From the manuscript tradition of Arabic-speaking Catholics in Lebanon

Germanos Farhat, Gabriel. Kitab al-Tuhfah al-Sirriyah al-Khassah li-Kahanat Kursi al-I'tiraf [The Secret Masterpiece for Confessional Priests and instructions for mastering this profession].

€ 18,000.00

A manuscript on the Catholic confessional, written in Arabic by the Lebanese Maronite bishop Gabriel Germanos Farhat (1670-1732). The manuscript acts as a handbook for Maronite priests, most of whom lived and worked in monastic communities in Lebanon and Palestine. The original work was written in 1730; this copy was completed only two years later and potentially within the author's lifetime (Gabriel Germanos having died in 1732, the year of the manuscript's completion).

Divided into two parts: the larger first section of the manuscript is a guide for priests tasked with taking confessions, overviewing the spiritual and community role of the priest, and detailing the trickier situations one might encounter. For example, how might a priest handle extreme circumstances around the very ill and infirm, the mute, or the special demands in times of plague? (In the latter, a partial confession and a flogging may sometimes do.) What about women in the throes of childbirth, and could a person confess on the behalf of their spouse? Having addressed these topics, the second section supplies a quick guide for confessors (and further reference for their priests) with a laundry list of common sins which may need to be brought up at confession.

Copied in the final year of the author's life at a Maronite monastery dedicated to Saint Moura in Ehden. By 1861 the manuscript was in the hands of another Maronite bishop, whose ownership inscription may be found on the first leaf.