Youhana Bar Ma’adan

Youhana Bar Ma’adan

He was born Aaron, nicknamed "Bar M'adani," a proficient poet and writer in both Syriac and Arabic. He was also of noble character. He was ordained a metropolitan for Mardin in 1230 and was named Youhana. He was then elevated to the Maphrianate of the East at the end of the following year. He spent his time between the country of Nineveh (Mosul) and Baghdad, when he studied the Arabic language and became able to write his letters and sermons in it. When the Patriarchal throne became vacant, he was ambitious to fill it and consequently he became a Patriarch on December 4, in 1252, he stayed a Patriarch until his death in 1263 at the Baqismat Monastery. He was eulogized in a masterful ode by Bar Hebraeus.

Following are his writings.

• An anthology in forty-seven pages, containing his poems, largely rhymed, in the twelve-syllabic meter. The most famous of his poems is the one on the soul, entitled "The Bird," in one hundred twenty-two lines. The second one in twenty-five lines is on the high origin of the soul, its fall and degradation. He began it with: "She descended to you from the highest holy," is an emulation of Ibn Sina's ode, "She has descended to you from on high." A one hundred twenty-six line poem on the excellent path of the perfect and their categories is one of his most excellent poems. Besides these, he wrote a fifteen-line poem on the death, resurrection and judgment of people according to their deeds and a forty-two line rhymeless poem on the invasion of Edessa by the Byzantine emperor in July, 1245. He also composed some fifty-two short poems, one of which was translated into Arabic. They demonstrate his fertile imagination, techniques and good taste. His ode in praise of Aaron the ascetic is lost. His anthology has a vocalized copy in Oxford. In 1929, the monk Yuhanon Dolabani published his anthology in Jerusalem based on recent copies. 

• Four magnificent homilies in Syriac on Palm Sunday, the Cross, the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple and New or Low Sunday. He composed these homilies when he was a Maphryono and translated them into Arabic with some liberty into classical rhymed prose. He opened his homily on the feast of the Cross with: "Beloved, let us pluck out the fruit of immortality from the blessed wood," and followed it by supplication and invocations, particularly an invocation of God in favor of the Caliph and his heir apparent. In his supplications he lauded the wealthy Syrian dignitaries, Taj al-Dawla, Fakhr al-Dawla and Shams al-Dawla of the Thomas family of Baghdad. There is a copy of these homilies in good handwriting finished at the end of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the following century. From this copy we published the Arabic homilies, except the first one, as well as a fourth homily on the Assumption of the Virgin. 

• A liturgy compiled from the liturgies of the fathers, beginning with, "Immortal and Everlasting, whose existence is imperative." 

• Seven canons, six of which he issued at the Monastery of Mor Hananya while still a Maphryono. The seventh one he incorporated into one of his early Patriarchal proclamations and it is mentioned in an ancient collection at our library.

Sources: 

• Patriarch Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum (2003), The Scattered Pearls, A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, Translated and Edited by Matti Moosa, New Jersey