Constructing Syriac in Latin

BABELAO 5 (2016), p. 169-283 © ABELAO (Belgium) Constructing Syriac in Latin – Establishing the Identity of Syr- iac in the West over a Century and a Half (c.1550-c.1700) An Account of Grammatical and Extra-Linguistic Determinants By Robert J. Wilkinson Valley House, Temple Cloud, Somerset, United Kingdom he precise definition of Syriac no doubt remains in some sense a work in progress, but for a real, though naturally T not absolute, sense of a distinct and separate identity for Syriac early Western scholars were ultimately dependent upon native speakers and native texts1. But at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century neither of these was available in large meas- ure and in consequence there were considerable difficulties in establishing a precise notion of Syriac. Moreover, in time, na- 1 JOHN F. HEALEY, “Syriac” in Stefan WENINGER ET AL. (eds.), The Se- mitic Languages An International Handbook (HSK36: De Gruyter, Berlin 2011), p. 637-652 and FRANÇOISE BRIQUEL-CHATONNET, “Syriac as the Language of Eastern Christianity”, ibid p. 652-659. WERNER STROTHMANN, Die Anfänge der Syrischen Studien in Europa (Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesba- den 1971). RICCARDO CONTINI, “Gli inizi della linguistica siriaca nell’ Eu- ropa rinascimento”, Revista degli Studi Orientali 68 (1994) p. 15-30. For Aramaic generally, KLAUS BEYER, The Aramaic Language Its Distribution and Subdivision (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1986). 170 R.J. WILKINSON tive speakers themselves brought their own traditional views of the age and features of the language which were not entirely accurate. Further, there was lacking an exact and agreed termi- nology which might have helped a measured and precise placement of Syriac within Aramaic. There was, of course, the indisputable similarity of Syriac to earlier forms of Aramaic with which Christian scholars were becoming familiar— biblical Aramaic, targumic Aramaic2, the language of the Mishnah and Talmuds3 and finally, with Postel, the Aramaic of later Jewish works like the Zohar but achieving further distinc- tion was difficult4. These varieties are now properly seen as 2 Targums translated into Latin in the Sixteenth Century appeared in two distinctly different kinds of publications; polyglot bibles and small anno- tated editions, usually of single books for use as textbooks. A targum was published as part of Agostino Giustiniani's Psalterium hebraeum, graecum, arabicum et chaldaeum, Genoa, 1516. Giustiniani provided not only the targumic text of the Psalms but also a Latin translation. Cardinal Jimenez spent about 50,000 gold ducats on preparing the text of his Complutensian Polyglot (1514-1517) for printing. The editors provided Targum Onqelos in Aramaic and a facing Latin translation. The Antwerp Polyglot Bible contained targums to nearly every book of the Hebrew Bible, with facing Latin translation by Benito Arias Montano, the editor-in-chief, himself. Volume VIII also included Franz Raphelengius's collation of variant readings in the Targums. 3 It was very difficult for any sixteenth-century Christian scholar to study Talmud without a Jewish guide. For want of which, Wolfgang Capito gave his Talmud to Conrad Pellican in Zurich in 1526. Pellican was helped from 1538-1540 by a Jewish convert Michael Adam and between them they produced a Latin version of seventeen tractates from both Talmuds, but this remained in manuscript. Pellican’s motives were explicitly apologetic. (CHRISTOPH ZURICHER, Konrad Pellikans Wirken in Zurich, 1526-1556 (Züricher Beitrage zur Reformationsgeschichte 4 (Theologischer Verlag, Zürich 1975) p. 169-74, 190-91.) Those few Christians who were not Jewish converts involved in the censorship of the Talmud similarly had to learn from those with a Jewish formation. Immanuel Tremellius (a convert) was involved in the censorship of the Basel Talmud between 1578 and 1580. His former student from the University of Heidelberg, Pierre Chevalier was also involved. A third censor Marius Marinus, the papal inquisitor of Venice. Marinus had first learned Hebrew from Pablo Veneto, a Jewish convert and a fellow Augustinian in the Congregation of S. Salvator of Brescia. Later Marinus was further instructed by Samuel Archevolti in Venice at the same time that young Leon Modena studied with him. See FAUSTO PARENTE, “The Index, The Holy Office, The Condemnation of the Talmud and Publi- cation of Clement VIII's Index” in GIGLIOLA FRAGNITO, Church, Cen- sorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2001) p. 171-72. Johannes Coccejus and Constantijn L'Empereur in the early Seventeenth Century began to use of the Talmud as a source for understanding the Bible; P. T. VAN ROODEN, Theology, Biblical Scholarship, and Rabbinic Studies (E. J. Brill, Leiden 1989) p. 119-30, 179-82. 4 Postel described the language of the Zohar which he believed to have been compiled by Simon ben Iochai as: Chaldaica sive vulgaris syriaca, F. SECRET, Le Zohar chez les Kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance (Librairie Durlacher, Paris 1958) p. 57. I observe Postel’s promiscuous use of lingua Chaldaica to cover Targumic, Talmudic and Zoharic Aramaic as Constructing Syriac in Latin 171 different dialects of Aramaic separated by time and space. But initially it was the observation of obvious similarity which faute de mieux guided understanding of what we now call Syri- ac. Scholars needed the similarity for explanation and understanding: they were possessed of insufficient data clearly to mark the necessary distinctions between the dialects. The tenth- century Syriac-Arabic dictionary of Abu’l Hassan ibn al-Bahul distinguished sixteen Syriac dialects: by the end of our period Western scholars managed three or possibly four5. The initial context of the study of Syriac lay thus in Chris- tian Aramaic studies, which began in the late Fifteenth Century in Italy and Spain and developed thereafter North of the Alps6. well as Syriac in ROBERT J. WILKINSON, Orientalism, Aramaic and Kabba- lah in the Catholic Reformation (E. J. Brill, Leiden 2007) p. 104-105. For a modern characterization of Zoharic Aramaic: ADA RAPOPORT-ALBERT and THEODORE KWASMAN “Late Aramaic: The Literary and Linguistic Con- text of the Zohar”, Aramaic Studies 4 (2006), p. 5-19; YEHUDA LIEBES, “Hebrew and Aramaic as Languages of the Zohar”, ibid., p. 35-52; CHARLES MOPSIK, “Late Judeo-Aramaic: The Language of Theosophic Kabbalah”, ibid., p. 21-33. Postel’s Aramaic has now received detailed investigation in the work of JUDITH WEISS, see initially her “The Quality of Guillaume Postel’s First Zohar Translation” Academia XV (2013) p. 63- 82. 5 P. J. R. DUVAL, Lexicon Syriacum auctore Bar-Bahlule Voces syriacas græcasque cum glossis syriacis et arabicis complectens… E pluribus codi- cibus edidit et notulis instruxit… (Bovillon et Vieweg, Paris 1888-1901, 3 v. Reprint 1970. 3 vols in 2). Also F. LARSOW, “De Dialectorum Linguae Syriacae Reliquiis”, in Zu der öffentlichen Prüfung der Zölinge des Berli- nischen Gymnasiums (Berlin 1841) p. 1-28. 6 An excellent summary used here is STEPHEN G. BURNETT, “Christian Aramaism: The Birth and Growth of Aramaic Scholarship in the Sixteenth Century”, in (eds.) R. L. TROXEL, K. G. FRIEBEL, D. R. MAGARY, Seeking out the Wisdom of the Ancients Essays Offered to Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake 2005) p. 421-436. On the relative numbers of works printed on Hebrew and Aramaic, he writes: “A comparison of printing statistics for Hebrew and Aramaic philological books written for Christians suggests different markets for each kind of book. Over the course of the century [16th], 852 philological books on Hebrew related topics were printed for Christians, while only 61 were printed that contained substantial information on Aramaic. Of the books that were produced, only three of the authors, Elias Levita, Sanctes Pagninus, and Jean Mercier had their works reprinted, which implies a lack of demand for the titles”. Burnett also observes that though Aramaic works were initially mainly sponsored and produced in Catholic Europe, they enjoyed an avid readership amongst Protestant scholars particularly in Germany. In the Se- venteenth Century Protestant scholars took the lead in Aramaic scholarship. The article contains valuable quantitative measurement, but does not deal with Syriac. JUDITH OLSZOWY-SCHANGER “The Study of the Aramaic Targums by Christians in Medieval France and England” in (eds.) A. HOUTMAN, E. VAN STAALDUINE-SULMAN, H-M. KIM, A Jewish Targum in a Christian World (E.J. Brill, Leiden 2014) p. 223-247 deals with such evidence there is for the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Centuries. The same collection includes a useful article by Burnett “The Targum in Christian Scholarship to 1800” p. 250-265. 172 R.J. WILKINSON It was a study initially determined to a great extent by patronage and the availability of Jewish assistance, but which over a century came to establish at least a rudimentary apparatus and rationale for Christian study of the Targums7. But though the knowledge of Aramaic amongst Christians was clearly less than that of Hebrew, initially the knowledge of Hebrew itself did not extend to any great extent to post-biblical texts. However it is initially to Christian Aramaism as a context for the developing appreciation of ‘Syriac’ that we now turn. 1. Christian Aramaism Sebastian Münster and the Lingua Chaldaica The Christian Hebraists’ grasp of earlier Aramaic had as it strong foundation the erudition of the German-born Jewish scholar and grammarian Elias Levita (1468-1549) who enjoyed the patronage of Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo in Rome. Elias worked with Egidio’s encouragement on the Hebrew Massorah and part of his work was presented in his Meturgeman. This is a remarkable dictionary of biblical and targumic Aramaic in- tended specifically for Christian readers which because of its arrangement can be used as a Hebrew-Aramaic or an Aramaic- Hebrew Lexicon8. It has over 500 citations from Yerushalmi and made use of Neofiti I.

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