CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF NUBIA AND THE OLD NUBIAN VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
During the past few years1 attention throughout the world has been focused on the preservation of hundreds, if not thousands, of ancient monuments in Nubia threatened with destruction in the waters of the Nile. The new high dam, now under construction near Aswan, will turn the lands of Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia into an inland lake three hundred miles long. The rising waters will destroy what has been described as a unique open-air museum, containing scores of ancient Egyptian and Nubian monuments, tombs by the thousands, and untold prehistoric remains. The cost of removing or protecting temples and fortresses, and of excavating hitherto unknown treasures of ancient civilizations on the scale demanded, is far beyond the resources of the United Arab Republic and the Sudan. Most appropriately, the United Nations Education al, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has marshalled the forces of finance and archaeology throughout the world in an effort to rescue the threatened monuments and sites. 2 It is fitting that, with the rise of contemporary interest in ancient Nubian monuments, attention should also be given to the remains of the Old Nubian version of the New Testament.3 Curiously
1 This chapter was originally presented as a paper at the Fourth Inter national Conference on Patristic Studies held at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1963. 2 For popularly written accounts of these efforts one may consult the volume entitled A Common Trust; the Preservation of the Ancient Monuments of Nubia (UNESCO, 1960), and Rex Keating, Nubian Twilight (New York, 1963). Among many scientific reports of recent archaeological excavations in Nubia mention may be made of those by William Y. Adams and H.-A. Norstrom in Kush, XI (1963), 10-46; by B. B. Piotrovski in Vestnik drevnoi istorii, II (84, 1963), 185ff.; and by Adams in Kush, XII (1964), 216-248; XIII (1965), 148-176. 3 The term Old Nubian is used in order to distinguish this version from modern translations of portions of the New Testament, prepared by mission aries in several contemporary Nubian dialects. For brief descriptions of these modern versions, see T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule, Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society (London, 1903-1908), and Eric M. North, The Book of a Thou sand Tongues (New York, 1935). On modern Nubian dialects in general see II2 THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF NUBIA
enough, though these fragments (see Plate II) were published more than half a century ago,1 as yet the textual affinities of the version remain unanalyzed. It is hoped that in what follows a beginning may be made in ascertaining the textual complexion of this ancient version of the New Testament. Before examining the text of the fragments themselves, however, it will not be out of place to sketch what is known of the Christi anization of the ancient Nubian kingdoms. The plural of the word "kingdom" is used deliberately, for in the period which concerns this study Nubia was composed of three distinct and independent kingdoms, each with its own king or chieftain. 2 These territories, the exact boundaries of which are not known today, lay between Egypt on the north and Abyssinia on the south. They comprised Nobadia (Nobatia; Arabic Nii.ha) in the north, between the First and Second Cataracts, with its capital at Pakhoras (now Faras), and Alodia (Arabic 'Alwah) in the south, with its capital at Soba, near the modern city of Khartiim. Between the two lay Makuria (Arabic Mal.rnrrah), having its capital at (Old) Dongola. The con version of Nobadia and Alodia to the Monophysite form of Christi anity and the conversion of Makuria to the Catholic (or Melkite) faith make an interesting and tangled chapter in the history of the expansion of Christianity in Africa.3 Ecclesiastical links with By zantium were continued for several centuries after the period of systematic missionary activity in the sixth century, and gravestones have been found inscribed in Greek (albeit very bad Greek) as late as A.D. 1243.' Ernst Zyhlarz, "Das meroitische Sprachproblem," Anthropos, xxv (1930), 409-463. According to S. Hillelson (s. v. "Nuba," Encyclopcedia of Islam, III [1936], 943), the language of the Old Nubian Christian texts approximates most closely to modem Mal;ias, although the provenance of most of the existing remains is the northernmost part of Nubia where Kenzi is spoken. 1 They were edited in 1906-1907 by Heinrich Schafer and Carl Schmidt in "Die ersten Bruchstiicke christlicher Literatur in altnubischer Sprache," Sitzungsberichte der koniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil. hist. KL, 8 Nov .. 1906, pp. 774-785, and "Die altnubischen Handschriften der koniglichen Bibliothek zu Berlin," ibid., 20. Juni 1907, pp. 602-613, especially pp. 602-606. For the dialect, see Ernst Zyhlarz, Grundzuge der nubischen Grammatik im christlichen Fruhmittelalter ( = A bhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, xvm, 1; Leipzig, 1928). 1 Cf. L. P. Kirwan, "Notes on the Topography of the Christian Nubian Kingdoms," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XXI (1935), 57-62, with a map. 3 For references to modem studies of the Christianization of Nubia, see below, p. 114, note 3. ' See Herbert Junker, "Die christlichen Grabsteine Nubiens," Zeitschrift