Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) was a Western Aramaic dialect used by the Melkite Christian community in Palestine and Transjordan between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. It is preserved in inscriptions,

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...

s (mostly palimpsests, less

papyri Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

in the first period) and

amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protect ...

s. All the medieval Western Aramaic dialects are defined by religious community. CPA is closely related to its counterparts, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA) and

Samaritan Aramaic Samaritan Aramaic, or Samaritan, was the dialect of Aramaic used by the Samaritans in their sacred and scholarly literature. This should not be confused with the Samaritan Hebrew language of the Scriptures. Samaritan Aramaic ceased to be ...

(SA).Christa Müller-Kessler, ''Grammatik des Christlich-Palästinisch-Aramäischen. Teil 1: Schriftlehre, Lautlehre, Morphologie'' (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik 6; Hildesheim, 1991), p. 6. Matthew Morgenstern
"Christian Palestinian Aramaic"
in Stefan Weninger (ed.), ''The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook'' (De Gruyter Mouton, 2011), pp. 628–37. Friedrich Schulthess, ''Grammatik des christlich-palästinischen-Aramäisch'' (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1924), pp. 1–2. CPA shows a specific vocabulary that is often not paralleled in the adjacent Western Aramaic dialects.

Name

No source gives CPA a name as a distinct dialect or language and all such names are modern scholarly inventions. Names like "Palestinian Syriac" and "Syropalestinian Aramaic" reflect the fact that Palestinian Aramaic speakers often referred to their language as Syriac and made use of an alphabet based on the northern Syriac '' ʾEsṭrangēlā'' script. Egeria, in the account of her pilgrimage to Palestine at the end of the 4th century, refers to Syriac, which was probably what is now Christian Palestinian Aramaic. The term ''syrica Hierosolymitana'' was introduced by

J. D. Michaelis Johann David Michaelis (27 February 1717 – 22 August 1791) was a Prussian biblical scholar and teacher. He was member of a family that was committed to solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages, which distinguished the University ...

based on the appearance of the Arabic name of Jerusalem, ''al-Quds'', in the colophon of a Gospel lectionary of 1030 AD (today Vat. sir. 19). It was also used in the first edition by Miniscalchi Erizzo. The term "Jerusalem Syriac" is sometimes said to emphasise the location where most of the first inscriptions were found, although most of them come today from Transjordan. The terms "Christian Palestinian Aramaic" and "Melkite Aramaic" emphasise the confessional identity of the speakers and the distinctness from any Syriac variety of Aramaic.

History

CPA is preserved in inscriptions, manuscripts (mostly palimpsests in the early period) and amulets. The history of CPA writing can be divided into three periods: early (5th–7th/8th centuries), middle (8th–9th) and late (10th–13th). The existence of a middle period has only recently come to light.Christa Müller-Kessler, "Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Its Significance to the Western Aramaic Dialect Group" (review article), ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 119, 4 (1999), pp. 631–636. Only inscriptions, fragmentary manuscripts and the underwriting of palimpsests survive from the early period. Of the inscriptions, only one can be dated with any precision. The fragments are both

Biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of ...

and Patristic. The oldest complete (non-fragmentary) manuscript dates to 1030. All the complete manuscripts are liturgical in nature. Sebastian P. Brock
"Christian Palestinian Aramaic"
in Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), ''Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition'' (Gorgias Press, 2011

rint C mathematical operations are a group of functions in the standard library of the C programming language implementing basic mathematical functions. All functions use floating-point numbers in one manner or another. Different C standards provide d ...

Beth Mardutho, 2018 nline. CPA declined as a spoken language because of

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these ter ...

and gradual

Arabization Arabization or Arabisation ( ar, تعريب, ') describes both the process of growing Arab influence on non-Arab populations, causing a language shift by the latter's gradual adoption of the Arabic language and incorporation of Arab culture, aft ...

following the early Islamic conquests. From the tenth century onwards it was mainly a liturgical language in the Melkite churches and the Melkite community mainly spoke

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

. Even as a written language, it went extinct around the fourteenth century and was only identified or rediscovered as a distinct variety of Aramaic in the nineteenth century.

Corpus

The only surviving original compositions in CPA are inscriptions in mosaics and rock caves (

lavra A lavra or laura ( el, Λαύρα; Cyrillic: Ла́вра) is a type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center. It is erected within the Orthodox and other Eastern ...

s),

Émile Puech Émile Puech (born 9 May 1941, at Cazelles de Sébrazac, Estaing, Aveyron, France) is a French Catholic priest, epigrapher and editor in chief of ''Manuscrits de la mer Morte.'' He is a government employed director of research at Paris' Centre nat ...

, "Notes d’épigraphie christo-palestinniene de Jordanie", in C. Dauphin and B. Harmaneh (eds.), ''In Memoriam Fr. Michele Piccirillo, OFM (1944–2008)'' (BAR International Series 248; Oxford, 2011), pp. 75–94, figs. 205–236.Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Alain Desreumaux, ''Khirbet es-samra I Jordanie'' (Bibliothèque de l'anquité tardive; Turnhout, 1998), pp. 435–521 (script samples). magical silver amulets and a single short magical booklet. All other surviving manuscript compositions are translations of Greek originals. Many of the palimpsests come from

Saint Catherine's Monastery Saint Catherine's Monastery ( ar, دير القدّيسة كاترين; grc-gre, Μονὴ τῆς Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Katherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, ...

in Sinai (e.g., the

Codex Climaci Rescriptus Codex Climaci rescriptus is a collective palimpsest manuscript consisting of several individual manuscripts (eleven) underneath with Christian Palestinian Aramaic texts of the Old and New Testament as well as two apocryphal texts, including the D ...

),Sebastian P. Brock, "Sinai: A Meeting Point of Georgian with Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic", in ''The Causasus between East and West: Historical and Philological Studies in Honour of Zaza Aleksidze'' (Tbilisi, 2012), pp. 483–494.Christa Müller-Kessler, "Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus. A Collection of Christian Palestinian Aramaic Manuscripts”, ''Le Muséon'' 127 (2014), pp. 263–309). but some also from

Mar Saba The Holy Lavra of Saint Sabbas, known in Arabic and Syriac as Mar Saba ( syr, ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܣܒܐ, ar, دير مار سابا; he, מנזר מר סבא; el, Ἱερὰ Λαύρα τοῦ Ὁσίου Σάββα τοῦ Ἡγιασμέ� ...

(e.g., part of the

Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus mostly originating in Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai (Sinai, Georg 34; Tsagareli 81) is an accumulation of sixteen or even eighteen Christian Palestinian Aramaic palimpsest manuscripts containing Old Testament, G ...

), the Cairo Genizah and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. They often transmit rare texts lost in the Greek transmission (e.g. the ''

Transitus Mariae The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

'';Sinai Palimpsest Project
/ref> the hitherto unknown martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea, one of the eleven followers of Pamphilus of Caesarea; and a missing quire of Codex Climaci Rescriptus), or offer valuable readings for the textual criticism of the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

. Inscriptions have been found in Palestine at ʿEn Suweinit, near ʿAbūd, at ʿUmm er-Rūs, in the Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem, at Hippos in

Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Gali ...

, and at Khirbet Qastra near

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

. In Transjordan, inscriptions have been found on Mount Nebo (ʿAyūn Mūsa), in the vicinity of

Amman Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 as of 2021, Amman is ...

(Khayyān el-Mushrif) and on tomb stones in Khirbet es-Samra. The manuscripts include a short letter on

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to ...

from Khibert Mird and at least one wooden board. The

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins ...

manuscript fragments are

(mostly in the form of

lectionaries A lectionary ( la, lectionarium) is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christian or Judaic worship on a given day or occasion. There are sub-types such as a "gospel lectionary" or evangeliary, and a ...

), Patristic,

theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...

(e.g. the catecheses by

Cyril of Jerusalem Cyril of Jerusalem ( el, Κύριλλος Α΄ Ἱεροσολύμων, ''Kýrillos A Ierosolýmon''; la, Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus; 313 386 AD) was a theologian of the early Church. About the end of 350 AD he succeeded Maximus as Bishop of ...

and homilies by

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of ...

), hagiographic (mostly martyrs' lives) or

apocrypha Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

l (e.g., the ''

''). The only dated manuscript is the Gospel lectionary of 1030.

Features

CPA can be distinguished from JPA and SA by the lack of direct influence from

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

and new Hebrew loanwords, its Hebrew loanwords being retained from an earlier symbiosis of Hebrew and Aramaic.Christa Müller-Kessler, ''Grammatik des Christlich-Palästinisch-Aramäischen. Teil 1: Schriftlehre, Lautlehre, Morphologie'' (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik 6; Hildesheim, 1991), p. 8. It is also distinguished by the presence of Greek syntax (by partial retention in translation). Also, unlike JPA and SA, CPA is attested only in primary texts (mostly in palimpsests). There was no transmission of manuscripts after the language itself went out use as liturgical language. In comparison with its counterparts, therefore, the CPA corpus represents an older, more intact example of Western Aramaic from when the dialects were still living, spoken languages.

Editions of texts

Manuscripts

* Jan P. N. Land, ''Anecdota Syriaca'' IV (Leiden, 1875), pp. 177–233 atin pp. 103–224 yropalestinian pls. I–VI. * James Rendall Harris, ''Biblical Fragments from Mount Sinai'' (Cambridge, 1890), pp. 65–68. * Paul de Lagarde, ''Evangeliarum Hierosolymitanum'' (Bibliothecae syriacae; Göttingen, 1892), pp. 257–402. * George H. Gwilliam, ''The Palestinian Version of the Holy Scriptures'' (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series Vol. I Part V; Oxford, 1893). * George H. Gwilliam, Francis Crawford Burkitt, John F. Stenning, ''Biblical and Patristic Relics of the Palestinian Syriac Literature'', (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series Vol. I, Part IX; Oxford, 1896). * G. Margoliouth, The Liturgy of the Nile, ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'' 1896, pp. 677–727, pls. I–II. * Agnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson, ''The Palestinian Syriac Lectionary of the Gospels'' (London, 1899). * Agnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson, ''Palestinian Syriac Texts from Palimpsest Fragments in the Taylor-Schechter Collection'' (London, 1900). * Agnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson, ''An Appendix of Palestinian Syriac Texts'' (Studia Sinaitica XI; London, 1902), pp. XXVIII–XXIX, XLVII. * Friedrich Schulthess, Christlich-palästinische Fragmente, ''Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft'' 56, 1902, pp. 249–261. * Friedrich Schulthess, ''Christlich-palästinische Fragmente aus der Omajjaden-Moschee zu Damaskus'' (Berlin, 1905). * Pavel K. Kokowzoff, ''Nouveaux fragments syropalestiniens de la Bibliothèque Impériale Publique de Saint-Pétersbourg'' (St. Petersburg, 1906). * Hugo Duensing, ''Christlich-palästinisch-aramäische Texte und Fragmente'' (Göttingen, 1906). * Agnes S. Lewis
''A Palestinian Syriac Lectionary: Containing Lessons from the Pentateuch, Job, Proverbs, Prophets, Acts, and Epistles''
(Cambridge, 1897). * Agnes S. Lewis, ''Supplement to a Palestinian Syriac Lectionary'' (Cambridge, 1907). * Agnes S. Lewis, ''Codex Climaci Rescriptus'' (Horae Semiticae VIII; Cambridge, 1909). * Agnes S. Lewis, ''The Forty Martyrs of the Sinai Desert and the Story of Eulogios'' (Horae Semiticae IX; Cambridge, 1912). * Matthew Black, ''Rituale Melchitarum. A Christian Palestinian Euchologion'' (Stuttgart, 1938). * Matthew Black, "A Palestinian Syriac Palimpsest Leaf of Acts XXI (14–26)," ''Bulletin of the John Rylands Library'' 23, 1939, pp. 201–214, pls. 1–2. * N. Pigoulewski, "Fragments syro-palestiniens des Psaumes CXXIII–IV," ''Revue Bibilque'' 43 (1934), pp. 519–527, pl. XXX. * Hugo Duensing, ''Neue christlich-palästinische-aramäische Fragmente'', NAWG, phil.-hist. Kl. 9 (Göttingen, 1944). * Matthew Black, ''A Christian Palestinian Syriac Horologion'' (Texts and Studies N.S. 1; Cambridge, 1954). * Hugo Duensing, ''Nachlese christlich-palästinisch aramäischer Fragmente'', NAWG, phil.-hist. Kl. 5 (Göttingen, 1955). * Charles Perrot, "Un fragment christo-palestinien découvert à Khirbet Mird," ''Revue Biblique'' 70, 1963, pp. 506–555, pls. XVIII–XXIX. * Moshe Goshen-Gottstein with the Assistance by H. Shirun (ed.), ''The Bible in the Syropalestinian Version. Part I. Pentateuch and Prophets'' (Publications of the Hebrew University Bible Project Monograph Series; Jerusalem, 1973). * Christa Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, ''The Christian Palestinian Aramaic Old Testament and Apocrypha'' (Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic I; Groningen, 1997). * Maurice Baillet, "Un livret magique en christo-palestinien à l’Université de Louvain," ''Le Muséon'' 76, 1963, pp. 375–401. * Sebastian P. Brock, A Fragment of the Acta Pilati in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, ''Journal of Theological Studies N.S.'' 22, 1971, pp. 157–158. * Sebastian P. Brock, Catalogue of the New Finds (Athens, 1995). * Alain Desreumaux, ''Codex sinaiticus Zosimi rescriptus'' (Histoire du Texte Biblique 3; Lausanne, 1997). * Alain Desreumaux, "Une inscription araméenne melkite sous une peinture copte du musée du Louvre. Le texte araméen melkite," ''Oriens Christianus'' 86, 1996, pp. 82–97. * Christa Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, The Christian Palestinian Aramaic New Testament Version from the Early Period. Gospels (Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic IIA; Groningen, 1998). * Christa Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, The Christian Palestinian Aramaic New Testament Version from the Early Period. Acts of the Apostles and Epistles (Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic IIB; Groningen, 1998). * Sebastian P. Brock, Fragments of PS-John Chrysostom, Homily on the Prodigal Son, in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, ''Le Muséon'' 112, 1999, pp. 335–362. * Christa Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, The Catechism of Cyril of Jerusalem in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Version (A Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic V; Groningen, 1999). * Christa Müller-Kessler, Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus. A Collection of Christian Palestinian Aramaic Manuscripts, ''Le Muséon'' 127, 2014, pp. 263–309. * Alin Suciu, "An Addition to Christian Palestinian Aramaic Literary Corpus: Logos XV of Abba Isaiah of Scetis," ''Journal of Semitic Studies'' 61, 2016, pp. 449–461. * Christa Müller-Kessler, "Three Early Witnesses of the «Dormition of Mary» in Christian Palestinian Aramaic: Palimpsests from the Cairo Genizah (Taylor-Schechter Collection) and the New Finds in St Catherine's Monastery," ''Apocrypha'' 29 (2018), pp. 69–95. * Laurent Capron, Deux frgaments d’épittres pauliniennes (1 Thess. et 1 Cor.) en araméen christopalestinien, ''Semitica'' 61, 2019, 117–127. * Christa Müller-Kessler, "An Overlooked Christian Palestinian Aramaic Witness of the Dormition of Mary in Codex Climaci Rescriptus (CCR IV)," ''Collectanea Christiana Orientalia'' 16, 2019, pp. 81–98. * C. Müller-Kessler, "The Unknown Martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea in Christian Palestinian Aramaic from St Catherine's Monastery (Sinai, Arabic NF 66)," ''Analecta Bollandiana'' 137, 2019, pp. 63–71.

Inscriptions

* M. Halloun and R. Rubin, "Palestinian Syriac Inscription from ‘En Suweinit," ''Liber Annuus'' 31, 1981, pp. 291–298, pls. 59–62.