Eighteenth-Century Melkite Psalters: Literacy, Catechesis, and Prayer

Abstract This article examines four eighteenth-century Melkite Psalters printed at Aleppo (1706), Shuwayr (1735), Bucharest (1747) and Beirut (1752). It analyses their printing context, structure, content and para-texts. In the Melkite tradition, the Psalter served both liturgical and educational purposes, functioning as the primary manual for teaching children to read. The 1724 schism in the Antiochian Church, which divided it into Catholic and Orthodox branches, shaped two distinct editorial paths. Greek-Catholic editions at Shuwayr incorporated post-Tridentine catechetical appendices influenced by Bellarmine’s model, while Orthodox versions maintained ties with the Romanian Principalities. The study reveals how Latin theological categories such as the sevenfold enumeration of sacraments and Augustinian formulation of original sin penetrated Orthodox catechetical literature, illustrating the phenomenon of theological “pseudomorphosis,” later criticised by the twentieth-century patristic renewal.