Page 14 - Journal of the Cenral Asian Society (1960)

228 nscm:i. I'l?.HSIAN GULF AND ITS IFAMSII SI-ITI.I-MIlNTS 229
1261-
a
comes from a Jewish poet b\ the name of Yahudn, who, according ^
to his birthplace, was known as Yaluida I.ari and lived in the '
early sixteenth century. His poem. "Kitab Mahzan al-Pand",
(“Treasure-house of exhortation”) of which 151 verses have been ;
preserved, reveals that he was a late successor of the Jewish .■
Persian poets Shahin and Imrani of Shiraz, and, like them, a
Jewish epigone of the great Persian poet Sa'di.7* J lation of the Psalms and other lx>oks of the Bible in Ormuz
Lar was not only the seat of a Jewish poet but must have
been also the seat of a school of scribes, translators, and
copyists
who devoted themselves with great zeal to the cultivation of
Jewish traditional values and to the task of translating or copying
books of the Holy Scripture into the Persian language — which
was written, however, in Hebrew characters. A survey of the
Judaeo-Persian Bible manuscripts, many of which are housed
today in the libraries of Paris, the Vatican, the British Museum, 1
Petersburg. New York etc., shows that not a few of them i
originated in Lar in the first decade of the seventeenth century.u
It is particularly to the Florentine Jesuit, diplomat and trav-
eler. Giambattista Yechicte (1552-1619) that Jewish history is B
deeply indebted for rescuing some of these manuscripts and .j
bringing them to Europe. This Vechietc went toward the end 'J
of the 16th century (1584) to the East on a diplomatic mission ^
on behalf of Pope Gregory XIII. entrusted with the double i
mission to conciliate the Patriarch of Alexandria and to enlist
the assistance of the Persians in the Pope’s fight against the
Lurks. Unlike other envoys and diplomats of that time, Vcchiete
combined with the pursuit of his diplomatic missions a great
interest in old manuscripts and versions of the Bible. And while $ It seems that the visit of a Jewish
other travelers and visitors to Persia after their return to their
y.
:i See \V. Bacher: Aus cineni Juedisch-Persischcn Lehrgcdicht in Keleli •v economic center but as a Jewish cultural center at that time.
Szemle (Rci'uc Orientate) Budapest. 1911, pp. 223—228: also ZDMG, Vol. 65,
pp. 541; D. S. Sassoon: Ohcl David. Vol. I. p. 47Jb.
The whole lie Id of Judaeo-Persian literature has been surveyed in my
Mudy "Israel in Iran, A Survey of Judaeo-Persian Literature," in " Jews and
Judaism" cd. L. Finkelstein, New York. 1949. Sec, also, S. Munk: A 'atice sue
Rabbi Saadi a Gaon cl sa Version' Arabe D'lsnie, Paris 18.18. pp. 8.V-86; H.
/.oioubcrg: Catalogue des Manuscrils Hcbreux de in Hibliatheque Sat ion ale
de Rons, 18ft6; E. Rlochci: Catalogue des Mss. I’rrsans. Paris 1905: Ch. Adler:
i HihclkritiscJir Reise nark Ram (.Minna 1785). p. 152.
!
f
1271
European masters published reports and l>ooks on what they had
and done in far-off lands in fulfilment of their specific.
seen
missions, Vechietc, in addition to this, thanks to his keen
scholarly interest, brought back to Europe old manuscripts of
ihe Bible from the very lands and peoples that he visited. It
is expressly stated that in 1601 he commenced a Persian trans­
and that after a second visit to Persia in 1605, Vechietc sub­
mitted to the Pope two volumes containing Bible translations
into Judaco-Persian, among then) the Pentateuch. Psalms, the
Book of Solomon and others, of which some were written in Lar.74
It can hardly be accidental that Lar is given as the geographical
origin of these manuscripts; Lar must have been at that time a
considerable cultural center. In view of this importance of Lar,
the visit of a Rabbi Juda, from Galilea — perhaps a messenger,
a Shaliakh from Zion — to Lar at the beginning of the 17th
century receives now its proper meaning, "There are few re-
markable things in the city (Lar)” — reports the Spanish envoy
and traveler, A. de Gouvea,75 in the year 1607 — "even one
novelty, among them a Jewish rabbi called
comes to see us ns a
Juda who spoke Spanish . . . though he was born in Galilea.
He said that his grandparents were natives of the Kingdom of
Leon and that when the Jews were expelled from Spain they
Galilea where they still until today speak the Spanish
went to
language ... He was very much versed in the humanities tleltrcs
humaincs) and he entered in a discussion with me on several
questions ... on some passages in the Old Testament which he
very well understood",
scholar from Palestine was not an accidental one hut was most
likely connected with Lar’s position, not only as a prosperous
74 G. B. Vcchiete: A report on the conditions of Persia in the year 1586
(trans. to English by H. F. Brown) in English Historical Revirxv 1892. pp.
514—321. Sec about him F.dward Maclagan: The Jesuits and the Great Mosul,
London 1932, pp. 211-214 and the notes there, pp. 219-220. and my furth­
coming study "G. B. Vcchiete— the first collector of Judeo-Persian Bible
Manuscripts".
11 L. c. pp. 56-59.