Water into wine: a study of ritual idiom in the Middle East

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WATER

INTO

WINE

By the same author THE MANDAEANS

OF IRAQ AND

IRAN

(Clarendon Press, 1937)

FOLK TALES OF IRAQ (Oxford University Press, 1931) PEACOCK ANGEL (John Murray, 1941) THE BOOK OF THE ZODIAG, commentary and translation with text (Royal Asiatic Society, 1949) DIWAN ABATUR, commentary, translation and text (Studi e Testi, No. 151, Vatican Library Press) SARH D QABIN D SISLAM RBA, commentary, translation and text (Biblica et Orientalia, Rome, 1950) THE HARAN GAWAITA, commentary, translation and text (Studi e Testi, No. 176, Vatican) THE BAPTISM OF HIBIL-ZIWA, commentary, translation and text (Studi e Testi, No. 176, Vatican) and other books Contributor to:

The Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society, Royal Anthropological Institute, British School of Archaeology in Iraq, Central Asian Society, Journal of the Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, Hibbert, ‘Asia’, etc.

PACT

AND

PAX:

THE

KUSHTA

Frontispiece

WATER INTO WINE A Study of Ritual Idiom in the Middle East by E. S. DROWER Hon.D.Litt., Oxford University Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society

h, Se SE

JOHN FIFTY

&

MURRAY

ALBEMARLE LONDON

STREET

First published 1956

Made and printed in Great Britain by William Clowes and Sons, Limited, London and Beccles

and published by Fohn Murray (Publishers) Ltd.

TO MY SON Was Mig Dy

FOREWORD [°: DROWER is already well known to anthropologists and students of the history of ritual by her earlier books, notably her valuable study of that little-known people, the Mandaeans, entitled The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, a book which greatly impressed me when I had the privilege of reading it in manuscript. Now I have the further privilege and pleasure of writing a brief Foreword to her latest book with its intriguing title of Water into Wine. ‘This is a careful and comprehensive study of a very varied selection of ritual meals as practised today among many peoples and religions of the Near and Middle

East. One of the most important developments of modern psychology has been the Gestalt psychology with its recognition of the primary importance of pattern in the growth of mental life. Nowhere is the importance and persistence of certain patterns so remarkable as in those modes of human behaviour which we call religious. Lady Drower has made a patient and scientific study of the special type of ritual pattern which, coming down from very ancient times, has’ been perpetuated in widely dispersed forms of the ritual meal, the central element in so many religions, both Christian and non-Christian. Its wide rangeof reading, sound judgement and trained scientific observation make this book of first-rate importance to all serious students of human behaviour, and especially to anthropologists and students of Comparative Religion. It is full of curious and fascinating lore, much of which is now made available to the general reader for the first time. Some of our ecclesiastical enthusiasts, to whom the colour of a vestment, the

turn of a gesture, the disposition of an ornament, are matters of earth-shaking import, will discover with interest and surprise, possibly even with disapproval, how incredibly more vil

Foreword

intricate and crammed with symbolic meaning are the ritual gestures, postures and patterns of action in many of the celebrations of the mass in some of the Near Eastern branches of the Christian Church. One of the most startling illustrations of ‘pattern’ symbolism is to be found in the fractio panis as practised in the course of the celebration of the mass in the Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite) Church. Those who are interested in Jewish ritual will find valuable and fresh information concerning Jewish ritual meals belonging to the various seasonal festivals celebrated by the Jews in different parts of the world. That curious and puzzling expression in Ezekiel, ‘who put the branch to their nose’, finds ample illumination in Chapter VI of this fascinating book. Perhaps the most vital aspect of this study is the way in which it draws the attention of students to the fundamental resemblances underlying all these ancient and modern ritual patterns; to quote the author’s own words: ‘If our examination of a few rituals—for we have said little about lights, vestments, consecrations, incense and fire—has convinced us that a group of great religions are rich in suggestion of common origin, it may emphasise the root unity of certain human conceptions.’ As a humble student of ancient ritual patterns I wholeheartedly welcome this most valuable contribution to so important a subject, and sincerely trust that this book will be followed by further fruitful studies in the same field from the pen of the author. S. H. HooKE

Vili

CONTENTS Foreword by Professor S. H. Hooke, M.A., D.D., F.S.A., former Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament Studies in the University of London

vii

Abbreviations Introduction

Note on ‘ Life-foods’ PART . TEMPLE . THE

AND

TABLE

SEASON

. BREAD

. WATER

OF LiFE RENEWED

OF LIFE

INTO WINE

. Tue Hoty

UNIon

. THe BRANCH . ‘Do

ONE

THIS

TO THE Nose

IN REMEMBRANCE’

. PAcT AND

PEACE

102

. ‘A SIN-OFFERING FOR ATONEMENT RANSOM FOR HIS SOUL’

PART BREAD . RussIAN

AND

AND

A

TWO

WINE

ON

THE

ALTAR

123

ORTHODOX

. GREEK ORTHODOX, JACOBITE

GREEK

. CoPpTic AND

AND

CATHOLIC, AND

135 151

. ARMENIAN

. NESTORIAN

112

CHALDAEAN

ABYSSINIAN ix

159 174

Contents

PART OTHER

THREE

RITUAL

Wes Parsi Riruat Means XVI.

Parsi Riruat

I. THE YAsSNA

199

MEAts II

XVII. Tue RiruaL MEALS XVIII.

MEALS

Tue RiruaL MEALS II. Tue Masigta

OF THE

OF THE

222 MANDAEANS

MANDAEANS

I

229 242

Envot

256

Appendix

259

Index

263

' PLATES PACT AND PAX: THE Photo by L. Shearman

KUSHTA

Frontispiece

COPTIC ALTAR IN A FIFTH-CENTURY NATRON, EGYPT ARMENIAN A CROSS

WAFER

WITH

MONASTERY,

WADI 48

(NESHKAR)

FLORIATED

49

ENDS, WADI

NATRUN

64

THE FINAL KUSHTA AT A MANDAEAN BAPTISM From Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran by kind permission of the Clarendon

65

Press, Oxford.

DIVISION OF SHEEP’S MEAT AT THE ASSYRIAN DUKRANA OF MAR ZAIA DISHES OF THE COMMUNITY READY FOR PORTIONS OF THE SACRIFICED SHEEP

128 128

GREEK

ORTHODOX

PROSPHORA

(A)

129

GREEK

ORTHODOX

PROSPHORA

(B)

144

_ THE JACOBITE (SYRIAN AND AFTER STAMPING ‘THE

ORTHODOX)

QURBAN

BEFORE 145

SHEEP’

145

‘THE YOUTH’ ‘THE

CROSS’

160 OR ‘CRUCIFIXION’

160

ARMENIAN WAFERS (BAGHDAD AND JERUSALEM) By courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Iraq.

161

THE

176

COPTIC

QURBAN

EGYPTIAN COPTIC SANCTUARIES: EGYPT; (6) MU‘ALLAQA CHURCH, THREE

STAGES

IN A MANDAEAN

(2) WADI CAIRO

NATRON,

BAPTISM

THE ADMINISTERING OF MAMBUHA (SACRAMENTAL WATER) AFTER BAPTISM (MANDAEAN) From Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran by kind permission of the Clarendon

177 224 225

Press, Oxford. 17

THREE

STAGES

AT A MANDAEAN

18

A ZIDQA BRIKA FOR THE ‘BESTOWAL X1

FUNERAL OF GARMENTS’

240 241

Cues ar

“~

d

re

*: e

‘

7

‘Seatedee Hiei rer re sine

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Wattordatens Ot

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rove Sy atBp i aricseen cm te : cael

FIGURES ORTHODOX

SEAL AND

PREPARATION _THE

ow nD ~s

PROSPHORA

OF ABYSSINIAN

CHALDAEAN

48

QURBANS

54

HOST

56

THE KAPRANA; THE MELKAITA CUP; THE MELKAITA FLATTENED OUT; THE TRAY OF BREAD AS ARRANGED, AFTER BAKING THE THIRD PROSPHORA, AS CUT THE FOURTH PROSPHORA, AS CUT THE FIFTH PROSPHORA, AS CUT THE ARRANGEMENT ON THE PATEN RUSSIAN ORTHODOX: THE PATEN AFTER FRACTION TWO TYPES OF GREEK CATHOLIC PROSPHORA GREEK ORTHODOX PROSPHORA, AS CUT GREEK ORTHODOX: THE PATEN AFTER ARRANGEMENT ‘THE SHEEP’ (JACOBITE) ‘THE YOUTH? (JACOBITE) ‘THE CROSS’ OR ‘CRUCIFIXION’ (JACOBITE) THE FRACTION (JACOBITE) NESTORIAN MASS THE FRACTION (COPTIC) THE ABYSSINIAN RANGED AFTER

THE

QURBAN AND FRACTION

SECTIONS

AS

125 126

AR-

YAZASHNA-GAH

PARSI:

CULT

OBJECTS

ON

PARSI: THE ARRANGEMENT FOR THE AFRINGAN MANDAEAN:

THE

ITS

72

TWO

THE

THE

TABLE

OF THE FLOWERS

ARRANGEMENT

JARIANIA

ALTAR

(KHWAN) OR HERBS

FOR A ZIDQA BRIKA

AT THE MASIQTA xill

250

oa Bas

ove

ns

ro

f

:

“hE:

ue

Raa4

P 5

Ae

a

pit a te ee

Ta98S

srt i o

ae

‘ ty aret 2

ABBREVIATIONS ALB:

A.P.H. B.M.S.L.

Chronology of Ancient Nations, Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Birini, translated by E. Sachau (W. Allen & Co., 1897). The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, translated into English with Introduction and notes by Burton Scott Easton (Cambridge University Press, 1934). Babylonian Menologies and the Semitic Calendars, 8. H. Langdon, M.A. Schweich Lectures of the Royal Academy, 1933 (Milford, London, 1935). The Golden Bough, Sir J. G. Frazer, 3rd ed. (Macmillan & Co.). History of the Fewish People in the Time of Christ, Professor E. Schirer, D.D., translated by the Rev. John Macpherson, M.A. (Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York, and T. T. Clark, Edinburgh). Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi and the Midrashic Literature, Marcus Jastrow, Ph.D.,Litt.D. (Verlag Choreb, London E, 1926). Jewish Encyclopaedia. Ethnologie der Femenitischen Juden, E. Brauer (Kulturgeschichtliche Bibliothek, Heidelberg, 1904). Fournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. The Rites of Eastern Christendom, Archdale A. King (Catholic Book Agency, 1947). Les Mystéres de Mithra, Franz Cumont (Brussels, 1902). The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees, Sir J. J. Modi, B.A., C.LE. (British India Press, Bombay, 1922). Dictionary of Vernacular Syriac, A. J.Maclean (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1900). The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, E. W. Lane (Everyman’s Library, 315). The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, E. 8. Drower (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1937). The Mythology of All Races, Vol. V, Semitic, S. H. Langdon (Marshall Jones, Boston, 1931). Myth and Ritual; Essays on the Myth and Ritual of the Hebrews in Relation to the Culture Patiern of the Ancient East, A. M. Blackman, C. J. Gadd, F. J. Hollis, S. H. Hooke, E. O. James, W. O. E.

O.E.S.R.

Oesterley, T. H. Robinson. Edited by S. H. Hooke (Oxford University Press, 1933). The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual, S. H. Hooke, M.A. Schweich Lectures of the Royal Academy, 1938 (Milford, London, 1940). xXxV

Abbreviations CT, Ps:

S.S.

Old Testament. A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, J. Payne Smith (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1903). The Religion of the Semites, W. Robertson Smith, D.D., 3rd ed. (Black, 1937). La Naissance des Dieux gracieux et beaux, Ch. Virolleaud (‘Syria’

Tal ZA.W.

The Talmud. Keitschrift fiir Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.

S.M.

1933-4).

NOTE Small type used in text does not indicate quotation: this size is used for matter taken from my own notes on ritual or details connected therewith. Discrepancies in transliteration must be accounted for by the fact that there is as yet no standardised form of transliteration. The word ‘ Parsi’ is used in the sense given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, i.e. ‘adherent of Zoroastrianism.’ E. S. D.

“My pen, albeit it stinks of ignorance, faithfully speaks of deeds, some of which I have heard of, but most of which I have seen with

my own eyes.’ (Annals of Palestine 1821-1841: manuscript of Monk Neophytos of Cyprus, edited by S. N. Spyridon: Syrian Orphanage Press, Jerusalem, 1938.)

Xvi

INTRODUCTION [T= BOOK, addressed primarily to fellow-students of comparative religion, is the fruit of personal observation. Many of the seventy-five-odd years of my life were spent in the Middle and Near East and some of them in Mediterranean Sea-lands where West meets and merges into East. ‘Much of our Western civilisation, culture and beliefs is inherited from former civilisations in these countries. Year by year archaeological missions discover fresh evidence of this, and their epigraphists decipher inscriptions which not only add to, but often revise and remould, our theories about the ancient world and the manners, life and religion of those who inhabited it. Another source of information exists near these excavations and stones; a palimpsest hitherto but imperfectly deciphered and never studied systematically and continuously, namely, the customs, traditions, habits and turns of speech of those who

dwell in these regions today, their local seasonal practices and lesser-known religious rites. To chronicle these is becoming an increasingly difficult task, for they are slowly changing and

disappearing. Europeans familiar with the everyday talk of Asian neighbours often recognise phrases which they had hitherto associated only with the Bible: indigenous expressions, worn coins of

daily speech.! These emanate from age-old mental habit and are the expression of thought marching to an archaic rhythm. They are foreign to the Occidental and can be truly understood only after long and sympathetic residence amongst the people who utter them. There is also an idiom in ritual. A churchman, however well-versed in church history and the Fathers, can better assess the true meaning of ceremonies at which he assists if he 1 As, for example, the colloquial use of the word ‘ransom’. See Chapter IX. 2

I

Water into Wine

compares these with rites still practised in the as yet conservative, and once almost unchanging, lands in which they had birth. He must compare them, not only with the seasonal and ritual observances of other Christian communities

in the East, but

also with those of their close neighbours. Each sect, each community and each religious body, when examined at first hand, contributes fresh understanding of this idiom and sheds light on a type of design common to all. The onset of the West, accelerated by radio and cinema,

standardised education, commerce and rapid travel, is obliterating much that younger folk consider old-fashioned, superstitious and foolish. A tendency to discard ancient ceremonies now misunderstood is spreading from secular practice to religious ritual, so long immune and sacrosanct. Religious ceremonies described in this book were either actually witnessed by myself and discussed afterwards or, when the former was impermissible, they were described to me minutely by priests who perform them or assist at them. Statements about religious custom and practice in books! and in published translations of Oriental liturgies often prompted me to seek further information and sometimes suggested a new line of approach. Here I should explain that my account of what I saw, heard and was taught about the sacraments of some of the Eastern Christian churches is set down in the course of an attempt to relate these rites to others performed in countries in which Christendom first appeared, and to non-Christian and seasonal ceremonies in the region. It is in no way a comprehensive account of the rites of Eastern Christians. For these,

Irecommend

Mr. Archdale King’s careful and scholarly book, Rites of Eastern Christendom,? which includes analysis of liturgies, organisations, vestments, music and an historical review of the past of these communions. In the course of my researches I came upon ceremonies and ‘survivals of paganism’—if the term can be used of rites as reverently symbolical as those of orthodox Christendom—which escaped Mr. King’s observation and, 1 Use of written sources is acknowledged throughout.

2 Two volumes by Archdale A. King (Catholic Book Agency, 1947). This describes the Syrian, Syro-Maronite, Syro-Malankarese, Coptic, Ethiopic, Byzantine (with branches), Chaldaean, Syro-Malabar and Armenian rites. 2

Introduction

apparently, that of Anglican observers, for they are, I believe, hitherto unrecorded. Sacramental acts are essentially drama: the ritual actions tell a story. On the altar it is of sacrifice, death and resurrection, and its performance is accompanied by recitation and prayer. In the ancient Middle East sacred dramas were performed and epics recited at seasonal festivities as, for example, the epic of Creation at the Babylonian New Year.! The Ugaritic poem2 discovered at Ras Shamra, which recounts the struggle and triumph of the god Baal over his enemy Mot, seems, as Virolleaud, Furlani3 and others have pointed out, to have been intended for liturgical recitation at a yearly festival. Liturgies today often appear surprisingly irrelevant to accompanying symbolic actions performed on table and altar. The Yasna is recited, ha by ha, during the Parsi ceremony named after it, but only a passage here and there can be said to bear direct relation to the elaborate rites performed by zéti

and rdsfi. During the Mandaean masigta we are unable to guess from prayers read at the pouring of water into the winebowl that this rite represents a sacred marriage: it is only

repeated explanation in commentaries+ which enlightens us. At celebrations of mass in the Eastern churches the word is better suited to the action, but the significant fact should be noted that quotations chosen at solemn moments are taken, not from the Synoptic Gospels but from the Fourth, and refer to miracles unmentioned by the other three. I avoided questioning members of one sect or religion about the customs and rites of another, for information so acquired is suspect.5 All kinds of people helped me: priests, laymen, 1‘... it was to have a magical virtue, the recitation of the triumphs of Bel was to bring about those triumphs and the annual benefits for which they stood’

(C. J. Gadd, M & R, p. 62).

2 Gh. Virolleaud, La Naissance des dieux gracieux et beaux (‘Syria’, 1933-4). 3 La Religione dei Fenici, G. Furlani, p. 161, vol. ii, Storia delle Religioni, edited by P. Pietro Tacchi Venturi, S.J., Torino, 1949. 4 Such as the Alf Trisar Suialia, Diwan Malkuta ‘laita, Alma Ri¥aia Rba, etc. (These

are in the Bodleian Library.) 5 An Iraqi doctor told me that if a Subbi (Mandaean) is dangerously ill in hospital, ‘his relatives come, take him away and kill him!’ He was right in a sense, for Mandaeans think that if one of their faith dies in hospital, he imperils his future bliss by dying in a state of pollution. The dying must be washed from head to foot in water from a flowing source, dressed in a rasta and go through ceremonies

3

Water into Wine

schoolmasters and bystanders. Enquiries were readily answered : indeed, priests of all religions and rites appeared anxious that no mistake should mar or vagueness obscure an account of their rites. In Bombay a learned Parsi priest, Dastur Bode, took me over a new fire-temple a few days before its consecration,!

explained the purpose of its chambers and cult-objects and allowed me to witness some Parsi rites in their proper setting.? Later, he took me to a seminary for Parsi priests where I saw rehearsals of ceremonies such as the Yasna and was allowed to interrupt novices at any stage of the proceedings which called for explanation. Parsi friends arranged that I should be present at an investiture with the sacred thread and at a marriage. Assyrian clergy permitted me to stand within the sanctuary whilst mass was celebrated, this being possible because the church was not fully consecrated.3 Nestorian and Mandaean priests have visited our house to illustrate and explain their rites fully, using table or floor as an altar. In Jerusalem Abyssinian clergy invited me to stand within the sanctuary curtain

at mass, and in several churches of other rites I was placed where I had a clear view of the altar. In Palestine and Iraq Jewish families welcomed me to Passover, New Year and other ritual feasts, and explanations were freely and generously given. When none have stinted help it seems invidious to single out anyone for especial thanks. I have already named Dastur Bode. Mandaeans who taught me were mentioned gratefully in my The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran. Amongst clergy of Eastern churches to whom I am indebted are the following :Nestorians, the late Kasha Slibu Girgis, Mar Sarkis and the deacon for the dying described in M.M.1I.I., pp. 178-9. Such exertion often hastens death. The doctor’s statement was not inspired by malice, but stories coloured by fear

or dislike, especially when told of infidels, pagans or heretics, tend to stray from the truth. I have heard much unconscious misrepresentation of this kind. 1 The similarity between Mandaean rites and those of Parsis as they are des-

cribed in Modi’s The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsis inspired me with desire to visit the Guebres in Iran and the Parsis in India. War made the former impossible, but as I was taken in 1941 to India as a refugee, I could gratify the wish in part. 2 None but a Parsi may enter a consecrated fire-temple, and a lay Parsi is forbidden some of its chambers. 3 It was a school-house used as a church. Had it been fully consecrated, my

presence in the sanctuary would have entailed reconsecration.

4

Introduction

Gabriel; Chaldaeans, Father Shaikho; Orthodox Russian, Father Lazarus of the Russian monastery, Jerusalem; Melkite

(Greek Catholic), Fathers d’Arblade and Constantine of the seminary of the White Fathers; Greek Orthodox, the late Father Yakub as-Sulaiman; Armenian Orthodox, his Beatitude Cyril, the late Armenian Patriarch in Jerusalem; Abyssinians, the Superior of Deir Gannat in Jerusalem and the monk Abba Yesus; Copts, the Rt. Rev. Butros Shahidi, then secretary to the Coptic Metropolitan in Jerusalem, now a bishop, and Coptic friends in Egypt. In Jerusalem, Dr. Goitein, whose studies of the Yemenites are well known, was good enough to criticise the Jewish section of my manuscript; Professor Scholem of the Hebrew University made most valuable suggestions. In what was formerly the library of the Palestine Department of Antiquities, now in

Jordan, Mr. St. J. Stefan proved a friend. Mr. Donald Attwater _I thank for his helpful criticisms. The greater part of my notes were put together before the upheaval which followed the departure of the Mandatory Government from Palestine. History moved swiftly: war between Arabs and Jews resuited in the emergence of the Israeli State and a mass migration into Israel of Oriental Jews from Arab countries, including Jews from Iraq and Kurdistan. Synagogues I visited in Baghdad may no longer exist, and Jews remaining in Iraq are said to be mainly of the landed class. None of these events took place whilst my husband and I were living in Iraq. Owing to the kindness of the Chief Rabbi in Baghdad and of Mr. Ezra Haddad, now Barzillai, I was taken to many Jewish homes there and attended many Jewish

festivals. I owe much to Mr. Barzillai’s scholarship and kindness. The Departments of Antiquities in Palestine and Iraq provided me with excellent photographs of ritual bread, and my daughter, Mrs. Hackforth-Jones, drew the wafer reproduced in fic. 3. Times were unfavourable for carrying out the research necessary to complete this very partial study of a vast subject and I am now unable to travel back in order to verify or amplify what I have written. Admittedly, some information 5

Water into Wine

may have been misunderstood, some inaccuracies undetected. My aim was accuracy, but the eye can deceive and notes cannot always be taken on the spot. It remains for me to thank Professor Hooke, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Studies in the University of London, not only for his kindness and patience in reading this book and

for bearing with subsequent demands on his time and wisdom, but also for his generous Foreword. E. S. DROWER

NOTE

ON

‘LIFE-FOODS’

HE wWoRDs ‘life-food’ and ‘life-drink’ or ‘life-fluid’ are used for convenience to describe some foods and drinks which appear on seasonal tables and trays. These are representative of powers which bestow, nourish, increase,

preserve and reproduce life, not only of grain, herb and beast but also of man. In some sacramental rites described in the following pages they have become symbolical of the rebirth of the soul into the spiritual world after bodily death. Grain, through the magic of water and sun, germinates and is turned into green blade and heavy ear. This never-ending cycle is taken as a parable: life can be dormant, but is indestructible. Creatures on the spokes of the revolving world of creation descend into death only to ascend, unless caught in the dangerous embrace of earth and darkness below. Ritual treatment of

corn and bread is discussed in Chapter III. Fruits rich in seed, such as pomegranates and figs, appear from the earliest times as symbols of fecundity. The vine and its juice has a long history of religious significance. Deified, like the Zoroastrian haoma and Vedic soma, its powers of exhilaration and intoxication were thought to be manifestations of divine possession. In the group of sacraments or ‘mysteries’ that we shall examine, however, the vine symbolises especially the fruitfulness of women, and its juice, mostly unfermented, is

drunk ceremoniallyin order to promote the fertility of the womb. ! The date-palm? and its fruit are symbolical of fecundity; 1 ‘Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine’ (Ps. cxxviiil, 3) and ‘Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters’ (Ezek. xix, 10). Vine and fig-tree lose foliage in the cold season and so symbolise revival as well as fecundity, although the latter meaning

predominates. Fig-leaves are woven into the bridal wreaths of Mandaeans, and the hamra (wine) drunk by bridegroom and bride, presumably to procure fruitfulness, is made by the priest just before the ceremony by pressing dates and grapes into freshly-drawn water. 2 Palm-tree shafts to temple doorways in ancient Babylonia (Dur Sharrukin and

7

Water into Wine

nuts, like grain and seed, are ‘life-foods’. Fish early became a symbol of life and fertility from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf: it was associated with chthonian rites and is represented on grave-reliefs as eaten at funerary repasts.1 Fish are eaten sacramentally by Mandaeans at meals for the dead, and fish appear on the ritual tables of Jews, Persians and Chinese. Eggs figure on several New Year tables: they are exchanged by Christians at Easter and by Yazidis at the spring feast. In Iraq there is reluctance to give an egg to a friend after dark for fear of ‘giving away a life’. Greenery, fresh vegetables, herbs and plants are laid upon some ritual tables. The action of pouring water on trees and plants is often represented in the glyptic art of ancient Babylonia. Belief that a dry, dead vegetable substance can be re-endued with life by contact with living leaves is apparent in several ceremonies described in this book. Honey was placed on Babylonian tables of offerings to gods; often together with butter or melted butter (see R. Campbell Thompson’s Semitic Magic, pp. xii, xlv, 157-8, etc.). It is typical of sweetness, but other and eschatological meanings were and still are attached to it.2 elsewhere), according to Mrs. E. D. van Buren (Orientalia, vol. 13, 1924), ‘have been rightly described as “‘sacred trees” or even as ‘‘the tree of life”, for that is what they were in essence. They were emblems of fertility because they derived from the mystic palm-tree which symbolised the goddess.’ (The passage deals with the ritual marriage of god and goddess.) Mandaean ritual texts, however, make the date-palm the symbol of male fertility: of ‘the Father’ (Alf Trisar Suialia). Sir J. G. Frazer (G.B., pt. I, vol. ii, p. 25) refers to the Harran practice of celebrating marriages of gods and goddesses during the month when palm-trees were fertilised. 1 See Fish-Offerings in Ancient Mesopotamia, E. D. van Buren (‘Iraq’, 1948), vol. x, pt. 2, p. 102 and pp. 114-16. 2 Not only the Israelites, but other ancient peoples supposed that bees generated in putrefying flesh (e.g. Samson and the dead lion). The Vedas speak of honey as the food of spirits: in the Rig-Veda we read that the Pitris (ancestral spirits) sit down to repasts of clarified soma, cream and honey. In Northern countries mead, a honey-drink, was quaffed by heroes in Valhalla. The Greeks connected honey with chthonian rites (see Zeus, A. B. Cook, vol. ii, p. 1142), and corpses both in

classical times and by the Egyptians were sometimes preserved in honey, not, perhaps, without reference to its sacred character (see Sir W. Budge, The Mummy, p. 208, Cambridge University Press, 1925). Astrology connectea honey with the moon, hence with growth and increase. For honey as an ingredient of a dish eaten for the dead, see p. 14 of this book. A Yemenite Jewess, according to Brauer (J.J., p. 187) receives honey and saman as her food after delivery. Honey and cheese

8

Note on ‘ Life-Foods’ Amongst ‘life-fluids’ water naturally holds first place, since absence of water means death. Purification by immersion often symbolises rebirth, and in Mandaean literature, both magical and religious, running water is ‘living water’ or, equally, ‘water of life’. Milk, the natural food of the newly-born and equivalent to a blood-tie between those who have sucked at one breast, is a symbol of rebirth at initiation ceremonies;2 together with other cow-products it is sacred to Zoroastrians. A fresh decoction of haoma twigs mingled with milk3 is drunk at the Parsi Afringan ceremony. Mandaeans never slaughter the cow, and they pronounce the name of the Great Life before milking. A Mandaean woman who hires herself as wet-nurse is condemned to torture in the next life4 and Bedouins consider it impious to sell milk.> Blood is a ‘life-fluid’: in the Old Testament it is life and

belongs to God alone.® This idea is not peculiarly Hebrew. All were given to a Jewish bride and bridegroom in mediaeval Europe, the officiant administering these after benediction (I. Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, and ed., Goldston Ltd., London, 1932). Tertullian (Against Marcion, i, 14.) mentions the administration of milk and honey to newly-baptised persons: this practice in the early Church is mentioned also in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (A.P.H., PP. 94-5) and by St. Clement of Alexandria (Pedagogue, i, vi, 45, 1). These were brought in chalices by deacons to the baptised, and the custom was probably appropriate to ‘rebirth’ as in certain Mithraic initiations. Cumont (L.M.M., Pp- 132-3) says that honey was poured on the hands and tongues of initiates into the order of ‘lions’ ‘comme on avait coutume de le faire aux nouveaux-nés’. It

was presented to those who became ‘Persians’ because ‘selon les idées antiques, elle était Paliment des bienheureux et son absorption par le néophyte faisait de lui Pégal de la divinité’ (Op. cit., pp. 132-3). 1M.M.1.1., pp. xxi, 225, 181, 231, etc.

2 See above on the chalice offered to the baptised. 3 Soma juice was also drunk with milk. These two drinks appear to have lost their fermented character in later times. Zoroaster condemned drunkenness (Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 71-2). 4 Diwan Abatur: Studi e Testi, No. 151, Rome.

5 C. Doughty, Travels in Arabia (Cambridge University Press, 1888, vol. i, p. 215, and vol. ii, p. 443). Milk and honey often form a pair. In ancient Greece honey mingled with milk was poured on the grave by mourners ;Avestans made oblations of milk, oil and honey. The nourishment of souls in the Moslem paradise is said in the Qur’a4n to be water, milk, honey and wine (Surat Muhammad, v. 14 et seq.). 6 ‘But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat’

(Gen. ix, 4). ‘Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh... thou shalt pour it on the earth as water’ (Deut xii, 23). The last clause implies that life-blood imparts fertility to the soil, a belief appearing in many ritual, semi-ritual and magical rites in Hither Asia and Europe. Cf. a Bulgarian custom mentioned by Frazer, *...an old man

9

Water into Wine

over the Middle East the blood of a sacrificed, or indeed of any slaughtered beast, must drain from the body into the ground or into water. Like Jews, Moslems are forbidden to eat a

creature killed by a gun, blow, or strangled. Arab beaters out with a sportsman hasten to a bird brought down in order to cut its throat before life is gone. Jews employ a shohet—a ‘throat-cutter’—as butcher. Mandaeans engage a priest to cut the throat of fowl or sheep intended for food: he must put on ritual dress, recite prayers, immerse his victim thrice and then cut its throat with ceremonies too elaborate to be des-

cribed here.! If he kills a sheep, it must be male. It is either laid on the ground or on a bed of reeds or green palm-fronds: a runnel conveys the blood into the river or to a place where it soaks into the ground. I heard many stories about the lifegiving, fertilising and magically curative properties of blood. In Baghdad sterile women repair to the slaughter-house and step over the gutter? which carries off the blood of a freshlykilled beast; brides enter their new homes over the blood of a

sheep slaughtered

by the threshold:

an Arab

custom,

not

necessarily Moslem, as it is sometimes practised by Christians in Arab countries. In Iraq the mixture of wine and water made at the Passover meal whilst reciting the Ten Plagues is poured by the Jewish celebrant on the ground outside the house, and the reddened water is called ‘blood’.4 By Arabs, blood may be drunk as a sign of enmity. I was told of a tribesman in the Mosul district who, finding his daughter unchaste, severed her hand, cut her throat, drank some of her

blood and sent the hand round the district to show that he had vindicated family honour. During 1941 a marsh tribesman told me that if his young wife were caught snapping her fingers in kills a ram, whilst girls spread grass on which the blood is poured forth. The intention of the sacrifice may be to make the herbage grow abundantly’ (G.B., vol. ii, pt. I).

1M.M.1.1., pp. 48-9. 2 red 3 4

A child suffering from measles is passed over the gutter and then rubbed with cloths. E.g. Copts (see Lane, M. E., p. 550). Cf. the Talmud: Shab., 129a, ‘One Rabbi said, ‘‘Wine, since it is a red

liquor in the place of red blood’’.’ The worshippers of Mithra looked on blood as the fluid of life. In Mithraeums the god is depicted drawing the knife of sacrifice across the throat of the cosmic bull, so releasing the blood which gave life to the world. TO

Note on ‘ Life-Foods’ time to music, ‘I will slit her throat and drink her blood out of my hand.’!

Wine as a life-fluid is discussed in Chapter IV. On the altar of Christian churches it becomes the blood of the Divine Sacrifice ; but on the prothesis table the chalice, like the Man-

daean wine-bowl, represents temporarily ‘the womb of the Mother’. Wine is prominent in all Jewish rites. Its intoxicant quality has now no ritual meaning;? the frenzy induced by drinking it which, even in classical times, was perhaps merely a by-product, has no place in modern piety.3 In the sacraments of the Mandaeans and also in some Oriental Christian rites the wine is unfermented: with the latter fermentation is often merely nominal. In the Jacobite Church the intervals of fermentation—three days and forty days+—plainly refer to resurrection and ascension, or, as others might say, to stages in the journey of the soul after death. 1 Perhaps Israelites in early times actually drank the blood of their enemies? (See Num. xxiii, 24.) 2 Traces of this still linger. Jews are supposed to drink at Purim until they can no longer distinguish ‘Blessed be Mordecai’ from ‘Cursed be Haman’. The Hebrew letters composing the two phrases are numerically equivalent (Megillah

7b). See also Brauer on intoxication at Purim (J.J., p. 336). I once saw an aged and pious old Jew in Iraq assisted to bed after the Passover supper in a state of

dignified fuddle. 3 Modi (M., p. 395), writing of Parsi use of wine as myazda (i.e. drunk sacramentally for the dead), claims that this and the wine drunk at marriages was formerly non-intoxicant. Its chthonic character appears in the Chinese libation of three cups emptied on the ground for the ancestors at New Year. It was formerly a Persian custom that when the sdqgi (cup-bearer) filled cups with wine at a feast, he poured a first cup on the ground. In Omar Khayyam’s ‘Rubatyat’ it is the dead friend who, as rendered by Fitzgerald, says ‘Turn down an empty glass’.

The translation misses the point: it was a full glass which was to be emptied on the ground. 4 See Chapter IV.

II

Rito WEReTSE" _ | ‘Sa. Toy hee

PART ONE

I TEMPLE

AND

TABLE

Taner ortgave us a delicious glimpse, through the chatter of fashionable Syracusan ladies, of Alexandrian Adonis rites in the fourth century B.c. Later, Apuleius wrote a lively account of what a second-century bystander might see when the priests of Isis moved in procession to dedicate a ship to the goddess. Because I believe an outsider’s impressions of sacred scenes still to have value, I venture to describe briefly some of the settings in which I saw with my own eyes certain rites performed. First, a riverside in the marshes of southern Iraq. A whiterobed Mandaean priest, the lower part of his face masked like a surgeon, stands thigh-high in turbid water brown with the silt which enriches the rice-fields. From the bank, another white-

robed and turbaned figure descends into the water, submerges thrice, and then, standing with bowed head by the priest,

receives a baptism which Mandaeans claim to be that practised by St. John the Baptist. Returning to the bank, his dripping garments clinging to his body, he crouches whilst the priest administers simple sacraments of oil, bread and water, and then

lays his hand on him in blessing. Sometimes the scene of baptism is the mandi,! a palisaded enclosure near the river. In it a broad pit filled and emptied by channels leading to and from the river serves as baptismal pool.? North of the pool stands a windowless hut built of mud-daubed reeds entered by a narrow opening in the centre of its face—there is no door. Its construction is simple: no iron is used and builders follow rigidlyprescribed rules. The hut is called the bzt manda (bimanda) or bit mashkna. Within the enclosure myrtle-bush, date-palm and 1 See M.M.I.1., pp. 124-5, 128-45. 2 Both river and pool are called yardna, meaning ‘flowing water’, ‘jordan’.

t5

Water into Wine

willow are usually growing, and during religious ceremonies a banner of white silk is planted near water and hut. Whilst baptisms or other rites are going on those who assemble in the enclosure, the congregation (or rather spectators), talk amongst themselves, laugh, smoke, play chess and behave as if they were guests in the courtyard of a private house. Flies and sometimes butterflies settle unheeded on the sacred foods. The hut (bit manda) is used for the only rite performed under a roof, the masigta. When it has been cleansed outside and inside for the celebration of this rite no layman may enter it, nor may he set foot in the area enclosed by water-flushed furrows (misria) which lie between it and the pool. Its four primitive walls hide from him all that takes place within. Other Mandaean ceremonies are performed in the open air, beneath the trees, to the rustling of the willows, the twitter of the birds and the steady murmur of the river when it is in full flood. Following the river as it flows to the Persian Gulf, and crossing the Indian Ocean, we find another, yet not dissimilar, scene. Here also the officiating priest veils the lower part of his face; here, too, there is a well or fountain of running water.

The Parsi fire-temple is in the heart of a modern city, yet, like the mandi, it has its garden as well as its sanctuary. Certain

sacred trees and shrubs must be grown in it: date-palm and pomegranate stand near the well. In ancient times the fragrant barsom and magical haoma were perhaps also grown, but the former is now represented by wire twigs, and the latter imported from Persia. The fire-temple itself is a well-constructed building. Within its walls two cults have apparently merged: fire-worship has become wedded to the cult of water,! and both have separate sanctuaries within the temple. The sacred fire is enthroned

in the main

chamber,

where

all ceremonies

con-

nected with its cult are performed: in the Yazashna-gah, which adjoins the fire-chamber, fire plays a subordinate role, and the fire-priest is no longer the chief celebrant. To Parsis as to Mandaeans, light is sacred and ritual cleanliness essential. ‘The new fire-temple over which I was taken was, of course, immaculate: it was also flooded with light. No stained-glass window or dark recess imparts to the fire-temple 1 See The Role of Fire in Parsi Ritual, J.R.A.1., vol. lxxiv, 1944.

16

Temple and Table the ‘dim, religious light’ of Gothic church or Hindu shrine: the yellow flame of the holy fire or of the lamp fed By vegetable oil must compete with clear sunlight. Returning to Iraq and churches of the Eastern rites, we find that ritual cleanliness and. freedom from dust and soil are not always identical. Once consecrated, a Nestorian altar is ritually clean for ever: but in some village churches dust accumulates and furnishings go dull unminded. Before a Nestorian church there is usually a courtyard; within, the sanctuary, the hazkla, is separated from the rest of

the interior by two steps and a partition of masonry extending solidly from the north to the south wall. In the centre of this

wall is a large curtained opening and on either side of it are two smaller doorways.! The sanctuary, with a raised platform (mastabtha) in the centre of which stands the altar, thus becomes a stage: the two partitions, one on either side of the sanctuary, the bit gaza on the north and the dzt ganki on the south, recall the wings. The bit gaza (treasury) is the vestry, where the vestments are kept. The d2t ganki (this name includes the sanctuary below the platform on which the altar stands) contains the baptismal font and the oven for baking the sacred bread. The screen of masonry is usualiy surmounted by three plain crosses, one above each

curtained opening. Just below the steps up to the sanctuary stands the shkinta, a table or desk flanked by lecterns. Upon it lie a Bible and a 1 A similar barrier, the eikonostasis, in Orthodox churches divides the sanctuary

from the rest of the interior. To this solid screen, pierced by three openings, sacred icons (images, pictures) are suspended or fastened. It was formerly suggested that the barrier owes its solidarity to this use (L’ancienne peinture russe, A. Caffi, Librairie Stock, Prague et Rome, 1925; and Liturgies Orientales, S. Salaville, Bibliotheque Cath. des Sciences Réligieuses, Bloud et Gay), but I am told that it is now recognised that the ezkonostasis is a late development of the early cancelli, which had nothing to do with pictures. Excavation of ancient churches in Palestine and Syria indicates that the barrier separating the body of the church from the sanctuary was a light structure akin to the rood-screen of a modern church (see Crowfoot, Early Churches in Palestine, Milford, 1941). Ancient Nestorian churches remote from outside influences have a sanctuary wall more solid than the eikonostasis, nor were images ever suspended on them, for Nestorians detest pictures of all kinds and so strong is their aversion to images that no crucified figure is permitted on the cross. In this communion the barrier is clearly to shut out the layman. The Nestorian altar is reached by three steps, perhaps symbolical of three degrees of initiation.

3

17

Water into Wine

cross. Long before dawn on a day when mass is to be celebrated, candles on either side of the shkinta are lit for readings from the Scriptures which precede making and baking of sacramental bread. The wooden cross has fioriated ends, and each person on entering the church approaches the table, lifts the cross and carries it to his lips.! Much reverence is shown to this emblem. Although the crucifix is forbidden, the layman crosses himself fervently at prayer, making the sign from his head to his breast and from right breast to left. I likened the east end of the church to a stage and its wings. The theatrical effect is heightened during mass by the drawing and withdrawing of the central curtain. The mass is a miracleplay, a drama of sacrifice and death the poignancy of which enters every simple heart. The Nestorian congregation joins loudly in the chanting, and all in the church line up to partake of the sacraments, even to the smallest.

In Russian and Greek Orthodox churches the etkonostasis severs the sanctuary from the congregation. In the Russian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem the screen is rich with icons painted in the archaic Byzantine fashion. The Holy Doors gleam with gold. The mysteries enacted within are but dimly seen in a cloud of incense when the doors are opened, hidden whilst they are shut. The people stand in silent devotion, leaving the greater part of the nave free for the continual movement to and fro of those who kiss the icons or the Gospels, or the hand of the priest when he emerges at the end of mass to distribute the antidoron. Within the sanctuary, priests and deacons enact the mysteries, issuing from time to time in the course of the service. The clergy are gravely impressive in their brocaded vestments ;some are black-clad monks with long hair combed woman-like over their shoulders, beards flowing and untrimmed. When they are young they often resemble the conventional Christs which embellish the screen; when old, the painted patriarchs on the walls. Exquisite singing is heard from an unseen choir, as if from unearthly visitants. All is order and beauty.2 Worshippers, as if at the gate of heaven, bow to the 1 Saying ‘We worship, Lord, Thy Godhead and Manhood undivided’ Surma d’Bait Shimun (Assyrian Church Customs, London, 1920, p. 14). 2 It must be admitted that in many Orthodox churches in the Middle East the elaborate ritual is sometimes performed in a slipshod fashion. This, unfor-

18

Temple and Table ground continually, crossing themselves again and again. They are entranced beholders rather than participants.

The Orthodox churches became heirs to the pomps and ceremonies of the Byzantine empire which, in its turn, reflected the splendours of the Persian court. In Greek Orthodox churchmusic Byzantine notation is used, and the chants sung may differ little from those once heard in Eleusis. When the Greek patriarch, bishops and archimandrites are gathered on solemn occasions in the Holy Sepulchre, the processional furnishings, gold embroideries, robes, jewelled crosses, lights and air heavy with frankincense produce together an impression of imperial pageant. The spectator is reminded of the former glories of the basilica of St. Sofia, when Justinian lavished a world’s wealth on a cult still new. Although a place of prayer, the Oriental Jewish synagogue is not merely a place of worship, nor does it replace a temple. As in the day of Christ, people come to the synagogue to discuss, or to listen to, the Scriptures or to a rabbi expounding the Torah or Talmud.

It is, in fact, a meeting-place, a kanisa: its

platform, dimah,! the position of which varies, is in no way particularly sacred. Architecturally there is usually little of merit, and an inscription in Hebrew forms as a rule the only outward decoration. I visited many synagogues in Baghdad and Jerusalem in the years before 1950, that is, before the great flight from Arab countries to Israel. I was surprised to find that in countries where literacy was far from universal there were not many Jews, even of humble class, who could not read, and most, although probably without understanding it, read Hebrew, a language as foreign to them as Latin to an Englishman: in fact, Hebrew prayers and religious exercises such as the Haggadah are printed with an Arabic translation.2 tunately, is true of some other Oriental Christian churches. I have seen mass interrupted whilst a priest instructed his server, or a hunt took place in a dusty corner for a missing object. Yet religious emotion is fervent, and neither priest nor worshippers consider it hardship to spend many hours over a single service. A religious ceremony may start at nightfall, continue uninterruptedly through the night, and only end the next morning well after dawn. 1 Called in Iraq the tevah, a name elsewhere applied to the ‘ark’ or recess where the rolls are kept. In other countries the tribune is called bimah. 2 The translation as well as the Hebrew is read.

19

Water into Wine

I will try to describe one typical Baghdad synagogue. It was frequented by a prosperous community outside the old Jewish quarter; electric lights were kept full on, day and night, and on each globe was painted in Hebrew characters the name of a deceased person and the date of his or her death. Only a very orthodox family provided a gandil1! kept perpetually alight for twelve months for the benefit gf the soul of a dead relative. There was much which accentuated the essentially lay character of the building. At a wedding, for instance, I saw sweets and coffee handed round and, although some rabbis had

attempted to discountenance it, many present lit cigarettes. Before an evening service there I noticed a man distributing books to a few sitting down, whereupon they at once began to read in a subdued chant. These books represented the Psalms divided into fifteen parts. If fifteen pious persons are present, the whole can be recited at a sitting for the benefit of a person recently deceased. At the morning service, devotional exercises began when the hazan arrived and mounted the tribune. On the Sabbath and other appointed days the precious scroll in its silver folding case was taken from the cupboard in which it was kept, and as it was borne to the reading-desk, men pressed forward to kiss it or, after touching it, carried their finger-tips to their lips. The case having been opened, the scroll was displayed to all present and the passage to be read indicated by a silver pointer. There should be eight readings from the Torah, and in the Yemen,” according to Brauer, these are actually read by various members of the congregation called upon by the hazan. In most synagogues in the Near and Middle East the ‘reading’ is nominal; the man summoned to the platform stands to the right of the hazan, who reads as his proxy. The privilege of reading the sixth, seventh and eighth passages is auctioned, and this singular practice is extended on days of high festival to all the readings. The first reader must be a cohen.3 I was present on such an occasion in Iraq. The synagogue servant, the sham1 A dish in which a wick floats in vegetable oil. 2 I have not been in the Yemen, but visited Yemenite Jews in Jerusalem. For some information about them I am indebted to Dr. Goitein, and Brauer’s Ethnologie der Femenitischen Fuden (J.J.): still an excellent account.

3 The word means ‘priest’. 20

Temple and Table mash, walked round the synagogue like an auctioneer, calling for bids. As few cohens were present, bidding was slack. At length the shammash declared the result: a boy aged about thirteen had won the honour for about two shillings. The child mounted the platform, repeated the prefatory prayer in a low voice and then the hazan chanted the passage for him. The next reader had to be a lewi (Levite) and, after a similar auction, an old man obtained the privilege for a small sum.! His successor was, by rule, an ‘Israelite’? and competition was sharper.

A comfortably-built tradesman wearing a morning coat capped the bids with a sum equivalent to twelve shillings. Had the congregation been larger, bidding would have run higher. This auctioning, I was informed, could be traced back to a similar

practice in the Temple of Jerusalem. As the hazan was not himself a cohen, that is a priest, he could not give the blessing to the congregation: When it is time for this, any male cohen, usually several, stands before the cupboard where the holy rolls are kept and, after repeating a prayer, wheels round to face the people, praying shawl spread over the head, upper body and extended arms and hands. As he recites the words of benediction he turns like an automaton from side to side without moving the feet.2 One who sees such 1 The Mashlim and Maftir (‘ender’ and ‘closer’) have the privilege of repeating a Qaddish (see Appendix A) for a dead relative after the reading, and the hazan recites the Hashkavah (Appendix B) for the soul of the deceased. After the sixth and seventh passages have been read, the last three verses are read over again by

the Maftir, followed by a Qaddish and Hashkavah as before: this is also auctioned. Readers are in the following order: a cohen, a levi, an Israelite (three times), the Mashlim and Maftir, the latter repeating the last three verses. If the last reader has no dead relative, the Qaddish and Hashkavah which follow are auctioned. The Mashlin always closes with a Qaddish, but the Maftir only at festivals and certain Sabbaths, hence ‘the big Maftir’ and the ‘little Maftir’. Nearly every bar-mitzvah (a lad of thirteen who has attained puberty officially) is called up to read the Moftir for the first time. The happy event is usually celebrated by a party given at the house. 2 I describe the blessing as given in Baghdad. When pronouncing it the cohen should hold his hands outspread leaving a gap between the second and third fingers thus: Lf and no one should look at him, since the Shekinah is supposed to be present. (According to the Qizze Shulhan Arukh (chap. 100, par. 9), the hands should be held with a space between the two thumbs, so forming ‘five airspaces’.) The step on which the cohenim stand is called the dukhan (]>17). When the hazan is himself a cohen he relinquishes his place on the tribune to an assistant and chants the blessing with his fellow cohenim. The blessing is taken from four passages in Num. vi, 24-7.

QI

Water into Wine

a blessing for a first time cannot fail to be impressed by the stiff, uncanny movements of the cohenim and the muffled voices chanting beneath the shawls. The purpose is comprehensible : in veiling himself a cohen veils his personality and becomes, as it were, an embodiment of the ancient priesthood. So much for the setting of ritual drama as any outsider may see it, a few sharply contrasting scenes drawn at random from the storehouse of memory. The special object of enquiry in the following pages is, however, the ritual and commemorative meal, and it remains _in this chapter to examine the tables, altars, trays or consecrated places upon which it is set out. Here, also, there is great diversity, but some common factors. The word altar, which merely means ‘high place’ or ‘elevated structure’, is usually

associated with a tradition of sacrifice and blood. Not so the ritual table of the Parsis, who shed no blood at or for their ritual meals, nor do they mimic slaughter.! Their ritual foods

are set out upon a low stone table, square, four-legged and not unlike a large stool. An identical table serves the priest as a stand for the fire-vase and is used as the platform upon which the officiants stand at certain stages of the ritual. It is called the khwan (Arabic \)4> ‘a big table’). What might pass for its

double is portrayed on cylinder seals of the first Babylonian dynasty depicting ritual scenes. The priest is seen mounted on

such a stool,” an object exactly like that used for the same purpose by the modern Parsi priest during part of the Yasna ceremony. The Babylonian stool} may, like the Parsi khwan, 1 In earlier times it was a lay fourth day after a death, the days. The fat of the animal was consumed sacramentally. This

custom to kill a sheep or kid on the morning of the mourners having abstained from meat for three sent as an offering to the fire-temple, but was not Parsi practice seems related to the Mandaean lofani, a lay commemorative feast rather than a sacerdotal sacrament, although performed with the prayers of commemoration and attached to death ceremonies. 2 Dr. Frankfort says (Cylinder Seals, pp. 159-60) : ‘It is likely that the mounting of the stool was the final act of a “‘rite de passage”’ by which the worshipper left the impurity of his earthly environment, and thereby became able to approach

the deity. . .. All these instances agree with the interpretation of the stool which we have adopted; we might specify its meaning perhaps a little more clearly by saying that, both in ritual and design, it symbolised ritually pure ground, which

in both cases would mean the temple.’ 3 The Babylonians may have used a low table or stool for domestic meals. 22

Temple and Table

have served also as a table for offerings. Early dynastic Sumerian seals show tables or offering-stands set before a deity, and among the offerings on it are loaves of bread, trussed birds, branches of trees and bunches of dates. The worshippers advance bearing kids or fish, and the deity often holds an ear of corn, suggesting that he has to do with the fertility of the fields.1 Were any of these offerings intended for the dead ?2,We know from the texts that these existed from very early times. Sacrifices for the dead were called kispu, the original meaning of which comes from a verb kasapu meaning ‘to divide into small portions’. This certainly suggests a communal meal eaten in the name of the dead. Mandaean priests employ a small clay table for their ritual meals, raised a few inches from the ground by a clay ring placed beneath it. It is round and slightly concave, and a small area is partitioned off by a raised ridge. Sometimes the kinta (pronounced kintha), a slightly higher clay box-table, is used, and for certain types of ritual meals the food is set out in dishes on a reed mat or a white cloth. All these must be ritually cleansed before use. The table used at the Mandaean 1 Or perhaps the god as divine bridegroom (see Van Buren, The Sacred Marriage, Orientalia, vol. 13, pp. 11-12). 2 Professor G. Furlani (Il Sacrificio nella Religione det Semiti di Babilonia e Assiria, vol. iii, p. 245) says: ‘The dead, or rather their spirits, need food after their departure from the earth. Sacrifices therefore were also offered to the spirits of the dead—sacrifices which had special forms and which were called kispu. We do

not know for how long a time after the period of death sacrifices were to be made for the departed. The kispu was performed for the statues of demons, for the dead, for the family spirits, for the Annunaki, for the spirits of former kings. ... The kispu is especially connected with the mag me, the libation of water for the deceased. Such libations, and the mortuary sacrifices in general, were primarily the duty of the eldest son, the aflu of the dead man’ (translated). Cf. M.R.S., p. 162, where Langdon quotes: ‘O ye ghosts of my family, enlighteners of the tomb, Of my father and grandfather, or my mother and grandmother, or my brother and sister,

Of my family by male and female lines, As many as sleep in the lower world. I have burnt funeral offerings to you,

Water have I poured to you, I have caused you to repose.’

(The prayer then beseeches the dead to intercede for them with Shamash and Gilgamesh.)

23

Water into Wine

masiqta is the round clay stand first described: it is called the tariana. | The Jewish ritual foods are set on the family table, but on certain occasions these are arranged on a tray (round or square). I was told that when eating a ritual meal a Jew should never sit on a seat higher than the table on which the food is placed. There is nothing to replace the altar which once figured in Temple worship. The blood sacrifices which were offered there ceased with the destruction of the Temple. The Passover lamb is killed by the official slaughterer like other animals

destined for the table, and it is represented on the Passover tray by a single bone. Christians preserve the word ‘altar’, although the sacrifice enacted upon it involves no animal victim. The word ‘table’? in various forms is also applied to the Christian altar. The

consecrated bread is set out on a small round tray (the paten, pilasa, etc.), words which simply mean ‘plate’ or ‘dish’. (For such a compound ritual food as the Orthodox kolyba3 an ordinary round dish is used.) Today in the West the altar is oblong in shape: in the East there are variations. Traces of the early Christian custom of celebrating mass on tombs of martyrs still persist. In Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches, for instance, before mass can be celebrated the altar must be spread with the antimension,*

in

the

Russian

Orthodox

the

antimins.

Into

1 These cult-ohjects are described, with photographs, in M.M.I.I. 2 There are indications that in the early Church ritual meals were placed not only on tables similar to those used for the domestic meal of the period (the agape or love-feast was almost certainly served on a table of this kind), but also, when food was consumed ritually in the name of and for the benefit of a dead person,

upon the tomb. Particularly was this the case when mass was said for martyrs; and public commemoration on the anniversary of death at the tomb was at first performed only for martyrs. The holy elements were set out on the martyr’s grave, often in the catacombs. Mention of other dead was included as need arose: saints were not formally commemorated until the fourth century a.p. (See Les Origines du Culte des Martyres, H. Delahaye, Brussels, 1912, p. 42ff.). In Iraq and Iran it is habitual, both with Christians and Moslems, oration on the anniversary of death, often on the tomb. death, especially when blood has been spilt, calls for because rites for the dying were omitted, but because 3 See pp. 42-3.

to eat a meal of commemWith Mandaeans a violent especial masigtas, not only blood is polluting.

4 The antimension is an oblong of linen or silk on which there is a picture (usually representing the entombment of Christ) and a border representing instruments

24,

Temple and Table these are sewn relics, i.e. bones or other remains of saint or

martyr. These oblong tablecloths of silk or linen can be used in lieu of an altar, like the wooden Nestorian dapa,! the Jacobite

and Coptic tablitho and the altar stone? and ‘portable altar’ of the Western churches. The use of the antimension is said to go back to the eighth century a.D. when, in times of persecution, a cloth containing relics could be easily folded or concealed. Indeed, the altar is, in a sense, a tomb as well as a place of sacrifice. The altar as tomb recalls the custom, almost universal in

the Middle and Near East, of placing food-offerings upon the graves of relatives or of eating meals, ritual and otherwise, by or on the grave; not only on the anniversary, but at certain seasons. For instance, in Iraq, on a certain day in spring called Ras-as-Sena (Beginning of the Year) Christians, especially Armenians, visit the graves of kinsfolk, burn incense, recite prayers and eat food placed by or on the tomb. Yazidis at the of the Passion. Inset at the corners are representations of the four evangelists or of beasts symbolical of them. The antimins of the Russian Church is similar and

used in the same way. The antimension is kept folded with the iliton, a white linen cloth or veil, and when laid on the altar the antimension is uppermost. 1 The dapa, like the Coptic and Jacobite tablitho, is of mulberry, apricot, almond, walnut or sesame wood;

i.e. the wood of trees which bear ‘life-foods’. The three

communities avoid placing relics into their altar-boards, for they consider the latter sacred to Life. Thus, Jacobites forbid any animal substance to be placed on the tablitho: candles must be of wax and books bound in cloth, not leather. Nestorians permit nothing but the paten and chalice to be placed on the dapa. In a Nestorian church, bones of saints are placed in the foundations and occasionally the building is erected over the tomb of a saint, but relics are never placed in or on an altar. Copts, according to Dr. Fortescue (The Lesser Eastern Churches, p. 270), keep their rélics ‘sewn up in what look like bolsters about the church, mostly under pictures of saints’. The tablitho, usually called loh-al-ahad, lies in the centre of the Coptic altar (which is usually a large cube of stone or bricks). I was permitted to examine one, but not to touch it, as it is consecrated by the patriarch with olive-oil and meyrin and corresponds to the altar-stones of other rites. The Ten Commandments were represented by ten Coptic letters grouped in pairs round a centre cross, small crosses adorning each corner. My Coptic friends told me that the fabit of the Abyssinians was exactly the same as their tablitho except that Amharic script replaced Coptic characters. I had no opportunity of verifying this. 2 The altar-stone of the Latins must always have relics enclosed within it. It may be as small as a foot square. According to the Epone Council, 509 A.D., only an altar built of stone

can be

consecrated

with

chrism;

nevertheless,

early

Christian communion tables were apparently of wood. During World War II Catholic clergy celebrated mass on altar-stones placed on such incongruous places

as the running-boards of cars, or gun-carriages.

25

Water into Wine

spring feast! place offerings of boiled wheat and eggs on the graves of their dead and on the last day add to the offerings meat from the lamb or kid ritually slaughtered for the spring feast. Any passer-by is invited to eat of the food on the graves. In Diabekr and Mardin after a Christian funeral and a mass celebrated

for the

deceased,

and

also on

the

eve

of the

Assumption of the Virgin,” relatives visit the grave and there distribute fruit and bread to those present, asking recipients to pray for the soul of the dead. Moslems, both Shi‘a and Sunni, distribute food at the graveside at the time of burial, and on the fortieth day after decease. During festivals women repair to the cemetery to eat a meal on or by the grave of a recently deceased relative :in Egypt they sometimes spend the night at the tomb bringing their meals with them. I have seen such pious picnics, accompanied often by chanting and weeping, in Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria and Turkey: indeed the custom is widespread in Moslem countries. Lane (M.E., pp. 485-6 and p. 533) describes similar practices in Cairene graveyards. They still go on. The dishes upon which such commemorative feasts are placed are sometimes ordinary household crockery; or reed mats or flaps of bread are used, the latter being preferred. I referred above to the paten used for the bread at mass. It is of metal, usually of silver. At the Parsi Yasna ceremony, small shallow metal bowls of two sizes are used; Mandaeans

employ similar bowls at the masigta and dukrana, but also place ritual foods in small heaps ranged round their farianas, kintas

or spaces of hardened mud cleansed for such a meal. No special platters are made for Jewish ritual meals as far as I know, but a special goblet is usually provided for drinking ritual wine. The ritual bowl or cup from which sacred life-fluids are drunk does not vary greatly in character when used in religious rites by those of differing creeds, for the simple reason that

drinking-vessels, when not ornate, resemble one another all over the world. Parsis and Mandaeans both drink from low metal bowls about two and a half inches across, and these bear 1 See my account in Peacock Angel (Murray, 1941)and on pp. 37-8 below.

2 They believe that the Virgin takes the souls of the dead with her when she ascends to heaven.

26

Temple and Table

striking resemblance to drinking-bowls depicted on Mithraic bas-reliefs. I was told that at one time Nestorians used similar bowls at their mass, but they now drink from a chalice with a stem and foot, like other Christian communities, the Orthodox, Jacobite, Coptic, Abyssinian. The chalice is usually plain.

27

II THE

SEASON

OF

LIFE

RENEWED

a8 HE EARLIEST division of the year into months in ancient times was regulated by the moon. Twelve months or moons counted from full moon to full moon, a mean period of nearly twenty-nine days and a half, however suitable for nomads travelling by night and wandering in search of pasturage, proved an unsatisfactory reckoning for agriculturists dependent on regular seasons for crops; and in early agricultural communities an attempt was made to bring seasons dependent on the sun and the old periods governed by the moon into line. By the time of Hammurabi the Babylonians,

for instance, had adopted the Nippur calendar and the year was divided into twelve moon-months (354 days) with an extra month (dirigu or diru) inserted by royal decree from time

to time as the priests directed, so as to avoid discrepancy between time and season.! In Egypt, one of the calendars concurrently observed in that country, namely, that connected with Osiris, grain and the fate of the soul after death, consisted of twelve thirty-day months with five extra days not counted into a month.2 It seems to have been characteristic of cults which accepted the system of intercalation, that the period of time which set the reckoning right was accounted either sacred or dangerous. Where five-day intercalation was 1 In 381 B.c. intercalation was observed in nineteen-year cycles, years 0, 3, 6, 11, 14 and 17 had a second Adar and year g a second Ululu. (See Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘Calendar’, and Landsberger, Der Kultische Kalender der Babylonier u. Assyrer (Leipzig, 1915); also B.M.S.L., pp. 10 and 142.) 2 The first of these five intercalary days was considered as the birthday of Osiris, the second of Horus, the third of Set, the fourth of Isis and the fifth of

Nephthys. These five days were thought to be fraught with danger and on them special incantations were recited for protection. (See Warren R. Dawson, ‘Some

Observations on the Egyptian Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days’, Journal of Egptian Archaeology, X11, 1926, p. 263, and Leyden Papyrus 346.)

28

The Season of Life Renewed adopted, the interval was inserted at a change of season, at a time when temporary drought, cold or extreme heat were tempered by the return of conditions favourable to cultivation. For convenience, we can call such a change a time of life

renewed. As crops and grass depend on rain and river, a reduplication and sometimes multiplication of the New Year theme occurs in seasonal ritual according to the importance of the crop expected. Religious communities which adopted a five-day intercalation usually inserted these sacred days in the spring, yet did not always celebrate the New Year at that time. The New Year is, however, invariably celebrated at the beginning of a month important to the sowing of grain and the revivification of the soil. For instance, Zoroastrians, who by about the time of Darius had adopted a division of the year similar to that of the ancient Egyptian priestly year mentioned above, in Magian times observed their New Year’s feast in the spring! and, according to Al-Birini who wrote of Persian Zoroastrians in the tenth century A.D., the five intercalary days and the New Year then coincided, both being celebrated in the spring. Today this is no longer the case: the Parsis still place the five intercalary days between the last and first months in the springtime—the popular Nau Riz festival of modern Iran, but they observe another New Year feast in the autumn. On the other hand, Parsi five-day festivals connected with the cult of the dead recur at other minor seasons of ‘life renewed’ and a five-seasonal year seems to have existed in the Old Avestan time. Five seasons occur in the Brahmanas. Mandaeans also celebrate the New Year in the later year (the first of Qam Daula, the ‘first winter’ month) but have retained the five sacred days in the spring. Their astrological codex shows that at one time the Mandaean New Year followed on the five intercalary days in Nisan (April). At least three of their annual religious feasts show recurrence of the ‘life renewed’ theme, as will be described later.2

Copts begin their year, composed of thirty-day months, in 1 The ancient Persians made the necessary adjustment caused by the quarter day by intercalating a day in February every fourth year. Persians in India neglected this intercalation.

2 Mandaeans divide the year into four seasonal periods (see M.M.I.I., p. 84).

29

Water into Wine

the autumn; the five intercalary days are inserted after the last day of the year. Every fourth year the five days become six in order to synchronise their year with the solar reckoning.! Jews corrected their calendar by inserting a year at certain intervals. Today they have four ‘new years’, two major and two minor.? The first falls in Nisan and begins the religious year, and from it are counted the new moons which decide religious festivals throughout the year. The second, Rosh Hashana (beginning of the year), is at the end of September or opening days of October: it begins the solar year and is supposed to date from the Creation. The third is on the fifteenth of Shabat (February) and is called Rosh Hashana la ilanoth (New Year for trees), in the Iraqi vernacular ‘the blossoming, or bursting forth, of trees’. The fourth has lapsed, for it was the new year for tithes and dues in the time when Temple services were held in Jerusalem. As it fell on the first day of Ellul, when crops were being gathered in, it was a convenient day to collect from farmers and peasants. At the three other Jewish new years, ritual meals are eaten. Parsis observe no less'than six sacred five-day festivals during the year, all called Gahambar. These are connected with the seasons and are independent of the New Year festival and the five intercalary days. The first Gahambar takes place from the forty-fifth day after Nau Riz—New (year’s) Day—and Modi (M., p. 446) says that its name, Maidhyozarem, means ‘midspring’. These seasonal festivals have as their primary object thanksgiving, and are associated with communal feasting and with ritual meals for the dead. New Year ceremonies in Iran at the time of Al-Biriini (a.p. 973-1048) occupied ten days, the five of the last month with the five intercalary days which followed them. He says: ‘The last five days of the month

(i.e. Aban-Mah),

the

first of which is Ashtadh, are called Farwardjan. During this

time people put food in the halls of the dead and drink on the roofs of the houses, believing that the spirits of the dead 1 See Lane, op. cit., p. 225. 2 The Mishna mentions four New Year’s days, one of which, Rosh Hashana, is the beginning of the year dated from the Creation: in the religious year this fell on the first day of the seventh month. Concerning the multiplicity of Hebrew

“new years’, see Professor S. H. Hooke (M & R, p. 12).

39

The Season of Life Renewed during these days come out from the places of their reward and punishment, that they go to the dishes laid out for them,

imbibe their strength, and suck their taste. They fumigate their houses with juniper that the dead may enjoy its smell.

The spirits of the pious men dwell among their families, children and relations, and occupy themselves with their affairs, although invisible to them. Regarding these days there has been among the Persians a controversy. According to some they are the last five days of the month of Ab4n, according to others they are the Andergah, i.e. the five Epagomenae which are added between Aban and Adharmah. When the controversy and dispute increased, they adopted all (ten) days in order to establish the matter on a firm basis, as this is one of the chief institutes of their religion, and because they wished to be careful, since they were unable to ascertain the real facts of the case. So they called the first five days the second Farwardjan;

the latter, however, is more

important than the former.’ (Chronology of Ancient Nations: Sachau’s translation, p. 210.)

Parsis now call the five days of the last month of the year the Panj-i-keh, ‘the lesser five days’, and regard the five! intercalary days which follow them, the ‘Gatha days’, as holier, although all ten are sacred and devoted to the cult of the fravashis (spirits) of the dead. The New Year’s festival, like Nau Riz, commemorates the creation of man.2 I have not been present at Parsi New Year ceremonies in India or those of their co-religionists in Iran. As to the former, Modi says that they begin with a thorough cleansing and

washing of the house, especially of the room in which the rites are to be observed. The house should be perfumed with frankincense and with sandalwood, and pots of water, dishes of fruit

and vases of flowers are placed represents the soul of a member deceased elders. Flowers, fruits daily during the ten days. It is

on stands or tables. Each pot of the family lately dead or of and water should be changed with these memorial pots that

1 The number ‘five’, whether connected or not with the five sacred days which mark a time of ‘life renewed’, appears persistently in Parsi ritual. For instance,

the Parsi celebrant partakes five times of the sacred foods at Baj ceremonies for the dead, sets five dishes and five sacramental drinking-bowls on the table for the Yasna rite, performs a ceremony of ‘Five Twigs’ and so on. 2 See M., p. 394. 31

Water into Wine

the ceremony of the muktdd is connected.! This consists of bread, wine, water and fruit consumed ritually in memory of, and naming, the deceased, and is performed in the house of the

nearest relative. At this season ritual meals for the dead are also celebrated by priests at the temple, and prayers for the dead are recited in private households by visiting priests. During the ten days laymen should read aloud portions of the Yasna and the Gathas. Visits are exchanged and callers bring garlands of fresh flowers, which are placed in the flower-vases of the dead. Several of these Parsi ceremonies resemble those performed at the Jewish Rosh Hashana, the first of the month Tishri. The feast lasts for two days and begins on the eve, i.e. at sunset,

of the previous day. During the last days of the old year housewives wash their houses and dishes scrupulously and set the ritual table for the ritual meal before sundown. As I shall describe a Jewish New Year’s festival in detail elsewhere, I need only mention here that wine, water, bread, honey and

specified fruits and vegetables are eaten at this semi-ritual meal, and in the Yemen? it is usual to place greenery round the table. The meal is consumed on return from the synagogue. The next morning is largely spent in the synagogue, where the ram’s horn is blown. Although a Qaddish3 may be recited for the benefit of a deceased relative during the New Year’s services, no rite for the dead is performed, no prayer for their souls is recited at the

semi-ritual meals eaten on the eves of the first and second days of the New Year: indeed, there is nothing said or done at the festival which could remotely suggest cult of the dead. The same might be said of other Jewish rituals at which, after study of analogous Gentile rites, traces of such a cult might be looked for. Prayers said at these Jewish ceremonies are practically confined to blessings of the Creator, although they invoke blessing on Jewry, recall the ancient triumphs of

Israel and implore the continued favour of the Most High. There is, however, a traditional commemoration of the dead in a custom common to Iraqi, Kurdish, Yemeni, Persian,

1M., pp. 474ff.

2 My informant was a Yemenite Jew. See also Brauer, J. J., p. 241. 3 A prayer recited for the dead: see Appendix. 32

The Season of Life Renewed

Egyptian and most Oriental Jews, namely of visiting the graves of their dead on the day preceding New Year. On that day Jewesses sit in the cemeteries weeping aloud, praying and kissing the tombs of loved ones. All should join in a general prayer for those buried there, petitioning that the dead may rise in the world to come and that those suffering gilgul (transmigration)! may be released. Passages in Josephus (Antiq., Bk. xviii, chap. 3 and Bell. Jjud., Bk. ili, chap. 8, par. 5) suggest some such belief in his day. The Jewish New Year is known as ‘the day of remembrance’ and it is taught that at this time all mankind pass like sheep before the Almighty to receive a verdict of life or death for the coming twelvemonth. Yemenite Jews call the first to the tenth of Tishri

‘the sublime

days’, or use the Arabic

expression,

‘Id al-Khamisi (Feast of the Five),? for the festival. The ten days which begin with Rosh Hashana (Tishri 1st) and end with the Day of Atonement (Tishri 1oth) are called in the Talmud asereth yeme teshuva (the ten days of repentance). The association of five and ten days with the New Year recalls the Persian ‘five’ and ‘ten’—see above. The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), a day of fasting and seclusion, marks the day on which many Jews believe that the fate of the community and the individual is decided for the following days of the year. After evening service on the eve of that day pious Jews in Baghdad of the old school, even in my time, bared themselves to the waist and underwent scourging at the hands of the hazan. When thirty-nine strokes had been administered with a scourge of sheepskin, ass-skin and bullskin—the combination is suggestive>—the penitent washed 1 The belief that impure souls after death pass into the bodies of animals, reptiles, birds, trees and fruit is not confined to Jewish Kabbalists. It is a feature of the Yazidi creed, and of the Druzes of Syria and Palestine. As Buddhist missionaries are known to have travelled along the trade routes from the Far East it is

perhaps worthy of note that the Druzes assert that meritorious members of their creed are reborn as Chinese. 2 J.J., p. 319. Could this refer to five of the ‘ten days’? Brauer’s explanation that it refers to the Arab custom of cutting the first fruit at the New Year, ‘die ihren Namen nach dem Stern hami§ tragt’, seems unconvincing. 3 Flagellation, and the use of the skins of three animals useful to a farmer,

suggests a fertility rite. As for the number of strokes, although forty is the number

4

33

Water into Wine

himself, and then immersed

himself in a running source, al-

though this was usually ‘flowing’ only in name, since it was the miqveh, the ritual tank fed by seepage from the river. Kurdish Jews took this ritual bath in a stream or river.! The ancient themes of death and revival, entombment and emergence seem to be absent from the Jewish Rosh Hashana, which falls in early autumn: nevertheless, certain threads of that well-worn pattern appear in the Feast of Tabernacles, which occurs on the fifteenth day of the New Year. The joyful rites performed then, the fresh greenery of the booths, the elaborate symbolism of lulab? and ethrog? are evidently designed to prefigure a good rainfall and abundance of green things of the earth. Nor is the sequence of idea which links renewed activity in Nature with regenerative forces in the world of spirit unrepresented. Kabbalists in Iraq and Israel associate the eve of Hosh‘ana Rabba, i.e. the seventh day of Tabernacles, with the cult of the dead, and believe that Hashkavahs and other mystical rites performed that evening assist souls enduring gi/gul. Similar beliefs inspire their prayers and ceremonies performed at the ‘New Year for Trees’ (in Israel ‘Arbour Day’) and the day of the ‘Blessing of the Trees’. The former falls in the middle of the cold season when the first signs of Oriental spring appear, the latter immediately after

Passover, when fruit-trees in the gardens of Lower Iraq are in full blossom. The Mandaean New Year begins with a solemn vigil. Like ancient Babylonians, modern Zoroastrians, Yazidis and Jews, Mandaeans believe that it commemorates the creation of the universe. The Mandaean day, unlike the Jewish and Moslem day, does not begin at sunset, but at sunrise. The day before the first of Qam Daula is not only occupied in mass allowed by Mosaic law, usually thirty-nine are given. A rabbi in Baghdad told me that the orthodox scourge should be composed of bull-skin and donkey-skin, in reference to Isa. i, 3. 1 Al-Birtini (0p. cit., p. 203), describing New Year immersions in the Persia of his day, wrote: ‘He’ (Yama) ‘ordered people to wash themselves with water in order to clean themselves of their sins, and to do so every year, that God might keep them aloof from the calamities of the year.’ 2 A staff or wand woven of fresh myrtle, willow and palm-frond. 3 Arabic trunj: a species of citron. Citrus fruit appears on the Persian Nau Riz

table and on the ritual table of the Mandaeans.

34

The Season of Life Renewed baptisms, but, by the women, in washing the house, cleansing all pots and pans by giving them to the priest for a kind of baptism, in getting in supplies of food and water in preparation for a retreat from the outside world and in ritual meals for the dead ; so that all religious duties may be performed and that all may be ritually clean. On New Year’s Eve, according to them, spirits of life and light leave this earth in a body to pay yearly homage to the Creator.! Their journey to the Supreme Lord occupies twelve hours, the visit twelve and the return twelve, so that for thirty-six hours the world is left defenceless and at the mercy of all that is dark and dangerous. As the sun goes down, therefore, men and women go within doors and remain there for the entire thirty-six. Within the house every precaution against pollution is observed. None but children sleep, and prayers are read continually. Should a death occur, the

corpse is covered with white and left untouched and unburied.2 During the vigil Mandaean priests consult their astrological codex; and endeavour to forecast the future of the community and of individuals. On the second having returned, rejoicing. During creature that has

day of the new year, the unseen protectors the vigil is ended and there is universal the second, third, fourth and fifth days no breath may be killed; no beast or bird is

slaughtered for food and only fish, fruit, vegetables and various grains and nuts are eaten. A second phase opens with the dawn of the sixth day called ‘the Little New Year’ or ‘Feast of Twigs’. No light or fire may be kindled for thirty-six hours. Food is distributed to the poor, and religious ceremonies of all kinds, which ceased during the first five days,4 may again be i Images of the gods were taken to pay ceremonial calls on one another by the priests during the Babylonian New Year celebrations, and a reference to ‘fixing fates’ suggests that during the festival decisions were made concerning favourable and unfavourable days, basing them on adjustments of the calendar (See Rawlinson, Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 52, No. 3, transcribed by Virolleaud in Babylonica, iv, 109-33, and translated by S. H. Langdon, B.M.S.L., 108-9.) 2 Whereas at other times of the year the elaborate death-rites start before the breath has left the body, and burial takes place within twelve hours. It is thought a great misfortune to die at this time, and special masigtas for the soul must be

celebrated. 3 The Sfar Malwasia (Book of the Zodiac: 1949, published for the Royal Asiatic Society by Luzac and Co., Gt. Russell St., London, W.C.).

4 Excepting death ceremonies and funerals.

35

Water into Wine

performed. Priests weave wreaths of willow and myrtle and visit houses and reed-huts, hanging a wreath above every doorway. On the eve of the sixth day fariania (ritual tables)! are put out in every house, one for each inmate, also a brazier on which

incense is cast. On each ritual table a light and food is placed. The light is either a wax taper or a vessel of vegetable oil in which a wick is kindled; the food consists of round household bread, salt, pomegranates, quince, klaichas (sweet festival patties like mince-pies, containing raisins, currants, spices, etc.), onions, vegetables and fruit in season. These are said to be offerings to the ‘uthria (spirits of life) who are expected to come as guests to every Mandaean home that night. The next morning, the spiritual counterparts of the food having been presumably consumed by the unseen visitors, all the good things are eaten by the family.

In November the Mandaean ‘Little Feast’ repeats New Year themes, for it commemorates the return of a spirit of light, Hibil-Ziwa, from the underworlds to the world of light and life. In a manner it, too, commemorates creation, for the union

of this divine spirit with a female spirit of the underworld called Zahariel results in the birth of Pthahil, the demiurge who was first entrusted with the work of creating the earth. Sumerian and Babylonian New Year ritual commemorating the disappearance of a vegetation or sun-deity, his return and his marriage, linked to a creation myth, are traceable in this

legend. The feast lasts for three days devoted to baptism and ritual meals for the dead. The most joyous, Mandaean calendar (a name which may It now takes place

as well as the most sacred, feast of the is that of Panja (‘the Five’) or Parwanaiia be related to the Persian Farvadegan).? during the first half of Nisan (April),

when the Tigris and the Euphrates are in flood. During the five days preceding, no religious ceremony except a funeral may be performed, and no undertaking of importance should be begun, for these are ‘days of darkness’. They are followed 1 See pp. 23-4. 2 Has the word ‘ Farwa’ or ‘ Parva’ any connection with the chamber of Parvah in the Herodian temple, and the reputed association of this chamber with a

Magian? Cf. the Mandaean Parwan and Parwanaiia: ‘an’ is merely a suffix.

36

The Season of Life Renewed by the five intercalary days, ‘days of light’. Mandaeans are forbidden to pray after sunset at other times of the year, but during the nights of Parwanaiia darkness is considered nonexistent, and praise and prayer flow continually. Barriers between this world and the next are down. Those ‘out of the body’, to use the Mandaean phrase for their dead, are with their loved ones and share in communion (laufa) with them ritual meals eaten in their names. The perfected souls of ancestors and spirits of life and light have especial power at this time to help the living. Should a person have the good fortune to die during the sacred five days (and some sick and aged persons contrive pious suicide then by undergoing baptism in the icy waters of spring), he or she will pass quickly through the purgatories to the world of light. During Panja, especially on the last of the five days, special ceremonies are performed by the priests for those who, during the past year, died in a state of impurity, or not wearing ritual garments.! Every symbol of life germinating, life triumphant and of rebirth appears in these rites. Myrtle, citrus fruit, date, pomegranate, raisins, sesame and other symbolic fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts are all to be found on the ritual tables together with the arch-symbols of ‘life renewed’, wheat and bread. For the five days every lay Mandaean is expected to wear white and go barefoot.2 Sheep are slaughtered for lay feasting and charity, and a small piece of sheep’s fat is placed on zidga brika (Holy Oblation) tables.

Every man, woman and child should be baptised and all share in sacraments which commemorate the dead. During the second World War I was present at another feast of ‘life renewed’, namely, the Yazidi spring feast celebrated in the Kurdish hills about the middle of April. It followed the usual pattern, and as I have described it at some length in another book,3 I will here only summarise. The feast began with mourning and lamentation: the elder women visited the graves, where dirges were sung to the pipe and drum of the gawwals (religious chanters), whilst the mourning women 1 For ‘The Bestowal of Garments’ and other Mandaean rites at Panja, see M.M.I.I. and Z.D.M.G. 105, Heft 1. 21 have heard those who wear leather shoes during the five days bitterly reproached by their priest. 3 Peacock Angel (see p. 26, note 1).

37

Water into Wine

wept and beat their breasts. Incense was burnt on the graves and upon most of them boiled wheat and eggs were placed, this food being offered to any who passed. In the evening male lambs and kids were slaughtered and some of their blood smeared on the doorposts!; then all took a bath. The next day, at dawn, scarlet ranunculus was above the lintel of every door, the flowers plastered in place by a daub of clay, tiny bunches of this flower being thus attached to every tombstone and even fastened above the entrance-holes in the primitive clay beehives. Every girl wore one or two in her turban. Eggs,” boiled and stained, were exchanged and no work was done. Visits to graves and mourning continued, and that night solemn vigil? was held till dawn at a local shrine. At the vigil a wheaten porridge called harisa was eaten with some of the slaughtered lamb as a communal meal, the religious head of the sect presiding, and hymns were chanted by the gawwdls to an accompaniment of tambours and pipes. The next (third) day all was rejoicing. The elders repaired to the shrine, and in the enclosed space before the tomb a drummer beat a tattoo and the piper shrilled a long note, both kneeling and facing the tomb, whilst onlookers kept silence. It recalled the solemn blowing of the ram’s horn which is believed by simple Jews to reach the ear of the Lord and rouse his attention. Both men then entered the tomb, and on their reappearance played a traditional melody as gay as that played for the Helston Furry dance, whilst the men, arms

linked, formed a circle for the stamping ritual dance round the courtyard. After this followed an adjournment to the grassy sward outside the shrine, where men and women joined in a more vigorous version of the same dance, leaping and stamping in a circle round and round to the sound of pipe and drum, a dance which continued all day and far into the night. 1 Cf. the Babylonian New Year ceremony of smearing (kuppuru) the walls of the temple of Marduk with the blood of a sheep (C. G. Gadd, M & R., p. 52;

also Exo. xii, 22-3). 2 Eggs are eaten by Jews after the death of a relative. Formerly, it was the custom amongst Baghdad Jews to give a bereaved family boiled eggs to eat on their return from the funeral. The giving of ‘Easter eggs’ goes back to ancient practice in pre-Christian times in Persia. 3 Even Europeans—as James Morier in Hajji Baba of Isfahan—repeat the malicious slander that at this Yazidi vigil sexual orgies take place.

38

The Season of Life Renewed A dance something like this used to take place round and round the tevah in the Great Synagogue in Baghdad on the day of Simhath

Torah, which follows the Feast of Tabernacles;

moreover, Passover (MOD) is thought by some scholars to have been named after a leaping, springing dance! performed at — this feast of unleavened bread. If so, it is natural to surmise that

this ancient springtime dance may have resembled the tawwafi danced by the Yazidis. The dancers move round hand in hand, planting the right foot firmly forwards and backwards and leaping upwards as the measure dictates. One spring I chanced to pass Kurdish peasants, all men, performing a similar dance in some fields near Arbil. Kurds name these traditional dances, which are of several kinds, ‘Dance of Spring’, ‘Dance of

Flowers’, ‘Dance of Victory’, etc. A trampling dance of this kind, the debka, may be seen on any festal occasion, such as a

wedding, from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. As the Easter customs of Oriental Christians are too numerous to include in this book, they are purposely omitted, although they are very relevant to its theme. Every mass cele-

brates life triumphant over death, so that it is natural that symbols familiar in seasonal ritual, ancient and modern, should re-appear in many details of its celebration. I may instance the prominence of the number ‘five’, which in Zoroastrian and Mandaean rites is constantly associated with change of season. For this I refer readers to later chapters, or still better, to the Index.? In ancient Babylonia and Sumer the New Year festival was celebrated in Nisan, the month of spring. In Erech, Ur and

possibly in all Babylonian cities there were two celebrations of ‘life renewed’, in spring and in autumn. The Accadian rites (see Thureau-Dangin’s Rituels Accadiens, pp. 127-48) at the New Year have been usefully summarised by Professor Frankfort (Cylinder Seals, Macmillan, 1939, pp. 96-7). The festival 1 The root PSH can mean ‘to dance with a limp’, ‘to leap’, ‘to spring’. See alsoM & R., p. 117. 2 E.g. the Orthodox ceremony of the ‘Five Breads’ (p. 60, n. 2). [Church tradition associates this ceremony with the miraculous feeding of the five thousand by Christ. The breaking and blessing of the five loaves is described by the evangelists with an emphasis which might indicate a festival occasion. The time of year was either spring or autumn (they sat on grass: Mark says ‘green grass’, John ‘much grass’). Fish is often a ritual dish.]

39

Water into Wine

included a solemn mourning, incarceration, a vigil, a ‘fixing of the fates’,1 ceremonies figuring revival or resurrection, a sacred marriage, dancing, a feast and the recitation of the Epic of Creation. The order of these events is by no means clear and a number of different reconstructions have been attempted by scholars.2 ‘Part of it,’ says Professor Frankfort of the Epic of Creation, ‘or all of it was moreover performed as a drama.’ 1 See p. 35, n. 1. 2 E.g. Dr. C. J. Gadd’s essay ‘Babylonian Myth and Ritual’ in M & R; and Professor S. H.-Hooke (O.E.S.R., Lecture I),

40

IIT. BREAD

OF LIFE

[en who have visited the museum in Cairo may remember seeing there frames filled with what appears to be short withered grass. These are examples of ‘germi-

nating Osiris’ which Dr. Baikie! describes as ‘one of the most vivid of Egyptian figures of the Resurrection, in which barley sown upon a figure of Osiris sprouted and so symbolised the new life after death’. The grain, arranged on wetted cloth, attained a certain height before it died off. These ‘beds of Osiris’2 were placed in Egyptian tombs as a mute expression

of the hope of the mourners. In countries bordering the Mediterranean the Adonis-cult inspired the making of ‘gardens of Adonis’, grain forced into temporary growth in receptacles which were later thrown into sea or river together with images of the god, at the season when women lamented the ‘youth untimely slain’, a season which also commemorated his yearly revival.3 When I was in Sicily many years ago, I saw in the churches

during Holy Week beds of which were set pots of wheat grown in cellars. These were day the figure of Christ was

sand, sometimes coloured, upon forced into pale growth by being called sepolcrt and on Holy Thurslifted from the crucifix and laid

upon them. Bowls of forced grain, wheat or lentils are placed every Nau Riz by Persians, and at New Year by the Chinese,

on trays and tables as parables of ‘life renewed’. Kurdish and Persian Moslems have an interesting Nau Riz custom, a 1 Egyptian Antiquities in the Nile Valley by Jas. Baikie, D.D., F.R.A.S., p. 86. 2 For ‘Osiris-beds’ see A. H. Gardiner, The Tomb of Amenemhet, p. 115. 3 See Sir Jas. Frazer’s Attis Adonis Osiris (chap. x). The forced corn symbolised both the resuscitated hero and the springing crops. He mentions ‘gardens of Gethsemane’ like the sepolcri I describe above. 41

Water into Wine

semi-religious rite! by which wheat brought to the height of a few inches is ceremonially prepared and eaten. Babylonian Jews filled baskets with earth and manure

in which they sowed

beans or pulse about a fortnight before the New Year, one for each member of the family.2 On New Year’s Day each basket was turned seven times round the head of the person in whose name it was grown, and then hurled into the river. There are, of course, a vast number of practices throughout

the Middle East, both magical and religious, based upon the symbolical character of wheat and other edible grain. As an allegory of life after death and also of the communion of living and dead it is eaten in the form of bread, or boiled as in harisa3 and kolyba. I witnessed the latter rite in the Holy Sepulchre. It was performed by priests of the Greek Orthodox

Church, and was previously explained to me by one of the Greek fathers. Its principal feature was kolyba (pronounced kolyva), i.e. wheat boiled till tender, but in such a manner that the grains, softened by careful cooking, remained separate. I transcribe my notes made at the time and just before. When ready and sweetened, kolyba is transferred to a large dish and sprinkled with sesame and flour slightly browned in the oven until the surface of the boiled wheat is covered. Upon this the letters JX’ XX NIKA (‘Jesus Christ conquers’) are traced by the priest, or sometimes just a cross. Round the edge of the dish sugared almonds and other kinds of nut, such as walnuts and hazel-nuts,4 are placed. This dish is often eaten communally at the grave on the day of burial together with bread and wine, and the priest who accompanies the relatives to the grave blesses and distributes the kolyba. Although this is customary, the kolyba may be omitted. The bread and wine are compulsory. The dish should be prepared and eaten communally at 1 Samani or samanu: a dish made from pounding this wheat (with ceremonies too long to be described here), cooking it and adding nuts to it. 2 Rashi (B. Shabbat, 81b). 3 For boiled wheat and harisa at the Yazidi New Year, see p. 38. 4 Nuts are a ‘life-renewed’ food. Mandaeans place them on ritual tables for the dead, and by Jews a benediction anthem is recited at a Hashkavah for a dead person on the eve of their feast for the Blossoming of Trees. Isabel Hapgood (Service Book of the Holy Orthodox Church, S.P.C.K., London) says (p. 613) that honey is an ingredient of kolyba. I was merely told ‘sweetened’, but no doubt it was honey, see ‘life-foods’, p. 8. 42

Bread of Life intervals of nine days and forty days after death, and again on the anniversary of decease. When I was present at the ceremony, the rite took place in the chapel of Golgotha in the Holy Sepulchre. In the centre of this chapel a table ‘had been placed; it was covered by a black cloth upon which was a single lit candle in a candlestick draped with black, also the kolyba. I arrived halfway through the mass at which, of course, the name of the dead woman had been pronounced. The bereaved family had prepared the kolyba and had taken it to the church, and it had been set on the table either before or

during the mass. When the liturgy was ended, five candles were placed on the altar and the clergy ranged themselves in two rows facing each other, holding lighted candles.! The service began by repeating thrice ‘In the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost’. Several troparia were then chanted, each row chanting alternately, and during the service a priest censed the table, walking round it and blessing the kolyba. A list of deceased persons on a piece of paper was

handed to the priest, who read the names aloud, the response ‘Lord have mercy’ being given after each name. Finally, those present went first to the sanctuary to receive the usual antidoron,2 and then, as they went out of the chapel,

each took from the priest who stood by the door a piece of kolyba. The recipient’s hand had been previously covered by a handkerchief or piece of white cloth. This each person folded together and took it and its contents away with him, presumably to eat it at home.

The grinding of many grains into flour, its mingling with water, kneading and baking, a daily task performed over many thousands of years, becomes a sacramental act when the bread is intended for mass, masigta or other ritual meal. Even the domestic loaf is honoured by Arabs above all other food. Its name in Egypt is Pues ‘life’: to deny it to a beggar or ask payment for it in the desert, however poor, is a sin. It is still thought the duty of any pious person seeing bread on the 1 Mourners are given lighted candles at funerals by most Oriental communities. At commemorative services (Hashkavahs) Oriental Jews hold lit candles: if not, they must be present on the table. 2 Antidoron is bread blessed at an Orthodox mass (not bread consecrated on the altar) which, after mass is concluded, is distributed to those present.

43

Water into Wine

ground to lift it up, dust it, kiss it and place it on a wall, or some place where it is safe from trampling. It.is not only a symbol of life. Bread, itself a union of many grains into a single substance,! when broken into fragments and divided amongst many, becomes a symbol of life shared, of a society at peace

with itself, of a family bound together by a common faith. Its sanctity as a symbol of family unity is preserved by the Jews: the father as head of the family blesses bread, breaks it and gives fragments to his wife and children as a religious act which sanctifies their daily food. By those of other faiths it is broken at meals which commemorate those who are no longer ‘in the body’ but still belong to those who hold them dear and to the faith in which they died. Sometimes the ‘grace’ pronounced over a family meal makes mention of the dead: a Nestorian ‘grace’ translated by A. J. Maclean (East Syrian Daily Offices, p. 254), after petitions that food may never fail and that the faithful may be blessed, adds ‘may their departed be quickened, may their trespasses and sins be pardoned and may they be worthy of the good things of the Kingdom’. As said above, bread intended for purely sacramental use is usually prepared in a manner which fits it for the purpose. The Mandaean priest observes strict rules. Only a priest can grind the wheat and this must be carefully examined to see that no other grain is mixed with it. It is first given threefold 1 In the second century a.D. cheese was a symbol of union, as well as bread. In the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (A.P.H., p. 37) we find this prayer for an offering of cheese and olives: ‘Sanctify this milk that has been united into one mass, and unite us to Thy love’, etc. Dr. Easton comments: ‘This blessing at the eucharist of food other than the bread and wine is a remnant of a primitive custom when the rite included a meal.’ Cheese, with honey, was given to a Jewish bridal pair in medieval Europe, presumably as a symbol of union At the Jewish Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, a vegetarian meal supplemented by milk and cheese is eaten in Iraq. Religious unity is symbolised by Parsis in another manner. Their ceremony of the aivyaghona conveys this idea: barsom twigs representing individual lives are bound into the unity of the bundle by a confining band of palm-leaf. The word aivyaghona means ‘bond’ or ‘tie’ and in the Avesta the term is applied to the ‘sacred thread’, i.e. the girdle consisting of a certain number of threads. A similar meaning is attached to the Mandaean himiana, which resembles the Parsi girdle. It is probable that the girdle mentioned by Josephus as worn by the Essene brotherhood was related to these, both in interpretation and in the manner of its weaving (see note on the ‘sacred thread’, Chapter XV). The Parsi ‘bundle’ recalls the Jewish expression ‘bundle of life’ (p. 92). The ancient fasces (lately the symbol of the Fascists) had not this meaning: it was rather ‘unity is strength’.

44

Bread of Life

immersion in running water. When dried in the sun, the priest grinds it between two millstones using a primitive handmill. A little salt is added to the flour for the baptismal bread which is then moistened with ‘living’ (flowing) water, kneaded in his palm by the stream, and baked on a ritual brazier upon which only ritually ‘clean’ wood is burnt. The shape of the bread is round: it is thin but not of wafer thinness and its size varies according to the number of communicants. For a single communicant the priest makes one small! pat: for his own communion before and after he makes and bakes each time separately. A large pihta! is baked for larger baptismal groups, each communicant receiving a fragment, followed by sacramental water (mambuha). The bread made for a masigia2 is unleavened and called a

fatira. It is the size of a coin, is thin and saltless and only symbolically baked—it is merely passed thrice through the fire. For lay commemoration of the dead (/aufa) and other commemorative meals in which laymen participate, the fatira is

larger and properly baked. It is round, flat and thin: in appearance not unlike the flaps of household bread on sale in any Arab market, but smaller. (Household bread is leavened by adding dough from a former baking.) The sa, the third type of Mandaean bread, has a shape which resembles no other kind of bread made domestically or commercially. It is unleavened and without salt. I discuss it on p. 69. The Parsi calls his sacred bread dariin3 or draona, and sometimes myazd, which probably means viaticum. It is flat, round, unleavened and made of best wheat flour and clarified butter. It must be made by a priest or by one of priestly caste. Marks imprinted in the dough distinguish a ‘named’ from an ‘unnamed’ dariin (see p. 204). The former should weigh thirty-one danks4 and the latter thirty-three.> The number of dariins made

varies according to the occasion: for the Paragna® ceremony a 1 Cf. Aramaic ND ‘a piece of bread’. 2 This meal corresponds to the Christian mass. 3 The Mithraic sacramental loaf was round, marked with a cross and called

dariin (see Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra, Chicago, 1903, p. 160). 4 Or dangas. A dank is one-fourth of a dram. 5 M., p. 356. 6 See pp. 202-11.

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number of small round shapes (chitayas) are prepared and consecrated for any of the congregation who wish to partake of the holy bread after the ceremony is over, a proceeding reminiscent of the Orthodox antidoron.1 For the Ba, another commemorative meal, four darins are required if this is celebrated in the name of all the yazatas (heavenly beings), and so on.? Jews use ordinary household bread, unleavened or not, for domestic ritual at most seasons of the year. As for shape, in Oriental Jewish households it is almost invariably round. For Passover the bread must be unleavened, and in Eastern countries hitherto the flour was usually ground from wheat, either bought or gathered in the fields. Until recently rich orthodox Jews in Iraq used to visit harvest-fields to gather good ears for the next year’s Passover. This wheat was kept in storerooms and called shemirah. Brauer (op. cit., 338) records that a similar custom reigns in the Yemen, and that nothing fermented is allowed in the place where the grain is stored. Preparations for Passover bread, he says, begin soon after Purim;

the wheat is threshed with sticks, sifted and placed in great jars. Later it is put between green plants (harmal) in layers, covered and twice left for twenty-four hours. It swells, heats and begins to ferment, becoming very white, and is then milled. Fermentation by fruit-juice (mia piroth) is also allowed, and such fer-

mentation is not regarded as infringement of the rule that nothing fermented should come into contact with the wheat. This method of whitening the flour is unknown in Iraq, and Iraqi Jews have no scruples about buying wheat in the market. It must, however, be examined, grain by grain, to see that no barley or other substance is amongst it, and it is carefully kept apart. The care to exclude foreign substances in shemiirah was extended in Iraq to rice eaten during the festival. The women sat round a big tray, as when they were examining the corn, and turned the rice over grain by grain. One grain of barley in rice cooked for the feast made the food ritually unlawful and 1 See p. 43, n. 2. 2 ‘For the Baj of Sraosha six (ddariins) are required. . . . Half of the dariins for the Baj are ‘“‘named” and half ‘“‘unnamed”’’ (M., p. 279). Sraosha is the angel

particularly concerned with care of the souls of the newly dead. He corresponds to Gauriel Shliha of the Mandaeans (the Jewish and Christian Gabriel). 3 A ball of dough (patted by hand) becomes a round loaf.

46

Bread of Life only fit to be thrown away.! In Kurdistan, not only must men bring water for the mixing on Nisan 13th, but only men may mix the dough, shape the loaves (massoth) and put them in the oven. Three or four decades ago, throughout Iraq, hundreds of Jews were to be seen on Passover Eve going down to the river with new jars on their shoulders in order to fill them with ritually-drawn water, a special grace being recited for the occasion. Nowadays, the taboo forbidding women to touch the dough is relaxed: in my time the prohibition held only during a menstrual period. The massoth for ‘Id-al-Fatir (Passover) are either sedarim (these are thick) or jerddik or ragig (thin). For the feast of Pentecost kahit loaves are baked, of a very fine flour soaked in melted butter and sugared water. On the ninth of Ab, which commemorates the fall of Jerusalem, klaichas are made, i.e. small thick round loaves of flour soaked in ghee, but

unsweetened. Bereaved families bake quantities of these and distribute them amongst parents, relatives and friends. The name of the deceased is written on small sheets of paper and attached to each loaf, and a Hashkavah2 is recited after con-

suming the klaicha. The same ritual is performed at the feast of Hanukkah when /alawa is distributed for the repose of the dead, a concoction of fine flour boiled with highly sugared water and sesame oil. This syrupy mixture is spread on loaves of ordinary bread and given to relatives and friends, the name of the dead being written on each loaf. For a Hashkavah ceremony such as that described on pp. 93-5 Aabbat helwa (terebinth berries) are crushed and baked with the flour for the ring-shaped bread called ka‘ak distributed to guests assembled for the mourning. These rings are not dipped in salt and the blessing? said for such bread differs from that pronounced over household bread.4 1 Brauer tells us further of Yemenite Jews: ‘The day before the Seder evening (Nisan 13th), at evening they bring the water with which the dough for the unieavened bread is made: men fetch it and not women as usual. On this evening, too, the search for unleavened substances begins. If found, it is wrapped up, laid

aside and burnt next day at dawn. On the 14th, the day of the Seder evening, therefore, only /huh (unleavened durra bread) is eaten.’ The unleavened bread, he says, is fresh baked each day of the feast and, when baking, the women shake the pans so that the dough may not ferment (op. cit., p. 340). Yemenite Jews use the Arabic ‘Id al-Fatir (Feast of Unleavened Bread) for ‘Passover’. 2 Appendix.

3 Mezonoth: ‘Blessed art Thou... who created different kinds of food.’ 4 Hamoseh: ‘Blessed art Thou... who putteth forth bread from the earth.’

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When we return to the Christians, we find the method of

making ritual bread varies with the sect. Leaving the use of Western churches aside, Armenians, the Catholic Syro-Malabar Church and the Maronites are alone in using unleavened bread at mass. The other Eastern rites, including the Malabar Jacobites, put leaven with the dough although, in the case of Chaldaeans and Nestorians, the leaven is not given time to rise. The shape of the loaf or wafer is always round ; thickness varies ; for instance, prosphoras made for mass in the Russian Orthodox church in Jerusalem stood about two and a half inches high. The loaf looked like a miniature of the old-fashioned English ‘cottage’ variety, for the dough is shaped into two balls placed one above the other, the smaller being uppermost. The lower

Fic. 1. ORTHODOX

SEAL AND

PROSPHORA

part was roughly about three inches wide. The top is flattened

slightly by the imprint of a round wooden stamp: the device is usually a crossed square bearing in its quarters the inscription IC XC NIKA (‘Jesus Christ conquers’). The exception is the loaf intended for commemoration of the Virgin Mary, and this may be marked, but not necessarily, by a special stamp, such as the Virgin and Child, or some other appropriate design. The size of the loaf may be increased when needful. In Jerusalem—TI am ignorant of the procedure of the Russian church

elsewhere—the Russian Orthodox prepare sacramental bread from pure wheaten flour, water, salt and leaven, the latter 1 The Mandaeans end every prayer with the formula ‘Life is victorious’. This

pious ‘Hiia zakin’ must be placed at the end of any = sacred text.

48

text or section of a

7

DUI

ZS

BIRR

&

ees

Prare 1. COPTIC ALTAR IN A FIFTH-CENTURY MONASTERY IN THE WADI NATRUN, EGYPT (see p. 24) The box for the chalice (the pitote) occupies the centre of the altar

Piate 2. ARMENIAN WAFER (NESHKAR) Note the wheat and other grain

(see p. 51)

Bread of Life being dough set aside from the last baking. It is made and

kneaded with no special ceremony by a priest, nun or pious woman. Five prosphoras are needed for mass; how they are used will be described in a later chapter. | The Greek Orthodox Church, whilst admitting the five prosphoras in theory, in practice use only one at their mass or, if a specially marked loaf is made to commemorate the ‘ Mother

of God’, two. Their prosphora is not two-tiered like that of the Russians. It is round and may be of any thickness—its size depends on the number to be communicated. It is usually prepared and baked in a convent or in the parish priest’s house, and is marked either with the square seal shown in Fig. 10) or with an elaboration of it (Fig. 10a). The ingredients are those used by the Russians : baking should result in a firm but not hard consistency. A detail of the Greek Orthodox stamp is not found on

that

of

the

Russians,

namely,

four

round,

hole-uke

depressions round the crossed square. These four marks were on all the Greek seals that I saw; their significance I was unable to discover, unless they were to prevent undue ‘rising’. The Greek Catholic (or Melkite) Church, the Uniate! branch of the Orthodox group, uses both the simpler stamp (Fig. 10) and the more elaborate (Fig. 10a). The latter embodies in a single loaf? the five prosphoras of an earlier ritual, thus simplifying matters for the celebrant when he arranges the bread on the paten, as will be explained presently. It will be seen that the plain square seal is triplicated in the centre, the three being placed vertically. The raised triangle, which represents the Mother of God, contains the letter ‘M’ for Métér, two small marks within the ‘M”’ (the Virgin’s breasts ?) and the Greek letter theta for Theou, i.e. ‘Mother of God’. The

triangle is surmounted by a cross and flanked by emblems of the Passion, the soldier’s lance, the reed and the sponge. This 1 A Uniate church is a body of Eastern Christians in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, but having its own rites, liturgical language, canon law of discipline, etc. The epithet ‘uniate’ is colloquial, but convenient. 2 This form of prosphora is preferred in the seminary for Greek Catholic priests in St. Anne’s, Jerusalem, where the White Fathers inculcate meticulous attention to points of ritual.

,

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large and well-defined triangle! should be contrasted with the small triangular protuberances to the right of the square seals. The protuberances, when cut out and placed on the paten, are nothing more than small fragments,? whereas the large, conelike triangle for the Virgin is carefully shaped. Bread for the Orthodox ceremony of the ‘Five Breads’—see the note at the end of this chapter—is generally made in a convent or in the priest’s house. The loaves are round and much larger and thicker than prosphoras. The centre of the top of each loaf is, as a rule, stamped with a device which represents the particular saint commemorated. The ceremony usually takes place on the eve of a festival or saint’s day. Members of the congregation who desire to be remembered at this cere-

mony bring flaps of household bread as an offering and these are piled beneath the table on which the five loaves are placed. The bread made at the Orthodox ceremony of the Ipsosis (see Pp. 97-9) is made like prosphoras used at mass. Armenians make sacramental bread on the same morning as the celebration of mass, generally in the church itself. The parish priest usually makes and bakes it. He must use the best and whitest wheaten flour procurable: the water used in mixing should be taken from a pure, running source. No leaven or salt is added to the dough, and kneading should be performed with the right hand only, although no written rule orders this. Whilst kneading, the priest should pray and recite the penitential psalms of David. When well kneaded, the dough is shaped into small balls, placed on a round board, rolled thin with a roller and then cut into rounds with a circular cutter. These rounds the priest lifts one by one and fits them to a wooden stamp, previously oiled to prevent sticking, pressing the soft dough in with his hand and fitting the projecting dough round the edge of the stamp so as to form a shallow rim. The size of the wafer varies according to the 1 The Mother Goddess as far back as Sumerian times was often represented only by a triangle indicating the female pubic region, or by two breasts, and sometimes by both 2 Mr Archdale King (0p cit., vol. ii, p. 153) says: ‘In the twelfth century there was added to the principal host the particles in honour of the saints, and in commemoration of the living and dead.’ He notes that the portion cut for the saints

was originally one for all saints. 50

Bread of Life number of communicants expected. The stamp bears the figure of the crucified Saviour, and those that I have examined include designs representing wheat or other grain, the sun and moon, and the words ‘Jesus Christ’. On one used in an Armenian church in Baghdad, blood from the crucified figure is represented as falling on to growing blades of corn.! Before he

removes the wafer from the stamp the priest marks the reverse lightly with a cross, using a pointed piece of wood, in order to facilitate fraction at mass.” He also pricks the back of the wafer (neshkar) all over to prevent it from bulging during the baking, which is on a flat pan heated over a charcoal fire. Three wafers are made for the altar, from which only one is selected for consecration on the altar. The selected wafer must be wellmarked and perfectly white. Other larger and thinner wafers are also baked but these are unstamped and are intended for distribution at the end of the mass, after the benediction, to non-communicants present at the celebration. The Maronite wafer is unleavened,

round, very thin, and

its preparation, according to a Maronite priest whom I consulted, follows closely the Roman Catholic rite, but I was unable to verify his assertion by witnessing the process.3 No woman may be present at the making and baking of

Coptic sacramental bread. As a very exceptional concession I was, however, allowed to witness the rite in a Coptic monas-

tery in Jerusalem. The sacred loaf is called a qurban (offering) and it is made by a monk or priest after sunset on the evening preceding the mass,.4 Flour must be of the best and whitest quality and is often sifted through fine silk. No salt is added. 1 See Plate 2. 2 On one Armenian seal-stamp shown me, a head was portrayed at the foot of the cross. This, I was told, was the head of Adam, for Adam was buried on Mount Calvary and the crucifixion took place later upon the grave of the ancestor of Man. When the Saviour’s blood fell on the skull, Adam revived. J. E. Hanauer, who also tells this legend (Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Duckworth, 1925), says that it may be traced back to the time of Origen in the second century. 3 Mr. Archdale King in his The Rites of Eastern Christendom (Burns Oates, 1947, p. 251): ‘The council of the Lebanon (1736) discussed the question of altar bread,

but it is clear that azymes had been in use for many centuries. It was enjoined that the eucharistic bread should be thin and always ornamented with some figure.’ It was to be made ‘if possible by clerics or monks, who were to sing psalms as they worked’. 4 I.e. on the same day, as a day begins at sunset. 51

Water into Wine

Mixing begins thus: the priest takes a small handful of sour dough from that placed aside at the last preparation, pours water into his mixing-bowl and squeezes the leaven well into it. He sifts the flour into the bowl, mixing with both hands, and whilst kneading repeats the psalms of David, which he should have by heart. When the dough is ready, he takes a ball of it and pats it flat, completing the operation on a slab of marble or a board, where he forms it into a perfect round and sprinkles it with flour, repeating the first psalm. Sprinkling again with flour, he applies the wooden stamp. This, like the loaf, is circular and its outer rim is marked in Greek characters with the words ‘Holy God, Holy Almighty, Holy Immortal’ (the Trisagion). The space surrounding the centre square is filled with small crosses (see Plate 13). He next makes five marks on the loaf, three on the right of the square and two on the left, using a pointed stick, the five being said to stand for the five wounds of Christ.! The first qurbdn is set on a board, a second is made and set with it and so on. Three, five or seven qurbdns are made as needed, but only one of these is chosen for the paten. The selection takes place at the altar the next morning and the chosen gurbdn is then called the haml (male lamb) or dhbihah (victim). When all the sacred breads are ready they are placed in the oven, where they remain until removed very early the next day. In Egypt the oven, heated by wood placed beneath it, is attached to the church and is called the Bethlehem (House of Bread). Abyssinians, like Copts, do not permit women to be present at the preparation of the gurbdn, and it was only after consular persuasion that I was permitted to be an exception. The corn must be plucked by a virgin man or woman, the grain carefully picked over and ground by a monk or nun. The rite of making 1 John xix, 34. The Saviour’s fifth wound is not mentioned in the Synoptics and the omission is significant, for by some Biblical critics the Fourth Gospel is attri-

buted to one strongly influenced by the school of Philo. Hence the mingling of blood and water which flowed from the fifth wound could be attributed to a reference to ritual ‘mysteries’ only understood by initiates. If so, the verse would come under the heading of Haggadic Midr. sh, i.e. allegoric enlargement of earlier texts which, for the purpose of religious teaching or to illustrate a theorem or rite, were fitted with details, legendary or invented (see Schiirer, H. J. P., Div. 88,

vol. 1, pp. 340-5). ‘The Hellenic Jews were particularly active in this manner of working up history’ (of. cit., p. 341). 52

Bread of Life |

and baking is performed in a special building: in Jerusalem it was detached from the church and to the east of it. It, too, is called the ‘Bethlehem’. It contains an oven for baking and a table for making. In Jerusalem the former was built over an

arched recess to hold fuel, this being olive-wood. The fire is kindled on a shelf of masonry above the recess; the bread is baked on an iron shelf over the fire. Mixing takes place after sunset, as with the Copts. I transcribe notes made that evening and the next day. I went at 7 p.m. to the Bethlehem of the round church adjoining the Abyssinian monastery outside the walls of the old city. The monk who was to perform the rite put on a vestment, removed his shoes and washed his hands carefully. He stooped to mix. A lump of sour dough from the last preparation was in a basin set on a table covered with a skin (a lamb or sheepskin ?)—the skin is obligatory—and whilst mixing he faced south. Next, he poured water from a ewer into the basin with his left hand, mingling leaven and water with his right and repeating prayers to the Virgin—these being prayers for the day. He added flour, little by little, from a shallow bowl which had been covered by a cloth, repeating prayer the while. For kneading he used the right hand and, when the process was over, he placed the dough in a white basin, first making a deep cross in the dough, so deep that the bottom of the basin appeared. Then he replaced the cover of the basin and spread a coloured cloth above the cover. This completed preparation and the dough was left to rise.

Baking took place the next morning, and I witnessed it just after sunrise, mass beginning at eight. The oven was already heated and the priest pushed the embers to the back lest smoke should taint the qurbdns. A table covered with a white cloth stood to the right of the oven. Upon this, when he had removed its white wrapping, the monk placed a wooden stamp kept with other utensils in the Bethlehem, and then some flour wrapped in another white cloth. He then washed his hands and put on his vestments. Uncovering the dough left overnight to rise, he crossed himself, the stamp and the flour, then floured the stamp. He took a handful of dough from the basin, reciting prayers all the time, rolled it into a ball and pressed it on the face of the

53

Water into Wine

stamp with his right hand in such a manner that it projected slightly beyond the edge, forming a small rim on the loaf when removed. After he had floured the gurbdn he set it at the top left-hand corner of the table, then, chanting continually in a low tone, took the stamp, refloured it and made a second gurban in the same manner as the first. When ready, this was placed below the first, and a third, when made, was put below the other two. The fourth, fifth and sixth qurbans were ranged in a parallel row to the right of the first three. Finally, he made a much smaller ball of dough and by taking a little flour removed the remainder of the dough from the basin, which was left entirely clean. This remainder, also

shaped into a ball, was set aside to provide leaven for the next baking. The little ball of dough was placed in the oven to test its heat. Satisfied on examining it that the right heat had been attained, he put in the gurbdns and shut the oven

Fic.

2.PREPARATION

OF ABYSSINIAN

QURBANS

door on them. They were to be left there till a few moments before they were needed, so that they might be fresh and warm when offered to the priest in the church. A brother monk brought in a coloured basket and coloured cloth and set it on the table ready to transport the bread to the church. They told me that, when removed from the oven, the bread should be slightly browned. Of the six loaves made, only the three best are taken to the officiating priest, and of these, after

close inspection, he selects the most perfect. The superfluous qurbans are broken into small fragments and distributed to all in church at the conclusion of mass, whether they communicated or not.

Jacobites (Syrian Orthodox) prepare the dough as soon as sunset marks the beginning of the day of celebration. The leaven is dough from the last baking and the kneading must be 54

Bread of Life performed by a virgin, either an unmarried priest, deacon or monk or a virgin youth or girl. The flour, of best white quality, may be offered by parishioners in the form of a weekly contri-

bution, or else a quantity of perfect ears of wheat are brought to the priest at harvest time and ground by him. Flour is sifted before the making and psalms are repeated whilst it is mixed with pure water (running, if possible), leaven and salt. The qurban or qurbans are baked very early, before the celebration of the mass. At such feasts as Easter and Christmas three, five,

seven or more loaves are provided, but (and this applies to other Eastern rites)! the number must be odd. When the number of gurbdns selected for ritual fraction makes arrangement into patterns, described in a later chapter, difficult, the

upper qurbdn of each pile is broken and arranged into the pattern of the season (see Plates 7 to 10). At the making (from my notebook) : A round lump of dough is formed and flattened, then placed on a board where it is further flattened by pressure of a wooden stamp oiled with olive-oil to prevent sticking. This leaves a deep cross-shaped impression extending to the rim. In the centre a round is marked with four raised crosses. A middle ring has spoke-like lines radiating to the beading, forming with the larger cross eight sections, each marked by a raised cross. Around the centre circle is a ring of seventy-two beads; the outer circle is plain. This marking assists the very elaborate fraction described in Chapter XI. Tradition says that the four inner sections represent the four evangelists and the beads seventy-two missionaries, all united into one whole, the Messiah (see Plates 8, 9 and 10). The Chaldaean Church is a Uniate Church2 and, whilst it has retained certain practices peculiar to the Nestorian or Assyrian Church, it has, during centuries of separation, moved

steadily away from the latter, and this is seen in nothing more than in the two methods of preparing the sacred bread and

wine. The greater part of the Nestorian Church ritual is dealt with in Chapter V, ‘The Holy Union’, and is of an archaic and deeply interesting character. The Chaldaean Church has rejected this ritual for obvious reasons. 1 The exception is the Abyssinian Church. 2 See p. 49, n. 1.

55

Water into Wine

The flour for Chaldaean parishioners,

who

gurbdns is usually presented by

grind it themselves

from

wheat

of good

quality. The bread is prepared either in the church or in the priest’s house, often by a sacristan. (From notes) They need not be baked for use at one celebration only; a single baking may produce wafers which suffice for fifteen days. No special time of day is specified for making and baking: that which I witnessed took place just before midday on a Saturday. The ingredients were flour, salt, water (filtered) and leaven, the last being ordinary household leaven. The leavening was almost nominal, as the interval between mixing and baking was not long enough for

Fic. 3. THE CHALDAEAN YEAR, WHEAT, MAIZE,

HOST. IT SHO VS THE FRUITS OF THE OLIVES AND GRAPES, IN THE BORDER

56

Bread of Life proper rising of the dough. An open brazier in which wood was burnt served to heat a pair of iron tongs or pincers ended by large oval plates of iron, upon one of which mouldings were engraved to give the proper markings to wafers intended for the priest and to the smaller wafer intended for the laity. In the case of those I saw (in the Chaldaean church, Baghdad) the impressions for the priest’s two wafers were (a) the crucified Saviour above the letters IHS with an encircling border of a crown of thorns; and (b) the same with a stylised border of wheat, maize, vine and olive. When taken from the pincers these wafers were about three inches across and paper-thin. The wafer for the faithful was about an inch across and marked by the figure of the Crucified and the letters IHS. The wafers were made thus: the sacristan spread the dough thinly on the heated surface of one of-the heavy iron plates, clamped them together, removing any superfluous dough pressed out, left them thus a moment or two, then opened them. The result was a set of three impressions which he stamped out with cutters of two sizes.

Nestorians (Assyrian Church) select their wheat and ensure by careful examination that no cther grain is mixed with it. It is the duty of a virgin girl to wash it in running water, dry it and grind it overnight in a hand-mill. She must bring it herself to the church. The priest prepares the dough in the baptistery. He mixes the flour with water from a running source, if possible from a sacred spring,! and when kneading the dough adds to it salt, a small piece of dried and powdered hmira (‘leaven’, i. e. a little of the dough used at the preceding mass) and a few drops of oil. A futher addition of great importance is made to the qurbdn before baking, namely, the melka. As the elaborate ritual which accompanies this concerns Chapter V rather than this, I reserve the description of what happens. The annual making of melka, however, should find a place here. (Notes) The word melka (malka) means ‘king’. In Nestorian churches ‘melka’ is kept always in a chalice or cup in a small cupboard known as a giuta, above the altar. It consists of a 1 In earlier times most Assyrian churches were built over or beside a natural spring. In the mountains such springs were abundant. In exile, priests make do

with water from a tap if no tnear the river.

ey

Water into Wine

mixture of flour, salt and powdered fragments of sacramental bread. A little is taken at every mass and placed into the melkaita! (royal one), i.e. the consecrated wafer used at the mass. A small piece of sacramental bread is added to it after every mass, thus connecting the mixture with a succession of masses

back

as far, according

to their

tradition,

as

the

bread broken by Jesus at the Last Supper for the disciples. On Maundy Thursday fresh melka is made at one of the five most solemn masses of the Church year. These masses, known as ‘great mysteries’, are celebrated at Epiphany, the commemoration of St. John the Baptist, the commemoration of the three Malpania (the liturgists Diodorus, Theodore and Nestorius), the Fast of Niniveh and Maundy Thursday, called by Nestorians Pash (Passover).

I witnessed its making in 1944. (Notes) The prayers always said at the making of the holy bread and consecration of wine and water preceded the ceremony, in itself simple. A small table stood in the sanctuary to the south and facing south. Upon this, spread with a white | cloth, was a wide metal dish, silvered over. Into the centre of this the bishop placed a heap of flour—I was told two handfuls. It had been freshly ground by a virgin girl. Over this the bishop sprinkled a layer of salt, the proportion being about two-thirds flour to one-third salt. To this he added three drops of olive-oil and three drops of water just drawn from the river. After he had mixed all thoroughly together he rubbed his hands with a towel. All this was performed in silence. A silver cross lay on the table to the east of the dish. The bishop, priest and two deacons then turned eastwards and began the chant of ‘Holy, holy, holy’ sung in antiphon, followed by three hulalas (groups of psalms). A deacon brought a box containing incense to the bishop, who took incense from it thrice and placed it in the censer held by the deacon standing at the north side of the sanctuary. Chanting, censing and prayers continued at some length and, when the benediction was given, it took an unusual form, that is, the

bishop held his hands togeixer palm to palm and made a gesture of benediction, turning himself and bowing to the east, north and south, but not west.2 1 Feminine in gender. I have heard the word pronounced melkaita and melkaitha. Canon Witton-Davies confirms both pronunciations. 2 The west, where the sun sets, is symbolical of death.

58

Bread of Life He ended by facing the congregation and blessing it in the usual manner and saying, ‘Peace be with you’. Next he traced a cross thrice with his forefinger on the melka, bent in silent prayer at the altar, and then, erect again, chanted. All in the sanctuary faced the altar whilst the censer swung gently and the bishop prayed inaudibly. After chanting he turned again to the melka, signed it with the sign of the cross again thrice and, going to the giuta, took therefrom the chalice containing the melka of the previous year. This, or some of it, he added to the new mixture on the plate,

working them together thoroughly. After more prayer and chanting, the new mingled with the old were placed in the cup, held aloft before the altar as if in offering, and placed in the giuta, which had remained open whilst the mixing was performed. The door was then shut.!

At the mixing and baking of the bread for mass, which was to follow in the baptistery, the new melka was used for the first time, and this first dough is considered especially holy. It is customary to mix an unusually large quantity on this day and to give a very little of it to pious housewives to carry home and mingle with their household dough, thus conferring blessing for the year and bringing the family loaf into mystic union with the sacramental bread on the altar. At this point features common to all or most rites might usefully be summarised. The shape of the loaf is round and its preparation ritual. In most cases the person who grinds, mixes or makes should be virgin and, in the case of Passover bread, the gurbdn of Copts, Abyssinians, Zoroastians, and the sacramental bread of Mandaeans, males make and bake the bread and women are taboo. Zoroastrians add butter to their draona,

as do the Iraqi Jews to certain types of ritual bread, such as kahi and klaicha. Leaven or its absence is a point of importance, so is the addition or omission of salt. The Nestorians add oil,? 1 Superfluous old melka is burnt, its ashes mingled with pure water and then emptied through the vent-hole of the font into the foundations of the church, It is always kept in the giuta: there is no adoration of it nor is it reserved for the communion of the sick. It is used solely for the curious rite described in Chapter V. At the mass which follows the making of the melka it is customary to make five gmuriathi (sacramental loaves) instead of the customary four. 2 And also the Jews in former times? The Jewish massa offered at sacrifice was of four kinds, according to the Jewish Encyclopaedia: lehem (bread), hallah (loaf),

raqig (wafer). ‘The latter two were mixed or spread with oil’ (J. E., Magzah).

a,

Water into Wine

and several Christian sects oil the stamp although flour alone prevents adhesion. Emphasis is laid by all on running water. Sacred bread is marked by a cross by Christians, as in the Mithraic mysteries! ; a cross is sometimes placed on the Jewish ba‘aba (a small round bread used by Iraqi Kabbalists on certain ritual occasions) and, to judge by illustrated Mandaean ritual rolls, the pihta was formerly marked with a cross, although the practice is now abandoned.

Lastly, a preference for the number ‘five’ in rites performed with ritual bread should be noted.? 1 Mithraic breads marked with crosses can be seen in a bas-relief of a Mithraic communion meal (reproduced as Fig. 18 in Franz Cumont’s Mystéres de Mithra). 2 The ceremony of ‘Blessing the Five breads’ (Artoklasia) is common to all Orthodox communities. It takes place at festivals and usually during vespers, but may be performed at the end of matins before the liturgy. At the ‘Five Breads’ service there is especial mention of the living, but its connection with the commemoration of saints marks it as a commemorative meal. I first witnessed it on the commemoration of the beheading of St. John the Baptist, which falls on September 11th (August 29th, O.S.). The blessing took place in the church dedicated to that saint in Jerusalem, after matins, before the doxology, and before the mass. In the nave, just opposite the central doors in the eikonostasis, stood a round table upon which were set five large, round, leavened

loaves, four below one

placed in the centre above them. The loaves were unmarked, although I was informed that it is customary to stamp each loaf with an imprint representing the saint whose festival is celebrated. Above the central loaf was perched a candelabra of five lit candles, and cruets of oil and wine stood on the table beside the breads. The bishop sat on his throne near the door of the church (i.e. not in the sanctuary), facing north, and, as is customary, held his ceremonial staff, the head of which was formed by two intertwining serpents. His presence lent dignity to the blessing but a single priest can, when necessary, carry out the entire service. After prayers one of the priests read the names of the living; then the bishop, rising from his throne, prayed for blessing on the wine and wheat of the district and land in the names of departed saints and martyrs, fathers of the Church and so on (as in the diptychs, see p. 97), the name of St. John the Baptist being read last. The priests then walked round the table, censing it and blessing the bread. After more prayer, the table was removed, and the bread taken into the sanctuary where, behind the altar, one of the priests divided the loaves into pieces for distribution after the mass. I was told that in many places local families each bring a flap of household bread, and a pile of these loaves is placed beneath the table to be distributed with the blessed bread at the conclusion of the mass. On the feasts of SS. James and Constantine, the patriarch, bishop and monks of the Greek Convent in Jerusalem assemble after vespers, perform the ‘Blessing of the Five Breads’ and at its end distribute the bread to a lay congregation. According to an ancient use, a glass of wine should be given to each recipient with the bread.

60

IV WATER

INTO

WINE

GSastese ceremonies in countries where the cult of vinedeities once existed, and where the state of mind induced

by drinking has been looked on as a kind of possession, might be expected to have preserved traces of ancient rites of this kind. Complex as the symbolic use of wine is, however, its intoxicant qualities are little prominent in the group of religions we are examining. Some of its symbolic values were mentioned earlier (pp. 7 and 11). Before entering into the question of its preparation for mass, brief reference may be made to its ritual uses by those who are not Christian in lands where Christianity first took root. It plays, of course, an integral part in Jewish domestic rites, and its character as a ‘life-fluid’, that is to say, a symbol of life fecund and reproductive, is evident in many Oriental Jewish ceremonies and customs. . For seven evenings after a Jewish wedding, seven benedictions are recited over wine at the evening meal of the bridal pair. In Iraq, Jewesses unblessed by children drink a few drops from the cup over which benediction has been recited at a circumcision, and unmarried girls believe that three sips of ritual wine drunk at a Jewish wedding will ensure their own. No Jewish betrothal or marriage can take place without the ceremonial wine. Pious Jews of the old school in Baghdad use water into which well-washed grapes or raisins have been pressed just before the ceremony: less orthodox Jews use locally fermented wine. The rabbi drinks first from the goblet, which is of metal, then hands it to the bridegroom who, after drinking a little, pours some into an earthenware cup and gives it to the bride. As soon as she has drunk, the bridegroom 61

Water into Wine

hurls the cup to the ground and breaks it. In Palestine it was

formerly the custom to carry a closed vessel containing wine before a bride to symbolise her potential fertility.1 Wine is drunk ritually at Nestorian, Coptic, Abyssinian, Chaldaean and Orthodox weddings. At the Nestorian wedding, when the cup, ring and hnana (dust taken from the grave of a martyr) are set in order, the priest pours water into the wine, drops Anana into the cup, dips the ring into the mixture and then gives the cup to the bridegroom, bride, best man and bridesmaid, who drink from it in turn. For a marriage, the Mandaean hamra (wine), like the hamra drunk at the masiqta, is unfermented. It is made just before the ceremony by the priest, who fills a drinking-bowl with water from a running source, places fresh grapes or raisins and dates into it, and presses them with his fingers so that the water becomes well-coloured. The date-palm is to the Mandaean the symbol of male fertility and the vine of female fertility: they

represent two poles of creative energy, the one masculine and the other feminine, the one procreative and the other receptive. Bride and bridegroom both drink of this ‘wine’, the former thrice and the latier seven times. The hamra for the masigta has no dates in it, only grapes or raisins, for it is symbolical of the ‘Mother’ not the ‘Father’.

It is made like the Aamra for marriage. During the masigta water is added to the cup. The pure element here again represents a procreative force, but a cosmic life-force. Its function will be explained later. As for the hamra, the simple processes described above do, in a literal sense, turn water into

wine.2 The chief Jewish festivals, as well as the Sabbath, begin and end with a cup of wine. According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 70 a-b) the tree of which Adam ate was the vine. I am told that with European Jews the practice of adding water to ritual wine has mostly lapsed: it was, however,

a

1 Dr. J. Scheftelowitz, Alt-Paldstinische Bauernglaube, p. 154 (Hanover, 1925); Ketubdt

16b; Jer. Ket., 2, i.

2 For a note on the wedding at Cana, see M.M.I.I., p. 72. The story, which is told only in the Fourth Gospel (see p. 3, n. 1), might be a Haggadic reference to the ritual method of preparing wine at a marriage.

62

Water into Wine

general custom in Palestine at the time of Christ and is taken as a matter of course in the Mishnah.! When I was the guest of a Jewish family in Jerusalem on the Sabbath Eve, and again when invited to the house of a rabbi of the Sephardic community in that city, I noted that a little water was poured into the wine-cup before pronouncing the benediction for ‘the fruits of the vine’. When I was sharing the New Year’s Eve feast of a Yemenite family, the son stood by the father holding water to be poured into the goblet of ritual wine. In Iraq, addition of water is not ritually performed but it is customary for the Jewish housewife to mix onequarter of water to three-quarters of wine before grace is recited over it. At the Seder, on Passover Eve, orthodox Jews pour a few drops of wine into a small jar of water whilst they enumerate the Ten Plagues of Egypt: the mixture, called ‘blood’, is cast on the ground before the house. On this night in Baghdad the ground before every house in the Jewish

quarter was wet with this water mixed with wine.? Leaving the question of dilution or the ‘mixed cup’ aside for the moment, let us examine modern Oriental Jewish methods of preparing ritual wine. In Kurdistan and the Yemen it is the practice to squeeze a handful of raisins or fresh grapes into water on Friday morning and to use this ‘wine’ for the Sabbath 1 Berakoth, vii, 5: ‘They do not say the benediction over wine until water has

been added to it. So R. Eliezer. But the Sages say: “‘They may say the benediction”’ (even over wine without water).’ There are allusions to the mixed cup in Berakoth, viii, 2, concerning the washing of hands before or after mixing the cup and in Pesahim, x, 2 and 4.

2 As for ritual commixture of water and wine in ancient Jewry, the so-called ‘water-libation’ in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles may be cited, as described in the Mishnah (Sukkah, iv, 5). A procession went to the Pool of Siloam, where a priest filled a golden pitcher with water. This was brought back through the water-gate into the court of the Temple. The officiating priest ascended the altar by a ladder, took two silver jugs, from the eastern and western corners, filled the one on the east with wine and that on the left with water. He poured the water into the wine-jug and vice-versa, performing the commixture’ with raised hands in sight of the shouting crowd. This has been described as a raincharm (M & R., Early Hebrew Festival Rituals, p. 138), and the pouring of water and wine on the ground described above may originally have had the same purpose, viz. ensuring fertility of the soil in the coming season. The Chinese

pour three cups of wine on the ground at the New Year’s feast. At the vendanges in Southern France a little of the new wine is poured at the root of every vine. A friend who watched this was told that it was to ensure that the vines would bear next season.

63

Water into Wine

Eve and Havdalah qiddush. The pious are faithful to this old custom, but Jews of laxer standards purchase local wine manufactured by Jews. Wine fermented by Gentiles is forbidden, so is wine merely touched by an uncircumcised person, but the rule is increasingly ignored by Jews who have been in contact with European Jews. Dr. Brauer (of. cit., p. 112) tells us that in the Yemen wine intended for use at Passover and Hannukah is made by putting black raisins, dried in the sun for three days on the roof at the time of vintage, into warmed vessels of water which are then covered up and set in an unused room so that nothing else fermenting should come near. He tells us also that Yemenite Jews drink intoxicating wine for Purim, but not ritually.

For the preparation of wine used in the mass of the Eastern Churches, precise directions are sometimes given. Nestorians use any pure grape-wine, mostly home-made or a local brand, but, as will be described later, add to it during the rite of preparation a little water from a running source. Coptic monks make in their convents sacramental wine of grape-juice, or raisins steeped in water for three days, and this is put aside for two years at least before use. A Coptic monk told me that a little wine from a former brew was added to each bottle of new wine. At one time—it is said owing to a ban placed by Moslems on fermenting liquids—Copts used unfermented wine, but they now allow it to mature. When water is added to the chalice in church, it should, according to my Coptic inform-

ants, be drawn from a fountain! or other flowing source, and be fetched by a virgin. At the institution in the Ethiopic liturgy mixture is actually mentioned: ‘and likewise, after Thou didst

mingle wine in the cup, Thou didst give thanks...’ etc. It should be noted that after mass, before the blessed bread is

distributed to all in the church, water is given to each communicant by one of the servers. Orthodox Armenians use wine of best quality, usually a gift

to the church. In Jerusalem the sacramental wine is procured from Bethlehem. It has already been noted that Armenians use wine unmixed with water throughout the mass. Jacobites 1 In Jerusalem water from wells in Coptic convents or churches may be used, as these are in holy ground.

64

Pirate 3. A CROSS WITH FLORIATED ENDS OUTSIDE ONE OF THE COPTIC MONASTERIES IN THE WADI NATRUN (see p. 87) Copts rarely use this form of cross, but it is preferred by the Nestorians

led; is this seld done ibut

MANDA "A BAPTI (see 106) p.

*s hand shoul be ve lest

THE FINAL KUSHTA AT .

bserv order that the pr

PLATE 4 trict o

S

Water into Wine

(Syrian Orthodox) use wine (hamra) prepared in a more elaborate and certainly symbolic fashion. Raisins are well washed, dried and placed with a measure of pure water in equal proportions. After three days they are squeezed well by hand and put aside for forty days.! The liquid is cleared by straining, and the Aamra is then fit for sacramental use. The procedure is the same when fresh grapes are used instead of raisins. When water is added to the wine at mass, the water must be freshly drawn from a pure source, preferably from a

spring. Only monks or priests may prepare the sacramental wine. Chaldaeans leave raisins or grapes in water for forty days. Greek Orthodox do not use commercial wine for mass. Monks usually brew wine for it from grapes grown in their vineyard. The wine used at the Ipsosis, a ceremony nearly resembling the mass but with no symbol of sacrifice,? is sacramental wine. Greek Catholics, like Orthodox Greeks, procure

sacramental wine whenever possible from a convent, where monks prepare it by squeezing grapes or raisins into fresh water and putting it aside to ferment for two or three months. The Greek Catholic rite of adding water to the wine on the prothesis table is like that of the Orthodox, so is that of the Russian Orthodox Church.3 The latter, however, use any good

red wine sold at an Orthodox shop, and do not stipulate that it should have been brewed by priests or monks. I was told by a seminary priest that on some occasions in war years wine was difficult to obtain, and a temporary dispensation allowed fermented fruit-juice to be used in its stead. It should be mentioned that in all three versions of the Byzantine rite (Greek, 1 The intervals correspond (a) with resurrection and ascension; (6) to periods at which rites for the dead are performed.

2 See pp. 98-9.

3 Early Christian literature refers to the mixed cup. Justin Martyr in his Apology (ca. A.D. 148) mentions ‘a cup of wine mixed with water’. St. Cyprian of Carthage, writing about the middle of the third century, condemns the use of water alone, or of undiluted wine, in the chalice. It appears from Irenaeus (Contra Haeres, ca. second century A.D.) that the Ebionites (like Mandaeans at the baptismal sacrament) used water only at baptism and other sacramental meals. Origen (Jn Jerusalem) contended that at the Last Supper wine only was used. For this and other evidence, see The Liturgy of the Ante-Nicene Church by the Rev. E, E. Warren, pp. 109-12 (S.P.C.K., 1937).

6

65

Water into Wine

Russian and Melkite), not only is water added to the wine on the prothesis table, but that later, upon the high altar, warm water (zeon) is added to the mixture, so that water is thrice mingled with the grape-juice—first when the grapes are imbrued ;secondly, when water is poured into the chalice of wine on the prothesis table; and thirdly, at the addition of the zeon. The warmth of the latter helps the devout communicant to realise that for him transubstantiation has taken place. Parsis drink ritual wine! at ritual meals for the benefit of the

departed such as the Afringan, Baj and Gahambar.

At the

Afrin-i-Dahm4n, the recital of benedictions at the reading of name-lists of pious deceased persons, and also at the recital of the Dibacheh,? wine and milk are found on the ritual table. No blood-symbolism is attached to wine by Zoroastrians, but, like the milk,3 when used in ritual it is a ‘life-fluid’. Modi claims

that the wine drunk at Parsi marriages was formerly nonintoxicant,* but its use at Parsi weddings today has no longer a purely sacramental character, and only vestiges of its former symbolism. In short, it seems that, for ritual use, primitive methods of

preparing grape-juice for drinking, i.e. pressing grapes or raisins into spring water, are thought preferable—if one can express it thus—to fermentation; and that, when fermentation

is allowed, periods corresponding to the intervals at which ceremonies are performed for the departed are sometimes chosen for processing the wine. Brewing, when it is to be fermented, is often performed by priests or monks, and if by the laity, by men and not women. A further mixture with water on the altar of preparation, or high altar, has a special significance, and with this we shall deal in the next chapter. 1 Generally speaking, haoma juice as used in Parsi rites corresponds closely to wine in those of the Christian churches. For instance, it is, or was, administered

as viaticum to the dying. ‘Till a few years ago, a short while before death, a few drops of the consecrated haoma were poured into the mouth of a dying man. The haoma plant being an emblem of immortality, its juice is poured to impress the idea that... the soul of man is immortal’ (M., p. 54). 2 Literally ‘exordium’, ‘preface’. It is the part of the Parsi liturgy at which the name of the heavenly being invoked or commemorated is recited by the celebrant, who also names the person living or dead for whose benefit the ritual is performed, and persons who commissioned the celebration. See below, pp. 96-7. 3 See p. 9. 4 See p. 11, n. 3.

66

V THE

HOLY

UNION

HE PRECEDING chapter will, I think, have shown that the preparation of ritual wine is profoundly affected by the complexity of symbolisms attached to the vine and its juice. In this chapter I propose to deal with one particular symbolic use of the ritual cup, noteworthy because it is not peculiar to Christian sects only. It concerns dilution, sometimes called ‘the mixed cup’, about which something was said in Chapter IV. A variety of plausible explanations can be adduced as a reason for dilution; for instance, that it is meant

to reduce the intoxicating quality of the sacramental drink. Modi (of. ctt., p. 395) quotes the Dadistan-i-Dini which advocates dilution of wine for this reason.! In unfermented wine no such danger lurks, and we have seen that unfermented wine is used on many sacramental occasions. Again, water might have been added to impart renewed freshness much as living foliage

is placed with dried twigs in Parsi ritual; but newly-crushed grapes need no such magical refreshment.

Comparative examination does, however, throw light upon one form of ritual admixture, and for this it is necessary to remember the vine as symbolic of fruitfulness, and wine of a fruitful marriage.2 1 Dilution, it seems, is not practised by Parsis today. 2 See the beginning of the last chapter. Like the Hindu and Jewish mystic, Mandaean commentators on ritual in such scrolls as Alf Trisar Suialia, Diwan Malkutha ‘laita, Alma Risaia Rba and others intended for the use of priests, refer

continually to two aspects of creative energy, the one active and initiatory, the other receptive and nutritive The one imparts the first creative urge, the other translates it into matter, feeds and shapes it. In his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Lecture 6, Professor Scholem speaks of Kabbalistic use of sexual imagery when describing the relation of God to Himself in the world of the Sefiroth. The ‘sacred union’ of King and Queen, the Celestial Bridegroom and the Celestial Bride, ‘to

67

Water into Wine

In both the Oriental mass and in the Mandaean masigta we find clear indication of the latter, when the act of dilution represents ‘holy union’. In this it is surely possible to discern trace of the ancient ‘ritual marriage’ of god and goddess which was so important a feature of the New Year festival in Babylonia. Symbolic acts which represent the sacred union, and they take more than one form, as will be seen later in this chapter,

are part of the larger drama of conception, birth, life, death and rebirth. The rite as practised by Mandaeans is part of the masigta, performed in the bimanda and therefore invisible to laymen. Its performance is described on page 253, but its significance emerges from explanations given to initiates in commentaries intended for them, that is, in the Diwan Malkuta ‘laita, Alf Trisar Shuialia, Alma Rishaia Rba and Alma Rishaia Kuta.

These may preserve Gnostic traditions handed down in secrecy. The priest’s ring, dipped in the wine-bowl, hallows a Holy Union. The initiate is told that the water poured into the bowl symbolises fecundation, and that the wine is the blood in the Womb of the Mother’.! Who is this Mother? There are two explanations given, the exoteric and the esoteric. As to the former, the ‘Mother’

is Earth,2 Matter,

the earthiness from

which the soul must be reborn before released from ‘the body of this death’. The latter is only understood by the initiate.3 The ‘ Mother’ is the receptive, formative and nutritive principle of creation.

The

Formless,

Timeless

Before-all

when

it ex-

presses itself in creation of the cosmos emanates itself in two aspects—active and passive, male and female, the Father and

the Mother. The latter is identified with materialisation, the name a few of the symbols, is the central fact in the whole chain of divine manifestations in the hidden world. In God there is a union of the active and passive, procreation and conception, from which all mundane life and bliss are derived’

(pp. 223-4). 1 Amintul

d mambuha . .. mazruta h’ uhamra raza d marba (Because the water

is the semen and the wine is the mystery of the womb) A.T.S. Kt amrit mia bhamra mazruta niflat bgu marba amintul d niara d hamra marba uhamra zma

hu (When thou sayest ‘Water into wine’ semen falleth into the womb, for the winebowl is the womb and the wine is blood) A.R.R. (etc.). 2 U’ma rabtia h’ d kulhun rihiia uqadahia usigia minh dilh nfaq ufra’ (Because she is the Great Mother from whom all swarmings and burgeonings and increase issued and emanated). 3 It is stringently forbidden to explain this and other mysteries to laymen.

68

The Holy Union former with spiritual activity. Only an impulse given by both these cosmic forces can, when invoked by symbolic action, assist the soul into its new life. Conception must be the beginning. Hence the commentaries liken ritual actions which follow to the nine months which an infant spends in the womb. The drinking of the mixed cup and giving of the pax ends this stage of the masigta. On its completion, the celebrant prepares and partakes of an ordinary communion of bread and water (not wine, or wine mingled with water). The allegory of

divine union is alluded to again in the zidga brika (Blessed Oblation) celebrated directly after the masigta, in sight of the lay congregation (see pp. 237-8); for a phial of hamra and one or two saia are on the ritual table around which the priests gather. The sa! in shape and size recalls the Hindu lingam, in other words the male organ, and it is probable that it is intended, somewhat crudely, to indicate the function of the Divine Father as lifegiver. Bread of this shape has no place in any home or shop in the Middle East, and its purpose is symbolic only. Geographically speaking, the Mandaeans are neighbours to the Nestorians,

and

there

are

some

remarkable

similarities

between the rites described above and the ‘mixing’ of the Jilu

Nestorians. The ‘mixing’ takes place in the baptistery, the dzt ganki, on the south side of the sanctuary. Here are to be found the font for baptism (gurna)2 and the oven (tanurta) for baking the sacred bread. It should be noted that the place in which the rite takes place is invisible to the congregation, and that, through baptism, it is associated with birth. Although women are not allowed to view this rite, I saw it several times, as a concession. I quote from notes: 1 Written XN in all Mandaean ritual texts. I think that it must be Aramaic NY, ‘a plate, a dish’ (plural "YB) (Pes., iiib; Bets., 32a; Meg., 7b and Yoma, 83b). 2 Maclean (Mac., p. 81) gives wazna (‘cistern’) as the name of the Nestorian font. I never heard this word used by Assyrians. The word yardnan for baptismal water or the font is used only in prayers and has reference to the waters of the Jordan in which Christ was baptised. H. Lietzmann, however, in his Ein Beitrag zur Mandderfrage (Sitzungsberichte d. Preuss. Akad. Phil. hist. Klasse, 1930) con-

structs a theory about the Mandaeans largely upon the Nestorian use of this literary epithet for a font and the Mandaean word for running water, yardna. Chaldaeans call the font a jurna,

69

Water into Wine

The ceremony of the mixing is preceded by lengthy chanting in the body of the church. The first timeIwitnessed the rite was in winter. Long before dawn, priest and deacons were chanting from manuscript books set open on the shkinta and lectern, illuminating the pages by the light of two candles on the reading-desk, helped by long, guttering tapers held over the pages. When they had ended I followed them through a curtained opening into the baptistery. The priest sat to knead the dough in the palm of his hand, though he could, had he wished, have used the kneading-board placed before him. Whilst working the dough he recited twenty-seven psalms of David! followed by prayers. Meanwhile he had fashioned the dough into a slightly flattened round lump, which he placed on the board before him. He made a depression in the centre of the lump and poured into it a little olive-oil from a bottle. Into this oil he dipped his wooden stamp and pressed the dough with the stamp at the four points of the compass whilst saying, ‘From the east to the west, from the north to the south’. The device on the stamp was a plain cross: some stamps are marked with several crosses. He next stamped (‘sealed’) the centre, saying as he pressed the seal into the dough, ‘A seal was set on the tomb of our Saviour’. Next, he covered the dough with a white cloth, symbolising, they told me, the leaving of Christ in the tomb. This ended the first stage of preparation entitled the ‘Rite of the Mixing’. The ‘Rite of making the Qurban’ followed. The priest removed the white cloth and said, ‘The stone was rolled away from the tomb’, and then pinched off four small pieces of dough at the points of the compass, beginning at the east. These, rolled inte a ball, were to furnish the leaven for the next mixing.? Four more pieces of dough were nipped off by the priest in the same manner, naming, as before, the points

of the compass. These pieces he welded together and formed a roly-poly shape about three to three and a half inches long, which he set to the west of the lump of dough. This roll, he said, was the kaprana. 1A hulala is composed of nine psalms, so that twenty-seven psalms are three hulali. Each hulala is subdivided into three marmiatha. The Psalter is divided into

twenty-one hulali.

2 The leaven (hmira), kept in a bag or other receptacle, may be kept in the priest’s house, but is usually kept in the giuta, like the melka. No especial time or

ritual is assigned for its drying or crumbling; 7O

it is merely put aside.

The Holy Union

When I saw the kaprana I realised that I had before me an exact replica of the Mandaean sa described above. The problem immediately arose: What connection had this obviously phallic emblem to do with a tomb? I asked the priest and later an Assyrian bishop what the kaprana represented. The former

replied : ‘The guard which the Romans placed before the tomb’, the latter said that it represented Judas. It appeared, therefore, that the priests, whilst carefully faithful to traditional use, have no clear idea as to its meaning. If the kaprana, however, as in the Mandaic rite, was a symbol of the Divine Father, the

lump of dough should have represented the Mother, not a tomb. I learnt later that the dough represented exactly what I surmised, nor did the use of the word ‘tomb’ contradict this fact, since in Aramaic 127? (gabra, qabr, ‘tomb’, see Nidd., 21a; Sabb., 129a, etc.) was employed as an euphemism for the uterus containing an embryo.! The Chaldaeans have rejected the whole ceremony and in the Chaldaean mass it is the veil with which the chalice is wiped that is called the kaprana or mkaprana (Af. KPR), i.e. ‘that which wipes away’. The reply ‘Judas’ could be justified by the second meaning of the root KPR,‘To deny, renounce, apostasise’.2 1 Professor H. Frankfort in his Kingship and the Gods (University of Chicago Press, pp. 175-6) wrote of an Egyptian sarcophagus in the cow-shape of the goddess Nut: ‘The thought that rebirth is the only way to immortality has suggested to the Egyptians a curiously static scheme in which the sarcophagus chamber or coffin is identified with Nut....Nut as the mother often assumed the shape of a cow.’ He quotes from K. Sethe, Die Pyramidentexte, 616a-f: ‘ (a) Nephthys hat dir alle deine Glieder gesammelt; (b) in jenem ihrem Namen “§33.t”, die Herrin der Bauleute; (c) hat sie dich heilgemacht; (d) und du bist iibergegeben worden deiner Mutter Nut in ihrem Namen “‘Grab”’ (bezw.Grabesmauer) ; (e) sie hat dich umfangen in ihrem Namen “‘Sarg”’; (f) und du bist zu ihr gebracht worden in ihrem Namen “‘Grab”’.’ 2 Both Payne Smith and Maclean (Mac) translate mkaprana as ‘antidoron’. It is not antidoron in any accepted sense, for the kaprana does not leave the sanctuary and is not given to members of the congregation. After the mass, it is divided and eaten by the officiant and chief deacon. Badger (The Nestorians and their Rituals) gives no detailed description of the rite, and Maclean (East Syrian Daily Offices), although he quotes a Jilu MS. as his authority when describing the preparation of the elements, omits or was possibly ignorant of the details given above. I took

great pains to witness the rite at close quarters several times, and if there is error, it is shared by two Assyrian priests, many deacons and a bishop. In view of the nature of the rite, I can understand its concealment from a European enquirer by a priest accustomed to contact with Anglicans. Ws

Water into Wine

(Resuming my account) When this roll was in its place, the priest took a large piece of dough from the centre of the lump and moulded it into a round flat cake which he pinched slightly at four equidistant points, so converting it into a four-lipped cruciform cup. This he called the melkaita, ‘the regal one’ or ‘royal lady’ (see Fig. 4).! Into this shallow cup he poured oliveoil, repeating a psalm of David. Next, taking the censer from the deacon, who had replenished it with incense, he went to fetch the melka from the giuta (cupboard) on the altar. The melka (i.e. ‘king’) and its making has already been described (see pp. 57-9).

ay

(a)

Fic. 4. (2) THE KAPRANA inches in length) (6) THE

MELKAITA

(c) THE MELKAITA TENED OUT.

(circ. 34 CUP FLAT-

(d) THE TRAY OF BREAD AS ARRANGED, AFTER BAKING The melkaita lies above the gmuriathi; three gmuriathi are to the south of it, and the kaprana to the west of it.

West 1 For the pronunciation of melkaita, see p. 58, n. 1. Chaldaeans call the priest’s wafer melkaita (see p. 163). (Maclean, op. cit., speaks of the priest’s wafer as the malka or purshana d malka. I never heard either term applied to it.) Melkaita, being feminine in gender, cannot refer to purshana (‘offering’) or malka (‘king’) since a

The Holy Union I was told that this was the most solemn moment in the preparation of the elements. Swinging his censer, the priest approached the altar, removed from the giuta the goblet containing the ‘king’, placed it upon his head and returned to the baptistery, censing the goblet as he walked. He handed the censer back to the deacon and scattered what he now took from the ‘king’ into the melkaita cup, performing the scattering crosswise, that is, by moving his fingers from east to west and from north to south. He closed the cup by pressing the raised edges of dough together over the oil and the melka, and flattened it with his stamp. The result was a cross-shaped loaf (see Fig. 4) upon the centre of which he again pressed his stamp. The impression is called the rushma or ‘seal’. He divided the remainder of the lump of dough into seven balls (the number must be odd and depends on the size of the congregation expected). Each ball was flattened into a round cake with the stamp and a final impression was set in the centre of each. He was careful, also, to touch each cake with

the finger and thumb used to scatter the melka, but avoided touching the kaprana which remained in its place south of the melkaita. He did, however, stamp it with his stamp, so that it,

too, was marked by a cross. When all this was accomplished, he placed the goblet containing the me/ka on his head again and returned it to its place in the giuta, repeating: ‘Our King is with us and our supporter is the God of Jacob.’ The next step was the baking. On his return to the baptistery the priest made the sign of the cross over the brazier, dropped incense into it, and repeated a formula of consecration. Then, whilst reciting the ‘Angels’ Prayer’, he lifted the melkaita in order to begin the baking, saying, ‘The King of kings came for baptism and bowed His head before John that He might be baptised by him’.! The words are meant to apply to a sprinkling of the underside of the bread in order that it may adhere to the side of the tanurta. The usual earthenware

tanurta in this church

was, however,

replaced

by an inverted pan placed over the open brazier. Upon this, both are masculine. A Chaldaean priest suggests that melkaita might indicate the adjective ‘regal’ applied to the word qasaita (‘a broken portion’) which is feminine. This is unlikely, as at the time of adding crumbs from the malka there is no breaking ; the priest’s loaf is still whole. Hence, ‘the regal one’ or ‘royal Lady’ is here, in all probability, the Virgin Mother, as all the rite I describe indicates. 1 Sprinkling fits the symbolic sequence (conception, gestation, nativity and baptism).

73

Water into Wine therefore, the melkaita and the other loaves were placed, the kaprana exactly opposite the melkatta.} Whilst the bread was baking, prayers for incense were said and more incense was thrown into the fire, and other prayers followed. The loaves were not allowed to brown but were turned over when crisp. Four of them, the gmuriatht, when ready were transferred to a tray, touching each other crosswise, and the melkaita was placed above them. The group resembled a flower with the melkaita as centre and the gmuriathi as petals. The remaining loaves were set on the tray to the west of these five, which were destined for the paten. An Assyrian bishop, when discussing the rite, stressed the importance of the number five. I am told that arrangement on the tray differs according to the district, but that the melkaita laid over the four gmuriatht must occupy the centre, and that the kaprana must always be apart and to the west of the other loaves. On one occasion I heard the priest recite the names of the points of the compass as he set the four gmuriathi in place. After arrangement, the tray was covered with a cloth and the holy bread was ready for its journey to the altar. The wine (either red or white—in practice red is preferred) was in a bottle, the water in a cruet. The deacon fetched the

chalice and held it whilst the priest poured in wine in crosswise fashion saying, ‘From east to west, from north to south’. He added: ‘'The precious blood of our Saviour is put into this cup in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’ Next, taking the water, he mentioned the water which flowed from the side of the Crucified and added the significant words: ‘Mingling wine with water and water with wine, and they shall become one and the same in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’ Whilst saying this he again poured wine into the cup with a crosswise motion. The sacramental bread was transferred from the tray to the paten at the altar. Each of the four gmuriathi beneath the 1 The melkaita is plastered to the east wall of an earthenware oven. One Nestorian priest told me that one gmurta should be on its right and another on its left and that words naming the two thieves who were crucified on either side of Jesus should be said whilst putting them in. Another who was present contradicted him emphatically, declaring that the first four gmuriathi should be put in crosswise, and that the four points of the compass should be named. The second priest was

probably right, as at this stage symbols of crucifixion would be misplaced.

74

The Holy Union melkaita were in turn lifted with the melkaita, and when the fourth was in place, the melkaita was above them, as it had been on the tray. The remaining breads and the kaprana were

left on the tray, which was put down to the south of, but not upon, the altar. The breads on the tray are distributed after mass to the congregation and are called bukhra (‘first-born’). They are believed to possess healing powers, and pieces are taken to the sick of the parish. The kaprana (see p. 71, n. 2) is broken in two between the celebrant and deacon and consumed before vestments are removed at the end of the mass. Until celebration begins, the paten is left in a niche to the north of the altar and the chalice in a similar niche to the south. The service of preparation is ended, and the stage now set for a second drama—this time not of incarnation and birth but of sacrifice, death and resurrection.

The Nestorian mass is described in another chapter. In the preparation the theme of holy union can be traced twice; first when melka and melkaita are mingled and, secondly, when water is poured into the wine. Of all this elaborate rite the Chaldaean Church, long separated from its sister, has retained little. Both melka and kaprana have utterly disappeared, and no oil is placed in or on the sacramental bread. The words pronounced when mixing the water with the wine have been paraphrased (see p. 170). The Orthodox Churches (Greek, Russian and Melkite) perform the service of preparation on an especial table or niche, the ceremony being referred to as the prothesis. The table of prothesis stands to the north of the altar, and a lavabo for washing hands should be near it. All churches of Byzantine rite perform the ceremony immediately before mass. The table should be covered by a cloth and corporal. Upon it should stand paten and chalice, both empty, a single candle, a ‘spear’ (knife shaped like a lance-head, its wooden handle terminated by a cross), a spoon,! ‘sponge’,? three veils (two small and a larger called the Aer), a ladle in which water and wine are 1 Originally used for administering wine to the faithful. This has been discontinued in favour of dipping or sprinkling the bread given to communicants. Its use is described on p. 133. 2 A small triangular cushion used for pushing together the sacred bread, removing crumbs, etc. When soiled, it is burnt.

i

Water into Wine

given to communicants after mass is over, a square board, an

aster (star-cover) and two salvers for the sacred bread. Wine and water are brought in vessels or flasks, and the loaves, already baked and stamped (see pp. 49ff), have been brought to the church and are ready. I will describe the Russian rite. Before the priest begins the rite, certain prayers must be said and, after he has made the proper prostrations (or bows) ! to the icons of Christ and the Virgin on either side of the Holy Doors, he enters the sanctuary, where he makes more prostrations and kisses the altar, cross and Gospels. He then robes, washes his hands, and, accompanied by the deacon (if one assists him), proceeds to the prothesis table. Here he takes the lance and begins to cut the first prosphora (loaf) which represents the Lamb (Christ), a stage of the rite not relevant to this

chapter. When this loaf (the ‘Lamb’) has been set in place on the paten, the deacon pours wine into the chalice with his right hand and simultaneously adds a few drops of water from a phial held in his left, saying, ‘Bless, Master, the holy union’,

whereupon the priest blesses the cup.

My instructor explained that the admixture represented the mingling of humanity and divinity at the Incarnation,3 and

that the words spoken at the prothesis table when the priest cuts the first bread (which refer to the piercing of the Saviour’s side, and the mixture of blood and water) refer also to the wedding at Cana. The blessing on the commingling is: ‘Blessed is the union of hagia (“‘holy things” or “holy ones’’) always, now and ever and for an age of ages.’ 1 Prostrations on weekdays. From Easter to Pentecost the prostrations become bows, for on these days ‘joy outweighs penitence’, Every Sunday is treated as a day of resurrection. 2 See below, pp. 124ff. 3 The prothesis is the scene first of the Incarnation and then of the Nativity. ‘La prothése rappelle la créche ot naquit le Sauveur, mais comme il y nait pour étre victime, le prétre représentant l’Esprit Saint opérant le mystére de l’incarnation extrait ’hostie du pain comme du sein virginale de la Sainte Mére de Dieu et récite les paroles du Prophéte Isaie qui le montrent victime de propitiation pour nos péchés. Le diacre représente l’archange Gabriel qui assista A l’accomplissement de ce mystére’ (P. Abel Couturier, Cours de Liturgie Grecque-Melkite, Paris, 1930, Pt. iii, p. 65). And: ‘L’Astérisque symbolise 1’étoile qui s’arréta sur le lieu ot se trouvait l’Enfant’ (cbid).

76

The Holy Union

The priest’s next action indicates that it is by virtue of the holy union that the Virgin takes her place of honour. He cuts a triangle from the loaf which represents ‘the Mother of God’ and places it on the paten, saying, ‘Upon Thy right hand did

stand the Queen...’ (Ps. xlv). (Resuming from my notes) When all the bread is arranged on the paten, the deacon takes the censer and puts incense into it, while the priest repeats the prayer for consecration of the incense, takes the censer from the deacon and censes the aster

(star-cover).! As he places this over the paten he says, ‘And the star came and stood over the place where the young Child lay’.

Except for differences in cutting the bread, the Melkites and Greek Orthodox follow the same procedure as the Russian Orthodox. The significant verse (John xix, 34) is repeated before the wine is poured into the chalice and water added.2 If a priest celebrates without a deacon he says, ‘Bless, Lord,

the holy union’, and the blessing for the commingling when making the sign of the cross over the chalice.

Copts place a star-cover over the paten, but call it the qubba (‘dome’, ‘vault’). A Coptic priest told me that it represented the ‘tomb’3 of Christ. The mingling of water and wine takes place at the altar. The deacon stands ready with a cruse of wine two-thirds full, holding it wrapped in a /afafa (napkin) to prevent his hand from coming into contact with the cruse. In his left he holds a lighted candle. The priest takes the cruse from him and pours the wine into the chalice. The deacon or server then refills the cruse up to a third with water taken from a bottle ready to hand. The priest takes the cruse again and pours the

water into the chalice. The wine must be poured in on the right side of the chalice and water on the left (and it must be always remembered that, as Christ is supposed to face the church and the celebrant, the ritual right is left and vice versa). In the liturgical prayers the miracle of blood and water is unmentioned, but tradition and the Church teach that commixture is inspired by John xix, 34. 1 A cage-like cover of two silver bars crossed and curved, surmounted by a cross. Sometimes a silver star dangles from the centre, especially with the Melkites. 2 The wine is not poured in crosswise as with Nestorians and Chaldaeans. 3 For ‘tomb’ as synonomous with ‘womb’, see p. 71.

77

Water into Wine

Abyssinians (who, it will be remembered, call the chamber where the breadis baked the Bethlehem) refer to the marriage at Cana when mingling water with the wine in the chalice. A Jacobite celebrant, after preparatory rites and before vesting, chooses the loaf for the mass from a tray of holy breads brought to him at the high altar. He covers it with the ‘Star’ (kaukab), a cover-cage of a pattern similar to that of the Copts and the others, and above it spreads a veil. He pours first wine and then a little water into the chalice saying, ‘Mingle, O Lord God, this water with the wine just as Thou didst unite Thy Godhead with our humanity’! and censes the elements. Armenians, alone amongst the Eastern churches, mingle no

water with the sacramental wine. When pouring wine into the chalice the priest says, ‘In remembrance of the saving dispensation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through the fountain of Whose blood, flowing from His side, His creatures have been renewed and made immortal.’ Here, it should be

remarked, mention of the miraculous water mingled with the blood has been omitted, presumably because water was not poured into the chalice. Nevertheless, the holy union is plainly indicated when, after repeating Psalm xciii and covering the chalice with a veil, he thrice makes the sign of the cross over the cup with the significant quotation: ‘Let the Holy Ghost come upon thee and let the power of the Most High overshadow thee’, the words of the angel who announced to Mary that she should bear a son. It is evident, then, that in the Armenian rite, also, the chalice at this stage of the mass, like

the wine-bowl in the Mandaean masigqta, represents the divinely quickened womb. 2 1 This formula was used in Iraq. The Jacobites claim to have a hundred anaphoras, of which the most used is that of St. James. The librarian of the Old Syrian convent in Jerusalem claims to have about sixty of these in his care. In one at least, probably in more, the formula repeated at mixing relates to the spear which pierced the side of the Crucified.

2 The Maronites associate commixture with the Incarnation: see A. A. King, p- 302, ‘Thou hast united, O Lord, thy divinity to our humanity, and our humanity to thy divinity, thy life to our death, and our death to thy life... .’? Mr. King notes that, in conformity with the ancient manuscripts, the missal of 1592 had ‘hast mingled’ in place of ‘hast united’. At the preparation, when water is added to the wine, the blood and water which flowed from the side of the crucified

Christ (John xix, 34) is mentioned.

78

The Holy Union Traces of a sacred union exist in Parsi sacraments in an attenuated form : nevertheless, it is possible to recognise them. The varas cup contains a ring (token of marriage) and bull’s hair (symbol of the male creative principle). Mother symbols such as milk are also present on the ritual table. The ceremonial dipping of ring and hair into the mixed sacramental cup recalls the dipping of the ring into the wine-cup at a Nestorian marriage. Nahn purificatory rites, which apparently enact a rebirth into a purified state, entail drinking from a sacramental cup containing nirangdin (the urine of an uncastrated bull) and gaomez (cow’s urine), that is to say, emblematic products of animals which, to the Parsi, represent the creative and nutritive principles of creation—the ‘Father’ and the ‘Mother’. Such rites are but distantly connected with

ceremonies described in this chapter, but they deserve consideration.

79

VI THE

BRANCH

TO

THE

NOSE

‘Lo, they. put the branch to their nose’ (Ezek. viii, 17).

Geeeti herbs and ritual flowers play an important and sometimes a leading role in Parsi ceremonies, as probably they did in Magian rites. In the Yasna ceremony palm-frond and pomegranate-twig are used as well as dried haoma twigs and the wires which

replace the fragrant barsom or barsam. Modern Parsis are uncertain which plant or shrub the wire twigs represent.! The name has philological connection with balsam, a word of Semitic derivation denoting an aromatic and healing plant.

Its use in Zoroastrian ritual is extremely ancient. In Sassanian times a sprig of barsam was held when reciting grace over meals,? this grace being probably an earlier version of the Satim which turns an ordinary meal into a communion in which the spirits of relatives, ancestors and divine beings share. It is mentioned by Firdausi. The number of barsam twigs used in Parsi rites varies according to the occasion: in the Yasna ceremony twenty-three are required, for the Visparad thirty-five, for the Baj of Panj Tai five, and so on. In these rites zaothra water, that is, water obtained ritually from a running source, is poured over the barsam and urvaram (pomegranate-twigs). Scenes depicting water being poured over a tree or plant can be seen on Sumerian and Babylonian seals of early date, and that such libations were intended to 1 It could be Balsamodendron or Commiphora, bushes of the Burseracae ‘remarkable for the resins their wood or fruit’ (Chambers’s Dictionary). The Balm products. The latter is mentioned by Strabo, Pliny

a genus of small trees or or balsams obtained from of Gilead was one of these and others as an universal

cure. 2° Food should be taken (only) when barsom is there’ Nafisi, Teheran. 1914, vol. 9, p. 2995).

80

(Shahnameh ed. Sa‘id

The Branch to the Nose

draw down rain is an obvious deduction, although they might possibly have been connected also with a kispu ceremony for the benefit of the dead, since the act appears to have been a form of revivification magic.! Modi (M., p. 284) quotes from the Dinkard the ritual’ observed when collecting the twigs in ancient Iran, and it is identical with that of the Parsi priest today when he severs the date-palm foliage and pomegranatetwigs with his ritual knife. Haoma, found in mountainous districts, is apparently a species of ephedra, golden in colour and possessing medicinal and stimulating qualities.2 The Vedic plant soma was deified, and haoma became personified in a legendary hero with divine attributes, said to be the first to pound it on the Elburz mountains.3 Now imported into India from Iran by Parsis, the twigs are first purified and then kept apart for thirteen months before use. Like the barsom, they are endowed with magical freshness, both by being brought into contact with living foliage and by immersion. Flowers are used at Gahambar ceremonies and at celebrations of the Afringan (see pp. 224-7), these two being ritual feasts in which seen and unseen worlds participate. If for the latter flowers are not available, basil or any other fragrant herb may be used. Modi tells us that at Afringan ceremonies in honour of the yazatas (heavenly beings) each yazata was formerly represented by a flower or herb specially sacred to him: for instance, a flowering myrtle to Ahura Mazda, musk to Spendarmad, andso on (M., p. 397). Myrtle is used in all Mandaean ritual. One part of the zdga brika# is devoted entirely to this shrub; its perfume is inhaled 1 The curious rite of plunging a cross into water and pouring water upon it at certain Christian festivals is possibly related to this: the cross being regarded as the Tree of Life. The ecclesiastical explanation is that it symbolises baptism or the baptism of Christ. 2 It has been identified as such (M., p. 303). 3 It is certainly a ‘life-liquid’, a drink to ensure eternal life. ‘Le soma-hauma,

liqueur enivrante qui s’obtient par le pressurage d’une certaine plante, est offert aux dieux; c’est la forme particuliére prise chez les Indo-Iraniens par la boisson

indo-européene

d’immortalité...dans

la Veda

comme

dans l’Avesta, il est

‘*Péloigneur de mort!” ...’ (Zoroastre, J. Duchesne-Guillemin, Maisonneuve, Paris, 1948, p. 24). The herb of eternal youth which in the Babylonian myth the hero Gilgamesh plucked, but then lost, comes to mind. 4 See M.M.I.I. under various headings (pronounced zedga brikha).

7

81

Water into Wine

and hymns in its praise are recited. Myrtle-bushes must be grown in the mandi or close to the river, for absolute freshness is required, and when plucked it is placed in water lest it droop. Twisted into a tiny wreath, it is worn with the head-fillet as part of a priest’s ritual dress : it is placed on the heads of laymen and laywomen at baptism, on the heads of the dying and on

the heads of bride and bridegroom. A wreath of myrtle is slipped over the ritual staff and a sprig fastened to the banner. A paste of crushed myrtle-leaves is daubed on the navel of a newly-born babe; there must be sprigs of myrtle on the ritual table; a small myrtle-wreath wrapped in dough figures in the masigta ritual; in short, this shrub plays a vital rdle in all Mandaean religious ceremonies. Its name, asa, means ‘healed’ or ‘strengthened’. When in ordinary life a Mandaean inhales its perfume, or indeed as he enjoys that of any flower or aromatic herb, he must say, ‘The perfume of Life is pleasing (basim) my

Lord, Manda-d-Hiia’. The perfume is thought to be the vital essence—as it were the soul—of plant or herb. It survives its withering and symbolises its life. It is capable, therefore, when freshly plucked, of transmitting ‘a breath of Life’.1 In earlier times Mandaeans twined another plant into the myrtle-wreath, Origanum, either Maru or Syriacus, which is possibly identical with the hyssop of the Bible. Dates are consumed ritually by Mandaeans, and the date-palm is symbolical of male fertility. Its fronds serve as part of the funeral litter, and bind the reeds which form the framework of the

wedding-hut. (This booth is interwoven with myrtle, flowers and all kinds of fresh greenery.) Sheep are slaughtered by the priest on a bed of green freshly-cut palm-fronds, but I can discover no order that this should be done in the ritual texts. I have already mentioned (p. 36) wreaths hung above the doors of houses at New Year. These wreaths are allowed to remain until they wither, and are thought a protection against

sickness and trouble. Lay Mandaeans selected to bear a corpse 1 In his Folk-lore of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 515, SirJ.G. Frazer says: ‘In the eyes of a people who, like the Hebrews, identified the principle of life with the breath, the mere act of smelling a perfume might easily assume a spiritual aspect ; the scented breath inhaled might seem an accession of life; an addition made to

the essence of the soul.’

82

The Branch to the Nose

to the grave, place roses! beneath the white bandage which masks the lower part of their faces, and when the grave is filled in the bearers open up the bandage and let the roses fall on the tomb. The explanation of the custom given by the biercarriers was ‘so that the smell of death shall not reach us’. As a corpse is interred within twenty-four hours this cannot refer to corruption, but to an infective and baleful emanation from the dead body. ' Jews employ aromatic shrubs, plants and fragrant fruits in their ceremonies as well as palm and willow. By Iraqi Jews a bunch of myrtle is placed on the ritual table on the Sabbath and days of festival. At a circumcision which I attended in Baghdad sprigs of myrtle were handed to all in the synagogue, and myrtle was placed on Khidhr Elias’s chair which must grace such an occasion. As has been often suggested, Khidhr Elias (‘the green—or evergreen—Elijah’) is easily identified as a genius of life and fertility. At the Havdalah,2 inhalation of myrtle or some other sweet-smelling herb is one of the ceremonies which usher out the Sabbath. The master of the house crushes the leaves in his fingers and repeats the blessing on fragrant trees. Myrtle, willow and green palm-leaf are intertwined to form the /ulab,3 a wand which, together with

the citron (ethrog),+ figures in ceremonies performed at the Feast of Tabernacles. As this ritual resembles an Orthodox rite described later in this chapter, I will relate here what I saw during the feast in Baghdad. 1 Jari roses; these are small, pink and highly-scented. They are cultivated in Iraq and Iran for the distillation of rose-water. 2 The ceremony at the ending of the Sabbath. 3 Lulab. ‘The technical name for the palm-branch is lulab from a root meaning “*to sprout”’ or ‘“‘bloom”’; this suggestsa connection with the sprouting of the vegetation in the spring’ (Dr. W. O. E. Oesterley, M & R., p. 104). According to Sukkah, ii, 4, it should consist of three myrtle branches, two willow branches

and one palm-frond. 4 Ethrog (Arabic trunj). ‘In September the Jews first choose out those preferred for the Ethrog to be carried'at the Feast of Tabernacles. These fruits should be well-shaped and have a nipple at the end called the Abu Noni; after they are chosen the rest of the crop is sold at a lower rate. The carrying of a citron with a palm-branch certainly dates back to the time of Josephus, who mentions that in his day the Jews bore Persian apples (mAlum persicum) at their feasts...’ (G. M. Crowfoot and Louise Baldensperger, From Cedar to Hyssop, p. 140). See also my note on ethrog, p. 34.

83

Water into Wine

During the seven days of the festival, as each person enters the synagogue the attendant hands him or her the Julab and ethrog. Women should remove rings and jewellery from their hands and arms before receiving the sacred wand and fruit. The citron is taken with the left hand and the Julab with the right (Shulhan Arukh, par. 651). The recipient moves them up and down vertically. During the feast bereaved persons take the Julab and ethrog to the houses of neighbours prevented by occupation, sickness or old age from attending the synagogue, so that they may perform the ceremony for the benefit of the dead. I noticed that some persons, when they had performed the ritual movement up and down described above, lifted fruit and wand to the nose; but when I commented, I

was told that this, although not prohibited, was not the orthodox custom. The correct procedure was the up-anddown gesture only : inhalation of the perfume of the fruit may take place at the conclusion of the feast. Within the synagogue on each morning of the feast, the hazan and his assistant circumambulate

the tevah! carrying

lulabs and ethrogs. During the recital of the Hillel they face west, extending their arms before them (still holding the citron and lulab), and bring their arms sharply back to the body so that their hands touch the waist. This is done thrice. Next, they lift and lower the lulab and ethrog (a vertical movement), also thrice. Thirdly, again three times repeated, they make a scooping movement towards the ground, returning their hands as before to waist level. Turning then to face the east, they repeat all these movements exactly, and then again when facing south and north. Thus three movements which may possibly represent sowing, growth and reaping, or something of the kind, are thrice repeated at every point of the compass.? On the morning of Hosannah Rabba, the last day of the feast, men bring five, or sometimes three, twigs of green willow bound with a strip of palm and strike the ground five> times, thus accentuating the meaning of earlier rites. Kurdish Jews strike the hazan playfully with the twigs as well: 1 The tribune or almeor, see p. 19, n. I. 2 These movements are called Ni‘nu‘a. 3 This in Baghdad. Dr. Goitein tells me that in Jerusalem the ground is struck repeatedly—‘as often as possible’. In Iraq I was told that the number ‘five’ should be observed exactly.

84

The Branch to the Nose

For one year after death the chief mourner, or his representative, brings myrtle and a bunch of rihdn (basil) or a flask of rose-water with him to the synagogue. He offers fellowworshippers first the myrtle and then the basil, or he sprinkles

their hands with rose-water. The person who receives this attention inhales the perfume and repeats the blessing on perfumed plants, thus benefiting the souls of the deceased. The blessing is this: “Blessed be Thou, eternal King of the universe, who hast created perfumes’ (if the rose-water), ‘perfumed herbs’ (for the basil), “perfumed trees’ (for myrtle).

This little ceremony takes place at the beginning and close of the service. I have watched.such persons going round with their bunches of herbs; rose-water is seldom employed. At a wedding I attended in a Baghdad synagogue, bunches of flowers and posies of mint were handed round before the marriage and nosegays of myrtle were placed about the rooms in the bride’s house; but this time the benefit was to the pair and not to the dead. Myrtle and flowers used in this way must be absolutely fresh, like the myrtle on the ritual table, or laid

on the prophet’s chair. Dr.

Ephraim

Hareubini,

the

erudite

custodian

of the

Museum of Biblical Botany in Jerusalem, enumerated for my benefit a list of plants and flowers which may be distributed on

religious and semi-religious

occasions;

these included

rue,

scented geranium, rosemary, hyssop and myrtle. The law forbids a Jew to pick, tear or cut anything on the Sabbath (the breaking of bread does not count); but he is permitted to pluck and crush scented flowers and herbs so that the blessing may be said over them whilst fresh.! The Hasidim (a group of Jewish mystics in Jerusalem and Eastern Europe) affirm that the inhalation of aromatic herbs, or fruits such as apples, fortifies the soul when bereft of the over-soul or ‘Sabbath soul’, which has been its companion during the Sabbath and leaves at the close of the sacred day.? In the early days of the mandate 1 My informant was a learned Jew acquainted with local custom in Jerusalem. An Orthodox Jewish friend in Baghdad declared that it would be against the law. 2 The ‘Sabbath soul’ (neshamah yathirah), which enters a man on the eve of Sabbath and leaves him at its close, is usually considered a poetical form of speech

85

Water into Wine

a woman of the. Sephardic community in Jerusalem earned a living by offering bunches of rosemary or other fragrant herbs to those praying at the Wailing Wall, receiving a gratuity in return. In Jerusalem the fruits preferred for their scent are apples, quinces or citrons. Such fruit is often placed on the table on the eve and at the end of the Sabbath, the blessing being recited over them. Jewish brides in Israel put rue in their hair; rue is placed in the bridegroom’s garments also: its perfume is said to be a powerful protection against evil spirits. Dr. Hareubini told me that in Meshhed and Iran generally, Jews wash rabbis or notables after death with rose-water or water perfumed by flowers or herbs ; myrtle is sometimes placed in the water. Washing corpses with water so scented is called the ‘great washing’ and with ordinary water ‘the little washing’. Persian Jewish immigrants complain that in Israel there is only the ‘little washing’.! Baghdad Jews perfume water used for washing the dead regardless of status, and finish the washing by sprinkling the corpse with rose-water. Yemenite Jews place myrtle in the water with which they wash the dead, sometimes using for the purpose myrtle used at the Feast of Tabernacles, dried and put aside when the sukkah (booth) was dismantled. When constructing the sukkah Yemenites weave together palm-branches,

myrtle and citron branches. I was told that Sephardic communities in Morocco and elsewhere put myrtle, hyssop or other aromatic herbs in a sixth washing of dead bodies, the first five being with pure water only. Hyssop should be placed on the table whilst a corpse is in the house ‘to guard against the other side’, i.e. against malignant spirits. In some places in the Yemen the dead are anointed with perfumed ointments, in others herbs are placed in the hands of the dead and a light is kept in the room, since evil spirits fear

both light and perfume. According to Brauer (J.J., p. 222) Yemenites put /ubdn (olibanum or frankincense) on a coal-fire to rather than the expression of belief in an over-soul. The expression was first used in Babylon about two and a half centuries before the Christian era, so that, if it does convey something more than hyperbole, this would be in accordance with

Magian belief in the fravashi and that of the Mandaeans in the dmuta (pronounced admutha) (M.M.I.1., pp. 54-6). 1 Persian Jews use rose-water for the Havdalah ceremony of inhalation.

86

The Branch to the Nose

scare away evil spirits from the dead. When people visit a house of mourning during the seven days after death (during which Oriental Jews do not leave the house) branches or sprigs of aromatic shrubs or trees are placed before the guest: Persian Jews say these ‘add light to the soul of the departed’. In Kurdistan, throughout the first year of bereavement, neighbours visit the house on Sabbath afternoons, read psalms, say prayers for the departed, eat cakes and are given herbs, at which they smell ;the scent of the latter, say the Kurdish Jews, ‘causes the good deeds of the dead to be remembered’. Ten male

persons should be present at such commemorations of the dead.1 The Christian custom of sending flowers to a house of death and covering the grave with flowers? may be connected with

the Parsi, Mandaean and Jewish custom of providing perfumed plants, flowers and fruits at memorial feasts and at death. On Good Friday in Greek Orthodox churches flowers are spread on the epitaphios, a piece of cloth on which is depicted Christ in the tomb; but there is no inhalation, nor is there at the

distribution of palms, or when corn and fruit are placed in churches at harvest. Nevertheless, the power attributed to green growth of imparting health, or of lending a fictitious life to dry and withered sprigs and wood (as in Parsi rituals), can perhaps be recognised in some ceremonies of the Oriental churches. The cross, sometimes referred to as ‘the tree’, was a symbol widely used before it became identified with the cross of Christ, and in the Nestorian, Jacobite, Orthodox and Armenian churches a trace of its older and pre-Christian uses may survive in the preference shown for the floriated cross, a cross with arms of equal length ending in a trefoil,3 known in heraldry as the ‘cross botonnée’. The floriated cross has been connected by some with Aaron’s rod that budded, and is especially 1 The Havdalah ceremony, which includes inhalation of perfume, is performed in an Iraqi-Jewish house of mourning for four Sabbaths after death in the presence of ten male persons, as a form of commemoration. 2 As we know from records of the times, during the Middle Ages it was customary in England to take sprigs of basil, rosemary or some other aromatic herb to the graveyard and hold them whilst burial was going on; the use of nosegays to keep off the Black Death may possibly be connected with this. Lane (M.E., 245) mentions the Cairene custom of placing myrtle or palm-leaves on tombs. 3 I saw a ‘cross botonnée’ above the entrance to a fifth-century Coptic monastery in the Wadi Natrun, Egypt. Copts, however, prefer a cross with crossed ends,

87

Water into Wine

associated with the resurrection; hence it conveys, more than any other cross, “the idea of resurgent life. It is this cross which figures at a ceremony now described, a ceremony which recalls the lulab and ethrog ritual of the Jews and also the manner in which the barsom wires and dried haoma of the Parsis are endowed with magic freshness and greenness by contact with freshly-plucked twigs. In 1943 I attended the Feast of the Cross in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The feast commemorates the bringing back of the reputed True Cross by Heraclius to Jerusalem, whence it had been carried off by the Persians. On the eve of the feast a fragment of the ‘true cross’, kept in a cross-shaped reliquary, was borne at vespers in procession round the church. After vespers the ceremony of the ‘Five Breads’! took place, the five loaves set out as usual on a table before the sanctuary, but above and upon the loaves, instead

of the customary five candles, the priest set a lit candelabra shaped like a tree with seven branches. The customary distribution of bread followed. Mass the next morning was celebrated by the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox church in Jerusalem, assisted by his fellow patriarch of Alexandria. It took place in the Katholikon, the largest chapel in the church. The first patriarch arrived in state, preceded and followed by deacons, those on the right bearing three candles and those on the left two, the lights set in ball-shaped holders inscribed with the letters IY XX NIKA. Archbishops, bishops, archimandrites and other clergy all carried bunches of flowers and sweet-smelling herbs, and a small cross was set in the centre of each nosegay. During mass the congregation were blessed several times with the five candles and sometimes with two. When mass was over, all the

clergy, led by one of the patriarchs, went down to the subterranean chapel of the Invention (where St. Helena is said to have discovered the cross), passing through the chapel of St. Helena both coming and going. On the return, the people surged towards the procession, pressing forward to kiss the relic. All processional crosses carried were decorated with flowers and herbs, the latter chiefly basil. The congregation also carried bunches of flowers.and aromatic herbs, mostly basil or mint. 1 See above, p. 60, n. 2.

88

The Branch to the Nose

The procession wound its way up two flights of steps into the small chapel of Golgotha, where tradition says that the crucifixion took place. A tray of flowers and basil was carried before the relic of the cross. I heard that in other Orthodox churches this tray is placed with the cross on a table before the rite of facing the four points of the compass begins, but in this chapel we were on especially holy ground, and the proceedings varied. The patriarch bore the relic, a deacon the tray of flowers and greenery. Within the chapel relic and tray were taken to each of the four quarters of the chapel—representing the four points of the compass—and the patriarch faced each in turn as he repeated the appointed prayers, first for kings and rulers, next for the Church and clergy, then for the city and finally for all the faithful. At each of the four the patriarch, holding the relic, and the deacon, with his tray, thrice lowered their burdens to the ground, whilst the Kyrie Eleison, chanted by the choir, sank in diminuendo, and then swelled joyfully to crescendo as patriarch and deacon rose from their stooping position with cross and tray. It was explained to me later that the lowering of the cross and greenery symbolised the story of the grain which, descending into earth, like the Saviour, rises like Him into new life and so is a parable of mortality and immortality.

(Note on inhalation magic in Iraq) Inhalation of a perfume (riha. .‘odour’ or ‘perfume’) is thought by uneducated Iraqi women to be harmful to a very young child. Mothers of babies fear to put them near a highly perfumed visitor lest they ‘take her scent’ (riha) and thereafter fall victim to the infant diarrhoea which destroys many infants yearly. Most cases of this illness are attributed by parents to riha. Efforts to inoculate the child against riha are made in various ways. At birth a babe’s clothes are perfumed slightly, usually with lavender, as this scent is considered innocuous. Rose-water also

is harmless. The term used for this perfuming of the infant’s wardrobe is in‘abbaq, and before venturing to lift a child into her arms a scented visitor will enquire cautiously, ‘Jbnech’ (or bintech) ‘mu‘abbag?’—‘Has your son’ (or ‘daughter’) been ‘‘perfumed”’?’ Another way of inoculating the child against riha is the ‘round’ (dowra) performed a few days after birth. The midwife and babe, armed with charms and phylacteries according

89

Water into Wine

to the religion of its parents—Christian, Moslem or Jewish— make a round of visits to a number of buildings or places supposed to cause evil fortune or to protect against it. After such a ‘round’ the baby is immune to the attacks of evil spirits, to riha and to the dangers of kebsa, a form of bewitch-

ment caused by contact with women after childbirth, brides, etc. (see Woman and Tabu in Iraq, vol. v, pt. 2, 1938). The ‘round’ includes visits to places known as jumerd, i.e. places where there are evil odours and stenches. A child suffering from the bad effects of a ‘perfume’ is often conveyed to the slaughter-house and held over the pit in which blood from slaughtered beasts collects and from which a nauseating reek proceeds, and then to a tannery equally foul-smelling. A less disagreeable cure is to beg of the person whose ‘ perfume’ has caused the trouble a few drops of the scent he or she uses. These drops are mingled with water, and the child is made to drink a little of the mixture. Riha is thought also to attend the visit of a woman who still feeds a child at the breast to another who has just had a baby when the latter has not yet had her ceremonial bath. Should the new-born child become unwell, it is said to have

‘smelt the odour’ of the visitor. The cure is to place sugar under the armpits of its mother, mix it with water and a little milk from her breast, and to take the mixture to the house

of the visitor suspected of causing the mischief. She then should give it to the child she suckles (often two or three years old) and make it swallow the mixture. No ill-will is suggested ; the harm done by the visit has been involuntary.

go

VIL. ‘DO

THIS

IN REMEMBRANCE’

‘What then am I to make of ‘‘remember”’ (zakor) ? This must mean by utterance’ (Megillah, 18a).

To

WORD

used in the Greek

Testament

for ‘remem-

brance’ or ‘commemoration’ is dvdyvynois. In Aramaic, which was probably the language spoken at the Last Supper, the word was dukrana, and in the Syriac version of Luke xxii, 19, ‘do this in remembrance of me’, we find ‘do this for my {43969 (‘commemoration’, ‘mentioning’). Nestorians, Jacobites and Chaldaeans use the word dukrana! for (a) the commemoration of a saint at mass, and (b) for a special service held after mass for a deceased person. In the first case the name of the saint is pronounced in the liturgical prayers; in the second, the name of the dead person is mentioned both at the proper places in the liturgical prayers and afterwards in the service I have mentioned. The root DKR or ZKR from which the word is derived has a twofold meaning. Not only does it mean ‘to call to mind’, ‘remember’, but also ‘to mention by name’, ‘call on’.2 Used

ritually, it implies that the dead are not only remembered in the heart but mentioned by name aloud. In magic, to speak the name of a spirit is to summon its presence, so that to utter a name at such a rite is to command the actual presence of the spirit or soul mentioned by name.3 In the liturgies of the Oriental churches commemoration of a saint or martyr entails

special mention of his or her name at mass together with the 1 The word is pronounced dukhrana. 2 Assyrian zakaru, ‘to name, call, speak, command, summon’. 3 ‘For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Matt. xviii, 20). In Iraq it is believed that Elijah is immediately

present if his name is spoken (jews and Christians). Evil spirits are referred to by Jews there as dhdk an-nis (dialect) (‘those people’) in order to avoid naming them. To name devils or angels is to summon their presence. gi

Water into Wine

names of many.other illustrious or holy personages who longer on earth, first and foremost that of Jesus, whose and rising from the grave are perpetually celebrated solemn eating and drinking called Theia Lettourgia,

are no death at the divine

service; Qurbana, offering; or Qeddase, hallowing—in the West, the mass. According to Ismay Elbogen,! ritual remembrance in the

form of blessing by name living governors and rulers is of great antiquity amongst the Jews (Jer. xxix, 7; and Ezra vi, 10). After the Crusades, he says, it became the custom in Germany and Italy to commemorate martyrs and distinguished men; and that out of that grew the custom of saying prayers for dead relatives,

a commemoration

to which

the word

Hashkavah

(n1>Dwn) was given. Long lists of martyrs were read aloud on Sabbaths, before seven-day feasts and before the ninth of Ab. It seems that recitation of the Qaddish2 for the dead is unrecorded before the twelfth century; nevertheless, it is certain that prayers for the dead, whether by name or otherwise, were said by Jews in early post-exilic times.3 Mr. Warren in Liturgy and Ritual of the ante-Nicene Church (S.P.C.K., 1897) quotes (p. 220) a prayer from the Authorised Prayerbook of the United Hebrew Congregation of the British Empire (London, 1892) which is said four times yearly by mourners?: ‘May God remember the souls of my father and mother, my grandfather and grandmother, my uncles and aunts, my brothers and sisters, my relatives on the father’s side who have passed into their eternity. For the sake of the alms which I commend for them, may their souls be included in the bundle of life with the souls of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah and the other righteous men and women in Paradise; and let us say Amen.’5 1 Der Fiidische Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung, p. 203 (Leipzig 1913). 2 An Aramaic prayer. See Appendix. 3 See 2 Tim. i, 18, and in the second book of Macabees

(2 Macab. xii, 44),

‘For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead.... Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.’ 4 On the eighth day of Passover, second day of Pentecost, the Day of Atonement and the eighth day of Tabernacles. 5 See p. 44, n. 1. The term ‘bundle of life’ occurs in the O.T., 1 Sam. xxv, 29 (‘the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God’). 92

‘Do This in Remembrance’

Today a solemn hazkarah (‘mentioning’) of the dead takes place at certain times of the year.! In Jerusalem, as in Western countries, the hazan (leader in prayer) repeats the names of any prominent people who have died during the year, whilst the worshipper pronounces for himself the name or names of his own dead, especially if he mourns a parent. At Damascus in Sephardic synagogues, the hazan recites as well the names of eminent rabbis of past times; this is also done in Iraq and Iran. The ceremony called Hashkavah was mentioned above: the word means ‘causing to lie down’, that is, giving repose to the souls of the deceased. In Baghdad it is celebrated on certain days of solemnity and at stated intervals after death.2 The main features of the ceremony are a ritual meal, a vigil, the recital

of psalms and passages from holy books, and of the Qaddish and Hashkavah prayers.3 The deceased is mentioned by name: if a man, ‘N., son of N.’ (father) ; if a woman, ‘N., daughter of N.’ (mother). On the eve of Hoshana Rabba, the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, I was invited to the house of a man who had lost his wife, to assist at a Hashkavah recited for the

dead woman. On this night any family which has suffered a bereavement keeps vigil, but it is incumbent on any pious Jew, bereaved or not, to spend hours of vigil in prayer, for according to Kabbalists+ a man’s fate is finally sealed that night and redemption may be gained by participating in such a service as the Hashkavah. Ten men over thirteen years of age should be present, able to share the reading if possible; if not, the services of professional

readers are hired for a fee. On this occasion one professional reader had been engaged, a blind man, Aazan at a neighbouring synagogue and teacher at a school for the blind. Unable to 1 See above, p. 92. 2 On the eighth day of Tabernacles at a separate feast called Shemimi Asereth, the Feast of Solemn Assembly, memorial prayers are read for the dead and a prayer for rain is recited. The connection should be noted. The second benediction of the ‘Eighteen’ also connects rain with the raising of the dead: ‘Thou, Lord, art mighty . . . thou quickenest the dead, thou art mighty to save.’ In winter: ‘Thou causest wind to blow and rain to fall... yea, faithful art thou to quicken the dead.’ (See Authorised Jewish Prayerbook, translated by Rev. Singer, 1912,

PP- 44-5-)

3 For translations of both, see Appendix. 4 A large proportion of the Jews who are (or were before the late migration to Israel) in Iraq, are Kabbalists. The same may be said of Persia.

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read Braille, he was dependent upon a prodigious memory and was famous for his melodious chanting. The readings to be got through before dawn were the Parasha (from the five books of Moses), the Petirah (the story of the death of Moses from the Midrash), the Adra Zota (Idara ‘assembly’) in Aramaic from the Zohar, the Tehelim (psalms of David divided into parts), the Barakha (‘blessing’) and, lastly, the Hashkavah, which lent the ceremony its name.

Although the electric light shone overhead a number of lighted candles stood on a tray upon the table. Lighted candles, known as the Hathimah (‘sealing’), are a necessary part of the ritual. After the reading of the seven parts of the psalms a prayer was said in honour of the Ushpizin (‘guests’),1 that is, the seven

patriarchs,

Abraham,

Isaac, Jacob,

Joseph,

Aaron,

Moses and David, who are supposed to be present successively on the seven nights of the Feast of Tabernacles. Should a man bearing the name of the patriarch to be commemorated be present, the honour of reciting the prayer that night falls to his share. If, as happens in a large assembly, there are several of that name, recital is sold by auction to the Josephs, Jacobs and so on who claim the right, and the money is given either to the synagogue or to the poor. (Quoting my notes) After the Parasha, Adra and Tehelim, not only the bereaved husband, but others who had lost relatives during the year rose and recited the Qaddish for their dead, facing Jerusalem. For the Hashkavah a tray was brought in upon which were set out four round loaves of household bread, some salt, dates, melon, oranges and other fruit. This

tray should have been brought in by the mistress of the house, but on this melancholy occasion it was she herself whom we were commemorating. I was told that both tree fruit and ‘fruit of the earth’ must be represented (e.g. dates and grapes for the former and melon and pumpkins for the latter).2 After washing his hands ritually (i.e. pouring water thrice over each hand) the master of the house broke the bread, 1 The food provided and supposedly accepted by the patriarch guest is set aside after every meal eaten in a sukkah and given to the poor. As said elsewhere, Khidhr Elias (‘the green Elijah’) is a permanent guest in the booth. 2 The association of fruit with the cult of the dead has been mentioned before. Jews in mourning stand at the gate of synagogues in Iraq and distribute fruit to those who enter. The recipients pray for the repose of the dead.

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‘Do This in Remembrance’

dipped a fragment of it in salt, ate it, and then distributed small pieces of bread to all present.1 Next, the proper benedictions were

recited over

the fruit, and these, too, were

handed round and eaten.

I did not stay till dawn with the others, but was told that at the conclusion of the ceremony all walked to the synagogue,

where the ceremonies with lulab and ethrog (see p. 84) took place. Mandaeans consider all ritual meals, regardless of time and season, as communions in which quick and dead meet and participate. An ordinary household meal becomes lofant (‘union’, ‘communion’) under certain conditions. No women should be present, and the five ritual foods, ‘wheat’ (here household bread), grapes (or raisins), walnuts, pomegranate (or its seeds) and quince should be on the table, also salt and water freshly drawn from the river. Other food is usually on

the table, but cannot be eaten until the ritual part of the meal is over. Bread is broken between pairs and water is drunk from a common bowl, and name of the deceased is coupled with the formula for lofani, ‘Laufa (‘communion’) and ruaha (‘rebreathing’, ‘revival’) of life and forgiving of sins be there for N., son (or daughter) of N’. I have dealt with these and the other ritual meals of Mandaeans for the benefit of their dead in later chapters, but in the present context the point should be made that the deceased must be named. At the major ritual meals the commemorative prayer called ‘Our Forefathers’ (Abahatan Qadmaiia) or ‘The Great Mentioning’ (Dukrana rba) is recited. It is translated in shortened form at the end of this chapter. It mentions by name spirits of light, Adam and Eve, patriarchs, ancestors and priests of past times, together with the names of recently dead persons, and petitions for living Mandaeans. At a lofani performed by

priests in a private house the ritual table is set up in the courtyard and neighbours and friends come in, standing whilst the holy meal is celebrated, but not partaking of it. When at the rite of breaking bread with another priest or acolyte the celebrant pronounces the name of the deceased for whom the cere-

mony is performed, bystanders call out the names of their own 1 This household bread is not to be confused with the ka‘ak, also distributed at

Hashkavah feasts (see p. 47).

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recently dead, ‘So-and-so, son of So-and-so’, and the priest repeats each name as it is given with the words ‘forgiving of sins be there for (the soul of. . .)’ attached.1 Mention by name is an cadena feature of such Parsi meals for the dead as the Afringan, Satim and Yasna ceremonies. The names of the commemorated are inserted in a list called the ndmgrahan. Modi says that the word means ‘taking or remembering the names’. ‘Every family has a manuscript book or list known by that name. It contains the names of the departed ones of the family. Those who have died lately head the list. The priest, while reciting the Pazend Dibache in the Afringan, Satim, Farokhshi, etc., recites all the names in the list. At first he mentions or invokes the name of the particular deceased in whose honour the ceremony is performed, and then the names of other deceased of the family. He then recites also the names of some of the departed Zoroastrian worthies of ancient Iran and of India who have done some valuable services to their community’ (M., p. 470). The Dibacheh (P. 4» ‘preface’, ‘title’, ‘treatise’), recited at all the major ritual meals, is a prayer in the Pazend language commemorating Ahura Mazda (the supreme deity), his ameshdspentas (celestial beings) and the yazata (heavenly spirit) in whose name or for whose festival the ceremony takes place. In addition, the names are inserted of the person for whose benefit the ceremony is performed, and of the person or persons who ordered its celebration. The formula used for living persons is (M., p. 383): ‘May the person with a living soul bearing the name of N., son of N., be remembered here.’ and for the dead:

‘May the immortal-souled person bearing the name of N., son of N., be remembered here.’ 1 It is as important for a Mandaean to have a son who will pray for his soul at such meals as it is for a Jew to have a male child to recite the Qaddish for him after his death. Rabit bnia d hawilak balma dakar Suma zaidilh, ‘l pagrak ‘1 Sul (Thou didst rear sons so that thou shouldest have in the world a mentioner of (thy) name; making provision for thy body even unto Sheol) (Draga d Yahia).

96

‘Do This in Remembrance’

Modi translates the words aidar yad bad, ‘ be remembered here’, and the word _»dd, meaning ‘calling to mind’ or ‘remembrance’, is used as a generic term for rites performed for the dead and for anticipatory mention of the souls of living men and women. In short, in Parsi ritual there is close association between ‘naming’ and ‘commemoration’; moreover, the order

of commemoration is precisely the same in Parsi, Mandaean and Christian liturgical prayers. These first praise and commemorate the deity as source of life and its blessings and as ultimate ancestor. Next, spirits of light, heavenly beings and saints are commemorated with especial mention of any one of them whose festival is being honoured. National heroes or worthies follow, priests, dead and living according to rank; then the dead, generally with the name of the person, if any,

for whom the ritual is performed. The living are mentioned too ; rulers and those in authority, ecclesiastics, priests and laymen connected with the present ceremony. Lastly the faithful, living and dead, are prayed for together. Such coincidence of form is too close to be fortuitous. Eastern churches call such lists of the dead the diptychs, so named from tablets on which the lists were once written. We shall see in later chapters how the dead and living are commemorated in the liturgies and practices of the various communions, and how special loaves, or fragments of a single loaf, are made to represent persons living or dead for whose benefit and commemoration the mass is said. The lists differ: Greeks, Russians,

Armenians, Copts and so on have their own national worthies, saints, martyrs, liturgists and ecclesiastics; whilst Christ, the

Virgin, the Apostles, St. John the Baptist and certain other saints figure in all. The Russians have shortened their lists considerably ; that of the Nestorians is exceedingly long. In the Parsi rites when the Dibacheh occurs in the middle of a ceremony it is recited ‘in bd’, i.e. muttered with closed lips, but when said at the beginning or end of a ceremony it is repeated aloud. Similarly, in Oriental Christian churches some

parts of the commemorations are said ‘secretly’, that is, the words are pronounced but not spoken aloud. One form of commemoration is particularly significant, not only on account of its likeness to a mass, but also because it

8

97

Water into Wine

commemorates in perpetuity one person in addition to the saint or holy personage whose festival is celebrated. This person is not Christ, but the Virgin Mary. It is the Orthodox ceremony of the Ipsosis of the Panagia (‘all-holy one’). The word ipsosis is of peculiar interest, for it means ‘raising-up’, an exact equivalent of the Mandaean word masigta. It is celebrated in

monasteries and cenobia and takes place on feast days after the evening meal. The rite was described to me minutely by a monk of the Greek convent beside the Holy Sepulchre, and Isabel Hapgood gives an account of it in her book The Service Book of the Holy Orthodox Church (S.P.C.K.). My own notes are: Before the meal, the sacristan brings a tray or flat dish upon which is a bread marked, as for mass, with the letters

IC XC NI KA together with a cup of wine, and places them before the icon of the Virgin Mary. Towards the end of supper he carries in a censer of lighted charcoal and a vessel containing incense and sets these too before the icon. At the monastery of Mar Saba oil is also put with the aforesaid bread, wine and incense. When the repast is over, two deacons or two monks approach the head of the table where the Superior sits and, making a reverence, say, ‘Bless, O fathers,

the consecrated (elements) and pardon me, a sinner’. All answer, ‘God pardon thee and have mercy on thee’. The first deacon, taking the bread with his right hand, thrice lifts it up as high as his face. In his left he holds the incense box. The second deacon takes the cup of wine in one hand and the censer of burning charcoal in the other and elevates the wine thrice. Both turn to face the Superior, standing in the midst of the room, and the Superior says, ‘O All-Holy Mother of God, help us!’ All join in the response, ‘O Father, through Her intercession have mercy and save us’. One of the monks recites the 121st psalm, the medial! prayers and special prayers for the feast. Then the deacons approach the Superior, who places a little incense on the brazier and, breaking off a morsel of the bread, passes it through the smoke of the incense? and consumes it. Taking the cup of wine, he passes this also through the smoke and then drinks of it. The two deacons bow and go to the brethren one by one, who partake 1 A series of prayers to follow the appointed psalms for each hour of the day. 2 This proceeding resembles the Mandaean passing of the fatiria through incense smoke at the masiqta.

98

‘Do This in Remembrance’

with the same ritual as the Superior. The reader then says, “Kyrie eleison’ (‘Lord, have mercy on us’) thrice, and “Bless us, O father!’ The Superior recites prayers customary at the conclusion of the meal; incense and burner are re_ placed before the icon and the rite is ended.

The relevancy of this to our enquiry is obvious. Here, in miniature as it were, we have a ‘raising-up’ ceremony, almost an embryo mass, from which the symbolism of blood-sacrifice is as absent as in Parsi or Mandaean meals for the dead. The ‘naming’ which forms so important a feature of such rites is present, but curtailed. It is just possible that this ‘raising-up’ performed ‘in remembrance of the Mother of Christ’, represents an ancient and simpler form of commemorative ritual meal.! A legend, said to account for this observance, is hardly relevant to our enquiry. Shortened translation of the Mandaean prayer known as ‘Our Forefathers’ or Dukrana rba (‘The Great Commemoration’) (Note. During the feast of the five intercalary days, the words udukrana ‘and commemoration’ are inserted after masiqia.) ~£In the Name of the Life and in the Name of Manda-d-

Hiia’ be pronounced upon thee, O Good (food) ! Thou approachest the goodness of the Life, and Manda-dHiia revealed it who, in the name of the Life, uttered ‘ Tad taba ltabia’ (Good doeth good to the good). And their names shall be established who honour the names (of the dead). We seek and find and listen. We have sought and found, have spoken and been heard in thy presence, my Lord, Manda-d-Hiia,

lord of health-giving powers. Forgive him (or ‘her’—the deceased) his sins, trespasses, follies, stumblings and mistakes. And forgive the sins, transgressions, follies, stumblings and mistakes of those who have provided this bread (food), this masigta (raising-up) and this benefaction ; also those of charitable and pious persons such 1 In medieval England a service and fast were held one month after death in memory of the deceased. Bede speaks of the day as commemorationis dies. ‘These ‘*minding-days”’ were of great antiquity and were survivals of the Norse minne or ceremonial drinking to the dead’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

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as this soul of N, son of N, of this masigta. May there be forgiving of sins for him. (Commemoration of spirits of light) Yushamin son of Dmut-Hiia of this masigta, forgiving of sins may there be for him. Abatur, son of Bahrat of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for him. Habshaba and Kana-d-Zidga of this masigqta, forgiving of sins be there for them.

The four-and-twenty

‘uthras, sons

of light, of this

masigta, forgiving of sins be there for them. Pthahil, son of Zahriel of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for him.

(Commemoration of ancestors, patriarchs, etc.) Adam, son of Qin and Eve his wife of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for them. Shitil, son of Adam of this masigqta, forgiving of sins be there for him. Ram and Rud of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for them. Shurbai and Sharhabiel of this maszgta, forgiving of sins be there for them. Noah and Nuraita his wife of this masiqta, forgiving of sins be there for them. Shum (Shem), son of Noah of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for him. Yahia-Yuhana, son of ‘Nishbai-Qinta and Anhar his wife of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for them. Those three hundred and sixty-five priests who came forth from the place of Jerusalem the city, of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for them. (Prayer for the living and dead) And for my own soul (the celebrani’s) N, son of N, of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for me, and for the soul of my father, N, son of N, of this masiqta, forgiving of sins be there for him; and for my mother N, daughter of N, of this

masiqta, forgiving of sins be there for her... (here the names of the celebrant’s teacher, children, brothers and sisters and other relatives are inserted, whether alive or dead), and for the soul of

N, son of N (the deceased, as above), of this masigta, forgiving of sins be there for him. And for this my soul, N, son of N (the celebrant repeats the intercession for himself and his parents,

teacher and relatives) ... And for the soul of N, son of N (the deceased), and the souls of Mandaeans (here begins a list of dead laymen) ... all the souls of our good forefathers, forgiving of sins be there for them. And for my soul, N, son of N (the celebrant again repeats his private intercessions), and for the souls 100

‘Do This in Remembrance’

of priests (lists of the names of priests), and for the souls of our good forefathers, forgiving of sins be there for them. And for this my soul, etc., and for the souls of ganzibria (head priests) (lists of these with the usual petition) and for the souls of (ethnarchs, liturgists, etc.). And for this my soul (eéc.). And for the nation, all Nasuraeans, priests and Man-

daeans from the age of Adam the first man unto the end of the worlds, everyone who descendeth to the Jordan, is baptised and receiveth the pure sign: (those) who did not turn aside from their signs nor have departed from their baptism, forgiving of sins be there for them... their wives, their children and their priests; and for him who provided this bread and benefaction. And for you, my fathers, teachers and instructors when ye supported me from the Left to the Right, forgiving of sins be there for you. And ye shall say, ‘Life is established in its indwellings:

Life is praised and Life is triumphant over all works.’

IOI

Vill PACT

AND

PEACE

‘When Artabanus saw Anilaeus... he... offered Anilaeus his right hand, which is the greatest pledge of security with all those barbarians to those who converse

with them; for none

of them will

deceive you when once they have given their right hands, nor will anyone doubt of their fidelity’ (JosEPHUs : Antiquities, xviii,chap. 9).

snap minor but significant ritual gestures preserved by the Eastern churches is a handclasp accompanied by an embrace or kiss. ‘There is nothing peculiarly Christian about this act, since it occurs as a sign of good faith, quite apart from religion, in primitive societies. Mutual grasp of the right hand meant lack of hostile intention because it made attack difficult, and such an act of implied trust became naturally a token of good faith, of honest intention, goodwill, fealty and peace. Its ritual use is of undoubted antiquity!: as practised today there are slight variations; for instance, during mass,

Copts give the right hand but no kiss and the Jacobite and Nestorian churches emphasise the grasp of the right hand rather than the kiss which follows, which gives the impression that the kiss is a mere sealing of the pact, an accentuation of good faith and fellowship. 1 It is uncertain what exact form the ‘hand-ceremony’ at the Akitu festival in Babylon took. This yearly placing of the king’s hand into the hand of the god was probably a kind of pact: the king swore fealty to his divinity; the god engaged himself to protect king and people. The handclasp appears on ancient Persian coins as an emblem of peace and alliance (see Zeitschrift fiir Numism. III, 9, 3).

A representation of a ritual handclasp was found on a wall at Doura-Europos (F. Cumont’s Textes et Monuments, figures rélatifs aux mystéres de Mithra, 1, 1899, p- 173, n. 6, and his Fowilles de Doura-Europos; Biblioth. archéol. et historique, vol. ix, 1926, p. 105, fig. 22). An excellent example of the handclasp is seen in the centre panel of a group of bas-reliefs carved in the rock at Nimrud-Dagh, a peak in the upper Euphrates region. A reproduction of this can be seen in A. B. Cook’s Xeus (Camb. Univ. Press, 1925, fig. 545, vol. I). 102

Pact and Peace

A kiss is something more than a sign of friendship and reconciliation in Near and Middle East countries, where the pious kiss holy objects such as stones, walls of holy places, relics and so on. It is an intimate contact with something which can confer blessing. To kiss the hand or foot of a person is a humble way of soliciting his protection. Parsis call the ritual handclasp the hamdzor. According to Modi (M., pp. 402-3), priests perform the hamdzor at the end of religious ceremonies enumerated as the Yazashné, Vendidad, Visparad, Afringan and ‘the recital of Nydishes jointly by a number of persons forming a congregation’. At the priests’ school near Bombay, during a rehearsal of the Yasna rite performed for my benefit, I saw that it took place after the recitation of the seventy-second and last chapter of the Yasna. The celebrant put his hands together, palm to palm, as Europeans do in prayer, and placed them between the palms of the fire-priest, so that each man’s hand alternated with those of the man he was saluting. When this interleaved salute had been twice exchanged, each lifted his hands in the first position, palm to palm, towards his face. The words said when performing the action are: ‘May you be one (with us) in the ceremony and may you be righteous’ (Hamdzor hama asho béd). SirJ.J. Modi says (of. cit., pp. 401-2) : ‘It is a particular way in which, at the end of several ceremonies, one person passes his hands into the hands of another person.

One

person,

say A, holds forth both his

hands flattened out and in the position of the thumbs being uppermost and the palm of one hand facing parallel to the palm of the other. Another person, B, with whom he makes the hamdzor, similarly holds forth his hands, placing his

flattened right hand between A’s flattened hands. This process places the flattened right hand of A, in turn, between B’s flattened hands. Thus, each holds the right hand of another in the folds of his hands. Having thus placed them, they, with a graceful movement, withdraw the right hands and similarly pass their left hands in the folds of the hands of another. After thus passing their hands into each other’s hands, they lift their hands towards their heads just as if to touch them with the tips of their fingers, which is the

usual way of saluting elders or superiors. This graceful 103

Water into Wine

movement

of hands is spoken of as “hamdzor karvt” or

‘‘hamazor levi’’, i.e. “to make the hamazor” or ‘‘to take the 3999

hamazor’’.

When at certain religious rites laymen are present, the firepriest (raspi), who, not being the celebrant, corresponds to a Christian deacon, passes on the hamdazor to other priests and the congregation. At the recital of the Nydishes ‘the persons assembled’ exchange the hamdzor with those standing next to them. On New Year’s Day it is performed by laymen after washing and putting on new clothes, and when the salutation has been repeated good wishes and congratulations are expressed (M., p. 406). Women do not make the salute. Modi, a keen observer, noted the likeness between this Parsi ceremony and the ‘kiss of peace’ of the ‘black Jews’ of India known as the Beni Israil, and quotes the Rev. J. H. Lord’s description : ‘Emanating from the chief minister, who bestows it on the elders nearest to him, it passes throughout the congregation. Each individual seeks it, as far as possible, from his

senior or superior, Extending the arms with the hands flattened out, and in the position of the thumbs uppermost, the person approached takes the hand between both of his own, similarly held, and the junior then probably places his remaining hand on the outside of one of those of the person already holding his other hand. The hands of each are then simultaneously released and each one immediately passes the tips of his fingers which have touched those of his neighbour to his mouth and kisses them. He then passes on to receive the same from, or to bestow the same on, another; and so on,

till all in the synagogue have saluted one another. Two or

three minutes may be occupied in the process.’ ! The occasion seems to have been a circumcision. Jews in Baghdad and Kurdistan have a ritual gesture akin to this when performing the giddush (ritual drinking of wine), namely, when the cup is handed by a senior to a junior, the junior, before he accepts the cup, takes the hands which hold it between his own flattened palms, then lifts his hands, held

flat palm to palm, to his mouth and kisses his finger-tips. He 1M., op. cit., pp. 403-4, and The Jews in India and the Far East by the Rev.J. H. Lord (1907), pp. 30-1.

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Pact and Peace

then takes the cup. The formula said when performing this action is ‘Shabbath shalom’ on Sabbath Eve, that is, ‘Sabbath peace’; and for a festival, ‘ Tisku lishanim rabbét’ (‘Mayest thou live many years’). When Iraqi Jews intend to make a religious pact, the two men concerned first wash their hands in pure water, then a clean, folded handkerchief is held between them, each man holding an end in his right hand. This done, they pronounce an oath in the name of the Lord and use the word emeth (N28 ‘troth’), which their mystics declare to be equivalent to twenty-four oaths. This pact is called ginian (‘possession’) and breaking it entails severe punishment; formerly it meant excommunication. At a wedding giddush the rabbi celebrating the marriage should take the bridegroom aside, give the end of a handkerchief into his right hand, and grasping the other end with his own, makes the bridegroom swear that he will provide for his bride her lawful food and raiment and will perform his duty as husband. Moslems have a similar form of oath at marriage: the bridegroom and the bride’s wakil, as a representative of her father, sit on the ground and clasp one another’s right hands beneath a handkerchief spread over them, whilst the terms and dowry are solemnly agreed to by both, the bridegroom repeating his undertaking several times. At.a Mandaean wedding the bridegroom and bride’s proxy do the same beneath a white cloth, and when the words of troth

have been pronounced, each of the two carries the right hand he extended in oath to his lips and kisses it. To kiss the hand which has been clasped in greeting, when the person greeted has released it, is a common form of salutation in Iraq.! Mandaeans call the ceremonial handclasp the kushta and its performance ‘taking kushta’ with a person. As in the European hand-shake the right hand only is given, and on its 1 After repeating the Qaddish in the synagogue, Kurdish Jews turn slightly to right and left, extending the right and left hand to the neighbour on either side, then carry the finger-tips of the right hand and then those of the left to their lips. In Baghdad the gesture made during the recital was turning towards neighbours on the right and left with both hands and arms extended; the kiss is omitted. Iraqi Jews kiss the synagogue door on entering and leaving, and a devout Jew kisses the mezuzah fixed to his house-door when he leaves his house and when he

returns. Religious books should be kissed after every reading, and after distribution of bread dipped in salt at the giddush a pious recipient kisses the bread before eating it. A Mandaean priest kisses the holy book from which he intends to read.

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release it is carried to the lips. Kushta! may be translated ‘troth’, ‘truth’ or ‘true-dealing’. For the act of stretching forth the right hand to a person the verb pst is used. Examples of the meanings of kushta are: Ha kushta baiina minak (‘Behold, I ask of thee a pledge’), Ya d kushta kshitia nafshaikun (‘O those who have plighted themselves to right dealing’) and zawh d kushta (‘his plighted wife’). Kushtana means ‘honourable’, ‘true to his word’, ‘sincere’; kushta ulaufa (‘pact and union’) illustrates another shade of meaning. When making a promise, a Mandaean‘will offer his right hand in kushta, just as in Britain a person concluding a bargain says, ‘Let’s shake on it.’ Kushta is personified as a divine being in the Mandaean pantheon and has much in common with the Vedic and Zoroastrian deified abstractions RTA and Mithra and the Assyro-Babylonian Kittu and Misharu.2 He is invoked in prayers. The handclasp and kiss occur three times during the Mandaean baptismal rite, once in the water, once after the giving of the sacramental bread and water, and once at the end when

the priest veils his right hand in his stole for the final salutation. The words spoken are ‘Kushta asiak uqaimak’, that is, ‘Kushta strengtheneth thee (or healeth thee) and establisheth thee’. In Mandaean rites the handclasp seems to mark the completion of a ceremony or of a stage in a ceremony, not its beginning, and the handclasp and kiss are not passed on to the congregation. The clasping of hands to mark the conclusion of an agreement is mentioned in the Bible (‘If thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger’, Prov. vi, 1, must refer to this) and a pact

made by Oriental Jews whilst grasping the right hand (called tek‘tath kaph) may not be broken. Peace and pact are nearly related in Jewish tradition; the words shalom and D‘rith are used together as meaning ‘peace and covenant’. At the beginning of this chapter reference was made to the Christian ‘kiss of peace’ or pax, as it is called in the Latin 1 In Syriac Aaa

= ‘rectitude’, ‘truth’, ‘right’, ‘justice’. In Aramaic DoT =

and NOW)? = ‘truth’, ‘right dealing’. 2 See Zoroastre, étude critique avec une traduction commentée des Gatha, J. DuchesneGuillemin (Maisonneuve et Cie, Paris, 1948), pp. 64-8.

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Pact and Peace

churches. A reference to it is found as early as in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus: ‘And when the catechumens finish their prayers, they must not give the kiss of peace, for their kiss is not pure. Only believers shall salute one another, but men with men and women with women; a man shall not salute a woman.’!

In Eastern churches, just as in all Oriental synagogues, the

women in the congregation are separated from the men,? and when the kiss is passed on to the women, an elderly church functionary is chosen. The ritual kiss, associated either actually or else by tradition with the grasp of the right hand or its equivalent, is distinct from the contact or finger-tip kiss3 used to salute relics, holy objects, the book of the Gospels, the cross and so on, in that it

forms part of the liturgical service. The Russian Orthodox exchange the salute after the Aitisis and Ekphonisis, just before the Anaphora, the holy doors being then open. If several priests are in the sanctuary it is thus performed: (From notes given by a priest) The deacon says: ‘Let us love one another that with one mind we may confess.’ The choir sings: ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Consubstantial and Undivided Trinity.’ The priest makes the sign of the cross thrice and thrice kisses the covered paten and covered chalice (in the order named) and the altar. He repeats each time, ‘I love Thee, O my Lord, my strength...’ The other priests do the same. The first’ priest then takes the right hand of the second, saying: ‘Christ is between us.’ They kiss one another on both shoulders and on the right hand; the second priest having given the reply: ‘He is and will be’. The kiss is handed on in a similar way by the second priest to a third, until it has been communicated to all in the sanctuary. In 1 A.P.H., p. 88. Dr. Easton comments that the kiss of peace marked the close of the service which preceded the Eucharist. The kiss, hallowed by long tradition in the Oriental churches, was similar to that practised by Parsis, the Beni Israil

in India, Copts and Abyssinians. 2 In Jacobite, Chaldaean, Nestorian, Coptic and Abyssinian churches women stand apart from men, either in a separate aisle or part of the church, or else behind the men in the nave. Sometimes they enter by different doors. 3 The holy object is touched by the finger-tips, which are then carried to the lips.

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earlier times it was passed on by one of these to a member of the congregation and so to all in the church, but the custom is now obsolete.

The Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics exchange the pax in a similar manner. If a priest has no concelebrants no kiss is exchanged. If a bishop is celebrating with concelebrants, each makes three bows and kisses the veil above the elements, the

bishop first and the others in order of rank. As each man passes the bishop he kisses the latter’s right and left shoulder and takes up his position to the right of the bishop and of his predecessors, exchanging the kiss with the bishop and with the man immediately on his right. When all have kissed the elements, altar and predecessor, the priests range themselves round the altar. Deacons can also give one another the ‘kiss’ but often content themselves with kissing the cross on their shoulders. Jacobites (Syrian Orthodox) perform the kiss by taking the palms of the person to whom the kiss is to be communicated between the flattened palms of both hands. On release, both bring their finger-tips to their mouths. The recipient then goes through the same ceremony with his neighbour. I have also seen a variation of this: before the fingers were kissed the two interleaved their flat palms in the Parsi fashion. The kiss is exchanged more than once; the first time being before the preparation of the elements, between priest and deacon or between priest and assistant priest. (Notes) The kiss of peace proper, referred to as ‘the Peace’, occurs before the Anaphora. If the celebrant is assisted by another priest, the deacon brings the former a censer, over which the celebrant moves his hand to cense it, then censes

the altar whilst the people repeat the Nicene Creed. He makes a lowly reverence to the altar and returns the censer to the deacon, who then stands with the chain of the censer held

horizontally between his two hands. The celebrant lifts a corner of the veil covering the elements, kisses the altar, then turning to the deacon, he kisses the chain of the censer, first making the sign of the cross on the deacon’s forehead with his right thumb. The deacon goes to the north of the altar, kisses the corner (‘horn’), then offers the chain horizontally as before to the senior priest or senior deacon, who kisses it. 108

Pact and Peace

The two exchange the kiss of peace, and it passes in the manner described above to all in the sanctuary. The deacon descends into the nave to hand it on to the congregation. An old man or young boy passes it to the women.

Nestorians interleave the palms when giving the ‘pax’ kiss finger-tips on release. For the ‘giving of the Peace’ curtains which veil the sanctuary are drawn apart. When senior deacon receives the Peace from the priest, he kisses

and the the the

dapa,! chalice, paten and the priest’s hand saying, ‘Give Peace

one to the other in the love of Christ’. He gives the Peace to the other deacons, and one of the congregation, who must be a deacon or reader, comes forward to receive it from one of

these. An elderly deacon or reader in the congregation passes the kiss from the men to the women. The ‘Peace’ takes place before the Anaphora. Copts call the kiss of peace qublat-as-salam, a literal translation into Arabic. The salute, as I saw it in Jerusalem, was given with the right hand only. The priest laid the palm of his right hand against that of the person saluted, then both carried the finger-tips to the mouth. I was told that the latter movement is often omitted, so that it seems that the hand-to-

hand gesture is enough. During mass this so-called kiss is exchanged five times, but, as with the Jacobites and Nestorians, only once does it become a ritual in which the congregation shares. The celebrant and his assistant exchange the ‘kiss’ before and after vesting, and thrice during the celebration at the altar. At the conclusion of a mass which I attended in the Church of the Virgin’s Tomb in Jerusalem the communal kiss was given thus: the celebrant took the hands of the assistant priest placed palm to palm thumbs upward between his own, held similarly ;but when the kiss was passed on to the people, the flat palm of the right hand only, as described above, came

into contact with that of the saluted person. Abyssinians take the ‘kiss’ from the celebrant -Anaphora, but it takes the form of his bowing shoulder of the priest he salutes without touching congregation either interleave hands and then kiss or kiss both shoulders. A deacon merely receives 1 Altar-board.

109

before the over each him. The finger-tips a blessing

Water into Wine

from the priests, one of them laying his right hand on his head. Armenians in Baghdad, where I witnessed the ceremony several times, perform the kiss before the Anaphora. The priest kissed the deacon on both shoulders but did not take his hand. The deacon communicated the salute to his fellow deacons, and one of them passed it on to the congregation. Men and women stood on opposite sides of the church and there was a difference in the manner of their kissing: the men kissed one another on both shoulders, like the priest and deacon, or made the motion of so doing. Women actually saluted one another on the mouth.

In Jerusalem I saw the ceremony in the Armenian church of St. James. It was not quite the same: When the priest partially removed the veil over the chalice so as to allow the paten to appear, he stood close to the altar and placed his hands, palm above palm, on the edge of the altar at the foot of the chalice. The deacon approached, kissed the altar and the priest’s right hand; then, turning to the people, bade them ‘Salute one another with the kiss of holiness, and those of you who are unable to partake of these divine mysteries go to the doors and pray’. He went to the dean, censed him and kissed his right hand. The dean saluted the clergy in the sanctuary, the kiss being represented by a bow over the right and left shoulders. Had there been no other clergy but the dean, it would, I was told, have been the chief clerk who kissed the dean’s hand and passed the salute to the choir and thence to the congregation. Had there been no dean, the deacon, on coming from the celebrant, would have kissed the shoulders of the chief clerk, who must pass it on to the choir and all in the church.

The salute is taken as a form of reconciliation between persons who have been at enmity with one another, by Christians at mass, but by those of other religions. In spite of the slight variations of manner in which formed, the rite appears to be identical in purpose performed by Christian, Parsi, Mandaean or Jew.

not only

it is perwhether In concluding this sketch of an ancient ritual salute I cannot do better than quote the words of Sir J. J. Modi about the hamazor: IIO

Pact and Peace

*,.. behind the outward passing of hands in the hamdzor, which signifies unity, harmony, participation, there lies the inner idea, which demands that the participants must unite in the works of righteousness. So, behind what we may call

the ‘physical hamdzor’, there is what we may term the ‘spiritual hamazor’. The participants in the ceremony, in the ritual, in the recital are asked

to be one with

the chief

celebrant in some religious acts which may lead to an increase of righteousness in the world’ (M., p. 406).

III

IX ‘A SIN-OFFERING FOR ATONEMENT AND A RANSOM FOR HIS SOUL’ (ER OD. x x) \T SOME period in the prehistory of man disaster, whether personal, family or tribal, became associated in his primitive mind with the displeasure, somehow incurred, of unseen powers. He asked himself anxiously what law, what ban or what taboo he had wittingly or unwittingly transgressed, what

being he could

have

offended.

Later,

Semitic

races,

Babylonians and Hebrews in particular, seem to have been tormented by this dread of transgression. It was prudent to placate gods and demons and to ensure their future indulgence. The manner in which capricious or offended unseen powers were to be satisfied was laid down by those whose profession it was to act as intermediaries. The religious literature of Israel, Chaldaea and Assyria has made us familiar with penitential psalms, with appeals for protection and forgiveness, with accounts of propitiatory gifts and sacrifices and acts of atonement.

We are concerned here with modern survivals. Such instinctive conceptions, inhibitions and traditions not merely survive amongst peoples of the Middle and Near East, but are still powerful factors in everyday thought and life. At a comparatively early epoch, however, this area, which embraced Chaldaea and Egypt, became profoundly influenced by study of the heavens and the regular motions of heavenly bodies.! Astrology, an art brought to great perfection by learned observers in these countries and developed further by Greeks and 1 Even today in Iraq the cry of the itinerant astrologer may be heard in the streets of any town proclaiming that he ‘opens fate and reads the stars’. Astrology was seriously studied in Lane’s day in Egypt; ‘alchymy is more studied in this country than pure chymistry ;and astrology more than astronomy’ (M.E., p. 223). II2

‘A Sin-offering for Atonement and a Ransom for His Soul’ Indians, accounted for fortune and misfortune by the changing face of the heavens. A man’s fate was good or evil according to stars in the ascendant when he was born and during his lifetime: an infant came into the world, as the saying still goes, ‘with its destiny hung about’its neck’. To this day Moslems believe that the suture on a baby’s skull is mysterious

writing predicting its future. The two conceptions would seem irreconcilable,

but man

is an irrational animal.

Can

pre-

destined evil be averted? Unconquerable optimism provided an affirmative answer and the belief that evil fate could be bought off, cheated by a substitute or otherwise evaded, sur-

vived and still survives. There is, for example, the consoling theory that the ill-luck due to a man’s evil star can be dissipated by a number of minor mishaps. Hence, in Iraq or in Egypt if a pitcher is broken or a jewel stolen, the unlucky owner is comforted with

the remark, ‘Thy ransom, please God!’ A Tunisian Arab put the matter thus: ‘It is as though you had a sum of money to your credit at the bank. The ill-luck is the money: it is due to you and must be paid to you. It can be drawn out in one big cheque or in a number of smaller sums, or another person can be sent in your name and take it all out.’ Examples of trying to cheat malicious fate or a hostile

supernatural being are numerous in Iraq and neighbouring countries. Some serve to illustrate the belief that malign powers threatening life and happiness may be deceived by substitutes. For instance, if male children have died and another baby boy is born, he is dressed during childhood as a girl or as a monk in the hope that the death-angel, demon or person casting the evil eye may be deceived. If a mother has lost many children, at the birth of a new baby the afterbirth is dressed like an infant, taken out and buried so that the lilith or garina which attacks the newly-born may fly off satisfied and leave mother

and child in peace. Sometimes a large fish is dressed up and interred. Expression of faith in the efficacy of substitution lies behind many phrases used in everyday conversation in the Middle East. ‘May I be thy sacrifice’ is a polite phrase employed today. A similar phrase ‘ Yefda rdsak’ (‘he shall be a ransom for thy 9

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head’) is a courteous way of announcing a death to a friend amongst the Jews of Baghdad. A poor Moslem woman speaking to me of her child’s death added: ‘ Fidwa mdlech insha‘llah’ (‘Thy ransom, please God!’). The Arabic for ‘ransom’ is fida or fidwa (43): Jews use the Hebrew pidion nefesh (soul-ransom).} This expression is applied, not only to minor misfortunes as substitutes for greater, to vicarious victims and substitutes of all kinds, but also to almsgiving. Alms may, of course, be given out of compassion, but are oftener bestowed as propitiation in the hope of averting possible bad luck. In the Jewish quarter of Baghdad on any day but the Sabbath, and especially at festivals, beggars crouch along the walls of the streets leading to the synagogue, extending their palms for charity with the cry ‘Fidwa ‘ala rdsak (‘a ransom on your head’) ; or in mingled Hebrew and Arabic, ‘Pidion nefesh ‘ala rasak’ (almsgiving, i.e. soul-ransom, on thy head). The box placed just inside the door of most Iraqi synagogues bore the inscription fidion nefesh. The Jews are not alone in this view of almsgiving: Moslems and Christians also insure themselves by charity: I have heard a Moslem schoolgirl say that on her way to an examination she

gave alms to a beggar as fidwa. Jewish tradition makes the angel Michael an intermediary between man and the Almighty. The numerical value of the Hebrew letters composing this angel’s name add up to 1o1. Hence, if a person is grievously sick, pidion nefesh can be performed in various ways. Cash may be offered as ransom, usually a hundred and one coins corresponding with the

angel’s name—dinars, dirhems or fils according to the circumstances of the family. These coins or notes should be waved round the head of the patient from left to right three times, reciting each time:

‘This This This This And

money is thy surrogate (halifa) money is thy substitute (¢mura) money is thy redemption (kappara) money shall go for alms (sadaqa) thou shalt attain happy life and peace.’

1 E.g. Exod. xxx, 12. Taking a census is unlucky, hence when the census is

ordered every man is ordered to make a gift ‘for the ransom of his soul’ in order ‘that there be no plague’.

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‘A Sin-offering for Atonement and a Ransom for His Soul’

The money must be spent in charity or placed in the almsbox marked pidion nefesh in the synagogue. A sheep or fowl may be given as pidion nefesh for the sick. If the invalid be a woman or girl and a fowl is to be sacrificed, a hen is chosen; if a man, a cock: The sheep or fowl is carried

round the head of the sick person like the money described above, repeating the same formula; then it is taken to the ritual slaughterer. Should the latter find the offering not kosher, that is, having some defect or ritual fault, another beast or fowl must be procured as quickly as possible, for it is essential that

the sacrifice should be ritually perfect. The flesh when cooked may not be eaten by the family of the sick person, but is given away. If, in spite of the offering, the patient dies, relatives console themselves with the thought that the sacrifice will help the soul of the departed by mitigating punishment incurred through misdeeds on earth. The food distributed by Moslems to bystanders at a funeral is not only a ‘ransom’ for the living and for the dead by proxy, but is also connected with the ancient practice of consuming a meal on or at the tomb, a kind of sacramental repast. Most

of these

sacrificial

rites

are,

indeed,

composite

in

character. Here is an example of a sacrifice which comes partly under the head of sin-offering and partly under ransom. It is the Jewish custom, in Iraq as elsewhere, to sacrifice a white

cock for every male and a white hen for every female in the family on the eve of the Day of Atonement, and if a woman in the house is pregnant two hens and a cock are killed for her, as the unborn child may be of either sex.! An example nicely

compounded of fidwa, blood-sacrifice and sacramental meal is provided by the Nestorians when celebrating a dukrdna? for a dead relative. The recently bereaved family depute one of their number to stand at the church door and offer bread and other meatless foods? to worshippers leaving after the mass at 1 Of late years Jews have been forced to substitute a sum of money, as the price of fowls has risen. 2 The term dukrana applies, strictly speaking, to the commemorative mass at which the deceased is named, but has an extended meaning embracing both the food offered at the church door and the sacrificed sheep. 3 I have been present when such food was offered in the name of the dead. It was placed on trays and consisted of fish, thin round flaps of bread, vegetable

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which the deceased’s name was mentioned at the altar. On an

appointed day afterwards

they kill a male sheep, usually

outside the church area, and distribute its meat to the com-

munity. On the festival of a saint, such as the patron saint of the Jilu Nestorians, Mar Zaia, or at great church festivals, the pious sometimes provide a vegetarian feast set out on tables in the courtyard of the church after mass, chairs being placed for clergy and deacons. Should a bishop be present, he blesses the food whilst all stand; then those lately gathered in church for the mass begin to eat. No meat is served at this semi-sacred feast. I remember attending a dukrana of Mar Zaia. The vegetarian feast after the festival mass in his honour took the form of a dish of murtaha, that is, flour, melted butter, date-syrup mixed

together. This was distributed inside the church door. Outside the church, on unconsecrated ground, poor but pious campdwellers had provided flaps of bread wrapped round flaps of meat. The great event of the dukrdna of Mar Zaia, however, took place two days later, when sheep were slaughtered in his honour. I was too late for the slaughter, which took place on ground specially cleansed and soused with water. A furrow called a misra had been traced round the area to shut out

pollution and a pit had been dug to receive the blood. After the slaughter and distribution the ground must be again washed with water. Eleven sheep, all male, had been sacrificed for Mar Zaia and I was told that each must be ‘father of a lamb’, and that if a cock were substituted at such a feast, it must be ‘father of

a chicken’. Insistence on these conditions marked the sacrifice as a ‘life-ceremony’ connected with fertility. The meat had been cut into small pieces and lay in heaps upon a large grass mat: the red meat in one pile, the fat in another and the offal in a third. A large pair of scales stood also on the mat, for each ‘house’ was to receive exactly the same weight of meat, fat and offal. The mat occupied one side of a large square, the other three sides were outlined by basins soup, ‘false’ dolma (i.e. spiced rice wrapped in salted vine-leaves or stuffed gherkins or eggplants: ordinary dolma contains meat also), vegetables, honey (date-syrup may be substituted) and fruit.

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‘A Stn-offering for Atonement and a Ransom for His Soul’

or cooking-pots, one hundred and eighty-five in number, representing the number of houses, irrespective of the number of their inhabitants. When the meat had been scrupulously weighed, the priest presiding, it was placed in the various receptacles awaiting it by a man careful to see that all were served alike. Fat and offal were portioned out in the same way. Then the word was given and patient owners picked up their pots and basins and bore them away. The meat must be cooked and eaten before the

morrow. The sheep thus sacrificed are subscribed for by the entire community. Nestorians perform dukrdna for a sick person. Prayers are said by the priest over a male sheep or cock of proven fertility, and the throat of the victim is cut by the threshold of the church if the ceremony is to be carried out within the church courtyard; if not, a misra (furrow) is traced round the ground where the victim lies. When cutting its throat the priest says: ‘I, So-and-so, son of So-and-so, kill this sheep (or bird) in dukrana of So-and-so, son (or daughter) of So-and-so, that God may receive him (or her) into His Kingdom.’ The family of the sick person provide bread, leavened and of any shape. When praying for him the priest recites a shortened version known as the ‘names’ (Shumhata) of the long commemoration prayer of their liturgy,2 and the next Sunday, at mass, the deacon includes the name of the sick man or woman in the

diptych.3 The

food provided

for such a ceremony as that

described above is called tabuta (benefaction, bounty) and qurbdna (offering, oblation). Some of it is eaten by the family and some is taken to neighbours and the poor. What is one to make of this? If it.is intended to anticipate rites for the de-

parted this might be considered an attempt to cheat the deathangel. I prefer to regard it as a form of propitiation. Armenians offer up a male sheep or cocks for the benefit of a sick person at certain church festivals.4 The parish priest, in full vestments,

receives the victim or victims

at the church

door. Should it be a sheep, he blesses salt which is put into 1 Mandaeans call furrows drawn to shut out pollution misria. 2 The Mandaean liturgy contains a prayer so-named. 3 See p. 97.

4 My informant was his Beatitude the late patriarch.

Tay

Water into Wine

its mouth before its throat is cut. The sacrifice is made in the vicinity of the church, and the meat is cooked there and then so that it may be handed to the congregation as they come out after the festival mass. It is distributed wrapped in thin flaps of bread just by the church door. The Mandaean slaughter of a sheep for Jofani is unrelated to the two cases mentioned above, for the ritual and vegetarian part of the meal is for the benefit of the dead, not for one still

living. The elaborate ritual of the slaughter should not mislead an observer, for it accompanies the slaughter of any animal killed for the kitchen. The meat is intended for non-ritual consumption. In the liturgical prayers and hymns there is no mention of any kind of sacrifice.1 In one of the ritual scrolls there is a description of the slaughter of the dove, the Ba, killed for a masigta. Only a tiny fragment of the flesh is eaten, and although its slaughter is called a gnasa (penalty) there is no hint of sin-offering in any priestly commentary: sin can be expiated only by baptism, masigtas and other ritual meals for the dead. A sheep is killed as a form of rejoicing when a Mandaean priest has completed the transcription of a holy book, but it is in no way a sacrifice. When a Moslem or Christian bride steps over the blood of a freshly-killed sheep, as described on p. 10, it is, in a manner of speaking, her ‘ransom’, but it should also be remembered that stepping over blood confers fertility.2 A clearer example of fidwa as propitiation can be given. An Arab owner of a racehorse in Baghdad told me that before a race-day his grooms asked him to provide a sheep as fidwa so that the horse might win. The sheep was killed and eaten before the race. I mentioned earlier a common form of condolence which referred to a death as the ‘ransom’ of the living. Another form of condolence is used by Moslems in Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere. The visitor says to the bereaved relative, ‘The remaining 1 At the final zidga brika which closes all the ceremonies of the Mandaean Parwanatia or Panja, a small gobbet of fat from a sheep’s tail is placed on the fariani. One ritual scroll has illustrations of the ritual tariana on which there is a lamb, but there is no mention of it in the text, and in fact nothing but the scrap of fat mentioned above is ever eaten at the ritual part of a meal. 2 See p. Io.

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“A Sin-offering for Atonement and a Ransom for His Soul’

(years) to your life’, meaning that the years which the deceased might have lived should be added to the mourner’s span of life, so that the deceased, so to speak, has by his death added

to the longevity of the survivor. This idea inspires such a legend as the Mandaean story of Shitil, son of Adam, who died young so that Adam might prolong his old age.!

If belief in vicarious death is strong, so is the idea that expiation may be carried out by another. In Iraq and Iran, for example, Shi‘a Moslems sometimes hire a substitute for themselves to walk with the flagellants? during the first ten days of Muharram, or engage a man to beat his breast with the penitents who form groups in Muharram processions in the hope that thereby their own sin may be expiated. The custom is now falling into desuetude, and such processions are discouraged by the authorities. Jews in Baghdad fast for them or to read psalms in their stead as their souls’. These modern survivals? have something to our study of ancient Semitic customs. If the

pay others to a ‘ransom for

contribute to light shed by modern survivals be but a candle-light, it is, nevertheless, not

to be despised, for the minds of those who practise such rites move in grooves graven long ago. 1 The same idea appears in the Talmud (Haggigah, 5a): ‘But after all, what do you do with her years?’ (Professor I. Abrahams’ translation, Soncino Press, 1938,

p. 18.) 2 The flagellants beat their bared backs with chains in memory of the slain sons of ‘Ali (see Tigris and Euphrates, E. S. Stevens, Hurst and Blackett, 1923,

pp. 163-4).

3 For a European parallel, see John Aubrey’s Remaines of Gentilisme (London, 1688) quoted by Anthony Powell in Sohn Aubrey and his Friends, pp. 293-4 (Eyre & Spottiswode, 1948). This describes ‘sin-eaters’ in the West of England.

119

PART

TWO

BREAD AND WINE ON THE ALTAR

ARG

Mees! =e

ae

we

i

xX RUSSIAN

ORTHODOX

WO FORMER chapters, ‘Bread of Life’ and ‘Water into Wine’, dealt with the manner

in which

sacramental

bread and wine are prepared : in Part Two it is proposed to describe how both are arranged by the Eastern churches for mass: how they are consecrated, how the bread is broken and

how both are consumed The chief ceremony of the Oriental churches may belikened to a drama in which there are several progressive acts. First, preparation of the elements; then a divine marriage representative of the blending of the human and divine; thirdly, birth; fourthly, dedication; fifthly, sacrifice and death; and lastly, resurrection. The last act is the climax, death is swallowed up in victory and communion established between the faithful on earth and in heaven. The complexity of the components of which this drama is formed is reflected in the manner in which it is presented by different sects. Ritual variation within the pale of a single creed could not be better illustrated. Differences in liturgy and theology shall not concern us except when they affect the actions of the celebrant, the chief actor in the sacred drama, and his assistants. Reversing the usual order of enquiry, we shall examine that which is done rather than that which is said.

The Orthodox Church in Russia preserved the practice of using five loaves at mass, and we have already seen how these are prepared (pp. 48-9), and have followed the rite on the table

of prothesis as far as the moment when the priest takes the first loaf, representing the Lamb, into his left hand in order to cut it. Holding the ‘spear’ in his right hand, he signs the prosphora thrice with the cross which terminates the handle of

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Water into Wine

the spear, saying: ‘In remembrance of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ Then he thrusts the ‘spear’ into the left (north) side of the prosphora and cuts into, but not through, the bread at the left ! of the seal (which is the square impression left by the stamp enclosing a cross and the eight-letter inscription ‘Jesus Christ conquers’). As he cuts, he repeats: ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter’ and, cutting the other side of the seal, ‘and as a lamb without blemish is dumb before the shearer, so He opened not His mouth’. Next he cuts into the top: (‘in His humiliation His judgement was taken away’), then the

bottom of the seal: (‘His generation, who shall declare it?’). When the operation is complete, the bread, cut down through the loaf from the seal downwards, stands on the board like a square column. The outer pieces cut away from the seal are put aside on the table for distribution to the congregation after mass is over.? The priest then cuts off a layer from the bottom of this column (i.e. from the lower half of the original loaf) saying: ‘For His life was taken away from the earth.’ The upper piece, the impression or ‘seal’, he takes and places it reversed on the paten and, saying: ‘Sacrificed is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world’, he cuts down as far as the upper crust, leaving the impression of the seal untouched, and nicks it at each quarter to assist the fracture which is to take place later at the high altar. He then turns the bread upwards again, takes the ‘spear’ and with his right hand pierces the north side of the column, quoting the verse from St. John which recounts the piercing of the Saviour’s side.

The mingling of water and wine has been described in Chapter V (‘The Holy Union’) and need not be repeated. Taking up the account given in my notes: After the mixture has been made in the chalice, the priest takes the second prosphora representing the ‘Mother of God’ (p. 48) saying: ‘In honour and memory of our most Blessed Lady, Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, through whose intercession receive, O Lord, this sacrifice upon Thy heavenly altar,’ and cuts a triangular piece from the middle of the 1 Somewhat confusingly, the left of the seal is considered the right of the body of Christ, as the head is supposed to lie to the east. 2 As antidoron.

124

Russian Orthodox western edge of the prosphora (that nearest him), and lays it on the northern side of the seal on the paten. Whilst so doing he says: ‘On Thy right hand stands the queen arrayed in gold inwrought with many colours.’ Then he takes up the third prosphora, which is intended to represent departed saints. Out of the impression on the top crust of this he cuts nine small wedges, thus:

ara

Fic. 5. THE THIRD PROSPHORA, AS CUT (The inscription in quarters in this and in Figs. 6 and 7 is omitted)

The nine wedges represent: (a) St. John the Baptist; (5) the Prophets (Moses, Daniel, etc.) and all saints; (c) the Apostles; (d) the holy fathers and saints of the Church, prelates and so on; (e) martyrs, St. Stephen and others, male and female; (f) hermits and anchorites; (g) Unmercenaries, i.e. those who healed without reward out of love of God; (h) ‘the ancestors of God’ (Joachim and Anna), the patron saint of the church, the saint of the day, those who evangelised Russia, together with all male and female saints of the church; (¢) the saint whose liturgy is being employed—usually St. John Chrystostom; twelve times annually St. Basil the Great, and on Wednesdays and Fridays of the Great Fast, St. Gregory. The wedges are named, and prayers are said for the souls they represent. Exact order must be observed in transferring them to the paten, where their place is on the south side of the seal. The first is laid nearest the seal, the second below it, and the third below the second; the next row is begun by placing the fourth next the first and so downwards, i.e. the

125

Water into Wine

three rows are laid vertically, not horizontally. The rest of this prosphora is also laid aside, and the fourth prosphora taken up. The fourth prosphora represents the living. From it the priest cuts a largish wedge from the western part, by the NI, places it below the seal on the paten and repeats a prayer of intercession for all bishops, synods, patriarchs, priests, deacons and all clergy. Next, he cuts a smaller wedge to the right of the first, beneath the KA, and sets it beside and to the

right of the larger wedge on the paten, reciting a prayer for the ruler, whoever he may be.! He then breaks off small particles from the undersection of the prosphora, placing these with the two wedges below the eee PUAN ark

Fic. 6. THE FOURTH PROSPHORA, AS CUT

Fic. 7. THE

FIFTH PROSPHORA, AS CUT

seal on the paten, pronouncing the names of living persons who desire the prayers of the Church, reading them from a written list and adding to these the names, if any, for whom he wishes to pray. The remaining part of the top portion of the prosphora is left for the bishop, should one be present, so that he may select small morsels of it to commemorate those whom he wishes to commend to God, placing them with the others below the seal, known henceforth as the ‘Lamb’.

The fifth prosphora represents the departed again. The priest cuts from the bottom of the cross of the seal a triangular wedge and places it on the paten below the particles from 1 Before the Revolution, the Tsar.

126

Russian Orthodox

the fourth prosphora saying : ‘In memory and for the remission of sins of the most holy Patriarchs, of Orthodox and Godfearing rulers and of the blessed founders of this holy Temple.’ He also mentions the name of the bishop who ordained him! and of those departed whom he personally desires to commemorate,

saying:

‘Remember,

Lord, N.’ and

afterwards

‘and of all our Orthodox fathers and brethren who have fallen asleep in the hope of resurrection, of life eternal and of communion with Thee, O Lord, Lover of Man.’ At the mention of each name, he takes out a particle from

the loaf and sets it with the other particles on the paten. The final arrangement of the paten is thus:

Fic. 8. THE ‘ARRANGEMENT ON THE PATEN (The whole seal) : The Lamb. The Mother of God. Departed saints, etc. Living ecclesiastics and living rulers. Living persons. Departed ecclesiastics, departed heads of state and other dead, including those specially commemorated. The arrangement, therefore, represents all members of the Church, living and

(a) (6) (c) (d) (e) (f)

dead. 1 The Mandaean inserts the name of the priest who initiated him into priesthood into the Prayer of Commemoration, usually after the name of his earthly father.

127

Water into Wine

Taking the sponge, the priest pushes together with it all particles taken from the fourth and fifth prosphoras, i.e. those below the ‘Lamb’, so that none may fall off, and also that the final arrangement at the altar may be facilitated. Mass begins with intercession for the churches, the church in which the mass is celebrated, for the Patriarch and other clergy, for the laity, for Russia, for the city in which the church stands (in this case, Jerusalem), for the monastery, for all cities and lands, for ‘healthful seasons’, ‘abundance of the fruits of the earth’, for peace, for travellers, sick persons, prisoners, captives and so on. This and other prayers are read by the deacon standing on the platform-step before

the etkonostasis and sanctuary.

The ritual which precedes the reading of the brought in processionally—the ‘Little Entry’—need cern us. The ‘Great Entry’ is the name given to the of the paten and chalice from the table of prothesis to

Gospels, not conbringing the altar.

On reaching the prothesis, the priest censes it, takes the veil called the Aer, lays it on the deacon’s right shoulder and sets the paten on the deacon’s head, who holds it in place, retaining the censer on one of his fingers. The priest carries the chalice. They go out by the north door of the etkonostasis preceded by a candle. Arrived at the platform before the Holy Doors the deacon says: ‘May the Lord remember his Beatitude the Patriarch N. and our Metropolitan N. in His Kingdom always...’ (etc.) and enters the sanctuary through the Holy Doors, followed by the priest. At the altar, the priest sets down the chalice, and then takes the paten from the deacon and puts it to the left of the chalice on the altar. With secret prayers—references are made in them to the tomb of Christ (see p. 71)—the priest removes the small cruciform veils which cover the paten and the chalice; then, taking the Aer from the deacon’s shoulder, he covers the ‘holy gifts’ with it. Censing, followed by the kiss of peace,! follows. The Creed is sung by the choir. Then the priest removes the Aer, i.e. the veil he had placed above the paten and chalice, and fans them with it. 1 See Chapter VIII, ‘Pact and Peace’, p. 102.

128

Above)

DIVISION

(Below)

DISHES

OF SHEEP’S

OF

THE

MEAT

AT THE ASSYRIAN

COMMUNITY

SACRIFICED

READY

SHEEP

FOR

(see p. 177)

DUKRANA

OF MAR

PORTIONS

ZAIA

OF THE

Prats 6. GREEK ORTHODOX

PROSPHORA

(A) (see p. 135)

Russian Orthodox

He stretches the Aer horizontally and waves it slowly up and down above the elements.! The Anaphora follows and the choir chant, ‘It is meet,

right . . .’, etc. Whilst the priest chants: ‘Exulting, singing. . .’ (the Triumphant Hymn), the deacon signs the paten with the star-cover and removes it, setting it on the right of the altar. Consecration is preceded by a long whispered prayer recalling the benefits of creation, interventions of God and so on. When the words of ‘institution’ are reached, the priest raises his voice, saying: ‘Take, eat. This is My body

which is broken for you for the remission of sins’ and he and the deacon point to the paten. The priest whispers: ‘Likewise, after supper, the cup also saying (aloud): ‘Drink ye all of this; this is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and many for the remission of sins”’’ (and both indicate the chalice). The deacon crosses his arms and lifts up paten and chalice, lowers them, makes the sign of the cross and bows thrice. Priest and deacon pray silently and the latter asks the priest to bless the holy bread. The priest stands, signs the bread thrice with the cross and says (whispering) :‘and make this bread the precious body of thy Christ’, and when

the deacon

indicates the chalice, ‘and

what is in this chalice the precious blood of thy Christ’ and signs the cup thrice, blesses both with the cross as he says, ‘transmuting them by Thy Holy Spirit’.

It will be remembered that there was a prayer of commemoration at the service of preparation. At this point a second commemoration by name takes place; it is termed the Eucharistic Intercession. The prayer is whispered. ‘We also offer Thee this reasonable worship for those who have fallen asleep in the faith: Ancestors, Fathers, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Preachers, Martyrs, Confessors,

Ascetics and every just spirit made perfect in the faith (then aloud) especially for our All-Holy, Immaculate, most blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary ; (whispering) for St. John the Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist, for the holy, glorious and all-famous Apostles, for St. N. 1 The action represents the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Greek Orthodox wave the Aer (air) perpendicularly. The ‘air? may symbolise the breath of life

which completes the Nativity drama by the birth of the Child—the removal of the star-cover in the next stage of the rite confirms this. Its termination is marked by the blessing. The next stage is concerned with sacrifice.

10

129

Water into Wine

(the saint of the day), whose memory we celebrate, and for all Thy saints, through whose prayers visit us, O God. And remember all those who have fallen asleep in the hope of resurrection to life eternal. And may they rest,

O our God,

where the light of thy countenance shall visit them (here the names of dead persons are inserted). Also, we pray Thee, remember, O Lord, all Orthodox bishops (diving) . . . the priesthood, the diaconate in Christ and every sacred and monastic order. Also we offer this reasonable worship for the whole world, for the Holy Apostolic Church, for those who live pure and holy lives, for our most faithful and Christ-loving sovereigns (names of rulers inserted),’ etc. The deacon ‘commemorates the living’, the Church and all men and women whilst the priest prays secretly for the monastery, city, land, sailors, sick, captives and so on.

The litany, Lord’s Prayer and other prayers follow, the ‘Holy Doors’ are shut and the curtains which conceal the sanctuary are drawn to. The celebrant at the altar ‘does homage’ (i.e. makes the sign of the cross and bows) thrice repeating :‘O God, cleanse me, a sinner.’ The deacon, standing before the Holy Doors,

also repeats this thrice and then cries: ‘Let us attend.’ The priest elevates the holy bread, saying: ‘Holy to the holy’2 whilst the deacon, who has re-entered the sanctuary and stands on the right of the priest, says softly: ‘Break, master, the holy bread.’ The priest takes up the ‘Lamb’—the seal in the centre of the paten—and breaks it into four quarters, whispering: ‘Broken and divided is the Lamb of God; broken yet not disunited; ever eaten, yet never consumed, but sanctifying partakers.’ The four quarters are placed by the celebrant very carefully near the edges of the paten, leaving the other bread in place but pushing it closer together. The quarter marked IC is laid at the upper (eastern) edge of the paten, XC opposite it (west), NI to the north and KA to the south. The deacon points to the chalice with his stole and says: ‘Fill, master, the holy chalice.’ The priest takes the quarter 1 For all the liturgical prayers, see Isabel Hapgood’s

Service Book of the Holy

Orthodox Church (S.P.C.B.).

2 Or ‘Holy (things) to the holy’, This formula recalls the Mandaean sacramental formula: Tab faba Itabia (lit., ‘Good is the good thing to the good’),

130

Russian Orthodox

Fic. 9. RUSSIAN

ORTHODOX:

THE

PATEN

AFTER

FRACTION

IC from the paten, holding the sponge beneath it, makes the _ sign of the cross with it over the chalice, and then puts it into the chalice. Of the remaining three-quarters XC is to be divided and eaten by assistant clergy, if any, and NI and KA are for lay communicants. No one is communicated from other bread on the paten, viz. the triangle for the Virgin, or the morsels and crumbs representing the living and dead. The deacon brings warm water (zeon) from the sacristy, and when the priest has blessed this (“Blessed is the fervour of Thy saints, now and forever’) the deacon pours it crosswise into the chalice, saying: ‘The warmth of the faith’, etc. The mixture should bring the contents of the chalice to blood-heat!: the amount should suffice for the number who intend to communicate. The method differs according to circumstances: e.g. if a bishop is present, it is he who cuts the portion XC into the 1 This is the second mingling of water with wine; of prothesis, see p. 66.

131

the first being on the table

Water into Wine

number of fragments required to communicate the priests, and he then communicates himself in both kinds.! Priests approach in order of seniority, each laying his crossed hands on the altar to receive the bread and repeating three prayers expressing belief in transubstantiation. Deacons succeed them. The priests, having eaten in order, drink of the chalice and the deacons follow. When several priests are present without a bishop, the senior priest breaks the portion XC into the requisite number of pieces, takes his own portion into his right hand, with the left crosswise beneath it, and stands aside, whilst the other priests, in order of seniority, approach, bow, pray, kiss the altar and each take their portion, holding it with hands held crosswise. They kiss the senior on the shoulder and he in turn kisses each in the same way, saying: ‘Christ is between us’, to which each priest replies: ‘He is and will be.’ Still in order of rank, the priests stand round the altar, repeat the three prayers while resting their hands on it, and then consume the bread. Deacons then partake in a similar manner except that their morsel of bread is given them by the senior priest. When the senior priest has drunk of the chalice, he goes aside to give thanks; the others do the same in order. It is the junior priest who- holds the chalice for the deacons, who sip thrice. ; If a priest celebrates mass with a single deacon, the latter receives the bread in his right hand, the left crossed beneath it, whilst the priest says: ‘To thee, N., deacon, is imparted the precious and holy body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and for life eternal.’ The deacon kisses the priest’s hand. The priest communicates himself with the same formula, substituting his own name. Both bow over the altar, placing their crossed hands on it, repeat the three prayers (see above) and eat their morsel. The priest drinks thrice from the chalice, and after the usual prayers invites the deacon, who also drinks thrice. If there are lay communicants, the priest breaks the pieces NI and KA into small fragments, enough for all, places them in the chalice and recites the secret prayer of thanksgiving. Up to this point, the communion of the priests has. been hidden from the congregation. The deacon now opens the 1 When drinking from the chalice, a silken veil called the ‘purificator’ is held

between the cup and lips. After drinking, the mouth is wiped and the chalice

kissed.

132

Russian Orthodox ‘Royal Doors’,! the curtain is drawn back and the chalice covered with a veil. The deacon carries it to the open door and, facing the people, makes the sign of the cross with the chalice, and says: ‘With godly fear, faith and love, draw near.’ Should there be no-deacon, all this is done by the celebrant himself. Communicants approach, hands crossed over breast. The priest takes some of the sopped fragments in the chalice with a spoon and places it directly into the mouth of the communicant, saying: ‘The servant of God, N.,? partakes of the precious and holy blood of our Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for the remission of his (or her) sins and for life eternal.’ The ‘purificator’ (see above) is held under the mouth of each person and the mouth is wiped after drinking. The communicant goes aside after kissing the chalice and a priest or deacon gives him the antidoron? and some unconsecrated wine mixed with holy water that has been warmed. The mixture is served in an ordinary cup, not a chalice. Paten and chalice are now taken back to the table of prothesis, where they are censed. The priest returns to the altar, the deacon recites a litany of thanksgiving on the platform before the sanctuary and the choir responds. Meanwhile, the priest folds the antimins4 and iliton which _have covered the altar, blesses them with the Gospels, and lays the book above the corporal. Prayers of thanks and blessing are followed by the dismissal; then the priest, going to the steps of the ambo, holds the cross for the people to kiss, and antidoron is distributed to any non-communicants who come up for it, and they eat it as they receive it. It is the duty of the deacon to consume what remains of the sacrament in the chalice and to perform the ablution. If there is no deacon, the celebrant is responsible. He goes to the prothesis, ties a ‘purificator’ round his neck just below the chin and consumes with the spoon what is left in the chalice. He then pours water and a little wine into it, rinses 1 The Russian Church gives this name to the central doors to the sanctuary, whereas it should be applied to gates admitting to the nave. ‘The Holy Doors’ is the correct name It seems that at St. Sofia the Emperor passed through gates named ‘royal’ to reach his tribune. 2 Note that the name of the communicant, whether priest, deacon or layman, must be pronounced. 3 Portions of the prosphoras left over when preparing the bread for the paten. 4 This is identical with the antimension, see pp. 24-5.

133

Water into Wine

it round, drinks that, and then a rinsing with some pure hot water. Each washing is drunk. Chalice and spoon are wiped with the ‘sponge’, dried with a ‘purificator’, and then the chalice is covered and put away with the paten. The ‘sponge’ used for this cleansing is distinct from that used during the liturgy: the latter is always kept in the corporal on the altar, the former is put with the chalice.

134

XI GREEK ORTHODOX, GREEK CATHOLIC, AND JACOBITE HERE are only slight differences between the Russian Orthodox ritual at the prothesis and mass and that of the Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic (Melkite) churches. I will mention some of them. At the prothesis, the Greek Catholic priest cuts the various morsels placed on the paten from one prosphora and not from five. In the case of the elaborately stamped prosphora of Plates 6 and 7 (the rough drawing Fig. 1oa shows the detail more clearly), the priest takes a bread (selected from the baking) into his left hand, and the lance in his right, and touches the prosphora (called in Arabic the gurban, ‘ offering’) in four places, crosswise, saying: ‘In memory of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Action and prayer are thrice repeated. The priest thrusts the lance into the top of the central seal at the left (north) corner, cuts down the side of the seal, makes a similar vertical cut down the other side of the seal, then from north to

south along its top and from north to south along its bottom.! The central seal is now separate from the rest of the loaf. He reverses it, cuts into the bread with a crossway movement from the top to the bottom and then from side to side, but in such a manner that he does not detach the quarters from one another, and the seal therefore remains apparently intact. He shaves off enough from the underside to make the surface smooth, then turns the seal over so that the impression is again upper-. most. With the lance he pierces the letter C of the IC and places the seal on the paten, repeating John xix, 34. The commixture in the chalice does not differ from that of the Russian Orthodox. The triangle representing the Virgin is 1 With the prayer ‘Like a sheep’, etc.

135

RRP ae e iets Sects dhomg et ak GRE

(a) Circ. 44 inches across, 4 inch thick ee .

Sar

Peon

aut

SS

aes

¢?

ISS tt metas

Sea nite

Be Sits .

Sh =

one

“T!/

‘

s“

> -

iene fo eee

oat

t

Fic. 10.. TWO

(6) Circ. 5 inches mos 4 inch thick TYPES OF GREEK CATHOLIC PROSPHORA

136

Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Jacobite cut from the prosphora, the cut beginning at the apex, down the sides and along the base. It is placed to the north of the seal on the paten, opposite the centre of the cross. When cutting the nine wedges, he may, if he wishes, cut them out in one piece: in that case, when making the. commemoration,

he touches

each of the nine protuberances with his lance, nicking each with his lance, or looking at each in turn without touching them. Names of Greek saints, ecclesiastics, dignitaries and so on are inserted in the prayers. It might also be noted that in the Arabic version of the liturgy the expression ‘ancestors of God’ is translated ‘grandparents— .¢4>—of the Messiah’. According

to a priest in Jerusalem, it is immaterial, when praying for the living, whether morsels of bread are placed on the paten or not. Greek Catholics, as Uniates, pray for the Pope as well as for the Patriarch. Below the nine morsels for the dead the priest places a wedge for the benefit of the person, living or dead, for whom the mass is celebrated, placing it to the left of the rest. If the mass is for the benefit of no person in particular, the priest may mention any name that he wishes, including his own. A morsel is named for the founder of the church or monastery in which mass is performed, and morsels may be placed (although this is not obligatory, as mere prayer suffices) for fathers and brethren of the Orthodox Church ‘who have died in the hope of resurrection and eternal life’. Finally, the celebrant adds a small piece for himself to the fragments on the paten. When the gurbdn is of the simpler shape shown in Fig. 10 (4), the ‘seal’ is cut out so as to leave the undercrust intact. When the seal is on the paten, a triangle for the Virgin is cut from the upper crust of the remainder, then a square which is redivided into the nine small fragments that represent the dead. Other pieces taken from the upper crust represent the living (Patriarch, church, priest, people, etc.). I saw it performed in this manner in a Lebanese village, but latitude is given according to the preference of the celebrant. The lower crust, together with what is left of the upper crust, is given as antidoron. The Greek Orthodox cut the prosphora differently, see Fig. 11. The piece A, the part detached by the last two cuttings, is 137

Water into Wine

set aside, either left on the board or placed on a separate tray. } The seal itself is reversed, cut crosswise but not through, to facilitate fraction, the vertical first; then set on the paten.

The procedure differs little from that of the other Orthodox rites. The triangle for the Virgin is cut from the rest of the prosphora (i.e. neither from the seal nor from the portion A.) ;

A. B. C. D.

Along Along From From

Fic. 11. GREEK ORTHODOX the top of the seal.

PROSPHORA,

AS CUT

the bottom of the seal. the top of the left side of the seal to the bottom of the prosphora. the top of the right side of the seal to the bottom of the prosphora.

so are the nine wedges placed on the paten to the south of the seal. The Greeks claim that these represent (a) angels, (6) prophets, (c) apostles, (d) oecumenical teachers, (e) martyrs, (f) saints and hermits, (g) ‘non-mercenaries’ (see p- 125), (A) Joachim and Anna, Joseph and other saints, and (¢) St. Chrysostom or other patron of the liturgy. (Greek priests, however, are by no means unanimous in their interpretation of the nine fragments.)

138

Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Jacobite The patron of the church is named in his category, saint, martyr, apostle, prophet or whatever he or she may be. He then separates small fragments or crumbs from the

prosphora and places them on the paten beneath the seal to represent the living’and dead. When arranged, the paten looks like this:

Fic. 12, GREEK ORTHODOX: THE PATEN AFTER ARRANGEMENT (Second type of Greek Orthodox prosphora) see Fig. 10 (6)

On the altar during the liturgy, rearrangement takes place as in the Russian and Greek Catholic rites; that is, the seal is broken, then returned to the paten in the form of a cross. The portion J’ is put into the chalice, warm water (zeon) is added to the contents of the chalice, X2' is divided into small pieces for the officiant and other priests, NI and KA are for communicants. The part A (see Fig. 11) is used for antidoron.

The Syrian (Jacobite) mass is called the Quddas. The ceremony of preparation, described in Chapter V (pp. 54-5), is performed at the altar before vesting. When the priest has attired

himself for the mass

(every article of vestment 139

is blessed

Water into Wine

separately), he returns to the altar. The paten upon which is the chosen qurbdn and the chalice containing the mixture of water and wine are already on the altar, where he left them. Before he touches them, a server or deacon pours water over his finger-tips, which he holds over a ewer. ; He uncovers chalice and paten—the star-cover is still above the latter—and blesses them, crossing his arms, the right over the left, and takes the chalice in his left hand and the paten in his right. With arms crossed thus, he makes the first memorial, namely, of the Messiah, of Adam and Eve, the Virgin Mary, prophets, evangelists, martyrs, the Innocents, heads of the Church, religious teachers, and the departed faithful, especially ‘those who built this church and all who assisted the building of the church, alive and dead’. He sets the chalice and paten back on the altar and spreads above them a large veil (shushefo, Arabic mendil). Elaborate censing follows, then reading in the vernacular from the Old Testament! whilst the priest behind the veil prays secretly. Circumambulation (the dowra) follows. The curtain concealing the altar is drawn back, and priests and deacons with incense and lights walk four times round the altar. This over, the priest hands the censer back to the deacon, who stands on the sanctuary steps to read the Epistle.? Before he reads the Evangel, the priest puts incense into the censer and blesses it, and whilst the passage is chanted, the censer is swung.3 A second ablution of hands takes place during the recitation of the Nicene Creed, after which the kiss of peace4 is passed on to the congregation, who communicate it to one another throughout the church.

At the recitation of the Anaphora the large veil over the elements is shaken and waved above them in a prolonged and impressive manner. At this moment, some of the congregation, 1 First from the Pentateuch, secondly from Kings and Chronicles and thirdly from the Prophets. 2 Epistle and Gospel are read at every mass, but on Sundays and festivals the Acts of the Apostles are read on the right of the sanctuary, the Epistles from the left and the Gospels from the centre. 3 Space compels omission of much ceremonial detail such as the sounding of the marwahto (ripidon) and cymbals. The censer is furnished with little bells. 4 See pp. 102 and 108.

140

Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Jacobite

with great devotion, stretch out their hands with open, upturned palms, as if to catch and waft to themselves some of the blessing descending from above, some rubbing this invisible glory over their faces with a stroking, downward motion. This first ‘descent of the Holy Ghost’ represented by the shaking of the veil appears to indicate ‘coming of the Holy Ghost’ to the Virgin at her conception. The removal of the star-cover later perhaps represents the completion of the birth story, and the hymn which accompanies it the hymn of the angels at Bethlehem. After the priest has turned from the altar to bless the people, he resumes his former position and makes wide circular passes over the elements with both hands, fluttering his fingers to represent the waving of the wings of cherubim and seraphim during the hymn, which begins: “We adore Him whom the heavenly hosts adore, Host corporeal and incorporeal, The sun, moon and all the stars, The earth and seas,

And Are The The Cry And

the first-born whose names inscribed in the heavenly Jerusalem; angels, archangels, principalities and cherubim, six-winged seraphim who, covering faces and feet, to one another proclaiming His holiness cry aloud His praise, saying: “Holy, holy, holy”’.’

The priest then removes the star-cover. Next, saying: ‘When He, the Sinless One, of His own will prepared to accept death for us sinners, He took bread into His holy hands’ (here he takes the qurban into his left hand) ‘and gave thanks’ (here he gives thanks) ‘and blessed it’ (he crosses it twice with his right hand) ‘and sanctified it’ (crosses it a third time) ‘and brake it’ (here he dents the qurbdn slightly at the top, turns it round so that its position 1s reversed, dents the other end, then breaks the

crust slightly so as to divide the qurbdan in the centre) ; “and gave it to His holy apostles, saying: “‘Take, eat of this” (he dents 1 again above and below, breaking the crust a little deeper); ‘‘this is my body which is given for the remission of sins and for life everlasting”’.’ Taking the chalice, the priest says: ‘Also He took the cup’ and whilst repeating the words of institution, he crosses it thrice with his right hand, then makes a circular movement

I4I

Water into Wine

with the base of the chalice over the paten before setting it down.! He takes up the ‘sponge’, cushion and spoon, touches the chalice with the spoon, puts the cushion on the north side of the altar and places the sponge under the star-cover on the south side.? The celebrant pronounces the words of commemoration: ‘Do this in commemoration of me (dhikri), etc., and the people respond : ‘Our Lord, we commemorate Thy death and confess Thy resurrection’, etc. Prayers and responses follow. The next stage is the invocation of the Holy Spirit. The priest prays silently whilst the choir chants, then he makes circular

movements

with

his

arms

above

the

elements,

fluttering his hands, and crosses the air above the qurbdn thrice with his right hand, his left laid against his breast. Exactly the same movements are repeated over the chalice. The words which accompany these movements—when crossing the bread: ‘May the Holy Spirit abide and transmute this bread into the life-giving body, the redeeming body and the very body of our God, the Messiah’, and a similar formula whilst crossing the chalice. Meantime, the deacon recites the Great Intercession.3 He mentions the Patriarch of Antioch, bishops, heads of the

clergy, prays for the faithful living, the sick, captives, oppressed and so on; for Christian kings and rulers; for the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, St. Stephen, martyrs and apostles ;then for the dead in general and in particular. If the mass is for the benefit of one lately deceased, his or her name is inserted here. As the names are mentioned, the celebrant at the altar prays silently for each. At every mention of a dead saint or father of the Church, the priest crosses the paten on the left

side with his thumb-nail.

When

faithful dead who were

laymen are mentioned by name, he crosses the right side of the paten. 1 I.e. the priest tilts the chalice slightly without shifting its position, thus performing the circular movement with its base.

2 I am told that the Jacobites, with other of the non-Uniate churches, do not believe that the words of institution transform wine and bread into blood and

flesh. This, it seems, is effected by the invocation of the Holy Spirit which follows. 3 The memorial begins (I quote Brightman, Liturgies, Eastern and Western, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1896, p. 73, who translates the Liturgy of St. James) : ‘Memorial of our Lord and our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ... according to His own command unto us we are commemorating at this time upon the eucharist that is set before us.’

142

Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Jacobite During the fraction the curtain conceals the altar. The priest takes the loaf (qurbdn or froso) into his hands and, holding it horizontally, he says: ‘In this way truly the Word of God suffered in His body and was slain and broken on the cross.’ . At the word ‘broken’ he all but breaks the gurbdn into two equal pieces, but leaves the part at the bottom unsevered. When he adds ‘and his soul was parted from his body’ he completes the severance and holds the two halves slightly apart, and at the words ‘whilst His divine part was undivided, neither the soul nor the body’ he brings the two halves together again. With the right half held in his right hand, he makes the sign of the cross over the chalice and dips the tip of the bread into the liquid, repeating the verse about the piercing of the Saviour’s side. Using the wetted tip and saying ‘and His body was covered with blood and water for the remission of sins’, he touches the broken edge of the left half of the qurban in his left hand just above the centre, then at the top and bottom of the broken edge. Next, touching the middle of the obverse of the left half, he draws the wetted tip towards and over the broken edge, not removing it until it reaches

the middle of the reverse. Saying: ‘His soul returned and was reunited with His body’, he brings the two halves together again as if united. ‘Reseparating them, he crosses the chalice with the right half without redipping, then draws the tip along the broken edge to the centre of the back without lifting it from contact. For a third time he places the two halves together and at the words ‘died on the cross’ (etc.) he turns both halves held together round to the right, so that the eastern edge becomes the western and the right half becomes the left. Then he dips the lower (western) edge of the now right (but formerly left) half into the chalice, holding the bread between finger and thumb of the right hand, and with its wetted tip strokes the other half at the bottom (west) of its broken edge upwards to the top (east), then touches the centre of the reverse to the centre of the obverse, thus exactly reversing his former procedure.

This curiously elaborate proceeding suggests that the setting and rising of the sun has here been used as a parable of death and resurrection. Insistence on west and east reoccurs in other Eastern rites symbolic of death and resurgence.

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Whilst doing this, he says: ‘And He brought us back from left-doing’ (i.e? evil-doing) ‘to the Right, and ensured it with the blood of His cross and united the heavenly ones with those on earth.’ At the word ‘united’ he brings the two halves together and turns them back as they were before, saying: ‘and (united) His people with the nations and the soul (nefs) with the body.’ When he says: ‘On the third day He rose again’ he lifts the qurban above his head with both hands, holding the halves together like a single piece. : At the moment of elevation, the deacon sounds his cymbals and the people bow their heads. Whilst fraction was going on, the deacon chanted prayers outside the curtain: the celebrant’s prayers inside are silent. The priest now recites the monophysite belief, ‘Emmanuel is one and cannot be divided into two natures’... (etc.) ‘so we confess, so we believe’. At the words ‘faith’, ‘confess’ and ‘believe’ he lowers the gurbdn in three downward movements.

He then takes the two halves in his left hand (the right half between thumb and forefinger, the left half between the third and fourth fingers) and with his right hand breaks off a small section from the upper top of the right half and places it in the chalice, saying: ‘This body belongs to the blood.’

(For the sake of clarity I shall refer to this section as A). Next, he puts the right half between the third and fourth fingers and the left half between thumb and forefinger and breaks off a similar crossed section from this half (this section shall be called B). He dips B into the chalice and with the wetted end touches the broken tops of the two halves saying: ‘This blood belongs to the body.’ He then places the two halves, minus their sections, on the paten, their broken edges touching, and sets above them at the parts from which sections had been removed, the

od

Ree

Per 33925

section B, so forming the head of a figure called IMRO, ‘the Sheep’. The figure arranged on the paten differs according to the Church season. The marks stamped into the bread

‘THR SHEEP’

facilitate division to suit the various

(JACOBITE)

designs.

144

Pirate 7. GREEK ORTHODOX

PROSPHORA

(B) (see p. 135)

Pirate

8.

(Above) THE JACOBITE (SYRIAN ORTHODOX) BEFORE AND AFTER STAMPING (see p. r4r)

PLATE

g. (Below)

‘THE

SHEEP”

QURBAN

(see p. 144)

In order to illustrate exactly how they are placed, the photographs show the segments moved slightly apart. On the paten the segments touch, as in my rough sketches (Fig: , 14, 15 and 16). In the photographs the single segment to the right and above the figure is not placed on the paten: it is the section which was put earlier into the chalice, i.e. section A.

Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Jacobite The form just described is the simplest. It is used at Easter. Another name for this form (‘the Sheep’) is the ‘Arrangement’ (Dabranutho). From Christmas to Easter a figure called ‘the Youth’ (falia or sabbi) is used in Iraq. In Palestine the sections are arranged

for a figure called ‘Crucifixion’ (zqifutho), or ‘ Cross.’ When Easter is over, ‘the Sheep’ is replaced by ‘the Youth’ until the Feast of the Cross (September 14th), which commemorates the return of the True Cross to Jerusalem by the Emperor Heraclius. At this feast and until Christmas a figure called ‘the Cross’ (Salib) replaces ‘the Youth’. ‘The Youth’ is arranged thus: The fraction proceeds as with ‘the Sheep’ until the fragment B is broken off and dipped and the two remaining portions have been anointed by the wetted -B. B is then placed on the paten above the two remaining pieces, as it was for ‘the Sheep’, but the two pieces are broken into four—one for each half-trunk and arm and one for each half-trunk and leg, thus forming a human figure from the five pieces. ‘The

Cross’

is the most

elaborate arrangement ofthe three. Procedure is the same as for the other two until B

is in position for the head.

The two remaining pieces

are then broken into eight, II

p44. 1. “THE CROSS’ OR ‘CRUCIFIXION’ (JACOBITE)

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bringing the number of fragments composing the figure to nine. The body and arms are four pieces, and a single fragment covers the pelvis. The legs are two pieces and the section below represents, not feet, but the skull of Adam who, according to tradition, lay buried below Calvary (see p. 51, n. 2). The whole bears resemblance to a crucified man. When the arrangement suitable to the season is complete on the paten, the priest takes the paten into his left hand, removes the head of the figure (i.e. B), dips it again in the chalice and traces with it a cross over the figure he has made. To take ‘the Youth’ as an example, he starts at point D on the diagram sketched below, crosses the trunk over the centre (H) and continues to the extremity (G). This he does twice. Then he starts at F, crosses the trunk over H to G, and then, in like manner, from E to D.

The other figures are crossed in a similar way. The priest now washes his fingers in a small bowl which stands on the altar, wipes them with the sponge, and returns the sponge to its place beneath the starFic. 16. THE FRACTION

cover.

(JACOBITE)

The curtain is drawn back; the priest prays with open hands. Deacon and people together recite the ‘Our Father’ and, after more prayer, the priest turns to the people and gives them threefold blessing with his hand. If a bishop, he blesses with his cross. The priest faces the altar again and prays with open hands whilst servers stand on either side with lights. Prayers and chants follow: all the priest’s prayer is whispered. The priest lifts the paten, which should now be lying before (i.e. west of) the chalice, and with it makes the sign of the cross in the air above the chalice without lowering his hands. He replaces the paten and, lifting the chalice high like the paten, first makes the circular movement with it above the paten (see p. 142, n. 1), describes a cross with it, and then makes the circular movement a second time before he replaces it. Next, he crosses his arms, takes the chalice in his

146

Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Facobite left hand and the paten in his right, and lifting both, moves the paten over the chalice to the east and under it to the west, then sets the paten down in front and the chalice behind it and to the east of it as before. Lifting the star-cover, he sets it over the paten, and places the paten veil above the two. He descends a step backwards from the altar whilst the deacon chants the ‘Communion of Saints’: ‘Let us remember at our qurbdnas and in our prayers our fathers, to whom may the Son of God grant rest with the righteous and the sanctified in the Kingdom which passeth not away...’ (etc.).

Thus there is a renewed commemoration here. If it is intended to distribute later blessed bread (antidoron), which is not always done, servers at this point bring in a large unbroken qurban or several. The priest blesses this bread by making the sign of the cross over it thrice, and breaks the loaf (or one of them) in the form of a cross before returning it to the servers who, when they have removed it, divide the bread into small pieces ready for distribution at the end of the mass. This blessed bread is often placed on a platter on a table before the sanctuary beside the Gospels. Those who wish to do so, kiss the Evangel and take a fragment of the bread, which they either consume on the spot, or take to a person prevented by sickness or other cause from attending mass. During the Great Memorial, read by the deacon, and after blessing the bread, as described above, the priest touches his

breast with both hands, bows twice and then repeats these actions facing north, west and south, i.e. at all four points of

the compass. When he turns east again, he stoops, touches the ground with both palms and with his forehead, and then rises. At this moment the curtain is drawn to again.

The act of communion is called Tanowwal, ‘partaking’. The celebrant partially removes its cover from the paten by folding it forward, and that of the chalice by folding it backward; he takes the spoon in his right hand and the sponge in his left and prays silently whilst the deacon chants. He then dips the spoon into the chalice and removes the fragment A, which he had placed in it earlier (see above), and, holding the sponge beneath the spoon so that no drop may fall, he places it in his mouth and swallows it.

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Water into Wine

He next removes the head (B) from the figure on the paten and puts it irito the chalice, using the spoon to do so, and leaves it there. Then, still using the spoon, he communicates

himself thrice from the wine in the chalice, holding the sponge beneath the spoon as before. Should another priest or priests be in the sanctuary and wish to communicate!, he or they approach. If several, order of seniority is observed. The celebrant gives to each a piece of the figure on the paten and three spoonfuls from the chalice. For a deacon, he takes a piece from the paten, dips it into the chalice and places it into the mouth, not into the hand, holding the sponge beneath the wetted morsel. No deacon receives wine in the spoon. After all in the sanctuary who wish to do so have communicated, the celebrant lays the spoon on the altar, the bowl of the spoon resting on the cushion. Then, holding the paten in his right hand and the chalice in his left, he advances to the sanctuary steps. The curtain is drawn open; he recites prayer facing the congregation and then turns back and replaces the chalice and paten on the altar just when, according to other liturgical practices, lay communion should begin. I was told that formerly this was so: that the advance of the priest holding the elements was the signal for lay communicants to approach. After chanting the Prayer of Thanksgiving at the altar the celebrant turns, blesses the people thrice and recites the ‘sealing’ prayer, and at this point those of the congregation who do not intend to communicate may leave the church if they wish. Again the celebrant uncovers paten and chalice. He puts the spoon into the latter and breaks the figure on the former into small pieces. He then drops some wine from the spoon on to the bread, or dips the forefinger of his right hand into the wine and so transfers drops on to the bread on the paten. He leaves the chalice, covered with its cloth, on the altar,

then puts the star-cover over the paten with its veil folded back in such manner that he can remove pieces of bread for communicants. Some priests prefer to leave the star-cover and paten veil on the altar. Priest and deacon advance to the sanctuary steps, the former bearing the paten and the latter 1 In Jerusalem it is rare for the clergy to be communicated in the sanctuary, and still rarer for a bishop unless he is himself the celebrant. I describe the rite as performed in Baghdad.

148

Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Jacobite a candle, so that the communion of the congregation can begin. Men line up first, followed by women, and after these the children, boys before girls. Children do not communicate before the age of seven.! The bread, moistened with wine, is placed by the priest directly into the mouth of the communicant. — ' When all have communicated, the priest returns to the altar. He has several actions to perform and there is a special prayer for each. First he opens the bit qurbdna (tabernacle) on the altar, takes therefrom the small box in which the reserved

sacrament? is kept, consumes that which was left in it from a previous sacrament and substitutes a morsel from the paten. When

he has returned

the box, he eats all the bread re-

maining on the paten, sweeping with his hand remaining crumbs into the chalice. He drinks the contents of the cup, eating with a spoon the head of the figure which, it will be remembered, was left in the chalice. He pours water into the cup once or twice, drinks the rinsings, pours some over the paten into the chalice, and drinks this also. Mass is over, and after more secret prayer, the priest leaves the sanctuary.

A dukrdna (commemorative service) is sometimes performed directly after mass at the request of recently bereaved persons. Such a service should take place during the first three days after death, especially on the third day, also on the seventh, fifteenth, thirtieth and fortieth days after death, after mass on 1 At baptism of a child the priest dips the spoon into the chalice so as to wet the tip of the bowl, and touches the child’s lips with it. As ‘body’ and ‘blood’ are considered as one, this constitutes a full communion. Communion must be always made fasting and after confession. I was told that it was the custom in olden times to administer both bread from the paten and wine from the chalice to laymen as well as to priests, but the practice has long been abandoned. 2 There is no exhibition or adoration of the reserved sacrament, though a perpetual light must hang before the tabernacle in which it is kept. Should the priest be informed that a parishioner is very ill and near death, he takes the box from the tabernacle and, secreting it about his person, sets forth to visit the sick-

bed. Whether day or night, he must carry a lighted lantern, concealed by day in the folds of his wide sleeve. It may not be shown unless passing through a Christian quarter, where all should stand reverently with bowed heads as he passes. He must go on foot and speak to none on the way : if addressed, he bows and the gesture is understood. The sick or dying person need not necessarily be fasting, although this is desirable. The box is treated as sacred; if the paper or other material with which it is lined needs renewal, the old is burnt and the ashes washed down the

vent of the font.

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major festivals and on the anniversary of decease. If the commemoration (dukrdna) of a saint falls within a few days of one performed for a deceased person, the name of the latter should be mentioned at the festival mass. At Easter and at Christmas, when the lists of the dead are read at mass, names of those

recently deceased are especially included.

I attended a service of this kind at the Syrian Orthodox church in the Old City, Jerusalem.

Mass was just over. A

catafalque—a table covered with black—had been placed in the nave before the sanctuary. A priest and deacon chanted alternately whilst relatives of the deceased distributed tapers to all who remained in the church. These were lighted from one another, and also the candles on the catafalque. (From notes) A deacon read from the Epistles of St. Paul, then the priest, a deacon and an acolyte with lights beside him, read from the Gospels. A deacon, who stood west of the

catafalque with a censer, went round the church, censing it freely, then returned to his place by the catafalque. Prayers were said, and at the end of a brief service all joined in the Lord’s Prayer. Tapers were extinguished and handed back to the sacristan; the people were blessed and left. As they went out, a member of the bereaved family standing at the church door offered them small pieces of bread.

I was told in Iraq that it was customary on such an occasion for a relative of the deceased to give those leaving the church flaps of bread with honey or date-syrup and other foods. A rose-water sprinkler is sometimes placed on the catafalque and the deacon sprinkles the hands of mourners with it with the words : ‘Say ‘God have mercy on him” (or “‘her”’).’ No tapers are distributed there. This Syrian Orthodox dukrana resembles in several details that of the Nestorians. I was told that in larger towns it is becoming increasingly convenient to substitute money to be spent in charity; but the older custom,

which preserves the true meaning of the food offering and rite, still exists.

150

XII ARMENIAN HE ARMENIAN CHURCH employs only one fixed Anaphora in the liturgy.! Before celebration the priest must cleanse his body by a bath and his soul by prayer, fasting, meditation and confession. Married priests should retire to the church house for three days? previously and keep apart from wife and family. At matins before mass the celebrant makes confession with the people, and if a priest is available to hear

his private confession, he should make it, approaching him towards the end of matins and bowing, ask him for absolution and intercession. Robing? takes place in the vestry, and when the celebrant, the deacons+ and other clergy present are vested, they issue and go in procession, with incense and lights, 1 The Armenian liturgy was formed at the beginning of the fourth century by St. Gregory the Illuminator, on the model of the liturgies of St. Basil, St. Athana-

sius and St. James. In the fifth century it was revised, augmented and assumed a canonical form which has subsisted with a few modifications down to the present time.

2 The duration of the.stay varies; the intention is that the priest should free himself from carnal things.

3 He first removes his pilon, a cope-like black robe given at ordination. If he is a monk, he removes his head-dress, cassock and church slippers. Embroidered ° slippers are put on. Sub-deacons present the vestments, each of which the priest

blesses and kisses before he receives it in both hands. 4 Usually there are two deacons, but there may be four, six or more, according to the rank of the celebrant and the festival. Armenian

ritual is elaborate, and

observance of its orderly performance exacting. Much attention is paid to the music which, as in most Oriental rites, is entirely vocal, unless one includes the occasional use of cymbals, handbells and the kshotz. The kshotz is identical with the ripidon of the Greeks and the marwahto of the Jacobites. It is a circular silver disc mounted on an ornamented pole and edged with small silver bells. The word means ‘something that drives away’ and its original purpose was probably to warn off demons. This sistrum-like instrument is shaken at solemn moments during mass. According to priestly explanation it represents the agitation of angels’ wings.

I51

Water into Wine

to the sanctuary. There they line up, facing the altar, the cele-

brant in the centre. A deacon brings ewer and basin and the celebrant washes his hands, reciting the sixth verse of Ps. xxvi: ‘I will wash my

hands in innocency’ and then the whole psalm, including the verse first recited.! Perhaps the first significant stage in the mass is the intercession, for it asks acceptance of the rites through the intercession of the Virgin and ‘by all who are commemorated this day’, that is, the saints and holy dead. The priest confesses his sins facing the congregation and one of the priests pronounces absolution: if no priest is present the senior clerk reads a prayer asking for pardon. After prayers and responses the celebrant makes his entry into the sanctuary. The curtain is drawn, and he goes to the table of oblation, this being a niche or altar on the north side of the sanctuary. In Armenian it is called significantly ‘the House of Mysteries’. The deacon exhorts the people, the priest recites a prayer praising the Trinity? and the choir sings the hymn of censing whilst the celebrant reads preparatory prayers. The celebrant takes the wafer into his hands and places it on the paten saying: ‘Memorial4 of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth ...’ (etc.). The deacon gives him the wine in a cruse; he receives it and pours a little into the chalice crosswise, saying: ‘In remembrance of our Lord through whose blood, flowing from His side,5 His creatures have been renewed

and made

im-

mortal. Bless, praise and magnify Him forever.’ Taking the paten again, the celebrant asks blessing on the oblation, then places the paten with the wafer on it above the chalice, saying: ‘Accept this at Thy heavenly altar; and 1 Quotation of a single passage before reciting the whole psalm is characteristic of the Armenian mass. 2 In the strictest sense Armenians, although classed with monophysites, are doubtful adherents to this doctrine, which they seem to have accepted with misgiving, since they first signed and later rejected the findings of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). 3 Of St. Gregory of Narek.

4 “Remembrance’, ‘memorial’ and ‘commemoration’ are expressed in Armenian by verbal forms of a single root. 5 Note the absence of mention of the water. See p. 78.

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Armenian

remember . . . both those who offer it and those for whom it is offered...” (etc.). Reciting Ps. xciii in antiphon with the deacon, he covers the chalice with its veil and crosses the oblation, saying thrice: ‘The Holy .Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest overshadow thee,’ and censes the table.

This (see p. 78) is undoubtedly a form of the ‘holy union’, the conception of the Virgin Mary. The curtain is drawn back: congregation and choir stand and an elaborate censing of the altar, sanctuary, choir, clergy and congregation takes place. The celebrant returns after his passage down and up the aisles by the south steps back into the choir, whilst the Hymn of Incense is sung. Introit and Trisagion! follow. The book of the Gospels is taken round the altar with incense and lights, then the deacons face the people whilst the reader of the day’s lesson comes and kisses the Gospels. The book is kissed also by any who have asked special intercession for their dead. Such persons receive a blessing from the celebrant, who turns to make the sign of the cross over them.

For brevity, I omit the elaborate ritual which accompanies the reading from the Old Testament, prophets and Epistles; the reading from the Gospel, the recital of the Nicene Creed,?

the chanting of the litany, and of various other prayers. Before the Dismissal of the Catechumens,

the celebrant removes his

coronet and sandals. Should he be a bishop, he takes off his mitre and emiphoron as well. The choir chants ‘The Lord’s body is before us...’, etc., and the hagiologion of the day. The Great Entry now takes place. The deacons, with thurifers, acolytes, lights and accompanied by the rattling of the kshotz,3 go in procession to the table of oblation and bring the chalice, with the paten placed above it, both covered by a 1 The Trisagion (‘Holy God, holy and powerful, holy and immortal’) is addressed to Christ according to Armenian teaching. They add: ‘Thou who wast crucified for us’ or, at Easter, ‘didst gloriously ascend to heaven’, etc., or other

phrases suitable to festival or season. 2 The celebrant adds St. Gregory the Illuminator’s prayer to the Creed, kissing

the Gospel presented by the deacon as solemn confirmation of his belief. 3 Kshotz, see p. 151, n. 4.

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veil, to the celebrant at the altar, approaching from the south side of the sanctuary. The celebrant blesses the people and when he has placed chalice and paten on the altar he blesses and censes them. He washes his hands and partially removes the veil over the chalice so that the wafer appears on the paten. Prayers are said. The pax, described earlier (p. 110), follows. When this ceremony is over, and chants have been sung (in antiphon), the deacon says to the celebrant: ‘Bless Master!* The celebrant turns and blesses the people and the deacon cries aloud: ‘The doors, the doors!’

Those who do not intend to communicate should withdraw at these words, but in modern times most of these remain. The

deacon exhorts: ‘With wisdom and caution lift up your minds with divine fear.’ The priest chants: ‘With seraphim and cherubim .. .’, etc., and the choir sings the hagiology, ‘Holy, holy, holy...’ While they chant, the celebrant repeats ‘Holy, holy, holy’ secretly, with a prayer, bows to the altar, uncovers the chalice and paten completely and, after kissing the latter, he takes the wafer into his hands. Still silently, he repeats: ‘Taking the bread into His holy, pure and immortal hands, He gave it to His disciples saying (aloud): ‘“ Take, eat, this is My body” (etc.).’ Whilst uttering the words of institution over the chalice, he kisses its brim and during the prayer which follows he holds the veiled chalice and the paten (upon which he had replaced the wafer). After raising both slightly, he sets them back on the altar, removes his hands and says aloud: ‘Thine own, of Thine own, we offer unto Thee on behalf of all and for all.’ During chanting by the choir the celebrant prays silently for the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the elements and, taking the paten with the wafer upon it into his left hand, he signs it thrice with the cross, repeating the words ‘whereby Thou wilt bless this bread and make it truly the body of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ’. The deacon swings the censer freely during this prayer. The chalice is crossed thrice, with similar words, censed, and then the paten is again put above the chalice. The priest crosses them thrice, saying: ‘Whereby, blessing this bread

154

Armenian

and this wine, Thou wilt make them truly the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ The veil, which had been removed for ‘the descent of the Holy Ghost’, is now restored above them. The celebrant must be careful from this point not to put his hands higher than the oblation.

The long silent prayer recited now by the celebrant is, like so many liturgical prayers of the Eastern rites, a reminder that commemorative sacraments are closely linked with seasonal— or what we have termed ‘life-renewed’—festivals; indeed, as

an Orthodox seminary Easter’. Quoting from Armenia (Gilbert and beautiful passage from

priest quoted to me, ‘every mass is an The Liturgy of the Holy Apostolic Church of Rivington, London, 1887) I select a this prayer in illustration:

‘Through this offering, great love, constancy and a desirable peace to the whole world, and to the Holy Church and all Orthodox bishops, priests and deacons, rulers of the land, princes of people, travellers on land and that sail in ships, prisoners and those in danger and those who labour and toil; and to those who are at war amongst barbarians. Through it grant a good mixture of atmospheres, a favourable return of the seasons and to the fields fruitfulness; and to those who are afflicted with various diseases grant them all ‘speedy relief and health. Through it give rest to all those who ere this have fallen asleep in Christ; to the patriarchs; to prophets; to presbyters; to deacons, and to the whole clergy of Thy Holy Church; and to all the laymen and women who have died in the faith.’ He adds ‘and NN.’ (the name or names of deceased or living person or persons for whom special mention is to be made). . Commemoration of the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, St. Stephen and all saints follows. It is the deacon, however, who reads aloud the long list of dead patriarchs, dignitaries of the Church and so on by individual name and categorically ; the living, both by name and generally; and past rulers (Armenians have no king for whom to pray), beginning with the Byzantine emperors Constantine and Theodosius, then the Armenian monarch Tiridates and his successors. Finally, ‘all believers, living

and dead’,

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Water into Wine

At the end of this part of the commemoration, the protodeacon, acolytes and servers kiss the altar and chant thanks. The deacon offers prayers for the Church, clergy, Patriarch, bishop and celebrant, and then, aloud, repeats the silent commemorative prayer that has been quoted from above. The celebrant meanwhile continues his silent intercession for living and dead. The intercessory prayers are long,'and are succeeded by antiphonic chanting: the Litany is read by the deacon. The Lord’s Prayer is sung, the celebrant bows, choir and people kneel and the celebrant unveils the elements. Taking the wafer and lifting it with both hands he says loudly : ‘For the holiness of the holy.’ He lowers the wafer, returns it to the paten and elevates the chalice, lowers it and replaces it on the altar, leaving the elements uncovered. After silent prayer he kisses the paten, makes a prostration and, taking the wafer, dips it whole into the ‘blood’. Continuing his prayer, he turns to the congregation, holding the wafer visibly over the chalice and chants aloud: ‘...of the holy, holy and precious body and blood of our Lord... .’, etc. As he turns back to the altar, the curtain is drawn to, and

the choir, kneeling, chants intercessory hymns. Meanwhile the celebrant takes the wafer, saying: ‘What blessing, thanksgiving, shall we render. ..’, etc., and as he utters the

words ‘T confess and believe that Thou art Christ the Son of God, who -didst take away the sins of the world’, he must keep his gaze fixed upon the elements. The fraction is made thus: the celebrant breaks the wafer into four quarters which he puts one above the other into the chalice, saying: ‘The fulness of the Holy Ghost’. He takes out the topmost and, holding it in his hands, prays (according to the rubric) ‘with tears and silence’. His private intercessions can now be made, and his own communion. He swallows the piece he took from the chalice, and drinks from it saying: ‘May this incorruptible body be for me Life and Thy holy blood be for me for the expiation and forgiveness of sins.’ He breaks the remainder of the bread in the chalice into small pieces. If there are communicants amongst the clergy they receive communion in order of rank. Priests hold their hands crosswise and receive the sop in their right palm, but

156

—

.

Armenian

deacons in the mouth direct. Both priests and deacons drink from the chalice. The curtain, which was drawn to during the communion of celebrant and clergy, is then drawn back, and the deacon invites the people to.draw near in faith and fear, proclaiming their belief in the three persons of the Trinity. Whilst he is giving the invitation, the celebrant turns to the congregation, holding the chalice in both hands and part of the wafer between his first two fingers in such a manner that crumbs can fall only into the chalice; then, proceeding to the edge of the chancel steps, he kneels down. The deacon takes the chalice from him, his hand covered by a corporal (a veil used for the purpose), and the priest takes from it small fragments of the broken wafer and puts them into the mouths of communicants who come forward. No wine is offered from the chalice, since the bread is already wetted with it. Another deacon holds a corporal beneath the chin of each communicant, lest any drop or crumb should fall to the ground. When all who desire to do so have communicated the celebrant rises and blesses the congregation before returning to the altar. The curtain is again drawn to.

The celebrant consumes what is left and drinks what remains of the wine and then the rinsings of the cup. All the water used for washing his hands after communion is put into the font, whence it passes into the foundations of the church. A special cloth is kept for wiping the chalice, and when this is washed, the water is disposed of in the same way. After these ablutions, the celebrant resumes the slippers he removed at the beginning of the mass, puts on his coronet! (tag), takes the Gospels into his hands, chants the last prayers and descends with the choir by the south steps, with deacons and acolytes bearing candles. At the conclusion of the final prayer he reads a passage from the New Testament whilst antidoron is distributed to those who did not communicate. These approach, kiss the Gospel and the celebrant’s hand and receive the blessed bread, usually on the back of the right hand, the other placed crosswise beneath it. A benediction is given by describing the sign of the cross with 1 The fillet worn

beneath the turban by Mandaean

priests is called the taga

(crown) and the priest is called a ‘king’. As king, he is responsible for the welfare of his people not only in the world to come, but in this. His kingliness and the virtues attached to it are celebrated in the A/f Trisar Suialia.

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the Evangel, and the book is held out so that members of the congregation may kiss it before they leave. Then, bowing thrice to the altar, the celebrant withdraws to the vestry to disrobe. If there has been a requiem service, before he returns to break his fast, he is required to go to the graveyard and there conduct a service of memorial on the tomb of the deceased person for whom the requiem was performed. If the gold box kept for reserved sacrament in the niche or on the table of oblation is empty or almost empty, the priest

should replenish it either before administering the sacraments or when he is consuming what remains of it before cleansing paten and chalice.

XIII NESTORIAN

AND

CHALDAEAN

Te VALIANT endurance of a church which fought for its existence against the religions of ruling castes over many centuries entitle it to honour amongst the Christian communities of the Middle East. We are not concerned here with the theological controversy attached to the name of Nestorius and to the word ‘Nestorian’. The very isolation of this church, once so powerful and now reduced to obscurity, has preserved for us ancient features of ceremonial which are of great historical interest. The Nestorian mass is preceded by rites which prepare bread for the paten and wine for the altar. These have already been described in an earlier chapter, ‘The Holy Union’. The ‘holy union’, incarnation and birth of the divine Child which these hidden ceremonies represent, is directly succeeded by the drama of consecration, death and

resurrection. Before he vests for mass, the celebrant extends his hands over a basin and the deacon (shammds) pours water over them. When they have been dried on a towel, the priest puts on his altar shoes. If the church is not fully consecrated he wears white socks and no shoes. He robes in the sanctuary before the altar, the deacon censing each item of vestment,! ending with the cope (ma‘apra), a square cape with a capelet over the shoulders. It is fastened by hook and eye at the throat. Without the aid of deacons mass may not be celebrated. There should be at least two, one to sound the cymbals and the other to busy himself with censer, incense and the other duties of a server. At a festal mass, however, not less than three deacons should be in attendance.

I shall attempt to describe a festal mass, a raza rabba (great 1 T.e. the senwarta (white kerchief over the head) ; sudra or kotina (alb) ; hasa or zunara (girdle) ; urara (stole) ; kepi (maniples) and ma‘apra or paina (cope).

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mystery), abbreviating the first part, the Litany of the Catechumens.! The Lectiones consist of the Qiryana (extracts from the Old Testament) ; the Shliha ‘Apostle’, that is, extracts from the

Epistles of St. Paul; and the Evangelion, Evangel. When the moment comes to transfer the elements to the altar, the priest and one of the deacons go to the bit gaza north of the altar, where the paten was deposited after the rite of preparation. The deacon takes the pilasa (paten) from its niche and gives it to the celebrant, who receives it in his right hand. The second deacon goes to the niche south of the altar, removes the stiffened cover over the chalice and brings the cup to the celebrant, who takes it with his left hand, and then proceeds to the altar where he sets both in their place,? crossing his arms whilst doing so, with the result that the chalice stands south of the paten on the centre of the altarcloth (beneath which is the altar-board—the dapa).3 Both paten and chalice are then covered by a large veil above their respective covers. The sanctuary curtain is drawn to and all the deacons face the altar at which the celebrant prays silently. During the prayer which follows the name of the saint to whom the church is dedicated is inserted: Priest: ‘Let thy memorial O N. (the saint is named) be upon the holy altar together with that of the just who have overcome, and with that of the martyrs who have received their crowns.’ Deacon: ‘All the dead who have slept in the hope of Thee that by Thy glorious resurrection Thou wouldest raise them up in Thy glory.’ (Badger’s translation.)

The sermon is preached in the vernacular, standing on the steps of the sanctuary.

the preacher

The Nicene Creed is recited aloud by all and the Ectene 1 Liturgical prayers vary according to the liturgy used. According to the Rev. G. P. Badger (The Nestorians and their Rituals, 2 vols. Masters, London, 1852), the Liturgy of Theodore is used from the first Sunday in Advent to Palm Sunday, the Liturgy of the Apostles throughout the rest of the year except on the five occasions when the Liturgy of Nestorius is used. 2 A rubric in the Liturgy of Nestorius orders that chalice and paten should be struck together thrice before they are set on the altar. I have not witnessed this. Priests admit the rubric, but say that the action is usually omitted. 3 See p. 25, n. 1. Nothing may be placed on the dapa but altar-cloth, paten and chalice. It is wrapped in linen, and its consecration is elaborate.

160

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Nestorian and Chaldaean

(the equivalent of the bidding prayer) is pronounced by the deacon. The deacons, or one of them, proclaim the Dismissal of the Catechumens: ‘Let everyone who is unbaptised depart. Whosoever has not received the Sign of Life! let him depart. Go, ye hearers, and, watch the doors.’ The curtain is opened after the Dismissal. Celebrant, deacons and congregation chant the liturgical prayers, the deacons sometimes in antiphon, and sometimes the priest alone. The prayers and chants are lengthy. The curtain remains open for the giving of the peace.

(This was described in Chapter VIII.) The Anaphora and Sursum Corda follow, then the diopatkin (diptychs), also called dukrana. This commemorative list of dead and living is of great length. A long succession of past martyrs, ecclesiastics and doctors of the Church, including Nestorius, are mentioned by name; the saint of the day and any recently dead persons especially commemorated are mentioned by name.? The recitation is made by a deacon. Badger denies that there is an elevation. However, at the Nestorian masses that I have attended the celebrant raises above his head first the paten and then the chalice, removing their respective veils and the large veil before the elevation and restoring them after both have been put back on the altar. This elevation takes place after the words of institution: - ‘He took bread into his holy, immaculate and pure hands and brake and ate’ ..., etc., and the words of institution for the

chalice. After the elevation, the priest spreads out his arms, chants, makes the sign of the cross over the elements, kneels, and

then whispers prayers whilst one of the deacons chants in a low voice. Rising, the celebrant kisses the altar on either side of the paten and chalice and in the centre. (The rubric orders him to kiss the ‘horns’ of the altar.) 3 His chant is taken up by the deacons: the celebrant remains bowed and whispering, his right hand resting on the altar. 1 Mandaeans call baptism rushma d hiia (Sign of Life) and rushma dakia (the Pure Sign). 2 The living ‘faithful’ are mentioned comprehensively, old, young, virgins, prisoners, sick and so on without mentioning individual names. Living clergy of higher rank are named individually. 3 When making deep reverences to the altar, the celebrant bends to the ground, which he touches with his fingers.

12

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The church bell was often sounded at this point, but I was told that was.done merely to summon late-comers to mass. Cymbals (chengi) supply the note of deep devotion at certain moments of the mass.! During the actions just described the curtains remain open. Whispered prayers at the altar alternate with chanting, and sometimes, during the whispered prayers, an absolute silence reigns in the church. Much detail of the ritual bowing, crossing and so on must, like the liturgical prayers, be omitted here, for the service is a very long one.? Before the invocation the celebrant removes the smaller veils above the chalice and paten. It is pronounced at the altar and whilst reciting it he frees his hands from the cope and points them downward, with a circular movement. After chanting and replacing the covers, he resumes his whispered prayer and lifts his arms again, this time concealing his hands in the cope. Chanting still, he makes the sign of the cross with his covered right hand over the elements. After this he resumes his secret prayers. A deacon closes the curtain after the celebrant has chanted a single sentence. Behind it, the priest continues his silent (or rather whispered) prayers at the altar, the deacons standing beside him, one swinging a censer. The celebrant takes incense from a small silver cup on the altar, chanting the prayer for incense, followed by the prayer: ‘This is the living and revivifying Bread which descended from heaven and giveth life. ..’, etc. The deacons take up the chant, the priest continuing on a higher note. He kisses the altar and lifts his arms high with his hands concealed, and during his chant with arms thus lifted, the deacons and congregation join in. He kisses the altar

repeatedly. 1 The cymbals, and bells when shaken, may have been intended originally to scare away demons. 2 A festal mass, from the point at which the congregation enters the church (i.e. the point at which this chapter begins), occupies at least two and a half hours. The preparation of the elements which precedes it without an interval begins before dawn, about two hours earlier. At Epiphany this long mass is followed without a break by a number of baptisms. A Christmas mass is practically an all-night affair. 3 It should be explained that the two Assyrian churches I attended were only semi-consecrated. Owing to this, I was given a seat within the sanctuary curtains

at a place where, invisible to the people in the nave, I could see all that took place at the altar, except when the celebrant’s back obscured the view. Priests and deacons explained the ritual to me afterwards with great patience and care.

162

Nestorian and Chaldaean After alternate chanting, priest, deacons and people taking part, the curtains are drawn back for the fraction. The celebrant turns round from the altar and signs the forehead of each deacon in turn with his right thumb, beginning the vertical between the eyebrows, tracing it upwards and then across from right to left. When the cross is thus begun with an upward movement, it was explained to me by an Assyrian priest, ‘it is a sign of life’ ; when the vertical is downwards, ‘it

is a sign of death’. The celebrant turns back and approaches the altar in a cloud of incense, prays with outstretched arms, palms upwards, and then, folding his arms crosswise on his breast, he kisses the altar thrice as before. After the words ‘O Thou living and life-giving Bread which came down from heaven and giveth life unto the world so that whosoever eateth thereof shall never die and whosoever partaketh thereof shall obtain pardon and salvation and shall live forever’,! he kisses the paten crosswise without touching the bread. He takes up the melkazta, i.e. the centre loaf placed above the other four, and breaks it into two halves. With the first

half he describes a cross in the chalice, partially dipping the 1 Badger (op. cit., pp. 235-6, Liturgy of Nestorius) translates a long rubric mingled with the liturgical text: ‘Whilst naming the Trinity he shall break the bread which is in his hands into two pieces and shall put the piece which is in his left hand back into its place, yet not as it was before, but in such wise that the broken part shall face the cup. With the piece in his right hand he shall sign the Blood which is in the cup from east to west and from right to left and shall dip in a third part thereof into the cup in such a way that the broken part may be wetted and shall say: “‘May the precious Blood be signed with the life-giving Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.” He shall then sign the Body which is upon the paten in the same way, viz. with the Body which is in his hand, and shall say: ‘‘ May the Holy Body be signed with the sin-forgiving Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.” Then he shall take the two parts into his hands and shall join them together as if they had not been broken and shall say: ‘These glorious, holy, life-giving and divine sacraments have been set apart, consecrated, perfected, joined together and commingled in the glorious name of the adorable Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to be unto us, O Lord, for the forgiveness of sins, the washing out of our iniquities, the great hope of the resurrection from the dead, and a new life in the kingdom, unto us, and unto the Church of Christ our Lord, here and everywhere,

now and for ever and ever, Amen.” As he repeats the word ‘‘ Now” he shall separate the two pieces at the part where the one piece was steeped in the Blood and he shall lay them on the paten in the form of a cross with the broken part of the under piece facing the chalice, and the broken part of the upper piece facing the priest, in such a way as that the broken part facing the cup may serve for the representation of the wound which was opened in our Lord’s side by the spear.’

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bread as he does so (according to the rubric up to a third), by moving it*from east to west and from north to south. With the wetted end of this half he signs the other half of the melkaita, which he replaces above the four gmuriati, i.e. the four breads which lay beneath the melkaita on the paten. He then lifts up the two broken halves, bringing them together so that they appear as they were before fraction. He pinches the top of the right half in token of the wound received by the corpse of Christ from the soldier’s spear, but does not change

Cz | SSS

A

aes

‘

Fic. 17. NESTORIAN

MASS

(a) The arrangement on the paten after fraction. (6) The arrangement of the shushepa behind the chalice and paten before the Pax. (c) The same after the fraction and arrangement of the paten as in (a).

164.

Nestorian and Chaldaean its shape nor break the corner off. Then he places one piece above the other in the shape of a cross above the four gmuriati, the right half above the left (see Fig. 17a). At the same time he straightens out the large veil (the shushepa)1 which, just before the pax, he had folded into three, placing it behind the paten and chalice with its two ends curved round as in Fig. 17b. The celebrant lifts his arms, walks a few steps backward and stands facing the altar with the deacons. They chant with him and during the chant the priest prostrates himself several times and then offers his hand to the deacons to kiss. He advances to the altar and re-covers the chalice with its veil. Again raising his arms, he describes the sign of the cross in the air above his head. One of the deacons reads in a chant the invitation: ‘Let us all with awe and reverence draw near’, ete. The celebrant partially raises the chalice cover in order to dip in one of the gmuriatt and, during the continued chanting of the deacons, he breaks this into pieces for the children’s communion, for children are given sops and may not drink from the chalice. He also breaks enough from the other three gmuriatt for the communion of adults, beginning with the gmurta on the right. If there are few communicants, this gmurta only is used. _ All is ready. The celebrant raises his arms, chants and congregation and deacons chant loudly. Again he makes the sign of the cross with uplifted arms, saying: ‘Peace with you all,’ to which the response is given by all: ‘And with thee and with thy spirit.’ Here the celebrant repeats the sacramental formula, ‘Holy things to the holy’? and, coming to the sanctuary steps, he reads the absolution. Any who have committed wilful sin and repent should come forward to be signed on the forehead with oil of unction.3 The deacons draw the curtains to again, and the celebrant 1 The shushepa, a large veil (more fully described in the account of the Chaldaean mass, which follows), is explained by both Nestorians and Chaldaeans as a representation of the tomb of Christ. 2 For comment on this ancient formula, see p. 130, n. 2

3 Misha d mshihutho. It is sanctified olive-oil, said with oil used by the disciples of Christ by adding remaining in the vessel, in the same way that new the old is supposed to connect the mixture with disciples.

165

by the priests to be connected new oil to a little of the old melka mingled with a little of that used by Christ and his

Water into Wine

turns to the altar, where he whispers prayers or says them in his heart. For a while there is silence in the church, then, whilst he still continues his silent prayers, the congregation and deacons chant, sometimes together and sometimes alternately. The celebrant chants the long ‘Alleluia’ and the deacons then resume their chanting. The celebrant leaves the altar: the deacons draw the curtains apart and turn and face the altar kneeling. The priest looks towards the body of the church and reads from the liturgy to his kneeling flock. People and deacons rise together, saying ‘Amin’.

Here there is notable deviation from the practice of other communions. In other Christian rites the celebrant communicates himself, then other clergy in the sanctuary, the choir and after them lay communicants. A Nestorian celebrant serves the congregation first and then himself and the assistant clergy. This arises from the idea that the celebrant and clergy are like a host and his sons who, in tribal fashion, serve their guests before helping themselves. The celebrant returns to the altar, places a long white bib over the neck of one of his deacons, and a white cloth over the hands of the same, and then gives the chalice into his veiled

hands. A piece of the cloth hangs down. A second deacon approaches, and his hands are also covered by the priest with a white cloth. To the second the priest gives the paten, upon which is the fragmented bread and the sops, with the rest of the bread. Deacons and priest advance, facing the people, and take their stand on the sanctuary steps. The deacon holding the paten stands beside the priest, who takes sops from the paten to communicate the little boys, who are first to approach. The priest puts the sop into each child’s open mouth.! The age-limit, seven, is not strictly observed; some children are toddlers carried in their fathers’ arms. As they pass the shkinta, each child kisses the cross and, if too small to reach it,

a father or brother lifts it. Many place a coin on the desk. Men communicants follow. They receive, standing, a fragment of dry bread in the palm of the right hand placed crosswise above the left, then pass on to the deacon holding 1 Should a morsel or a sop fall by mischance to the ground, it must be buried a yard deep beneath the church floor.

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Nestorian and Chaldaean the chalice, which they do not touch, keeping their hands in the crossed position. When the deacon has given the wine, each communicant wipes his mouth with the hanging end of the cloth covering the deacon’s hands, and the deacon uses the end to wipe the brim of the cup before offering it to the next communicant. The communicant kisses the shkinta and deposits his alms there. After the men, little girls line up to receive their sops. I noticed that many of these had uncovered heads, whilst the elder women were all covered. The women follow the girls, receive in both kinds like the men, and kiss the cross on the shkinta, often touching it with their foreheads before laying down their offering. It happens sometimes that a few late-comers arrive, but these are communicated with the others. Many of the congregation leave the church as soon as they have communicated, although this is thought reprehensible. When all have taken the sacrament, the curtains are drawn

to again. The deacons gather in the sanctuary, each covering his crossed hands with his stole. To each of them three small portions of the melkaita are given. It is eaten in a bowed position, but not kneeling.! The priest, as host, communicates himself last of all. After kneeling and praying, he takes a fragment of the melkaita from the paten with his right hand and puts it into the - covered hands of the chief deacon. Then he bows, takes it again, places it on his own left palm, and holding his right hand beneath it crosswise, consumes the morsel. (Eating off the left hand is a reversal of the usual method.) The senior deacon next brings him the chalice with covered hands, and when the priest has drunk from it, he offers the cup to his co-deacon or co-deacons. One of them then takes the chalice and cloth from him and communicates him also with the wine. The celebrant prays silently before the altar, turns to bless 1 When giving the bread, the priest says: ‘The body of our Lord is given to the pure believer for the forgiveness of sins’ and the deacon administering the wine pronounces a similar formula. Before his own communion a deacon says: ‘Of the gmurta of absolution and of the wood of crucifixion, the sinful deacon communicates at the hands of the pure priest.’ When he eats his three morsels the deacon says: ‘In the name of the Father’ (and swallows the first morsel), ‘the Son,’ (the second), ‘and Holy Ghost’ (the third). When drinking, the deacon says: ‘Of the spiritual banquet and the wood (or ‘cross’) of crucifixion, the sinful deacon ...’, etc.

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the church with the Evangel, describing the sign of the cross. Mass is over. »

Priest and deacons dispose of what is left of the sacraments. First, more is given to the deacons in the manner in which it was first administered, then the remainder is eaten by the celebrant, who bows down and takes it directly into his mouth, the paten being likened to a heavenly pasture and the priest to the sheep which feeds on it. It is the priest who finishes the wine in the chalice, drinks the water poured over the paten into the cup and subsequent rinsings. The kaprana (see pp. 7off.) is broken into two and consumed, without a prayer, by the celebrant and one of the deacons.! No antidoron of any kind is distributed to the people, but bukra (pronounced bukhra), that is, other loaves made of the specially ground flour and pure water used for the sacramental loaves, and made and baked

at the ante-communion service in the baptistery, is considered holy bread, imparting a blessing. It may be obtained after mass on request to the priest or deacon, usually so that it may be taken back to some person prevented by sickness or other cause from attending ‘mass. Often it is the priest who takes bukra to the sick.

The Chaldaean church has discarded much ritual practised by its mother church, the Nestorian, since its somewhat inter-

mittent connection with Rome began in the sixteenth century. The jilu Nestorian service of preparation, primitive in type as we saw in an earlier chapter,3 is missing. In modern times there are marked differences in the furniture of the church; for instance, in the Chaldaean church at Baghdad the sanctuary veil has been abandoned so that all the rites at the altar are visible. The altar, which with Nestorians is usually of wood, may with the Chaldaeans be of stone or marble, and in place of the wooden dapa Chaldaeans have an altar-stone, like the Latin communions. As the making of melka has with Chaldaeans disappeared entirely, no melka is treasured in the bait qurbdna, 1 I was told that the kaprana ‘cleansed’ the mouth after eating the ‘Body’. This explanation certainly fitted one meaning of the root KPR, see p. 71, ‘to wipe away’, but did not coincide with explanations given earlier. 2 See The Lesser Eastern Churches by Adrian Fortescue, Ph.D., D.D. (London, Catholic Truth Society, 1913), pp. 101-3. 3 ‘The Holy Union’.

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Nestorian and Chaldaean

the tabernacle over the altar: in its place the reserved sacrament is kept there. The term melkaita is, however, preserved for the host; it is also called purshana d malka (the King’s chosen). Before the Chaldaean mass begins, there should be three covers on the altar: a plain white linen cover, a coloured altar cloth above it which falls down the altar-front, and over that again another white linen cloth. The third should have a red cross sewn to its centre. The book of the Gospels should be on the left (i.e. ecclesiastically the right) of the altar. fourth linen cloth, square and small, the antimesia, is laid above the centre of the altar, that is, above the altar-stone. Above this are chalice and paten, standing respectively north and south. The paten is a flat disc placed above the chalice like a cover when not in use. Its size varies; in the principal Chaldaean church in Baghdad the paten is about five inches across. Over the chalice at mass is placed a white veil of stiff texture embroidered with a cross and folded into three: it is called the mkaprana (the word kaprana is also used). In the Chaldaean rite this is a veil corresponding to the purificator. There should also be a much smaller stiffened cover for the chalice, and a larger veil of coloured silk for covering both paten and chalice, the shushepa. These veils should lie on the altar at the priest’s left hand. At least two candles should be lit on the altar. After the prayer Lahu Mara has been chanted by the choir the celebrant places the host (melkazta) on the paten, reciting prayer in a low voice. If there are intending communicants the celebrant places a sufficing number of the smaller wafers made especially for them (see p. 57) beneath the melkazta, but if there are many communicants, as on a festival, he places more of these wafers in a silver goblet with a metal cover. This, when required, is set behind the chalice on the antimesia. When he has arranged all these, the celebrant goes to the corner of the altar where the waiting deacon gives him cruets of wine and water. Commixture is performed. The priest wipes out the chalice with the mkaprana, which he lays aside, and pours in wine crosswise saying: ‘This wine shall be as the blood from the side of the beloved

Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.’ Next he

pours in a few drops of water, saying: ‘And this water shall be as the water which came from the side of the beloved Son,

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our Lord, Jesus Christ.’ Thirdly, with the words ‘Water into wine and wine into water and the two shall be one, in the

name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’, he pours in wine crosswise into the chalice for the second time. Taking the mkaprana, he wipes round the brim of the chalice, then deposits the cloth beside the chalice and to the left of it. He places its silken cover above the chalice. This ends the commixture. The deacon or server brings the censer, into which the priests puts some incense. The server censes the priest, the altar and the sanctuary; then, coming to the edge of the sanctuary steps and facing the people, he swings his censer out towards them. The choir chants the Trisagion (Holy God, Powerful, Holy and Immortal). A reader comes, kisses the altar, and the hand of the celebrant; then, after asking his blessing, reads

the Epistle at the lectern. The Epistles and, later, the Gospel are read in the vernacular. The reading is accompanied by incense, blessings and lights. After the appointed prayers the ablution follows. The server brings basin, ewer and towel; the celebrant washes his hands and dries them with the appropriate prayers.! The Dismissal of the Catechumens follows, the deacon saying: ‘He who hath not received baptism, let him go out’ and the priest: ‘He who hath not received the Sign of Life shall go out.’ The Offertory begins. The priest removes the cover from the chalice (and from the goblet for the wafers if there is one that day), takes the paten in his left hand and the chalice in his right, crosses his arms with the right over the left and repeats the Offertory prayer quietly, lifting the elements slightly and looking at the cross above the altar. He strikes the chalice and paten together lightly, describes the sign of the cross with them and sets them down, then recovers them

with their covers and places the shushepa over both. A prayer commemorating the Virgin is said, then commemoration is made of the apostles, the just, martyrs and ‘all the dead, who expect that Thou wilt raise them up into glory through Thy glorious resurrection’. The commemorative prayers are chanted by choir and 1 Before entering the church for mass the priest must wash his hands with prayers in the sacristy. As he vests himself there, he recites a prayer for each item of vestment.

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Nestorian and Chaldaecan

celebrant alternately. The form of commemoration varies according to the season or festival, but there is no lengthy list such as that of the Nestorians. The celebrant advances towards the sanctuary steps and, after a secret prayer for forgiveness, invites the people to

recite the Creed, which he repeats to himself whilst the deacon and people recite the Apostles’ Creed in the vernacular. Returning to the altar, the celebrant kisses it in the centre and on either side (‘horn’), also on either side of the antimesia. Prayers for the living and dead are said!; then the celebrant turns to the congregation and says: ‘ Peace be with you.’ (Choir: ‘And with thy spirit.’) A deacon says: ‘Give, brethren, the peace to each other in the love of Christ’ and the kiss of peace is exchanged and passed on to the people. In preparation for the consecration the celebrant removes the large stiff veil (shushepa), which he folds into four in such a manner that the cross embroidered in the centre appears, and places it like a fence around the elements on three sides (see Fig. 175). Like the Nestorians, who also do this (p. 164) but, as I was told, fold the cloth into three, not four, the Chaldaeans

teach that this arrangement of the cloth is a symbol of the sepulchre of Jesus Christ. The censer is presented to the celebrant, who blesses the incense and then censes the altar. After prayer and kissing - the altar, he recites the Angelic Hymn (‘With the holy cherubim and seraphim’, etc.), the choir joining in the chant. He uncovers the chalice and paten (and goblet if there is one) and makes three deep genuflections, kissing the altar on its centre, right and left, and ending with a deeper genuflection he kisses it near the elements. He repeats a secret prayer, genuflects again and stands before the altar with arms extended and hands open in prayer. Taking the paten in his left hand, he blesses it and repeats the words of institution, ‘This is my body’ (etc.), and those for the chalice with similar blessing and the formula of institution, then makes a genuflection and says: ‘Whensoever ye do these things, ye shall do it in remembrance of me.’ Prayers and genuflections follow, and the deacon censes the altar, choir and congregation. 1 Here the Pope, Chaldaean higher clergy and Patriarch are prayed for by name.

I7I

Water into Wine

The diptychs, which are read before the invocation of the Holy Spirit, ask God to accept the sacrifice in the name of the Virgin Mary, the Fathers, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, the Holy Church, the Pope (named), the Metropolitan or bishops (named), for all in distress, sick persons, captives and the faithful dead. Prayers for the king or other rulers (named) follow; then for the city or village in which the church is built; for protection against hail, famine, plague,

locusts and all harmful insects; for any deceased person or living person for whose benefit the mass is celebrated (both being named); for the living faithful present, and for the celebrant himself. 4 At the invocation of the Holy Spirit the celebrant raises his hands slightly and brings them together crossed over the elements. During the prayers which follow he crosses the paten and chalice and re-covers the latter (leaving wafers in the goblet should there be such uncovered). He recites Ps. 1 (the Miserere) and Ps. cxxii, blesses the incense again and is censed by the server. The celebrant lifts hands and eyes upwards and, crossing his arms, kisses the altar. Fraction, elevation and intinction follow.

The celebrant takes the wafer in both hands between his thumb and fingers, elevates it well above his head so that the congregation can see it; then, putting his elbows on the altar and holding it as described, he kisses the wafer in the form of a cross without actually touching it with his lips. Repeating prayers, he breaks the host into two, nicking it down with his thumbnail first to assist the fraction. He places the left half reversed upon the paten and dips the tip of the right half into the wine. With this wettened tip he signs the left half, touchit from east to west and from north to south, crosswise, saying: “The sacred body is marked with the redeeming cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’ Then he places the right half across the left half, which is on the paten with its broken edge facing himself, so that the two form a cross. When he has done this, he makes a genuflection. Saying: ‘Remembering the resurrection of Christ,’ he ‘removes the tomb’, that is, he removes the folded shushepa that had stood behind and partially around the chalice and paten, and returns it to the north side of the altar.

In the prayer which follows he petitions for the people as

172

Nestorian and Chaldaean mediator between God and the faithful, his arms extended

“so that he resembles a cross’.1 He bows low, and after other prayers, all in the church repeat the ‘Our Father’. The celebrant turns and blesses the congregation, saying: ‘Peace be with you.’ (Response: ‘And with thy spirit.’) The celebrant removes the chalice cover, takes up the top half of the host, i.e. the right half, and folds the wetted corner inwards and replaces it upon the lower half. Taking both halves between thumb and first finger of the left hand, he turns to exhibit them to the congregation, the halves held so as to appear above the cup. With his right hand he strikes his breast thrice, saying: ‘O Son, who hast given Thy body and blood...’, etc. He asks the people to pray for him, sets down the chalice, transfers the two halves of the host to his right hand, prays secretly, conveys the whole to his mouth and swallows without biting. After drinking from the chalice, he gives the deacon one of the small wafers which were beneath the priest’s host (the melkaita) and communicates him from the chalice. Should there be other priests in the sanctuary, they communicate before the deacon, any in the sanctuary receiving the sacraments in order of rank. Not infrequently, indeed mostly, the priest and deacon are the sole communicants, but when there are lay communicants, they receive the smaller wafers, which are dry, and then the wine. In Baghdad women line up on one side of the sanctuary steps and men at the other. Children communicate after confirmation, but not before.

After mass is over, the celebrant sweeps crumbs into the chalice, using the mkaprana to so do. He drinks the wine left in the chalice, pours in water for the rinsing and drinks that also, wipes the paten and chalice with the mkaprana, sets the paten above the chalice, and above them both the shushepa, neatly folded. The reserved sacrament is kept in the other cup, and its place is in the ‘tabernacle’, the bait qurbana. 1 Nestorians explain why the crucifix is forbidden in their churches by saying that Christ himself, with extended arms, forms a cross. Hence the gesture so often occurring during the mass. Probably the real reason of the prohibition is the Nestorian dread of images and representations of the human figure as well as the belief implicit in so many of their rites, that the cross is a sign of life rather than a representation of an instrument of torture and death. Hence they prefer the cross with foliated ends. Chaldaeans, as Uniates, have no such ban, and reverence

the crucifixes hung in their churches.

173

XIV COPTIC

AND

ABYSSINIAN

T= COPTIC CHURCH is the national church of Egypt and strictly monophysite. Their rite is the ancient rite of the Church of Alexandria, said to have been founded

by St. Mark.! In all Eastern churches priests may remain married if they be married before ordination (normally to the diaconate) but, if widowed, may not remarry. The marriage of a Coptic cleric must be with a virgin woman.? Higher clergy are celibate. The Coptic patriarch, elected by bishops and laity, is invariably a monk. The clergy wear a black robe and a black turban wound tightly round a red fez. They are bearded but cut the hair of the head. Deacons are numerous, most of them remaining in that order for life. The liturgical language is Coptic. The Biblical lessons are read in the vernacular Arabic and the Gospel pericope in both tongues. As circumcision was practised by the ancient Egyptians it is not surprising that Copts perpetuate the rite, although not universally, nor is it considered a religious necessity. Mass should be performed on Sundays, feast days and Fridays. In Jerusalem, mass is read on Wednesday and Friday either in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or in that of the Virgin’s tomb at Gethsemane;

and on Mondays,

Thursdays

and Saturdays at the monastery church of St. Anthony, next 1 Fortescue

(The Lesser Eastern Churches, p. 252) says: ‘In many things Copts

keep an older custom than the Orthodox. Among Eastern churches the Orthodox have by no means the most ancient stamp. Their rite is a late one; during their years of prosperity (down to 1453) they developed and modified much of ancient

Christian custom. But the Copts are wonderfully primitive. Their isolation, the arresting of their development, happened in 639.’

2 In Judaea priests might only marry virgins. Mandaean priests, who are polygamous, are also forbidden to marry non-virgin women.

174

Coptic and Abyssinian to the Holy Sepulchre. In Coptic monasteries, such as those in the Wadi Natrun, Egypt, celebration takes place daily. Both celebrant and communicants abstain from food and drink from the preceding midnight and for nine hours before a midnight mass. The celebrant ‘should make confession previously to a fellow-priest. The following are necessary for the celebration:

(2) The paten (Coptic diskos, Arabic seni‘a). (b) The chalice (Coptic poterion, Arabic kas). This is usually put in a square box-stand known as the fitote (Coptic) or kurst al-kds (Arabic). The rim of the chalice shows above a round opening in the top. (c) The spoon (Coptic mistir, Arabic mal‘aqa). This is laid along the front of the box-stand just mentioned.

(d) Four veils: one to cover the paten above the qubba (see below); a second to cover the chalice (these two are often cross-shaped); a third, larger, called in Coptic prosfarin (Arabic abrausforin), is for covering the paten and chalice, and the fourth is placed above it, and is called the lafafa. The lafafa is often embroidered with a figure of Christ and, according to Coptic priests, represents the stone which closed His sepulchre. The third veil, they say, symbolises the stone itself. (e) A hand-cross, usually of silver, for benediction.

(f) The gubba (dome): a cage formed bars surmounted by a cross. It Orthodox star-cover but has no intended to prevent the veil from on the paten.

by two silver crosscorresponds to the pendant star. It is touching the bread

In the church! of St. Anthony in Jerusalem I was permitted to examine the altar closely. It had three cloths on the altar, one coloured, another of white linen above it and a small silken square placed in the centre above the place where the tablitho

(altar-board) was hidden by the three. There appears to be no regulation concerning material or colour of the cloths, although one should be white. In some of the older Coptic churches, 1 In many Oriental churches the congregation either stands or squats on the floor of the nave. Men and women keep to different sides or, sometimes, women are relegated to a gallery, as in a Jewish synagogue. In some Coptic churches a wooden screen divides the women from the men. In the convent church of St. Anthony there are seats and leaning-stalls for the congregation, and in some of the Egyptian Coptic churches benches or pews are provided.

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Water into Wine

especially those in Old Cairo, the screen! between nave and sanctuary is of ‘beautifully carved wood inset with chiselled ivories of very fine design: in the fifth-century church (known as the Mu‘allaga because it is perched above the Roman fortress of ‘Babylon’) the screen has small windows as well as doors. The laity can be communicated through these. The preparation of bread and wine was described on pp. 51-4 and 64. The service begins with reading from the Gospels. The tray of breads (qurbans) is brought in. It is covered by a cloth and placed on a table, shelf or niche to the south of, but not upon, the altar. The wine cruse (qurara) and bottle of water are placed by a deacon near the bread. The empty paten should lie on the centre of the altar, the chalice in its box-

stand? behind it, and the spoon between the two. Four candles are lit on the altar, and a perpetually-burning lamp fed by sesame or olive-oil, which hangs before the sanctuary (haikal), is tended. There is, it seems, considerable variation in the manner in

which the mass is celebrated3: details differed in the various Coptic churches that I. attended, but the essentials should not differ. I shall quote from notes made in Jerusalem and submitted to a Coptic bishop (then a priest) in that city, and later to a priest in Cairo. Ceremonial robing takes place before the altar. A deacon brings the priest’s vestments and his own: they are blessed thrice and a prayer is said for each item and it is kissed before it is put on.4 1 In the churches in Jerusalem which the Copts share with other Christian sects, the altar is unscreened and the rites performed in full view of the congregation. 2 A chalice with a heavy base is occasionally used: the fitote is then omitted. The use of the chalice-box is ancient; some fine examples are to be seen in the

Coptic Museum, Old Cairo. 3 As Fortescue (op. cit., p. 282, n. 4) somewhat caustically notes. 4 Essential liturgical vestments are five in number: the alb (Coptic stoicharion,

Arabic tiéniyah); stole (Coptic orarion, Arabic batrashin); belt (Coptic zunarion, Arabic zunnar); maniples (Coptic kamasion, Arabic kumdm); and the chasuble (Coptic phainolion, Arabic burntis). The ‘sword’ (epigonation), a square of stiffened material suspended over the left thigh, is worn by higher clergy, and the hayasa, a kind of belt worn only on feast days. The most striking of liturgical ornaments is the palin or ballin (Arabic tailasdna), a kind of amice. Folded tightly about a helmetlike inner cap, it falls down over the back to the ankles. It is white and decorated

176

“ A

2

CO

.Zz

Piate 13. THE

COPTIC

QURBAN

(see p. 174)

Pirate 14. EGYPTIAN

COPTIC

SANCTUARIES

(see p. 176)

(Above) Curtained door to sanctuary in a 5th-century monastery church in the Wadi Natrun,

Egypt (Below) Showing screen in the Mu‘allaqa church, Cairo

Coptic and Abyssinian During the chanting of psalms for the third, sixth and ninth hours a prayer is said for those who gave flour or wheat for the holy bread, and the celebrant asks forgiveness from his fellowpriests and deacons. A ewer of water is then brought and poured thrice over his hands, which are dried with a towel. The ‘choosing’ takes place at the door to the sanctuary. The loaves on their tray are brought to the priest, whilst acolytes hold lighted candles so that he may see; another server or deacon stands by holding the cruse of wine in his covered right hand and a burning taper in his left. The priest examines the cruse and blesses it thrice with the silver cross,

which he holds in his veiled right hand: the examination includes smelling at the liquid. The celebrant turns to the deacon holding the tray of breads, and, opening the covering, examines the gurbdns one by one. When he has selected the most perfect, he rubs it with his hands and with the veil,

turns it about and rubs the other loaves against it. During the rubbing of the chosen loaf, the name of the person on whose behalf the mass is offered should be mentioned. The priest next takes the cruse from the deacon who holds it, tips the bottle so that the wine wets his right thumb, and blesses with it first the chosen gurbdn (known henceforth as the hamal or dhabihah (‘male lamb’, ‘victim’) and then the other loaves. Wrapping the ‘Lamb’ in a veil, he holds it up to the gaze of the people. This done, he exchanges the kiss of peace (the - hand-ceremony only, see p. 109) with the priest or deacon who held the tray and returns to the altar, standing at its north side. Here, wetting his thumb in a bottle of water placed ready for him, he rubs it over (‘washes’ the ‘Lamb’), rewraps it in its veil and places it on his head, supporting it with his right hand, whilst the deacon, the flask of wine in his right hand and cross and candle in his left, follows him. Both walk round the altar and come to a stand at the north side, the

priest facing east and the deacon beside him facing west, letting his left hand rest on the altar. The priest blesses bread and wine thrice in the name of the Trinity :the deacon makes the responses, then the priest places the ‘Lamb’ upon the paten on the altar. Above it he places the cage-cover (qubba). Next, taking the cruse of wine from the deacon, he pours with crosses; seen sideways it resembles the head-dress of a Pharaoh, an effect often

heightened by the profile of the priest who, in many cases, might have walked from the wall of an Egyptian tomb-chamber. A bishop wears a mitre (Coptic metra, Arabic tag, i.e crown).

13

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Water into Wine

wine into the chalice on the right side of the cup and blesses it with his cross. Taking the bottle of water, he pours water into the chalice on the left side of the cup, the proportion of wine being two-thirds to one-third water. This done, he covers paten and the chalice with their respective veils, says the prayer of thanksgiving, blesses himself, the altar and the congregation and places the large veil (prosfarin) above both elements, setting the fourth veil above the other three. The chalice should stand directly behind the paten. Tapers are distributed to the choristers (who act as acolytes. and servers when required) and a procession is formed which circumambulates the altar. Then the celebrant reads the absolution, kneeling at the door of the sanctuary: people and clergy kneeling also. Going to the altar, the priest puts some incense into the censer and walks five times round the altar, censing it and the elements, and prays for church, patriarch, clergy and congregation. Returning, he swings the censer towards all in the sanctuary, and the congregation too. During the censing, the deacon chants the Epistle in Coptic and Arabic and then the Katholikon (a passage decided according to the festival or saint of the day), and the Abraxis (Praxis, Acts of the Apostles). Each reading in Coptic is chanted: the Arabic may be read either by a deacon or by a layman. The priest again walks five times round the altar bearing the censer during the reading of the Abraxis. The Trisagion is sung by the choir. Then the priest goes round the altar carrying the book of the Gospels, preceded by choristers, clergy, cross and lights, and coming down to the door of the sanctuary, he blesses the people with the book. The deacon bids the people attend and the priest says: ‘Peace to you all’, with the usual response. He chants the Gospel in Coptic: a layman or deacon reads it in Arabic, and during the translation the celebrant or another priest takes the censer and, swinging it at the sanctuary door, repeats secret prayers for the sick, travellers, rivers, cattle, church, king, the dead and the living. . The mass proper begins with the Prayer of the Veil (see Brightman, p. 158). This is said at the altar where the priest makes a petition for the Church, patriarch (putting more incense into the censer), the clergy, congregation and lay community. The deacon or one of the assistant clergy recites the Creed, lights held on either side of him. The congregation

178

Coptic and Abyssinian should recite this inwardly or quietly whilst the translation into Arabic is being read. The celebrant asks the prayers and forgiveness of the clergy, prays for all people with open hands, blesses clergy and congregation and says: ‘ Peace to you all’, to which they make the response. He extends his hands over a ewer, a server pours water over them and he wipes his hands. If one of the higher clergy is present, he also performs the ablution. The celebrant recites two prayers, then exchanges the kiss of peace with the deacon, who goes to the door of the sanctuary, orders the people to salute one another, and prays whilst the congregation perform the pax. On the return of the deacon to the altar the priest removes the prosfarin and small upper veil and hands them to the deacon. After more prayer, he takes away the veil over the paten and, turning to the people, blesses them. The chalice, which was not completely covered at the original veiling, remains partially covered, the side nearest the celebrant being open. The Sursum Corda (‘Where are your hearts? Our hearts are with the Lord’, etc.) follows. The priest blesses himself and offers up thanks. After various prayers (between the second and third the deacon bids the people ‘Stand and attend’ and at their conclusion ‘Look to the east’), the choir sings the ‘Seraphic hymn (‘Holy, holy, holy; truly heaven and earth are full of Thy holy glory’, etc.). The celebrant blesses the paten and his own breast with the cross, lifts the paten with his right hand, both being covered by a lafafa, elevates it, lowers his hands and bows, describing the sign of the cross with his head, performing the three actions thrice. He takes the lafafa which was over the bread, exchanges it for that which was on the chalice and, placing the latter veil over his left hand, with his right he signs the paten and chalice, then, turning, blesses the congregation. Returning, he elevates

the chalice thrice in the same manner as the paten. He places some incense taken up with the spoon into a censer held by a server, elevates the cross, bows thrice and holds his hands in the smoke. Whilst putting in the incense, he recites a declaration of belief in the Incarnation. He places both hands over the incense, palms downwards, cups a little smoke in his hands and releases it above the paten.

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Water into Wine

He then takes up the ‘Lamb’ in his left hand, signs it thrice in the namesof the Trinity, and at the third signing repeats the words of institution (‘He took the bread’, etc.). Replacing it on the paten, he lifts the chalice in his right hand, takes the brim between his first finger and thumb and repeats the words of institution for the wine (‘And after supper He took the cup’, etc.) and signs the chalice thrice in the name of the Trinity. He replaces the chalice, kneels thrice facing the altar, signs the bread thrice and the cup thrice in silence and then prays the prayer called ‘The Great Intercession’ to which the people at intervals say: ‘Lord, have mercy upon us’ (Kyrie eleison).1 This prayer for the welfare of living and dead is an elaboration of that offered previously at the reading of the Gospel. The living are prayed for first, and long petitions concern the seasons, fruits and rivers, these varying according to the time of year. Then comes prayer for the dead (majmii‘a al-qiddisin) ‘all holy ones’, beginning with St. Mary, St. John the Baptist and a number of Egyptian saints. The diptichon (diptychs) is then read, but silently, the celebrant putting in a pinch of incense for each deceased person as he utters his or her name. In the list is included the name of the person (living or dead) for whom the mass is celebrated, and the celebrant is at liberty to insert the names of his own dead as well as names which have been previously written down for those who wish intercession made for their departed relatives or friends. These are given him in a list. Prayers for the living (naming the patriarch) follow, with prayers for the congregation. A thanksgiving ends these prayers for living and dead.

It is worthy of note that in the various Coptic liturgies the archaic form of praying for saints is used. The implication is that they still need prayer. A Coptic priest informed me that all created beings, compared to God, are imperfect, and are therefore helped by prayer.? 1 Brightman places this prayer of intercession and the diptychs before the words of institution. My Coptic informants were very positive about its place after. Brightman (of. cit.) gives the Cyril anaphora. Fortescue (of. cit., p. 284) places the intercession after the institution, as in the Basil anaphora. 2 The Mandaeans in their long liturgical prayer of commemoration pray not only for the holy dead, but for spirits of light. Their explanation was that the mere

fact of being created, of having form, was a state of imperfection, and that only the Source, the Great Life, needs no prayer.

180

Coptic and Abyssinian The celebrant now uncovers the chalice completely and takes the ‘Lamb’ into both hands. Dipping his right forefinger into the cup, he signs the bread thrice from west to east and over the edge, continuing the movement down the centre of the obverse, completing the crosswise movement by bringing the finger-point from the middle of the north edge across the bread front and back and ending at the north edge. Whilst doing this he repeats a prayer for the descent of the Holy Spirit.

(Copts believe that the change in substance takes place this moment and not at the words of institution.) The prayer ends ‘That He may take this bread the holy body of Christ’; then the celebrant takes the chalice, signing it thrice, ‘and this cup also His precious blood’, etc. The congregation kneels. The celebrant takes the bread for the fraction. He dints and breaks out a wedge at the top (eastern) part. (Jn my sketch I have called this A.) Then he breaks in the same manner a wedge from the bottom (B). As he breaks off each piece he puts it on the paten. Next he breaks off the entire right side of the loaf (C) and dints it slightly in three parts (a, b and c) without breaking them away. In a similar manner he breaks off and semi-divides into three (d, ¢ and /) the left side of the ‘loaf (D). Fifthly, he removes the upper crust of the centre square (£), leaving the undercrust unbroken. This is called the Asbddiqin. The remaining fragment, that is, the parts left above and below the Asbddigun, connected by the undercrust of the centre square, is placed with the other fragments in the paten.

(The rough sketch attempted in Fig. 18 may explain these stages of the fraction.) The celebrant arranges all the pieces on the paten so that they appear as they were before fraction. The prayers for the fraction vary according to season and festival. The priest prays secretly for forgiveness and again makes intercession for the living and dead. During his secret prayers, the deacon and people say the Lord’s Prayer. The celebrant takes the Asbddiqin, dips it into the chalice and with this wetted portion he makes the sign of the cross over chalice and paten, saying: ‘The Holy to the Holy’. The deacon recites a declaration of belief in the Trinity. The 181

Water into Wine

Fic. 18. THE FRACTION (COPTIC) . The wedge broken from the top of the gurban. . The wedge broken from the bottom of the gurban. . The right side of the gurbdn (dotted lines indicate where the crust is dinted to p> Qe facilitate later breaking), D. The left side of the gurbdn (dotted lines indicate where the crust is dinted to facilitate later breaking). E. The Asbadiqin, i.e. the upper crust of the centre square E. (The inscription on the rim is omitted.)

\ the three parts formed by dinting on the right side. } the three parts formed by dinting on the left side. Saw oA Qa

celebrant touches the fragments on the paten with the Asbadigiin and makes the sign of the cross over them, repeating ‘Holy to the Holy; this is the Holy Body’; and then puts the Asbadigin in the chalice with the words ‘Holy to the Holy; this is the Holy Blood’. The deacon responds ‘Amen, in truth Amen’. The celebrant elevates the paten, describes the sign of the cross with it and recites his faith in the one nature of Christ (see Brightman, of. cit., p. 185, for the formula). He kneels, bows to the altar, rises, bows to the clergy in the sanctuary and then, taking the top wedge (A) from the paten he swallows it. He then takes up the paten in order to communicate the

deacon. 182

Coptic and Abyssinian The deacon spreads a veil (lafafa) over his right hand and, holding a cross and a lighted candle in his left, he takes his stand at the door of the sanctuary. The priest comes down to him and places the portion (B) on his veiled right hand. As soon as the deacon has consumed his portion he goes to the altar and deposits upon it the /afafa, candle and cross. The priest now faces the congregation at the door of the sanctuary, describing a cross with the paten, ready to receive those who wish to communicate. The people, saying: ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord’, begin to line up for their communion.! The priest divides the remainder of the bread into small pieces, and communicates first with the bread any clergy who are in the sanctuary, then the waiting people: boys first, then men, girls and women, in that order. He takes the chalice, takes from it the Asbddigiin, removing it with the spoon, consumes it and drinks twice, using the spoon, of the wine. The deacon, who stations himself at the north side of the altar,

receives three spoonfuls from the chalice, and if there are other clergy, they receive the wine in like manner. The deacon then goes round the altar and takes up a vessel of water known as the ‘water of prayer’.2 The priest goes for the second time to the door of the sanctuary, bearing the chalice, and the deacon stands beside him with a cup and the ‘water of prayer’. Each communicant receives a spoonful of - the ‘blood’ from the priest, and then drinks the ‘water of prayer’ administered by the deacon. When all have communicated the priest returns to the altar and he and the deacon consume what is left on the paten. He pours a little water over the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand into the chalice and drinks it; pours water over the paten and spoon into the chalice and drinks that also. He washes his hands again and, taking some of the ‘water of prayer’ into his hands, he throws it upwards or else throws it over the hands of those in the sanctuary and then over the hands of the congregation. 1 Should no lay communicant present himself, priest and deacon consume the rest of the bread at this point: the priest eating the right half and the deacon the left. 2 Mandaean mia dbuta (pronounced meya adbitha), ‘water of prayer’, is taken from the ‘outer phial’: see Chapter V. This water, according to commentaries,

symbolises ‘water of life’ and seminal fluid. It is poured into the wine-bowl representing the ‘womb of the mother’.

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The blessed bread is distributed to all who come forward for it, whether they have communicated or not, and any person may come forward to extend his or her hands for the ‘water of prayer’. (The bread is from the qurbdns rejected at the altar at the ceremony of selection.)

I was told that if there are many communicants it is found convenient sometimes to anoint the bread on the paten with the ‘blood’ and to communicate the congregation with sops. The celebrant and clergy, however, communicate in the usual way. Much latitude seems to be permitted in the performance of Coptic ritual and Fortescue, who comments

on it (op. cit.,

p- 282), attributes this partly to the not infrequent ignorance of the clergy. The Abyssinians call the mass the Qeddase. My instructor in Jerusalem, a tall, gentle Abyssinian monk of great piety, sought to impress me with certain points when he explained their ritual. As these may seem less weighty when mentioned in their place I will speak of them here. The first of these, he said, was

the performance of ‘twenty-one inside blessings and twentyone outside blessings’, not counting ‘blessings of the air’. By ‘blessing’ he meant making the sign of the cross, and the celebrant does this at various stages of the mass, over the elements, people and towards the four points of the compass, i.e. ‘the blessings of the air’. The second point of importance was the naming of the dead. When a mass is celebrated for the benefit of one who has died, on every occasion that his or her name is uttered in the mass, whether secretly or aloud, the Lord’s Prayer must be recited also.! Abba Yesus said that the ‘Our Father’ was the bond which held prayers of commemoration together, and likened it to a cord round a faggot of sticks.?

Apart from the mass, at any recital of the Lord’s Prayer the name of a deceased relative can be mentioned in prayer. Commemorations of the dead and masses for the soul of the departed can be held on the third, seventh, twelfth, thirtieth, 1 There must be connection between this Abyssinian use of the Lord’s Prayer by mourners and the Jewish recital by bereaved persons of the Qaddish, especially as the latter has similar petitions. 2 The simile of the faggot recalls the Jewish metaphor of ‘the bundle of life’ (see pp. 44. and 92).

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Coptic and Abyssinian

fortieth and eightieth day after death; months and the year after decease.

and then after six

At one of these intervals, usually on the third day, a large

meal is offered by the bereaved to a large company. This meal, at which meat and all kinds of food are provided, is called the Tazkar, the ‘Mentioning’, ‘Commemoration’. At the opening,

the senior priest present recites the Lord’s Prayer and petitions for the repose of the soul of the departed, adding, if requested, the names of other dead relatives given to him by the family.

During these prayers all stand. At the close of the feast the Lord’s Prayer is again recited together with petition for the well-being and preservation of the family of the deceased, and for his soul’s salvation. This commemorative feast takes place at the house of those who provide it. Preparation for mass! is severe. Intending communicants and priests should fast from 3 p.m. the previous day and abstain from all drink, food and washing—even hands and face must remain unwashed. This prohibition on washing extends until twenty-four hours after communion. (From notes) Intending communicants wear a special dress, that worn by women differing little from that worn by men. At Dabra Gannat the change into sacramental robes took _ place in the church, behind a white sheet held up by helpers as a screen. The dress consists of a white linen shamma (wrap), a skirt, a cape and, for women, a head-wrapping also. Not only these, but underclothes also should be white, and should not be put on at any other time. All must be barefoot, or must remove their shoes before entering the church. Women stand on the south, men on the north and the choir or chanters (in the case of the monastery, monks) on the west of the interior. Most of the congregation stand throughout, using leaning-sticks: a few sit on the floor. There are doors 1 Gabra Yesus arranged for me to stand in the sanctuary at the convent church

of Dabra Gannat (‘the heavenly convent’) in Jerusalem, a rare and possibly unique concession to a woman. I attended mass also in the tiny chapel of St. Helena on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre, the only foothold which the Abyssinians possess in this edifice. The church of Dabra Gannat is built in the form of the Holy Sepulchre: a square sanctuary stands in the centre of the building, surmounted by a dome. There is a space round the sanctuary and a colonnade encircles the interior and exterior of the building, for the church is round. I am told that round churches are common in Abyssinia, and that sanctuary and altar are usually round. Fortescue (of. cit., p. 313) confirms the former statement.

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Water into Wine to the sanctuary at the west, south and north, and the church itself has several doors, one of which communicates with the Bethlehem, the bakehouse for the holy bread. This, and the

making of the loaves, has already been described. On his entry, after prayer, the celebrant comes from the sanctuary into the church, facing west and carrying his vestments over his arm or shoulder. He wears a tall white cap (q6b) on his head, is dressed in a white alb and carries a cross and the tasbih (a book of lections and benedictions for mass).1 The celebrant must be assisted by three priests and two deacons; but should no third priest be available, another deacon takes his place. Thus the celebration needs four

assistant clergy. The number of servers is unlimited. The celebrant reads from the tasbih, an acolyte by him illumining the page by the light of a candle. The other clergy stand before the celebrant and one of them usually holds the book open for the reading. The celebrant (serai-kahen) recites the confession of sins whilst clergy and people kneel, prostrating themselves to the ground. When the absolution has been pronounced, they rise and the celebrant blesses them thrice with his cross and turns east. Standing at the sanctuary gate, he recites a prayer, prostrates himself once before the curtain, recites another prayer and then enters. He bows thrice to the altar and reads prayers there whilst the other clergy recite six psalms reading in turn.

(Ps. xxv,

Ixi, cii, clii, cxxx

and

cxxxi)

The celebrant reads the prayers for the consecration of the church, the veils (mahfedat), the paten (s‘ahili), the chalice, spoon and a covered basket called the maséb.2 The priests arrange these and other accessories in their place on the altar. In the sanctuary there must be a vessel of water, a basin and towels for the washing of hands, and a separate vessel of water for washing the paten and chalice. When all is in place, the celebrant or senior priest says the Lord’s Prayer, remembering by name any deceased person especially commemorated, and his own dead if he wishes. Vestments for the priests are then brought in. The senior 1 JI compared my notes (as edited later by Abba Yesus) with the Abyssinian liturgy as given by Brightman (Liturgies Eastern and Western, vol. ii) and that given by Mercer (The Ethiopic Liturgy, Mowbray & Co., London and Milwaukee, 1915). The liturgy given by the latter corresponds to that used in Jerusalem, and when I quote prayers I shall use this translation. 2 The masdb shown to me was finely woven of coloured straw and cane, the

cover fitting snugly into the underpart. The women usually weave these baskets.

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Coptic and Abyssinian priest blesses them collectively, and they all robe. When they are ready, they recite the Kyrie eleison twelve times, counting on their finger-joints with the thumb of each hand.! Three of the clergy, a priest and two deacons, then leave the sanctuary processionally and go to the door at the southeast which connects with the Bethlehem. The senior priest carries a censer in his right hand and a cross in his left hand; one deacon carries the maséb and the other a bell, which he

rings. At the door to the Bethlehem they take three breads from the basket in which they were brought and transfer them to the maséb. Sacramental wine in a small bottle has also been brought from the Bethlehem. They return with these to the north door of the sanctuary. Meanwhile, a priest who has remained with the celebrant in the sanctuary takes water and pours it over the latter’s hands, which are not dried, but left wet. Both go to meet and join in the returning procession and walk behind as it moves thrice round the altar. They come to a stand at the west before the altar, a deacon opens the maséb and the celebrant chooses the most perfect of the three loaves, rubs it and carries it on his two flat palms placed side to side round the altar. At the north side of the altar he puts the bread on the paten over a veil, then, proceeding to the west of the altar, he folds the veil over it crosswise, lifts it thus wrapped from the paten, again walks round the altar and when he returns the bread

to the paten he opens up the veil, which remains below the bread. The chief deacon takes the cruse of wine, and repeating Ps. xxii goes round the altar. The second priest, standing on the south side of the altar, receives the wine and pours it into the chalice. The deacon hands him the cruse of water, and the

second priest pours it into the chalice with prayer.

The prayer said at the commixture? mentions the marriage feast at Cana, but not the flowing of blood and water from the side of Christ. The celebrant blesses first the bread, secondly the chalice,

which stands behind and to the east of the paten, then both together. (This blessing is counted the first of the ‘inside 1 Mandaean priests, when a prayer is repeated many times consecutively as. for instance, that said when ‘honouring the crown’, use the same method of counting.

2 Mercer, op. cit., p. 305.

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~

benedictions’ I referred to above.) The priest on the south of the altar repeats a prayer and then the Lord’s Prayer; comes to the celebrant and says to him: ‘Remember me, O my father presbyter.’ The celebrant answers: ‘The Lord keep thy priesthood and accept thine oblation.’ The second priest bids the people thrice to ask mercy of God. The celebrant repeats the prayer said at wrapping the bread, blesses the oblations separately and together, and covers them. He looks to the east and says with arms upraised: ‘One is the Holy Father, one is the Holy Son, one is the Holy Ghost.’ The people respond, and after thanksgiving he pronounces a prayer of exorcism, during which he crosses himself, the clergy and the people (this being the first three of the ‘outside benedictions’). As he blesses he says: ‘Peace be with you all’, the people responding. Here the second priest says prayers for those who have brought offerings such as candles, flour, meal, oil, silver, gold, cloth or money, prayers follow which ask that the oblations may be blessed and be transmuted into the body and blood of Christ. The chief deacon bids the people to cherish no

rancour and to worship. They prostrate themselves to the ground. The second priest leaves the sanctuary and, standing on its steps at the west, reads the confession and absolution. If a bishop or high ecclesiastic be present, he is asked to pronounce a blessing: if not, the celebrant turns from the altar and gives a second threefold blessing (the ‘sixth outside blessing’). ~ The second priest returns to the sanctuary, a deacon takes his place on the sanctuary steps, reads the commemorations, prayers for the Church, the king and ministers, the living faithful and the dead, for rains, rivers, fruits of the earth, sowing, harvest and so on.

To these petitions the people, still bowed to the ground, respond: Kyrie eleison. The censing follows. The people rise: the deacon returns to the sanctuary. The chief deacon goes with the censer and five lumps of incense to the senior priest (or the bishop if present), who places three of the pieces into the three holes of the censer. The other two pieces are put on the altar and used later. If no higher clergy are assisting, the celebrant does this. The celebrant blesses the censer, and walking with his four assistant clergy thrice round the altar, censes it. At the west 188

Coptic and Abyssinian of the altar he swings the censer thrice, once for the Trinity, once for the Church and once for the Virgin Mary. As he goes round the altar he swings it out at each point of the compass. Should a bishop be present (the episcopal seat is outside the sanctuary) the celebrant leaves the sanctuary to cense him. On return, he offers his cross to the second priest, who kisses it, blesses the rest of the clergy, and holds the cross before the deacons. The priests lay their hands upon the altar, and the cross is held above them that their hands may be sanctified. Next, the celebrant leaves the sanctuary and, standing at its gates, censes east, west, north and south, facing

each quarter to do so; then, descending the steps, he censes the choir and all who stand at the west gate. Turning, he walks round the exterior of the sanctuary, moving from west to south, east and north, pausing at each point of the compass to swing the censer. He re-eriters by the gate at the west by which he had left.! The second deacon and celebrant, after prayers to the Virgin, circumambulate the altar again and the celebrant censes the oblations, holding the censer short and waving it in circular fashion above the paten and chalice. Meanwhile the Epistle is read by the chief deacon at the lectern outside the sanctuary. The second deacon and second priest read in turn the lections which follow, the former facing north and the latter south.? The celebrant blesses himself, the clergy and the people (ninth ‘outside blessing’), also the altar. After prayer, all five clergy walk round the altar with the processional cross and four lights. The sanctuary. curtain is withdrawn; the celebrant, one priest and two deacons emerge and stand at the west gate, priests facing east and deacons west. The third priest remains within the sanctuary. Long prayers are chanted in antiphon with the choir. The celebrant chants the ‘Qaddis, qaddis, gaddis’ (Holy, holy, holy art Thou, God the Father Almighty, holy, holy, holy art Thou, only Son, etc.). The senior priest recites the Lord’s Prayer and there is commemoration by name of the departed for whom the mass 1 The censing at the points of the compass is elaborate: e.g. at the south he swings first south and north, then east and west; and so crosswise at every quarter in turn, At each successive censing a deacon faces him and exchanges bows with him. 2 The lections are: Paul, Peter and Acts.

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is said, and of other deceased persons. The senior deacon says from the centre of the sanctuary : ‘Stand to pray!’

I shall omit from my notes the long and elaborate ceremonial which accompanies and follows the reading of the Gospel. Before it is read the priests again make commemoration of the dead, mentioning as before the name of the departed specially commemorated. It is accompanied by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, as is a third commemoration, a very long

prayer,

which

Throughout

succeeds

this prayer

the

Dismissal

of

Catechumens.

a server rings a bell at intervals,

standing outside the sanctuary, and at its end people, their foreheads touching the ground, cry aloud Kyrie eleison. Prayers for the living (king, patriarchs, clergy and congregation) and for peace are followed by the Creed, loudly recited by all. (Returning to my notes) The celebrant washes his hands at the west gate of the sanctuary and from this moment he is forbidden to touch altar, veils or anything but the host (qurban). When washing his hands and repeating the ablution prayer (Mercer, op. cit., p. 345) he throws a little of the water towards the people. The second priest uncovers paten and chalice, the celebrant goes to the altar. The deacon bearing the processional cross stands behind him, but leaves this position to come forward and bid any who have anger in their hearts, or are unworthy, to depart (Mercer, op. cit., pp. 346-7). Then he returns to his place behind the celebrant. The kiss of peace follows. (The prayers are given in Mercer, pp- 347.) As the celebrant may touch no one, he merely bows over the shoulders of the second priest, who bows in the same manner over the shoulders of the third, and so on in order.

The people outside either follow their example, or give the peace in the Coptic manner, by interleaving hands and kissing finger-tips on release. In the Abyssinian liturgies fourteen sections of prayer follow. The Anaphora begins with the ‘Creed of the three hundred and eighteen Orthodox’ (Mercer, pp. 348-9), the thanksgiving, lifting up of hearts, and a long intercession in the names of saints, martyrs, evangelists, and the Virgin, petitions for the Church, sick, rains, fruits in season and so on, these

petitions varying according to festival and season. Another 190

Coptic and Abyssinian intercession for the dead is read by the chief deacon in the sanctuary.

I again omit notes, for the liturgy is long and the detail of ritual does not directly affect the oblations. After the Ter-

sanctus :

;

The second priest now puts the last fragment of incense left on the altar into the censer. The celebrant wafts handfuls of the smoke over paten and chalice in turn three times, and when the deacon says: ‘In the same night that He was betrayed .. .’ the second priest removes the veil beneath the qurbdn. The celebrant lifts the bread in his right hand and nicks it with his finger-nail in five places, east, west, north, south and to the

right of the centre square. Reciting the prayer ‘He looketh...’, he looks upward and blesses the bread, wine and the cross,

indicating each in turn. (By this time the ‘fourteenth inside blessing’ has been reached.) Whilst doing this he recites ‘He blessed and brake . . .’, the people responding : ‘Amen, amen, we believe,’ etc. He blesses the elements separately and together three times

(i.e. the fifteenth to seventeenth ‘inside blessing’). He dips his right thumb into the chalice and with it follows the outline of each of the thirteen squares which form the cross on the gurbdn (see Fig. 19). In doing this he moves first down the sections (according to my informant to symbolise the Lord’s descent from heaven), then from side to side (His wanderings on earth), then again downwards to the west of the gurbdn (His death), and finally upwards (His resurrection). After the prayer by the people ‘Grant us to be united ...’, the deacon says: ‘Rise and pray.’ The celebrant turns from the altar with the salutation: ‘Peace be with you!’ and then, reciting ‘I adore Thee...’ (etc.), he separates completely each section of the crossed portion of the upper crust from the bottom crust, returning every section to its place in the loaf after its separation.

I again omit a great deal, since the qurbdn remains touched whilst it is going on.

un-

After the Prayer of Penitence the celebrant blesses the people thrice with his hands (the eighteenth to twenty-first ‘outside blessing’) and there is another commemoration

IgI

Water into Wine prayer, for the king, for rulers of the Church, and for the dead, mentioning the name of the king and that of the person or persons especially commemorated.

The

sections

as

arranged during fraction.

(a = the Asbddigin)

Fic. 19. THE ABYSSINIAN QURBAN AND ITS SECTIONS AS ARRANGED AFTER FRACTION (The inscription is omitted)

192

Coptic and Abyssinian As the celebrant recites ‘Holy things to the Holy’ (Qudisdt lqudisan) he changes the position of the sections on the paten, crosswise, so that piece 1 goes into the space occupied by piece 2, 3 into that occupied by 4, and so on. The people repeat: ‘One is the Holy Eanety one is the Holy Son, one is the Holy Ghost.’ At the moment when the Sepa elevates the bread the “chief deacon faces him across the altar. The celebrant says thrice: ‘Lord have mercy upon us, Christ...’, etc., the people repeating this after him, then five times in unison and

after that forty-two times quietly. During the elevation and the prayers which accompany it a server rings a handbell continuously. When the celebrant has returned the bread to the paten, he again takes the sections one by one from the undercrust (which has remained whole throughout) and returns them to their original position. Meanwhile, a server pours water over the hands of the clergy in the sanctuary and dries them with a towel. The deacon bids the people rise and they say: ‘Lord have mercy upon us.’ The celebrant salutes them and indicates the paten, ‘This is the body, holy, true...’, etc. (Mercer, p. 361), and then, indicating the chalice, ‘This is the blood...’,

etc., and of

both paten and chalice, ‘For this is the body and blood of Emmanuel, our very God.’ The people utter ‘Amens’. At this point the congregation prostrate themselves completely to the ground. The celebrant removes the central section, the dsbddiqin (A on the numbered plan), dips it into the chalice and, saying: ‘I believe,’ he touches with it the gurbdn at the four extremities of the cross (i.e. sections 1, 2, 3 and 4) and again repeating four times: ‘I believe’, he touches sections 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Still holding-it, he blesses the chalice, so completing what is the final and twenty-first ‘inside blessing’. He replaces the dsbddigin in the chalice. A long prayer follows. The clergy repeat the Lord’s Prayer and forty-one Kyrie eleisons, counting them on the joints of their fingers with their thumbs. The celebrant now communicates. He takes section 1 and swallows it, and the second priest gives him a spoonful from the chalice. The celebrant gives section 3 to the second priest, section 8 to the third priest. (Should the third assistant be a

Fey

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Water into Wine deacon, he receives section 8 after the other two deacons have

received their portions.) The celebrant replaces the qurbdn on the paten, and it is the second priest who takes the paten and proceeds with the communion of the clergy, for the celebrant must still avoid touching anything but the qurbdn. This tabu prevails until he has washed his hands later. The second priest then gives section 2 to the chief deacon and section 4 to the second deacon, holding the paten in his left hand. He drinks a spoonful from the chalice, administers one to the third assistant,

removes the dsbddigqiin from the chalice with the spoon and gives the sop to the chief deacon. To the second deacon he gives a spoonful of the wine. The servers receive both bread and spoonfuls of wine from the second priest. (See Mercer for the formula said at administration.) In churches such as Dabra Gannat, which has electric light, the verger now switches on every bulb. The clergy prepare to leave the sanctuary in full processional pomp.

(At the mass I have described, which was celebrated for a member of the royal family, the colour and Oriental splendour of the spectacle was, no doubt, exceptional. A red umbrella embroidered with gold was held over the celebrant, the vestments were heavy with metal thread, and the small darkskinned servers wore costumes frogged with gold.) The celebrant stations himself between the third priest and second deacon, these slightly in front so as to carry the paten before him. He holds his hands, palms downwards, above the paten, always careful not to touch it. For this procession it is placed on a tray. A cage resembling the Coptic qubba is placed above it and a veil partially covers this cage in such a manner that the bread beneath can be touched and handled. The qurban lies so that the undercrust of section 1 is nearest to the celebrant. The second deacon bears the chalice, the second priest the incense. Before the curtain is withdrawn all the clergy face west and say thrice: ‘Lord have mercy upon us’, the people outside joining in. The chief deacon says: ‘Pray for us’, etc., there is some chanting and prayer, and then, all standing ready, the curtain is drawn back and the procession moves into the church. Men and boys gather at the west door to meet them and are

194

Coptic and Abyssinian communicated by the assistant priest, receiving first pieces of the right side of the gurbdn (i.e. that beneath sections 9, 7, 11 and 3), and then ‘blood’ from the chalice, administered with the spoon. (I have seen tiny boys communicated; a baby in its father’s arms was given a sop.)1 The procession moves on to the south of the church, where women and girls are communicated from the ‘left’ side of the qurban and by spoon from the chalice. The celebrant and the two clergy at his right and left re-enter the sanctuary by the south door and stand before the altar, but the rest of

the clergy proceed round the church till they reach the west door, where they pause, facing east. The chief deacon says: ‘Let us give thanks . . .’, etc., before

re-entering the sanctuary. When all the clergy have reentered, the people sit. The veil which has partially covered the paten is set aside by one of the assistants and the celebrant gives what remains of the qurban to those inside the sanctuary. The second priest takes the chalice from the chief deacon and administers to them the remainder of the ‘blood’ (wine). After this the celebrant washes his hands, pours water over the paten into the chalice, drinks, rinses the chalice with water

and gives the rinsing to fellow-clergy to drink. He then goes to the altar and, laying his hands above the fabit,? he prays the prayer known as ‘The Imposition of Hands’ (Mercer, p- 368), whilst the second priest, after ablution, leaves the sanctuary with a book, faces the people at the west and asks

for the intercession of the Mother of God, celestial beings, patriarchs, saint and so on (in fact, another long ‘naming’). Meanwhile, when the washings are over in the sanctuary, a

deacon or server comes out with the water that has been used for ablution. This is thought ‘blessed water’. He takes a glass with him and pours out a little for those communicants who wish to drink of it. When his prayer of ‘The Imposition of Hands’ is ended, the celebrant blesses the four points of the compass with a triple blessing (he can now use his cross for benediction and not his hands only). He blesses east, west, north and south thrice, and then in similar fashion ‘the four corners of the earth’, i.e. north-east, south-west, north-west and south-east.

(For the prayers, see Mercer, pp. 371-2.) 1 By the right side I mean the side which lay north on the altar. 2 See p. 25, n. I.

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He offers his right hand to the second priest, saying: ‘This hand is the authority of Peter.’ If his assistant is a priest, the second priest does the same to the third assistant, but to all deacons he holds his right hand open before their faces, saying : ‘The blessing of Paul be upon you.’ On the sanctuary steps the chief deacon exhorts the people to ‘Bow your heads before God’, etc. They make response. Before the clergy leave the sanctuary, the second priest lays his hands on the two unchosen qurbdns, brought him on a tray. These, called the abéraki (blessed) or eulogia,! are handed on the tray to the chief deacon, who carries it beside the celebrant. The latter blesses the people thrice from the sanctuary gate as they come away, and thus he completes the ‘twentyone outside blessings’. Prayers are said, the celebrant gives the salutation ‘Peace be with you’ loudly, and the deacon adds ‘Depart in peace’. The celebrant offers the blessed bread to the clergy and choir, and then to men and women of the congregation. Those in holy orders place their open palms beneath those of the celebrant, kiss his palms and break off for themselves pieces from the qurbdns on the tray. When laymen approach thé west door of the sanctuary for their portions the celebrant touches each person on the forehead, breaks off a piece and gives it to him. The recipient kisses the celebrant’s hand. The women receive their portions in like fashion, but to give it to them the celebrant and clergy go to the south side of the sanctuary.

This concludes the service. 1 The prayer for the blessed bread, translated by Mercer (op. cit., p. 373), is: ‘Lord, our God and our Creator, who hast given His good food, whose body it is, to all; who hast given a blessing to His creatures who honour His holy name;

extend Thy holy right hand in which are days and in which is time, and bless this bread to me; . . . may it be to all that receive it redemption and medicine to our souls, strength and might to our body for the remission of sin . . .’

196

PART THREE OTHER

RITUAL

MEALS

XV PARSI RITUAL MEALS I THE

YASNA

CEREMONY

T syR1Ac the word raza ({{3) ‘mystery’, ‘secret’ is applied to the Eucharist, and we have seen that in the Eastern

liturgies ‘hearers’ and ‘catechumens’ are still bidden to depart before the most sacred of all mysteries begins. ‘ Mysteries’ entered the classical world with Oriental and semiOriental cults; passed by way of the Mediterranean coasts into Rome itself, and were carried by the Roman armies into Northern Europe. Of Mithraic mysteries we have learnt something from funerary monuments, wall sculptures, inscriptions and frescoes, as well as from the polemical writings of Christian authors. From these we know that they included a ritual eating and drinking and rites sufficiently near to those of Christian contemporaries to arouse bitter accusation of plagiarism. The Greek word mysterion like the Syriac raza implies that initiation was necessary: no outsider might view or participate in the secret rites. Initiation appears to have been graded. The highest initiates were priests, and none but priests could perform the innermost rites; lesser ranks might behold, but at a

distance. : The Parsi Yasna ceremony appears to be a rite of this esoteric description. It is performed by priests within a space protected from lay pollution. It includes the ritual preparation of bread and of a drink sacramentally prepared. At its most solemn moment there is commemorative prayer for the souls of the dead, who are named; there is also supplication for the living. As in Christian mass and Mandaean masiqta, we find incense,

lights, ablutions and a ritual salutation akin to the pax and the kushta. In this sacred meal laymen are invited to approach and 199

Water into Wine

participate just as in Christian ritual the deacon bids the faithful join in the‘Eucharist. During the Yasna rite the fire-priest’s office is analogous to that of the Christian deacon: he is not the chief celebrant, and the fire plays a role subservient to that of water.! No Parsi ritual meal is celebrated in the fire-chamber. It will be necessary here to describe the modern fire-temple as briefly as possible: for a more detailed description I refer the reader to my article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute .(The Role of Fire in the Parsi Ritual, J.R.A.I., vol. Ixxiv, 1944) and to plans drawn by J. Darmesteter in his Le Kend Avesta (Paris, Leroux, 1892). There is no rigid plan, but all fire-temples must conform to certain rules. The fire-chamber is a building within a building? and must be planned in such a manner that worshippers can view the fire from every quarter but the south, for the north is thought to be the abode of evil spirits.3 When praying, a Parsi should face the sun or, in its place, a light.4 Off the main chamber are others: the most important of which is the Yazashna-gah, on the west of the central hall. It is this room which is used for higher rites performed by the priests, especially the Yasna ceremony. A chamber on the east of the hall is also used for ritual meals (it was in this that Parsi priests set out for my benefit all that was necessary for the ritual meal known as the Afringan). Both these chambers or chapels are protected by pavis. The word comes from pdv, ‘pure’, ‘washed’,5 its use corresponds to that of the Mandaean misra in the masiqta, that is, it is a furrow or gutter down which water 1 In the Vedic worship of Agni, Agni is connected with water and with rebirth. Reitzenstein (Die Vorgeschichte der Christlichen Taufe, Leipzig, 1929, p. 208) says: ‘Von Agni, dem géttlichen Feuer, aber wird gesagt: Im Wasser, Agni, ist dein Aufenthalt; du suchst die Pflanzen auf, du trittst in deinen Mutterschoss wieder ein und wirst von neuem geboren.’

2 In this the fire-chamber resembles the Holy Sepulchre in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, the sanctuary in the round Abyssinian churches and the portiuncula of the great church at Assisi. 3 The exact reverse of this with Mandaeans. Their Qiblah is the north and the south is believed to be the home of evil spirits. 4 In practice the worshipper faces east from midnight to midday and west from noon to midnight. The fire-chamber is entered by a door on the west, but has windows which give on to the main hall, so that it can be seen by those there. il 3 oh ‘washing’, ‘cleansing’. 200

Parsi Ritual Meals I

is poured. It acts as a sacred boundary, shutting out impurity and enclosing a sacred area. Essential to every fire-temple is a court and garden to which there must be easy access from the Yazashna-gah, the path to it being protected by pavis. The court must contain a well of flowing water and the garden a pomegranate-tree and a datepalm. Perhaps in Persia before the Moslem invasion, firetemple gardens also grew the fragrant barsom, and even the sacred haoma plant when soil and climate permitted. In modern Parsi ritual, however, barsom is represented by metal twigs, and haoma twigs are imported in a dried state from Persia. Life, freshness and perfume are thought to be miraculously imparted to them by contact during the ritual with living green, milk, water and other symbols of life. It should be noted that the well must be connected with a flowing source, resembling in this the Mandaean yardna when led into a pool and the Jewish bir d tabla.1 In the temple I visited in Bombay a small courtyard ied off the garden and in this the temple goat was kept for convenience. A milch-goat, duly purified, must be at hand for the Yasna ceremony. The prayers said whilst milking her suggest, however, that the animal milked in earlier times was a cow, or rather three cows. ‘The officiating priest, the zdt, must be of Bareshniim2 status, and both he and the fire-priest (rdsp:) must have previously

taken a bath, purified themselves and retied the sacred belt with the appropriate prayers. Like Mandaean priests, they wear five completely white garments ; the sadra (tunic), leggings, sacred girdle (kustz), and the cloth which conceals the lower part of the face, the padan. The padan, also called paztidana, is to prevent breath or spittle from polluting sacred objects or the 1 T.e., the Arab name for the Jewish miqueh. In many Oriental Jewish houses this is a tank in a semi-underground room, filled by seepage from the river and so only nominally ‘flowing’. It is used for ritual immersion, fevilah. 2 I.e. having the highest degree of ritual purity. The ceremony which confers this is long and elaborate. It seems to be a rite de passage, as during its course there is a sag-did, that is to say, a dog is brought in (as it is to view a corpse). The intervals of retirement correspond with intervals at which ceremonies for the dead and

those after a birth are performed. It also entails various kinds of ablution and a ritual meal at which pomegranate-leaf is eaten and the urine of an uncastrated bull is drunk (see M., pp. 102-53). 201

Water into Wine

.

sacred fire. It resembles the Mandaean pandama, but whereas the latter is a long end of the turban tied over the mouth, the padan is a separate piece of white cloth attached by a string to the head-dress. Like the Mandaean sadra, the Parsi sadra has a pocket on the right side of the breast. The Parsi’s kusti, ‘sacred thread’, resembles the Mandaean girdle (himiana) in that it is woven of white lamb’s wool and is tubular, but has seventy-two threads whereas the himiana has but sixty.

The space in which the rite is to be celebrated is called the urvis-gah. It is shut off from pollution by pavis, and subdivided by other pavis into three areas, which in the rough plan (Fig. 20) are marked (a), (4) and (c). In the temple that I was allowed to inspect there were two urvis-gdhs, and a low wall less than knee-high separated one triple space from the other, so that, if necessary, two ceremonies could be carried out in each simultaneously. The preliminary ceremony, the Paragna or Paraga, although formal and elaborate to a degree, has much in common with the simpler rite of preparation for the Mandaean masiqta described in later pages. In the olden times, according to Modi, eight priests took part in the Paragna, one priest performing the pounding, another fetching water and so on. Now the celebrant (the zétz) calls the titles of the priests who once assisted whilst the rdspi passes in turn to the seven places where they would have stood. In the space marked (a) there are three low altar-tables (khwans).1 One is used by the zétz as a seat, but during part of the recital he stands upon it. Whilst sitting, he faces south. The second, which stands before and to the south of the zéti, serves

as his altar or ritual table, and all the implements of ritual must be placed upon it. On the third khwan is the kundi: a large water-vessel which acts as substitute for a natural spring. It must be filled with water thrice over at the well, the third filling only being acceptable, and a secret prayer recited whilst doing so identifies it with rivers and seas, especially with the ‘divine and pure Ardvisura’. Between the priest’s seat and the kundi stands a smaller water-pot, the kalasia; this must also be filled at the well, in the same manner as the kundi. 1 See p. 22. 202

Parsi Ritual Meals I The Courtyard Garden

SOUTH

yr

~~

ee

wm ew

=

me

N ee

a

x

ee

\

L bd fh LLL LL LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

\N \

\ \ \ VL

Fic. 20. THE YAZASHNA-GAH A, Outer wall of the chamber. B. Wall dividing the chamber from the main hall. C. Doorway to hall. . Wall (low) dividing the two urvis-gahs. Steps to the courtyard garden. Passage. ™mS

On the low wall which divides the two areas (D in the plan) stands the plate of sacramental bread, the draona. The plate is of metal, and must be washed thrice before use. The draona, four small round cakes made of wheaten flour mixed with 203

Water into Wine

clarified butter and water from the well, must have been made by a person of priestly birth and baked within the temple. Loaves baked with the draona are called chitayas, and after the yazashne (Yasna) ceremony is over, these are distributed to any members of the assembled congregation who wish to partake of them.! Fragments of the draona consumed during the eighth chapter of the Yasna may be distributed to other celebrants if they wish to communicate, but not to laymen. Of the four cakes of draona mentioned above, only one is required for the Yasna.2 Two of the four show round marks arranged in rows of three, visible when the bread is held against the light. Oi

Died

On OF. @ Om

SOS,

These are the ‘named’ breads, and when the priestly baker makes the marks before placing them in the oven, he pronounces the words ‘good thoughts, good words, good deeds’ thrice over. The unnamed, that is, unmarked, loaves are called

vagar-namna or frashast.

—

A lamp is also placed on the low wall as a substitute for the sun: it consists of a wick laid in coconut-oil or clarified butter. To quote again from my notes: The entire area must be thrice inundated with water before any sacred object is set in its place. The raspi, who occupies the space next to that of the zétz ((d) in the plan), must purify ritually all that he takes into it: the fire-vase (dfargdniun) with the khwdn on which it stands, the khwan on which fuel and implements for tending the sacred fire are placed, and the khwan on which he sits, and occasionally mounts. All being in order, the zéti, who, like the rdspi, must have

previously retied his sacred girdle and covered the lower part of the face with the padan, takes his pot—a goblet-like object— 1 This practice corresponds closely to the Christian antidoron, ‘blessed bread’ and eulogia. 2 And only one is used for the Visparad (an enlarged version of the Yasna)

and at the Vendidad. The Visparad is celebrated at seasonal festivals (GAhambars) and passages of the Visparad are recited during the rite. The Vendidad includes the reading of twenty-two chapters of the Visparad, and the ceremony is longer,

204.

Parsi Ritual Meals I

which he filled at the well, and goes by the passage out into the temple courtyard-garden. He must also take with him his ritual knife, the kapla. He first visits the date-palm,

takes a leaf into his hand,

pours water from his pot thrice over leaf and hand, then cuts off and discards a piece from the point of the leaf. He severs the leaf from the frond, washes the leaf again and keeps it in his hand as he passes on to the pomegranate tree. He washes a twig, pours water over it and his hand thrice as before, cuts off the end of the twig and drops the piece cut off, cuts the twig, rewashes it and then puts both palm-leaf and pomegranate twig into his water-pot. Whilst performing these rites he recites prayers. Next he prepares to get the jzvam. An assistant brings the temple goat, which is made to stand facing east. The assistant holds the goat whilst the priest, facing south, pours water three times over his hands and the udders of the animal,

whilst reciting three prayers ‘in bd’ (i.e. with closed lips) in honour of the Ox.! He presses the udders and produces three spurts of milk which are allowed to fall to the ground, then another three spurts which he catches in the goblet, in which some of the water still remains. It is this mixture of milk and water which forms the jivam. He pours a little of it over the hind-quarters of the goat? and then returns to the Yazashna-gah, keeping ' within the pavis both on the journey out and back. The rite first performed by the z6ti is called the haoma ceremony, the haoma being, as already said, the dried stems of an imported plant. It begins with the purification (pav). The priest pours water thrice from the water-pot (kalasia) beside the 1 For the Zoroastrian

veneration

of the bull and

cow,

the Avestan

cult of

Gaus Urvan, see Haug (Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings and Religion of the Parsis, edited and enlarged by E. W. West, London, 1884). He says that Gaus Urvan was ‘the universal soul of earth, the cause of life and growth’ (p. 148). Professor L. H. Gray says of Gaus Urvan (The Foundations of the Iranian Religions, K. R. Cama Institute Publications, No. 5, Bombay, pp. 81-2): ‘In the Pahlevi texts this ox is killed by Ahriman, and from his body come grain, healing, plants

and cattle.’ The same could be said of the far later Mithraic bull’s blood. In the earliest Sumerian glyptic art, according to Dr. Anton Moorgat (Tammuz, Berlin, 1949) the bull (constantly defended by the hero-god Tammuz) and the ox-man (Stier-mensch),

a combination

of the hero and the animal, are symbols of life

(Zeichen des Lebens). 2 The goat I saw at this ceremony was white, but I was informed that the colour is unimportant. The milk and water offered to the earth and that dropped

over the goat’s hind-quarters are probably intended to ensure the fertility of both.

205

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larger water-vessel called the kundi so that the latter, being already brimming, overflows and washes the khwdn on which it stands. Whilst doing this he chants the appointed prayers. Next he pours water over the khwdn before him—that used as altar—six times. He removes the implements necessary for the ritual from the kundi, where they have lain submerged, and pours water thrice over each, repeating a formula before he sets them one by one on their place on the altar-table. The objects which are eventually arranged before him are (see Fig. 21):

or oa

., Kapla

(ritual knife) Fic. 21. PARSI: CULT OBJECTS ON THE ALTAR TABLE (KHWAN) (a) Five fashtas: i.e. small shallow metal bowls. pierced with nine holes and acts as a strainer. (6) Five fulians: metal cups (no handles).

One

is

(c) Hdavan (mortar) and dastah or lal (pestle). Both metal. (d) Barsom: a bundle of twenty-three metal wires, known as tdis (tai. .‘thread’ or ‘twig’). (e) The varas-na-viti: a metal ring into which the hair of a sacred white bull (varasia) has been inserted. The knotted ends of the hair project for about an inch. (f) The mahrui: metal stands. Each has three feet and the top is shaped like a crescent moon on its back. (g) The kapla: a ritual knife.1 1 Compare these ritual implements with those used by Mandaeans masigta. See p. 247.

206

in the

Parsi Ritual Meals I

Every ritual action performed in this service of preparation is accompanied by recitation. I shall make only reference to the latter. I now return to notes made ceremony was staged for me in an unconsecrated Bombay, with the explanations kindly given then

occasional when the temple in and after-

wards by Dastur Bode. The priest takes the palm-leaf he gathered in the garden and divides it into six vertical strips: these he plaits together, knotting both ends. The plaited palm-leaf is known henceforward as the atvyaghona.’ He places the plaited leaf like a slender bridge between the two mahrui, so that its knotted ends rest upon the two crescents. These crescent-stands occupy the north-west corner of the khwdan. He selects one tdi from the bundle of barsom wires and lays it on two cups called the zaothra fuliadns or zér fulidns. Next he takes the varas ring, dips it thrice in water whilst reciting the hundred and one names of God, and puts it into its special fulidn, placed to the right of the two on which the single wire or édi rests. He lifts these two cups together with the tdi (now called the barsom tai) and moves them over the surface of the water in the kundi (the large water-vessel). He half-fills them, then fills them to the brim and as he lifts them

out of the kundi he lets them rest a moment on its rim before restoring them to their place on the table. The #7 is still with them. He picks up the two fulidns and a fashta and pours the water from one fulidn into the other until the first fulidn is empty. He puts the fashta above the full cup and inverts the empty cup above both. Later on it is this fashta which is used to receive the jivam (milk and water), hence it is called the jivam tashta. Above the fulians and tashta he balances the barsom tai, henceforward called the jivam tdi. Taking this twig up again with his right hand, he touches

both ends of the plaited date-palm leaf nine times. This plaited leaf (the azvyaghona) he removes from the mahruz stands and, using it as a girdle,? twists it thrice round the bundle of barsom, which he then dips into the kund:. He completes the girdling by tying the ends into two knots in the same way 1 See p. 44, n. I. 2 Modi (M., p. 293) thinks that the plaited band round the bundle is symbolical of the union of many into one. Similar meaning attaches to the Mandaic laufa and lofani, words which imply that the souls of the departed and those of the living are knit together in communion at the ritual meal.

207

Water into Wine that he ties his own

‘sacred thread’, the kustt. He cuts off

with his knife any projecting pieces of the palm-leaf and puts the now girdled bundle back in its place upon the crescents of the mahrui.1 One twig of the twenty-two he places on the bases of the mahrui. The first twig he replaces over the jivam tashta.

The next stage is the pounding of the haoma. When the celebrant re-entered the urvis-gah from the garden, he placed the dried haoma with the freshly gathered pomegranate-twig (the uwrvaram) upon a small stone beside his seat.2 He now takes both and purifies them and his right hand by pouring water over them from the kundi. When he has done this thrice, he dips his hands and the sprigs and twig four times into the kundi, moving them thrice from north to south and once from south to north. Next he inverts the metal mortar, puts it before him and lays on the inverted base the urvaram and three sprigs of haoma. Taking the varas ring from its cup and holding it in his right hand, he picks up the jzvam tdi with his left. He dips the ring into the under cup of the two zér fulidns that are with the jivam tashta; then returns the ring to its cup and the jivam tdi to its place.3 He removes the haoma sprigs and urvaram from the base of the inverted mortar and, grasping the latter with his right hand, he rings it thrice against the stone table, then sets the mortar before him, right side up. He puts the haoma and urvaram

into the mortar and pours over them a little water from the zor fulian. This water is called zér or zaothra.4 He lifts the strainer from the kundi, where it has lain until 1 This action brings the crescent stand into relation with the date-palm. Mandaeans call the date-palm sindirka (moon-tree), and the crescent moon is associated with growth and increase. The date-palm is in their ritual texts the symbol of male fertility, also a Tree of Life. In an illustrated roll (Diwan Abatur: Studi e Testi, No. 151) a tree which presumably represents the latter has a crescent top. The ‘tree of life’ often portrayed on Moslem tombs is usually surmounted by a crescent or full moon. 2 Freshness and greenness are ritually imparted both to the metal twigs and the dried haoma by contact with the fresh date-palm leaf and pomegranate-twig. The water purifies the ‘rebirth’. 3 At a Nestorian marriage the wedding ring is dipped into the chalice, and in the Mandaean masigta the priest’s ring is dipped into the cup of misha as a symbol of the sacred marriage. 4 Zor (+595) in Persian means

‘power’, ‘strength’, ‘vigour’. Modi, however

(op. cit., pe 282), says of the zaothra or zor water that it symbolises rain.

208

Parsi Ritual Meals I

now submerged, and places it above the fulidn which is intended later to receive the haoma juice. This cup is placed near the mahrut stands. Again he puts his hand into the kundi, in which the pestle was submerged with the strainer, takes out the pestle and rubs it round the inner rim of the kundi, beginning at the north of that vessel. Then he touches the table with both ends of the pestle, the handle and the thick end, and strikes the interior of the mortar with it in four places, the east, south,

west and north, so that it gives out a bell-like sound.! When he hits it at the northern side he adds three extra strokes, for

the north is the traditional lair of evil spirits. Whilst this striking takes place, the celebrant and the fire-priest repeat words of exorcism, and when adding the extra strokes they call down a hundred thousand curses on Ahriman, Spirit of Evil. The celebrant now begins to pound the haoma and urvaram. During the pounding he strikes the sides of the mortar, not ceasing his recitation, and in the course of his work he thrice pours in a little water from the zér cup. After the fourth pounding and striking, he rubs the pestle round the interior, beginning and ending at the north. He picks out from the mortar small pieces of Aaoma and urvaram in the order named, and with them he touches first

the barsom, secondly the jivam tashta, thirdly the haoma cup and, fourthly, the stone table. He returns the sprigs to the mortar, pours in a few more drops from the zér cup and begins to pound the sprigs again whilst he resumes his recitation and intermittent striking of the sides of the mortar. Some of the juice expressed as a result of his work he pours over the pestle and through the strainer into the haoma cup. The words recited here are four times repeated, namely, Yatha ahu vairyo (‘the will of the Lord is the will of holiness’). The mortar is struck again at the end of the recital. Fragments of broken sprig are taken from the mortar and put aside; the pestle is washed and returned to the kundi. 1 Much of these proceedings is familiar to a person who has watched an Arab

coffee-maker in the shaikh’s tent. When pounding the beans in the mortar (gle) the coffee-maker strikes the sides rhythmically. This serves two purposes: it shakes off powdered coffee adhering to the pestle, and also serves as a bell summoning tribesmen to the shaikh’s coffee-hearth to drink with him. A ringing note is usually a summons: in Parsi ritual, however, it is said to warn off evil spirits.

15

209

Water into Wine

The celebrant takes up the varas (ring with the bull’s hair), puts it on the strainer and pours a little zér water over the varas into the mortar. Whilst so doing, he holds the cup containing the water in his left hand and, as he pours, he rubs the knots of hair on the ring with his finger.! Still holding the strainer with the varas upon it, he takes up the cup containing the haoma and urvaram juice in his left hand, and repeating ‘Good thoughts, good words, good deeds’ three times at each time he pours the juice through the strainer in such a manner that, by moving it hither and thither, a little falls over the table and upon the various cult-

objects upon it. At humarta (‘good thoughts’) the juice falls on the right of the slab; at Aukhta (‘good words’) it falls into the zér cup—now empty as the last drop of its content was poured into the mortar through the strainer—and at hvarshta (‘good deeds’) the juice again drops into the mortar. The haoma cup is returned to its place by the mahrui and the strainer with the varas still in it is set above it. What remains in the mortar is poured through the strainer into the haoma cup ; then the varas is returned to its own cup and the strainer is removed and put into the kundi. When the priest, put aside a few broken fragments of the haoma and mahrui. He cup called parahaoma), them, and over it.

urvaram earlier, he left them near the foot of the now picks up these pieces and puts them into a the parahom fulidn (which later will contain the drops a little of the juice in the haoma cup over then covers the parahom fulidn by placing a tashta

The next stage in the ceremony concerns the ring. It is called the ‘daj of the varas’. The priest takes up the jivam tdi with his left hand and the varas ring with his right, and recites the prayers for the varas. He dips the ring into the zér cup and replaces it in its own cup.? Rising from his seat, the priest takes the haoma cup and puts it in a niche in the wall behind him, and from the same niche he takes down the jizvam—the mixture of milk and water which 1 The ring appears to hint at a ‘holy union’: the mingling of the haoma and urvaram in the cup is paralleled by the mingling of date juice and sesame-oil in the Mandaean misha. The bull’s hair attached to the ring suggests virility and strength. 2 The earlier dipping is explained by Modi as a consecration for the varas. If this be so, it is difficult to see a reason for the second. 210

Parsi Ritual Meals I

he placed there on his return from the garden. He pours the Jjivam into the jivam tashta on the table, fetches the draona (sacred bread (see above) and sets the dish containing it in its appointed place on the table. After prayers, he reties his kusti, for the service of preparation, the Paragna, is over, and all is now in readiness for the Yasna ‘ceremony itself.

The Paragna and Yasna ceremony should, of course, be performed consecutively. As explained earlier, I was allowed to see the former in a fire-temple awaiting consecration: the latter was later rehearsed in my presence at a school for Parsi priests.1 The word ‘yasna’, according to Darmesteter, means much the same as yasht, namely, ‘an adoration’, ‘a religious rite’. The

texts recited during its performance are of a composite character, and the rites themselves might well be a conglomeration of several separate ceremonies. There is what seems to be a

repetition of part of the Aaoma ritual of the Paragna, probably an act of worship of the personified and deified Haoma. As in the Paragna, fire plays a subordinate role to water; neverthe-

less, one section is devoted to its worship and honour: in fact, the whole Yasna ceremony appears to be a mosaic. At the completion of the Paragna both the celebrant (zétz) and the fire-priest (rdspz) are wearing their full ritual dress and the padan still hides their mouths and beards. The Aaoma, zor, parahom and varas cups stand in their respective places on the khwan, the altar-table; the tashtas, too, are ready: one of them

contains the jivam and another the ‘named’ draona. Knife and mortar are ready, but the pestle and strainer are in the kundi. In the Paragna the zoti was practically the sole performer, but when the preparation is over, both priests take part in the celebration, each according to his separate charge. For the Yasna, both take up their stand first outside the areas enclosed by pdavis and chant together facing south. Continuing their chant, they step inside the consecrated area and face east, then take up their respective stations opposite one another in spaces separated by a pavi. The zétz, as before, 1 The school is in the neighbourhood of Bombay. As pupils there, youths who intend to be priests attain proficiency in rituals and learn the texts recited during their performance. Spaces for learning ritual are furnished like fire-temples and marked out with pavis. The school possesses a library, lecture hall, baths and a gymnasium.

211

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faces his ritual table and the south, the rdspi his fire-vase and the north. . The khwdn upon which the fire-vase stands is purified by the zéti, who is the priest connected with water, not by the fire-priest. Dipping his water-pot into the kundi, the z6ti pours water over his right hand and then the left and, whilst the raspi feeds his fire with pieces of sandalwood, leaves his section and carries his water-pot with him into that of the rasp. There he pours water over the slab upon which the fire-vase stands. This he does three times, walking round it from the east, at which side his circumambulation began. Again and in the same order he pours water over his hands and returns to his own section. On arrival at the khwdn which serves as his seat, he discards

his sanctuary slippers and steps up on to it, being careful when mounting not to touch the ground.! Both priests must wear slippers, for it is forbidden to let the sole of the foot touch the holy space within the pdvis, and only when sitting cross-legged or when standing upon their khwans may they be barefoot. As the z6t stands on his khwdn facing the south, he places the great toe of his right foot over the great toe of the left..This is called ‘standing on one foot’.? The rdaspi shuffles out of his slippers but he stands not on his khwan-seat or upon the ground, but upon his slippers, his bare feet resting upon them but not thrust into them. He faces south and, like the zdtz, he crosses his great toes, the

right over. the left. The z6fz then recites the Dibacheh, the great commemoration prayer of the Parsis.

It has already been remarked

that there is resemblance

between the Dibacheh and Mandaean and Christian prayers of commemoration (see Chapter VII). It enumerates in order the Supreme Spirit, Ahura Mazda, the names of Yazatas3 associated with the Yasna ceremony and the divine being in whose honour the Yasna is performed, the Amesha Spentas, divine and semi-divine spirits and personifications, national heroes, 1 See p. 22, n. 2. 2 According to Birge (The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, p. 184), a ritual placing of the right great toe over the left occurs during the initiation of a Bektashi dervish. At the scourging which takes place in the synagogue at Baghdad on the Day of Atonement (see p. 33) the penitent is bidden to ‘put the right over the left’. 3 Yazatas are divine beings. Zoroaster is accounted a Yazata. 212

Parsi Ritual Meals I

and men dead and living, naming them and including in the

prayer the name or names of the person or persons whose soul the ceremony specifically benefits. The recitation is made with closed lips, in a hum, that is to say, ‘in bdj’—in a suppressed tone.! During this prayer the zéti takes barsom sprigs, pours water over them thrice, dipping it up from the kundi, passes them through the crescents and again pours water over them.2

The recitation of the Yasna begins. Of this sacred text there are twenty-two chapters or Has, some of which are complementary to ritual and others not. The main theme of the first and second Has is the invitation or summons by name of Sravashis,3 including the fravashis of ancestors and those of the celebrants; and the various offerings due to divine spirits are also enumerated. During the recital of the first chapters, up to the eighth, the zé¢ continues to pass the barsom through the crescents at intervals, and when he has reseated himself on his

stool, he keeps two fingers of his left hand resting on the barsom bundle on the mdhrui stands. At the beginning of every chapter he took water from the kundi and threw it over the barsom. The rdaspi chants with, or in antiphon with, the zét. At intervals he utters brief formulae, and feeds the fire. T'wo -small slabs for the ‘fragrant fuel’ stand to the west of the fire-

urn, a third being the stand for ordinary fuel. The ‘fragrant fuel’, aesma biz or aesam bii, is sandalwood and frankincense. The third Ha begins the Srosh Darin. This occupies five chapters and engages the protection of the angel Sraosha for departed spirits. It names the myazda,* the sacred food, and enumerates the ‘offerings’. The fifth Ha contains a prayer 1 Equivalent to the Mandaean nhashta (‘whispered’ prayer) and the ‘quiet’ or ‘silent’ prayers of Christian celebrants. 2 See above, p. 208, n. 1, and p. 8. 3 According to the Great Bundahish, man is composed of five elements: tan (body), jan (the breath of life), ravdn (soul), divinak (form) and frohar or fravashi. The ravan or urvdn survives death, whereas the jan and tan do not. The fravashi appears to be an ‘over-soul’, an ideal counterpart of the earthly personality, attached to it by an invisible link, but in no way part of the physical body. The fravashi (like the Mandaean dmuta, ‘counterpart’) can act as a guardian angel and can help and guide its earthly counterpart. (See M.M.I.I., pp. 54-5.) 4 Myazd apparently means viaticum; cf. the Semitic roots ZUD and ZAD, ‘to provision for a journey’. The laboured derivation given by Haug is ingenious but

hardly convincing.

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used as ‘grace before food’ and the eighth Ha is the great sacramental chapter, for during its recital the draona chashnt, the ceremonial eating of the sacred bread, is performed.

(At this point the likeness

to Christian

communion

is

heightened by the fact that it is the rdspi, not the zoti (i.e. the

assistant, not the celebrant) who gives invitation to the faithful to partake.) At the beginning of the eighth Ha the raspi puts a piece of the ‘fragrant fuel’ on the fire and, standing by the zétz, says: ‘O ye men, if ye be worthy of it through purity and piety’ (or virtue and piety) ‘eat of this myazda.’ When giving the invitation, the rdspi carries an ‘unnamed d4riin’, a cake of the sacramental bread unmarked when baked (see p. 204). Addressing a prayer to the Amesha Spentas and divine spirits, the zdti urges all thinking, speaking and acting followers of the true religion to receive the oblations, and denounces those who, ‘being of age’ and capable, ‘receive not’. After reciting three Ashem Vohu1 prayers, the zéti gives thanksgiving, a kind of grace, breaks off a small piece of the dariin lying on its tashta, dips it into a little of the clarified

butter with which the chosen draona is anointed before the ceremony, and drops it into his mouth from above, so that it does not come into contact with his lips. In order to do this

he must push the padan aside. The clarified butter is called the goshiido (Avestan geush-hudao, ‘cow-product’2).

At the conclusion of the service, the raspi or other priests in the sacred area may partake of the ddriins if they wish. As it was only a rehearsal that I saw, no communicants were present,

but I was told that at the conclusion of the bg, the prayer recited with closed lips by the celebrant, pieces of bread made with the draona, i.e. of the chitayas, are passed out of the sacred area and consumed by such of the laity as consider themselves worthy. After eating the dariin, the zéti washes and wipes his mouth 1 ‘Ffoliness is the best of all good: it is felicity. Happy is the man who is holy with perfect felicity.’ 2 The cow and her products are connected with the mother principle of creation (see p. 205, n. 1). Compare the ritual with the Nestorian rite of mixing.

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and repeats four Ashem Vohus and two Ahunvars.1 He washes his hand and pours water from the water-pot over the place occupied by the platter which contained the holy bread.

‘This completes the first part of the Yasna ceremony: the second part concerns the haoma juice so carefully prepared during the Paragna. The nature of this stage is indicated by the concluding sentence of the preceding Ha: ‘Glory to Haoma, Holy One of birth: for sacrifice, prayer, rejoicing and glorification.’ The ninth, tenth and part of the eleventh chapters of the Yasna, known as the Haoma Yasht, are now to be recited. The raspi leaves his section, enters that of the zéti, goes to the kundi and pours water over his hands and then, standing at the zoti’s right, he takes up the Aaoma cup. Returning to his firevase he puts another piece of ‘fragrant fuel’ upon it, then, continuing his round, re-enters the zéti’s section and at the zoti’s table holds the cup upon or rather touching the end of the barsom bundle resting on the crescents. He gives the cup back to the zétz, who receives it in his right hand.

(According to Darmesteter, the rdaspz holds the cup four fingers distant from the barsom and the zéti places his left hand on the aivyaghona, taking up the cup when the rdspi sets it down.) The z6ti drinks of the cup after removing his padan to do so, reciting an Ashem Vohu after the first third; then drinks half the remainder whilst the rdspi leaves his area and, returning to his own, places ‘fragrant fuel’ on the fire, and finally empties the cup into his mouth, being careful not to

touch the sacred liquid with his lips.

(According to Darmesteter the rdsfz recites an Ashem Vohu during the second and third drinking.) After drinking, the z6ti pours water over his hands and the cup and, refilling the cup with water, he recites with closed lips, mentioning in his prayer the name or names of the person or persons for whom the Yasna is celebrated. 1 For the Ashem Vohu, see p. 214, n. 1. The Ahunvar is the prayer Yatha Vairyo (‘The will of the Lord is the law of holiness: the riches of Vohu-Mana be bestowed on him who worketh in this world for Mazda and wieldeth power that Ahura gave him to relieve the poor according to Ahura’s will.’) prayer is often used as a charm.

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Ahi shall the The

Water into Wine

(According to Darmesteter there is a fourth pouring into the varas cup.)! ~* The next stage concerns the barsom. The recitation of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth Has are without ritual accompaniment.

The zoti takes the bundle of barsom girdled by the plaited palm-leaf—the aivyaghona—and by making two knots at the long ends of the latter forms a small loop which he slips over the right horn of one of the crescents of the mdhrut. This is accomplished at the fifteenth Ha. Next, the zétz pours some of the jivam (milk and water) into the cup which he left at the foot of the mahrui and then pours a little of this back into the jivam tashta. To do this he removed the jivam tdi, and he replaces it. He has now reached the sixteenth Ha (‘We offer up’—i.e. to various divinities, deified powers, fravashis, etc.). He takes the mortar, reverses it and puts it into the kundi. Whilst reciting from the eighteenth Ha he lifts the jzvam tdi, dips it into the jivam and touches the aivyaghona with it, redipping and retouching several times. On reaching the twenty-second Ha he again touches the azvyaghona with the jivam twig that has been dipped repeatedly into the jivam. Recital of the twenty-third chapter opens another phase of the rite. This Ha is addressed to the fravashis of saints, holy women, virgins, the first faithful, ancestors and so on.2 The zéiz takes the cup at the feet of the mahrui and the dish

(tashta) into which he put earlier the broken sprigs of haoma and urvaram. To symbolise a fresh cutting, he holds them together with the knife above them, and touches with them the south end of the barsom bundle on the crescents. Then he returns them to the dish.

The ritual to be performed resembles part of the Paragna. At the beginning of the twenty-fourth Ha the zéti takes the mortar from the kundi and places it reversed before him on the table, ready for a second preparation of haoma juice, which occupies the recital of the Has up to the twenty-eighth Ha. He knocks the reversed mortar thrice on the khwdn, producing a resonant note, sets it upright before him, puts a fragment of 1 [ did not see it.

2 When the Srosh Darun is recited separately for the dead, this Ha is recited after

the third Ha,

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haoma into it, then a drop or two of jivam,! urvaram twig and zér water. He removes the strainer from the kundi where it has lain submerged, and lets drops from the wet strainer fall on the contents of the mortar. Then he places the strainer above the cup.2 The rdspi, meantime, puts another piece of ‘fragrant fuel’ on the fire. The z6tz takes out the pestle from the kundt, rubs it round the rim, touches the table with both ends of the pestle, then strikes four ringing blows on the four sides of the mortar, with three extra on the north side, just as in the Paragna. Whilst holding the pestle in his left hand and reciting ‘in bay’ he throws a little water from the kundi out on to the ground. Pounding is performed as in the Paragna. While it goes on, both priests recite, and at the formula Yathd Ahi Vairyé the zéti rings the pestle repeatedly against the sides of the mortar.

(According to Darmesteter, at the words ‘for the magnifying of’ the zét makes five movements upwards with his pestle, naming Ahura Mazda, the Amesha Spentas, Tishtrya (Sirius),

the Right, and all holy creations of the Good Spirit, and is careful to turn the pestle sunwise from east to west.) 3 The rdspi, meantime, tends his fire. The zétz continues the -pounding and ringing, and pours a little zér water into the mortar from the zér cup on his right, and moves the pestle round the sides of the interior from east to west. Taking some of the pounded mixture within, he brings it into contact with the aivyaghona, jivam, haoma cup and with the khwan. He returns it to the mortar, pounds again, ringing the pestle against the sides as before, and brings the recitation for this section of the ritual to an end. The next step is to pour the freshly-made haoma through the strainer into the haoma cup, after which he places the strainer above the mortar, and pours back a little through the strainer 1 When dropping in the jivam he mentions ‘the living milk of the cow’ and pronounces the name or names of the saint, divine spirit, or person living or deceased for whom the Yasna ceremony is performed. 2 Darmesteter says that it is put above the jivam fashta. I think it better to set

down what I wrote at the time, as it was read and passed by Dastur Bode. 3 It should be borne in mind that this ceremony has the continuance of existence after death as its chief motif. Haoma is ‘holy haoma aS removes death’ or ‘keeps away death’.

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three times. Then, holding the cup so that it touches the end of the barsom bundle where it projects beyond the crescents upon which it rests, he completes the recitation of the twentyseventh Ha. The recital of the Gathas now begins. The z6¢2 pounds and rings the pestle against the sides of the mortar with his right hand and rests two fingers of his left hand lightly upon the barsom on the mdhrui. This concludes the second pounding of the haoma.! He drops the pestle into the kundi and recites ‘in bdj’. The haoma—now become parahaoma—is poured through the strainer into its cup and the rest of the zér water into the mortar. Then the contents of the mortar are also poured through the strainer into the cup. The mortar is reversed ;the zor cup reversed and returned to its place. When all the liquid has dripped through the strainer into the parahim cup, the zéti puts the pounded debris that remains back into the fashta from which he took the pounded and broken twigs. Then he lifts the strainer, places it on the base of the reversed mortar, and sets above it the zér cup (not reversed but empty). Then he pours the parahaoma into the zér cup and places the parahom cup, empty and reversed, by the mdhrui. The rdsfi leaves his section, comes to the kundi, pours water over his hands, takes the strainer with the cup above it into his left hand and returns to his fire-vase, which he feeds with

‘fragrant fuel’. He returns to the zéti’s section, touches the mahru: with the cup and strainer and returns both the latter to their place. The zdtz takes the cup off the strainer, drops the latter into the kundi and puts the cup on the reversed base of the mortar. Above it, he sets the jzvam tashta with its jivam tdi. The thirty-fourth Ha should now have been recited. The thirty-second to forty-second Has are devoted to praise of the Creation, prayers for the souls of animals, of the just and the Jravashis of all living things and beings. The forty-seventh to fiftieth Has are Gathas (hymns),

The final stage of the Yasna is a kind of deconsecration. The 1 The movement east to west in sun-symbolism is a reference to death and therefore applicable to the sacrifice of Haoma, which as personified (as Moulton and others have pointed out) is not unrelated to John Barleycorn, cut down and crushed in order to give life to those who eat and drink the food and drink made from the precious grain. (See Moulton, Early Religious Poetry of Persia, Cambridge,

1911.)

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fifty-seventh Ha is the Sraosh Yasht, in praise of Sraosha, the

angel charged with care of the human soul, especially on its departure to the next world.!} The z6ti touches the aivyaghona several times with the jivam tai, removes the knotted loop which he had attached to one of the crescents, sets the emptied and reversed cup upright, unties the knots he had tied earlier, and then, whilst the sixtieth Ha is recited, he takes the cup, fills it with water from

the kundi and sets it down on the khwdn between the mortar and himself. The rdspi stands on the zétz’s left during these operations, and continues the recitation. The z6ti lifts the jivam tashta, places it behind the mortar,

and then, lifting the barsom bundle from the mahrui and holding it in his right hand, he mounts and stands on his seat, joining in the recitation of the rdspi. The sixty-second Ha, the Fire Litany, has been reached. The z6¢i pours water from the parahém cup thrice over the barsom. Then he touches the base of the mortar with the jivam tai and barsom alternately three times. He dips the jivam tai into the jivam and touches the barsom with it, also three times, after which he thrusts the jivam tai halfway down into the bundle that he holds before him. This he does twice, and then pushes the wire completely down into the bundle. One barsom wire still lies along the bases of the mdhrui stands, where it has remained since the Paragna.? This wire he picks up; then lifts the southernmost mdhrui stand and lays it down with its crescent to the east and its fellow is laid beside it. He places tiie tdi above the two.

Both the return of the twig to the bundle and the ceremony

of intermixture which follows must represent union of the individual with the whole. At the beginning of the sixty-fifth Ha the zéti removes the zor cup from the base of the mortar. He knocks the mortar 1 Modi (M., p. 436) writes: ‘His help or co-operation is required by the soul during its passage to the next world, especially during the first three days, when it is passing to a new phase of activity, from the plane of this world to that of another.’ Sraosha is also, like the Mandaean Shishlam Roba, a personification of priesthood and of ritual. Haug (Essays on the Religion of the Parsis, p. 307) calls him a ‘personification of the whole divine service’. 2 See p. 208. 3 See p. 207, n. 2.

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thrice against the table, and turns it right side up. Into it he pours some: of the contents of the zér cup, of the jivam tashta and of the parahim cup. Next, reciting the Water Litany, he mixes the remaining contents of the cups by pouring from one to the other. Then he rises and stands with the rdspi facing the kundi. At the end of the recitation the zé¢2 resumes his seat and the rdspi returns to his section. The z6ti repeatedly touches the rim of the kundi with the parahém cup and barsom alternately, until, when the end of another recitation is reached, he rubs the cup round the rim, holding the cup in his right hand and the darsom in his left. He rubs the barsom also round the rim and pours a drop or two from the cup into the mortar over the barsom. Then he rubs the cup again round the rim and repeats these actions twice more. Next, taking the jivam tashta, he holds it over the mortar, pours liquid from both cups into it and touches the rim of the mortar and the Aaoma cup with the zér cup on their east, south, west and north sides; pours a little from right to left and from left to right into the jivam fashta and then liquid from the cup on his right into the mortar. As the contents of all the sacred cups and dishes are by now thoroughly intermixed, the liquids in them are identical.1 Recitation of the sixty-eighth Ha begins. This section of the Yasna is the Khurshed Nyaish, the Sun Litany. During its recital both zétz and rdspi face east. On its completion, the zoti sits, touches the cups several times with the jivam tashta and the-barsom (which he had held in his hand during the Litany), places the cup on the right above the cup on the left, touches the fashta and barsom alternately with the cups, pours liquid from the upper cup into the lower and replaces the latter above the former. He takes the barsom, holds it vertically in his two hands, touches with it first the table and then the cups and jivam tashta, first with one end of the bundle and then with the other, and rises from his seat. The rdaspi comes, pours water over his hands and returns to his own section, making circuit of the fire; then he returns to the zétz, taking up his stand on the zétz’s left. 1] transcribe from notes made when witnessing the rite. The procedure was extremely complicated, and I may have confused some of the actions that took

place. Dastur Bode passed them as correct. Darmesteter differs here and there in detail. The main fact is that, towards the end of the ceremony, the cups lose their

identity entirely.

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The recitation of the seventy-second and last chapter of the Yasna begins. The zéti holds the barsom in his left hand. Slipping out of his slippers, he mounts and stands upon his seat, and there he knots the ends of the aivyaghona girdle a third time, so completing the tying of the sacred thread, or girdle, of which the palm-leaf plait is the symbol.1 He then hands the barsom to the raspi, who places the bundle on the table above the prone mahrui stands. The z6t2 places the palms of his hands together, descends from his khwdan and exchanges the ritual handclasp and kiss with the rdspt. The act is called the hamazér. Each man interleaves his flat palms with the flat palms of the other, and then carries his finger-tips to his lips.2 Both priests now proceed to the third of the three areas enclosed by the pdvis, which has hitherto remained empty. Here they face east, complete their bd, untie their sacred girdles, extend them full length, and then retie them by passing them thrice round the body with two knots in front and two behind. The rasfi returns to his section, where he places incense on the fire, then re-enters the zéti’s section and purifies his left hand by pouring water over it. The zét2 washes his hands in silence, lifts the mortar with its liquid contents and prepares to leave the Yazashna-gah. The rdaspi precedes him in order to warn away any other priests there. ’ The z6ti moves after him into the sunlit courtyard outside.

There, both priests face east and the z6t2 empties the mortar into the well, pouring it out in three parts whilst reciting a prayer that makes mention of seas and rivers. The Yasna ceremony is complete.

Thus, just as the single tdi is placed back in the bundle whence it came, that which was originally taken from the well

is returned to it in a ‘state of enhanced purity and experience. In like manner, the mystic believes, each separate being returns ultimately to the Source of all Life. 1 According to Darmesteter, the zdti takes the two ends of the aivyaghona, prays, unties two knots, one before and the other behind the bundle, reties, and repeats the action nine times. If this was so, I did not see this done at the rehearsal. It may have been omitted or shortened. 2 See Chapter VIII.

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XVI PARSI

RITUAL

MEALS

II

A PARSI family that has suffered bereavement should see that liturgical services for the dead man’s (or woman’s) soul are performed at intervals of four, ten and thirty days after death and at the anniversary. Such a service is called a ba. The name is given to several ceremonies differing considerably in detail if not in character. Throughout these pages I have tried to confine myself to the description of rites that I have either seen myself or about which I have exact personal knowledge, but for description and analysis of some of these I refer readers to Modi’s Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsis. The various forms of ba have certain common features. They entail the recitation aloud of the Dibdcheh (this, it will be remembered, corresponds to the Christian diptychs), during which especial mention is made of the name of the deceased. This is followed by the recitation of the fifth to the eighth Ha or chapter of the Yasna. It is a sacramental rite and the proper ablutions are necessary for the zot and rdspit and for the areas in which they perform it. For all the bd ceremonies,

except for that of Sraosha,? four ddriins

(sacramental breads) are prepared, two ‘named’ and two ‘unnamed’.3 The communicating priest partakes of a ‘named’ darin five times;

the mourners,

as in the Yasna

ceremony,

partake of an ‘unnamed’ ddriin. The act of partaking is called the chashni. Modi gives a full description of the bq to be performed on the anniversary (op. cit., pp. 344-9). It takes place in the Yazashna-gah, and the priest sits with a water-pot beside him. On the khwdn before him are the four ddriins, and on one of the ‘unnamed.’ ddriins he places pomegranate seeds (urvaram). 1 For prayer ‘said in bq’, i.e. silently, see p. 213, n. 1. 2 This bdj is peculiar in that the celebrant consumes the bread and other foods seven times, not five times as in the other ba4j communions. 3 See p. 204. 222

Parsi Ritual Meals I

Fruit is commonly added to the food offerings, and there must be an egg upon the khwdan. I was permitted to witness a partial rehearsal of one ba, that

of the Panj Tai, the ‘Five Twigs’. According to Modi (pp. 361-2), it is a qualifying preliminary for celebration of a major sacrament such as the Yasna. As in the Yasna ceremony, the zéti, the celebrant, sat on a

khwan facing south with the khwan which served as altar before him. Upon the latter were two jugs freshly filled from the temple well, a fulidn (cup), the five barsom wires which give the ceremony its name and two slender metal chains. To return to my notes:

He begins by pouring water from one of the jugs over the khwan before him, over the five twigs and chains and over and into the cup. He lifts the five twigs and secures them together with the two chains, passing one above and the other below the bunch. One chain is passed between the five wires in such a manner that three of them are separated by it from the other two.

This looks as if the chains were used as a symbol for the sacred thread, but no explanation of this part of the rite was given.! The four ddriins are placed down in pairs on the khwdn, one pair put higher than the other. A ‘named’ dari (lower left) had been anointed with butter goshudo ;an‘ unnamed?’ dariin (top right) had been sprinkled with urvaram (pomegranate seeds). The celebrant recites the Dibdcheh first, mentioning the name of the deceased or living person for whom the ceremony is to be celebrated.2 At the conclusion of the Dibdcheh he takes up the second jug, pours water over his hands and then places the chained and united twigs into the water. Next he takes an ‘unnamed’ d4driin and touches with it the other three loaves, and exchanges the ‘named’ ddriin anointed with butter with the ‘unnamed’ darin nearest him. Thus the ‘named’ and anointed dariin becomes the partner of a bottom loaf, lying to its right. During the recitation of the eighth Ha of the Yasna (the 1 The division of the five wires into three and two recalls the similar division of five candles when carried in procession or used for blessing in the Greek Orthodox Church. 2 If for a living person, the rite is anticipatory.

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sacramental chapter) he breaks off a small fragment from the anointed ddrin, dips it into the butter on the uppercrust and drops it into his mouth without touching his lips. Then he breaks a fragment from the left-hand déarin of the bottom pair, dips that also in the butter and consumes it like the first. Thirdly, he breaks off a fragment from the left dariin of the top pair, dips it into the butter and then into the water in the cup and consumes it like the first two morsels of bread. Fourthly, taking a fragment from the right-hand ddrin of the top pair, the dariin sprinkled with pomegranate seeds,-he dips that also into both butter and water and consumes it. Fifthly, after removing the seeds from this dari, he dips a piece again into the butter and water and then drops it into his mouth. He has, therefore, partaken of the food before him five times. At the conclusion of the ceremony the ddriins are broken into small pieces. The zéti rises from his seat, reties his sacred girdle and washes his hands. The fragments of the bread so consecrated are distributed to relatives of the deceased and to the congregation. There is yet another type of liturgical service for the benefit

of the deceased: performed like the ba at set intervals after decease and on the anniversary. This is the Afringan. It is also celebrated during the five last days of the year and the five intercalary days. This was partly staged for me in a fire-temple. As in a bd, the Dibdcheh is recited first (always aloud) including the name or names of the deceased.

A carpet is spread on the ground, a sheet placed over part of it. The zotz sits, not on a kKhwan but on the carpet. Upon the sheet before him is a tray containing fruit, fresh and dried (and amongst these there must be a pomegranate), water freshly and ritually drawn, milk, a cup of nuts, wine, a cup of

lemonade or sherbet, and flowers.2 The flowers may be replaced by basil.3 1 Cf. the Greek Orthodox ‘Five Breads’, the artoklasia.

2 See pp. 7ff for the symbolic use of fruit (especially pomegranate), milk, nuts and wine. Modi (of. cit., p. 394) associates the ritual wine with the Avestan madhu and surmises that the latter is a honey drink, mead. The lemonade on the Afringan table seems to be the equivalent of a citrus fruit. The last-named appears on the Jewish Passover table in the form of lemon-juice, at Tabernacles and on the Mandaean ritual table as a citron (ethrog) and on the festal Nau Riz table of modern Persia as an orange floating in water. 3 As the alternative is a fragrant herb, it seems likely that the flowers should have a perfume. See Chapter VI.

224

(Above L.)—The Priests (Above R.)—The candidate’s forehead is ducked (Below)—Blessing

Ba

Ay Hy < & isa)

A5h a

Z

a2a

BS

Za