Abstract
This chapter provides a full translation of the surviving text written by Isaac of Antioch in reaction to his encounter in the 480s with a parrot who revealed to him the correct position to take in relation to a theological controversy roiling the city—an addition to the Trisagion prayer introduced by the divisive patriarch Peter the Fuller. Little historical information survives concerning this controversy, and Isaac’s indirect account of the events is unique testimony to the complexity and significance of the dispute. The text also reveals important considerations of animal revelation and of the relations between animals and divinity, considerations that distinguish Isaac as a noteworthy author not only for his witness to contemporary events, but also for his ruminations on animality and God.
Isaac of Antioch’s Bird Who Sang the Trisagion
Paul Bedjan, Homiliae S. Isaaci Syri Antiocheni (Paris, 1903) 737:5–788:15
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Notes
- 1.
Rēmză, technical term for the divine movement in nature.
- 2.
The place of the dead, into which Christ entered after death on the Cross and killed Death and liberated Adam and Eve, and all the other dead souls (Mt 27:52–53).
- 3.
1 Sam 16: 14–23.
- 4.
Lit. ‘against time’.
- 5.
Lit. ‘a skilled assembly of meanings’.
- 6.
Rēmzā.
- 7.
Here the Miaphysites are the ‘orthodox’ and the Chalcedonians are the ‘schismatics.’
- 8.
Riots between the two factions: those supporting Council of Chalcedon and those opposing (Miaphysites).
- 9.
The charge directed against dyophysite Christologies (Chalcedonian and ‘Nestorian’) that if Christ has two natures, human and divine, then there are two Sons and therefore four persons in the Trinity: Father, Spirit, Human Son, Divine Son.
- 10.
Lit. ‘is full/filled’.
- 11.
Daniel 3: 1–30.
- 12.
Trisagion Prayer: “Holy God, Holy [and] Mighty, Holy [and] Immortal, have mercy on us.” The “twice Holy” is used simply as shorthand, because the mēmrā is a metrical poem of 7 + 7 syllables in each line. ‘Qadish-Qadish-Qadish’ are six syllables, so there is not enough syllable space for the whole refrain.
- 13.
Is 53: 4.
- 14.
Isaac’s argument now shifts to the affirmation of the One United Nature of Christ, i.e., Miaphysite.
- 15.
John 2: 1–11.
- 16.
Mt 1: 1–16.
- 17.
Mt 1: 18–19.
- 18.
Lk 2: 6–7.
- 19.
Lk 2: 21.
- 20.
Lk 2: 33–35.
- 21.
Mt 2: 13–15.
- 22.
Lk 2: 51.
- 23.
Lk 2: 41–50.
- 24.
Jn 1: 1–3.
- 25.
Mt 3: 13–17; Mk 1: 9.
- 26.
Mt 4: 1–2.
- 27.
Gen 3: 1–19.
- 28.
Mt 28: 1–10; Mk 16: 1–15; Lk 24: 1–8; Jn 20: 1–18.
- 29.
Mk 16: 19; Lk 24: 51; Acts 1: 9.
- 30.
The seven signs of Jesus in the Gospel of John.
- 31.
The Church of St. Peter in Antioch.
- 32.
The previous three couplets depict a reversal of the Golden Calf, Ex 32.
- 33.
Rēmzā.
- 34.
Lit., ‘a full step’.
- 35.
Isaiah 6: 2–3.
- 36.
Cf. Mk 8: 36.
- 37.
Cf. Mt 17: 15, Mk 9: 22.
- 38.
2 Kings 5: 20–27.
- 39.
Mt 27: 3–5.
- 40.
Acts 5: 1–11.
- 41.
Eph 6: 14.
- 42.
Eph 6: 17.
- 43.
Eph 6: 15.
- 44.
Eph 6: 11, 13.
- 45.
Jn 19: 34.
- 46.
Ps 23: 4a.
- 47.
Gen 4: 8, 10.
- 48.
Gen 5: 24.
- 49.
Gen 6: 9.
- 50.
Gen 6: 14–16.
- 51.
Gen 12: 4.
- 52.
Gen 12: 1–3.
- 53.
Gen 22: 6–8.
- 54.
Gen 22: 10.
- 55.
Gen 29: 10 – Jacob, not Isaac.
- 56.
Gen 26: 12.
- 57.
Gen 20: 1–18.
- 58.
Gen 24: 62–67.
- 59.
Gen 24: 22.
- 60.
Gen 24: 15–21.
- 61.
Gen 29: 1.
- 62.
Gen 27: 1–45.
- 63.
Gen 28: 10–17.
- 64.
Gen 29–31.
- 65.
Gen 30: 25–43.
- 66.
Gen 32: 24.
- 67.
Gen 37: 2, 5–11.
- 68.
Gen 37: 23–8.
- 69.
Gen 39: 6–18.
- 70.
Gen 41: 43.
- 71.
Gen 41: 46–57.
- 72.
Gen 50: 25.
- 73.
Ex 2: 15b.
- 74.
Ex 2: 13–14.
- 75.
Isa 1: 1–4.
- 76.
Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 5:1–16; trans. M.A. Knibb, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Volume 2, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Doubleday & Co.: Garden City, NY, 1985), 143–76.
- 77.
Lamentation 3: 53.
- 78.
Lam 3: 53.
- 79.
2 Kings 18.
- 80.
2 Kings 19.
- 81.
2 Kings 20: 8–11.
- 82.
2 Kings 22.
- 83.
Daniel 3.
- 84.
Daniel 3: 29.
- 85.
Daniel 1: 11–16.
- 86.
Daniel 3: 12.
- 87.
Daniel 3: 21–2.
- 88.
Daniel 3: 24–5.
- 89.
Daniel 6: 16.
- 90.
Esther 3: 1–15.
- 91.
Esther 5.
- 92.
Esther 7: 1–10.
- 93.
Ezk 4: 16.
- 94.
Ezk 1: 26–27.
- 95.
Ezk 1: 28.
- 96.
Ezra 2: 2.
- 97.
Ezra 2: 2.
- 98.
1 Esdras 4: 57.
- 99.
Zechariah 3: 1–2.
- 100.
Zech 3: 4.
- 101.
2 Maccabees 7.
- 102.
1 Macc 2: 1–48.
- 103.
1 Macc 3–9.
- 104.
1 Macc 10–16.
- 105.
Cf. Mt 6:28–29.
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Kitchen, R.A., Peers, G. (2024). Translation: Isaac of Antioch’s Mēmrā on the Parrot. In: 'The Bird Who Sang the Trisagion' of Isaac of Antioch. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60077-7_2
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