Stemmata
The Syriac Tradition
Author: Simon Birol
I. Neo-Aramaic Textual Evidence
The story of Ahiqar is handed down in both Classical Syriac and the Neo-Aramaic dialects of the West and East Syriacs (also known as 'Assyrians', 'Chaldeans' or 'Arameans'). The Neo-Aramaic versions appear to have been translated from the Arabic language, so they have been preserved for the Syriac branch. These are the textual witnesses, in order of composition:
A. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sachau 339 (listed in Sachau's catalogue as limit identifier 290)
- Pages: 117 (fol. 1r-59r)
- Date of creation: 1881-1889
- Copyist: 'Ešaʻyā of Qilith
- Provenance: West Syriac (dialect of Tur 'Abdin)
- Catalogue entry: Sachau 1889, 2:815
- Link to the digitized original: https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN862951585&PHYSID=PHYS_0005
- Transcription & translation: Lidzbarski 1896
B. British Library (London), Brit. Libr. Add. 9321 (also known as "MS London-Sachau 9321")
- Pages: 167 (fol. 536b-620b)
- Date of creation: ca. 1897
- Copyist: Ǧibra'īl Qūryaqūzā
- Provenance: East Syriac (dialect of Alqosh (Iraq))
- Catalogue entry: not available
- Link to the digitized original: not available
- Transcription & translation: Braida 2014
There is also the oral tradition from Mlaḥsō (south-eastern Turkey), which was taken from an Arabic version (cf. Talay 2002).
II. Textual witnesses in Classical Syriac
The situation is quite different for the textual witnesses in Classical Syriac: A total of 22 manuscripts have been identified which can be divided into an East Syriac and a West Syriac branch. Five of these manuscripts are lost and could not be found. In one case, readings of a lost manuscript are available as marginal notes of Harvard syr. 80 (= Ms. Urmia 270), while its submission (= Ms. Urmia 117) is also one of these lost textual witnesses. In addition, another lost manuscript (= Ms. Graffin) was transcribed by Nau before it was lost.
Among the Tur Abdin manuscripts is a copy of a published version. Therefore, this manuscript (= Midyat Mar Gabriel MGMT 192) will be neglected for this project.
II.I Lost text witnesses
A. College of Urmia (Iran), Ms. Urmia 115
- Pages: unknown
- Date of creation: 1868/9
- Copyist: Anonymous
- Provenance: East Syriac
- Catalogue entry: Sarau/Shedd 1898, 21
- Link to the digitized copy: not available
- Transcription & translation: not available
B. College of Urmia (Iran), Ms. Urmia 117
- Pages: unknown
- Date of creation: 1887
- Copyist: Šmū'īl Tḥūmānāyā d-Mazrʻā
- Provenance: East Syriac
- Catalogue entry: Sarau/Shedd 1898, 21
- Link to the digitized copy: not not available
- Transcription & translation: Readings are available in Harvard syr. 80;
- Further remarks: it is an uncompleted copy of a nearly 800 years old lost transmission
C. College of Urmia (Iran), Ms. Urmia 230
- Pages: unknown
- Date of creation: 1894
- Copyist: Yōḥanān bar Ṭalyā da-Tḥūmā
- Provenance: East Syriac
- Catalogue entry: Sarau/Shedd 1898, 37
- Link to the digitized copy: not available
- Transcription & translation: not available
D. College of Urmia (Iran), Ms. Urmia 270
- Pages: unknown
- Date of creation: probably 1898
- Copyist: unknown
- Provenance: East Syriac
- Catalogue entry: not available
- Link to the digitized copy: not available
- Transcription & translation: not available
E. Ms. Graffin
- Pages: 56
- Date of creation: 1908
- Copyist: Priest Elias (abbot of the monastery Rabban Hormizd and nephew of Bishop Addai Scher)
- Provenance: East Syriac ('Alqōš (Iraq))
- Catalogue entry: not available (cf. transcription & translation)
- Link to the digitized copy: not available
- Transcription & translation: Nau 1918-1919, 274-307 and 356-380
- Further remarks: Commissioned work for Bishop Addai Scher
II.II Copy of Dolabani's edition
Midyat (Tur Abdin), MGMT 192
- Pages: 39 (p. 3-42)
- Date of creation: 1964/5
- Copyist: Ḥanna Qermez
- Provenance: West Syriac (Tur Abdin)
- Catalogue entry: https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/123101
II.III Other textual witnesses
The remaining 16 textual witnesses (plus Graffin's copy) can be represented in this way: On the left is the Western Syriac branch. Its oldest textual witness dates from the 15th century. This manuscript is badly damaged and torn within the sayings. The other witnesses give only the sayings. However, Aleppo SCAA 7/229 also contains the parables. This manageable quantity gives an indication of why Bishop Dolabani (1885-1969) - one of the foremost experts on Syriac manuscripts of his time - published and corrected the first edition of Conybeare et al. (1913): There were no witnesses to the text in Western Syriac circles.
Another point is obvious: in addition to the manuscripts, which were exclusively retranslated from a partly Arabic source (cf. Sayings), several sayings from Aleppo SCAA 7/229 and Sachau 162 can be found. It is therefore possible that these West Syriac manuscripts come from a contaminated deposit containing parts of the Arabic retranslated sayings.
The remaining textual witnesses belong to the East Syriac tradition. Apart from the two oldest fragments in Brit. Libr. Add. 7200 and Brit. Libr. Or. 2313, the other manuscripts can be precisely located: One branch comes from Urmia (Iran) and existed until the beginning of the First World War. Its most important textual witness is Cambridge Add. 2020, which was used as the basis for the editions of Conybeare et al. (1913). In addition, the submission ('Vorlage') of this manuscript has been identified as BL Or. 2313, because of its almost complete agreement with it (cf. Proverbs).
Although Cambridge Add. 2020 was written in northern Iraq, it is quite different from other manuscripts of this type (all of which were written later). Moreover, it has explicit affinities with the later Urmia manuscripts, see for example the beginning of the text (identical words are placed in the same line (unless they are marked in red):
The three manuscripts are closely related. At best, this can be seen in a lost text passage in all three manuscripts, while Harvard 80 compensates for the lost text by using another submission (Ms. Urmia 117). However, the arrangement of the sayings and proverbs shows that the copyist of Harvard 80 follows the same pattern (= Ms. Urmia 270) as Strasbourg S4122. Interestingly, Sado 9 can be described as a contaminated manuscript that mostly follows the model of Ms. Urmia 270 and partly uses another text. This can be seen from the arrangement of the sayings: The first 44 sayings are identical with Cambridge Add. 2020, so his other submission must be closely related to this manuscript.
In 1900, Isaac Adams published a translation of the Ahiqar story from a Syriac manuscript in his book ‘Persia by a Persian’ (link: https://archive.org/details/persiabypersianp00adamuoft). All he writes about his original is that it is an old manuscript. A text comparison shows that the manuscript clearly belongs to the Urmia tradition, which is also suggested by Adams' origins in the Urmia region. However, none of the surviving manuscripts could have been the original, as the two oldest manuscripts date from 1898, the year in which Adams published his book.
A second East Syriac branch is rooted in northern Iraq. This branch has additions and annotations that are missing from the Urmia tradition. Furthermore, this tradition can be divided into two branches: The red branch consists of two manuscripts, most of which were reconstructed from defective manuscripts (some parts were even re-translated from an Arabic source). The older manuscript Birmingham Mingana syr. 433 is closer in wording and word order to the other manuscripts than Berlin Sachau 336. Only in Mingana syr. 433 transcribes the name of Ahiqar's son as „Nadab“ (in accordance with Tobit 14:10) and not as „Nadan". Even in the Arabic tradition, this spelling is not attested, and a possible confusion of letters or dots can be ruled out. The proximity to Berlin Sachau 336 is obvious, although Berlin Sachau 336 has several deviations and additions (including the highest number of sayings and parables). So, Nöldeke (1913, 54) is right when he writes:
B (= Sachau 336; Anm. SB) ist also zusammengesetzt aus ziemlich arg entstellten Originalstücken und aus solchen, die aus dem Arabischen nicht sehr geschickt retrovertiert sind. Das wird so zu erklären sein: ein Abschreiber kopierte eine von vorn und gegen das Ende defekte syrische Handschrift und ergänzte sie durch Rückübersetzung aus einer arabischen. Dieser buntscheckige Text mag weiter durch verschiedene Schreiberhände gegangen sein und noch allerlei Ungemach erlitten haben, bis er die Gestalt gewann, in der er uns in der Sachauschen Handschrift vorliegt. Will jemand diese Gestalt ein Monstrum horrendum informe nennen, so kann ich ihm nicht widersprechen. Aber trotzdem kann die Wissenschaft auch aus diesem Achikar-Text Nutzen ziehen.
Other differences from other textual witnesses relate to the intervention of the copyist, see for example:
Mosul DFM 430 shows obvious links between the two textual traditions of northern Iraq. In addition, it contains several paraphrases and additions, some of which are found only in the Arabic tradition (e.g. the sayings D3 and D4 correspond to the sayings 89 and 90 of the Karshuni manuscript BL Add. 7209 cf. Sayings and Arabic Translation). Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the copyist used another Arabic textual witness in addition to his retranslated transmission to make these additions. Besides, Tellkepe QACCT 135 is a copy of Mosul DFM 430. The other four manuscripts from northern Iraq are closely related. Firstly, the manuscripts of Notre-Dame des Semences, ms. syr. 611 and 612 (= NDS syr. 611 and 612), which transmitted readings from another manuscript as marginal notes. This latter manuscript is a copy of NDS 611. Ms. Graffin does not mention the marginal notes, but the order of the words, sayings and proverbs suggests that this manuscript and NDS 611 come from the same manuscript. The differences between this manuscript and Paris BnF syr. 422 are minor:
In addition, a commentary by a scribe at the end of NDS 611 is of particular importance: One of the inputs of this manuscript was an Arabic text of Ahiqar (see Manuscripts). Thus, the influence of the Arabic version on this textual witness is well established. With regard to its close affinities with Ms. Graffin and Paris BnF syr. 422, the entire northern Iraq branch of the Syriac version of the story of Ahiqar bears noticeable traces of its Arabic versions (especially of the Arabic tradition C). All in all, the stemma can be constructed in this way:
How to Cite This Section
Birol, Simon. „Stemmata. The Syriac Tradition“. Ahiqar. The Story of Ahiqar in Its Syriac and Arabic Tradition, [date], ahiqar.uni-goettingen.de/stemmata.html.
The Arabic Tradition
Author: Dr. Aly Elrefaei
The Arabic and Karshuni’s manuscripts may be divided into four traditions (A, B, C, D) based on significant errors, additions and omissions, analogies and variances. The first and oldest tradition contains three witnesses (two Arabic and one Karshuni) dating from the 12th to 14th century. Only one Arabic witness from the 15th century exists for the second tradition. Seven witnesses (three karshuni and four Arabic) testify to the third tradition, which dates from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Twelve witnesses (four karshuni, eight Arabic) from the 18th and 19th centuries make up the fourth and greatest tradition.
Tradition A
Textual witnesses: Sbath 25, Vat. syr. 424, Vat. syr. 199
Tradition B
Textual witnesses: Vat. ar. 74
Tradition C
Textual witnesses: Brit. Add. 7209, Vat. syr. 159, Ming. syr. 258, Cod. Arab. 236, DFM 614, Sach. 339, Brit. Or. 9321
Tradition D
Textual witnesses: Paris. ar. 3637, Paris. ar. 3656, Cam. Add. 2886, Ming. ar. 93, Ming. syr. 133, Vat. ar. 2054, GCAA 486, Salhani, Borg. ar. 201, Leiden Or. 1292, Gotha 2652, Cam. Add. 3497
How to Cite This Section
Elrefaei, Aly. „Stemmata. The Arabic Tradition“. Ahiqar. The Story of Ahiqar in Its Syriac and Arabic Tradition, [date], ahiqar.uni-goettingen.de/stemmata.html.