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 HF.THITES

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HETHITES

ihe honorary title of " Our Holy Father " (toC oa-lov warpbs r)ij.C>v '^auxhv TrpeafivT^pov) and, in cases where the authenticity of this title on a manuscript is cer- tain, it is sufficient to distinguish him from others of the same name, and especially from the celebrated Hesy- cliius of Jerusalem (q. v.). Examination of the Bible text on which the treatises of one or the other Hesy- chius are based is just as important a test as this external criterion; thus, Hesychius of Sinai in his Bible quotations regularly follows the version of the "Codex Sinai tious". How much of the literary ma- terial in the latest edition of the works of the Fathers (Migne, P. G., XCIII, 787-15(30), pul.ilished without any attempt at critical selection vmtler the title of "Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem", should prop- erly be ascribed to Hesychius of Sinai, can only be determined by monographic investigation. The piv- otal point about which such investigation would turn is a collection of 200 ascetic maxims (IIep( rfitpeus Kal dpeTTJs, De temperantia et virtute) which Migne, loc. cit. 1479-1544, attributes to Hesychius of Jerusalem under a pseudonym, but which should, without doubt, be credited to Hesychius of Sinai. For the author of these maxims acknowledges, by a play on words (6 rjo-vx^a^ (pepiivv/ios), that his name is Hesychius and that he is a Basilian monk; furthermore a number of manuscripts support this intrinsic evidence (Bodl. Barocc. 118, sa;c. XII-XIII; Bodl. Laud. 21, sac. XIV; Bodl. Canon. 16, sa;c. XV; Mus. Brit. Burn. 113, SEec. XV et al.). The text of the Migne edition could be completed and improved to particular advan- tage from English MSS. (Mus. Brit. Addit. 9.347, sa;c. XII, and Bodl. Cromwell. 6, ssc. XV). The fact that the maxims are dedicated to a certain Theodulus has given rise in certain manuscripts to the erroneous statement that Theodulus was their author. It can- not be determined here how many of these maxims were derived from older ascetics or how many were adopted by later ones. It is probable that the ascetic and Biblical-ascetic fragments that I have found in Turin Codices (B V 25, stsc. XV, fol. 171-174 and C VI 8, saec. XIV, fol. 39 verso 41) under the name of "Our Holy Father Hesychius" should also be attrib- uted to Hesychius of Sinai.

Michael Faulhaber.

Hethites (A. V. Hittites), one of the many peo- ples of North- Western Asia, styled Hitlim in the He- brew Bible, Khiti or Kheta on the Egyptian monu- ments, and Hatti in the cimeiform documents. For many centuries the existence of the Hethites was known only from scanty allusions in the Bible. Egyp- tian and Assyrian documents revealed to the scholars of the latter part of the nineteenth century the power of the Hethite empire, and discoveries now pursued at the very home of this long-forgotten people almost daily supply important new information concerning it, whetting the interest of scholars, and fostering the hope that before long Hethite history will be as well known as that of Egypt and Assyria. In the latter part of the eighteenth century a German traveller had noticed two figures carved on a rock near Ibreez, in the territory of the ancient Lycaonia. Major Fischer rediscovered them in 183S, and made a draw- ing of the figures and a copy of the two short inscrip- tions in strange-looking characters which accompanied these figures. But what they were no one could tell at the time. In his travels along the Orontes (1812) Burckhardt had likewise noticed at Hamah, the site of the ancient city of Hamath, a block covered with what appeared to be an inscription, although the characters were unknown. He mentioned this dis- covery in his "Travels in Syria" (p. 146), without, however, attracting the attention of travellers and Orientalists. Almost sixty years later three other slabs of the same description were found in the same place by Johnson and Jessup; and in 1872 Dr. W. VII.— 20

Wright had the stones removed to the Imperial Mu- seum of Constantinople. The characters carved in relief on the stones were long designated as "Hama- thite writing", although as early as 1874 Dr. Wright had suggested that they were of Hethite origin. Com- paring the inscriptions of Ibreez with those from Hamah, E. J. Davis noticed that the former were also in the "Hamathite writing". Soon new texts were discovered at Aleppo, Jerabdls, Ninive, Ghiaur-ka- lessi, Boghaz-Keui, Mount Sipylus, the Pass of Kara- bel: all presented the same strange hieroglyphic characters, engraved in relief and in honstrophedon fashion. When figures accompanied the inscriptions, they likewise bore a striking resemblance to one an- other: all were clad in a tunic reaching to the knees, were shod with boots with turned-up ends, and wore a high peaked cap. It became certain that these monuments belonged to the Hethite population lo- cated by Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions in the east of Asia Minor. The true home of the Hethite monuments, indeed, extends from the Euphrates to the Halys River; monuments foimd beyond these limits either mark the site of eccentric colonies, or are memorials of military conquests. This geographical distribution, as well as some of the features noticeable in the figures carved on these monuments, makes it clear that the Hethites must have been originally in- habitants of a cold and mountainous region, and that the high plateaux of Cappadocia should be regarded as their primeval home. Both their own and the Egyptian monuments describe them as ugly in ap- pearance with yellow skins, black hair, receding fore- heads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws. The type may still be found in Cappadocia.

As to their language, it may be said, despite the re- searches of Conder, Sayce, and others, to have so far challenged the patience and genius of Orientalists. The first Hethite texts known were all written in the so-called Hamathite characters; the royal archives discovered since 1905 at Boghaz-Keui, unrler the auspices of the "Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft ", con- tain many Hetliite texts written in cuneiform charac- ters. It is to be hoped that this will enable scholars to detect the secret of that old language which still lingered in Lycaonia at the time of St. Paul's mission- ary j ourneys i n these regions. Little like wise is known of the Hethite religion. The special difficulty here arises partly from the syncretic tendencies manifest in the religious development of the ancient peoples in the East, and partly from the scarcity of informa- tion bearing on distinctly Hethite worship. Lucian's description of the great "temple of Mabog and its wor- ship may contain some featiu-es of the worship going on in the older city of Carchemish; but it seems to be a hopeless task to try to trace back these features over a gap of some ten centuries. Owing to the per- manence of popular customs in remote country places, and particularly in mountainous regions, less accessi- ble to foreign influence, there is perhaps morereliable information to gather on the primitive Hethite wor- ship from Strabo's description of Cappadocian religious solemnities in classical times (Strabo, XII, ii, 3, 6, 7). The Hethite pantheon is known, however, to a certain extent, from the proper names which quite frequently contain as a constitutive element the title of some deity. Among the divine names most usuaUy em- ployed may be mentioned here: Tarqu, Rho, Sandan, Kheba, Tishflbu, Ma, and Hattii. The compact en- tered upon by Ramses II and Hattusil suggests the idea that heaven, earth, rivers, mountains, lands, cities, had each its male or female Sutekh, a kind of genius loci, like the Aramaean Ba'al or Ba'alath. A treaty between the same Hattusil and the ruler of Mitanni mentioning first deities of Babylonian origin, then others of a more distinctly Hethite character, and lastly some Indo-Persian gods, witnesses to the syncretic character of the Hethite religion as early as