THE ADOPTION of ARABIC AS a LITURGICAL LANGUAGE by the PALESTINIAN MELKITES the Survival of Many 9Th and 10Th Century Melkite Ar

ARAM, 15 (2003), 239-246 239

THE ADOPTION OF ARABIC AS A LITURGICAL LANGUAGE BY THE PALESTINIAN MELKITES

KATE LEEMING

The survival of many 9th and 10th century Melkite Arabic manuscripts testi- fies to the presence of a thriving Arabic-speaking community in the monasteries of Palestine in this period. The great variety of texts – translations of Greek Patristic writings, homilies, hagiographies, ascetical works as well as sections of the Bible – shows that the spiritual development of these Arabic speakers was well catered for. But one category of text is notably absent. No Arabic prayer or hymn book of this period has come down to us.1 Indeed, the earliest Arabic manuscripts containing parts of services other than readings which I have come across in catalogues are dated as late as the 13th century (codices sinaitici arabici 227, 232, 236, 244 and 250),2 and it was only in the early 17th century that the entire range of Melkite service books was systematically translated from Greek into Arabic.3 Given this lack of early evidence, it is legitimate to wonder to what extent 9th and 10th century Palestinian Melkite monks worshipped in Arabic. Were the services they attended conducted in Arabic at all? Or did they worship together with non-Arabic speakers, who we know to have been present in the Palestinian monasteries at this time? The relevance of this question for historians of Arabic culture is obvious. The identity of the Palestinian Melkites has recently been a subject of some debate. Their religious roots and ties lay within the Byzantine world. The Melkite church remained part of the Byzantine ecclesiastical hierarchy even after the conquest of Palestine by the Muslims in the 640s. Links between Palestine and Constantinople were maintained and even strengthened during the iconoclast controversy in the 8th and the first half of the 9th century. Although Palestine was no longer under the political control of Byzantium, and was now part of a primarily Arabic-speaking empire, the Melkites continued writing in Greek. Indeed, many of the foremost Greek hymnwriters, hagiographers and theologians were based in Palestine up to the early 9th cen-

1 J. Nasrallah, Histoire du mouvement littéraire dans l'église melchite du Ve au XXe siècle II, (Louvain, 1988), p. 182; G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur I, (ST, 118, Rome, 1944), pp. 622-640. 2 A. Atiya, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai: a hand-list of the Arabic manuscripts and scrolls microfilmed at the library of the monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, (John Hop- kins, 1995). 3 J. Darblade, “L'Euchologe arabe melkite de Kyr Mélèce Karmi”, POC, 6 (1956), pp. 28- 37. 240 THE ADOPTION OF ARABIC AS LITURGICAL LANGUAGE tury. But by the mid 9th century, the Melkites began to translate key Christian texts into Arabic, thus apparently weakening their ties with the Greek world. The language in which these Christians chose to conduct their acts of worship at this critical point in their history was central to their cultural identity.4 But the study of the liturgy in the Palestinian monasteries is of more than local interest. It is key to an understanding of the development of services cur- rently celebrated by the Greek Orthodox church. For the arrangement of services adhered to today is not, as we would expect, that of Hagia Sophia, the Patriarchal church of Constantinople, but that of the great Palestinian monastery, Mar Saba.5 Radical changes were made to the liturgy by the Pales- tinian monks in the 8th and 9th centuries. They devised a whole new genre of hymnwriting and restructured many of the services. This so-called monastic rite, was adopted by the clergy of Constantinople, who after the upheaval of iconoclasm in the 8th and early 9th century, viewed the Palestinian Christians as the source of correct worship. So despite being politically severed from Con- stantinople, the Palestinian Melkites played a vital part in the development of Greek Orthodox church services. But very few Greek hymn books or prayer books survive from this key period. The evidence provided by any translations of such texts undertaken by monks at the Palestinian monasteries in the 9th and 10th centuries is thus central for historians of Byzantine liturgy and music.6

THE LITURGY IN PALESTINIAN MONASTERIES IN THE 9TH CENTURY.

The Palestinian Melkite monasteries of the 9th century were certainly multi- lingual places. In the monastery of Mar Saba, translations were made from Greek into Georgian as well as Arabic, and at least one dialect of Aramaic was written and spoken.7 Greek continued to be written throughout the 9th century.

4 R. Blake, “La littérature grecque en Palestine au VIIIe siècle”, Muséon, 78 (1965), pp. 367- 380; A. Cameron, “The Eastern Provinces in the Seventh Century AD - Hellenism and the emer- gence of Islam”, in S. Said, (ed.) “Hellenismos”-Quelques jalons pour une histoire de l'identité grecque, (Leiden, 1991) pp. 287-313; S. Griffith, “The monks of Palestine and the growth of Christian literature in Arabic”, MW, 78 (1988), pp. 1-28; H. Kennedy, “The Melkite Church from the Islamic Conquest to the Crusades: continuity and adaptation in the Byzantine Legacy”, in 17th International Byzantine Congress: Major Papers, (New Rochelle, 1986), pp. 235-243. 5 J. Mateos, “Le Typikon de la Grande Eglise”, OCA, 165 (1962), pp. viii-ix; R. Taft, “Mount Athos: a late chapter in the history of the Byzantine rite”, DOP, 42 (1988), pp. 179-194. 6 P. Jeffery, “The earliest Christian chant repertory recovered: the Georgian witnesses to Jerusalem chant”, JAMS, 47 (1994), pp. 1-38; Kekelidze, Ierusalimskiî kanonarà VII veka (gruzinskaq versiq), (Tblisi, 1912); B. Outtier, “Nouveaux fragments onciaux du Lectionnaire géorgien ancien”, in Lingua restituta orientalis. Festgabe für Julius Assfalg, (Weisbaden, 1990), pp. 269-271: B. Outtier, “Un fragment d'évangéliaire liturgique de saint-Sabas? (cod. Sinaï géo. 63)”, Bedi Kartlisa, 36 (1978) pp. 53-55. 7 Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Syriac manuscripts show that the Melkites were using 2 dialects of Aramaic in this period. As there is no distinction in the mediaeval sources between users of these dialects, I follow the Greek sources and refer to them as “Syrians”. K. LEEMING 241

So during the 9th century, speakers of at least four different languages lived together in one monastery. It is fortunate then that the Palestinian Melkites had a long tradition of cel- ebrating services in languages other than Greek. The Spanish pilgrim Egeria visited Jerusalem in the 4th century. She was struck by the way in which the biblical lessons were read first in Greek then in what she calls “Syrian” for the benefit of the congregation. Other parts of the service were read only in Greek.8 In the 5th century, St. Sabas allowed Armenian monks to join him in his newly-founded laura. He permitted them to celebrate the office of psalmody in Armenian. They could read the Gospel and the first part of the Eucharistic service in Armenian in their own chapel. But for the second part of the Eucharistic service, or anaphora as it is called in the Byzantine rite, the Armenians had to join the Greek-speakers in the main church.9 This arrangement is adhered to in the Typikon, or rule-book, of St. Sabas, where Geor- gians, Syrians and Franks are allocated their own churches. They are allowed to sing the office of the hours and the first part of the Eucharistic service in their own languages, but have to join the Greeks for the anaphora, which is celebrated only in Greek.10 The date of this version of the Typikon is prob- lematic, for though it purports to be the rule of Sabas himself, in its present form it is clearly later than the fifth century. There is no mention of the Arme- nians who figure in the “Life” of Sabas, whereas the inclusion of the Franks suggests that this version of the Typikon reached its present form much later. For our purposes the most striking aspect of the Typikon is that there is no mention of Arabic-speaking monks at all. It would therefore appear that, unlike the Georgians, Syrians and Franks, they did not have their own church within the monastery at the date the Typikon was written down, whenever that was. There is no 9th-century record of the Arab monks having their own church within Mar Saba. Can we therefore conclude that they worshipped together with the Syrians, Georgians or the Greeks? It is conceivable that the Arabic monks attended services with the Syrians. As both Arabic and Aramaic are Semitic languages, the Syrians' language would have been easier for an Arab to understand than Greek. Syriac was widely used for the liturgy in the Melkite church in the 13th century, and several fragments of 10th-century liturgical manuscripts prove that this was no innovation.11 Indeed, Greek hymns were translated into Syriac surprisingly early, in the 8th century in the case of John of Damascus, not long after the

8 J. Wilkinson, Egeria's Travels, (Warminster, 1999), p. 163. 9 E. Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis, (TU, 49, Leipzig, 1939), p. 105. 10 A. Dmitrievskiî, «Kinovialànxq pravila prep. Savvu OsvqÏennago», TKIDA, January 1890, pp, 170-192. 11 H. Husman, Ein syro-melkitisches Tropologion mit altbyzantinischer Notation. Sinai Syr. 261, Wiesbaden, 1975). 242 THE ADOPTION OF ARABIC AS LITURGICAL LANGUAGE demise of the author.12 The anaphora was translated into Christian Palestinian Aramaic by the 12th century. But were Syrian services attended by the Arab monks in the 9th century? There is no proof one way or the other.13 The Arabs could equally have worshipped together with the Georgians, but again there is no evidence for this. Some monks knew both Georgian and Ara- bic well, as they translated from Arabic into Georgian. But this is no proof that the Arabic community of Mar Saba worshipped together with the Georgians as a rule. All the evidence available so far suggests that the Arabs attended services together with the Greek community, and that the services they attended were bilingual in Arabic and Greek. The service Egeria had attended in the 4th century was conducted primarily in Greek, with the lessons being read in both Greek and Syrian. Following this model we can surmise that Arabic monks attended services that were primarily in Greek, but in which the biblical texts were read in both Greek and Arabic. The surviving 9th-century Arabic manuscripts do indeed bear this out. Some New Testament books and Psalters were clearly intended for use during a service, rather than for private reading. They contain rubrics indicating which section of which particular text was to be read on each day.14 Arabic translations of homilies and hagiographies could also have been read during services, the main structure of which would have been in another language. Direct proof for bilingual services is provided by several bilingual Psalters and Gospel manuscripts.15 They contain the Greek and Arabic texts in parallel columns. These parts of the service seem to have been read in both languages, so both versions would be needed in parallel during the service. This practice would explain the unique Damascus Psalter, where the Psalms are written in both Arabic and Greek, with the Arabic text rendered phonetically in Greek letters. It seems that some unfortunate Greek-speaker was forced to chant the Psalms first in Greek, then in Arabic, perhaps because he was responsible for leading the recitation. Not knowing the Arabic script, he transcribed the Ara- bic Psalms phonetically into the Greek alphabet to enable himself to take part in the Arabic as well as the Greek parts of the service.16

12 S. Brock, Catalogue of Syriac fragments (new finds) in the Library of the Monatery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, (Athens, 1995). 13 For later Syriac Melkite liturgical manuscripts, see M. Black, A Christian Palestinian Syr- iac Horologion (Berlin ms. Or. Oct. 1019), (Cambridge, 1954); M. Black, Rituale Melchitarum, (Stuttgart, 1938); H. Husmann, Ein syro-melkitisches Tropologion mit altbyzantinischer Nota- tion, Sinai Syr. 261, (2 vols) (Weisbaden, 1975, 1978); Sauget, J-M, “Nouveaux fragments de fouleaux liturgiques byzantino-melkites en syriaque”, Muséon, 88 (1975), pp. 5-30. 14 G. Garitte, “Les rubriques liturgiques de quelques anciens tétraévangiles arabes du Sinaï”, in Mélanges liturgiques offerts au Dom B. Botte, (Louvain, 1972), pp. 151-166. 15 N. Pigulevskaq, «Greko-siro-arabskaq rukopisà IX veka», PS, 1 (1954), pp. 59-90. 16 B. Violet, “Ein zweisprachiges Psalmfragment aus Damascus”, OLZ, 4 Jahrgang (1901), N. 10, col. 384-403; N. 11, col. 425-441: N. 12, col. 475-488. K. LEEMING 243

The evidence available up to now suggests that there was no separate Ara- bic church at Mar Saba in the 9th century. No Arabic prayer or hymnbooks of this period have been published, implying that these parts of the service were conducted in a language other than Arabic. The bilingual Arabic and Greek Psalters would have been of use during a service held in Greek and in Arabic. On the basis of material found so far, it is reasonable to infer that the Arab monks of Mar Saba worshipped together with the Greeks. But in the second part of this paper, I will prove that, contrary to the evidence we have so far examined, hymns were indeed being sung in Arabic in Mar Saba as early as the 9th century, and that the use of Arabic in the liturgy was not confined to biblical readings. The Arab monks may have had their own church after all.

THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN ARABIC HYMNS.

The confidence of this assertion is based on the identification of the scribe of an Arabic manuscript recently discovered in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The manuscript in question, Vellum Codex 35, contains 16 homilies and a set of twelve short hymns, or Troparia.17 It is, however, undated, although the archaic kufic script would lead us to suppose that it is quite early. A close examination of the script shows that this important manuscript can not only be precisely dated, but a place of writing and even the scribe's name can be assigned to it. For the scribe of the new manuscript is none other than Antony David, son of Suleiman of Baghdad, who copied two other manuscripts, both of which have extensive colophons: Vaticanus Arabi- cus 71 and Strasbourg Orientalis 4226.18 The colophons of these manuscripts state that Antony David wrote them both in the year AH 272, that is, AD 885- 886, in the monastery of Mar Saba for Abba Isaac of the monastery of Mount Sinai.19 The new manuscript is clearly part of Abba Isaac's collection. With the identification of the scribe of Vellum Codex 35, we have at one stroke put back the date of the earliest hymns in Arabic by several centuries, the earliest complete codex of Arabic Christian hymns being sin. arab. 140, copied in the 13th century.20 We will now look more closely at the hymns, or Troparia, contained in the codex. They are attributed to Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and are to be sung

17 I. Meﬂmáre, Katalogov twn newn ârabikwn xeirografwn tjv ïerav monjv ägiav Aika- terinjv tou ôrouv Sina (Athens, 1985), black and white photograph 34, colour illustration 39. 18 See E. Tisserant, Specimina Codicum Orientalium, (Bonn, 1914), plate 54 for a photograph of Vaticanus Arabicus 71. 19 S. Griffith, “Antony David of Baghdad, Scribe and Monk of Mar Sabas: Arabic in the monasteries of Palestine”, CH, 58 (1989), pp. 7-19. 20 I have so far been unable to see J. Absi, Le chant de l' église Melkite. L' hymnographie grecque et ses versions syriaque et arabe. La relation texte-musique, (Doctoral thesis for the Université Saint-Esprit, Kaslik, Lebanon, 1988). 244 THE ADOPTION OF ARABIC AS LITURGICAL LANGUAGE at the sixth hour on Good Friday. The attribution of these hymns to Cyril of Jerusalem disagrees with the Greek tradition, which credits Cyril of Alexan- dria or Sophronius of Jerusalem as the author of these particular hymns, and the Georgian tradition, according to which they are anonymous.21 Indeed, no hymns by Cyril of Jerusalem survive in Greek.22 But the Arabic attribution is shared by the Syriac tradition, within both the Melkite and Syrian Orthodox churches.23 The 12 Troparia form a central part of the morning service of Good Friday. They are sung at this service in the Greek and Georgian traditions, although their precise position within the service varies. They are never sung all together, but are interspersed with Psalms and New Testament readings.24 The morning service of Good Friday is thus the earliest Christian service which survives in its entirety in Arabic. For 9th-century Arabic manuscripts of the other portions of this service, the Psalms and the New Testament, also survive. The rubrics on the following manuscripts show that they were intended for use in church: sin. Arab. 54, 70, 72, 74, 97 and Borg. Arab 95 containing the Gospels,25 sin. Arab. 151 dated to 867 containing the Epistles and the Acts of the Apostles,26 and sin. graec. 34 and 35 containing Arabic and Greek Psalters. The morning service of Good Friday was one of the most important of the Church's year. It falls just before Easter, when Jerusalem would have been full of pilgrims. If such a service was celebrated in Arabic, we can confidently surmise that other services were held in Arabic as well. The Arabic monks at Mar Saba thus probably did have their own church in the 9th century where they could celebrate services other than the anaphora in Arabic, just as the Armeni- ans did in the “Life” of Sabas, and the Syrians, Georgians and Franks did according to the Typikon. The fact remains, though, that very little manuscript evidence for the ninth- century Arabic liturgy survives. But this need not worry us unduly. The twelve

21 S. Janeras, Le vendredi-saint dans la tradition liturgique byzantine, (SA, Analecta Litur- gica 13, Rome, 1988). 22 E. Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, (London, 2000). 23 A. Baumstark, “Die Idiomela der byzantinischen Karfreitagshoren in syrischer Überliefer- ung”, OC, 3rd series 3-4 (1928-1929), pp. 232-247. 24 R. Taft, “In the Bridegroom's absence. The Paschal Triduum in the Byzantine Church”, La celebrazione del Triduo pasquale: anamnesis e mimesis. Atti del II Congresso Internazionale di Liturgia, (AL 14 = SA 102, Rome 1990), pp. 71-97, reprinted in R. Taft, Liturgy in Byzantium and Beyond, (Variorum, 1995); R. Taft, “A Tale of Two Cities. The Byzantine Holy Week Triduum as a Paradigm of Liturgical History”, in J. Alexander (ed.), Time and Community. In honour of Thomas Julian Talley, (Washington, 1990) pp. 21-41, reprinted in R. Taft, Liturgy VI. For an English translation of the present-day Greek service, see Lenten Triodion translated from the original Greek by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, (London, 1978), pp. 565- 621. 25 B. Levin, Die griechisch-arabisch Evangelien-Übersetzung Vat. Borg. ar. 95 und Ber. Ori- ent. Oct. 1108, (Uppsala, 1938). 26 H. Staal, Mt. Sinai Arabic codex 151. Acts of the Apostles. Catholic Epistles, (CSCO 462, 463 = Arab 42, 43, Louvain 1984). K. LEEMING 245

Arabic hymns looked at in this paper survive only thanks to the special rela- tionship between the monasteries of Mount Sinai and Mar Saba. The Sinaite monk, Abba Isaac, asked his scribe, Antony David, to copy a veritable library of Arabic texts at Mar Saba. But these constitute only an abbreviated selection of texts available in the library of Mar Saba at the time. Many of the other texts are now lost, as the library of Mar Saba itself has not been preserved in its entirety. Among the lost manuscripts would have been an Arabic translation of Greek hymn books. The Melkites had translated Greek hymns into Syriac27 and almost certainly Georgian28 by the 9th century, so the singing of Greek hymns in translation would not have been alien to them. Maybe Abba Isaac wanted to experiment with Arabic hymn-singing at Mount Sinai, so he asked Antony David to copy a short sample of the Arabic hymns from a hymnbook in Mar Saba. It is obvious that the monks of Mar Saba would have had Arabic hymns for many more services. They would not train Arabic singers for just one service, especially one of such importance as the hours on Good Friday. There is a sound historical explanation for the loss of these (postulated) 9th century Arabic hymnbooks. The Byzantine liturgy was undergoing rapid change during this period. The old rite would soon be superceded. There would have been little point in preserving manuscripts of obsolete church services, and every incentive to reuse the valuable parchment on which the texts were written. This attitude can be observed in the case of Greek liturgical manuscripts. Of the few Greek hymnbooks which survive from the 9th century or before, most constitute the underwriting of palimpsests.29 When the services were modernised, old liturgical texts were deleted and written over. It is, I would like to suggest, very probable that Arabic liturgical texts survive unidentified as the underwriting of palimpsests. Another possible source for early Arabic liturgy are the as-yet uncatalogued fragments of the new Arabic finds in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The corresponding Syriac fragments have produced some very interesting evidence eg. The date of the earliest Melkite translation of a Greek hymn has been put back about 100 years, from AD 88230 to the 8th century.31 So it is possible that more Ara- bic liturgical texts remain to be discovered.

27 Syr. Sp. 39 in S. Brock, Catalogue of the Syriac fragments (new finds) in the Library of the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, (Athens, 1995). 28 Although no 9th-century Georgian hymnbooks survive, we have plenty of extensive 10th century manuscripts. B. Outtier and H. Métréveli, “Contribution à l'histoire de l'Hirmologion: anciens Hirmologia géorgiens”, Muséon, 88 (1975), pp. 331-359; M. Van Esbroeck, “Ein geor- gischer liturgischer Kanon für Maria Himmelfahrt”, in Lingua restituta orientalis. Festgabe für Julius Assfalg, (Weisbaden, 1990), pp. 89-101. 29 J. Raasted, “The Princeton Heirmologion Palimpsest”, CIMA, 62 (1992), pp. 219-232; V. Vasilik, «Novxî istownik po istorii ranneî palestinskoî gimnografii», BS, 58 (1997), pp. 311-337. 30 A. Baumstark, “Der jambische Pfingstkanon des Joannes von Damaskus in einer alten melkitisch-syrischen Übersetzung”, OC, 36 (1941), pp. 205-223. 31 Syr. Sp. 39 in S. Brock, Catalogue of the Syriac fragments (new finds) in the Library of the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, (Athens, 1995). 246 THE ADOPTION OF ARABIC AS LITURGICAL LANGUAGE

But unfortunately little interest has been shown in the study of early Arabic liturgy. Arabic biblical texts have been studied by scholars examining the tex- tual transmission of the Bible. Translations of Greek hagiographies and homilies have been sifted to fill lacunas in the surviving Greek originals, or to dis- cover texts altogether lost in Greek. The original works of Arabic Palestinian Melkites have been studied most recently as a source for Christian-Muslim relations. But Arabic Melkite liturgical texts of whatever period have received little attention. This is a great void at the centre of our history of Palestinian Christianity. For liturgy is not just another literary genre. The history of worship is absolutely central to the life of any religious community. I hope in this paper to have made a contribution to understanding what lay at the heart of Palestinian Christianity in mediaeval times.