20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Arabic biblical and liturgical texts printed in Europe... 175was fixed: here the word for "printed" is makhtūm (literally, "sealed" or"stamped"), rather than maṭ bū’ which later became the normal usage. BothCatholics and Protestants were involved in this activity, often in competitionwith each other. A Protestant catechism published in Oxford in 1671 5 , forexample, was intended for distribution in Syria: it is wholly in Arabic, withnothing in any European language or script, apart from the use of romanletters for the page signatures 6 .Although occasionally tracts were published which tried to convertMuslims, the futility of trying to evangelise them in this way was generallyrecognised, and the great majority of the texts were intended for the useof Arab Christians, both Orthodox and Catholic. These can be dividedinto three main categories: firstly, doctrinal and evangelical works writtenand published to instruct local clergy and laymen and to influence them infavour of the "true" religion, whether that be Catholicism, Protestantism orOrthodoxy; secondly, the foundation texts of all branches of Christianity,that is the Bible, or parts thereof; and thirdly, books for them to use inthe practice of their religion, primarily liturgical books for use in Churchworship. These last two categories were much the most important in theperiod under consideration – 16 th to 18 th centuries – because they weremore widely seen and read. So it is on these that I shall concentrate in whatfollows.The very first book to be printed in Arabic anywhere was a Horologionof the Melkite rite 7 , commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Christians of Syria.According to the colophon, it was printed at Fano in 1514, by the Italianprinter Gregorio de Gregorii; but this printer, as is stated here, was fromVenice, and it is thought that the Fano imprint was simply to circumventthe monopoly on Oriental printing in force in Venice at that time 8 . Thetypography was crude but legible, and the simple layout was similar to thatof a manuscript. Here also, in the colophon, the word khatama was usedfor "printed", and papal patronage and authority for the publication wereproclaimed.Later in the 16 th century, in 1583, the German Protestant scholar RuthgerSpey published his Arabic translation of St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians,confessio. Giambattista Eliano (tr.). Roma: in Collegio Societatis Iesu, 1566 (the Latindate is misprinted as 1556 on the title-page).5Sharḥ qawāʿ id dīn al-Masīḥ. [Catechism.] 1671, Oxford: [University Press].6This feature often betrays the source of Arabic missionary books printed inEurope.7Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Sawāʿī, Fano [Venezia?]: Gregorio de Gregorii 1514. Cf. Balagna1984, 18-20; Krek, 1979.8Krek, 1977.