letters of prester john

The Hebrew Letters of Prester John by Prester John; Edward Ullendorff; C. F. BeckinghamReview by: James BarrJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 2 (1983), pp. 286-288Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25211544 .

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286 REVIEWS OF BOOKS

women worshipped together in the ancient synagogue. From the finds as well as from the

Rabbinic literature it appears that the Ark, in which the Scrolls of the Law were deposited, was not, in the earliest period, a fixed structure but had the form of a portable chest,

brought into the central area whenever it was required for the reading of the Torah. We

also learn that the ancient synagogue was not only a building in which prayers were recited.

In addition to its function as a school for adults and children, it was a repository for com

munal funds, a place in which sacred meals were held, a law court, a general assembly hall, a hostel for Jewish travellers, and a residence for synagogue officials. This enriching work

will be an indispensable tool for the student of the Jewish past.

LOUIS JACOBS.

MODERN HEBREW: AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE. By D. J. KAMHI. pp. [x], 156.

Oxford, etc., Oxford University Press, 1982. ?9.50.

The late Dr. Kamhi was a much-loved teacher of Hebrew in London, and his textbook

presumably comprises his own material with which he taught. The course is intended to

enable the student "to acquire quickly an elementary grammatical knowledge of Modern

Hebrew" and should be covered in 10 weeks. There are two sections: the exercises or

lessons, 30 in number, and the grammar; and the lessons, unusually, come first.

One's main feeling on dipping into this work is that it may well have worked excellently as long as the author was there to give guidance to the student and to supplement the text

with explanations, with pronunciations, and with indications of more advanced matter that

a beginner should probably leave until later. For general use, or for the person hoping to

learn Hebrew without a teacher, one is more doubtful. Modern Hebrew presents peculiar

problems for any elementary grammar designed for those without any previous knowledge of the language. A major reason for this is that detailed reading and writing, if traditional

methods are followed, require the use of pointing, daghesh, and other signs: but these

signs belong to a phonological and morphological state of the language that is now archaic

and does not fit the realities of spoken Hebrew, or indeed of written Hebrew as one would

see it in a newspaper. One might overcome this, in a more novel way, by writing the words

as they would be written today and adding the pronunciation in romanized script. But this

book sticks to a very traditional method in these respects, so that the student has to learn

(for instance) the various pointings of the interrogative ha-, although these are not func

tionally important in Modern Hebrew. To a surprising extent, therefore, the course forces

the student to enter into minutiae of what is virtually Biblical Hebrew, although many of

these minutiae are not relevant for actual modern usage. Conversely, he is not introduced

to some of the plene spellings which would be common in modern publications. The gram

matical terminology is very old-fashioned throughout: for example, terms like "con

jugation" and "declension" are used. Very full paradigms are offered, and these often

include out-of-the-way forms which would scarcely ever be heard in modern speech or

read except in poetry. Furthermore, if pointing must be so emphasized, it is unfortunate

that not all cases are correct: thus 'ugdh "cake" should not have daghesh (pp. 27, 40). Of

course it does not matter for Modern Hebrew, which is just why the mistake occurred.

To sum up, then, a rather idiosyncratic grammar, hardly following the lines of the

latest ideas about language teaching, and surely giving much too much detailed grammar in

relation to the quantity of exercise material. Yet doubtless Dr. Kamhi made it very

effective in his own experience as a teacher.

JAMES BARR.

THE HEBREW LETTERS OF PRESTER JOHN. By EDWARD ULLENDORFF and C. F.

BECKINGHAM. pp. xiii, 252. Oxford, etc., Oxford University Press, 1982. ?12.



REVIEWS OF BOOKS 287

The legends of Prester John were a sort of science fiction of the Middle Ages, and his

letters to popes and other potentates exist in a variety of languages. Hebraists will be

interested in the subject because some of the texts are in Hebrew, while other students of

it will be served by this volume, which brings together the Hebrew materials, along with

some comparative discussion and a translation. Professors Beckingham and Ullendorff

are uniquely well qualified to carry out the task which they have undertaken. The three

main letters are suitably set out, with notes and facing translation, and there are intro

ductions to the subject as a whole, to the Hebrew letters in particular, and to the actual

sources. To these is added a fourth and fragmentary Hebrew version and a short excursus

on the narrative of Eldad the Danite, which certainly shares in some of the matter of the

Prester John cycle. There follow an index of the principal motifs and themes and another

of foreign words in Hebrew guise, a bibliography, and a series of facsimiles of part or whole

of some of the main versions in European languages (Latin, Old French, and Italian in full, others with specimen pages only). Another index to the whole concludes the volume.

The discussion of the problems is necessarily brief, and the editors do not seek to reach

any sort of definitiveness; rather, they emphasize the complexity of relations between

the various versions. They show a particular interest in the connections between Eldad

the Danite and the letters. Is it possible that Eldad's stories formed a stimulus to the

Prester John legends, and therefore that the Hebrew texts in origin preceded the European? Yet the editors point to many features of the present letters which seem clearly to betoken

translation from Romance, e.g. obvious caiques upon Italian or transcriptions of actual

Italian words. But no attempt is made to press upon the reader a solution in one direction

or in the other. One would be inclined to guess that much of the material is indeed trans

lation, and often very literal translation (hence the pretty awful Hebrew that often results). It may well, however, be translation from a text that no longer survives, so that no docu

mentation of the precise Vorlage exists. This should in any case not preclude two other

things: firstly, some free Hebrew composition mixed in with the process of translation

and, secondly, a veritable Jewish origin for some elements of the material. And this is,

roughly speaking, what the distinguished editors themselves seem to have in mind.

One or two points might be added to the discussion in this respect. As the introduction

rightly notes, the letters form in principle "an aggressively Christian document", though the Hebrew tones this down by inserting dysphemisms like kumar for "priest" or "iniquity of Thomas" in place of "St Thomas". But, although the outward institutions of Christianity are well known and much mentioned -

priests, abbots, cardinals, the tonsure, the military

orders, confession, the importance attached to sexual abstinence - there is little sign of

inner familiarity with Christian language. Thus there is little or no quotation of the teaching of Jesus or other parts of the New Testament, while on the other side the actual religious

language used is very often that of Judaism: the women say their prayers "with devotion",

kawwanah, p. 144, 1. 191. Moreover, there are many echoes of the Hebrew Old Testament, and these are points at which the Hebrew of the letters rises considerably from its cus

tomary low level. For instance, h?marim hPmarim "heaps and heaps" at p. 90, 1. 133, is

an unmistakable allusion to the Hebrew diction of Exod. viii, 10, and one that would not

probably have been accessible to any Gentile writer of the time. These tendencies would seem to support the editors' feeling that there may be a Jewish basis for the entire

tradition, or alternatively that the Hebrew "translator" had done a lot of free composition which he intermingled with literal translation -

just as we find in the tradition of the

Targums. As for the translation of the letters here printed, at a few points one might suggest

that an alternative rendering might be considered, especially since the book will be much

used by readers without any knowledge of Hebrew. On p. 90 sab is rendered as "tortoise".

This, however, seems to be a modern meaning, and it is very likely that the beast was a

lizard of some kind, as in the Bible (cf. Arabic dabb). It is associated with serpents, and

the animal in question seeks to escape by hiding in the ground; in another letter (p. 54) the combination is of serpents and scorpions. Thus the lizard seems more likely, especially in view of the great interest of the letters in worms and salamanders. Another animal is

that written as 'yylym: this had been read several times as 'elim "rams", but the double



288 REVIEWS OF BOOKS

yod would suggest rather "deer", 'ayyalim, and where rams are meant the author uses

karim (p. 126, 1. 65). Thus one should read "wolves that take the deer" (p. 78, 1. 31) and "deer and gazelles and red swine" (p. 102, 1. 225), rather than "rams" in both cases,

p. 120,1. 22, has "stags" correctly. Another animal puzzle appears at p. 76, 1. 30, where we have a list beginning with

"elephants and panthers which we call dromedary and white camels and wild oxen"; bears, lions (of various colours), and wolves appear later. Even in the fairy-tale world of Prester

John, could it really be stated that panthers were dromedaries? I suspect that the word referred not to the species of the beast but to its colour or, to be more exact, its spotted ness. It meant spotted camels as distinct from the white ones which follow, or else more

probably the giraffe, exactly the right beast for Prester John's realm. The word camelopard was often confused with the word leopard. Another word deserving comment is Hebrew halus as in hflluse saba'. This phrase is rendered on p. 102, 1. 220, as "army pioneers", and similarly severai times as "vanguard, vanguard troops". But the sense "pioneer", familiar in modern usage, is probably not intended here. The meaning was the Biblical one of

"equipped (for war)", which corresponds with the armati, bene armati of the European versions; on p. 45,1. 41, this is rightly so taken: "fully equipped".

These are very minor questions, however, and the translation as a whole gives an

excellent impression of the quality of the documents. The scholarship of the editors

expresses itself with a pleasant lightness, and the work may be commended to the reader

seeking entertainment as well as to the scholar of medieval legend. The volume does not

pretend to examine all the questions in detail and its conclusions are wisely tentative. It

is a valuable resource, for which the reading public will be grateful.

JAMES BARR.

HISTOIRE ET INSTITUTIONS DES ^GLISES ORIENTALES AU MOYEN AGE. By JEAN DAUVILLIER. (Collected Studies Series, 173.) pp. [viii], iii, [300]. London, Variorum Reprints, 1983. ?26.

The name of Jean Dauvillier will perhaps be most familiar to Orientalists from his richly annotated editions of papers left by his former teacher Paul Pelliot (e.g. Recherches sur les Chretiens d'Asie centrale et d'extreme-orient, Paris, 1973); to the more restricted group of

Syriac scholars, however, he will be well known from his masterly article on Chaldean canon law in the Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique and for an extended study (included in this volume), "Les provinces chaldeennes 'de l'exterieur' au Moyen Age", which still

remains after 35 years the most authoritative treatment of this fascinating subject: how

many people today are aware that Peking was once a metropolitan see of the Church of

the East? The main output of Dauvillier's work has in fact been in the field of the history of canon law, and it is a fine tribute to the width and depth of his other interests that it

has been possible to put together this collection of often very important papers on various

aspects of the history of the Oriental churches.

The majority of articles deal with the "Chaldean" Church of the East and in particular its expansion eastwards into Asia, but a few concern other Oriental churches as well. Thus, besides the article just mentioned, there are four short pieces on the Church of the East

in Tibet (one in fact being a short extract from M. Lalou's Les religions du Tibet), a chapter on William of Rubruck, two on aspects of the canon law of the Church of the East, four

on its art and architecture; then come chapters on the presence of the Syrian, Armenian, and Greek Orthodox churches in Central and East Asia, together with two review articles, of J. Mecerian's Histoire et institutions de l'?glise Armenienne, and J. Richard's LaPapaute et les missions d'Orient au Moyen Age.

Since many of these articles originally appeared in Festschriften and periodicals that

are often hard to come by, it is especially useful to have them collected into a single volume. There is inevitably a certain amount of overlap, and a few of the shorter articles

could perhaps have been left aside without detracting much from the value of the collection



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