.

The Sources Used by Fr. Younan

To elaborate on his argument, Fr. Younan introduces his readers to the writings of Michael the Syrian (c. 1126–1199), Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, and of Bar Hebraeus (c. 1226–1286), head of the Syriac Orthodox community in the Persian Empire. His use of such sources, however, presents several challenges that I will try to elaborate on.

First and foremost, I should begin by stating the obvious, Fr. Younan’s sources were authored by historical figures that did not belong to the East Syriac tradition. I was particularly disappointed with this omission since the entire premise of his article was centred around the identity of individuals adhering to the Church of the East.

This leads me to my second point, namely that the sources presented by Fr. Younan were incredibly late. Not only did this leave a significant time gap but made it difficult to verify the accuracy of the information presented.

Source 1: Michael the Syrian

I will now turn to Fr. Younan’s first source— Michael the Syrian. Although this twelve-century writer wrote extensively about the history of our people; we should always keep in mind that he did so through a West Syriac lens.

While it is true, Michael did acknowledge both the ancient “Chaldean and Assyrian kings” as his ancestors; one can’t help but ask, in what context did he do so? The first clue lies in the fact that Michael perceived these kings as descendants of “Shem, the third son of Noah”.

Here, Michael is obviously using the Bible as a framework to build this ancestry. Further in the passage, he also makes it abundantly clear that he relied upon earlier works such as those belonging to writers outside of his own cultural milieu— namely, Josephus (b. 37 AD) and Eusebius (d. 339 AD).

In fact, the king list found in Michael’s Chronicle was almost entirely copied from Eusebius. As a result, its accuracy is debatable and should be approached with caution since most of the names are legendary and were transmitted by earlier Greek writers.

It’s also worth understanding what Michael’s motivations were. In his Chronicle, Michael reports that his "intention is to show that until the time of Cyrus the Persian, there existed an empire with our language and our script" and so therefore "those are not right who say that from our people there never existed a king".

Since these biblical kings were of "Aramaic tongue and education", Michael considered them as the ancestors of his Syriac Christian contemporaries. We can clearly see that Michael was trying to assert the legitimacy of his church community within the broader society by establishing a sense of continuity with illustrious ancestors.

Michael lived during a time of great political upheaval and so it is plausible that he drew these connections to enhance the prestige of Syriac Christians— both from a biblical point of view as well as linguistic. Now, of course, Fr. Younan was not wrong when he stated that the faithful of the Syriac Orthodox Church as well as the Church of the East were of diverse ethno-cultural backgrounds.

I would also argue, a portion of these Christians, whether "Jacobite" or "Nestorian", were descendants of ancient peoples, the Chaldeans included. However, apart from this loan reference, the Syriac Christian tradition, particularly the East Syriac tradition, is very clear on where it stands when it comes to the name "Chaldean".

In his analysis, Fr. Younan argues that Michael’s use of the Chaldean nomenclature suggests that it was simply an overarching ethnic term for all Syriac-speaking people from Mesopotamia. This name, explains Fr. Younan, was the “accepted terminology” during Michael's time.

This, however, is misleading and not consistent with the Syriac Christian tradition. I have elaborated in further detail about this in my notes.

Source 2: Bar Hebraeus

To corroborate his argument, Fr. Younan, then turns to his second source— Bar Hebraeus. The specific excerpt chosen by Fr. Younan was from a poem found in Bar Hebraeus' Metrical Grammar about the Syriac language and in which he explicitly identifies members of the Church of the East as the “sons of the Chaldeans”.

Fr. Younan explains that this reference was “certainly centuries before any supposed imposition of the Chaldean name by the Catholic Church.” Be this as it may, an earlier analysis of this poem by John Joseph (2000) and David Wilmshurst (2011) found that Bar Hebraeus used the name “Chaldean” in a derogatory manner.

Fr. Younan disagrees with this position and explains that the implications are clear; given how it was used as an “ethnic name” by Michael a few decades earlier. For him, Bar Hebraeus was not “acting like a polemical enemy” of the Church of the East.

I, on the other hand, beg to differ. For example, in the preface to his work titled the Book of Rays, Bar Hebraeus praises “God, the Father” for not allowing him to go astray among the “pagan Chaldeanism" but raised him among "the pure-speaking Christian Aramaic Syrians.”

Here, we can see that the name Chaldean held too strong pagan connotations. In fact, this was the common implications of the name among individuals who belonged to the Church of the East throughout the Middle Ages.

Final Thoughts

Although Fr. Younan provides a thought-provoking discussion on the issue of identity; his assumptions, to put it bluntly, were oversimplified and his conclusions were premature. While the sources published by Fr. Younan are important for his readers to understand how historical figures thought about identity, the article failed to shed light on how nuanced this topic really is.

Despite the overwhelming evidence available at his disposal, Fr. Younan's omission of East Syriac sources also demonstrates, whether intentional or not, a clear case of confirmation bias. By overlooking East Syriac sources, the article obscured dissenting perspectives by selectively presenting findings to support a particular viewpoint.

In closing, I thank Fr. Younan for his time in authoring his article as well as for his excerpt translations. However, I respectfully disagree with his assumption that Timothy I (c. 740–823), Patriarch of the Church of the East, would not have minded being called a "Chaldean" or that this nomenclature was an accepted terminology for those belonging to the East Syriac tradition.

Notes

1. In the Syriac Christian tradition, the name Chaldean refers to a specific class of people that inhabited southern Mesopotamia. These Chaldeans were not considered members of Mesopotamia’s Syriac Christian community as they practiced Chaldeanism—an ancient religion that included the practice of astrology, divination, and sorcery. The name Chaldean was thus reupdated by early Syriac Christian church fathers and the practice of Chaldeanism was considered pagan. Early Syriac Christian writers, particularly those who belonged to the Church of the East, often wrote polemics against the Chaldeans and discouraged Christians from having any association with them. By extension, the name Chaldean was also metaphorically used—by Syriac Christians —to describe individuals who were considered “heretics”, irrespective of their ethnic origin.