Classical Syriac Manuscripts at Yale University: A Checklist
Leo
Depuydt
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2006
Vol. 9, No. 2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv9n2depuydt
Leo Depuydt
Classical Syriac Manuscripts at Yale University: A Checklist
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol9/HV9N2Depuydt.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 9
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Yale
Beinecke
File created by XSLT transformation of original HTML encoded article.
Yale’s Beinecke Library preserves a
small but diverse collection of eighteen items in Syriac, some
transferred from the University’s American Oriental
Society Library. This article is a checklist. Nos. 1 and 2,
part of the Old Testament and a New Testament, may be the
oldest items. Nos. 3 and 4 are two more copies of the
Revelation of St. Paul. Nos. 5–9 have also long been
known in multiple copies. No. 10 is a Syriac-Armenian lexicon,
No. 11 is a linguistic work entitled “Illumination of
Beginners,” and No. 12 is a fragment of
ʿAbdišō
ʿ’s
Catalogue of Syriac Authors. No. 17 contains a copy of Moses
bar Kepha’s On Paradise, a work so far accessible only in
a sixteenth-century Latin translation by the pioneer Andreas
Masius that has played an important part in the rise of Syriac
Studies in Europe. The Beinecke copy of ad 1225 predates the oldest
known copy by about 140 years. No. 18 is a deed of sale of
ad 243, long the
oldest dated Syriac text known.
[1] Yale
University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
holds among its treasures a modest but interesting—and
despite its small size, rather diverse—ancient Syriac
collection encompassing eighteen items. This collection
includes manuscripts originally part of the Library of the
American Oriental Society located at Yale. In the summer of
1991, I spent some days at the Beinecke Library studying its
Syriac collection, by virtue of my appointment as Senior Lector
in Syriac and Coptic at Yale (1989–91). From my notes, I
compiled the following checklist. Some of the Beinecke
manuscripts have already received mention in J. T.
Clemons’s useful survey of Syriac collections in Canada
and the United States, published in 1966.
J. T. Clemons, “A Checklist of Syriac
Manuscripts in the United States and Canada,”
OrChrP 32 (1966): 224–51 and 478–522; cf.
id., “The Search for Syriac Manuscripts in
America,” JAOS 85 (1965): 208–10; and also
E. Stout, Catalogue of the Library of the American Oriental
Society (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1930).
But for obvious
reasons, Clemons’s survey does not always provide
descriptions based on a firsthand examination of the items.
[2] In 1991,
the following list was submitted and accepted for publication
in the first volume of a newly planned journal entitled
Middle Eastern Christian Studies. But the journal
never came into existence. An inquiry addressed to me by R. A.
Kitchen in October 2005 about a Beinecke Syriac
manuscript—itself inspired by a lead from S.
Brock—led me to return to the manuscript of this
checklist and to decide to submit it for publication in the
present journal. Some of what follows was part of an oral
presentation entitled “Moses bar Kepha’s ‘On
Paradise’ and the Beginning of Syriac Studies in
Europe” read at the Syriac Studies Symposium held at
Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in June 1991.
Much of the text is in the same form as it was in late 1991,
but some new data have been added. I am grateful to an
anonymous referee of this journal for valuable information
affording updates on several items in the list. A full-scale
catalogue would require a more detailed treatment of all the
items, but it is hoped that the present list is useful.
[3] Only
upon my recent revisiting of the manuscript of this
checklist—after a long absence from any serious
engagement with things Syriac—did I learn that my planned
publication and the paper read at the afore-mentioned
conference at Brown University had found entry into the
scholarly literature, namely by mediation of S. Brock—who
was present at the conference—in G. J. Reinink’s
edition and translation of the Syriac original of the
Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, of which manuscript Beinecke
Syriac 10 (see No. 17[8] below) contains a version of some
significance.
G. J. Reinink, Die syrische Apokalypse des
Pseudo-Methodius, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum
Orientalium 540–41, Scriptores Syri 220–21 (Leuven:
In Aedibus E. Peeters, 1993), at CSCO 540, V, IX,
XVI–XVII, and XXXVII.
According to Reinink (p. xxxvii), the proposed
name of the journal was to have been Middle Eastern
Christian Studies Annual. Reinink’s description of
this list as “in press” makes all the more
appropriate tying up a loose end by publishing the list.
Another development that has happened since is the publication,
in the same year 1991, of A. Desreumaux’s repertory of
Syriac manuscript collections.
A. Desreumaux, with F. Briquel-Chatonnet,
Répertoire des bibliothèques et des
catalogues de manuscrits syriaques, Documents,
études et répertoires publiés par
l’IRHT (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1991). For the
Yale collection, see pp. 197–99, Nos. 609–12.
In this repertory, the Beinecke
Syriac collection is described on the basis of information
provided in February and March of 1989. This information is
itself said to be at least in part based on a list compiled in
1976. Meanwhile also, S. Brock has published a detailed
bibliography on Syriac literature covering the years
1960–1990 and compiled from earlier
bibliographies.
S. Brock, Syriac Studies: A Classified
Bibliography, Kaslik, Lebanon: Parole de l’Orient,
1996.
The reader is referred to this valuable work for
additional information on the Syriac texts in the Beinecke
Library.
[4] The
contents of the Beinecke collection of classical Syriac
manuscripts may be summarized as follows. The two biblical
manuscripts (see Nos. 1 and 2
These numbers have been introduced to allow
cross‑reference, to the list and between items of the
list. They are not meant to replace the call numbers of the
manuscripts.
), containing various books of the
Old Testament and a Syriac New Testament, are in all
probability the two oldest items in the collection. They are
distinct from all other Beinecke Syriac codices in that they
are written on parchment and not on paper. The New Testament
codex is dated to ad 917/18, and the Old
Testament one resembles it so strikingly that it cannot be much
younger, if at all. A facsimile of a page of the New Testament
manuscript can be found in Hatch’s Album of
dated Syriac manuscripts. The text of the two codices is that
of the Peshitta. As regards biblical matters, it is worthwhile
to point out that the Beinecke Library possesses, in addition
to these two Syriac biblical codices, a unique Greek fragment
of the Diatessaron. The fragment was excavated in 1933 at Dura
Europos and dates to before ad 256/57.
See S. Emmel, “Antiquity in Fragments: A
Hundred Years of Collecting Papyri at Yale,” The Yale
University Library Gazette 64 (1989): 38–58, at
51–52.
It has added a new
dimension to the discussion as to whether the Diatessaron was
first composed in Syriac or in Greek.
More recently, M. Goodacre, D. Parker, and D.
Taylor (“The Dura-Europos Gospel Harmony,” in
Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic
Literature, Third Series, Volume 1, ed. D. Taylor
[Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 1999],
192–228) have proposed (p. 228) that the Dura Europos
fragment “is not part of Tatian’s Diatessaron, and
so … can shed no light on the origins of the
Diatessaron.” In reaction to this study, J. Joosten
(“The Dura Parchment and the Diatessaron,”
VigChr 57 [2003]: 159–75) has interpreted
certain features of the text as “prov[ing] beyond
reasonable doubt … that [it] … is a fragment of a
gospel standing in the textual tradition of Tatian’s
Diatessaron” (p. 159).
The manuscripts described in
Nos. 3 and 4 are of fairly recent date. It is to be doubted
that they will bring much text-critical gain for the Syriac
text of the Revelation of St. Paul. Of the works listed in Nos.
5–9, multiple copies have already long been known from
European and Near Eastern libraries, as appears from A.
Baumstark’s listings.
A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen
Literatur mit Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen
Texte (Bonn: A. Marcus and E. Webers Verlag Dr.jur. Albert
Jahn, 1922).
Two of them, Nos. 7 and 9, have
dates, namely ad
1736 and ad 1699.
The colophon of the latter is in Karshuni—Arabic written
in Syriac letters—as are many marginal notes in several
of the Beinecke Syriac manuscripts. Dates in Beinecke colophons
are, as in the vast majority of Syriac manuscripts, according
to the Era of the Greeks, commencing on 1 October 312 BC. No. 8
appears strikingly modern. One wonders whether it was copied,
or at least solicited, by the donor. The handwritten English
translation found in the same booklet seems to be his.
[5] An
interesting item is No. 10, a Syriac-Armenian lexicon. The
Armenian is written in the Syriac script. Various prayers
precede, follow, and are inserted in the lexical list.
Diacritic dots, added to the Syriac letters, mostly in red,
allow the denotation of sounds proper to Armenian. When I could
not find the word following Syriac
št' “drink” in textbooks of
classical Armenian or in a modern Armenian dictionary, the
eminent Jerusalem Armenologist Michael Stone informed me upon
inquiry that the form is neither ancient nor modern but
typically medieval. No. 11 is also a linguistic work, a grammar
book including many verbal paradigms entitled
Nuhhār–Šarwāyē
“Illumination of Beginners.”
[6] No. 12
contains a fragment from
ʿAbdišō
ʿ’s
Catalogue of Syriac Authors. The copy is of recent
date and therefore of secondary importance. As is the case with
Nos. 5–7 and 9, most of the works in Nos. 13–17 are
additional medieval copies of classics of Syriac literature of
which several manuscripts are found in libraries in Europe and
the Near East.
[7] The
first work in No. 17 is of great interest. It is a copy of
Moses bar Kepha’s On Paradise.
An appendix to the manuscript offers the following
twofold explanation for the epithet bar Kepha
“son of a rock.” First, Moses’s father was
named Simon who is also called Kephas. Second, when
Moses’s mother died soon after giving birth to him, his
father took him to a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where
he received nourishment from an icon of the Virgin painted on a
rock.
This work is at
present publicly accessible only in a sixteenth-century Latin
translation reprinted in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca. The
genesis of this translation is intimately connected with the
rise of Syriac studies in Europe. The translator was the
eminent Flemish humanist Andreas Masius. Born near Brussels in
1514, Masius graduated in 1533 as Magister from the renowned
Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, where in addition to the three
Holy Languages—Hebrew as language of the Old Testament,
Greek as language of the New Testament, and Latin as language
of the Vulgate—several Oriental languages were
taught.
For Masius and his Syriac Studies, see A.
van Roey, “Les études syriaques d’Andreas
Masius,” OLoP 9 (1978): 141–58.
Masius was one of the three or four pioneers
who laid the foundations of the modern discipline of Syriac
Studies. He is noted for having produced the first solid
studies in Syriac linguistics, including a grammar and a
dictionary, both published in Antwerp around 1570. Remarkably,
he published his entire Syriac opus in the last four years of
his life.
[8] Masius
traveled all over Europe in the service of diplomats. Around
1550, he was at Rome, where he met a scholar from Mardin called
Moses who became his Syriac tutor. Moses had come from the Near
East carrying an important manuscript that had presumably been
entrusted to him by his bishop as being representative of
Syriac theology. It contained Moses bar Kepha’s De
Paradiso. Masius bought the manuscript and translated the
text, but he only published his translation, and not the Syriac
text. It is known, however, that he excerpted the text for his
Syriac dictionary so that at least some vocabulary of the text
made it into print. The identity and whereabouts of the Syriac
manuscript used by Masius are unknown to me. The translation
was no doubt an intellectual feat at the time. It must have
contributed significantly to preparing Masius to write the
first scientific grammar of classical Syriac.
[9] A good
copy of De Paradiso has now turned up at the Beinecke
Library. In search of additional copies one does not need to
roam the churches and monasteries in the Middle East nor dig
through the archives of European libraries. An expedition into
the footnotes of Arthur Vööbus’s works
suffices. Vööbus mentions other copies of De
Paradiso. One of them, now in the Middle East, was until
now thought to be the oldest. It dates to ad 1364/65. The Beinecke
manuscript, as its colophon indicates, is about 140 years
older. Since Moses died around ad 900, the Beinecke copy is
only about three and a half centuries removed from the
author’s autograph. On the basis of the extant copies, it
should be possible to establish a critical edition of De
Paradiso. This may be worthwhile because Masius’s
Latin translation is not always literal. In fact, a
contemporary of Masius, Torrentius, thought the publication
unworthy of him.
van Roey, “Les études
syriaques,” 151, 151 n. 58, 152 top.
An edition of the text would also come at
a time when Moses bar Kepha’s star is rising. It has
recently been noticed that prominent authors like Dionysius bar
Salibi and Barhebraeus excerpted Moses.
[10]
Finally, No. 18 contains a deed of sale on parchment dated to
ad 243. It was
for a long time the oldest known dated Syriac text.
For two earlier manuscripts dating to
ad 240 and
ad 242, see S.
Brock, “Some New Syriac Documents from the Third Century
AD,” Aram 3 (1991): 259–67. See also J.
Teixidor, “Deux documents syriaques du IIIe siècle
après J-C provenant du moyen Euphrate,”
CRAI (1990): 146–66; id., “Les derniers
rois d’Edesse d’après deux nouveaux
documents syriaques,” ZPE 76 (1989):
219–22; H. J. W. Drijvers and J. F. Healey, The Old
Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene: Texts, Translations
and Commentary, HO, Erste Abteilung: Der Nahe und Mittlere
Osten 42 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), 237–48.
For
the sake of completeness, it needs to be mentioned that the
Yale collection also holds a few modern Syriac items and two
manuscripts in Karshuni.
For the Karshuni manuscripts, see also
Desreumaux, Répertoire, 199, No. 612.
[11]
INDEX
AUTORUM
(with references to Brock, Classified Bibliography =
BCB)
ʿAbdišōʿ
of Nisibis (BCB, 23 no. 4), Nos. 7, 12
Barhebraeus (BCB, 40–42 no. 37), Nos. 9,
13
Euagrius (BCB, 94–95 no. 79), No. 16
Isaiah, Abba (BCB, 151–52 no. 116), No.
16
Jacob of Sarugh (BCB, 156–60 no. 128), No.
13
John bar Zuʿbi (BCB, 168 no.
154), No. 14
John of Lycopolis (or Apameia), the Solitary (BCB,
163 no. 135), No. 16
Maruta of Maiperqat (cf. BCB, 265), No. 8
Methodius (Pseudo-) of Patara (BCB, 223–24
no. 183), No. 17
Moses of Kepha (BCB, 234–35 no. 188), No.
17
Philoxenus of Mabbug (BCB, 244–47 no. 206),
No. 16
Solomon of Basra, No. 15
Timothy Isaac (BCB 149 last reference), No. 11
[12]
BIBLE
[13]
Old
Testament
1 Old
Testament, Certain Books of the
IXth–XIth
centuries
Thus the List of Old Testament Peshitta
Manuscripts (Preliminary Issue) Edited by the Peshitta
Institute Leiden University (Leiden: E.J. Brill), 32.
AOS Rn/B47b. — A parchment codex with
a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 239; List
of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts, 32; “Peshitta
Institute Communications XIV: Fifth Supplement to the List
of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts,” VT
27 (1977): 508–11, at 511 [reporting the transfer of the
manuscript from the American Oriental Society Library at Yale
to Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]).
The hand strongly resembles that of No. 2. Contents:
Certain books of the Old Testament, including
Joshua, Judges, 1, 2
Samuel, 1, 2 Kings, Proverbs,
Ben Sira, Ecclesiastes, Ruth,
Song of Songs, Job. The location of the books
is as follows (taken from List of Old Testament Peshitta
Manuscripts, 32): ff. 1v–27r, Josh; ff.
27r–49r, Judg; ff. 49r–107r, 1–2 Sam; ff.
107r–169r, 1–2 Kgs; ff. 169r–189r, Prov; ff.
189r–220r, Sir; ff. 220r–226v, Eccl/Qoh; ff.
226v–229v, Ruth; ff. 229v–232v, Cant; ff.
232v–254r, Job.
[14]
New
Testament
2 New
Testament
ad 917/18
Syriac 6. — A parchment codex with a
binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 249). The hand
strongly resembles that of No. 1. For a brief description and a
facsimile, see Hatch, [218], Plate CLXVII. Acquired in
ad 1907
(Desreumaux, Répertoire, 199, No. 611). Also
mentioned by H. P. Smith, “Biblical Manuscripts in
America,” JBL 42 (1923): 249–50.
Contents:
New Testament (Peshitta) without Revelation.
Pauline Epistles. See 16(1)
[15]
APOCRYPHAL
LITERATURE
Cave of Treasures, Book of the. See No. 15(2)
Matthew and Andrew the Apostles, History of Saints.
See No. 5(1)
3 Paul, Revelation of St.
Rn32a. — A fragmentary paper codex
without a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 237).
Contents:
Revelation of St. Paul (incomplete). Baumstark,
Geschichte, 70,22–26. For a more complete copy,
see No. 4.
Rn32b. — A fragmentary paper codex
without a binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 242).
Contents:
Revelation of St. Paul (incomplete). Baumstark,
Geschichte, 70,22–26. This copy is more complete
than No. 3.
Sheba to Solomon, Questions of. See No. 16(2)
[16]
HAGIOGRAPHY
5 Miscellany
ad 1888
Thus Desreumaux, Répertoire,
198, No. 611.
Syriac 5. — A paper codex with a
binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 248). Gift of C.
C. Torrey in June 1950 (Desreumaux, Répertoire,
199, No. 611). Contents:
History of SS. Matthew and Andrew the
Apostles
History of St. Abba Marcus of Mount
Tharmaka
History of St. Cyriacus and Julitta
For editions and translations of parallels to (1), see W.
Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols.
(London: Williams and Nordgate, 1871), vol. 1, 102–26 and
vol. 2, 93–115; M. Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum
Apocrypha, vol. 2.1 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1908),
65–116. For a study of (2), see A. E. Look, The
History of Abba Marcus of Mount Tharmaka (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1929); originally a Ph.D. dissertation of
1927 for Yale University, bearing the same title.
[17]
HISTORICAL
ROMANCE
6 Alexander Romance
Rn/H62. — A paper codex with a
binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 235).
Contents:
Alexander Romance. Baumstark, Geschichte,
125,10–17 and 348–49 ad 125 n. 3. For an
English translation of the present manuscript, see J. Perkins,
“Notice of a Life of Alexander the Great,”
JAOS 4 (1854): 359–440.
[18]
HYMNS, LITURGICAL
POETRY
7 ʿAbdišōʿ
(of Nisibis), Pardaisā
da-ʿden
13 Tammuz ad 1736
Rn/Ab32. — A paper codex with a
binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 232).
Contents:
ʿAbdišōʿ,
Pardaisā da-ʿden
(“Garden of Eden”). Baumstark, Geschichte,
324,12–20. Trans. (English) F. V. Winnett, The
Paradise of Eden (Ph.D. dissertation for the University of
Toronto, 1929); also mentioned by J. Murdock,
“Ebed-Jesu’s Makâmât,”
JAOS 3 (1853): 475–77.
Jacob of Sarugh, Sugita. See No. 13(2)
[19]
PRAYERS
See No. 10
[20]
SCHOLASTIC
WORKS
[21]
Encyclopaedia
Solomon of Basra, Book of the Bees. See No.
15(1)
[22]
History
8 Maruta of Maiperqat, On
the Council of Nicaea
Rn/M36. — A paper booklet consisting
of two quires (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 241). The
hand is the same as No. 12. Contents:
Maruta of Maiperqat, On the Council of Nicaea.
Baumstark, Geschichte, 53,27–54,10. One quire
contains the text, the other a handwritten English
translation.
[23]
Jurisprudence
9 Barhebraeus,
Ktābā d-Huddāyē
Kanun II
ad 1699
Syriac 11. — A paper codex with a
binding. Olim Istanbul, Fehim 8; “purchased on
26th August 1967 by Yale University from Mrs.
Melahat Menememcogliu” (H. Takahashi, Barhebraeus: A
Bio-Bibliography [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press LLC,
2005], 236). Contents:
(pp. 1–291) Barhebraeus, Ktābā
d-Huddāyē (“Book of Guidances”).
Baumstark, Geschichte, 315,2–6. For this work,
see also Takahashi, Barhebraeus, 227–40; for
the present manuscript, see p. 236.
(pp. 291–303) Appendix: Laws on
Inheritance (according to Islam) and the Manumission
of Slaves.
[24]
Linguistics
10 Syriac-Armenian Lexicon,
with Prayers
Syriac 9. — A paper codex with a
binding. Contents:
Syriac-Armenian Lexicon; various prayers
precede, follow, and are interpolated. The Armenian is written
in Syriac letters, often accompanied by diacritical marks,
mostly in red.
11 Timothy Isaac,
Nuhhār–Šarwāyē
Syriac 12. — A paper codex with a
binding. Contents:
Timothy Isaac, metropolitan of Amid, son of deacon
ʿEbed-Hayya,
Nuhhār–Šarwāyē
(“Illumination of Beginners”). For another copy,
see BL Add. 21211. A grammar book for beginners, including many
verbal paradigms.
[25]
Literature
12 ʿAbdišōʿ,
Catalogue of Syriac Authors
Rn/Eb31. — Six bifolios forming a
quire in twelve from a paper codex (Clemons,
“Checklist,” No. 234). The hand is the same as that
of No. 8. Contents:
ʿAbdišōʿ,
Catalogue of Syriac Authors (a fragment). Baumstark,
Geschichte, 325,1–2.
[26]
Theology
13 Barhebraeus, Ktābā
da-Mnārat Qudšē
Syriac 7. — A paper codex with a
binding. Contents:
Barhebraeus, Ktābā da-Mnārat
Qudšē (“Book of the Lamp of
Holinesses”). Baumstark, Geschichte,
314–15. For this work, see Takahashi,
Barhebraeus, 175–91 (the present manuscript is
not listed).
Appendix: Three short works including a Sugita by Jacob
of Sarugh. Baumstark, Geschichte,
149,7–10.
14 John
bar Zuʿbi, On the Matter of
Faith, and Interpretation of the
Eucharist
Kanun II ad 1687
Syriac 13. — A paper codex with a
binding. Contents:
On the Matter of Faith. Baumstark,
Geschichte, 311,2–4.
Interpretation of the Eucharist. Baumstark,
Geschichte, 311,5–6.
[27]
MISCELLANIES
15 Miscellany
Syriac 4. — A paper codex with a
binding (Clemons, “Checklist,” No. 247). Gift
of C. C. Torrey in June 1950 (Desreumaux,
Répertoire, 199, No. 611). Contents:
Solomon of Basra, The Book of the Bees.
Baumstark, Geschichte, 309,7–12.
The Book of the Cave of Treasures. Baumstark,
Geschichte, 95–96. Brock, Classified
Bibliography, 64–65 no. 42. See now S. Ri, La
Caverne des Trésors: Les deux recensions
syriaques, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
486–87, Scriptores Syri 207–8 (Leuven: Peeters,
1987); the present manuscript is not listed.
16 Miscellany
Syriac 8. — A fragmentary paper codex
with a binding. Contents:
(f. 1r) Pauline Epistles (the end only).
(ff. 1v–2v) Questions by Queen Sheba to King
Solomon.
(ff. 3r a–4v b) Philoxenus of
Mabbug, Letter to Patrikios of Edessa. Baumstark,
Geschichte, 142,8 with n. 10.
(f. 4v b) Sayings, 2 by ?
(Philoxenus?), 4 by Euagrius, 1 by Abba Isaiah.
(ff. 4v b–7v b) Philoxenus of
Mabbug, Confession of Faith. Baumstark,
Geschichte, 143,6–7 with n. 6.
(ff. 7v b–9r a) John of Lycopolis
(or of Apameia), also the Solitary, or “Seer and
Prophet,” The Holy Commandments of the Gospel.
Baumstark, Geschichte, 90,13–14 with n.
14.
(ff. 9r a–29v a)
Commandments (from the gospels, the Pauline and
Catholic Epistles, and the Prophets).
(ff. 29v a–end) About the
Sacraments (anonymous).
17 Moses
bar Kepha, Various Works
Thursday, 3
Nisan ad
1225
St. Barsauma’s, Mardin
Scribe Joseph
Syriac 10. — A paper codex with a
binding. Contents:
Works by Moses bar Kepha, with two appendices.
(pp. 1–124) On Paradise: First
(1–97), Second (97–108), and Third (108–24)
Memra.
(pp. 124–86) On Resurrection.
(pp. 186–205) Exegesis of Sayings of Paul on
the Resurrection.
(pp. 205–9) Word of Comfort.
(pp. 209–18) On the Trinity.
(pp. 218–24) Symbolism of the Shaving of the
Monks.
Appendices
(pp. 224–25) Biographical Notes Pertaining to
Moses.
(pp. 225–end) Pseudo-Methodius of Patara, On
the End of Times. See now G. J. Reinink, Die
syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius, Corpus
Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 540–541,
Scriptores Syri 220–221 (Leuven: In Aedibus E. Peeters,
1993); for the present manuscript, see pp.
XVI–XVII.
[28] Note
that the manuscript shown in Hatch’s Album,
Plate CXXXV was also copied at St. Barsauma’s, though by
another scribe, in ad 1234, less than a decade
after the Beinecke manuscript. It also contains works by Moses
bar Kepha, as does the manuscript depicted in Hatch’s
Album, Plate CXXXVI, dated to ad 1242.
[29] The
Beinecke codex contains the oldest known copy of Moses’s
On Paradise. Other copies are Hs.Ming.Syr. 65 and
Hs.Mard.Orth. 368, the latter dating to ad 1364/65 and previously
thought to be the oldest (Vööbus 1970, vol. 1, 233 n.
33). For Masius’s Latin translation, see PG 11,
481–608. For notices concerning other Syriac copies: A.
Mingana, Catalogue of the Mingana Collection of
Manuscripts, I: Syriac and Garshuni Manuscripts
(Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Limited, 1933), No. 65; A.
Vööbus, “Syriac Literature.” In
Encyclopaedia Britannica 21 (1967), 589; A.
Vööbus, Syrische Kanonessammlungen, Corpus
Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 307, 317, Subsidia 35, 38
(Leuven: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1970), vol. 1, 233 n.
33; W. Strothmann, Johannes von Apamea, PTS 11 (Berlin
and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1972), 55 n. 57, 106 with nn.
120–21; L. Schlimme, “Die Bibelkommentare des Moses
bar Kepha,” in A Tribute to Arthur Vööbus:
Studies in Early Christian Literature and Its Environment,
Primarily in the Syrian East (Chicago: The Lutheran School
of Theology at Chicago, 1977), 63–71, at 65 n. 11. Cf.
also A. Vööbus, “New Manuscript Discoveries on
the Old Testament Exegetical Work of Moses bar Kepha,”
Abr Nahrain 10 (1970–71): 97–101.
[30]
DOCUMENTARY
18 Syriac Deed of Sale on
Parchment
Dura DPg 20 (= Dura Europos 28 or P.Dura
28). — A parchment sheet. The text is dated to
ad 243.
Contents: A
Deed of Sale. Ed. and trans. (English) J. A.
Goldstein, “The Syriac Bill of Sale from Dura
Europos,” JNES 25 (1966): 1–16; see also
Drijvers and Healey, Old Syriac Inscriptions,
232–36 (based on Goldstein)._______
Notes
_______
Bibliography
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