• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

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 monaster- ies 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 contin- ued 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 ser- vices 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 arrange- ment 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 sev- eral 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.

Load more

  8

Copy Link