The Syro-Persian Texts in Manuscript 398 of the Chaldean Cathedral in Mardin

1. Introduction

The three texts contained in manuscript 398 of the Chaldean Cathedral in Mardin, southeastern Turkey (abridged CCM 398) and partially in manuscript 94 of the Chaldean Diocese of Alqosh, northern Iraq (abridged DCA 94), were kindly brought to our attention by Grigory Kessel. 1 They are published here with translation and philological commentary.

CCM 398 (= C in the edition below) was copied in 1583 A.D. and is written in Nestorian or East Syriac script. Besides Syriac texts, it contains texts in Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Turkish, and Arabic in Syriac script. 2 The Syro-Persian texts are:

1) a Trisagion on f. 244r21-23;

2) an Annunciation hymn on f. 244v4-17;

3) an untitled Palm Sunday hymn on f. 244v18-22.

DCA 94 (= D in the edition below) is incomplete and is written in East Syriac script. It contains texts in various languages, including Persian on fol. 30v1-4 (Annunciation hymn) and 5-11 (Palm Sunday hymn).

CCM 398 is the only known complete witness of the Syro-Persian Annunciation hymn (AH for short, § 3.2), which bears the puzzling Syriac title Šurāyā da-qyāmtā Pārsāʾit, lit. ‘The beginning (?) of resurrection in Persian’, and whose liturgical destination and use remain obscure to us (see § 3.2). In manuscript DCA 94, only the last verse lines (19-23) are extant.

The Trisagion (Tr. for short, § 3.1) is also preserved in manuscript 10 of the Chaldean Cathedral in Mardin (abridged CCM 10 = C₁ in the edition below), likewise written in East Syriac script and tentatively datable to the 17th century. 3

The Palm Sunday hymn (PS for short, § 3.3) is also known from other manuscripts besides CCM 398, namely, DCA 94, Mingana Syr. 184 (= B in the edition below; West Syriac script, eighteenth or nineteenth century) and Mingana Syr. 520 (= A in the edition below; West Syriac script, about 1800) of the University of Birmingham, 4 as well as manuscript 197 of the Deyrulzafaran (Dayr al-Zaʿfarān) Monastery near Mardin (olim Diyarbakır, abridged ZFRN 197 = Z in the edition below), written in West Syriac script like the two Mingana manuscripts and tentatively datable to the 18th century. 5 We first published the Palm Sunday hymn on the basis of the two Mingana manuscripts 6 and publish it here again by taking account of all the four so far known witnesses (A, B, C, D, and Z).

Although the Palm Sunday hymn is found in all aforementioned manuscripts (except CCM 10) and the Annunciation hymn of CCM 398 and DCA 94 is linguistically and formally close to the Maundy Thursday hymn (MT for short) known from Mingana Syr. 184, Mingana Syr. 520, 7 and ZFRN 197, 8 one notices that the Syro-Persian texts in the Mingana and Deyrulzafaran (ZFRN 197) manuscripts, on the one side, and the Mardin and Alqosh manuscripts (CCM 398, CCM 10, and DCA 94), on the other, belong to different orthographic traditions (see § 2). This suggests that these liturgical texts—among which the Palm Sunday hymn provides a sort of common denominator—underwent a long and varied manuscript transmission.

The information concerning the aforementioned Syro-Persian texts and their witnesses can be summarised thus: 9

All three Syro-Persian texts in CCM 398 are written on continuous writing lines. In the hymns, dots mark verse lines, that mostly overlap with syntactic units. The Annunciation hymn consists of twenty-three verse lines of 7 to 10 syllables, almost all rhyming in ‑as (including 2 un(a)s and 12 matar(a)s for standard uns ‘intimacy’ and matars ‘fear not!’). Only two lines rhyme in ‑ās (5 nās, 7 paydā-s). The six Persian verse lines of the short Palm Sunday hymn, which vary apparently from 4 to 9 syllables in length and are followed by a few Syriac lines, likewise all rhyme in ‑as. The verse structure of the two hymns, especially that of the Annunciation hymn, bears a resemblance to pre-Islamic and early non-Classical Persian versification as outlined by Gilbert Lazard. 10

The texts under consideration are at times corrupt, which lends support to the hypothesis of a long textual transmission, and display a language variety characterised by non-standard features also to be found in the Maundy Thursday hymn. The occurrence of third singular perfect forms like, for instance, AH 1 g^Uwṗt^As guftas ‘he spoke,’ 11 is strikingly frequent and is probably due to the exigencies of rhyme, as the exclusive occurrence of simple past forms in non-rhyme position seems to confirm: AH 12 ġ^Uwṗṫ guft ‘he said’ and 23 g^Uwṗt^Am guftam ‘I said’ (cf. MT 1b rpẗ, 5b rpt raf(a)t ‘they/he went,’ 2b, 3b, 6c ʾmd āmad ‘he came, has come,’ and 3a ġwpẗ guf(a)t ‘he said’). 12 Spoken or non-classical features are possibly AH 8, 10 h^Amj^Uwn hamcūn in the meaning ‘thus, like that’ and the loss of final ‑d in Tr. x^Uwd^Āw^Ān xudāvan (3×) for standard xudāvand ‘lord’ (see § 4). There are some archaic forms as well, such as the preservation of h‑ in PS 4 ḥ ^An ḥān for standard ān ‘that’ 13 (but AH 11, 19 ʾ ^Ān ān) and, apparently, the preservation of majhūl ō in AH 10 m^Aġ^Ow magō ‘do not say!’, unless this is a slavish, unadapted reproduction of a spelling in the source manuscript (cf. § 4 on AH 23 b^Aḋ^Īyd^Ā ʾr padīdār) or a sheer imprecise notation of the back vowel comparable with similar oscillations in the spelling of the front vowels (see § 2). Indeed, the preservation of majhūl ō contrasts strikingly with the change ē > ī in AH 3 m^Īyḋ ^Ā ʾn^Am mīdānām, all the more so because we know that the change ō > ū preceded the change ē > ī and not vice versa. 14

2. Orthography of CCM 398, CCM 10, DCA 94, and ZFRN 197

The orthography of the Syro-Persian texts in CCM 398, CCM 10, and DCA 94 differs from that of the already published texts in Mingana Syr. 184 and 520. 15 The orthography of ZFRN 197 (PS) hardly requires any comments, as it basically agrees with that of the Mingana manuscripts.

For the notation of vowels, CMM 398, CMM 10, and DCA 94, all in East Syriac script, resort to Syriac vowel points (here transliterated by raised capital letters), 16 while Arabic vowel signs (transliterated by raised lowercase letters) are only found, in addition to Syriac vowel points, in the two Arabic loanwords AH 19 t^Aasḃ ^Īyḥ tasbīḥ ‘praise’ and 21 C r^Aa ḥ ^Īym raḥīm ‘merciful.’ 17 Conversely, the two Mingana manuscripts mainly use Arabic vowel signs (ZFRN 197, which pertains to the same orthographic tradition, has ẓamma in the misspelled variant PS 4 Z ḥ ^un for AB ḥ ^an ān ‘that’, all with sukūn over ‑n).

The Mardin and Alqosh manuscripts show some inconsistencies in the notation of the Persian vowels, but such inconsistencies are probably devoid of linguistic relevance. Zqāpā ܵ <^Ā>, with or without ālap as a mater lectionis, usually stands for long ā. It occurs for short a, instead of ptāḥā ܲ <^A>, in the final syllable of Tr. x^Uwd^Āw^Ān xudāvan ‘Lord’ (3×) and in the verbal negative prefix na‑ in Tr. n^Ā ʾ m^Irḋ wn^Ā ʾm^Īyr^A ḋ namird va namīrad ‘he did not die and will not die’ (followed by ālap), whereas the negative prefix in PS 5 n^Ā ʾd^Ād^As nādādas might actually have been nā‑ before a past participle. 18 There is an a spelled <^Ā> also in AH 5, 15 ʿ ^Āl^Ām ʿālam ‘world’ (but 22 C ʿ ^Ā ʾl^Am, D ʿ ^Āl^Am), 18 ʿ ^Ājḃ ʿajab ‘(what a) wonder,’ 20 D g^Aṗ ^Ā ʾr^Ā ʾs ġaffār-as ‘is forgiving’ (bur C g^A ṗ ^Ā ʾr^As), 21 D r^A ḥ ^Īym^Ā ʾs rā ḥim-as ‘is compassionate’ (but C r^Ā ḥ ^Īym^As), 22 h^Im^Ā ʾ hima ‘all,’ 23 g^Uwṗt^Ām guftam ‘I have announced’, PS 6 C ʿ ^Āẓ ^Īym^As ʿaẓīm-as ‘is great’ (but D ʿ ^A ẓ^Īym^As), and probably 3 C n^Iš^Āst^As nišastas ‘he is seated’ (but D n^Išs^At^As with displaced ^A).

A similar fluctuation can be observed in the notation of palatal vowels. Normally rbāṣā ʾarrīkā ܸ <^I> represents a short palatal vowel and ḥbāṣā ܝܼ <^Īy> represents a long ī (there is no evidence of majhūl ē). However, <^Īy> in Tr. C₁ n^Ā ʾ m^Īyrd contrasts with <^I> in C n^Ā ʾ m^Ird namird ‘he did not die,’ a form which shows a dialectal realisation i of literary short u (namurd) characteristic of the language of both Tr. and AH (see § 4). Likewise, there is <^Īy> for i in AH 5 m^Uwk^Al^Īyṣ muxalliṣ ‘saviour,’ 21 C r^Ā ḥ ^Īym^As, D r^A ḥ ^Īym^As rāḥim-as ‘is compassionate,’ and possibly in the negative prefix of 11 n^Īyḋ ^Ād^As nidādas ‘did not give’ (see § 4). Rbāṣā karyā ܹ <^Ē> is only occasionally used: it contrasts with <^I> for ī in the last syllable of Tr. C₁ ʾ ^Īyl^Āh^Ēn beside C ʾ ^Īyl^Āh^In ilāhīn, apparently for standard ilāhī ‘divine,’ and stands for i in AH 4 ḥ ^Ā ʾm^Ēl^As ḥāmila-s ‘will be pregnant.’ Finally, the spellings AH 22 h^Im^Ā ʾ hima for literary New Persian hama and AH 1, 13, 14 s^Ix^Uwn sixun for literary New Persian saxun (suxun, suxan) seems to be linguistically relevant and to point here to a pronunciation with i instead of a.

Differently from other Syro-Persian texts where <y> at the end of the word also represents ‑ā on the model of the Arabic alif maqṣūra (e.g. MT 2a, 4a, 6b ʿysy ʿĪsā ‘Jesus’), CCM 398 simply has ālap in AH 4 ʿ ^Īys^Ā ʾ, 7 ʿ ^Īysʾ ʿĪsā ‘Jesus.’ 19

In the two Mardin manuscripts a stylised small Arabic dotless jīm subscribed to <g> (ܓ̰, here transliterated j) is regularly used to differentiate the palatal affricates j and c from velar g (the latter being written <g> or <ġ> with overdot for plosive pronunciation according to Syriac orthography: ܓ or ܓܿ). This device, not consistently used in DCA 94 and clearly derived from Islamic manuscripts, 20 is not found, to the best of our knowledge, in the manuscripts of other Syro-Persian texts published so far, but is known from Arabic Garshuni. 21 It occurs practically in the totality of the occurrences of j and c: Tr. ʿjmyʾ ʿajamāyā ‘Persian’ (loanword in the Syriac title; C₁ ʿgmyʾ) and j^Aḃ ^Ār jabbār ‘almighty;’ AH 2 bjḃryl, 12 jbryl (ba) Jibrīl ‘(to) Gabriel,’ 8 j^Aw^Ā ʾ ḃ javāb ‘answer,’ 9 jÿ ci ‘what,’ 8, 10 h^Amj^Uwn hamcūn ‘thus, like that’ (cf. the lectiones faciliores PS 3 CZ hmjwn, D h^Amj^Uwn instead of hmgwn hamgūn), 18 ʿ ^Ājḃ ʿajab ‘(what a) wonder,’ 19 C wʾ ^Ājb^As vājib-as ‘is fitting’ (as against D wʾ ^Agb^As), PS 2 C jÿ, D j^Īy ci ‘what’ (2×), and 5 C j^Aw^Ā ʾb, D jw^Ā ʾ ḃ javāb ‘answer.’ Instead, simple <g> or a modified <g> with one or two strokes in the middle (ܔ) are used for j and c in ZFRN 197 and the two Mingana manuscripts. 22

The only two occurrences of fricative ġ in the three texts under consideration are simply written <g> (ܓ) in AH 20 g^A ṗ ^Uwr ġafūr ‘clement’ and C g^A ṗ ^Ā ʾr^As, D g^A ṗ ^Ā ʾr^Ā ʾs ġaffār-as ‘he is forgiving.’ 23 There are no instances of <k> (ܟ) for g on the model of the Arabo-Persian orthography, a usage which is occasionally found in the Maundy Thursday hymn in Mingana Syr. 520 24 (the single instance of the comparable spelling <b> (ܒ) for p on the model of the Arabo-Persian orthography in AH 23 C b^A ḋ ^Īyd^Ā ʾr, D b^Ad^Īyd^Ā ʾr padīdār ‘the one who begets’ is probably due to the copyist’s misunderstanding of his source, see § 4).

Another orthographic characteristic to be observed in CCM 398 and DCA 94 is <p> with overdot (ܦܿ, here transliterated ṗ) to represent fricative f instead of plosive p as usually in Syriac orthography. This usage, too, can be ascribed to the influence of the Arabo-Persian orthography, in which f is represented by a letter with a point above (ف) at least in the Eastern Arabic scripts as opposed to Maghribi scripts (see below for the similar calque of Arabic ظ <ẓ> through <ṭ> with overdot, ܛܿ). 25 The notation <ṗ> applies to all of the occurrences of f in CCM 398 and DCA 94 (f does not occur in the short Syro-Persian text of CCM 10, the Trisagion): AH 1 g^Uwṗt^As guftas ‘he spoke,’ 6 s^A ṗr^Aš safāraš ‘request (to do something)’ (cf. standard sifāriš beside sipāriš), 12 ġ^Uwṗṫ guft ‘he said,’ 20 g^A ṗ ^Uwr ġafūr ‘clement,’ 20 C g^A ṗ ^Ā ʾr^As, D g^A ṗ ^Ā ʾr^Ā ʾs ġaffār-as ‘is forgiving,’ 23 C g^Uwṗt^Am, D g^Uwṗt^Ām guftam ‘I said’, and PS 1, 4 ġ^Uwṗt^A/Ās guftas ‘he said’. As opposed to <ṗ>, <p> without diacritical point (ܦ) represents p in the two Mardin manuscripts: Tr. C p^Ā k̇, C₁ pk̇ pāk ‘holy;’ AH 7 p^Ayḋ ^Ā ʾ ^As paydā-s ‘is conceived’ (see § 4 for this transcription and translation).

A further feature certainly due to influence of the Arabic orthography is the regular use of final <y> with two subscript horizontal points (ܝܸ, here transliterated ÿ) for all of the occurrences of palatal vowels at word end in CCM 398 (no occurrences in CCM 10): AH 3 k̇ÿ ki ‘that,’ 9 jÿ ci ‘what,’ 11 k^Asÿ kas-ī ‘somebody,’ 20 k̇ÿ ki ‘because,’ 22 kÿ ki ‘whom;’ and PS 2 jÿ ci ‘what’ (2×), 5 k^Asÿ kas-ē ‘somebody’ (the texts of Maundy Thursday hymn and PS in the Mingana manuscripts, especially in Mingana Syr. 520, seem to give evidence of the preservation of the majhūl vowels). 26 In the Matthew excerpt <y> with two subscript horizontal points is occasionally used in non-final position to represent Eastern Persian ē in the second plural verbal ending ‑ēd after a glide ‑y‑ (ܝܝܸ). 27

In AH 1, 6 x^Uwd^Ā ʾ ḣ xudāh ‘the Lord,’ final <ḣ> with a point above (ܗܿ) has quite surely to be interpreted as an actually pronounced ‑h. It also occurs in the Baptism hymn (1, 10 n^Īg^Āḣ nigāh ‘gaze,’ 4, 8, 12 r^Ā ḣ, that is, the postposition ‑rā(h)), and the Syro-Persian Psalter from Turfan (Iv6 hm^A ḣ hamah ‘all’). 28

The ‘only Arabic’ letters, that is, the letters only found in Arabic loanwords in Persian, are mostly carefully transliterated by the corresponding letters, or letters with diacritical point, of the Syriac alphabet:

– Arabic <ḥ> = Syriac <ḥ> (ܚ): AH 3, 13, 16 (3×) ḥ ^Aq^As Ḥaqq-as ‘is (...) God,’ 4 ḥ ^Ā ʾm^Ēl^As ḥāmila-s ‘is pregnant,’ 19 t^Aasḃ ^Īyḥ tasbīḥ ‘praise,’ 21 r^Aa ḥ ^Īym raḥīm ‘merciful,’ 21 r^Ā ḥ ^Īym^As rāḥim-as ‘is compassionate;’ PS 6 ṣ^Ā ʾḥ ^I ḃ ṣ ā ḥ ib ‘possessed of;’

– Arabic <ṣ> = Syriac <ṣ> (ܨ): AH 5 m^Uwk^Al^Īyṣ muxalliṣ ‘saviour;’ PS 6 ṣ^Āʾḥ ^I ḃ ṣ ā ḥ ib ‘possessed of;’

– Arabic <ṭ> = Syriac <ṭ> (ܛ): AH 17 b^Āʾṭ ^In bā ṭ in ‘concealed;’

– Arabic <ẓ>, a letter having no match in the Syriac alphabet, is rendered by simple <z> (ܙ) in AH 17 z^Ā ʾh^Ir ẓāhir ‘manifest’, but by <ṭ> with overdot (ܛܿ) in PS 6 CD ʿ ^Āẓ^Īym^As ʿ a ẓ īm-as ‘is great’ (the other manuscripts have simple <ṭ>) in imitation of the Arabic script, which combines <ṭ> ط with an overdot to obtain <ẓ> ظ. 29

– Arabic <ʿ> is always transliterated by Syriac <ʿ> (ܥ);

– Arabic <s̱> = Syriac <ṯ> (i.e. <t> with underdot for fricative pronunciation, ܬܼ) in PS 4 C m^A ṯl ma s̱ al ‘parable, D m^I ṯl mi s̱ l ‘equal.’

The preposition ba‑/bi‑ is written <b> attached to the following word, as it generally is in the most ancient Arabo-Persian orthography and unlike in Judaeo-Persian orthography. It is not vocalised, or vocalised with <^I> or <^A>, apparently without any linguistic reason, and is transcribed here as ba unless it is expressly vocalised with i: AH 2 bjḃryl ba Jibrīl ‘to Gabriel,’ 4 bʿ ^Īys^Ā ʾ ba ʿ Īsā ‘with Jesus,’ 6 b^Im^Ā ʾ bi mā ‘to us’ (with i), 7 b^A ṫ ^Uw r^Ā ʾ ba tu-rā ‘to you’ (with a), 15 bʿ ^Āl^Ām ba ʿālam ‘into the world,’ 19 bʾ ^Ānrʾ ^Ā ba Ān-rā ‘to Him’ (on the circumposition ba ...‑rā, see § 4).

In addition, it may be noted that, of the Arabic orthographic signs, only the tašdīd (ــّ , marking the doubling of a consonant and here transliterated ː) is used once in manuscript ZFRN 197: PS 1 Z mʿmːlr for *mʿmʾr *Mi ʿ mār ‘the (Supreme) Architect’ (see § 4). 30

The iżāfa particle (‑i) is never written. Moreover, there is one instance of the conjunction u ‘and’ left unwritten: AH 17 z^Ā ʾh^Ir b^Ā ʾṭ ^In ẓāhir u bāṭin ‘manifest and concealed’ (see § 4).

The following table summarises the peculiarities in the usage, transliteration, and transcription of the Syriac script for writing Persian in mss. C, C₁, D, and Z, as far as consonants are concerned:

For vowels, apart from the aforementioned instances of graphic fluctuation (including rbāṣā karyā ܹ <^Ē> for i, ī), the usage, transliteration, and transcription of the Syriac letters and vowel points and the Arabic vowel signs in mss. C, C₁, D, and Z can be summarised as follows:

3. Text and Translation

The three texts are given here in facsimile, transliteration, transcription, and translation.34 In the critical text, preference is given to the orthographically more informative manuscript readings. Even minor spelling differences are recorded in the apparatus in order to document the orthographic usage. Editorial emendations that diverge, albeit slightly, from the manuscript tradition, are marked by an asterisk (*). Punctuation marks have been normalised using only the single dot (.) and the four dots (⁘). Differences in interpunction are not recorded in the apparatus unless interpunction is changed in the critical text.

The transcription conventionally adopts the classical pronunciation of vowels, 35 while, for consonants, it reflects the Arabo-Persian orthography but also accounts for the peculiar manuscript spellings in certain cases. Because the iżāfa is not written, it is conventionally added everywhere in the transcription according to current usage. Extra vowels added for rhyme are enclosed in parentheses ( ).

4. Commentary

Tr. x^Uwd^Āw^Ān xudāvan ‘Lord’ (3×) for standard xudāvand (< *hu̯a-tāu̯ant‑) 58 is presumably a spoken form with loss of final ‑d in the coda of a syllable closed by two consonants. This phenomenon, also attested elsewhere in Syro-persian (MT 2d kwšn kušan ‘they will kill’), 59 is well-known in the contemporary language, where the third plural ending ‑and and the third plural present and of budan as copula or auxiliary are pronounced ‑an, an. Less likely is the survival in this text of the Manichaean Middle Persian and Parthian word xwdʾwn xwadāwan ‘lord’ (< *hu̯a-tāu̯an‑). 60

Tr. n^Ā ʾ m^Irḋ namird ‘he did not die’ represents a dialectal realisation of classical u as i. See also the vocalisation of AH 22 m^Išt^Ā ʾq mištāq ‘longing’ for Arabic muštāq and 1 s^Ix^Uwn sixun ‘speech’ for Classical saxun (suxun, suxan). This is a widespread dialectal phenomenon also attested in the Syro-Persian Baptism hymn 2 ʾ ^Isṫw^Ārʾ ist(a)vār for standard ustuvār ‘firm, strong.’ 61

Tr. ʾ ^Īyl^Āh^In j^Ab^Ār ilāhīn, jabbār ‘divine, almighty.’ At the end of the Trisagion one expects the invocation ‘have mercy on us,’ which actually occurs in the Persian Trisagion in Armenian script, 62 as well as, first of all, in the Syriac version (but also in the Latin, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and presumably Armenian ones) 63 in the Mardin manuscripts under consideration: C 244v3 = C₁ 8r22 ʾtrḥm (C₁ trḥm) ʿlyn etra ḥḥ am ʿ al-ayn ‘have mercy on us!’ 64 The two last words in the Syro-Persian version, however, can hadly be interpreted other than the adjectives ilāhīn ‘divine’ (remarkably with the material suffix ‑īn instead of the more generic ‑ī of its standard counterpart ilāhī, possibly on christological grounds) and jabbār ‘almighty’, both qualifying the preceding xudāvan ‘Lord.’

AH 3 b^A ṫ ^Uwl ḥ ^Aq^As batūl-i Ḥ aqq-as ‘she is the virgin of God.’ Mary is styled “virgin of the Lord” already in the apocryphal Protoevangelium Jacobi (probably from the late second century), which was especially popular in eastern Christianity and now survives in Greek and several eastern versions including Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian ones: 9.1 Καὶ εἶπεν ὁ ἱερέυς τῷ Ἰωσήφ· Σὺ κεκλήρωσαι τὴν παρθένον Κυρίου παραλάβαι εἰς τήρησιν ἑαυτῷ ‘The priest said to Joseph, “You have been chosen to take the Lord’s virgin into your safekeeping.”’ 65 Alternatively, the end of the verse can be read and translated batūl-i ḥ aqq-as ‘she is a true virgin.’

AH 6 s^A ṗr^Aš safāraš ‘request (to do something).’ See § 2 for the transcription with ‑f‑ rather than ‑p‑ (cf. standard sifāriš/sipāriš).

AH 7 b^A ṫ ^Uw r^Ā ʾ ba tu-rā ‘to you’ and 19 bʾ ^Ānrʾ ^Ā ba Ān-rā ‘to Him.’ A circumposition ba ...‑rā is attested in literary Early New Persian texts with various meanings: indirect object, direction, purpose. 66 This form was probably much more widespread in non-literary New Persian. An Early Judaeo-Persian example of directional bē ...‑rā is to be found in Argument D4 by pyš ʾndwxtgʾryh rʾ 67 bē pēš-anduxtgārīh-rā ‘(there is much thought) in order to accumulate in advance.’

AH 7 p^Ayḋ ^Ā ʾ ^As paydā-s ‘(Jesus) is conceived,’ is transcribed with the usual elision, on account of the rhyme, rather than paydā as as the spelling suggests. The intransitive verbal periphrasis paydā būdan ‘to be born, conceived’ is not recorded in the standard dictionaries, but is nearly synonymous with paydā āmadan, paydā šodan ‘to come into existence, be created; to be born’ and parallels the New Persian transitive verbal periphrases paydā āvardan, paydā kardan ‘to bring into existence, create; to bear, give birth to’ (cf. paydāyiš ‘coming into being, birth, genesis, etc.’). 68

AH 8, 10 h^Amj^Uwn hamcūn can only be taken as an adverb meaning ‘thus, like that,’ given the contexts where it occurs, although hamcūn is chiefly a preposition meaning ‘like, as’ in the literary language according to the standard dictionaries. 69 The use of hamcūn as an adverb meaning ‘thus, like that’ is presumably peculiar to the spoken language and recalls modern, mainly spoken forms such as hamci in sentences like cerā hamci negāh-am mikoni? ‘why do you look at me like that?’ 70 On PS 3 hmgwn hamgūn, see below.

AH 11 ʾ ^Īyn k^Ab^Ar k^Asÿ ʾ ^Ānš n^Īyḋ ^Ād^As Īn xabar, kas-ī ān-š nidādas ‘This news, nobody (ever) gave it.’ In this clause, the direct object (here without ‑rā: Īn xabar) is in thematic position before the subject (kas-ī) and is represented, in the rheme, by the pronoun ān ‘it’ with redundant personal suffix ‑š. This construction can be regarded as peculiar to the spoken language. 71

AH 11 n^Īyḋ ^Ād^As nidādas. A negative verbal prefix nī (nē) is not attested in the earliest New Persian texts in Arabic script, 72 so that n^Īy‑ is unlikely to represent nī (the text gives no evidence of the preservation of majhūl ē). However, given the fluctuation in the spelling of the palatal vowels in this text, n^Īy‑ can as well represent ni‑ ‘not’ with a short vowel. The negative verbal prefix is commonly spelled ny, written separately from the verb and to be interpreted as na 73 or ni, 74 in New Persian texts in Manichaean script. The spelling ny is also very frequent in the Early Judaeo-Persian Argument. 75

AH 17 z^Ā ʾh^Ir b^Ā ʾṭ ^In ẓ āhir u bā ṭ in ‘manifest and concealed.’ The conjunction u ‘and,’ consisting of a short unstressed vowel, is left unwritten here as it occasionally is in Early New Persian texts in Arabic script. 76 Omission of the conjunction in writing is found in the ancient fragmentary manuscript of ʿUnṣurī’s poem Vāmiq va ʿ A ẕ rā, datable to the eleventh or twelfth century, where it has been duly supplemented by the editors of the text. 77 Among non-literary manuscripts, the conjunction is not written within a nominal phrase and has been supplemented by the editor 51 times in the Marriage contract from Bāmiyān dated 470/1078, 78 whereas it is regularly recorded only eight times, all at the beginning of a clause. 79 As for New Persian texts in other scripts, an instance of unwritten coordinating conjunction is to be found in the qaṣīda in Manichaean script M 786, l. 22 (verse 9) kʾpwr brg ʿ[..](w)rd kāfūr u barg-i mūrd ‘camphor and myrtle-leaves’. 80

AH 19 bʾ ^Ānrʾ ^Ā ba Ān-rā ‘to Him.’ On the circumposition ba ...‑rā, see above on AH 7 b^A ṫ ^Uw r^Ā ʾ ba tu-rā ‘to you.’ Oddly, ān refers here to God. Alternatively, one could translate lines 19-22 as ‘For this (reason) (ba ān-rā ) praise is fitting, because (ki) He is both clement and forgiving and is both merciful and compassionate, (He) whom (ki) all the world is longing for’.

AH 22 h^Im^Ā ʾ hima ‘all.’ Though New Persian hama goes back to Middle Persian hamāg with a long vowel in the second syllable, the final ālap vocalised with <^Ā> in h^Im^Ā ʾ is unlikely to represent long ā (see § 2 for the graphic fluctuation <^A> ~ <^Ā>). The word is likewise usually written hmʾ hama, with final <ʾ>, in Early Judaeo-Persian, where the final short vowel is confirmed by the formally plural equivalents hmgʾn hamagān, hmgyn hamagīn and especially its combination with the third plural suffix pronoun hmšʾn hama-šān. 81 Instead, it is written hm^A ḣ, hm^Ah in the Syro-Persian Psalter from Turfan and interpreted as hamah by Sims-Williams. 82 The palatal vocalisation in the first syllable represents a weakened pronunciation of pretonic a.

AH 23 b^A ḋ ^Īyd^Ā ʾr padīdār ‘the one who begets.’ The manuscript reading can scarcely be taken at face value to obtain an all too obvious Ba dīdār-i tu guftam: ʿ išq-as ‘On my visit to you I said: He is love,’ though this is presumably how the copyist understood the spelling he must have found in his source and copied as such. In the source manuscript, p was likely written <b> as in other Syro-Persian texts on the model of Arabic (which has no p): thus, <b> represents both b and p in manuscripts Mingana Syr. 520 (MT 8b byk payk ‘apostle’ beside PS 3 psr pisar ‘son’) and Sachau 73 (Mt 23.29 byγmbrʾn payġambarān ‘prophets,’ 35 b^A ʾ k̇ pāk ‘righteous’), where the value p is only occasionally made clear by the addition of the subscript Arabo-Persian three-dot diacritic (Mt 23.35 b^us^αr pusar ‘son’), 83 while <p> mostly represents f. Since manuscript C otherwise uses <p> for p, it is conceivable that the copyist, unable to understand properly the spelling b^A ḋ ^Īyd^Ā ʾr of his source originally meant to represent padīdār, kept it without changing b‑ into p‑ according to his own spelling habits. As for padīdār, this might be, in principle, the adjective meaning ‘manifest, visible’ (< Middle Persian pad dīdār ‘visible’ ← ‘in sight’) 84 and synonymous with padīd and paydā in the special meaning ‘born, conceived’ referred to Jesus (see above on AH 7 p^Ayḋ ^Ā ʾ ^As paydā-s). This would result in a translation of verse 23 as ‘I have announced (that) the one conceived in you (i.e. Jesus) is love.’ However, it seems preferable to understand padīdār here as a spoken and poetic shortened form of the compound substantive padīd-āvar ‘the one who creates, generates’—referring to the Father—from the verbal periphrasis padīd āvardan ‘to generate’ equivalent to paydā kardan, paydā āvardan ‘to bring into existence, create; to bear, give birth to’ and belongs to the semantic sphere of conception (cf. above on AH 7 p^Ayḋ ^Ā ʾ ^As paydā-s ‘is conceived’). 85 The resulting translation ‘I have announced (that) the one who begets in you is love,’ which parallels a passage in stanza 35 of the Syriac Dialogue between Mary and the Angel 86 and is in line with the Gospel narrative in Lk 1.35, provides a sound conclusion to a hymn relating Gabriel’s annunciation to the Virgin.

PS 1*mʿmʾr *Mi ʿ mār ‘the (Supreme) Architect,’ that is, Jesus. The new variant reading C mʿ ^Al^Iml^Ar may be assumed to represent the Turkish plural of mu ʿ allim ‘teacher,’ which, as Peter Zieme informs us, 87 occurs in the same spelling (with the addition of the possessive suffix ‑y) in a Turkish text in Syriac script in CCM 398 245r7 = Mingana 469 88 114b8 mu ʿ allimleri fikre düšti ‘His (?) teachers fell into thought.’ The same reading seems to be mirrored by the variants AB mʿmlr and Z mʿmːlr, that share the omission of the first ‑l‑ though Z preserves the tašdīd originally belonging precisely to it. However, even if the manuscript tradition presents us with an intended reading mu ʿ allimler ‘teachers,’ this can only be regarded as a lectio facilior that does not fit the syntax and goes back to someone who was not at home with Persian and copied the text in a region where Turkish was spoken, if it was not the copyist’s own language: an inflected Turkish word is unexpected and unparalleled in Syro-Persian texts. Accordingly, we prefer to keep to the tentative emendation and interpretation we proposed in the first edition of the text.

PS 3 hmgwn hamgūn ‘in the same way (as the Fater).’ On account of the obscurity of this short text, we tentatively keep to our first transcription and interpretation of this word as an adverb meaning ‘likewise’, 89 though manuscripts C and Z now offer the spelling hmjwn hamcūn ‘thus’ (cf. on AH 8, 10 h^Amj^Uwn hamcūn above), which would results in a translation of the verse as ‘The Son is seated thus’ (see next on nišastas) or ‘The Son has thus accessed the throne (of God).’ 90

PS 3 C n^Iš^Āst^As nišastas ‘is seated.’ This is a ‘true’ perfect, and not only a form conditioned by the rhyme. An ancient causative nišāstan ‘to seat’ of nišastan ‘to sit,’ with a long vowel in the verbal stem, is attested in Early New Persian texts, 91 as well as in two Manichaean New Persian texts as nišēstan with ‑ā‑ > ‑ē‑ (by imāla). 92 However, a perfect of a causative does not seem to fit the context in PS 3. Therefore, the spelling with an apparent long vowel in the stem of n^Iš^Āst^As, offered only by C, is more likely to represent a further instance of the graphic fluctuation between the ptāḥā <^A> and zqāpā <^Ā> diacritics (see § 2) and has to be read nišastas ‘he is seated.’

PS 4 ḥ ^an *mʾrd ġ^Uwṗt^As hān *Mard guftas ‘the Man (i.e. Jesus) said that.’ The variant reading CD y^A/Ā k̇ m^A ṯl (D m^I ṯl!) ġ^Uwṗt^As yak ma s̱ al (D mi s̱ l!) guftas ‘he said a parable’ looks like a lectio facilior, where the replacement of ḥ ān by yak depends on the similarity of the Syriac letter combinations <ḥn> ܚܢ (ABZ) and <yk> ܝܟ (C). The variant reading ABZ mʾdr exhibits the frequent interchange of the similar Syriac letters <d> ܕ and <r> ܪ and ālap for short a occasionally found elsewhere in Syro-Persian texts 93 or is a deliberate spelling of mādar ‘mother’ (?), likewise a lectio facilior.

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