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Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Besides Syriac texts, manuscript 398 of the Chaldean Cathedral in
Mardin contains texts in Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Turkish, and Arabic in
Syriac script. This article provides an edition, translation, and philological
commentary of its three Persian texts on the basis of this and other witnesses: (1)
a Trisagion, also in Mardin 10; (2) an Annunciation hymn with a dialogue between the Angel Gabriel and Mary,
partly also in manuscript 94 of the Chaldean Diocese of Alqosh; and (3) a short Palm Sunday hymn, also in Alqosh 94, Deyrulzafaran 197, and
Mingana Syr. 184 and 520, previously published on the basis of the Mingana
manuscripts only.
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. Though this article is the result of close
collaboration by its two authors, paragraphs 1 and 3-4 are
conventionally by Mauro Maggi and paragraph 2 by Paola Orsatti. Our
heartfelt thanks go to Sebastian P. Brock (Oxford) for advice concerning
the problematic liturgical contexts and the Syriac elements of the
Syro-Persian texts studied here and to Grigory Kessel (Wien), Hidemi
Takahashi (Tokyo), and Peter Zieme (Berlin) for providing information
concerning the various texts contained in manuscript CCM 398 and
discussing some of the problems they pose.
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. See Addai Scher, “Notice sur les manuscrits
syriaques et arabes conservés à l’archevêché chaldéen de Diarbékir” (Journal asiatique 10 [1907]), 395-398 (“Cod.
95”); Hidemi Takahashi, “Armenian Garshuni: An overview of the known
material” (Hugoye: Journal of Syriac studies 17:1
[2014]), 109-110; and under “CCM 00398” in the Hill Museum &
Manuscript Library online catalogue of manuscripts at
https://www.vhmml.org.
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 See Addai Scher, “Notice sur les manuscrits
syriaques et arabes conservés dans la bibliothèque de l’évêché chaldéen
de Mardin” (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. Revue des bibliothèques 18 [1908]),
86-87 (“Cod. 81”); Takahashi, “Armenian Garshuni,” 86, 98, 109-110; and
under “CCM 00010” in the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
catalogue.
The See Alphonse Mingana, See Takahashi, “Armenian Garshuni,” 87-88; Idem,
“Armenisch-Garschuni (Armenisch in syrischer Schrift),” in Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
250-251 (on form and contents), 266, 271-273 (facsimiles, text, and
translation), 282-283 (commentary). 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, Catalogue
of the Mingana collection of manuscripts, now in the possession of
the Trustees of the Woodbrooke Settlement, Selly Oak,
Birmingham, vol. 1, Syriac and Garshūni
manuscripts (Cambridge: Heffer and Sons, 1933), 405-408 (no.
184), 956-958 (no. 520) and cf. Mauro Maggi and Paola Orsatti, “Two
Syro-Persian hymns for Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday,” in The Persian language in history, ed. Mauro Maggi
and Paola Orsatti (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2011), 247-249.Scripts beyond borders: A survey of allographic
traditions in the Euro-Mediterranean world, ed. Johannes den
Heijer, Andrea Schmidt, and Tamara Pataridze (Leuven: Peeters, 2014),
192; Idem, “Armenian Garshuni (Armenian in Syriac characters) and its
users,” in Syriac in its multi-cultural context: First
international Syriac studies symposium, Mardin Artuklu University,
Institute of Living Languages, 20-22 April 2012, Mardin, ed.
Herman Teule et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 245; and under “ZFRN 00197”
in the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library catalogue. Palm Sunday hymn on the
basis of the two Mingana manuscripts
Although the Facsimiles, text, translation, and commentary in
Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,” 263-271, 273-282. On this manuscript, cf. n. 5. The text of 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, Maundy Thursday hymn in ZFRN 197 is of some
interest in that it basically agrees with Mingana Syr. 520 but inserts
interlinearly and marginally variants that are in line with and
sometines better than those in Mingana Syr. 184 and are mostly written
in Arabic script with influence of the Syriac orthography. We will deal
with this new witness of the Maundy Thursday hymn
in a next article. 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: MT = PS = AH = Tr. = Maundy Thursday hymn
Palm Sunday hymn
Annunciation hymn
Trisagion.
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 Cf. the survey in Gilbert Lazard, “Poetry, iv:
Poetics of Middle Persian,” in 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. Encyclopaedia
Iranica, online ed. (2006) with further references.
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 In the manuscripts, the vowel signs are not always
aligned consequently with the relevant consonant signs. In the
transliteration, their position is standardised in that they precede
matres lectionis (the letters ālap, yod, and wāw), but follow full
consonant signs. Cf. Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
254. See Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
282. See Fritz Meier, “Aussprachefragen des älteren
Neupersisch” (Maundy Thursday hymn. The occurrence of third singular perfect forms
like, for instance, AH 1 gUwṗtAs guftas ‘he spoke,’ Uwṗṫ guft ‘he
said’ and 23 gUwṗtAm 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’). AmjUwn hamcūn in the meaning ‘thus, like that’ and the loss of final ‑d in Tr. xUwdĀwĀn 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’ Ān ān) and, apparently, the preservation of majhūl ō in AH 10 mAġOw magō ‘do not say!’, unless this is a
slavish, unadapted reproduction of a spelling in the source manuscript (cf. § 4
on AH 23 bAḋĪydĀ 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 mĪyḋ Ā ʾnAm mīdānām, all the more so because we know that the change
ō > ū preceded the change
ē > ī and not vice versa.
Oriens 27-28 [1981]), 96-98.
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. See Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
255-260.
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), For their adaptation to the notation of the Persian
vowels, see Paola Orsatti, “Syro-Persian formulas in poetic form in
baptism liturgy,” in In the following, reference is made to the readings
accepted in the edition below. When reference to specific manuscripts is
needed, this is indicated by the addition of the relevant manuscript
sigla.Persian origins: Early
Judaeo-Persian and the emergence of New Persian: Collected papers of
the symposium, Göttingen 1999, ed. Ludwig Paul (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 2003), 150.Aasḃ Īyḥ tasbīḥ ‘praise’ and 21 C rAa
ḥ Īym raḥīm ‘merciful.’ 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 ܵ < This seems to be confirmed by the separate writing
of the verbal negative prefix in PS 5 C nĀ>, 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. xUwdĀwĀn xudāvan ‘Lord’ (3×) and in
the verbal negative prefix na‑ in Tr. nĀ ʾ mIrḋ wnĀ ʾmĪyrA ḋ namird va namīrad ‘he did
not die and will not die’ (followed by ālap), whereas the negative prefix in PS
5 nĀ ʾdĀdAs nādādas might actually
have been nā‑ before a past participle. Āʾ
dĀdAs nādādas (here possibly nā‑: see Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,” 255 and
283). The final ālap and, more clearly, the space before the verb show
that the prefix was considered as a separate word, as often in Persian
texts in non-Arabic scripts. See Ludwig Paul, A
grammar of Early Judaeo-Persian (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert,
2013), 116-117 § 138.a spelled <Ā> also in AH 5, 15 ʿ ĀlĀm ʿālam ‘world’ (but 22 C ʿ
Ā ʾlAm, D ʿ ĀlAm), 18 ʿ Ājḃ ʿajab ‘(what a) wonder,’
20 D gAṗ Ā ʾrĀ ʾs ġaffār-as ‘is forgiving’
(bur C gA ṗ Ā ʾrAs), 21 D rA ḥ ĪymĀ ʾs rā
ḥim-as ‘is compassionate’ (but C rĀ ḥ ĪymAs), 22
hImĀ ʾ hima ‘all,’ 23 gUwṗtĀm guftam ‘I have announced’,
PS 6 C ʿ Āẓ ĪymAs ʿaẓīm-as ‘is great’ (but D
ʿ A ẓĪymAs), and probably 3 C nIšĀstAs nišastas ‘he is seated’ (but D nIšsAtAs 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 Īy> represents a long ī
(there is no evidence of majhūl ē). However, <Īy> in Tr. C₁ nĀ ʾ
mĪyrd contrasts with <I> in C nĀ ʾ mIrd 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 mUwkAlĪyṣ muxalliṣ ‘saviour,’ 21 C
rĀ ḥ ĪymAs, D rA ḥ ĪymAs rāḥim-as ‘is compassionate,’ and possibly in the negative prefix of 11
nĪyḋ ĀdAs 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 ĪylĀhĒn beside C ʾ ĪylĀhIn ilāhīn, apparently for standard ilāhī ‘divine,’
and stands for i in AH 4 ḥ Ā
ʾmĒlAs ḥāmila-s ‘will be pregnant.’ Finally, the spellings AH 22
hImĀ ʾ hima for literary New Persian hama
and AH 1, 13, 14 sIxUwn
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 See Mauro Maggi, “A Syro-Persian version of Matthew
23.29-35,” in ‑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 ĪysĀ ʾ, 7 ʿ Īysʾ ʿĪsā
‘Jesus.’ Scritti in onore di Giovanni M.
D’Erme, ed. Michele Bernardini and Natalia L. Tornesello, vol.
1 (Napoli: Università degli studi di Napoli L’Orientale, 2005), 645;
Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,” 259; and cf. Adam C.
McCollum, “Garshuni as it is: Some observations from reading East and
West Syriac manuscripts” (Hugoye: Journal of Syriac
studies 17:2 [2014]), 229.
In the two Mardin manuscripts a stylised small Arabic dotless jīm subscribed to
<g> ( For epigraphic scripts, see Adolf Grohmann, Cf. McCollum, “Garshuni as it is,” 230 with n.
35. See Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
258.j
and c from velar g (the latter
being written <g> or <ġ> with overdot for plosive pronunciation
according to Syriac orthography: Arabische Paläographie, II. Teil, Das Schriftwesen; die Lapidarschrift (Wien:
Böhlaus, 1971), 42-46 § 4.j and c: Tr. ʿjmyʾ ʿajamāyā ‘Persian’ (loanword in the Syriac title; C₁
ʿgmyʾ) and jAḃ Ār jabbār ‘almighty;’ AH 2 bjḃryl, 12 jbryl (ba) Jibrīl ‘(to) Gabriel,’ 8 jAwĀ ʾ ḃ javāb
‘answer,’ 9 jÿ ci ‘what,’ 8, 10 hAmjUwn hamcūn
‘thus, like that’ (cf. the lectiones faciliores PS 3 CZ hmjwn, D hAmjUwn instead of hmgwn
hamgūn), 18 ʿ Ājḃ ʿajab ‘(what a) wonder,’ 19 C wʾ ĀjbAs vājib-as ‘is
fitting’ (as against D wʾ AgbAs), PS 2 C jÿ, D jĪy ci ‘what’ (2×), and 5 C jAwĀ ʾb, D jwĀ ʾ ḃ javāb ‘answer.’ Instead, simple <g> or a modified
<g> with one or two strokes in the middle (j and c in ZFRN 197 and the two Mingana manuscripts.
The only two occurrences of fricative Other occurrences of /ġ/ in Syro-Persian texts are
to be found in the Matthew excerpt, where it is written <g> with
underdot (rukkakā) transliterated <γ>, and in the bilingual
(Syriac and New Persian) Psalter and the pharmacological fragments from
Turfan, where it is written by means of a modified gāmal transliterated
<ğ>: see Maggi, “A Syro-Persian version of Matthew 23.29-35,” 642;
Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,” 256 n. 28; Nicholas
Sims-Williams, “Early New Persian in Syriac script: Two texts from
Turfan,” ( See Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
256, 258.ġ in the three
texts under consideration are simply written <g> (A ṗ Uwr ġafūr ‘clement’ and C
gA ṗ Ā ʾrAs, D gA ṗ Ā ʾrĀ ʾs ġaffār-as ‘he is forgiving.’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 74:3 [2011]), 354, 363.g on the model of the Arabo-Persian
orthography, a usage which is occasionally found in the Maundy
Thursday hymn in Mingana Syr. 520 p on the model of the
Arabo-Persian orthography in AH 23 C bA ḋ ĪydĀ ʾr, D bAdĪydĀ 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 ( Cf. McCollum, “Garshuni as it is,” 231.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
(f in CCM 398 and DCA 94 (f does
not occur in the short Syro-Persian text of CCM 10, the Trisagion): AH 1 gUwṗtAs guftas ‘he spoke,’ 6 sA ṗrAš safāraš ‘request (to do something)’ (cf. standard sifāriš beside sipāriš), 12 ġUwṗṫ guft ‘he said,’ 20 gA ṗ Uwr ġafūr ‘clement,’ 20 C gA ṗ
Ā ʾrAs, D gA ṗ Ā ʾrĀ ʾs ġaffār-as ‘is
forgiving,’ 23 C gUwṗtAm, D gUwṗtĀm guftam ‘I said’, and PS 1, 4 ġUwṗtA/Ās guftas ‘he
said’. As opposed to <ṗ>, <p> without diacritical point (p in the two
Mardin manuscripts: Tr. C pĀ k̇, C₁ pk̇ pāk ‘holy;’ AH 7 pAyḋ 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 ( See Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
259. 4 ki ‘that,’ 9 jÿ ci
‘what,’ 11 kAsÿ kas-ī
‘somebody,’ 20 k̇ÿ ki ‘because,’ 22 kÿ ki ‘whom;’ and PS 2 jÿ ci ‘what’ (2×), 5 kAsÿ 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). ē in the second plural verbal ending ‑ēd after a glide ‑y‑ (αʾrαʾyιÿd ārāyēd ‘you decorate’, 8 ʿquwba ẗ nimaʾyiÿd ʿoqūbat nemāyēd ‘you (will) punish’:
see Maggi, “A Syro-Persian version of Matthew 23.29-35,” 644-646.
In AH 1, 6 x Orsatti, “Syro-Persian formulas,” 152-154 with n.
31; Sims-Williams, “Early New Persian in Syriac script,” 355 with n. 13,
357, 369. For pronunciation, see Fritz Meier, “Aussprachefragen des
älteren Neupersisch,” 156-159 and Gilbert Lazard, “Remarques sur le
fragment judéo-persan de Dandān-Uiliq,” in UwdĀ ʾ ḣ xudāh ‘the Lord,’ final <ḣ> with a point above
(‑h. It also occurs in the Baptism hymn (1, 10 nĪgĀḣ nigāh ‘gaze,’ 4, 8, 12
rĀ ḣ, that is, the postposition ‑rā(h)), and the Syro-Persian Psalter from Turfan (Iv6
hmA ḣ hamah ‘all’). A green
leaf: Papers in honour of Professor Jes P. Asmussen (Leiden:
Brill, 1988), 207; cf. Maggi, “A Syro-Persian version of Matthew
23.29-35,” 648 with nn. 29-31 and George Anton Kiraz, Tūrrāṣ Mamllā: A grammar of the Syriac language, vol. 1, Orthography (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2012), 93
§ 203.
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 AqAs Ḥaqq-as ‘is (...) God,’ 4 ḥ Ā ʾmĒlAs ḥāmila-s ‘is pregnant,’ 19 tAasḃ Īyḥ tasbīḥ ‘praise,’ 21 rAa ḥ Īym raḥīm ‘merciful,’ 21 rĀ ḥ ĪymAs rāḥim-as ‘is compassionate;’ PS 6 ṣĀ ʾḥ
I ḃ ṣ
ā
ḥ
ib ‘possessed of;’
– Arabic <ṣ> = Syriac <ṣ> (UwkAlĪyṣ muxalliṣ ‘saviour;’ PS 6
ṣĀʾḥ I ḃ ṣ
ā
ḥ
ib ‘possessed of;’
– Arabic <ṭ> = Syriac <ṭ> (Āʾṭ In bā
ṭ
in ‘concealed;’
– Arabic <ẓ>, a letter having no match in the Syriac alphabet, is rendered
by simple <z> ( Cf. McCollum, “Garshuni as it is,” 231-232.Ā ʾhIr ẓāhir ‘manifest’, but by <ṭ> with overdot (ĀẓĪymAs ʿ
a
ẓ
īm-as ‘is great’ (the other manuscripts have simple
<ṭ>) in imitation of the Arabic script, which combines <ṭ>
– Arabic <ʿ> is always transliterated by Syriac <ʿ> (
– Arabic <s̱> = Syriac <ṯ> (i.e. <t> with underdot for
fricative pronunciation, A ṯl ma
s̱
al ‘parable, D mI 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 ĪysĀ ʾ ba
ʿ
Īsā ‘with Jesus,’ 6 bImĀ ʾ bi mā ‘to us’ (with i), 7 bA ṫ Uw rĀ ʾ ba tu-rā ‘to you’ (with a), 15 bʿ
ĀlĀm 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 * Cf. McCollum, “Garshuni as it is,” 233 on tašdīd in
Garshuni.Mi
ʿ
mār ‘the (Supreme) Architect’ (see § 4).
The iżāfa particle (‑i) is never written. Moreover, there
is one instance of the conjunction u ‘and’ left
unwritten: AH 17 zĀ ʾhIr
bĀ 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:
The three texts are given here in facsimile, transliteration, transcription, and
translation. Photos courtesy of the Hill Museum & Manuscript
Library, Saint John’s University, Minnesota, USA. Published with
permission of the Chaldean Cathedral, Mardin, Turkey; the Chaldean
Diocese of Alqosh, Iraq; and the Deyrulzafaran Monastery, Mardin,
Turkey. All rights reserved.
The transcription conventionally adopts the classical pronunciation of vowels,
This does not apply to bibliographic
references.
Manuscripts: C 244r21-23; C₁ 8r14-16 (Figs. 1-2).
The Persian version is preceded by Syriac transcriptions of the This actually applies only to manuscript CCM
398, where the See David N. MacKenzie, “The language of the
Medians” (Trisagion in Latin (“Sanctus Deus”) Trisagion features as the
seventh stanza appended to the first six stanzas of the Latin hymn
O filii in Syriac transcription.
Manuscript CCM 10 has only the first stanza of O
filii, followed by Syriac transcriptions of the Trisagion in Greek and other languages, that
are qualified as “translated” (mettargam)
from Latin. See Takahashi, “Armenian Garshuni,” 110; Idem, “The hymn
‘O filii’ in Syriac transcription” (forthcoming), § 2.Trisagion in Armenian script in the Yerevan
manuscript Matenadaran 7117. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 22 [1959]), 354, where it is transcribed
thus: “*Pāk-ī xudā, pāk-ī tavānā, pāk-ī bēmarg,
avar xāč
ṣ
udī bahr-ī mā, ra
ḥ
mat kun
a
var mā,” that is, ‘Holy God, holy strong,
holy immortal, you (who) were crucified for us, have mercy on us.’
Another polyglot Trisagion in Armenian script
is contained in manuscript Matenadaran 4618, fol. 126: see Andrea
Schmidt, “Arménien et syriaque,” in Claude Mutafian (ed.), Arménie: la magie de l’écrit (Paris: Somogy,
2007), 345-348. “The text of the part visible on the photograph on
p. 345 (the versions of the Trisagion in
Greek, Syriac and Georgian, and the first four words of the Persian
version) is essentially identical to that in Matenadaran 7117”
(Takahashi, “Armenian Garshuni,” 101 n. 44).
(...) dmttrgm blšnĀ ʾ ʿ jmyʾ .
pĀ k̇ xUwdĀwĀn . jA ḃ Ār xUwdĀwĀn . nĀ ʾ mIrḋ wnĀ ʾmĪyrA ḋ . wyA k̇ xUwdĀwĀn . ʾ ĪylĀhIn jAbĀr ⁘
dmttrgm] dmItrgm C₁. blšnĀ ʾ] blšnʾ C. ʿjmyʾ] ʿgmyʾ C ₁. pĀk̇ xUwdĀwĀn] pk̇ kUwdĀwĀn C₁. jA ḃ Ār xUwdĀwĀn] jḃr kUwdĀwĀn C₁. nĀ ʾ mIrḋ wnĀ ʾmĪyrA ḋ] nĀ ʾ mĪyrd wnʾmĪyrd C₁. wyA k̇
xUwdĀwĀn] om. C₁. ʾ ĪylĀhIn] ʾ
ĪylĀhĒn C₁. jAbĀr] jnbr C₁.
Fig. 1: Chaldean Cathedral, Mardin, Turkey, MS 398, fol.
244r21-23 (
Trisagion
, C).
Fig. 2: Chaldean Cathedral, Mardin, Turkey, MS 10, fol.
8r14-16 (
Trisagion
,
C₁).
[Syriac] (...) d-mettargam b-lešānā
ʿ
ajamāyā:
[Persian] Pāk xudāvan, jabbār xudāvan, namird va namīrad va yak xudāvan, ilāhīn, jabbār.
(...) which is translated into Persian language:
Holy Lord, almighty Lord, he did not die and will not die and (is) the one Lord, divine, almighty.
Manuscripts: C 244v4-17; D 30v1-4 (Figs. 3-4). Raised numbers in bold in the transliterated
text refer to the manuscript lines.
The Syriac title of this hymn is unclear not only because of the reference
to resurrection, Cf. § 3.3 on the mention of resurrection in the
Syriac close appended to the See Michael Sokoloff, Palm Sunday hymn
that follows the Annunciation hymn in
manuscripts C and D.šurāyā, besides ‘beginning,’
is also an East Syriac liturgical term which, however, normally refers to
short psalms and not to a text such as this. A
Syriac lexicon (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 1536 s.v.
šwryʾ.
The hymn is not to be found in Sebastian P. Brock’s anthology of Syriac
hymns on Mary, though some passages of it bear some resemblance to passages
in the lenghtier anonymous hymn n. 41 translated by him, the Sebastian P. Brock,
Dialogue between Mary and the Angel sometimes
attributed to Narsai. Bride of
light: Hymns on Mary from the Syriac churches, rev. ed.
(Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2010), esp. 14, 125-132.Mary and the
Angel for short) and the Gospels of Luke and Matthew in the New
Revised Standard Version The holy Bible: New revised standard version
containing the Old and New Testaments (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989).
0 ⁴⁘ šUwrĀyʾ dAqyĀmṫ ʾ prsĀ ʾ Īyt ⁘
⁵xUwdĀ ʾ ḣ yA k̇ sIxUwn gUwṗtAs .
bjḃryl mAlA k̇ ʾ UwnAs .
⁶mĪyḋ Ā ʾnAm k̇ÿ bA ṫ Uwl ḥ AqAs .
mrym hAm bʿ ĪysĀ ʾ ⁷ ḥ Ā ʾmĒlAs .
5 mUwkAlĪyṣʿ ĀlĀmUwnĀ ʾs .
xUwdĀ ʾ ḣ bImĀ ʾ ⁸sA ṗrAš kArdAs .
ʿ Īysʾ bA ṫ Uw rĀ ʾ pAyḋ Ā ʾ As .
mrym ⁹jAwĀ ʾ ḃ hAmjUwn dĀdAs .
yʾ jbryl jÿ sxUwnAs .
10 ¹⁰mAġOw dĪygAr hAmjUwn ʿ AybAs .
ʾ Īyn kAbAr kAsÿ ʾ Ānš ¹¹nĪyḋ ĀdAs .
jbryl ġUwṗṫ mrym mA
ṫrAs .
qAbUwl ¹²bI k̇ Uwn sIxUwn ḥ AqAs .
mrym sIxUwn qAbUwl kArdAs .
15 ¹³bʿ ĀlĀm ʿyĪsĀ ʾ *ʾ ĀmAdAs .
ḥ AqAs ḥ AqAs ʿyĪsĀ ʾ ḥ AqAs .
¹⁴zĀ ʾhIr bĀ ʾṭ In ʾ ĪynAs ʾ ĪynAs .
ʿ Ājḃ qUwdrA ṫ wʾ ĀyĀ ʾtAs .
¹⁵bʾ Ānrʾ Ā tAasḃ Īyḥ wʾ ĀjbAs .
20 k̇ÿ hAm gA ṗ Uwr whAm ¹⁶gA ṗ Ā ʾrAs .
whAm rAa ḥ Īym whAm rĀ ḥ ĪymAs .
kÿ hImĀ ʾ ¹⁷ ʿ Ā ʾlAm mIštĀ ʾqAs .
bA ḋ ĪydĀ ʾr tUw gUwṗtAm ʿ IšqAs .
See Kiraz, 5 mUwkAlĪyṣ] mUwkAlĪyṣṣ C with first ṣ expunged through a point
above and a vertical line below the line to the right. Tūrrā
ṣ
Mamllā, 117 on the supralinear point as an
expunction device.11 ʾ Ānš] horizontal line
over ālap and zqāpā over n. 14 qAbwUl] q with ptāḥā
miswritten as overdot and double horizontal underdot. 15 *ʾ ĀmAdAs] ʾ ĀmArAs C.
19 wʾ ĀjbAs] wʾ AgbAs D, which begins here. 20 k̇ÿ] k̇ Īy D. gA ṗ Ā ʾrAs] gA ṗ Ā ʾrĀ ʾs D. 21 whAm rAa ḥ Īym] k̇ Īy whAm rA ḥ Īym D. rĀ ḥ ĪymAs] rA ḥ ĪymĀ ʾs D. 22 kÿ] k̇ Īy D. ʿ Ā ʾlAm] ʿ ĀlAm D. 23 bA ḋ ĪydĀ ʾr tUw gUwṗtAm] bAdĪydĀ ʾr tĀUw gUwṗtĀm D.
Fig. 3: Chaldean Cathedral, Mardin, Turkey, MS 398, fol.
244v4-17
(
Annunciation hymn
, C)
Fig. 4: Chaldean Diocese of Alqosh, Iraq, MS 94, fol. 30v1-4
(
Annunciation hymn
19-23, D)
Šurāyā da-qyāmtā Pārsāʾit
0 The beginning (?) of resurrection in Persian
“[A]nd to Gabriel the angel He [i.e. the
Father] gave instructions / to prepare the path before His
descent” ( “[A] greeting did he give her, announcing
to her too / concerning her conception” ( “Mary: And what is this that you utter?”
( “Angel: O blessed of women, ... have no
fear” ( “Angel: ... it is from the True One that I
have been sent” ( Cf. Lk 1.48 (“for he has looked with favor
on the lowliness of his servant. / Surely, from now on all
generations will call me blessed”). “Angel: ... He is come and is residing
within you” ( “Angel: Height and depth shall hold Him in
honour, / angels and human kind shall give Him praise” ( “Angel: From the Father was I sent / to
bring you this message, for His love has compelled Him / so that
His Son should reside in your womb” (Mary and the Angel 6 in Brock,
Bride of light, 126).Mary
and the Angel 10 in Brock, Bride of
light, 126). “And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings,
favored one! The Lord is with you ... And now, you will conceive
in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus’ ” (Lk
1.28, 31); “the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit”
(Mt 1.20).Mary and the Angel 12 in Brock, Bride of light, 127).Mary and the Angel 13 in Brock,
Bride of light, 127).Mary and the Angel 19 in
Brock, Bride of light, 128).Mary and the Angel 45 in
Brock, Bride of light, 131).Mary and the Angel 49 in Brock, Bride of light, 131).Mary and
the Angel 35 in Brock, Bride of
light, 129). Cf. Lk 1.35 (“The angel said to her, ‘The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born [note: Other
ancient authorities add of you] will be
holy; he will be called Son of God.’ ”).
Manuscripts: A 10r7-11; B 90v13-91r2; C 244v18-22; D 30v5-11; Z 99r1-5 (Figs.
5-7). See n. 6 for the first publication of
manuscripts AB.
This short and rather enigmatic hymn seems to refer to the signs of the end
of the age revealed by Jesus and his future coming, to the image of Christ
seated on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father, and to his
power. Cf. Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian
hymns,” 251. Cf. Sokoloff, Despite this possibility, we keep the
conventional title Maundy Thursday hymn in
the West Syriac manuscripts A, B, and Z, and by the Annunciation hymn in the East Syriac manuscripts C and D. The
headings sugitā ‘a type of hymn or dialogue poem’ in
A, B, and Z, and ʿ
unitā ‘antiphonal response; refrain, hymn’ in C and D
seem to be used here as generic terms for ‘hymn.’ A Syriac
lexicon, 976 s.v. swgytʾ, 1082 s.v.
ʿwnytʾ.Annunciation hymn and is provided with a different Syriac ending
mentioning “resurrection” (qyāmtā, as in the Syriac
title of the Annunciation hymn) suggests an
adaptation to specific liturgical exigencies. Palm Sunday hymn for the
sake of easy reference.
Read [[w]]gwpts with a query in Maggi and
Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,” 271.0 swgytʾ] ʿwnytʾ C. 1 *mʿmʾr]
mʿmlr AB, mʿmːlr Z, mʿ AlImlAr CD. ġUwṗtAs] ġUwṗtĀs D, gwpts A (with deleted dot
over g) 2 jÿ ʾ ĀyĀ ʾ ṫ w jÿ] jĪy ʾ A ʾ Āṫ ʾ AyĀ ʾ
ṫ wjĪy D, jy ʾyʾt wjy ABZ qUwdrAtAs] qwdrts AZ, qOwdrts B. 3 pIsAr] psr ABZ. hmgwn] hAmjUwn D, hmjwn CZ.
nIšĀstAs] nIšsAtAs D, nšsts ABZ (a
suprascript dot over final ‑s in B). 4 ḥ an] ḥ un Z (with
sukūn over ‑n in ABZ), yA k̇ C, yĀ k̇ D. *mrd] mʾdr ABZ, mA ṯl C, mI ṯl D.
ġUwṗtAs] gwpts
ABZ. 5 kAsÿ] kAsĪy D, ksy ABZ.
jAwĀ ʾb] jwĀ ʾ ḃ D, gwʾb AB, jwʾb Z. nĀ ʾdĀdAs] nĀ ʾ dĀdAs C, nʾddʾs A,
nο ʾddʾs B, nʾdʾdʾs Z. 6 ṣĀ ʾḥ I
ḃ] ṣʾḥb ABZ. qUwdrA ṫ] qwdrẗ AB (a dot under the line between r and ẗ in A), qdrẗ Z.
ʿ Ā ẓ ĪymAs] ʿ A ẓ ĪymAs D, ʿṭyms ABZ.
7CD šwbḥʾ] šUw(bḥʾ) D.
lĀk mĀrn] lk mrn
C. 8CD šwbḥʾ lk brh] D. dʾ AlĀhĀ ʾ] dʾlhʾ C. 9 ddwyd]
ddwwyd Z. 9CD brĪyḵ uw] bryw (with dotless r) D. dbAqyĀmṯ Ah] dbqymth C. ḥ a ḋyan] ḥ Ā ḏyĀn D. 11 wtuwḇ] wtwb BZ. nʾṯʾ] nʾtʾ
AB.
Fig. 5: Chaldean Cathedral, Mardin, Iraq MS 398, fol.
244v18-22 (
Palm Sunday hymn
, C)
Fig. 6: Chaldean Diocese of Alqosh, Iraq, MS 94, fol.
30v5-11 (
Palm Sunday hymn
, D).
Fig. 7: Deyrulzafaran Monastery, Mardin, Turkey, MS 197,
fol. 99r1-5
(
Palm Sunday hymn
, Z).
Tr. x Moḥammad Ḥasandust, Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
278. Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, UwdĀwĀn xudāvan ‘Lord’ (3×) for
standard xudāvand (< *hu̯a-tāu̯ant‑) Farhang-e
rišešenāxti-ye zabān-e Fārsi (Tehrān: Farhangestān-e Zabān va
Adab-e Fārsi, 1393/2014), vol. 2, 1109.‑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’), ‑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‑). Dictionary of Manichaean Middle Persian and Parthian
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 366; Ḥasandust, Farhang-e
rišešenāxti-ye zabān-e Fārsi, vol. 2, 1109.
Tr. n See Orsatti, “Syro-Persian formulas,” 152, 164 with
notes 90-95.Ā ʾ mIrḋ namird ‘he did not die’ represents a dialectal
realisation of classical u as i.
See also the vocalisation of AH 22 mIštĀ ʾq mištāq ‘longing’ for
Arabic muštāq and 1 sIxUwn sixun ‘speech’ for
Classical saxun (suxun, suxan). This is a widespread dialectal phenomenon also
attested in the Syro-Persian Baptism hymn 2 ʾ IsṫwĀrʾ ist(a)vār for standard ustuvār
‘firm, strong.’
Tr. ʾ See n. 37. See Takahashi, “Armenian Garshuni,” 99-100 with n.
41 for Armenian, Arabic, and Turkish; and Idem, “The hymn ‘O filii’ in
Syriac transcription” (forthcoming), §§ 1-2, 4 for Latin. The Georgian version poses problems: see Adam C.
McCollum, “Syro-Georgian Trisagion,” at
http://hmmlorientalia.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/syro-georgian-trisagion.ĪylĀhIn jAbĀr 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, etra
ḥḥ
am
ʿ
al-ayn ‘have mercy on us!’ 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 Émile De Strycker, A ṫ Uwl ḥ AqAs 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 La forme la
plus ancienne du Protévangile de Jacques: Recherches sur le Papyrus
Bodmer 5, avec une édition critique du texte grec et une traduction
annotée (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1961), 106; Bart
D. Ehrman and Zlatko Pleše, The apocryphal gospels:
Texts and translations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),
31, 50-51.batūl-i
ḥ
aqq-as ‘she is a true virgin.’
AH 6 sA ṗrAš safāraš ‘request (to do something).’ See § 2 for the
transcription with ‑f‑ rather than ‑p‑ (cf. standard sifāriš/sipāriš).
AH 7 b See Gilbert Lazard, See David N. MacKenzie, “An Early Jewish-Persian
argument” (A ṫ Uw rĀ 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. La langue des
plus anciens monuments de la prose persane (Paris: Klincksieck,
1963), 369 § 542.bē ...‑rā
is to be found in Argument D4 by pyš ʾndwxtgʾryh rʾ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 31:2 [1968]), 258. No examples of pa(d)/be ...‑rā are offered by Ludwig Paul,
“Early Judaeo-Persian in a historical perspective: The case of the
prepositions be, u, pa(d), and the suffix rā,”
in Persian origins: Early Judaeo-Persian and the
emergence of New Persian: Collected papers of the symposium,
Göttingen 1999, ed. Ludwig Paul (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003)
or Idem, A grammar of Early Judaeo-Persian, 150
§ 184.bē pēš-anduxtgārīh-rā ‘(there is much thought) in order
to accumulate in advance.’
AH 7 p See Ela Filippone, “The Mazdean notions of creation
and birth: Some reflexes in the Iranian languages,” in 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.’). Religious themes and texts of pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia:
Studies in honour of Professor Gherardo Gnoli on the occasion of his
65th birthday on 6th December 2002, ed. Carlo G. Cereti, Mauro
Maggi, and Elio Provasi (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2003), 91-92,
98-101 and Eadem, “ ‘Bearing a child’ in Iranian,” in One for the earth: Prof. Dr. Y. Mahyar Nawabi memorial volume,
ed. Mahmoud Jaafari-Dehaghi (Tehran: Centre for the Great Islamic
Encyclopaedia, 2008), 58-59 with reference to the dictionaries by ʿAli
Akbar Dehxodā, Loġatnāme, ed. Moḥammad Moʿin and
Jaʿfar Šahidi (Tehrān: Dānešgāh-e Tehrān, 1324-1359/1946-1981), s.vv.
paydā šudan, paydā
kardan, paydāyiš and Moḥammad Moʿin, Farhang-e Fārsi-ye motavasse
ṭ, 7th ed. (Tehrān: Amir Kabir, 1364/1985), vol.
1, 882-884 s.vv. paydā āmadan, paydā āvardan, paydā šudan, paydā kardan, paydāyiš.
See also Ḥasan Anvari, Farhang-e bozorg-e Soxan
(Tehrān: Entešārāt-e Soxan, 1381/2002), vol. 2, 1486-1488 s.vv. paydā āmadan, paydā
āvardan, paydā šudan, paydā kardan, paydāyiš.
AH 8, 10 h Dehxodā, See Anvari, AmjUwn 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. Loġatnāme, s.v. hamcūn: “hamcu, mānand-i, cūn, naẓīr-i;” Anvari,
Farhang-e bozorg, vol. 8, 8389 s.v. hamcūn: “mānand-i, mis̱l-i.”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?’ Farhang-e
bozorg, vol. 8, 8389 s.v. hamcī.hamgūn, see below.
AH 11 ʾ For the syntax of this kind of clauses, see Gilbert
Lazard, Īyn kAbAr kAsÿ ʾ Ānš nĪyḋ ĀdAs 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. Grammaire du persan contemporain,
nouvelle éd. avec la collaboration de Yann Richard, Rokhsareh Hechmati
et Pollet Samvelian (Téhéran: Institut français de recherche en Iran,
2006), 168 § 172, 176 §175, 196 § 193.4); and Ju. A. Rubinčik, Grammatika sovremennogo persidskogo literaturnogo
jazyka (Moskva: Vostočnaja literatura, 2001), 402-404. Similar
constructions are also attested in Early New Persian texts: see Lazard,
La langue des plus anciens monuments, 260
§ 325.c.
AH 11 n Cf. Lazard, François de Blois, “Glossary to the New Persian
texts in Manichaean script,” in Elio Provasi, “New Persian texts in Manichaean
script from Turfan,” in MacKenzie, “An Early Jewish-Persian argument,”
249-269; and Idem, “An index to ‘An Early Jewish-Persian argument’,” in
Īyḋ ĀdAs nidādas. A negative verbal
prefix nī (nē) is not attested in
the earliest New Persian texts in Arabic script, La langue des plus
anciens monuments, 440-441 § 727.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, nĪy‑ 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
Dictionary of
Manichaean texts, vol. 2, Texts from Iraq and
Iran (texts in Syriac, Arabic, Persian and Zoroastrian Middle
Persian), ed. François de Blois and Nicholas Sims-Williams,
compiled by François de Blois, Erica C. D. Hunter, and Dieter Taillieu
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 109.ni, The Persian language in
history, ed. Mauro Maggi and Paola Orsatti (Wiesbaden:
Reichert, 2011), 142, 166.Argument. The Persian language in history, ed. Mauro
Maggi and Paola Orsatti (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2011), 243.
AH 17 z For omission of the conjunction in writing compound
numerals (e.g. Thomas Hägg and Bo Utas, See Gianroberto Scarcia, “A preliminary report on a
Persian legal document of 470-1078 found at Bāmiyān” ( Lines 24, 25, 27, 28 (2×), 29, 31 (2×). Walter B. Henning, “Persian poetical manuscripts
from the time of Rūdakī,” in Ā ʾhIr bĀ 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. cihil (u) yak sāl ‘forty-one
years’), see Lazard, La langue des plus anciens
monuments, 217 § 204.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. The
Virgin and her Lover: Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a
Persian epic poem (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 79.Marriage contract from Bāmiyān dated 470/1078, East and West 14:1-2 [1963]), 73–81; Idem, “An edition of the
Persian legal document from Bāmiyān” (East and
West 16:3-4 [1966]), 290-295.kāfūr u barg-i
mūrd ‘camphor and myrtle-leaves’. A locust’s leg: Studies
in honour of S. H. Taqizadeh (London: Percy Lund, Humphries and
Co., 1962), 101, 103-104.
AH 19 bʾ Ānrʾ Ā
ba Ān-rā ‘to Him.’ On the circumposition ba ...‑rā, see above on AH 7 bA ṫ Uw rĀ 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 See Paul, See n. 28.ImĀ 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 hImĀ 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. A grammar of Early
Judaeo-Persian, 104 § 120 and 88 § 100 (b) respectively.A ḣ, hmAh in the Syro-Persian Psalter from Turfan and
interpreted as hamah by Sims-Williams. a.
AH 23 b Maggi, “A Syro-Persian version of Matthew
23.29-35,” esp. 642. Ḥasandust, See Dehxodā, See n. 52.A ḋ ĪydĀ 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 bA 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 busαr pusar ‘son’), f. Since
manuscript C otherwise uses <p> for p, it is
conceivable that the copyist, unable to understand properly the spelling bA ḋ ĪydĀ 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’) Farhang-e
rišešenāxti-ye zabān-e Fārsi, vol. 2, 643.padīd and paydā in the special meaning ‘born, conceived’ referred to Jesus (see
above on AH 7 pAyḋ 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 pAyḋ Ā ʾ As paydā-s ‘is conceived’). Loġatnāme,
s.vv. padīd-ār, padīd
āvardan; Moʿin, Farhang-e Fārsi, vol. 1,
709 s.v. padīd-ār, 710 s.v. padīd āvardan; Anvari, Farhang-e
bozorg, vol. 2, 1286-1287 s.vv. padīd ( padīd āvardan ), padīd-ār .
Cf. Filippone, “The Mazdean notions of creation and birth,” 101-102 and
Eadem, “ ‘Bearing a child’ in Iranian,” 58-60 for similar verbal
periphrases with padīd and connected words
meaning ‘to bear’ and ‘to be born’ in other Iranian languages and
dialects.Dialogue between Mary and the Angel
PS 1*mʿmʾr * Letter of 28 January 2017. See Mingana, Mi
ʿ
mār ‘the (Supreme) Architect,’ that is, Jesus. The new
variant reading C mʿ AlImlAr may be assumed to represent the
Turkish plural of mu
ʿ
allim ‘teacher,’ which, as Peter Zieme informs us, Catalogue of the
Mingana collection, vol. 1, 844.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 Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian hymns,”
271-272, 282. For this special meaning of 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’,
hamcūn ‘thus’ (cf. on AH 8, 10 hAmjUwn 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).’ nišastan, see e.g. Moʿin, Farhang-e
Fārsi, vol. 4, 4736 s.v.: “julūs kardan bar taxt-i salṭanat va
imārat [to access the throne as a sultan or an emir];” Anvari, Farhang-e bozorg, vol. 8, 8733 s.v.: “julūs
kardan dar masnad va maqām-ī [to access the throne or an office].”
PS 3 C n Dehxodā, See nš(y)[sṯn] in manuscript M 877, A /V/1/ (Werner
Sundermann, “Ein manichäischer Bekenntnistext in neupersischer Sprache,”
in IšĀstAs 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, Loġatnāme, s.v.;
Walter B. Henning, “Das Verbum des Mittelpersischen der Turfanfragmente”
(Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik 9
[1933]), 212. Besides nišāstan, there is an
alternative causative nišāxtan, which is the only
one used by Firdawsī: see Fritz Wolff, Glossar zu
Firdosis Schahname (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1935), 809.nišēstan with ‑ā‑ > ‑ē‑ (by imāla). Études irano-aryennes offertes à Gilbert
Lazard,” ed. C.H. de Fouchécour and Ph. Gignoux [Paris:
Association pour l’Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 1989], 358 with
note 16) and (bn)šyst in M 581, l. 10 (Henning, “Persian poetical
manuscripts from the time of Rūdakī,” 94). See also Paola Orsatti, Appunti per una storia della lingua neopersiana,
vol. 1, Parte generale; fonologia; la più antica
documentazione (Roma: Nuova Cultura, 2007), 167.IšĀstAs, 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 Cf. e.g. Maggi and Orsatti, “Two Syro-Persian
hymns,” 258-259.an *mʾrd ġUwṗtAs hān *Mard guftas ‘the Man
(i.e. Jesus) said that.’ The variant reading CD yA/Ā
k̇ mA ṯl (D mI ṯl!) ġUwṗtAs 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> a occasionally found elsewhere in Syro-Persian texts
mādar ‘mother’
(?), likewise a lectio facilior.
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