Signatures of authority: Colophons in Seventeenth-Century Melkite Circles in Aleppo

This chapter examines the functioning of colophons as guarantors of textual authority and stability among Melkite Christians in seventeenth-century Syria. This period is marked by what has been called a “cultural revival”, centering on the activities of several bishops—Meletios (Malātyūs) Karma (1572–1635), Archbishop of Aleppo and later Patriarch of Antioch as Euthymius (Aftīmyūs) II, figuring prominently among them. His struggle for the revision and standardisation of liturgical texts through retranslation was decisively supported by the copying activities of his brother, the scribe Thalja (d. after 1650). In the introduction to his translation of the Liturgikon, Meletios observes that many alterations he attempted to eradicate were introduced by “ignorant scribes”. While his endeavours to convince the Vatican to print his translations of liturgy remained fruitless, his brother’s copies emerged as authoritative, guaranteeing textual stability. Against this background, the colophon developed into a signature of authority, receiving impulses from the Ottoman office of the scribe, visible, for example, in the layout of colophons. Its authoritativeness was recognized both locally and globally, including even by the Vatican and European Orientalists, such as Edward Pococke (1604–1691), who eagerly collected manuscripts. In this chapter, I address the process by which copying emerged in seventeenth-century Melkite circles as a craft in its own right and by which colophons were institutionalised. I also shed light on the subsequent expansion of such authoritative scribal practices into related fields, notably iconography paintings, using the case of the iconographer, copyist, and miniaturist Yūsuf al-Muṣawwir. Yūsuf collaborated with one of Meletios’ successors, Macarius (Makāryūs) al-Zaʿīm (Patriarch 1647–1672) and famously marked his icons with colophons