Getting into hot water with Anton Baumstark

Borg. Ar. 22, one of the manuscripts containing the Arabic Testamentum Domini, has a liturgical appendix with material related to, but distinct from, parallel material in Testamentum Domini. Some of this was published by Baumstark in “Eine aegyptische Mess- und Taufliturgie vermutlich des 6 Jahrhunderts” Oriens christianus 1 (1901) p. 1-45. I had a note from a colleague querying Baumstark’s rendition of بحميم الميلاد الثانى in one of the prayers after baptism, as “per aquam calidam regenerationis.” The question was whether I could make any sense of it; where, indeed, did Baumstark find the aqua?

My first look was to see what the word was in the Testamentum Domini. Although this isn’t straight Testamentum there is a comparable prayer there, where the word is ܣܚܬܐ. That is straightforward. But this passage is derived from from Traditio apostolica. The Latin here is lauacrum regenerationis, with an apparent reference to Titus 3:5, and so in keeping with the Syriac of Testamentum Domini.

The Sahidic of this section of Traditio apostolica is not extant and the Bohairic rather free but the Arabic is للحمي الى للولدة الثانية (Horner, Statutes of the apostles, 101), thus using the same root. So I went to check the dictionaries, going first to Wehr, to find on p203 حم with form 10 as “take a bath”. And so to Lane, who has this form 10, but also the noun حمة meaning a hot spring. I can only think that the root came to refer to a bath through metonymy, though the usage here is otherwise unattested. If this is the case the meaning is straightforward and entirely in keeping with the original, and although Baumstark’s translation is rather forced we can see where he got the water from!

However, beyond the minutia of this single word, the correspondence reminds me of how fascinating this liturgical appendix is as witness to the Egyptian Nachleben of the liturgies of Testamentum Domini.

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Qilada, Kitāb al-Disqūlīyah and Borg. Ar. 22

In my dialogue with Dani Vaucher below  I make reference to Wilyam Sulayman Qilada (ed.), Kitāb al-Disqūlīyah: taʿālīm al-rusul (Cairo : Dār al-Jīl lil-Ṭibāʿah, 1979).

My parishioner Mohammed Basith Awan (remember that in the Church of England even Muslims are parishioners… they just have to live in the parish!), a far better Arabist than I, has had a look at it, and has determined that this is the “lost Coptic Didascalia” (again, see posts below) described by Baumstark and found in Codex Borg. Ar. 22. This ms also contains an Arabic version of the Testamentum Domini.

Specialists in this field (among whom I do not count myself) may learn with interest that the Vatican Library has digitized this codex. It may be read here. Coptic marginal annotations clearly indicate an Egyptian provenance.

 

The Arabic Didascalia

Some recent posts have moved some to ask me further about the Arabic Didascalia.

There are two recensions.

The first corresponds to Constitutiones apostolorum 1-6, with some omissions and re-arrangements. In addition it has a preface and six additional chapters. This preface is that which also appears in the E recension of the Syrian Didascalia.

The opening of this recension was given by Thomas Pell Platt (The Ethiopic Didascalia; or, the Ethiopic version of the Apostolical constitutions, received in the church of Abyssinia. With an English translation (London: R. Bentley, 1834) from one of two MSS in London. Platt further gives an account of a controversy between Whiston and Grabe in the early eighteenth century, which led to Grabe’s examination of two Arabic MSS at Oxford. (Platt, Ethiopic Didascalia, ii-viii.) Grabe gave a description of the contents of these without any publication,seeing the versional aspects of these MSS as simply corruption of the Greek.

As far as I can see the next published treatment of this material is that of Funk, who lists eight MSS for the Arabic Didascalia, giving a description of the contents, and a German translation of the preface and the additional chapters. (F.X. Funk, Die apostolischen Konstitutionen: eine litterar–historische Untersuchung (Rottenburg: Wilhelm Bader, 1891), 215-242. Two of these, in London, are mentioned by Platt, Ethiopic Didascalia, xi. The former is in Karshuni script, the latter was the source of his printing of the opening.) A Latin version of this material, with extensive annotation, is to be found in Funk’s Didascalia et constitutiones apostolorum (Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1905), 120-136. The reason for stressing that this was published is that Wilhelm Riedel, Die Kirchenrechtsquellen des Patriarchats Alexandrien (Leipzig: Deichert, 1900), 164-165, reports that Lagarde had studied the Parisian MSS and made a collation, but that this was never published! (According to Riedel this MS may be found as Lagarde 107 in the University Library at Göttingen.)

The other recension, discovered by Baumstark, is close to Constitutiones apostolorum in books 1-6, also contains most of book 7, does not include the additional chapters but does include the preface. The colophon states that this version was translated from Coptic in the thirteenth century. As such it is less a witness to the Arabic Didascalia as to a lost Coptic Didascalia. (See Anton Baumstark, “Die Urgestalt der ‘arabischen Didaskalia der Apostel’” Oriens Christianus 3 (1903), 201-208.)

Lagarde had opined that the Ethiopic version was a translation of the Arabic (my source for this being Riedel’s brief report.) Given that this is likewise unpublished, though edited and translated into English (by J.M. Harden, The Ethiopic Didascalia (London: SPCK, 1920)), it does seem extraordinary that no effort appears to have been made since that of Lagarde to study and to bring this material to light.