Organizing the Dates for Marqe and Baba Rabba

I received this letter from my best friend in the whole, wide world:

I see I wrote in my haste that the explicit repudiation of a recent unnamed heresy was in the hymns by Mårqe. That was a slip. It is in the little Durrån collection. What I should have said was that the Durrån (Elders) collection is made up of hymns by Mårqe which have been rewritten (or perhaps just expanded). I can’t prove that at the moment. I think the collections by Ṭîṭe (Titus) and Ninnå (Johnny) are from Mårqe as well. The question then is why these collections were excerpted from the corpus. Well, the ones labelled Mårqe can equally well be considered an excerpt.

Second question. WHY WAS THERE ANY NEED FOR NEW HYMNS BASIC TO THE ORDER OF SERVICE AFTER THE TIME OF MǠ RQE? Does that mean some hymns were dropped? Why? When?

I think the Durran (Elders) collection is the manifesto of the Dositheans, not at their start, but in the early 2nd c. AD. I don’t know why this was needed then. I don’t think they are rejecting Dositheanism. I think they were rejecting their own accommodation with another party, and re-defining their mission, using OLD hymns but with additions.. I also think the Dustân collection is what the name indicates

Please be advised of this when reading the following post.


A. F. pp. 150-151. Too long to translate. The words are “May the Roman official Garmon (or Germon) be mentioned for good” (in Aramaic) meaning “Gratitude is expressed to the Roman official Garmon”. This is to be recited at each circumcision ceremony. There is no suggestion at all of a whole new hymn. Besides, the couplet now inserted into the hymn by Marqe has as its first part a line in GREEK, followed by these words just quoted in Aramaic. I think this on its own proves the verse not to be part of the original. So the hymn is by Marqe.

The order of events favours putting Garmon in the 2nd c. A.D., but will support a date in the early 4th c. The argument that there is no record of a ban on circumcision at any other time than under Commodus is telling. But this was not a ban on circumcision alone, but an attempt at wiping all religious practice out. (See the Arabic Book of Joshua, ch. XLIX). Precisely this is what was attempted under Commodus starting in 180 A.D. But what then are we to do with the names of the two Roman emperors? The names are apparently Decius followed by Constantius. Here is the evidence. But first, a warning about how to read the names in A.F. The Arabic spelling is a straight transcription of the original ARAMAIC spelling, so the names are to be read according to the spelling system of ARAMAIC, not Arabic. I would have thought this to be obvious, but I see that numerous authors miss this fact. The first name is written DHYQHWS The H in Aramaic spelling is a separator between two vowels. Read DQYHWS pronounced Dekios. The second name is spelt T.YHWS (You will see Tahus and so on in books. First, Jamgotchian has pointed out that although the spelling in all mss. known to Vilmar is T.HWS, the St. Petersburg Fragments preserve the original T.YHWS (Loss of Y after T. is almost inevitable in Arabic script if a word is not understood). Second, the spelling is ARAMAIC, not Arabic, so the pronunciation intended must be [teos] or [tios]. I think this must be short for Konstantios (Constantius). Garmon was an official under this [tios]. At first I was sorely tempted to think that A.F. could have inserted these two names of Roman emperors, but the consistenty honesty of his work makes that impossible. What if he the attempt at wiping Christianity out altogether under Decius and even more so under Constantius included an attempt at wiping Samaritanism out in Palestine? This might help explain why Germanos was sympathetic to the Samaritans. But what would be the motive behind such an attempt? And is there any evidence?

Montgomery was not the first to identify Garmon with the Bishop Germanus. (Known in French as St. Germain, as in the Boulevard St. Germain, which as I recall leads to the department store La Samaritaine). It was J. G. W. Juynboll, in 1848, in his edition of the Arabic Book of Joshua (Chronicon Samaritanum, cui Titulus est Liber Josuae, Leiden [where else?], 1848). He points out that in this book (but not in A.F.), he is called a prelate, Arabic qissîs, that is, a person of any degree of ordination, so he could have been a deacon at the time, not necessarily a priest. He is called wakîl, an official, as well. A.F. has nothing at all about his religious position. He calls Garmon wakîl and h.âris, a guard, and says he kept the High Priest’s house under guard. The addition at the end of the circumcision liturgy calls him in Aramaic [âsûra], literally a gaoler. However, the guard over the High Priest would not have been an ordinary person. A guess would be that the term in the Book of Joshua is anachronistic, in that Garmon was secretly a Christian and a deacon at the time, but was employed as a local governor.

I conclude that Garmon is the person later known as Bishop of Neapolis, present at the Council of Nicaea twenty years later, and now known as St. Germanus. This means we need to work out why there was an attempt at wiping Samaritanism out along with Christianity, and we have to find the documentation. This won’t be a simple ban on circumcision.

The dating of Marqe is unaffected.

Right. It says on p. 403 that LWY Lîbi (Masoretic Levi) was High Priest for 45 years, and it was in his time that Hadrian banned Jews from Mt. Gerizim, on account of his wife, who was Samaritan. From the death of Lîbi till the accession of Nâtan’îl is 124 years. Counting from 135 A.D. yields 259 A.D. Till the end of the time of Nâtan’îl is another 32 years, bringing us up to 291 A.D. But if Hadrian was early in the time of Lîbi, then we can add anything up to 45 years, that is, anything up to 338 a.D. Adding After Nâtan’îl in the list is Baba Rabba (p. 403). The implication is that Baba Rabba was High Priest. This is stated explicitly further on (p. 404 bottom). But we are not told the length of his office. His date of accession is 4600 Anno Mundi. After him came his brother ‘QBWN Iqbon for 26 years. It was during the time of this Iqbon that DWSTYS the son of FLFWLY came. (p. 405 top). Notice the preservation of the T in the spelling. The Greek form Dositheos is certain.

There is a French translation on pp. 439-442.

Muhammad is 269 years after Baba Rabba. Adding 269 to 259 gives 528. But we have to add in the length of office of Baba Rabba, as well as some or most of the period of Lîbi. So the dating works. According to A.F. the Hijrah was in 5050. This is 350 years after the accession of Baba Rabba. If we take 350 from 622 A.D. we get 272 A.D. for the accession of Baba Rabba. From 272 till the death of Constantius in 305 is 33 years.

Calculating dates for Baba Rabba. Accession 272 A.D. Chronicle Adler gives a length of office of 40 years for Baba, but says he was held in Constantinople, along with his son.

No. of years from end of time of Baba till the Hijrah is 26 + 31 + 20 + 25 + 24 + 17 + 30 + 40 + 40 + 41 + 25 (or about 25) making an extra 319 years (approx.). Taking 319 from 622 gives 303 A.D. This puts the capture of Baba Rabba at the start of the persecution of Christians starting under Diocletian in 303. This continued with the accession of Constantius and Galerius (305) ending (I suppose) with the death of Constantius in 306 or perhaps with the Edict of Toleration at the end of the time of Galerius (211).

The reason I say the death or capture of Baba is that his successor was not his son but his brother, Iqbon. When it says Dositheus appeared in the time of Iqbon, I think this to be the wrong Iqbon. The alternative would be that Dositheus was the son of Baba. Perhaps the Dositheans or Sebuaeans split definitively from the rest after the end of the unifying influence of Baba. They had accepted the secular but not the religious authority of Baba. (See the paragraph from A.F. on this in my chapter Use, Authority, and Exegesis of 1988).

We still don’t know what Baba’s real name was.

Current Samaritan tradition puts Marqe in the tie of Baba but without any evidence. As far as I can make out the earliest statement to this effect is in A.F. at 133: 11-12 and the Tulida (= Chronicle Neubauer) on p. 404 (French translation p. 441). However, as Ben H.ayyim says (vol. 3 part 2 p. 15) this is a mere bare mention of the name of Marqe, and it would have been expected that much much more would have been said. The deafening silence is inexplicable if Marqe really lived at that time! The bare statement is a mere guess. After the mention of someone called ‘Amram in a list of administrators, it says ONLY AS A CASUAL REMARK that this ‘Amram was the father of Marqe. The Tulida (but not A.F.) says this ‘Amram was the same person as Tût.a the father of Marqe. Well, if Marqe was like Moses, he had to be the son of ‘Amram!! The first person called ‘Amram that could be found has been seized on. This is repeated in the Comprehensive History written by Finaas bin Is.aaq (Hebrew) = Khad.r bin Ish.âq (Arabic) in 1875. Chronicle Adler derives from this book and is not an independent witness.

THIS FICTITIOUS CASUAL REMARK IS THE ONLY (supposed) HISTORICAL INFORMATION ABOUT MARQE IN THE WHOLE SAMARITAN TRADITION.

The Tulida calls Marqe BDW’H DH.KMTH the originator of wisdom and A.F. calls him the spring of wisdom. I think this to be an old traditional title. This is genuine even if the dating is rubbish.

I don’t think I expressed how unfocussed on Marqe this note is. Here is a translation. In a list of district administrators: Ye’usha the son of Baraq the son of ‘Adan was given [the area] from Kafar ‘Allol to Bit Shabaṭ. The Priest with him was ‘Amram the son of Sered. (This ‘Amram is Ṭûṭa the father of Marqe the originator of wisdom peace to his spirit amen).
[Then the next person on the list].

This note is a guess. The title given to Marqe seems older than the note. To turn this round: It is amazing that nothing is said about what Marqe did or composed anywhere in the Samaritan written records. Of the previous main author ‘Amram Dâre nothing whatsoever is said. That he was before Marqe seems to be known only by notes in the mss. of the liturgy. We know Marqe wrote certain hymns only from the headings to the hymns. We only know he wrote the Tîbat Marqe because the headings to the mss. say so. The name of Marqe’s father Ṭûṭa and the fact that Ninna was his son is only known from headings to hymns. Anything else can only be a guess from the content of the hymns. THIS ABSENCE OF INFORMATION INDICATES DELIBERATE OBSCURING OF DATES AND EVENTS.