Rudolf Macúch

Due to his first field of study Rudolf Macuch's first publications were dedicated to religious and theological topics, many of which appeared in the Slovak journal Evanjelickí Teológ. Among these contributions three articles documenting his early interest in Old Testament studies and comparative religious history may be mentioned here: “Marcion’s Views of the Old Testament” (“Marcionove názory na Starý zákon”[7]), on the first century Christian heretic Marcion and his condemnation of the Old Testament; “Obadiah’s Prophecy” (“Proroctovo Abdiášovo”[8]), a discussion of the “Book of Obadiah”, attributed to the Jewish prophet Obadiah (ca. 5th century B.C.); and “The Creation of the World in the Biblical and Babylonian Tradition” (“Stvorenie sveta v podaní biblickom a babylonskom”[9]). His first published monograph Islám a Krest’anstvo[10] (”Islam and Christianity”) is mainly an introduction to Islamic history and culture with a chapter on parallel developments in Christianity, which was so well received in the year of its publication that it was reprinted the following year (then repressed during the long Communist regime of Antonín Novotný in Czechoslovakia). He returned to the topic of Christianity and Islam towards the end of his life, planning an extensive monograph titled Kritik der monotheistischen Religionen (“Critique of the Monotheistic Religions”), which remained fragmentary due to his demise and was not published. His continuing interest in religious questions is, however, documented in other publications, in which he repeatedly discussed the texts he was studying also from this perspective, using his philological findings for a better understanding of their historical and cultural context, among others “Gnostische Ethik und die Anfänge der Mandäer” (“Gnostic Ethics and the Beginnings of the Mandeans”[11]); “The Importance of Samaritan Traditions for the Hermeneutics of the Pentateuch”;[12] “The μεταγράφαι of Jesus’ Words in the Gospels and the Traditional Pronunciation of Samaritan Aramaic”.[13] Other contributions relevant to this area, especially in connection with the Mandean religion, can be found in his main fields of research described below.

Macuch's dissertation Slovanské mená a výrazy u arabských geografov (“Slavic Names and Expressions in Arabic Geographies”) is an attempt to read and explain a large range of enigmatic Slavic names and terms in Arabic geographies, the material for which he had collected from manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (see Vita above). The topic is of utmost interest for Slavic Studies, since the oldest of these Arabic geographies were written before the emergence of Slavic literatures. Expressions transmitted in them could therefore contribute to our knowledge of the oldest and even pre-literary levels of the Slavic languages, but unfortunately the Arabic authors hardly ever noted the terms correctly, leading to numerous problems of reading and interpretation. Although his mentor Bakoš and other teachers pressed him to publish this work immediately, he himself was not satisfied with the results and wanted to include different readings from manuscripts which he had not yet consulted. He never published his thesis due to circumstances beyond his command, which is most unfortunate, since to this day no one has tried to solve the extremely difficult problems connected with Slavic terms and names in the Arabic sources. His focus of interest shifted to other areas, but he returned occasionally to topics in the field of Arabic Studies in several important articles, among these „Zur Vorgeschichte der Bekenntnisformel lā ilāha illā llāhu“[14] (“On the Prehistory of the Creedal Statement lā ilāha illā llāhu“); “On the Problems of the Arabic Translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch”;[15] and a lecture on the “Discrepancy between the Grammarians” (“Iḫtilāf an-naḥwiyyūn”)[16] held in Arabic at the University of al-Mini­ā, Egypt, in 1981. He was actively involved in establishing an international, interdisciplinary research group on Graeco-Arabic topics, thus combining his first interest, Classics, with his later vocation. He wrote reports on the conferences of the Research Group in order to introduce their achievements to the scholarly community,[17] became the honorary President of the Graeco-Arabic Society in Delphi and helped establish a journal dedicated to this field, Graeco-Arabica. His own contributions include articles on “Greek Technical Terms in Arabic Sciences”;[18] “Greek and Oriental Sources of Avicenna’s and Sohrawardi’s Theosophies“;[19] “Pseudo-Callisthenes Orientalis and the Problem of Ḏū l-qarnain”.[20]

He also published several articles, most of them in Persian, on subjects relevant to Iranian Studies. His first contribution shortly after his arrival in Iran, “Nufūḏ-e Zardošt dar dīn-e Yahūd wa-Masīḥ“[21] („Zarathustra’s Impact on the Jewish and Christian Religions”) has already been mentioned above. Another long article in three parts is dedicated to specific problems of the Aramaic language (“Imperial Aramaic” or “Reichsaramäisch”) in the Achaemenid period, “Zabān-e ārāmī dar dowre-ye haḫāmanišī. Qesmat-e awwal”[22] (“The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period. Part One.”). Contributions of later years include „Ahammiyyat-e sāmī-šenāsī barāye īrān šenāsī“[23] (“The Importance of Semitic Studies for Iranian Studies“) and „Zur altiranischen Onomastik in aramäischer Nebenüberlieferung“[24] („On Old Iranian Onomastics in Aramaic Secondary Sources“).

Macuch made major contributions to this field, one of his three main specialities, to which he dedicated many years of his life. Seeking to study the East Aramaic language of the Mandeans, a small gnostic sect living in the Iranian province of Khūzistān, bordering on the Persian Gulf, in Ahwāz near the Karun river, he contacted them in 1953. Although it was known that Mandeans lived in Khūzistān, no one had hitherto tried to consult them in order to check the linguistic and contextual controversies involved in the study of classical Mandaic texts. Macuch undertook the journey in order to study the traditional pronunciation of classical Mandaic, but he discovered to his own surprise that the language was still spoken there as a vernacular dialect, hitherto unknown to Semitists. He was able to make phonetic recordings of the spoken modern dialect, in which classical forms and vocabulary still partly continued, with the help of Nāṣer Ṣābūrī, the “ritual slaughterer” of the community, and to become acquainted with the traditional pronunciation of the Mandean priests. Although the modern idiom, being overlaid by foreign influences, especially from Persian and Arabic, differs from the language of the classical Mandaic texts, it was, as Macuch found out, important for understanding the linguistic phenomena of the classical tongue. It served as a guide to the study of the phonetic structure of classical Mandaic and to the traditional pronunciation of the literary and liturgical language. After having received 30 microfilms containing the essential Mandaic literature and related fields from Prof. Roemer (University of Mainz) he began to analyse the material he had gathered during his field research and to undertake a meticulous comparison of the colloquial and traditional languages. The result of this work was published in his monograph Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic[25], in which he undertakes a parallel description of both idioms. Although this work was already finished by 1955 it took ten years to be published due to circumstances already mentioned above (see Vita). It was not Macuch's goal to replace Theodor Nöldeke’s classical Mandaic Grammar of 1875, but to complement it, especially in his treatment of Mandaic phonetics on the basis of the modern vernacular, leading to several corrections of the latter’s conclusions. The Handbook is an extensive treatment of the topic, in which the phonetics, morphology and essentials of syntax in both the classic (in bold letters) and modern idioms (in italics) are explained with a large number of examples for every phenomenon. The analysis of the new material also made it possible to divide Mandaic into three periods: classical (ending with the redaction of the Ginza, ca. 7th century), post-classical and the modern language, a division which delivers an important key for the critical analysis of Mandaic literature, although a precise limitation of the duration of these periods is not possible. The Handbook led to a large number of reviews over the years, thirteen of which are discussed extensively by Macuch in a later book dedicated to the memory of Lady Drower, Zur Sprache und Literatur der Mandäer.[26]

Mandeans also resided in South Iraq, where their religion and texts were studied by one of the most prolific authors in this field, Lady Ethel Stefana Drower, who was, however, a self-made scholar and felt the need to collaborate with an academic expert in her next enterprise. In 1955 Macuch wrote a critical review of one of Lady Drower’s publications (see Vita above) which led to his invitation to Oxford in order to work with her in preparing A Mandaic Dictionary[27]. Lady Drower had collected a large number of hitherto unknown manuscripts during her stay in Iraq (the “Drower Collection” of the Bodleian Library Oxford), hereby laying the foundation for this large work, which was completed by the material recorded by Macuch in Khūzistān and the card index by Mark Lidzbarski for the classical religious texts. The dictionary is therefore based not only on literary sources, but also includes the vocabulary of the vernacular described by Macuch in his Handbook and comparative material from other Semitic languages. He also published vast textual material, including both ancient sources and texts in the modern vernacular, demonstrating that already in early times there was a gnostic literary language attributed to the priests, the naṣuraiia (“observers”), besides the spoken language of the laity, the mandaiia (“Mandeans”). A form closer to the vernacular than the language of the sacred books is preserved in ancient magic texts and formulae from a different sphere of religious beliefs. He dedicated a long article in two parts (1967 and 1968) to the decipherment and editing of lead rolls inscribed with Mandaic charms, „Altmandäische Bleirollen“[28] (“Old Mandaic Lead Rolls”). The first part discusses the largest lead roll, incised in the smallest scribal hand known so far, containing a row of various charms with noteworthy spelling variants that do not correspond with the standard classic Mandaic orthography. That he was able to read most of it and tried to get some sense out of it can be considered a major achievement, since only two very easily legible Mandaic lead rolls had been published so far. The edition of several shorter lead scrolls followed in the second part.

His work on New Mandaic texts include several contributions over the years, beginning with an article in the Festschrift of his mentor, Ján Bakoš (“The Bridge of Shushtar. A Legend in Vernacular Mandaic with Introduction, Translation and Notes”[29]). In later years two monographs are dedicated to analysing and preserving New Mandaic texts: Neumandäische Chrestomathie mit grammatischer Skizze, kommentierter Übersetzung und Glossar[30] (“New Mandaic Chrestomathy with Grammatical Sketch, Annotated Translation and Glossary”) and Neumandäische Texte im Dialekt von Ahwāz[31] (“New Mandaic Texts in the Dialect of Ahwāz”). Both books include extensive chapters on the grammar besides a phonetic transcription of the texts, translation and glossary. The latter publication was prepared with the help of Sheikh Sālem Čoheylī, a priestly candidate from Ahwāz, who had written to Macuch asking him for help in perfecting his knowledge of classical Mandaic, since he had opened a unique Mandaic school for children and adults in Ahwāz. Using his sojourn in Berlin in 1990, which was financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), to record texts, Macuch discovered that strange differences exist in the phonetics and morphology of the Čoheylī tribe in comparison to his earlier source of the fifties, the Ṣābūrī tribe. His last monograph discusses these divergent grammatical features based on chosen oral texts recorded in his sessions with the Sheikh. His numerous articles in this field are dedicated to several controversially discussed problems, especially regarding the origins of the Mandeans and their religion, in „Alter und Heimat des Mandäismus nach neuerschlossenen Quellen“[32] (“Age and Homeland of the Mandeans According to New Sources”), „Anfänge der Mandäer“[33] (“The Beginnings of the Mandeans”); „Zur Frühgeschichte der Mandäer“[34] (“On the Early History of the Mandeans”); “The Origins of the Mandaeans and their Script”;[35] „Gnostische Ethik und die Anfänge der Mandäer“[36] (“Gnostic Ethics and the Beginnings of the Mandeans”). Other contributions include a concise introduction to “Mandaic”;[37] an overview on the state of the art („Der gegenwärtige Stand der Mandäerforschung und ihre Aufgaben“[38]); on the situation of the Mandean community in Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979 („Ein neumandäischer Brief aus dem Frühjahr 1990 und die Lage der iranischen Mandäer nach der islamischen Revolution“[39]) and comparative studies, „Der keilschriftliche Beschwörungstext aus Uruk und die mandäische Phraseologie“[40] (“The Cuneiform Incantation Text from Uruk and Mandaic Phraseology”).

After his call to the chair of Semitic and Arabic Studies in Berlin in 1963 Macuch dedicated many years to studying the linguistic and literary traditions of another dwindling ethnic minority, the Samaritans of Palestine, who cultivate their own religious customs and have their own liturgy and rites. The Samaritans, well known in the Christian tradition as deviants from mainstream Judaism from the parable of the “good Samaritan” in the New Testament, accept only their own version of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, which differs from the Masoretic text, the authoritative Hebrew text for Rabbinic Judaism. Macuch contacted the Samaritans in Nablus, where their Holy Place on Mount Gerizim is situated, and spent many months recording the pronunciation of Samaritan Hebrew with the high priest and other priests. He was able to establish the worldwide most extensive specialist library of Samaritan Studies, including valuable original manuscripts, microfilms of dispersed manuscripts from various libraries and institutions worldwide as well as all the monographs and scholarly articles to date at the Institute in Berlin. This collection of material was so unique that it attracted scholars from different regions of the world, even from Jerusalem, the centre of Samaritan Studies, to work in Berlin. Besides organizing the library Macuch worked five years on his Grammatik des samaritanischen Hebräisch[41] (“Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew”), which is a through treatment of the differences between Samaritan and Jewish-Masorean Hebrew in orthography, phonology, morphology and syntax. As to the pronunciation of Samaritan Hebrew, which is interesting from the point of view of linguistic history, he did not rely on his predecessors Z. Ben-Ḥayyim and A. Murtonen, but used his own recordings of texts from his sessions with the Samaritan priests in Nablus. The language is problematic, since the Samaritans were far more flexible in their handling of the sacred text than the Jews, with the result that Samaritan-Hebrew manuscripts show not only numerous variants to the Jewish-Masoretic text, but also among themselves. The Grammar is an especially important contribution to the linguistic history of Hebrew. Macuch's other extensive monograph in this field, his Grammatik des samaritanischen Aramäisch[42] (“Grammar of Samaritan Aramaic”), was an even more difficult task to achieve due to the complicated state of the sources. Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were translated between the 3rd century BC and the 9th century AD into the colloquial language of Palestine, Aramaic, then enlarged and commented on. No grammatical study of the language of these texts had been hitherto undertaken, since there was still no reliable edition of the Aramaic translation (Targum) of the Samaritan texts before 1980. The material for this grammar had to be extracted from the original unedited manuscripts. After the critical edition of the first part of the Samaritan Targum (books Genesis and Exodus) by A. Tal appeared in 1980, Macuch was able to add this material to his own extensive collection from Samaritan Aramaic literature and complete the Grammar, another meticulous contribution to linguistic history, giving access to difficult texts important for the study of other Aramaic dialects.

Specific linguistic problems of this field were also analysed in several articles on „Der liquide Apikal und die apikale Liquide des samaritanischen Hebräisch"[43] (“The Liquid Apical and the Apical Liquids of Samaritan Hebrew“); „Zur Grammatik des samaritanischen Hebräisch“[44] (“On the Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew“); „Einige Probleme der Grammatik des samaritanischen Aramäisch“[45] (“Several Problems of the Grammar of Samaritan Aramaic“);“A New Interpretation of the Samaritan Inscription from Tell Qasile”;[46] “Les bases philologiques de l’ herméneutique et les bases herméneutiques de la philologie chez les Samaritains“;[47] “Pseudo-Ethiopisms in Samaritan Hebrew and Aramaic”[48]. He gives a broad introduction in “Samaritan Languages: Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Aramaic”,[49] and an overview of the state of the art in „Der gegenwärtige Stand der Samaritanerforschung und ihre Aufgaben“.[50]

Macuch's third major speciality is dedicated to the study of the language and literature of the Nestorian Christians residing in Iran and Iraq, who call themselves “Assyrians”. His monograph Neusyrische Chrestomathie[51] (“New Syriac Chrestomathy”), conceived together with Estiphan Panoussi, is the first collection of excerpts and examples from a large range of different literary texts written in New Syriac from various periods, beginning in 1848 up to the 1970s. Most of the texts are written in the dialect of Urmia, others in the dialects of Iraq, Alqoš and Sanandaǧ. Besides a short grammatical sketch, the book contains a detailed glossary, in which all the idioms are taken into consideration. His next major achievement in this field, the monumental Geschichte der spät- und neusyrischen Literatur[52] (“History of Late and New Syriac Literature”), is the first work on Syriac literature after the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. He had already begun to collect the material for this difficult undertaking years ago in Iran, bringing together the texts from a large range of different literary sources, books, articles and numerous journals, among these several rare publications, difficult to find at that period and by now completely inaccessible. Besides this material he used three histories of Syriac literature written in Arabic and Syriac. Due to the vast material presented in the book, including an overview of the historical setting of every discussed period, extensive summaries of the literary works and numerous details on the authors, this work has been greeted as one of the most important scholarly achievements of the past decades in this field. The book fulfils two important desiderata: (1) it offers an introduction to the hardly known Late Syriac literature since the Mongolian invasion in the 13th century, and (2) it presents a unique overview of the huge range of literary works produced in New Syriac, many of which were still completely unknown even to specialists of this field before its publication.

Two other contributions give summaries of the history and literary history of the Assyrians, “Assyrians in Iran I.: The Assyrian community (Āšūrīān) in Iran. II: Literature of the Assyrians in Iran”,[53] and “Tūr ʿAbdīn through the Ages”.[54]

As a scholar with an exceptionally broad range of knowledge in Semitic languages, Macuch also published articles on other topics besides these three major fields, especially in the area of comparative Aramaic studies: „Gesprochenes Aramäisch und aramäische Schriftsprachen“[55] (“Spoken Aramaic and Aramaic Written Languages”), “A ‘Revised Reading’ of an Aramaic Papyrus”;[56] „Hermeneutische Akrobatik aufgrund phonetischen Lautwandels in aramäischen Dialekten“[57] (“Hermeneutic Acrobatics due to Phonetic Change in Aramaic Dialects”); “Recent Studies in Palestinian Aramaic”[58]; “Recent studies in Neo-Aramaic dialects”;[59] “Some Orthographico-phonetic Problems of Ancient Aramaic and the Living Aramaic Pronunciations”;[60] “Some lexicographical problems of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic”.[61]