Stray Notes on Aksum and Himyar

Dan D. Y. Shapira Open University of Israel, Raíanannah STRAY NOTES ON AKSUM AND HIMYAR

Aharon-Shemuel Rokhlin in memoriam

I The Ethiopian civilization is a part of the Mediterranean one, and as such, it absorbed the basic Mediterranean-Biblical racial myth of color. However, the Mediterranization of Ethiopia happened only after their conversion to Christianity. The Ethiopians regard themselves as Israel thrice: as physical descendents of Menelik’s Levites and Israelites, according to the Kebra Na- gast; as Israel in spirito, Christians, who inherited the place of the carnal Israel; and, after Chalcedon, as the only true Christian church. A more ancient, non-Mediterranean, component of Ethiopian civilization goes back to their Sabean, South-Arabian heritage. It was from Yemen that the Ethiopians got their language, their script and their historical tradition. This duality — and secondary nature — of the Ethiopian self-view prompted the inhabitants of this African land to stress, over centuries, that they, and they only, are the legitimate heirs of the source-cultures of their unique civilization. It is why Ethiopia, since the Aksumite times, claimed the legacy of both Saba and Israel. The (forged) Ethiopian legacy of the Queen of Sheba was the entrance ticket of these Semitized Chamites into the Judeo-Christian world, and the additional stress of their Israelite origins evidently raised their status in Chris- tendom. The basics of both claims are set in the Ethiopian book of uncertain date, The Glory of the Kings (Kebra Nagast).1 This composition was usually said to contain two «cycles» of traditions, that of the Queen of Sheba (ch. 21b, 22a–28, 29b–34a, 35–43, 54a–63, 84a–93, 94; this «cycle» is suppos- edly free of any Christian connection) and that of Caleb, the legendary 6th century king of Ethiopia (*Aksum), whom the scholars identified with Ella Asbaha (ch. 1a–21, 63b–83, 93b, 95a–117, 117b and the colophon, with pas- sages inserted in ch. 30, 33, 52, 44, 59; it was said that the staff of the alleged

1 For the text and the German translation, see C. BEZOLD, Kebra Nagast: Die Herrlichkeit der Könige (Munich, 1905); cf. Th. NÖLDEKE, A review of Bezold’s Ke- bra Nagast // Vienna Oriental Journal XIX (1905); for an English translation, see Sir E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, The Queen of Sheba and her only son Menyelek I (Oxford, 1932). For the meaning of the name, compare now M. KROPP, Zur Deutung des Titels «Kebra Nagast» // OC 80 (1996) 108–115.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 04:24:36AM via free access 434 Scrinium II (2006). Universum Hagiographicum translator from Arabic, Isaac the Priest, was responsible for historical inaccu- racies in ch. 113–116). Some scholars, and especially the Palestinian-American student of Na- gran and pre-Islamic Arabian Christianity, Irfan Shahid, looked for reflections of historical data, namely the Aksumite-Himyarite hostilities in the first quarter of the 6th century, in the «Caleb cycle», and especially, in ch. 113– 117.2 The following is the English translation of the chs. 113–117, adopted, with minor changes, from Budge.3 Ch. 113, end: «Now this hath God showed me [to St. Gregory; DSh] in the pit. And as concerning the King of ETHIOPIA, and ZION, the Bride of heaven, and her chariot whereby they move, I will declare unto you that which my God hath revealed unto me and hath made me to understand. [ETHIOPIA] shall continue in the orthodox faith until the coming of our Lord, and she shall in no way turn aside from the word of the Apostles, and it shall be so even as we have ordered until the end of the world». And one answered and said unto the Worker of Wonders (i. e., GREGORY), «Now when SAMÂLYÂL cometh, who is the False Christ, will the faith of the people of ETHIOPIA be destroyed by his attack?» And GREGO- RY answered and said, «Assuredly not. Hath not DAVID prophesied saying, “ETHIOPIA shall make her hands come to God?” [Psalm lxviii. 31] And this that he saith meaneth that the ETHIOPIANS will neither pervert nor change this our faith and what we have ordered, and the faith of those who were before us, the teachers of the Law of the Apostles». Ch. 114: And the Tabernacle of the Law of God, the Holy ZION, shall remain here until that day when our Lord shall dwell on Mount ZION; and ZION shall come and shall appear unto all prepared, with three seals — even as MOSES gave her — as it saith in the Old Law and in the New, «At the testimony of two or three [witnesses] everything shall stand». And then, saith ISAIAH the Prophet, «The dead shall be raised up, and those who are in the graves shall live, for the dew which [cometh] from Thee is their life». And when the dead are raised up, His mercy whereby He watereth the earth shall cease; they shall stand up before Him with the works which they have done. And ENOCH and ELIAS shall come, being alive, so that they may testify, and MOSES and AARON from the dead shall live with everyone. And they shall open the things that fetter her (i. e., ZION), and they shall make to be seen the JEWS, the crucifiers, and they shall punish them and chide them because of all that they have done in perverting the Word of God. And the JEWS shall see what He wrote for them with His hand — the Words of His Commandment, and the manna wherewith He

2 Cf. I. SHAHID, The Kebra Nagast in the Light of Recent Research // Mus 89 (1976) 133–178. 3 WALLIS BUDGE, The Queen of Sheba... 221–227.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 04:24:36AM via free access D. D. Y. Shapira 435 fed them without toil [on their part], and the measure thereof; the GÔMÔR, and the spiritual ZION, which came down for their salvation, and the rod of AARON, which blossomed after the manner of MARY. Ch. 115: And He shall answer and say unto them, «Why did ye deny Me, and entreat Me evilly and crucify Me, [seeing that] I did all this for you, and that by My coming down [from heaven] I delivered you from SATAN and from the slavery of SATAN, and that I came for your sakes? Look ye and see how ye pierced Me with nails and thrust the spear through Me». And the Twelve Apostles shall be raised up, and they shall pass judgement upon them, and shall say unto them, «We would have made you hear, but ye would not hear the prophecy of the Prophets and the preaching of us the Apostles». And the JEWS shall weep and repent when it shall be useless to do so, and they shall pass into everlasting punishment; and with the Devil, their father who had directed them, and his demons who had led them astray, and with the wicked they shall be shut in. And those who have believed and who have been baptized in the Holy Trinity, and have received His Body and His Blood, shall become His serv- ants with their whole heart, for «there is no one who can hate His Body altogether». The Body of CHRIST crieth out in our Body, and He hath compassion because of His Body and Blood, for they have become His sons and His brethren. And if there be some who have sinned they shall be judged in the fire according to the quantity of their sins; he whose burden of sin is light his punishment shall be light, and he whose burden of sin is heavy, exceedingly great shall his punishment be. One day with God is as a period of ten thousand years; some there shall be who shall be punished for a day; and some for half a day, and some for three hours of a day, and some for one hour of a day; and some there shall be who shall be tested and who shall be absolved from their transgressions. Ch. 116: And the Archbishops answered and said unto GREGORY, the Worker of Wonders, «Behold now, thou hast told us concerning the van- quisher of the enemy of RÔMÊ, and now [tell us] of the chariot of ETHI- OPIA and whether it shall remain henceforward, to the Coming of CHRIST, as thou hast told us concerning ZION, and concerning the faith of the people of ETHIOPIA, and likewise if their chariot shall remain». And GRE- GORY said unto them, «It shall assuredly not disappear. And again, heark- en ye unto me and I will declare this unto you: A few JEWS shall lift up their heads against our faith in NÂGRÂN and in ARMENIA in the days after this, and this God will do by His Will so that He may destroy them, for ARMENIA is a territory of RÔMÊ and NÂGRÂN is a territory of ETHI- OPIA». Ch. 117: And the King of RÔMÊ, and the King of ETHIOPIA, and the Archbishop of ALEXANDRIA — now the men of RÔMÊ were orthodox — were informed that they were to destroy them. And they were to rise up to

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fight, to make war upon the enemies of God, the JEWS, and to destroy them, the King of RÔMÊ will destroy ‘ÊNYÂ [*Armenia?], and the King of ETHIOPIA will destroy PINHAS (PHINEHAS);4 and they were to lay waste their [Jewish] lands, and to build churches [«houses of Christianity] there, and they were to cut to pieces the kings of the JEWS at the end of this Cycle in twelve cycles of the moon. Then the kingdom of the JEWS shall be made an end of and the Kingdom of CHRIST shall be constituted until the advent of the False Messiah. And those two kings, JUSTINUS5 the King of RÔMÊ and KÂLÊB the King of ETHIOPIA, met together in JE- RUSALEM. And their Archbishop was to make ready offerings and they were to make offerings, and they were to establish the Faith in love, and they were to give each other gifts and the salutation of peace, and they were to divide between them the earth from the half of JE- RUSALEM, even as we have already said at the beginning of this book. And for love’s sake they were to have jointly the royal title [of King of ETHIOPIA]. They were to be mingled with DAVID and SOLOMON their fathers. The one whom in faith they chose by lot to be named from the Kings of RÔMÊ was to be called «King of ETHIOPIA», and the King of RÔMÊ likewise was to bear the name of «King of ETHIOPIA», and he was to have part in the lot whereby he should be named with DAVID and SOLOMON their fathers, after the manner of the Four Evangelists. And the fourth the one whom they were to choose each in his own country… And thus after they had become united in a common bond, and had estab- lished the right faith they were to determine that the JEWS were no longer to live, and each of them was to leave his son there; and the King of ETHI- OPIA was to leave there his firstborn son whose name was ISRAEL, and was to return to his own country in joy. And when he came to his royal house, he was to give abundant thanks unto God, and to offer up his body as an offering of praise to his God. And God shall accept him gladly, for he shall not defile his body after he hath returned, but he shall go into a monastery in purity of heart. And he shall make king his youngest son, whose name is GABRA MASQAL, and he himself shall shut himself up [in a monastery]. And when one hath told this to the King of NÂGRÂN, the son of KÂLÊB, he shall come in order to reign over ZION, and GABRA MASQAL shall make his armies to rise up, and he shall journey in a chariot, and they shall meet together at the narrow end of the Sea of LÎBÂ, and shall fight together. And on the same night the two of them shall pray from sunset until the dawn, when the fight waxeth strong upon them. And when they have cried out to Him with tears God will look upon the prayer of both of them, and the penitent prayer of their father, and will say, «This

4 Compare F. M. ESTEVES PEREIRA, S.S.G.L., Historia dos Martyres de Nagran, vesrão ethiopica (Lisboa, 1899) xxxviii, 169, 175. 5 Justinians the Great is meant, 527–565 CE.

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one is the elder and he hath stood up to perform the will of his father, and that one, the younger, hath loved his father, and hath prayed to God [for him]». And God will say to GABRA MASQAL, «Choose thou between the chariot and ZION», and He will cause him to take ZION, and he shall reign openly upon the throne of his father. And God will make ISRAEL to choose the chariot, and he shall reign secretly and he shall not be visible, and He will send him to all those who have transgressed the commandment of God. And no one shall build houses, and they shall live in tents, and none shall suffer fatigue in labouring, and none shall suffer thirst on the journey. And their days shall be double of those of [ordinary] men, and they shall use bows and arrows, and shall shoot at and pierce him that God hateth. Only Nagrân, renowned for her martyrs, is mentioned in all the episodes of the Aksum-Himyar wars; it is tempting to connect the reference to bloody sacrifices in Jerusalem by Caleb and *Justinianus6 to Justinianus’ sacrifices while consecrating St. Sophia in 562;7 Beta Israel was known as a king of Aksum, but he was not Ella Asbaha’s son; etc. However, scholars did not paid the due attention to the fact that the frame of the Kebra Nagast (ch. 2, 95, 113–117) is cast as a series of reflections and prophecies of the Illuminator of Armenia, St. Gregory (257?–330?),8 called in the text gabra mank#r (the «Thaumaturgus»), performed by the saint while being cast into the pit by the king of Armenia for fifteen years. The author of the Kebra Nagast was well aware of the Agathangelos cycle (cf. KN, ch. 2, 113), of which Ethiopian versions exist, which tells the story of St. Gregory.9 It is in chapter 2 that the idea of the Kebra Nagast, the glory of the Solo- monic kings of Ethiopia, is put into St. Gregory’s mouth:

6 way#úâr>û qw#rbâna lîqa papÿ pÿ ÿâsâtîhomu way#qçrr#bû wayâÆb#rû haymânôta baf#qr; Budge’s translation seems miss the point: «and their Archbishop was to make ready offerings and they were to make offerings, and they were to establish the Faith in love». 7 See Â. Ì. ËÓÐÜÅ, Èç Èåðóñàëèìà â Àêñóì ÷åðåç Õðàì Ñîëîìîíà: àðõàè÷íûå ïðåäàíèÿ î Ñèîíå è Êîâ÷åãå Çàâåòà â ñîñòàâå Êåáðà Íåãåñò è èõ òðàíñëÿöèÿ ÷åðåç Êîíñòàíòèíîïîëü // ÕÂ 2 (VIII) (2000) 137–207, p. 156. 8 SHAHID, The Kebra Nagast in the Light of Recent Research... 136, 173–174, did not draw any conclusuions from this fact. 9 F. M. ESTEVES PEREIRA, Vida de S. Gregorio, patriarcha da Armenia. Conversão dos Armenios ao Christianismo.Versão ethiopica // Boletim da Sociedade de Geo- graphia de Lisbão 19 (1901) 851–892 [text: special pagination, pp. 1–42], p. 9; cf. G. GARITTE, Documents pour l’étude du livre d’Agathange (Citta del Vaticano, 1946) 7. A further philological study of KN and different versions of the Agathangelos Cycle is a desideratum.

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«When I was in the pit I pondered over this matter, and over the folly of the Kings of ARMENIA, and I said, In so far as I can conceive it, [in] what doth the greatness of kings [consist]? Is it in the multitude of soldiers, or in the splendour of worldly possessions, or in extent of rule over cities and towns? This was my thought each time of my prayer, and my thought stirred me again and again to meditate upon the greatness of kings. And now I will begin».10 Among the striking features of the parts ascribed to St. Gregory is their Jew-bashing (ch. 113–117, quoted above) and ignorance of the ancient Sabae- an-Ethiopian political history (ch. 94, at the end of which manuscripts found in St. Sophia in Constantinople are quoted as an authority).11 It was in the early 12th century that the Armenian religious and cultural impact of Ethiopia was the strongest, and it was in this period that Lalibela (1172–1212) was building his new Edessa, under a clear impression of the Armenian version of the Abgar legend. Armenian saints figure in Lalibela’s Ethiopia, and an anti-Jewish composition is ascribed in Ethiopia to St. Gregory.12 So it seems that among the sources of Kebra Nagast was a composition belonging to the «Agathangelos Cycle» and there is no justification to look for any real historical information about Aksum (not mentioned in KN) and Himyar going back to the 6th century.

II We know that after the Byzantines defeated the Persians in the late twenties of the seventh century, a forced conversion of Jews to Christianity, the first known so far occurred in the Empire, which included, in these years, also much of Transcaucasia. It was claimed, on the basis of the KN ch. 117, that there were simultaneous Jewish uprisings in both Armenia and Arabia;13 of course, under the Jewish revolt in Arabia the Jewish state of Dhu Nuwâs in the twenties of the 6th century could be meant, albeit one should rather think about the dealing of Lalibela (whose Christian name was Gabra Masqal!) with the rebellious Falashas;14 what this source had in mind referring to Ar- menia is hard to say. One might speculate on a possible connection with the semi-legendary persecutions of Jews mentioned, apparently, in the lost be-

10 Translation by BUDGE, pp. 2–3. 11 On the importance of this reference, compare ËÓÐÜÅ, Èç Èåðóñàëèìà â Àêñóì ÷åðåç Õðàì Ñîëîìîíà... 137–207. 12 ESTEVES PEREIRA, Vida de S. Gregorio... 13 SHAHID, The Kebra Nagast in the Light of Recent Research… 135. 14 Compare GETATCHEW HAILE, A New Look on Some Dates of Early Ethiopian History // Mus 95 (1982) 311–322.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 04:24:36AM via free access D. D. Y. Shapira 439 ginning of the Hebrew Khazar Cambridge Document,15 which begins with the word Arminiyya and tells of the flight of Jews northwards.16 Kebra Na- gast is, of course, a source well aware of the things Armenian — it is enough to recall that all the prophecies in this work are put in the mouth of no other that St. Gregory the Armenian Illuminator, but it seems that the reference to a Jewish revolt in Armenia is a literary parallel and nothing else.

III We have another non-Ethiopian source extant in Ge’ez only, which refers, not very clearly, to Aksum and Himyar. The Egyptian author, John, Bishop of Nikiu, whose chronicle has survived in an Ethiopian translation, wrote that the after the death of Constans I (350 CE) and during the rule of Honorius [395–423] the Yemenites were converted to Christianity by a virgin, captive from a convent on the borders of the Roman empire, called Theognosta; this legend about the origins of Christianity in Yemen, not attested elsewhere, has obvious parallels with Armenian accounts of Rhipsime and, especially, of St. Nino, who was called theognosté by Coptic and Byzantine writers, «she who made God known» to the Georgians.17 Apparently afterwards the Indians, i. e., Ethiopians, were Christianized by «Afrudit» (*Frumentius), who John of Nikiu calls «a man of noble birth of the country of India» and who was made their bishop by Athanasius, the patriarch of Alexandria (296–373).18

15 Lately re-edited in N. GOLB, O. PRITSAK, Khazaran Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century (Ithaca—New York, 1982) 106ff. 16 Compare D. SHAPIRA, Armenian and Georgian Sources on the Khazars: A Re- Evaluation // Proceedings of the First International Khazar Colloquium (in press). A correction must be done there. 17 Cf. M. VA N ESBROEK, Le dossier de sainte Nino et sa composante copte // Santa Nino et Georgia. Storia e spiritualitácristiana nel paese del Vello d’oro. Atti del I Con- vegno Internazionale di Studi Georgiani. Roma 30 gennaion 1999 / Ed. G. Shurgaia (Roma, 2000) 99–123. Compare D. D. Y. SHAPIRA, «Tabernacle of Vine»: Some (Judaiz- ing?) Features in the Old Georgian Vita of St. Nino, in present volume, p. 272–306. 18 H. ZOTENBERG, La Chronique de Jean de Nikioû (Paris, 1883). An English Trans- lation of his Chronicle was published by R. H. CHARLES, The chronicle of John, bishop of Nikiu translated from Zotenberg’s Ethiopic text (London, 1916) 69–70: «…the people of Yemen received the knowledge of God, and were illuminated with the light of the praise of our Lord Jesus Christ — praise be unto Him — by means of a holy woman named Theognosta Now she was a Christian virgin who had been carried off captive from a convent on the borders of the Roman empire and had been conducted to the king of Yemen and presented to him as a gift. And this Christian woman became very rich through the grace of God and wrought many healings. And she brought over the king of India to the faith, and he became a Christian through her agency as well as all the people of India. Then the king of India and his subjects requested the Godloving emperor Honorius to appoint them a bishop. And he rejoiced with great

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Contradicting himself, having possibly used a different source, John of Nikiu ascribes the Aksumite-Himyarite war and the subsequent Christianization of the Aksumites to the days of Justinian the Great (527–565); the cause of the war was as follows: the Jewish king of Himyar, Damnus (*Dhû Nuwâs), hin- dered the Roman commerce, having used to kill the Christian merchants and to take their goods, stating that he is merely taking vengeance on the account of atrocities, performed to Jews by Romans. The king of Nubia, apparently, Aksum,19 still pagan, as it appears from John’s version, accused Damnus of harming the commerce of Nubia and of other countries, thus provoking Dam- nus to war. The king of Nubia made a vow that should he win he would become Christian, and so it was: he killed the Jewish king, took his kingdom, and sent a request to Justinian, asking him for a bishop for his country.20 joy because they had embraced the faith and turned to God, and he appointed them a holy bishop, named Theonius, who admonished them and instructed them and strength- ened them in the faith of Christ our God till they were worthy to receive baptism which is the second birth through the prayers of the holy virgin Theognosta. Glory be unto our Lord Jesus Christ who alone worketh marvels and bestoweth goodly gifts on those who trust in Him. And so it was also in India, that is, the great India. For the men of that country had formerly received a man named Afrudit (i. e. Frumentius). He was of noble birth of the country of India and they had made him their bishop, having been instituted and ordained by Athanasius the apostolic, the patriarch of Alexandria. Now (Afrudit) had told him concerning the grace which they had received through the Holy Spirit and the manner in which they had found the salvation of their souls through the grace of holy baptism and were made worthy of this gift». 19 Here John confuses Nobatia and Ella Asbaha’s Aksum: Nobatia, south of As- wan, was converted by Egyptian Monophysites about A.D. 540–545, the kingdom of Makoria (Maqarra of the Arabic sources) by Egyptian Melkites in A.D. 569–570, and the southernmost Kushite kngdom of Alodia, bordering on Aksum whence Christi- anity first penetrated into it, was officially converted by Longinus, Bishop of Noba- tia, in A.D. 580. 20 Charles’ translation, pp. 141–142: «And in the days of the emperor Justinian the Indians were at war with the Ethiopians. And the name of the king of the Indians was Endas. He worshipped the star called Saturn. Now the country of the Ethiopians was not far distant from Egypt: it comprised three Indian states and four Abyssinian states, and they were situated on the border of the Sea [of Salt] towards the east. Now the Christian merchants who travelled through the country of the star-worshippers and through the Homeritae, whom we have mentioned and previously described, had to submit to seven trials. Damnus, the king of the Homeritae, used to slay the Chris- tian merchants who came to him, and to take their goods, saying: “The Romans used to oppress and slay the Jews, and on this account I also will slay all the Christians I find”. And for this reason commerce ceased and came to an end in the interior of India. And when the king of Nubia heard these tidings, he sent to the king of the Homeritae the following message: “Thou hast done an evil deed in that thou hast slain Christian merchants and inflicted injuries on my kingdom and on the kingdoms of other (kings) who live near at hand and far off from me”. And when (Damnus)

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IV Josef Ath’ar Dhû-Nuwâs, Masrûq of the Syriac tradition, was the last Jew- ish king of Yemen, who, in the end of the first quarter of the sixth century CE, led a jihâd against Monophysite Christianity in Arabia Felix. He lost when the Ethiopian-Aksumite troops, headed by Ariat and Abraha, landed on the Yemenite side of Bab al-Mandab. Josef was not the first Jews king of Himyar to persecute Monophysites; these persecutions had begun under his prede- cessor, Ma>dikarrib Ya’fur, as is evident from the letter of Jacob of Sarug to the Himyarites; the Aksumite king Ella Asbeha, as appears from Cosmas Indicopleustes, claimed rule on Yemen and protectorship of the Christians there as early as 518 CE. After having smashed his Ethiopian rival Aroy / HÿYWN’, «beast» in Ge’ez and in Syriac, Ella Asbeha, in the wake of the 500 years to Jesus’ death and the approaching parousia, challenged the Jew- ish kingdom of Himyar, stating thus the limits of his religious and geopoliti- cal pretensions. These expansionist tendencies of Aksum apparently strength- ened the Jewish element in Yemen. Yemen was known to Jews long ago, as is clear from a reference to R. Akiba’s voyage there in BeMidbar Rabba 8; the Yemenite capital Tafar is mentioned in BeReshith Rabbah 10:30; circa 200 CE Jews of Himyar were buried in Beit-She’arim in the Land of Israel in a special hall; BeReshith Rabba21 explains the word Hasarmaweth / Hadramaut, making reference to the South-Arabian custom of ritual suicide in the time of hunger, in order to save face, which is no other than the Yemenite ma’fada.22 Two fourth-century Hebrew-Sabaic inscriptions from Yemen are known so far,23 and two He- heard these words he went forth to fight. And when they encountered each other the king of Nubia opened his mouth and said: “If God give me the victory over this Jewish Damnus, I shall become a Christian”. And then he gave battle to this Jew, and conquered him and slew him, and made himself master of his kingdom and of his cities. And at that time he sent messengers to Alexandria in reference to the Jews and the pagans requesting the Roman governors to send from the empire of Rome a bishop to baptize and instruct in the holy Christian mysteries all the inhabitants of Nubia and the survivors of the Jews. And when the emperor Justinian was apprised of these facts, he gave orders that they should do for him all he requested, and should send to him some priests and a bishop from amongst the clergy of the holy patriarch John. He was a chaste and pious man. Such was the origin of the conversion of the Ethiopians in the days of the emperor Justinian». 21 Ed. M. A. MIRKIN (Tel Aviv, 1957) [Hebrew] 77. 22 Cf. R. B. SERJEANT, Famine death without loss of honour in ancient Arabia and Yemeni Arhab // BSOAS L (1987) 527–528 [reprinted in: Customary and Shari’ah Law in Arabian Society (London, 1991)]. 23 These are the well known inscription from Beit al-Ašwâl (first published in G. GARBINI, Una bilingue sabeo-ebraica de Zÿafar // Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 04:24:36AM via free access 442 Scrinium II (2006). Universum Hagiographicum brew-Aramaic inscriptions come from the fifth century.24 As early as the mid- 5th century there are Jewish inscriptions in which the Lord of the Heaven, the Rahÿman, and the jihad / holy war are glorified: mr’ smyn w’rdÿ n lwfy ‘mr’hmw, «seigneur du ciel et de la terre, pir le salut de leurs seigneurs»;25 lmr’hmw rhÿmnn b>l smyn lhÿmrhw w’hÿškthw wwldhw rhÿmnn hÿyy hÿyw sÿdqm wmwt mwt sÿdqm wÆmrhw rhÿmnn wldm sÿlhÿm sb’m lsmrhÿmnn, «pour leur seigneur le Mis- éricordiuex, seigneur de la ciel, pour que lui accorde, et à ses épouses, et à ses enfants, le Miséricordiuex, de vivre une vie de convenance, et de mourir d’une mort de convenance, et qui lui accorde le Miséricordiuex des enfants bien constitutes, combatant pour le nom du Miséricordiuex»;26 The Ryck- mans inscription 508 ends with the following: «let the Lord whose are the Heaven and the earth with the King Josef against his enemies, ye the Merci- ful, and let your mercy be shown over the world, because you are the Merci- ful» (wtrhÿm >ly kl >lm rhÿmnn rhÿmk mra ‘t). This inscription is clearly Jewish and not vaguely «monotheistic» one, albeit one can see its Jewish character from the general context only. We should be more open towards «monotheistic» inscriptions in which expressions like rb yhwd or ‘lhy ysr’l are not found. Goitein stressed the eagerness for jihad for which the circle of Josef was known, and translated the formula wtrhÿm >ly kl >lm rhÿmnn rhÿmk mr’ ‘t as «let your rule, ye Lord, prevail over all the world, because you are the Lord».27 There can be little doubt that what we encounter here is an early attestation of the idea of the Lord’s manifestation on earth. The Jewish Rhÿmn, «one who loves Israel» (râhÿêm d#Yisrâ’êl, in Aramaic) will have mercy over Israel and will demonstrate again Israel’s political might. In this context, rhÿm, «mercy», means military conquest, and the sequence of these conquests are pirsûm, parousia, «of the name of the Lord among the nations». It is obvious that this theology was a Jewish answer to the Christian challenge regarding the end of the mission of Israel after Jesus’ advent.

Napoli XXX (1970) 153–165) and the newly found tomb inscription of Leah bat Yehudah, J. NAV E H , Kethoveth qever du-lešhonith miŠeva’ // Lešonenu 62:5 (2003) 117–120; 24 Beit alHÿâdÿir and the newly found inscription from Sÿo>ar from 470 CE, of Yosef bar ‘WFY dgz bTÿfr mdynth b’r>hwn dHÿmyr’y wnpq l’r>h dYsr’l, J. NAV E H ,Šéva> masevothÿ hÿadašoth mi Sÿo>ar // Tarbisÿ 69 (2000) 619–635 (624–627). 25 G. RYCKMANS, Inscriptions sud-arabes, Douzième série // Mus LXVIII (1955) 297–312, p. 309 l. 2. 26 G. RYCKMANS, Inscriptions sud-arabes, Onzième série // Mus LXVII (1954) 99– 119, pp. 101–102, one inscription from 774 EH = 455–459 CE, ll. 4–8. One might guess if the similarity of the South-Arabian root SB’, «to wage war; Saba» and of Hebrew for «army», sÿâbâ’, like in Sabaoth, was among the factors facilitating the Himyarite accepting of Judaism. 27 Sh. D. GOITEIN, Sefer haTeymanim (The Yemenites) (Jerusalem, 1983) [He- brew] 341–343.

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The verbal root JHD means in Arabic «to strive, take pains»; the word jihâd is used mostly in expressions like jihâd fî sabîli-LLâhi / jihâd fî sabîli al-dîn,«thejihâd in the path [or, for the sake] of Allah / the religion»; the meaning «holy war» can but hardly be derived from the verbal root, and it seems that the meaning of «holy war» goes back to another language; so far, it is unattested in South Arabian, but in Ge’ez, however, g#hâd means «man- ifest, public, open, clear; the day of the revelation of Christ’s mission, the eve of the holy day during which one fasts (e. g. Christmas, Epiphany); ba-gahâd means «openly, plainly, manifestly, publicly».28 And so it seems that the orig- inal meaning of *gihâd was just «epiphany».29

28 W. LESLAU, Comparative Dictionary of Ge’ez (Wiesbaden, 1987) 185b–186a. 29 There exists the problem of discerning the Arabic loan words of South-Arabian provenance from those Ethiopic; most probably of Ethiopic origin are burhân,‘an evident proof’, see A. JEFFERY, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran (Baroda, 1938) 77–78; baghl, ‘mule’, ibid. 82; tâbût, ‘ark’, ibid. 88; djulbâb, ‘wrapper’, ibid. 102; hÿ awârîyûn, ‘disciples, apostles’, ibid. 115–116; khubz, ‘bread’, ibid. 121–122; khai- ma, ‘tent, pavilion’, ibid. 127; ribhÿ , profit’, ibid. 138; radjîm, ‘cursed’, ibid. 139– 140; raqq, ‘a volume, a scroll’, ibid. 143; fâtirÿ , ‘creator’, ibid. 221; kibriyâ’, ‘glory’, ibid. 248; mâ’ida, ‘table’, ibid. 255–256; mursâ, ‘haven’, ibid. 261–262; miðkât,‘a niche in the wall’, ibid. 266; munâfiqûn, ‘hypocrites’, ibid. 272–273; possibly, amr, ‘revelation’, cf. ibid. 69–70; add mihÿrâb, Ge’ez m#kw#râb.

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