The treatise On Paradise, by one of the most influential and prolific West-Syriac Christian authors, Moses bar Kepha (d. 903, Iraq), includes a book On Heresies (Book III), which still awaits its translation and publication. In it, Moses bar Kepha denounces the theological errors related to the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis, by some past religious movements, such as the Manichaeans, and by the so-called “Nestorians” (that is, East-Syrians) present in ninth-century Northern Iraq.

Moses bar Kepha’s mentioning of one particular movement is puzzling for the historians: that of the Julianists, followers of Julian of Halicarnassus, the sixth-century Miaphysite theologian who held that the body of Christ was incorruptible. The most recent studies on the Julianist movement have shown that its ecclesiastical organization is attested in Syriac-speaking areas until the eighth century CE. This fact, together with the inclusion of the Julianists in a catalogue of errors beside “heretics of record,” such as Simeon Magus and Mani, and “living heretics,” the Nestorians, raises the question of their status: Did the ninth-century Iraqi West-Syriac heresiographers consider the Julianists to be a phenomenon of the past or of the present?

This lecture aims to give a tentative answer to this question, by investigating the local religious circumstances of ninth-century Iraq. It will suggest that the schism that temporarily split the West-Syrian Church, at the beginning of the ninth century around the city of Mosul, prompted by the adoption or the rejection of the liturgical formula “We break the Heavenly Bread,” could provide the relevant historical background for Moses bar Kepha’s denunciation of the Julianists.

At the same time, modern scholars noticed the overlap in titles and content between several texts which sometimes circulated under the name of Moses bar Kepha and sometimes under the name of his predecessor John of Dara (d. 860 CE). Doubts about the actual authorship apply as well to the small treatise On Heretics attributed to John of Dara in four Syriac manuscript. This text is indeed very similar, though not perfectly identical, to Moshe bar Kepha’s On Paradise Book III. We will discuss this issue of authorship by providing a parallel analysis of the sources, structure, content and wording of selected passages from the two texts, thus addressing the “synoptic” problem which underpins the issues of authorial attribution.

Studying the historical background may help solving the problem of double attribution. Moreover, On Paradise, Book III examined in the light of this background, characterized by a very circumstantial controversy, offers a case-study for the broader relation between highly standardized texts, such as ancient heresiological texts, and the socio-historical contexts of their production. At a methodological level, the lecture illustrates how the discourse of “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” with its universal and clear-cut statements, could originate in very particular historical settings, in response to rather local and temporary religious needs.

The material discussed in this lecture will interest scholars specialized in philology, history of religions, history and transmission of texts, biblical exegesis and Church history.